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Today is Monday, October 20th, 2025.
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We are live from the TBPN Ultradome, the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital.
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>> You weren't in France, were you? >> No, no, no. >> Why?
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Why would you think I was Paris, France?
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>> Well, some people were wondering. >> No. >> Around the office. >> What? What?
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I don't even know what that is. >> What's the news? >> What's France?
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>> Why would you be suspicious of What is >> now?
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Of course, the uh the crown jewels were stolen from the Louv in dramatic fashion.
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We will be covering that story uh later in the show.
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We also have the CEO of GameStop, Ryan Cohen, joining the show at noon.
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So, if you're new here and you're tuning in for the first time, uh please stay with us.
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There are also major technical difficulties across the internet today because of a massive AWS outage.
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We are working through it.
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Some of the prices that you see on our tickers might not be up up to date today, but we are doing our best to bring you the news and bring you exclusive interviews.
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>> Want us to podcast today, but we refused to listen.
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>> They were really really working against us.
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>> And in other news, we will be having uh both Brian Chesy on the show tomorrow as well as Palmer Lucky.
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>> That's going to be great >> back toback.
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>> So please uh stay tuned, listen to this show, listen to tomorrow's show.
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Uh, do you think the AWS outage is is is it entirely because of us and and the GameStop shorts want us to stop podcasting? Yeah.
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So that we can't bring them the latest in the world of of GameStop or do you think it's more that with the complete and utter popping of the AI bubble, >> AWS just threw in the towel.
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They said, "Look, the the AI thing is not going to work and let's just not even do the cloud computing thing anymore."
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I think uh I think it was potentially Amazon just turning it off for a second just to show everyone that hey cloud cloud's still pretty important. Forgotten about us. >> That makes sense.
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>> You're still dependent on us. >> That makes sense.
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Well, if you've been living under a data center, >> Andre Carpathy made waves this week uh after he dropped a massive bombshell of a podcast with none other than Darkh Patel on the Darkh Patel podcast.
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Uh he said a lot of good things about AI.
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He said a lot of negative things about AI. He called AI slop.
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He also said that the models are amazing.
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He said that uh autocomplete is his sweet spot.
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He had a bunch of positive things to say, but overall people did not react positively.
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Everyone says the AI bubble is over. It's popped.
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You got to rotate out of AI stocks.
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My take is that if you're looking for something safe, you got to rotate into food, water, shelter, and guns because that's all you're going to have. AI is fake. The internet's fake. Computers are fake. The steam engines fake. Railroads are fake. Electricity is fake.
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Uh all of industrialization is a bubble.
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We're going back to monkey.
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We're returning to monkey.
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We're going to be living in huts because technology is a bubble. Technology is fake.
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And all we have left is to homestead and live in a shelter.
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So get ready to go back to sticks and stones. That's my take. >> Good take.
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>> But of course it's not that bad.
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But uh the general tech community is having whiplash from this for sure.
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>> Baze over on X says uh so happy it's contrarian to believe in AI progress again. >> Yes. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. It is a good take.
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Uh and so uh basically Andre Karpathy went on and Andre is in an interesting position because uh Andre Carpathy uh was a co-founding member of OpenAI.
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He was there from day one.
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He also was at Tesla and built the self-driving car program there.
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He is one of the most respected AI practitioners, researchers.
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AI practitioners, researchers. He's implemented nano chat uh and nano GPT these repos that are handcrafted by him to explain to anyone who can program at a high level uh how to build an an advanced uh chatbot an advanced AI model an LLM train it from scratch and uh and
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so he's always been extremely respected uh but he doesn't have crazy bags right now because he's kind of out of Tesla out of open AI he was at open AI for a little bit he went back and then left uh he's working on an education product right now which is very very interesting and very cool called Eureka. Uh I'm
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Uh I'm actually very excited for it and would recommend anyone who's getting into programming uh stay on top of that because I feel like if you can power through the Andre Karpathy uh pedagogy or his uh all of his different uh coursework that he puts out uh you will probably have a very very rewarding job very quickly.
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Um so people but people are bearish because uh he's basically saying that AGI is like 10 years away not one year not two years.
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He's kind of debunking the idea or at least he's just sharing like the vibes that he doesn't feel like the AI 2027 fast takeoffs scenario is probable.
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Um, and what's interesting is that this aligns with what a bunch of people have been saying, >> but it's one like Sam Alman's been saying, you know, curing cancer and teaching people, but then also free education, right?
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Uh, but then also I went back to over a year ago, September 23rd, 2024, Sam Alman posted a blog post said the int called the the intelligence age.
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And this is what he said in there.
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He said it is possible that we will have super intelligence in a few thousand days.
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I have always read a few is three. Three or four, right? What's 3,000 days? What's 4,000 days? >> About 10 years. >> It's about 10 years.
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And so there's there's two reads on that.
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One is that like let's say that he knows for some reason. I don't think he does.
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I don't think anyone does. But let's say he knows.
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Well, he's still setting expectations to be like AGI is a decade away, which is exactly what Andre said, but when S.
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Sam said it, everyone's like, let's go super long.
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And when Andre says, oh, it's bad.
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Which is kind of an interesting tweak.
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of an interesting tweak. But also there is the more kind of critical take which is just that when you whenever you talk to a technologist and you say like okay you're working on getting us to Mars you're working on uh fusion reactors you're working on quantum computing when will this actually change my life when will this be when will this technology
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be ready for prime time everyone says it's just a decade away because a decade is so long that if you make a decade prediction like but like if we were to say you know oh where will the show be in a decade or what will we be doing in a decade we can say crazy stuff because It's going to be so long that everyone will have forgotten in a decade. Basically,
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Basically, >> it's somewhat straightforward to make one, two year, threeyear predictions.
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Beyond that, it gets >> it just gets so fuzzy.
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There's so many other things that could happen.
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It it's really complicated.
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Uh and uh I mean people have been making long-term predictions.
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I read a book called the singularities near by Ray Kerszswall.
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I believe he published that in like the late 90s, maybe early 2000s.
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Tyler, have you read the singularities near? It's a tome. >> I actually have not. I need to read that. >> Oh yeah, you should.
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And that's like a foundational text.
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>> And the crazy thing about that is that he makes a whole bunch of predictions about how uh scaling will happen in terms of like compute power.
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And he he bounds everything in flops.
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So he just says like let's sum up the total amount of computing power in the world right now and just comp that to how many flops the human brain has or all human brains have.
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And based on that, he predicted that we would that we'd pass the touring test in like 2022 or 2023.
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He like nailed it like 20 years earlier. Completely nailed it.
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Although we we do debate like are we actually past the touring test because you can just ask a model like are you a model and it'll say yes.
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Uh and so but in general it feels like we passed the touring test and it feels like we're hitting Kerszwhile timelines.
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And so I've always kind of like like leaned back whenever somebody presses me on my AGI timelines.
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I always just say like I kind of I kind of stick with Kerszsw 2045 is what he says.
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And that sounds bearish now.
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But when he published the singularity is near, people were like, "This is never going to happen."
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Like this is just insanity.
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Maybe in 10,000 years, bro. But like it's not.
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>> I thought it was interesting.
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You know, some people listened to the Carpathy interview and thought, "Great, I have 10 years to escape the permanent undercrow, which is which is exactly exactly how OpenAI is also acting, right?
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They're acting like a big tech company.
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They're launching a social media app. They're working on ads.
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They're working on commerce.
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They're trying to scale paid users, right?
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They're just acting like a traditional hyperscaler. >> Hyperscaler.
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Yeah, I I think that's the correct model.
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I I I think that's 100% the right move. Uh did you get the time? >> Yeah.
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I was just going to say like um >> the fact that uh 10 years AGI is like a bearish take. >> It's crazy. >> That's so bullish.
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>> That's extremely bullish. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Bearish takes are bullish. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Um >> no, no, no. It is true.
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Uh but but I mean a bunch of people have been saying stuff like this.
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I mean, when we talked to Tyler Cowan, he says, you know, I think progress will be very incremental that we won't just see some sort of fast takeoff because there's so many different um areas of the economy that you can't it's not just a like a single input output text in text out.
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Uh that's true for small programming tasks for sure.
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That's true for customer support for sure, but it's not it's not true for uh medicine.
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It's not true for so many other things.
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And Andre Carpathy does a great job breaking down uh that that prediction about radiologists that uh the the idea that radiologists would be put out of a job by AI because AI is really good at looking at images.
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Well, it turns out that radiologists do like 25 other things that are really important and it's not just a job of looking at a picture.
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And >> did you see a lot of push back from anyone at the big labs on the interview?
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>> Uh no, I didn't see anything.
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I expected to see more people saying >> Cararpath has been out of the game for a few years.
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He doesn't have the scale.
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He's not really at the frontier.
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He's not seeing what we're seeing.
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And I didn't see any of that.
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>> Just bounce off for sure. >> I don't know.
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>> Is that bearish, Tyler? >> Uh, all right.
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Maybe that's a little bearish.
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I'm looking at the, you know, broad strokes here. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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Um, but, uh, I I mean, I think that the >> I saw a lot of researchers being like, "Yeah, RL is pretty mid." >> Yep. Yeah.
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It's like the best it's the best we have I guess.
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Um but uh I mean the big question here is is what does this mean for big tech companies?
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What does this mean for the hyperscalers for Oracle?
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Uh those big tech companies can't exactly turn on a dime on the basis of the latest. >> Funny AWS up 1. 3% today.
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>> You mean Amazon as a whole? >> Sorry. Sorry. Amazon as a whole up 1.
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3% because everyone is like, "Oh, this is actually pretty important.
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We kind of forgot about AWS." >> Yep.
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Uh and uh Oracle of course is down almost 5%.
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>> Well, whatever you are thinking of doing in the public markets, go to public. com.
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Investing for those that take it seriously.
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They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields.
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They're trusted by millions.
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And so, uh Oracle's now on the hook for something like $300 billion in infrastructure over the next 5 years. That's a lot.
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Very quickly, uh they're hoping that uh OpenAI revenue will pay for that.
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And there's the hyperscaler narrative that you laid out where you know if the ads product really ramps if the you know the Sora product ramps if >> my view Oracle basically has to bet that open AAI can get every p you know almost every internet user to be an open AAI user. >> Yes.
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And I I mean I'm I'm super fascinated how fast the the commerce ramp will happen.
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Just over the weekend I mean I'm on like the furthest edge of early adoption here and I forget what I was searching for.
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I was searching for a product.
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Oh, I was searching for gray printer paper that would look like a newspaper.
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So, if we printed a tweet, we could make it look like newspaper for some reason.
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I just wanted to know if that was a thing.
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It found me some options.
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And when I got through to the product, it took me to a landing page.
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And I wound up just sending it to one of our team members and saying like, "Hey, can you order this?"
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Because the one-click checkout, like I I I wasn't at a point in chat where I could just say, "Okay, buy it and ship it to the Ultradome."
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Like, that was not an option for me.
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So I so so like they need to obviously improve like features there but then there's also like customer adoption and actually training the user because if if if 700 million of those 800 million are still in the natural like muscle memory workflow of when I find a product on chatbt I Google it and then I buy it there.
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Well that's not going to monetize very well.
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They have to train people into thinking, "Yes, I trust that if I tell Chat GPT, order this and deliver it to my house, it's going to buy it with the right credit card.
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It's going to ship it to the right address.
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I'm going to be able to get a refund if I need to."
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Like they like that's a whole new uh user experience workflow that they will have to train people on. And so is important. >> It is very notable. Yeah.
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>> That OpenAI has announced partnerships with Etsy and Walmart >> and not Amazon and eBay.
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sort of a timu Amazon and a timu eBay.
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You can think of it that way.
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>> That's >> Walmart is kind of like teu Amazon. >> It really is. >> No, but it's true.
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I mean, obviously OpenAI, I'm sure, would have liked to already announce partnerships with Amazon.
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Would have liked to already announce partnerships with eBay and and certainly those conver conversations would have happened.
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Nobody, neither management team is asleep at the wheel, but I would expect that Amazon's uh Amazon's management team, eBay's management team aren't so quick to let Sam the fox into the hen house.
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>> We love we love when foxes get in hen houses. Um, we also love ramp. com. Time is money. Save both.
13:26
Easy to use corporate cards, bill pay, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.
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>> Pedro, >> wait, hold on, hold on. One one thing on that.
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Oh, uh, the question about, uh, eBay and Walmart, eBay and Amazon staying out of the OpenAI partnerships and OpenAI having to go to the tier twos, uh, Walmart and Etsy, right?
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I I I think that's like the correct framing that Amazon and eBay want to say, hey, we I think we still have leverage here, but it can flip if OpenAI becomes a true aggregator.
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Amazon does have to run ads on Meta properties.
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on Meta properties. they do have to run ads on Google and they and and these things can get out of control where like the iPhone got so dominant that Google had to pay Apple to be the default search like like there's just a certain amount of like if everyone winds up
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using one thing then you do have leverage in that conversation and I wouldn't be surprised if in in if in two three four five years OpenAI has enough leverage that Amazon and and eBay capitulate and say yep we're partnering because we um We we we just have to do it. And so uh I mean the last thing we
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And so uh I mean the last thing we could talk about is like how Oracle is positioning their decision-making.
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I had a little bit of take on this.
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Do you want me to run you through it? >> Hit me.
14:40
>> So uh in uh the so Oracle has two new CEOs. Software Cats is out. Uh there's Clay McGork.
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Uh he's the co-CEO and he did an interview with CNBC and he said of OpenAI, look at their financials, their growth and what's being built with this technology.
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This isn't a typical company trajectory.
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They've reached nearly a billion users faster than anyone.
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Everything about this is unprecedented, but in a good way.
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And I I don't like this framing.
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I I think that I think that it's so it's not the right framing to say like we've never seen anything like this.
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It's breaking all of our patterns.
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So, we're just completely operating off playbook.
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I think it's much better to just say that like like this is a new hyperscaler.
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We all saw what happened with Google and Amazon.
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They were started before the dot bubble popped and they scaled very fast.
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OpenAI is scaling faster on users and revenue and so we are investing more but it's all proportionate to the growth and so it's the exact same playbook as you want to build Google in 1999 you want to build Google for you want to build infrastructure for open AI in 2025 you underwrite it the same way >> there's just it's just a faster growth
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rate so you're investing slightly more and it's all proportional and it's actually the same playbook >> do you think he's trying to frame the growth as so unprecedented we're just trying to meet it so that people don't see Oracle directly as just this massive bet on OpenAI because if he just came out and said we're betting that Chat GPT will need to serve billions of users. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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>> That feels like a just a better kind of read on the situation overall than oh we can't predict the demand at all.
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It's just running away from us.
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We're just trying to >> trying to meet their capacity demand. So I don't know.
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I don't know because either way Oracle is a bet on OpenAI. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. I I I think I prefer the world where they are saying like sure even if we're in the do bubble we think we found the Amazon we think we found the Google they're going to make it through and these are going to be multi-trillion dollar companies so we are going really hard on that to partner
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and and draft off of that the problem is is that uh I'm sure Oracle has a million other partners that they can't like completely like frustrate by saying hey you know we're we're we're not interested before move on I want to tell you about reream one live 30 plus destinations multiream and reach your audience wherever they are. Sorry Jordy Sorry Jordy continue.
16:57
>> Uh at the same time as Oracle is obviously bullish on open AI there is reporting uh there was reporting in techrunch that was based on a report by apptopia uh that was using uh app store data to look at chat GBT overall growth and user minutes and things like that.
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Um, and this somewhat aligned to the reporting from Deutsche Bank.
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Um, that, uh, >> hey, we got Nick on the camera somehow. >> Sorry everyone.
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We are AWS goes down for our live >> doesn't go down entirely, but it's close.
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>> But welcome and, uh, please enjoy the beautiful view of uh, one of our team members, Nick.
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>> Um, so anyways, hopefully the audio is still coming through.
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Uh but the >> uh both of these reports showed that uh yeah OpenAI OpenAI growth chat GPT growth is uh seemingly slowing a little bit and that and that makes sense if you if you uh just based entirely on the scale that they're at right now. >> Yeah.
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I mean you do saturate at some point.
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Uh this is DAOU is this this is global DAU and it's around 72 million.
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Um what's interesting here is that uh for a long time people have been spinning the narrative that like oh growth will plateau during the summer right didn't we look at some data that showed that uh August was particularly flat for some other reason who was that
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>> growth plate did plateau over summer at least >> that's not this data this data shows very consistent oh that was Europe that was Europe okay yeah it's interesting >> Europe America grinds during the summer and then plateaus And yeah, we burned out. The great lock in of September was
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The great lock in of September was like, uh, okay, I'm not installing any new apps or something like that. I don't know.
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I don't know how much to read into this.
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Uh, Apptopia like like some of these like tracking app tracking things like I I I don't know how accurate they are because they don't necessarily have a pixel in the exact app.
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It might be more like uh Neielson ratings where they're just polling people.
19:03
Um yeah, but uh but I mean if you believe the the beginning of the curve uh what happened what happened last year like because there was actually a plateau back in uh it looks like back in January of what was that 2023 or 2024 because January oh no that was the beginning of this year that was the beginning of this year.
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So the beginning of this year was was pretty flat and then once April 1 came out, everyone went on for April Fool's Day, I guess.
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And then it started ripping upwards and then and then and then September and October have been sort of flat. I don't know. Um we'll see.
19:43
There was uh yeah, there's a lot more we could go through here, but first let me tell you about privy wallet infrastructure for every bank.
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Make privy makes it easy to build on crypto rail, securely spin up white label wallets, sign transactions, and integrate onchain infrastructure all through one simple API.
19:55
Buco Capital was sharing another data point over from similar web.
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It shows that uh Gemini has been gaining market share uh from gaining on OpenAI.
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Obviously the overall market is growing.
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So OpenAI is still >> uh growing on a on a per user basis but Gemini is growing.
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And he says Google already has nine products with over 1 billion users.
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Search, Android, Chrome, Drive, Photos, Play Store, YouTube, Maps, and Gmail.
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So says they know a thing or two about a thing or two. They certainly >> Yeah.
20:27
At the same time like bootstrapping a new a new product flow like actually funneling you from Gmail into something else is really hard for a almost 30-year-old company.
20:38
Uh it's always been through acquisition. They buy something.
20:43
I don't >> I mean meta and threads.
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>> Meta Meta did do it with threads.
20:45
Maybe when you own when you own one of the best advertising networks in the world, you can aggressively funnel people.
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The question is how much do they try to integrate the value of Gemini into the core search product? >> Yeah. How how would you do it?
20:58
Because I I I think what what what Connor did over at Threads is is a really really smart integration where you actually see Threads content in uh inserted into the Instagram feed.
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So, while you're scrolling Instagram, you see a thread and you're like, "Oh, I want to see that."
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And then it just takes you over to that app and then you're a DAU of that app.
21:20
Uh, and it was very easy to create a Threads account if you had an Instagram account.
21:24
How would how would how should Google surface a Gemini flow where you're in Gmail or you're in Google search and then all of a sudden you're in you're in Gemini.
