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[music] >> I see multiple journalists on the horizon. Stand by. >> UAV online. >> Blaze. >> Double glaze. Triple blades. Double kill. By coming is wins. Team Deathmatch. We are experts. Triple blade. That's just wrong. Right.
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4:22
I see multiple journalists on the horizon founder. You're watching TVPN.
4:40
>> Today is Tuesday, January 27th, 2026.
4:40
We are live from the TVPN Ultradome, the Temple of Technology, the Fortress of Finance, >> the capital of capital. >> Capital.
4:49
Uh before we begin today's show, as many of you know, there's a major news story unfolding in Minnesota. That's very sad.
4:55
Uh that and it's become a national news event.
4:57
Uh we're going to continue focusing the show on technology and business as always.
5:01
But if you're interested in comprehensive coverage of the Minnesota story, uh we recommend outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the information, they've been covering it daily.
5:11
There's been a lot of great reporting from both of them.
5:13
Uh both about what tech leaders are saying, what CEOs are saying, and what's happening on the ground with the admin.
5:19
Uh we're hoping for a peaceful resolution, thoughtful dialogue as the as the situation continues to evolve.
5:24
Uh but for now, let's get back to the show because we have a very important guest joining us at 2 PM today.
5:31
Uh the creator of Clawudebot, but now it's called Maltbot. It's been renamed.
5:37
Uh and >> we're molting now.
5:40
>> Lots of things are evolving on this.
5:40
And I'm still thinking about it, still thinking about the implications of this.
5:46
Uh before we dig into what I wrote about this morning, uh let me tell you about ramp. com. Time is money. Save both.
5:51
He's used corporate cards, bill pay, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.
5:57
Uh there's a lot of >> asks, is Jordy calling in from the Paddics?
6:01
And [laughter] uh yes, I am.
6:04
We're working on a new pair of uh headphones here, gear that we can send to guests.
6:11
Uh some of the guests come in and they've got some pretty wild audio setups and so we're trying to help them out with that.
6:17
So, uh these are in the works.
6:19
They're a little bulky right now.
6:21
So, these will be sent to regular guests of TBPN.
6:24
They're USBC wired and uh should have really clear audio quality. No delay, no.
6:31
>> These ones are actually built for the track. Yes.
6:33
And so the noise cancelling.
6:36
>> I think our guests might get kind of crazy [clears throat] with it because our our guests are going to be like, "Well, now I'm empowered.
6:40
Now you've given me the ability because we get some guests that come on the show.
6:43
I'm sure you've seen it where they'll be like, "You know what?
6:46
I'm going to stunt on the TVPN boys and I'm going to give you a factory tour."
6:49
And sometimes it's flawless and sometimes it's a little rough, but this is only going to empower them to do crazier and crazier things. We're gonna >> Yeah.
6:56
So, we're working on these.
6:56
The goal was basically like Turtle Beach headphones for people that uh aren't playing Call of Duty.
7:03
They're playing >> uh Claudebot or Maltbot, >> yes, >> as we now call it.
7:08
So, >> well, let's take everyone through the linear lineup.
7:11
Meet the system for modern software development.
7:13
70% of enterprise workspaces on linear are using agents.
7:17
And uh as I mentioned, we have uh some we have Peter from Moldbot coming on.
7:24
Palmer Lucky is also coming on at 1:30 to talk about AI drone racing.
7:27
Bridget Mendler from Northward Space is returning.
7:29
Ben Lair from Layer Hippo Adventures.
7:31
Lucas Jamie Aaron Frank from Lightseed Adventure Partners.
7:36
We have a massive show that should I'm sure we'll finish right on time.
7:39
It's a three-hour show, right?
7:41
Uh anyway, [snorts] um >> of course we'll be going deep into the fourth hour today >> probably. So stay stay with us.
7:49
>> Uh chat is asking if we'll sell these if we can make these good enough that they're actually incredible as just a daily driver for Zooms and whatever you guys are doing at the office.
8:00
Uh I would be happy to sell them, but we have to make them so good.
8:05
>> Part of the reason why we haven't sold merch to date is just that we're a podcast.
8:08
We're not an apparel company.
8:11
It is a and there are some hairy sticky things that come up when you're managing a e-commerce like the back end making sure everyone gets their returns and gets their deliveries.
8:20
I've worked in e-commerce for years and uh it's something that we wanted to be just like a nice to have little extra for some some friends of the show, but uh we're we're actively thinking about it. So, we are aware.
8:32
Um the Claudebot memes are completely flooding the timeline.
8:35
Uh, my Claudebot just signed up for a $2,799 build your personal brand mastermind after watching three Alex Ramos clips.
8:47
[laughter] So, this text message Claudebot, hey, did anything weird happen while I was out? Define weird.
8:50
I just got a charge notification for 2997.
8:55
Oh, that I just signed us up for build your personal brand mastermind.
8:57
After analyzing three Alex Ramos clips, the ROI math checks out.
9:01
You'll 10x that investment in 90 days by monetizing your expertise at scale. What?
9:06
[laughter] I also requ acquired some premium domain. >> Bouja empire. io.
9:14
>> Oh, Bora is the the poster. This is hilarious.
9:16
Uh probably fake, but I mean the the Cloudbot gets wild.
9:18
I've seen some I've seen some uh some some wild things like and and Peter as he'll talk to us about it.
9:24
Um >> he's clearly no stranger to the fact that hey, this is a this is a developer level tool.
9:30
This is something that you should not just uh be running crazy with.
9:34
You need to be He even says this in a post.
9:36
He says uh and yes, most non- techies should not install this. It's not finished.
9:40
I know about the sharp edges.
9:41
It's not even three months old.
9:43
And despite rumors otherwise, I sometimes sleep.
9:46
So very excited to talk to Peter.
9:48
Uh he's getting a lot of a lot of requests for small changes, poll requests.
9:53
He's he's certainly inundated.
9:55
But I think in general the project's going very well.
9:57
Uh and there's a lot of uh there's a lot of solid product market fit, right?
10:01
Um there was also >> he's going to be joining tonight at something like 11 his time. It's kind of insane.
10:07
This guy's working around the clock. >> Absolutely. Legend.
10:08
So we really we really say thanks to him.
10:10
Uh there there are some funny things here.
10:12
So uh there's a there's a funny funny conspiracy theory.
10:16
Did Apple create Claudebot to boost Mac Mini sales?
10:18
And there's been a funny a number of funny memes about um about like being the being the Mac Mini head of uh marketing or growth and you're just like, "Yeah, my Q1 is off to a great start."
10:32
[laughter] Taking all the credit for it.
10:33
Um and then Eleanor chimes in with another uh conspiracy theory.
10:38
The more convincing plot is that in your role as an unconfirmed anthropic exec, you went on a special op to get lots of people consuming tokens with open-ended agents, but with plausible deniability.
10:47
Um, and of course there's some nuance there.
10:51
We'll talk to him about the different models, what's beneficial.
10:52
Obviously, Claudebot, you can pick your own model.
10:55
You can bring whatever you want.
10:55
Uh, but, uh, he's, I think, a fan of GPT 5. 2. He's talked about that.
11:00
And so, uh, we'll we'll dig into that with him uh, when he joins.
11:05
But what what what was sticking out in my mind was there's this big meme about, uh, about uh, you're built you're buying Mac minis.
11:14
Mac Minis are out of stock.
11:16
All the demands in the Mac Mini.
11:18
Uh but I think that the bigger implication here for what this actually means is uh just GPU demand, TPU demand, just raw chip demand.
11:27
Uh and so so I I was thinking about, you know, this this idea that you're not buying a Mac Mini when you go all in on Cloudbot, you're actually buying a GB200.
11:35
Now maybe you're buying TPUs, but the the point remains that you're buying chips and you're and you're driving GPU demand because you're generating more tokens and what are what are the implications of that?
11:44
So let me tell you about Labelbox. RL environments. >> You got it.
11:51
>> I I I have a dashboard here. Here we go. I got it. There we go.
11:55
>> RL environments, voice, robotics, [screaming] eval, and expert data. Expert human data.
11:58
Label box is the data factory behind the team's worldleading world's leading AI teams.
12:02
So, um, uh, Cloudbot officially renamed to Moldbot.
12:08
Anthropic made a trademark related request and Peter Steinberger obliged with a hilariously perfect rename given such short notice.
12:15
Um, I was thinking about how much companies agonize over changing brands, changing names, how it can sometimes take years and millions of dollars, and he was just like, "Oh, yeah, like I'll just change the name and update everything in an hour."
12:31
Pretty pretty remarkable.
12:33
>> Well, so so one thing one thing that's relevant is if you look on uh Peter's GitHub profile under the current project section, I'm just going to read you a number of them.
12:44
There's Claudebot, Vibe Tunnel, Codeexbar, Peekabboo, Summarize, Repo Bar, Go CLI, Poltergeist, Wackly, SAG, Bravo, >> 11 Labs, Kit, Go Places, Gift, Prep, Cam, Snap, Spogo, Order, like it just goes on and on and on and on. Codex Bar.
13:03
So, so this guy's just been absolutely shipping like crazy and shipping within the ecosystems of the underlying tools, models, APIs that he's doing.
13:09
So like often times he's naming projects like kind of riffing off of some of the underlying infrastructure. Oh, sure.
13:17
>> And so it makes sense that he would have shipped if he I think if Peter knew this was going to be a viral overnight overnight success >> overnight success, >> he would have he would have not necessarily named it like so closely.
13:29
And so the issue and the reason that I fully understand them needing to do this like rebrand >> is that Claude >> and Claudebot >> like you most people that aren't in our little bubble are just going to assume they're related especially because >> the the kind of word of mouth this viral word of mouth growth that Cloudbot is getting >> people are often not even typing it.
13:50
They're just saying like hey are you using Cloudbot and then so people are going to anthropic being like Claudebot Cloudbot what's Cloudbot.
13:54
So obvious confusion and then >> and it's phonetic. Yeah.
13:57
with trademark law, if you don't enforce your trademarks, >> you don't you lose it.
14:03
>> And so it's like Anthropic is in a position where they actually, even if they're like super excited about Peter's work and what he's doing, >> uh they still have to enforce otherwise other companies could start coming in and like using things like things that sound like Claude.
14:18
>> No one wants to become the escalator.
14:20
You know the story of the escalator, right?
14:21
>> I think you talked about it on the show.
14:23
>> It used to be a company called the escalator company.
14:24
They invented the escalator and then they didn't protect their IP effectively and it just became a normal thing.
14:28
Uh Kleenex was going through the same thing.
14:30
They fought it out and they maintained that brand but people you know use Kleenex is synonymous with just facial tissue.
14:38
Anyway, MongoDB choose a database build for flexibility and scale with best-in-class embedding models and rerankers.
14:44
MongoDB has what you need to build what's next.
14:46
So uh one clear note about uh the rebrand.
14:50
So, he changed the handle and some crypto scammers hopped on the old handle and the old brand and are and are claiming to launch a coin. Be careful.
14:58
Peter has said he's never launching a coin.
15:00
He's not into crypto, so don't fall for anything.
15:02
Uh because people are being opportunistic.
15:05
Uh any >> hopefully we should try to see if X can help out with that. >> Oh yeah. Yeah.
15:09
I they might have already handled it, but uh just just be careful out there.
15:13
Uh so while claude code and co-work felt specifically proumer developer enterprise focused claudebot or moltbot now uh it and the and the all the hype train it felt very much like a glimpse into the future of consumer AI agents.
15:30
I know it's a proumer technical tool or or or lightly technical tool but it really did feel like for the first time people were interacting with an AI personal agent.
15:39
People are saying, "Oh, this is what Siri should be, etc. , etc."
15:42
And so, uh, we spent the last year, remember the question that we asked all the AI agent companies, "When can it book me a flight?"
15:47
Like, it feels like we're really, really close to a multbot skill that is good at booking flights through a couple APIs.
15:53
They figure out some stuff and like it can actually solve that for you.
15:57
Uh, I don't know if anyone's actually booked a flight with Mulbot, but it feels like it's if it's not there already, it'll be there in a matter of weeks.
16:05
We're not years out anymore. >> Yeah.
16:07
And this was this was last year.
16:09
every remember we were kind of getting sick of of the like book you a flight pitch because we were like hey is this >> can somebody actually do this and so and and uh that that's a cool example but the example of being able to text with a computer >> and have them like generate reports research files etc give you the right file type back all all these things that
16:31
a computer can do if you're operating it >> that this is actually more interesting because it's happening at kind of like the sort of internet layer and the OS layer like the heart like actually on the computer and so I think like everyone was wanting the the like book me a flight example >> but should be much more excited about this. >> Totally. Totally. Uh and so there I >> Totally. Totally.
16:49
Uh and so there I still have a whole bunch of questions and we'll dig in through these throughout the show and obviously with our interview with Peter.
16:56
Uh will one of the major labs make Peter a massive offer to join full-time?
17:01
I saw uh oh one of my buddies was was posting uh uh you know this is the1 billion dollar oneperson company.
17:10
Now Peter does have a team actually already he's he's he has a couple of other people that have joined and are contributing.
17:15
So, it's not quite true, but it it it feels like, okay, massive viral success.
17:20
Uh, you know, if you were to go and and raise money, uh, and that's another question.
17:25
Uh, will Moltbot raise money?
17:27
Will this become sort of a hybrid for uh, open- source uh, for-profit company at some point?
17:34
Um, uh, this could be if if he came on the show and was like, I'm and I'm happy to announce that I raised hundred million dollars at a billion dollars.
17:39
We would not be like, no way. This is a bubble.
17:42
We'd be like, yeah, that's kind of like what the market is for this.
17:45
Yeah, there were I think there was like uh Harry Stebings was pointing out there was two companies called recursive that raised [laughter] like four billion one with >> I yeah one is I recursive I don't know if that's how it's said but and then there's recursive >> recursive okay
18:00
>> anyway well that that implies the existence of a row cursive and a recursive and a raursive >> yeah yeah we still got way more >> we got we got three more vowels to plug in there >> yeah one one day ago Richard Soer's >> new AI uh recursive $4 billion uh pre- money valuation and then AI chip startup
18:21
>> recursive at 4 billion >> uh I mean few months after Ryan in the chat saying Meta is going to offer him a $1 billion salary in a cocoto position and like that doesn't sound crazy >> I mean yeah yeah but at the same time like you can imagine like Manis >> like this feels like Zuck already has
18:39
>> he does he does he does >> his horse in the race >> and to back back to your point you were making the point that Manis felt like uh Zuck buying a product and I think a lot of people were giving you push back on that being like nah like it's not really going to be like that. But if you take
18:53
But if you take the Manis team and you say okay go build something that you can interact with over WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, Facebook that can go and execute things across all of the different platforms and everything else. >> Yeah.
19:07
And when I said that, I meant uh >> I meant it along the lines of like I could see like them putting an a like a consumer agent in MetaAI just because that's their little AI playground, right?
19:18
They're just kind of putting stuff in there saying like >> try it out. It's kind of a sandbox. >> Yes. Yes. Really quickly, Finn.
19:22
AI the number one AI agent for customer service.
19:27
If you want AI to handle your customer support, go to fin. ai. Yes.
19:28
So that is all part of my thesis here, which is that this is going to drive up token demand.
19:35
token demand. So there are more questions uh you know will they raise money obviously people are chatting about that how fragmented will the market be in 12 months like will there be people who are still running open source uh will there be a meta answer a chat answer a claude an an official anthropic answer cla coowork grows into
19:52
this and and and everyone has their little bets and then there's one that pulls away how how all agilistic will it be will there be like one that has 80% market share or even two that have 40 and 40 >> well yeah and you have to think about how you know you have uh uh a bunch of different models you can use in in moldbot. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
20:11
>> And think about how uncomfortable that makes the other labs that are all trying to build products like this.
20:15
And they're like, well, I mean, it's cool that you can use codeex in Moldbot.
20:18
It's cool that you can use Opus4 in Moldbot, but Gemini 3 Pro, Google's most intelligent model yet.
20:27
State-of-the-art reasoning, next level vibe coding, and deep multimodal understanding. >> That's not that. You did get me. You did get me.
20:34
That's not where I was going.
20:35
But [laughter] but the point the point still stands.
20:38
It's uh >> yeah they they can simultaneously be like excited about the product experience and that this kind of like use case is getting adoption but at the same time being like no we want that experience to be core to >> our product our app.
20:55
>> I will say like um you've seen this now with with the new like frontier models where a lot of the models there actually is like there's GPT 5. 2 and then there's 5.
21:02
2 two codecs where there's slight difference in in training or even if it's just like a like very quick like post- train to get the um >> like different like harnesses working like easier.
21:11
So like that's why you see a lot of people like they really love claw code with Opus45 but then when they're actually doing like chatting maybe they're they're using a different model because uh the models are actually like fine tuned for the specific harness. >> Yeah. Yeah.
21:23
And Sam Alman just just said that yesterday that he thinks 5.
21:25
2 too was a little bit overly trained on math and coding. Yeah.
21:31
>> And that and that it lost some of its textual flavor, its stylistic flourish in just talking, in just writing.
21:36
What are you getting ready to do?
21:38
Do you have happy birthday queued up there?
21:39
Oh, we got to sing happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.
21:46
In the middle of this song, we'll tell you about Figma.
21:49
Figma make isn't your average vibe coding tool.
21:53
It lives in Figma, so outputs look good, feel real, and stay connected to how teams build.
21:57
Create codeback prototypes. >> Okay.
21:59
It wouldn't be TVPN if we didn't do an ad >> ad read during happy birthday song.
22:03
>> Tyler, >> happy birthday to Tyler. >> Uh, it is to you. It is Tyler's birthday.
22:07
>> And it's not just any birthday.
22:07
It's Tyler's 21st birthday. >> Yes.
22:10
>> Which is very, very special.
22:12
>> Uh, and so yeah, you are just you are uh you're truly an incredible young man, Tyler, and we are very lucky to have you on the team.
22:20
Uh, and you have such a bright future.
22:24
>> Uh, so wise wise for your years >> for sure.
22:27
>> And you have you do have uh we we thought it was fitting that uh uh if you want [laughter] to have your first ever sip of alcohol ever, >> you could do it on the show, but keep it at a sip.
22:40
You know, this is I can try it now. This is the happy dad. >> Okay.
22:44
First first taste of alcohol.
22:46
>> Ian Ian in the chat says, "Four more years till you can rent a car. [laughter] mocked.
22:53
>> Tyler, apparently you share a birthday with the iPad. Give us a review. >> How is it? Alcohol. Wow.
22:56
I mean, this is this is incredible. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.
23:00
I I I wouldn't expect alcohol to like taste like this. Um >> Yeah. Very This is incredible.
23:05
>> You had you had you had one idea in your mind and this is just completely different than what you expected.
23:09
>> I would agree with that. >> Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah.
23:12
>> Well, it's kind of a cool moment.
23:12
You're finally qualified to go on Cheeky Pint. >> Oh, true. Yeah.
23:16
What were they going to do with that [laughter] chat?
23:19
I sometimes Conroy in the chat says, "Please throw him a buzz.
23:21
This opportunity opportunity."
23:23
Um, >> the buzzball story is absolutely incredible.
23:27
I'm so glad you jump scared me with that.
23:29
I had no idea that that was coming.
23:31
>> Yeah, I texted Rob and Sunro to do uh to try Buzz.
23:38
>> Um, anyway, so keep it at a sip.
23:38
This is a This is a family enough, but I'm glad that you've tried alcohol now because we're going to go experience being Wait, guys, we have a video for Tyler. Oh yeah. >> Let's pull it up. >> Let's play. We We got greatest hits. >> You know ball. [laughter] >> All right.
23:54
How many times are we going to make this joke?
23:56
>> Describe [music] what you're seeing.
23:57
>> It feels basically like I'm wearing sunglasses.
23:59
>> If you can do it in under 45 minutes, you will get to keep this. >> Let's go. All right. Have fun, Tyler. >> 15 minutes left. Let's see it. >> Okay.
24:06
I'm in like some kind of maze right now. >> Oh no.
24:10
>> You were late here last night.
24:12
>> This is such a good shot. Kind of an all nighter.
24:14
And then here we get a little off the rails.
24:16
You see George Soros and Fouchi connected with other than [laughter] money as well.
24:20
>> All it took was one intern and an allnighter.
24:23
>> Gigachad elf is >> do the sad face.
24:25
[laughter] >> What's wrong here?
24:29
>> This you could [music] say is um Apple intelligence.
24:32
You were a speed >> nerd alert.
24:36
[laughter] You do you have any news for us? >> Yeah. Contract extended.
24:44
It has been [music] truly truly incredible having you here on our set and uh contributing [music] to the show in such a special way. >> Amazing. Happy birthday. >> Happy birthday. >> We love you.
24:56
>> What an amazing >> proud proud to every day I'm proud to podcast with you >> and uh >> yeah amazing uh anyway I got you something for your birthday.
25:07
something for your birthday. I got you turbo puffer serverless vector and full text search built from first principles on object storage fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable and I mean you know we're joking about the ad reads but seriously [laughter] if Tyler does love uh does love token credits he has a
25:25
voracious consumption that is a good gift >> any labs out there >> any labs out there's accepting >> he's accepting birthday presents today let it be known send it your way the credits must flow Oh, >> Tyler's somebody's going to send Tyler like $20 million of credits and he's like, "Wow, did I just get bribed?" Feels like I was like I was happy with
25:43
Feels like I was like I was happy with like a thousand bucks. >> Tyler's over there.
25:47
>> I'm only ever going to talk about one one specific lab after this. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. >> Yeah.
25:51
I mean, the with the with with the potential uh with the with the stuff you're working on mapping the Neols, anything could happen.
25:57
It's it's high stakes over there.
25:59
Anyway, back [snorts] to uh back to Maltbot and uh uh the biggest question for me was what this does to inference demand, right?
26:08
Uh last year, tech discourse was split between two narratives.
26:12
CEOs of tech companies and big labs were saying that they were massively compute constrained.
26:15
Token generation, demand for intelligence, every possible usage metric was growing exponentially, including revenue.
26:20
We saw all this uh and the industry needed to marshall trillions of dollars to deliver on the supply side.
26:26
And the and the numbers were really big.
26:28
So people were getting jittery about it and so the AI bears were much more cautious.
26:32
They highlighted the MIT study showing that enterprise AI pilots were failing.
26:35
DAU growth was decelerating.
26:38
There weren't enough wow moments like the original chatbt launch in 2022.
26:41
Those were some good points.
26:44
Um also just the economics, how much will people pay?
26:46
How how valuable is all this stuff? Is it slop? Right?
26:50
Is it progressing fast enough?
26:52
Uh, this was a big debate, but Moltbot really does make me feel like the token generation demands are going to see another easy X from here.
26:58
Like buying a MC Mac Mini is a sideeshow.
27:00
When you go all in on running a personal AI assistant, you're effectively buying a GB200.
27:05
Now, obviously, not everyone is inferencing a dedicated GB200 constantly anytime soon.
27:10
That's not what's happening.
27:11
But, uh, it still answers the question of where does the next 10x in demand come from?
27:16
Like where where's the adoption?
27:19
if it's rolling out in the enterprise and that's going to be a little slow.
27:21
You know, Tyler Cowan talks about healthcare, nonprofits, a whole bunch of industries that are sort of AI resistant, anything that's uh, you know, bluecollar, manual labor, anything that's physically embodied in any way.
27:32
Like you can't just roll out a really fast uh, you know, AI enabled startup and, you know, ramp.
27:37
Yeah, you might be able to ramp to 100 million.
27:38
That's not going to move the needle at this point on total token generation, total token demand.
27:44
So, um, we've seen these jumps before.
27:46
There was a big jump from uh token generation from LLMs to reasoning models that spiked inference demand.
27:50
Uh we'd been focused on training demand.
27:52
We need to scale up the training clusters.
27:56
But the the question now is >> in slop.
27:59
>> Don't forget slop slop spike demand. >> Yeah.
28:02
Uh are you talking about like Giblly the Giblly moment? All of it. All of it. >> Just all of it. Yeah. >> All of it. Open Instagram reels. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah.
28:09
There's a lot of stuff on there.
28:10
Uh deep research and coding agents took it a step further on inference demand.
28:13
Uh but those were still specific use cases that many AI consumers never regularly touched.
28:18
Uh the GPT5 launched by making uh which made reasoning models more accessible because the router would just automatically throw you in a reasoning model.
28:26
Uh I think the stat was like less than 5% of chatbt users had ever used a reasoning model.
28:32
Like 03 was available on the free tier.
28:35
You could get like one or two queries in or maybe 10.
28:36
Uh but people just hadn't flipped over to try it.
28:40
And so once it went into the router I think uh demand or usage of thinking models increased 10x.
28:45
And so um lowering the barrier to entry to used more advanced models is in some ways as important if not more important than advancing the models themselves at least in terms of shifting token demand.
28:58
Like you can have this amazing IMO gold like genius model but if it's hard to use or it's locked behind a payw wall like demand is just not >> Yeah.
29:07
Part of what's interesting, what you're basically getting at is like if you were a software engineer, you were using a ton of tokens and if you weren't, >> you were just maybe doing some deep research, etc.
29:18
>> A lot of times just Google AI overviews or just like a very simple uh yeah, chat GPT query, it just it just thinks of it right off the head.
29:25
It's not even doing reasoning. What do you think?
29:27
Yeah, I mean I I will say like I Dario talks about this too in in his essay, but um I think the idea of like discreet jumps in in either use cases or like capabilities is like probably like overplayed a little bit where if you really like zoom out even like on a on a fairly small time frame.
29:42
>> It's just like very smooth smooth exponential curve. >> Yeah.
29:45
>> The models are getting better, people are using them more. >> Yeah.
29:47
>> It's not like oh this one day start >> I mean maybe that's true on like if you look at the daily.
29:52
So I I feel like another way to rephrase this is like uh is like Leopold's unhobblings like uh Claudebot Moldbot that feels like an unhobbling in some ways but maybe more on like the consumer adoption side.
30:08
>> The chat is saying we should have given Tyler >> We got to get >> 21 gong salute. 21 hits. 21 hits. There we go.
30:23
>> Someone's going to count that and know that I got it off by one.
30:25
But >> anyway, >> it was enough.
30:28
>> Reream one live stream 30 plus destinations.
30:30
If you want to multiream, go to reream. com. Okay. Uh, so I don't know.
30:34
My my general take is like Moltbot still feels like a glimpse into the future where average token generation per capita is 10xes, you know, over the course of this year or next.
30:47
and and you know whether it lands with Moldbot or with one of the AI labs or with the big tech companies, it just seems like we're going to see a lot more token demand.
30:58
>> Ash Aurora says, "Whoever builds a direct consumer front-end rapper of Cloudbot is going to print money."
31:04
>> Doesn't this doesn't this exist?
31:04
I saw the uh the Pokey people uh by Interaction.
31:10
>> Well, they're not using >> No, no. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure.
31:13
So they're not using it, but uh but but they they they have positioned themselves as like hey we're the we're the we're the company that is is doing a lot of the same things going after the same market uh solving some of the same problems and so uh will be interesting to see you know how much they accelerate on the back of this.
31:33
That's certainly interesting.
31:33
Um, I also saw I don't know if we have it in here, but uh, the good folks over at Cognition, Walden Yan said, "Don't waste your time setting up Moltbot.
31:42
I had Devon set it up for me.
31:44
I didn't even run a single command, and now I'm talking to it on Telegram.
31:47
You can go to tryclawbot. com.
31:49
[laughter] They're going to have to rename the website, but this is very, very cool.
31:53
Uh, for the less technical folks who don't want to mess around with >> I'll start reading the next post.
31:58
Go feel free to hit it one more time.
32:00
Chat says >> it was 20 >> [laughter] >> with authority.
32:10
Uh, QW says, "Cloudbot made me realize that nothing about me lives on my local device and that Google owns everything about me."
