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Founder You're watching TVN.
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>> Today is Thursday, January 29th, 2026.
4:41
We are live in the TVP Ultradome, the Templar of Technology, the forces of finance capital of capital.
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Let me tell you about ramp. com. Time is money. Save both.
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We're very excited for it. Yeah.
4:59
Also, >> not the Super Bowl.
5:00
[laughter] Counting down the days. >> Yeah. I Super Bowl.
5:03
I learned I learned a fun fact.
5:05
I think I put it in here.
5:07
Apparently, they they had a Super Bowl back in 2001. >> Okay.
5:12
>> Have you heard of this? >> Tell me more.
5:13
>> So, I got followed by this account that's called 2001 Live. 2001 Live. It's 25 years ago Live. It's a cool account.
5:21
And in here, uh, they they flash back to like what was happening, you know, 25 years ago.
5:26
Every day they post what happened 25 years ago. kind of a cool account. It followed me.
5:29
I followed it well a while ago, but it followed me and and I saw a post in here that said uh 25 years ago they did a Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
5:38
The Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants 34-7.
5:42
>> This is the Ravens first Super Bowl title.
5:44
I guess people are not happy about that. I don't know.
5:46
[laughter] But anyway, uh very excited for the Super Bowl.
5:50
Um in other news, let's run through the linear lineup. >> Pull it up.
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Meet the system for modern software development.
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70% of enterprise workspaces on linear are using agents and we have a fantastic show.
6:01
We have Anton from Lovable coming in studio in the Ultra dome.
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Then we got Christian Delian from Hill and Valley breaking down what's going to happen at the Hill and Valley conference in just a few weeks.
6:13
And then we got Eric [laughter] >> We need a nickname. Uh no, we love Eric.
6:19
Uh of course from Mobile Dev Memo, Heracles Capital.
6:20
Uh and uh he's coming out at 1.
6:24
We're going to talk about ads chat ads. How's roll out going?
6:25
Al also obviously earnings makes a ton of sense.
6:29
And then Kevin from Open AI is coming on again returning talk about science >> AI and science >> AI and science and if we're seeing a clawed bot type moment and feeling the AGI in science what we should be looking for there in 2026.
6:41
Uh in other AI news of course we we will go into earnings and whatnot uh today.
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6:56
So, >> in the news today, Apple uh said this morning that it has acquired Q.
7:02
AI, >> an Israeli startup working on AI technology for audio.
7:09
>> Yeah, >> Apple didn't disclose the terms.
7:09
Uh the company was backed by Matter Venture Partners, Kleiner, Spark, Exor, and GV.
7:19
Uh, so nice nice little lineup and great outcome.
7:23
The Financial Times reported it was worth nearly two billion, so pretty meaningful deal.
7:27
Apple uh is not known for, >> you know, really paying up on a lot of different M&A that they're kind of folding in to their road map.
7:35
We had Mark German on yesterday talking about how Apple uses M&A effectively to accelerate their road map.
7:42
So according to Reuters, Apple did not say how it will use QI's technology, but said the startup has worked on new applications of machine learning to help devices understand whispered speech and to enhance audio in challenging environments.
7:55
QAI last year filed a patent to use facial skin micro movements to detect words mouththed or spoken.
8:04
>> This is this is we we've seen a couple startups that are uh you know doing like the whisper like tra what do they call it?
8:09
Uh it's like telepathy almost.
8:12
It's it tracks your your mouth movements.
8:14
So you can just then it like will track what you're saying. Really really crazy.
8:19
>> So facial skin micro movements will be used to identify a person and assess their emotions, heart rate, respiration rate and other indicators. Very sci-fi.
8:27
Qi's 100 employees including the CEO and co-founders will join Apple.
8:31
Uh so >> the founders uh >> Javad Meiselle founded threedimensional sensing firm Prime Sense and sold it to Apple in 2013. >> Absolute dogs. They're doing >> call.
8:46
The Prime Sense deal eventually helped Apple move away from fingerprint sensors on its iPhone and toward facial recognition technology. >> Interesting.
8:54
>> Uh said joining Apple opens extraordinary possibilities for pushing boundaries and realizing >> the full potential of what we've created.
9:01
Uh, so very uh very wild to be going back to Apple for a second time.
9:07
>> And pop quiz for Tyler, why does Apple acquire companies?
9:11
>> I mean, why questions are usually pretty open.
9:14
[laughter] >> Okay, good answer.
9:15
But Mark German told us, why does Apple acquire companies?
9:18
To accelerate the road map. Accelerate the road map. Yes.
9:22
Uh, and and it's funny because because I I asked him like like why are we going to hear Tim Cook say that?
9:29
Uh and he was like, "Oh, because earnings, but we're basically hearing them say it today uh with this surprise acquisition that's obviously the line from Apple." And it makes sense.
9:38
This is something that is uniquely uh acceleratable because of the Apple hardware ecosystem.
9:43
They can deploy this through AirPods.
9:45
They can deploy this through the phones just like they did with Face ID.
9:48
If you have that technology and you're like, "Oh, well, in order to log into your computer with your face, you're going to need a third-party device that you plug into USB."
9:58
Like, no one's going to do that.
10:00
>> But if you're just like, "Yeah, it's going to get baked into the hardware. We have the patents.
10:02
We have the >> And haven't you been wanting them to make more moves in in specifically audio and transcription for a while?"
10:07
I've been like an an audio interface bull for ever, like since I worked at a a startup that competed with Siri in 2010 or something like that.
10:19
And it it was actually a good outcome.
10:21
I didn't get any equity because I was just an intern, but uh but it it was actually a great outcome.
10:25
They sold to Dragon, naturally speaking, and everyone made a bunch of money. But uh Siri, here we go.
10:32
[laughter] Uh but Siri was like the hot kid on the block back then.
10:34
and uh and Siri came out of Stanford so they were much closer to Cupantino.
10:38
These guys came out of MIT very similar uh natural speech uh recognition uh uh you know machine learning pipelines for understanding speech doing dictation their main platform was Blackberry because Blackberry was really really big.
10:53
They had a BlackBerry app store.
10:55
They did a deal so that you would get like pre-installed so you get a big check from Rim.
10:59
They did uh a very interesting out of home campaign where they bought billboards right outside of uh Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry's headquarters because they were advertising. Yes.
11:10
Uh AdQ didn't exist then, but they should have used Adqu.
11:12
Um they they uh because they were basically they only had one customer effectively.
11:19
I mean they had every customer that could go buy the app, but then uh all the other apps that were on either Google and Android quickly rolled out competitive features with Google Assistant.
11:28
Siri got acquired and so it was very clear that like Apple was not going to be a really fertile ground for playground for them and so they they needed to get sort of like the attention of the BlackBerry execs and so they put up a billboard right outside their their headquarters which I I still like as a strategy. I think it's very fun.
11:44
Um but yes, I I've been I've been very bullish on this.
11:48
I I was thinking back then that uh you know people get their wisdom teeth out.
11:52
This is very weird in cyberpunk, but if you got your wisdom teeth out, you you could potentially like create like add a like a port for storing a microphone. >> Any of these?
12:06
>> I should have got that. >> Yeah, exactly.
12:07
Because a lot of people get them out and then you could just put a port there and and you could and you could insert basically the tip of an AirPod.
12:14
very very small device that you would charge and then you put it in and then when you're whispering you can just hear it can only hear that and it goes dictation straight to your phone.
12:21
Um obviously that's unnecessary because you can you know do bone induction.
12:24
Uh you can just also just uh um have a you know an AirPod in and just talk out loud and not care what people think.
12:34
There's those crazy muffled things.
12:36
You've seen that where uh you put on the headphones and then it puts uh like a cover over your mouth so you can talk in public.
12:42
Oh yeah, >> it's it's silent around you.
12:46
>> Caner says, "I want my iPhone to unlock only if I silently mouth the words open sesame."
12:52
>> I think uh could be in the future.
12:54
>> I was wondering about uh >> that would actually be nice uh if there was some other element because you still have this like wearing sunglasses trying to unlock your phone.
13:02
Sometimes some pairs of sunglasses I have it it oneshots it others it's >> it's like you know pretty annoying.
13:07
I I was wondering about the the quality of whisper transcription these days.
13:11
Like if I just open up whisper on the chatbt app, put my app put put my put my phone in my pocket and just talk, can it just hear through my pants pocket and just dictate perfectly now?
13:24
Because like AI is so good at transcription that it can be really muffled.
13:29
Like you can have music playing in the background and talk to whisper and it just won't Yeah, it just won't mess up.
13:34
So, uh, there is a world where you don't actually need like a separate pin.
13:38
You just have something anywhere on your body and it knows, okay, this is what John sounds like that.
13:44
Let's kill all the background noise.
13:45
Let's kill all the other people talking.
13:47
Let's isolate that with AI.
13:49
Like, it seems pretty pretty good for that.
13:50
Um, anyway, let me tell you about Lambda.
13:53
Lambda is the super intelligence cloud building AI supercomputers for training and inference that scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands.
13:59
Uh, one more thing on this QA uh, acquisition.
14:04
They're using going back to their patent using facial scan micro movements to >> assess emotions, heart rate, respiration rate, and other indicators.
14:14
You could imagine where a world in the future where you have Apple smart glasses that effectively have like health monitoring because it's tracking respiration, heart rate, all these different things.
14:25
>> Uh, and uh, just basically integrating the features you're getting from the Apple Watch today. Yeah.
14:28
uh seems >> but I I I wonder what it's really unlocking that the watch can't do.
14:35
There's always the question when you when you when you pitch a new device, it's like, well, your phone does have a camera on it, so you're not This is like the smart glasses aren't the first.
14:44
>> Yeah, but it's a new device, but it's a Lindy form factor, right?
14:45
Like this something we've we've talked about in the past.
14:49
It's like the, you know, the the new hardware that's taken off is an existing form factor.
14:53
It's like headphones, eyewear, >> uh you have watches, right?
14:56
Creating these pendant things so far hasn't hit, right?
15:01
Because it's like a >> It's fair.
15:02
I I I I I just think like on the heart rate issue specifically, um there was an app before the Apple Watch existed where you could put your finger over the camera of the iPhone and it would use the light the the flashlight which was right next to the camera at that point to light up your finger.
15:19
So your finger would turn red and then it would take the sensor data from the camera and measure the pulses of the red and give you your heart rate just from touching your camera. It's pretty cool.
15:32
like it was completely outside of the Apple ecosystem, just a just an app that you could download or pay for.
15:36
Um, and so the phone can take your heart rate, the watch can take your heart rate.
15:40
If you give me glasses and you say, "Those glasses can also take your heart rate."
15:44
I'm like, "I I I got enough heart rate measurement.
15:46
I can also just go like this and estimate it."
15:48
Like there's a bunch of ways to know that your heart rate's spiking.
15:51
Um, maybe tracking is in different, but it feels like they need to go farther.
15:55
And the real opportunity is is something more around audio interfaces, link it to Siri, have more ways to triangulate what the person's trying to say, what they're saying in a noisy environment, whether they're trying to be quiet and you still want to isolate what they're saying, having a back and forth, reducing latency.
16:14
>> All of those all of those things are very critical to uh success in that category.
16:18
Anyway, um uh we are going to be in San Francisco on February 3rd, next week for Cisco's AI Summit.
16:24
is bringing together leaders from Nvidia, Open AI, AWS and more to discuss the future of the AI economy.
16:30
The whole thing will be live streamed and we'll be there for a gig stream.
16:35
>> Did the fireworks get longer? >> I think so.
16:38
>> I think they got longer today.
16:39
>> There's a lot to celebrate, John. Uh let's go >> earnings. Microsoft.
16:43
So, uh Microsoft shares have taken a dive as data center spending overshadows earnings surge.
16:48
Uh let's give some numbers here.
16:51
So, uh, Microsoft's Q4 revenue was $81.
16:54
3 billion, which was higher than the consensus estimate of 80. 23 billion.
16:59
So, they're making money.
17:02
There's no there's no lack of demand for Microsoft services.
17:07
Uh, Q3 2025 revenue was 77.
17:07
1 billion, up almost 5% and year-over-year group uh, growth was 17% for Microsoft as a whole.
17:18
But the stock sold off for uh by 12% and Microsoft is now just just a tiny little $3. 15 trillion company.
17:24
Uh not bad, but um >> it's [clears throat] still only down what 6% over the past 5 days. It was a rise.
17:32
Uh >> yeah, I mean people have been excited about the OpenAI investment which did show up in earnings.
17:37
So OpenAI owns roughly 25 27% of the new forprofit entity. >> Sorry, Microsoft.
17:44
Microsoft owns 27% of OpenAI's new for-profit entity and uh that value is actually reflected in Microsoft's earnings.
17:52
And of course, more importantly, the GP the GBT models are truly frontier.
17:57
Like we've seen it again and again.
17:58
There's like this horse race over this model's better at this thing, this model's better today.
18:02
But it's just very clear that that OpenAI is on the frontier and in the conversation for pretty much every application possible.
18:12
Uh and so you can just imagine you take GPT 5.
18:15
2 Pro, you vend that into knowledge work pipelines for Microsoft users.
18:20
That sounds really useful.
18:20
Uh they aren't behind on coding.
18:22
We've heard uh great stories about how codec is a great model.
18:26
Maybe it's a little slow.
18:28
Maybe they need to speed it up, but people are having a lot of luck with codecs.
18:31
And so you can imagine that Microsoft's is capable of integrating codecs um into all sorts of different pieces of the Microsoft empire to create agentic workflows.
18:41
and and then they also have a deal with Anthropic.
18:43
They also made made a made an investment.
18:44
So they they are multimodel, multiplatform.
18:48
Um but the problem is is that Microsoft seems to be constrained on the data center side.
18:52
So the CFO Amy Hood said on the Microsoft earnings call that limited availability of artificial intelligence hardware is affecting how quickly Microsoft's cloud business can grow and it's capping a Azure's revenue potential. Not good.
19:09
They need to take another trip to Abalene.
19:11
They need to build more data centers. Um, but it's tricky.
19:12
It takes time and uh and right now maybe it's just a data center capacity issue. What's next?
19:19
Is it going to be an energy bottleneck?
19:21
Is it going to be a chip bottleneck?
19:23
This is these are stories that we're tracking.
19:24
Ben Thompson is is starting to sound the alarm bells around TSMC uh TSMC capacity constraints and and what is TM TSMC doing on the capex front?
19:35
Are they investing enough?
19:35
Are they are they, you know, at risk of ca of holding the bag if uh AI stalls out?
19:42
Um are they taking enough risk so that if the AI boom continues that they can continue to deliver and ramp up or will uh Samsung and Intel need to step up and will uh companies like Microsoft need to put pressure on those companies.
19:54
That's another point of debate. >> Yeah.
19:57
So David in the chat is referencing this, but basically obviously it's amazing that that uh Microsoft owns such a big slug of OpenAI. That's great.
20:05
But the challenge is so much of their backlog is Open AI and they're actually getting less credit for that. Right?
20:11
The same way that Oracle had gotten punished for it, now it's Microsoft's chance to actually get punished.
20:18
>> Uh and Microsoft, if you actually zoom out a little bit and just look at the last 6 months, down 17% in the last uh in the last six months and down 4% uh over the last year.
20:29
So, uh, it's funny like in in a year where it feels like the last year Satia and Microsoft have just been on this insane run, they've fully, you know, round trip. >> Totally. Totally. Yeah.
20:41
Uh, before we move on to Meta, let me tell you about Sentry.
20:44
Sentry shows developers what's broken.
20:47
It helps them fix it fast.
20:49
That's why 150,000 organizations use to keep their apps working.
20:51
So, Meta also reported earnings yesterday. 59.
20:54
9 billion in revenue in Q4 of 2025, beating uh expectations of 58. 5.
21:04
Revenues up 16% from Q3 of last year, which was 51. 24.
21:07
The company's growing its revenue 21% year-over-year.
21:09
That's higher than Microsoft's 17% topline growth.
21:15
Um stock popped 10% after hours and the market cap is now 1. 84 trillion.
21:21
So Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on the earnings call in 2025 we rebuilt the foundations of our AI program. That should be obvious.
21:29
There's so many so many acquisitions, so many hires, so much uh so many experiments, so many different uh so many different uh strategies and and discussions and changing of the guard and restructurings, layoffs and reality labs.
21:46
It's ve the compute desk.
21:46
there's been so many stories about uh Meta really rethinking their uh AI platform, rearchitecting the foundations of it.
21:55
Uh so he he continued to say over the coming months we're going to start shipping our new models and products.
22:03
>> Very excited for that.
22:03
He says he's I expect our first models will be good, but more importantly they will show the rapid trajectory we're on.
22:10
And I think that we all have high expectations.
22:13
I don't think anyone's expecting them to jump way way out in in front of everyone else.
22:21
But if they can just be in the conversation with Deep Mind, Anthropic, OpenAI, I think that will quell a lot of the >> But also, what are they doing with them?
22:32
>> Yeah, >> I think that matters.
22:33
I think that matters more.
22:35
>> Really, really important. Yeah.
22:35
>> Really, really important. Yeah. cuz you [clears throat] just look at you look at uh this is why I'm excited to talk to Eric uh later today but you look at Meta's business and the way in which Genai can accelerate everything from generating more content on the platform to having better ads to better targeting
22:52
all all these things right and not to mention like where they can just vend it in at the product level right >> the product level stuff is tricky >> I mean like I've I've bumped into meta AI in Instagram many times And you do get reasonable, you know, natural language responses, but it it's it it clearly still has the knowledge cut off. It's not searching the the web
23:13
It's not searching the the web as effectively.
23:15
It's not pulling together the it it doesn't feel completely native to the platform.
23:20
Like if you go into Meta AI in Instagram and you ask it to go and hunt around in Instagram for a re specific creator or real based on some clues, it it's it doesn't feel like it has the hooks to really go in and understand, okay, based on what you've watched and what I've showed you in the past, this is probably what you're thinking of.
23:44
Like that is sort of a superpower.
23:46
sort of a superpower. uh where you know there's so many times when you're on the timeline and you're like I saw this post I didn't bookmark it didn't like it uh what was it and and you want the search products to be empowered magically what what are we laughing at what do you think [laughter]
24:02
>> you going to flash back me again >> close um continue >> um anyway uh I I I I think that there's there's the basic case of they got to get an you know an LLM that's frontier that's you has the big models smell, fun to talk to, good vibes, then they need video and audio models that are rock solid and then they do need to vend those in. I think just having an API or
24:24
I think just having an API or just having a place where people can can generate uh you know photoreal videos or even things like Sora where it it has the aesthetics and pacing and cuts of an Instagram reel.
24:35
Uh that doesn't feel like it's enough.
24:38
like it's enough. It feels like it like to really empower like the Instagram creator, it needs to be built into the platform like the, you know, like the captions are or those like, you know, the the the face filters on Snapchat that started there, like augmented
24:54
reality stuff, replacing backgrounds, just letting people still bring what's personal to them, their their family, their experiences, their car, but take a couple photos of their car and turn it into a really really awesome drone shot of them driving their car. I've seen a
25:10
I've seen a lot of really sweet edits where people will fly a drone over a car.
25:14
Then they'll have an a first-person GoPro on their chest while they're driving their car.
25:20
And then they'll use AI to interpolate between the drone shot and their first person view because they can't actually like if you have a multi-million dollar Hollywood budget, you actually can fly the drone into the car, have someone sitting in the car, they grab the drone, and then they hook it on a crane, and the crane takes it out and does a different shot with it.
25:41
But that's like a multi-million dollar experts, tons of equipment.
25:43
There's all these crazy things where someone will be on a steady cam, on a cherry picker, this this uh this crane comes down, then they start walking into you can do these really elaborate shots.
25:53
But with AI, you can you can you can uh interpolate and like make those transitions.
25:57
And so even just like AI powered transitions would be a really really cool thing to bring. >> Yeah.
26:02
Not to mention they they own Manis now, which is a fantastic product team.
26:07
They've built some great agents.
26:07
You can imagine them integrating >> like basically like prompt to short form video, right?
26:13
Where you can just describe the video that you want to make, insert real, like basically like generate B-roll for this, pull footage from around the internet, whatever.
26:20
And so there's so many things that they can do.
26:23
And again, they've just been using Meta AI as a sandbox for the most part.
26:28
But I'm just excited for them to start shipping across.
26:30
the the remixing thing is so is so underrated because there there's a lot of people like the number of people that have like true inspiration for new formats is pretty low.
26:40
People always do the stitch.
26:42
>> Think about the remix functionality.
26:42
You see a funny video >> and you can just like basically do a character swap >> in there, right?
26:49
And it's like that's a new content that >> uh that's going to be shared and a bunch of people engage with.
26:54
So >> Tyler, what's your take on Meta's new plans for 2026?
26:57
[clears throat] Yeah, I mean I I definitely think the image and video models are much more important to get right than the LM.
27:04
>> Uh mainly just because like it's it seems like very natural them to vend it into everything compared to OpenAI or Google who are like right now fighting it out in image or >> uh in video. >> Yeah.
27:14
>> So it seems like if they can kind of do really well, you can get OpenAI and Google out of that race basically. >> Yeah. Yeah.
27:20
>> And then the LM it's like it's it's unclear what the actual like use case will be in the short term.
27:23
eventually you want some some cool like you know Claudebot style agent somehow vented in but it's unclear how that's going to work out.
27:31
So I think in in the short term I'm very excited on the media model.
27:34
>> Yeah I mean I I I could I I really like that model of like the LLM going around and just like seeping into the cracks of all the different product experiences but in these like really subtle ways like uh YouTube now has AI generated summaries on videos and you can chat with a video.
27:51
So, if you're watching a someone build a PC, uh you can ask Gemini on YouTube, hey, just print out the exact list of parts that the person used to build the PC.
28:02
And there might be a parts list at the end of the video.
28:06
There might be a parts list that's, you know, randomly mentioned throughout.
28:07
Uh sometimes a creator might actually link to a real parts list, but uh Gemini allows you to scrape the transcript and then just get that however you want and then transform it or, you know, add prices to all of it or see what see if it's available in Japan because I'm in Japan.
28:22
All these all these interesting things.
28:23
And I can imagine on Instagram being able to go to a post that has like thousands of comments and just say, "Hey, I want the LLM to kind of summarize the sentiment like like what what what are the facts?"
28:32
Like, you know, people were debating whether or not this is AI. Is there a consensus?
28:36
or people were adding context.
28:38
What was the key context that people were adding?
28:41
There's a lot of posts that are basically like rage bait or clickbait where it's unclear what's going on in the video.
28:47
And so you go to the comments and people are like I don't get it or like they put up that sign like context needed please. Right.
28:52
And so you can kind of do that. >> Yeah.
28:54
But I feel like that stuff can just like I'd rather just have that be in the like recommendation algorithm >> like sorted comments.
29:00
>> If everyone in the comments is saying this is clickbait, just don't put it in my recommendation algorithm. Right.
29:03
It's like also on X there's Grock, right?
29:04
on every on every post you can ask rock.
29:07
I don't think I've ever used that.
29:10
>> You've never used that? >> I use that.
29:12
>> I find the little like, you know, where you add a little bit of AI here and there.
29:15
I I like basically never use anything.
29:18
>> Maybe that's just, you know, >> I'm a fan.
29:19
I I I do see posts where there's there's, you know, a list of companies that someone's talking about.
29:26
Oh, here are all the cool companies that I like.
29:27
And I can click and just get a little summary of each company and I don't need to pull it out, go to a different model. I don't know.
29:32
I feel like once a day Grock will share context on something that is actually valuable. >> Yeah, totally. Totally.
29:39
>> Like in general in the comments add it. >> Somebody added it.
29:41
Like I remember uh Eric Seufort yesterday was responding to something.
29:46
Somebody was basically saying like shareholders voted against the Tesla XAI investment >> and then obviously they went ahead with it and Eric responded and he was like, "Hey, was this real?"
29:56
And then Grock just shared kind of the history on it and it's like somebody else could have shared that and provided the context but I can do it instantly.
30:04
>> It's helpful to have a little bit extra context there.
30:07
>> Apploving profitable advertising made easy with Axon. ai.
30:10
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30:15
>> Suspended cap says I got to really respect Zuck.
30:17
Willing to spend over 50% of revenue next year when they still haven't delivered a single compelling AI product. Hell yeah. >> Yeah.
30:25
I mean the capex is crazy.