21:38
I think there's a bunch of ways you can do it through search, you can do it through Chrome, >> maybe through the AI overviews, like you know how you go into AI mode.
21:44
It should be like one more click and then you're just fully in Gemini, maybe. >> Yeah.
21:50
I mean I mean I think there's a reason that OpenAI wants its own browser.
21:53
Perplexity wants its own browser.
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I don't think they've properly even leveraged Chrome yet in order to drive Gemini usage. >> Yeah. Yeah.
22:01
I was thinking about I was thinking about the browser like the agents in a browser >> browser wars of the summer 2025 >> over over before they started. >> Yeah. With a whimper.
22:11
Um I Yeah, I was thinking about the the browser because I used to I used to enjoy scraping web content.
22:17
So I'd go to a website and I'd write some JavaScript to like pull it all out into a spreadsheet.
22:21
Uh and I was thinking like, oh, with a with an agent in my browser, I could do that really easily.
22:28
I could have it write the the JavaScript to scrape everything out.
22:30
Uh that'd be really easy.
22:32
But then I realized like I could just like copy paste the whole thing into an LLM or just give the LLM the URL or even just I was thinking about the Midas list.
22:39
I was like if I wanted to get the Midas list into a into a spreadsheet.
22:41
I used to have to write JavaScript to like go through the Midas list and and save everything and put it in a spreadsheet.
22:49
Now you can just go to CHP and say reproduce the full Midas list and it'll just do it.
22:52
You don't even have to tell it the URL. though.
22:54
Um, I'm still I'm still searching for use cases of of AI in the browser.
22:59
>> This was a good highlight from the interview.
23:00
Karpath, he says, "When I go on my Twitter timeline, I see all this stuff that makes no sense to me.
23:06
Honestly, just fundraising."
23:08
>> And then the next post from Chris Offner, the unbridled joy of listening to someone smart who's not trying to sell you anything.
23:14
This is why I think this uh interview hit so hard is he's not sitting there like trying to get to the next tender offer. Yep. Right.
23:23
He's just being honest about what he's seeing.
23:28
And some people aren't going to like that.
23:30
But >> I mean, same with uh Sutton.
23:31
Like Sutton doesn't have bags and he was able to come on and and make a pretty pretty clear argument to to put Tyler out of a job.
23:42
I mean, so I I think I I do think like the most interesting quote out of this um I don't see a ton of people talking about it.
23:47
It's that um >> he basically doesn't think like even if we get AGI in 10 years um GDP growth will actually just stay at 2%.
23:56
>> Which I think is like very contrarian.
23:58
It seems to me that like >> most people are like we won't get AGI.
24:02
If they're saying that GDP GDP GDP growth is going to stay just that means we didn't get AGI and it's just like better autocomplete or etc.
24:08
better autocomplete or etc. Um but he he basically loops in like all you know innovation just into the same 2% GDP growth that's been going on because you can't if you look back you can't really see >> yeah that was a super profound idea this this idea that uh he sees AI as an
24:25
extension of the internet and he's like yeah when I hear the story about uh like recursive AI like oh wow the foundation model lab uh AI researchers are using AI to improve the AI that they build he was like well yeah like the Google engineers would Google stuff like Yeah. And like
24:39
And like you know the Ford the Ford motor manufacturers would probably be like let's drive cars parts to make more cars. >> Exactly.
24:48
>> Exactly. So like he's like he was kind of like every technological innovation since we've invented technology and started >> yeah all you have to do is look at open AI and fundamentally it it looks a lot like Google right it has different vibes different a different uh leadership
25:05
style but >> you know they have their YouTube they're building their AdSense so >> well uh if you're writing code you need to check out Cognition they're the makers of Devon the AI software engineer Devon crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team. Um,
25:19
Um, everyone's from Canada, says Yakine.
25:25
Basically, every famous computer scientist is Canadian.
25:26
Andre Carpathy, Hinton, Alex Net, uh, Rob Pike, Yakine, Yaxine, Elon, Grime, Elon, Canadian, Grimes, all Canadian. I love it. >> Fake news.
25:41
Will Brown thoughts on the Carpathy interview?
25:44
Agree with him on pretty much everything.
25:46
Literal transformative AGI is not eminent. That's fine.
25:50
Doesn't mean it's a bubble.
25:51
>> Doesn't mean it's a bubble. Let's go. >> Hit that. Gone.
25:56
>> Normal technology that improves productivity and growth is very valuable.
25:59
The market already reflects this. >> That's great.
26:02
Nothing ever happens and everything is fine and we're so back and it's already priced in the exponential RSI takeoff.
26:11
>> Famous famous last words.
26:11
Uh suspended cap says the Carpathy interview is scaling. We aren't short comput. >> Scathing. >> Scathing.
26:18
Uh, we aren't short compute.
26:20
We are short breakthroughs that replicate things the human brain can do.
26:24
No doubt we'll get there, but wouldn't be surprised to see markets sputter on Monday while this makes the rounds. Really honest stuff.
26:32
>> Um, >> yeah, no one in the market is talking about this like like the the private markets and the public markets are fully disconnected.
26:39
Uh, the public markets, the NASDAQ is up 1. 46%.
26:44
Uh this the vibes on acts are way different than what happens on Wall Street.
26:49
Uh I remember when uh Nat Freriedman and Daniel Gross went on strategy and they did the great they did a great interview series about AI back in 2022 2023.
26:58
There's a whole series of them and in there they talk about Nvidia specifically and how important Nvidia chips are going to be and Nvidia was like a $300 billion company or something at the time and it like almost like I don't know 3x or 10x maybe it was like uh maybe it's 800 >> to be fair JP Morgan did downgrade Oracle's credit rating today >> on on the Carpatho.
27:19
You think that's what happened?
27:21
They were like oh they're watching our cash like we got to downgrade this. Um this is wild.
27:24
Uh, do you know who Connor Ley is?
27:31
>> He's like a famous um I think he's a big doomer. >> He's a doomer, right? Yeah.
27:34
So, he says, "I want to pre-register the following opinion.
27:38
I think it's plausible, but by no means guaranteed that we could see a massive financial crisis or bubble pop affecting AI in the next year.
27:44
I expect if this happens, it will mostly be for mundane economic reasons, overleveraged markets, financial policy of major nations, mistiming of bets, even by a small amount of and and good old fraud.
27:57
Not because the technology isn't making rapid progress.
27:58
I suspect such a crisis to have at most modest effects on timelines to existential dangerous AI ASI being developed, but will be used by partisans to try and dismiss the risk.
28:11
Sadly, a bunch of people making poorly thought through leveraged bets on the market tells you little about the underlying object reality of how powerful AI is or soon will be.
28:17
Do not be fooled by narrative.
28:20
So, he's saying, "Yes, we we got to go even harder.
28:21
the the bare markets bullish for doom potentially.
28:26
Uh underrated AI doom scenario.
28:29
The bubble pops so hard that everyone goes bankrupt.
28:34
There's mass famine and starvation and humanity population collapses all because we went too leong AI.
28:42
What do you think about that? >> Plausible. It just might be.
28:49
>> Matt Palmer says, "I've been saying this.
28:50
Update your models and timelines. Foom cells. Mankind is back. >> Mankind is back. >> And Figma is back.
28:56
Think bigger, build faster.
28:58
Figma helps design and development teams build great products together.
29:01
Uh how it feels listening to this podcast. Han Wang pull up. It's uh balloon popping. We will see about that.
29:11
Who knows how this will all play out.
29:13
Francois Chalet says, "The reason it is so important for everyone to keep pretending that AGI is definitely right around the corner is that there is now over 1 trillion of investment riding on this belief, either already expended or committed.
29:25
Current and recent past capex cannot be justified by current use cases and technology currently spending $10 to $15 to make $1.
29:32
to be to ever be in the black, you need dramatically better tech applications and you need them fast before current data centers depreciate, which is a three to five year time scale.
29:46
>> Gnome Brown uh was calling him out said, didn't you just say two months ago that you said open >> uh uh did you that you think AGI is about five years away? Of course. >> Yes.
29:57
And uh Chase Chase Coleman the founder of Tiger Global came out of hiding on the same weekend Carpath.
30:02
He said AI labs are promoting slop as innovation to secure funding and we're decades away from AGI. Sell it all today.
30:11
Bu >> uh it was a good panel.
30:13
Listen, Brad Brad Gersonner, >> I didn't should have thrown that one in the mix.
30:18
I listened to the full Palmer Palmer Palmer Lucky on Joe Rogan episode. That was a lot of fun.
30:22
Palmer will be on the show tomorrow.
30:25
Uh, and I listened to the Carpathy episode, which was great.
30:28
Um, uh, oh, another interesting, uh, Carpathy tidbit.
30:32
He invented the term, uh, hallucination.
30:34
He he hallucinated, calling, uh, what LLMs do, hallucination, which is, uh, very funny.
30:45
Um, I just thought that was really cool.
30:47
Anyway, we should move to the uh the Napoleon jewels that were stolen from the Louv in a major robbery.
30:53
The thieves stole jewelry from display cases in Gallery Deolon.
30:59
>> Finally, a brazen heist. >> Finally, a brazenist.
31:02
>> There's been little to no brazen heist.
31:05
>> If you're new here on this show, we are anti- heist.
31:06
We are anti-rime, do not do this.
31:09
If you have information that could lead to the arrest of these thieves, let us know. We will send you a hat.
31:14
That's the best we can do.
31:16
Uh, but Luke Metro says, "Is this the cure for male loneliness?"
31:19
Uh, I hope not because we don't want more brazen heists.
31:22
We want less brazen heists.
31:24
Leave the crown jewels alone.
31:27
>> A truck mounted furniture elevator to reach the gallery housing the artifacts and then sped away on motorcycles.
31:32
Officials said tourists were streaming into the world's most visited museum on Sunday when a group of thieves burst in through a window of a gilded gallery on the second floor and made off with a set of priceless royal jewels.
31:43
It was broad daylight, roughly 9:30 local time, when four individuals driving two powerful motorcycles in a truck with a portful portable furniture elevator parked outside the Louve uh museum.
31:55
>> I didn't know what a furniture elevator was.
31:57
Have you ever heard of this before?
31:59
It It seems like actually a really awesome invention cuz if you need to get a couch to the top of like your house and you can't take it up the stairs, you just put it on this.
32:06
It It looks like a fire truck.
32:07
Basically, the fire truck pulls the ladder up and then the elevator slides up, but they move the >> the funny when I saw the picture of the furniture elevator outside the museum.
32:17
>> It looks like just >> kind of makes sense, right?
32:19
Normally, when you see something like this, you're not thinking to yourself, that's out of place. Yeah. No way.
32:24
>> There's maybe one person that worked out at the museum that would think, uh, that doesn't seem scheduled.
32:28
We >> totally It happened during normal hours.
32:33
Uh, entire heist was less than seven minutes.
32:35
So, two of the perpetrators at least one wearing a high visibility yellow vest >> looks blend in so much.
32:39
He just looks like workers.
32:41
Like, oh, they're going to go work on the balcony.
32:42
They need they need some equipment.
32:44
Like the really the value of like the professional equipment.
32:47
Um, but uh there was a there was a crown >> angle grinders to cut through the window and get inside. >> Yep.
32:55
>> They they attempted but failed to set fire to their truck.
32:57
So, they were trying to burn the truck on the way out to like get rid of all the fingerprints, I suppose.
33:02
Uh, and they dropped the crown of Empress Eugene with nearly 1,400 diamonds before they sped away. It was found damaged. Uh, no one was injured.
33:12
Eight pieces in total were stolen, including an emerald earring and an emerald necklace that belonged to Empress Maria. >> Such a brutal fumble.
33:20
>> That is 1400 diamonds. >> Massive fumble. Absolutely brutal.
33:23
Uh, an emerald ring and an emerald necklace.
33:29
Some of these some of these uh things are are massive.
33:30
I didn't know this, but uh the Wall Street Journal takes us through some some history of burglaries.
33:36
Um there's been a long string of French history.
33:40
>> This is a extremely French.
33:40
Uh Leonard Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by an Italian carpenter only to be found two years later.
33:49
He got away with it for two years.
33:51
Uh, in 2010, a thief broke into Paris's modern art museum and made off with more than $120 million of artworks, including some from Picasso and Matis.
34:00
A thief, the thief dubbed Spider-Man was sent to prison for the crime and later appeared in a Netflix documentary.
34:05
Um, what do you think they're going to do with the stolen jewels?
34:10
We were debating this at breakfast.
34:12
It's going to be hard to fence this. I think that's the term.
34:14
You You can't just go on eBay and throw it up there. >> Facebook Marketplace.
34:19
Facebook marketplace was built.
34:22
>> Yeah, it's an interesting challenge because >> yeah, >> uh yeah, obviously they're you're they're never going to be able to capture the same value necessarily as if you're able to do an open auction, right?
34:33
If you're able to do an open auction and you could buy this legally and the person that bought it could then go flex it around and publicly be the owner of of these, you know, incredible historic jewels. Yep.
34:44
Uh that would get you sort of the maximum price.
34:47
Uh that being said, given the historical significancy, I think there's there's a small pool of buyers. >> Yeah.
34:56
>> There's probably 100 people in the world. Yep.
35:00
>> That would be willing to pay tens of millions. >> Yeah.
35:04
>> Potentially more >> just just to know that they had it and just to be a family secret.
35:09
>> Do you think there are any buyers that would flex it?
35:11
Because obviously if you're if you're an ally of France, you're not going to do that.
35:15
Obviously, because they'll immediately come and be like, "Those are stolen. Give it to us.
35:19
Doesn't matter what you paid. You got to return it."
35:20
If you're America or Germany or Britain, right?
35:23
But what if you're Vladimir Putin?
35:25
What if you're Kim Jong-un?
35:27
Like, if you're in North Korea, like, oh, France is going to invade North Korea for a couple.
35:35
>> Kim Jong-un just rocking it himself.
35:37
>> I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know.
35:37
I I feel like there are some countries that are actively not friendly with France that could just say, you know what, we're gonna we're gonna buy this and we're going to it's going to be in our museum now. It's a stolen artifact.
35:52
A lot of museums have stolen artifacts. >> Yeah.
35:54
The other the other play is to, you know, if if you're a family that does, you know, is is into long-term planning, you could say, "All right, we're going to store these for for literally 150 years as a family."
36:10
And >> once 150 years pass, we're going to be able to pop up and we're going to be able to talk about our jewels publicly because everybody that was around when they were stolen isn't here anymore.
36:21
Nobody's really going to care.
36:24
The entire world population will have turned over and we'll be able to suddenly come out and make up some of our family. >> Yep.
36:31
Uh we need to up our security because I feel like someone's going to steal that horse. >> Yeah.
36:37
>> If we're not careful, >> they're going to use a furniture elevator to get out of here.
36:41
>> If you want to manage risk in your business, go to vanta. com.
36:44
Automate compliance, manage risk, prove trust continuously.
36:46
Vantage trust management platform takes the manual work out of security and compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation.
36:53
>> Okay, this story from Friday Saturday.
36:56
Yes, >> I was cracking up. >> Tell me.
36:58
>> Uh so long story short, some open AAI researchers >> uh were able to use chat GBT to find the results to a handful of problems. >> Yes.
37:09
>> Uh that were previously marked as unsolved. What are they called?
37:11
The the air uh >> Eish from Paul Erish. Paul Eric mathematician.
37:17
Um >> and so they were able to they said uh update uh Matab and I pushed further on this using thousands of GPD5 queries.
37:24
We found solutions to 10 airish problems that were listed as open.
37:29
And so they put this out and it looked like chat GPT had made this incredible novel discovery.
37:35
And it turns out they were just using chatg as this effectively web search >> knowledge retrie.
37:41
>> So someone had put these up there. Yeah. Okay.
37:43
And uh they were kind of positioning it.
37:47
It it was you you could read it both ways.
37:49
If you went back and looked at their original posts, you could see how they were saying like we just found the solutions.
37:54
We didn't we didn't generate them. >> Yep.
37:58
>> But the way that it was written was was definitely like a lot of people would have just read it as oh wow >> Chad GPD5 is doing >> novel novel discovery.
38:09
>> I have a very funny story about this.
38:10
And so, of course, uh just just to close it off, Demis over at Deep Mind just commented, "This is embarrassing."
38:19
>> um >> absolutely roasted.
38:19
Um and the OpenAI researcher said, "I I deleted the post.
38:24
I didn't mean to mislead anyone.
38:27
Obviously, I thought the phrasing was clear. Sorry about that.
38:28
Only solutions in the literature were found. That's it."
38:32
And this and I find this very accelerating because I know how hard it is to search the literature.
38:35
Uh and >> John Lun is not a happy We're not going to read that one.
38:40
He >> what he he's say he's making a play on hosted by their own petards which is where you are a victim of something that you it's like uh stepping on a rake that you put down on the ground.
38:49
He is not making uh an illusion to the rword or any sort of slur.
38:54
So uh just to be clear there um anyway I had a funny story when I was in uh Silicon Valley in 2012.
39:01
There were these like extremely hard programming challenges that I could do the first couple of but I couldn't actually get that far because they were really really difficult and I didn't really have a reason to like go and get like be like a competition programmer.
39:13
I was just trying to build a company and uh but I wanted if if you if you could get you know if you could get the service to like accept your result you could get this badge that you could put on your website and it would link it into your profile and it would be like very legit.
39:28
It was like computer uh it was like uh you know programmer cred.
39:33
And so what I figured out was that there were a lot of answers out there that were like on GitHub and open source and so you could go and find those put those into the system get authenticated as like having solved these really hard problems and so I got like the gold medal and was able to put it on my website and made it look very official that I I could not do that level of programming.
39:52
Um so I was doing the same thing basically.
39:54
Uh, so you know, uh, maybe I shouldn't be, uh, casting stones here.
40:00
Um, anyway, >> Elon, >> oh yeah, he's he's taking shots.
40:05
>> Dunked on Well, Gabe over at OpenAI uh, well, to start it off, Elon says, "My estimate on the probability of Gro 5 achieving AGI is now at 10% and rising."
40:16
>> Gabe says, "10% chance Elon declares he reached AGI a fourth time."
40:19
Elon, >> has Elon ever actually declared he reached AGI?
40:24
I feel like he has not declared that.
40:26
Like I feel like Elon says a lot of crazy stuff about like I hope that we'll be able to do novel physics.
40:33
I think the next version is going to be really powerful. This and that.
40:36
But I don't know that he's ever actually called a a version of Grock AGI.
40:40
But uh anyway, it clearly uh it clearly upset Elon because he replied and said, "You call yourself a quote unquote researcher hitting somebody with the double quotes.
40:50
We know the pain that that inflicts. It's terrible.
40:52
You never want to be hit with the double quotes. Uh and he says pathetic.
40:56
And so uh rough rough day on the timeline timeline in turmoil.
41:01
Um >> Jensen Hang uh was at a Citadel event future of global markets and said we are 100% out of China.
41:10
We went from 95% market share to 0%.
41:13
I can't imagine any policy maker thinking that's a good idea.