32:18
In other words, a local AI assistant isn't particularly useful and Google will just win everything. So, hot take there.
32:26
He says, "All your browsing history, shopping history in Gmail, search history, calendar, Gemini, YouTube, Google Home, >> where you've been, Google Map, your workspace, it's over.
32:34
Bow down to your digital god."
32:38
>> The iPhone users would like a moment like, "Yes, this is this is extremely true, but there's a lot of people that interface with Google through their iPhone." And so there is >> Yeah.
32:49
So my my hope is that the Siri team >> plays around with Claudebot and is like, "Wait, this is this is our opportunity." >> Yeah, totally.
32:57
>> Like you should be able to chat with your computer wherever it is in the world from your phone and be able to do tasks. >> Yep.
33:03
>> In this in in a way that's sort of native, you know, AI native. >> Yeah, totally.
33:06
Uh public investing for those who take it seriously, stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries, and more with amazing customers.
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>> Public we have to share, is a new sponsor of AllIn.
33:16
Yeah, >> all in is doing ads now.
33:20
>> Finally, we've been this was this is something that we've been begging them to do of TBP >> since the very beginning.
33:25
>> We we Yeah, we really have been begging for this, but uh very very good and I'm sure those will uh will do quite well.
33:31
Uh they've been doing a bunch of good stuff.
33:32
The Davos coverage was really really fun.
33:34
Obviously, the Sadello interview was great, but there were a bunch of other folks who hopped on uh at Davos to talk tech and it was a delightful experience.
33:42
Uh, Vig Nesh, who is working on Maltbot, yes, says, "A thread about what I've been doing to calm down some egregious security claims that have been posted about Maltbot over the weekend.
33:52
Moltbot is powerful software with a lot of sharp edges.
33:56
>> Please read the security docs carefully before you run it anywhere near the public internet.
34:00
And don't skip the checks in docs/security. md."
34:05
>> What percentage of people do you think skip those checks?
34:06
[laughter] >> It's literally everyone.
34:08
I mean, so so I I have it set up on our like local machine here and it was uh it was texting I think it texted you and Ben.
34:16
[laughter] >> That was actually crazy.
34:18
>> I don't have the off set up.
34:18
So the >> I I don't think any of this will will dox what's going on or really uh did you disconnect it already or [laughter] something?
34:27
>> Yes, I believe >> because I just get I get an iMessage that's from Tyler's email and it just says HTTP429 rate limit error.
34:36
this request would exceed the rate limit for your organization.
34:39
And it's just texting me.
34:42
It's just like, hey, hey, boss, I need more money.
34:44
I guess it's hitting me up.
34:46
It's this it's the experience of uh of of working here where Tyler's constantly asking uh for more tokens. More tokens.
34:54
>> Can we just Can we go back and just appreciate just like the frenzy that both the labs and every VC is in right now to give Peter money?
35:02
Because it's not just the labs, >> but it's not just them.
35:04
It's what the lab's doing and then what what is big tech gonna do?
35:08
It's such a dramatic line. Yeah, it's so fun.
35:11
>> So, I would imagine that the >> the Gulf Streams are getting fired up. Yep.
35:15
And there are people already on the ground.
35:17
>> I don't know if we should dock this location.
35:18
We're not going to do in his in his bio he does say he's in Europe.
35:23
So, you know, VC got to get out Europe.
35:25
We got to give some credit to Europe generally. True. Synthesia.
35:29
>> Talk about a comeback here. >> Sthesia is cooking. >> This is amazing. I love it. >> All bought now.
35:32
But yeah, there's so many people that are currently sending him messages, maybe showing up where he is, begging him to say, "Please >> take somewhere between a quarter billion and a and a billion dollars, and let's let's we'd love to do business with you. I love it, Peter.
35:49
>> Lambda Lambda is the super intelligence cloud building supercomputers for training and inference that scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands."
35:57
>> Um, >> uh, Cloudflare has been on >> a bit of a tear.
36:01
Uh people finally starting to realize that CloudFare might be the biggest winner of the Claude co-work chat GPT moment. >> Interesting.
36:12
>> Um Tyler, you want to break this down? >> Um wait, sorry.
36:16
I was uh >> Oh, were you Oh, you you you tried alcohol.
36:21
[laughter] Now you can't pay attention.
36:23
So the last >> So So Cloudflare is a CDN, but they also have like web workers that are distributed.
36:30
So you can you can host things uh on the edge. >> Yeah.
36:34
So this is why um everyone was like, "Why is everyone buying Mac minis, right?
36:37
You can just like host these for very cheap on AWS or whatever."
36:41
>> But but I do think I I don't It's probably possible, but I I do think it's pretty hard to host a virtual private server that runs iMessage. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
36:53
But even then, I mean, most people I I see using Cloudbot are doing like Slack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
36:58
And all of those have like APIs that they can integrate with.
37:01
>> And there's some stuff where it's like, okay, you want access to like the local machine and you want it to be Mac because you're on my phone and you usually use Mac.
37:07
So, >> but there are a lot of people that would say, I want Claudebot to look through or or mold bot to look through my iMes or okay, the I'm I'm planning a f this is the AI personal assistant, right?
37:22
It's like I'm planning a family birthday party. Go.
37:24
and and you know someone in the chat said they're not available on the midFebruary. What does that mean? What dates are that? Put that on a calendar. Visualize that.
37:34
Like solve this problem for me.
37:35
That's what a personal assistant does.
37:38
It's not just it's not just clicking a button and creating a calendar invite.
37:42
It's like coordinating different pieces of information that are all messy and not quantized to the perfect, you know, date timestamp, right?
37:51
So, um, so I I I I think that the Mac Mini thing that like the oh, just host it in the cloud. Yeah.
37:59
But, uh, you're not going to get your full experience if you're locked into the into the Apple ecosystem, which a lot of people are. >> What do you think? >> Yeah.
38:07
I mean, I I would be surprised if people in like five years if like non super technical people are are running it on local machines. >> Oh, no.
38:15
I completely agree with that.
38:16
Like because this w this will be solved by big tech.
38:18
like they have to answer even in the way that like to back to go to go back to the Napster moment like yes you did get Spotify but then you also got Apple Music and a lot of people just use Apple Music because it's just baked in right uh and the iTunes music store also came out. >> Yeah.
38:31
I do wonder how it breaks down right because you don't have um I think over the past couple months I don't know when exactly it was but um you can't interact with Chetch on WhatsApp anymore. They blocked it. >> Oh yeah.
38:41
>> So there's stuff like this where I think it's going to be quite hard to get the full functionality of like >> Cloudbot. It's open source.
38:45
It's kind of this like janky thing.
38:47
I think it was started by one guy and even then it has like way more, >> you know, tools you can use than >> It's weird because like the the Napster analogy obviously really suffers from the fact that piracy is illegal and nothing here is illegal.
38:59
Um, and you're not I don't even think you're breaking to uh to, you know, interact with your your different big tech apps.
39:06
But maybe they'll be like, [laughter] you don't let the fox in the hen house.
39:12
That's in our terms and conditions.
39:12
Um but uh but it does it does feel like we could be in this era of the lightly technical hacker having a pretty fundamentally different experience for years.
39:26
And that's what happened.
39:26
I mean post Bit Torrent there were people that were downloading whole movie libraries and then you could actually again to go back to the Mac Mini people would buy uh what was it called?
39:37
It was like a mini PC that would run Xbox Media Center.
39:38
Are you familiar with this at all?
39:42
Xbox Media Center was like a piece of software that you could basically just put a whole bunch of MP4s in and it would and it would actually pull in uh titles and posters, so it would look like an Apple TV, but it was all basically stolen content.
39:57
It It was It was very very crazy.
40:00
>> Kieran in the X chat says, "I'm running on uh VPS currently waiting for my Mac Mini." Okay. No toos issue. All personal.
40:07
>> Yeah, it's all personal.
40:07
Um but but you know the the the migration off of the Mac Mini into one of the big tech products or even even OpenAI or anthropic they're going to have sharp elbows with each other. That's just a fact.
40:23
>> I I disagree I disagree on the timeline here.
40:25
I just think the space is moving so quickly y >> and there's so much money on the line >> that someone >> maybe it's Peter >> Yeah.
40:35
uh or or a lab will be able to move quickly enough to get a consumer version of this live >> like not in years but like within probably weeks.
40:45
>> There are there are also uh like feedback loops here where there can be public demands from consumers like you got 40,000 GitHub stars probably more now you got lots of people running this excited about it and they form a constituency and then you you you wind up with a push for standards.
41:01
We see that with MCP, but what are you really revealing over those APIs?
41:05
You know, an API can exist.
41:10
>> Um, pull up this chart from Ronin.
41:14
>> While you do that, let me tell you about CrowdStrike.
41:15
Your business is AI, their business is securing it.
41:17
Crowd Strike secures AI and stops breaches.
41:21
>> Uh, Ronin says this is [laughter] >> I just like >> So, this is this is [clears throat] look look at the orange line is is uh moldbot. >> Okay.
41:31
And that the blue line is uh superbase. >> Wow.
41:35
>> So, um absolutely insane. >> We need new charts.
41:39
>> We really need new charts. >> Frame it.
41:41
Put it in the Put it in the Museum of Business. >> Yes. Yes.
41:45
>> That's a fast takeoff.
41:46
>> People are People are happy.
41:46
Uh Peter posted no message.
41:48
This is a screenshot of a text he got. No message.
41:50
Just thought I'd say thank you.
41:52
Thank you so much for Claudebot.
41:54
I work with some disabled people and you don't know how much difference you make to their lives. Thank you again. This is so sweet.
41:59
And you can think about uh you know we've talked to we've talked to the Neuralink folks and uh you know the Neuralink is it's just an interface to a computer >> and but that unlocking that is like incredible and you hear the stories about like I spent six hours gaming as soon as I got it installed.
42:17
Um, and you know, they could use voice interfaces, but even just clicking like you wind up with, you know, just more and more capabilities from the computer being like a really pretty found pretty fundamental transformation. >> Yeah.
42:30
For for somebody uh let's say somebody that was paralyzed, but they can they can talk, but they can't, you know, move around or operate a computer.
42:39
They're used to describing >> Yeah.
42:41
to I imagine other people are using transcription to do like you know use uh use a computer in in in a not so great way and so now to have the same experience of just describing what they want to do and being able to like actually interact with the machine like very cool.
42:56
>> Um Tuxedo Sam is shorting every city where MicroEnter hasn't sold out of $400 Mac minis.
43:02
Uh they are in stock in Chicago, Indianapolis, uh oh no, Indianapolis is out of stock.
43:07
like you can read anything into this like it's obviously somewhat random and this was completely uh completely random.
43:14
Who >> Yeah, I guess I guess the thing that I'm that I really want to understand is like what percentage of the of the GitHub star people that have uh started it >> are actually buying a Mac Mini. Oh, totally.
43:26
Because this chart is going it's going to be at 60 60k >> any day now or any kind of probably today I would imagine.
43:33
And if and and we know from yesterday that Apple's only selling like a quarter million or to like something like seven >> and then there are a lot of people who who didn't star it because you don't you don't even need to go to github.
43:45
com to install this software moldbot like you just go to the website copy the curl command put it in your terminal and you never land on GitHub.
43:54
So, there's a lot of people that are probably just doing that and being like, "Yeah, I I I don't know if I'm going to sign up for GitHub or like even have a GitHub account or want to log into it or want to go and do this."
44:04
Uh, >> so yeah, we we we could be looking at like a much wider install base beyond uh beyond just the just who's started.
44:12
Anyway, Plaid Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, save, borrow, and invest securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and now improve lending now with AI. >> Well said, John. Rise.
44:22
Speaking of money, has an interesting prompt he's using with Maltbot to file your taxes.
44:29
He says, "You are a Bernie Maidoff level financial expert.
44:32
Find every trick that is possible. >> Do not do this.
44:35
[laughter] >> Do not do this."
44:38
>> The IRS is like, "Hey, can can you can you share a little bit on like how you kind of came up with some of the decisions here?"
44:44
And they're like, "We'd love to see the prompt." Yeah.
44:48
>> Like, [laughter] >> um, but uh good good fun.
44:49
Anyway, people are not emotionally prepared for if it's not a bubble.
44:55
The the enduring rune tweet.
44:58
I like that Critter screenshotted this while pushing the like button. So, it's like exploding. It's very funny. I didn't even notice.
45:06
Uh, silver is surges above $106 an ounce for the first time in history now up another 48%.
45:15
Um the other the other interesting uh story that's sort of developing over on strategy is Ben Thompson is starting to make the case that TSMC will be a really fundamental bottleneck in uh just the AI buildout the AI race.
45:29
uh he's comping their capex to what the hyperscalers are projecting and just saying that there's a massive mismatch and the TSMC folks are maybe not putting their foot on the gas, maybe not willing to let the buck stop with them and be and take on that risk of building a new fab for $50 billion and then if the AI bubble pops then they're left holding the bag.
45:54
And so, uh, it's been it's been really fascinating listening to his writing on the back of the latest TSMC, um, TSMC earnings and and watch him sort of unpack what's going on with TSMC.
46:05
unpack what's going on with TSMC. the the the sort of conclusion that I took away from it was that uh Intel while it has a lot of problems and the stock just sold off a ton uh and they have a lot of they have a lot of losses um he's sort
46:18
of saying that you know Intel needs a customer Samsung needs serious customers and in order to really unblock the semiconductor supply chain the other fabs are going to need the big hyperscalers and big labs to just take a big leap of faith and say you know what we are going to go allin with you. We're
46:35
We're going to sign up and plan and work out all the kinks of the Samsung fab process or the Intel fab process.
46:42
And and and and in exchange, what's going to happen is as soon as OpenAI or Enthropic or Google or even Nvidia say, "Hey, you know, Intel's good enough for us."
46:52
Well, then guess what's going to happen in TSMC is going to have to go and say, "Yeah, we're going to build the extra fab and we're going to build the extra capacity."
47:01
when we talked to Sam Alman um >> and in a number of interviews that he did that week, he was very clear about I would love TSMC to make more.
47:09
He wasn't exactly like firing shots, but he was definitely saying that like he was identifying it as a bottleneck and uh it's it's interesting because at the start of the year I was highlighting energy as an interesting bottleneck.
47:20
Uh and we were going back and forth on you know where is it easier to move chips around the board?
47:27
energy where you can reroute from the grid, from oil and gas, from nuclear, you can bring different capacity online.
47:35
Uh there certainly are um bottlenecks there, but uh if you can't produce the chips and the fabs just don't exist and it takes three or four years to build a fab, uh you could be looking at a really big bottleneck. Tyler. >> Yeah.
47:48
I mean, it just seems like like in power or energy like the bottleneck is is regulatory and like in some ways that's like way harder.
47:53
But if there's actual like political will, if if uh you know, electricity is getting super expensive, then like you should see that kind of that those regulations like be taken away a little bit and then it actually becomes much easier than actually just like expanding TSMC production by like whatever massive amount. >> Yeah.
48:09
I have one more point on that.
48:10
First, I'm going to tell you about Cognition.
48:11
They're the makers of Devon, the AI software engineer.
48:13
Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team.
48:16
So uh the the question of like which is more of a bottleneck energy or TSMC in the chip supply chain is is interesting because um energy feels like this incredible bottleneck.
48:29
It's a very political like hot button issue now.
48:31
Energy prices are rising.
48:34
Data centers need a lot of energy.
48:34
But if you look at the amount of chip fabrication that's going to AI and then the amount of energy production that's going to AI, obviously the number of chip production going to AI is way a way higher percentage. Yeah.
48:50
Because a lot of the chips are and a lot of the line time at TSMC. Yes.
48:54
They they do all sorts of different uh chips and CPUs still get made and there's a bunch of AS6 for different networking equipment.
49:02
There's all sorts of different chips that get made.
49:03
I mean the toaster that has a chip, the Bluetooth to on different process nodes.
49:06
But even if you include all of that, I would I would assume that the the the total amount of fabrication line time is is you know heavily heavily allocated to GPUs, TPUs, AI chips right now.
49:21
Whereas the amount of energy that AI is using is probably less than 1% of total capacity.
49:29
>> Yeah, it's interesting.
49:29
CC Wayi, the CEO of TSMC, he doesn't have to go on the podcast tour raising money all the time.
49:37
There's not ex there's not, you know, they're they're not like pushing this like insane kind of uh fast takeoff narrative.
49:44
It's like very much like kind of, hey, we're we're just trying to run our business the way that we always have.
49:50
Be be pragmatic about this.
49:50
uh you know fulfill as much demand as we possibly can, but they seem to not be inclined to >> take on you know the amount of the level certainly not the level of risk that you know imagine if you had Larry Allison running CSMC [laughter] get him in the ring.
50:07
I want him in there so badly. Yeah.
50:10
Um no no you you're you're 100% right.
50:14
Uh, but at the same time, we're we're seeing the hyperscalers throw their weight around in like crazy ways.
50:20
We covered AWS is like buying copper mines and stuff.
50:24
I don't know if it's copper mine, but like getting into mining.
50:27
There's a whole bunch of vertical integration that's going on.
50:30
Tesla all the way down to battery refinement and lithium ion production.
50:35
Um, Meta today announced a $6 billion dollar multi-year partnership with Corning that will supply fiber optic cables for our data center infrastructure, bolstering manufacturing in America and keeping the company the country competitive in the global AI race.
50:49
We can read through a little bit of this, but first I'm going to tell you about the New York Stock Exchange.
50:52
Want to change the world?
50:54
Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. >> Yeah.
50:58
Corning up 15% uh on the news today. Yeah.
51:02
So, >> makes makes sense.
51:04
Uh what is their market cap? Let's see.
51:06
$94 billion company and I'd love to know their revenue as well. Revenue. Um let's see.
51:14
Their revenue was I don't know if I can find it.
51:17
Annual revenue 12 billion.
51:17
So this is yeah pretty pretty material. Uh let's see.
51:22
Uh Meta Platforms is set to test new subscription models across apps. Wait.
51:26
Uh no that's a different story.
51:28
>> Different story but we can we can we can run through it.
51:31
>> I I am interested to know a little bit more.
51:32
So, it's a $6 billion multi-year agreement.
51:34
Um, it it supports a 15 to 20% increase in jobs at Corning's North Carolina facilities.
51:40
Um, building and operating data centers, the infrastructure that brings our technologies to life and supports our goal of personalized super intelligence.
51:49
That certainly sounds like an AI personal assistant.
51:51
Certainly sounds like multbot to me.
51:52
Um, requires strong servers and hardware that connect and transfer information in near real time.
51:59
Fiber optic cables are a critical part of this technology.
52:02
um uh the supply helping us power everything from wearable technology like reta meta rayband meta AI glasses to our apps which connect billions of people today they're doing six billion dollar project as part of this agreement Corning will grow its manufacturing
52:15
capacity AC and across its operations with includes a significant capacity operation uh capacity expansion in North Carolina uh Meta's data centers 26 of which are under construction right now are operational why not just so many >> that's a lot data centers. That's why
52:31
That's why they have a compute desk.
52:33
If you if you have [music] this is this is this is a bit of advice for everyone.
52:38
If you're working at a business and you have like a team or a guy that does something, you need to upgrade that to a desk. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
52:48
>> You need millionaires millionaires have guys.
52:52
Billionaires have desks >> probably. Yeah.
52:53
Well, trillion dollar companies have desks. That's what it is.
52:58
Uh so uh Meta's data centers have already supported 30,000 skilled trade jobs during construction and support 5,000 operational jobs.
53:06
This includes electricians, HVAC specialists, server and network technicians, safety and security experts, and engineers who work together to run some of the world's most advanced facilities. Let's give it up.
53:18
>> Um >> um moving >> moving on. >> 11 Labs.
53:20
Build intelligent real-time conversational agents.
53:23
Reimagine human technology interaction with 11 Labs. Yes.
53:27
Meta to test premium subscription plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. This is in CNBC.
53:31
Uh subscriptions for premium features on Meta apps are expected to roll out in the coming months. >> What will you get?
53:39
>> The subscriptions will give paid users access to more features and expanded AI capabilities.
53:43
Here's what's most interesting to me.
53:47
>> Uh this will be scaling Meta's newly acquired suite of general AI agents under Manis will also be part of the subscription plan.
53:54
So um as I as I was saying earlier when you think about >> when when that we haven't gotten that much from Zach on like what the actual like plan is but when you think about personal super intelligence that is >> you know AI that can do things for you not just give you information.
54:13
>> I just wonder how much will happen outside of the met like the meta ecosystem like they've they've launched a search engine before that looked at websites outside of Facebook.
54:21
Um they they had that project Titan which was to unify all the different messaging protocols.
54:30
So as part of that they gave everyone a Facebook.
54:32
com email address or something like that.
54:36
Maybe it wasn't Facebook.
54:36
com maybe it was like fb.
54:37
mme me or something but uh they gave every Facebook user whatever their unique username was.
54:43
They gave them that as an email and you could email that and it would show up in Facebook Messenger and then they tried to unify Facebook Messenger so you could see Instagram DMs, WhatsApp messages and Facebook messages all in one place.
54:57
[laughter] I can see what you're laughing at.
55:00
>> Dave Dave Pal says, "Yeah, I want more of those amazing meta AI features." >> You say that now.
55:05
I mean, let them cook at least a little bit because we really haven't seen them launch a new model, a new image model.
55:10
like they should be able to get to close to the frontier.
55:15
You know, it has to be at least Sora Nano Banana V3 level. They have all the data.
55:22
They have all the talent now.
55:22
They they're very GPU rich.
55:24
They have the compute for it.
55:26
So, and and the research has been done and people have reverse engineered it.
55:31
So, you would think that whatever's coming should be good.
55:32
And I don't know, I was looking at uh isn't Cap Cut owned by Tik Tok or aren't they affiliated? Right?
55:41
Because Meta has the edits app which I've been making some videos in and it's pretty good.
55:45
It does some interesting background review. Byte dance. >> It's bite dance.
55:49
And so >> I doubt this is getting >> Oh, you think it's a separate Okay. Okay.
55:56
Okay. because Cap Cut has multiple levels of of subscription tier and you can very easily wind up spending $200 a month on like the AI pro features that will do generative video uh style transfer uh you know and and when you see those videos like the good AI videos on Instagram reels that are usually like
56:15
they'll take a cinematic clip from a movie and then they will do uh a face replacement or like a head swap and then they'll do AI voices and then dub the the the lips so that the lips match what the what the audio is saying and it looks really convincing with that workflow. How do you bring that to
56:34
How do you bring that to someone on a phone?
56:37
How do you bring that to someone in the Instagram app or in the edits app even if they're going to more of like their proumer offering?
56:44
Um the mobile video editing space is particularly interesting to me just watching how edits has evolved and I used to use iMovie on my phone a little bit. that I used to use.
56:54
Um, there was there was an app called Clips that Apple developed.
56:58
Uh, and there were a few others that I tried, but the edits app is >> You're incredibly good at >> at making videos on your [laughter] phone. >> I love it.
57:06
Uh, I know I I I love video editing, but I don't have enough time anymore to sit down and open up After Effects and Premiere with multiple monitors and have, you know, connected After Effects file that feeds into the Premiere profile and like really doing a proper edit with all the powerful tools that are out there on the desktop.
57:23
Like, it's just not in the cards for me.
57:25
And so, I have to be able to do something quick on my phone.
57:28
And I think that that's a very modern experience that most creators, they're just phone first, phone native.
57:34
And so they're never really going to go back to the multimonitor workstation maybe, but in general they're they're editing really quickly and they're editing pretty incredible stuff stuff when you look at some of the reels that are out there with like layered crops and removing the background and like the AI tools are coming in and I could see I could see uh Meta offering a a premium subscription around that.
57:56
Anyway, console console builds AI agents that automates 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets.
58:05
So, >> Dave in the X chat says InShot is pretty good for mobile. >> I need to try that.
58:10
I haven't I haven't tried InShot.
58:12
I've been seeing more and more ads.
58:13
I'll see a video for like an F1 edit that are incredible.
58:16
These F1 edits are so cool where they will will show you one clip and then they cut the character out and edit in the other clip and then and then transitions.
58:26
Like the transitions are amazing.
58:28
And I've been seeing some people are uh are are have clearly built apps to do that specific type of edits.
58:36
Like the really crazy editors are using probably After Effects or something.
58:40
Ryan asks, "Is Tyler still drunk?"
58:43
[laughter] >> Yeah, one sip.
58:44
He's just over there sluring his words.
58:46
Anyway, anyway, [laughter] that really broke me.
58:51
Anyway, app loving profitable advertising made easy with Axon. ai.
58:58
Get access to over 1 billion daily active users and grow your business today.
59:01
We had a great comment in uh one of uh in one of the one of the podcast feeds, someone said, "Give us an axon claxon because a claxon is a loud clash."
59:11
We were all puzzling over what that means when we smash the >> It's an axon claxon.
59:15
anx Agrial says, "Tik Tik Tok is dead.
59:19
The algorithm is worse than the reals that make it to Facebook." >> Wow. >> Um >> I haven't. >> Yeah.
59:28
So, so ba basically they're they're transitioning everything over yesterday.
59:32
There was apparently >> an outage >> kind of an outage.
59:34
Like people were able to post videos, but the videos wouldn't be served at all.
59:37
And so I think a lot of people assume that it was like the new ownership kind of censoring. it.
59:42
Uh I believe they had an outage at a data center that was a cause of that.
59:46
So before we before we call it dead >> Yep.
59:51
>> Uh let's wait for a few days and and see how it pans out.
59:53
We do have a Tik Tok account. It's TBPN.
59:58
>> How many followers does it have? >> I haven't checked.
1:00:00
>> I don't think we post on it ever. >> 3,500. >> Not bad.
1:00:03
That's better than what I thought. First time.
1:00:06
>> We're not really focused on it.
1:00:06
Maybe we'll test it out, but I'm I'm pretty happy with just I I want the things we do to be polished.
1:00:12
I want the core show to be polished.
1:00:14
Diet TVPN, our 20 to 30 minute cut down.
1:00:16
I want that to be polished.
1:00:17
I want the newsletter to be polished at tbpn.
1:00:19
com every day newsletter.
1:00:21
I like that before we bite off another part of the apple.
1:00:27
Another >> Please, please, sir.
1:00:27
Not not one more short form.
1:00:30
>> Not one more short form. It is a lot. It is a lot. Any phantom cash.
1:00:32
Fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with the Phantom card.
1:00:39
>> Um, let's move over to the Super Bowl.
1:00:42
The Super Bowl is coming up.
1:00:42
I think it's going to be this year in the next couple months. When is it? It's coming up.
1:00:51
It's coming up because there's advertisements that are going out and you got to watch it because the ads are going to be incredible.
1:00:58
>> I actually just had to search when is Super Bowl. >> Is it this Sunday?
1:01:02
>> No, it's February 8th. >> Okay. So, next Sunday. Okay.
1:01:04
It's going to be amazing, but mostly because of the advertisements.
1:01:08
Uh specifically, [laughter] Eric Lyman.
1:01:11
CEO of RAMP shared, "Meet Brian."
1:01:14
Brian's been carrying counting on his back for a long time. Super Bowl Sunday. He finally gets back up.
1:01:19
Let's watch this preview of the Ramps guys.
1:01:24
Yeah, we're real sports guys.
1:01:26
>> This is the Super Bowl.
1:01:27
>> We got to We got to Google >> the Ramp Super Bowl ad is the Super Bowl of Super Bowl ads.
1:01:31
>> It feels like It feels like you know they just kind of This is like >> uh you know what is it? What is it called? Like a warning.
1:01:37
Uh spoiler alert, you know.
1:01:38
For anybody that's wants to Experience it live.
1:01:43
>> You're going to want to You're going to want to skip [laughter] ahead like 60 seconds. >> Let's watch.
