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[music] I see a large IP on the horizon.

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[music] Five could I see more journalists on the horizon founder? YOU'RE WATCHING TVPN.

4:38

TODAY IS THURSDAY, January 8th, 2026.

4:41

We are live from the TVPN Ultradome, the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital. >> Ram. Time is money. Save both. Easy to use.

4:52

Corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.

4:55

Um, I wrote about Ch-ching, the Apple Card. Minor news yesterday. Oh, yeah.

5:01

Please, >> you have to ask.

5:02

Somebody sent us a bunch of weights. Yeah. And this one is a 10.

5:06

There's quite a few of these.

5:06

Are you trying to say something?

5:09

[laughter] You know, is this is this you think you think the upper limit?

5:12

Uh but either way, uh whoever sent these, please let us know cuz there was no card, so [laughter] we don't know who to think. >> Bumper plates. They're very nice.

5:20

Uh nice Nike bumper plates. Very fun. What a funny thing.

5:25

>> Big sign of respect in our culture. >> It is. It is. It is.

5:27

Uh anyway, uh there was a minor uh headline breaking news actually learned about it from the chat.

5:33

Uh we we discussed it right after we talked to uh Pat and Ravi from Sequoia uh that the Apple Card program is moving from Goldman Sachs to JP Morgan.

5:42

Nothing's really changing about the Apple Card yet.

5:43

It's merely the bank backend that's always been sort of behind the scenes, behind the fold.

5:48

Um, but it's uh even though it's a minor headline, I think it's an interesting story of just how Apple got to the point where they have a credit card, what that means, what the decisions, what the trade-offs were.

5:59

And I wanted to go back all the way to the Steve Jobs era and think about what how would he be down with credit cards.

6:05

You're giving leverage to your customers, you're giving credit, you're in the debt business.

6:09

It's a different business.

6:09

Um, how did he think about it and how did we get here?

6:13

Uh, the the headline is that uh the Apple Card program has millions of cards issued.

6:18

there's 20 billion dollars of debt that's accumulated across all the cards.

6:22

Uh, and the portfolio is not doing well.

6:24

So, normally if you are to if you have a co-branded credit card like a JC Penney or Macy's credit card and it's it's aligned with a brand, uh, typically those get paid off pretty well.

6:35

They have strict underwriting rules.

6:37

And so when those trade hands, companies will other banks will typically say, I'm buying a $10 billion portfolio and I'll give you 8% on top because most likely I'm going to be able to recoup all of that from the creditors and also uh you know they're going to pay interest.

6:54

So they're going to pay 15% interest, 25% interest.

6:58

Now there will be some defaults, but in general you typically make money off of owning a portfolio of consumer credit card loans. Um, not in this case.

7:07

[laughter] Goldman is like, "We got to get this off our balance sheet."

7:09

They've already lost a billion dollars.

7:11

Their consumer bank overall, which includes Marcus, has lost three billion.

7:15

Like, they're not doing well over the last >> So, so is this a repayment issue or just an operational issue?

7:21

>> There's a little bit of both.

7:21

Uh, a lot of it is the >> Do you think this is potentially because Apple's made it more difficult to to actually h have uh Morgan Stanley like go after the clients?

7:32

Like is that is that Apple making certain decisions? Because I don't know.

7:37

I I I have to imagine it's not like their underwriting criteria was wildly different than any other credit card in that category. >> Was wildly different.

7:45

But I'll get into some of the some of the pitfalls that led to this place.

7:49

So, uh the the uh the $20 billion card balances that's trading JP Morgan's acquiring that at a $1 billion discount instead of an 8% premium.

7:59

You would expect that they would pay 21. 6.

8:01

They're actually paying 19 for this.

8:03

Uh and then they're going to have to go and recoup some of it.

8:05

Uh it's not, you know, by any means a disaster.

8:08

Uh and Goldman's a large company.

8:10

JP I said Morgan Stanley. >> Yeah. Yeah.

8:12

Uh but uh but it's it's interesting to figure out uh the history here.

8:17

Before we do, let me tell you about Console.

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8:32

So, uh, Steve Jobs actually thought about launching a credit card at Apple at least two times that we know of.

8:38

There's two key stories about Steve Jobs, uh, thinking about getting in the credit card game.

8:41

The first was in the late 1990s.

8:43

He met with Capital One to create a joint credit card that would have worked a lot like the Apple Card.

8:49

So, uh, but the main problem and I think the form that like there's a lot of things where Apple has a particular brand.

8:56

I want to talk to you about Apple's brand and what it means like how it fits into the consumer credit card, consumer financial landscape.

9:02

Um, but the the north star that Jobs laid down was always amazing customer service and no rejection.

9:11

So, I tend to think of most high-end brands as beneficiaries of exclusivity.

9:17

You can't just buy an Hermes Birkin bag.

9:18

You can't buy an a Ferrari SP3 Daytona. You have to be invited. You need a relationship.

9:24

You have to be you have to get an allocation, right?

9:28

Uh Apple, for some reason, I feel about Apple the same way I feel about Ferrari.

9:33

And yet, it is a wildly different experience. >> It's a premium brand.

9:38

>> It's a premium brand, but because of the design and because of the value of the technology and how innovative they are, I put them in a different category than Equinox, which I would put as like a premium thing.

9:50

I I've thought of them as luxury and they've done a good job with the materials that they use.

9:54

In general, it's always felt like a luxury brand to me.

9:58

Even though I agree with you, it's technically not.

10:00

It doesn't really fit in there.

10:02

They don't run their business like they're a luxury brand.

10:03

They're not trying to say, "Oh, we only have 10,000 new iPhones in gold, so who knows what the market price will be on those."

10:10

They don't run that like that.

10:12

Um, but uh Jobs wanted Apple to be a no rejection company.

10:20

So anyone can walk into an Apple store, buy the most expensive iPhone that they make as long as they have the money for.

10:25

>> People want to give us money, they can.

10:27

>> They can, which is, you know, it's it's a standard business practice, but not always in in luxury goods.

10:31

Uh, and >> yeah, which is why I said it's pre premium luxury, even though Apple often presents itself as a luxury brand, right? >> Yes. Yes.

10:41

Uh, quickly, let me tell you about linear.

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10:49

Let me also tell you about the linear run of show today. The linear lineup.

10:52

We got Delian Aspuhof back on the show.

10:55

Uh we're going to dig into appearances last year. >> Yeah. 18.

11:00

And he's starting strong in the first week. >> 180 this year. >> I would love that.

11:04

>> Uh we're we're going to dig into Sticker Box, this viral kids toy that uh was tearing up the timeline.

11:09

Very cool use of AI for uh you know, a consumer product.

11:14

Uh then we have Julie Bush uh at Valinor and a bunch of other folks Harvey and Josh Wolf from Lux Capitals coming on. So should be a fun show. Uh anyway, continuing.

11:24

Um so because because of credit risk and underwriting, every credit card has to have an approval process and not everyone can be accepted.

11:32

That's just the way it works.

11:33

You cannot underwrite everyone or else you'll just have massive losses.

11:35

Uh so uh it was surprising.

11:38

Uh so uh so Apple when they launched the original card, they actually set the credit score requirement fairly low.

11:47

And even though it launched in 2019, it felt like a holdover from the Jobs era, the that Jobs philosophy of even though we're Apple, even though it's it it feels it's going to have the patina of an MX, it's going to have this premium look and feel.

12:03

And we'll get into the design of the card in a minute, but uh it it it really was accessible to a lot of people.

12:09

I think you need a credit score of around a 600, which is pretty accessible.

12:12

Uh and so, uh that philosophy carried through even from the '9s.

12:17

The second time Apple was really thinking about doing a card uh was in 2004.

12:22

And I will tell you about this after I tell you about Figma.

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Figma make isn't your average vibe coding tool. It lives in Figma.

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So outputs look really good, feel real, and stay connected to how teams build, create codeback prototypes and apps fast.

12:34

So um they actually staffed this guy, Ken Seagull, who is the creative director on the Think Different campaigns, like the one of the most iconic marketers in history, in tech history certainly.

12:45

Uh and and they came up with a name.

12:48

Jobs said, "If we launch a credit card, it's going to be called the Apple Card."

12:51

And they actually wound up using that name.

12:52

Uh but it had a weird twist.

12:55

So, most credit cards, they'll give you airline miles or cash back. There's diners club.

13:01

It's usually you get points and then you can spend those points on travel.

13:04

>> You've always been a huge points guy, right?

13:06

>> I'm not I'm actually not a points guy at all.

13:08

Uh I have I usually meet whoever the most elite management consultant in my friend group is and just ask them because every management consultant is obsessed with credit card points maxing and I just ask them which one should I get and then I just get that one.

13:20

and then 5 years later, 10 years later, I still have it and it's probably a bad deal then because it's always a great deal in the first couple years and then it gets worse and worse and worse as they like retain you.

13:29

Anyway, um so instead of airline miles or cash back, this proposed Apple card from 2004, you you would get points and you could only spend the points at the iTunes store to get free songs.

13:43

What a funny like >> I mean at that moment in time that was pretty cool. >> Yeah. Yeah.

13:48

It's kind of a cool idea at the same time.

13:52

>> I mean, I was a child at that time, so 99 cents was somewhat of a considered purchase.

13:58

>> I'd be playing I'd sometimes I'd just play the preview of the song.

14:01

>> I'm good with the 30 seconds >> for sure.

14:03

This is enough rocking out. >> This is enough. Play it again.

14:06

>> Um, but it is somewhat genius because uh there's sort of zero marginal cost on music.

14:11

Certainly on the distribution of music.

14:13

Now, they do have to pay royalty fees, but there's already a built-in margin there.

14:16

So that 99 cents, a lot of that went to Apple. Remember, they take 30%.

14:19

So they're so they're giving you psychologically a dollar worth of value.

14:25

You go and spend $100, you get you get 100 points. One point is one cent.

14:28

You buy the 99 cent song.

14:31

But they are taking home another 30% on top of that.

14:35

So the economics would have been really really good.

14:37

But it is sort of gimmicky because people want to spend points on a lot of things.

14:42

>> I'm happy to get free flights and hotels.

14:45

I think there's something psychological about having, you know, a credit card that you spend money on for a couple years.

14:50

You get a whole bunch of points and then you're like, wow, I got a free flight to a vacation that I'll remember forever.

14:55

That's a very good association with whatever credit card brand you had.

14:59

And as opposed to, okay, yeah, I I I I bought a bunch of my favorite music and then four years later Spotify came out and actually my iTunes library is basically useless. Right.

15:09

Tyler, >> I was just going to say it's like the same thing because it's like instead of a trip, it's like, "Oh, I bought this Chief Keef album off my Apple Card."

15:15

I'll always remember that. Now, my life is a movie.

15:18

>> I will [laughter] remember that. >> I hate being sober.

15:19

Um the uh we got to watch that that clip. I need to pull that up.

15:26

So, um it it uh they were going to use uh they called them eye points and you would be able to redeem them at the iTunes store.

15:32

Uh seemed like crazy timing considering that Spotify was about to launch four years later in 2008.

15:37

So if they had actually done this in 2004, launched the eye points program.

15:41

>> When did Apple actually launch? >> Oh, much later. Much later.

15:43

It I I want to say like 2016 or something. >> 2015. >> 2015. Boom. Got it. Wow.

15:49

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15:56

Um, so, uh, the other key feature that Apple always wanted, and this went back to Steve Jobs, uh, that they always wanted with the Apple Card, which you don't often think about with credit cards, but is amazing customer service.

16:10

And so most people their credit card just works.

16:12

Apple did a couple of unique things where it integrate with the wallet and uh, and but mostly they just wanted extremely high levels of customer service.

16:21

When you have a problem with your iPhone, you go into the Genius Bar.

16:24

There's someone who's friendly.

16:24

They are very good about getting you in at the right time.

16:29

>> Imagine one of the people at the Genius Bar breaking your kneecaps.

16:30

[laughter] >> Just a >> They have a room where they're just like, "Okay, you know, we're very customer friendly here, but you haven't paid and we have to break your knee kneecaps.

16:42

We're going to take you back."

16:43

You know how Apple they have like the back of house, but it's like almost invisible, right?

16:49

just get taken back there and they're just like nicely just like >> pay your Apple bill.

16:52

Well, I mean that was another thing.

16:55

They wanted to be so customer friendly.

16:56

They didn't have any late fees, no application fees and and no no international fees. No fees at all.

17:02

That was the whole pitch.

17:02

No fees, which sounds really nice.

17:04

Sounds really delightful to just be like, okay, I don't even have to think about fees or whatever.

17:08

whatever. But it incent the fees exist to incentivize people to pay on time because not only does the interest start occurring, but when you pay late, if you're not paying the balance, the minimum balance uh to maintain the card, then you then you get a a late fee,

17:23

which increases the also the yield on the debt, but uh it also uh just attracts like a lower quality um uh customer who's maybe just on their fifth credit card and is just like, "Oh, this one doesn't have fees and I need an extra 500 bucks this month. I'll just

17:36

I'll just grab this one."

17:37

uh and it's a less considered decision to bring into their financial life.

17:41

So um the customer service thing was really an issue because with Apple they have years and years I mean since I don't know probably the 80s like the Christmas time was when people would gift each other MacBooks or Mac computers and they built up built up built up and so they have a whole workflow for how do we hire a lot of people around the Christmas time?

18:02

How do we staff the genius bar?

18:04

How do we educate people? How do we pay them?

18:08

They're in the tier one cities, so they're they they they can have great people working there.

18:11

It's it's a very high dollar uh revenue per square foot in those Apple stores.

18:15

So, the whole model works and they've built it up very slowly.

18:19

Goldman didn't have experience in consumer banking.

18:21

Like the default consumer customer service experience is I'm calling my banker, my Goldman, and I'm like, I need to sell my company for a billion dollars. Get your M&A team ready.

18:33

Or I need to go public potentially on the New York Stock Exchange.

18:36

Want to change the world?

18:38

Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange.

18:39

Whether you use Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, whoever's lead left, make sure they're ringing that bell with you at the New York Stock Exchange.

18:47

Um, but seriously, Goldman like it it's a trading.

18:49

It's the highest finance. It's the most premiere. It's the most elite.

18:54

And so when you call them and you're like, "Yeah, I got build for $25 and it should have been $23. Can you fix this?"

19:01

Well, they need a new team for that.

19:04

And they need to build up that team.

19:05

And that's not that's not rocket science.

19:07

Like I I do think Goldman should have been able to figure that out, but Apple also wanted another consumerfriendly feature.

19:13

They wanted all of the bills to drop on the first of the month every month.

19:17

And normally credit cards will stagger it out.

19:21

They'll be like, "Your bill comes on the 10th.

19:22

Tyler's comes on the 15th. Mine comes on the 20th. We don't really care. We don't really know."

19:26

And so if you have a problem with your credit card, you check the statement.

19:29

You're like, "Wait a minute.

19:30

That's not the right charge.

19:31

I got to call and sort this out.

19:33

You're calling on the 10th.

19:33

Tyler's calling on the 15th.

19:34

I'm calling on the 20th intentionally.

19:37

>> Yeah, they do it intentionally because if they have a customer service organization, >> I I I always assume I stupidly that it was just sloppy and annoying.

19:44

I'm like, oh, you're just >> genius. Trust the process. >> Trust the process. >> Trust the process. Never lose faith.

19:49

Um, so, so Apple insisted, hey, everyone's got to get their statement right on the first.

19:56

That's the best customer experience.

19:57

experience. But what that means is that you need like 10,000 people ready at the phones cuz you're not just doing oh you know send us an email and we'll have some automated system get back to you and do this like Apple customer service that level that Goldman wanted to bring

20:12

was very high and so you need a ton of people staffed on the first of the month and then they're not really doing anything in the back half of the month and while you can maybe do temp work at an Apple store in December and say hey we're going to hire you from uh November 1st to January 15. Uh, you're going to

20:25

Uh, you're going to deal with some of the returns. It's a three-month gig.

20:30

People will sign up for that.

20:31

No one's saying, "Yeah, I'm good to work at Goldman Sachs on the first of every month and the first week of every month, and then I'll just find something else to do on weeks 2, three, and four of the month."

20:41

That doesn't make any sense.

20:42

So, they ran into a bunch of problems there.

20:43

Obviously, more cost and uh all of this was just making the the the actual uh program less profitable for Goldman.

20:50

Uh less more more of a problem.

20:52

Um, and we talked a little bit about the the the fees of any kind.

20:54

Now, there was an opportunity Goldman was the whole reason why they jumped at the opportunity to uh to work with Apple and they kind of bent over backwards because Apple had tried this with they went to a whole bunch of other banks.

21:07

Remember going back to Capital One um and every bank had said like now are you crazy? You can't do this.

21:13

Like you can't give everyone in the world a no free credit card with great customer service.

21:18

Like you're gonna lose money, Apple.

21:19

And Apple finally >> like no we want to give everyone a free lunch. [laughter] >> Exactly.

21:24

And so, um, what Goldman should have done with the customer service is they should have got to Finn.

21:29

ai, except it didn't exist in 2019, but it does now.

21:33

And Finn is the number one AI agent for customer service.

21:36

If you want AI to handle your customer support, go to Finn. ai.

21:39

Maybe Goldman should become a client.

21:41

Maybe JP Morgan should become a client. It might already be.

21:42

Um, but so the uh Goldman um, uh, they were making a push into consumer.

21:48

They built Marcus internally. Yeah.

21:51

Which was always sort of a funny name to me.

21:53

I don't know if it resonated with you.

21:56

>> I I don't know the the name like people names can either be so good or so bad. >> Yeah. >> And I don't know.

22:02

I I have a I have a childhood friend, a family friend named >> Marcus. Yeah. >> It's a great name. He's a great dude.

22:06

Um >> do I want to trust him with all my money? I don't know. >> Oh yeah. Funny.

22:13

Like [laughter] you might you might be like, "Yeah, my my smartest friend is Marcus. I I love this brand."

22:18

Or it's like >> Anyways, I I texted a buddy who has some context on this whole deal.

22:21

And so I I I he uh is in a meeting, but he fired off uh some notes.

22:27

He I asked him like >> uh why why did like how did this happen?

22:33

Basically, he says GS effed up the plan.

22:36

DJ D Soul was told to shut down Marcus and Consumer or get out.

22:40

>> That's David Solomon, the CEO of Golden >> or get out of the job.

22:42

So he cut all of Marcus except for savings.

22:44

Then GS had a multi-year process to find a bank that Apple would approve, right?

22:48

They're not just going to say like some some >> some you know smaller uh not not systemically important bank etc.

22:56

>> Um then they had to figure out price which includes opportunity cost of selling for a discount compared to running out the contract to 2030.

23:02

>> Y >> GS uh effed up because transactional or not a longitudinal org and really thought they were they were smarter uh but never focused on the fundamentals of running the business. >> Yeah.

23:15

So um >> so the question is like what happens next?

23:19

Uh JP Morgan obviously has way more way more consistency here.

23:22

Uh the the other hard part for for Goldman was that they were trying to build their consumerfacing brand.

23:29

So they wanted the Goldman name in more places and the Apple card would have been a great co-branding thing.

23:36

They were fighting to get like the front of the card which would be the prime real estate next to Apple.

23:40

Apple Goldman would have been really cool. They didn't.

23:43

They got relegated to the back. Absolutely not.

23:45

>> And the card looks awesome.

23:45

Um I was reflecting on it like I don't know if you actually seen seen it.

23:49

Maybe we can pull up a picture, but um the I don't know if it's still the case, but uh originally it was uh it was CNC mil from a single sheet of titanium alloy like the same way they make these MacBooks they would use to make the cards.

24:05

So it didn't have those laminated layers laminated layers.

24:09

I don't know if you have a uh a Chase Sapphire Reserve, but those things kind of like fall apart after a couple years because there is a metal piece and the metal card is typically uh more prestigious.

24:18

But they add laminate on either side.

24:21

Uh the Apple Card went a different direction and it had and I think they delivered on the branding side.

24:28

They just didn't quite deliver on the on the on the financial design.

24:32

>> Did you ever have one >> Apple Card? No.

24:33

And it's so so interesting because I think that if you were trying to do an analysis on the Apple card, you were like every high value credit card customer >> in America, >> not every but the vast vast maybe 99% >> has an iPhone.

24:50

>> Apple's going to put this everywhere. Yeah.

24:52

>> This is going to be one of the biggest credit card business lines of all time. Yeah.

24:56

>> And it just it's been interesting to see, you know, this entire saga because it hasn't really turned out that way.

25:02

Even though even though how many times h has Apple kind of promoted to you in some way or another, right?

25:06

So many different way >> and still I'm just like I have you know I have a a credit card I don't I don't need another right but >> yeah totally um well let me tell you about turbo puffer serverless vector and full text search built from first principles on object storage fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable.

25:22

Um well uh that it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

25:28

I I I think it's always been sort of like a minor business for Apple, but uh some some opportunity.

25:31

I I do think that there that that there was there was an interesting opportunity to make it more exclusive, more of a status symbol, uh more of something that you pull out and it says something about you, um has some badge value, but that would in a lot of circles an iPhone doesn't actually say anything about you. >> No, no, no, no. It's too generic. Yeah. No, totally.

25:53

>> It's not like >> And then also there's just the the fact that people don't pull out credit cards anymore.

25:57

the the Apple Pay for everything. >> I do. Yeah.

25:58

I really wonder how uh the how people know people using Apple Pay will affect h the premium people put on different credit cards, right?

26:08

When you're just like, I'm going to just pay this bill at this restaurant.

26:10

Just go like The true points maxers do care about using the right card for the right time because some cards will be better for dining, others will travel, other like the Apple card gave you 3% off if you're buying Apple stuff and then 2% I believe if you paid for something with Apple Pay using the Apple Card in Apple Pay.

26:33

Like you open up Apple Pay and you select the Apple Card, you get 2% back and there's 1% on everything else if you pull out the card and you just pay for gas at the gas station.

26:38

But then there's like the Costco card that gets you a better discount at Costco and the Amazon card that gets you better discount at Amazon.

26:46

And so a lot of the co points maxers and the card maxers will get the specific card and they're like, "When I'm at Amazon, I use this card.

26:50

When I'm at Walmart, I use this card."

26:52

I I I never got >> this is a project for Billy McFarland to lead.

26:57

You remember he had he had like a [laughter] members >> I I I saw his uh Magnesus I I saw his uh his latest uh like Instagram reel or something.

27:07

He was just walking down the street talking about doing some event. He's still new festival.

27:10

>> New new festival or something along those lines. I don't know. Good luck to him.

27:14

>> Uh in other news, uh US venture capital fundraising falls 35% as firms stay private longer.