30:25
No, the whole the whole thing $200 billion in revenue in 2025. That's >> founders. >> So much revenue. It's a lot of ads.
30:33
Uh but they're now they're going to pl plow 135 billion according to the Wall Street Journal.
30:40
The New York Times said 115.
30:42
But either way, it's like more than half the revenues.
30:45
>> I think I think posts like this are are funny and I think you can definitely agree that Meta has not shipped a a super compelling, you know, AI product yet.
30:54
Even though Metavibes has traction, not necessarily in our world, but certainly uh has some traction.
30:59
Uh but you have to like this is the guy that owns the world's largest trough or one of the world's [laughter] largest troughs, right?
31:07
And so he has he knows that it's working.
31:11
He knows he can see the future, right? He has all the data.
31:15
He knows that people say they don't like AI content, but in reality, they actually do. They engage with it. They watch it. They make it.
31:21
the engagement must be growing exponentially even though it's very small.
31:24
It it started at a base of zero and then you got Harry Potter Balenciaga and now you have 10 videos a week that are going.
31:30
So >> So I look at this different than you [snorts] than some of the metaverse bets just because Zuck is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Genai >> and so it's totally warranted to say like hey we should invest an obscene amount of money in this.
31:45
This is clearly the future. >> Yeah. Yeah.
31:47
I mean there's so many different ways that no no no no matter how you play out the AI future uh Meta is a beneficiary of that.
31:54
So it makes sense that they're investing so heavily.
31:57
But it is a like a remarkable shift in the financial structure of the business.
32:01
Um if you if you think if you go back to thinking of previous years spending more than half of revenue on capex feels like a lot uh for a software company right it's like high margin whatnot. Uh anyway vibe.
32:14
co where DTOC brands, B2B startups, and AI companies advertise on streaming TV, pick channels, target audiences, measure sales just like on Meta.
32:22
>> Let's talk about Tesla.
32:23
>> Tesla Tesla reported revenue at 24. 9 billion.
32:28
Uh, and this beat the the the consensus estimate just slightly. Consensus was 24.
32:32
78 billion, >> but down >> 11.
32:36
4% from the previous quarter uh when revenue was 28.
32:40
1 and 3% decline year-over-year.
32:43
And Tesla's down 2% this morning.
32:46
Uh there was also a 61% drop in profit.
32:49
Uh and they're shuttering the high-end models of production.
32:52
So they're stopping producing Model S's and Model X's.
32:57
Uh which I think the Model S and Model X features will be sort of rolled into trim levels.
33:03
Like we've already heard about the So I was debating Jordy about this earlier.
33:06
I thought that the Model Y and the Model X were the same length.
33:11
The Model X is in fact almost a foot longer, so it is a bigger vehicle.
33:15
They both have the option to have three rows.
33:17
They both have very similar specs, but the Model X is bigger.
33:22
But in China, we've heard that they're working on the Model Y L, which is a long wheelbase version that will be, I believe, longer than the Model X.
33:30
So, you have the ability to get a big Model Y.
33:33
And then they're already doing different trim levels with long range plaid.
33:38
So, if you take the plaid badge and you put that on the Model Y L and then you add different specs and you say, "Oh, I I want to spec my Model Y with Goldwing doors."
33:49
Maybe all of a sudden you're back in Model X territory and you're dropping 100K.
33:53
But there's just no there there's no denying that the Model S and X sales have slowed and there's a whole bunch more competition at the high-end EV market from Lucid, Rivian, and uh and so uh Elon is uh fully thinking about what's next.
34:08
He broke out subscriptions for autopilot self-driving for the first time.
34:12
Um he's talking a huge amount about cyber cabs and robo taxis.
34:17
Uh he's making that cash investment in XAI.
34:19
And of course, he's really focused on Optimus humanoid robots.
34:23
And uh it seems like he could be scaling up production there very very quickly.
34:28
Uh and so >> million million subs of full self-driving. >> Yeah, not bad. >> And it's what 89?
34:36
>> I actually don't know.
34:37
>> I think [snorts] you can look it up.
34:40
>> I think I remember it's $89 a month. >> Yeah.
34:42
But analysts, how much is it?
34:45
>> I guess $49 a month for vehicles with enhanced autopilot. Okay.
34:48
There are a few tiers, but uh I mean if you if you build up the subscription, >> what is it? >> How much is it?
34:55
>> I think it's a hundred >> hundred a month. Yeah. Yeah.
34:56
So, >> you know, you got a billion dollars a year coming in from that. Uh not bad.
35:02
And of course, very high margin because you don't need to manufacture it.
35:03
Um >> analysts thought Tesla was going to be cash flow negative for the quarter, but they actually were positive. They generated $1.
35:11
4 billion in free cash flow, and this was down just 30%.
35:12
So there's plenty of cash to keep the aggressive investments going, especially as Elon shifts the business towards autonomy.
35:20
He's not shy about making the change aggressively.
35:22
He said, "We would expect over time to make far more cyber cabs than all of our other vehicles combined."
35:29
So he's he's fully fully going all in on >> Yeah, it's a little I think it's a little jarring for some people just because historically car companies have thrived by creating the perfect car in each category for every different consumer and Elon is basically saying >> actually >> I know I know what you want and I'm going to give you it.
35:46
Yeah, >> it's uh you know, you don't need that many options. Yeah.
35:50
Where you're going to be able, like you said, to just leverage the different trim levels and >> spec out the car to satisfy >> and probably, you know, I I I do think over time like less and less trim levels and then and then eventually it's just cyber cabs and no one's buying cars anymore.
36:04
Uh if if it really goes that way, I I think this roll out will be slow.
36:08
I mean, the original roll out of the electric car was 20 years, right?
36:11
for Tesla to actually get to saturation where you're seeing electric cars all over the roads.
36:15
It'll probably be the same with people giving up their cars and and going all in on I I only drive I only use Whimo and Tesla Cyber Cab or maybe I just use one.
36:23
Um but uh Elon's certainly thinking in decades and uh and not afraid to cut a entire business line that is is still popular with a lot of people.
36:35
I mean, I was just talking to somebody yesterday who was singing the praises of his Tesla Model X and how much he loves that and how he would never get a Y because the X is so much more premium.
36:44
Everything about it is better.
36:45
Uh, it costs a lot of money when he bought it. [snorts] Still loves it.
36:49
But, uh, you know, Elon's thinking to the future.
36:51
Anyway, Gemini 3 Pro, Google's most intelligent model yet.
36:56
State-of-the-art reasoning, next level VOD coding, and deep multimodal understanding.
36:59
I love that sound so much. >> I know you do.
37:02
Uh Tesla also announced uh a $2 billion investment >> into XAI. >> Yeah.
37:10
Um >> didn't they they just did 20. Is this part of the 20? I wonder. I don't know.
37:15
>> Um but yeah, so there was a non-binding Tesla shareholder vote on authorizing an investment in Xi that XI that failed. Although one point uh 1.
37:22
06 billion votes were in favor versus 916 million against.
37:26
Absent abstent absentations >> abstensions >> like likeaining yeah not one or the other >> counted as no under Tesla bylaws leading to rejection.
37:39
So they had run this as a vote.
37:41
It got rejected but Elon said we're doing it anyways. >> Doing it live.
37:48
>> Timeline reactions here.
37:48
I I don't know where you want to start but take Kim has a good one if you want to start there with Microsoft. Uh, wherever you want.
37:54
I wanted to pull up this video of uh Optimus learning it has to make up for SX sales after they were cancelled.
38:05
>> This one's This is such a crazy video.
38:08
Taking off the VR headset and just smashing down. I love that.
38:10
>> This is really a Tesla Optimus, isn't it?
38:13
>> At the same time, like the the the motion is remarkable.
38:15
And the force with which the Optimus just smashes a water bottle open is crazy. >> It's amazing.
38:21
This thing is going to be super powerful.
38:22
The insurance business that will be built around having a humanoid in your home is going to be remarkable. Remarkable.
38:29
Uh you're also going to need to secure these things.
38:31
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38:35
Their business is securing it.
38:36
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38:40
>> Okay guys, this was one of the standout moments of the earnings call for me.
38:43
Uh Elon and Tesla are transitioning their Fremont facility to make Optimus and they plan to scale that facility up to be able to make a million uh a million of these things a year on on a relatively near-term time horizon.
38:58
So uh very very significant.
39:00
He talked about how uh the robot would be able to basically learn on the job.
39:04
It's going to be able to do a number of >> uh valuable tasks.
39:09
And uh yeah, I think I mean the big question for me is like what happens?
39:16
>> That's the big question for me.
39:17
>> Well, they have an ad support.
39:18
>> You have the Tesla walking around your house and it sees you pull out some sort of random credit card and it's like are you not on ramp?
39:25
Like what's going on here?
39:27
>> Or it sees you like having like >> would you like a smoothie from Athletic Greens? >> Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah.
39:33
>> Um uh but yeah, we'll see.
39:33
So the the question I have is at what point will humanoids actually be like ROI positive for consumers in the home >> uh or or even just everyday businesses.
39:48
And I would just judge that based on like okay you're buying this thing up front.
39:50
Maybe a business finances it maybe somebody finances it or they just pay cash. But is it valuable?
39:54
Is it is it valuable enough to actually replace a human because you're competing with uh your the the optimist is going to be competing with jobs that are maybe like 40 50 60k a year like somewhere in that range. >> Yeah.
40:10
>> And so that's a pretty high bar to clear. >> Totally. >> So we'll see. >> Yeah.
40:14
And uh and and and the riskreward calculation of okay, you have this thing, it has cameras and audio. It's on all the time. Is it safe?
40:22
If it falls over, is it gonna crush my dog or hurt someone or smash something?
40:27
Even just like doing the dishes.
40:29
We've seen some incredible demos of humanoid robots doing the dishes.
40:33
But you have to imagine that every once in a while it's going to break a dish.
40:36
If it's breaking dishes at 10 times the rate of humans, like it needs [clears throat] to be super human at not breaking dishes because if it smashes a wine glass while it's doing the dishes, that's And can I clean that up?
40:48
Is that is it going to be able to do that on day one?
40:52
uh there will be you know a like a slow ramp of people feeling like okay it's good enough I'm getting a lot of value obviously there'll be a lot of novelty there's already a lot of novelty like the the the Optimus is deployed in in most of the Tesla showrooms
41:05
>> some breaking news from Reuters 21 minutes ago uh exclusive Musk's XAI and merger talks with XAI ahead of planned IPO >> uh SpaceX and XAI >> SpaceX and XAI ahead of planned IPO >> so um this was something that we obviously were talking predicting a so no huge surprise here. This always
41:25
This always felt like it made sense.
41:28
I'll read through the article.
41:29
I don't know how much context it actually has.
41:32
>> Uh so they're in discussions ahead of a blockbuster IPO planned for later this year.
41:36
The combination would bring Musk's rockets, Starlink satellites, and exocial media platform and the Gro AI chatbot under one roof.
41:43
Imagine, imagine owning X, the internet's dive bar and space in one ticker.
41:50
[sighs] >> I mean, the companies launched like a couple years apart.
41:56
I think like 2007 and 2005 or something [laughter] like flashing back to 2007, 2010 being like, yeah, Twitter and that space company that hasn't successfully launched anything, they're going to be part of the same company one day. That is a wild future.
42:12
Yeah, I am curious to see if they end up at some point just spinning X the social platform out again.
42:18
Like does it really need to live?
42:20
>> I think I think I think Musk holding companies just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and it all goes together into one because there's a lot of efficiencies there.
42:27
Uh uh Sean Pur from My First Million had a post about this how uh how el he thinks Elon should IPO his personal holding company.
42:35
So you get you get stakes in everything that he has stakes in.
42:42
and he was proposing it like a Bergkshire type structure.
42:43
Um, but instead of Bergkshire Hathaway, it would be like Musk Holdings or something or Musk's initials.
42:50
Uh, I think a lot of people would be would be buyers of that.
42:55
Uh, but it'll be interesting to see uh the S1's getting more complicated by the day as the uh as the investment banks prepare for the June IPO for SpaceX. Now, is June the day? But it's late in June.
43:08
It's June 29th or 19th or something. >> Yeah. Yeah.
43:10
So, yeah, we'll we'll see.
43:10
I mean uh expected this to happen.
43:12
I think uh it it it builds a uh you know again some people be frustrated with the narrative the data centers in space narrative but >> uh it's real >> we saw this sort of like sort of organized uh narrative shift around SpaceX being the data centers in space play.
43:32
play. So that was the bridge like without that it didn't make any sense and then and then once if you can get behind okay data is in centers in space is maybe possible maybe >> maybe you want some on land too then it starts to make sense that the merger
43:46
fits a little bit more the the other uh the other interesting uh uh data centers in space thing XAI SpaceX thing um I just uh I don't know I I I there is a there is a fair like odd history of of uh telecom companies owning media companies. So Comcast, NBC, Universal,
44:08
So Comcast, NBC, Universal, right?
44:12
Comcast was the of that >> Verizon >> history. >> Yeah.
44:16
Rhyming >> and so like like there is this world where you have the you have the pipes and then you need something to push through the pipes and so you own a media company that pushes content through that pipe and it it sort of rhymes, right?
44:31
It's like you have Starlink internet connections and then you need something to go over those internet connections.
44:36
So X the social network pipes over those.
44:39
It's it's if you squint it's not the craziest thing.
44:42
Um >> the other interesting thing that I want to do or we should talk to some of the folks who have done some of this data center and space analysis is is how powerful are the Starlink satellites right now?
44:54
Like they have some onboard compute.
44:57
They don't have you know NVIDIA GPUs.
44:59
They don't have whole racks in space, but they they probably have some compute just to run the network.
45:04
And I'm wondering like in terms of energy draw, are they one order of magnitude off, two orders of magnitude off?
45:12
Like how how how underpowered are the current Starlink satellites?
45:17
Um because that could be an indicator of okay well they need to scale them up by this much.
45:21
They need to add this capability.
45:23
They need to do X Y or Z.
45:24
Uh, >> really quickly, 11 Labs, build intelligent, real-time conversational agents, reimagine human technology interaction with 11 Labs.
45:33
>> Speaking of 11 Labs, 11 Labs is the new sponsor of Audi F1.
45:38
>> Yes, >> John, you sent me a picture the other day of of Audi out, I think, testing.
45:44
You were like, "It's insane >> that they don't have an 11 Labs logo on there." >> Exactly.
45:48
[laughter] Now, they they the sponsors were looking pretty sparse, but I think they're just adding them kind of in real time.
45:53
So, >> it's fun to roll them out.
45:54
Super super exciting and exciting.
45:56
Uh I I love the Audi the new Audi livery. It looks very unique.
46:01
Uh MKBHD responded to the news that Tesla is discontinuing the Model S and Model X and said, "Oh, Roadster is so cooked."
46:11
[laughter] >> Uh Elon just responded a little bit ago said new Roadster will be incredible.
46:16
>> And MKBH is in the process of getting community noted.
46:19
Elon said on the earnings call they are aiming to unveil in April and production will commence in 12 to 18 months.
46:26
>> April >> the shareholder deck notes the roadster is in design development.
46:28
Lars VP of vehicle engineering said the road roadster was definitely in development.
46:34
So uh it will be pretty funny to be in like you know something that hopefully will look like a hype look and feel like a hypercar but then you're just self-driving in traffic.
46:42
It's like effectively [laughter] like depending on like pricing it it's not going to be like price.
46:47
I think I I'm hoping it looks like a hypercar, >> but prices like, you know, a Turbo S or something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah.
46:56
I I think I think uh the the secret to success is probably $200 to $300,000, but it looks like a cyber car or cyber truck huracan, like low to the ground, super insane performance.
47:11
Um, self-driving, but it has like entirely new aesthetics that turn heads.
47:16
Like the Cybert truck is kind of >> What was he saying on Joe Rogan?
47:20
He was he was like, wasn't he alluding to the Roadster potentially being able to take flight. Yes. Some sort. >> That's exactly it. Yes.
47:27
And uh and we were debating with Doug Gurro uh from Cars and Bids and his own YouTube channel.
47:35
What does the definition of fly mean?
47:37
Like we've seen the Xiaomi car jump.
47:40
Uh it can jump over a pothole.
47:40
It can jump a couple inches off.
47:43
There's that Mercedes Maybach GLS that can bounce.
47:48
So what does fly really mean? Fly a foot. Fly 10 feet.
47:51
I I don't think anyone's expecting that in the next year it will just actually take off and fly you from LA to San Francisco or something.
48:02
That would be >> never bet against [laughter] I mean I would want I would want that so so badly.
48:06
But um uh there are a lot of other cool things that we could do.
48:09
other cool things that we could do. I think the one that I it wasn't the one that I predicted like basically it you'll be able to pull up to a parking spot and it will be able to use like fans or something like that to like lift
48:21
off the ground and slide into a parking spot or some it'll have some like gimmicky >> it'll shoot the battery out so hard that it sends the car >> shoots the battery down which pushes the car up into the air and thus and then you [laughter] there's an ejector seat. You will be
48:36
You will be flying the car will not be flying. Who knows? >> Insane.
48:41
>> Hopefully, it's available on Shopify.
48:43
Shopify is the commerce platform that grows your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI.
48:50
>> Rounding rounding out. >> Start really quickly.
48:52
Tyler, >> I mean, this is about the question of like, uh, can you run GPUs on Starlink? >> Yes.
48:57
>> So, uh, like a current satellite, if you're looking at the V2 mini satellite, >> uh, the peak power draw is like around like 3,000 watts. >> Okay.
49:05
>> Uh, so if you're running an H100, right?
49:07
So, this is I mean maybe a couple years old. It's only like 700.
49:09
So, you can actually put you could put a few H100s uh on a Starlink right now. >> Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, sorry. 300 watts currently. And an H100 3,000. Oh, okay.
49:20
Yeah, you could put a couple in theory, but you wouldn't be able to do anything else, but like >> Yeah.
49:23
And I mean like three H00s H100s is like not useful really at all for like any for serving any big model.
49:28
But >> yeah, but we're not four orders magnitude off from doing something.
49:32
I mean, you can do inference on just a laptop, right?
49:36
And that doesn't have the power draw anywhere near an H100 react.
49:41
Uh, granted, it's going to be slow.
49:41
It's not going to be functional, but like we are in the ballpark.
49:45
>> Somebody just going to put somebody should put a Mac Mini on a weather balloon.
49:49
[laughter] >> The first send it >> you really could I have you ever seen those trends of like we sent X to space?
49:55
It's like a proven viral format on YouTube.
49:58
Uh, I think someone sent pizza to space.
50:00
Uh people send like a piano to space and it plays a song.
50:05
There basically YouTubers figured out that you could get a weather balloon that you could just buy for like I don't know not that much money and just release it and it would just fly up up up up up up and then you would reach the sky and it would take pictures and time-lapse photos or video automatically.
50:23
>> You can get a weather balloon a 22 foot scientific weather balloon on eBay for 220 bucks.
50:28
>> What should we send to space?
50:28
It's kind of played out, but may Yeah, garlic bread to space. Bobby, thank you.
50:32
Yeah, the garlic the garlic bread went to space. I don't know why.
50:35
[laughter] I don't know why, but uh yeah, the sending molbot to space.
50:40
Multibot to space on a on a uh I I Yeah, I also I don't know if you can get Starlink working.
50:49
>> I think I mean, ideally, Tyler, >> what if we got a handful of weather balloons and we sent you up there with uh >> Then I could I could like that Red Bull video. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Just oneshot it. >> Just do it. Yeah. >> Just one shot it.
51:02
Uh last thing on Elon, uh >> looking at prediction market on KI, when will Elon become a trillionaire?
51:10
>> He's at a 65% chance before 2027 just in time for the midterms.
51:15
It's not like that will [laughter] it's not like that will be used against him at all.
51:22
>> There's still a chance that it takes the pressure off the billionaires because like oh there's a new thing we got to focus on.
51:26
Like no one's focusing on billionaires right now.
51:28
>> All the billionaires start ganging up on Elon.
51:30
Hey, let's actually just do a trillionaire tax.
51:32
This whole bill, why are we focusing on billionaires?
51:35
Trillionaires have so much more. >> Waste of time. >> Waste of time.
51:36
Let's just narrow it down to trillionaires.
51:38
Just the trillionaire tax. Anyway, console.
51:40
Console builds AI agents that automate 70% of it, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets.
51:49
Uh, where else do we want to go?
51:52
Do we want to go more reactions to uh earnings?
51:53
There's a whole bunch of other stuff in here.
51:55
Um, >> yeah, >> Microsoft is on sale according to Jay Gatsby because Joe Weisenthal said, "Incredible day."
52:02
According to Barclay's Alexander Alman, Microsoft has lost $441 billion of market cap today, marking it the second largest drop ever since Nvidia lost nearly 600 billion after Deepseek. Wow.
52:14
Yeah, it was the worst day for Microsoft since 2020, since uh since like the COVID selloff.
52:20
Uh, absolutely remarkable.
52:22
I mean, I don't fully I don't fully get it.
52:24
It seems like Microsoft is very well positioned.
52:28
Um, uh, I mean, maybe they're they're facing the same like implementation question as Meta, but uh, it seems like they they have all the key ingredients.
52:38
I mean, they don't have they don't have they certainly don't have like the crazy team that Zuck just went and poached, but they got open AI, they have the partnership, and so they have access to the models where uh, in a way that Meta does not.
52:49
And so Meta does need to build the team to build the competitive models.
52:52
So anyway, >> worst sell-offs in Microsoft history, the crash of 87.
52:55
Uh then in 2000, April, April 24th, >> 30% in one day in 87.
53:01
That >> we don't know how to we don't know how to create selloffs like that anymore. Hopefully we don't.
53:08
[laughter] >> Famous last words >> just like everything candles down 40% teach you a lesson. >> Yep. >> Yeah.
53:15
There this is some this is some interesting history here.
53:17
Uh >> uh well, Microsoft >> is unfased. >> Yeah.
53:21
When you look at it this way, it is truly, you know, the the what 15th worst sell-off in in in Microsoft history.
53:29
I think they're going to get through it.
53:31
Uh but not But Stan disagrees. Stan says it's over. Thanks for playing.
53:36
[laughter] Just zero likes.
53:37
How did this even get I'm gonna like this. >> We're gonna like it. >> Good.
53:42
Stan, I don't agree, but uh very funny post.
53:44
Uh Andrew Curran is sharing a post from the information.
53:48
Uh Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon are all pwning up.
53:54
>> Let's give it up for talk 60 billion as much as 60 billion in open AI.
53:59
>> We don't know what kind of talks they are.
54:00
Are they early, >> medium, >> medium, >> late stage talks, advanced talks, preliminary talks?
54:06
There's lots of different talks.
54:08
Um but uh this is in this is on top of the 30 billion that SoftBank is in talks for.
54:13
uh which means that the hundred billion target for the next round is is almost is already almost met.
54:20
Uh and of course this is going to go back to is this circular blah blah blah blah blah. I don't know.
54:26
I it it feels like the circular the circularity narrative we're just at a scale where if you want to raise a hundred billion dollars like who are you going to? Who who would be okay?
54:35
Like it's it's it's governments and the hyperscalers.
54:42
like there just aren't that many funds that are saying like yeah I'd love to lead a hundred billion dollar round I don't have the money like it's just it's just impossible there's no tapped out like yeah all the all the traditional financial players are very much tapped out um and so >> let's go to let's go to company marketcap.
54:59
com >> while we pull that up let me tell you about Figma Figma make isn't your average vibe coding tool it lives in Figma so outputs look good feel real and stay connected to how teams build create codeback prototypes >> okay So at the 830 billion that this round is being uh discussed at uh JP Morgan is slightly worth slightly more at 8 832 billion.
55:24
>> Uh but then below that uh OpenAI will be valued more than Samsung, Tencent, Visa, Exxon Mobile, ASML, Johnson and Johnson, Mastercard >> data is the >> Costco. Yeah, >> a lot of them. Yeah.
55:39
Yeah, you start being able to add up some of the biggest companies in the world and still not be >> worth more than >> Zero Hedge had some extra context.
55:46
Q3 2025 Meta crashes on surging capex forecast.
55:52
Q4 2025 meta soarses on surging capex forecast. >> Let's go.
55:57
>> Uh research and invest pushed back though said no it soarses on growth acceleration guide capex held it back or could have opened or it could have opened at around 880.