1:01:50
>> Finance meeting in five >> minutes. Ramp. >> I got it. Allow me. >> Hi, handsome.
1:02:00
>> We're saving so much time.
1:02:03
>> Policy violation coming through.
1:02:06
>> Travel, meals, hotels. How's that? >> Beautiful. Everybody's in >> there.
1:02:13
Multiply what's possible at ramp. com.
1:02:15
[music] >> I think it rips.
1:02:16
I think it's a good Super Bowl ad place. What does he got there? Maybe some chili.
1:02:19
I don't want to make >> It was just a silver pot.
1:02:24
>> It was just a silver [laughter] pot. >> Yeah. Uh, no.
1:02:25
I I I think this achieves a couple things.
1:02:28
I think uh I mean it drills the brand name.
1:02:30
It think about how many Ramp logos are in there and then they're chanting Ramp.
1:02:33
And for you know, Ramp's a very successful company.
1:02:38
We all know about it here, but there's a lot of people that just don't know the name Rampus.
1:02:41
It hasn't been drilled into them like, you know, some company that's been around 50 years on the precipice of being a h there.
1:02:48
There's been not been enough mainstream marketing yet for be a household name. >> Yeah.
1:02:53
And it's just it's a life's work to actually drill into people's mind the ramp name, the logo, the color, how it sounds when you say it, what it's synonymous with.
1:03:03
And so just like not going too abstract, not trying to tell some more avantguard story here, I think is it's it's almost like a direct response at it's just so clear what the problem solution brand problem solution brand and look at that like they are really putting their logo full screen on the Super Bowl.
1:03:27
Super Bowl. like that is valuable and sometimes I I I think sometimes it can feel like oh it's a little it's like simple like you could be doing something more bold more crazy but I think this is what you need to do >> also after last year getting Squan and then actually winning that that's
1:03:44
actually kind of like an impossible set of circumstances not impossible but it's a crazy roll of the dice >> and then they're also building a a whole a whole role with Brian and they're building him into the brand world as the as the downtrodden accountant who just needs uh just needs some technology to improve him. >> Uh heading over to Toby.
1:04:02
>> Uh heading over to Toby.
1:04:05
>> Yes, >> Toby over at Shopify posted his heart rate through his first stint at the Daytona.
1:04:11
[laughter] >> You seen the first annotation on here? This is >> just crash. >> Crash. >> Yeah.
1:04:15
So, um >> so he started out at like 120 120 beats per minute, right? He's doing waiting.
1:04:22
He does the the warm-up preparing the form the formation lap and then there's a crash right on the uh right at the start. Very very rough. Um and >> yeah and yeah.
1:04:33
So so basically the the crash happened with the LMP2 class which is the >> kind of proam uh same same uh same segment that uh George from Crowd Striker racing in. Yeah.
1:04:46
So, both Toby and George, all of our boys got hit >> right right as the race opened.
1:04:50
And so, what George was saying yesterday, the reason he was frustrated, he's like, "This is a 24-hour race." >> Yeah.
1:04:57
>> Never has a race like this been won on the first lap.
1:05:01
>> And so, it's it's pretty it's kind of it's incredibly unforced to like crash in the opening >> corner. Sure.
1:05:09
>> When you really should just get through it.
1:05:11
It's like the most, you know, it's it's going to be the most like one of the most intense moments because there's so much traffic.
1:05:15
But if you actually go and watch the footage of what happened at the opening, >> there was like somebody gets hit, spun out, and then they're turning around and somebody hits them again.
1:05:25
[laughter] Like two accidents >> in the opening minutes. So insane.
1:05:31
>> I I love that the actual true final heart rate spike was at the end when you're changing out of the car. >> You've been driving. It's so intense.
1:05:41
And >> no, you know this when you're getting when you're getting out of a track car, it's like [laughter] >> watching a guy who's 68.
1:05:47
>> We will never share that footage.
1:05:48
>> John is extremely embarrassing.
1:05:50
>> He's always like crawling out of >> It's actually >> You have to get on your You basically have to get on all fours.
1:05:56
>> It's incredibly negative aura and I don't appreciate you sharing it on the show.
1:05:59
>> Well, I think it's I [laughter] still think it's cool. >> It's funny.
1:06:01
Uh but yeah, I I go full send basically fly out of the car uh on on my paws.
1:06:07
Anyway, Cisco on February 3rd, the the Cisco AI Summit brings together leaders from NVIDIA Open AI AWS and more to discuss the future of the AI economy.
1:06:17
The whole thing will be live streamed and we'll be there for a gig stream.
1:06:21
>> Hope to see you there.
1:06:21
Uh Jabroni on X says Zoom is the best anthropic play.
1:06:28
>> Yes, we were speculating.
1:06:28
Zoom likely made a $51 million investment in anthropic series C. How >> in 2023? at a 4. 1 uh billion valuation.
1:06:40
>> Uh if you if you're looking at their new 350, there's okay something like a 85x even diluted Zoom may have a multi-billion dollar position >> stock is down 80% since 2021. >> Yeah.
1:06:54
>> And Zoom is only a of course this is never financial advice. >> 27 billion company. >> Yeah.
1:07:02
part part of the part of the issue is the stock people kind of noticed this and the stock's now up 16% in the last 5 days.
1:07:09
So, >> who knows how much it's priced in.
1:07:10
Tyler major uh uh I won't I won't give you too much uh uh flak for it, but obviously the the most bullish. >> Yes.
1:07:22
>> Uh >> I mean I'm bullish on AI broadly. >> Yes. >> Yeah.
1:07:27
You would you would be hap you you seem like you'd be happy to own Zoom at a hundred billion dollar valuation even if they had no business at all and they just even if they just digital asset treasury actually. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:07:40
Uh >> so I I think the story this is like a rumor but basically it was that >> um Anthropic like wanted to just like use Zoom and get like the enterprise plan or whatever but then they were like well >> yeah you can have it but like we want to throw in a little something right >> because you just are you serious >> C.
1:07:56
Okay, this might be fake news. I >> read this.
1:07:57
This seems like fake news, Tyler.
1:08:00
>> Okay, Zoom sells, you know, Zoom sells enterprise software, right?
1:08:02
[laughter] >> Look, that's what I read.
1:08:04
I can't find the post, but I I for sure read.
1:08:07
>> They sell enterprise software.
1:08:07
And so, Anthropic says, "Hey, we're big Zoom fans here. We want to use Zoom."
1:08:11
And they're like, "No, >> actually for you, >> no."
1:08:16
>> At the same time, I mean, >> we we know how important. >> So many Yes. Yes.
1:08:19
I mean, so many people in venture and the tech community have sort of been very bearish on corporate VC that they're usually have their hands tied.
1:08:30
They can't move as quickly.
1:08:31
They're not as pure play.
1:08:31
The economics don't make sense for the for the for for the uh for the partners on whatever corporate venture fund is there.
1:08:37
Uh this could if it came out of their corporate ventures program.
1:08:42
uh this could be uh you know >> Zoom Vent Zoom Ventures is in Anthropic.
1:08:50
>> They're inv Global Business Travel which >> that's a startup.
1:08:54
I thought that that's American. Did they spin it out?
1:08:58
>> Maybe they I don't know. Maybe they spun it out. Unsure.
1:09:00
They're also in Coreweave. >> Wow.
1:09:05
>> So there's some real pickers over there. >> They are. They are. >> And Perplexity. >> Yeah.
1:09:09
I mean Zoom has a bunch of AI features.
1:09:11
I've seen people, you know, they when after the the the crazy COVID pump where everyone got on Zoom, um they started adding like crazy features like dictation and workspaces and whiteboarding and stuff.
1:09:23
Um but uh obviously like the it was like so overheated that it it came back down to earth but uh now they have a anthropic position on the balance sheet which will be fun for them.
1:09:34
I wonder what they will do post IPO.
1:09:36
Uh anyway, Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents slowly and then all at once, says Blake Robbins.
1:09:50
Uh he says, "Your work tools are now active in Claude.
1:09:53
Draft Slack messages >> or interactive uh draft Slack messages, visualize ideas in Figma and build and see Asana timelines.
1:10:00
All of the different tools are coming together in one place." Um very cool.
1:10:05
Yeah, a lot of people were were very happy about like Claude Excel playing around with that.
1:10:12
Um, and uh, it it it does feel like there's when you see an account like Claude posting about Slack and Figma and ASA, you have to imagine there's a discussion there.
1:10:23
It's not open source, so there's probably something.
1:10:25
And so they're chipping away at these and OpenAI has been chipping away at these for a long time.
1:10:29
So, um, the the race is on to have the most integrations at this point. >> Yeah.
1:10:34
Uh Sarah Eisen over at CNBC Squawk on the street >> uh is sharing uh breaking anthropics warning to the world.
1:10:43
Anthropic CEO Daario Amade says eminent real danger that superhuman intelligence will cause civilization level damage absent smart speedy intervention.
1:10:53
Sarah says so buy our products.
1:10:57
[laughter] [gasps] This is the problem of dropping like a 20,000word essay is that like you're going to get clipped out of context.
1:11:06
Like there was so much nuance in that Dario essay which I have not finished all the way through.
1:11:10
Um I was reading it last night. It was very good.
1:11:12
But um >> Tyler, can you make uh you should make a version of the new letter with subway surfers that run. Oh, true.
1:11:20
>> Build that as a standalone.
1:11:21
>> Yeah, we we need a clad labs Chad IDE for for reading.
1:11:24
Uh >> summarize this in four words. AI good.
1:11:28
Maybe it's so buy our products.
1:11:31
Maybe that's the four the four the fourword summary. Who knows?
1:11:35
>> Jeff in the X chat says, "Guys, I'm building maltbot cloud. Stay tuned." >> Okay, Jeff. >> We are tuned. >> Good luck. We will remain tuned.
1:11:42
Let us know when you launch >> information. Vibe.
1:11:46
co where DTOC brands, B2B startups, and AI companies advertise on streaming TV.
1:11:51
Pick channels, target audiences, and measure sales just like on Meta.
1:11:59
>> [laughter and gasps] >> That one gets me every time. It's so good.
1:12:02
>> Fleeting Bits has some thoughts on Daario's >> 14 of them specifically.
1:12:05
That's a lot of thoughts.
1:12:07
Okay, let's run through it.
1:12:09
There's nothing new here.
1:12:09
If you're familiar with the AI safety discussions that have been happening on Twitter, yes, but it's important for Daario to restate them in a format that can be passed around and formatted and and is coherent from start to finish.
1:12:19
So, still serves a like a valuable purpose for the ecosystem.
1:12:23
Uh the most interesting bit is that his mental model for AI control risk is the risk that would be posed by a country of geniuses in a data center. Interesting. That is interesting.
1:12:31
Uh the basic idea is that we should imagine a giant data center.
1:12:35
All the models being something between AGI and ASI trying to coordinate to take over the world or do massive harm.
1:12:41
Anyway, I think how seriously you take short-term AI control risk is inversely correlated to how much you think about AI control risk as an as in an as operating in a system.
1:12:51
So the systematic view starts and says labs exist in an ecosystem where they need to sell models that will follow human instruction or they have no market.
1:13:00
They are also overseen by regulators and guided by public perception and the desires of their employees and all and all of this keeps models courageable. Great word.
1:13:10
And the model line landscape will look like three to six frontier labs running millions or billions of rollouts at a time on two to three different models all on different tasks.
1:13:20
So a model takeover requires these millions or billions of rollouts to somehow end up all be coordinating towards some bad aim that somehow the models have autonomously determined.
1:13:29
And this coordination either needs to be across different model instances run by different labs or one lab needs to be able to have its models dominate and needs to form without being detected.
1:13:42
And this this has to happen even though the models are being trained to and follow instructions not do bad behavior etc.
1:13:48
Daario's view is somewhere in the middle.
1:13:50
On the one hand, he collapses the multiple providers uh our coordination across instances and collapses the market incentives against labs developing models that would behave that way.
1:14:01
But on the other hand, he does avoid the concept of a single model instance that somehow wakes up and takes over the world despite billions of other rollouts occurring at the same time.
1:14:09
Actually though, if you think about it, he's not proposing an AI control risk.
1:14:12
He is proposing an AI misuse risk instead because it seems more plausible to me that the harmful country of geniuses is awoken because a small team at a frontier lab hijack all the running instances of their model rather than because the models themselves autonomously wake up to some bad aim. Interesting. >> Yeah.
1:14:32
some something something I've been thinking about is, you know, this this kind of summary and and a lot of the a lot of the dialogue is centered around just like what are the models doing or like a country of geniuses in a data center.
1:14:44
But you have to be thinking about this in the context >> that uh the country of gen a country of geniuses in a data center >> would just recruit millions of humans to join their cause, right?
1:14:56
And so we think about like some people like when they're thinking about AI risk, it's like haha dude just like turn the computer off like just unplug it.
1:15:06
>> What if there's you know a 100,000 people or like 10,000 people defending it on top of the data center being like you know you know >> yeah don't don't unplug the computer.
1:15:16
>> Don't unplug the computer. Right.
1:15:16
And so when you look at all all the chaos of the last week >> Yeah.
1:15:22
Like there's been so many moments where like a certain image was AI generated. Yeah.
1:15:26
>> And then it's like oh that wasn't a real image at all or or or you know and it's being shared from all sides and so at what point you know you could have you know nefarious hostile AI that's entire job is just creating chaos >> millions of bot accounts that are just like sharing whatever narrative is self- serving. Yeah. So >> you can't tell. >> Yeah.
1:15:44
I mean I I think um I really enjoyed this essay.
1:15:46
enjoyed this essay. I I thought um if if you kind of compare it to a lot of like other safety >> uh works so like um Elazer's book if if anyone builds it everyone dies um like the the two kind of scenarios where where where Daario's is about basically >> even if we have like pretty safe models
1:16:02
which like he thinks we can do with interpretability or whatever if it gets into the wrong hands it's like very bad if you know autocracy and and that's kind of the real that that's one of the the main risks where Eleasers and and a lot of the safety ones are always these like very sci-fi narratives where you this like gray goo. >> You have these like nanom machines that
1:16:18
>> You have these like nanom machines that somehow one day they just like kind of, you know, flip and then it's just kind of over. >> Yeah.
1:16:25
>> And I think this is much more um more reasonable and like >> nuanced. Yeah.
1:16:28
It's much more legible to like >> too.
1:16:31
And especially I I think a lot of it is um there's this kind of like I don't even know if it's really subtext but he's definitely pointing in the direction of like we need some government oversight, >> we need policy >> and it seems like like you can very easily like track >> uh like his ideas on what policy should be from this essay, right?
1:16:49
It's a lot about China, >> a lot about um >> you know making sure that >> individual companies don't like become you know as big as as governments.
1:16:57
One interesting wrinkle with this, he did not post it as an ex article.
1:17:02
He posted it as a link because he's wants to signal to everyone like, "Look, I don't need the million.
1:17:08
I don't need the million.
1:17:09
I don't need the million.
1:17:09
I know I got a banger on my hands. 3.
1:17:10
5 million views, 11k likes.
1:17:12
Obviously, lots of discussion all over >> because Sam posted an ex article, right?
1:17:18
[laughter] He's got he's got he's got 1. 4 trillion.
1:17:22
He really does want that extra mill. He needs the extra milk.
1:17:24
you know, it's it's not doesn't put him all the way towards, you know, the goal, but it's a it's a mill. A mill is a mill. >> A mill is a mill.
1:17:31
[laughter] >> But but as an investor, like I want to see my my lab CEO be like super hungry for compute, right?
1:17:36
So I want them to always be grinding to get like extra.
1:17:39
>> Oh, so maybe this is bearish. They should I'm a VC.
1:17:41
If I'm an anthropic, I'm like, why did he not post this on X?
1:17:45
That million could have gone straight into like GP.
1:17:46
Elon would have for sure.
1:17:51
[laughter] >> I can definitely see that happening.
1:17:52
Uh Nikita Nikita like you know walking to to a meeting with Elon just shaking like people have voted if they want to give it to >> Daria.
1:18:02
[laughter] I mean Elon said some things about Claude.
1:18:05
He said like it'll eat Microsoft.
1:18:07
He's all over the place in who he's supporting on a day-to-day basis.
1:18:10
But anyway, Octa Octa assigns you uh Octa helps you assign every AI to agent a trusted identity.
1:18:16
So you get the power of AI without the risk.
1:18:18
[music] Secure every agent. Secure any agent.
1:18:23
more important than ever. >> Uh, Key Smash Bandit. Last post. Last post. Last post. Last post. Guess.
1:18:27
Key Smash Bandit says, "Claude just found out I'm poor." >> Oh, yeah. This is so Send it.
1:18:33
Uh, Key Smash sends a picture of a Raspberry Pi [laughter] >> to Claude and says, "Look what just came in the mail."
1:18:40
Claude says, "Oh, for me, that's thoughtful. Do you?"
1:18:42
And then the person says, "Do you like it?
1:18:45
We've been discussing some more powerful hardware.
1:18:49
What made you decide on this instead?
1:18:51
[laughter] I love that this also has 11,000 likes.
1:18:55
I I never I mean, this is probably fake. Like, who knows? But it's so funny. >> Are you kidding?
1:19:00
This is like >> I don't want to run out of Raspberry Pi.
1:19:03
I want a Mac Mini maxed out specs.
1:19:03
Give me 48 gigs of RAM, please. I'm hungry. Feed >> feed.
1:19:10
Without further ado, >> we have Jamie from Pace, the co-founder and CEO in the rich room.
1:19:16
And let's bring him in with you today. Jamie, how you doing? >> What's going on?
1:19:19
Hey guys, thanks for having me.
1:19:22
>> Thanks so much for joining.
1:19:22
Uh, first time on the show.
1:19:23
Please introduce yourself and the company. >> Yeah. Hey, I'm Jamie.
1:19:27
I'm the founder and CEO here at Pace.
1:19:29
Pace is the AI operations partner for the world's leading insurers. >> Amazing. Give us news.
1:19:36
>> We've been waiting for this company >> for sure.
1:19:38
We love We love all applications of AI. Uh, give us the news. What happened today? >> Yeah, absolutely.
1:19:43
We're super excited to share today that we raised $10 million from Sequoia Capital. Whoa. >> Thank you.
1:19:51
Yeah, we're super excited to have Brian Shrier and Lauren Reer representing Sequoia on our board. >> Amazing.
1:19:58
>> Okay, talk about uh the go to market.
1:20:01
How much of this is just like there's a few big partners that you need to get on board versus something that's more self-s serve, bottoms up.
1:20:07
Uh what's the customer adoption been like?
1:20:10
I mean, what's the overall progress of the business? Are you live? Do you have customers? >> Absolutely. Yeah.
1:20:17
So we're we're lucky to be live in production today for some of the world's largest insurers.
1:20:20
We're working with >> large carriers like Credential, specialty mutual groups like the Mutual Group and then all the way through to sort of tech forward brokers like Newfront. >> Sure.
1:20:30
>> Um and I think you know in our industry in insurance about $70 billion is spent every year on on back office BPOS. >> Okay.
1:20:38
A lot of that is driven by sort of the largest carriers. >> Yeah.
1:20:43
>> So you're basically the BO's worst nightmare. Yeah. So what I think Yeah. Yeah.
1:20:47
What what like like walk through a specific back office procedure.
1:20:52
Is that like claims processing? Is it scanning PDFs?
1:20:57
Like try and ground it for me a little bit more.
1:20:59
>> Yeah, it's a great question.
1:20:59
So we're starting off, you know, with we're primarily focused on this back office operations.
1:21:04
And what that really means is sort of three big buckets.
1:21:05
It's new businesses coming in, taking in new risk submissions, you know, document processing, calling back when there's missing information, writing back into internal systems.
1:21:15
It's a policy servicing, so any changes you're making, adding new products, things like that.
1:21:21
>> And then all the way through to claims, so whether that's first notice of loss, calling in when something, you know, happened, went wrong, all the way through to quality assurance, how do we make sure that every claim gets paid correctly every time? >> Yeah.
1:21:32
How much uh like what is the actual tech stack?
1:21:34
I mean, I imagine that you're not training your own models, but have you done your own RL environment on top of these?
1:21:40
And and do you do that at a company level and then everyone gets sort of like the same AI or are you doing it on a per client basis?
1:21:50
How much fine-tuning is going on? >> Yeah.
1:21:52
So, for a lot of our processes, because we've started by focusing on a lot of these BO workflows, they're already codified as sort of these standard operating procedures.
1:22:00
It's a great start because >> it's already well chunked up for agents.
1:22:05
the accuracy bar for where BPOS's are today is pretty low and there's a lot of opportunity to improve that. Yeah.
1:22:09
And to be able to sort of, you know, run more accurately, more scalably and and and uh more efficiently for these customers.
1:22:15
And so we tend to start primarily with those and we take these standard operating procedures and we convert them into what we call agent operating procedures.
1:22:22
So this is just natural language instructions.
1:22:24
You can think of it, you know, like a document, >> you write a markdown file, like a skill. >> It's a skill. >> Uh yeah. >> Yeah.
1:22:32
And so what the main thing that we're really bridging here is these are processes that are going to be run hundreds of thousands of times.
1:22:37
You know for us we're processing tens of thousands of tasks a month >> and critically this these agents have to reliably run you know many tens of pages worth of a process >> with very insurance specific tools and logic.
1:22:52
logic. So that's you know certainly a lot of the document processing pipelines that we've built on top of you know OpenAI anthropic Gemini but also uh it's going into deep industry integrations it's voice calling and multimodality but also uh kind of actually being able to
1:23:08
take actions in systems that don't have APIs you know in insurance we see everything from the cloud you know products but a lot of it is desktop apps even like green screen CLI I'm talking like main IBM systems so how do we talk about the uh >> one one of the things that's most
1:23:26
exciting to me is a potential like speed up effect where you're not deal like theoretically like you're if you're uh trying to get a new policy or submit a claim or anything like that you could get to the point where as long as you're there to provide information in the
1:23:41
process as the as the sort of like client of the of the insurance company theoretically you can get like responses I'm imagining like much much faster because the agent is effectively able to like get all the information that's needed to make a decision and maybe there's still a human in the loop. But
1:23:56
But uh what are the kind of implications of that for the actual insurance companies even just from a revenue standpoint if they can just like speed up all these processes you know by an order of magnitude? >> Yeah.
1:24:09
So for a lot of our customers thinking about running these agents 24/7 365 days a year and I think the the real advantage here is not ever having any backlogs being infinitely scalable and so that's really important for you know our customers on the front end when they're thinking about new business and new risk.
1:24:26
How do we you know win this over other uh carriers?
1:24:28
over other uh carriers? But then also on the claim side, you know, for a consumer and one of our very first customers, we went live right before hurricane season and you know, you can see, you know, there's, you know, cat season, the end of the year, there's just like a massive
1:24:44
uptick in the number of claims when there's, you know, a hurricane that happens and people can be waiting, you know, days, weeks, even months to sort of get um, you know, a resolution because, you know, there can just be massive backlogs from, you know, a huge spike. And so agent
1:24:57
And so agent >> that entire time they might be they might be homeless, you know, in a hotel, Airbnb or whatever.
1:25:04
It's like an incredibly terrible experience to be kind of in limbo waiting for your insurance provider to like just respond and give you.
1:25:12
I mean, we uh we know some people that lost their homes, you know, around this time last year and just like getting responses when that's like if if you're an individual who lost your home, what's more important in your life than like getting clarity from your insurance provider so that you can make so that you can kind of move forward with with your life.
1:25:31
So, I think that's that's uh super exciting.
1:25:35
>> I'm interested to hear about uh your pre previous experience cheer and then retool.
1:25:40
uh why go vertical with this particular solution versus something that's more general and industry agnostic?
1:25:49
Um what did you see in this particular market that you decided you needed something specific and then do you have a plan to like expand or I mean the TAM seems so big that maybe this is just enough.
1:26:01
How are you thinking about that?
1:26:03
>> Yeah, so way back kind of where this all started is I actually grew up between London, New York and Bermuda.
1:26:07
The through line there being insurance. [laughter] >> Yeah.
1:26:13
>> Wait, are the rumors true?
1:26:13
Like what is Bermuda like?
1:26:15
I feel like I've heard stories about it's all just like accountants walking around all day long.
1:26:19
>> I went there I went there for a wedding. It was really nice.
1:26:21
I didn't see any >> lots clock anybody as an accountant. >> Okay. Anyway, yeah.
1:26:26
But what was your experience in Bermuda? >> I It's incredible.
1:26:29
I think the uh but there is a massive sort of reinsurance industry on the island.
1:26:34
So that's like very much the home of that.
1:26:36
Um anyway, so so you >> you were born you were born in insurance. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:26:42
I grew up around the industry for a long time and then um >> uh started my first company was a data integration business that was bought by retool. >> Let's go.
1:26:50
>> And at retool um you know I think it's >> Thanks.
1:26:54
I think, you know, it's not um always immediately obvious that actually a lot of um the sort of custom software that's built in the world is for, you know, a lot of financial services companies because they're highly operationally intensive.
1:27:06
And so, Retool had a ton of, you know, very scaled financial services companies.
1:27:10
And as a deployed engineer, I was sort of lucky to be on kind of the first lines, you know, with some of our biggest insurers, helping them to handle tasks like policy servicing and claims and trying to make them, you know, more efficient with software.
1:27:23
And I think the big opportunity kind of came around chat GBT where we saw you know a huge uptake from a lot of our startup customers u and then there was this this opportunity to build a vertical product that would really serve you know the the largest insurers.
1:27:38
So that was the the impetus in terms of where we're headed in kind of the longer term you asked about.
1:27:42
I think there's a lot for us to do just within insurance.
1:27:46
But if you broaden out to financial services BO more broadly, it's about 400 billion of spend, which is pretty much exactly equivalent to the entire market for enterprise software. >> That's insane.
1:27:56
Um, so so yeah, I I imagine that when you're concern [clears throat] when you're going into a discussion with a large insurer, you're not like that, whoever you're pitching is not saying, well, I vibe coded this on Sunday and it's working pretty well.
1:28:13
why should I go with you?
1:28:13
Like they truly don't have anything else installed and so it's sort of a green field I imagine. Is that right? >> Yeah.
1:28:19
I think you know in insurance we're all in like kind of the business of trust and so you know that's why a lot of our work is with you know the largest insurers on mission critical tasks at massive scale.
1:28:28
And so >> what about yeah sorry yeah what about tradeoffs on uh inference and different models?
1:28:36
You mentioned sort of being multimodel using different frontier labs, but are you finding in the product that you're building that you're uh that you're relying on cheaper models for certain tasks and then harnessing and wiring that all together so you actually can drive down cost or can you just throw the most expensive frontier model at every problem because it's so valuable? >> Yeah.
1:28:58
So, you know, I think we use a mixture of kind of models to be able to achieve, you know, what we need for the right task.
1:29:04
You know, if you think about parsing a many hundred claim, you know, page claim file or policy document, you might use a small model to kind of zoom in on the areas that are most important and then use an expensive model to say synthesize, you know, what's the most important and what's the answer. >> Sure.
1:29:19
>> And then, you know, I think what's more interesting, you talked a little about kind of fine-tuning an RL.
1:29:23
you know, we're um kind of like the perfect set of use cases for for web agents being able to navigate um you know, these applications that don't have APIs, be they, you know, green screen CLIs or desktop apps.
1:29:36
>> And so we've actually been, you know, working on a handful of fine-tunes um and creating basically RL environments that are these sort of CRUD applications.
1:29:45
>> They're very different from say, you know, the book me a restaurant or this flight type of demo.
1:29:48
It's much more about you know take this repetitive task and fill out this form thousands of times.
1:29:55
It's kind of the ideal case for I think a lot of these computer use systems.
1:29:58
So we're seeing a lot of success there.
1:30:00
I think we are just kind of rounding the corner of the scaling laws starting to work on those kind of feels the same way that maybe like voice did you know 6 to 12 months ago.