41:17
And uh yeah, there was some push back here.
41:21
Uh Matt Palmer says 100% out of China but doing a astonishingly healthy business in Singapore and Malaysia.
41:28
Totally out of the blue and not for any intelligible reason.
41:30
Uh uh swinging around accusations that uh Singapore and Malaysia are fronts for Chinese chip demand.
41:44
>> Yeah, people have been uh uh going back and forth on Jensen's involvement in China.
41:48
Sham Sankar took to the page of the Wall Street Journal.
41:50
Uh I'm sure we have a copy here actually uh uh talking about Nvidia in China.
41:55
We actually have some folks coming on the show later today hopefully uh to uh break down some of what's happening both in the rare earth world and also in the uh in the semiconductor world with regard to China.
42:10
Uh if you are uh joining us and expecting an interview with Ryan Cohen, we are working through some technical difficulties.
42:17
We are hopefully going to be getting him on the phone in just a few minutes.
42:20
Um, but first let me tell you about graphite.
42:22
dev code review for the age of AI.
42:24
Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
42:28
Um, uh, Palanteer CEO Shan said uh, uh, he said, "Why the China doves are wrong.
42:36
American business leaders cozing up to Beijing refuse to see that the Communist Party wants us to fail."
42:43
Um, China's com commerce ministry last week announced far-reaching export controls on lithium batteries, products that use Chinese rare earth materials and related technologies.
42:52
The export controls, which President Trump characterized as a rather sinister and hostile move, are the latest reminder that the US is funding its own destruction through economic dependence on a communist adversary.
43:02
Many American business elites persist in denying this reality.
43:07
Jensen Wong's just one of them.
43:09
He said in a recent interview that while some Americans wear the label China hawk as a badge of honor, it is really a badge of shame. The future, Mr.
43:14
Wong says, doesn't have to be all us or them. It could be us and them. A nice sentiment.
43:22
But the CCP leaders don't believe it.
43:24
They often speak soothingly of their country's peaceful rise.
43:26
But the party's history and actions tell a different story.
43:31
Influenced by the Chinese civil war and much earlier waring states period.
43:34
The party believes that stability comes from control.
43:37
This belief explains its ruthless effort to consolidate power.
43:42
The Communist Party believes China and the US are locked in a great struggle for mastery in this worldview.
43:47
It is not enough for China to rise. The US must fall.
43:49
It is a uh uh a dark telling of the current state of affairs.
43:56
Um it is a rough it is a rough time in geopolitics.
43:59
Um he closes by saying, "The first step to ending our dependence on China is admitting we have a problem.
44:06
We can continue as useful idiots decrying China hawks who point out that we're funding our own demise, or we can wake up to the reality that we're already in an economic war in which every purchase and investment will help determine which system survives." Um very very rough.
44:21
Uh I mean a lot of this is uh all teeing up a major trade deal and uh I mean we're starting to see the uh outlines of of exactly how big the chip stacks are on either side of the poker table if you want to use that analogy.
44:38
It is a uh the uh the rare earth equation is uh is certainly a big one.
44:46
Uh, America has a bunch of levers to pull, but uh the uh the the the chip controls one it it feels less uh it feels like a smaller chip stack honestly because even when Nvidia says hey okay we're going to we're going to sell uh you know H20s in China.
45:03
China says a we don't want them like we'll just we'll just stick to Huawei. We will wait.
45:07
We will you know be a little bit later on the slop curve on the slopification of our economy.
45:14
uh and uh and and we'll see you in 10 years when we're actually fighting it out for AGI and at that point we will have uh our our own full semiconductor stack on the frontier. >> Yeah.
45:26
I mean that that feels like what they're thinking of.
45:28
Uh >> I don't know what their interpretation of the Andre Karpathy interview was, but uh it seems like they are they're uh if if they were truly like the next scaling run is what does it, they would be like oh let's take the Nvidia chips as well.
45:43
Instead, they're saying, "Okay, well, let's let's actually gear up for independence over a long period of time."
45:48
>> Um, Wall Street Engine has a story here.
45:51
JP Morgan says Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong's projection of AI capex growing from 600 billion today to three to four trillion by 2030 is financially feasible, though ambitious.
46:01
Uh the bank expects the tech sector to fund it through operating cash flow, private equity, and venture capital inflows and new debt issuance, which we've been tracking.
46:11
Uh even with a projected 1. 2 1.
46:14
6 trillion annual funding gap, private markets could contribute about 500 billion per year by 2030, leaving the rest to be covered by leverage expansion.
46:25
JP Morgan estimates 40% of new debt, 430 billion, would come from bank loans and 60% from bond issuance.
46:33
So there's going to be a new uh 1 trillion of debt coming into the system.
46:37
Now uh even with this increase, the tech industry's net debt to cash flow ratio would rise only from 7 to 1.
46:44
2x, still below the global average.
46:47
So that's like the that's the bare case for like, you know, everyone's investing a ton, but we're not completely over our skis.
46:53
It is a very aggressive buildout.
46:56
It might be it might take you know a hit on depreciation or it might take time to really monetize all this but >> and the key question is you know if you want AI capex to scale to 3 to four trillion you're going to need revenue to support that.
47:10
You're going to need a lot of revenue fast.
47:11
We've seen, you know, tremendous growth with on the agent side, uh, you know, developer agents, uh, whether that's, uh, you know, Claude Code, uh, GitHub Copilot, uh, etc. , etc.
47:25
But, um, yeah, it's it's it's not that, uh, it's not that it's just financially feasible, it's just that it has to be backed up by something.
47:31
Um, and thank you for, uh, bearing with us, everyone.
47:38
Uh we are getting Ryan on in any second.
47:42
Um >> yes, >> AWS uh being down is presenting some technical difficulties, but the interview is still happening.
47:50
>> Yes, we're working on it.
47:50
Thank you for sticking with us.
47:51
Uh and thank you for checking out Julius.
47:53
ai, the AI data analyst for everyone.
47:55
Chat with your data and get expert level insights in seconds. And that's finn.
47:59
ai, the number one AI agent for customer service, which is also a sponsor of TVPN. So, thank you to them.
48:06
Uh Dean Ball who is coming on the show today.
48:08
He says uh I have been contacted by a person clearly undergoing LLM psychosis reaching out be because 40 told them to contact me specifically.
48:19
I have heard other writers say the same thing.
48:21
I don't know how widespread it is, but it's clearly a real thing.
48:25
Jordy, have you have you received any any inbound from random people who seem to have GPT psychosis? >> Hard to say.
48:34
I feel like my entire like unread like DM request tab is probably like LLM psychos but uh but but those those folks don't break through and honestly like the bot slop has been so bad for so long that uh it's hard to tell it's hard to tell what's actually >> um EMTT uh Emtt Shear last week was being accused of having LLM psychosis.
48:58
He said if you're trying to understand AGI core concepts you should familiar familiarize yourself with thermal time quantum Darwinism quantum >> basianism the free energy princip principle the zeta function >> theory aisle I think he was I think I think he was joking here uh but but many people many
49:20
people uh >> did not did not take it that way and it kind of spread like lots of people have LLM psychosis and lots of people have LLM psychosis psychosis too where anyone who's using an M dash is seen as someone who has like no brain left because they've been destroyed and that's not also not true. Uh yeah, EMTT went on a
49:39
Uh yeah, EMTT went on a tear like this a couple months ago.
49:42
We had him on the show after that and he seemed fine.
49:47
He was like completely normal on on the on the chat and was like clearly just having fun and I think he's just vague posting.
49:53
I mean, look at his look at his uh fave icon.
49:55
He clearly likes to, you know, post about weird and esoteric things and uh just, you know, have a good time.
50:03
>> Mike Isaac uh is highlighting.
50:03
There's a company called Airy uh is the first big company that this woman Rachel has seen that formerly states they won't use AI generated imagery.
50:14
It's one of their most engaged posts with 33,000 likes.
50:19
And Mike Isaac says, "I do think none of what we do involves AI.
50:21
increasingly becomes a marketing thing over the next few years as we hit saturation.
50:25
Smart posturing in my opinion.
50:27
Um so yeah, Aries saying in 2014 we stopped retouching.
50:32
Today we commit no AI generated bodies or people. Real people only.
50:37
We believe transparency isn't a trend. It's our promise to you.
50:39
No retouching, no AI, 100% real. >> Interesting.
50:48
I do do you know this brand airy?
50:48
Are you familiar with this brand before this?
50:52
I mean, good way to go viral and stuff.
50:55
>> Um, but uh yeah, I don't know.
50:58
I I I wonder I wonder where where this goes because uh like in Hollywood there's been a big pitch for uh this movie doesn't have any CGI.
51:08
You know, we shot it all practically.
51:10
And then what that really means is that okay they used miniatures but they actually did a bunch of green screen stuff and they did some set extensions and yeah there were some 3D models over here and there but it was mostly in the background and it's just not a crazy three you know CGI explosion doesn't look like Transformers.
51:27
Um but if you just look through the credits on one of those movies like Christopher Nolan's famous for this saying like uh you know we shot everything practically or we did or or we really steered away from from CGI.
51:38
from from CGI. If you look through the credits, you'll see a bunch of 3D artists because they're clearly doing some 3D reconstruction of certain things, but it might just be, oh, there was like a boom pole in this shot or
51:48
like, oh, there was a light stand in the back or like, oh, you could actually see like a taxi cab and we were shooting in in, you know, the 1800s, so like we got to pull that out, so just go in there with the with the the pen tool and like, you know, replace it with AI. Uh,
52:00
Uh, anyway, we have our first guest of the show.
52:05
We have Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop. Can you hear me, Ryan? How are you doing? >> I can hear you. >> Okay.
52:12
Sorry, we have we have serious serious technical difficulties today.
52:16
Um, but I believe we have you here on the phone.
52:18
Thank you so much for joining.
52:20
Thank you so much for taking the time. How are you today? >> I'm doing well. How about yourself? >> We're doing great.
52:26
Uh, we'd love to just get uh the story of GameStop from your perspective, kind of how you tell it now.
52:34
Uh, you're a couple years into this project.
52:36
uh would love to kind of get the the high level just to set the stage.
52:42
>> Where do you want to start?
52:44
>> Um maybe the original idea like when did you think you'd become involved with this company?
52:53
>> I originally invested as a passive investor. >> Mhm.
52:58
Um, I had a few conversations with the management team and the board of directors and I realized that saw a lot of stuff that you read about but you don't really believe until you actually engage with them.
53:13
And as we went through conversations, I went from passive to active and uh filed the 13D I believe in uh August of 2020 and then I joined the board in January of 2021 and um the rest is history.
53:32
The long story short is there's been a lot of changes at the company.
53:40
Um, a lot of cost cutting, >> uh, a lot of rationalization, focusing on the basics of running a profitable business and a lot of it was getting people out of the way.
53:55
um a board of directors that had perverse incentives, a management team that had perverse incentives.
54:05
Ultimately, what you see is that when people don't have their own money on the line, they don't give a >> And they're focused on all kinds of other stuff that ultimately doesn't matter to shareholders.
54:20
And a lot of it was getting that out of the way so that we could actually focus on the business.
54:27
And um you know you see it in the results of the business today versus where it was not just when I joined the board but you know you look at the results even prior to that.
54:36
It's uh it's a tough business. >> Yeah totally.
54:39
Well what do you think uh the mainstream media gets wrong about the GameStop story uh today or has gotten wrong throughout uh the whole saga?
54:56
[Music] That's not an easy question to answer.
55:00
Um because we're talking in generalities and >> sure >> I don't want to stere you I can't stereotype in general.
55:08
>> Um everyone thinks they know.
55:08
The mainstream se media thinks they know.
55:14
I'm running the business and they seem to have greater visibility into the business than I do.
55:17
So everyone has an opinion as opposed to actually just focusing on the results.
55:23
And in general, the news should just focus on the results instead of uh comments from the peanut gallery, right? >> Yeah.
55:32
Let's let's let's talk about Q2 specifically.
55:34
What what made that one of the biggest quarters in years?
55:42
It's a it's a focus on running a a business like an owner and cutting costs and making money and leaning into the areas of the business where there's margin potential just trading cards and then getting rid of the bloat.
55:56
Um, as an example, uh, I was just looking at this earlier today before we spoke.
56:04
2021 there were 14 over 1,400 people in corporate. >> Um, >> Wow.
56:15
>> Today there's like 400 people. >> Wow. Yeah.
56:19
>> And we're more productive today than we were in 2021.
56:25
SGNA has come down by like 50%.
56:25
So people build teams, they hire people.
56:31
Ultimately what that means is they delegate their work to someone else.
56:33
You end up taking on this crazy cost structure and it works when the business is growing but doesn't work well once you uh the business stops growing and that's where GameStop was.
56:46
And uh physical retail is tough. >> Yep.
56:52
How much of that corporate restructuring going from I think you said 1,400 people down to 400.
56:57
How much of that is just reorient reorienting around a players aligned incentives picking the best person to actually run a specific initiative versus using technology using software using AI?
57:11
Is there any sort of narrative around that that you've found success with? >> It's both. >> Mhm.
57:19
Even finding the right people though. Yeah.
57:22
You know, you don't you don't know.
57:23
I mean, I've been interviewing people for a long time and you meet people I meet them and I get really excited cuz they're really good at the interview process and they know how to say the right thing. So, what does that mean?
57:38
Means they've got really good public speaking skills.
57:41
So, they overindex there.
57:43
And then you actually when you look at their execution skills, they're not great.
57:48
>> So, Uh, I've been as equally excited as people that I've hired that have worked out as I have been of people that I've hired that I wasn't excited about and then they prove to me that they can actually execute.
58:01
So, you know, the results speak for themselves.
58:04
You you really only know once you put people someone in the position and you see what they're capable of.
58:11
They can tell a great story.
58:13
they can put together a great PowerPoint presentation, but you don't you don't actually know until you see what they're what they can actually do.
58:21
So, there's no question that artificial intelligence and just broadly speaking, technology has increased productivity.
58:34
Um, you know, that's that's been a big benefit.
58:37
And then doing more with less. >> Yep. You take a Z salary.
58:41
You have billions of dollars of cash on hand.
58:44
Uh how do you plan to allocate it over the next two to three years?
58:50
I don't want to I don't want to go too long term.
58:56
>> There's um we don't have a gun to our head.
59:00
So it needs to be a situation where the downside is limited and the upside is really high.
59:10
And um that's a different calculus than the world of private equity or or venture capital or any money managers where they're incentivized to deploy capital because they get management fees.
59:27
In this case, a fancy way of saying is it's risk adjusted and I I don't want to lose money and I I want a situation where there's a good chance of making money and a really low chance of losing money.
59:43
So, it needs to be a pitch that is pretty much down the middle.
59:47
Um, >> does that mean you're waiting you're waiting for a for a crash?
59:59
You never know what's going to happen in the financial markets.
1:00:00
They can go from >> uh from green to red and and they don't flash yellow.
1:00:06
So when that happens, we'll be in a position.
1:00:09
But >> yeah, I just feel like it's not I just feel like it's notable that you have all these, you know, digital asset treasury companies that are just market buying, you know, obscene amounts of >> of uh, you know, Bitcoin and and other tokens and and you guys are, you know, uh, taking a longer view. >> Yeah.
1:00:32
>> What are you excited about uh in the core business over the next few years between retail, online, you you mentioned trading cards.
1:00:39
Can you unpack a little bit more about some of the the key initiatives like the customer behaviors that you see as uh really big opportunities?
1:00:51
>> I tried a lot of different things.
1:00:53
>> So I originally went in um with the the Chewy playbook >> was we focused first on consumables.
1:01:02
So, we had a lot of success on pet food, treats, litter, things that you could put on auto ship.
1:01:11
And then it went from focus on consumables, getting customers on auto ship to we're going to be the everything pet store and we're going to expand our catalog and we're going to add all these hard goods.
1:01:24
So, I had all these preconceived biases where I was going to copy the Chewy Playbook at GameStop and basically be like the everything store >> for gaming.
1:01:37
And we um I hired a bunch of fancy people from both Amazon and Chewy and we expanded the catalog and we added a bunch of product and um most of that product didn't sell and we ended up marking it down and taking a big hit and it cost shareholders a lot of money cuz once you have the product trapped in stores you got to mark it down in order to move and get it out of the stores.
1:02:03
Um whereas within the consumable space if we ever bought it if we ever overbought inventory we just waited and ultimately you know bought too much cat food or whatever it ended up selling.
1:02:17
Y >> so physical retail is very very very different than e-commerce and uh I spent a lot of money to figure that out.
1:02:28
And so what I learned is that we went into all these categories and a lot of uh we took some significant hits on losing money. We lost money. It's that simple.
1:02:43
by trying to expand into all of these categories that were not core to the GameStop customer.
1:02:48
And then along comes collectibles.
1:02:50
And obviously after expanding into categories where there's very little success, your risk appetite at that point is pretty low.
1:03:01
All of a sudden we see that they're like the GameStop customer >> really.
1:03:06
When it comes to trading cards, there's a strong appetite for for trading cards.
1:03:10
And that category has done very well.
1:03:14
And we've gone from like 10% of our sales to over close to a third probably for the full year is going to come from collectibles.
1:03:23
And um >> that's remarkable. Congratulations. >> Yeah.
1:03:30
>> Um I I want to I I want to know more about the collectibles thing.
1:03:32
Let's let's table that for a second.
1:03:34
And I'd love to know more about uh where you see the traditional video gaming market going.
1:03:40
Uh I'm I'm experiencing kind of whiplash because I see uh mobile games and and freetoplay growing and micro payments happening.
1:03:50
EA is getting taken private.
1:03:52
Uh you have a lot of stuff going on in that end, but then you also have Palmer Lucky kind of bringing back the Game Boy and the N64 with Chromatic and I know you're you're partnering on that.
1:04:01
Um what are you excited about?
1:04:04
What does the shape of the traditional sort of like video game market look like over the next couple years?
1:04:12
>> The video game market is definitely going from physical to digital.
1:04:14
So, our ability to play in the digital world is limited.
1:04:21
There's a lot of money that's being spent and um we've taken a capex light approach like a a a pretty risklight approach to the digital world.
1:04:34
If there's not a a clear path past us being able to to make money and a a payback period that's that's pretty attractive, then >> uh this isn't a story of like moonshots.
1:04:50
So there's no moonshots that are being done like we're >> we're focused on real returns. >> Yep.
1:04:57
Uh what about wearables, virtual reality?
1:05:00
Uh we heard a story about the Meta Quest or the the Meta Rayband displays and uh a friend of ours went and had to test them at Best Buy and didn't have a great experience and it feels like uh if we do enter sort of like a wearable era, there's a renewed demand for instore experiences.
1:05:19
Is that on your radar at all or is that more of like a you know futuristic thing that you'll deal with it when it comes down the pipe?
1:05:31
I mean, the when I think about wearables, the Apple Watch is a good product.
1:05:35
When I think about the MetaQuest, I mean, it's a joke.
1:05:40
>> Uh the all of the virtual reality stuff doesn't feel like like who's going to walk around with these glasses on their head?