27:21

Uh of course, uh Josh Wolf is not letting himself be a statistic.

27:25

He's [laughter] coming on later today.

27:28

>> Massive fun, the biggest one ever, >> one a.

27:30

5 billion in new funds for Lux Capital.

27:34

Uh but Kate Clark in the journal says money is flowing to the most trusted investment firms as startups stay private longer.

27:41

>> And before we read this, let me tell you about vibe.

27:42

co where DTOC brands, B2B startups, and AI companies advertise on streaming TV.

27:48

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27:51

Uh fundraising for US venture capital firms dropped 35% in 2025, the most anemic stretch in at least six years with money flowing primarily to the most trusted investment firms as companies stay private longer.

28:02

The $66 billion raised last year represents a 70% drop from the 2022 record.

28:07

The slowdown reflects a continuing liquidity crunch.

28:10

Startups have been flushed with venture funding.

28:14

Uh startups that have been flushed with venture funding have opted to remain private rather than exposing themselves to public market scrutiny.

28:19

A prolonged IPO drought that has returned little cash to investors is now complicating efforts to raise new capital.

28:24

And there's a graphic here that we can pull up. You can see the chart.

28:28

Uh, the fundraising climate is challenging, said Beaser Clarkson, a partner at Sapphire.

28:36

>> I invited her on the show.

28:36

We got to get her at some point. She's great.

28:38

>> Focused on investments in venture funds.

28:40

Investors are concentrating capital in the most trusted VCs. >> Look at this chart. >> I hate to see it.

28:48

It is it is funny that uh over the last 18 months, few years, it felt like uh I feel like a lot of people were looking around and being like, "Wow, our industry can exist in a high rate environment." >> Oh, yeah.

29:01

[laughter] >> Then you look at this chart.

29:03

>> I don't know that that's actually what's going I mean, it does coincide with the interest rate thing perfectly.

29:05

Um I I think the bigger piece of the narrative is just the IPO market.

29:09

the fact that a lot of these funds are sitting on massive uh like NAV massive gains but not a lot of liquidity.

29:20

And so if you are an allocator and LP and you've put a bunch of money in a fund and you're like yeah I'm ready to double down as soon as you give me the money back.

29:28

I'll give it back to you but like let's give it back to me so I can reinvest it.

29:31

Uh until you know oh okay you got 10 billion over there like show me the money and then I'll >> And this is the year the IPO windows open.

29:39

There's a bunch of names that we're expecting to go out.

29:41

Uh if it starts to close, you and I will do our best.

29:46

>> We're going to hold it open. >> Hold it back to back. I'll push one door. >> Back to back.

29:50

Uh >> well, it's going to be an exciting year for anyone on public. com.

29:53

Investing for those that take it seriously.

29:56

Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries, and more. >> Back to the article.

30:00

As a result, the largest firms are becoming more powerful.

30:03

Anthropic investor Lightseed Venture Partners secured more than 9 billion across new funds in December in one that that was an organic soundboard uh in one of the year's largest raises while PT's founders fund closed 4. 6 billion in April.

30:17

New fund managers by contrast are facing an increasingly tough fundraising environment.

30:21

The drop in fundraising helps explain why cash intensive AI businesses are looking beyond traditional venture firms for capital such as the deep pocketed sovereign wealth funds, family offices, family offices and hedge funds.

30:35

Collectively, the venture market doesn't have the firepower to do this investing, Clarkson said of the largest AI rounds.

30:40

It must be coming from other sources as well.

30:42

Uh yeah, and and kind of left out the hyperscalers too out of this which have been a key player in some of these later rounds. >> Totally.

30:51

uh funding for USI startups reached a record 20 uh 222 billion in 2025, more than double 2024 level.

30:57

So we have uh 66 billion in new funds raised uh 222 billion actually going into startups and of course a lot of that again is is non uh venture capital uh firms. >> Yep.

31:13

Still seems like still seems like a good time to build a company.

31:16

Still seems like there's plenty of >> Always a good time. Always a good time.

31:20

Uh should we talk about >> there's some there there's some interesting uh concentration dynamics that are happening because you often see that chart of the decline in venture funding raised with also the the decline in new venture fund formation.

31:31

There just aren't as many new funds getting spun up.

31:36

Um obviously we talked to some folks that are getting new funds off the ground but a lot of it's not 2021 anymore where there were like a new fund every single day.

31:45

Uh the top 30 funds secured 75% of fundraising with Andre and Horowitz alone capturing roughly 10% of the year's entire year's capital.

31:57

Mega rounds of of hund00 million or more accounted for about 70% of venture funding.

32:02

So uh you have this bifurcated market.

32:04

Elite funds and sovereign wealth are doing huge AI deals while the broader VC e ecosystem emerging managers seed fund series A specialists are getting crushed.

32:12

[laughter] It's the best time for tech ever is real, but concentration is maybe in 20 to 30 companies.

32:19

Everyone's just riding their winners.

32:21

>> Uh well, speaking of deals, uh Reuters has an exclusive.

32:25

They say Trump admin Moles payments to sway Greenlanders to join the US.

32:30

Uh Greenland says they're not for sale.

32:33

Uh European leaders are standing behind Copenhagen.

32:35

Uh but Greenland talks in the White House have intensified in recent days.

32:41

US officials have discussed sending lumpsum payments to Greenland STEMI time >> STEMI time uh to Greenlanders as part of a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and potentially join the United States.

32:54

While the exact dollar figure and logistics of any payment are unclear, US officials, including White House aids, have discussed figures ranging from$10,000 to $100,000 per person.

33:05

uh doing the math, even at $100,000 a person, Greenland only has like 57,00 basically a seed round. Five 5. 7 billion to doable.

33:19

>> That's an AI that's that's actually like three AI researchers.

33:23

>> Three AI researchers [laughter] >> in Greenland for all of Greenland.

33:25

I mean, I get that they have a ton of a ton of natural resources and whatnot, but I wonder what uh I wonder how much like this would actually sway them because I I doubt that you can just actually buy the votes.

33:37

You probably couldn't make the payment contingent on them voting.

33:41

They would have to like either vote and then they get the payment because we promise or the payment happens and then whether or not they vote, you know, >> I think just start planes with cash. Yeah.

33:51

you know, just dropping it out of the air >> because then wouldn't they wouldn't the game theory be just that they hold strong?

33:57

There's going to be another >> Here's my thing. Here's my thing.

34:00

If I'm a citizen of Greenland, >> Yeah.

34:04

>> resident, I'm sitting there being like, you're okay, we know they're willing to we we have an idea that they're willing to spend up to around six billion.

34:12

>> Uh we think we're worth 60.

34:12

Let's let them keep, you know, the the Paramount Sky Dance, the Ellison's.

34:17

They'll just bid and then say, "Yeah, well, it's not our best and final offer."

34:20

And then what does Warner Brothers do?

34:22

They of course again they they rejected another bid or recommended against it.

34:27

So >> Greenland's prime minister Yens Frederick Nielsen wrote in a Facebook post. >> Facebook, let's go. >> Oh, okay.

34:35

They are really a decade behind over there.

34:37

Uh he says, "Enough is enough.

34:39

No more fantasies about annexation." He's not a fan.

34:43

Uh you got to get on reels, buddy.

34:46

You got to do a front-facing video. Use some AI.

34:47

Get get some vibe reel music in there. You got to >> Yeah.

34:53

Get the get this the Sigma male, you know, grindite. >> Yeah.

34:57

It's just his statement going enough is enough.

34:58

No more fantasies about annexation and it just cuts to like the Joker and just >> leaders in Copenhagen and throughout Europe have reacted to comments by Trump and other officials asserting their right to their right to Greenland in recent days with disdain disdain.

35:11

Uh particularly given that the US and Denmark are NATO allies bound by a mutual defense agreement.

35:18

Uh on Tuesday, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain, and Denmark issued a joint statement saying only Greenland and Denmark can decide matters regarding their relations.

35:29

So this is >> Yeah, but they can, you know, Trump can make his case.

35:35

Hey, if you if you if you alone on your own decide to come over and hang out with us, we got some cash for you, apparently. It's wild.

35:42

Let me tell you about Graphite code review for the Age of AI.

35:46

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35:49

Um, see the average in >> Trump has long argued that the US needs to acquire Greenland on several grounds.

35:56

One, it is rich in minerals needed for advanced military applications.

35:59

He's also said the Western Hemisphere broadly needs to be under the geopolitical influence of Washington.

36:05

Uh while internal deliberations regarding how to seize Greenland have occurred among Trump's I aids uh in uh since before he took office a year ago, there has been renewed urgency after his government captured Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro in a daring snatching grab operation, not an invasion apparently.

36:23

Uh according to sources familiar with internal deliberations, one source said White House aids were eager to carry over the momentum from the Maduro operation toward accomplishing Trump's other long-standing geopolitical goals.

36:35

It feels like wildly different scenarios though.

36:38

Like there's they're not going to go and send in Delta Force.

36:40

I don't know, maybe they will. I don't know.

36:44

>> We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security and Denmark isn't going to be able to do it.

36:48

>> So average gross income in Greenland is 40 to 45,000 USD.

36:50

So people could be looking at that 100k saying, >> "I'm going to retire a couple years early." >> 100k is big. Yeah. I don't know.

36:58

Uh among the possibilities being floated by Trump aids, a White House official said on Tuesday, is trying to enter into a type of agreement with the island called a compact free association.

37:09

Compact of free association, COFA.

37:11

Uh the precise details which have only been extended to small island nations of Micronia, the Marshall Islands, and Palao. Uh, Palow interesting.

37:22

Uh, vary depending on the signatory, but the US government typically provides many essential services such as mail delivery and ma military protection.

37:30

Get an Amazon Prime from us.

37:32

What else can we offer you?

37:32

In exchange, the US military operates freely in COFA countries and trade with the US is largely duty-free. No tariffs.

37:43

I wonder what uh Greenland is exporting these days.

37:45

Uh COFA agreements have previously been inked with independent countries and Greenland would likely need to separate from Denmark for such a plan to proceed.

37:53

In theory, payments could be used to induce Greenlanders to vote for their independence or to sign in onto a COFA after such a vote.

37:59

Um, while polls show an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders want independence, concerns about the economic costs of separating from Denmark, among other issues, have kept most Greenland Greenlandic uh legislators from calling for an independence referendum.

38:17

Do you have stats on Greenland or do you know?

38:20

>> I was just going to say um Tyler C had a good piece on this yesterday in the free press. >> Read it, Tyler.

38:25

He's >> Well, it's pretty long.

38:26

I I don't want to read the whole thing, but um Okay, sing it.

38:30

>> Anti He he he doesn't want us to to actually like buy it, right? It's like bad.

38:34

You need to convince them to come over.

38:36

Um but he does like I I think he wants >> um Greenland to become >> like in possession or the US to become in possession of Greenland, right?

38:45

Maybe like a a Puerto Rico situation. Yeah.

38:49

>> So it's like a little bit uh >> above Palao. >> Yeah. It's above Palao. It's not a state though.

38:54

It's not like, you know, and we're not >> sending the military in. >> Yeah. We were pitching.

38:58

So, so >> it's it's such a tough I mean it's such a it is a tough cell as much as I love this great country.

39:06

>> You mean to live in Greenland or >> Yeah.

39:07

Just just if you're in Greenland and you're kind of looking over at the US with binoculars and >> I want that crazy stuff over here. >> Yeah.

39:14

It's just massive massive infighting uh governors you know you know going to war with with Washington constantly. Right. >> It is interesting.

39:23

The US is like one of the most entertaining countries.

39:25

It feels like a lot of people are obsessed with our national politics.

39:29

People don't really follow our local politics or our state level politics or global politics.

39:35

They mostly follow American national politics. So, I don't know.

39:37

Maybe they get get it on it.

39:39

Um I have another idea for Greenland.

39:42

>> You're saying maybe they're just bored out there and they they want to get in the get in the arena. Yeah. Get in the box. Get in the label box.

39:49

Deliver you delivering you the highest quality data for Frontier AI. get in the label box.

39:57

Um, so Puerto Rico famously has just a 3% tax rate on income.

40:04

So a lot of people go there.

40:06

>> And when uh and this is why when Jake Paul fights for $90 million, he's actually fighting basow president.

40:14

He has one of the few jobs that you can actually do very well from Puerto Rico, which is just train and boxing with a, you know, a team that you built yourself.

40:22

built yourself. So yeah, he hisane uh PE like Jake Paul will actually be a billionaire fairly quickly simply because he's gonna do a handful more fights I imagine and then he needs about a 2x from there and he'll be good to go

40:37

because he's like keeping you know 97% of every >> So when you see those headline numbers for boxing events $100 million is that to the winner who someone gets >> Jake Paul Anthony Joshua fight I think Jake got 90 something and an Anthony Joshua got just under that around the same. >> But you know, I think Jake was

40:56

>> But you know, I think Jake was >> a bigger draw.

40:58

So, it's more about how much you're drawing.

41:00

It's like starring in a movie almost.

41:01

So, you know, your star power dictates how much you'll sell.

41:05

It is crazy that that uh I mean, obviously be very dedicated to the sport, but uh it's just crazy to me that you could you could be such a big celebrity that you can go and do a one night event and draw that much economic opportunity, that many ads, and that many pay-per-view sales. That's a lot of money. Uh, that's remarkable.

41:21

Uh, anyway, let me tell you about Cognition.

41:26

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41:33

So, my proposal, Puerto Rico, 3% tax rate.

41:37

Greenland, we do a 97% tax rate. >> Why would anyone go?

41:42

>> Grandfathered in to the Puerto Rico, the 3%.

41:45

I don't think >> Yeah, for a long time you could just go, but now I think it's >> be there. I think they close it.

41:49

I'm still I'm sure it's still solid. Not what it was.

41:53

>> But Puerto Rico famously people go there because it has a low tax regime.

41:56

You'd pay just 3% of your income. Uh Greenland 97% taxes.

42:02

That's what they should do.

42:04

Why would anyone go there? It's cold.

42:05

And now you have high taxes.

42:06

>> Well, but a lot of people want desperately want to raise taxes basically.

42:11

I mean, I'm assuming some people actually want to take it to 100%.

42:16

Um, and so if you could create a new zero territory and then if you're in favor of ultra high taxes, you could go to Greenland. >> That's a good idea. Zeroed out. >> I like this idea.

42:28

>> You just land in the country and then you connect all your accounts with Plaid, transfer out everything and then zero it out.

42:36

>> And then Tyler, you had a different proposal. What was it?

42:39

>> Well, so so the the bullcase for just 97 is is that like >> it's a flex, right? I can live in Greenland.

42:45

I'm so I make so much money that I only have 3% left and I'm still balling. It is hard.

42:49

Every billionaire has a plane. They all have boats.

42:52

It's like who's really got money.

42:53

Well, if you can go to Greenland, lose 97% of your wealth and still be flexing.

42:59

It's like, okay, that guy's actually really rich and really made it.

43:05

>> But then if you're if you're not >> It's the new year. >> Yeah.

43:09

>> If you're not Uber, it still makes sense if you basically just have the 97% tax rate the first year. the first year.

43:14

>> So then maybe it's maybe it's if you look at in 10 year increments, right?

43:18

>> So first year you're basically zeroed out, but then you got then you got a super low tax rate.

43:21

Then you then you just grind >> for 5 years. So you lock in.

43:24

>> It's almost like a uh you get dropped on an island and you got to fight your way out. >> Yeah.

43:27

Sort of Lord of Flies situation.

43:30

Do you see Jensen came out yesterday and said he doesn't care about California's proposed billionaire tax?

43:37

>> Uh [laughter] >> is it? I don't know.

43:38

He's just he's lowing David S.

43:41

>> He's low broing everyone. It's funny.

43:43

Jensen Hang said he wasn't worried about a potential tax on billionaires in California, breaking from a cadre of ultra-wealthy residents who have spoken out against the first of its kind proposal.

43:50

We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it.

43:54

He this is this is I'm going to say it.

43:56

It's kind of a pick me [laughter] for for for a bean.

44:01

He says, "I'm perfectly fine with it.

44:04

It never crossed my mind once."

44:05

Um I guess I mean does this mean you should be even more bullish on Nvidia?

44:10

They going to 40 trillion >> for sure.

44:13

>> Uh the ballot initially actually definitely pay definitely do this right now and then stop >> because he's [laughter] like I got another 10x in the bag.

44:20

I want to pay this now and then move on. Lock the rate now.

44:27

>> Let's head into the comment section and put a hazmat suit.

44:28

[laughter] >> Uh it's not really relevant what he thinks.

44:33

According to Jeff, it's a question of what the policy effect impact is.

44:36

all the billionaires want to stay in the state and don't mind giving up 5% of their wealth each year >> or whatever thing the state cooks up.

44:44

The state government will certainly not invest the money as intelligently as the average billionaire.

44:47

It will largely go to fraud, waste, lazy government employees, etc.

44:50

So Huang can have whatever opinion he wants.

44:52

It's a free country, but that doesn't make it a wise policy. >> I agree.

44:58

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45:00

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45:04

You see Larry dumped his place in SF. >> He did. He's moving out.

45:08

Uh >> well, I don't know if he's getting out million.

45:12

Uh definitely making making >> he still has plenty of homes in Malibu.

45:17

>> In a somewhat related story, there is now a salary cap in defense tech. You saw this.

45:22

So apparently uh this is from uh President Trump.

45:25

Uh he said that uh what was the actual what was the actual quote from Trump?

45:30

Uh because Palmer had a Palmer had a clip.

45:33

Let's head over to Truth Social.

45:35

[laughter] >> I think I think you actually do.

45:37

Uh he said uh I've been informed by the slowest.

45:41

He's talking about um he's talk Okay.

45:44

So uh also if Rathon wants further business with the United States government under no circumstances will they be allowed to do any additional stock buybacks where they have spent tens of billions of dollars until they are able to get their act together. Our country comes first.

45:57

Um and we c can you find the actual Trump quote about the salary cap?

46:02

He said what five million per year per executive at a defense company.

46:07

He also said that uh he said I have determined for the good of our country especially for the in these very troubled and dangerous times our military budget for the year 2027 should be not should not be $1 trillion but rather $ 1. 5 trillion.

46:19

That is a huge increase 50% increase.

46:22

Um but uh obviously there's a question of where that money comes from. Uh >> okay. Yes. Yeah.

46:29

So the uh >> oh I have the quote here. Yes. >> Okay.

46:32

Well, uh, executive pay packages, uh, they're exorbitant and unjustifiable.

46:37

So, they're they should be limited to 5 million or less. >> Okay.

46:40

Limited to five million or less.

46:42

So, I I So, Palmer actually sort of agreed with this.

46:45

Let's play the clip of Palmer Lucky on Bloomberg the Close. Uh, digging into this. Uh, this is clips.

46:53

>> They were at the Consumer Electronics Show.

46:55

>> Yeah, I think he was there for uh for Mod Retro, but they got him to comment on defense technology.

46:59

So my motivation is to try and build in the biggest thing possible.

47:02

I will say people have fairly critiquing and said, "But Palmer, you know, are you really a neutral party here?

47:07

Are you really in a position to comment given you're competing with these companies?" And I'd say two things.

47:10

One, these measures do apply in equal measure to me.

47:12

I now cannot pay dividends.

47:14

I now cannot do stock buybacks if I'm not investing in new plants if I'm not doing these new things.

47:18

The other thing is it's always tricky when you want to you I'm in defense because I wanted to help solve these problems, right?

47:23

Um, it's actually the same thing with like Mod Retro in the gaming space.

47:26

Like, oh, of course Palmer would criticize these other game companies.

47:30

After all, he's in the gaming space.

47:32

It's like, but yeah, but I'm in the gaming space because I want to solve these problems.

47:36

It's kind of this like catch 22 like like if you're outside of it, they'll say good point.

47:40

>> Well, why don't you do something about it then?

47:41

And you do something like who cares what you're doing?

47:43

You're just part of the problem.

47:45

It's always been emotionally difficult for me.

47:46

We also have posts that President Trump is thinking more than a trillion should be invested in the area of defense. The budget should grow.

47:55

The budget should not anti-defense or anti-defense company. That's not for sure. That's for sure.

48:00

>> What's interesting is your company is, dare I say it, considering going public. >> Yes.

48:04

>> Would your CEO do you think the CEO that leads the business when it's gone public should be under these sorts of restrictions from an executive order?

48:09

Do you think that that's going to be an issue?

48:12

I think that when you are on the dole and when you're effectively run on the public's wallet that the public should be able to impose whatever restrictions they want on you.

48:21

I I like and you're not asking whether it should be you know like like you know if I am getting paid by taxpayers they should have the ability to elect people elect representatives elect you know who will then nominate people who can hold me to account in any way they wish.

48:35

If they want to say that I only pay myself $5 million until I'm caught up with my schedules, they should be allowed to do that.

48:43

If they say that I'm not allowed to pay myself $1 until I get caught up, I think they should be allowed to do that.

48:49

When you are working on the when you are working on taxpayer, there is no level of oversight or intervention that I am against conceptually.

48:56

Now, I think some of these might be bad moves.

48:58

They might not necessarily help the defense base, but uh in concept, I think everything should be on the table.

49:04

And I think it's even good maybe to scare some people sometimes.

49:07

You know, you don't necessarily go to people and say, "This is the way it's going to be forever."

49:11

You say, "This is how it's going to be until you get your act together."

49:13

You remember being a teenager and your parents say, "You're grounded until X, Y, and Z.

49:17

Bring up your grades, solve your problems, and then we will talk about altering the deal."

49:21

You You say, "But but this deal has so many problems.

49:25

If it's like this my whole life, if I'm grounded for the rest of my life, that means I'll have no social [laughter] life."

49:29

And your parents are not necessarily looking to ground you for life. It's so funny. Imagine that.

49:34

>> I think that that's what you're seeing right now. It's not a lifetime. Let me jump. >> That's great. >> Yeah.

49:39

I mean, I think I think using it as an incentive to get these companies to hit the schedules that they agreed to as part of these contracts could be effective, right?

49:47

Especially especially if it's especially if it's temporary.

49:50

You know, you can see the you can see this kind of uh executive order setting a precedent that could uh over time be uh abused or have a bunch of negative effects. It's hard to say now.

50:01

So, this kind of thing uh is concerning, but you know, I was talking to a a defense tech founder the other day who's trying to take over a program from a big prime where the prime had gotten like a multiund million dollar contract years ago and had actually not even set up a space to uh make the things that they were uh that they had signed up and were getting paid to make.

50:26

>> They're being lazy bones. >> Lazy bones. Lazy bones behavior.