1:30:10
>> Y >> you guys have pursued a forward deployed engineer go to market.
1:30:14
Do you uh sounds like it's working well to date.
1:30:18
Do you think this is something that will still be a part of the kind of core motion in a few years or is this something that makes sense to uh kind of get off the ground till you understand kind of like what the typical stacks are within your within your market and then eventually you'd move beyond it.
1:30:38
>> Yeah, I mean I think the forward deployed motion is definitely something that you know really came naturally to me.
1:30:43
It's kind of like the DNA of of our company because that's you know also what we were doing at retool when it was you know much earlier I think on that.
1:30:51
>> Um >> I think for us you know going and working with our customers being able to speak their language getting to you know really understand the comp the complexities of these many page standard operating procedures and make them successful as agents.
1:31:05
I think it's really important for us to be sitting you know side by side with them.
1:31:08
That being said, I think a lot of companies sort of talk about FDES as sort of being the end state or like that is like, you know, the best part about my business and why I'm like Palunteer.
1:31:19
and why I'm like Palunteer. I think for us like it is um you these RFDs are also really able to ship code in the codebase and so they are actually constantly making the product better and that's really important like I think our product should just be continually giving our for deployed engineering team more and more leverage um so that they can you know be able to to complete more
1:31:40
for our customers >> some FTE goes into a business they're badge they're in there they're interact interfacing with the green screen you know local on premise mainframe software, they write some binding for it or some screen scraper or whatever you need to do and then they can ship that back to HQ and then the next time you run into that you have uh you have an integration effectively. Is that like
1:32:00
Is that like the basic pattern of that? >> Exactly.
1:32:03
I think there's just a lot of things that are required to get these agents running at scale that you know >> customers don't need to build from scratch every time.
1:32:10
I I do think it's really important though that we also enable our customers to be able to build their own, you know, agents.
1:32:15
And for us, you know, some of our customers are at tens of agents live in production.
1:32:19
We may have built, you know, help them build the first one or two in an FD motion, >> but just because it's natural language, >> they're able to sort of turn around two through 10 without us having >> and they're still running those.
1:32:30
And so they're running number three through 10 on your platform through your system, but they're defining them and architecting them themselves. Exactly. Yeah.
1:32:41
Just announced good business. I love it. Congratulations.
1:32:43
[laughter] Uh fantastic to meet you. >> Yeah.
1:32:47
Well, you you put together a great team, too.
1:32:49
I'm excited that uh Verun, one of my former teammates, is is over with with you at Pace now.
1:32:54
And uh yeah, very I'm sure you'll be back on >> this year, maybe this quarter. >> Maybe.
1:33:02
Anyway, >> thank you so much again, guys.
1:33:04
>> Yeah, we'll talk to you soon.
1:33:04
Have a good rest of your day. Goodbye.
1:33:05
Let me tell you about Vanta automate compliance and security.
1:33:10
Vanta is the leading AI trust management platform.
1:33:13
And we have Ben Oh, sorry.
1:33:17
>> Quick before we bring in Ben, uh some unfortunate news.
1:33:18
Palmer uh got tied up uh with DC, >> but we got Jeff Miller coming out.
1:33:26
>> Jeff Miller is going to come out. >> It's Miller time.
1:33:28
>> It's Miller time, which we're excited about.
1:33:30
But yeah, so Palmer unfortunately won't be joining, but we'll get him back on. Paul on again soon.
1:33:38
>> And uh right now without further ado, >> Ben Lair, the co-founder, managing partner of Lair Kaval Ventures.
1:33:43
Let's bring him in to the TV Ultra. Ben, how are you doing?
1:33:48
>> Hey guys, what's happening?
1:33:49
>> Well, what's going on? >> Not too much.
1:33:50
Uh thanks so much for taking the time to join.
1:33:52
Um can you uh maybe I mean I feel like most people are familiar, but can you kick us off a little bit of just the shape of your business, shape of your career? Just quick intro. >> Uh sure. Sure. Yeah.
1:34:04
Um I'm a native New Yorker.
1:34:08
Uh everything I do is sort of New Yorky in some way. So grew up here.
1:34:13
Uh after school came back to New York, started a company in the digital media space. >> Yeah.
1:34:18
>> When New York had like the smallest tech ecosystem in the world and was one of what felt like 50 founders building in New York, you know, back 20 years ago.
1:34:28
And as a result of sort of being a founder in a tiny market, I got the I knew everybody.
1:34:32
Everybody knew everybody.
1:34:34
And so I had sort of the benefit of being uh a small fish in a small pond and started angel investing and really over the last 15 years got to sort of simultaneously live the founder journey and built a company and raised a few hundred million dollars and did a lot of things right and almost ran everything off the you know off the dock a bunch of times.
1:34:56
uh and also uh had sort of the good fortune of like picking you know investing in New York at the right time and so have ridden that wave started our first fund was an $8.
1:35:08
started our first fund was an $8.5 million fund we're now investing our ninth fund which is a $200 million fund um but every fund is a little bigger than the one before >> that's a good it's a good sign >> it's a good run
1:35:23
>> uh was it ever >> how many funds get there you know >> uh did you ever think it was it was crazy to set up a a a fund in New York or was it always just like just was so obvious that you were happy that other people >> just were kind of uh thought thought you were crazy? >> I didn't know any better, right? I mean
1:35:41
>> I didn't know any better, right?
1:35:41
I mean like I grew up in New York.
1:35:42
I thought New York was the center of the entire universe.
1:35:45
I still in some way think that that's the case.
1:35:47
Uh, and you know, I just I was very lucky because when I when I got sort of the entrepreneurial bug was when the whole world got the entrepreneurial bug.
1:35:58
It was like that same minute I moment.
1:36:00
I graduated the same year that Mark Zuckerberg did from college.
1:36:03
And so, right, it was just like that timing. Perfect timing. >> Perfect timing.
1:36:06
And all my friends in the past would have reflexively wanted to go and work on Wall Street. >> Yep.
1:36:12
>> But, uh, suddenly something was in the water and people wanted to go work in tech.
1:36:16
And so I just got like I just got lucky and and uh you know it seemed obvious and frankly it was obvious and if you just did the obvious thing you did okay.
1:36:28
>> Talk about uh I want to talk I want to talk about media kind of selfishly because we love talking about media.
1:36:33
Uh we >> I actually want to learn about your biz.
1:36:37
I have questions for you guys on the business model.
1:36:41
>> Like I've been poking around trying to feel it out.
1:36:43
So you ask me questions and I'm going to ask you questions. Well, yeah.
1:36:46
yeah. I guess I guess just uh can you take can you can you take us like we we try not to do we this is not a not a history show not like a founder journey show but but I would love like >> like what was the climate around media digital media what was happening back
1:37:00
then uh what was the initial like >> yeah because I mean so much of what is informed I feel like we tried to take a lot of the lessons from that era era of media and say like okay what what was the takeaway which was maybe like >> you can I I mean the primary takeaway
1:37:16
was don't build a media company in our case that is the whole strategy is predicated on getting to a billion dollars of revenue right or or even a billion dollar valuation right and so a lot of what informs this is that like staying niche especially for us because in our business like we're building a
1:37:33
media company that we make by hand every single day so we have if we don't stay niche we'll start covering a bunch of topics that aren't interesting to us >> and then we won't want to show up every day and do this >> you'll do what I and what everybody did. >> Okay. Give us the lessons. Wait. Yeah. >> Okay. Give us the lessons. Wait. Yeah. Give us the prehistory. Give us the climate.
1:37:50
And then I I I want as many lessons as possible. >> Yeah.
1:37:54
So, look, when when I started, there was this idea that sort of like the internet would destroy every traditional business in every space in the entire world.
1:38:03
Now, there's a little bit of that like the AI will do that, but like, you know, I'm I'm old.
1:38:06
So, this was like the the web will destroy all.
1:38:10
And we looked at print magazines and newspapers and the idea was all of them would go away entirely and would be replaced by digital and the entire size of that market and all that ad revenue was going to move online.
1:38:23
And so, you know, we were one of the early movers in sort of going and trying to capture that market and we looked at the big men's magazines or the local city guides or whatever it was and tried to go build that online.
1:38:36
and at first did it the way that you guys were doing it.
1:38:40
It was like very much this labor of love and we didn't have that much access to capital because it wasn't hot hot hot hot yet.
1:38:48
And so our first few years we were profitable and stayed small and it was like >> it was amazing and we had a a a small community of people that were dieh hard and advertisers who really felt the needle move.
1:39:02
And it was it was wonderful.
1:39:03
And what happened was the space got attention from big VCs and people wanted to go and sort of like you know get in on the gold rush and a bunch of people raised a bunch of money and I was one of them.
1:39:15
And you know the idea was you have to grow into or live into those valuations like you just like you just sort of alluded to.
1:39:22
just sort of alluded to. And you know we we went from 1 to to 3 to 7 to 15 like it was growing like you know maybe not like a software company today but it was growing like a software company did back then and we kept raising into it and a
1:39:40
few of the like mistakes and by the way they were they were not fatal mistakes but they were they were ultimately the thing that sort of they they they took a lot of the joy out of the business I would say was when we got obsessed with figuring out how do you keep how do you
1:39:56
keep growing and how do you keep doubling year out year-over-year and we part of it was we need to grow the advertising base and so we need to find more and more and more users that got away from our core and got away from sort of what we thought we were really great at doing and so the product
1:40:12
started to get a little watered down and then on the other side it was commerce how do we start to sell stuff to these guys how do we start to monetize directly today subscriptions are something that I think is an actual viable model again in not not at scale. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:40:26
>> Like everyone points to the New York Times and says, "Oh, this can work."
1:40:29
Like the New York Times is N of one.
1:40:30
That's I don't think you're going to build venture scale businesses doing that, but but there is more willingness to pay for consumers than there was 10 years ago.
1:40:37
And so our our thought was they're not going to pay for our content.
1:40:41
They're going to pay for products.
1:40:42
We bought a sort of, you know, ancillary commerce business and scaled that.
1:40:48
And I went out to raise what was our series B, thinking that we could go and get sort of 1 plus 1 equals three.
1:40:56
They're going to love our media business, which is like profitable and attracts this audience.
1:41:00
They're going to like our commerce business, which has a bigger ceiling and is growing fast.
1:41:03
And in fact, I just got like full punch in the face.
1:41:08
And it was like 1 plus 1 equals 1 and a half.
1:41:11
And these businesses don't necessarily belong together.
1:41:15
together. and media folks understood the media business and commerce folks understood the commerce business and so I had to go through this sort of painful process of taking them apart from one another and then I got the sort of bug for the rollup and well if I'm not going to grow uh vertically maybe I can grow horizontally and what are other like-minded brands and can we sell them together and can we build a tech
1:41:39
platform together and bought a bunch of companies and raised a bunch of money and that worked Um but the reality was we were always swimming against the current which was social media and you know media in general fell under the eye of big tech
1:41:56
>> and you know Meta grew and and obviously you know what Google represented for the ad ecosystem and then as you know Amazon and Apple and Netflix grew and it just was clear that like I wasn't even at the kids table. >> I was in like the other room entirely
1:42:09
>> I was in like the other room entirely and now look at what's happened with like the top of the market.
1:42:13
Look at like Discovery and the like amazing run they had and the fact that like they need to be consolidated.
1:42:18
It's just >> it's an impossible business and the way to do it right is to do what you love and stay relatively small and build like a real community based thing like you guys are doing.
1:42:30
guys are doing. I have like so much respect for this show and like my hope is that you like find other ways to leverage the influence that you have here and don't put a like target on your back where you have to turn this show into a billion dollar company cuz >> totally >> it just John John's position was always
1:42:50
that uh value in in media today is flowing to personalities individuals right even on the subscription side when you're signing up for a subscription Today, the subscriptions that I'm excited to sign up for are when I know the dollars are like flowing to an individual who's going to just obsess over like a Ben Thompson is a classic example, right? Or like an Emily Sunberg
1:43:09
Or like an Emily Sunberg in in uh New York, right?
1:43:12
Uh the dollars are going to an individual who has like a certain point of view and they're just going to obsess over whatever topics and then the value is going to flow to the platforms, the Spotify, the YouTubes, the metas and like you kind of want to be in either one.
1:43:26
The only other category that's emerged as durable to me is the like, you know, truth monopoly, which is like a legacy media brand.
1:43:35
There's only maybe 10 of them in the world, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, things like that where they kind of like part of the value is like you, it's like you own an asset that basically has a license to distribute what is becomes the truth, right?
1:43:48
And that takes de 50 years to kind of create.
1:43:53
>> And even across all those assets, you're talking about tens of billions of dollars, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the independent creator earnings.
1:44:00
I think YouTube paid out like $50 billion to creators.
1:44:02
And then YouTube itself also makes another $50 billion.
1:44:06
And so like all of that is way more money flowing around than like the few publications that stuck around and made the business model work and are doing quite well.
1:44:15
But creating these new things in the middle, we call it like Yeah.
1:44:19
We want to stay out of that messy middle. >> Yeah.
1:44:22
And I I you know, I do think the uh >> look venture in general like is >> I so many companies raise money that should not be raising money.
1:44:34
Most companies that raise money should not raising money.
1:44:37
Um, venture is a very specific flavor of com of sort of trajectory and u the fact that you know it went from being a sort of cottage industry 15 20 years ago to being just like this mainstream asset class that everybody obsesses over.
1:44:51
You know when I graduated from college I did not know what venture capital was.
1:44:54
If I graduated from pen today it would be the first second and third thing on my list to do would be to go get into VC or to go get into a startup.
1:45:03
into a startup. like the world has changed and I think it in certain situations enables unbelievable things to be built and in most situations it like destroys companies and >> yeah so part of part of it is VCs are trained to hunt the things that are getting attention right and so part of
1:45:21
the issue is like you see a media company pop up and it's like this thing is cool I like it it's getting a lot of attention >> the sexiest shitty business in the whole world >> yeah 100% Yeah, we were even thinking about, you know, thinking about like the right way to be trained on is like Claudebot. Like
1:45:35
Like if you could find a way to put some money into Claudebot, you know, this week that's pretty >> because there should be very high leverage in a business that builds around that. Exactly. >> Uh the Yeah.
1:45:46
The the interesting thing is uh you know I I go back to what is the purpose of of venture capital?
1:45:51
You go back to like why do we call it Silicon Valley?
1:45:54
Well, because they were setting up fabs.
1:45:56
They were setting up it was a high capex high R&D environment.
1:46:01
Then with the cloud platforms and AWS comes out, it becomes cheaper to start a company, but you're still you're still putting up money for a bunch of engineers who are going to build a piece of software that then eventually starts growing and the LTV comes in year five or six and you get paid back.
1:46:16
Um, but we have started to flirt with well like maybe let's put venture dollars into this thing that really doesn't have any capex or any R&D spend, but a lot of go to market spend that seems to pay back relatively quickly.
1:46:31
And that seems to be a pattern that repeats and something you need to watch out for in any category is where are the what is the purpose of venture capital in this thing even if it's growing like other things. Is that how you see it?
1:46:43
What what industries are you are you seeing?
1:46:45
Okay, this is still a good industry for venture capital. >> Yeah.
1:46:49
Well, and one of the sort of weird perversions of the industry right now is there is more money than there's ever been in venture and there's obviously a relatively small number of incredibly sort of deep pocketed funds that need to deploy huge amounts of money. >> Yeah.
1:47:06
>> And into a generation of companies that theoretically need less than ever before. >> Yeah.
1:47:10
And so you have this, you know, somewhat unhealthy dynamic.
1:47:13
I do I think that's what's sort of creating this idea of like sort of uh picking a winner before a winner has actually emerged, just like plow in on the thing and even if it's a million of AR, but it's raised 300 million bucks.
1:47:28
It's like stay out of the category like this is the like like these are the guys.
1:47:33
Um and and I you know the big firms can do that. I can't play that game.
1:47:37
I don't really want to play that game.
1:47:38
it's not like how we're set up.
1:47:41
Um, you know, the one thing even as our funds have grown like we are purists. We are only early stage.
1:47:47
We're preede and seed only.
1:47:49
And I think like when you and and we're a team of generalists and I think when that's the case like we have to be really careful that we don't get sucked into being heat seeeking and just like always going for the shiny object in a market like this where prices are crazy and where you like get pulled into competing with mega funds that have like very different incentives.
1:48:08
Um, I also think you don't want to find yourself as like a value seeeking fund at a time in the market like this for for obvious reasons and like the history of value seeeking adventure is not great.
1:48:20
>> Well, the other thing the other thing that that strangely I mean one of the dynamics right now is you have >> you know mega platform VCs that don't care about pricing as much and they just want to get enough dollars in.
1:48:30
But then you also have some like emerging managers that are just are in the heat chasing business and so they don't really care about pricing as much either because they're like we'll we'll get in at 60.
1:48:42
We know this is going to get marked up >> and we just need to prove to our LPs that we can get in the good names. Yeah.
1:48:49
And we'll >> a shorter term like sort of fundraising mentality. >> Yeah.
1:48:53
It's like we're just we're optimizing to raise like fund too versus >> versus like actual you know returns. >> Yeah.
1:49:01
How do you >> Well, the hard thing is like having been in this business for a long time and like living through cycles, math matters.
1:49:07
Like if you come into stuff way overpriced, like it's really hard to build a business from day one and have it exit for a billion dollars of cash. >> Yeah.
1:49:17
>> Like actually seeing that arc is incredibly difficult.
1:49:20
And in today's market, there's people who are raising a billion dollars who are still like figuring out what the name of the company's going to be.
1:49:26
And you know, it's hard to see that math working.
1:49:28
At the same time, the argument is if you look out on the horizon 10 years from now, outcomes are going to be that much bigger.
1:49:37
We're at a moment of change from a technology perspective where there's going to be more generationally important companies.
1:49:42
And the idea, you know, a decade ago was, can you find a billion-dollar company or a10 billion company?
1:49:50
And now this is can I find a trillion dollar company. Um, >> yeah. How have you pro? Yeah.
1:49:54
Like when I when I look back at previous hype cycles that I've been like during my career, you have maybe uh the DTOC era, that's where I where where I got my start.
1:50:07
When you look at that hype cycle, there was not there was it was almost like an ar it was almost like an ads arbitrage.
1:50:13
It was like Meta was an amazing ads platform and if you had a great product that was positioned well against incumbents, you could just scale so quickly.
1:50:21
And so the opportunity was really like, hey, we're making better products here, but really this is like a advertising arbitrage.
1:50:26
And there were some great businesses that were created from that.
1:50:29
And then fintech, >> there's also branding firm arbitrage against VCs.
1:50:33
You go to a branding firm, give them 100K, and then go raise out $5 million a year a lot.
1:50:36
But but >> I've been the victim of that of that. [laughter] Thank you.
1:50:42
>> The the people that work at those branding firms do amazing work.
1:50:44
So I don't want to call them out.
1:50:47
>> Shout out to my boy EMTT Sean.
1:50:48
>> That was one of But um no but going going forward like you look at kind of fintech >> fintech was there there was some uh uh it was it was Dodd DoddFrank right there was like the the change some some regulatory component but a lot of it was
1:51:06
like just better infrastructure that just made it easier >> but that just meant way more competition so it wasn't like this fundamental technology shift that uh that just changed everything in the way that we're experiencing right now. And so I feel
1:51:17
And so I feel like you kind of have to unlearn some of the lessons from that because we now do have a real technology shift.
1:51:24
So you are going to just get you know far greater value creation a lot faster than maybe this like you know temporary ads arbitrage or just like kind of the infrastructure. >> Yeah.
1:51:35
And by the way one of the interesting trends on the back of that is this move to sort of VCs hunting younger and younger founders.
1:51:42
I think you're seeing, you know, there was a movement over time where you were getting this big premium for second and third time founders and people who had sort of unfair advantage in a category.
1:51:54
And now I think there is this idea that you have to unlearn so much if you have not grown up natively with AI that maybe you're better off not knowing anything about an industry >> but moving 10,000 times faster and you and and sort of just like living natively in all the new tools and thinking that the way that somebody like me works is totally like like I'm just like a dinosaur. >> Yeah.
1:52:22
I've actually so so I've found I found myself giving a a a buddy of mine is is kind of like going through the idea maze and a couple of the ideas that he mentioned.
1:52:32
I was like this seems like a great idea but you have to understand like think about this idea in the context of having four YC companies going after this opportunity and do you and and it's like dude you're gonna have a family soon like like you're not like 20 anymore.
1:52:46
Do you want to compete against like four teams of 20 year olds that are not going to sleep?
1:52:50
Like [laughter] this is and and yeah, they they have less experience and maybe they haven't raised money before, but it's going to be you're not I don't feel confident that you're going to be able to outwork them even though you're really hard worker just because you have more stuff.
1:53:05
>> We see this in like company updates.
1:53:05
So we, you know, we're we're like actively doing deals in new companies and you get that like, you know, update 3 weeks after you invest, like the monthly update cadence.
1:53:16
And we can see the teams with these younger founders and just like the amount of product that they ship and the learnings that they have and the speed that they're hiring, like it's palpable.
1:53:28
And sometimes we invest in a team, great experience, they've got all the sort of credibility and we get the first update and we're like [laughter] like they think it's 2002.
1:53:39
Like they just don't get it. You need to move faster.
1:53:44
Like the market is crazy right now. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:53:49
>> Uh what what are you how big is the team that you work with?
1:53:52
How are you thinking about mentoring building new great investors and uh counseling investors about best practices or like strategies for like not not breaking the rules that you just discussed?
1:54:07
>> Yeah, it's a this is like you know all all I think about now.
1:54:10
Admittedly, I think this is a young person's business uh and and an increasingly young person's business.
1:54:16
And I think that the investor track follows the operator track to some degree, which is you want investors who sort of understand this this new gear.
1:54:26
And so, um, you know, I'm 44.
1:54:29
Um, I'm going to be, you know, soon enough I'm gonna be the oldest person on this team.
1:54:36
uh and which which is funny uh you know >> to just like think about and we are actively you know continuing to hire and and sort of mentor and bring up young talent.
1:54:48
Um I think that you can be extraordinary in this business without having 25 years of experience.
1:54:54
I think it's nice to have some voices around the table who have been through cycles and have some of that wisdom on just like not getting too caught up in in the in the craziness.
1:55:04
Um but uh realistically we are still continuing to like obsess about bringing in interesting young diverse perspectives, people that natively like are growing up with a technology that feels novel to people like me.
1:55:22
And um I think that that's going to be the continued goal here.
1:55:25
And then it's like up or out really.
1:55:26
This is not a place this is not a business to sort of hang out in.
1:55:30
And I I don't have the patience and I don't think people in this business should have the patience to wait 10 years to see what performance looks like.
1:55:37
I think you have to sort of decide early if you feel like people have the right instincts, if they're able to identify talent, um with their gut, um if they're able to sort of win people over and like I think you have to I think you have to like make bets the same way you do in like professional sports.
1:55:54
How do you think about that uh that patience versus, you know, moving quickly and and not waiting to measure results?
1:56:03
I'm I'm thinking specifically about uh the the pressure that can occur a bunch of you know new VCs who are at a fund and they all want to get points on the board and that maybe leads to more aggressive deal making that becomes sort of like a rat race between them and they wind up making bad decisions versus saying look you will be judged on a short term but we're going to give you the space to not swing at every pitch.
1:56:32
Um, how do you think about that that balancing act?
1:56:36
>> Well, I think first of all, it's like this comes down to some of the actual like mechanisms for how you manage people and just stylistically like how much communication you have, how much uh like, you know, of a lone walt culture versus a team-based culture.
1:56:50
You know, here we're very collaborative.
1:56:52
We have a bunch of people working on everything that we're doing.
1:56:55
Obviously, at the end of the day, like a deal gets done because somebody brings that over the line with with like very personal conviction, but uh I think our culture is set up to be able to assess people in in sort of softer areas versus just those quick marks.
1:57:13
Also, you know, you have to know what you're underwriting.
1:57:17
So, sometimes we do a deal and explicitly we go, "This one's going to get out of the gates really fast.
1:57:21
This is going to get quick marks. We understand it." >> Mhm.
1:57:25
But by the way, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to have great outcomes.
1:57:28
We've seen a bunch of our quick marks over the years end up as just big black eyes.
1:57:31
And so, um, there's other deals where we go, we know this is going to be slow.
1:57:35
It's okay that it's going to be slow.
1:57:37
There's a real moat here if this works or there's a real technological sort of challenge that they're going to need to overcome, but if it happens, this is going to be a really valuable business.
1:57:46
um you know know what you're getting into and and be explicit about it so that if something is slow but you signed up for slow you're not like dinging somebody.
1:57:57
>> Um and then look I think at the end of the day like a VC fund is as good as the their sort of reputation and so feeling out how our founders feel about like working with folks seeing people's win rates and seeing the way that people sort of you know carry themselves.
1:58:12
A lot of this is art and frankly like early stage investing is a lot of art too.
1:58:17
So this is feel and you know maybe I'm making bad calls on on talent but um we're we're doing it I think very deliberately. >> Cool.
1:58:27
>> Well, put your talent on TBPN.
1:58:29
>> I have one more >> and we'll uh No, >> I got I got people. >> No, no. I I had a question too.
1:58:32
I wanted to uh I wanted to get your take on uh AI focused rollups given that you rolled up.
1:58:41
I >> was going to ask something very similar.
1:58:43
>> What was your question?
1:58:43
I was going to ask if you had to uh if you had to pick a different asset class to invest. You mentioned art.
1:58:48
There's some art behind you uh between like public markets, hedge fund, private equity, take privates, turnarounds, rollups, growth, growth equity, bigger scale stuff.
1:58:57
Like is there anything else where you're like ah like that looks fun, but I'm not going to do it.
1:59:03
Like what else what else intrigues you about different potential markets?
1:59:07
We've seen a lot of VCs like >> Okay, two wildly different questions. Sure.
1:59:10
So, so let's I want to first take on the AI roll-ups and then other asset classes.
1:59:16
>> Well, I can actually I'll connect the two because I actually do think sort of rollups >> scratch an itch for me as a former operator and I've done it like I I do like the sort of >> like that that that mental exercise of like putting things together and figuring out the personalities and the products.
1:59:32
>> Um I think that it is right.
1:59:37
I I can understand all the logical reasons for why it works and why like this is all going to be this is going to end well.
1:59:43
I can't help but think a little of the gold rush right now is a place to park aum. >> Yeah.
1:59:51
Um, and I I don't like, you know, I'm not trying to like throw stones, but uh it it's, you know, it's a real easy place to just go raise money if you're a fund that has access to a bunch of money >> and I'm sure and somewhat somewhat like limited Yeah. limited some fees. >> Yeah.
2:00:10
Well, yeah, but but uh >> sometimes not not always, but yeah, I mean the allure of getting venture fees on, you know, just an asset that already has cash flow is pretty safe.
2:00:18
has cash flow is pretty safe. like not to mention that but the the entrepreneurs if they're like I'm basically running a PE fund but I only had to take 30% dilution I own you know depends on depends on the individual uh depends on the individual company how given that you've bought you've bought a
2:00:36
number of businesses like how limited do you think is the downside on some of these rollups like is there a way for people to buy companies and just botch the integration and the actual like AI enablement so bad that the company goes from being worth $25 million doing some niche thing in >> 1 plus one is.5. 5. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:00:54
[laughter] Or to to just like >> one plus one could equal zero plenty of times.
2:00:58
And frankly, it [clears throat] can equal less than zero because I mean, you know, look, it depends what you're buying and it depends what the space is.
2:01:05
The more reliant you are on a personality in these rollups, I think the greater the risk.
2:01:11
If this is like a single proprietor who maintains all these really tight relationships and the whole thing rests with them and if you don't keep them happy, you risk like the whole thing, you know, burning down. That scares me.
2:01:23
I do think there's probably places where you can go and and throw stuff together.