1:05:49
Like, it's just it doesn't it does not seem like that's the future.
1:05:56
But if we could sell a product and we can make really high margins, then obviously we're going to sell the product.
1:06:02
But we're not investing in um in in virtual reality or in in the metaverse unless there's a clear path to being able to deliver results for shareholders. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:14
I meant more just as like Apple does have the Apple store network.
1:06:19
Uh other companies that are trying to get into wearables and might need intore demos don't have one of those.
1:06:23
But uh yeah, I mean your your rationale makes a ton of sense.
1:06:27
>> It's so interesting to think about the dis, you know, when when I hear you talk, Ryan, it's you're you're everything you say aligns with thoughtful capital allocation and yet the the broader like world seems to believe that this is this is just about being, you know, kind of this is, you know, it doesn't >> it's moonshots.
1:06:48
the other there there's there's uh CEOs out there that have effectively meme stocks and they just act and talk a lot differently. Yeah. Than you do.
1:06:57
>> No, this is refreshing.
1:06:59
>> Um what what do you think about some of the the uh conversations?
1:07:01
There's been uh I guess rumors that uh the admin is interested in companies moving to byianual uh reporting instead of quarterly reporting.
1:07:11
Do you think that's smart?
1:07:13
what what kind of moves from the admin uh this year have you been uh particularly uh interested in? >> I like reducing cost.
1:07:23
So if it costs us less money than to report by annually then by all means uh I think it's important for shareholders to have visibility into how the company's doing and then making a determination whether they want to stay invested or not.
1:07:44
But we have an opportunity to reduce our costs.
1:07:48
I mean, >> it's a it costs a lot of money to be a public company. >> Yeah.
1:07:52
>> We spend a lot of money on audit fees.
1:07:55
So, that hurt me at Chewy.
1:07:55
That hurts me at GameStop.
1:07:57
Uh they they charge us a lot of money.
1:08:00
So, if it me if it ultimately means we spend less money on being a public company than and it makes us more efficient, then that's that's fantastic.
1:08:10
Uh, I I've I did did I didn't mention it, but thank you for Chewy.
1:08:15
I've been uh a subscriber for probably a decade.
1:08:18
Uh, you know, it's uh it's been the backbone of my household.
1:08:21
My uh my dogs Thank you as well.
1:08:24
Uh I'm interested to hear your your take on kind of uh evolution of e-commerce.
1:08:30
There's a lot of chatter about agentic commerce and people buying through products through their chat apps.
1:08:35
Have you looked into that?
1:08:37
Do you have a a a current uh framework for thinking about the the adoption rates of people buying stuff through an LLM?
1:08:50
>> Um Amazon started selling pet products in the late >> 90s >> and they were they were doing okay. >> Mhm. >> Chewy comes along.
1:09:01
We originally wanted to start off selling jewelry.
1:09:04
We actually bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry.
1:09:09
We went I went to a trade show and I bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry.
1:09:18
We set up the website and everything and then I was shopping in a neighborhood pet store and I had a um at the time like a five or six pound teacup poodle.
1:09:32
Uh, and I kept on going to this neighborhood bed store every few weeks and I run into the office.
1:09:36
By the way, I don't wear jewelry.
1:09:39
I was not passionate about the C. I didn't know anything. >> That's important.
1:09:44
Like, you were just kind of It was picking like this seems like a good marketing business and it's light. You can ship. >> Yeah.
1:09:52
It was a little too mercenary.
1:09:53
Like you got to get into the, you know, build something that you want so you can give yourself feedback. >> Yeah.
1:09:58
And but you think like your intuition is like there's margins in jewelry and so like you can make money.
1:10:07
There was there was a blue Nile at the time that had really gross high gross margins and I was like we can do >> we can do well in online jewelry.
1:10:16
Um anyway, I went to this jewelry trade show.
1:10:19
I bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry.
1:10:21
Um, and then I was shopping kind of at the same time every few weeks at this neighborhood pet store for my poodle.
1:10:35
And I was way more interested in the pet category than I was in jewelry.
1:10:38
I understood the customer.
1:10:40
And so I ended up selling the jewelry.
1:10:43
I ended up getting like 80 or 90 cents on the dollar. Mhm.
1:10:50
>> Uh and I went into the pet category and I liked that I well I understood it.
1:10:54
Uh I I liked the predictability of the industry.
1:11:03
I like the fact that like once you're a pet owner, you're buying pet food pretty much for the rest of your life.
1:11:09
And um and and we shifted.
1:11:09
And so Chewy comes along.
1:11:13
since 2011 and I took the playbook from Amazon.
1:11:18
So, the focus on fast shipping, having a great selection, being able to get onto the website, add an item to the cart and check out.
1:11:29
Our average checkout time was like less than two minutes. >> Wow.
1:11:35
So, you know, you think about like GoDaddy and I don't know if you've ever bought a domain name, but you go through the check out process, they're trying to upsell you on like a gazillion stuff. >> Yeah.
1:11:46
>> And then all of a sudden, Chewy is like average checkout time less than 2 minutes.
1:11:50
We're not trying to upsell you.
1:11:52
It's like, we're going to get you your pet food as fast as possible at the best price.
1:11:57
So Julie comes along in 2011 and completely completely disrupts the industry. >> Yeah.
1:12:05
>> And we disrupted the independence.
1:12:05
We disrupted Petco and PetSmart.
1:12:07
And we were delivering your consumables at a better price, faster with an easier experience backed up by great customer experience.
1:12:18
And so, um, you don't necessarily have to be first to the game in order to be successful.
1:12:26
Amazon was first to the game, but we focused on the category and we were successful.
1:12:32
And that's kind of what's interesting in technology in general is like you have these technology companies that are trying to do everything, right?
1:12:43
Amazon's trying to do streaming.
1:12:46
They're trying to do e-commerce.
1:12:47
They're trying to do everything.
1:12:50
And then all of a sudden, you have Netflix that is really successful in streaming.
1:12:53
You have Chewy that's really successful in pet food. >> Yeah.
1:12:58
>> So, if you focus on a category, you could be very successful.
1:13:03
>> How did you process the DTOC e-commerce era?
1:13:06
It was like really hot in Silicon Valley.
1:13:08
Every MBA was raising venture capital.
1:13:12
slap a $250,000 brand on a white labeled product and raise some money and then it kind of fizzled out.
1:13:20
But like how were you processing that at the time?
1:13:22
What's your post-mortem like?
1:13:24
How should people think about bu building brands going forward?
1:13:28
Is there still opportunity >> for us?
1:13:32
building brand was acquiring one customer at a time and making sure that they got their pet food or whatever the hell they ordered from us the best price really quickly.
1:13:46
That's how you build a brand.
1:13:48
It's not >> spending a bunch of money on, you know, Pets.
1:13:51
com, a Super Bowl commercial.
1:13:51
It is focusing on the the best marketing is word of mouth.
1:13:58
So, you allow a customer through word of mouth.
1:14:01
You have a great customer experience.
1:14:02
You deliver the product really quickly at a great price and you have a happy customer.
1:14:07
And that was the way to build Chewy was getting big market leadership and making sure that customers were really happy.
1:14:20
>> What are the three like key lessons from Chewy that you feel like you and the GameStop team are applying today? um running efficiently.
1:14:31
There's no question that like we ran very a a focus on uh on you know Chewy was they're so different.
1:14:46
Thing is is you think like e-commerce and and and physical retail are the same.
1:14:53
And that's where I I made a lot of mistakes cuz I showed up like a wise guy at GameStop.
1:14:58
I thought I had all all the answers, but e-commerce and physical retail are very very different. >> Yeah.
1:15:06
>> So, in general within physical retail, what I've learned is like you want to you have to run lean and you're better off having less inventory than more inventory.
1:15:18
So, um I cost shareholders a lot of money by taking the Chewy playbook at GameStop.
1:15:27
And then I learned physical retail which was uh a muscle that I had zero memory and it was on making sure that when you get the product you sell it very very quickly because if you don't the product depreciates very quickly whereas with chewy if I overbought I sold the product very quickly it didn't matter.
1:15:46
So >> they're not the same.
1:15:51
>> They're uh they're not the same.
1:15:51
It it the reason why in general both concepts have worked out is cuz you know you you you keep on I have my own money on the line.
1:16:07
So not going to stop until I figure it out. And >> you're him.
1:16:14
>> But but it costs a lot of money to figure it out. >> Skin in the game. The man's in the arena.
1:16:18
>> Uh people have said you're you're too >> Yeah.
1:16:22
People have said you're uh too bold as a CEO.
1:16:23
Uh do you think the traditional concept of a of a buttoned up uh CEO CEO that maybe shies away from controversy uh should uh is is obsolete or or should be forgotten.
1:16:42
>> I don't even know what a co means.
1:16:42
I want at the end of the day I want whoever's in charge if it ends up successful they end up doing really well and if it ends up not being successful they lose a lot of money and call them call me the janitor for all I care the end of the day their incentives should be aligned with common shareholders so um that's the most important thing is the incentives are are generally aligned. >> Yeah.
1:17:17
You're the loudest shareholder. >> Yeah.
1:17:20
>> Um how do you decide how do you decide what battles to fight because you got a lot of stuff coming your way at any given point? A lot of opportunity. What's your framework?
1:17:33
>> My framework is what's going to move the needle.
1:17:35
like if if we can if if we can make 80% margins uh but the upside is limited it's not going to move the needle then I don't care if if it's able to translate into billions of dollars of shareholder value and it's scalable then we're talking so there's a lot of things that are like small time and yeah we can make a lot of margin but there's there's not a lot of upside in terms of shareholders, then who cares?
1:18:08
But if it translates into into something meaningful and scalable, then then I'm interested.
1:18:17
>> Do you think do you think power packs could be that? >> Uh what do you think?
1:18:24
>> Well, the chat is going crazy.
1:18:24
They want to know they they want the the update from your side.
1:18:33
>> Power packs is interesting.
1:18:36
power packs, physical and digital. Um, is very interesting.
1:18:44
>> We we we can't get enough inventory.
1:18:47
>> So, >> that's always a good >> I don't want I don't I don't want to say anything cuz I mean users can uh >> Do you see customers can figure out for themselves? >> Yeah.
1:18:57
Do you see it as the same sort of like it's more consumption focused so it fits within the Chewy model?
1:19:01
Is is is that the right way to think about this as opposed to you know you you you're you're there's less risk of getting stuck with a bunch of inventory.
1:19:12
>> Are we talking physical or digital?
1:19:14
>> Uh physical I would imagine would be like the place where there's inventory risk in some regard.
1:19:18
But uh if if you view it as more of a consumption product uh then like the Chewy story, there's presumably less risk in uh holding a bunch of inventory.
1:19:31
I like the trading card space. Okay.
1:19:33
So, we have uh we GameStop has a lot of assets.
1:19:38
We have the community and the brand that allows us to if you look at digital power packs, we've kept uh we've kept it pretty limited in terms of being able to get into the digital category and and frankly, it's not a marketing thing.
1:19:56
We just we can't get enough inventory.
1:20:00
And it's the same thing on the physical thing, but digital is more scalable.
1:20:08
>> Um, so if we had a choice between physical and digital, because digital is more scalable, we're going to go towards digital.
1:20:16
um can't get >> enough inventory at at least at a price where we can >> I mean you you can buy inventory at a 110 or 120% market value but we're not going to we're not going to start doing stupid stuff like that.
1:20:34
>> How do how do you see the collectibles landscape evolving over the next 5 years?
1:20:38
It feels like different players have picked a focus whether that's live uh traditional auctions uh something uh you know like like you just discussed um as well but like what what is what is the shape of the market going forward uh in your view >> they're all connected like if you look at the overall collectible space it's looked at as a st store of you and it's been that way for decades.
1:21:09
If you look at trading cards, you it's like nostalgic to, you know, I I I grew up.
1:21:18
Uh I didn't I collected trading cards a little bit, but there's definitely a comeback right now on trading cards.
1:21:24
So, it's looked at as a store of value.
1:21:28
Whether that continues or not, who the who knows?
1:21:32
I mean, everyone is like, well, it's going to continue.
1:21:36
Everyone thinks crypto is going to continue. Nobody knows.
1:21:40
>> Y >> uh but but we're having a lot of success when you look at our assets right now.
1:21:46
Like the the way it stands right now is we're selling the product very quickly.
1:21:51
We can't get the more inventory we have, we could sell the product.
1:21:55
So we're going to run efficiently and if we can sell the product, great.
1:22:00
And if it happens where we can't sell the product, then we're going to adjust and uh you know, we're going to lower our costs and going to focus on on on the things that make sense.
1:22:14
>> Do you have a do you have a take on Laboo?
1:22:15
I feel like uh if I find out about it, I'm ultra late and I might have topt ticked it when I finally uh learned about that, but it seems like it's uh somewhat important to the collectible boom, the story there.
1:22:26
Uh do you have any idea what's going on?
1:22:32
We I don't Do we sell Laboo right now?
1:22:32
I don't think we sell Lubu. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:37
I'm just wondering like uh Yeah, it's like kind of an odd strategy.
1:22:42
It has some of the unboxing characteristics. Uh very popular.
1:22:44
Seemed like it just kind of emerged out of China out of nowhere.
1:22:48
Uh I was wondering if you had tracked the market at all. >> No. Should we sell it? >> I don't know. It might be too late. I have no idea.
1:22:57
>> They're very They're very demonic in our view. >> Yeah.
1:22:59
We we we we think they kind of just don't have the right vibe and uh I feel like there's plenty of other collectibles that would be more on brand personally.
1:23:07
>> How how do you >> what was that?
1:23:09
>> Is it females or males? >> I don't know.
1:23:12
>> I think it's all sorts of people buying them.
1:23:13
>> I saw Tim Cook had one so everybody's How are you thinking about uh how do you think about M&A on the in the collectible space?
1:23:21
I'm sure people come to you all the time with sort of platforms that maybe have some scale but not quite uh the scale that you have that that would love to sell to you but obviously companies are bought not sold.
1:23:34
So I'm curious uh if you've if if it's something that you would explore in the future.
1:23:41
They don't come to us as often as you think because they know well um they probably go to private equity or venture capital or these fancy hedge funds before they come to us cuz uh I want to make sure that I'm I'm uh I care about cash flow and the price that I pay.
1:24:04
So >> yeah, >> we don't uh we see some deals, but it's hard to compete against guys that are or girls, whatever, that are getting management fees.
1:24:17
>> Do you think uh do you think AI uh plays into the collectibles world at all?
1:24:20
Just this idea that like if you have a piece of IP, you can instantiate it maybe much quicker across a whole host of images and videos and kind of build out an intellectual property world faster.
1:24:31
Is that actually an accelerant to the collectible trade?
1:24:37
>> I in general I have been I'm the person that's very cynical when it comes to emerging technologies. >> Sure.
1:24:47
>> So, uh like autonomous driving as example like everyone with like GM, Ford, all of the big OEMs, they're finished cuz there's going to be autonomous driving.
1:25:01
No, it's it's uh when it comes to AI, it's a big problem.
1:25:07
At some point, the computers are going after the humans.
1:25:14
And I don't think it's that far away.
1:25:14
I think that the sci-fi movies when it comes to AI, I feel it.
1:25:22
I feel like there's going to be a big problem when it comes to artificial intelligence.
1:25:27
And at some point it's going to be the computers against the humans. China versus the US.
1:25:35
Who's going to be the winner? Who the knows?
1:25:37
But we got big problems with AI.
1:25:41
And it's interesting cuz you can't stop human innovation.
1:25:48
And we've got this insatiable appetite to go into these technologies like artificial intelligence that are very disruptable.
1:25:58
There's lots of money that's that is being poured into it.
1:26:00
But what the future looks like, we have to be very very very careful.
1:26:06
So artificial intelligence, it scares me.
1:26:13
I mean, I I like the productivity benefits, but um AI once the robots come after us scares me.
1:26:27
>> What's your timeline there? >> It's faster.
1:26:30
It's faster than I would have thought.
1:26:33
When I look at what's happening, I don't buy into emerging technologies, but when I look at the advance advancements in AI, this is no joke.
1:26:45
And we have to be very very very careful about what's going to happen to artificial intelligence.
1:26:53
>> Where do you think we are in the market cycle?
1:26:55
Do you think it's uh you think it's 1999 uh February of 2000?
1:26:59
Does that is that even worth comping to or do you comp to something else >> in AI? It feels early.
1:27:14
Doesn't feel like we're at the end.
1:27:14
It feels like we're like the second or third inning, but who the hell knows?
1:27:22
But at a high level, um I think that it's I think we have to be very careful when you think about the future of humanity and whether AI is going to benefit the future of humanity. I don't know.
1:27:50
I would uh if I was running a dictatorship and someone made me king and you told me should we move forward with this technology, it's not clear to me whether moving forward with AI is going to benefit everyone.
1:28:08
It's definitely going to benefit the few that are invested in the industry, but there's going to be a lot of people that are not going to benefit from artificial intelligence.
1:28:19
So, >> chat GBT chat GBT is depending on paid users right now.
1:28:26
They can't, you know, if they killed off humanity, that'd be kind of bad for business.
1:28:30
Isn't there a way to solve that alignment issue?
1:28:35
You know, we've if you look at the tractor trailer the US in the 1800s and the tractor trail I think it was like 80% of the population was working on the farm and then all of a sudden tractor trailer comes along and few centuries later it's like 2 to 3% of the population is working in farming and you would have said how the he the hell can the US economy adapt to something that's so disruptive and we did.
1:29:03
But when it comes to artificial intelligence, I feel like it's different.
1:29:12
Uh maybe I'm biased from some of these sci-fi movies, but there is going to be a lot of wealth inequality that's created. I don't I don't like it.
1:29:23
I mean, there's there's there's opportunities to be had.
1:29:30
There's no question about it.
1:29:30
But is it better for humanity in aggregate AI? What do you think?
1:29:40
>> Well, I yeah, I I think for me, uh I think it's very straightforward to imagine the dark sci-fi timeline, but it feels farther away.
1:29:49
I mean, at least in our corner of the internet, people have been reacting to uh uh Carpathy's interview with Darkeesh that was uh I think went live Thursday night.
1:29:59
think went live Thursday night. And it feels like uh the debate right now is is is AI frontier lab progress slowing down is it just autocomplete uh or uh and if it's autocomplete and we don't have uh and if basically if the rate of progress is slowing down are is
1:30:21
there massive overinvestment right now and what I'm hearing from you is simultaneously uh generally kind of the the doomer point of view which I think is fair, but at the same time it doesn't sounds it doesn't sound like if you were running a a hyperscaler you'd be ramping up capex right now. Are we smart enough as a society to
1:30:43
Are we smart enough as a society to understand what the benefits are and what are the downsides?
1:30:51
And everyone has perverse incentives.
1:30:55
So someone who's in the AI industry is going to tell us how AI is the best thing since sliced bread.
1:31:01
But in general as a society, if you think across like human evolution over centuries, do I want to take this emerging technology and is this going to benefit the human population in aggra over the long term? Do you >> what happened?