56:05
Uh and and it's because of the profit a lot of people are chiming in. So we'll talk to >> Buo.
56:10
Buo has continuously had great calls on Meta.
56:13
He I remember very distinctly when he would he shared multiple times over a few day period like Meta will start touching 600 and you need to develop the mental fortitude to buy even though every even though everything [laughter] >> in your mind will be telling you not to do it just hit the button.
56:34
Uh, suspected cap says, "I gotta really respect Zuck willing to spend over 50% of revenue next year when they still on capex when they still haven't delivered a single compelling AI product." Hell yeah.
56:45
Uh, but Pythia Cap chimes in and says the ads are the compelling AI product.
56:49
And this has been the the underdisussed narrative with their capex.
56:53
capex. I they they do break it out and uh for a long time you know 50% of capex more than 50% of capex was going towards core AI just workloads for Instagram reels recommendations ad recommendations running the core product uh different I mean there is a specific chip for
57:10
YouTube like there there's capex that goes into just running YouTube just running Instagram and so um it's it's you know not all AI but it'll be interesting to see how that shifts how much of this is okay this is generative AI workloads going forward forward. Is
57:22
Is it more than 50% of this new of this new boost in in cash?
57:27
>> Brother Joe Weisenthal shares one of the best headlines that I've ever seen, which is Blackstone near deal to become new world's largest shareholder >> just in general.
57:39
>> No, New World uh is a company. [laughter] >> Okay.
57:42
>> Uh Blackstone is in advance talks to become the single largest shareholder of New World Development Company, according to people familiar with the matter.
57:48
a move that would see one of Hong Kong's richest family uh families relinquish control of a major asset.
57:53
Under the proposed deal, the US company would be able to restructure the embattled developer.
57:59
New World could continue to try to offload assets to shore up liquidity.
58:03
>> The family of Hong Kong tycoon Henry Chun currently holds about a 45% stake in New World.
58:10
We need to bring the word tycoon to the west coast. >> Tycoon.
58:15
>> Sam Alman is an AI tycoon. >> Tycoon is good.
58:17
We should do a list of the the top tycoons.
58:21
>> Jensen is a chip tycoon.
58:24
>> Yeah, tycoon's a good one.
58:26
>> Satya is an enterprise tycoon.
58:28
>> We had tycoons during the railroad barons.
58:29
It got uh it turned into a bit of a porative, but I think we can turn it down. Turn it around.
58:33
I think we can turn it around. >> It's such a fun word.
58:35
Why should it be negative?
58:38
>> Yeah, it sounds like yahoo or like uh you know, it's it feels like you're wearing a a cowboy hat on a horse if you're a tycoon.
58:43
You know, you're you're you're running all over the economy. You're a tycoon.
58:49
>> Cowboy hat on a horse. >> Yeah, you love it.
58:50
Well, let me tell you about MongoDB.
58:52
Choose database builds for flexibility and scale with best-in-class embedding models and rerankers.
58:58
MongoDB has what you need to build. What's next?
59:02
>> We have to talk about >> Genie. >> Genie.
59:04
>> The Genie is out of the lab.
59:05
>> Logan says, "Introducing Project Genie, a Frontier World model product powered by Genie 3 and available to G1 Ultra users in the US starting today."
59:11
Uh, we were playing around with this this morning.
59:16
We were playing around >> this.
59:19
>> We were playing around with this this morning. It is absolutely wild.
59:20
You can basically prompt an entire world.
59:22
It instantly turns into effectively a simple video game.
59:28
>> Uh, and you can create some really funny scenarios we will show you.
59:35
>> And they added the jump button.
59:35
They added the jump button.
59:37
You get to pick if it's third person or I guess what if you don't check that it's first person.
59:41
But sometimes you even if you do check even if you don't check that you can still wind up in a third person game if it's obviously a third person request.
59:49
>> They need to add this the >> Look at this dog.
59:51
>> They need to add the crouch button.
59:52
>> The crouch button next and then the flashbang button probably. >> Whoa. >> Yeah, you're jumping. This is so it's so fast.
1:00:00
I mean the the the previous Genie launch was still called Genie 3, right? It >> Well, no. I mean, yes.
1:00:05
This is not like a new product.
1:00:07
This is just making it public. Yes.
1:00:08
Like so so I think it was in August when G3 was like originally released.
1:00:12
Yeah, but it was basically just the paper.
1:00:13
There were some demos, >> but no one could actually. >> So so cool.
1:00:16
I Yeah, I mean it it feels like more directable than V3 in some ways.
1:00:24
And it's certainly more stable as you move.
1:00:27
>> Well, it's just way cooler, too, because it's a world you can move around in.
1:00:30
It's not like it's not like V3 where you're just creating a a video.
1:00:33
Yeah, the uh the memory is really good, too.
1:00:37
You can upload an image and turn back. upload an image.
1:00:39
That's I mean get ready to play dinosaur.
1:00:41
>> You have the clip of of >> So we we got access we we generated some now.
1:00:47
It's in such high demand that uh you might not be able to generate these worlds for yourself immediately.
1:00:52
There might be some rate limits going on.
1:00:55
I'm sure the GPUs are on fire.
1:00:57
It is going to be Genie 3 day on the timeline for sure.
1:01:01
People are going to get crazy creative with this first.
1:01:06
>> You can't access the videos. No, because >> Oh, no.
1:01:08
We didn't download them because I think I think the site is being overloaded so much. >> Shame.
1:01:12
It was just earlier today.
1:01:14
>> Hey, Tyler, take some responsibility. Take some ownership. You're 21 years old now. Take some ownership.
1:01:19
You could have downloaded the video.
1:01:22
>> I'll try to as the show goes on.
1:01:22
I'll try to make a new one.
1:01:24
Yeah, we can >> I mean, yeah. Yeah.
1:01:26
This is a good point by Noah in the chat.
1:01:27
Uh, wait, can we just take a GTA 6 leak and generate the game so we don't have to keep waiting?
1:01:33
So >> pretty much >> like first I mean it's incredible that even a product at Google scale they knew that there was going to be demand that they are like seeing rate limits that's wild and incredibly bullish for AI and shows that there's so much more demand uh and we need more chips and energy and
1:01:48
data centers and GPUs obviously um but but on the flip side we are going to move the goalposts this is this is AGI but it's not sufficient AGI because my definition is not just the jump button I want mechanics I want we generated a video of uh my Boach driving on the Nurburg Ring. It was remarkably high
1:02:06
It was remarkably high fidelity.
1:02:09
Uh it was a little sluggish, but that might just be the dynamics.
1:02:11
The driver that's just Oh, you think the driver this thing on the road there was body roll.
1:02:19
I was like, just put it in a straight line, Tyler. >> Yes.
1:02:22
But but I want I want I I'm waiting.
1:02:25
I'm moving the goalpost because I want uh Genie 3 or Genie 4 to be able to generate game mechanics.
1:02:30
If I say I'm racing on the Nurburg Ring, I want a track timer.
1:02:34
I want to be able to stop change my tires.
1:02:36
I want to be able to get a g a refuel overtakes. I want overlays. I want boost pedals. I want I want DRS. I want shifting.
1:02:44
I want the whole Forza simulation.
1:02:47
The whole uh I want I want uh what what was what's the one that people actually use for the simulators?
1:02:53
I forget what it's called. Uh Asetto Corsa.
1:02:54
I want to be able to generate a setto corsa in two seconds.
1:02:59
Uh so mechanics are clearly next.
1:02:59
Uh, this is obviously we can pull this up.
1:03:03
>> Tyler said six months.
1:03:03
We'll see over pull up this video from you.
1:03:06
In six months, you'll have full games.
1:03:09
>> This is the new HI benchmark for >> move it. Move it.
1:03:19
>> We're moving the golf. >> There we go.
1:03:20
Uh, pull up this video from Ethan Mllik.
1:03:23
He had early access to G3 world modeling.
1:03:26
huge leap forward in modeling physics, but some issues remain.
1:03:30
Here is a bit of an otter airline pilot airline pilot with a duck on its head walking through a Rothcoins inspired airport and an otter in a wings suit flying through a city of Gothic Tower.
1:03:41
So, this is why this this video is why we have two and a half$2 trillion of capex for AI.
1:03:47
We just simply >> before AI, we would need, you know, a team of, you know, advanced motion graphics artists to work for, you know, >> you could probably vibe code something like this in Unreal Engine in a day if you were if you were strong, >> John, >> what?
1:04:05
>> Don't try to pop the bubble.
1:04:07
>> You could I like the wing suit, though. This is fun. In a in a Gothic tower.
1:04:09
It looks sort of like a Harry Potter world. Wow.
1:04:15
It's really a full city of Gothic Gothic towers. >> Yeah.
1:04:18
And so so >> I like the >> the thing that's wild is that it takes >> 20 seconds. >> Yeah.
1:04:26
>> To go from idea to this world. >> Yeah. Super cool.
1:04:30
>> So >> super super cool.
1:04:30
And you're just going to see this like unlimited like the people are going to go and just generate Mario and you'll just be like, "Well, I could just download Mario."
1:04:40
Like it's not like I'm I'm okay with that.
1:04:42
It's like when you go to, you know, midjourney and you say, "Make me a picture of a dog." Or nano banana.
1:04:47
And it's just like that's just a picture of a dog.
1:04:49
You just find a picture of a dog.
1:04:51
What's cool is when it's like your dog in your house doing the specific mechanic that you wanted and it's a reenactment from a film that you're friends that you're in love with and you're a mechanic and you're creating this in unique thing and you're mixing together these interesting ideas. We're gonna see a ton. >> Okay.
1:05:07
So Tyler took full ownership. Okay.
1:05:11
While we >> while we pull that up, let me tell you about Plaid.
1:05:14
Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, save, borrow, and invest.
1:05:18
Securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and improve lending now with AI.
1:05:23
>> All right, look at this. >> Oh, yeah.
1:05:24
This is Wait, is this a new one? This is a new one. I just made this.
1:05:27
>> The original was not two tone.
1:05:29
>> Yeah, this is a new I I just made this.
1:05:31
Look at you barely keeping it on the road.
1:05:33
>> It's really hard to skill issue.
1:05:33
You got to >> So, if you zoom in on this, the license plate does look a little AI generated.
1:05:40
There are some artifacts, but that was a decent at this at this distance.
1:05:42
This looks This looks >> Can he hit the apex?
1:05:46
>> This looks photo real. This looks photo real.
1:05:48
It's >> Can he hit the apex? >> Can he hit the apex?
1:05:50
[laughter] Oh, >> the body roll. >> The body roll.
1:05:54
You're actually going pretty fast.
1:05:55
You're getting some speed on this thing. >> I think I fall off.
1:05:57
I I get off the >> OH NO, THE GRASS. OH NO.
1:05:59
WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO the You're Oh no, you're destroying the side rail.
1:06:04
How'd you get on the other side of the side rail? >> It says Yeah. Okay. >> Crazy timing.
1:06:10
Tyler turns 21 and he can't even keep a car. >> Wow.
1:06:15
>> That was >> I don't see any happy dads over there. >> Dude looks in Hebrew.
1:06:19
>> No, but it does like when it was working.
1:06:20
So earlier I think there were just too many people using it, but this took like maybe 15 seconds. >> That's remarkable.
1:06:26
>> At first it like makes an image and then you can edit it and then from there you can make the actual world play. >> Yeah.
1:06:31
>> Uh and it's like a minute long. It's like Yeah. Incredible.
1:06:35
>> Uh Josh Woodward has another clip he shared. Uh Nano Banana Pro.
1:06:37
He's the VP of at Google Google Labs, Gemini AI Studio, uh, Nano Banana Plus, Project Genie, low poly cowboy dreams, they've been fulfilled.
1:06:47
Let's take a look at what Josh Woodward over at Google built with Genie3.
1:06:52
with Genie3. So he takes the image he's generated with nano banana pro drops it in summarizes the environment summarizes and it's interesting seeing like what does prompt engineering look like in this in this uh like how how what type
1:07:09
of prompt do you want to put in because I think we just put in like two words we put in like Nurburg Ring Ger track Germany uh what happens if you add a little bit more there how how far can you push this current state-of-the-art the horse can AGI achieved. >> AGI achieved. Do you think this is >> AGI achieved.
1:07:24
Do you think this is bullish for platforms like Roblox and Fortnite that have the existing network and they can inter in integrate world models so that the players can that are already a part of these ecosystems and these economies can generate new worlds quickly, generate new games, new characters, etc.
1:07:41
Or or is it >> as these world models get better, do they become >> competitive, >> a bigger threat because anybody can just I'm sure there's infrastructure providers that can say like, yeah, we're going to handle uh everything from account creation to in-game currency to things like that.
1:07:57
>> Yeah, I mean definitely competitive in the long term.
1:07:59
the long term. uh in the medium term like super good for prototyping and communication and this is a key flow to okay you have an idea and you don't just want to you know generate a basic image of the game that you're trying to build you generate a a demo a prototype and
1:08:17
then you go from here into okay let's wire it up in Unreal Engine or Roblox or Minecraft or whatever we want to do and then uh and then you have the full game >> I think I think I think Roblox and Fortnite will prove that they have real network effects. Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:32
>> And it's going to still make sense to create new games within these existing ecosystems. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:37
But it is it is a very different architecture if you >> But yeah, I don't know.
1:08:42
I don't know how it would how it how it would interact like if you're in Roblox and then you want to go into a fully generated experience like the persistence doesn't exist.
1:08:50
You're not you're not in necessarily the same world.
1:08:52
Just building like multiplayer capabilities in here seems very difficult.
1:08:55
That seems like a real research >> challenge.
1:08:58
I think broadly like the the world model like world labs seems much more uh easy to integrate at least in the short term to to something like Roblox because I mean this is literally just like generating frames on the fly.
1:09:08
You're not actually making a >> you know 3D like rendering >> but it seems like it would be useful for uh you training data as well.
1:09:13
Lots of lots of opportunities there.
1:09:16
Well, speaking of training data, let me tell you about Labelbox RL environments, voice, robotics, eval, and expert human data.
1:09:24
Label box is the data factory behind the world's leading AI labs. >> Well said, John.
1:09:31
>> There there are a lot of those.
1:09:31
Uh Google DeepMind created this short film, AI is going to disrupt Hollywood sooner than most might expect.
1:09:36
It's their short film, Dear Upstairs Neighbor.
1:09:40
It's previewing at Sundance Festival.
1:09:42
It's a story about noisy neighbors, but behind the scenes, it's about solving a huge challenge in generative AI control.
1:09:52
developed by Pixar alumni and an Academy Award winner researchers and engineers.
1:09:56
Here's how it came together, says DeepMind.
1:09:58
And there's a community note on here.
1:10:01
Let's see what they said.
1:10:01
The quoted video explains that the short film was driven through human-made art with AI assisting and speeding up the process. OP is engagement.
1:10:09
Poor Chubby always getting community noted.
1:10:12
We've seen a number of these.
1:10:13
seen a number of these. I think that's like at a certain point some people assume that things are happening but you know the the point still holds that you know this is disruptive who knows if it's completely disrupting uh there's certainly I mean there's demand for movies that are shot on film still so how how quickly will all this roll out but uh if you if you have a a vision
1:10:37
these days for you know an animated movie uh you should just go try and make it at least you have to imagine that even If you want to use a more traditional process and go through the traditional Hollywood pipeline, showing up to a pitch meeting at an agency with a pretty much polished AI version of your film is going to resonate in a way that a script might just get sent back in the mail room. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, I don't know.
1:11:03
I could I could imagine this in like the the prototyping the the the the storyboarding phase really really taking off.
1:11:10
>> Staying in Google land, please.
1:11:10
Addie Osmani over at Google Cloud uh shared some big changes to Gemini in Chrome, Agentic Browsing with Auto Browse, Nana Banana, >> and more.
1:11:22
Uh let's pull up this video.
1:11:25
Uh if you can see it here, >> it's a huge day for tech news today. We had so much earnings. >> I mean, all earnings.
1:11:31
Yeah, all week there's been a lot of stuff.
1:11:36
>> But the other stuff was like planned.
1:11:36
Uh the the the Cloudbot stuff earlier was not.
1:11:40
Is this is there audio on here?
1:11:40
Can we play this this audio as well? Let's see. >> Chrome. >> Okay, let's see.
1:11:47
This is Gemini in Chrome.
1:11:51
Agentic browsing with auto browse nanob9 more. >> Does it work? Let's see.
1:11:59
>> New state-of-the-art model for in context image transformation.
1:12:01
And traditionally, if you wanted to see how furniture would look in a room, you'd have to download a photo, upload it to an editor, and hope for the best.
1:12:07
Here with Nano Banana, you just point Gemini to an image already on your screen.
1:12:10
And in this demo, the prompt is show me like >> AI in every feature.
1:12:15
You You actually like downloading the images and roundtpping them.
1:12:19
That Yeah, that's your preferred workflow.
1:12:21
And everyone every consumer is just like you, right, Tyler? >> Right.
1:12:25
>> Stunned in the silence. >> All right.
1:12:26
I mean, I >> hit him with the flashbang. >> Oh, no. >> Throwing flashbang. >> Flashbang. surprised.
1:12:31
[laughter] There's now big changes to Gemini in Chrome.
1:12:38
We got flashing lights over here now. >> Okay.
1:12:40
But this is still like like making the product from like a very like AI first view.
1:12:44
It's not just like taking your the normal thing and then just adding one extra AI button.
1:12:47
I mean, I'm not a product manager at Meta, but you have to imagine that there's there's little features like this that can seep their way into Facebook and Instagram where you see a photo of like like you see a photo of a restaurant and you're like, I think that'd be great for a team offsite.
1:13:04
Let me just not download the photo and put me, you, and Jordy at the dinner table at the restaurant, uh, you know, envisioning what we're like.
1:13:13
I just hit share and then I say, "Hey, hey, put, you know, put the group chat that we're in on Instagram DMs in this vid in this photo. That'll be funny.
1:13:24
It'll be it'll be more inspiring for them to be like, "Yeah, we should go to dinner there." Right.
1:13:28
>> I guess this feature the the feature in the video that actually got shown.
1:13:32
>> I wonder if that should actually live like so in that example, you're looking at an apartment online >> and you're in your browser being like, "Make it look like Kelly Worler styled it." >> Yeah.
1:13:43
and it adds a bunch of furniture.
1:13:45
Should that live at the browser level or should it just live in Zillow or Redfin or Compass? Right. Yeah.
1:13:50
It's kind of a question on where this >> the OS layer.
1:13:53
I know what you're going to say.
1:13:55
You're like the OS layer or your OS build now, >> right?
1:13:58
>> No, I mean in this case, I feel like it should be like actually in Red Fin and you should be able to cycle through a bunch of different interior design.
1:14:05
I I I I have seen that every single layer of the stack is adding AI features from top to bottom.
1:14:14
>> Interesting context here from Compound 248.
1:14:15
Uh Google with an absolutely murderous response [laughter] to OpenAI's at browser.
1:14:19
Highly strategic for Google.
1:14:22
Launching a browser was a mistake by Sam and the OpenAI team.
1:14:26
OpenAI was never going to gain big browser share, but launching gave Google the needed cover to launch its Chrome AI embedding without violating antitrust because now it's a competitive response.
1:14:36
M >> would they have had I I can't it's hard for me to believe that that Google wouldn't be allowed to add AI features.
1:14:44
>> I don't I don't necessarily buy that but it's an interesting take and uh you know it's it's one position Google's Google's using its browser incumbency as a distribution and learning angle for AI is going to be exceedingly powerful if you allow it.
1:14:56
The browser is going to learn from everything you do online creating differentiation for its position for its position as a personal AI. >> Wow. Big day today.
1:15:03
We're not getting any fines from the chat cuz we're both suited up. It's been a minute.
1:15:08
>> It's [laughter] been a minute. >> I like that.
1:15:11
>> Thanks for thanks for holding us account.
1:15:12
>> Turbo puffer serverless vector and full text search built from first principles and object storage.
1:15:16
Fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable there. There's so much news.
1:15:21
Tik Tok uninstalls surge 150% after apps US takeover. That is a crazy surge. >> Okay. Yeah.
1:15:30
So, there's a new king of the app store called Upscirrolled. >> Yes.
1:15:34
>> It is a Tik Tok >> Instagram >> clone. >> Clone. Okay. >> Competitor.
1:15:41
>> Uh just getting off the ground.
1:15:41
Um but uh I guess yeah, people uh I think people had the perception that Tik Tok was immediately censoring a bunch of different topics >> uh political topics and then uh >> just aside upscroll like use that as an opportunity to say like hey we're the alternative.
1:16:00
Yeah, it was interesting because I I know people were tracking the Tik Tok changing ownership.
1:16:03
Is Tik Tok going to get banned?
1:16:06
There were a lot of Tik Tok creators that took that as an opportunity to diversify to reals and shorts.
1:16:11
Um, and it just became obvious that you should be a multiplatform creator around that time, but I wasn't aware that the Tik Tok community was going to be tracking like when the servers actually shifted over to Oracle.
1:16:24
It feels a little wonky and not something that would go super viral, but I think >> Yeah.
1:16:30
But people noticed because video stopped being served. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
1:16:32
So, there was an outage and uh and and uh that certainly drove uh deletions >> and Sean Sean highlighted something. >> Yeah.
1:16:40
But but but again, to be clear, uh it's it's like there is a base level of Tik Tok uninstalls and then that surged 150%.
1:16:47
That doesn't mean that they're declining by 50% or anything like that.
1:16:52
Like there's still there's still new installs. calling up scrolled.
1:16:55
>> Yes, >> the the rumble of Tik Tok. >> Really? The rumble of Tik Tok.
1:16:59
>> Uh Sean Frank says, "Tik Tok views are down.
1:17:01
People are blaming the new owners."
1:17:03
I think this is just proof that Tik Tok was botting views the whole time.
1:17:07
Your 100,000 view video was probably reaching 25,000 real people.
1:17:13
So, uh no no surprise here for me.
1:17:13
I always felt like it was always obvious that there were very real people on Tik Tok.
1:17:21
>> I know people that went over to Tik Tok.
1:17:23
Of course, >> they'd start making videos about startups.
1:17:24
They'd start getting real inbound from people on LinkedIn. >> Yeah, totally.
1:17:28
>> Uh so they very clearly was always a bunch of real people there, >> but Tik Tok had every incentive to just bot all the views because >> what happens if somebody's getting way more views on Tik Tok versus Instagram?
1:17:40
They're going to lean in.
1:17:40
They're going to say like, I have more followers on Tik Tok.
1:17:43
I should be creating content there.
1:17:45
And that created a flywheel. Yeah.
1:17:47
>> And so you can imagine as things shifted over, >> uh >> who who knows, right?
1:17:51
like the the the new basically the new the new product. >> Yeah.
1:17:56
>> They had some system that was >> I I like different formats.
1:17:58
I liked Vine back in the day.
1:18:00
At one point I did set up a Tik Tok and I uploaded like two or three videos.
1:18:05
I was just trying to see like what it felt like to use that platform.
1:18:09
And I noticed even though I came to the platform with zero followers, the three or two or three videos that I uploaded immediately got 500 views each.
1:18:18
And I thought that the model was you get more of an opportunity to like sort of audition your content in the algorithm and then if it works it can blow up very quickly.
1:18:28
And I think that that's somewhat true.
1:18:29
Like when I started my YouTube channel, the first videos that I put up got a hundred views.
1:18:35
And for like a year if I broke a thousand views a video, I was like this is amazing. Like crazy. Hundreds of people. Really? Yeah.
1:18:42
Um >> but on TikTok you you post and you immediately get 500.
1:18:46
And I I've talked to some folks years ago who would set up a new Tik Tok account for a brand and they would launch one video that was so polished and so designed to be go viral like they would blow up a car and they'd spend all this money shooting this and it would actually just they knew that it would go viral and it just immediately go even though it's a fresh account and there were no followers because they just knew it was good content. It would get shared.
1:19:08
Tik Tok would audition it to like 100 people.
1:19:10
Remember when Tik Tok launched, it was a period where it was so difficult to grow on Instagram. >> Yeah.
1:19:19
>> Like that there was a huge challenge.
1:19:19
If you're a new creator, you go on Instagram and be really frustrated because your stuff just wasn't getting shared with people that didn't already follow you. Totally.
1:19:27
>> Um there's some comments under here.
1:19:29
There's there's last last thing on the Tik Tok front.