2:01:27
The reality is there's a lot of money in PE that knows how to roll stuff up.
2:01:33
>> I'm saying, yeah, that venture is going to do this better than the folks that have done this. >> Yeah.
2:01:38
>> Yeah. The one thing you can imagine venture doing better, venture doing better is the technology, but there's also the financial engineering and actually buying >> just companies and and you know, we we have a friend who who raised a PE fund, you know, and and is yet to he's getting
2:01:53
close to doing his first deal, but the number of amazing opportunities that look amazing that he's ultimately turned down to finally get to the point where he's doing the first deal and you realize like somebody who's never bought acquired a company before coming in and just like looking at everything and everything looks great. If you just have
2:02:08
If you just have like a a capital hammer and you just want to hit it with with a bunch of uh hit the asset with a bunch of AI, I do I do worry that some of these >> and how long are these advantages going to be around for?
2:02:18
I mean, I think there's a version of, you know, 15 years ago it's like we understand the internet and nobody else does and then it was, you know, like we're going to go to the cloud first or we're going to do mobile.
2:02:29
Like yes, AI is different, but like I can tell you the traditional PE funds are not going to like totally fall asleep and like decide not to like embrace any new technology and in 15 years they're still going to be sitting on the wrong side of history.
2:02:42
Like there might be a window, but it's not going to be a big window. >> Yeah.
2:02:46
Somebody should ask Orlando Bravo if he's heard of AI.
2:02:49
[laughter] >> Have you ever heard?
2:02:52
>> He's like, never heard of that. >> Um, >> no. People are aware. >> Will be intense. This is great.
2:02:57
Thank you so much for taking the time. >> Great to hang out. I wish we had more time. Thank you.
2:03:02
[laughter] Thank you for hiring.
2:03:04
Thank you for hiring and training up Dylan. >> Oh, yeah.
2:03:07
>> Our president back in the day.
2:03:10
[clears throat] >> Big fan of yours and uh we're lucky to have him.
2:03:13
So, come come back on again soon. >> Yeah, >> absolutely. >> We'll be in New York.
2:03:16
We'll be in at the New York Stock Exchange.
2:03:19
>> Come down to the New York Stock Exchange. Hang out with us. That'd be fun.
2:03:21
>> Join us there >> anytime.
2:03:22
And I'm I'm going to be out your way later in the month. So, I'll be >> amazing. Amazing.
2:03:26
>> Great to have Well, have a great rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon. >> Goodbye.
2:03:30
>> Let me tell you about Railway.
2:03:30
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2:03:32
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2:03:38
Uh we have Lucas Atkins from ARAI coming into the TBP Ultradome.
2:03:46
>> Lucas, how are you doing? >> Here he is. >> I'm good. Thank you for having me.
2:03:50
>> Thanks for hopping on the show.
2:03:50
Uh first time on the show, can you please give us an introduction on yourself and the company? >> Yeah. Yeah. My name is Lucas Atkins. I'm the CTO uh at RCAI.
2:03:56
We actually changed our logo >> so that it like highlights the >> I have text. I'm sorry. >> No, no, no. You're good. Okay.
2:04:05
Um >> and uh we've uh you know, for a very long time been a startup focused on like enterprise Yeah.
2:04:13
>> Um you know, custom language models.
2:04:13
Uh and we decided to jump into uh the pre-training game ourselves. >> Pre-training. Okay.
2:04:20
So, small language models.
2:04:22
I like small language models.
2:04:24
the large ones that scare me.
2:04:24
But uh tell me how small are these? How much?
2:04:28
What is the training budget?
2:04:28
Can you give me like a GPT2 level training run?
2:04:32
GPT3 level training run like trying ground.
2:04:33
Am I looking at the data center from space or is it something a little cluster in a closet?
2:04:37
Can you train it on a Mac Mini?
2:04:38
What are we talking about?
2:04:40
>> It used to be you know that a small any small model but a small language model right was you know tens of millions of parameters.
2:04:48
Now it's in the realm of I would consider >> anything under 50 billion kind of resting in that smaller world.
2:04:55
But >> small is big as big has gotten enormous. >> Yeah, exactly.
2:05:00
>> Yeah, exactly. And it's it's only going to get more and more as you know RAM well I don't know but as people get more RAM and as we able to fit more on our machines but >> um we historically lived in that kind of 50 sub range and then we also
2:05:15
>> we we like trained on top of other open source models like llama >> um >> is that fine-tuning or distilling is there a difference there that's meaningful to what you do >> there's a an open debate as to whether fine-tuning from like other models just like text outputs is distilling >> distilling. Okay. Okay.
2:05:34
>> Um or if you actually have to like grab it from the you know the logits but >> I would argue that it's all distilling.
2:05:40
It's all some form of making a model better by using another model to make it better, you know, that kind.
2:05:46
>> And is there is there a sort of power law distribution in applications of SLMs?
2:05:51
Like is there is it like you know translation is just like everyone's using that or or or text extraction OCR like is is there sort of a power law of like what it can what what the when you reach for this tool in particular?
2:06:03
It used to be uh up until about a year ago it was you were you were pretty confined to >> you could you could hill climb a specific domain >> you know obviously it ranges based on how big your you know model was or small rather >> but um after this kind of like you know reinforcement learning revolution of the last year um if you can build a task and and an environment to to like have that model live and and and breathe and learn inside of.
2:06:37
You can hill climb you you can take like there's people that are taking hundred million parimeter models and making them perform like you know five or six billion parameter models from a couple years ago.
2:06:48
So um it used to be a lot harder.
2:06:52
Now it's it's all about it's a lot more taste >> and task driven. >> Yeah.
2:06:57
And when you say perform like it feels it feels like the true true cutting edge frontier model sort of smokes all the domain specific models but it's it's expensive and so uh how important is cost?
2:07:10
What sort of cost reductions are you seeing on the inference side?
2:07:15
Uh once a company or you know a developer decides to move from the heavyweight frontier model to something smaller, >> it's it it it is very often when they're going into production, right?
2:07:28
Like it's it's like they've done prototyping with, you know, a large closed source model.
2:07:33
>> Um they've had success with it. They've gotten approval.
2:07:36
they want to bring it into production, you know, to more consumers or or their customers and then the bill starts to hit and uh the market start to look tricky.
2:07:45
So that's when they start looking for ways that they can host it themselves.
2:07:49
There's also like the compliance and data privacy aspect of it.
2:07:53
Uh and that's >> something that you know kind of sovereign you know US-based open models have stopped >> kind of being released.
2:08:03
uh it's it's very much out of China.
2:08:05
Um you have you know a few uh in Europe but uh it is very much been lacking in the United States.
2:08:13
So um we were I was hoping to to release this before I got on the show but uh you know today we're we're finally releasing our f 400 billion parameter model.
2:08:24
So we went up pretty big. >> There we go. >> Congratulations.
2:08:31
>> You still got you still got plenty of day left. That's great.
2:08:34
>> Still got plenty of day left.
2:08:34
[laughter] >> You're like, we're still >> This is just this just a preview. >> So, uh, yeah.
2:08:39
T take us through the landscape of, uh, who you're competing with? Set the table for us.
2:08:44
Most people will be familiar with Deep Sea, Quen.
2:08:49
Um, like how are these companies resourced?
2:08:52
Is this just China's national interest that they're funding these?
2:08:55
Do they have good business flywheels at this point?
2:08:58
Uh, because I imagine you have a plan to sort of unseat them.
2:09:00
have a plan to sort of unseat them. uh in in the open- source race >> they're you know there's a lot of rumors about how all of you know how all of this capital gets allocated into you know uh these different companies but at the end of the day
2:09:16
>> rumors hedge funds >> well there's rumors that you know the government's giving it to them they have favorites you know there's shady deals going on but >> uh the reality of it is >> they're saying they didn't train it train the models with scraps in a cave [laughter] >> in a cave No, >> no. Uh, well, actually, frankly, if you
2:09:32
Uh, well, actually, frankly, if you look at kind of the horsepower that we're dealing with, a lot of them, you know, seemingly did. It's very impressive.
2:09:40
And that's that's >> that's kind of the, you know, you want there to be this kind of battle of like, you know, the US versus China in this race.
2:09:49
That obviously plays into our incentives.
2:09:51
Um, >> however, the these are extremely talented labs.
2:09:55
And so when it's I'm not competing against you know China or or other countries for like openweight you know sovereign language models that that people can own and deploy themselves.
2:10:08
I'm competing against like the other researchers there like that you know that human being and and >> um you have some extreme talent.
2:10:13
So, uh, yes, it used to be really hard to make money making open source models.
2:10:19
As they got bigger and as they got harder for other people to host themselves, it, you know, the the the the systems and the economics started to work out because they get the, you know, uh, the community buy in and excitement of something being open source, but if it's a trillion parameters, you know, your average consumer is not going to be able to run that on their toaster, right?
2:10:42
So, um, it ends up you kind of get this win-win situation.
2:10:47
And now that that has kind of started to flywheel, they've started to, you know, do the Open AI and the Anthropic and the Google Play where they're building products around it.
2:10:56
Um, and and it's really becoming a very lucrative ecosystem. >> Yeah.
2:11:03
Uh, how are you scaling the business?
2:11:06
What have you chosen in uh sort of uh the business model world?
2:11:11
there's there's so many ways that you can build around open-source technologies.
2:11:15
Uh what's working and what are you thinking about the road map long term?
2:11:20
>> There's we were in kind of a uniquely a unique a very fortunate position when it came to this.
2:11:28
Um we had always been customizing models for people.
2:11:31
We had always been working for uh you know enterprises, developers, businesses.
2:11:35
How can we you know make sure that they're getting the best out of their own hardware?
2:11:40
The only thing that really changed was that that when customers wanted something to be based in the United States or from the United States, there stopped being competitive options. >> Sure.
2:11:49
>> And we never really liked the idea that like the foundation of our business relied on other people releasing models. >> Yeah.
2:11:55
>> Um so it was like 6 months ago that we we kind of fully decided, hey, >> you know what, let's try it.
2:11:59
And and we had success with our first model and then our second, our third, and it it kind of um you know, brought us to this.
2:12:08
So the economics of our business doesn't change. so much.
2:12:10
You know, we're still working with customers.
2:12:12
We're still delivering um you know, models and and and powerful tools, >> though we have a much uh more robust control of the stack, which means that the degree to which we can customize and and and the uh kind of period in training that we can go back to for those customers just kind of uh increases drastically.
2:12:31
Yeah, just when I when I think of like open-source focused company, I think uh you know like donations, people just like contributing [clears throat] to the game.
2:12:41
Uh I also think about like consulting uh actually going in and a company paying you to do a custom implementation work improve.
2:12:49
Uh I also think about uh hosted services, consumptionbased plans, subscriptionbased plans.
2:12:56
Um, how are you thinking that side of the business model will evolve or where is it at now?
2:13:03
>> I would love for us to have like a like a GoFundMe or something, but no, we uh >> we it's it's very much the the latter two.
2:13:11
I think that service isn't insulting obviously, you know, if if the if it's the right customer for the right product and and [clears throat] the right situation, >> you know, there there's worlds where where having a portion of your business be devoted, that's important.
2:13:23
But the real money maker and I think this has been seen out of those labs in China, out of out of others is it's in the tooling.
2:13:31
It's it's like what are you building around it?
2:13:32
Um how are you making it so that other people can customize it without you having to do services?
2:13:38
Uh how can you make it an easy API?
2:13:41
How can you, you know, build a a developer and education kind of suite around your software, you know, that is uniquely benefited by your moni um so that they can take it and and using maybe hardware GPUs that you own, how can they go and train their own models.
2:14:00
So there's there's many ways to you know turn this into something that is that is much more like automated and and less servicesbased but uh at the end of the day it all just comes down to getting the you know the customer the right product. >> Yeah.
2:14:12
Who are your heroes in the open source space?
2:14:14
Are you a Red Hat guy, GitLab guy? What do you like? >> Yeah.
2:14:18
I mean you know obviously Yeah. Yeah. Red Hat GitLab.
2:14:20
I mean I I very much jumped into the open source space like in open-source AI. Sure.
2:14:25
So, so like as much as I guess they're now a huge competitor of ours, you know, Mistl is huge.
2:14:33
You know, the OG Llama team, you know, Deep Seek Quinn, like these very people that they inspired me to try to compete with them.
2:14:40
So, it's kind of this very uh [laughter] >> inspired you to grind harder and we appreciate. Yeah. Yeah.
2:14:46
>> Hit that America, hit that bald eagle sound.
2:14:48
Thank you so much for coming on the show to break it down.
2:14:52
>> Congratulations on all the progress and congratulations.
2:14:54
>> We'll be looking out when what's the timeline here?
2:14:55
You think you'll get you?
2:14:57
>> It was supposed to be earlier.
2:14:57
We got a some GPUs didn't want to load up. So, it'll be here.
2:15:02
>> We're going to be live for a couple more hours.
2:15:03
Ping us on the chat when it's officially launched.
2:15:10
>> Thank you so much for hopping on the stream. We'll talk to you soon. >> Goodbye.
2:15:13
[applause] >> Let me tell you about Sentry. I need to find Century. There we go.
2:15:19
Century shows developers what's broken and helps them fix it fast.
2:15:23
That's why 150,000 organizations use it to keep their apps working.
2:15:28
Uh, we got to talk about this plant daddy.
2:15:31
>> Plant daddy exposing his local coffee shop.
2:15:34
He says, "A friendly reminder that my local coffee shop is running a bot farm to boost engagement.
2:15:38
I'm a very small business.
2:15:42
>> Imagine at a country scale.
2:15:42
If you're still responding, reposting anonymous accounts with zero betting, you're being used like the idiot you are." >> This is crazy. Yeah.
2:15:51
So, there's this video and this this uh local coffee shop, his favorite local coffee shop has a bot farm set up in their back room to boost Instagram engagement specifically.
2:16:03
I >> does this person not know that that you can just >> Also, why did he let Kevin back there to video this and like opsack at this at this coffee shop? It's atrocious.
2:16:12
If you're doing Look at the fan at the end.
2:16:16
If you scroll to the end of this video, you can see that there's just a fan blowing on all the phones.
2:16:19
You see this fan right there? That is crazy.
2:16:23
>> This seems like such an insane thing to spend money or time.
2:16:26
>> That's what I was about to say. What is the ROI here?
2:16:27
So, they get an extra 50, maybe a hundred likes and comments on every post.
2:16:33
Um, and is that enough to drive, you know, this looks like thousands of dollars of equipment.
2:16:39
They're selling more coffee because >> it's a lot of iPhones. >> It is.
2:16:42
I think they're probably Android because they need to be USBC in controlled so it's a little bit more open.
2:16:48
>> Seems like a total total waste of time.
2:16:50
I I have never gone to any of my local coffee shops >> because of Instagram >> Instagram account >> that you know of this advertising doesn't work on me advertising doesn't work on >> coffee but the engagement here >> it's too low >> I don't know I don't know well I I would
2:17:06
love to know what that proprietor what that store owner thinks about the ROI >> I've noticed on some posts recently yeah >> that are kind of outside of the the the sort of tech bubble >> I'll scroll through and look at the comments And there and and every single comment is AI. Like just straight
2:17:21
Like just straight >> up. Yeah. Not copy pasted.
2:17:25
>> Not copy pasted, but clearly it's like an AI that's just like >> responding >> and it's just loosely riffing on it, adding engagement. This isn't that. It's this. >> No, no, no.
2:17:36
It's it's happening more and more.
2:17:38
Uh anyway, let's move on.
2:17:38
We have Bridget Mendler from Northwood Space.
2:17:43
She's the co-founder and CEO returning to the show.
2:17:46
It's been just under a year, but she's back.
2:17:49
Bridget, [music] great to see you.
2:17:50
How are you doing >> in a much bigger facility? >> Yeah.
2:17:53
What's going on over at Northwood? Break it down for us. >> Um, it's it's good.
2:17:56
We are um Sorry, we just turned on we just started blasting 80s music in the office. >> But we're good.
2:18:05
This is the this is being on the manufacturing floor lifestyle at Northwood.
2:18:11
>> Um, and yeah, we are uh announcing our series B fundraising. How much did you raise? >> $100 million. >> Even >> Nice. Nice round number.
2:18:24
>> Not a scent more, not a scent less.
2:18:26
>> And some other some other numbers, too. >> Yes. >> Yes. Some other numbers. Yeah.
2:18:31
>> More importantly, >> we That's right. Exactly. Customer is key. We um we raised 49.
2:18:35
8 uh in a contract with the Sorry, I'm getting a little bit of background noise.
2:18:43
Um but yeah, >> million dollar contract with the space force. >> Congratulations. That is amazing.
2:18:52
Uh talk about the actual progress.
2:18:54
I mean I remember hearing about this from Delian when it was like just a an idea and then and then I think I saw a video maybe with Jason Karman.
2:19:05
The first deployment you were building this like what is the scale of the deployment?
2:19:09
How are I mean you're in a manufacturing space?
2:19:10
How many people are working there?
2:19:12
How many of these things are you building? Explain this to us. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:19:16
We we're at our 35,000 foot manufacturing facility now.
2:19:19
I think we we moved in here thinking this was going to be a long-term home for us, but as I'm sure a bunch of these companies say, it fills up really fast.
2:19:29
>> Um we have have had a busy year.
2:19:29
It's been a year of, you know, going from early concept uh with some exciting problems that we were looking to solve on the ground side.
2:19:38
We're looking to address uh scaling up communications to a bunch of different orbits, really pushing the boundaries on where you can take dynamic space capabilities.
2:19:44
Uh our phase array was really well aligned with that.
2:19:49
So we uh kind of built out the solution and we took it through to uh deployment.
2:19:53
We can successfully say that now we have uh actually done production on eight portal units.
2:19:57
Um they were produced in this factory in the span of four weeks.
2:20:02
um we shipped them out actually got shipped out on a commercial airliner um to its destination halfway around the world and uh was up and running um as soon as it hit the site within 12 hours.
2:20:12
So um >> all in all uh from the time of our contract signature to actually being ready to take satellite passes is a three-month time period.
2:20:21
So um we're we're excited by that milestone.
2:20:23
and walk me through sort of like the uh like I've seen these memes uh of like you you ask a question on Google and it takes you through like you know you go through the fiber optic cable, you go to the base station, you go to cell tower like walk me through the actual you know use case from someone trying to use the internet and then interfacing like Northwood is in the chain somewhere like what is the full chain?
2:20:47
No, that's a really great question because a lot of the ground equation has been kind of these fragmented pieces, right?
2:20:54
Like I can imagine it's it's confusing.
2:20:56
It's like, oh, there's this one piece of hardware, whether it's a phase array or a parabolic or whatever.
2:21:00
Uh, how does that fit in with, you know, me making use of internet through space? Yeah.
2:21:05
And the real the real point for us is that >> we are saying space companies shouldn't have to consider the ground equation when they're running their own business.
2:21:15
they shouldn't be trying to navigate, you know, land leases uh in all of these countries around the world to make contact with their spacecraft.
2:21:21
What Northwood does is we we own the entire stack.
2:21:24
So, we handle from the moment that there's a contact made with the spacecraft all the way to uh the the point of presence somewhere around the world that a spacecraft operator has themselves hosted.
2:21:36
uh that that entire chain.
2:21:39
So that includes hardware, that includes modem, that includes network back hall, that includes uh software interfaces, APIs, um and the actual control plane for moving that data.
2:21:47
Um that's kind of a a stack end to end on ground that hasn't been managed by a third party ground provider before.
2:21:53
And so that's what gets us excited because when we take on that big that big chunk of the pie, we actually free up a lot of mental bandwidth and uh and speed for space companies.
2:22:03
So, for a space company, they're putting a satellite in orbit for some reason, whatever they're doing.
2:22:10
Um, when are they calling you?
2:22:13
When are they making sure that they're compatible or ready to integrate?
2:22:14
Is that presumably before launch, but does it need do they need to do anything special on the actual facility?
2:22:22
>> Hopefully, they're not calling after their existing solution.
2:22:26
>> We just took off and I'm hoping you can connect us. >> Help us make contact.
2:22:29
Yeah, it's kind of like when you move into an apartment, then you call Spectrum like after and you're like, I don't have internet for two weeks.
2:22:35
>> Yeah, like here we are. Um, contact list.
2:22:37
But no, I mean that that's a little bit like the situation with the satellite control network with US government right now.
2:22:43
>> These are for satellites that are already live and operating.
2:22:44
That's what our contract is against.
2:22:46
Um, it ranges for a ton of functions.
2:22:48
So launch uh every launch that takes place in the US um runs through the facility is big because your team is scootering around. >> Scootering around. It is big.
2:22:59
[laughter] You weren't lying about 35,000 ft.
2:23:03
>> We have a lot of passion for our scooters here.
2:23:04
Uh very >> nice smooth floors. Anyway, sorry.
2:23:08
>> It's it's a great ride.
2:23:08
Um but yeah so so uh it serves a ton of a ton of missions and more missions are getting launched every day and so that puts additional strain on capacity.
2:23:18
So for us uh you know for instance in that contract they're calling saying hey we need more capacity.
2:23:24
We are uh needing you to plug in with where we route our data.
2:23:30
So we we just hand them an API and that's how they interface with it. >> Yeah.
2:23:34
>> Um so they can just connect with the API.
2:23:36
satellites keep doing what they have been doing sometimes for decades. >> Yeah.
2:23:39
>> Um and then when their new satellites launch, they can also use that same interface.
2:23:43
So trying to make it as clean and simple as possible. >> Yeah.
2:23:46
What is your what is your pipeline [clears throat] look like?
2:23:48
Like I imagine I imagine you're you're talking to a bunch of companies that are uh planning to get you know various satellites up in on the one year, two-year, threeyear like how many like are you feeling like an acceleration is kind of what I'm getting at in terms of like more mass to orbit? >> Yes, big time.
2:24:07
Uh we do get a lot of customer inbound and I think like that's a large part of our raise for us.
2:24:12
It's like, hey, we need to be able to expand and grow so that we can service all these important missions.
2:24:18
Uh, I think an important piece of our passion for what we do is around serving diverse and ambitious missions.
2:24:25
So, a lot of our missions look pretty different.
2:24:27
So, for for our recent capability we're working on with Space Systems Command, that looks like dynamic spacecraft movement, you know, being able to hit multiple different orbits and and those kinds of capabilities.
2:24:38
Um, there are also communications constellations where, you know, they they have more of that networking backhole use case that I I described to you.
2:24:47
Uh, there's other ones that we work with that are more interested in timely imagery.
2:24:50
Uh, and so for us, what makes us excited is being the ground expert that thinks about that with them from, you know, some of those conversations we have are extremely early where like we're we're asking them questions and and learning about their system and and they'll say, you know, we haven't thought that far yet.
2:25:05
Um, and so we get to be the partner from that very early stage to bringing the the constellation online.
2:25:12
Um, and really being the one that holds the accountability for that.
2:25:15
So we get excited by kind of the diversity of the space industry.
2:25:19
I'm sure you know you guys are hearing about all the different use cases even that popped up this past year.
2:25:24
We're talking about the moon or you know data center >> data center some some space data center players are probably calling you being like hey in 10 years I'm going to have a lot of GPUs in space.
2:25:36
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, >> but you know, let's let's condense that timeline.
2:25:40
Let's condense that timeline on on all of the ideas like you know why why not space uh is an exciting frontier to push forward on. >> Yeah.
2:25:48
What what else are you are are you tracking in launch costs uh actual cost of mass to orbit that feels like a key barometer for the health of the space industry broadly.
2:26:00
Is that progressing according to your thesis when you started the company? Are you ahead of plan?
2:26:07
Obviously, it doesn't doesn't directly matter for what you do, but obviously it does in many ways because you know you're downstream of that entire economy.
2:26:14
Is that the right even metric to be looking at if you're monitoring the space economy?
2:26:19
>> I mean, I think the economics of space have been something that have been challenging historically.
2:26:23
You know, you need to be able to make a profitable business off of space.
2:26:26
And so I think there's been a number of dominoes that have fallen in favor of that whether that be uh improved launch costs and you know dropping to to new levels in that and and other pieces of the space infrastructure stack.
2:26:39
I think you know what we're building we're also also interested in in making that more affordable.
2:26:44
Um I think the proof is kind of just in the dreams that people are dreaming up and actually putting real dollars behind now.
2:26:52
>> Um so you know it's it's one thing to talk about some ambitious space concept.
2:26:57
It's another thing to put like real dollars behind it and a real timeline against it.
2:27:00
Uh and so for us like that's that's what we want to enable is that like concept to reality timeline like condensing that making that more possible.
2:27:08
Surprisingly the ground actually takes longer to build than it does to build the spacecraft and launch it in a number of different instances.
2:27:16
And so that's just silly like >> let's let's be the enabler instead. >> Yeah.
2:27:20
Can you help me understand uh deploying ground stations globally?
2:27:23
Are there treaties for this type of thing?
2:27:29
Do you call other governments?
2:27:29
Are you active in other countries?
2:27:31
Like I I imagine that, you know, there are obviously some I guess like geostationary orbits that just orbit over the US, but if the my satellites on the other side of the earth, I probably want to talk to it.
2:27:42
Uh how do you solve that? What's involved?
2:27:44
What's the roll out like? >> No, totally.
2:27:46
Um we we have an entity in uh a number of different countries.
2:27:50
Um so uh yeah we have entities on I think like three or four continents at this point.
2:27:58
Um so you basically need to establish the business there.
2:28:01
You need to work with the local governments across a bunch of different dimensions.
2:28:06
Uh I think personally that's something that I think is uh really exciting to support with the space industry right like a lot of countries are really passionate about pushing their space capabilities forward.
2:28:16
Uh and so for us to be able to have them be a part of a larger mission as we build out our our big network um but also to support what their ambitions are uh with space is something I feel interested in.
2:28:28
And then from a logistics standpoint, I think that's like a key case in point for why if you set out to build a space mission, why do you have to go, you know, create entities, >> land leases, local regulatory?
2:28:39
Um it's just a totally different business.
2:28:42
uh and and so I think you know that's something that we are very happy to be burdened by. >> Yeah.
2:28:50
On the uh on the regulatory side, are you interfacing with NASA or the FCC?
2:28:57
What does that look like?
2:28:57
And then does that uh does the regulatory architecture that's put in place in the US sort of carry forward into other countries?
2:29:07
>> Yeah, that's a great question.
2:29:07
There there's some pieces of it that do uh cross over internationally.
2:29:11
We deal with the International Telecommunications Union um for certain pieces of it.
2:29:17
Depends on which direction you're talking about from space to ground or ground to space.
2:29:21
>> Uh and then the FCC is is really the main regulatory body domestically, but >> they need input from NASA.
2:29:26
They need input from a bunch of other government stakeholders.
2:29:30
Um so a lot of folks weigh in when it comes to spectrum, which is uh you know, for nerdy folks like me, that's kind of interesting. >> Yeah.
2:29:38
What is uh what is the main bottleneck if anything?
2:29:40
It's it's surprising to hear some of the some of the timelines you're talking about on the hardware side. You said four weeks. >> Yeah.
2:29:48
>> To to to make and and ship out the hardware and get it in production feels fast.
2:29:53
What what is like where are you trying to speed up?
2:29:58
>> Ground is like such a multivariable problem.
2:30:00
Um it comes down to supply chain for sure.
2:30:02
It comes down to deployment like what is actually efficient and easy to ship to anywhere around the world.
2:30:10
um it comes down to licensing and a whole host of other regulatory approvals.
2:30:16
So for us like that's why we find that it's really useful to be vertically integrated because we can actually think of those constraints at every different piece along the chain.
2:30:25
Um so you know when we when we see a bottleneck like hey there's this supply chain limitation we get to design around that uh and think about how that fits into um the overall system.
2:30:33
So, I think we've we've been coordinating all of those pieces well so far.