1:31:26
What happens when AI becomes smarter than us?
1:31:31
>> Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
1:31:31
Do you think the solutions government intervention just good stewardship by the leaders of the foundation model labs?
1:31:38
Like who actually who actually has the responsibility of stewarding the new technology most effectively?
1:31:50
It's governments and it's ones who are f who have a long tenure.
1:31:55
You look at America, you know, the presidential cycle is four years.
1:32:02
>> So, I don't know if that's necessarily long-term incentives. >> Yeah.
1:32:08
>> Um, but who cares about where humanity is going to be?
1:32:14
Not in four years from now.
1:32:14
not when they check out but in a hundred years from now.
1:32:20
Who's got a long-term focus on this emerging technology and who cares about humanity over centuries but we have to be very very careful about this technology.
1:32:38
>> What what was your view on social media a decade ago?
1:32:40
It was quite popular for a period to say that social media was destroying humanity.
1:32:47
Uh and maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
1:32:51
Uh we seem to have found a way through.
1:32:55
But do is your view that that AI is as bad as people once maybe thought social media would be?
1:33:05
like what what specifically when you think about you know one one of the things we laugh about internally is uh just how easy it is to clock when somebody uses AI to generate like a cover letter cover letter or a job application right it's like a really good way to just get your cover letter
1:33:21
application ignored is just to generate it with chat GBT it's just beyond obvious and I'm sure your your team has seen a lot of this too but I'm curious like what do you think the before we get to the you know sci-fi I doomer scenario where the computers rise up and destroy us all. Uh what what's kind of like the
1:33:39
Uh what what's kind of like the immediate impact uh that that uh you're worried about?
1:33:50
Social media is one of the worst things that happen to humanity.
1:33:58
If you look at Instagram, people are so easily manipulated. They filter videos. They filter pictures.
1:34:08
You know, you look at these young people, their expectations, their lack of work ethic.
1:34:14
China has censored all of this stuff for good reason because it's so easy to manipulate the layman.
1:34:23
And so in general when I look at social media I say well has it benefited humanity or is it been toxic?
1:34:31
It's there there's no question that social media is is toxic.
1:34:42
Um AI clearly will increase productivity but at what cost? At what cost?
1:34:55
I think we have to be very very careful >> when when public company CEOs talk about how much efficiency they're getting out of AI.
1:35:02
Do you think that they're actually getting efficiency out of AI or do you think they're just uh pushing their teams harder to be more efficient and uh they want to blame blame the impact on on AI? >> It's both. It's both.
1:35:17
But AI without question increases productivity.
1:35:25
But, you know, again, it's short-term versus long-term.
1:35:28
So, if you're running Johnson and Johnson or pro or Proctor and Gamble and you can use artificial intelligence and you could reduce your cost structure cuz you've got all these humans that are doing these mundane tasks and all of a sudden you realize the computers are going to do it better. Well, duh.
1:35:47
You're going to reduce your cost structure.
1:35:49
But all of a sudden when you when you have all of these people that are unemployed and the demand for your product goes away, what's better?
1:36:02
You want to keep people employed and have some kind of self-worth and working hard and making money or do you want to replace them and give them universal basic income?
1:36:12
And then what does that mean?
1:36:14
Does your consumption and demand for your product in aggregate go up or go down as a result of artificial intelligence? I don't know.
1:36:22
But I one thing I know for certain is that the CEOs, if they can reduce their cost structure in the short term, they're going to replace they're going to take computers over humans.
1:36:37
But is that better for humanity over the long term? You tell me.
1:36:42
everyone on UBI over the long term.
1:36:46
How does that make them feel? People need a purpose.
1:36:50
>> You don't you don't think we'll create new jobs?
1:36:51
I mean, we created email jobs.
1:36:54
A lot of them could go away and the world wouldn't be too much different.
1:37:03
>> Artificial intelligence feels different. >> Yeah.
1:37:06
I just wonder if we compete on other things. >> It feels different.
1:37:08
Like we could still have we could still have hierarchies and competitions on things that only humans can do.
1:37:15
I mean, we already do this with sports and all sorts of things.
1:37:17
Um there there's probably still some sort of like reproductive battle to try and get to the top of the stack.
1:37:26
Even if you don't need to go and work to make money, there are still other things that you do with your time to raise your status in society. Um but I don't know.
1:37:34
It is it is a bizarre future to think about.
1:37:37
I just wonder if it's five years, 10 years, 50 years away.
1:37:44
>> We're in an era of instant gratification.
1:37:49
That's the American system. Is that now now now? >> Mhm.
1:37:57
>> Innovation, making money today.
1:37:57
But when you think about 10, 20, 30 years from now and artificial intelligence, what what does the world look like?
1:38:11
It's it's not about job displacement.
1:38:14
It's not about control, but is artificial intelligence going to control us or will we control artificial intelligence?
1:38:25
And you would argue that social media already controls how we feel daytoday.
1:38:31
We open our phone and decide >> our mood based on what's happening in far away places that we have nothing to do with.
1:38:43
>> Social media is a big problem.
1:38:46
What's >> it's so easy if you look at the divisiveness >> in this country, social media, whether you're a conservative, you you go on Instagram and you're you're a conservative and then all of a sudden you get, you know, these algorithms serve you all kinds of things that are going to make you mad.
1:39:09
And if you're a liberal, you all of a sudden go on social media and you see all kinds of media that's going to make you mad.
1:39:18
>> Why is it that ultimately humanity like it it comes down to human?
1:39:23
What why do we have to lose something in order to appreciate what it feels like the only neutralizer is death and war.
1:39:33
doesn't have to be that way, but it feels like the only way we can ultimately appreciate something is if we we actually lose it.
1:39:48
It's it's very very very sad.
1:39:48
But that's what it comes down to.
1:39:51
There's so much in divisiveness in America.
1:39:55
If we can just all come together and figure out command things that we both agree on, but instead we figure out the reasons why we're going to be divided and the politicians divide us.
1:40:12
And >> well, I think a lot of people have agreed a lot of people on social media have agreed that they like you a lot.
1:40:17
So there's there's there's there's one white pill in there.
1:40:22
>> Yeah, there's somebody >> until they don't until they don't.
1:40:25
>> Well, hopefully it doesn't.
1:40:25
Do they like me over the long term? I don't know. We'll find out. >> Yeah.
1:40:31
>> We true true leadership is not about dividing people.
1:40:36
It's figuring out how do we bring people together over the long term that benefit humanity? >> Yeah.
1:40:45
Uh h how do you apply that that that sort of thinking to video games?
1:40:50
because there was a lot of fear-mongering about violent video games causing kids to become violent.
1:40:55
Uh the government did step in and regulate video games with the ESRB.
1:40:59
Uh every game is given a rating and young kids, you know, they they can figure out a way to get access to some violent video games, but it's, you know, parents are more in control now.
1:41:10
And I feel like we more or less got the good outcome and and people can enjoy video games responsibly.
1:41:15
And of course there's some negative scenarios, but in general I feel like uh video games have been just like a cool cool medium for artists to tell stories.
1:41:26
There's wide variety of experiences.
1:41:26
Uh it feels like we as humanity got through that test and whereas maybe we're still in the middle of the of the fight for positive social media and maybe just at the beginning of the fight for positive AI outcomes.
1:41:42
Uh h what lesson should we take from like how humanity uh dealt with video games?
1:41:52
I >> think the Chinese have restricted their children from playing video games.
1:41:56
I let my kids play video games.
1:41:59
Doesn't b unless they're playing like Mario Kart. Yeah.
1:42:06
>> But you look at these like Call of Duty, they're killing each other.
1:42:13
I I want positive influences.
1:42:13
I want things that are healthy.
1:42:17
I want things where people are going to learn. >> Mhm.
1:42:24
>> Blowing someone's head off, exposing it to young people.
1:42:30
Governments, you know, you look at America, it's the land of the free. It's great.
1:42:35
It works well for immigrants cuz they come from places where it's and they come to America, they have all this freedom and their gratitude.
1:42:44
They're they're grateful, but then you look at people where they don't necessarily have that level of gratitude and they come to America, you give them all this freedom and they destroy themselves.
1:42:55
So, do I want my kids going and playing Call of Duty, blowing each other's heads off?
1:43:04
And then you look at the Chinese and they're restricting the ability to play video games, and you say, "Well, they're censoring versus we're free."
1:43:18
Well, what's better for humanity?
1:43:18
having boundaries and having rules or just letting people do whatever the hell they want, destroy their lives.
1:43:29
>> Have you ever thought about getting Have you ever thought about getting into politics? >> I was born in Canada.
1:43:45
>> There are some positions you could still run for. >> Which ones? Senator.
1:43:49
Yeah, I think you could be I don't know if you can be senator, but you could be maybe, right?
1:43:56
Isn't the mayor of New York not born in America?
1:43:58
Or going >> what is it there?
1:44:00
There was a saying my uh my heard >> you could be a city councilman, maybe.
1:44:08
>> Yeah, cuz they'd kill me.
1:44:10
>> Well, you could go to Canada.
1:44:10
You could be prime minister of Canada. >> Too honest. I'm too honest.
1:44:17
>> I'd have to be full of And I have to be fair, they couldn't handle me. They couldn't handle me.
1:44:21
Politicians, they're like diapers. They start to stink.
1:44:25
They get They start to stink very quickly.
1:44:27
I couldn't play the >> No.
1:44:30
>> So, you you want to tell people what they want to hear. >> Yeah.
1:44:34
>> And I'm not playing that game of what they want to hear.
1:44:37
But when it comes to artificial intelligence and social media in general, is it beneficial to society and humanity as a whole? I don't like him. >> I don't like him.
1:44:53
>> That's extremely honest. >> Dumor confirmed. >> Yeah, >> that's fair.
1:44:57
>> Well, thank you so much.
1:44:57
This has been really a great interview.
1:44:58
Uh, thanks so much for calling. >> Yeah. Anything else?
1:45:01
Anything else that we missed?
1:45:04
>> You know, we'd love to Anything else that you're working on that you want that we didn't touch on? We'd love to talk about.
1:45:10
>> You guys got anything else? >> I think we're good. >> Uh, last question.
1:45:13
What what's your what's your relationship like with Roar and Kitty?
1:45:17
You guys talk much >> um ask him. >> Okay.
1:45:27
Yeah, we'd love to have him on the show.
1:45:28
Maybe we'll >> get him on the show.
1:45:31
>> That'd be a lot of fun.
1:45:31
He's uh you know, we're we're we're pretty new to the live streaming thing.
1:45:34
I always enjoy talking to people who uh operate in the same medium and so good conversation.
1:45:41
>> Yeah, we don't want to be traders. we want.
1:45:44
I'll have a conversation with him that if he's focused on decades and centuries, not on making buck.
1:45:51
>> Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. >> I like it. >> Well, yeah.
1:45:54
Well, we're rooting for you for the next decade, for the next century, for the next millennia.
1:45:57
Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was fantastic.
1:46:02
>> Yeah, great chatting, Ryan. Cheers. >> Yeah. >> Have a good one. Bye. >> Good fun. What a wild day on TVPN.
1:46:13
Thank you if you're tuning in for the first time.
1:46:16
Uh the AWS has an outage, so there are pieces of the show that aren't working.
1:46:22
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1:46:26
Every day we go live at 11:00 a. m. Pacific.
1:46:29
We talk about technology and business.
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1:47:00
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1:47:02
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1:47:06
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1:47:26
>> Uh, we have another guest coming in to the studio, a live guest.
1:47:28
Uh, but first I need to tell you about fall, the generative media platform for developers.
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1:47:41
And are we ready for our next guest?
1:47:45
I think we have Zack off.
1:47:48
>> Zack live in the TB Ultradome while coming in while the government is turned off about Turuff.
1:47:52
Search every bite serless vector s uh and full text search built from first principles and object storage fast 10x jeer and extremely scalable.
1:48:01
Welcome to the show Zack. Thanks so much.
1:48:04
>> Pleasure to be here live and in person. Hello.
1:48:07
>> Uh we have you here the government shutdown but you were still able to attend.
1:48:10
Uh what yeah maybe uh like set the table for us.
1:48:13
What does the government shutdown mean?
1:48:14
This this feels like this happens all the time.
1:48:16
I remember a decade ago being in college at some pool party and someone saying, "Oh, the government's shutting down and uh and nothing happened then.
1:48:24
Uh, is something going to happen now?
1:48:27
Is this even a story that people care about?" Like what's going on? >> Nobody cares. This is the big problem. Nobody cares.
1:48:33
It's taking forever for them to do anything.
1:48:36
And this is there's a couple reasons why.
1:48:38
One, government shuts down any time they can't pass a budget.
1:48:44
>> We don't pass budgets all the time. >> Yeah.
1:48:45
And that's why we do a lot of those continuing resolutions. >> That's exactly right. We gave up on budgets.
1:48:49
We shifted to continuing resolutions which basically say copy paste whatever the last budget was plus minus x% on this thing plus.
1:48:57
>> So you can sneak stuff into the CR.
1:48:59
>> Oh, you can definitely sneak stuff in and people do that all the time.
1:49:02
>> And that's why lobbyists make money and that's uh >> I wouldn't know.
1:49:05
That's why other that's why other lobbyists do bad shady things.
1:49:08
We only do good positive things.
1:49:10
>> But then also that that's why I've seen a lot of founders uh visiting DC. That's right.
1:49:14
They because if they're going to get money for their program, they need it to be provisioned at some point.
1:49:17
It's going to pro be provisioned in a new budget hopefully, but if not a CR. >> That's right.
1:49:23
There's basically, think about it this way.
1:49:24
20 years ago, Congress used to pass all of these small little bills throughout the year, 30, 50 bills throughout the year.
1:49:30
Each one had money attached to them, right?
1:49:31
Say we're going to give money to this, money to that, whatever. Peace. >> Peace meal. Exactly. Right.
1:49:35
And there was an overall budget that governed things.
1:49:38
But Congress all the time would pass laws, bills, whatever.
1:49:40
Now we pass two maybe three bills every year.
1:49:43
These are called omnibus bills, right? CRS are one of them.
1:49:48
NDAA which authorizes the military is another one.
1:49:50
The defense authorization act, right?
1:49:53
>> The big problem we have right now is there is a big tension between the Democrats who do not want to pass a clean CR for a variety of reasons.
1:49:59
It's not pjorative, by the way.
1:50:01
It's just descriptive and Republicans who feel it's in their political best interest to pass a clean CR today.
1:50:05
If you're Chuck Schumer and you're sitting there, remember in March, Chuck Schumer worked with the Senate GOP to get a budget passed.
1:50:13
If you're Chuck and you're sitting there in March, you have a problem now with your left flank who are looking at you and saying, "Why are you giving in?
1:50:20
Why are you rolling over for the Trump admin?"
1:50:23
>> Meanwhile, if you're in the GOP, you don't want to have a Christmas tree bill where you have this ornament attached for this amount of money and this ornament attached for that amount of money and everybody gets their favorite thing.
1:50:31
All you want is to say, "Keep it going exactly how it is.
1:50:33
Let's put off any of the bigger discussions for a later time. >> Yeah.
1:50:38
I feel like just as like a fan of American democracy, I like the >> big fan democracy. >> Yeah.
1:50:44
Let's give it up for American democracy. >> Big up.
1:50:46
>> But but I feel like I feel like I like the the the peace meal peacewise bills.
1:50:51
Like I like the idea of like we're going to go to the moon. Here's the moon bill.
1:50:55
And it's like that's and we all agreed to that.
1:50:56
We all got fired up and everyone kind of got excited and we and we voted for that and it kind of happened.
1:51:01
Like the classic of like we want to build a bridge.
1:51:03
So we pass a bill to build that bridge.
1:51:04
Like that's that's kind of what I was taught in like grade school.
1:51:08
>> That's what you imagine when you go to civics class in like 8th grade.
1:51:09
You're thinking to yourself, oh, I want Do you ever watch Schoolhouse Rock? >> Yes. Bill. >> Yeah.
1:51:15
I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill to yourself.
1:51:18
How >> I want it to be when there when there's like a systemic failure in the financial ecosystem.
1:51:23
I think it should be a one everybody gets a vote and >> you want direct democracy.
1:51:27
Direct democracy like California. Yeah, it's working.
1:51:30
>> Should we bail out the banks?
1:51:30
That is a weird thing because I I I feel like on on one level as a fan of American democracy, I I I do want the direct democracy.
1:51:39
I do want the peace meal thing.
1:51:40
But then at the same time, I live in California and I've had the direct democracy thing and I still don't have a train that goes from LA to >> California and there's weird like feudal land owners now who pass down their homes in California with no property taxes.
1:51:52
>> Yeah, there's like all these odd So it feels like maybe both sides have their own warts and edges.
1:51:57
>> You want like I don't know, far be it for me to say what the optimal setup is.
1:52:01
The reason I like the older setup is every one of those small bills gets airtime, gets debate, gets discussion, and then ultimately at some point you step back and you say, "Look, I don't want to spend," and most people don't want to spend all morning waking up thinking about politics.
1:52:13
I mean, your audience doesn't, right?
1:52:15
I come on here enough as it is.
1:52:16
They don't want to wake up and think about that a bunch.
1:52:17
So, they elect somebody to think about it for them, but they still discuss at least what all the things are that happen.
1:52:24
The omnibus bills instead, they're so slammed every time, you're just jamming a hundred things through.
1:52:30
So if you're a damn look, Schumer's stated concern >> is that there were a bunch of Obamacare subsidies, ACA subsidies that were built in during that were all set to expire this year.
1:52:39
>> They were meant to be temporary, but as we know, often times you pass something in government, it stays around forever and it goes on for the rest of time.
1:52:46
>> Dems want to codify this in law.
1:52:46
They want it to keep going.
1:52:47
Republicans don't want to take up any major topic.
1:52:49
Clean CR, nothing attached to it. That's the crux of this.
1:52:55
And Schumer is winning points with his left flank, right?
1:52:57
the AOCC's of the world who's not a senator but is considered primary in Shuner.
1:53:02
>> He's winning points at his left flank because he doesn't now have to give in or be perceived as giving in to a hostile admin.
1:53:08
And the admin thinks they're winning because they look at this and they go, great, now I'm going to riff people. I'm going to lay off.
1:53:14
I'm going to shrink the government.
1:53:14
All of the things I want to do already, this I mean a judge blocked it, but in theory allows me to do.
1:53:20
Since this is a technology and business show, what are the current what kind of groups are currently impacted?
1:53:28
I talked to a defense tech founder on Friday >> and he was saying like it's obviously massively disruptive because you're in, you know, you're trying to get contracts done and nothing can kind of happen for you basically like add 60 days almost to whatever timeline you thought.
1:53:45
And so that prevents new hiring because they don't have um they can't hire against specific contracts etc.
1:53:51
Uh but what are the kind of immediate impacts that you're seeing or hearing about in the private markets?
1:53:58
>> I mean the biggest thing is this.
1:53:58
We work with a lot of founders and I have a lot of founders who are clients who are here on O1 visas and we think the O1 visa is phenomenal.