50:27

And so yeah, in that in that situation, if you have a management team that is just like printing regardless on if they're actually delivering on what the government is asking and paying them to do, that's inappropriate.

50:39

And so I think >> and I think I think Palmer is sort of wrestling with uh you know, libertarian ideas.

50:47

How much you know should private companies be able to do?

50:49

And and that's a separate issue.

50:51

It's like a private company if you're just selling to normal customers, you can do whatever you want.

50:55

But it's different when you have a contract with government.

50:57

Then who decides the government's claim? Well, it's the people. It's the democracy.

51:01

And so that's what's happening. >> Yeah.

51:04

And and and the the you know, Palmer in another clip was talking.

51:06

They they asked him, "How much do you make?"

51:09

He's like, "I make $100,000 a year." Right? That's my comp package.

51:11

And he also said, "I have a bunch of stock because I started this company." Yeah.

51:19

>> Defense executives, anybody that works for the government cannot make more than $5 million and you're factoring in comp packages later.

51:26

You could be in a situation where a company says, "Well, like we can't hire the best people because they have an offer to make $10 million a year over here and we can only pay them5 million."

51:36

pay them5 million." I I mean the AI researcher thing is crazy because I don't know that this is a dynamic that's actually happening but it would be very tricky if Anderal could not compete against anthropic open AI Google Deep Mind if they need a super talented AI

51:52

researcher and maybe they're not paying him a billion dollars but they're just like yeah like the market rate for this role is 15 mil and like we can't hire them right now because we didn't check some box on the level of deliveries on this thing and that would be uh little bit tricky. Really quickly, let me tell

52:06

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52:08

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52:11

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52:15

>> Uh I was just gonna say you can already see this phenomena, you know, in some ways. Uh you know, Tim Cook. >> Yes.

52:21

>> He it's not a salary cap, right?

52:21

But it feels like there is a cap.

52:24

>> It feels like something's going on.

52:24

He should be be paying paid way more. >> Yeah. What does he make? 75. >> Yeah.

52:31

It's >> barely scraping it.

52:31

Uh the other >> imagine if he was only five.

52:34

I mean, it would >> Oh, it'd be it'd be terrible.

52:36

He would he would have no incentive to shoot any >> the greatest operators of all time can barely make a buck more than a guy who throws and hits balls. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah.

52:45

Uh I think instead of a $5 million individual cap on defense tech executives, it would be much better to do a team-based salary cap because then that injects an interesting dynamic like instead of 5 million per executive, how about 20 million for the entire executive team?

53:03

So then you have the idea of team construction.

53:06

Where do you have cap room?

53:08

Okay, we got an all-star.

53:10

We we're bringing in Brian Shy as the CEO.

53:12

He's the CEO of Anderol right now. We're poaching him.

53:14

We're getting him 18, but his team is going to be mostly interns.

53:18

Or you go and you get, okay, we got four people. They're all making five.

53:22

They're all decent operators, but you create much more of a sports-like dynamic.

53:27

That's the way >> we can't get Brian Shy, but we can recreate him in the aggregate.

53:31

>> The [laughter] aggregate. Exactly.

53:31

Dodd Dodd in the chat says the best way to force them to deliver what they promised is to choose another vendor. I agree.

53:37

You could fix a lot of this at the contract level.

53:38

If if you sign a contract with somebody and then a year in year, two years, 3 years, etc.

53:44

they're not delivering like making it so that the government can like more easily reallocate those funds uh and actually you know make uh these companies have some accountability.

53:53

Um, more importantly near >> before we move on, uh, ju just I think this whole thing is very interesting because you have this dynamic where very clearly it feels like he seth went and gave Trump some sort of update and then he just like posted on true social and like kind of crashed out.

54:09

Um, and there's a weird thing where it's like why is this happening like this?

54:12

This is not it's not even an executive order at this point.

54:15

just like we're we're this entire news cycle around the new defense budget and this this is all just truth social posts just like Trump's thoughts his shower thoughts basically.

54:23

Uh but this stuff does actually have an impact on the funny truth social post and you just assume it's an executive order. >> It feels like law.

54:32

It feels like oh okay this is law but it's not.

54:34

Um but but it does have an impact and it brings people to the table and we saw this play out with Intel where he was saying like Lip Bhutan's got to go and basically calling for the firing of this guy who just got hired to turn around Intel and then and then a few days later he's like Lip Bhutan's amazing. I love this guy.

54:50

I'm actually going to invest.

54:52

I own 10% of the company now and now the stock my boy [laughter] and so uh these things are like aggressive but it's this whole like taco chickening out but that's part of the plan art of the deal. I don't know.

55:03

It's a very it's a very weird interesting new dynamic and I wonder how much it'll carry forward in the next administration but uh we will see.

55:10

It's certainly entertaining at the moment.

55:12

Before we move on, let me tell you about railway.

55:15

Railway simplifies software deployment.

55:17

Web apps, servers, and databases run in one place with scaling and monitoring and security built in. >> That's right.

55:25

>> Near says the term carry in venture capital actually comes from video games.

55:30

You [laughter] just need to find one good one founder good enough to carry your entire career. >> That is fantastic. >> This is a banger.

55:36

And it's it's it's it's a banger because it's so true.

55:38

Like when I when I look at across you know 60 70 different investments at this point if you take out like two or three >> of these founders it's just like okay >> much like being on Rust with a with an absolute >> killer who 360 no scope while you're still figuring out how the sticks work.

56:00

>> But you're getting carried. You're like, "We won."

56:02

>> 2v2 on Rust and you're just in a corner and the game's over cuz you're cuz >> you load into Counterstrike on Dust 2 and you one random guy you're queuing with just knows all the smoke lineups and you're just ready to rock. You're getting carried.

56:14

You're carried to the top.

56:16

Did I ever tell the story of of how I got my Overwatch account carried to like the absolute top?

56:20

My account was like ranked one of the best in the world for a little bit, but it was very >> So I I played the first season of I I played the first season of Overwatch.

56:31

Then my password was included in some sort of hack or some sort of leak from another maybe like you know some other company had my password leaked it and I'd use a generic password on Overwatch.

56:43

And so some hacker figured out how to get into my Overwatch account which is not important because like what are you going to do?

56:49

You're just going to like my credit card information isn't there.

56:52

You can't do anything with it.

56:52

You can just play Overwatch.

56:53

But Overwatch was like a $60 game or something.

56:55

And so if you were hacking, you didn't want to buy $60 every time you got banned.

56:59

So this hacker played on my Overwatch account for like multiple seasons and ranked way up and was like a sniper.

57:07

I think he played Hanzo main and was like really really good.

57:11

And then years later I got back in with my friends and I'm like, "Oh, let's play some Overwatch."

57:15

And we queue up >> like, "John, what what are you up to?"

57:19

>> And I and I'm like, "Oh, I need to do placement matches."

57:20

And so I do the placement matches.

57:21

I'm just like losing because I'm playing with all these like incredible like you know the top tier and and everyone's like why are you guys like like we know you're good.

57:29

Why are you why are you sandbagging?

57:31

Like why are you trying to derank your account?

57:34

And I'm like I'm not I'm playing as hard as I can. I'm doing my best.

57:35

And they're uh and they're like, "No, we can see that you're like one of the greatest Hanzo players ever.

57:41

Like you're the greatest sniper in Overwatch.

57:43

We've seen your account history. You're amazing.

57:47

Why are you playing poorly?"

57:47

Uh and I was like I I don't know.

57:49

And then I finally figured it out that my account had been stolen and then rocketed to the top of the rankings [laughter] and then and then the the game like remembered that and was putting me in these really high tier games.

58:01

So finally I had to make up a lie because whenever I'd whenever I'd hop on a game everyone would be like you're terrible and you're supposed to be good and I'd have to say ah like I broke my hand so I just I'm not as good as I used to be.

58:12

Like please go easy on me.

58:15

Like I'm I'm I'm relearning everything. Give me a break.

58:20

Anyway, before we move on, app loving profitable advertising made easy with Axon. ai.

58:24

Get access to over 1 billion daily active users and grow your business today.

58:28

Jordy, >> uh, one more thing that was funny about, uh, this truth social saga from yesterday.

58:33

So, uh, he starts dunking on the exacts, talking about salary caps.

58:38

Uh, Loheed Martin stock was like falling off a cliff. Uh, Rathon, etc.

58:41

I think this was, >> uh, it was right after the close, so it was in after hours.

58:47

Uh but then immediately after that uh Dodd in the chat says the funny thing is that the $1.

58:52

5 trillion dollar announcement came after talking down on them.

58:54

So then very uh just a little bit later Trump said after long and difficult negotiations with senators, congressmen, secretaries, and other political representatives.

59:06

I've determined that for the good of the country, especially in these troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should not be the 1 trillion, but rather 1. 5 trillion.

59:12

This will allow us to build this will allow us to build the quote unqu military that we have long been entitled to and more importantly that it will keep us safe and secure.

59:24

Uh and so any anyways you can imagine what happened to um [snorts] >> prices after that if it weren't for the tremendous numbers being produced by terrorists from other countries.

59:36

>> Uh and then and then keeps ranting uh talks about Sleepy Joe.

59:39

I I think we I think it's time to retire Sleepy Joe.

59:44

Just let him let him be retired. Just Joe.

59:48

>> Uh anyways, uh over to Warner Brothers.

59:51

Warner Brothers has rejected Paramount's latest $ 108.

59:53

4 billion hostile bid and remain committed. >> I called it loyal.

59:59

>> I knew nothing about this deal, but I just randomly said that I think Netflix is going to run away with it. But we'll see.

1:00:07

>> In the journal, Paramount defends its hostile bid for >> how high can they go?

1:00:10

Can they go to 200 billion?

1:00:13

[laughter] It seems like Paramount has >> they're holding out for the one trillion >> endless endless coffers. Uh I don't know.

1:00:22

But >> Paramount continued pushing its 77.

1:00:23

9 billion bid for Warner Brothers Thursday a day after Warner said it plans to stick to its existing deal with Netflix.

1:00:32

>> Yeah, [snorts] the photo really did it for me.

1:00:34

the aura farming together of the of the Warner Brothers team with the Netflix team on the lot on the lot.

1:00:39

It feels like >> these guys are absolute dogs.

1:00:43

They're they're they're ready to partner up.

1:00:45

Uh they're they're adding a new a new brother to the Warner Brothers.

1:00:49

Uh and so they're they're having fun and I and it feels like like unless the price gets really crazy and they appeal directly to shareholders and the shareholders go crazy or something, uh feels like it's in the bag.

1:01:03

And meanwhile, uh, Paramount has traded down almost 15% in the past month.

1:01:08

So, um, >> well, still making some moves in CBS and stuff.

1:01:12

Still making waves with Barry Weiss at the helm. >> Anyway, Shopify.

1:01:15

Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents.

1:01:25

>> Uh, Enthropic raising 10 billion at 350 billion.

1:01:29

We talked about this a little bit yesterday.

1:01:32

Yeah, >> get into it more.

1:01:34

>> GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and coou plan to lead >> you absolute dog.

1:01:41

>> Spencer, [laughter] get in the Ultradoo. Uh, explain this to us. This is great.

1:01:45

Uh, the funding round in the the third mega deal in the past year follows a 13 billion investment in September that valued the company at 183 billion.

1:01:56

So, they're raising less money at almost twice the valuation. Good for dilution.

1:02:00

Uh the rounds expected to close in the coming weeks.

1:02:02

Uh the total amount of the deal could change.

1:02:05

The new financing kicks off what is likely to be another banner year for AI startup funding in 2025. We're going to the Axon.

1:02:21

>> We're still warming up this new mallet. Kind of splintered.

1:02:25

>> If you've noticed this, >> maybe you know what we need?

1:02:26

We need some athletic tape to wrap around like a baseball bat. gloves, too. >> Batting gloves.

1:02:33

>> I do I I would like an even longer mallet, like a full baseball.

1:02:38

>> There's something about a baseball bat that's just the platonic ideal for swinging things.

1:02:41

Uh maybe maybe big bigger mallet, maybe some uh maybe some athletic tape on there wrapping it like uh it's like it's a baseball bat that's hit a a thousand home runs.

1:02:53

>> Uh do you think they do you think they end up doing another round before the IPO?

1:02:57

Like it's hard it's hard to imagine this is actually the the actual preip round just because there's so much incentive to just again in a few months.

1:03:06

I I I saw a couple people doing polls on uh would you rather own OpenAI at 1 trillion or Anthropic at 350 or XAI at 220 or whatever whatever the valuations were and uh at least a lot of the a lot of the small polls that I saw uh people were very excited about anthropics valuation relative to the magic that's happening in claude code and and all the all the glazing that's happening.

1:03:32

Finally, we have a second AI glaze gate, but this time the AI is getting glazed by the humans instead of vice versa. The triple glaze.

1:03:38

Um, but Curser is not getting glazed.

1:03:40

Shaquille says he's bearish on Curser.

1:03:43

Says that Curser is not feeling the AGI.

1:03:46

We'll have to we'll have to uh talk to Michael Truel about whether he is set the record straight on how AGI pelt is, but this is from Brie Wolfson on uh dialectic with Jackson D. Uh context.

1:04:00

Shaquille says is Wolson is the newish head of employee experience at cursor and much of much of this interview is about how to build great companies and how this is changing in the AI era.

1:04:10

She's written a good blog about cursors culture specifically.

1:04:11

It sounds fantastic over there.

1:04:13

Uh all of this is very interesting and there are some good insights here.

1:04:16

Wolson started working worked at amazing companies and has lots of interesting lessons to share from them.

1:04:21

Uh but when it really comes to thinking about the future, there is a failure to really engage with what advanced AI capabilities will mean for the future of work.

1:04:29

All the hypothesized changes are incredibly minor from Brie.

1:04:35

She's not telling this fast takeoff, crazy, total disruption story.

1:04:37

And Shaquille doesn't like that.

1:04:40

And I think this goes back to what we've been talking about about the narrative.

1:04:43

What is the right tone to match?

1:04:45

Should you just be financial maxi and just be like, "Look, it's just autocomplete and it makes money and we sell tokens profitably."

1:04:53

Or should you be like, "It's gonna cure cancer."

1:04:54

Or should you be like, "It's so important that if we don't do it right, we're all going to die."

1:05:00

Like, there's so many different narratives that you can tug on and a lot of people have been tugging on a bunch of them and it gets confusing.

1:05:05

Some people play one note consistently and sometimes that can work, sometimes that can't.

1:05:10

I I I'm kind of down with Cursor. I like this.

1:05:12

I I I like that Michael is just like he's a builder and and he tells a he tells a good story about that and like there are other AI leaders that are telling the doom story or telling the fast takeoff story.

1:05:23

I don't think that cursor needs to necessarily tell that same story.

1:05:27

Uh but Shaquille disagrees but uh we'll have to dig into this more.

1:05:30

What what do you think Tyler?

1:05:32

>> Yeah, I mean it is interesting because anthropic they make such an emphasis on on coding.

1:05:35

They're like of the of the big labs.

1:05:37

People think of them probably as like the most AGI pilled, but it's like cursor is I mean all they do is coding and and there's a very different like uh people see them very differently >> aesthetic. Yeah.

1:05:46

Well, it's a it's much more of a centaur adoption and much more of a co-pilot uh much less of this drop in replacement for labor. >> Yeah, that's true.

1:05:56

But I mean you've definitely seen a lot of the recent cursor features are are getting more and more agentic. Totally.

1:06:00

So it like the actual product isn't [snorts] like so completely different at least like ideologically right.

1:06:07

>> No no I know I I I agree I agree.

1:06:09

>> Yeah there's something uh cursor has an advantage which is they have tens of millions of active developers using their product and so they have they have a data source on a lot of this that >> uh spec you know pe people that are just kind of speculating and onx and and reading like science fiction essays about takeoff scenarios.

1:06:27

It's like there's something to just like playing playing the game as you see it on the field.

1:06:33

And uh I think that uh trying to obsess too much uh over what the world could look, you know, it's it's >> it's very important to uh try to plan and build your business around what's what the world's going to be like in one years, two years, five years, etc.

1:06:48

But at the same time, uh, if you're building and your business is accelerating and customers are using your product more and more and more, like that doesn't, uh, uh, it's hard to just say, "Oh, I'm bearish on this company because they're not they're not of this one, you know, podcast interview." So, >> yeah.

1:07:07

Uh, well, let's move on to some generative AI traffic data.

1:07:09

But first, let me tell you about 11 Labs.

1:07:11

Build intelligent real-time conversational agents.

1:07:15

Reimagine human technology interaction with 11 labs, the makers of our theme song.

1:07:20

So, Rehard Jark says, "You can feel the code red here.

1:07:25

Google is absolutely crushing it with Gemini 3.

1:07:29

Gemini's market share is now at 21. 5%.

1:07:33

3 months ago, it was at 12. 9%.

1:07:33

12 months ago, it was at 5. 7%.

1:07:36

And I remember though a year ago when it launched, it felt like uh it felt like a lot of the numbers that we were hearing out of Google were big, but it was because they were including uh generative AI snippets in Google search or they were sort of bending it into other products that already had big DAU numbers and it was not people going to Gemini, installing the app, really daily driving it.

1:07:58

It was more demo, more testing.

1:07:59

Uh well, this similar web data seems to show that uh Gemini has been growing and taking share.

1:08:06

Yeah, it's also worth noting that this is just like site visits and so >> not every visit is created equally, right?

1:08:14

Somebody can land quickly on a site that's very different from them, you know, being in the app multiple times a day.

1:08:20

So, this is not looking at app traffic.

1:08:23

>> Well, that's what I love about the semi- analysis chart that shows that uh you have, you know, users or accounts that are signed up.

1:08:30

are signed up. Then you have the the the active users and then you have um how many interactions those users have like how many new chats do they actually kick off over the course of a day and then also how many interactions how long are

1:08:44

they spending time and so ultimately the value that's created will probably be more of a proxy for time on site you know attention at the end of the day and so there is a little bit of a gap there where uh when they ran when semi analysis at least ran the ran the numbers maybe six months ago. It felt

1:09:00

It felt like while there were other AI apps and chat apps that were maybe taking a little bit of share on DAUs or MAUs uh in terms of total tokens, total interactions, total back and forths, uh OpenAI was really really dominant.

1:09:17

uh and so you know maybe the narrative is over overstated but uh it's still some interesting data and it does show that uh the code red is real and it shows that uh Google's been taking the distribution of Gemini very very seriously and they've gotten more traffic which is good >> near is back >> yes >> Ella Marina has raised a valuation of 1.

1:09:38

7 billion coming in with a Michael Bur shot uh we're going to have we're going to have the founder of Marina on >> uh hopefully in the next uh 24 hours.

1:09:48

>> We'll have to respond to this viral.

1:09:48

A thousand likes on this.

1:09:50

Why do people not like Alam Marina?

1:09:52

It seems like a fantastic business. >> I don't know. >> Well, >> yeah.

1:09:57

I I you know, how much revenue are they doing?

1:10:00

What what kind of products are they releasing?

1:10:02

Like, can they get if you're >> I'll tell you this right now.

1:10:05

You you you build up a huge reputation.

1:10:06

The sterling example of what is the best LLM, the best benchmark possible can't be gamed.

1:10:14

And then you go and you hold an auction and you sell the [snorts] best arena, the best LLM award to the highest bidder and for a billion for for10 billion dollars and you return all the money to shareholders after you do that and you and you give them good vibes for one week and then you burn your entire credibility.

1:10:31

No, clearly there's some like model routing, some infrastructural level.

1:10:35

Uh we I think we've talked about this before, but uh the increasingly the I think the bull case is not just deciding which which model is the best in an LM Marina.

1:10:44

It's it's which model is better for this specific type of marketing copy.

1:10:49

You're going to Nike and you're asking them which one aligns with that particular business process. How do they evaluate?

1:10:58

How do they bring in those models?

1:10:58

And then how do they measure uptime?

1:11:00

How do they measure all these different things that could uh result in a pretty significant business decision?

1:11:05

And if you can take a take a cut of that, that could be valuable.

1:11:08

I don't know, but we'll have to talk to the founder about it.

1:11:10

Do do you have any take on LM Arena? >> Uh fan.

1:11:14

>> I don't have a take on like the business side, but as a product, it's very useful.

1:11:17

It's it's always cool to look at.

1:11:19

I mean, because they always get the new models before, so you can always see like whenever a new image model comes out, it's always there first, so you can kind of see what are the vibes.

1:11:24

But >> yeah, it's a good I enjoy the the product a lot.

1:11:28

The vibe economy is potentially dramatically undervalued uh at uh in the leaderboard economy. Mhm. >> Yeah.

1:11:35

I think the vibes I think over the past few months, you've definitely started to see like, okay, this Exinon is likely being paid by a lab.

1:11:44

[laughter] I think you've starting to see that.

1:11:46

>> Yeah, it definitely happens.

1:11:46

Uh anyway, they probably uh I don't know there there's a bunch of stuff here. Do you use Tailwind? >> Yes.

1:11:55

>> Uh did you have you heard about the Tailwind drama? This whole thing.

1:11:58

Tailwind laid off 75% of their team. >> I love the post. >> Pretty rough. Yeah, the post.

1:12:01

Uh the reason is so ironic.

1:12:03

Their CSS framework became extremely popular with AI coding agents.

1:12:06

75 million downloads a month.

1:12:09

That meant nobody would visit their docs where they promoted paid offerings resulting in a 40% drop and in traffic and an 80% revenue loss.

1:12:15

Uh and people are really really upset about it. Very sad.

1:12:19

It feels like they pivot aggressively and figure out some other way to >> the founder posted a video or basically a mini podcast yesterday.

1:12:26

He just said he went for a walk and just was talking for 30 minutes.

1:12:29

I listened to half of it this morning. >> Sad story.

1:12:32

They have a small super talented team.

1:12:35

Uh he had to lay off a number of their engineers.

1:12:37

So now it's the three owners of the business plus one uh one other engineer.

1:12:42

There's four of them now.

1:12:44

Uh trying to maintain it.

1:12:46

He's optimistic, but he basically was saying he was just looking at his revenue go down a fixed amount every single month, which means that it was a greater and greater percentage >> of the revenue.

1:12:55

And so he was like, we're just going to be dead in in less than a year.

1:12:58

Because a lot of what they did, I think I I think their paid offerings were like selling components pre-assembled code and all of the chat uh all of the LLMs can just oneshot a component if you need a popup or a modal or or a button.

1:13:12

Uh you you don't need to pick >> was saying it'd be great if if like a big lab just said like hey these are your talented teams you know join like an anthropic >> yeah I mean I I don't know I don't know much about the founder um but uh it does feel like time to go into deals guy mode and find just a completely different uh mode of operation.