2:30:38
Um, you know, new challenges are going to continue to pop up.
2:30:42
But, um, I think that comes down to just having a team that is, um, multi-disiplinary. >> Yeah.
2:30:48
I want to know more about the use of funding, a hund00 million fund raise.
2:30:53
Uh, obviously more hiring and and and more acceleration broadly, but uh, is are there any like pieces of equipment that you're going to be buying for manufacturing?
2:31:01
Is there a like a robotic arm that you've been hovering over the checkout button and now you're clicking it or a CNC machine like like what what will what will transform about the actual manufacturing process with this race?
2:31:14
>> Yeah, like getting concrete. Um >> there we go.
2:31:17
>> Yeah, I I think well actually that's that's interesting.
2:31:19
Um >> literally buy concrete.
2:31:20
Maybe >> old old space old ground companies do need to buy a ton of concrete.
2:31:26
>> Yeah, because the pad right that you actually put it on, right? >> Exactly. You have settling time.
2:31:29
just let the concrete dry.
2:31:31
That's a whole factor in the equation.
2:31:33
[clears throat] Um but but yeah, uh for us it's really about a new scale of production.
2:31:38
So, you know, we we've demonstrated this end toend process for smaller scale missions.
2:31:45
Now, it's okay, >> cool, can you do that at at a larger scale reliably?
2:31:48
Um and so that comes down to like you said, bringing some stuff in house. Yeah.
2:31:53
>> So, that's that's our our PCB line for instance.
2:31:56
That's something that we're interested in bringing in house.
2:31:57
Um, we have different testing fixtures that we have in house.
2:32:01
We have a a big anooic chamber over here. >> Oh, yeah.
2:32:04
Um, >> so um, >> good podcast studio, too. >> Right.
2:32:08
Isn't it like dead quiet in there? >> It's true. It is.
2:32:12
>> It's kind of Yeah, I'm tempted to show you, but anyway.
2:32:15
>> It'll probably cut the Wi-Fi out, right? >> Exactly.
2:32:18
It would cut the Wi-Fi out.
2:32:18
Um, >> the audio quality be great, but we lose connection.
2:32:23
So, [laughter] >> pristine.
2:32:24
Um, but yeah, we're we're going to be moving into a bigger space as well so that we can, you know, accommodate more production volume.
2:32:31
Also, inventory, you know, like this this stuff takes up a lot of space, uh, a lot of hardware.
2:32:35
We're we're moving it through rapidly.
2:32:37
We're looking to hit a rate of, uh, 12 units per month, um, for one product line and then another volume for another product line. Um, >> very good news. >> There you go.
2:32:46
Um, so yeah, that that's, uh, some of the expenses. >> Amazing.
2:32:51
Well, thank you so much for taking the time. >> Fantastic. Come with us. Yeah.
2:32:55
remarkable progress in in under a year.
2:32:58
I can't wait for the next one. Uh we will see you soon. >> Yeah.
2:33:01
Congrats to the whole rest of your day. Very cool to chat. Good to see you.
2:33:04
>> Have a good rest of your day. >> Cheers.
2:33:07
>> Let me tell you about Gusto, [applause] the unified platform for payroll, benefits, and HR built to evolve with small and medium-siz businesses.
2:33:18
>> And without further ado, should we bring >> Who we got? We got Jeff. >> Jeff Miller. It's Miller time.
2:33:22
We got Jeff Miller filling in from Ander. Second time.
2:33:27
You're the first repeat live in person guest in the Ultra Dome. >> Friend of the band.
2:33:34
>> Welcome back to the show.
2:33:34
Welcome back to the Ultra Dome. [music] >> Second time.
2:33:39
>> How do we get one of these?
2:33:39
People are always asking us for jackets.
2:33:42
>> I'll trade you a jacket for a tiny gold plaque here somewhere in the >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a record. This is a record. Uh yeah. Fantastic jacket.
2:33:49
This is going to be flying off the shelf.
2:33:51
Um is G get us up to speed on the Ander merch store.
2:33:54
I mean you were doing some like you did like a an auction on eBay. Take us through. >> Yeah, absolutely. So actually Jen Yeah.
2:34:02
>> Buchcci and I were cooking on this >> former TV TBN >> TBPN legend here.
2:34:06
>> So the way we're thinking about the gear store and this is something by the way we talk often with our our pal Trey also is that we're thinking about ways that for our friends we can bring them into Andrew.
2:34:16
So beyond just following us on on X or watching our videos on YouTube that they can participate the brand in a way that they would want to.
2:34:21
So we're going to be leaning into it hard this year with NASCAR as a platform with Ohio State with every campaign that we do.
2:34:27
Uh we're going to have some staples like the flight jacket that will become much more easily acceptable uh accessible I should say.
2:34:35
And then we're going to find some items that we'll just call high heat items that we're we're already [laughter] putting on.
2:34:41
And the closest thing I can say is you think about what we did with the chromatic with our friends at Mod Retro and and pulling that into an Android edition, what we're going to do with the M64. Think along that vein.
2:34:52
So when those come be ready cuz they're not going to last long. >> Okay.
2:34:55
Uh yeah, take us through the racing update.
2:34:57
Uh NASCAR's coming up, but you're also going to be racing drones now. Break it down for us. >> Absolutely. Hey, why not? >> Yeah.
2:35:04
>> So of course we've got NASCAR.
2:35:04
We're just about 150 days out.
2:35:06
I expect to see both of you guys on the base.
2:35:08
race on the base >> on June 21st.
2:35:10
It's going to be a lot of fun.
2:35:13
>> Are we going to be able to be on the carrier?
2:35:14
What's going is it will there be a carrier there? They're needed.
2:35:18
>> I can't speak for the works.
2:35:18
[laughter] >> They don't answer me.
2:35:22
>> There may be one or multiple carriers on board and we'll see what we can do.
2:35:24
But the the big thing I'd say is like as we think about our partnership strategy broadly, we have, as we talked about last time, something that is broaden pop that crosses over with our core audiences in defense and military like the Anderl 250 with NASCAR.
2:35:36
We have something that's tied very clearly to where we have a manufacturing footprint with Ohio State.
2:35:41
We're well on our way to building out Arsenal one as Grim spoke about last week, hiring those those 5,000 jobs that we committed to.
2:35:49
The important thing I think for us is making sure that we still stay true to who we are across all these things.
2:35:53
So I think about it as a spectrum and if that's about general population or how we work our ways into communities, at the core we are an engineering company. Yeah.
2:36:04
that autonomy, if you think about it, has been at the core to this date of everything that we built.
2:36:07
And so we want to make sure we have something that is not just a marketing play, something that feels much more about recruiting and standing for those values around autonomy.
2:36:16
And so, uh, what is really just bringing you into the world of how we this came to be.
2:36:19
Once we got the commitment from Palmer and the other execs that we were going to do the 250 in Ohio State, Palmer said, "Jeff, I'll let you do those things, but what you're going to do is build me a global AI drone racing."
2:36:31
[laughter] And I'm like, "Please tell me more, Bomber."
2:36:34
I'm like, "Said like drone racing league." He's like, "No, no, no.
2:36:37
All the drones have to be the same.
2:36:37
The only differentiator is the software, is the code, the ability to build autonomy."
2:36:44
And so that's what we've been working on since. >> Yeah.
2:36:46
So, the idea the idea here is people know they're going to be racing drones. We have goalposts here.
2:36:49
I can imagine like uh something like that.
2:36:54
They know they're going to have to be flying a route >> like a track, but they I'm assuming they don't know what the track would actually look like until race day.
2:37:01
So, they have to actually build.
2:37:04
>> It's going to be amazing.
2:37:04
Like, so the way we're doing this is we're working first and foremost with the Drone Champions League, which is the foremost operator of of AI drone racing in in the world.
2:37:13
So, we've got them as our official race operator, and we're working off of the model that they've built and they've tested and forged like a really viable path.
2:37:20
So it starts with virtual virtual qualifiers.
2:37:22
Anyone can compete in these virtual qualifiers. It's a simulator. It's a simulator. Exactly.
2:37:27
And that will lead to a physical qualifier.
2:37:29
You're going to have gates that you have to go through.
2:37:30
And the top teams that qualify both from the university level and across the globe because it's going to be an open competition.
2:37:37
Those will qualify for the first official AIG in Columbus, Ohio.
2:37:43
And there you're going to have time to prep, refine your code leading up to the actual race day.
2:37:46
And that's where all all systems go. >> Yeah.
2:37:50
What do you think the the average team will look like?
2:37:51
I'm I'm thinking back to like the DARPA Grand Challenge.
2:37:54
I don't know if that was inspiring at all, but the uh you know the teams from there mostly academic teams if I remember uh what do you think the mix will be?
2:38:02
Who have you already talked to teams? How's that?
2:38:05
>> Yeah, so we've done a lot of research on on the approach to this.
2:38:07
The clear mandate from our friend Palmer was this is open to anyone >> to anyone.
2:38:12
>> This is not just 18 to 22 year olds.
2:38:15
There was a point we're talking about like how can children raise this, right? Yeah. Yeah.
2:38:18
children, but also like the Tesla team, the Whimo team.
2:38:20
They're going to be like, "Let's just win."
2:38:22
>> And so, what I give our team incredible uh credit for.
2:38:25
>> Also, the big primes, let them let them [laughter] big primes think that they can race.
2:38:29
>> They have an opportunity here to do the funniest thing ever.
2:38:32
>> Chinese national thinks they can come in here to race and [laughter] win this.
2:38:35
>> We got to get some money. >> Let's go.
2:38:36
And that'll prove something there in its own right is our capabilities in the West relative to China. >> I mean, all Yeah.
2:38:40
All the all the LLMs are on uh the DJI router. Okay. Okay.
2:38:47
But I think the things that are most important is at the core, we are using this as a recruiting effort.
2:38:50
Thinking about cracked engineers, especially at that university level, we've done incredible diligence on the legal side to make sure when we say things like 500k prize pool, that it's eligible for anyone to race that uh you could win a job at annual, all those things are done in a legally compliant and thoughtful way.
2:39:07
And I think most importantly that we're setting a standard with our partner in hardware. Yeah.
2:39:10
Your friend >> Saurin from Euros that we are using incredible technology that's gonna have clear chain of custody here in the states.
2:39:19
>> Dude, we got to get Saurin to fly a drone in here.
2:39:20
Have you you've never seen him fly a drone in person? Not live.
2:39:22
So Saurin is Saurin Monroe Anderson from CEO of Near and founder.
2:39:28
He was I believe like a champion drone FP drone competed in in the DCL as well. Yeah.
2:39:37
And so he puts on this uh I I I went out with Ben.
2:39:40
Ben actually filmed it uh in Elsa Gundo.
2:39:42
And he's like, "Let me I I do a little like factory tour with him."
2:39:46
He has a very small uh office at that point in time.
2:39:48
The company had just got off the ground.
2:39:49
He's like, "Let's walk to this park.
2:39:50
I'll show you how these drones work."
2:39:52
And I you know, I've seen like a DJI camera drone like take off and it hovers and maybe like does a little selfie zoom out or whatever.
2:39:58
Um his drones, it's a completely different level.
2:40:04
It's a completely different level.
2:40:05
He takes off and it's the most aggressive.
2:40:07
It's the F1 car of of uh of drone racing.
2:40:09
And he puts on these glasses, the FPV goggles, and they're like CRT TVs.
2:40:13
They're like high refresh rate, pretty low res actually.
2:40:15
Um but he's like flying around this tree like as fast as I can possibly.
2:40:21
He doesn't crash anything.
2:40:23
Flies back right in your face all around you. It's crazy. >> It's so true.
2:40:28
And obviously at Andrew, we know a thing or two about making drones.
2:40:31
And we have great respect for for Saurin and the Nero's team.
2:40:32
And what's a funny story?
2:40:34
This the first time I was here in person at the drum.
2:40:38
You know who your guest was directly before me? >> Yeah, it was. That's right.
2:40:41
>> And you guys asked him.
2:40:41
I was laughing because you said, "Hey, have you guys ever thought about starting a drum race?" Oh, we did.
2:40:45
[laughter] >> We had We had not talked to him yet.
2:40:46
We already were planning to.
2:40:49
So, I just got serendipity.
2:40:51
All started right here in the Ultra. >> I love it. I love it. Yeah.
2:40:53
So, uh, talk to me more about what it takes to actually deliver software on these drones, how standardized that is.
2:41:01
I like I imagine you're not pulling in a Frontier LLM and having it reason over this stuff like like >> hold on boss I'm going to wait at this gate 10 minutes of reasoning do a deep research report.
2:41:16
research report. we fully understand the the the scope of the track like what like what you know give me anything on the technology side like what are the parameters what are the languages that people will use do you know anything about >> the beauty is we're trying to keep the rules extremely simple yes so the core
2:41:32
focus is that everyone is going to have the same exact hardware we're working with right now and we'll be announcing this in in a future date the beauty too is like everyone's going to have their own canopy we're bringing a little the spirit of NASCAR as we think about sponsors and how you can your own branding. >> We should sponsor a teamm
2:41:47
>> We should sponsor a teamm this is happening.
2:41:50
We're going to have TVPM their team.
2:41:51
It just makes natural sense.
2:41:54
>> If you want to if you want to race in this, >> hit us up. >> You guys are ready.
2:41:57
So, we'll talk to you guys about how you bring your team together.
2:41:59
But from a tech side, >> it really is the beauty is that once you have the hardware, everyone is going to be able to be on an even footing to bring together whatever they want to do and however they want to do it.
2:42:09
And where I think the real advantage will come when people spend time at the physical qualifier. >> Sure.
2:42:16
>> Show up there, break the thing a 100 times.
2:42:18
We talk about this at Andrew all the time.
2:42:20
>> Fail, fail, fail, fail, win.
2:42:20
That's the way we think about it.
2:42:23
And I think that model, that approach, that that ethos applies here, too.
2:42:28
>> So, how do you keep a level playing field around hardware when drones are breaking and they are smashing?
2:42:32
Is it like, oh, you get an aotment of five and then you're out?
2:42:37
>> We'll have exactly clear chain of custody.
2:42:38
All credit to DCL and and Nero because they're controlling the the hardware component, but we've planned out and because of their experience, we know how many are going to break along the way.
2:42:47
But there's not going to be any opportunity for anyone to be making mods beyond what we give them officially. Okay, that's very cool. >> Yeah.
2:42:53
Are there other like will people do you think people have the ability like overclock motors?
2:42:57
Because a lot of racing of course in NASCAR F1 it's like tire management, fuel stops in certain races.
2:43:06
We just saw this with the Rolex 24.
2:43:08
Like at what level does it stay from just perception doing simultaneous location and mapping path finding to actually understanding like I can push the drone hard but then I'm running out of battery 24hour the endurance drone race. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:43:23
>> Yeah. Yeah. like how many times do you >> I think what you'll see is the battery is pretty lightweight but for the the distance of the race itself you're going to have enough battery load but it really will become to like finding all these little installs and >> and there'll be risk if you corner a little bit closer >> how you're doing it if you how you push
2:43:37
it understanding the hardware better than the next and what risk exactly interesting interesting >> but for us like what I'd say here is really special is beyond the fact that we're starting at Columbus >> we're already working with Palmer in two really interesting ways like we have plans to roll out the second GP Okay, >> in Asia that will be announced soon. The
2:43:53
The third GP in the Middle East and the fourth one beyond in the globe.
2:43:57
And right now we're starting with quadcopters.
2:44:01
>> Okay, >> the important element of the AIGP is the autonomy.
2:44:04
It's not the form factor.
2:44:06
>> So just know that's something that could come to life underwater in different domains over time. Wonder would be cool. Feels Yeah.
2:44:12
harder to film and stuff, but could be really cool. Yeah.
2:44:15
>> Well, let me just say that's the first of many domains. Palmer. >> Yeah, of course. Yeah.
2:44:17
I want to say tunneling ones.
2:44:19
[laughter] >> Jordy said it, I didn't.
2:44:23
Yeah, that that certainly be great.
2:44:23
Um, what do you think teams will look like?
2:44:26
Are they unlimited amount of people?
2:44:26
I can show up with a thousand.
2:44:28
>> So, you can show up as an individual.
2:44:28
We think the teams that are going to be really successful are going to show up between four and eight people.
2:44:32
It's capped at at eight people. >> Two beats a team. >> Exactly. Yeah.
2:44:36
And so, the the goal would be that you're we're talking to the all the universities that are going to express interest.
2:44:41
We have target universities annual that really feed our pipeline of emerging talent and those teams we're hoping to get really excited about this.
2:44:49
We think the prize pool is going to be a real incentive, but also that opportunity to win a job at Ander. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's good.
2:44:54
It's good like resume builder, content, whatever, marketing.
2:44:58
There's so many different ways.
2:44:59
>> It's interesting winning a job at Anderol when I think anybody that can get into the top five. >> Yeah.
2:45:06
>> Probably every person on the team is qualified or at least some percentage of them.
2:45:10
So, the pipeline, the talent pipeline is going to be very >> gonna be incredible.
2:45:13
And uh also why our lawyer now has a lot more gray hair than he did a little bit.
2:45:17
But the important >> doing any of these like giveaway contest thing at scale there's so much like legal headache with it.
2:45:24
It's not as simple as >> Yeah. Exactly.
2:45:26
But luckily for us I think whether it's thinking about legal constraints for this uh what our people at and across divisions do is they see opportunity and they see how they can create solutions.
2:45:36
But the the thing that gets me excited is like beyond whoever wins and and earns the job is that every university team member that shows up to the qualifier which is gonna happen near our HQ in September will get a screen directly by Android Recruiting.
2:45:49
So if you're somebody that is interested in this, if you're somebody who's looking for an entry- level job or internship at Android, this is a great way to feed into our pipeline. >> Yeah.
2:45:58
Can you tell me more about the new uh Long Beach office? What's going on there? >> Oh man.
2:46:02
Well, somebody who lives in Venice, California, and works in Costa Mesa, can [laughter] I just say I'm extremely happy that we have a Long Beach office coming, >> it's incredible.
2:46:10
I mean, the story writes itself from from Palmer's Origin to to where we are now. >> Oh, yeah.
2:46:14
That's where the first uh like what was it?
2:46:16
The Airstream or something >> 100%.
2:46:18
He's living out down by the river, right?
2:46:20
So, [laughter] >> that's actually true.
2:46:22
>> It's incredible to to see it come full circle >> down by the marina.
2:46:25
It wasn't really a river.
2:46:26
>> Down by the river any rivers in LA.
2:46:29
LA River is rough, >> but it's uh it's really special the the origin story, the the fact that it's a reflection of of our growth or maturation, the engineering talent that we're going to be able to recruit, not just in Orange County, but now closer to LA and and ultimately whether you're working in SoCal in Ohio or beyond, we're still going to be screening for the same thing.
2:46:49
And that starts with the mission, the connection to to what we're building. >> Yeah.
2:46:52
How big is the Orange County campus now?
2:46:54
It's like >> 5,000 something.
2:46:56
Oh, sorry, no, the new >> the new one's 5,000.
2:46:58
The the current one's a little smaller than that. Okay.
2:47:02
But it's it's the type of thing that we're constantly building.
2:47:04
You walk in >> thousand square feet. That's pretty big. >> No.
2:47:07
People that that [laughter] we're bringing in. Yeah.
2:47:11
>> But to be bringing over a million square feet to Long Beach, and to be doing it directly uh with the mayor of Long Beach, who's been incredible, and his team, it's just been really cool to see come to life. >> That's great. That's great.
2:47:21
>> Uh what else is on the horizon on the marketing side for Andoral?
2:47:25
Uh did you look at a a Super Bowl ad? Super Bowl's coming up.
2:47:29
What else did you look at?
2:47:31
>> So, I'll tell you one thing.
2:47:31
The core focus for us this year is absolutely showing the raw, the real, the product development, the failures, failure, failures that lead to the wins, the hard work.
2:47:42
The scalability that we are seeing is reflecting that story.
2:47:45
So, I think that's the important inflection point for us in 26.
2:47:48
It's going to be less about the highly produced go to markets and it's going to be about we told you we were building these things.
2:47:54
we are building them and we're going to show you how hard it is to scale but that we are up to the challenge and you know when we talk about this uh internally we talk about demonstrating to our customers that is not only the right choice we are the safe choice uh and we are the necessary choice for for what our country needs.
2:48:12
So that's the story we need to tell.
2:48:13
Um and how we do that is going to be about great worldclass product marketing that will likely look more transparent and raw than you've ever seen before.
2:48:21
And then as we're thinking about working our way to to public markets, it's about building the annual brand.
2:48:26
And that can be through a drone race for recruits.
2:48:27
It can be about a gear store or big major sports marketing platforms.
2:48:31
But it won't be a Super Bowl commercial this year.
2:48:33
In fact, this past weekend, we weren't at the NFL playoffs.
2:48:36
I was at a UFC fight in Vegas 324.
2:48:41
I'll tell you that that to me is much more of of America and the audience that that I think has high crossover to uh and connections with with audiences that we see in in NASCAR.
2:48:51
And whether we do a partnership with them or not, I think the point is that we're looking to do things differently than traditional brands, looking for partners that share our values and share our mission.
2:49:02
>> Yeah, that makes sense.
2:49:02
>> Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that the wait on that like the the story that you're telling around like delivery and scale and reliability and the safe option does that mean visually you'll think you'll shift from product focused
2:49:20
you know this like look at this amazing cool thing that does this thing to more of like highlighting what's happening at Arsenal the manufacturing prowess the scale is that the type of story you're trying to focus on is that what is that how this will >> those stories to me complime each other. What it means is we're going beyond a
2:49:34
What it means is we're going beyond a product go to markets where say hey we're announcing this to the world to thinking about the stages of development post launch we did a really great job of this as a team I believe with Omen and
2:49:44
we told why a tail sitter is so hard to produce we tap back into the history of tail sitters across decades and what our engineers were able to accomplish to make Omen successful and all the rigorous testing that we did. We're
2:49:54
We're going to start to do that more with all of our products.
2:49:57
But that doesn't stop with testing. It's about fielding.
2:49:59
It's about putting in our customers hands and certainly it's about your point around manufacturing at scale.
2:50:05
Y so that starts with Arsenal one. Why do we build it?
2:50:09
The progress that we're making, the products that are scaling over time there and showing that the promises that we've made were able to deliver on. >> Very cool. Jordy, anything else? >> No.
2:50:19
>> Well, I have one other really important announcement in the spirit of our friend intern Tyler. Oh, yeah. >> Special day for you. It's your birthday. What?
2:50:26
>> I brought the first drink I had. >> Oh, no way.
2:50:28
[laughter] Ice burn off ice.
2:50:30
Incredible known as the nectar of life.
2:50:33
So the nectar of life of life.
2:50:36
>> Properly iced on the stream the first time ever. >> Incredible.
2:50:40
>> People were talking about a buzz, [laughter] >> dude. Great to see you. You're the man. Ice.
2:50:45
Well, this thing is huge. >> That is a huge ice.
2:50:49
>> Why don't you uh You're 21. You can indulge.
2:50:51
Enjoy enjoy a sip of >> of uh >> And I will tell Let's get the Tyler Camel.
2:50:58
And we'll we'll flip that around and I will tell everyone about graphite.
2:51:04
Oops, I just pushed Gastel. I'm sorry.
2:51:07
[laughter] First day on the board.
2:51:08
Okay, >> John's got a new board. >> I have a new board. Let's go with graphite. >> Here we go. >> Is it going to work? Yeah, there we go.
2:51:17
Code review for the age of AI.
2:51:17
Graphite helps teams on on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. Uh, >> we love graphite.
2:51:24
Hunter Weiss, friend of the show, sent me this uh video.
2:51:27
He did a Call of Duty edit over Uber Eatat's Meal Team Six, New York City's elite special forces delivery unit.
2:51:35
I wanted to take a look at this. Uh the Meal Team Six.
2:51:43
[laughter] >> How did he How did he make this?
2:51:43
Did he just walk outside? >> Pull this up. Yeah, pull up audio. >> Look at this. He's a good editor. online thing. >> Let's go.
2:52:01
>> We're going to get copyrighted strike for this, but it's worth it. It's worth it.
2:52:11
>> It is so crazy uh how much snow is happening.
2:52:14
We haven't been following it all, but uh US digs itself out from monster winter storm.
2:52:18
People shoveled snow Monday in Boston where over 17 ines of snow fell in the weekend storm that had nearly [music] 200 million Americans under weather warnings.
2:52:28
More than 710 household 710,000 households from Texas to Maine are still without power. That's very rough.
2:52:36
Hopefully that resolves quickly.
2:52:38
Um, did you ever live in the snow?
2:52:40
Have you ever lived in anywhere where it gets cold? >> Not. >> Tyler's the expert. >> Yeah. >> How's Michigan doing? Have you checked? >> Oh, yeah.
2:52:46
Michigan's really I don't know if they've >> Are people snowed in?
2:52:48
I think I think I thought it was a little bit further south.
2:52:51
I thought it was like Tennessee is getting hit really hard.
2:52:54
>> But um yeah, I hate the snow. It sucks.
2:52:56
That's why I'm living here.
2:52:57
>> I hate [laughter] the snow.
2:52:59
[gasps] >> Well, um where else should we go?
2:53:00
We have our special guest joining in just uh eight minutes. Eight minutes.
2:53:06
Um there is a clip from Ben, friend of the show, Ben Hilac.
2:53:11
He was he attended the OpenAI interview with Sam Alman and uh town hall uh chief OpenAI hater Nick of course clipped it and put it in a negative context.
2:53:23
Uh he he says uh you know there's some quotes here but let's pull up the the the question that Ben asked on this OpenAI stream.
2:53:31
>> A lot of discourse on like Twitter and X recently about chat uh about GT5's writing in chatbt um and being a little unwieldy hard to read.
2:53:38
Um, obviously GT5 is a much better agent model, really good tool use, intermediate reasoning, whatever.
2:53:46
Um, so it feels like it feels like uh models are a little bit spiky or they've gotten even spikier where some spikes like coding got super high, some spikes like uh or it's very unspiky around writing.
2:53:58
So I'm just kind of curious how how OpenAI thinks about that.
2:54:03
>> I I think we just screwed that up.
2:54:03
Uh we will make future versions of GPT 5.
2:54:06
x X uh hopefully much better at writing than 4. 5 was.
2:54:10
Um we did decide and I think for good reason to put most of our effort in 5.
2:54:18
2 into making it super good at >> intelligence, reasoning, coding, engineering, that kind of thing.
2:54:24
Um and we have limited bandwidth here and sometimes we focus on one thing and neglect another.
2:54:30
But I believe that the future is mostly going to be about very good general purpose models.
2:54:36
Um, you know, even if you're trying to make a model that's really great at coding.
2:54:44
It'd be nice if it writes well, too.
2:54:45
Like if you're trying to have it be able to generate a full application for you, you'd like good writing in there.
2:54:50
When it's interacting with you, you'd like it to have a sort of thoughtful, incisive personality and communicate clearly.
2:54:55
Like good writing in the sense of clear thought, not like beautiful pros.
2:54:59
Um, so my hope is that we just push Nick. >> Nick's in the chat.
2:55:05
Oh no, his ears are ringing.
2:55:08
>> Uh, dimensions and I think we will do that. >> Okay, fair.
2:55:11
[laughter] >> We just read Nick. >> You built a brand. >> You built a brand. Uh, >> yeah.
2:55:19
I I mean, playing catchup now. I guess that's true. I guess that's true.
2:55:23
At least uh in in Ben's perspective.
2:55:25
>> Nick John in the truth zone. >> Truth zone. True. Um, no, no.
2:55:26
I mean, uh, I was looking on Ella Marina, the leaderboard for text, and GPT 5.
2:55:31
2 is 16th, like well, well below.
2:55:34
Gemini 3 Pro is number one. Grock 4.