1:54:05
If you want to get an O1 visa today, your processing time is so much longer than it ever was before.
1:54:12
Even though, by the way, consulars aren't shut down.
1:54:14
Consular offices aren't shut down because they're fee based.
1:54:17
They have their own revenue stream. >> Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.
1:54:19
You pay the O1 fee for the funding.
1:54:21
So, they don't need funding for the government.
1:54:24
>> Anything that either has multi-year funding or has its own independent set of revenue is able to stay open.
1:54:28
It's only the things that require yearover-year funding from the government that close.
1:54:34
And by the way, there's some nuance on that because the admin has kept stuff open.
1:54:36
For example, normally the army doesn't get paid during government shutdown.
1:54:40
The admin has said, "Look, we're going to take the $6 billion left over from R&D spend in defense."
1:54:46
So, this is impacting the defense folks, right?
1:54:48
Any R&D spend >> Oh, that would have potentially gone to >> That's right.
1:54:54
>> It's not SBI so much, but it's more sciency, but Yeah. Exactly.
1:54:57
>> R&D spending that could go to startups. >> Yes.
1:54:59
That could go to startups that do R&D stuff.
1:55:00
And instead, we're going to use that money that was already allocated, but hasn't yet been dispersed to pay the military.
1:55:05
So, it's a little bit of robbing Peter >> searching through the the couch cushions.
1:55:09
>> Yeah, that's exactly right.
1:55:09
And the problem you run into is look, they can do that now, but eventually you run out of that money, too.
1:55:14
And so, at some point, somebody's going to have to not get paid.
1:55:16
So, if you're an O1 visa holder, you in a tough spot because you now have a much longer lag time, much longer processing time to get into this country, even if you were already here and just happened to be gone and coming back for your renewal. That's tough. >> Yep. Yeah, that makes sense.
1:55:30
So, uh like how long do we expect this to last?
1:55:33
Like where should we be uh watching for like updates?
1:55:38
the is is everyone kind of pricing in like oh 6 weeks is standard but then the it's the question of like is it six or 12 or is it or is it really wide? >> Who knows?
1:55:48
The real honest answer is the longest partial shutdown in history was under Trump one and it was 35 days or 20 days today. >> Okay.
1:55:56
So that's the like tail end risk.
1:55:59
The problem is the difference between then and now is a couple things.
1:56:00
One, it's not a big press issue like we talked about.
1:56:03
Like I can imagine I'm watching people tune out to this interview when they're hearing about the government shut down. People don't care.
1:56:10
>> And by the way, both sides think they're winning.
1:56:11
The admin says, "Look, there's great stuff happening.
1:56:13
We have peace in the Middle East plus or minus little bit, right?
1:56:16
Dems are saying we had huge protests. We galvanized the base.
1:56:18
No one's motivated to get this close."
1:56:22
Couple leading indicators you want to look for. One, military payday.
1:56:23
Like I said, if that happens and they don't have another way of getting dollars attached to it, that's going to be a problem.
1:56:30
to majority leader John Thoon, who is the senator from North Dakota in the Senate Republican guy.
1:56:35
All of the farm state senators are looking at the expiration of loan programs that help keep farmers solvent every year.
1:56:43
>> If you're a farm state senator, this matters to you a great great deal.
1:56:44
So, the admin is looking today to figure out where can I get my dollars to go and continue to fund these things.
1:56:50
But in the absence of funding this, it's really really hard for a shutdown to continue without political pressure.
1:56:55
Third thing you want to look at, and this is the big one, is political consequences.
1:56:58
Because the truth is, as much as Congress today has said, "Fine, I'm happy to abdicate my role and let the White House run the shutdown response."
1:57:05
In theory, Congress controls the power of the purse, they are able to at any time, right?
1:57:09
Come together and do something.
1:57:11
together and do something. If the Dems lose the governor race in Virginia, which is disproportionately affected by the shutdown because there's so many federal employees who live in Northern Virginia, or if a year from now, which I
1:57:22
don't expect will still be shut down, but if in some number of months you start to see negative impact in as we lead up to the midterms, senators are going to wake up and say, gosh, my political future right now is shouldn't have doesn't have to be tied to the outcome of this shutdown. I can be an
1:57:35
I can be an independent actor.
1:57:37
I don't need to rely on the White House or anyone else.
1:57:39
The Dems can say this, too.
1:57:41
I don't need to rely on Chuck Schumer to guide where my vote goes.
1:57:44
That's the real one where my rubber meets the road.
1:57:48
>> Is the government shutdown going to increase the risk of thieves stealing the Constitution, robbing the store?
1:57:53
We saw that thieves secrets book robbery. You saw this story.
1:58:02
>> I saw this and they like left it in the gutter. I heard.
1:58:04
>> Well, they well they dropped a crown.
1:58:06
They did get away with a lot of jewels.
1:58:08
Uh, and I and I hope that the folks at the Smithsonian who are protecting our moon rocks are not getting furoughed because we got to protect our crown.
1:58:15
The >> worst national treasure would be, by the way, >> it would be.
1:58:20
>> What's the current dialogue around AI regulation and policy in Washington?
1:58:24
And then what are you seeing across the >> How long does it take to go from Carpathy on Dwarash to Capitol Hill?
1:58:30
Is it are they watching or are they are they listening to shows that are talking about that or talking the next narrative?
1:58:38
How many links in the >> Wait, it's just autocomplete. Always has been.
1:58:42
>> It's there are a swath of think tanks that do a really good job of translating what happens in DC. Sorry, happens in SF. >> Yeah, exactly. >> DC computer. >> That's right. Everything is computer.
1:58:57
You can build a really good think tank.
1:58:59
your the guest who's supposed to be on before me, Dean Ball, who's an amazing guy, was the AI adviser at OSTP at the White House Office of Science and Tech Policy.
1:59:05
He's done a really good job being that communicator. Exactly.
1:59:08
And his think tank, FAI, which I'm involved with, too, does a really, really good job bridging the gap there.
1:59:13
But, and by the way, things like the Progress Conference just happened at SF.
1:59:16
There's a lot of things now institutionally that are built to translate this on like a relatively quick time scale.
1:59:21
The truth is, look, if you're watching right now and you care about AI policy, the White House has an RFI or quest for information out today where they're asking people, founders in particular, to write in and say, gosh, what are the things that are impacting what are the regulatory burdens that are impacting my ability to do AI business in America?
1:59:40
So, they want they want the answer, but it's hard to get ground truth because when you're in DC, it's a little bit of a bubble.
1:59:44
You hear a little bit of an echo chamber. >> Sure. Sure.
1:59:46
>> Sure. Sure. Is is the is the core DC AI narrative just uh state-by-state regulation versus not or are there actually higher level discussions around okay if a trillion dollars of capex is going to happen like there might be there might need to be some fundamental changes in the way we regulate data centers power even just even even if
2:00:07
you're just the ultimate AI bull you might need to step in and say we're going to help speed this up because at a certain point if you're building 10 nuclear reactors you just can't do that without the help of the federal government right so so part of problem is we have a federalist system and so power by necessity is distributed across state, federal, local, right? So if
2:00:21
So if you're talking about means government power, not >> sorry power although yeah literal power is also distributed across yeah electricity is also distributed across these. Yeah. Yeah.
2:00:29
As you can see with Elon he built his Colossus 2 data center right at the intersection of three different states because you need to be able to go over here for a little bit. Yeah.
2:00:37
>> Part of the problem is this.
2:00:37
If you want to build a new reactor or you want to build an energy transmission line, you need so many different people to buy in in the last 30 years of American governance basically at every level has been built around keeping things the same status quo for people who already have done fairly well. Mhm.
2:00:54
>> The other thing I would think about, by the way, >> it's so funny because I don't read a lot about politics, but I have like such tangible experience in politics through trying to get things done with my HOA. >> That's exactly right.
2:01:07
>> It's literally like the boomers control the HOA board and I I tried to suggest changes when I bought my house and I basically got death threats.
2:01:15
So that's that's my framework for >> California governance is the largest HOA in the country. Think of it that way.
2:01:21
It is just completely biased against.
2:01:23
All right, here's the other problem.
2:01:25
You have a thousand people in Congress who all have their own political aspirations.
2:01:29
Look like a Marshall Blackburn.
2:01:31
>> Marsha Blackburn wants to be governor of Tennessee.
2:01:33
What's one of the biggest industries in Tennessee? Nashville. Nashville music, right? Yeah.
2:01:37
>> So Nashville wants >> the home of John Fio's.
2:01:42
That's really swinging the >> That's huge. Hu Marshall Blackburn.
2:01:45
>> What was the other thing we saw about uh >> Tennessee like something about isn't Nashville?
2:01:49
Nashville specifically is pushing heavy on AI regulation. >> That's right. Exactly. Elvis. No music. Okay. All right.
2:01:56
You guys know the AI audio app. Okay. They hate.
2:01:58
It's like Oh, they hate it.
2:02:02
It's like public enemy number one.
2:02:03
You're in Nashville, right?
2:02:05
So, Marsha Blackburn, >> you got to be Isn't it an open carry out there?
2:02:10
>> Do not if you're not if you're if you're a light speeded and you funded, do not go to Tennessee.
2:02:17
>> Do not walk around Tennessee.
2:02:17
I I wouldn't personally fall aside.
2:02:20
>> Marcia Blackburn wants a political future in Tennessee.
2:02:22
She wants to get out of the Senate, which is a miserable place to be, and get into the executive chair in Tennessee.
2:02:28
>> Why is it so miserable?
2:02:29
>> Cuz nothing gets done.
2:02:29
You know, the House works. No, this is like real.
2:02:30
I mean, look, it's frustrating if you actually are a motivated person.
2:02:34
>> So, you say that the House works, but the Senate doesn't >> No, the opposite.
2:02:36
The House works even less.
2:02:37
The House worked in the last since like July 4th.
2:02:39
I think the House has worked something like 20 days in total. Okay, that's insane.
2:02:43
Like, think about if you guys >> Did they not get the memo at the Great Lock? >> No, they are. They are doomed.
2:02:46
The permanent underclass. It's terrible. It's awful. >> This is the problem. All right.
2:02:51
So, Marshall Blackburn wants a political future in Tennessee.
2:02:53
She says, "Okay, if I pass the Elvis Act today or if I allow the Elvis Act to pass, >> they could have they should have called it the trough act.
2:03:03
>> Don't put slop in my trough. >> Keeping trough. >> Keep organic.
2:03:07
I want organic food for all my piggies.
2:03:10
>> Make the trough great again. >> Organic. Only organic AI for me. Thank you very much. Okay.
2:03:14
So, if you want if she lets the Alax pass with no federal preeemption, she wins herself a lot of friends in Tennessee. She can be governor. >> Exactly. >> Yeah.
2:03:24
If you want to I imagine having all the country music fans and the and big country on your side for for governorship in Tennessee.
2:03:31
That's got to be pretty helpful.
2:03:34
>> It's financial capital and it's social capital, too. It's a big outcome.
2:03:35
Now, think about that same dynamic writ large over and over and over.
2:03:39
A thousand people, all of whom want their own thing.
2:03:43
Look, the truth is at some point there will have to be a federal standard that happens.
2:03:47
It's going to have to happen.
2:03:48
And some of this stuff, Ted Cruz put out a bill around AI sandboxes, which is in the um OSTP, the White House AI action plan, basically saying, "Look, we're going to set up special economic experimentation zones is one way to think about them."
2:04:00
So people are tackling it from different respects, but unless you're thinking completely nationally and you want to be governor or sorry, you want to be president, if you're thinking about anything at the state level, you are right now not going to act federally when it comes to AI policy.
2:04:13
That's >> uh wait really quickly.
2:04:13
Uh you said a thousand people. Help me break that down.
2:04:17
It's a it's a 100 senators, 538 uh house members, but where's the other like >> there's a gang I mean I was being a little hyperbolic.
2:04:23
There's a gang there's a gang there's a phrase gang of 500. Okay.
2:04:25
Gang of 500 refers to everyone in the House, everyone in the Senate.
2:04:29
White House staffers, agency staffers, and then people like me, the lobbyists, the reporters, the >> outsiders.
2:04:35
You add all those folks and and those people have they might be want to be the governor or something. >> Sure.
2:04:40
They might want to have an aspiration or even they want to do business with somebody, right?
2:04:42
They have some aspiration to do whatever.
2:04:45
>> There's a thousand live players. >> That's right.
2:04:46
The thousand live players really 500 live players.
2:04:47
And that's who determines quote unquote conventional wisdom in right.
2:04:51
So if you're, you know, Blake who you guys had on from Bumero a while ago, whatever it is, the number one thing you wanted to do to convince people that you want to have a speed, sorry, a sound law and not a speed law is convince those 500 people over and over again to shift their perspective.
2:05:06
Once you do that, the conventional >> is so difficult.
2:05:08
Uh, I mean I I love Blake obviously and I'm rooting for him, but uh it that seems like such a hard challenge in the face of like you can't just go and do the supersonic act of 2025 by itself and everyone's like, "Yeah, this one makes sense because you have to puzzle piece it with 25 other things on the omnibus bill."
2:05:25
>> Well, it's like when we were all in enterprise software, it's accountbased marketing. You know what I mean?
2:05:28
Accountbased marketing, you have one person, you have all the influencers who sit around that person and your job is to win over each influencer over and over again.
2:05:35
It's the same thing here.
2:05:36
You have one person, maybe five people, right, who can actually do it.
2:05:38
Majority leader, the president, speaker, so on and so forth.
2:05:42
You want to flip over all the people, the think tanks, the reporters, the junior members, their delegation, all the people who have influence on them. If you do that, you win. >> Yep.
2:05:50
Uh, sorry, Jordy, I >> uh any Do you cover nuclear at all?
2:05:56
>> You cover nuclear because every time we see these, you know, one gigawatt uh you know, all all these gigawatts data centers being announced, Yeah.
2:06:04
It it just uh it seems like the like nuclear is just going to have to play a huge part in that.
2:06:11
And yet we need to relearn how to make reactors here in America. >> Yeah.
2:06:15
It seems like a lot of people are underwriting like oh yeah like uh you know we're going to it's going to be a lot of money.
2:06:19
We'll sign we'll sign on this line and then the money will come wire the money and then yeah we'll just turn on a new reactor.
2:06:24
Those are two very different things. >> So easy to do. >> Sorry. >> Yeah.
2:06:29
One one new reactor please. >> Yeah. Thank you very much.
2:06:31
Add that to the I'll take one reactor and 50 transmission lines. Thank you very much. I'm all done.
2:06:37
>> You really can like wire a hundred billion in a day, but you cannot just wire a h 100red gawatts in a day.
2:06:44
>> This is part of the problem.
2:06:44
So we do I'll full disclosure we do lobby for a nuclear energy company. It's a great company.
2:06:48
I won't name them but a phenomenal business.
2:06:50
We have look if you look at the federal government >> by 30 if you're not heavily conflicted you're doing something wrong.
2:06:56
>> No conflict no interest is the name of the case unfortunately.
2:06:59
Um, this is the thing, all right?
2:06:59
If you are looking at the federal government and you're looking at this federalism system and the challenges that are inherent to it, you're thinking who's cutting across this, credit to the admin.
2:07:08
They are the first ones who I've heard of who at least thought about, hey, we ought to have somebody whose job it is to expedite these long-term is Michael Grimes, right?
2:07:16
Who runs the USment accelerator, former tech banker for many, many years, Calber Bears. Yeah, there you go. >> Poly technical. >> Yeah.
2:07:24
Uh and anyway, he is running basically what turns out to be the federal government's investment bank. Sure.
2:07:29
He's running that across anytime there's a system they want to accelerate in deployment of an investment that's who they can turn to.
2:07:35
But even they're limited. That's the problem.
2:07:36
So nuclear is a disproportionately affected by this. >> Yeah.
2:07:39
No, it makes a lot of sense.
2:07:39
Uh what do you have a take on uh like Sager and Jetty has been saying like oh the the technology doesn't know what's about to come the the narrative.
2:07:49
I mean, we see these things debunked on X and in tech in the tech part of X every day where there will be a mainstream news headline about uh you know Sora uses 25 gallons of water every time and it gets sort of debunked in some like research paper from Google, but that doesn't really make it back. >> No, of course not.
2:08:11
Uh, and so, you know, I think Sager is is is, you know, identifying a potential wave of anti- tech sentiment across both sides of the aisle.
2:08:22
What's the mood around that generally?
2:08:25
>> I mean, look, unfortunately, it's great business and great politics to be anti-tech.
2:08:28
That's the problem >> because it's a narrow community that you >> It's a narrow community.
2:08:31
It's disproportionately wealthy, disproportionately influential, very easy to be a punching bag. >> Very sloppy. Very sloppy. you.
2:08:37
No, it really is like very visual to just show a picture and be like, >> "This is bad." >> Yeah.
2:08:45
And that's why I was I was shocked that OpenAI came out and announced that they'd be supporting erotica because that just feels like, >> you know, as as these debates come around with power and infrastructure.
2:08:57
It's very easy to be like, >> you said you were trying to cure cancer, give free education, but like clearly a lot of your users are using this for for adult entertainment.
2:09:06
It it it takes you down a path that uh it just puts a target on your back.
2:09:12
>> This is the big divide on the right. Right?
2:09:13
If you're look if you're on the right wing, there's two camps.
2:09:14
One camp says let the slop flow free, right?
2:09:17
Tech companies, let them do their work, whatever. It's great. Let them do it all.
2:09:22
And says the goal is to be pro tech generally, right?
2:09:24
One camp says we're social conservatives.
2:09:27
I don't want my kid getting porn from open AI.
2:09:28
I don't want my six-year-old being exposed to this Pardon the language.
2:09:32
And so they want to reel it back in. That's the big problem.
2:09:35
Look, if you're open AI, culture is often downstream of politics.
2:09:39
Sure, >> Trump won this election.
2:09:41
>> Huge wave of things that feel pro- freedom of speech, and you can quibble with the definition and the boundaries that all you like, but in theory, the messaging is around being pro- free speech.
2:09:50
And so, a lot of what they're doing aligns to that, but I think there's a backlash brewing and it cuts to John to your point, it cuts across left and right, right?
2:09:57
Josh Holly and Elizabeth Warren have common cause on very few things, but one of them is tech.
2:10:02
I made a YouTube video about that like years ago about how it was they just came from completely different realms but they were saying the exact same thing about tech. That's right.
2:10:09
same thing about tech. That's right. uh and and then that that was in the context of you know Google and monopolism and and like large corporations but uh you know it just keeps ringing true again and again and again >> because the truth is the neobrandians who didn't like tech who are opposed to
2:10:23
these sort of monopolistic or their view as monopolistic practices a lot of those folks have recloed themselves and now they talk about tech's power in other ways right it's very sympathetic if you watch these videos >> what about Swiss watches >> I heard that too >> yeah can we do a little wrist Speed a little wrist zoom in please. Yeah. Yeah.
2:10:42
>> Actually, I don't want to do that cuz you guys mo me every single time.
2:10:43
So I'm just a glutton for punishment.