1:13:31

I [laughter] I have to imagine that uh these folks are talented and I imagine that if they landed at some big corporation doing front-end transformation of a massive surface area like Lovable or Figma >> that would be great too.

1:13:46

But but even even just going inside of like you know a Salesforce or some sort of like you know some product where they have a ton of surface area and they're working on modernizing it but you have this new team that comes in and they have >> Yeah.

1:13:58

But I'm sure they want to keep building. >> Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:00

So, so maybe in >> uh but yeah, the saying lays off 75% of their team is dramatic.

1:14:04

They did lay off they laid off people out of a four person team that were the not not uh the owners of the business. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:12

So, so sort of laws small numbers sounds more dramatic than maybe it is. >> Yeah.

1:14:18

But but still I'm optimistic that they'll find a good outcome here.

1:14:19

It was it was the founder was upset.

1:14:21

He apparently people uh were just like commenting.

1:14:26

Uh >> yeah, people were really mean to him.

1:14:29

mean to him being like being like, "Hey, I I can't prioritize this feature right now because my business is dying." Yeah.

1:14:35

>> And they're like, "You're going against, you know, the philosophy of open source."

1:14:38

He's like, >> John Ludig wrote this in his piece on open source AI.

1:14:41

Like the open source community is beautiful in many ways.

1:14:43

It gives these like incredible technologies that people can build on.

1:14:47

Uh but uh people also like freebies and they get very mad when you take them away and they get mad when they don't uh when they don't get them.

1:14:55

Everyone loves free stuff.

1:14:56

Everyone loves a free lunch and everyone loves Plaid because Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, save, borrow, and invest securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and improve lending now with AI.

1:15:09

Um Dylan, >> wait, wait, really quickly.

1:15:10

Uh Ryan in the chat recommended that we have uh uh Mike Vining on the show, which I would love to have Mike Vining on the show.

1:15:17

Do you know who Mike Vining is? >> I do not. >> Well, guess what?

1:15:21

He inspired the guy who you just saw in your new favorite movie, Sakario. >> Wait, he works for X. >> No.

1:15:30

Uh, he No, no, he he he joined the platform, but he does.

1:15:34

>> I read that as you I I He's an incredible uh military hero.

1:15:37

Uh he has fantastic stories.

1:15:40

I've listened to him on a few podcasts.

1:15:41

Uh very very interesting fellow.

1:15:44

And uh he's very viral because uh he has these iconic images of him uh on Delta Force missions, but he's wearing like what looks like an IT guy outfit.

1:15:55

So it's like a a starched white button-d down with a pocket protector and he has these big glasses and he >> walking out of the Blackhawk. >> Yeah, exactly.

1:16:03

So he's not wearing the normal like military camo with the bulletproof vest.

1:16:08

He's just there to like clean up and stuff. It's crazy.

1:16:11

So he's uh yeah he's a he's a personal hero of mine and >> all time aura farmer >> all time aura farmer. That is for sure true.

1:16:19

Uh would love to have him on the show.

1:16:21

He's he's done other shows.

1:16:21

So it it would be very interesting to hear from him.

1:16:26

>> Uh this company Flip uh said Flip is hiring.

1:16:28

We're hiring uh posters, engineers, product growth, ops, designers, interns, and roles that do not yet have names.

1:16:34

And then uh 24 hours later they uh they quoted their own post and said, [laughter] "You've just deleted half the applications at random.

1:16:44

We do not want unlucky people working for Flip." >> Who?

1:16:47

Well, they already have a poster on staff because that is very funny.

1:16:48

Wait, it says it's the Lucky Company.

1:16:52

>> So, I'm assuming it has to do with gambling, >> of course. Uh I I actually >> Yeah.

1:16:56

So, I think it I think it the product what they're trying to do is basically you pay more for a product or get it free.

1:17:03

Oh, it's that it's that meme.

1:17:05

I've seen I've seen people joke about that and then I saw there's this uh poster that >> they're bringing gambling into credit cards. >> Yes. Yes.

1:17:12

I I I saw a poster who >> bringing gambling into debt.

1:17:16

>> There's someone who like vibe codes different UX mockups for funny concepts.

1:17:20

Uh there's that famous one by Aiden of like the uh the Google maps with a with a fog of war.

1:17:26

So, as you move around the map, it shows you where you've been and you unveil the map like it's a video game.

1:17:33

There's a whole bunch of these and one of them is like the the double or nothing on your checkout.

1:17:36

Uh, which is a crazy idea. I don't know.

1:17:39

Um, on the topic of luck, at one point, very early in my career, I wanted to create a direct to consumer product called fivehour luck.

1:17:48

And the whole concept would be like it'd be a five hour energy shot, but the promise, the pitch was that it would make you lucky.

1:17:54

It would make it would increase your luck just because people, you know, energy is a stat. Why not increase luck? Yeah.

1:17:59

Uh and I was going to formulate it, have some vitamins in there, have some things that could potentially increase luck.

1:18:04

Uh was not thinking about the gambling application element. Yeah.

1:18:08

I mean, that that product would crush in Vegas. >> Yeah.

1:18:12

Imagine just taking it being like, "Okay, I I I'm have the stat boost. I'm feeling good." >> Put snake oil in it. >> Yes. Yes.

1:18:18

Well, but Brian Johnson, he he sells a product. It's olive oil.

1:18:20

It's literally called snake oil.

1:18:22

is sort of riffing on that concept.

1:18:24

Before we move on, let me tell you about MongoDB.

1:18:27

Choose a database built with flexibility and [applause] scale in mind.

1:18:30

With best-in-class embedding models and rerankers, MongoDB has what you need to build what's next.

1:18:36

So, moving on to Citrini.

1:18:38

Uh, asking someone asking someone asking someone long >> memory.

1:18:44

>> Oh, who's long memory?

1:18:44

If they got any new ideas for 2026, he says already rich.

1:18:49

Yes, memory has been on a tear. >> Yeah, bubble boy.

1:18:52

on uh over on X had had some pretty uh great calls late last year.

1:18:59

I'm going to try to pull >> pull one up. >> Well, you do.

1:19:02

Let me tell you about Crowd Strike. Your business is AI.

1:19:04

Their business is securing it.

1:19:06

Crowd Strike secures AI and stops breaches.

1:19:08

Um we can also pull up I want to watch this this intro from this week in startups. Can we move on to this? >> Pull it up.

1:19:17

pull up the video uh of Jason Calacanis finally answering the question we all had.

1:19:21

What is his dream purchase?

1:19:24

I saw this clip on this week in Startups.

1:19:26

Jason's ultimate dream mega purchase and I clicked instantly.

1:19:29

This is on This Week in Startups. Uh his co-host asks him.

1:19:34

And the best part about this show is that I was expecting it to be like they tease it in an intro and then they make you listen to and then they they cut just short of him saying, "Oh, the one thing I want to buy is" and then boom, the start of the show and then 20 minutes later he gives you. No, watch the clip.

1:19:52

Now that you're doing so well financially, what is a purchase that you'd like to make but can't bring yourself to do so because it feels too extravagant? Answer this honestly.

1:19:58

Tell the people what you even Jason Khanis will not break out the checkbook for.

1:20:04

It's definitely private aviation.

1:20:04

I've been trying to hold it.

1:20:06

You deserve it for a long time.

1:20:10

>> Great unjustifiable expense of spending, you know, $50,000 going somewhere or $100,000 on a round trip.

1:20:17

>> That seemed absurd to spend that.

1:20:17

The other one I would say that I sometimes sweat is buying a really expensive sports car, a Corvettes. He loves Corvettes. He's a Corvette guy.

1:20:29

Like a big open fancy barn that's kind of like a manave but style.

1:20:31

of like a manave but style. Do I buy this ZRX1 for $21 >> $50,000 or do I buy it $50,000 Corvettes collection [laughter] these things become cognitive load >> this weekend startups is brought to you by [laughter] >> shout out to their sponsors for making

1:20:52

it possible I love that I love that he's a corvette guy >> Jake how deserves it >> he deserves it he's worked really hard one of the greatest to ever do it been in the media business for decades uh one of my welcome to TVPN was doing TVPN like in the early 2000. >> You know who his first guest was ever?

1:21:07

>> You know who his first guest was ever? David Sachs. It's the craziest thing.

1:21:11

And they go and they do calls from entrepreneurs and you can actually track what those entrepreneurs do now. It's very interesting.

1:21:16

Uh and my my first welcome to Silicon Valley moment was I I flew to Silicon Valley.

1:21:21

I went to the launch festival, his uh his conference, heard a bunch of tech people talk uh met a bunch of YC founders.

1:21:28

It kind of introduced me to Silicon Valley.

1:21:30

went to the uh some bar in on Silicon Valley and in Palo Alto next to Stanford.

1:21:35

Uh it it was a lot of fun. He was very nice.

1:21:40

>> Uh also in that era uh Sam Alman went on Charlie Rose.

1:21:43

You were talking about this.

1:21:45

Should we pull that should we pull this clip up?

1:21:47

>> Oh, do you do you have it ready to go?

1:21:49

>> Yeah, it's on charlie rose. com.

1:21:51

>> It is it's not on YouTube which is fascinating.

1:21:52

I I saw a clip of what looked like Sam Alman on Charlie Rose and I was like we got to dig up the actual footage.

1:21:58

While we do, let me tell you about Lambda.

1:22:00

Lambda is the super intelligence cloud.

1:22:03

Building AI supercomputers for training and inference at scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands. So, do you have it?

1:22:12

>> Uh, let's pull this up. >> Where is it?

1:22:14

>> I put it in the team chat. >> Okay.

1:22:16

Well, while we while we pull that up, let's look for what's next. Um, AI close.

1:22:25

Um, I can do another ad read.

1:22:25

While we do that, let me tell you about Vanta, automate compliance and security.

1:22:29

Vanta is the leading AI trust management platform. Um, >> how are we doing? >> Pulling it up.

1:22:41

Uh, Nikita Beer finally met someone. >> Oh no, Charlie Rose.

1:22:44

The video actually does not load. >> Oh, it doesn't load. Oh no.

1:22:48

Uh, well, you know what we can do?

1:22:50

We can export it and we can play it uh tomorrow on the show.

1:22:54

Uh, let's make a note to do that.

1:22:56

Uh, let's move on to the real biggest launch, the biggest tech news in years.

1:23:02

There's a new monitor out from Dell Big. >> And I love this.

1:23:06

So, Michael Dell said, "Big news.

1:23:07

The world's first 52 in 6K monitor is here.

1:23:11

If you love big displays, this is for you."

1:23:13

Jordy, did you ever have one of these elite multimonitor setups, or were you always like a sort of do business by phone?

1:23:21

You've never been an iPad guy. Have you ever been?

1:23:22

I've got a I've got an Apple monitor at home. Uh I I I I find it hard.

1:23:28

I mean, as like a guy who has been building companies and investing, you're basically an email. >> Phone, email, Zoom.

1:23:35

It's not It's not code over here, this and that, monitoring situations.

1:23:40

You're you're an amateur when it comes to monitoring situations is what you're saying.

1:23:44

>> But I do enjoy I I have an Apple monitor at home.

1:23:46

I enjoy it, but it's nothing like this. >> This is incredible.

1:23:48

So, it's much bigger than the Apple Pro Display XDR. Is it curved? >> It is curved.

1:23:53

It has to be curved at that size because you're basically sitting right your face is right up against a TV. Uh 52 in.

1:23:57

And uh and it's a very it's funny in in many many ways because uh let's uh so so first let's play the clip from Rob Moore uh where he says Dell just released the product that Michael Dell and David Senra alluded to in the David Senra podcast episode.

1:24:16

After 42 years, Michael Dell's enthusiasm products >> coming out of studio.

1:24:19

That's the thing that we're most excited about.

1:24:20

It's just a bigger screen. >> It's awesome. It's awesome. So, let's play this.

1:24:25

>> That obsession has not dulled.

1:24:25

We were just in your office and you were showing me one of your new unreleased uh products that we can't film or photograph, but you were like I was like, "This is this is like a kid on Christmas."

1:24:36

Like, you're still >> super cool product. Yeah. I'm I'm very excited.

1:24:40

>> I told you I'll buy one.

1:24:40

I think it was cool, too.

1:24:42

I'm going to buy one as soon as it comes out.

1:24:43

But I just love this enthusiasm that is just not dulling.

1:24:47

That obsession has not dulled. >> That's great. Heartwarming. Heartwarming.

1:24:52

>> And uh what what's really what's really really funny is that so there's there was that sort of like tease.

1:24:56

Michael Dell just posts it uh and says it's out here. You can just buy it.

1:25:01

And then this this uh this poster Ben Bodgerin uh CEO and principal analyst at Creative Strat uh says this monitor from Dell is amazing and I have had one for a few weeks.

1:25:13

easily the best monitor I've ever used and even at 120 hertz still capable to game on.

1:25:17

So, it's like when did this thing release?

1:25:19

Like it it doesn't have the fanfare of like a normal product release cycle where there's like pre-orders, but it's very fun and it's been very hyped and I I think we should get some because we have a whole host of screens arrayed randomly and it's not very aesthetic and you have the opportunity to uh to simplify.

1:25:37

You can actually display four different full computers, I think, in fairly high- res just tiled on one screen.

1:25:47

So, you can run four different displays separately. >> $2,900. >> Not bad.

1:25:51

I thought it was even less. I don't know. Anyway, Phantom Cash.

1:25:53

Fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with the Phantom card.

1:26:01

>> Uh, we have a major white pill. Drew Tuma is reporting.

1:26:05

For the first time in 25 years, not a single square mile of California is dry on the US drought monitor. Uh the rain is back. Thank you, Augustus.

1:26:15

Have to go back to December 2000 to find a similar situation.

1:26:17

If you're 25 or younger, you've always lived in a world where California has been entering or recovering from drought.

1:26:25

So, we are uh incredibly incredibly back. >> Yes.

1:26:30

Um, we should talk about the title of the stream.

1:26:34

Julia Black's TBPN Expose in Vanity Fair just dropped today. If you go to vanityfair. com, we're right there.

1:26:43

Um, and it's been a lot of fun working on this piece.

1:26:46

We got to do a very fun >> to be clear.

1:26:49

There wasn't >> Yeah, >> it wasn't a lot of work for us.

1:26:51

We got to hang out >> getting interviewed, hanging out with her, and uh I mean it was we had to go dress up and get >> We did have to dress up.

1:26:58

It was it was definitely the most uh by far the most intense shoot we've ever been a part of.

1:27:05

>> Two cameras, medium format, medium format film.

1:27:09

>> I just mean more like the the team that actually went into it, right?

1:27:11

There was so many different people working on on was extremely professional as you would expect out of Vanity Fair.

1:27:17

And I like that uh Julia still called us the technology brothers.

1:27:22

She's not she's not uh fully in the rebranding keeping it alive.

1:27:27

Yeah, they call us the J team.

1:27:29

John Kugan and Jordy the J team had off mic moment.

1:27:33

>> A bunch of funny moments in here. >> Yeah. What do you like? What do you like?

1:27:36

>> I like the uh she said they're no saints.

1:27:39

One of them runs a nicotine company, but they have >> not just any nicotine.

1:27:42

What kind of What kind of nicotine is it?

1:27:45

>> It's addictive nicotine >> that I personally am addicted to, but they have drawn certain lines in the sand. They don't swear on air.

1:27:50

They try to avoid vulgarity.

1:27:52

and they don't promote alcohol or drug use mostly because they're not big drinkers themselves.

1:27:56

It's it's cool that we get credit for not promoting alcohol use even though in the early days the doubling you know >> doing the Dom episodes.

1:28:06

>> Um but it was funny because >> we actually really didn't enjoy it.

1:28:11

It was it was funny but uh >> I I remember I'd be >> I I would tell my wife, "Oh, it's a it's a Dom day today.

1:28:18

I gotta go drink a bunch of champagne at 11:00 a. m.

1:28:20

Yeah, >> I'm not not looking forward to it.

1:28:22

Uh, and then Julie says, "Perhaps most importantly," and then a quote for me, "The show is never going to promote Burning Man."

1:28:29

[laughter] >> I can't believe you said that.

1:28:33

It >> I mean, it's it's factually true.

1:28:36

>> It really is so funny when when you are talking to a serious journalist where everything you say, even the jokes were going to get written down and recorded and printed.

1:28:45

And so some of the odd little stylistic flourishes you you throw out a bit and and then it gets written down and it looks way different in that context, but it's good. It's real. It's the actual this.

1:29:00

>> There was a funny moment.

1:29:00

So we were uh we were getting breakfast with Julia uh at our usual spot.

1:29:03

And she says, "While in line for coffee that morning, Hayes dashed off an exost."

1:29:08

This was right after the Coldplay saga.

1:29:10

I said, "Startup CEOs can't even hug their chief people officer at a concert in this country anymore."

1:29:15

Uh, and uh, Julius says as he watched the likes pour in, he predicted they would top 10,000 or so.

1:29:22

When I checked the next morning, there were there were over 70,000.

1:29:24

And you were saying, "Imagine imagine if [laughter] Imagine if it flopped, it would be in here.

1:29:29

It would be like he he said he predicted it 10,000. It only got 200." >> Yeah. But wow, lucky day. A banger.

1:29:37

Yeah, it was a good day to come see the show.

1:29:39

It sort of took us all over the place.

1:29:41

I think I think at the end of the show I sort of stood up and said, you know, what was that? Are we journalists? Are we analysts? Are we comedians?

1:29:46

I don't know, but we're going to figure it out and we're not going anywhere over the next decades. >> Was funny.

1:29:52

We were blasting Coldplays Fix You in the studio that morning, which is which is which is a >> is a fantastic song. >> It's a great song.

1:30:00

>> Also, at that at that lunch, uh she didn't put this in, but you ordered some food and you put so much salt on it.

1:30:06

You just kept shaking the salt shaker and I was like, "This is gonna go in the piece." >> Oh yeah.

1:30:12

>> I've never noticed that you >> I love salt.

1:30:13

I have this amazing story.

1:30:15

My my grandpa was making uh my brother and I hot chocolate when we were kids >> and uh like my grandma was away at the time.

1:30:23

So it was just us hanging out with grandpa and he's like, "I'm going to make the kids hot chocolate."

1:30:27

>> He uh makes a hot chocolate, brings it over to us. He's drinking it.

1:30:29

He he gives us a couple cups and we're like, "Oh, grandpa, this this is really this is really rough."

1:30:36

uh uh are you sure you made it right?

1:30:39

And he's like, "Yeah, I made it right. It's totally fine." Oh, I know.

1:30:42

Uh and turns out he all the sugar that he meant to put in, he meant to put in salt, but his taste buds were so cooked that to him it just [laughter] like normally pure salt mixture, you notice immediately.

1:30:55

But >> so anyways, I am uh I'm like him in that sense.

1:30:59

There's almost no amount of salt, but >> it's very it's a very funny uh story.

1:31:04

They also did this little video interview with us and >> they asked us bullish or bearish on a number of things and uh one of the things they asked us was >> blue sky and we both look at each other and we're like oh we love blue skies like it's a nice thing no clouds it most

1:31:20

of the days are blue skies in California and they had to clarify like no like blue sky like the app and we're like oh yeah we don't actually think about it at all we're mostly on X but uh it really does give you a little bit of flavor of uh of how we think about business and whatnot. So, it was a So, it was a >> Yeah.

1:31:35

Also, the uh the outfits of course unfortunately were not ours.

1:31:38

They dressed us uh as >> they brought a whole wardrobe team and stuff.

1:31:44

>> Uh but you you got to get that suit. >> I do.

1:31:46

I think the suit is >> You got to get yours, too. >> Unbelievable.

1:31:50

>> The the the 1980s theme was very fun, very throwback, and it feels like a return to the early brand.

1:31:54

Uh very much what we were doing.

1:31:58

It it feels like it it it it captured it might be the last story that gets told about that era before we go into you know whatever we're doing next.

1:32:07

Uh anyway [clears throat] we have Delian as Bruhoff from Founders Fund and Varta in the Reream waiting room.

1:32:12

Let's bring him into the TVP and Ultradom.

1:32:14

Delian, how are you doing? >> Hello brothers. >> Welcome back. >> Good to see you.

1:32:20

>> First first appearance you did 18 last year.

1:32:22

We're hoping to 10x this year.

1:32:22

We got to keep on a venture trajectory. So, 180 hits this year. >> Welcome to the show.

1:32:29

Uh, I hope your 2026 is off to a good start.

1:32:31

Uh, any New Year's resolutions?

1:32:34

Do you like New Year's resolutions?

1:32:36

Do you have any meta commentary about New Year's resolutions?

1:32:40

>> My, uh, you know, goal is to just wear only quarter zips for the entire year and, you know, just lean into my new stylist, you know, sort of recommendations on, uh, you know, just looking like a wise venture capitalist that is, you know, ready to uh, go ring a bunch of, uh, NASDAQ bells this year since. >> There you go.

1:32:56

or New York City rain, baby. >> Yeah.

1:32:59

>> Uh yeah, that TB Green is looking fantastic. Good.

1:33:00

Uh props to your stylist. >> Okay. Uh first question.

1:33:04

We were reading in the Wall Street Journal today that you're cooked that venture capital is cooked.

1:33:10

Venture capital fundraising declined 35% in 2025. Are you cooked? Is it over?

1:33:16

Are you going to be uh leaving the industry after uh disaster has struck according to the journal? What's your reaction?

1:33:25

you know, you're getting this um like, you know, sort of K-shaped um you know, nature to venture, you know, sort of right now, which has been happening for, you know, sort of a couple years, but it's happening both doing ketamine. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

1:33:35

Um we we're just kholing and we [laughter] like, you know, really focus in on one company just like >> we just told Vanity Fair we don't promote drugs.

1:33:44

>> We don't promote drugs. Sorry.

1:33:44

We take ketamine and we give it to horses.

1:33:48

That's for all the horses that we own.

1:33:51

But the this bifurcation that's been happening.

1:33:53

Do you have the riding jacket on? Oh, that's a good one.

1:33:55

This is this is good merch.

1:33:57

Rare rare founders fund merch.

1:34:01

>> Uh >> anyways, we only, you know, use that stuff for our horses.

1:34:06

>> The horses, >> but yes.

1:34:07

Oh, so so so where did the K-shaped split come from?

1:34:09

Is this interest rate driven or just LPS are realizing that it's better to pile into the big winners?

1:34:16

Give me more on the dynamics. Look at FF.

1:34:18

You have uh a big fund raised in 2025, but it could have been way bigger. Uh overs subscribe.

1:34:26

Part of the issue is PT's hogging all hoging the whole fund.