1:19:31
Turner Novak commented maybe they were views from Chinese users which are gone now.
1:19:34
It's also could be international users.
1:19:36
remember there's like if you have a new US app under US ownership is it getting shared with with uh with international users that are using other versions of Tik Tok unclear.
1:19:48
So >> well let's bring in our first guest of the show Anton from Lovable.
1:19:51
While he comes on I'm going to tell you about Gusto the unified platform for payroll benefits and HR built to evolve with modern small and mediumsiz businesses.
1:20:01
Welcome back [music] to the show.
1:20:02
Welcome to the TVP and Ultradome.
1:20:02
Thanks for taking the time to come and hang out with us.
1:20:05
West Coast West Coast tour.
1:20:07
>> It's It's cool to be here in person. Thank you.
1:20:09
>> It's been like more than six months, but it feels like much more a ton has changed.
1:20:14
[laughter] You know, my side, the business is doing better than ever.
1:20:18
>> I can imagine every time I every time I see a post about you, from you, there's a new biggest number.
1:20:22
Uh how how is growth going?
1:20:25
Is it still accelerating?
1:20:27
How's the business doing?
1:20:28
>> Um we are doing great on the growth side.
1:20:30
We uh hit 300 million AR two months after our 200 even louder in person.
1:20:41
So uh but more interestingly to me is the builders who are doing the real things.
1:20:46
I I was in the airport from San Francisco here um and Adam at owner.
1:20:51
com who helps tens of thousands of restaurants.
1:20:54
thousands of restaurants. He he was like super excited and raving about he had built out a new product line over the weekend in 8 hours where he was he was solving a new problem where all the customers were saying like u we keep getting these phone calls it's not always someone picking up and he built
1:21:08
an AI um who answers the phone for the restaurants and it was all working you could like configure it just like you were training a human um and and he was now building it releasing it next with his team and we're seeing all of these new opportunities where people would use Laval Blaster as their technical co-founder and build businesses. Yeah. Yeah.
1:21:28
And uh like you maybe you saw like I was super shocked when someone was shipping AI generated dog pictures in frames to pet owners uh and they were they're making $300,000 per per month on building that out without any technical.
1:21:43
>> How are they how are they actually doing that?
1:21:45
Obviously, I think maybe you can describe like the the the technical co-founder process of building a new application that someone takes payment.
1:21:56
But then I want to know about the top of funnel for that. >> Yeah.
1:21:58
But part of I mean I always saw lovable's growth as >> millions of people out in the world that historically were just perpetually searching for a technical co-founder.
1:22:09
>> Problem is a lot of people that are technical have a bunch of great ideas.
1:22:12
They don't necessarily need an idea guy.
1:22:13
And so there's all this like sort of pent up creative entrepreneurial energy that just never really goes anywhere because somebody doesn't take the time to actually learn to code.
1:22:21
They never find that that right partner.
1:22:25
>> Yeah, that's what we're seeing.
1:22:25
And our mission is about human creativity which is very fun to empower.
1:22:29
But it's not just new businesses.
1:22:32
There's a lot of uh companies and I'm keep hearing from how they build out like AI applications and agents using Lovable.
1:22:40
Um and once you get into it you if you especially if you look back compared to 6 months ago this feels like to me when I use it there's no limit almost of what you can do.
1:22:49
Um and the the thing where lovable I what I'm hearing is that it's a bit unique is that um there are a lot of tools that are coming from kind of developers and then more people keep using them.
1:23:00
We started with the nontechnical people and that makes it just super simple but it still has the same capabilities that more sophisticated uh users are are looking for in the same >> how are you thinking about working with companies like owner that uh I'm not super familiar with owner.
1:23:16
We got to have Adam the founder on but my understanding it's somewhat of like a system of record for a restaurant owner. Is that right?
1:23:23
And so in theory he could also offer lovable as like an integration so that individual businesses that are using owner can expand kind of and just build products that they themselves want not necessarily have to rely on owner. Is is that right?
1:23:37
Or are you seeing opportunities like that with other companies?
1:23:40
>> Yeah, I think we we have these partnership programs and I that's a good idea.
1:23:43
I'm going to bring that back to to talk to Adam specifically.
1:23:46
Um, but what what we're seeing >> theoretically somebody is on owner, they have a feature that there's a feature that they want that's not being offered and they can just build it.
1:23:57
They don't even have to request a feature.
1:23:59
>> I mean that that's what the future uh looks like and [clears throat] what we've seen is that Lovable is first used by as a communication medium and there a lot of people that have stopped using Google Slides and PowerPoint and they now they just prompt it away because it looks looks so nice. Yeah.
1:24:16
>> And um I think it's a better medium than the animated videos you were talking about previously.
1:24:20
about previously. Um but but then um now a lot of companies and us is one of those we're running we're switching out SAS providers to using tools that we use build ourselves >> and we connect we we tell loveable can you connect these two different applics
1:24:36
internal tools that we build um and add AI in between of those and and that >> I think is more of the future of how companies are going to be run where >> okay let's talk about uh let's talk about kind of vibe coding debt and tech debt because we we've gone through this where we'll build a product. We built uh
1:24:51
We built uh we built like a a guest directory.
1:24:54
Very simple product that would basically every time an episode would get published. >> Yeah.
1:25:00
>> We it we we had an app that would effectively scrape the episode, figure out who was a guest, link everything out and publish it.
1:25:05
And it and it we it was built in uh in a day by by one of our interns last summer and then he had to spend like the entire summer just like maintaining it and like shipping incremental updates.
1:25:15
So are you seeing any changes on that >> front?
1:25:19
Like obviously if it's easier to make products maybe it's easier to maintain them but uh I think the concern is like if you've created you know 200 different SAS tools and internal tools uh as part of your organization then you end up spending really valuable resources at the company you know human labor time uh just kind of maintaining these systems and making sure they keep running.
1:25:45
Can I talk a bit about the recent updates we did yesterday lovable?
1:25:50
So [clears throat] >> there's a much more advanced um planning mode that helps asking the you or your intern questions about what it is that you're trying to achieve and that makes the AI be able to you know find a better solution that doesn't need that type of maintenance.
1:26:06
Uh and and that's one of the many improvements that we shipped yesterday.
1:26:10
Another big one is >> so basically like if you if you vibe code poorly or if you prompt poorly you're adding a bunch of kind of like vibe coding debt and if you spend a little bit more time like prompting >> yeah I think people should just move fast and and be not be like oh I have to think through this so it's maintainable.
1:26:27
should move really fast to get something that works and that's like useful and but then you should sit down and you should reconsider [clears throat] talking to lovable and asking should I restart from from the beginning like I'm having these problems with the maintenance is this uh should I just be
1:26:42
keeping shipping incremental updates or is there a um something else that could actually solve this on a deeper level and and keep having that conversation and be creative in terms of what could be the right solution for this because um the systems are they're extremely intelligent now and they're just getting more and more intelligent. So that
1:26:57
So that should be your status quo.
1:26:58
Explain your situation so that which the AI doesn't know and then it will help help guide you through what's the best path.
1:27:06
>> It feels like the the the solution to vibe coding is more vibe coding or more code, right?
1:27:11
[laughter] So but but the question >> he says the vibe coding dealer >> he's like actually you need more uh but I believe that I believe that.
1:27:18
I believe that I believe that. But my I I think the the the interesting question is uh the shift to mobile and I want to know how you're thinking about that transition because if you go and vibe code an application and you sit down you
1:27:30
really think about it you work with the tool to plan and and and test and you're giving feedback and you spend you know a full day or a couple hours and you got it in a good spot but then there's like that one little oh actually this button isn't quite working. can you just go
1:27:41
can you just go check out?
1:27:42
It doesn't work in this scenario.
1:27:43
That winds up just being normally like you text a developer, you slack them.
1:27:48
Uh how are you thinking about uh like long-term integration with end users who might not be jumping into the tool themselves and might not even be, you know, have the time to actually sit down and vibe code.
1:27:58
Um I think the future of how teams operate is of course changing and I think there there should be um someone who is like ultimately responsible for the quality of of the applications and might not be you even though you you can throw in >> um ideas of changes and then someone looks at it before it goes out to your customers. Yeah.
1:28:19
>> So that's high level how I think about it and there's a lot of new capabilities that we are looking at to make sure that uh quality is always maintained and we over the last nine months we've been super focused on security which is um this like if you're putting something in
1:28:35
production that should be your first your first priority and and there's a lot built in that makes applications secure from the ground up in how we approach Yeah, the the challenge right now is if you have a hit product, you could go to 100 million users uh in 48 hours. We saw this what what was the
1:28:51
We saw this what what was the company that was like Palunteer for dating?
1:28:54
The [laughter] >> Did they really go that big? That's >> Yeah. No, no, no.
1:28:57
They went the T dating app.
1:28:59
Remember they they they went uh >> they don't call it Palunteer for dating, but yeah. Yeah.
1:29:03
You know, the tea dating app really is >> went to the top. >> Yes. Yes.
1:29:08
[laughter] Uh but but yeah, the founder was just kind of coding.
1:29:14
>> I think he had some team members too. >> Yeah, sure.
1:29:15
But like clearly they were moving very quickly and >> uh some some mistakes were made. >> Yeah.
1:29:20
uh what it what has anything changed in your mindset about wh the level that you want to operate at or integrate with versus uh being a web app uh with cloud hosting operating into the browser level into the OS leveling an a dedicated app on a phone or on a on a Mac uh or command line tools.
1:29:43
How are you thinking about the the different unlocks that you get at different levels? >> Yeah, great question.
1:29:50
So, first of all, I I use um lovable on the phone all the time and it's really like a good mobile experience which is why we uh >> we are seeing usage there. Yeah.
1:30:00
Um I I know that a lot of entrepreneurs they're building out complete work OS systems. Yeah.
1:30:10
>> I talked to Gwyneith Paltor yesterday and she they're building a a lovable brain that I accumulates all the information that they need in running their company. Okay.
1:30:17
And >> what that uh gets some more capabilities from is that it can connect to your local file system. >> Yeah.
1:30:26
>> And it can connect to I mean in the future I don't know exactly what the mobile device is going to look like.
1:30:30
But um it's going to the AI has to have context on everything you do on your phone for it to be fully u unlocked for all the capabilities unlocked.
1:30:39
And uh that's something we're looking at like exactly how does that future look like as we building towards >> um the best interface for humans to use technology and use AI and because that's the vision we're on. >> Yeah.
1:30:53
>> How do you think about the tradeoffs between consumer and enterprise?
1:30:56
Obviously you can use it to make something that replaces a slide deck uh just communication external marketing materials landing pages.
1:31:04
Uh you can also use it for building an internal tool uh and just and just spin something up internally to a company that's never going outside.
1:31:11
Both are very interesting markets.
1:31:13
Do you want to serve both?
1:31:13
Do you think that there's a value to focusing on one over the other? >> Yeah, great question.
1:31:18
>> Yeah, great question. So um lovable started out from the AI early AI adopters and um that's where we're seeing now growth in all directions because people love how there's maybe some Swedish design sensibility like things just works and we put a lot of
1:31:34
hard engineering making making it simple right um and one of the directions is spreading in the is in the enterprise people come to the work and they like look how much we can get done using glovable at work so now we have all of these required features for enterprises SEM and so on. Um and [clears throat]
1:31:50
SEM and so on. Um and [clears throat] specifically uh what we like I I'll tell you an example of one of a really large company they have 80,000 plus real estate agents globally dozens of countries hundreds of websites they had offer to replplatform all these websites because you know there's always this pain for marketers changing website and the [clears throat]
1:32:12
VP of marketing there uh it would that would take a year the marketing found lovable and he was like wow I can just build one of those websites in in a few minutes and Then they sat down and they looked at how can can we >> these are websites for individual homes >> for so different brands brands for real estate agents across different geos. Yeah. Um and then over 3 weeks they Yeah.
1:32:31
Yeah. Um and then over 3 weeks they replatformed they saved $2 million in a on a solution uh which was part paying for AI chatbots on the website and uh their their chief innovation officer just says like this is the biggest change that their company has experienced in how fast they can move how they could build out an AI chatbot just by prompting lovable and that's a
1:32:54
large company and that's them building product lines that are facing their end customers where what's what they're seeing Even more volume of is of course applica internal applications and uh applicant tracking systems uh built from the ground up by the people who are using those applicant tracking systems with AI uh with thousands of people uh being served. >> How are you how are you thinking about
1:33:14
>> How are you how are you thinking about headcount planning specifically on the engineering side?
1:33:20
>> Uh yes it's a good question.
1:33:20
I I I was at the anthropic office and they're I I think they're hiring a lot of people uh just like we are doing.
1:33:27
Um because if what what you're actually seeing is that if you use AI correctly as a business, which is one of my personal top goals or the entire company's top goal out of three goals is us learning how to use AI as productively as possible.
1:33:41
And that means that each each human has more output, right?
1:33:45
if you do that really well.
1:33:47
And as we are learning that and figuring that out, we're putting that into the product and giving our users all the best practices in um how to connect all internal tools that your company is running on um to and share context across everything you're doing.
1:34:02
Like when you're doing research on a podcast, you should all be able to just ask an AI what what question should I ask Anton?
1:34:07
and that that all of that uh infrastructure, all that tooling, you should be able to build on lovable or just yeah get someone's uh else tool and copy it into your workspace.
1:34:19
>> How much do you guys pay attention to job descriptions at various companies in terms of understanding market pull?
1:34:24
terms of understanding market pull? I could imagine people uh companies that wouldn't necessarily hire software engineers saying like we want engineers that are can you know use lovable and and other uh relevant tools because I think one of the one of the interesting things that we're trying to understand
1:34:41
from uh just kind of understanding like how job how how we'll see job growth in some areas maybe job reduction in other areas is I think people are underestimating how many companies there will just be a net new role where somebody or multiple people are creating a maintaining software that the company's creating. And we're an example
1:34:57
And we're an example of that, right?
1:34:58
Historically, a media company like if you if you had a fledgling media company, we brought Tyler on uh uh last I think like Q1 of last year.
1:35:08
We'd only been in market for a handful of months.
1:35:09
And normally if a somebody was building a media company and they were telling me they were hiring uh or a podcast, right, and they were telling me they were hiring a software engineer in their, you know, second quarter in business, I'd be like, "Dude, you you should focus on like a million other things, right? just make good content.
1:35:25
But in our case, we realize, hey, we can build uh quite a lot of uh internal tooling for what we're doing to make the show better.
1:35:30
And so, I think we're going to see a lot of uh job growth from companies that again wouldn't normally uh hire any anybody internally doing software engineering. >> It's a good question.
1:35:42
I I don't look at external other people's job offers.
1:35:45
I my background is in physics.
1:35:47
So I just break things down into like what is it that what are the governing principles for make making a team work really well and people work humans working well together and getting output as a company.
1:35:58
Um and what what I'm seeing is that you want the team of people who [clears throat] they don't have to be software engineers but they're very curious and they uh get it they get new things understand them very quickly and and that's one of the things that we're fundamentally um fundamentally hiring for.
1:36:16
for. I mean I I can take a another example because I I love I'm so inspired every time I meet someone who's has like we changed their lives who love so it's a it's a guy who Allan he built a healthcare AI stuffing company in five months there is a million dollars in error and he couldn't have able to build
1:36:35
something like this and then [clears throat] >> yeah there's so many niche labor marketplaces uh these were they used to be like more popular like venturebacked businesses and then a lot of VCs figured out like hey you can build a great business here, but you end up kind of capping out. There's some software
1:36:48
There's some software component to do with like matching and kind of booking, payments, stuff like that.
1:36:54
But ultimately, uh, a lot of these businesses should just remain like somewhat niche, right?
1:36:58
You could have a $10 million a year business doing staffing and have it, you know, like the people running it, right? You have a lean uh team.
1:37:06
Uh but now but historically it was a challenge because you're there was a number of companies that would build like out of the box like marketplace software but usually they were like it was you had to do so much work to like actually adapt the software that it was kind of this trade-off of like do I build it inhouse?
1:37:23
Do I use >> people used to abuse WordPress like crazy they build a whole social network on WordPress or try and modify it with e-commerce stuff and and it would take a year and millions of dollars to build something that now it takes a weekend.
1:37:37
How do you uh how do you lead the team around dealing with uh competition and you know every you guys are now competing with pretty much every company in the whole world it [laughter] seems like you know from hyperscalers right that that are building uh vibe coding tools to other startups like what's your philosophy around uh dealing with with competition just kind of like emotionally like in the organization?
1:38:04
Yeah, >> I mean first of all what we're seeing is that people come back to lovable uh and compare it with other tools.
1:38:09
They say like wow this is such a wonderful see simpler experience that works better for them that we're actually work and it's more capable in many many dimensions.
1:38:18
more capable in many many dimensions. So that is just gives us a lot of belief in what we're doing and the way we think about it is to not look at um what others are doing is just to look at what do our customers want us to do and and being very grounded in that and that we >> banned the like competition Slack
1:38:38
channel you know people because it would literally be every day it's like hey like we have a new venture >> back this yeah >> but it's a sign that it's a sign that >> we but yeah we fundamentally to say we're building the best product based on first principles what we think is the
1:38:52
best way to do these things and it often means not adding new features adding new capabilities but thinking very long term how is this uh whole experience going to be for us humans as we interact with super intelligence basically in the future and that's what we're that's what we're driving us building that product
1:39:09
is is the the motivator for everyone >> what about uh international expansion you're obviously in Europe here already are you opening offices in other continents Yeah, we haven't announced more offices than um Stockholm and then and then great go to market >> have any to announce. >> What's that? [laughter] >> What's that?
1:39:27
[laughter] >> I can't come back.
1:39:29
We have more announcements but we have people hired a few people are hired remotely including here in the US in various cities. Yeah.
1:39:38
>> So so that's what it's like but we we getting a lot of value of being in person people who are very like long-term thinking very very bought into the mission that we're on based in Stockholm.
1:39:48
How do you think about retention?
1:39:50
There's so many amazing tools that come out.
1:39:52
Like I remember those uh uh it was Lensza magic avatars.
1:39:55
Everyone had to take their photo and do the the the Studio Gibli precursor like a year earlier the style transfer on their image and then uh people sort of like they tried it and then they churned out.
1:40:08
Uh but at the same time like website builders have incredibly low churn because once you build your website even if you're not using the tool every day you're using it as hosting and you might be dumping uh be jumping back in to make changes.
1:40:20
How are you thinking about uh the different retention dynamics the different cohorts. How are things looking?
1:40:26
>> We're seeing very very healthy retention.
1:40:28
We're like net dollar retentioning has been more than 100%. >> There we go.
1:40:33
>> But um >> there we go.
1:40:35
We're also of course seeing some AI tourists that are just trying a lot of >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:40:38
They must exist and they just stop by and then they move on to something else, right? >> Yeah.
1:40:43
And and what we what we're um doing is that we're splitting out the different segments and seeing like what what are the jobs to be done for the segments that we could do better.
1:40:51
And um >> fundamentally what we what we're noticing is that for most things we're adding which is about making the whole whole experience to do more things more seamless like more capabilities. >> Exactly.
1:41:04
>> Exactly. more seamless without making it a more complex experience that's helping their transition across the board for for everyone >> and and less of a point solution less of yeah I use that for slides this week but then there's a new one over there I got to try the new thing uh more of like actually run your entire business build
1:41:21
the new business on this and then stay with that for a long time that makes a ton of sense um what about recommendations for other software products databases I've I've seen a bunch of charts where uh the default recommendation for Superbase for example is just climbing like crazy because it's recommended by uh by yeah by you and by a backend and by a number of the models. Um how what does that does that business
1:41:44
Um how what does that does that business evolve into an affiliate model?
1:41:47
Do you have a do you have demand from your customers to educate them about the different tradeoffs when they're building when they're picking something or do you want all of that to be abstracted away so that the end user doesn't even know what a database is for example and database is just one example.
1:42:05
There's a million things you probably plug in with, right?
1:42:07
>> This this is a great question.
1:42:07
Um, we have some really good product integrations and you me mentioned superbase.
1:42:12
It's one of them and uh we are we're covering more and more area of payments, email and communications.
1:42:17
We want those we want more of those amazing partnerships.
1:42:21
Um I I think >> uh like there shouldn't be any limits of those integrations.
1:42:26
You should be able to ask Lavable to I mean get cleaning for your podcast studio or whatever and and that should be that shouldn't be done by us.
1:42:33
It should be a partnership where we current we currently just making um more of those partnerships successful and there are multiple companies that have been seen absolute majority of their growth coming from from us actually. Sure.
1:42:48
Uh but and then but then uh at some some point um yeah I mean we need to let uh our users get the best product integration if there many ones >> feel like other companies should be a little bit worried if the majority of their growth is coming from you guys given that your whole the whole purpose of the of the company is to make it easy to build software and eventually you guys will just >> naturally do some do some of those things. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:43:12
>> I mean the integrations I I'm happy to not do them.
1:43:14
We we want to focus on the interface the app creation layer and then uh underneath there needs to be a lot of uh things that connect to very very technically challenging systems to build the infrastructure and so on that um we don't need to put uh like our our efforts into into building.
1:43:30
So it's fun we want to do a lot more partnership this year. >> Yeah makes sense.
1:43:35
>> Talk about the dynamics between lovable and all the different labs.
1:43:37
I'm sure that you have very open dialogue with them around uh just like integrating with new tools, getting previews of models, all that kind of thing.
1:43:47
Uh and I'm sure part of why you're on the West Coast is just to spend time with with the different teams. >> Yeah.
1:43:53
Uh those those relationships are really good.
1:43:55
Um we um are fundamentally listening to the users more than them.
1:44:02
We're building for the 99% while they're building development.
1:44:05
>> Please listen to your users less.
1:44:05
You really want to >> [laughter] >> No, I'm kidding. >> Yeah. No.
1:44:09
Um and um what like they have to spend so much of their focus on the strategy on like building these models and making like pump squeezing out more and more juice from those models and we're in this place which is um very favorable favorable for the end users where we're not tied to a specific model.
1:44:28
Um we we use a combination at level of different models and that serves that gives a better user experience in the end with the trade-off of speed and the the high quality for each specific task. >> Yeah.
1:44:41
>> How did you and the team react to Claudebot?
1:44:44
Was there any kind of like new kind of user paradigms that that you were inspired by?
1:44:49
Anything to take away and kind of integrate?
1:44:51
I mean we had Peter on the show uh Tuesday a couple days ago and he was very open like he's just like in it.
1:44:57
He's not he's clearly not in it to make money.
1:44:59
Like he's in it for the love of the game and just kind of >> uh we asked him, you know, do you do you think that people will clone >> uh what you're doing or or copy it or or um or build on top of it?
1:45:10
And he was like, "Yeah, I do. That's cool."
1:45:11
Uh so kind of an unexpected answer, but I'm curious if there's anything that uh you thought was particularly in interesting that you can bring back to Lovable. >> Yes. Um I love Peter.
1:45:22
Happy you had him on the show.
1:45:25
I I think um like me and many people in the team have been building our own versions of this personal assistant that you just talked to record audio to and >> talk on your phone. >> Yeah.
1:45:38
In my case on my my computer.
1:45:38
Um and then what um we are of course thinking about which is like the other top goal for this year is to provide the best workspace for the best way to collaborate as a team.
1:45:50
Um, and that of course has a big part of that is being able to talk to an agent that has access to all the all of your different tools that once you're building with lovable.
1:46:00
Um, and can collect can pull out the data when you need it.
1:46:05
>> Um, and I think uh I'm very happy about this open source project in particular getting a lot of traction.
1:46:11
This it's bit my roots as well.
1:46:14
>> Yeah, it feels like it's just waking everyone up to what's possible.
1:46:15
It was real like feeling the AGI moment generally and maybe not everyone reaches for open source and all that's entailed with that, but it's sort of just like a new call to action for everyone to try new tools.
1:46:27
So yeah, overall good, very bullish.
1:46:30
>> Twitter Twitter likes this completely new things that you can try out.
1:46:32
Um, in the end, what users want is something that's simple and that's very, very trusted, high security, high reliability.
1:46:40
And when you're building your strategy like us, that's what we're focusing on.
1:46:44
What is it that most people want and what's the um sustaining product that you want to build?
1:46:51
>> What social platform is most important to Lovable's growth at the moment?
1:46:57
>> Um I think I'm not sure if my team likes me sharing data here, but Twitter and LinkedIn is what the ones I know are the big ones.