2:10:44
Um the bigger thing is All right.
2:10:47
So look, you get these videos on X from this group.
2:10:50
You know this group More Perfect Union.
2:10:51
You guys see these videos?
2:10:51
They're the big water sort of power pusher people, right?
2:10:55
They make these very slick videos basically saying, you know, if you allow a data center to open up in your neighborhood, you're going to be, you know, in a drought and your crops are going to dry up and God's going to smite you with locusts and so on and so forth. A horrible outcome. Okay.
2:11:07
A horrible outcome. Okay. And then you know people fighting the good fight you have like you know IFP Alex stap you guys know them >> I know IFP Institute for Progress >> exactly in progress he's been on right >> uh I don't know if Alex has been on but
2:11:18
yeah >> all right so you have Alec or Caleb from IFP Institute for Progress who do great God's work on Twitter every time that comes out they're there posting saying it's not true and so on and so >> should you make a data center that runs on salt water. >> Yeah, there you go. >> Yeah, there you go.
2:11:30
>> That would be really easy. >> That's an easy win.
2:11:31
You can just >> Yeah, exactly.
2:11:33
>> Yeah, exactly. It could be like sewer water in there, you know, just disgusting gross your slop is actually it would be such a good it would be such a good retort if somebody's like you're using all this water like yeah we use sea water >> yeah correct there's infinite infinite in fact we're purifying it at the same time >> because it's so much it wouldn't work it
2:11:49
wouldn't work a dolphin was going to drink that >> fish otherwise >> and right off the shore there's an endangered species that that is going to go extinct because you took the water from them >> sea turtles going to get stuck in the Nvidia rack and be >> okay I I have a I have a pitch for you uh so we talk about like presidential libraries, right? Uh could we be moving
2:12:09
Uh could we be moving into a future where each president gets one spack >> during >> each president gets one free shot of insider trading and it's all good from there. >> Okay.
2:12:21
Um no, but uh what what's going on with uh uh Obama's presidential library?
2:12:27
No, >> clearly not built by humans.
2:12:28
obviously an energy source, but three, because of the AI narrative, this could be what sets up Michelle for her run because energy is going to be so expensive.
2:12:37
The Obama presidential library, if that's what it is, built by aliens, power source, lowers the rate of energy for everyday Chicagoans. >> So true.
2:12:48
>> Huge huge that that that's a launch launch.
2:12:51
We got to get the get the tinfoil hat for you.
2:12:53
But um no, what uh what I just saw something in the we didn't even get to it in the show today.
2:12:59
I just saw that that there's a Cayman Cayman Islands entity that's going to be uh >> Yes.
2:13:05
>> participating in the spa.
2:13:05
What what's the do you know what the story is there?
2:13:10
>> I don't have the full story.
2:13:10
And what do you think um in a in a what's your sort of non uh non-political view on you know uh we will undoubtedly have another Democratic uh Democrat you know president do they does this set a new norm where uh >> wasn't Gavin Newsome saying like oh maybe we're going to do a coin we'll do our own coin like we'll fire back with our version >> coin oncoin violence he's peaked way too early you don't want to be peaking this early.
2:13:40
You want like a delayed peak a little bit.
2:13:42
You want to have some time.
2:13:44
You know, you're way ahead.
2:13:44
You know, you're way ahead. I do wonder, you know, uh, people are obviously latching on to all the all the Trump projects, whether it's the coin or truth social or this new spa or a variety of projects, but I wonder if we looked at
2:13:56
his the number of companies he builds per decade if he's actually at a low period in his career because he was originally doing like Trump Stakes, Trump University, Trump, he had a vodka, a casino, and so he he used to be in 10 different industries. Maybe he's
2:14:10
Maybe he's actually more focused than ever. >> That's right.
2:14:12
If you really think about it, in some ways this is the double down lock in period for Trump for Trump as a businessman as a businessman.
2:14:18
He's avoiding the underclass. >> Yes.
2:14:21
But you know, we got to give credit to Jimmy Carter who was the most locked in president. He had a peanut farm. He sold it. >> No.
2:14:27
He put it in a blind trust. >> Oh, he did.
2:14:28
You know, you looked it up. He put it Oh, wow. Okay. No longer there.
2:14:33
Obviously, I was a Carter fan before. No longer. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:14:35
Put it in a blind trust cuz he didn't want people to think he's in the pocket of Little Peanut. Peanut. >> Big Peanut. Mr.
2:14:40
Peanut ruling over Jimmy C.
2:14:42
very small farm, but he was like, I'm out of the game. I'm out of the game. I'm locking.
2:14:46
>> This is my thing with the Dems, right?
2:14:47
If you're looking at the next four years and you're thinking to yourself, okay, public opinion often theatic, it's going to swing back at some point.
2:14:54
>> That's good for praise for that. I like that. >> Yeah.
2:14:56
And this is the problem, which is like, look, both parties when they're in power, they love to overreach, right?
2:15:01
And so if you're doing if you think to yourself, I have 4 to eight years to execute every goal I've ever had in my life before public opinion is thermostatatic again. Sure.
2:15:07
It's no wonder there's people call it the magnification of the Dem Party, right?
2:15:12
You look at them and you're like, gosh, AOC, Zoron being stars in this party is so unusual relative to even where Clinton was in 2008, Hillary Clinton was 2008, let alone 2016.
2:15:21
2008, let alone 2016. Y >> so if you're trying to put your finger out where the wind is blowing you think to yourself if a dem benefits from massive tailwinds coming out of this admin and they elect or they nominate somebody who is a magnified version of the Dems right an AOC or a Zoronish part
2:15:37
of the wing that makes me concerned right because then you see the pendulum swinging back and forth from extreme to extreme >> for the next foreseeable future and there are many many times >> you're saying that America could be more divided than ever >> yeah America more divided first I'm hearing of this more divided than ever Yeah. And this is true historically many
2:15:52
And this is true historically many times. >> Yeah.
2:15:55
>> Uh what what else are you monitoring in DC right now?
2:15:57
What what didn't we cover?
2:16:00
What what's kind of like uh under the radar story that maybe people aren't focusing on yet, but should be?
2:16:04
Is there anything that's like at the bottom of your list that maybe is bubbling up? >> Yeah.
2:16:09
I mean, the big thing that I'm thinking about a lot is a lot of these questions around education.
2:16:11
You guys, you guys see the higher ed compact that the Trump admin put out? >> I didn't. >> All right. This is a big thing.
2:16:16
The Trump admin's basically saying, "Look, we want a set of standards that universities will sign in order to be eligible to receive future funding."
2:16:25
>> A lot of the things when you read them, by the way, they don't sound crazy.
2:16:26
You read them and you're like, gosh, I thought universities always operated this way.
2:16:30
Some of them, by the way, are impossible for universities to do.
2:16:31
Some of them are super reasonable and there's a huge spectrum.
2:16:35
Generally, I think a lot of people are sympathetic.
2:16:37
I understand the sympathy for it.
2:16:40
>> The fear is look, universities used to be.
2:16:42
I'm not saying they ever were this in practice.
2:16:44
Obviously, they've had a political bias all their own and the academy themies had that for a long time.
2:16:47
But as an institution, >> universities used to be beyond politics, right?
2:16:52
You didn't have somebody who ran. >> Yeah.
2:16:54
You got tenure and then you can say whatever you wanted politically because you were you were good.
2:16:57
>> Everybody knew there were some whack job professors, but it was like your nutty uncle.
2:17:00
It wasn't like the threatening evil communist. >> Totally. Totally.
2:17:02
It wasn't like don't platform Chsky. >> That's exactly. Yeah.
2:17:05
Nobody was looking at Chsky saying this guy's a you know, deport him, send him back to Poland or whatever. You know what I mean? He's got his theories.
2:17:11
>> So here's the problem.
2:17:11
Now you look at this compact.
2:17:13
this compact. You go okay maybe you say to yourself 60 70% whatever is reasonable what's going to happen the next time there's a demon office who now says great our compact for universities to get federal funding is going to say
2:17:25
there has to be DEI or there has to be this yeah exactly that's the like the thing I'm tracking for the future is look universities are pushing back I understand why I think it's very reasonable for them to do so and I get
2:17:35
both sides of it I see the value for the admin too I'm concerned about the precedent of it swinging back and forth over and over again >> yeah it's so interesting because like uh I've maybe it's just like the teal influence, but I've I've sort of like stopped paying attention to universities entirely because I I every day on this show we talk to some 16-year-old that isn't even planning to go to college and is already building a company. And then
2:17:54
And then and then when we do talk to people about the education space, it's usually because they're they're building an alternative to homeschooling or or what Joe Lamont's doing at Alpha School or Andre Carpathi is doing with Eureka.
2:18:06
like there's so many different initiatives that just live entirely outside of the original uh the traditional education system that um I but but it does feel like like there's still pockets of the economy that are really tied to the education.
2:18:18
We talked about this in in like basic science research.
2:18:24
>> Yes, that's exactly and and I'm super blind to it because all of the AI research that was previously done at you know these uh these AI labs on university campuses just completely paid for by big tech. >> That's right. Right.
2:18:35
And so, so I I'm not worried like, oh, we're not going to get the next AI innovation because the because there's not enough funding or whatever.
2:18:43
It's like, no, there's more funding than ever.
2:18:44
These PhDs are making a hundred million dollars now.
2:18:47
>> Well, my problem isn't AI, right?
2:18:47
AI, I'm with you on you can't apply that to everything. >> Correct.
2:18:51
You look at something like, you know, ocean oceanographic research, right?
2:18:54
And you have like one place, Woods Hole in Massachusetts, which is like the best oceanographic research institute in the country.
2:18:59
There is no industry that is funding hundreds of millions of dollars for oceanographic PhDs to go do weather >> research.
2:19:06
Yeah, we need like seronic and Amadon and there's a few others that are like in that ocean tech space.
2:19:11
We need them to be worth trillions. >> That's right.
2:19:15
And the NSF and basic research and universities are hugely important for that stuff.
2:19:19
Still the thing that I get um uh concerned about is when they start to be the football moved back and forth.
2:19:26
And frankly, if you look at look, this is a very Nixonian admin in a lot of ways.
2:19:28
Like if you ask young Republicans in DC, I love Nixon, so I'll just put that out there.
2:19:34
If you ask young Republicans in DC who they look up to, they will tell you it's Nixon staffers.
2:19:37
They'll tell you to go read the Pat Buchanan books and Pat Buchanan's got his own fair share of Mishagos.
2:19:42
If you read the books, which are well written, you'll see the big theme about Nixon is he apologized too much.
2:19:50
Pat Buchanan will tell you Nixon should have brazened out Watergate.
2:19:53
Never should have apologized.
2:19:53
Should have stuck it out.
2:19:55
Should have broken the power of the Ford Foundation, the large institutional foundations.
2:19:58
That's the Nixonian view.
2:20:01
>> What's the What's the view on Kissinger then?
2:20:03
Uh I think these people are more domestic policy focused than than Kissinger, but they're more America first than a Kissinger in a non >> because that seems like very different like open up relationship with China.
2:20:14
Let's go over there and like do deals.
2:20:15
>> This is the domestic policy.
2:20:15
We like we like Nixon but just the just the stuff we like. Just the stuff we like.
2:20:21
>> That's how people always remember everyone. Right.
2:20:23
>> And the truth is people like Buchanan have become >> Steve Jobs was just a designer.
2:20:24
He wasn't a ruthless manager.
2:20:27
>> I've never heard that in my life.
2:20:27
He was a passionate fan of design.
2:20:28
That's all he's known for. >> That's it. That's it.
2:20:31
If you're like a Pap Buchanan fan, you're looking at this moment and you're saying, "Gosh, we should break the backs of foundations or institutional life, you know, higher ed, right?"
2:20:40
And so that's where some of the desire is coming from is this reading of history where you said, "Look, the Nixon admin didn't go far enough in defeating its enemies."
2:20:47
And they allowed the academy, they allowed capture by X number of people.
2:20:50
And that's why they're motivated now to go and try to do this even though I think it is not great for universities. >> Yeah.
2:20:57
No, that makes a lot of sense. Uh Jordy, anything else? >> No. Always fun. We can chat all day.
2:21:03
>> I mean, if you want to keep hanging out, I can tell you about replacement AI.
2:21:07
They're running They're running a billboard in SF right now that says, "Our AI does your daughter's homework, reads her bedtime stories, romances her, deep fakes her, don't worry. Totally legal. Who needs parenting?"
2:21:18
>> Uh, and then it and then on positive billboard, go to adquick. com.
2:21:21
Out of home advertising, medas measurable.
2:21:23
Say goodbye to the headaches of out of home advertising.
2:21:25
advertising. only adquick combines technology out of home expertise in data to enable efficiency missing across the glo >> he's like I'm out of here >> thanks so much for coming on >> great to see you Zach as always >> um but yes this billboard was bizarre the whole site is wildite if you go to
2:21:40
their website it says the only honest AI company and they say human flourishing >> have you seen this Tyler this this uh this the replacement are they are they doomers or are they massive so they're massive doomers but are they pro AI They're they're positioning the they're positioning their their movement as a startup. So it's replacement.ai is a So it's replacement. ai is a website.
2:22:02
The title says humans no longer necessary.
2:22:05
So we're getting rid of them.
2:22:06
Replacement AI can do anything a human can do but better, faster, and much much cheaper.
2:22:11
>> I I don't think they're doomers in the sense that they think AI is going to like kill everyone now.
2:22:13
Just that like they're it's just going to make everyone's life lives worse. >> Yeah. Okay.
2:22:18
>> So they highlight some quotes here.
2:22:18
this quote from Sam Alman.
2:22:21
AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies. >> That's a wild quote. >> They have one. >> When did he say this?
2:22:29
This feels very taken out of context.
2:22:32
>> Yeah, this that was in like 20.
2:22:34
>> They're probably asking him like, "What's the worst possible thing that could happen?"
2:22:36
And he's like, "This is what the worst thing could happen."
2:22:40
>> We have a quote here from Daario.
2:22:40
I think there's a 25% chance that things go really, really badly. >> Very odd.
2:22:45
Uh, well, on the other side of the spectrum, you got the Starbucks CEO Brian Nickel says, "The coffee giant is all in on AI.
2:22:54
Reveals real-time artificial intelligence systems designed to assist baristas and transform store operations."
2:23:01
I got a tip for you, Brian. Get on profound.
2:23:03
Get your brand mentioned on chat GBT.
2:23:05
Honestly, reach millions of consumers who are using AI to discover new products and brands.
2:23:10
Seriously, people are going to be saying, "I want coffee.
2:23:11
Where should I go near me?"
2:23:13
You got to be unprofessional.
2:23:14
Get your brand mentioned >> something we got to put on the skitso hat.
2:23:20
>> Starbucks stock is up 6. 66% past 5 days. Coincidence? >> Very weird.
2:23:27
>> Are they Are they using AI to summon the demon? >> I don't know.
2:23:30
Well, if they build something, they should do it on Google AI Studio the fastest way from prom to production with Gemini.
2:23:35
Chat with models, vibe code, and monitor usage.
2:23:39
Also, we I uh we have to try that frame to frame uh VO3. 1 thing.
2:23:43
I we'll talk about this later, Tyler, but uh did you see these demos?
2:23:49
So, basically, you've always been able to upload a single image and then say like animate this and turn this into something, but now you can upload two images, a starting image and an ending image and have V3 like interpolate between them.
2:24:01
And so, I saw this really cool video that someone made where it was basically a tour of ancient Rome.
2:24:07
And so it's flying around through the coliseum and the coliseum gets built up and then it fills with water and then there's boats and you go under the water and there's sharks and then you go into some tunnel.
2:24:17
You come out, you're at the Acropolis.
2:24:18
It was really awesome and I feel like we could do something really creative with this.
2:24:21
It really got the creative juices flowing.
2:24:23
So excited to build something around that.
2:24:25
Maybe I'll plan out the whole project with linear because linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
2:24:31
Meet the system for modern software development, streamline issues, projects and product road.
2:24:35
People really were not excited about Starbucks getting into AI.
2:24:40
They had other suggestions like I saw Ryan Peterson just saying make the Wi-Fi easy. >> Make the Wi-Fi work.
2:24:47
>> Let's go back uh to the previous era.
2:24:50
>> Also uh our president Dylan Esscato went viral on X uh quote posting Barely AI who is breaking some news about Uber.
2:24:58
Uber is going to give its drivers in the US an option to make money by doing digital tasks.
2:25:03
These short minutelong tasks can be done anytime including while idling for passengers.
2:25:08
So your Uber pulls up, starts waiting, starts doing some tasks to help train the next generation of AI.
2:25:14
You can do data the data labeling, uploading restaurant menus, recording audio samples of themselves, narrating scenarios in different languages.
2:25:22
People quite also absolutely hated this.
2:25:26
>> Yes, they did not like this.
2:25:26
I hope they I hope they put some type of restriction in where if they detect that you're in a like actually moving that they say you cannot do data labeling right now because FSD >> somebody in traffic just data labeling you're you're delegating the driving task to the AI while training the AI on the next thing and you get a task and it's like it's like uh is this car about to crash? Yes or no?
2:25:49
And you look up and it's a picture of exactly what you're looking at. you're like, "Oh, no.
2:25:53
I should have been labeling this with the pedals instead of the buttons." I don't know.
2:26:00
There's a lot of black mirror scenarios, but uh it does seem like a big market.
2:26:04
Scale AI, obviously, Surge AI.
2:26:07
We've talked to Merore, we've talked to a few other of these data labeling, label box.
2:26:11
Some of these are more focused on the the real real complex uh reinforcement learning environments uh with verifiable rewards.
2:26:18
It's more expert driven, but there's still clearly a need for general AI data labeling.
2:26:25
Tyler, do you have a take on this?
2:26:26
>> Yeah, I mean, it was just interesting because I feel like generally um the playbook of of data labeling has like definitely moved like up the the skill ladder, right? Like scale.
2:26:33
ladder, right? Like scale. I I don't know what their like revenues are now from the same kind of like you know the the Filipino like >> it's felt yeah it's felt like the job was finished with with the general base level RLHF but I think there's still niche areas where you know uploading
2:26:50
every restaurant menu like scale didn't necessarily do that they're probably still competing with that I when we had the president or the new CEO of scale on he was saying that they just got a new huge contract for hund00 million with the DoD what are they data labeling probably some stuff that hasn't labeled before. You know, how much how much how
2:27:05
You know, how much how much how many how many rations do they have in in stock over time or something like that?
2:27:11
>> Tyler, you're pretty AGI pled, right? >> Yeah. Okay.
2:27:14
Well, why don't you earn $100 doing data labeling Uber? >> Yes.
2:27:19
Uh >> that's your challenge for that's your challenge for the next 24 hours.
2:27:22
>> If you if you believe in uh uh Rockos's Basilisk, Roco's Basilisk demands that you do that you do data labeling. >> Sign up. Sign up.
2:27:31
help summon the show goth with with with uh with data labeling tasks $1 at a time.
2:27:36
Um you know I don't know.