1:34:29

Uh but uh but but there's instances where there's like way more demand for a specific fund than there is actual, you know, allocations available.

1:34:39

And then other cases more on the the emerging manager side where they just can't even get going. >> Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

1:34:44

What are you seeing, Dian? >> Yeah.

1:34:47

Yeah, I mean I think you know there's a couple different like forces at play here.

1:34:50

at play here. A part of it is like if you actually even just study the like old days of like you know sort of PE for example when you go from like the you know barbarians at the gate days to today PE kind of went through like a similar dynamic at super cycle where you had like you know cottage industry to start then got super you know sort of scaled and there were a ton of different

1:35:06

players and then steadily there was you know a bunch of aggregation basically over time um that you know led to you know some you know sort of mega mega funds like the KKRs etc of the world um I think you're basically seeing you know basically venture go through the same thing And I think you started to see basically like that K-shape really accelerate in 2021 and then has only basically continued since then. And I

1:35:26

And I think you're seeing it first on the company side of things, right?

1:35:28

I think we've talked about this before, but like um you know, if you look at it on like a deal count basis, we're basically just on a strict linear decline since the peak of 2021 in terms of total deals done by all VCs across the globe that I think basically like north of $5 million.

1:35:44

it's like just strictly going, you know, sort of down in terms of number of companies basically, you know, sort of per per year that are looking like that.

1:35:50

Um, so company formation is down, deal count is down, and so by default, you basically have obviously, you know, sort of fewer logos that you can chase.

1:35:58

Um, and so you're getting more aggregation into a much smaller set of logos on the company, you know, basically side of things.

1:36:03

At the same time, you're seeing, you know, um, you know, companies stay private for much longer.

1:36:08

longer. And so like the liquidity in the public markets is getting vacuumed up by an even smaller set of companies because like there's just a small set that are the mega ones that are raising these like you know sort of huge huge rounds right I think it was something like if you basically added up SpaceX OpenAI um anthropic and XAI basically I think if you added up basically those four companies it was something on the order

1:36:27

of like 60% of like the total like you know dollars deployed by VCs in that year were scooped up basically by those like you know sort of four or five companies >> and so I think that's like the dynamic that's then flowing through on like the

1:36:38

VC you know, basically side of things where [clears throat] if you're one of those companies and you need to now raise like, you know, $10 billion, are you really trying to go out and do that with like a bunch of $10 million checks? It's like no, like you

1:36:47

It's like no, like you prefer to like, you know, find capital providers that can actually give you, you know, billion dollar checks at a time.

1:36:53

So, you just like have fewer, you know, sort of mouths around the table you need to manage.

1:36:56

Some of this is regulatory, right?

1:36:57

Like I think you can't have more than like I think it's like 6,500 like, you know, institutions on your cap table before you're public.

1:37:02

And so, you literally like have to make sure that these, you know, sort of things, you know, aggregate.

1:37:05

Um, and then there's a part of it that is like, yeah, just the like power law of venture and tech only continues to be like more and more true.

1:37:13

Like, you know, you're dominated by the big. It's IKEA.

1:37:14

dominated by the big. It's IKEA. There's this like um I'm probably gonna butcher it a little bit like you know Peter had this you know sort of like you know thing that he said for sure privately I'm pretty sure publicly too so I don't think he'll mind me you know sort of

1:37:25

saying it but he like his like biggest error you know that he says of like his 20 you know sort of tens was you know his impression was just like you know there's not going to be that many like you know you know hundred billion let alone like trillion dollar companies. But it turns out basically like each

1:37:37

But it turns out basically like each individual 10x is actually like easier than the last one.

1:37:40

basically like once you're you sort of you know trillion dollar you know once you're a hundred billion dollar company it's actually much easier to go to a trillion than it was to go from like 10 to 100 and it's actually much easier to go to 10 to 100 than it is from one to 10 and it's much easier to go from like 1 billion to 10 billion than it is to go from 100 million to 1 billion etc.

1:37:54

And so um you know that's you know in some ways that like momentum but getting momentum is just like making it so that these like you know companies get bigger faster they're scooping up capital faster and the venture firms are getting bigger faster.

1:38:05

I think the thing where the stuff starts to break is like I don't think that um the current default fee structure is going to be like where the industry is at you know sort of you know 10 years from today.

1:38:15

10 years from today. I won't like name names but like there is definitely a decent number of uh these multi-stage mega funds that um you know are doing you know some of their super late stage investing through both like feeless and carryless you know basically SPVS and so at some point if you're doing like a feeless and carryless SPV where you're

1:38:33

investing into a late stage startup >> you basically just work as IR at the startup right like you know you're like you're not making >> me walk me through I mean SPVS are just notoriously uh like they're They're incredible when they hit because it's deal by deal and if you have one true banger it's you're the the GPS that are a part of that are retired. So like in

1:38:53

So like in theory they're amazing.

1:38:55

In practice like actually trying to go and convince a lot of people and you're basically staking your reputation on that deal because you don't have the aggregate deals that typically go in a fund.

1:39:04

typically go in a fund. you're saying like if you know you you kind of have to say like this is going to work and do my other SPVS so at least like you're you're you're diversified to some degree but it's a ton of work there's a ton of pressure you have to promise the company that you're going to or promise or or imply that you can achieve uh some of investment amount and then you have to

1:39:23

go do all this heavy lifting so why is a why is a multi-stage fund incentivized to do that is it just to gain favor with the company like what's the what's the incentive >> yeah I mean You know, I think the probably like hidden secret of Silicon Valley is like that there's just like a much higher percentage of capital that is deployed via like SPVS and co-invest vehicles than is probably like publicly acknowledged or discussed. Like there

1:39:47

Like there are very top tier tier one, you know, sort of companies including some of the ones that I listed in those like top five that have had rounds come together based off of a significant chunk of the round basically being done by an SPV.

1:39:57

Um why do you do it as a company?

1:40:01

Well, at the end of the day, if you're like the CEO of a company, you're >> No, I'm not saying I'm not saying why do it as a company.

1:40:06

I'm saying why do a feeless carryless SPV as >> Oh, as a, you know, sort of venture investor, it's >> just pure love pure love of the game.

1:40:14

I just love deploying capital.

1:40:16

I don't need I don't need to make money from it.

1:40:19

It's it's volunteer work. >> Yeah.

1:40:21

>> Yeah. I mean I think it's you know a lot of funds the way that they end up like you know sort of growing in AUM is you know they start off with an initial like fixed fund structure and then like you know for their best performing companies

1:40:33

do co-invest vehicles you know or like opportunity funds to build that up and then eventually become you know sort of you know multi-stage and can actually like handle basically a growth fund when so they've shown that some of those growth SPVS work. So in some ways,

1:40:42

So in some ways, >> so I guess in some ways part of it is is maybe they promise LPs like if you back my fund in a big way, I will give you direct access, right? >> Or it's value ad.

1:40:53

Like if you have you have a stake in a company and you just want that company to succeed, you're like, look, it's value ad.

1:40:59

I'm just going to go work get them more money on their balance sheet.

1:41:02

Yeah, I'm not making more money off of that piece of the investment by but my original investment is getting marked up and the company's more likely to succeed. >> Makes sense. >> Yeah.

1:41:11

>> Yeah. I'll pretend like this is you know hypothetical even if it's not hypothetical but like imagine you're a company like open eye you need to go raise like you know sort of billions of dollars right um uh >> you as the CEO have a lot of things on your plate right you need to like manage the government you have customers you have your internal team etc like can you

1:41:28

really afford to like literally fully fully fully only be focused on fundraising like no it's like really hard to do that basically as a CEO when you're operating a company yeah >> versus if somebody comes to you and is like hey let me do like a like you know basically like fearless carryless you know basically SPV that you know let's be gotten and raise it's effectively like in some ways like

1:41:45

outsourced you know IR it's somebody that's working you know on this basically entirely full-time and there's sort of a win-win on both sides as the CEO you don't need to like you know you know do all the you know sort of fundraising with the longtail of like sovereign wealth funds this that and the other they can go do the first sets of like you know meetings then bring you in

1:42:00

basically for the final close for like the venture investor it basically ends up being a way where like you now have a really great reputation you know basically with this company because you're basically like you know helping them you know sort of pull together like a mega fund raise for your sets of like you know LPS and for future fixed fund vehicles that you're doing. You now get

1:42:14

You now get this reputation of like hey I'm close to this like you know sort of super hot you know sort of company.

1:42:20

>> Um yeah the optics too non-equity partner in the ex chat says a lot of GPS want to lead around but don't have the AUM.

1:42:25

So just getting the optics of being like I'm a size Chad you know leading leading this massive round.

1:42:30

It's like and maybe they wouldn't have been able to put it together with a with a more aggressive fee structure.

1:42:35

It's just interesting because you on the other side you see some of these, you know, really really uh some of the bad actors in the SPV space are like, you know, layered SPV 10% up front. >> Not beer, by the way. Not beer. >> There you go. >> Fine.

1:42:53

>> Uh were you surprised uh about the Manis acquisition? Did that trigger you?

1:42:57

Uh or are you kind of licking your >> They're American.

1:43:02

It's so good that that a company like Manis got acquired by a former founders fund portfolio company.

1:43:08

Let's give it up for Founders Fund for making it happen.

1:43:10

Facebook, you know, seeded by Founders Fund and now going around and acquiring great companies like Manis, right?

1:43:20

>> You [laughter] know, it's funny.

1:43:20

I had like probably like 30 people text me being like, "When are you going to tweet about it?

1:43:23

What are you going to say about it?"

1:43:24

I just like sitting there and I was just like, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to say."

1:43:27

It's just like I'm like, >> you know, I'm like a disappointed father. You know what I mean?

1:43:30

where it's just like, you know, I just can't believe that this is like, you know, what the world has come to. How has this happened?

1:43:36

>> I, you know, my favorite meme about it was like, um, you know, there was somebody that like had like a fake text chat between Zuckerberg and, you know, Alex Wang and Zuckerberg going like, "Hey, can you go buy Mattis for me?"

1:43:44

And then Alex is like, "Sure, yes, sir."

1:43:46

And Zuckerberg goes, "Okay, cool. Thank you.

1:43:50

Did you get me like, you know, the like premium or like the premium one?"

1:43:51

And Alex's like, "No, I bought Manis.

1:43:55

>> I bought the whole company." Yeah.

1:43:56

[laughter] Uh what what do you think about uh the the the mega I don't even know mega corns going out at a trillion?

1:44:02

Is that going to result in more recycling of LP dollars?

1:44:07

Is it possible that SpaceX, OpenAI, Enthropic, couple other names get out and LPs feel like I'm going to go back and reallocate venture and this time around I'm going to try, you know, smaller managers again or do you think it'll have a different dynamic?

1:44:22

How how does that play out in a in a post successful IPO year?

1:44:29

>> Uh, you know, my sort of oneliner, I forget if we joked about this in person when we were in LA or if I've done this on TV live before, but it's like it would be incredible if like the thing that props up the 2026, you know, equity market is the spite IPO.

1:44:38

And it's just like, [laughter] you know, Elon's just like, "Oh, like um Sam needs liquidity."

1:44:45

Like, you know, what if I >> not not needs liquidity, he needs like a couple hundred billion. >> He needs a lot. >> Yeah. Yeah.

1:44:50

He needs like a lot of liquidity.

1:44:51

like what if I just go IPO and I scoop up all the liquidity in the market and make sure that I do it like faster than he does.

1:44:56

But that's the thing that like props up the public markets because all of a sudden like the S&P 500 has like a you know trillion and a half added to it by like a single entity. >> Yeah.

1:45:03

>> Um so yeah, I mean like these you know you know there's you know kind of my joke at the beginning of the show but it's like you know I do think that this you know upcoming year is poised to be at least right now and it feels like there's like the perfect market conditions for it where it's like relatively stable economy inflation's you know sort of relatively under control.

1:45:18

Well, you know, it doesn't seem like China's going to be invading Taiwan over the course of the next year.

1:45:21

Like, yes, things are like, you know, sort of geopolitically heated, but like it doesn't seem like, you know, I mean, you know, look, we just captured the president of Venezuela and, you know, nobody seems to, you sort of blink and, you know, if anything, the markets are up on the news.

1:45:30

And so, it feels like you have this, you know, sort of stable and growing economy that is poised to now basically absorb, you know, probably the largest, you know, sets of entry points in like the, you know, public market and IPO market than it's like ever seen before.

1:45:42

And then then obviously you know sort of feeding into like you know sort of liquidity into like the entire Silicon Valley you know sort of ecosystem.

1:45:48

Um what is that going to do?

1:45:51

I think it's only going to amplify some of these trends where it's like I think that you know it's going to be now more typical for companies you know right now it feels odd that there's a handful of companies that stay private past 100 billion.

1:45:59

past 100 billion. I think now it's going to be the default that you know companies stay private basically past 100 billion and like the size of these funds is going to like you know increase significantly because yeah your ability to deploy a $10 billion fund much more

1:46:11

viable when like you know your average entry point is at like 200 billion post >> um and you're you know expected to still be able to make like a three to 5x basically on you know top that because there's more you know regular you know sort of paths like that. >> Yeah. Um >> Yeah.

1:46:22

>> Yeah. Um >> do you think there's any do you think there's any uh risk or potential for regulation as as people realize that the returns you know from the private you know as as these companies are staying private longer if you're like excited about anthropic and you can't invest

1:46:41

until it's worth you know who knows what it goes out at like at some point I could imagine someone on the left saying like we need to ban companies from staying private this long because you're just letting the the wealthy kind of like suck up all the returns. And uh I

1:46:54

And uh I even saw Vlad from from Robin Hood posting earlier saying like >> we can't you know basically coming out in defense of uh retail and saying like we can't you know these companies can't just stay private forever.

1:47:07

And obviously he has very very incent all the incentives to like get these companies out so people can start uh yeah >> you know uh doing whatever they want to do.

1:47:17

But uh but I I could see something like that happening especially given that um >> it will be very interesting as like a chapter just uh I I I know someone who who runs like a pure play AI fund but they're not in XAI open AI or anthropic and so they're in some great names.

1:47:34

They're they they they they they got the trend right early, but they didn't like brand themselves.

1:47:37

And even some funds that don't have like major positions in one of them, at least they've aligned with one of them built a position, played the game, and like participated in that.

1:47:46

And I think once they all go out, everyone will see sort of the S1's and sort of know a little bit more about, you know, where the really elite firms landed in the AI boom. I don't know.

1:47:55

know. part of part of the space SpaceX S1 potentially going out before some of these other names then also having you know if you if there's a world where XAI gets rolled in and then it's like you have a a lab that that uh and a space company and a data center company that

1:48:10

you know historically has been profitable maybe obviously not on the XAI side but it's it's going to you know maybe get people to even be more aggressive in tearing apart some of these other S1s >> we should do uh we we should do Jared Isaacman and uh and and the space update. But first, I want your advice

1:48:25

But first, I want your advice for Patrick Collison.

1:48:28

He's interested in Miami.

1:48:30

What does it take for Patrick to have a great experience in Miami?

1:48:37

>> There is something a little surreal about like the sets of people right now tweeting about Miami were like the people probably like most strongly critiquing it in 2021.

1:48:44

And so there's just something about being like, huh, like maybe I was like, you know, like right idea, slightly wrong time, just needed to wait for like California not just to get hit with COVID, but become like, you know, communistic basically and start seizing property.

1:48:56

And that's going to be the thing that convinces people.

1:49:00

>> Um, >> on the Miami thing, what do you think about this idea of not moving Silicon Valley to Miami, but moving Sand Hill Road to Miami?

1:49:07

Like all the big GPS will be doiciled there.

1:49:10

And yes, if you're raising a big round, you'll probably go to Miami, go to someone's house, meet them in person.

1:49:16

But a lot of the investors who are not subject to that tax will be operating out of San Francisco.

1:49:22

A lot of the labs, a lot of the uh individual contributors, the academic institutions, like the you're not trying to move the entire network, but you're still embracing Miami as a important tech hub. >> Yeah.

1:49:34

I think if there's like something to be proud of in the time period where I feel like I contributed to Miami the most, you know, call it 21 through 24. Yeah.

1:49:39

I do think that um it you know established itself as like a fundraising destination. Absolutely.

1:49:43

Between like everybody from like you know Dan Senheim at D1, Ken Griffin from Citadel you know Peter spending a decent chunk of the time there etc.

1:49:51

time there etc. like you know has now very much so become a destination where yeah if you're raising a later stage round or you're even like a you know um not Peter level GP but like you know up and coming >> also also you have you have Keith Katherine uh Sachs like there were there were it wasn't just FF that like there

1:50:09

was a nice network emerging where you could go and take meetings with five different funds pretty quickly you know obviously that evolved but >> yeah I think it's just like it built a base that is now much easier to build on top of where like now you have this like you know sort of second wave that's happening because it's like California, you know, sort of regulation. I think

1:50:22

I think it's like clearly um you know, sort of cementing itself in and I think it's probably what Miami is best suited for anyways, right?

1:50:30

Like you know, you know, Francis Suarez would always say like look ultimately what we're best at is like the capital of capital and I think that is like you know you know >> that's one of our taglines we refer to as the capital but he can use it. It's fine.

1:50:44

Uh give us the update on Jared Jared Isaacman.

1:50:45

uh take us through how you process the news and what you're excited for in 2026.

1:50:52

>> Yeah, I mean he's obviously, you know, early in I think it's been like, you know, two weeks since, you know, confirmation.

1:50:55

Um uh there hasn't been any like super broad uh policy announcement yet yet.

1:51:00

Um but uh the place where he started to drop some news actually just been like via his Twitter profile, which has been a fun place to, you know, sort of follow along.

1:51:06

Um >> yeah, or X profile.

1:51:09

Uh probably my favorite one is um there's a program called Dragonfly um that NASA has been working on for a while, which is basically this um uh uh so the first time that we ever flew a helicopter on a um you know uh non Earth planet was on Mars um with Ingenuity I believe it was called um which is this helicopter that we got on Mars um sort of related to that.

1:51:29

It's you know different program but it's a program called Dragonfly where it's roughly like a small carsized vehicle that is meant to fly on Titan.

1:51:38

Um, Titan is one of the Oh god, and I should not mess it up, but it's one of the uh what's it called? Um, moons of Saturn.

1:51:44

Either Saturn or Jupiter.

1:51:44

You know, I'm a big enough space that I should know.

1:51:48

But what's cool about it um is Titan both has four times the density of atmosphere as Earth does, but also basically seven times less gravity.

1:51:56

Um, and so with the combination of the two, you basically make it like 30 times easier to fly.

1:52:01

Um, and so you and I could literally just like be on the surface of Titan and literally basically just like wear some wings and like if you just ran like relatively quickly, like you don't have to be Usain Bolt, like even at our level of fitness, basically just go and flap our wings and like we would basically start flying and with like a little bit of like exoskeleton or anything like that, you could 100% like fly as much as you want.

1:52:19

>> Um, and so Dragonfly is this like small car- sized like flying car basically with like a nuclear battery on board.

1:52:26

Uh, the program had been like, you know, definitely a little bit behind schedule, behind budget, etc.

1:52:29

But like, you know, Jared basically came out very publicly on Twitter being like, "This is one of my favorite programs.

1:52:33

This is the type of like bleeding edge science that like NASA should be doing."

1:52:37

And so, I do love that he's kind of leaning into like, you know, I don't know, you know, my dream job would absolutely like the one thing that would make me like upend my entire life and quit everything would be like if I was offered NASA administrator, I think I would do that immediately.

1:52:47

And um if that was, you know, if I was in the job right now, like yeah, I think the thing that we should be doing is like NASA should be doing just like the crazy bleeding edge like stuff that just like no private company's going to do.

1:52:58

Like a like flying car on Titan is just like >> objectively like insane.

1:53:01

But like there's a world where they're going to be able to basically like live stream, you know, or like stream basically like video of this like car going around Titan and like, you know, flying through dunes and stuff like that.

1:53:10

It's like so so, you know, sort of cool.

1:53:11

Um, and then on the flip side, you know, you know, they've like figured out how to just like, you know, really focus on the commercial private market for like the things that are much more near-term and what the commercial industry is capable of.

1:53:23

Um, so I don't know if you guys saw, but I tweeted this that, you know, basically this year we're going to have four separate totally net new commercial lunar landers, basically uh land on the moon this year.

1:53:31

It's um Intuitive Machines has one. Um Astrobotic has one.

1:53:37

Uh Blue Origin um has one.

1:53:37

And SpaceX, it's not SpaceX.

1:53:42

They don't actually have a plan um for [snorts] um this year. >> Firefly. Duh. Firefly. Firefly.

1:53:49

>> Um uh and you know, for it's worth the like Blue Origin, you know, Mark One lander is like the size of like it's like a two-story house.

1:53:54

It's like it's going to be the biggest man-made object that we've like ever landed on the moon.

1:53:59

And I will say like um you know until a quarter ago I was probably a little more skeptical that like you know Blue Origin was actually going to like land this thing.

1:54:06

Now it's like you know you see that New Glenn is actually like launching landing.

1:54:08

It's like man they maybe have like really turned a corner on like you know their engineering and systems you design >> but the the cool thing is like even if Blue Origin eps it up there's also like three other companies that are aggressively pursuing it are getting like paid basically like commercial revenues to go do this.

1:54:21

revenues to go do this. And to me it's just like this like breakout year that I still think is like I don't know underpaid attention to and under discussed like you know this is the analogy that I tried to provide is like this kind of feels like 1968 where it's

1:54:32

just like you have like the you know basically year before where it's like I don't know if you know but in February uh we're going to be sending uh humans basically back to the moon for the first time not on the surface but to like orbit the moon. So like that's going to

1:54:41

So like that's going to the moon four different landers basically on the moon.

1:54:44

It's like all in preparation for if that all goes well, >> there's like a really, you know, decent likelihood that like next year we both have like boots on the moon and like 10 landers landing per year on the moon and dropping off robots and supplies and like that, which is just like, I don't know, 15-year-old Delian would just be like, so >> yeah, so excited.

1:55:03

>> We got to sponsor the biggest moonlanding conspiracy theorist for a trip. They got to go up there.

1:55:07

We got to just put him on the moon.

1:55:09

Uh, settle it once and for all.

1:55:11

Jord's getting the tin foil hat on. He thinks that it's not.

1:55:14

>> What uh what kind of evidence would would you need to see from these missions to kind of finally >> finally believe it?

1:55:20

[laughter] >> I'm kidding.

1:55:22

Uh I put on the >> I put on the I put on the tinfoil hat for another thing.