1:47:06
big ones. And but we're also seeing Instagram >> cuz I cuz I Yeah, cuz I feel like products when they actually go mainstream like going mainstream looks like n like going over to Instagram and these other platforms
1:47:17
>> feels like beyond a niche which I think of LinkedIn and X as but uh yeah I mean it's a big community so it makes a ton of sense especially with some of the some of the larger enterprises that you're working with at the business side that makes a ton of sense. Uh what does
1:47:28
Uh what does the top of funnel look like and growth function look like?
1:47:33
Is there a flywheel where someone builds and then shares and then I I imagine that there's you know links built with lovable in the footer but is that a real engine of growth or is or are advertising like what what's driving growth overall at the high level. >> Yeah.
1:47:49
And so uh we're seeing about 300 million visits to lovable applications per month. Okay.
1:47:55
>> So uh that is a real effect.
1:47:55
>> So uh that is a real effect. people like oh this is this great website and um most of the time that leading to conversion is they just talking to the person like oh yeah you built it with lovable and that um that is a part of the biggest channel which is just word of mouth and that continues to be like absolutely >> they see something cool even if it's
1:48:14
just a small demo even if they're not paying for that business they see it and they're like I want to do that but for me or my >> yeah they they hear um I mean they hear about us from the friends or they see about us on the internet somewhere >> um And um yeah, I'm I'm looking at investing more into growth of course and and then um I think Instagram and we're getting growth marketing really really strong. It could be the the next big
1:48:37
It could be the the next big channel.
1:48:40
>> Super Bowl's coming up.
1:48:40
It's not too late to throw something together. Maybe anything. >> Maybe next year. We'll see. >> TV. We'll see. It's not breaking.
1:48:51
>> Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> This was fantastic.
1:48:55
>> Have a great rest of your trip.
1:48:55
We really appreciate you coming by >> and we will tell you about Finn.
1:48:58
ai, the number one AI agent for customer service.
1:49:03
If you want AI to handle your customer support, go to Finn. ai.
1:49:05
And up next, we have >> I'm expecting a Super Bowl ad.
1:49:10
>> I I want a Super Bowl ad that they could do some really fun stuff.
1:49:12
I mean, even some of the c customer testimonials would be great, even if they go with something uh more.
1:49:17
They they should build the entire ad in lovable dog food the product.
1:49:22
Uh, we have Christian Garrett and Delian Aspu in the reream waiting room.
1:49:26
We will bring them in to the TVPN Ultra.
1:49:27
Delian, Christian, how are you doing? How are you feeling? >> There they are. What's going on? >> Way to go, baby. Live from New York.
1:49:35
>> You guys look fantastic. >> Boys, great. Thank you guys.
1:49:38
>> Take us through the news. Break it down for us.
1:49:40
This is year four, correct? >> Year. >> Year five. >> Year five.
1:49:46
>> Third year of doing the daytime forum.
1:49:48
We started it back in the day just as like a small dinner series and then 3 years ago kind of experimented with daytime forum. That went great.
1:49:53
Um and then this could be our third time doing it. >> Okay.
1:49:57
What's special about this time? Who's on the lineup? >> You want to start? I'll start.
1:50:01
Um I mean obviously the 250th is uh is great timing um for us to have another event here.
1:50:08
Um we're very excited about that.
1:50:10
I think the key focus this year outside of continuing to build on what the forum has always been about which is building bridges between technology and government technology sector and government uh is going to be increased focus not just on technological leadership but industrial leadership um and then as well as looking at having leadership among our allies.
1:50:26
So I think this year you'll see a bigger expansion of the industries where technology is having an impact and playing a critical role and you'll see leaders from companies that are leaders in those industries and you'll also see a lot of folks coming from abroad and participating as well.
1:50:40
And so I think you're just seeing that the relationship of the bridge between technology and government is actually a key framework for building deep relationships between the US and our allies as well as building deep relationships and strengthening other industries.
1:50:50
And we didn't say it, but uh March 24th, Washington DC.
1:50:53
Uh for now, we've only announced some of like the private uh you know, basically speakers.
1:50:56
We haven't announced any of the gov speakers yet, but it's folks like Trey Stevens from Ander Founders Fund, Venode Kosa from Kosla Ventures, uh Brad Litecap from OpenAI, Sham Sankar from Palunteer, a bunch more that we'll start to, you know, basically release.
1:51:10
But yeah, what I like about this year is we're also going to start to expand themes a little bit.
1:51:13
bit. there's going to be a strong basically biotechnology you sort of focus and some folks both within the administration within private industry talking about basically how we need to make sure that we don't lose that entire like supply chain and industry to China the same way that we have with like consumer electronics or humanoids you're starting to see some like early signs
1:51:28
towards that and there'll even be some joint policy put out that HVF will be you know sort of endorsing and so what's been cool is as the like forum has been around for several years we're now not just like acting as a gathering place but it's even a place for people to start to think about you know not just meeting but even like publishing policy together that align sort of like private
1:51:44
and public incentives in a way that is like best for the nation and then throughout all this you know we like I said we started this 5 years ago obviously under the Biden administration continuing to maintain I think you know true bipartisanship you know venode coal obviously has a certain set of you know sort of thoughts about you know sort of policies regulations etc I may not necessarily agree with all them but we
1:52:02
try to throughout both the you know sort of forum the events that we host everything is pretty consistently you know sort of you know even and across the aisle and we try and stick with you know sort of centrists on you know sort of both sides that can actually you know sort of reach across the aisle on, you know, you know, produce productive policy together. You know, you won't see
1:52:14
You know, you won't see a ton of the, you know, sort of extremists from either, you know, either party there. >> That's great.
1:52:19
Uh, I noticed Younglu from, uh, Fox Con is attending. Uh, interesting company.
1:52:24
Obviously, everyone's very familiar.
1:52:25
Uh, uh, do you think there's going to be more energy about let's bring more Foxcon manufacturing to America or just startups trying to work with Foxcon?
1:52:36
There was this leak that uh that uh OpenAI might be working with Foxcon on the new Sweet Pea earbuds and it feels like uh more and more companies as they think about hardware, they're going to be wanting to establish relationship with Foxcon.
1:52:50
That's sort of the beauty of this at least from the business side.
1:52:53
What what what's interesting about Foxcon?
1:52:55
Uh why is he important to the conference?
1:52:58
>> Well, I think first off, you know, you have Foxcon, Qualcomm.
1:53:00
Um you'll have some other uh names that will be announced uh across these other kind of categories of companies that have maybe been in industries that weren't viewed as technology industries but now increasingly are.
1:53:10
increasingly are. Um and I think a lot of the leaders that are coming there uh are really just representing a trend that you've seen which is once again technology industry is a great way to build deepening relationships and partnerships uh with our allies and to your point it works both ways right yes
1:53:27
you'll see just like TSMC who's made a huge investment in the state of Arizona and you're seeing that from other companies as well here domestically you're also seeing companies abroad continue to invest in other countries and scale there through partnerships like these uh an example in another country you know we've seen and for
1:53:43
example invest heavily and is a portfolio company for founders fund and 137 for us respectively and invest heavily in countries like the UK Australia and Japan just recently uh opening their office there um Japan is another country as well as many others like South Korea and Europe that are increasingly opening their doors to
1:54:00
become manufacturing hubs for the reinstation here in the US as well as supporting their own reinstation efforts and I think you know you're going to have to see many companies like Foxcon play a critical role as the West tries to shift off of reliance on Chinese capacity across critical industries. >> We as much as possible obviously try to
1:54:15
>> We as much as possible obviously try to make it so that it's sort of bipartisan uh uh from the you know elected officials and you know sort of congress but we do try to as much as possible whichever administration basically is in office try to reflect some of their
1:54:26
priorities and what you've obviously seen under this administration is you know them leaning into you know making sure that our allies are you know sort of contributing their fair share but also reestablishing their own re-industrialization efforts. And so I
1:54:36
And so I think a you know significant theme of this year's forum is going to be having a lot more international presence and there to both you know sort of learn from how the US is re-industrializing but also partner with some of these companies to bring those technologies locally partner with some of their local you know sort of primes and reindustrialization efforts to accelerate those in some ways these trends that you're seeing in the US.
1:54:55
The United States is much better off if France if Germany if the United Kingdom if Australia if Japan are mimicking basically those same you know technological patterns and so that's definitely going to be a major you know sort of topic of this year's forum.
1:55:07
Yeah, I know you haven't announced the uh government attendees, but is there a desire to have international leaders uh attend as well?
1:55:15
Is this going to be the next Davos in a couple years or or do you want to keep it focused on uh domestic policy makers, US policy makers, senators, uh representatives?
1:55:25
>> I mean, obviously the event being in DC and the core focus is on the technology sector and the government sector in the US.
1:55:31
Uh but the event's always been international.
1:55:32
Um, you know, from the beginnings, we've had foreign ambassadors from other countries attend.
1:55:37
We had the VP of Taiwan speak multiple times.
1:55:39
I think you will see a lot more international leadership attend as well.
1:55:43
Um, I think it's reflective to Dellian's point that this really is about the west being successful and um, you know, the concept of it's not US alone, right?
1:55:49
And so I think yes, you will see that represented.
1:55:52
Um, most of the leadership of course is still going to be heavily uh, domestic, right?
1:55:56
And so leaders from Congress, leaders from the administration, etc.
1:55:59
Um, but you will definitely see a lot more leadership from from countries abroad and our allies and that's going to be very exciting and that's going to be from the Middle East, uh, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Europe.
1:56:12
>> Yeah, >> I think you you'll see like in the long term, I think the way that like this will always break it down is it'll probably be like 85% 90% domestic focus, but there'll always be like a twinge of international.
1:56:20
And so, I think that's what it's been probably historically on the attendee side of things.
1:56:23
And this year for the first time there will be a few more sort of like internationally focused panels but it's not going to quite go to like Davos level which is like kind of global elite in some ways.
1:56:32
This is always going to be primarily sort of United States focus with a twinge of international.
1:56:36
>> What are all the ways that people can participate uh view you know watch from home be a part of it whether as a sponsor all that stuff. >> Yeah.
1:56:46
Um so the you know event is invite only uh to participate uh during the day in Washington DC.
1:56:49
in Washington DC. um uh but you know it is going to be about a thousand people so it's a relatively you know sort of broad audience that we'll be you know sort of bringing in there um we'll also be live streaming uh all of the panels um on our YouTube um you know and X accounts uh and then there will be you know a couple media groups that are live
1:57:05
streaming from there um some traditional ones like Bloomberg uh and some super exciting novel ones like TVPN on site you know uh there so there'll be a variety of different live streams to tune into that I think will give you a feel of the event both the official panels as well as obviously the side conversations that you guys will be doing. Yeah, that's great. Uh, what is Yeah, that's great.
1:57:19
Uh, what is this business structure of Hillen Valley now? Is it its own nonprofit?
1:57:26
>> How is >> We are officially a 501c3.
1:57:29
So, this is the first year ever.
1:57:29
We are uh welcome to the board of the Hill Valley Forum Foundation. Yeah. 501c3.
1:57:38
You know, >> are you guys just being mimedic with OpenAI? >> Yeah.
1:57:40
Are you considering a for-profit conversion?
1:57:42
Because I feel like the ads really we could do a lot with each other here.
1:57:46
[laughter] >> There's a lot more to be announced. like Delian said. So, uh, just stay tuned.
1:57:50
>> Yeah, but we do have full-time staff, which is really exciting.
1:57:52
So, yeah, you know, Chris and I were starting to get a little too stretched thin between, uh, you know, both of us having too many jobs.
1:57:57
So, it is nice finally >> and we lost a key leader as well.
1:57:59
So, we really stretched >> the, you know, Yeah, I believe now the youngest under secretary in United States history.
1:58:06
So, >> handsome >> and most handsome.
1:58:07
God damn some of those photos on the official Max.
1:58:11
[laughter] >> Damn, I wish I would like that. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
1:58:14
Uh, >> maybe I'd be under secretary then.
1:58:16
is the he is under secretary.
1:58:19
>> So yeah, talk talk more broadly about the 2026 calendar, 2027 calendar.
1:58:21
Uh people know the annual event in DC.
1:58:26
There was that oneoff event with All-In that was a special hill and valley sort of collab.
1:58:31
Is there a plan to do a quarterly series, have other dinners uh go off the hill and have something in the valley? What are you thinking?
1:58:39
>> Yeah, I I think it's something that we're open to opportunistically.
1:58:40
Um it's not something we're committed to or it's part of the plan.
1:58:43
We very much are focused on the main event every year.
1:58:47
But absolutely, you know, we actually just did something recently with FII who is also they do an incredible job.
1:58:51
Their conference is right after the Hill Valley.
1:58:54
So I recommend most people, which a lot of us are, will end up flying straight to that right after.
1:58:58
[snorts] Um and you know, Richot has done an incredible job really gathering a lot of world leaders and running an incredible event in Saudi.
1:59:03
Um and they've done events globally.
1:59:06
Uh we did a collab there and brought a lot of Silicon Valley leadership.
1:59:09
You know, Ruth Porat from Google attended.
1:59:10
Ruth Porat from Google attended. uh Sriram right from the White House and the administration attended and spoke um and a bunch of other folks and so I think you know we we'll look at these opportunities where we can try to help bring more of really Silicon Valley uh to these other events internationally particularly you know when it aligns
1:59:25
with uh countries that are our allies and their focus on building deep bridges between technology and government and so you know I think you'll see some of those maybe internationally or potentially obviously domestically the the one-off event with the all-in guys with with Jay Cow Chimoth and and Freeberg and and Sachs obviously in his role organizing that along ong with Jacob. That was incredible. We would That was incredible.
1:59:42
We would love to do more things like this. It's just opportunistic.
1:59:45
So, if it happens multiple times in a year, great.
1:59:47
If it doesn't happen, also great. >> Yeah.
1:59:49
>> I think one of the ambitions that I have for the event is um starting to become, you know, sort of more deep in particular sectors like, you know, this year very intentionally trying to go a bit, you know, sort of deeper into biotech.
1:59:58
biotech. I could imagine eventually where you know you have the marquee event you know on a particular day of the week but there may be some like subsector tracks you know over time where we do like Hillen Valley space hill valley biotech hill valley you know industrialization hill valley rare earths and those be like subtracts and again with the goal of this being like I
2:00:14
don't want to just gather people for gathering people's sake like maybe that's what they do in Davos but like you know the goal is like I would like to actually make sure that like policy >> I thought you were I thought your whole brand was I'm the networking guy here's here's 20 here's a 20 point thread on how to how to network [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. This is a mastermind, right? Yeah.
2:00:28
This is a mastermind, right?
2:00:30
We should reband this as a mastermind.
2:00:31
>> Neither neither of us were at Davos, so that >> Okay. Yeah.
2:00:35
>> Look, my favorite types of venture investing to do is just follow the heat.
2:00:38
That is how you generate return.
2:00:38
You just identify the heat and invest into the hottest deals and other people are marking it up.
2:00:44
You just got to mark it up even faster at higher prices and chase momentum.
2:00:48
>> Well, speaking of exciting deals, Bridget Mendler was on the show yesterday.
2:00:50
The chat, we just want to relay this.
2:00:52
The chat is pulling for a Bridget Mendler attendance, a speaking, an an invite, something like that.
2:00:56
We'd love to see her there.
2:00:57
Uh >> well, Bridges Bridge is a vet. He's been there. >> Oh, fantastic. A lot of fun.
2:01:00
I mean, Kevin Whale also I have to shout him out. He's been a veteran.
2:01:04
I know he's coming on later.
2:01:05
He's been he's attended every single forum.
2:01:07
Um and has been an incredible partner for us and obviously now, you know, alongside opening up great partners.
2:01:13
Um and so, you know, the stuff that he's working on on science, by the way, is awesome.
2:01:17
I'm very glad he gets to talk more about that later.
2:01:18
So, yeah, it's it's Bridget's actually a veteran.
2:01:21
So, um we need to find a poll for someone that has not attended before. I know.
2:01:24
What I like is like there's some pretty we have like a just a really solid veteran squad.
2:01:28
It's like Alex Carp been there every single year.
2:01:31
Node Kla been there every single year.
2:01:33
Trey Stevens I think went to the second one coming back this year to speak.
2:01:34
And so um I think what's nice >> that's a big deal for Trey.
2:01:38
>> I know Trey is hard to uh you know >> and to be social and travel is not easy. >> Exactly.
2:01:43
I just peer pressured him a lot this year thankfully.
2:01:44
So you know got him up there. >> Yeah.
2:01:47
You mentioned a bunch of different categories.
2:01:48
Is energy top of mind for you?
2:01:50
How are you thinking about uh the all the work that's going on?
2:01:52
We see a lot of energy or a lot of excitement around nuclear uh been tracking a little bit less in solar but who are you interested in?
2:01:59
What conversations are you excited about in energy?
2:02:02
>> Yeah, I think there'll be like two major areas that you'll see um energy come up at the forum.
2:02:05
The first is there is going to be like a nuclear you know sort of focus panel.
2:02:07
of focus panel. haven't announced those you know sort of you know panelists yet but um you know let's just say there may be one that's >> a general y >> um uh as one of the panelists and then other one I think where you'll see an angle on it is a little bit in relation to basically like the build out of the physical infrastructure behind AI and how much of you know energy is limitation there so those would be kind
2:02:25
of the two you know topic areas that we focus on there and again with both those trying to make sure that by the time we get to the forum there's particular you know sort of policy and things that you're coming out of those panels that aren't just discussions but you know ideally legislation that's going to be passed so we always try and make sure the forum forum is in a week where both Senate and the House are in session. Um
2:02:39
Senate and the House are in session. Um and so you know in some ways Congress basically chooses the dates of the forum more so than we do but as much as possible try and make it so that you know sort of policy immediately you know sort of comes out of it and sometimes we also react live right you know in one of
2:02:51
the forums years it was the you know the uh you know main event was the day before the Tik Tok CEO's uh basically um you know uh what's called briefing in front of Congress and so obviously there was a lot of discussion you know that year and you know policy papers and recommendations from that you know sort of group around you know what needs to be done uh with Tik Tok. >> Yeah. dress code. I mean, >> Yeah. dress code. I mean, >> dress code.
2:03:09
Should should people wear different colored shoes?
2:03:11
Delian, suit, what what what do you guys recommend? >> T-shirt and jeans.
2:03:17
>> Uh, it is DC, so you know, probably not full Silicon Valley casual.
2:03:20
Maybe more business casual. Um, or suit and tie. Definitely. >> Yeah.
2:03:25
No, it's the best dressed.
2:03:25
It's the best dressed event in tech on the tech circuit.
2:03:29
It's the best dressed one. It's fantastic.
2:03:31
>> Yeah, we were like, are you guys the best dressed people in it?
2:03:33
It is the best dressed event in tech. It is fantastic.
2:03:36
[laughter] >> I have been told that uh my head of the head of comms at Hill Valley is unhappy with the fact that I keep wearing the same damn gray suit every single year.
2:03:45
And so >> he's making me shopping uh you know later today. >> It's also the same.
2:03:50
You also wore the shirt last time you came on the show.
2:03:54
>> Oh, [laughter] I don't know if you know I actually wear this specific quarter zip every single time I'm on TV. >> I know. It's the green. It's the green. It's the green.
2:04:01
I make sure that it's washed every single week so that I make sure that I can wear it. >> Fantastic. Well, we appreciate it.
2:04:07
>> Thank you so much for coming.
2:04:07
Can't wait to wait for it. Congrats on on the list.
2:04:12
Everyone will be staying tuned to the new guest, boys. See you there. >> See you later. Goodbye.
2:04:18
>> Let me tell you about Octa.
2:04:18
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2:04:23
So you get the power of AI without the risk. Secure every agent.
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2:04:28
And up next, we have Eric Sufort from Heracles Media.
2:04:35
He's been on the show before from Mobile Dev Memo.
2:04:36
If you're not familiar, uh he got us absolutely fired up about advertising. We're huge fans of him.
2:04:42
We're huge fans of advertising.
2:04:42
And he's in the reream waiting room.
2:04:43
So, we will bring him in to the TVP Ultra Dump.
2:04:45
Eric Seford, how are you doing? >> Good to see you. >> How's it going, guys? Thanks for having me. >> Hopping back on.
2:04:51
Uh we've been following the chatbt ads roll out the story.
2:04:57
You've had a ton of great analysis.
2:04:57
We talked about it a little bit on the show, but we wanted to, you know, hear it from you and dive way deeper.
2:05:02
So, maybe you could uh set the table for us on uh what the launch is looking like right now, what the product is looking like, what your expectations were.
2:05:11
Just uh maybe begin at the beginning of this saga for the ads and chatbt.
2:05:18
>> Well, the saga begins where chat GPT begins.
2:05:21
We all knew we were going to end up here.
2:05:23
We all knew ads were coming.
2:05:23
I mean, I wrote a piece May 2025.
2:05:24
I said obviously chat GPT will monetize with ads.
2:05:29
Why did I feel so confident in that?
2:05:31
Because they had just hired Fiji Simo.
2:05:32
She's kind of known for having led the uh the mobile newsfeed uh ads product of Facebook.
2:05:38
That's obviously been one of the the most successful ads uh businesses in in the history of mankind.
2:05:43
And so it seemed natural that that they would uh they would bring given the domain expertise they had acquired that they would bring ads to bear for ChatgPT. And they have.
2:05:50
Now the launch looks like the launch of Netflix ads, right?
2:05:55
And uh if it remains that way, it's probably doesn't bode well for the for the business.
2:05:59
But I think they're going to evolve it over time.
2:06:02
What they've said now or what's come out, the information has had a lot of good reporting on this.
2:06:06
They're charging on a CPM basis, which is, you know, not standard for uh kind of direct response ads.
2:06:12
That's more of like a brand advertising uh formulation, but so it's uh $60 CPM, which is exactly what Netflix came out of the gate charging.
2:06:17
Y >> um they're asking for commitments of less than a million dollar.
2:06:21
So this is clearly like a testing uh phase and they're going to offer very little in the way of of measurement or or targeting.
2:06:28
So this feels like a very sort of primitive uh MVP.
2:06:30
But you know the question is like how quickly can they evolve it into something that looks more like the uh the Facebook ads platform.
2:06:39
>> So what do you think like what do you think got us to this place where you get Fiji Simo? She's done this before.
2:06:46
She has massive connections and skill set, but it still takes, you know, 8 months to roll something out that feels not as mature as something else. Is it a talent issue?
2:06:58
Are there other regulatory concerns or are do they do they need to worry about certain edge cases that people might not be aware of or is it specifically uh strategic to actually is there some secret reason why they're they're taking this approach?
2:07:13
>> So here's my hypothesis, right?
2:07:13
So it's not just about, you know, Fiji Simo, she's the the the CEO of apps, but um they they acquired Statsig, which is, you know, >> staffed by a lot of X Meta people that was an experimentation platform.
2:07:24
That's the exact kind of talent that you'd want to ingest into a company if you're going to roll out an ad platform that needs to be aggressively experimented on.
2:07:32
>> Um here's here's what I think happened.
2:07:34
I think um you know, ChatG so open AI kind of evolved over time. it was a research lab.
2:07:39
Then, you know, obviously they've had the the drama around trying to pivot into a for-profit corporation.
2:07:44
Um, my guess is the investors wanted them to bring in somebody that was a little bit more sensitive to um, you know, the commercial sensitivities, right?
2:07:53
And so, you know, Fiji Simo would be a very good fit for that profile.
2:07:55
Um, they brought her in and my sense was there probably was a little bit of animosity internally towards the idea of this being an ads uh, an ads driven business, right?
2:08:06
business, right? primarily an ads driven business which which I think it ultimately will be >> only only like two years ago Sam said I look at ads as like a failure state for >> yeah and then he started pivoting the rhetoric and started saying well I like some of the Instagram ads when they're targeted well they're actually
2:08:22
delightful and in the right context they can be good uh and he was coming around to the three of ours worldview which is that advertising is great uh but but he did have to message that externally and then obviously had a whole bunch of work to do messaging it internally and uh May maybe that's why there was a little bit less energy internally to to to really push towards that. Uh that makes a lot
2:08:40
Uh that makes a lot of sense.
2:08:42
>> Well, he may have been the one that was message.
2:08:44
He may not have been the one controlling the message there.