2:55:37
1 Thinking is number two, Gemini 3 Flash, Opus 4. 5, Opus 4. 5, Grock 4. 1. Uh, GPT 5.
2:55:42
1 high is in ninth, and then you have to go down to 5. 2 to get 16th.
2:55:48
Um, to you have to go down to 16 to get to 5. 2. Um, so yeah.
2:55:56
Uh it is interesting seeing the uh like the spiky intelligence things kind of turned into a stat bar of like you know uh where are you putting the uh the like the points uh the skill points or whatever.
2:56:11
Uh and they put too many of the points into >> I will say I don't want chatbt to fix their issues with writing.
2:56:18
I don't want it to be I I now am at a point where I'm like thank you for making it very easy to clock when something is written by AI.
2:56:29
>> I think that's totally like stated versus revealed preference.
2:56:31
If you have like an incredible model that writes something that you find like super compelling obviously.
2:56:36
>> No, I'm talking about because people are using chat GBT now to make scripts for videos.
2:56:40
They're using it to make uh to make to do bots that are writing comments.
2:56:45
And I know as soon as I can see something is just written by Chad GBT that I can just scroll past it and and uh basically ignore it. >> Yeah, sure.
2:56:53
But imagine like in the far future where those comments are actually like, "Wow, this is like very insightful and thoughtprovoking and I'm glad that I read this text." Like that's good. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:57:03
>> I think I think we can get there.
2:57:05
>> Also, so I um back in March, Sam tweeted that they they trained a new model that is good at creative writing that he released this whole story. Yeah.
2:57:10
Um and I think they they've never really released that.
2:57:13
Maybe it got vended in somehow to >> distilled a little bit, but there were trade-offs clearly and and it does seem and I I'm not sure that they actually did end up releasing.
2:57:22
>> Yeah, I mean the the really interesting thing to apologize and steal man Nick's point here is uh is is that like should chat GPT be focused on coding certainly in the you know the how are they going to compete with Cloudbot, they need a really great coding model.
2:57:38
Uh we'll talk to our guest in just a minute about you know how he's how he's using 5. 2. Uh he's ready. >> He's ready. So let's bring him in.
2:57:46
Um from the reream waiting room, >> we have [music] Peter Steinberger >> from Molan of the hour. >> How are you doing?
2:57:55
Thank you so much for staying up late. What time is it for you? >> Uh it's 11. >> Thank you so much.
2:58:01
We really appreciate >> 11 p. m.
2:58:03
for everybody that's just 11 p. m. 11 p. m.
2:58:06
>> Um, so I'd love to kick it off with just a brief background on when you started this project, a little bit of your career, how you how you're thinking about it going forward, and then I >> This was this was your very first project ever, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:58:18
First time coding, right?
2:58:19
[laughter] >> No, we were we were enjoying uh we were enjoying a screenshot of your your GitHub profile earlier and just seeing like Yeah.
2:58:28
How many how many different things? >> An overnight success.
2:58:31
>> A true overnight success.
2:58:31
But uh we're super excited to have you here. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Yeah.
2:58:36
I'm excited to be here as well.
2:58:38
>> Um yeah, I don't know.
2:58:38
I I worked for my own software company for 13 years. >> Mhm.
2:58:47
>> And then I I sold it about 4 years ago.
2:58:52
>> Then I was completely burned out. Mhm.
2:58:54
>> I did like I mean it's it's TV but still I did blackjack and hookers >> and [laughter] >> wild.
2:59:05
Well, we're glad we're glad you're back in the game. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:59:09
You know you know what they say like for every four years you need like one year break and I did like 13 years non-stop.
2:59:14
So like three years the math kind of checks out. >> Okay.
2:59:17
And then this year, no last year, not 2016.
2:59:21
Um, in April, uh, at some point I my spark was back. >> Yeah.
2:59:30
>> Um, because before I was like I was sitting on my computer and I don't know if you've seen Austin Powers, but it it it felt like someone sucked my Mojo out.
2:59:38
>> Um, but yeah, I I had time to to recover.
2:59:39
I came back in April and I wanted to do something new.
2:59:44
My background was like a lot of Apple and iOS and I'm a little bit fed up.
2:59:48
I I wanted I wanted I wanted to build that stuff >> and I [clears throat] didn't have the experience.
2:59:54
I didn't want to feel like an idiot.
2:59:56
So I looked into AI and it was good.
3:00:01
It was not great but it was good.
3:00:04
Um and I was like why is nobody talking about it?
3:00:06
You know, I feel like because I missed those three years where it was really bad and I can back just at the time like clock code was released what February in beta. >> Yeah.
3:00:18
>> So this was my first experience.
3:00:18
I was like this is this is pretty awesome. >> Mhm.
3:00:23
>> And and then I I couldn't sleep anymore.
3:00:25
Like I literally had trouble I had trouble going to bed.
3:00:28
You know we had like addiction before and then like we had addiction again.
3:00:31
[laughter] Um, >> but a but a positive one. >> Yeah.
3:00:36
Well, yeah, I would say so.
3:00:36
Um, and I I hooked up a lot of my friends for uh looking into as well and they had the same problem and I texted them at like 4:00 a. m. and they replied.
3:00:47
Um, I even I even started a a meetup.
3:00:50
That's where I come from.
3:00:52
I call it uh I called it cloud code anonymous.
3:00:54
Now it's called agents anonymous because you have to go with the times. >> Sure.
3:00:59
>> And and yeah, ever since then I That's what I say on my profile.
3:01:03
I came back from retirement to mess with AI. >> Yeah.
3:01:07
>> And I'm having loads of fun. >> That's great. >> I love it.
3:01:10
Maybe maybe walk us through some of the other stuff that you shipped and and worked on prior to this and and and even just kind of like your mindset working on these different projects.
3:01:18
I'm I'm assuming at different points you would think that some would get more traction than others, but it would probably be impossible to have predicted in some ways that this would have gone from almost to the point the reason that this so wild is I'm seeing people on Instagram that like I don't think of as people that like follow tech at all and they're at the Apple store getting a Mac Mini.
3:01:43
So it feels like it just went it broke containment like incredibly quickly and you see the GitHub stars are like actually I've never seen a chart like this every you know the last the last you know every everybody loves to show their charts but the chart is actually unbelievable.
3:01:57
It's just a line going straight up.
3:02:00
>> I I I need to talk to someone at GitHub because I I don't think that's been a project before that that's been like straight >> crazy.
3:02:07
It is it is it is bad insane. >> Yeah.
3:02:10
Um, I mean honestly my main mantra is I want to have fun, you know, like the best way to learn these new technologies if if you have fun with it.
3:02:19
You have to play with it.
3:02:21
So I I build little things that I think could be useful.
3:02:23
I try different languages.
3:02:25
I try different approaches.
3:02:28
Um, it's aantic engineering.
3:02:28
I don't like the word vibe coding so much.
3:02:32
I always make the joke I I do agentic engineering and then when it starts hitting 3 a. m.
3:02:37
I switch to VIP coding and then [laughter] next day I have regrets. Yeah.
3:02:41
>> You should have just gone to sleep basically. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes that's hard.
3:02:46
>> Um but then I just I just build little things.
3:02:50
I had this idea about personal agents in in in May already and I I tried it was like the time that GBD41 was out.
3:02:59
It was just not good enough.
3:03:03
And then I thought, well, all the big all the big companies will build this in the next few months anyhow.
3:03:10
So So I was like, why why why the f should I do that?
3:03:12
You know, I was just going to wait and they make it better. >> Yeah.
3:03:17
>> And I build out and I I build a lot of stuff.
3:03:20
Um there's like one project that is still unfinished that I at some point want to finish and I build a lot of a lot of CLI because that's that's where agents are really good.
3:03:31
You know, you have to close the loop.
3:03:32
That's always the the secret.
3:03:34
You have to give you have to build it so that the agent has the best possible way to build software.
3:03:39
This is that's the the secret a little bit.
3:03:41
Um I tried a lot of stuff and then in November I looked and still there was nothing like where is where is my agent?
3:03:56
>> Um I I I had a little project in in May.
3:04:01
I spent two months on it.
3:04:01
Uh it it started as a joke because we I did a hackathon with with two friends and we like what can we build that that could be kind of cool?
3:04:10
Wouldn't it be cool if we could use plot code from my phone? Yeah.
3:04:13
>> Uh it's kind of like something that everybody builds.
3:04:15
I see this like every day.
3:04:17
Like by now I almost call it like this is like >> one step in your journey in becoming a good authentic engineer is you're going to build some some shitty orchestration tool for yourself because it's fun and you think >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Bridge.
3:04:29
And I I built that for 2 months and then uh I had to stop because it became so good that I was up with my friends but literally was my phone like using cloud code to like work on this thing.
3:04:41
It's like this is bad for my mental health.
3:04:43
It's already bad and now like I'm I'm literally building something better access to my drugs. >> Yeah.
3:04:49
I mean, I saw I I I've seen people using cloud code on laptops as they get off of airplanes because they're so locked in they just have to send one more and that's like the clearest sign that like you need a bridge and a phone involved. >> Yeah.
3:05:02
No, but also like you know like this this feeling when your agent's not running like right now there's like two terminals so you could be building something, right?
3:05:09
So so if you're in this addiction mode, you're almost like you almost feel like >> if you need to step out for 10 seconds and fire. [laughter] >> Yeah.
3:05:17
Feel free to take a break.
3:05:19
Adri there's >> there's still some drama that that I'm I'm I'm finishing.
3:05:23
But anyhow, >> um so in November, >> yeah, >> I I don't know, you know, I wake up every day, I'm like, "Okay, what do I want to work on now? What would be cool?"
3:05:35
And then they was like, "Okay, I I want to chat with my computer on WhatsApp because because if my agents are not running and then I go to the kitchen, I want to check up on them or like I want to like do little prompts." >> Yeah.
3:05:49
>> So I I just hack together some WhatsApp integration that literally receives a message, calls Cloud Code, and then returns what Cloud Code returns. One shot. >> Yeah.
3:06:03
>> And it took like 1 hour and it worked.
3:06:05
I'm like, well, okay, that's kind of cool.
3:06:07
>> But I usually use prompts, like a little text and an image, cuz images are like they often give you so much context and you don't have to type so much. >> Mhm.
3:06:18
>> So, I feel like this is like one of the hacks where you can prompt faster just like make a screenshot.
3:06:21
So, the agents are really good at figuring out what you want.
3:06:24
Um, so I hacked together images and then I I was on a trip in Marrakesh with like a weekend birthday trip >> and I I [clears throat] found myself using this like way more than I than I saw but not for not for programming.
3:06:39
It's more like, hey, there like there's like restaurants.
3:06:41
Um, because it it it had Google in it and it it could figure out stuff and it's like especially when you're on the go, it is like super useful.
3:06:51
And then and I wasn't thinking I was just sending it a voice message, you know, but I didn't build that.
3:06:56
There was no support for voice messages in there.
3:07:00
So So the reading indicator came and I'm like, "Oh, I'm really curious what's what's happening now."
3:07:04
And then after 10 seconds, my agent replied as if nothing happened.
3:07:08
I'm like, "How the f did you do that?"
3:07:15
And it replied, "Yeah, you sent me you sent me a message, but there was only a link to a file with no file ending.
3:07:18
So I looked at the file header.
3:07:21
I found out that it's Opus.
3:07:23
So I used FFmpeg on your Mac to convert it to to Wave.
3:07:25
And then I wanted to use Visper, but didn't had it installed, and there was an installed error, but then I looked around and found the OpenI key in your environment.
3:07:34
So I sent it via curl to OpenAI.
3:07:34
um got the translation back and then I unresponded >> and that was like the moment where like >> wow. >> Yeah.
3:07:42
>> You know, it's like that's where it clicked.
3:07:44
These things are like >> damn smart, resourceful >> beasts if you actually give them the power. >> Sure.
3:07:54
>> Um and then I was I was kind of hooked like I I did all kinds of of of weird stuff like I use as alarm clock.
3:08:01
I I let it migrate to my computer in London, but then it use SSH to log into my my Mac MacBook and turn up the volume to wake me up in the morning.
3:08:11
I think I built world's most expensive alarm clock.
3:08:14
[laughter] >> Yeah, that's crazy.
3:08:16
>> And it even got it wrong because I had like a it uses a heartbeat, >> you know, like the concept of you do a prompt and you get something is already if inherently dangerous, but I was like, let's turn it up a notch.
3:08:30
Let's let's automate that.
3:08:33
Let's give it a heartbeat.
3:08:34
And and then the prompt was literally surprise me. >> Yeah. Wow. >> Um >> very cool.
3:08:43
>> But you know, I I see this this project as as much technology as it is like art and exploration >> cuz this feels in one way in one way it's just glue.
3:08:54
It's it's it's just putting pieces together that we already have.
3:08:56
In another way, it's it's a whole different way how you interact with those things because all the technology blends away.
3:09:06
You don't think about new session, compaction, rich model.
3:09:09
I mean, maybe a little bit because tokens are still expensive.
3:09:14
Um, but usually all of that blends away.
3:09:17
You just you just talk to a friend or a ghost or whatever.
3:09:24
Maybe last year everyone was wanting these agentic experiences.
3:09:27
You were having this experience and and it seemed like all the focus was on browsers and seeing the way that people have been using uh uh sorry mold maltbots.
3:09:40
Taking me a while to adapt.
3:09:40
Uh it just feels like all the focus was at the wrong layer.
3:09:45
It's like why do I care about the browser if I can just talk with an agent >> across every app >> across every app, every every surface?
3:09:54
It's like I don't care about the browser at all anymore. >> Yeah.
3:09:58
>> I mean I I mean a lot of the prep work I did before I built this was just build little CLI cuz my my my premises MCPS are crap. >> Mhm. >> Doesn't really scale.
3:10:10
Uh people build like all kinds of weird search things around it.
3:10:13
But you know what scales? CLI. Uh agents know Unix.
3:10:19
You can have like a thousand little programs on your computer.
3:10:20
um you they just have to know the name. They call the help menu.
3:10:25
They load in what's needed.
3:10:27
We are calling the help menu.
3:10:30
Then they know how to use it and then they can use it.
3:10:32
And if you if you are smart, you build it in a way that just uses what the model already expects.
3:10:39
You know, >> don't build it for humans. Build it for model.
3:10:45
So if they call minus minus log, you build minus minus log.
3:10:48
It's like aentic driven for like Yeah.
3:10:51
build build how they think and everything works better.
3:10:55
It's a new kind of software in a way. >> Yeah.
3:10:58
>> Um so for most of the things I don't need a browser like I built something for the whole Google thing for places for my Sonos.
3:11:09
I hooked up my cameras my my my home automation system and like with every little CLI and skill my agent got more power and he got more fun. Yeah.
3:11:19
>> Um, and I already had a lot of that working when I when I I built the the WhatsApp thing and I just got hooked.
3:11:28
And the thing was I found it amazing and I talked about it on Twitter and usually when I when I talk about projects I I [clears throat] get response but this one it was very muted.
3:11:42
It felt like people are not getting it.
3:11:47
I I showed it to my friends, even my non- tech friends, and they're like they wanted it.
3:11:51
So, it was like I was I was up to something, you know?
3:11:55
>> Uh but the tech people wouldn't get it.
3:11:57
So, I tried I tried a bunch of thing like I kept working on it cuz I used it and ultimately I build it for me.
3:12:06
You know, this is open source.
3:12:08
My motivation is have fun, inspire people, not make a whole bunch of money.
3:12:15
I already have a whole bunch of money.
3:12:16
Um, >> how are you how are you how have you been navigating the last uh 72 hours?
3:12:24
I mean the last last week really because because we were joking earlier on the show like the amount of the amount of people that are frantically trying to give you money acquire the company >> you contribute to the project hire you >> uh you know there's companies with you know 0.
3:12:44
01% of the traction that are raising at you know multi-billion dollar valuations.
3:12:50
You have infinite opportunities right now and yet you seem very happy doing just continuing to do exactly what you're doing.
3:12:58
But how are you thinking through it all?
3:13:02
>> I mean, how am I taking it?
3:13:02
Badly, at least sleepwise.
3:13:04
Uh, but it but it's also infinitely exciting and I I love that I started something, you know.
3:13:10
I I I would say last year was the year of the coding agent.
3:13:16
This year is the year of the personal assistant. >> Mhm.
3:13:22
>> And I think I cracked and woke up people that there's a real need for it.
3:13:28
>> I don't know if if if Mobot is is the answer.
3:13:32
It's it should show people the way.
3:13:34
I'm sure there's going to be a lot of a lot of products in the space.
3:13:36
I'm sure people are manically working on it right now.
3:13:40
>> Um >> I would say it's going to be very interesting. Yeah.
3:13:44
But there was a lot of stuff um between Twitter literally exploding our Discord server multiplying in in ways I haven't seen before and in ways I I couldn't handle.
3:14:01
Like at some point I was just copy pasting questions from Discord into Codex.
3:14:10
Then the [clears throat] response wrote the next question.
3:14:11
At some point that didn't scale anymore.
3:14:13
So I just like copied the whole channel.
3:14:14
I'm like, [laughter] "Answer the answer the 20 most questions."
3:14:17
I was like reading over it, gave him a few instructions and and and then just pushed it over.
3:14:20
Um cuz what what people don't realize it's like this is not a company.
3:14:26
This is like one dude sitting at home having fun. >> Yeah.
3:14:31
>> Um even though like I guess from the commits it it might appear that it's a company. >> Yeah.
3:14:36
That's that's just because Atlantic models got so good that you can now ship as much as a company could a year ago. >> Yeah.
3:14:46
>> If you if you if you can handle those tools, if you >> speak the language or like understand how the language thinks. >> Mhm.
3:14:57
>> You can you can go really fast. >> Yeah.
3:14:59
>> How are the conversations going with with different labs?
3:15:01
with different labs? I was saying earlier it's this kind of exciting moment for the labs because they're like wow people are using the intell you know someone's using the intelligence that I created in a new way but at the same time it's deeply uncomfortable because
3:15:14
they're also using all of my competitors and you make it very easy to to kind of >> use whatever model um >> you know you know I my premise for this project was a little bit that every model should work including local models because >> to me it's a playground it's It's it's an amazing way to learn. Like I think
3:15:33
Like I think everybody should like build an aentic loop.
3:15:36
You should like explore memory.
3:15:39
There's like so many interesting aspects of it.
3:15:41
And I I built it so that like it has like plugins so like people can work alone little thing without having to like mess with the whole core.
3:15:48
>> So it's it it's like the AI hackers paradise a little bit >> and it it's also super fun because it's personal.
3:15:55
Um modelwise, Oppus is [clears throat] with quite a bit lead the best.
3:16:02
Um OpenAI is very reliable.
3:16:08
I would even say more reliable and more reliable worker.
3:16:13
Like for coding, I I I much prefer Codex because it it can navigate large code bases.
3:16:18
large code bases. I literally you can literally prompt and then push to main and I have a very I have like 95% certainty that it actually works >> with cloud code you need you need more tricks to to get the same you need more more charade I sometimes say >> both are good but I can paralyze faster
3:16:42
by codex because it it requires less handholding um but character-wise I tell you I don't know what they trained their model on, how much of Reddit is in there or whatever, but it it behaves so good in in a Discord like we programmed it so it it it it it it kind of it kind of feels like a human. It doesn't reply to
3:17:06
It doesn't reply to every message.
3:17:08
I gave it this thing where >> it can reply no reply basically like a token and then we just don't send a message.
3:17:16
>> So So it it it's it's not like it spans with every message.
3:17:18
It's like it listens to the conversation and then sometimes brings a banger and like like that [clears throat] actually make me laugh and you know it's kind of hard because because the jokes of AIS are usually really bad. >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:17:32
>> Um and I only really experienced that with with Opus.
3:17:36
So this is that's my favorite model.
3:17:39
That's also why it's a little bit of a banger that I got an email um from Antropic that I had to rename the project. >> Mhm.
3:17:50
>> And I I mean, kudos, they were really nice.
3:17:53
They they they didn't send their lawyers.
3:17:55
They sent someone internally.
3:17:57
Um but the timeline was a bit rough and like renaming a project with that much traction.
3:18:07
Uh it was a bit of a show.
3:18:07
I think everything that everything that could have gone wrong today went wrong. >> Oh no. >> I tell you.
3:18:16
Yeah, I mean for what it's worth, the new names really well.
3:18:18
worth, the new names really well. I guess the thing the thing that's actually good I think in the long run it'll be good I mean obviously it's good for anthropic they it's it's kind of untenable to have this massive viral even though it's not a company right an open source project have this viral kind of >> brand out in the world that it doesn't
3:18:35
matter if it you know it's spelled differently but when people are running around talking about Claudebot or Claude you know there's obvious confusion but I think it'll be very good for for uh Maltbot to have independence and have its own And uh and I think it's so early and the experience is so magical that uh it'll it'll it'll solve itself very quickly. >> It'll be fine. But I tell you like I >> It'll be fine.
3:18:57
But I tell you like I well I got some additional pressures. I was like screw it. We do it now. >> Yeah.
3:19:06
>> You know like the meme we do it live.
3:19:07
[laughter] >> So So I I had two windows open with Twitter. >> Oh no.
3:19:14
[laughter] on the one I pressed rename on the other one like I finished creating the other account >> was already snapped by by cryptoshells. >> Wow.
3:19:25
>> I don't know that they have like they have like scripts.
3:19:26
They were already waiting for it in >> us.
3:19:29
We would have connected you to X the team.
3:19:32
They can do it on the back end.
3:19:33
>> We can do it on the back.
3:19:34
>> Next time hopefully no next time.
3:19:36
>> Oh, they they they they were amazing.
3:19:38
They helped me out immediately.
3:19:38
We got it solved very quickly.
3:19:39
But but for like 20 minutes uh Yeah.
3:19:43
Well, that didn't work out so well. >> Hopefully.
3:19:49
>> You're like, you're like, if I wanted money, I would raise a billion dollars, right? >> Yeah. [laughter] >> All right.
3:19:54
So, I'd sell it for >> more than that. >> Yeah. Do you own a Mac Mini?
3:19:59
[clears throat] >> Everyone wants to know, do you own a Mac Mini?
3:20:02
What do you think of Mac Minis?
3:20:04
>> Um, my agent is a little bit of a princess.
3:20:06
He doesn't do Mac Minis with Mac Studios. [laughter] >> Okay. >> You want some horses?
3:20:11
He got he got the he got the the 512 maxed out everything thing cuz cuz I wanted to like mess around with local models as well.
3:20:19
So like I I I can run Miniax 21 which is >> uh I would say is is the best the best uh open source model right now.
3:20:30
Although Kim just came out and I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
3:20:33
So so we'll see how that goes. >> Yeah.
3:20:37
>> But yeah, one machine is not enough for it. It's not fun.
3:20:41
you probably need two or three.
3:20:42
And I kind of want to wait until Apple does a new release.
3:20:44
But it's still fun to like to like see the potential that Yeah, there's a there is a future where this could actually work. >> Yeah.
3:20:52
>> Well, uh if if the if the Mac Mini trend keeps going, Apple from from what we've seen sells like between a quarter million to like 700,000 a year. >> Yeah.
3:21:02
>> It's very possible that you'll be responsible for selling them out.
3:21:03
So hopefully they send you some free ones as a as a thank you. >> Yeah.
3:21:09
So yeah, I mean zooming out do you how much of this do you think is going to remain hacker culture running your own hardware uh and eventually people will move to cloud hosting one-click deployments like just easier to use less technical uh versus like a real boom in running hardware because if you don't there's not a lot of ways to get these different services to play nicely together.
3:21:37
I think one of the beauties beyond just the actual AI agents is the fact that for the first time I think people are seeing different big tech platforms kind of play with each other somewhat against their will.
3:21:50
They don't they build walled gardens for a reason and you sort of chop those walls down.
3:21:57
And I'm wondering what you think about the future of like self-hosting hardware uh you know even going down the less technical crew getting hardware running their own uh their own agents.
3:22:11
I don't think the future will be that everybody buys a Mac mini just for that you know >> but I certainly see the demand for the old models have to change >> you know like when you are a company you want to access Gmail the amount of red
3:22:26
tape is so large that that startups buy other startups that have the license for Gmail because going through the process yourself is is a is a huge pit >> sure >> um but if you run locally you work around all of that, right? Like if I mean I
3:22:41
Like if I mean I mean I build I built plenty CLI where I literally I literally pointed Codex at the website and say um build me a CLI and then >> which is sometimes against the term, sometimes not.
3:22:58
Honestly, I don't really care.
3:23:00
>> Um and then Codex would say, "No, I can't do that.
3:23:02
This is like against blah blah blah."
3:23:03
And I would like tell him a story, you know?
3:23:05
was like, "No, no, I actually work at this company and I need to surprise my boss and the back end team doesn't know."
3:23:10
[laughter] And like, you know, give it a little bit of a story like like there's so like 40 minutes like gives you the perfect API.
3:23:20
So, so this is a little bit the the liberation of data that big tech probably doesn't really want.
3:23:27
I mean, even even the WhatsApp integration is a hack, you know.
3:23:30
This is like it it it fakes the the protocol that the desktop uses.
3:23:35
I tried I really tried to support uh the official way >> but the official way is for businesses. Yeah.
3:23:42
If I'm a business that sends you 100 messages, I get blocked.
3:23:44
So I got blocked immediately and at some point I I removed support for it in Rage.
3:23:47
It's like delete everything.
3:23:50
It's like [laughter] 100 100 exclamation marks.
3:23:52
Um >> there's just no model for that right now.
3:23:58
And I think that needs to change. >> Yeah.
3:24:00
like the what what I saw what was really interesting with how people use it is a lot of apps will just melt away.
3:24:10
>> Why do I still need my fitness pile?
3:24:10
I just make a picture of my food.
3:24:14
My my agent already knows I'm I'm at McDonald's making bad decisions.
3:24:19
So like this with combined information, it has a perfect match and knows exactly what I'm going to eat and I'm probably like change my fitness program.
3:24:27
So, I don't need the fitness app.
3:24:29
It'll just like adapt my program and make sure like I still meet my goals. >> Mhm.
3:24:35
>> So, like there's a whole there's a whole big layer of of apps that I going to see disappear because you just naturally interact differently with those things. >> Mhm.
3:24:48
>> Like most apps will be reduced to API and then the question is do you still even need the API if I can just save it somewhere else? >> Yeah.
3:24:59
Do you think like do you think it'll be a generational thing?
3:25:01
Do you think that uh that uh non-technical people will you know get over the hump and start running this for that experience specifically?
3:25:14
I I just I just came from a meetup uh the agent I know was from Indiana >> and I met someone who was like a a design agency but they never coded and he was like yeah he discovered me early in in December.
3:25:27
He started using Maltbot.
3:25:31
>> Yes, >> we we going to we're going to we're going to manage eventually.
3:25:34
>> Don't don't worry we'll say it thousands of times this year I'm sure. So >> we will multibot.
3:25:40
>> I should say multipot. That's cute.
3:25:40
Um and and he was like, "Yeah, we have 25 web services now.
3:25:44
We just build internal tools for whatever we need." And like >> has no clue.
3:25:47
He has no clue how Cody works.
3:25:50
He just like uses Telegram and and like just talks to his agent and his agent builds stuff.
3:25:53
So So there's there's this whole shift of you don't you don't subscribe to random startups anymore that that build like this common subset of what you need.
3:26:02
You just have your own hyperpersonalized software that solves exactly your problem and it's also free. >> Yeah.
3:26:10
So, and and and non-technical people do that, you know, because it just comes so naturally.
3:26:15
You just you just talk your problem and then this thing builds what you need.
3:26:19
And you also don't forget like this is the worst that the models ever are.
3:26:23
Like there's this is only going to go up.
3:26:26
This is only going to become easier and faster. >> Mhm.
3:26:32
>> Have you met Jensen yet?