1:55:26

Uh uh uh Trump's been going pretty hard on fentinel trying to stop it from coming into the country.

1:55:32

At the same time, you've seen an explosion of Chinese peptides.

1:55:36

Do you have any concern that this is a this is all just a big scop and we're trying to get a generation of people in the United States to just inject themselves tinfoil in the peptides chemicals.

1:55:50

People don't realize you were saying you've lost a bunch of weight just by being a Chad. No peptides needed.

1:55:55

I get a little concerned because every it feels like in the last two weeks you have everybody's like I guess I got to be doing peptides and it's like this like the the source and the purity of these things matters so much.

1:56:06

You're injecting these things into your blood.

1:56:10

This is not something that you just want to mess around and find some random Chinese website and just hope that they're the test results that they have on the site are are actually real. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

1:56:20

I will say um you know I uh you know regret taking the you know sort of uh you know co vaccine and not sure that like you know for my um you know age and health um it was the you know right risk reward.

1:56:31

I am definitely you know not yet ready to start injecting my body into a bunch of peptides.

1:56:35

who knows, you know, they've got some nanomarkers on there where the Chinese release a virus that's like specific to those peptides and they've designed it the um I'll provide kind of like an example of this about how paranoid the Chinese are.

1:56:45

So the tin foil for like Xiinping, >> he had this meeting in uh 2023 with Biden in San Francisco.

1:56:51

If you guys remember when like they came and like cleaned everything up for the Xin visit and there's a bunch of like memes around that. >> Yeah.

1:56:56

>> Yeah. um after a like sit down meeting that they had like I think it was like down in like Monterey or something like that, a like Chinese official after the meeting came by and sprayed basically um everything that like Xi Jinping had touched um everything that like you know he put his lips on to like you know sort of drink um and uh the like you know US

1:57:14

official basically asked him like hey like you know what is the thing that you just used or sprayed reasonable question to ask and it was a basically like a DNA degrader because they were so worried about the idea of like somebody in America having Xi Jinping's DNA and then potentially optimizing a virus that is like super specific and optimized for him. And so the Chinese

1:57:29

And so the Chinese are thinking about like you know DNA specific viruses >> makes you think like you know they might be designing DNA or like peptides basically you know viruses that are targeting you know sort of individuals or groups.

1:57:41

That is Yeah, that's crazy.

1:57:41

I was thinking I was thinking he was worried about us cloning Cinping and then he's fighting himself, a younger version of himself.

1:57:52

He's Oh no, the new US president.

1:57:52

I hate him, but he's my own.

1:57:57

>> They go to negotiation.

1:57:57

It's just she Trump and the younger [laughter] hund of them.

1:58:02

Hundreds of seed pings just storming the >> How how did you process uh the the the true social post about the military salary cap and uh and the budgets?

1:58:15

>> Just you know incredible to have him as the you know sort of commander-in-chief, somebody that's like actually willing to like you know crack the whip on this stuff where it's just like yeah like why should these companies be optimized for like shareholder returns and like executive salaries rather than like making sure that they're delivering for the war fighter.

1:58:28

the war fighter. And it's crazy to me that it's not like you know he like did the broad industry thing and then like I don't know if you saw but he like specifically then started calling out Rathon where he's just like they are not like responding to feedback they're not delivering enough and like you know went down to the individual logo and so um yeah I think it's like you know sort of you know yeah incredible piece of you

1:58:45

know sort of policy and like you know bold commanderin-chief and like um you know obviously >> I think right now it's an incredible post >> get into policy right >> yeah but but that's the nature of these things like we saw this with Intel

1:58:57

policy it could just be like you know you know subtle acquisition policy where it's just like I mean you know secretary headed can go implement you know who he wants to buy from without asking congress for permission. So

1:59:05

So >> oh that's a good point. Yeah. Okay.

1:59:06

So even if it's just directional it doesn't need to be new law.

1:59:10

It doesn't need to be an executive order to have an effect to have an effect on the stock price.

1:59:15

But of course the defense tech stocks actually mooned because the because the defense budget is potentially going up by 50%.

1:59:21

Do do you have a read on this how big this will be for the industry?

1:59:24

Is this a boon for startups in defense tech or do you think that you know the the the big primes of the world will just like quickly get their act together and then go hoover up a lot of that new budget?

1:59:36

Yeah, I mean I think there are going to be a set you know that are like leaning in like um you know one of the examples I think uh I think it's like BAE has like you know done a whole set of like startup collaborations where like I

1:59:45

think they have like a collaboration with like applied intuition on one of their ground vehicles like you know they have like a something with Merlin I want to say on like one of their like you know basically like airplanes that they

1:59:53

build I have to go back and look but I remember like reading through one of their like you know quarterly earnings calls or like you know maybe there's like a tectonic like the you know defense newsletter articulating like all

2:00:01

the various partnerships they had and it's like yeah they clearly recognizing like they have things that they're good They're make they're good at like making the ground vehicle and the frame around that and the wheels etc. They just like

2:00:09

They just like have a whole manufacturing line etc.

2:00:12

They're not as good at like like the avionics, the software, the automation, etc.

2:00:15

And so like they're leaning in on startups.

2:00:16

There's clearly primes like that that I think are like really leaning in and varied forward.

2:00:19

And then you have ones that like clearly seem to think like oh this is just like a total fad like you know the like you know Trump administration isn't going to really push on this.

2:00:27

And so yeah, I think it's like a huge opportunity for both the primes that are leaning in and appreciating that they need to like actually be much more aggressive, you know, invest more in R&D, partner more with startups.

2:00:37

I think it's great for like obviously like the neopimes.

2:00:40

>> And it's just there's a huge opportunity where it's like I think if you add up basically like SpaceX, Andreal, everybody, all the neopimes we found in the last, you know, basically like, you know, 15 years, they still represent basically like less than like 1% of the total, you know, basically D budget.

2:00:51

And so there's still a ton of upside from some of the big guys basically stumbling. Um, so yeah.

2:00:55

Yeah, I think uh yeah, the Rathons of the World are definitely not reacting as well, but it's not to say that like every prime is getting taught caught totally flatfooted.

2:01:04

Like some are definitely, you know, reacting to this new environment. >> Yeah. Well, it's 1 p. m. Jordy. Anything else? >> This was great.

2:01:10

>> Thank you so much for taking the time as always.

2:01:12

>> Only 179 more appearances to go.

2:01:15

[laughter] >> 179 more to go, baby. 99 beers on the wall. >> Let's go.

2:01:18

Have a great rest of your day. Happy voice. See you.

2:01:20

[screaming] Up next, we have Arun Gupta, the founder and CEO at Stickerbox. Happy Co.

2:01:25

Uh the uh Creativity First AI product went viral over the break and I'm excited to talk to him.

2:01:34

He is in the reream waiting room.

2:01:36

Let's bring him in to the TVPN Ultra down in my room. How are you doing? >> Good to have you.

2:01:41

[clears throat] >> Hey, great to be here.

2:01:44

>> Uh could you please uh kick us off since this is the first time on the show with an introduction on yourself and the company and just some of the background here? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Arun.

2:01:54

I'm the co-founder of Hapico along with my good friend Bob Whitney.

2:01:56

Um, previously I was in Y Cominator back in 2009.

2:02:02

Uh, same batch of Strike. >> Amazing. >> Yeah.

2:02:08

I actually dropped out of Yale um in the middle of my junior year um and six months later was lucky enough to get in, talk to Paul Graham um on a weekly basis. It was amazing.

2:02:18

Okay, let's let's actually just dig in there since we have some time.

2:02:22

What were you building in 2009?

2:02:23

What was the mood on the ground at YC in 2020 in 2009?

2:02:27

>> So, we were actually one of the very first hardware startups.

2:02:28

Um, a lot of it was, you know, Reddit had just happened, Airbnb right before us.

2:02:32

Um, you know, there were a lot of B2B stuff, a lot of consumer things.

2:02:38

Uh, we built a personal sleep tracker.

2:02:41

So, it was a wristband that you wore while you slept.

2:02:42

Um, and it used uh sleep science called to track your sleep cycles and wake you up at the right time in the morning.

2:02:50

So back when Fitbit and Draw Bone were like doing so early. So early >> so early.

2:02:56

[laughter] H I mean it must be had been painful to see Aura and and Whoop and basically have have like the right have the the right idea and and what what >> Yeah. Yeah. What was the blocker?

2:03:08

Was it supply chain or distribution?

2:03:09

Like I mean I I went through YC in 2012 or first company, first idea, same thing where a lot of it like wound up getting built by someone else years later, but uh what was your experience like if you were to do the postmortem?

2:03:24

>> Honestly, for us it was big data.

2:03:24

So back in 2009, everybody who worked on big data worked in biotech or worked on Wall Street.

2:03:30

So you couldn't really hire them away unless you had a ton of money.

2:03:34

And all the money is in data analysis, right?

2:03:37

So like Aura, they're analyzing tons and tons of data points and giving you all this information about how you can live better, eat better, be more healthy, and we just didn't have that.

2:03:47

So the business really flies when you have a subscription that works, but without big data analysis, it's really hard to build a subscription that works. >> Yeah, that's crazy.

2:03:54

I remember 2009 was like the dawn of Hadoop and like distributed systems that you had to orchestrate.

2:04:00

It was like it was like doing a multi-raining LLM AI infrastructure.

2:04:04

You couldn't just be like put all the data in one database and like Google handles it or AWS handles it or MongoDB handles it like you >> databases became a thing. >> Yeah. Yeah.

2:04:14

All these we take them so much for granted now but back then it was such a pain to orchestrate anything.

2:04:21

You're you're you're running like true infrastructure just to do like basic stuff by now by by by today's terms. Uh fascinating. >> Yeah.

2:04:29

So so so what led you to start this company?

2:04:33

When did you start this company?

2:04:34

What were you doing in the interim?

2:04:36

>> Yeah, so uh after my YC company um gracefully uh shut down, um I started another company called gra. com.

2:04:42

Um and GRA was basically >> You started Gra.

2:04:47

>> Wait, the fashion company.

2:04:49

>> That's so that's so cool.

2:04:49

I didn't Somehow we do a lot of We don't always have time to do uh we don't always have time to to do research, [laughter] but on your printout Grail didn't make it in.

2:05:00

Uh, I've used GRAS uh for a decade now. >> That's amazing.

2:05:05

>> Uh, so >> yeah, I started GRA in 2013 in my bedroom in San Francisco. Uh, >> yeah.

2:05:12

>> Were you a collector of uh like fashion items? Yeah. >> Big time. Big time.

2:05:18

>> What were you into back then?

2:05:18

What was the first product?

2:05:20

>> Did you ever wear chrome hearts to an investor pitch?

2:05:22

[laughter] >> No, I I I never wore it to an investor pitch.

2:05:28

Uh when I went to see the investors, I was wearing more Laura Biana, right?

2:05:33

You know, that's the vibe.

2:05:35

>> And that's still like what, five years beforeh starts uh introducing it to the valley via the All-In podcast. That's that's fantastic. >> Yeah, exactly.

2:05:42

No, back in the day it was really about like work wear and like raw denim.

2:05:45

Uh and then it became really big through collabs.

2:05:48

So there was like an H&M Bond collab that was really big.

2:05:52

There was the Yeezys that dropped.

2:05:52

There was all the Nikes that dropped.

2:05:54

And then Supreme obviously had their massive moment.

2:05:58

Um, but no, I was really into like all the OG Raph Simmons stuff.

2:06:00

Um, actually if you remember ASAP Rocky did a video, I forget what the song was called, like please don't touch my raft.

2:06:07

And in that video, he's wearing there's like three of my personal collection pieces in that video. >> That's crazy.

2:06:13

What was so um what uh >> uh what what was the what was the like the customer acquisition funnel at that time?

2:06:23

And I'm interested to hear how I've heard a lot of founders talk about uh you know if they got started years ago they were maybe doing like uh Minecraft bots.

2:06:32

A lot of people were doing like uh sniping for sneaker drops sneaker bots. Uh did that play a role?

2:06:40

Was there an automated portion or was it mostly organic?

2:06:42

Like walk me through some of the trends that were happening at the time with Grail.

2:06:45

And then I promise we will get to sticker box.

2:06:48

That's why I want to talk to you.

2:06:48

But this is >> it's the most exciting.

2:06:50

Sticker box is the most exciting part.

2:06:52

But yeah, um really it was all about community honestly.

2:06:56

From day one it was about community and all the way through until the end.

2:06:59

Um because we were like very heavily focused on men's versus women's.

2:07:03

So it was about 7030 men's versus women's and at the time in 2013 people were like do men even wear clothes?

2:07:07

And I'm like yes they're people obviously they wear clothes.

2:07:11

Um but men's fashion was like not a thing at all.

2:07:13

Um so we were able to sort of like ride that wave.

2:07:17

Um, and see sort of like >> riding the Instagram wave in some in some ways.

2:07:22

Like that had to be be the biggest catalyst. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

2:07:26

I talked I used to talk a lot about how people when you were like, "Hey, what are you into?"

2:07:28

people would be like, "Oh, I'm into like Nirvana or like Radio Head."

2:07:31

And then when you're like, "What are you into?"

2:07:33

They're like, "I'm into Noah or like Supreme or like Jill, something like that, right?"

2:07:36

So, it's like your personal aesthetic became more defined by the clothes you wore because we became such a visual society through Instagram rather than the music you listen to.

2:07:45

um which was more maybe of like a MySpace um you know OG uh type thing >> and there and and you guys had uh people building real businesses on the platform.

2:07:55

I I have uh my my uh oldest friend uh teamed up with a college buddy of mine un unrelated to me and started selling on GRA ended up building uh their own brand called No Maintenance that uh that that's now you know thriving.

2:08:11

Uh but they got their start just reselling.

2:08:13

That's how they made generated the revenue that they needed to actually do their own inventory run.

2:08:19

So, uh, >> made their own boutique.

2:08:20

A lot of fashion designers, too.

2:08:21

I think Reese Cooper probably uh, you know, started out on there's a there's a viewer in the chat that says, "I bought my first pair of Rick Owens Dunks from Grail. This is so cool." Salute. >> That's awesome. >> That's amazing.

2:08:36

Okay, >> that's like seven grand.

2:08:36

[laughter] >> Probably still holding them.

2:08:38

So then, yeah, take me through the the idea to get back in the arena for the third time.

2:08:44

Uh, when did you start the company?

2:08:46

Was this post chat GPT moment?

2:08:49

I mean, I I I I feel like we've talked about this in the show, like there is such an opportunity for interesting businesses here in the age of AI, but doing >> and I was always saying everybody wanted to build these AI hardware devices for adults.

2:09:01

I'm like, I have a phone.

2:09:01

It is an AI hardware device.

2:09:03

They don't market it that way, but I mean Apple kind of does, but I was like, I don't need another device that like helps me order Door Dash, right?

2:09:13

>> But my kid I don't want my kids to have I don't want my have my kids to have an iPad, but creating a product.

2:09:17

I always thought like if you made a product that let just let kids ask questions.

2:09:23

>> Well, the Rabbit R1 the Rabbit R1 came out and they used Teenage Engineering.

2:09:26

It's this beautiful orange package. Very cool.

2:09:28

But a lot of the reviewers who were adults were like >> just comparing it to their >> comparing to my iPhone and and and and a and I never got around to actually buying one and giving it to my four-year-old.

2:09:38

But I was thinking that like it feels like a great kids toy.

2:09:39

And then there is still the narrative of like great technology starters toys.

2:09:43

So I always thought it was a great market to go after.

2:09:46

But what was your inspiration? >> Yeah.

2:09:48

So I can take zero credit um for creating the sticker box.

2:09:51

Uh it was all my co-founder Robert Whitney.

2:09:53

my co-founder Robert Whitney. uh he is the original inventor um along with his son um who helped him basically co-develop the device uh and basically the story is pretty classic uh you know son was like hey I want a coloring book of tigers eating ice cream and he was like I don't have that but I can just

2:10:10

print it off you know an image generator and then you can color it and then he's like okay great I'm going to print that and then color it and then he's like now I want lizards riding skateboards and then he prints lizards riding skateboards u and then you see this magic moment go off in the kid's head and they're like Wait, I can say anything. And like for us, like we're a

2:10:25

And like for us, like we're a little bit more jaded, I think.

2:10:28

You know, we're like, "Oh, yeah, AI, LLM, it all works."

2:10:31

For a kid, they're like, "I just came up with this idea, and not only do I see it, now I can hold it in my hand and color it." >> Yeah.

2:10:38

I was I was I was uh w with my three-year-old yesterday using an image model, and he said in his words, he was like, "It's like magic." >> Yeah. No.

2:10:47

And and and I think the physical aspect is is just a it's so important.

2:10:52

important. uh when I I I use image generators with my son and I have AirPrint and I will print the photo even though I'm running out of ink left and right uh because the you know full page color photo it just goes out really quickly but it's amazing and it's way different than just being like oh here's a Gibli of your toys uh to be like

2:11:13

here's a thing that you can put on your wall you can enjoy >> physical representation is or or color it in like it's a coloring book now like there's so many cool things you can do on your water bottle But I think that's what my co-founder really understood is that this physical representation, these physical stickers are just what's so powerful for children. And it really is

2:11:30

And it really is >> such an imagination accelerant.

2:11:33

You know, it's like these ideas, they they're in my head, but then once they come out of my head onto paper, he was like, "Wow, this really transforms what they're able to do."

2:11:42

>> And there's two there's two sides to this.

2:11:44

There's like the cynical be a good parent, no screen time, uh like print stuff out.

2:11:50

that's better from like fighting the iPad cake thing. And that's true.

2:11:53

There's a lot of evidence of that. That's a good thing.

2:11:55

But it come you come to it with like a negativity of like I'm avoiding a bad outcome.

2:11:57

So I feel like I'm taking my vegetables.

2:12:00

But I just think that like there there are there's like a lindy like beautiful thing about tech texture and physical things. >> Yeah.

2:12:09

We we have like an old uh like it's not a Polaroid camera, but it's this really >> bad digital camera that then will print out kind of pictures on it.

2:12:15

So I what one thing I like about sticker box is it's not like these kind of products haven't existed.

2:12:21

It's just like integrating new technology into it and it's a form factor >> and that's the right like my co-founder brought the product to my house. He had already built it.

2:12:30

He had in a cardboard box.

2:12:32

>> It looked awesome and I look at it in one second and I'm like it's all about how you put this together, right?

2:12:36

It's like not like these things didn't exist.

2:12:40

It's all about your product sense and basically like how you intuitively were like this is the right kind of product for a kid.

2:12:46

Um autonomous self, you know, serve stickers, lasting physical pieces.

2:12:53

Uh it's pretty magical stuff.

2:12:53

But we like to say, you know, that the um it's an AI product and like you said, AI for kids and AI hardware for kids is amazing, more magical.

2:13:01

But we like to say that the AI itself disappears behind the magic of the device.

2:13:05

Because it's really not about the AI, it's about the idea.

2:13:09

Like the idea is the hero, the sticker is the hero.

2:13:11

It's not the device or the screen that are the hero.

2:13:13

It's the kid's imagination that becomes the hero of the story.

2:13:18

>> So talk about the prototype.

2:13:18

It sounds like your co-founder did all the hard work. He's the workhorse.

2:13:22

You're the show pony apparently.

2:13:23

[laughter] We'll give him all the credit in the world.

2:13:27

>> But it but but it it seems like he was a tinkerer, hacker, was able to whip something up pretty quickly, I imagine.

2:13:32

Like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, like are there wires everywhere?

2:13:35

And then and then do you go to a co-acker or a manufacturer?

2:13:39

Uh is this something that's like pretty turnkey and there's a solid ecosystem around or was it a long uh multi-year process to actually get the first one made with a high quality?

2:13:50

It was difficult, you know, because like these things are thermal printers, right?

2:13:53

So, he came with like the idea fully formed and like a lot of it already baked, but to turn from a prototype to a production product that, you know, >> our Christmas load was insane.

2:14:02

You know, just the amount of kids unboxing on Christmas and then hitting the servers like he was stressed >> like, you know, rightly so.

2:14:09

Um, but to get there, it's difficult because when you think about it, this thermal printer, it's meant to print receipts.

2:14:15

It's meant to print text on receipts.

2:14:17

It's not meant to print images.

2:14:17

And if you look at the fidelity of the images that's being happening, it's like I think something like 300 dpi like on the image, it looks beautiful, you know, and like that is sort of like a little bit of our secret sauce is, hey, we're able to make these images look really great through a combination of many different things.

2:14:33

Um, but that's something that he was able to do really, really well.

2:14:34

Um, and something that we had to work with uh custom honestly with the factories um to try to get them to to make it happen.

2:14:43

So, >> And you're sold out. You're sold out.

2:14:43

I I just bought one while you were uh uh here with us.

2:14:47

Thank thank uh thanks to Shopify.

2:14:49

It makes it really easy to check out, but uh it's going to get delivered in February.

2:14:52

It's been selling like crazy.

2:14:54

You guys are just trying to keep this thing in in stock. >> Yeah.

2:14:57

Um so we had a ton of units available for Christmas shipping.

2:15:00

Those went in like two weeks or less.

2:15:03

Um and then we just kept selling.

2:15:06

Like we had the December 28th ship date.

2:15:07

Those sold out in like a few days.

2:15:10

The January 6th ship date sold out in a few days.

2:15:12

Then we had a February 17th trip date and I was like February 17th.

2:15:16

It's like not even um it's like like a month and a half away.

2:15:20

Those sold those all sold out.

2:15:21

Now we're in February 24th.

2:15:21

So can't keep this thing in stock.

2:15:24

Um but we're uh we're ramping up manufacturing.

2:15:28

We're going to do our best so everybody can get one.

2:15:29

So, is the 2026 strategy really get solid on the supply chain so you can scale a ton and then are you focused on like ruthless ramping of digital ads or do are you more likely to go let's get Walmart, let's get Target because I can imagine it's selling really well on both but you probably don't want to do both as an early stage startup at the same time.

2:15:54

You want to be really have your ducks in the row in a row, right? >> Yeah.

2:15:57

It's sort of a classic trap that startups get into where Target is like, "Yeah, we'll buy a million units or we'll buy 200,000 units."

2:16:03

And then they sit on the shelves because you don't have the marketing to support them.

2:16:06

So, you kind of have to ramp up appropriately.

2:16:08

Um, so for us right now really, it's like we've got this core image to sticker generation loop down cold.

2:16:16

Um, where do we go from there?

2:16:16

You know, kids are making characters.

2:16:18

Like some kids have this like stickman and Cappy Barrett character and they go on adventures over and over again.

2:16:24

So, like let's name that character and then reuse it.

2:16:28

Let's let them send that character to their friends box.