2:08:46
He may have been the one that was message too.
2:08:48
We need ads because ads are inevitable.
2:08:50
It's not that ads are great. Ads are inevitable.
2:08:51
If you want to reach what I call humanity scale, ads are inevitable.
2:08:54
If you want to monetize that at the at the at the at the scale it can be at its total potential, you need ads.
2:08:59
That's how you do it, right?
2:09:00
And so he may have been the one that was convinced.
2:09:01
been the one that was convinced. um and and you know bringing someone external in who had been there done that may have been part of an investor strategy but but putting aside my hypothesis look I think this has the potential to be an incredibly successful initiative the question is how quickly can they pivot
2:09:16
into something that looks like the meta model right so if you look at it right now it's you know and and and I think look we to every everything you just said mirrors what happened at Netflix for years Netflix said we would never do ads ads ads are offensive they're an affront they're an to uh to to my sensibilities as a consumer That's um that's what the leadership said. And
2:09:33
And then one day they weren't right.
2:09:35
And the exact same thing happened with OpenAI.
2:09:38
The questions all don't forget all in. All in was anti ad. And and we we beg them. >> We beg them. >> We beg them.
2:09:45
>> And now >> and I you know they made the decision independently of course but they're they're running ads now.
2:09:50
They always >> I mean I've been >> I've been banging the drum for for since May 2025.
2:09:55
Um but I think the question is is it six months? Is it 12 months?
2:09:57
Is it 18 months to get something that looks like meta ads? Right.
2:10:00
And that means uh targeting right based on behavioral profiles.
2:10:05
Uh that means measurement.
2:10:06
That means allowing that means explaining to advertisers the the the sort of impact of what that you've delivered on their behalf.
2:10:13
>> Um and that means like a whole lot of tech that needs to be built out, right?
2:10:16
And that means you know creative optimization all these things just conversion optimized advertising is very different from what they're offering. And is it 6 months? Is it 12 months?
2:10:21
Is it 18 months to get there?
2:10:22
That's the big question, right?
2:10:24
But that'll determine the success.
2:10:25
And if if you say, "Look, this mirrors what Netflix did."
2:10:28
Well, that's not really a playbook that you want to draw inspiration from, right?
2:10:32
I mean, they had to pivot.
2:10:32
They had to do a hard pivot.
2:10:33
I mean, the the ads tier has been live for three years. They did 1.
2:10:36
5 billion in 2025, right?
2:10:36
So, uh, you know, it's it's not a significant chunk of the revenue yet.
2:10:40
I think it could be a much larger chunk of the revenue, but Netflix has other concerns, right?
2:10:45
They've got quality concerns.
2:10:46
They've got, um, you know, consumer, uh, sentiment concerns that where they can't just like fully embrace ads.
2:10:52
I don't think CatchBT is limited in that way. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:10:54
Take me back to the that initial launch of Netflix.
2:10:57
You said similar CPM, $60 per thousand views, but what uh what was the response like?
2:11:02
Like like did were there any advertisers that were like, "Yes, this is great. I got my money's worth. It worked out."
2:11:08
Was it just vague and un unattributable? Problem?
2:11:13
>> My perception is like great performance marketers are always excited to try new channels, especially a channel that's driving high intent traffic, right?
2:11:19
So, if you tell a performance marketer, hey, I've got a billion users and I'm going to let you advertise to them, they're going to be excited no matter what the general setup is cuz they just want to get in there with a test budget and like you'll talk to marketers and at a certain scale they'll they're they're like, "Yeah, let's try 100k here. Let's try 100k there."
2:11:37
It's just like you're just kind of throwing around money and then you're going to double down on on what really works, >> right?
2:11:45
For the initial roll out, this is how you launch an ads platform.
2:11:46
Don't get me wrong, this is how you launch an ads platform.
2:11:49
That's why I'm talking about 6 months versus 12 months. This is how you do it.
2:11:52
This is how you bootstrap the data.
2:11:54
This is how you get people on boarded.
2:11:55
This is how you get feedback.
2:11:57
You have to launch it like this. There's no other way.
2:11:58
You can't launch a conversion optimized ads platform because by definition, you don't have any conversions data yet.
2:12:03
Right now, that's that's another reason why I think they they launched instant checkout.
2:12:06
I think instant checkout is a stalking horse.
2:12:09
I think that's a method of of of gathering conversion data that they can use to then uh target against with ads.
2:12:15
I think that was the whole purpose of that, right?
2:12:16
I don't think that was seen as a a long-term revenue opportunity.
2:12:18
I think that was seen as a way to bootstrap the data.
2:12:20
But this is how you launch in an ads platform.
2:12:22
I mean, it's got to evolve into a conversion optimized ads platform, but you can't be that at the start.
2:12:27
You can't intuitit the settings.
2:12:28
You can't intuitit the tuning that you need to implement to make this work.
2:12:31
But but the question is how long does it take them to get there, right?
2:12:35
And and so that that you know that we'll just see.
2:12:37
But my sense is they've got the DNA.
2:12:39
They you know the information reporter they have 700 ex Meta employees.
2:12:42
Like essentially everyone at Meta is working on ads whether they're working uh you know as an account rep or they're working as an ML engineer.
2:12:49
They're all sort of rowing in that direction. >> Yeah.
2:12:51
What was what's been your reaction to instant checkout?
2:12:53
There's been a lot of debate on on the fee structure.
2:12:56
Some people saying no retailer can afford this.
2:13:01
We were pushing back on that in in a number of different cases.
2:13:05
There's plenty of brands where you say like would you spend like 4% of AOV to to acquire a customer?
2:13:11
I can also see the other side of it.
2:13:13
A concern that I have is like, you know, you're running an ad on a meta platform to find a customer.
2:13:20
The customer then goes to Chat GBT if that's where they're searching for products and then the the brand is effectively paying twice to like actually find the customer, drive them, get them interested, and then and then at the bottom of the funnel, they're paying like another 4% fee.
2:13:32
That feels like not great.
2:13:34
But what's been your reaction? >> Yeah.
2:13:37
So, I was in the former camp.
2:13:37
I said that that's not a that's not a workable fee.
2:13:40
Let me let me come back to that though because you asked a question about what happened when Netflix offered ads.
2:13:44
They had too many advertisers sign up.
2:13:45
They had too many they were demand they were supply constraint not demand constraint.
2:13:49
They had to return money.
2:13:49
I think that's exactly why OpenAI is saying no look we're setting an upper limit on this.
2:13:53
A million is the max, right?
2:13:55
Because they won't have enough people to advertise to.
2:13:56
This is just a way to test it out and to start scaling it.
2:14:00
Now the problem Netflix made was they never act.
2:14:01
So the problem that Netflix had from day one was they had the partnership with with Microsoft with Xander.
2:14:07
So they were using external tech to run the ads, right?
2:14:09
Xander's an an ad platform.
2:14:11
Um, and so that's the problem.
2:14:13
They couldn't implement, you know, custom placements.
2:14:14
They couldn't do a lot of measurement stuff.
2:14:15
They couldn't do a lot of targeting stuff because they weren't operating the actual pipes, the actual plumbing that was delivering the ads.
2:14:21
There's a lot of like data data issues, just access to data issues.
2:14:23
That that's not what OpenAI is doing here.
2:14:27
Open AAI is starting out by building their own tech.
2:14:28
And Netflix, by the way, pivoted to that, but they pivoted to that very late.
2:14:32
That's why I think the ads uh initiative at Netflix was not successful and and and you know, hasn't really delivered that much revenue.
2:14:39
Going back to the 4% fee, first of all, here's what I think is going to happen.
2:14:42
I think they're going to drop that to zero or very low.
2:14:43
It'll be tiny because I think the whole point of this is to just drive conversions.
2:14:47
And the whole thing is like when you see performance in Chat GPT as a retailer who's just basically uh paying for the conversions essentially with the fee, you're going to want to actually advertise against that.
2:14:57
You're going to want to control it because you have no control if it's just surfaced based on what Chad GPT believes is relevant.
2:15:01
And at some point, you're going to have too many retailers to place into a single placement.
2:15:04
So, you're going to have to mediate that by bids, right?
2:15:07
Ultimately, I think this gives way in in in the main.
2:15:08
This gives way to advertising.
2:15:11
But whether the 4% um is sustainable or not uh actually comes down to how you view what those purchases are because it's not user acquisition.
2:15:21
You're not acquiring a user.
2:15:22
If you were, then you'd compare that to LTV.
2:15:24
But since it's not user acquisition, you're not acquiring that user as a sort of like with a long-term relationship in mind.
2:15:31
you're essentially trading a percentage of the checkout for the checkout, but that user doesn't interface with you, right?
2:15:38
And in a lot of in a lot of uh >> so there's going to be no there's not going to be pass through to the underlying vendor.
2:15:44
You're saying like of >> No, I mean look, you're the merchant of record, right?
2:15:49
And you get their information because you have to fulfill the order.
2:15:52
But chat GPT or Open AI specifically says in the terms that you can't use your email address for like remarketing, right?
2:15:57
And you know Amazon says this too.
2:15:59
So, so the thing is you're not capturing a customer.
2:16:00
You're just getting you're giving 4% for that one-off transaction, but you have no control over whether you reach that customer again, whether that customer is brought into your orbit.
2:16:08
There's very that's a very different proposition from advertising to someone and acquiring a customer.
2:16:13
You acquire that customer, you get a whole stream of opportunities to remarket to them.
2:16:17
If you're just, you know, trading 4% for the transaction, that's all you get.
2:16:21
So, it's not actually customer acquisition.
2:16:22
And if you think about 4% per transaction, now consider that if if you thought about the the people talked about, you know, when that when that number came out, they talked about, well, some people spend, you know, 50% 60% on Facebook ads. Why is that different?
2:16:32
Because that's over the life cycle of that customer, not for the >> or even or even just or even one time they pay for the customer one time and then they come back, you know, 15 more times or they end up subscribing and they've actually they actually own the customer relationship. Yeah. >> Exactly. Exactly.
2:16:47
And and and and think, you know, think about it also this way.
2:16:50
um you know that 4% that might be all the margin you're getting as an e-commerce you know as an e-commerce you know operator right and the thing is that's not preventing you from advertising that's not saying okay you just save your entire advertising but you're going to still have to advertise everywhere this is going to be a tiny
2:17:04
sliver of your orders that you're not in control of you can't control it this could be lumpy this could be up one month down the next right you can't control that you're going to have to continue to advertise now you have no idea to your point whether this is cannibalizing uh purchases that would have happened from the people that you advertise on other platforms, right? So, this ends up
2:17:20
So, this ends up just being a cost, a drag probably on your advertising expenditure elsewhere.
2:17:26
>> Can you explain attribution and the evolution of Netflix's ad product?
2:17:31
Because if I'm sitting on my couch watching a movie and I see an ad and I go to my phone, it feels really disconnected.
2:17:39
Even in a pre-att world, it feels extremely hard.
2:17:42
How do they do attribution?
2:17:44
How how good can this get?
2:17:46
And then and then with chat GBT what what's the upper bound on attribution for open AAI given that we are in a postat world >> upper bound is basically what you see with Facebook because it's going to be direct response it's going to be clickbased right with Netflix it's a little different so with CTV
2:18:04
>> the way that companies do measurement and attribution uh in CTV is is traditionally they set up what's called a clean room right so I set up this environment it's a centralized environment I push all the ad interaction data that I have so basically what I Oh, I showed an ad to someone. I push all the data into this
2:18:17
I push all the data into this clean room.
2:18:18
A lot of times it's, you know, it's IP address and device uh information and then the advertiser pushes that information into the clean room and I match it up.
2:18:24
That's attribution for CTV traditionally.
2:18:25
Now, there's other ways to do it.
2:18:28
There's other ways to do measurement.
2:18:29
That's just totally probabilistic.
2:18:30
This is like media mix modeling and stuff like that.
2:18:33
Um, but with with attribution when you when you want to use that term, traditionally it's done with a clean room like that.
2:18:38
So, I'm just like linking the data sets together based on some key.
2:18:40
A lot of times it's the IP address.
2:18:42
But if you think about clicks like clicks out, right?
2:18:44
So that's like I'm viewing, I'm on second screen, I can look at time uh like there's time elements you look at temporal elements too to do attribution, but if I'm clicking out, I've got the click, right?
2:18:53
I've got the click and so that carries a lot of information.
2:18:55
I can still look at temporal aspects of that, but I can all I can do a lot with the IP address, too.
2:19:00
And so that's, you know, if you look at a Cappy, that's what Cappy is.
2:19:02
A Cappy is just a way to get this data on the back end.
2:19:06
So it bypasses the apps, you know, it bypasses the mobile device, it bypasses the browser.
2:19:10
So there's no way for, you know, Apple to interfere with that with ITP or ATP or AT.
2:19:14
And so you're able to get, you know, it's still probabilistic in that way if if you consider, you know, the the decay of the validity of the IP address over time to induce probabilistic measurement, but that's traditionally how it's done and then a pixel as well.
2:19:27
But I mean, that's what OpenAI has at its disposal.
2:19:29
It's got the Cappy and the and the pixel because it's going to be clickbait.
2:19:33
So So there's there's a there's a a high degree of fidelity that will come with the measurement there, the attribution.
2:19:39
That's way higher than what you can do with CTV.
2:19:42
>> Uh, what are what do you think the prospects are for the number of companies that are trying to build LLM ad networks?
2:19:48
I got pitched at least a few companies that were, you know, maybe a year or so ago saying like, "Hey, LM are going to be free.
2:19:55
They're going to insert ads.
2:19:57
We're going to build this kind of network to to serve ads across a bunch of different apps."
2:20:01
I was super bearish on those specifically just because I thought that OpenAI would want to own the full stack.
2:20:06
I I obviously Google would own the full stack and I and I think we're heading towards, you know, an oligopoly of sorts and in consumer AI and and uh where where's the scale really going to come from?
2:20:17
But uh any any kind of takes on that front?
2:20:23
>> Well, there'll be a long tale of agents that are going to want to monetize with advertising.
2:20:26
So, I think there might be space for an ad network to exist that services them.
2:20:30
I don't know why that wouldn't be an existing ad network.
2:20:32
Um I don't know why that wouldn't be or you know just sort of DSP like I don't want I don't I don't know why that wouldn't be the trade desk say um but but yeah I mean I think there's probably an opportunity to monetize some of those longtails of agents with uh with ads but if you think about it like a catchy of course they're going to build their own I would you know perplexity is apparently restarting its ads initiative.
2:20:51
Um I I think these companies it's it would be silly to not build their own.
2:20:55
You want to have that ad stack so you can make everything bespoke, right?
2:20:57
And and and and maximally perform it, right?
2:21:00
If we look at meta earnings, I mean, that's exactly what delivered that big beat.
2:21:03
And and I think what people forget about the the prospects of of of the sort of like AI enablement with advertising in um in digital advertising is that these effects compound over time, especially when you're talking about direct response based ad platforms, right?
2:21:16
So like with with Meta, I've been banging the drum since Q1 2025.
2:21:19
These effects compound like people point to like oh 3.
2:21:23
5% or 5% or whatever uh increasing clickthrough rates or increasing conversion rates from from Andromeda or from Gem or from Lattis who cares these are tiny.
2:21:31
No, but they first of all that's every quarter they're they're noting these performance improvements but also they compound over time.
2:21:36
If I'm targeting 90% a 90-day recoup on my ad investment and and you know 120day 110% rorowaz what am I doing after 120 days?
2:21:46
I'm reinvesting the 110% in advertising on your channel.
2:21:49
And so if you're giving me 3.
2:21:51
5% 5% bumps every quarter, that's just going to end up getting reinvested.
2:21:56
That's why we're seeing the growth reacelerate.
2:21:57
Growth is reacelerating going into Q1 2026. That's amazing.
2:22:02
That's why Facebook was up 10% last night because growth is reacelerating.
2:22:05
They're going to see growth rates they haven't seen since the postAT doldrums. That's incredible.
2:22:09
That's incredible growth.
2:22:11
And anybody who doubted the capex going uh historically has to accept that reality now. And they did. They did yesterday. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:22:18
What what uh people like the the criticism is like Zuck is being so ballsy with capex >> specifically on genai >> specifically and the criticism is like hasn't launched a hit Gen AI product yet.
2:22:33
Our take earlier on the show was like look this guy is serving more Gen AI content than almost anyone on Earth.
2:22:41
Even if he doesn't have like a breakout net new product, his product has massive tailwinds because of all this.
2:22:46
like he's in a perfect position to decide, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to be, you know, one of the biggest spenders in this category and and plan, you know, however many years out in advance.
2:22:57
>> They're making more money on AI than anybody except for Google.
2:22:59
Look, the the idea that they're not they're not utilizing generative AI.
2:23:02
Have you seen the ads on Facebook?
2:23:05
Those are all generative. There was a revolt.
2:23:07
There was an advertiser revolt there.
2:23:09
There was a scandal recently because Meta was being too aggressive with the ads generation there.
2:23:14
The idea that they're not implementing generative AI is absurd.
2:23:18
I mean, first of all, generative AI is not just what you see on in the output.
2:23:22
I mean, they talked about pairing LLMs with ad ranking, that's really fascinating, cutting edge research in in advertising.
2:23:27
Use an LLM to sort of give you feedback on the ad. Does this resonate?
2:23:31
Is this something that someone would click on?
2:23:32
Like, pretend you're this demographic.
2:23:34
There's already research that shows that that has a a really beneficial impact on advertising.
2:23:39
It's not just like what you see in your feed, but also the stuff that you see in your feed is generative.
2:23:45
The idea that they're not utilizing generative AI and advertising, that's absurd. You can see it.
2:23:48
Just go on Facebook right now.
2:23:50
[laughter] >> Makes a lot of sense.
2:23:54
I I want to move on to other companies, but I want to have one more question about OpenAI.
2:23:57
Do you think that there's any um any sort of risk to like push back of like the creepy ads like being too well targeted?
2:24:04
Uh, Facebook went through that with like the t-shirts that said your name on them basically in like your whole career path. >> Yeah.
2:24:11
My my assumption is that eventually like you're only getting ads that were specifically generated for you.
2:24:18
Like this idea of like historically you'd have, you know, one ad that a a brand would make and they'd run it at the Super Bowl.
2:24:24
They're like, "We're going to send this to all of America."
2:24:26
And then eventually with, you know, on platforms like Meta, I would assume that every ad is like a one-off generated and it knows it knows exactly how to position a product, what color, what environment to put it in.
2:24:37
And it'll be insane that we used to have ads, we'd make one piece of creative and then run it to like 10 million people because it was like good.
2:24:44
And it's like, no, this will all just niche, niche, niche, niche, niche down >> uh more and more. >> Yeah. What do you think?
2:24:50
Look, I mean, it's like the idea that everyone would see the same feed when they opened up Facebook is absurd now, right?
2:24:54
I mean, like, look, if if people truly hated creepy ads, fa Facebook user numbers wouldn't you know, monotonically increase every quarter, right?
2:25:05
And uh you know, Europeans would be lining up to to buy the subscription in Europe when in fact only 1% of users in Europe has uh taken that offer, right?
2:25:14
And is that an offer to eliminate is that like an adree like meta offer?
2:25:19
Is that what you're talking about?
2:25:22
Because I know they're talking.
2:25:23
So they've got the the less personalized ads option in Europe as a result of the DMA compliance, right?
2:25:30
So they have three options.
2:25:30
They have the full-on subscription, no ads.
2:25:32
They've got the less personalized ads and they got the normal experience.
2:25:33
1% of people opted into the subscription. Like people hate ads.
2:25:37
Uh they just hate them less than every other monetization model, right? People love ads.
2:25:41
And if you look at, you know, demonstrated behavior, it people love ads.
2:25:44
People love access to free tools.
2:25:46
People love access uh to to to to sort of like endless uh endless capacity, right?
2:25:51
You start capacity constraining things or you start putting up pay walls, you know, obviously by definition those are going to get used less, right?
2:25:59
Or you know, most likely by definition.
2:26:00
And so the the thing is like the idea that like chat PT is going to run into this problem that's unique to chatbots. I just don't buy that.
2:26:08
And first of all, maybe they will because maybe they'll design this the wrong way, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.
2:26:12
I think they can do it in the right way.
2:26:13
And one way to do it is to just not tether the ad at all to the chatbot context.
2:26:17
You could just say, "Look, this is a display ad for what we know you're in market for based on Cappy, based on the pixel.
2:26:24
It and we're going to make sure it has nothing to do with what you're talking to the chatbot about.
2:26:28
So you never have to even question whether the chatbot has your best interest at heart."
2:26:32
That's a very easy way to sidestep that problem.
2:26:35
But I think they've got very skilled people there.
2:26:36
They know exactly what that trap is and they're going to avoid it. >> Yeah.
2:26:40
Do you think we're going to get ads in Siri in the next 24 months? >> No.
2:26:46
Because of just because of Apple's uh because of the optics of Apple doing that, I think Apple would probably love to do that.
2:26:52
I think there's probably people inside Apple that are pitching that, but they they won't because uh it's not in alignment with their optics around advertising.
2:26:57
But but nonetheless, >> Applereasing we were talking like I I think people will be normalized to ads and Apple products.
2:27:04
They obviously are in the app store today.
2:27:06
German was talking about ads in Apple Maps uh coming in the near future and then I think from that point if people are starting to use Siri as a search engine there will be ads eventually.
2:27:19
It will just be too to to to be able to serve ads like basically natively in the UI to iPhone consumers will just be too tempting.
2:27:30
>> They got to do ads in the alarm clock app.
2:27:32
I want to wake up to a different ad every day.
2:27:35
Get out of bed and start buying. >> Get online. It's time to check out. [laughter] >> Yeah.
2:27:42
Morning to night, you should be you should be consuming. Look, I don't know.
2:27:45
May maybe I think maps podcast for sure.
2:27:48
But the thing is like I wrote this piece when when Apple introduced AT.
2:27:49
I said Apple robbed the mobs bank.
2:27:51
I said, "Look, this is just an opportunity for them to uh to to shift some of the budget that's going to Meta into their own ads ecosystem."
2:27:58
They did that because they expanded their Apple search ads.
2:28:01
They just doubled the number of impressions per search.
2:28:03
They've got two placements now in Apple search ads and they're also blurring the lines between ads and organic results there. Right?
2:28:08
So the idea that Apple hates ads I think is mistaken.
2:28:13
I think what Apple needs to do is they need to sort of walk this tight rope of appearing to hate ads while also benefiting from ads because they are such a you know an accreative uh sort of margin expansive way to make money, right? So maps for sure.
2:28:28
I think podcast is another like prime uh piece of real estate for ads to be inserted into.
2:28:33
I don't know about Siri that that feels like maybe a little bit too on the nose, but who knows? >> What about uh Gemini?
2:28:38
Did you What was your reaction to Demis talking about ads in Gemini?
2:28:44
>> That makes total sense because they're already monetizing Gemini with ads.
2:28:47
They're doing it with AI overviews and AI mode.
2:28:49
They're they're monetizing ads and AI overviews at par with search.
2:28:50
Why would they rush to put ads in Gem in Gemini, the chatbot?
2:28:55
Keep in mind, Gemini is two things.
2:28:57
Gemini is the family of models and Gemini is the chatbot.
2:29:00
Why monetize with with ads in in in Gemini the chatbot? You never need to.
2:29:05
You could just drive adoption of that.
2:29:06
They're already monetizing Gemini, the family of models through AI overviews and AI mode.
2:29:09
AI overviews reaches two billion people a month.
2:29:14
That's the biggest single uh LLM output uh ad surface that exists.
2:29:18
They're already monetizing Gemini through there. >> Yeah.
2:29:22
And is that product uh just uh what's the shape of that product?
2:29:26
Is that just the exact same as uh just branded keyword search on Google?
2:29:29
Like what is there are there anything different or any learnings from the uh the ads in AI search overviews or AI powered search?
2:29:39
>> So AI mode is essentially the chatbot.
2:29:41
AI overviews is the is the results that's basically takes up now the the whole above the fold on Google search.
2:29:47
But it's better it's better than search. You know why?
2:29:49
Because the whole point with search is I want this to be one shot.
2:29:52
I want to type in my keyword and I want to get the best possible result in that first list of results.
2:29:56
And if I don't, then I think your product is bad, right?
2:30:00
And so Google is incentivized to make sure that there was one click and that's it.
2:30:03
So you get one chance to show ads.