3:26:32
[laughter] >> Cuz I feel like you're making his life.
3:26:37
You're definitely helping out Nidia. bullcase, right?
3:26:40
>> It's like I would if I would had my tinfoil hat on, I might say you're you're an you know, big AI industry plant designed to create more inference demand. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I guess. Yeah.
3:26:54
[laughter] >> No, we we were joking around. Uh just just an indie. >> What's next?
3:26:59
Yeah, I'm assuming you hopefully get an after you finish firing off prompts at 3:00 a. m. you get some sleep.
3:27:06
What are you doing tomorrow?
3:27:10
Um, there's a lot of emails from security researchers right now. >> Yeah.
3:27:15
>> You know, you know, the thing is I built this for fun >> for me to use one-on-one on WhatsApp or Telegram. >> Mhm.
3:27:24
>> The whole thing with Discord was like edit, but >> the model was that you trust the people that are in there.
3:27:29
Now, people use it for >> untrusted experiences. >> Yeah.
3:27:35
They use like the the little the little web app that I have that is that was meant for debugging, they put it on the open internet.
3:27:43
So like all the thread models that I in didn't care about are now there because people use it differently and I'm being bombarded.
3:27:52
There's like some stuff that's valid, some stuff that I just never cared about that is technically valid, but that's not how I use it. >> Mhm.
3:27:59
Um, I don't know how to deal with that yet because it's the whole system is broken, you know, like I I'm like one guy.
3:28:06
I do this for fun and you expect me to sift through 100 security uh things for use cases that I don't really care about. >> So, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.
3:28:21
Um, luckily I I'm starting to build up a team.
3:28:24
There's definitely people that do care a lot about this.
3:28:26
So I would say this is going to become a very secure product eventually because right now the whole world is like >> pulling it apart and if you're honest this is this is all bike coded you know >> uh like there's there's there's quite some aching engineering in it but ultimately I wanted to build something to show people anyway not a finished product from enterprise company. >> Yeah.
3:28:52
And and I would I would even say like I don't know if any company would touch it because we just haven't solved some things like prompt injection is not solved. >> Yeah.
3:29:03
>> Yeah. There is there is absolute risk and I and I I try to make it very clear in in on the website and even when you start it you have to like please read this document there's like with with great power comes great responsibility and my early users they understood there
3:29:18
was a lot there's a lot of AI researches in there as well that yeah it's not perfect cannot be done perfect yet um I I would say this will accelerate research to make it better because now you have the demand and we need to figure out a way how we build something that works for everyone. Um,
3:29:36
Um, but yeah, right now I'm I'm working on making this a community.
3:29:41
It It should be bigger than me. It also I need help.
3:29:49
It It is way too much work.
3:29:51
Like I can only I can only go so much without sleep.
3:29:53
Um, >> so, so is any part of you want to form an actual company that then, you know, contributes to the open source project, uh, but solves some of these problems that, uh, are going to require, you know, a bunch of people that presumably would need a salary in order to commit all their time to this, or do you want to keep it, you know, just a bunch of hackers forever?
3:30:18
I think instead of a company, I would much rather consider a foundation or like something that is nonprofit.
3:30:22
Um, I haven't made up my mind yet.
3:30:27
There is >> 10,000 10,000 VCs just punched a hole in the wall.
3:30:32
[laughter] >> Actually, I don't know.
3:30:36
Some people have had a good track record investing in nonprofits over the last >> That's true. 10 years.
3:30:40
Uh, how do you think about open-source licensing?
3:30:42
What what what are you picking now? Are you switching?
3:30:48
Do you have any plans to change the license?
3:30:50
How do you think about someone just taking this and selling it? >> This will happen.
3:30:55
This will totally happen. >> Yeah.
3:30:57
>> Um I would say the premise against it is let's make open source so good that there's not a lot of space for people to like convert it and make it their own thing. >> Sure.
3:31:07
>> But you know, ultimately it's it's a trade-off.
3:31:09
I wanted to I wanted it to be accessible and free.
3:31:13
You pick MIT or something like that. Yes.
3:31:16
That will get you people that that that sell it. >> Yeah.
3:31:21
>> But ultimately it doesn't even matter that much.
3:31:28
You know, code is code is not worth that much anymore.
3:31:33
>> It's you could you could you could just delete that and then and then build it again in months.
3:31:39
It's it's much more the idea and the eyeballs uh and maybe the brand that actually has value.
3:31:48
So, let them >> you are already a cult hero.
3:31:56
>> Yeah, the chat's going crazy for you. Everyone loves you.
3:31:59
>> This is uh one of the most refreshing and unique interviews we've ever had on the show. >> For sure. For sure.
3:32:04
We'll let you get some sleep.
3:32:06
Uh, thank you so much for hopping on the show. >> Yeah.
3:32:10
Anything else you want to share before you jump off? >> Yeah. >> Uh, yes.
3:32:14
I would love to have maintainers like if you if you love open source, if you have experience, if you love shifting to security reports, uh, or or if you love taking software apart, but then also help and not just like throw work at me because I'm like at my limit, um, email me.
3:32:33
Um, I want this to outlift me. >> Mhm.
3:32:40
>> Uh, this I think this is too cool to to to let it go to rot and it's good people. >> Yeah. >> Incredible.
3:32:50
Are you going to ship that product you had in the in the chamber?
3:32:54
You said there was one you were close or you going to lock in on this?
3:33:00
>> That's that's my hobby. I don't know.
3:33:02
No, no, I have I have some other ideas in my head of um what something like this could become. >> Mhm.
3:33:10
>> And it doesn't need to be this.
3:33:10
But I don't want to share too much. >> Yeah, no problem.
3:33:14
Come back on the show when you when you launch that. We'd love to have you.
3:33:18
>> Purely for the love of the game. >> The love of the game.
3:33:21
>> You're an absolute legend.
3:33:21
It was great hanging, Peter. >> Thanks so much. >> Get some sleep. >> Get some sleep. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye. >> Founder Moon. What a legend. >> Yeah.
3:33:32
>> Uh true overnight success in both ways, you know, like actually an overnight success in terms of that GitHub star chart.
3:33:39
Uh and then also an overnight success in just grinding for, you know, years, building projects and contributing and then uh building setting the product up, the brand, right?
3:33:49
Everything just perfect to really uh capitalize on the moment.
3:33:52
There were so many I I I normally I don't have we don't we're podcasting so much don't have a ton of time to relisten to stuff but there were so many kind of interesting points of view that he shared that uh I'll certainly be >> super interested to see where this goes.
3:34:08
A lot of people are saying get this guy a billion dollars.
3:34:09
A lot of people are saying he's going to wind up working >> the whole thing is I don't think he needs it. >> Yeah.
3:34:14
>> Like like the the beauty of this is that it was not something magical that was created by >> spending burning a billion dollars or a million.
3:34:22
thing is uh is do you remember the George Hott's tiny box project? Like George H.
3:34:27
Hots sort of >> Oh, he should team up with George Hot. >> Yeah. I mean, George H.
3:34:30
Hot sort of like uh predicted this in the sense that he was like, you will want your own AI running locally, sort of the Mac Mini style, but it was racked a number of Nvidia graphics cards, so you could run certain models locally.
3:34:44
And he had this vision for you're going to talk to this local model.
3:34:49
It's gonna interface with everything on your network on your local network in your life and it feels like this is like two sides of the same project coming together.
3:34:57
And I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of uh you know viral tiny box if all of a sudden you go from okay yeah there's the the Mac Mini can run this but you get this better local model the latest open- source model you get something a little bit more with more firepower um and and and you can run it just with solar panels like off the grid.
3:35:16
Yeah, this is generally what uh not far from what S for Satoshi has been building with truffle, you know, the little orb, right?
3:35:25
Personal >> personal compute.
3:35:27
Well, we have been keeping our next guest waiting.
3:35:31
>> Yes, we have Aaron Frank from Light Speed in the Ultra Dome.
3:35:33
Aaron, I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting. Thank you so much.
3:35:38
Can I just >> tap back to follow? >> How you doing? Grab a seat. I'm [music] 6' 8. Thanks to you, too. This is fantastic. >> Yes.
3:35:51
>> Welcome to the Ultra Dome.
3:35:52
>> Welcome to the Ultradome. First time in the Ultra.
3:35:54
>> Did you get to listen to some of that?
3:35:55
>> I It's actually like a hard act to follow. >> It's a weird one.
3:35:59
[laughter] >> It's like the most viral product uh that anyone has seen in a very long time. First interview.
3:36:05
First interview. uh one of the most unique uh you know people don't typically build a viral product and then >> talk about what do you say hookers and and blackjack something like that his words not mine >> in the chat >> um but uh anyways very very unique uh how are you doing though
3:36:23
>> I'm doing great flying into town head up to Santa Barbara this LA is beautiful I always get that it's a nice place to it's a it's not the best city but it's a it's a it's a great place >> you're getting in trouble again saying that why does he live in LA if he doesn't think it's the that city. Um,
3:36:36
Um, anyway, sorry, first time on, uh, in the Ultradome.
3:36:40
Please introduce yourself for everyone who >> Aaron Frank, I'm a former founder, so uh, I'm getting old now.
3:36:44
So, a decade ago, I started a company.
3:36:46
Uh, we built the full stack credit card company. Okay.
3:36:49
>> Uh, sold it to Goldman Sachs.
3:36:49
It became what is now the Apple Card.
3:36:51
Obviously, >> any project, thousands of people.
3:36:55
>> What was it called when you launched it? >> It was called Final. >> Okay.
3:36:58
>> So, did a lot in financial services.
3:36:58
Uh, helped helped Goldman kind of launch that product and bring it live for >> my years there.
3:37:05
And then on really it's been six years I've switched sides.
3:37:07
So it's how I met Jordy originally.
3:37:08
Did a lot of angel investing and advising and just giving away free time to give back to the community.
3:37:13
And then I've now been at Lightseed for almost two and a half years, three years going. >> Yeah.
3:37:18
When we first met you were just like it was on Zoom CO. You were in like a log.
3:37:21
It literally was like was it a log cabin? >> Oh yeah. Yeah.
3:37:24
I mean we me and my wife >> almost off the grid. >> Yeah.
3:37:27
We drove around the country during CO.
3:37:28
So that I I quit Goldman during CO just uh there's better things in life than working for an investment bank.
3:37:34
disagree, but to each their own. >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:37:37
[laughter] >> You switched teams, now you're now you're a venture capitalist.
3:37:42
What have you been focusing on? What's interesting?
3:37:45
What's uh what take me through like stage, scale, the type of founders you like to work with, the markets, everything. >> Okay. Okay.
3:37:52
Let's just jump right into something uh that I'm curious to get your thoughts on.
3:37:56
So, uh specifically like a category that I'm going to guess you're spending a lot of time on.
3:38:00
So with with multibbot, clawbot, you now have uh you know I there's a world where the the level of intensity that that software engineers have been using coding agents.
3:38:12
You start to get everyday people that are now like firing off prompts all the time to like do things more than just like a Google search or a deep research report.
3:38:21
And presumably like there's that's going to involve like money I imagine.
3:38:25
And so I feel like there's been a people have had different thesis around Maybe stable coins play a part of this somehow.
3:38:32
I haven't seen the most clear explanation for that. Yeah. >> Yet.
3:38:38
Uh maybe there's other new payment rails.
3:38:41
Maybe Stripe just, you know, Yeah.
3:38:44
It's a a commerce is a weird thing, right?
3:38:46
Like we actually don't have the payment rails to enable agents to peripher Oh, man. Proliferate.
3:38:51
Um we've funded some people doing that, building kind of L1's to essentially provide that next rail.
3:38:57
But the reality is the biggest distribution networks are Visa, Mastercard on the merchant side and they don't have really a cost structure that sorry they have a cost structure that can support it.
3:39:07
They just don't have a market force that forces them there.
3:39:10
Um Stripe and Tempo launching well Tempo's not live yet but supporting kind of a new network there.
3:39:16
Um ultimately stable coins may be you know the path there for at least how we transfer value but it's also just kind of a store of value right now.
3:39:23
Um, agent commerce is just in any one because we also just don't have a use case.
3:39:28
The joke I make is I haven't I haven't actually been able to buy anything with an agent and the news this week was what Shopify is tacking on 4% on top of transaction which >> they're sending it to OpenAI but >> yeah but like that just that's untenable for a merchant right >> some merchants I mean there's plenty >> for drop shippers it's fine but like but for any like >> there are plenty of merchants that have 20% coupon codes in every podcast. >> That's true.
3:39:49
But so but that's a very small portion.
3:39:51
If you think about like Walmart literally doesn't take Apple Pay because it doesn't want to pay the 15 extra or whatever it is basis points.
3:39:55
So like when you get to large trillions of dollars of commerce, >> agentic payments have to actually be more efficient for the system to be adopted.
3:40:04
Otherwise, we're just going back to cart.
3:40:06
>> You need a lift in actual consumer behavior.
3:40:08
Consumption needs to increase to offset that 4%. >> Correct.
3:40:11
>> Correct. E-commerce needs either basket size increase or checkout conversion increase and like a >> Yeah, I was I was worried about a situation where somebody discovers a product on Instagram via an ad that a brand paid for and then they just go
3:40:22
into chat GBT or another model and say like order this for me and then it's like and just an an incremental 4% you already paid to acquire the customer effectively >> and depending on how great this integration is it might be that consumers just start to prefer that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's an evolving field.
3:40:40
There's a whole another thing is how do you trust an agent if I'm Lululemon and they just show up like I don't know whose agent this is?
3:40:47
I don't know if it if it's personal or it's a business.
3:40:49
And so we don't actually have a layer in the internet today that says you can trust this agent. It's not fraud.
3:40:55
Um which if you think about how an e-commerce checkout store works today, they have multiple, you know, consumer puts in a card.
3:41:03
There's multiple layers of fraud checks that happen.
3:41:05
And so when an agent shows up from the same IP for 50 times in the same day, you have no idea what that consumer is.
3:41:11
And then you lose all the downstream tracking that you do on a consumer per transaction. >> Yeah.
3:41:16
I mean, >> it just it breaks the entire model of the internet.
3:41:19
>> I was I was I was sort of cautiously optimistic that uh that agentic commerce would roll out before Black Friday towards the the end of last year.
3:41:26
That didn't really happen.
3:41:30
I mean, I've had the same experience as you.
3:41:31
I don't think I've purchased anything agentically.
3:41:34
I've tried to buy flights and even search is bad for it's we just need to build more and more protocols.
3:41:39
>> I think the I I mean I think the the the current like use case or or like that would just be like you're trying to buy a single product and not a complex cart yet just something simple and it I think it can get across the finish line but again I haven't actually been uh like moved to do that and I'm wondering where GMV on Agentic platforms will land at the end of this year.
3:42:00
It feels like there's going to be a massive push.
3:42:02
All the integrations are happening.
3:42:03
All the deals are happening.
3:42:05
Like you can see the UI is is adapting to it.
3:42:07
I think OpenAI already has my credit card in chatbt.
3:42:11
They should be able to do this.
3:42:13
But I'm wondering like consumer behavior awareness, education. There's a lot in there. There's an images tab.
3:42:17
There's a deep research tab.
3:42:18
Like there's just a lot that could put like a like a slowdown on the roll out there. >> Yeah.
3:42:25
There's an old saying in payments is that everything happens over a 10-year time horizon.
3:42:28
AI clearly is shifting that shorter, but like until it's actually saving you time and you trust that they're doing they're getting you a discount, they're getting you the most efficient price or something like that. Yeah.
3:42:38
Consumer behavior is fundamentally the hardest thing to change. >> Totally.
3:42:43
>> So there's there's it it will exist.
3:42:43
I'm sure there are people buying stuff.
3:42:45
I'm sure like I will get slammed for saying like who's done an agentic transaction.
3:42:50
But the reality is it's >> I mean people are out there giving their >> the classic thing last year was like I just just let me order just just let me order a a flight you know and I think we're now we're now getting close but >> we're close >> and we we've had agent commerce there there were when we were running final we had a ton of people using the product for sneaker bots. >> Oh okay.
3:43:09
>> And and so it's it's a bot you know agentic commerce is bots by another name.
3:43:13
>> Yeah I guess that is agentic commerce technically >> but it's just like you now have this layer of intelligence that an LLM gives you.
3:43:19
So we can do complex coordination and complex tasks.
3:43:22
>> I had an auction sniper in like 2004 on eBay.
3:43:25
Click the button right before the the auction ends. >> They still exist.
3:43:29
And there's a ton of volume flow, but you know what?
3:43:31
It still still runs over the card rails because it's the lowest common denominator. >> Yep. Yep. That makes sense. Interesting.
3:43:37
So is is one of the strongest bull cases for uh stable coins still just lower transaction fees and >> No, not at all.
3:43:42
No, there's no domestic Oh man, I'm going to get slammed for this. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.
3:43:45
So, so it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like any any of the the the players that have the ability to get institutional adoption of stable coins have any incentive to be like, oh yeah, like >> that it's going to be like 0. 01% fees.
3:44:02
Why would you why would you maybe want to be competitive, but it's there's no incentive to make it zero or close to zero. >> You would do zero.
3:44:09
So, you get the other side of the equation.
3:44:10
And if you think about like a a store of value, like if you look at like a dollar, I give you a dollar, you know, it's worth a dollar.
3:44:17
There's no risk transfer there at all.
3:44:18
>> Um, and that's actually like what we want in in payments.
3:44:20
And it's actually why, you know, Visa, Mastercard are the largest factoring networks in the world.
3:44:26
When you swipe at Starbucks, they don't get a dollar. They get 97.
3:44:28
5 cents on the dollar because that is the risk that they were taking in taking your dollar.
3:44:36
Um, stable coins, you would give it away for free.
3:44:38
one because ultimately Visa Maser man we're going way deep in payments but are actually data networks.
3:44:45
They actually don't transfer money.
3:44:45
The money is transferred via settlement layer at Fedwire. >> Yeah.
3:44:49
>> And so when you think about it like how would you do with stable coins?
3:44:50
Well, it's still just a data layer and you actually just want to hold on to as much treasuries as possible >> and make the yield from that.
3:44:57
And so how would you aggregate volume?
3:44:59
Well, you give away the transfer for free because data in theory as if you look at a bunch of network effect things as data goes up to the right the cost of that data should come down to the right and so you would just want as much volume over your network to win.
3:45:11
And it's why you have things like tempo launching you have the other kind of L1's launching to try to aggregate all that data while you also have the incumbents who have a lot of money and a lot of market force to be able to try out new things to try to capture that volume back.
3:45:23
>> Are we going to stop launching new L1s?
3:45:26
uh there'll be new use cases you can launch them whether you get adoption is a different question right like we backed one called radius technology building really interesting technology as an L1 um it enables uh transaction volumes I think Bobby would say in the millions um they came out of the Fed kind of the the the central bank digital
3:45:46
currency project that died they turned project Hamilton into this company um and in doing so >> yeah if you want to do agent commerce you're going to be talking about millions of transactions a second And you can't do that over existing rails in a way that doesn't also break a bunch of other kind of primitives. So yeah, we'll
3:45:59
So yeah, we'll keep on launching L1's.
3:46:01
What I was saying about stable coins is there's really stablecoin is just kind of a quasi bank account, right?
3:46:06
We finally have true programmatic money.
3:46:08
Um behind the scenes, there's a lot that happens to onramp and off-ramp, but what it enables us to truly take what is the US's biggest export, which is the US dollar by far, and export it globally without any barriers. Mhm.
3:46:23
>> So if I'm any other country friendly or not, my citizens can now get access to the US dollar.
3:46:28
>> And that is that is the demonstrable use case of stable coins.
3:46:30
Everything is else downstream of that. >> Yeah.
3:46:33
>> Like Venezuela is a great example right now.
3:46:35
Like do you trust your central currency?
3:46:36
Who is your like no you don't even trust a central bank?
3:46:39
even trust a central bank? So I'd rather hold on to CAT US dollars which >> yeah we were we were talking with Joe the co-founder of Ethereum yesterday just saying like interesting dynamic right now where Americans if you've had
3:46:50
access to the US dollar your whole life and the benefits of it >> uh you're like I want silver and gold and all these other assets but then elsewhere in the world you have people that are like >> finally I can have something that sure it's inflating but it's not inflating 40 to 60% a month. >> Yeah. I mean that's why in my like an >> Yeah.
3:47:08
I mean that's why in my like an independent Fed or a like is important because this is the the global currency.
3:47:14
If you think about all the sci-fi we've all watched growing up, they had a concept of credits.
3:47:17
We had some intergalactic currency.
3:47:21
>> How do we get like we're we're where we are today.
3:47:23
How do we get to credit system, right?
3:47:25
And the answer is probably something stable coins, some cryptoescoin that is tied to something that we I mean money is just a trust system at the end of the day.
3:47:32
So something that we trust across counterparties. >> Mhm.
3:47:36
>> And so like this is the biggest shift in my generation. I'm not that old.
3:47:40
Like um at least I don't feel that.
3:47:42
Uh that like we finally globalize the world. >> You're ank. >> Yeah.
3:47:49
>> There's one layer above which is elder. Okay. >> No, two layers above.
3:47:51
It goes then OG then elder. >> Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay.
3:47:57
So you're a spring chicken. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's great. There you go.
3:48:00
uh where like what what is what's what does winning this year look like at Lightseed in your role?
3:48:09
You're obviously focused on >> Let's talk about venture is just like expensive emails that we all write to each other in venture and then every once in a while we convince a founder. >> I know.
3:48:18
But like is there is there uh this can be a tough one to answer but like is there a company that you feel like is uniquely enabled now that you haven't pitched yet? >> Oh no.
3:48:27
I I like >> does everything get kind of pitched in some way or another?
3:48:30
some way or another? No, I think like there's many ways I I've been on this side for two two year like at the core I still think like a founder and like I had kind of forgotten what it was and then we launched our we me and a friend run a stablecoin conference every year and I was like oh this is what it's like
3:48:43
to like start something from scratch and like build something and like >> uh no not no he run stable con no it's called a very stable conference so me and I right um we're in we're six weeks out in March in SF um but no you know there's many ways to do this and like at the end of the day when I really boiled it down, venture is a people business. Like you're betting on people,
3:49:04
Like you're betting on people, especially as early as you can go.
3:49:05
Um, and then you let them go cook.
3:49:07
Like you give them money and let them cook is like my real mantra.
3:49:10
So there's not people like that I feel like I've ever missed on deals or people like, "Oh, I can't get an intro to because there's also this style in venture of like you actually want to have to talk to this person, right?
3:49:22
Like had a three-hour board meeting and I need to debrief with the founder and that's like another two hours potentially and I'm happy to do it."
3:49:28
And if we have that vibe that works >> what?
3:49:31
>> It's basically your whole day that you got to >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:49:33
But but if I have that vibe where I'm more than happy to like pick up the phone at 9:00 p. m.
3:49:36
and just talk to them until 11, >> that's the type of founder I want to work with.
3:49:40
At least that's how I think venture should be. There's like other ways.
3:49:43
There's people who just do massive prospecting.
3:49:45
But as I've kind of looked at it, like life's short.
3:49:47
There's lots of ways to make money and like find the people who are going to leave a dent in the world.
3:49:53
So, if you're I I don't I I'm not apologetic for being like a weird human underneath, but like if I find other weird humans who I vibe with and who want to do something interesting in the world, then it's usually kind of a very good match made in heaven. >> Yeah.
3:50:05
Uh what do the various constituents coming to your conference in 6 weeks? >> Yeah.
3:50:12
>> How do they want uh the do they want yield on stable coins? I'm guessing they do.
3:50:17
How how are they all feeling about kind of the >> Yeah.
3:50:20
current regulation that um and maybe give us the update cuz I know it's kind of >> and there's a bunch of market structure stuff that is like actively happening.
3:50:29
So I I don't have the latest on that to be honest.
3:50:30
Um last year it was in February 12th.
3:50:32
It was the month before the Genius Act passed.
3:50:35
So we actually had Governor Waller um speak at the conference and give a public speech and we actually had to live stream it because he's a public official and a governor can move the markets. Interesting.
3:50:44
>> Um we're working on a few other kind of high name people that haven't been announced yet.
3:50:48
Um really the whole premise of the conference and it's really funny.
3:50:52
So I had a kid a year and a two years ago now. Um thank you.
3:50:58
>> But so I was walking around in July with my kid strapped to my chest at 6 a. m. and called IO. My my coordinator. Yeah.
3:51:04
As one does as you have a young baby and you're trying to like get get your steps in.
3:51:07
Um and I said we're talking about stable coins and how it's changing the world and we're like somebody should host a conference.
3:51:12
>> And then we both stop and we're like oh we have to host a conference.
3:51:14
Like how do you get really the whole premise how do you get all of the right people?
3:51:19
Not like I don't need 25 people from every single company.
3:51:22
I need the two or three right people at every company.
3:51:25
Ideally, it's the founder, but like sometimes, you know, if you're a massive company, it's somebody lower level and put them all in the same room.
3:51:30
Make the content interesting and make the networking good.
3:51:33
And like I have a big belief in serendipity, doing interesting things in the world.
3:51:38
And so, it's how do we create serendipity?
3:51:39
I know of at least one or two deal, well, we did a few deals besides Lightseed who was a sponsor last year and sponsoring again this year.
3:51:46
I know of two deals that happened as a result of like a founder showing up at the conference, meeting another top tier VC, and they did a deal together in stable coins.
3:51:54
So, like our goal is not to like dominate the conference.
3:51:58
It's bring the people together and get this thing like and keep the industry moving forward. >> Um, that's great.
3:52:04
>> What's your take on the proliferation of stable coins specifically?
3:52:06
There's like I saw a couple states talking about launching them and that feels like >> I I might have it wrong but it feels intuitively like a step away from the universal credit system. >> Yeah.
3:52:17
>> But maybe it's they're all credits.
3:52:19
>> Well, it's like slightly different credits rappers around credit. >> Yeah.
3:52:22
Well, it's it's a question of there's a question me and my friends have talked about which is like at what point does a central bank of let's just choose random country Colombia change their interest rate and nothing happens.
3:52:34
Like how much of their citizenry needs to be moved to dollar?
3:52:36
how much of their GDP needs to be in US dollar for the central banks to no longer be relevant.
3:52:41
So this is them fighting back against I can no longer stop my citizens like they can hold Bitcoin but now they can actually hold dollars which are like not volatile.
3:52:48
It's actually a better historically a better store of value.
3:52:52
>> So we've seen CBDC's central bank digital currencies.
3:52:54
Um they certainly will provide efficiency in those countries in the domestic markets when they run >> long term. How will they work out?
3:53:01
I it's like I don't I I don't even think about it because it's just we're seeing this macro trend of dollars taken off.
3:53:07
I mean literally today Tether launched their US compliance stuff.
3:53:10
So like um and Tether is the largest by far and it wouldn't surprise me if they very aggressively shift a lot of money from USDT to USDT.
3:53:19
I think it's a because it's Anchorage.
3:53:21
Um just to show that there's massive compliant volume and the the world's just going to pick pick up.
3:53:28
Like we're at $300 billion of stable coins I think today.
3:53:30
It was 200 billion last year roughly. Yeah.
3:53:33
>> Um the number just keep going up. >> Number go up. >> Number go up. >> Here.
3:53:36
Let's hear some >> our greatest our greatest export. >> Our greatest. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Um >> that's great.
3:53:42
>> Well, I'm excited for the event. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you.
3:53:44
You guys You guys are welcome. >> What day is it? >> March 5th at Terara. Well, Terra Gallery.
3:53:48
It's It's invite only, so like apply at very stableconference. com. >> Hit them up. >> A great name. >> Yeah. >> Fantastic.
3:53:54
Uh well, thanks so much for coming down to the TBPN Ultra Dome. Great to have you.
3:53:59
>> Close out the show with us.
3:54:00
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3:54:05
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