2:16:29

Let's let them upload their own likeness into the box and say, "Hey, let me do me and my mom on a picnic in the moon or like me riding a dinosaur or what have you."

2:16:37

And like basically what these kids are doing is what we feel like is we're basically enabling the next generation of storytellers, right?

2:16:45

the next Spielberg, the next Ryan Cougler, the next Miyazaki.

2:16:49

They're growing up with the cigar box as their like imagination accelerant and it's letting them tell these like little graphic novels or little stories where they're reusing these characters and they're basically developing their own IP.

2:16:58

Um, so leaning more into that and creating more features for them.

2:17:02

And honestly, I think the other thing that we are just so happy about is how it brings families together cuz it's for kids obviously, but like it's really fun to use, you know?

2:17:12

And like the nice thing is is like when it's like I'm like at the thing at the table, you know, and like the dad is like in the background and like hovering and then he's like, you know, let me do one.

2:17:21

And then like, you know, the uncle or the mom or the cousin are like all coming together and they're like, oh, you did that.

2:17:26

Let me try to remix your dragon and make it like a metal dragon.

2:17:30

Let me make your metal dragon breathe fire.

2:17:32

Let me make it breathe fire in a volcano.

2:17:33

Um, so it really brings everybody together.

2:17:35

So, I think focusing more on these sort of like whole family experiences as well as the single player sort of like experience with the individual kid as well is something that we're uh my co-founder is really focused on.

2:17:47

Um it's something he really believes passionately in is uh using to bring people together and as a really positive activity for parents and kids uh to do.

2:17:56

>> What have you guys done on the on the p like on on the actual material side?

2:18:00

I know you know people are very afraid of receipts.

2:18:05

I don't I personally not >> put out a post about seats.

2:18:07

I saw you guys have avoided like BPA and BPS, but maybe talk about some of the decision-m there.

2:18:16

>> Yeah, >> this was another thing that was really difficult.

2:18:18

Um, so BPA and BPS are uh obviously a hot button topic, but if you produce paper, thermal paper uh and you test it, often there are trace amounts of BPA and BPS in the paper.

2:18:30

Uh, and for us that wasn't good enough.

2:18:33

You know, I was like, just because it's below the California Proposition 65 limit doesn't mean that it's, you know, BPA or BPA. Completely free. >> Are not safety. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Exactly.

2:18:44

And for us, it's like it's a kids product.

2:18:46

It's safety from the ground up.

2:18:47

Everything from the images that are generated to everything that happens with the device.

2:18:50

So, you can touch all these stickers. There is no BPA, no BPS.

2:18:53

We tested in batches from the factory.

2:18:56

It was really difficult to do.

2:18:59

It actually delayed our launch by a full four or five weeks.

2:19:01

We could have launched four or five weeks earlier if we were willing to accept sort of like this trace element of BPA uh BPS in the paper, but we were like, "No, we like refused to release this."

2:19:13

>> That's going to be a good that's going to be a good angle because I imagine you guys are already getting copied by a bunch of different manufacturers. >> Knockoffs.

2:19:20

>> And it's like, yeah, you can use the knockoffs, but are you there's you know the kids.

2:19:23

Uh talk about safety with regard to image generation.

2:19:26

Obviously, some of these engineers go crazy.

2:19:31

>> Get just fair warning.

2:19:32

>> Put that dragon in a bikini.

2:19:32

Uh, let's not have that happen.

2:19:34

Uh, we want the dragon breathing fire.

2:19:36

I want to know about what models you like, how model agnostic you are, because I imagine that if you even if you just change the model to something better, even if the style looks better, you're like, well, that doesn't look like the dragon I'm used to generating.

2:19:49

So, there's some sort of like lock in there.

2:19:51

At the same time, you might be optimizing for cost.

2:19:53

How are you thinking about the software side?

2:19:55

Yeah, I think you're hitting the nail on the head there.

2:19:57

Um, and for us it's like it's really a product for kids, right?

2:20:01

And I think Chat GBT when you do image generation, it wants to make everything look sexy.

2:20:05

Um, that's kind of the bias, right?

2:20:07

You even upload your own photo.

2:20:09

It's like it wants to make you look super buff like you're a superhero.

2:20:13

>> Well, that's because I put that in my in my prompt by default.

2:20:14

It has to or else it's it's a But yes, it looks very like polished, refined, smooth skin.

2:20:19

It looks it's a glow up filter.

2:20:21

There's something going on there.

2:20:23

Uh, No, for us the systems matter.

2:20:28

>> Safety is number one, you know.

2:20:28

So, it's a it's basically a multiffactor system.

2:20:33

So, we have a patent uh for the sticker box device itself, but we're actually also working on a patent right now for safety in the sticker box system.

2:20:38

And it goes all the way through from the text all the way through to after the image is generated.

2:20:44

So, when you say the text, we analyze the text for safety. We remove bad words.

2:20:48

Uh we analyze the prompt for, you know, how likely it is to generate something safe or unsafe.

2:20:54

Then we go through an enhancement process where the sticker is steered towards being something geared for a child.

2:20:59

So it's actually pre-written in some different ways.

2:21:01

Um, in order to do that, then we generate the image.

2:21:04

And I'm oversimplifying a little bit here.

2:21:07

And then even after we generate the image, then there's post image generation checks.

2:21:10

And those post image generation checks are on >> I don't even know how many variables, right?

2:21:15

There's uh, you know, all the sorts of bad things like hate speech and nudity and violence and, you know, all sorts of different things.

2:21:21

And we basically have all these confidence intervals and scores that go into it.

2:21:25

But it's this huge system like you think about airplanes, right?

2:21:28

And airplanes are like this complicated system of like many many many checks overlapping with each other.

2:21:33

And that's what creates like the robust safety system.

2:21:35

Uh it's a similar system here, right?

2:21:37

Where we have many many many checks at basically every area of the process because the last thing we want um is for a kid to get something that's unsafe or for a parent to question it.

2:21:47

Like for us, our big mission is what if AI were built for kids?

2:21:53

And I think that the boogeyman in our heads is that social media was not built for kids.

2:21:57

Social media was built for adults.

2:21:59

>> Was not built for kids.

2:22:01

>> Grock was not built for kids.

2:22:01

I mean, AI is not built for kids.

2:22:03

It's built for businesses, right?

2:22:05

It's built for adults and it's built for businesses.

2:22:06

But for us, we're like, what if we could just reimagine AI completely and just say, okay, what if this was built for kids?

2:22:13

And that's why we didn't put a chatbot in a teddy bear.

2:22:15

That's why we made a sticker image generator, right?

2:22:17

Which completely different direction.

2:22:20

>> So, talk about uh latency with all those checks.

2:22:23

Uh I imagine none of this is happening on the device.

2:22:26

You're going to the Wi-Fi to the cloud to your servers.

2:22:30

Uh hydrating the text with an LLM, that's not super fast.

2:22:33

Then generating an image isn't super fast.

2:22:35

Then sending that back down to the box and printing it, that's not super fast.

2:22:38

Uh how fast do you think you can get this?

2:22:42

Do you want to do it on device at some point?

2:22:46

Um, do you how and and then what user experience sort of tricks are you using to make the latency and the lag tolerable? >> Yeah. Um, so great questions.

2:22:54

Um, it's actually really fast.

2:22:58

Um, mostly because of the work that my co-founder Bob and his great engineering team have done.

2:23:02

So I think the top >> Yeah, Bob is >> Bob Whitney.

2:23:09

Yeah, >> Bob the Builder. Let's go. Incredible.

2:23:12

Incredible nominative determinism.

2:23:13

[laughter] >> I wonder who you're going.

2:23:16

>> I mean, there's not a better moniker, honestly.

2:23:19

>> I think the sticker I might be I might be off by a couple a second here or two, but I think time to sticker is like six to eight seconds.

2:23:25

So, you push the get the sticker in like six to eight seconds and that's with all of the content moderation, everything you do there.

2:23:30

But one of the nice tricks that you mentioned, right? >> Oh, yeah.

2:23:35

And because you're not doing like chatgbt level HD 4K, it's probably faster to actually generate the image. >> Exactly.

2:23:44

>> But I think the other thing that you said that's really interesting is once you say it, right?

2:23:47

You say it and then it hears it and then it displays your text on the screen and that's a nice moment that's an intermediary moment that makes it feel not as slow, right?

2:23:57

Or it makes it feel a lot faster because you're like, I just said this thing.

2:23:59

Whoa, there it is on the screen. I'm reading it back.

2:24:01

the words and then you're probably >> and then there's a pregnant pause basically and then the image comes in.

2:24:09

But that moment between saying what you have seeing it on the screen and that like like just slight delay to when the image comes out cuz it appears on the screen and then prints basically at the same time.

2:24:20

It's like a lot of suspense and it's basically like relief that happens kind of in your head, right?

2:24:26

Like it's like when a joke lands, you know?

2:24:27

It's like you have something happening happening happening and then there's the punch line.

2:24:30

So there's this sort of tension that's built up like in the process and then it lands and it's just it feels really good because you're like, "Oh my god, I said that and now it's real." >> That's very cool.

2:24:41

>> Uh you have a background at Grailed.

2:24:41

Can we expect any sticker box fashion [laughter] partnerships?

2:24:46

I want the Bayga weave version of the sticker box.

2:24:50

I want the chrome hearts.

2:24:50

I want, you know, [laughter] full >> full.

2:24:55

>> I want something I can, you know, leave on on the table. Yeah.

2:24:56

Well, I mean I I am interested like do you do you see yourself more uh expanding vertically or horizontally?

2:25:03

Do you think you might be like a multi-product toy company or more of like a camera and printer company that maybe uh winds up making a device that's delightful for an analog photographer who goes on photography trips and wants to print things quickly?

2:25:21

Uh do you see yourself focusing on a particular demographic over time or expanding one way or the other?

2:25:27

Yeah, I think right now we're really focused on AI for kids.

2:25:29

So, like what does that look?

2:25:31

And in terms of like multi-devices, we obviously have tons of ideas, you know, um it's a really fun space to be in, but I think that there's just so much gold inside of this creation machine. Yeah. Right.

2:25:41

So, it's like kids maybe not might not be the best illustrators.

2:25:45

They may not be able to be animators, right?

2:25:47

They might be able to use Photoshop or or whatever super well, but they can still bring their ideas to life with the AI.

2:25:51

They can still print them.

2:25:53

So, I think focusing more on creativity and investing more in the sticker box is definitely where we're going for the time being. >> 3D printer.

2:26:01

>> Do a do a do a two billion do a $2 billion training run >> for your own model?

2:26:07

>> Yeahve cost that much. Give them two billion.

2:26:10

Do you think you'll wind up fine-tuning and running a custom model or some open- source uh like fine-tuned on some optimized hardware or or the cost doesn't matter?

2:26:20

Definitely this year my uh my co-founder Bob is very interested in creating our own model.

2:26:25

So definitely from the ground up on our own model with our own training data because when you talk about safety that is the number one holy grail you know not to put a pun on it.

2:26:34

Um like you want the training data to be completely safe and that way the model can't generate anything that's totally >> and that's what really matters.

2:26:40

And then in terms of in terms of like the business model, obviously it feels like razor and blade model because you're buying the box, but then you're also buying ink and paper and that's how you make money or do you have a subscription as well? >> Yeah.

2:26:52

So there's no ink, it's all thermal printing, so it's all just black and white.

2:26:55

Um, so there are the paper refills.

2:26:57

Um, but we want people to use the device, so we're kind of just pushing as much paper at people as possible.

2:27:03

It's uh >> very very cheap.

2:27:05

Um, or like you know, we're not we're not trying to make a lot of money off of it right now.

2:27:08

We want people to use the device.

2:27:09

Um, so you get uh let's see, 200 stickers for $6.

2:27:12

Um, which is pretty good.

2:27:16

Um, and free shipping on all of those stickers for everybody who's watching.

2:27:20

So if you buy stickers off our site, it ships for free and you can buy as many as you want.

2:27:24

>> Um, and then yeah, it we're trying to put more features in.

2:27:26

So like let's say like you have a box and I have a box.

2:27:28

I send you my tiger character, my tiger astronaut, and you use my tiger astronaut in your box and maybe we make a story together and my tiger astronaut and your wizard go into the castle and then we go underwater or we do these things.

2:27:42

things. So like basically creating more features for people to create together for them to create more with each other and just do more sort of like more ideas and more um more more intellectual property and more content basically creation sort of

2:27:58

>> Ken in the X chat says what about licensing deals would would you ever do >> we're joking about Supreme and Chrome parts but Disney and stuff that's >> they've got a year one email you okay >> yeah one year exclusive >> arnappo.com com stickerbox. com. >> Yeah.

2:28:14

I mean I mean uh the the uh uh what's it called?

2:28:17

The the Yodo player has a bunch of uh cards that you can buy that have specific stories, licensed uh music, licensed uh short stories that are read aloud.

2:28:27

And I could see some sort of partnership there being super lucrative where you could buy this pack and then be able to generate this type of character.

2:28:34

That sounds >> that's exactly what we're thinking.

2:28:36

Sticker packs of parent companion app.

2:28:38

You unlock Teen Mut Ninja Turtles. You unlock Hello Kitty.

2:28:40

you unlock >> whatever you want.

2:28:43

Um, and then honestly, let kids create their own stuff, right?

2:28:46

If kids create their own dinosaur superhero, let them sell that sticker pack, right?

2:28:50

And then other kids can download it as well. >> That's exciting.

2:28:54

>> But yeah, licensing it would be a huge play because it's super fun.

2:28:57

>> I want to see Sticker Box Millionaires, eight-year-olds [laughter] that just >> I mean, Gra had this ecosystem, too. Uh, fundraising news. I want to hit the gong.

2:29:05

Give us the fundraising news. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.

2:29:07

So, we raised $7 million.

2:29:08

Did that go >> for the kids? >> For the kids. >> I'm so glad. >> Always for the kids. We do it for the kids. But yeah, $7 million.

2:29:18

Uh Maveron, who is behind Love Every which is another Monasuri kids product. They were investor.

2:29:26

Um and then Beth Ferrer, sorry, we got we had Jerry Lou from Maver.

2:29:31

And then we got Beth Ferrer from Serena Ventures.

2:29:33

Serena Williams fund also put in a significant amount of money into our round.

2:29:37

Uh >> do you have kids yet or is Bob carrying all the weight there?

2:29:40

[laughter] >> Uh yeah, Bob for now Bob is but give me six months. >> Six months. Let's go. Let's go. >> Breaking news here. >> Let's go. >> Yeah.

2:29:50

Seriously, my wife I'm sure my wife is watching.

2:29:52

[laughter] >> It's amazing.

2:29:54

Well, thank you so much for uh >> Yeah. So great to meet you. I'm excited.

2:29:58

I can't wait to get mine.

2:29:59

>> What a white pill and uh and good luck with this year. Sure.

2:30:02

It sounds like it's going to be a massive one and uh please come back on the show when there's more news. We'd love to chat.

2:30:07

>> I really appreciate that.

2:30:07

We're trying to be a positive force for good.

2:30:08

Uh you know, there's a lot of negativity around AI and I think for good reasons in a lot of cases, but for us it's really um >> use as much use as much water in the data science [laughter] as you want.

2:30:21

>> I'm happy with my electricity bill going up because >> for this my electricity bill can go up.

2:30:26

Uh thank you so much for coming on the show.

2:30:28

Have a great rest of your day and have a nice 2026. Good vibe.

2:30:30

Our next guest is Julie Bush, the co-founder and CEO of Valenor Enterprises.

2:30:35

They recently closed a massive series.

2:30:38

Julie, welcome to the show. How are you doing? >> What's going on?

2:30:44

>> Hey guys, it's so great to be here.

2:30:44

I feel like you've had a thousand of my friends on and it's good to finally make the show.

2:30:51

>> Well, we've literally had some of your friends on.

2:30:52

We've had the we've had Colin from Friends and Family on the show. >> Yes. >> The friends.

2:30:56

had con founders fund was on earlier today.

2:31:02

>> I I spent a decade at Palunteer so I've >> overnight success. >> Yeah. Yeah. We got all of them.

2:31:09

Uh but for those since it is your first time on the show, uh please give us an introduction on yourself and Valenor. >> Yeah.

2:31:16

So Julie Bush, co-founder and CEO of Valenor Enterprises and uh we're bringing a new business model to defense and national security.

2:31:22

Um, you guys know as well as I do that the barriers to entry in this market are so high.

2:31:27

And so we've built something really unique.

2:31:31

We're an operational holding company to service the longtail problems, the the unsexy things that nobody is able to go after because the barriers of entry are so high.

2:31:41

So you're really incentivized to go after the moonshots like the next generation fighter jets and the Golden Domes, but there's basically 80% of the the market that's just untapped.

2:31:49

So, uh, walk me through operational holding company.

2:31:55

Uh, what are you adding to? What are you holding?

2:31:58

How old are these companies? How big are they?

2:31:59

Uh, what can I compare it to in other pieces other holding companies that I might be familiar with?

2:32:08

>> Yeah, we're we're trying to be Berkshire Hathway for defense tech, right?

2:32:10

And so for us, uh, we're we're holding product companies and, you know, that's usually software software defined hardware.

2:32:18

Uh we started a little over a year ago and today we have five publicly launched product companies.

2:32:25

Um we have 10 in the in the works.

2:32:28

So we're actively working on three more and we likely will add two more before the end of 2026.

2:32:32

So we're moving pretty quickly here and we're tackling everything from power systems for unmanned um autonomous systems >> to combat casualty care.

2:32:44

So think about parts of the the market that are really really critical but again like there hasn't been innovation there in in decades. >> Yeah.

2:32:55

>> So talk >> so so this so this is an example of a company like a company that maybe at scale like could only ever be a $50 million revenue business if they get every key customer.

2:33:05

And so it's hard to like raise a lot of money at for an opportunity like that and build out some crazy gotom market team and and uh and so they can partner with you uh to get that distribution and basically get this platform to make it easier to sell into the government.

2:33:21

Am I saying that uh right? Where am I wrong? >> Yes, exactly.

2:33:24

Like we can both build and buy companies. We hold them.

2:33:27

We're the majority owners of them.

2:33:28

We we run we centralize all the go to market and all the operations.

2:33:32

And that allows us to move really really quickly.

2:33:35

And then we decentralize engineering and we basically run them like product lines but their own they're their own subsidiaries.

2:33:42

So we have a ton of flexibility.

2:33:44

We're their capital allocator.

2:33:46

Um, so you know, I I I know you guys also were following Defense Tech hype, but um, we're able to get great outcomes for our DMs and the engineering teams and these subsidiaries cuz, you know, they're not out there fundraising like they're focused on building a great product and um, we're we're basically doing everything else.

2:34:06

>> And and is uh I imagine part of the thesis here is you've have like hundreds of new defense tech companies and and and government contractors created.

2:34:12

A lot of them will build great products but maybe not get to the scale where they can uh uh you know IPO or anything like that and you can come in and actually provide like an outcome and then the opportunity to actually continue to scale that business and so may maybe like a year or two years from now they'll there'll be even more opportunities on on the buy side. >> That's right. That's right.

2:34:33

I I mean I when I think about the market like I think we could be one of the ways many of these companies are able to be sustainable and endure after the hype goes away.

2:34:44

I always like to say like we want to be the most sustainable company in this market um or platform of companies in this market and yeah I think earlier you said so um what about like is this like are we looking at like a $50 million TAM here for this product?

2:35:00

I mean, I like to think >> a lot of what we're working on, they're like >> hundreds of millions of dollars tams behind them.

2:35:07

Um, they just don't have to be 10 billion, right?

2:35:09

Like they don't need to be Ander.

2:35:11

They don't need to be Palunteer.

2:35:12

And right now, everyone's getting pitched to be like like I'm the Ander of X. I'm the Palunteer of Y. Yep.

2:35:19

>> And there's really only going to be a handful of those companies.

2:35:21

>> Speaking of Anderol, are you Adam Porter Price's worst nightmare?

2:35:23

Are you guys going up against each other to try and buy companies or do you target different market segments so you don't actually run into each other uh in back-to-back board meetings when a company is choosing to sell?

2:35:38

>> No, I mean I actually see him as a great partner for us and Steman, you know, sends me lists things they need, right?

2:35:45

So I think they could be buyers of our of our assets. Yeah.

2:35:48

just like I think the primes could be like the other large primes they need more innovation than Anderol does, right?

2:35:54

Um just h so happens AP is like brilliant at uh M&A for Anderall, right?

2:35:59

And so um I actually look to him as someone who is is really important to us.

2:36:08

>> Um and >> so have you guys sold any any of the businesses yet or is that a is that a future?

2:36:15

>> No, I would say we're we're a little early for that, right?

2:36:17

Um, but I do think, you know, it could be interesting in the next 18 months to see what happens.

2:36:23

And of course, like each one of these is is their own individual strategy and like we can hold them too and we want to hold them.

2:36:31

We we want I I think we can make a lot of these companies profitable really quickly because we can drive down their operating costs. >> Yeah.

2:36:39

How are you processing sort of the defense tech hype waves?

2:36:41

you know, Ukraine happens, everyone wants to talk counter UAS.

2:36:45

Uh Taiwan heats up, everyone wants to talk about uh surface vehicles and rebuilding the Navy and and those are important projects, but you can get sort of whiplash.

2:36:53

Is there are there is there are there real pockets of value when there's a lot of energy and maybe a lot of executive orders and truth social posts about a category or do you want to sort of zoom out and be looking for more uh opportunities that might become big uh narrative arcs in the next five years or something like that?

2:37:13

How do you think about these defense waves? >> I love this question.

2:37:17

I you know I've been in this market 20 years.

2:37:19

I was at Palanteer 10 years.

2:37:21

Built out most of the government business there.

2:37:23

Um I think when there is a crisis or there is a you know we the pandemic was a a great example of this like it does create a different level of action within the government.

2:37:38

I think this is part of why you know right now with department of war it's it's great to see them putting like sticks and carrots out there because it's creating action without a crisis.

2:37:47

I don't think we want to wait till there's a crisis for you know us to be in a bad position.

2:37:51

But I do think the hype comes in waves and you know you can seize it.

2:37:57

I think Palanteer does a really good job of seizing that.

2:37:59

That's something I really learned there.

2:38:00

And and for us, you know, we are looking at things that are timely.

2:38:04

There are things we are not going to build or buy right now just because we know where this administration's priorities are for the next 3 years.

2:38:12

Um but I do think you want to be ahead of the curve.

2:38:14

So we have a product called dispatch for example which is um essentially an autonomous power station for unmanned systems.