2:30:04
With AI overviews, the whole point is to then prompt further queries, right?
2:30:09
So you get a bunch of opportunities to show ads, right?
2:30:10
So if that's monetizing at par at par, it's probably also driving impressions up.
2:30:14
I think that's a much better ad surface area than traditional search. >> Yeah.
2:30:19
Uh, how should >> startups, business owners be thinking about Tik Tok under new ownership?
2:30:29
>> Tik Tok is funny because they're going all in on commerce again.
2:30:30
It seems like they had a really big, uh, kind of Black Friday, um, you know, whatever event, you know, uh, revenue pop, um, revenue spike.
2:30:40
Um, but, you know, they seemingly had had were walking back the Tik Tok commerce opportunity.
2:30:44
Now they seem to be, uh, leaning into it.
2:30:46
I'm not quite sure what to expect there.
2:30:48
I think, you know, Tik Tok, I think they were in a little bit of the stasis for a while just because of the uncertainty around what was going to happen with the uh with the spinout.
2:30:55
Uh my sense is now that they have the certainty, they'll probably lean into where they feel like they're best positioned.
2:31:00
And that might be commerce now that Meta has completely abandoned it.
2:31:03
Um you know, and I but I think like I just don't think that that's the right approach.
2:31:07
I don't think Western audiences really uh appreciate that as much as just the ads driven model and so you know, the pure play ads driven model.
2:31:14
So we'll see if that ends up working for them.
2:31:15
But yeah, I mean I think Tik Tok um you know it it if Meta can do what they did to Snap with Tik Tok, they're going to be in a pretty difficult position.
2:31:24
Um and they may have to just adapt in ways that that Meta won't and that would be leaning into commerce more heavily. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:31:32
The the I always assumed maybe naively that they would lean out from commerce because it seemed like it was just a money pit.
2:31:38
They were just lighting money on fire and the new owners would say like, "Okay, we just bought this.
2:31:42
we have to pass back 50% of our revenue to bite dance.
2:31:45
Like the the whole like economic model of the business seems like super upside down.
2:31:52
Let's just serve ads and try to run the business lean and maintain the user base.
2:31:56
Uh but leaning into commerce just feels like I don't know.
2:31:58
I I there's so many brands that that I've heard about over the last 12 months that are scaling into the hundreds of millions of revenue and and it's almost all on Tik Tok shop and it just feels like that was you know basically subsidized by Bite Dance for a long time and will the new owners want to subsidize these brands that are driving real volume but ultimately I don't know if that they would be able to stand on their own two feet.
2:32:25
>> Yeah, I mean they did walk it back.
2:32:25
I mean, they did two rounds of layoffs in the in the in the commerce division. Um, yeah.
2:32:30
I mean, the thing about So, one thing you have to remember about Tik Tok and the and the the bite dance and the the whole like the parameters of this deal is that they're they're still licensing the algorithm, right?
2:32:37
So, like I think that impacted the kind of the the valuation um and that that may impact some of these other economics.
2:32:46
But yeah, I mean I I just I just feel like they maybe they they maybe sense that that's an area where Meta retreated and so that's where they could potentially flourish.
2:32:52
But it was odd because they did walk that back and now they seem to be, you know, embracing it again. >> Yeah.
2:32:57
Uh what's your current thinking about the Netflix Warner Brothers deal?
2:33:02
Um it's uh it it feels like we're in a lull.
2:33:05
It's moving forward, but uh would be interested to see. >> Yeah.
2:33:08
I'm also interested just how how do you think about, you know, Paramount's prospects as an ad platform without all of that IP? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:33:17
Well, so it's it's interesting.
2:33:17
So like the thing is like the IP is so so important, right?
2:33:21
So like the one of the aspects that I I found really interesting about the the the Netflix uh deal was that they essentially valued WB games at zero, right?
2:33:28
So WB Games makes remember their big hit games and makes their Game of Thrones game on mobile and they've got Mortal Kombat games and a lot of different console games, Batman Arkham.
2:33:37
Um and at one point it was for sale in the multi-billions uh price range, right?
2:33:41
And so Netflix essentially valued it at zero. Why?
2:33:43
Because ultimately there would have to be like a IP licensing agreement that allowed them to continue to monetize those games, right?
2:33:49
So I think the same is probably true on the IP side just generally with with WB.
2:33:53
Um my sense is like what this indicates to me is like you and this was just I mean this was said explicitly in the earnings call.
2:34:00
It's like you know we're going to pay for content one way or the other and like we need this high-end IP, right?
2:34:06
And like, you know, if you look at I mean, everyone saw the the Joe Rogan clip with Matt Damon and um and and Ben Affleck talking about like Netflix makes us restate the plot of the movie like every couple minutes in dialogue because if people don't hear it explicitly, they just lose interest because they're on their phones.
2:34:21
like you you wonder, okay, well, is that a result of like people's uh uh attentiona spans uh you know uh declining or is that just because the stuff you're pumping out isn't that interesting and people are not really paying attention um because they're kind of bored, right?
2:34:37
And so I think maybe it's the latter.
2:34:37
Um and so if you bring in a bunch of top-notch IP, maybe that keeps people more engaged and then hey, maybe that boosts the the ad CPMs or maybe you know ultimately boost subscription numbers.
2:34:48
My sense is like they're going to pay for content one way or the other and like um you know maybe just buying a lot of it in bulk at once is the best way to do that.
2:34:56
>> What are you what else are you tracking this week across earnings?
2:34:57
Uh you know Microsoft and and Tesla.
2:35:00
I don't know if you follow those stories, but what what else is interesting you this this week? >> Well, we got Apple. >> Yeah. >> Right now. >> Yeah.
2:35:09
[laughter] Um yeah, I mean uh I think like you know you had you had uh German on yesterday and um you know he's just always an amazing wealth of of leaks.
2:35:20
It's pretty impressive that he's able to get those.
2:35:23
Uh Apple's pretty button down.
2:35:25
>> Um but uh but yeah, I mean I think just the AI story there is is kind of embarrassing.
2:35:29
Um, and you know, uh, like I wrote this piece a while back, Apple's besieged on all fronts.
2:35:34
And I was talking about like, look, if you look at AI, if you look at some of the threats to AT, uh, there there's a lot of issues that that they face.
2:35:43
that they face. Um I think you know one of the big questions for me when they announced the deal with Google to use Gemini for for you know uh Apple intelligence you know which among other use cases includes Siri um was how they would just manage the privacy aspects of that because they were so adamant right
2:36:00
they talked about it the private cloud compute they were so adamant that when we do this we're doing it the Apple way we're doing it the privacycentric way um and then they do the privacy washing thing which is just then to partner with Google and allow them to do all the dirty work of sourcing the data right? Sourcing the data to train the model,
2:36:13
Sourcing the data to train the model, right?
2:36:15
right? or of just monetizing with ads like and they just get a cut on the back end and in this case Apple's paying but at some point but at some point Google will be paying for penetration into iOS and the exposure and I think you know that's just a question of like um is that really the reason is that part of the reason why they never invested here
2:36:32
because they couldn't really do it in the Apple privacycentric way and if you want someone you know if if you understand that the dirty work of sourcing this data in ways that maybe are not completely above board or just monetizing with ads I mean Apple makes so much money from advertising and they just don't do it directly, right? They
2:36:45
They do it through the partnership with Google.
2:36:48
Now, they're going to be making money through AI interactions, but they're not actually the ones training the models and sourcing the data in ways that could be questioned, right?
2:36:55
So, I think that maybe plays a part in it.
2:36:56
And I think maybe when you get to a point where all of this can be done on device, right?
2:37:01
When the device is actually powerful enough to service most of these use cases, maybe you have smaller models, um you don't have like foundational models, but you have smaller models that can all run on device and maybe Apple will be more interested in that.
2:37:11
But I mean like you have to look at the AI thing as either it was a massive whiff which seems to be what Gur's take was or it was just a sense of like look this is actually going to be really difficult for us to reconcile with our brand uh imagery and the sort of messaging that we've you know we've relied on for years and years like you know privacy that's Apple.
2:37:27
Um maybe we'll just outsource this in the same way that we outsource search right and advertising to Google um until we're able to all process everything on device um and and ensure that we can maintain that that messaging. Yeah.
2:37:39
Um I I mean my my take is like I agree with the whiff narrative, but uh also it does feel like there's the seeds of a rebuild between this new acquisition that they're doing.
2:37:51
They're starting to open the pocketbook a little bit.
2:37:52
The hardware really is best-in-class.
2:37:54
We saw that with, you know, the Mac Mini boom to some degree.
2:37:58
People are excited about the silicon, Apple silicon.
2:38:00
And um and then and then just the partnership with Gemini like they're going to have access to something Frontier so they can start to vend it into different places but uh it's it's just on Apple's timelines which have been slow lately. So yeah. >> Yeah.
2:38:15
But the iPhone Air was the iPhone Air was a flop, right?
2:38:17
I mean you know we'll see what happens with the foldable but like I mean I think they are facing you know the obviously the the replacement cycle is really long now.
2:38:23
replacement cycle is really long now. I think one thing that's like kind of under discussed is like I wrote this piece a while back like years ago um where I said you know what what are the implications of a billion iPhones and this is well before there were a billion iPhones in circulation and and my point was the implications are that a lot of
2:38:38
those are in the developing world right they're they're secondhand thirdand uh iPhone devices and that's kind of like there's this strange dilemma that Apple faces like the more powerful the devices get uh obviously the the longer you can go without replacing them right because the demands of Spotify aren't changing the demands of Facebook and Instagram aren't changing from like a hardware perspective, right? And so the question
2:38:56
perspective, right? And so the question is like how how how central can you make AI to the core use case um which is a lot more comput intensive if you do everything on device how central can you make that to instigate um a need to replace the device more frequently right
2:39:14
not just like the because the power of the device at some point doesn't even matter like okay you tell me like the compute capacity of the next iPhone is 10x what I have now okay well are the demands of Spotify 10x because that's the that's the only app I and every day, right? And so that's kind
2:39:27
And so that's kind of the question.
2:39:29
And so it's like if all of that functionality can sort of like percolate down to like the iPhone 7, right?
2:39:35
And no one really sees a a difference in in sort of like the the in sort of like lifestyle um between like the brand new iPhone and the iPhone 7 with they're only using Instagram and Spotify.
2:39:47
How do you [clears throat] actually uh convince people to to upgrade on every cycle? Right?
2:39:50
Because keep in mind like that that as that sort of install base that like you know iOS install base grows most of that's going to be through like secondhand. >> Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:40:00
German uh it was interesting yesterday you shared that uh a lot of Apple's advantage on the hardware side in AI is because of the self-driving push the car that ultimately failed >> allowed them to do the R&D that that is now being rolled out of devices.
2:40:14
Uh Apple had a had a huge quarter uh beat uh beat uh estimates on the revenue side by uh 4 billion uh with China uh uh specifically uh and up after hours.
2:40:27
The other news uh that's kind of interesting.
2:40:32
I'd be curious before you leave, Eric.
2:40:34
Chad GBT is retiring 40 as of today.
2:40:39
>> Yeah, that's interesting.
2:40:40
>> Putting putting it to bed.
2:40:40
I'm sure that'll make a lot of people mad, >> but it's simpler process for them. Yeah.
2:40:47
>> Well, yeah, but they also launched uh uh Go. >> Yeah. >> Right.
2:40:51
Which is the sort of like lower price point um uh subscription tier.
2:40:52
So, my sense is like, you know, if you're trying to push people to adopt that, which I think they are, you maybe have to get rid of some of like the the older models that the free tier relied on.
2:41:03
>> Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join. This was a blast.
2:41:04
Uh >> yeah, really enjoyed it, Eric. Come back on soon. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one. Next time. >> Goodbye. Cognition.
2:41:12
They're the makers of Devon, the AI software engineer.
2:41:14
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2:41:18
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2:41:28
And without further ado, we have Kevin Wheel from OpenAI, the chief product officer in the ream waiting room. >> What's up, guys? >> How you doing? Good to see you. >> I'm good.
2:41:36
It's good to see you again. Thanks for having me on. >> It's been a minute. >> Yeah.
2:41:39
What's what what's new with you since we've had you on the show.
2:41:41
You've changed duties, you've changed focus, like uh reintroduce yourself, I guess. >> Yeah.
2:41:46
By the way, I love that we are talking about science today.
2:41:48
I think we need to bring more of the this kind of coverage to science and get people excited about science because, you know, there are a few more important factors in all of our lives and AI is going to is in the process of fundamentally changing science. So, >> yeah.
2:42:03
>> Uh >> yeah, what what is your focus?
2:42:04
Because science and health can mean a bunch of things.
2:42:08
It can mean uh DTOC, you know, advice.
2:42:11
And you know, one of the ways to cure cancer is just to get a lot of people to stop smoking cigarettes.
2:42:16
That's something they could learn by GBT, should I be smoking?
2:42:18
And it makes a very convincing case for why you should not uh and maybe it helps you not smoke.
2:42:24
Uh at the same time, there's researchers that are going to spend decades developing cancer drugs, uh getting them through FDA approvals.
2:42:31
There's a whole bunch of different ways that you know even Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and Excel helped the previous generation of biotech companies.
2:42:40
You can imagine LLM's vending in there and then you can imagine the fully automated AI scientist. What's been your focus?
2:42:45
Where do you think uh where do you think we're going to see the most progress in 2026?
2:42:51
>> Yeah, the the mission of our team is to accelerate science and the reason that we are starting to do this now.
2:42:55
I mean this obviously been something that open cares about a lot but when you go back a couple years we were all amazed that GPT you know 3.
2:43:05
54 whatever could do well on the SAT >> and then you start seeing it solve graduate level problems and then it does okay on math competitions and then you fast forward a bit and our model can win a gold medal at the IMO the top you know math competition in the world >> and now we're seeing it solve >> open problems s in mathematics.
2:43:26
So things that humans have not solved, suddenly AI models are contributing solutions to >> and it's not everything.
2:43:33
It's not every open problem.
2:43:36
Science is not is far from done, right?
2:43:37
But uh but the fact that that AI models can now contribute at the frontier of science and actually push beyond where humans have gone before >> is incredibly exciting because if we can if you can replicate that across math, physics, biology, chemistry, material science and you can do the next say 30 years of science in 5 years instead.
2:43:58
If we can be doing you know the science of the 2050s in 2030, >> the world is a better place. >> Yeah.
2:44:07
and the models are there now and so this is a huge focus for us.
2:44:11
>> So yeah, talk a little bit more about your work specifically because uh not not to like discredit you but I feel like this part of the magic of these large AI models is that you get a lot of this stuff for free.
2:44:22
Like oftent times you don't need a specific SAT model.
2:44:24
You just build a amazing model and it learns how to code and also learns how to write poetry and tell jokes and it can do some science too.
2:44:33
So what how are you working on fine-tuning?
2:44:36
Is there a reinforcement learning project?
2:44:38
Is there specific compute allocated towards this? You have a team.
2:44:41
Are you listening to certain customers?
2:44:43
>> Yeah, I I imagine my my guest was just working really closely with customers, understanding, making sure they're not just signing up for chat GBT off the shelf and using it, but actually, you know, building a bunch of specific functionality for them and innovating on the products. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:44:57
How do you think about that? >> Yeah.
2:44:58
Well, it's it's not uh it's not about building offshoot models.
2:45:01
about building offshoot models. This is still this is still about improving our core models but there is if you think about science science has a huge surface area right >> um so you want there's a lot that we can teach models at the frontier that um you
2:45:18
know there's there's work that we can do to make to make our models even better at performing frontier science >> um and that crosses from pre-training into post- trainining and reinforcement learning >> um and so we get to solve you frontier problems in science to make our models better. There's also a whole lot of work
2:45:36
There's also a whole lot of work that we can do on the tooling front.
2:45:37
You know, scientists use a lot of different tools >> and you want to bring those to bear so that the model is is using the same kind of advanced scientific tooling that scientists are because then it can be an even greater force multiplier for the work they do.
2:45:54
So there's there's a whole bunch that we're doing on the pure model front.
2:45:59
Yeah, >> that's not the only thing though because I think if there's anything that we've learned from the way that AI has completely revolutionized coding over the last year is it's two things.
2:46:08
It's great models and it's also integrating AI into the environment where engineers operate, right?
2:46:16
You don't >> you don't spend your time going to chat GPT and copying and pasting back and forth.
2:46:21
You use codecs in your IDE. >> Okay.
2:46:25
>> Uh and bringing the model into the environment where you're working is a huge part.
2:46:28
That's why we launched Prism yesterday.
2:46:30
Um the idea is uh or I guess on Tuesday.
2:46:35
But the idea is to bring great models that can that can help with AI into the workflows that scientists are using every day.
2:46:42
In this case, Prism is about scientific writing and collaboration.
2:46:46
>> And if you can help people communicate their ideas faster, if they can use AI to express the research that they've done and collaborate with other scientists, that's its own form of acceleration.
2:46:55
So we both want to make models smarter and we want to bring AI into the environments that scientists are operating in day-to-day.
2:47:02
Both of those are parts of accelerating science.
2:47:06
>> So talk about some of the integrations.
2:47:08
Uh chat GBT at one point just got access to a Python ripple and could sort of write code and execute it in the uh in the in the query for just a GPT5 pro query.
2:47:19
Uh but G chat GPT also has an integration to Gmail and there's a like some sort of business development relationship.
2:47:26
Uh what is your as you're bringing more tools to bear in the scientific uh workflow?
2:47:30
Uh is there some sort of balancing act?
2:47:34
Do you just need to integrate with everything?
2:47:36
How do you think about actually wiring up and like unhobling the models?
2:47:40
Yeah, I think it's about both uh a handful a set of tools that we think are going to be broadly useful that we can integrate ourselves.
2:47:52
>> As an example, if you're in the process of trying to solve a hard scientific problem, you need to solve a differential equation.
2:47:59
>> Yeah, >> the models are actually smart enough these days that they can solve a differential equation just by reasoning through it.
2:48:04
But you also you also can uh integrate a computer algebra system.
2:48:08
A system that will deterministically and very quickly solve differential equations.
2:48:14
>> Why not let the model use that? >> Exactly.
2:48:17
>> And you know go back to doing what it does best which is reasoning broadly about how to solve hard problems.
2:48:20
So you have that you have like protein databases and biology.
2:48:24
You have so many tools like this. >> Yeah.
2:48:27
And I think it'll be important because I I might be a scientist studying, you know, the evolutionary biology of snails and I might have my own set of tools that I use or maybe small models that I've trained.
2:48:38
They're good at doing very specific things.
2:48:42
>> So, it'll be both about us teaching the models to use certain tools that'll be broadly helpful and enabling scientists to bring their own tools to bear so that the models can very deafly adopt them uh into the process. Mhm.
2:48:55
>> What does a chatbt moment look like for Prism within the scientific community?
2:49:03
>> Ooh, that's a good I that's a good question.
2:49:04
Um, you know, I I I think it's going to be a I I think it's going to be a more like process of incremental compounding where you've got a a product that helps people work and operate faster.
2:49:19
you've got models that are going to be increasingly useful and we're going to see kind of two um you know exponentials if you will.
2:49:28
One is just the exponential that the models are on and their ability to help any scientist who's adopted them do what they do faster right to aid in their thinking.
2:49:38
>> I was just talking to a scientist earlier today who called uh uh GPT 5.
2:49:39
2 a metal detector for hypothesis. >> Right?
2:49:46
So he's thinking about he's got so many different ideas in his head.
2:49:48
You can only run so many experiments.
2:49:50
You only have so much time.
2:49:52
And he uses GPT5 as a thought partner in helping him hone in on the most valuable ways to test his ideas.
2:50:00
So you've got that exponential and then there's a separate one that comes from scientists beginning to adopt these tools because a lot of scientists still haven't adopted them.
2:50:09
And the more that they do, the more that they individually move faster and the more that the entire field of science accelerates.
2:50:16
So I think there's a lot to be excited about here.
2:50:18
Uh a couple weeks ago we talked to Andrew from Cerebras and I was asking him about where uh wafer scale computing is most exciting to him and he actually cited science as a particularly valuable place and I was wondering if you had thoughts on the value of speed or the value of different uh chip architectures in the scientific workload.
2:50:45
I was kind of come to coming to it like, well, you know, developing drugs takes a long time.
2:50:49
It's probably fine if the model goes off and cooks for an hour, but he was sort of pushing back on that.
2:50:54
And I'm wondering how you think about the different parameters.
2:50:59
Obviously, we're on an exponential with intelligence and capabilities, but there's also latency and and uh usability and flavor, and there's so many other knobs that are being turned as the models progress and as the projects progress. >> Yeah.
2:51:13
I think one of the interesting things about scientific problems in particular is that when you're solving the hardest frontier science problems, you need to do a lot of thinking, right?
2:51:24
If these problems were easy, really smart humans would have solved them long ago.
2:51:27
And so the kinds of problems that are left often involve the model thinking not for you know 5 minutes or 20 minutes which would be a long uh a long time if you're inside chat GPT >> but maybe an hour 2 hours 12 hours 2 days. >> Yeah.
2:51:44
>> Uh and you know that is where we're going. >> Yeah.
2:51:47
And if you have really fast inference that can take that two-day roll out and turn it into a six-h hour roll out or an hour thing only takes 10 minutes then again you that that just it's more opportunity for you as a scientist to >> maybe instead of testing two hypotheses you're testing 20 in the same period of time. Again it's acceleration. >> Yeah.
2:52:06
uh to to go back to the chat GPT moment.
2:52:09
Um how are you thinking about actually seeding uh your work into the scientific community because there's there's one angle where it's just it's just chatgptt. com. It sort of goes viral.
2:52:22
Everyone's playing with it.
2:52:24
That's part of what the chatgpt moment was was just anyone with a web browser could use it.
2:52:28
Uh at the same time, there's only so many real scientists.
2:52:30
A lot of them are in labs or in academic institutions.
2:52:34
And I could imagine you uh doing partnerships or deals or anything to actually get something deployed into the most elite scientific environments.
2:52:45
Have you thought about the different trade-offs there?
2:52:47
>> Well, one of the cool things is we're seeing so much organic adoption. Yeah.
2:52:52
>> You go on Twitter these days as you do and you're like every day I feel like I'm seeing new examples where someone will say, you know what, I just solved this problem with GPT5. >> Yeah.
2:53:03
or I gave this problem to my grad student and they were busy. It took them too long.
2:53:07
I I just, you know, I wanted to make worker progress.
2:53:09
I just gave it to GBT5 and now I have a solution.
2:53:13
>> Uh and so there's there's this incredible organic adoption because of course when other people see that, other scientists see that they go, "Oh, wait a minute, you know, and maybe the last time they tried the models was a year ago when they weren't at a place that they were going to really meaningfully contribute to scientific research.
2:53:28
They could help with other things, but they weren't going to help with your hardest problems. Yeah, >> now they can.
2:53:33
And so there's this ground swell of scientists that are adopting uh GPT 5.
2:53:39
2 especially, I think, has been uh kind of an inflection point.
2:53:44
>> So it's it's exciting to see and there's a lot happening, you know, >> even without us with people just discovering this and talking about it.
2:53:52
>> Yeah, a lot of people experienced that with like Andre Carpathy's journey with vibe coding and they a lot of people were like, "Okay, yeah, like if it's good enough for him, I got to jump back in." It's funny.
2:54:01
man is an incredible communicator. >> Yeah. Yeah. Really?
2:54:06
>> What uh what's the update on how like forwardthinking labs are are thinking about integrating with a product like Prism?
2:54:14
Ideally, there's a future where, you know, a scientist could be at home, have an idea, may maybe they're working in, you know, pharma or something in biology and they can just like start running.
2:54:25
You can imagine somebody starting to run an experiment just based on a prompt and then somewhere in the physical world uh there's actual you know the biological process is actually happening.
2:54:35
Um how how much progress is there on that front?
2:54:39
>> Yeah, I'm super excited about uh the world of robotic labs.
2:54:41
I think it is 100% likely to be the the future that um that that we're moving towards because you can do so much more in parallel.
2:54:51
again to the idea of accelerating science and moving faster the world where you can have a hypothesis maybe that you've honed with you know back and forth with chat GPT in in this case it may also be running simulations you know take if you're doing something like uh fusion where you want to do heavy simulation before you run an experiment
2:55:11
because your experiments are expensive then you have the model thinking running a fusion simulation looking at the results of that refining its thinking running another fusion simulation and you do as much with the compute that you have in advance so that when you do something in the real world it's like that much more likely to be successful. You can look at the same thing with
2:55:31
You can look at the same thing with respect to biology.
2:55:33
There's no reason at this point that you need to have grad students, you know, uh pipetting one thing into another.
2:55:43
the the idea that I think like a scientist in a lab coat could easily fade away where they're just like in a normal office, you know, >> or or at the very least doing the kinds of things that are incredibly hard for models for robots to replicate. >> Yeah.
2:55:57
>> Yeah. Um but there's a lot of science that can be totally automated and the idea of robotic labs that are um you know 24/7 online that you can scale in parallel as far as as you know you can make it efficient and you have models
2:56:13
thinking you know reasoning for two days to find the most uh efficient experiments to run maybe running simulations to test that and then once they get to a good point passing that to a robotic lab which can experiment in parallel at high volume. the results
2:56:26
the results pass back into a model which reasons about the results and then goes out and runs a different set of experiments.
2:56:34
You know, you're doing reinforcement learning with a loop through the real world >> and that is absolutely >> are robotic labs something that that OpenAI would ever do or is that best suited for an external partner?
2:56:45
How do you think about that that point of the stack?
2:56:50
>> I think it'll be both.
2:56:50
We want to partner broadly uh with with scientists that have their own labs that are already doing anything.
2:56:57
Like I said, science is an extremely broad uh has huge amounts of surface area.
2:57:02
There's no way that we can do even a tiny fraction of all of science.
2:57:08
>> And I think there will be a lot of opportunity for us to learn from things like robotic labs to make sure that we're working really well with those scientists.
2:57:15
So I think it will be both.
2:57:17
>> Can you clarify the business model?
2:57:19
There was some confusion about how this might be monetized. >> Poor Sarah Frier.
2:57:22
She keeps >> I'm pulling for ads in science.
2:57:25
I want a pill that I take.
2:57:28
It helps me lose weight, but then I wind up loving Ford F-150s.
2:57:31
I'm willing to take [laughter] that trade.
2:57:33
Adup supported medicines. That's what we need. But no.
2:57:36
Uh, what are you actually thinking? Is anything changing?
2:57:40
>> This is why I love you guys.
2:57:40
[laughter] >> We're your strongest defenders. Whatever you do. >> Um, yeah.
2:57:47
Sarah said something when when Sarah was talking about, oh, maybe maybe there are ways to like monetize IP.
2:57:51
She was speaking specifically to the idea of us doing partnerships with large companies, you know, pharma companies, people like that >> where there would be a specific partnership that was developed with the idea of sharing royalties in the future.
2:58:08
It was not meant at all about normal signing up and this already happens with the OpenAI investment fund.
2:58:13
There's startups that take that take capital from open AI, they build something on top of chat GBT or GPT APIs and like I I think most people inside sort of understood that but thanks for clarifying.
2:58:25
Um so in general most people will just be on sort of some sort of like API consumption based pricing or subscription fee like mostly the normal.
2:58:34
>> The nice thing about Prism is you log in with your chat GPT account.
2:58:36
So it just you just bring your existing chat GPT account along with you.
2:58:40
account along with you. are this is not you know there are not a billion scientists in the world this is not an effort to like build a brand new business model this is about accelerating science because I think it's one of the most impactful and missionoriented things we could possibly do >> yeah that makes a ton of sense give us
2:58:56
the update on detachment 2011 how's it going >> are you sold it's been a blast been working out a lot >> it's been an absolute blast uh I've been in DC to various bases things like that uh it I I think it is massively important that we bring Silicon Valley and uh and DC closer together because we have an incredible tech community. Uh we
2:59:15
Uh we have a country and a set of values that are worth defending and you know it's a dangerous world out there.
2:59:23
>> The more that we can do to um you know to strengthen who we are and what we do, the better. >> That's great.
2:59:28
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come talk to us. Very fascinating stuff. >> Yeah.
2:59:34
Thanks so much for having me on, guys. Good to see you again. >> Good to see you, too.
2:59:36
We'll talk to you soon, Kevin. Goodbye.
2:59:40
Let me tell you about Railway.
2:59:43
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And up next, the New York Stock Exchange.
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3:00:03
>> And yes, we do have a surprise guest who wasn't on the lineup, but he's joining.
3:00:08
We have >> Mahul from Madic. >> From Madic. >> What's going on?
3:00:13
>> Hey guys, thanks for the robotics mastermind.
3:00:16
>> You're gonna you're gonna love this.
3:00:16
I uh the other I think it was two nights ago uh my youngest uh one and a half walked in the other room.
3:00:27
>> Uh and I was pretty quick to uh chase after her, you know, cuz she's very very active.
3:00:33
She can destroy a lot of things.
3:00:35
And I go in uh the other room and she has the the like, you know, soap dispenser of the Madic and she has it fully [laughter] fully vertical.
3:00:43
Fully vertical trying to drink out of it.
3:00:45
And I was so appreciative of your design because nothing came out. >> Wow.
3:00:51
>> So your view, but I was so worried for a second cuz it like looked like she was just trying to chug.
3:00:57
>> No, that could end up very messy, potentially harmful. Who knows?
3:01:01
>> Anyways, so so excited to have you back on.
3:01:02
We've been loving our Maddox and uh I know you have some big updates. >> Yeah.
3:01:07
What's new in your >> uh uh well, we just announced today that we've raised uh $60 million in next round. So >> So led by Yeah. >> And by who?
3:01:24
>> Uh led by Sutter Hill Ventures and Vic Mill >> is joining our board.
3:01:27
And we've had >> Thank you.
3:01:30
And we've had some amazing investor Gavin Baker at Tradies.
3:01:31
Oh yeah, Antonio Gracias at Valor, bunch of other joining on their own. So it's great.
3:01:38
And then for us, this is sort of the output of the product we built and shipped.
3:01:42
Um yeah, I don't think this would have happened without us shipping.
3:01:46
So that's been the good part of it that it's not about the demo.
3:01:47
It's about based on real product, real usage, real customers. >> Yeah.
3:01:52
>> Real real robots, thousands of them, real out in the real world doing doing real work.
3:01:57
Uh >> yeah, we've we've dead. Sorry to jump in.
3:02:01
We've shipped more than 6,000 now and have cleaned about 110 million square feet. >> There you go.
3:02:07
>> Which results in 80,000 mi travel. So quite a bit. >> That's amazing. >> That's wild.
3:02:12
>> Uh talk to us about uh pricing and willingness to pay.
3:02:15
Obviously with modern AI, robotics, everything that you're doing, you're creating more value for the customer.
3:02:21
And correct the I mean the sales show people are willing to pay more than the previous generation which I feel was like more of a three-digit price point.
3:02:30
Um and we were we were talking about like will people really pay $50,000 for a humanoid $100,000 like that feels like a big jump but what are you seeing in terms of just willingness to pay for robotic processes amongst consumers?
3:02:47
>> So so uh great question um we actually launched first time in April of 2023. No one cared.
3:02:52
But we started as a robotics as a robotics as a service.
3:02:56
>> Um and and we tried to uh launch it as a subscription and that was like an organ rejection. That didn't work at all.
3:03:01
Uh so people are definitely not interested in paying yet another subscription.
3:03:07
That's another one thing we learned.
3:03:08
Then we priced it at about $1,500 plus subscription as an attachment in November 2023 and learned again that that didn't work as well.
3:03:15
that that was the price point at which a lot of people weren't yet convinced that at least the robot uh vacuum or or uh this could do a job.
3:03:24
So we really took that feedback to heart and then eventually priced it much much lower introductory price of about $9.
3:03:30
95 and now it's because of tariff we've had to raise it a little bit but really >> what we learned and this was our thesis to day one that if you take a step back and think about it there is literally zero ubiquitous consumer electronics device priced higher than $2,000. Mhm. Yeah.
3:03:47
>> Beyond $2,000 it's presumer or you pay for cars, >> right?
3:03:51
There is literally nothing even bucks now. >> Yeah.
3:03:56
That's why I think the humanoid robot roll out is going to be just really brutal because you're trying to get adoption of a new product that is still in very much like going to be in an R&D phase and you're asking people you're asking people to pay >> car money. >> But counter point. Exactly. >> Piggyback rides.
3:04:15
You could take it to work, replace your car.
3:04:17
You [laughter] hop on the back.
3:04:21
>> It's a car that will clean your house.
3:04:21
A car that can do the dishes.
3:04:23
And >> I'm hopping on the back.
3:04:25
Give me a piggyback ride to work.
3:04:27
And then while I'm working, you're going to go around and clean and do all sorts of I don't know.
3:04:32
>> Well, well, ADI is coming.
3:04:32
Maybe it will just do the work for you. Maybe we'll go there.
3:04:36
They will be an iPhone TV.
3:04:38
>> No more commutes, but you will need a clean house.
3:04:40
So, you will buy a Madic robot in the future. That's exactly right.
3:04:44
>> Well, I mean, talk about the AGI process, the process in the models.
3:04:48
We're seeing like incredible advancements all over image, video models, reasoning models, agents.
3:04:52
Um, are you seeing just or natural improvements to the performance of your fleet?
3:05:01
Is that just something that rolls out for free?
3:05:03
Are you doing your own training runs?
3:05:05
like what what what have you learned or integrated from the progress in just just fundamental AI research over the past year?
3:05:14
>> That's a great question.
3:05:14
We started with this idea that AI is coming and AI would make progress and and that has always been part of it and we are taking advantage of VLMs and SAM 3 and all the open- source model that are available to us.
3:05:26
But at the same time one of the things that we had realized on day one that at least when it comes to home uh getting data given the privacy that consumers want especially at this price point um was going to be a challenge.
3:05:40
going to be a challenge. So we knew so we knew so that just like Tesla sold a car collected data and now is moving on to autonomy and and robotics in the same exact way the robotic vacuum was our veg that's the way we wanted to get inside home earn customers trust build a brand and also a data veg and we knew that if
3:06:02
we build it the right way by doing everything on the device and earn customers trust they will share data and that's actually one of the most interesting thing that the long tail with which we actually need all that data is coming in and customers are willingly sending it to us and they're curating it for us as well because we know this data is actually error oriented. So that's like incredibly
3:06:20
So that's like incredibly helpful.
3:06:22
And if you take a step back and think about it, even for humanoids, if you had a humanoid in your home, you don't want it to step onto that dog poop or cat vomit or get tangled up in wires or rug tessles or, you know, uh maybe uh uh um squeeze your or break your kids toys or dolls, right?
3:06:38
So every single thing that we do actually directly leads into it.
3:06:43
So our thought was always that hey instead of sort of building a humanoid in day one let's grow a robot.
3:06:50
Let's grow uh Rosie the robot and we'll solve perception first just using floor cleaning space and then we can worry about manipulation and kind of think about what would kids be able to do it between 5 to 10 year and can we enable that sort of functionality and make product useful and then ultimately get
3:07:04
to >> kind of insane to think about like the actual reality of a humanoid using a regular vacuum you know just like dragging around a vacuum or using a Dyson it's like is that really the most efficient way to like clean a floor is to have this huge robot like humanized robots. [laughter]
3:07:20
[laughter] >> Actually, it was in that movie by Centennial Man.
3:07:25
I remember that with Robin Williams and and he was using the regular newspaper and he was doing it and we're like, "Wait, that doesn't make sense."
3:07:31
Like, you know, do you >> like we have this humanoid really amazing intelligent robot, but our appliances never change.
3:07:38
So, there was always this idea that it has to evolve in both ways. >> Yeah.
3:07:42
Any uh any traction or plans on the enterprise side?
3:07:45
I'm thinking like hotel rooms.
3:07:48
They need to be incredibly efficient.
3:07:50
Every minute that a that someone is in there is a minute they couldn't be somewhere else.
3:07:54
Uh do you have plans there or is that just a total distraction?
3:08:00
>> At the moment hardware that we've built is really just for homes. Yeah.
3:08:05
>> Um I did put one in hair salon and it works fine.
3:08:07
We did put some in hotels and everything.
3:08:09
So perception and algorithms wise it is working across the board.
3:08:13
We do have people using it in their uh daycare centers, churches, schools, animal hospital that we've seen use cases.
3:08:21
So there is an opportunity there.
3:08:22
But I think that would require a little bit of a hardware tweak and then we just have to question is it really about savings time which is really what we want to do or is it about just saving costs and if it's saving cost then it may not be as interesting of a problem but if it turns out there is a labor shortage oriented one then we really need to go and look into it.
3:08:40
>> What about lawnmowers?
3:08:43
Uh lawnmowers is something we want to stay inside home for a while for a bit. Okay.
3:08:49
What about the the reason lawn mower think about it?
3:08:53
It's like uh you guys would make it a fantastic lawn mower, but I've never once thought like in between when the like the landscapers come to my house.
3:09:01
I've never once thought like I wish my grass was just like a little bit shorter today. >> Perfect every day.
3:09:06
>> Like cuz they're just coming every week.
3:09:07
Whereas in the home in the home it's like your house can always be cleaner. >> Yeah. Every day. Every day.
3:09:11
What about [clears throat] what about an ad supported tier?
3:09:14
It says, "Hey, I'm on Lenolium.
3:09:16
Why don't you upgrade to hardwood?
3:09:18
We'd love to connect you with this local."
3:09:20
Have >> you considered NordVPN?
3:09:23
I see I see you're spilling you're spilling a lot of vegetables on the floor.
3:09:26
Why [clears throat] not Athletic Green?
3:09:27
>> We've been talking to Eric Sue for too long today.
3:09:29
He he got us thinking on ads and everything.
3:09:31
>> So, what uh what what what's the plan?
3:09:34
>> What's the plan for this year?
3:09:34
Like just scale, sell a lot more robots.
3:09:36
Do you need to be in Best Buy and and retail distribution at some point? What? Yeah.
3:09:42
What do you >> uh not at the moment.
3:09:43
Luckily for us, uh at the moment, we're still supply constraint.
3:09:46
So, we would keep selling and doing build to order model that allows us to keep working capital low and the goal is really to scale.
3:09:52
We scale about 20x last year selling from 300 to 6,000 robots. Now, we're Thank you.
3:10:01
and and try to go uh another 10 to 20x this year.
3:10:04
That's the goal at the moment.
3:10:06
And there is a second product in the work.
3:10:09
I won't be able to go into much details yet, but there will be some exciting.
3:10:12
>> We tried to guess it and all of our guesses were way off base [laughter] a robot that you could take a picture.
3:10:20
He's like, "No, you guys are not even close."
3:10:22
Anyway, thank you so much. Congratulations.
3:10:25
>> Great to get the update.
3:10:26
>> Always great to have you on the show.
3:10:28
>> Yeah, I love I love >> And we appreciate your product. Nothing.
3:10:30
You know, we talk about robots a lot on the show.
3:10:32
the show. love a robot company that with a real fleet out >> and I think Dian's joining today telling that we're still growing without advertisement although we will need some at some point >> we will yes have a great rest of your day we'll talk to you soon
3:10:47
>> great to get great to catch up cheers >> goodbye let me tell you about phantom cash fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with the phantom card and I'm also going to tell you about reream one live stream 30 plus destinations if you want to multiream go to reream.com. com.
3:11:04
The other news today is, of course, that uh rare metals are absolutely spiking.
3:11:10
Gold's up 4%, silver's up 7%, copper's up 10%, platinum's up 7%, palladium's up 5%, oil is up 4%, Geiger Capital says, "Don't worry, Pal said it means nothing." And he looks worried.
3:11:20
A photo that we're all looks very worried.
3:11:23
We will be monitoring that.
3:11:26
It is an odd uh it is an odd uh you know, dislocation in the market.
3:11:31
Boring Business uh is posting a meme saying realizing that our collective retirements now depend depend on whether digital gold coin created by an anonymous founder goes up or down.
3:11:41
Is that Bitcoin he's referring to? Wait, what? >> Uh no.
3:11:45
So, so retirement accounts will be able to directly buy this from uh from the SEC chair.
3:11:50
Now is the right time to open 401k retirement market in crypto.
3:11:55
Um and so more more push into that.
3:11:59
One update, some some more updates on the Apple numbers, Apple earnings.
3:12:04
Mark Kerman says massive Apple revenue beat 144 billion in overall revenue, 85 billion in iPhone revenue, 25 a.
3:12:09
5 billion China revenue, and 30 billion in services revenue.
3:12:14
Tim Cook gets to keep his job.
3:12:18
>> Obviously, obviously a joke, but um >> uh and we can close out.
3:12:24
>> We we got to do some of these timeline posts.
3:12:25
There's a lot of good >> Well, let's let's pull up this video. Okay, let's pull it.
3:12:29
>> AI is going to AI is going to take your job. What job? >> This is great.
3:12:33
Uh, we will pull this up while I tell you about graphite code review for the age of AI.
3:12:38
Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
3:12:43
>> Pull this up >> and let's go to AI.
3:12:46
>> Check in with the job market.
3:12:50
>> Just drinking driving is the entire job.
3:12:55
>> I I've seen this meme template.
3:12:55
I have not seen this exact video, but the jump in that car, you have to be going so fast.
3:13:02
>> This makes me want to buy a beater drift.
3:13:06
>> Just wait for a rainy day.
3:13:07
>> Drifting is is next up on the bucket list.
3:13:09
You got to We got to learn how to drift like that.
3:13:11
Maybe stay off the bottle. Maybe stay quiet.
3:13:13
Stay off the bottle, but maybe close down a road somewhere. >> Yeah.
3:13:19
Um, Delicious Tacos with a fantastic post says, "AI CEOs are like if Henry Ford said these cars are going to run over all of your children.
3:13:30
>> They're getting >> I appreciate I appreciated this one.
3:13:33
Just uh going back to, you know, the the where's our where's our AI Steve Jobs? Yeah.
3:13:38
>> You know, we can't have every lab founder saying that everyone's going to lose their job and, >> you know, AI is going to, you know, kill everyone on a long enough time >> horizon.
3:13:46
I I I do think Dario has done like a reasonably good job if you're like pretty tapped in, right? He has this great essay.
3:13:51
Um >> uh wait, I'm >> all watched over by machines of loving grace. >> Yes. Yes, he has.
3:13:56
Um I feel like he's he's not uh that public yet.
3:13:59
He like he's starting to do a little bit of a press tour right now. Yeah.
3:14:04
>> But I I think if he was more in the public eye, I think he could be that that person. Definitely. Right.
3:14:07
I mean, Demis has also done a fantastic job in in in and uh and is one person that's like not really highlighted with those uh questions, but I mean this delicious tacos post like Dart is definitely in this crowd because you know he is talking about job display.
3:14:22
>> I guess his more recent essay was about the the catastrophic risks. Yeah.
3:14:27
>> Which are important and and it's good that it's good that he is talking about it but it is a very different uh it's a different world than than other innovations. Uh >> you hear me? >> Yeah.
3:14:36
Fawn says, "The best way to evaluate a VC is by picking the one with the least bad podcast you'll be forced to go on."
3:14:42
Of course, >> if you raise from a VC, you're probably going on their podcast. Just face it.
3:14:49
You may as well pick the one with the best podcast. >> Buckle up.
3:14:52
>> There are some there are some good things.
3:14:54
>> The Joo Willink Venture Capital Fund.
3:14:56
That's what you got to do.
3:14:56
You got to do Jaco's pod. That would be amazing.
3:14:58
Uh GPT5 apparently serving it is profitable.
3:15:03
profitable. According to epoch AI, gross margins were around 45% making inference look possible uh profitable but after accounting for the cost of operations open AI likely incurred a loss of course they have a huge staff there's a lot of
3:15:15
the capex there's all sorts of different stuff but just on the actual inference uh this confirms what a lot of people were saying yesterday about uh just comparing the open source models to the uh the the private models inference uh uh gross margins seem healthy which is of course good news. We uh we went on
3:15:30
We uh we went on Colin and Samir's show.
3:15:34
>> We did >> to talk about TBPN and media >> and John Palmer didn't just listen, he studied.
3:15:41
>> Studied >> and uh he had a great take here.
3:15:41
He said uh on the Colin and Samir show, John Kugan laid out a barbell thesis in media value either occurs to the platforms or the individual personalities.
3:15:51
Platforms being YouTube, uh Spotify, X, etc.
3:15:53
or the individual uh people creating the content.
3:15:59
He says, "I'm guessing that software is headed to the same place.
3:16:03
Value goes to the platforms with monopoly distribution, Google, Stripe.
3:16:04
I can think think of, you know, system of records, etc.
3:16:09
or the individual vibe coders shipping one man businesses at a,000x lower cost.
3:16:13
Not much value in between.
3:16:16
What happened to the media business is now having a software when production costs drop a,000x remember to make a show like this historic and distribute it historically, we would have needed to be on a major television network.
3:16:28
Now we can do it with a you know tiny fraction of the cost >> and reream >> um and reream of course but um anyways uh interesting uh interesting take and I think we'll see certainly see some of this play out.
3:16:43
>> Gary Vaynerchuk rebranded his agency for enterprise clients >> Chuck Media Chuck Media.
3:16:49
>> He's been he's just reinvented himself so many times.
3:16:51
He's he was Gary Vaynerchuk.
3:16:52
I think that's his full name.
3:16:53
Then he was Gary Veayner or Veayner Media and then Gary Vee and now just Chuck, which is very interesting.
3:17:01
I've talked to some people who have worked with them. Um the Oh, wait.
3:17:02
This is a different agency. Oh, interesting.
3:17:07
Vaynerchuk's small business agency, the Sasha Group is being repositioned for enterprise clients as Chuck Media. I think that's separate.
3:17:14
>> Oh, so Media, which is its own thing. Fascinating.
3:17:17
Uh, in other news, uh, Tree Hacks at Stanford is looking for new judges.
3:17:23
If you, uh, have experience, uh, building a notable project, building a major company, you're a journalist, a creator, etc.
3:17:31
, uh, please reach out to, uh, I'm going to not pronounce that, The Coding Dev.
3:17:38
Uh, he's a 19-year-old CS Stanford.
3:17:41
Uh, and I was thinking about this like hackathons were huge in I don't know 2010 2015.
3:17:50
Uh, and then they sort of fell off or just became sort of like background noise like they would happen but nothing was that exciting.
3:17:56
And this feels like the best time to go to a hackathon because people are going to be vibe coding like truly fully functional products and there's something about the pressure of meeting a bunch of people spending two days you know staying up all night grinding. It's really really fun.
3:18:10
I don't know if hackathons have necessarily declined.
3:18:11
Like I when I was at school, the hackathons were like massive. Kept getting bigger. >> Yeah.
3:18:16
I I I guess just the novelty wore off and they just became background noise. Yeah, that's right.
3:18:19
But it's got to be the best time ever.
3:18:21
I remember the first hackathon hackathon I went to, it was like, oh, cool.
3:18:25
Like Twilio exists, so you can like build something that texts you.
3:18:29
And now it's like, okay, like you can use agents to just code you everything.
3:18:34
And you're and the the the the pool of people.
3:18:36
Uh when the first hackathon I went to I was I didn't really know programming at all.
3:18:40
I learned a bunch was able to build some things but it took a long time and by the end of the hackathon you sort of just had a landing page that barely worked.
3:18:48
Now you can definitely leave with a full fullyfledged product if you lock in for two days at a long hackathon.
3:18:54
>> Unicorn valuation potentially right.
3:18:57
>> Oh yeah for the company for sure.
3:18:57
Uh and uh yeah this seems like a lot of fun.
3:19:00
So head over three hacks.
3:19:04
>> I have to get we both have to get on with Sydney. Oh, we do. Okay.
3:19:08
>> So, >> well, we will have to talk about sticker packs tomorrow.
3:19:12
>> We can talk about this for a second.
3:19:14
>> Plant the talk about it.
3:19:15
>> From uh Dom, uh founder of Fast, the uh payments company, uh launched a new company called Stickier, and I was super confused because he's selling uh stickers with the TBPN logo, which >> is very weird.
3:19:30
Um, and uh, >> it's supposed to be a way to like short overhyped startups, >> but you're just buying stickers with other people's.
3:19:38
>> Very questionable where this will go, but we'll have to check it out more in the future.
3:19:42
Anyway, leave us five stars on Apple podcast and Spotify. Thank you. Goodbye. >> Nice work, brothers.
3:19:49
I'll see you on the next one.