2:38:21

You know the drone market is like proliferating and drone dominance is a huge program in department of war but you can't extend autonomy if you still have personnel in the way that are powering your systems.

2:38:33

And so this is like a docking station just like you would like charge your iPhone from for anything on the blue UAS list.

2:38:39

And like that's a little bit early, but I think like we're going to seize on that because it can be a first mover in that space. >> Yeah.

2:38:46

How do you think about dualuse technologies?

2:38:48

When I look at the legacy primes, almost all of them have wound up at least with some sort of commercial business.

2:38:55

Palunteer obviously famous uh Anderal not yet, but I'm hoping for a consumer drone that I can fly around maybe with a camera on it.

2:39:03

Uh >> they have General Dynamics, they have Gulfream.

2:39:08

>> [laughter] >> Uh and and it sort of just sometimes it just happens over time.

2:39:10

Sometimes it feels deliberate and you see it in pitch decks at a seed round where the company says, "Hey, we're going to do this military thing," but then eventually there's this obvious add-on in commercial or oil and gas or something else.

2:39:22

Uh do you think that dual use can be a distraction?

2:39:25

Do you like thinking about it in the near term?

2:39:27

How how are you processing the dual use nature of some of these technologies? >> I love this question.

2:39:34

>> I love this question. I think it's I think it's a distraction honestly like for for Palunteer >> it was critical and like really when you think about Foundry and those platforms those are meant to be for like any use case in the world like >> you know so the fact that

2:39:51

>> uh it is dual use makes sense for them but I think today you know traditional venture incentivizes your products to become dual use because that makes you that means your TAM is so much greater and again this is why I think 80% of the government market is like being left untapped. Uh cuz most of the use cases

2:40:06

Uh cuz most of the use cases are single use and like honestly that's really critical too and um I think if you your products over time can become dual use even if you are thinking that they have a single-use focus initially.

2:40:22

Uh and I think if you start your products in government you have a much greater likelihood of making them dual use for commercial versus vice versa.

2:40:28

If you start your product in commercial and you try to move to government, it's incredibly difficult.

2:40:34

You know, when you think about compliance, you have to like rearchitect your entire platform for it to become Fed RampI or to meet impact level accreditation status.

2:40:42

So, um I'd much rather see our products if they like they don't have to become dual use.

2:40:49

They can be single use and I think the government needs single-use products, but many of them are already dual use.

2:40:55

You know, some of our initial buyers were actually commercial customers and like that's valuable too because it establishes commerciality, but it has to be focused like your first customers have to be in government uh in our in our ecosystem and um I just think dual use is way overhyped.

2:41:13

>> Talk about the fundraising strategy to date. Yeah.

2:41:17

So, my seed round uh was myself, Trace Stevens at Founders Fund, Paul Quan at General Catalyst, and Grant for Standig at Red Partners.

2:41:25

All of which I like deeply trusted or I never would have done this.

2:41:29

Like I'm a little bit of a unique founder, mom of two.

2:41:31

Uh you don't see a lot of defense tech women founders. Um but um I like that.

2:41:35

Uh, [laughter] but you know, I Trey and and Paul and Grant were people I deeply trusted when we started this process and they've been incredibly supportive of this journey.

2:41:49

>> Um, and I think they recognize the need for a new model in this space.

2:41:51

And so, as we've continued our kind of fundraising strategy, it was important to me at the A that we brought in Colin um, and kind of friends and family capital.

2:42:02

You know, he's OG Palunteer CFO. >> Yeah.

2:42:05

>> Seen what it's like to build a generational defense tech company from the inside. someone I deeply trust.

2:42:08

We were executives there together and I also think they're brilliant capital allocators and at the end of the day we fund our companies.

2:42:17

We are a capital allocation machine. >> That's great.

2:42:21

>> Um and so they've been an awesome partner.

2:42:24

>> Congratulations on all >> we got a gong. We we got a hit for you.

2:42:31

>> Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

2:42:33

Hope you rest week again soon.

2:42:37

I'm sure there'll be plenty of news to discuss. >> Sounds great. >> Cheers, Julie. Talk to you soon. >> Goodbye.

2:42:44

>> Next up, we have our Lambda Lightning round.

2:42:47

We got Winston Weinberg, co-founder of Harvey. Look at this thing.

2:42:52

>> Oh, I like [laughter] the sound of that. >> Good job.

2:42:56

>> We have Yo, Tom, >> Sierra, and then we have Josh Wolf to cap it off.

2:43:01

So, uh, >> let's bring in Winston Weinberg, the CEO and co-founder of Harvey from the Reream waiting room >> into the TVP Ultradome.

2:43:08

Winston, good to see you. How are you doing? >> What's happening? >> Good. I like that cloud. It's crazy. >> It's powerful. >> I want one of those. >> It's powerful.

2:43:17

>> It's like Thor coming in. >> Yes. Yes.

2:43:18

Uh, I mean, you do have a nice background.

2:43:21

It's clean, but not nearly enough.

2:43:23

>> No thunder, no lightning, no >> We have a guy.

2:43:26

We have a We have a cloud guy. Help you out.

2:43:28

>> This is a huge problem. Yeah.

2:43:28

If you guys could hook me up with your cloud guy, that'd be great.

2:43:32

>> Yeah, it's actually a blimp guy.

2:43:34

>> Yes, it's it's [laughter] uh it's pulsating right now.

2:43:36

Um well, thank you so much.

2:43:39

>> So So this was really well timed because uh we just got our December [laughter] legal bill.

2:43:44

Uh and I love I love our I I genuinely our our uh lawyer is like very good friend of mine.

2:43:51

I love love >> But he handwrites everything.

2:43:56

Not quite using a typewriter. >> Not quite.

2:43:57

He's being as efficient as he can, but but you know, every company has a lot of work and >> interestingly, I just I just feel like legal bills because they are variable and the work is important.

2:44:06

But I just feel like it's always a surprise.

2:44:08

The number is always bigger than you expect it to be.

2:44:12

And I'm excited to head uh head into a world where uh that bill can be smaller for a lot of companies and get better work.

2:44:20

Um so hopefully uh I know the work that you're doing is >> But yeah, kick us off with the state of the union. Where is Harvey today? >> Yeah.

2:44:28

So, uh, started three and a half years ago.

2:44:31

Um, so I mean, God, it's I think it's felt like every day it either feels like it was yesterday or it was like 50 years, something like that probably.

2:44:39

And just kind of oscillating back and forth.

2:44:41

Um, started selling to kind of like very large law firms.

2:44:44

Um, now we've expanded to selling to large corporations as well. Um, and mid-market.

2:44:50

Um, and what we're really trying to do is kind of have like a operating system that's in between.

2:44:54

So, it's for all lawyers and it helps them basically provide those services um, you know, more cheaply and can do the the work faster.

2:45:03

I think to be honest, your legal bill uh, and I'm a little laggy.

2:45:06

I don't know if that's on me or you.

2:45:10

>> Uh, I think that's just the the you're you're watching the show.

2:45:12

So, so >> maybe I you seem like you're in real time.

2:45:16

>> Yeah, yeah, you look fine. I'll take it.

2:45:19

Um, I think the reality is probably your legal bill, the stuff that they're charging for, that's going to not be as expensive, but there will be other type of legal work that you're going to need done.

2:45:30

>> And so, your overall legal bill will probably be the same, but the line items will look different is my guess of how this goes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.

2:45:37

More more more hours spent on the actual high lever work versus, you know, just generating a document here or there.

2:45:45

here or there. what changed last year with heart like what were the big inflection points for the business last year because I just noticed this you know t having friends that were lawyers I saw like a huge difference in how they even thought about Harvey at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year just like they had the they they were kind of like oneshotted by

2:46:05

Harvey at some point during the year which is like that is what you're bu if you're building an AI company you want to build a product that's so magical and powerful that people are like whoa okay I I really believe And you also want to start building it when it's a little rough around the edges and then let the models get better and then and then that moment hits. You're ready. You're ready. >> There's Yeah.

2:46:23

There's you basically like there's two things that happen.

2:46:24

One is the reasoning ability of the models get better and then two is your orchestration into the correct context gets better. Right.

2:46:31

So I think of this is honestly like there's three type of employees or like folks that you work with like colleagues.

2:46:37

One is you have to give them all of the perfect context in every single piece of information to do the job and then they can do it.

2:46:44

The second is you say, "Hey man, the same way that we did XYZ last week, could you do it again?" And then they do it.

2:46:49

And then the third is folks just do it without even any of the context.

2:46:53

And so a lot of what we're doing in the product actually is how do you make sure that for a specific task all of the correct context is being pulled and put into the platform and then how do you run the models over that context to get the right output right and it's actually like a very hard problem at scale because if you think of what you're doing you're kind of building like a >> like a legal brain or like a partner brain. This is what they do.

2:47:17

They get a task from you know one of you guys and they break that task down into all these like 10 subtasks and then they you know give that to other associates etc.

2:47:25

It's a really hard thing to build.

2:47:28

>> Uh Chat GPT launched chat GPT health yesterday.

2:47:31

H how do you think the consumer proumer legal advice category will evolve?

2:47:38

People are probably going to LLM consumer LLM today.

2:47:41

They're definitely going >> and just ask hey write this write this thing.

2:47:47

And is that is that an area that like you guys don't have any >> in-house council product or something? >> Yeah.

2:47:54

So, so in-house council we definitely do.

2:47:56

So, we serve a lot of Fortune 500s.

2:47:57

Um, and that's that's actually that's growing.

2:47:59

I think last quarter >> fortune 500. >> Thanks. Give it up for them. Yeah.

2:48:05

Let's give it up for >> I think last quarter it was like 41% or something like that was actually corporates.

2:48:13

Um, so that's [laughter] that's there we go. Yeah. Give me one more though. That's the cloud.

2:48:17

If you could you combine the cloud with that combine the cloud [laughter] >> and the Saturday.

2:48:24

>> Well, I to be honest I thought you said 41% of the I I thought you were saying 41% of the Fortune 500 but that'll be soon I'm sure.

2:48:30

>> Here I'll come back on when that happens hopefully soon and we can do like a blimp cloud and that sound all combined with some like Thor lightning strikes.

2:48:39

>> Um so we are interested in this and like helping consumers out.

2:48:43

One thing we have right now is actually if you're a citizen of Singapore um and you're filing a claim below 20,000, you can use Harvey to help you file that claim and then the magistrate judge can actually use Harvey to review that. And one of the Yeah.

2:48:59

One of the things >> the like Spider-Man meme.

2:49:00

[laughter] >> Well, so what we're actually ending up wanting to do eventually is in other stages both parties can decide.

2:49:08

They have to both consent to this, but they say, "Hey, I'm going to submit these facts and Harvey is going to help me draft it, right?"

2:49:17

It's hard as a consumer to like know when your rights have been violated and what to put into the the complaint and things like that.

2:49:24

>> But both of us will agree that we're going to submit this into Harvey and then the outcome is going to be binding.

2:49:31

Um, and that's like eventually would be actually incredible because a huge problem in Singapore is and it's a even bigger problem in the United States is just access to justice in general, right?

2:49:41

Where people actually can't get any of their claims met.

2:49:43

One, because the average price of a lawyer is $353 an hour in the US, which is astronomically too high, right?

2:49:51

Um, and then the second reason is the courts are just like absolutely overburdened, right?

2:49:55

Um, and so any of those systems that you can do to help that really moves this along.

2:50:02

Um, and so we're doing some of it with kind of work with different governments.

2:50:06

Um, and I think eventually we'll look into this, but it's not on our road map right now.

2:50:11

>> What are your big predictions for 2026 just in terms of AI progress?

2:50:13

Uh, are you building the business that expects another jump in uh, capabilities?

2:50:19

It feels like a lot of people were talking about cloud code being uniquely enabled by Opus 4. 5.

2:50:27

Have you seen a similar step change in any particular model?

2:50:31

Are you waiting for that or uh is it sort of just business as usual? >> Yes.

2:50:39

>> No, I mean we we we you have to build everything assuming that it's going to get better.

2:50:43

Um, and what you do is you actually just try to create a culture of trying to build really complex things and we have a lot of how we do this is we have a lot of like design partners and so work with like private equity or a law firm or something like that to try to build like a really extreme use case.

2:51:00

A lot of the times it fails.

2:51:00

Uh and that's actually okay because it fails and then we realize oh if the models improve XYZ then it would actually probably work and then we bucket that and we wait and then we try it with a new model and eventually that stuff starts to work right.

2:51:15

So a lot of it is like how can you go out and try to do the frontier level tasks get the feedback of what needs to improve to to actually complete that and then you have that set and ready to go as a use case. >> Yeah.

2:51:30

>> How much how much do you think the legal system can actually speed up?

2:51:32

any anybody that has had any, you know, experienced a lawsuit will understand that like, you know, something that that really should be a decision that hypothetically if you got a few the right people in a room and everybody was like mature, you could just kind of like figure it out and and obviously people try to do that with settlements, but then you end up getting like, you know, these dates that get pushed farther and farther and farther out.

2:51:55

Hypothetically, if you know, two different parties are putting stuff into Harvey, you know, you can you can basically theoretically kind of like decide something almost instantaneously, then in theory, you could then appeal it and Harvey like basically [laughter] run it again and then appeal it again, you know?

2:52:12

Um, and so it just feels like there's going to be uh you're kind of like fighting hundreds of years of like precedent in the way that things are done.

2:52:20

And so in some ways like even if we have the technology maybe lawsuits are still these uh and any type of like legal process could still end up taking months or years in some cases. >> Yeah.

2:52:32

I think there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen on the actual court system to like facilitate this.

2:52:35

Like I guess maybe a better way to think about this is like there's three categories.

2:52:41

One is like the process and the system, right?

2:52:44

And hopefully you move that along by just the technology advancements are so high that the process and system breaks and then it has to change.

2:52:49

The second is like all of the context that's relevant.

2:52:53

So can you like collect all the data that's relevant to actually doing the task?

2:52:56

And then the third is actually just like the underlying technology, right?

2:53:00

Like you need all three of those.

2:53:02

I think there's going to be a lag. I think exactly right.

2:53:04

Um but there are a lot of you know we just talked about what we we do in Singapore and there are a lot of kind of forward-looking folks that are looking at this.

2:53:13

Um, the other thing I'd say too is like we see more movement on the transactional side because at that point it really is just up to the principles, right?

2:53:22

So both sides of the deal want to do something. You can do it, right?

2:53:23

And honestly like a lot of the best lawyers on earth, they're dealmakers.

2:53:29

Like that's what they're doing, right?

2:53:31

They actually like the reviewing of the documents.

2:53:34

Yeah, that's kind of just like table stakes.

2:53:36

It's actually they give massively really valuable business judgment advice, right?

2:53:41

And it's because they've just been in those rooms so many times that they've seen so many different private equity deals done that they can actually >> Yeah.

2:53:49

You have the greatest the greatest entrepreneurs in history that maybe only sell their company one, you know, they sell their company once or they start another company, they sell it again, but that's nothing compared to the the lawyer that's been through 200, you know, transactions.

2:54:04

>> Yeah, that makes sense. >> Tons. And they're in the room.

2:54:05

And that's that's happening more and more.

2:54:07

The lawyers are in the room even more than the bankers are actually increasingly, right?

2:54:10

And so I think that all of this goes to say that I do think the profession is going to change.

2:54:15

I think that's good for consumers of legal services.

2:54:18

I also think that's really good for lawyers because the reality is like people go to law school because they see TV shows like Suits.

2:54:23

Um and they want to be like the lawyer on that TV show, right?

2:54:28

Or the Lincoln lawyer or whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I love Matthew McConna.

2:54:31

Um and so they they want to be a lawyer like it is on TV, right?

2:54:35

And I think what's important is if these tools start saturating the market, the your career is going to look closer to that.

2:54:43

It's going to look closer to like working with clients and to actually going to trial and working on these big deals.

2:54:48

So that's why I'm really excited about it.

2:54:50

And we work with a lot of law schools on kind of figuring out what that career path is going to look like. >> Yeah.

2:54:55

What's happening like law school applications are uh is at like local like a local top.

2:55:01

Tons of people are are deciding to go to law school.

2:55:04

Some people are concerned by that because people are going to saddle themselves with with debt or spend a lot of money and and >> they I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty.

2:55:13

How how have you been processing that?

2:55:15

Are some of these law schools like I imagine they're trying to get access to Harvey and maybe you have relationships with them.

2:55:22

>> So we we work with a lot of law schools.

2:55:25

Um, and so we announced our like program last year and at this point I'd have to give you the stats, but I think we're at like 15 of the top 20 law schools or something like that.

2:55:32

So we're we're definitely moving pretty quickly there. Thank you.

2:55:36

[laughter] Um, I would also one one thing I want to say to this is I think that a lot of folks have said that that's actually like a bad sign for the economy when more people apply to law school.

2:55:45

I actually don't think that's why more people apply to law school.

2:55:47

I think a lot of people apply to law school because they think that being a lawyer you can make a change in the world.

2:55:53

I I I genuinely believe that and you can >> and I think actually what happens is when you're in like tumultuous times a lot of people say hey I actually want to change this especially you know when you're applying to law school you're younger right you're in a younger generation and I think that's actually a lot of the reason why you know these applications increase over time.

2:56:11

>> That makes a ton of sense.

2:56:11

Uh well thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today.

2:56:15

>> We could talk for so much longer but I'm sure we'll have you on many times this year. >> Yeah.

2:56:19

Congrats to the whole team on on all the progress >> and thank you for hopefully reducing our legal bills.

2:56:23

We will [laughter] talk to you soon.

2:56:26

>> We're shifting around the budget.

2:56:28

>> We're shifting around the budget. >> We'll see you soon.

2:56:31

>> Uh our next guest is Yo Tom from Sierra with some fantastic news.

2:56:34

He is in the reream waiting room.

2:56:37

Let's bring him in to the TVP Ultra.

2:56:39

Yo, Tom, how are you doing? >> Good to see you. >> How are you guys? >> We're fantastic.

2:56:43

Uh since it's your first time on the show, kick us off with an introduction on yourself and the company. >> Gladly. I'm Tom Sean.

2:56:50

I'm the co-founder and CEO of Sierra based in New York City.

2:56:55

>> Sierra is in the data and AI security business.

2:56:58

>> We make sure that all of the data that goes into these AI systems remains private, remain secure, and we enable enterprises to adopt AI. >> That's amazing.

2:57:06

How did you start the company?

2:57:09

>> I started the company out of a friendship and a partnership.

2:57:10

My co-founder, our CTO, and I go back 16 years at this point.

2:57:16

We were standing in the same line to standing in the same line to to enlist when we were 18. >> Yeah.

2:57:25

>> And I had the pleasure of working side by side with him in the military service and I knew that uh I always want to work with him.

2:57:31

So the moment he said let's start a company, I said uh okay I'll go with you. >> Yeah.

2:57:37

What's >> uh what what did you guys do first? >> What do you mean?

2:57:40

We did the cyber security in the IDF in the Israeli military. >> Sure. >> Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay.

2:57:45

So this is your first this is your first company?

2:57:49

This is our first and last.

2:57:49

I don't think we just There we go. >> Love that. One shot it.

2:57:53

>> Well, what what's the key to getting uh large enterprises on board as a firsttime entrepreneur?

2:57:58

It seems like that's like uh you know, a lot of people vibe code something, get some ground up adoption.

2:58:04

It seems like you've gone to the top of the market.

2:58:05

What's what informed that strategy?

2:58:07

What's been the key to success?

2:58:09

>> I think for us it's been a combination of listening. >> Yeah. >> Using our two ears. >> Sure.

2:58:14

to really really really listen to the customers and understand that they know very well what they need to fix, why things are not working, what hurts, why things failed in the past, combined with the ability to engineer at a super super high velocity and really solve complex problems in super complex ecosystems.

2:58:37

>> I think that the combination of these two things together has been our secret to success with the large enterprise. >> Yeah.

2:58:42

Uh, what scares you the most about how AI is being adopted in the enterprise today?

2:58:47

Like when when are you talking with a customer and you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

2:58:50

[laughter] >> Yeah, that's a good question. >> Wow. Uh, where do I start?

2:58:55

I think that there's so much uh pressure being uh put on the security risk and compliance teams to get out of the way and let AI be rolled out.

2:59:07

I think that the level of security capabilities that's being bundled with the II from the AI providers themselves is very very insufficient >> and I think that in many many regards we're the gap the exposure that is being created is quite meaningful and uh and we're going to see the the results of that in the coming years.

2:59:33

What's the uh what's the key to creating differentiation in the cyber security category?

2:59:38

It feels like there's a lot of companies that are established, they're not asleep at the wheel, and yet you've grown very quickly, gotten very big.

2:59:45

How how are you positioning and creating uh white space? >> Yeah.

2:59:51

So, the first thing that is really unique about cyber security is that in most of what we do in our lives, we get measured on how well we do on average. >> Yeah.

2:59:59

In cyber security, we get measured on our weakest link. >> Yeah.

3:00:03

>> Doesn't matter if you're an eight on average.

3:00:05

If you still have a two or a three, >> it's bad.

3:00:09

>> Something bad is coming your way. >> Yeah.

3:00:10

>> And because it's, you know, we're not defending a static target.

3:00:13

We're defending a very dynamic target.

3:00:15

The threat vectors are changing.

3:00:17

The IT landscape is changing.

3:00:18

The regulatory landscape is changing.

3:00:20

There's always going to be exposures.

3:00:22

There's always going to be soft spots. Mhm.

3:00:26

>> I think for us our focus on data, the ability to understand and differentiate between the 1% of data that really matters to an organization, if that data was leaked, breached, exposed, that would create a bad year for them, not just a bad weekend. >> Yeah. >> Right.

3:00:42

And the 99% of data that m that clutters, which is so much of the data they have.

3:00:47

Based on the ability to do that across the enterprise at the enterprise scale, we've really been able to build a holistic data security and AI security platform that helps the organization achieve so many outcomes. >> Yeah.

3:01:00

Well, uh, thank you so much for coming on the show.

3:01:02

Uh, give us the latest fundraising news.

3:01:04

We got to hit the gong for you.

3:01:07

>> Is this like a friends, friends, and family round?

3:01:08

[laughter] >> Yeah, I I I happen to have friends with $400 million. That's >> good.

3:01:17

good friends [clears throat] to have.

3:01:18

Uh yeah, great uh vote of confidence team series after you're going to run out of letters soon.

3:01:24

So hopefully we'll see you at the New York Stock Exchange soon.

3:01:28

>> Uh thank you so much for coming on the show.

3:01:30

We will talk to you soon.

3:01:30

Have a good rest of your day. >> Cheers. >> Goodbye.

3:01:35