2:27:39
Uh >> Matthew Prince said was weird being in Vegas recently.
2:27:42
So quiet so many fewer people gambling, drinking, partying.
2:27:44
My pet theory ompic killing Vegas just like it's killing snack food brands, liquor producers, and Napa.
2:27:52
Yes, >> I didn't know it was impacting Napa.
2:27:55
>> Yeah, I didn't know that either.
2:27:55
Um >> obviously this is just kind of him riffing.
2:27:59
Yes, but do you agree with him or do you agree with the rebuttal from Near, which you can read?
2:28:04
>> Uh, Near says, "I would go the opposite angle with the rise of Robin Hood, prediction markets, and sports betting.
2:28:09
There is little reason to go to Vegas.
2:28:11
It is more expensive, the house edge is higher, and it's hotter outside.
2:28:13
Less drinking contributes to though." >> Okay.
2:28:17
So, do you think it's the rise of of online uh outlets for >> Isn't Vegas just like a Isn't it a like a recession indicator, right?
2:28:24
Like the real economy is not It's just not doing well right now, right?
2:28:32
There's no uh >> I would want to know >> it's not it's not like it's not like you know the average person that's going to Vegas is saying >> I need or the average person in America is I got to be in Vegas this weekend.
2:28:43
They're scaling AI capex like crazy. I got to be there. >> Yeah.
2:28:47
>> Like >> Tyler, can you look up uh the the the rough percentage of Americans who are on OMIC?
2:28:55
Like I want to know is it like 1% 10% 50%.
2:28:58
Because if Vegas is I if it's like 2% of Americans are on peptides like I would I would I would expect that wouldn't show up in the Vegas data but if it's like 50% I might see an effect there right?
2:29:10
Um I don't know what the kind of people that go to Vegas are like you know >> the most likely to be on Empic maybe but let's just get the number.
2:29:19
What >> I'm seeing like around 12% have used it once. Okay.
2:29:22
So, we're not exactly sure how many are >> insignificant.
2:29:25
That could take a couple points off the off the house edge.
2:29:27
Um, >> uh, but the question is clearly under pressure. >> Yeah.
2:29:34
People I saw another quote that just said like the nightlife scene there has been hyper financialized to a degree that it's just not even fun anymore. >> Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.
2:29:43
Um, well, if you're running a casino in Vegas, you have sales tax.
2:29:48
You got to get on numeralhq. com. Sales tax on autopilot.
2:29:52
spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax compliance.
2:29:53
But uh here's my theory for how you bring back Vegas.
2:29:57
People aren't gambling for one reason or another. Maybe it's the Ompic.
2:29:59
You need to make Vegas high-end.
2:30:01
So we Vegas needs to bring in an opera house, a symphony, >> an art gallery.
2:30:07
The Louv should relocate. Maybe they're behind it.
2:30:09
Maybe we'll see, you know, fine art come to Las Vegas.
2:30:13
This is the only way that they can sustain. >> Yeah.
2:30:15
What if they set up a bunker in there that uh that has a bunch of stolen goods from all over the world?
2:30:20
They already have an F1 race.
2:30:22
They need to turn it into Monaco.
2:30:24
They need to >> I think somebody's going to look this up and be like, they already have an opera.
2:30:28
They already have a symphony.
2:30:28
They already have art museums, >> but they should close all the nightclubs and only have opera and only have symphony.
2:30:35
I think that would be the the the true solution.
2:30:37
Um, we talked a little bit about the the the water issue. Where else should we go?
2:30:43
Um there >> FT made a pretty egregious error when trying to calculate the uh unit economics of Neoclouds and hyperscalers. What happened here?
2:30:57
>> I don't know if they've issued an official correction yet, but it came out it was super bearish and then a bunch of people pointed out that that they had gotten um the math wrong by >> Well, if you want to get the the correct data, I would defer to cluster max the project from semi analysis.
2:31:13
um they are the most reliable analysts in the space.
2:31:19
>> You said uh last week the new media traditional media divide is far too simplistic.
2:31:24
If you want to understand things today, you have to know the difference between legacy media, traditional media, new media, legacy new media, neo media, postneia, alt media, neo alt media.
2:31:35
>> Yeah, you Yeah, you really have to study this stuff.
2:31:37
Uh it's it's more complex than punk bands.
2:31:40
Like you can't just say, "Oh, it's a rock band."
2:31:41
There's so many different layers.
2:31:44
Uh this is actually a riff on what you said because you you you used the phrase legacy new media around me and I thought it was so funny.
2:31:52
Uh but obviously this is a comment on the the the colossal debate over Colossus magazine.
2:31:57
Um >> and I think the reason we were talking off air this morning about this.
2:32:01
I think the reason that it sparked a debate is that it it's new media that looks and feels like like legacy media. >> Yeah. Unpack this. This was a good take.
2:32:12
But first, before you do, let me tell you about audio customer relationship magic.
2:32:15
Adio is the AI native CRM that builds, scales, and grows your company to the next level.
2:32:19
>> Um, my point was that uh, Colossus looks like Fortune magazine. Yeah.
2:32:27
It doesn't like >> it's the Joker.
2:32:28
No one cared until I put on the makeup, right? >> Yeah.
2:32:32
>> Isn't that Isn't that from the Joker?
2:32:34
>> With a lot of the mask. >> Yeah. Oh, the mask, right?
2:32:36
He says, "No one cared until I put on the mask." >> It's Batman. >> Oh, it's Batman. Yeah. Wait, what? Batman says that.
2:32:42
>> Yeah, he puts on the mask >> and he says, "No one cared until I put on the mask." >> Let me fact check.
2:32:47
>> I think this might be the Joker or something. I don't know.
2:32:48
Anyway, the the idea is like people have been writing profiles about tech companies in a positive way.
2:32:54
Like Paky McCormick has had a really successful Yeah. Okay. Bane. It's Bane. Yeah. Yeah.
2:32:57
This makes >> That's right.
2:32:59
Bane says, "No one cared until I put on the mask, right?"
2:33:01
And so And so it's like no one cared about, oh, it's just a blog.
2:33:05
Oh, it's just a Substack.
2:33:07
Oh, it doesn't matter if it gets a lot of views or a lot of attention intact.
2:33:10
What matters now is that Colossus put the put the the the profile in terms that the other magazines can understand because it looks like theirs.
2:33:20
It looks it's the same glossy magazine and we're seeing this with Arena Mag and we're >> Yeah.
2:33:25
It it's like legacy media didn't feel threatened until >> it took on the aesthetics.
2:33:29
entrance took on the aesthetics of >> and we really need a new term for this because there's there's traditional media, there's new media, and then there's new new legacy neo legacy media. >> It's neotrad media.
2:33:42
It's neo We're the neotrads. We're the neotrads.
2:33:47
So, this show is new media, but it looks like trades and the stock tickers.
2:33:52
This looks like TV, but it's not.
2:33:54
And Colossus, similarly, looks like a magazine, but it's really not.
2:33:58
I mean, it is a magazine, but it's also But most people consume the Thrive profile on the web, but it's not just a blog.
2:34:05
It's not just a Substack. So, fascinating.
2:34:06
Well, uh, Tyler, uh, threw out an alternative term, adding to the fray of media terms.
2:34:14
What do you, what do you want to call it? >> Uh, dark media. >> Dark media. Are we dark media? You're dark media.
2:34:19
Look at how dark your background is. You're dark media.
2:34:20
I think the the doomers if if if the doomers released some new publication I think that would be dark media. >> Yeah.
2:34:30
>> Uh speaking of dark it's dark when you go to bed sleep on an eightle.
2:34:33
com pod 5year warranty 30-day risk free trial free returns free shipping.
2:34:39
>> It is so funny that eight runs on AWS and so >> Oh no >> it was it was >> my my reporting last night is all off.
2:34:46
I was seeing some other uh but it's good.
2:34:50
I took a fast fantastic nap on my eight sleep yesterday, so I'm feeling very refreshed.
2:34:55
>> In other news, Stitch Fix is up 7% today after Bill Gurley posted pictures of himself using Stitch Fix's new AI product, Stitch Fix Vision.
2:35:05
No, I I I I think I think Stitch Fix is just popping because they announced a version of uh like this a like you you upload some images and then it'll generate you in different outfits.
2:35:19
This is uh >> Thrive did a company.
2:35:23
>> Well, that's super interesting.
2:35:23
Like >> do I don't know how I don't know.
2:35:25
Uh >> they basically created like a dogee.
2:35:27
I don't know the I don't know the recent history of Stitch Fix, but I remember at one point they were I think they were employing a lot of human beings to do the uh the collection assembly.
2:35:38
So you would send in some photos, you would say your some of your opinions and then they would put together a box of clothes for you and kind of act as like a virtual stylist.
2:35:49
And and these stylists obviously had real cost to them.
2:35:52
And so if that's something that AI can do like that is a material change to their business and their fundamental economics.
2:35:59
So who knows if people will like it maybe they say hey this particular outfit is slop but if they have a lot of training data and also they have the whole pipeline of logistics and fulfillment and e-commerce setup uh that I mean that could be that could be significant for the business. It's exciting.
2:36:15
I'd love to have the founder on and talk more.
2:36:17
Kremu says, "Over the last 15 years, Reddit's relationship advice has shifted towards recommending breakups, boundaries, and therapies and against compromise communication and letting people have their space."
2:36:28
So, uh he did uh there's a actually I guess a Reddit user that that generated all this.
2:36:36
>> This is concerning um for a number of reasons.
2:36:39
One being that uh your favorite AI models are all trained on Reddit. Yeah.
2:36:45
And this is what uh Pat Gellzinger is has been uh sounding me alarm about when he evaluates the LLMs.
2:36:50
He he's he he put it in different terms, but he kind of noticed a similar trend.
2:36:55
Um what's your best advice for a relationship?
2:37:02
I say start a podcast together. That works great.
2:37:06
Andrew Oskins new book 1929 has wild details of Winston Churchill yolo trading US stocks.
2:37:11
trading US stocks. one one we got to we got to expand on that because if you're having uh relationships problems whether friend or romantic and you start a podcast together that sounds like >> terrible here are the options from
2:37:24
Reddit end relationship communicate give space time set respect boundaries seek therapy counseling compromise other >> so you're saying other get in the ring >> how about get in the octagon duke it out >> uh break a sweat Uh, break some knuckles, you know. >> Uh, throw down. Throw down. That's the >> Uh, throw down. Throw down.
2:37:44
That's the correct answer. Throw down.
2:37:47
If you're having relationship problems, throw down.
2:37:53
>> Why is that not on Reddit at all?
2:37:54
Redditors haven't even thought of that as advice for a relationship. >> True. >> Throw down.
2:38:00
>> You got to get on there.
2:38:00
Uh, Trunk Fan was sharing some highlights from Andrew Ross Orcens.
2:38:06
>> I have one more piece of advice before we go to 1929.
2:38:08
If you're having a relationship problem with someone, buy them a luxury watch on getbzzle.
2:38:13
com because your bezel concier is available now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch.
2:38:17
If >> you're like, h, you know, Tyler seems frustrated with me lately. What should I do?
2:38:23
It's like, get him a GMT. >> There you go.
2:38:27
>> Get him, get him a tech.
2:38:29
>> He's going to be like, yeah, it's water on the bridge, John. >> Metal solved.
2:38:32
>> So, uh, let's go to Tyler Cosgrove with his official review of 1929.
2:38:34
Did you really read the whole book this year? This weekend? >> Uh, no.
2:38:38
Oh, I was playing on it and I I didn't.
2:38:40
No, I I Yeah, I'm not done yet.
2:38:43
>> Did you watch any Tik Toks about the book? >> No.
2:38:47
>> Did you generate a Sora summary of the book?
2:38:50
>> That would have been much more efficient. >> Okay.
2:38:51
Did you actually read any of the book? >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:38:53
I'm like close to like halfway through. Yeah.
2:38:54
I told you guys I was going to be done, but that was a little white light.
2:38:58
But I mean, it's really interesting.
2:38:59
Um it's like kind of crazy how many parallels there are between like the current day and and >> bring it down >> 1929.
2:39:06
So I I think we asked um Sorcin a couple of these. >> Yeah. >> Um >> but okay.
2:39:11
So so one example is this guy um Durant.
2:39:13
He's kind of this he's famously for for just being like this >> Kevin Durant to be clear.
2:39:18
>> Kevin >> um and he he's like thinking about starting this company um that is essentially the same thing as a company we've had on Basic Capital. Okay.
2:39:26
Where it's basically a mortgage for for buying like ETFs, right? >> Leverage. >> Yeah.
2:39:32
And it's like there's so many parallels where it's like, "Oh, that's like just like that thing that I saw the news about the other week."
2:39:39
>> Um, so a little bit bearish reading this. Sure.
2:39:41
Uh, but I think also, I mean, the main thing in the book is you see like the real reason for all this speculation is basically just there's just so much new money coming in. Sure.
2:39:50
Like so many of of of the big banks, they're just focusing on trying to get essentially like retail. Yeah.
2:39:53
To to take leverage or to just like get people to buy stocks in general.
2:39:57
He I I I you know, Sorgan was mentioning like like the the AI equivalent in 1929 was RCA, like the radio radio waves.
2:40:06
Like does that come through or was the bubble broader?
2:40:12
>> Um yeah, I mean so he talks about RCA a fair amount.
2:40:15
I I think that's mostly as just a specific example of a stock that is being pumped, but it's certainly not like the the the general fervor is not like, oh, everyone has to get in on this specific company.
2:40:25
It's that everyone needs to get in on the market.
2:40:28
the market the market is just going to keep.
2:40:30
>> I mean, there's a little bit of that happening.
2:40:31
>> Here's some extra context.
2:40:31
So, uh uh Churchill was uh day trading. >> Love it.
2:40:38
>> Uh he was trading 400,000 a week on margin, but adjusted for inflation.
2:40:44
That's $36 million that he was just slanging around while >> while he was uh he was was he in was he actually >> in power? >> In power? Let me let me see.
2:40:54
So, um, this is like he's kind of in some kind of like ambassador role at this point.
2:41:02
>> Um, but yeah, basically he he has this very like luxurious lifestyle that he has to keep up.
2:41:06
So, he goes on this road show throughout the country where he just finds these >> One sec.
2:41:10
Churchill didn't actually uh come to power until 1940. Yeah. So, >> yeah.
2:41:16
So, he he's going on this road show basically to to find rich guys who will just give him money to keep traveling, but also just so that they can speculate.
2:41:24
>> Um, and another thing is is Was he kind of like the Leopold Ashen Brener of 1929?
2:41:30
>> I think Leopold has much more of a differentiated view. >> Much more alpha. >> Yeah. >> Was pure beta. >> Yeah.
2:41:36
Well, I mean, it's still alpha in the sense that um the amount of like insider trading going on is kind of absurd.
2:41:42
Like basically there's a deal that's about to happen and then the banks just deal out like oh here's a couple friends of mine, you know, here's like Calvin Culage.
2:41:48
I'll just give him like $400,000 basically. >> Wow.
2:41:51
um like lot current presidents are like getting deals, you know. So, >> yeah.
2:41:57
>> So, maybe it's not that different.
2:41:57
Maybe it's not that different, you know. >> Yeah. Who knows? >> Yeah. >> Uh that's fun. That's fun.
2:42:01
Uh anything else stick out from the book?
2:42:06
>> Um I think once I fully finish it, I'll I'll write something up maybe and then I'll give a a final review. >> That'd be cool.
2:42:11
>> But yeah, very good so far.
2:42:13
>> Overall, uh if you haven't had a chance to pick up the book yet, you can get on Audible or wherever books are sold. Uh we're very thank you. We're thankful.
2:42:19
uh for uh Andrew Russ to come on the show, share his insight, and hang out with us for about half an hour last week. Interview's up.
2:42:29
>> Worth noting that Churchill made it all back with a book deal.
2:42:32
>> He did >> on his uh World War II memoirs. >> Okay.
2:42:35
Here's a potential recession indicator from Jacob Silverman uh says the number of people who registered to take the LSAT last year in 2024 was 18,000.
2:42:47
But in September of 2025, a year later, the number of people who registered to take the ELSAT is now 32,000.
2:42:51
So a massive massive uptick. >> Yeah.
2:42:56
And the these are the idea is that these are people that were trying to enter the job market struggling and are trying to buy basically buy time or uh >> oh yeah, new grads >> not finding Yeah.
2:43:09
just not finding opportunities that are >> college grads who say meeting their expectations.
2:43:15
Or alternatively, these are people who watched Andre Carpathy on Door Cash and said, "Well, AGI's 10 years away. I can go be a lawyer.
2:43:23
I'll take the LSAT now, get through law school, become a partner, and then I'll be able to cash out before AGI hits."
2:43:28
So, you know, LLMs aren't going to be able to do law anytime soon. It's lop. Heard it there first.
2:43:35
And so, they all applied to the ELSAT. Could happen. Could happen.
2:43:39
Anyway, uh let me tell you about Wander. Find your happy place.
2:43:41
Book a wander with inspiring views, hotel grade amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, and 24/7 concier service.
2:43:45
It's a vacation home but better, folks.
2:43:50
>> Uh did you see uh the Senate Republicans posted a video of Chuck Schumer? >> Yes.
2:43:56
>> That was fully It was a real quote.
2:43:59
>> Uh but it was fully AI generated.
2:44:01
>> They made AI video and audio.
2:44:04
>> Can we try to pull this video up to see how sloppy it is?
2:44:05
Yeah, they made an AI video and audio of the actual quote to kind of illustrate it uh to the audience.
2:44:15
Andrew Curran says, "Uh, first time I've seen this.
2:44:18
This is a real quote, but it wasn't said on camera, so they generated a video of Chuck Schumer saying it."
2:44:23
Now, I would love to know what model they used because a lot of models have guardrails.
2:44:29
Here, let's play the video right now.
2:44:31
>> For us, >> Chuck Schumer thinks playing with Americans, >> every day gets better for us.
2:44:33
Low income women, infants, >> every day gets better for us. >> Okay. >> Okay.
2:44:39
The mouth movement is a little >> Chuck Schumer thinks >> every day gets better. Every day gets better. >> Bad.
2:44:44
I mean, like it's clearly based on some real image that they took.
2:44:46
And so the lighting looks very real.
2:44:48
The skin texture looks really real because the the AI model doesn't really have to do that much to regenerate it from scratch.
2:44:55
But of course, we've seen that, you know, all the models are basically, you know, indistinguishable uh if you don't have full context at this point.
2:45:02
Um, awesome says, "We're we're gonna see some AI laws come to fruition as fast as they push the COVID bill through back uh through back in March of 2020.
2:45:11
Uh, the Democrats introduce the bill, negotiations.
2:45:15
Trump signs it on condition of ending government's shutdown."
2:45:18
Oh, that's kind of a it's kind of a bold take.
2:45:20
I don't know if that will for sure happen, but uh you could definitely see um before the next election uh both sides wanting some clarity on where the line is in terms of uh what you can use.
2:45:31
Uh now the NSR uh the NRSC, the uh Republican group, the Senate Republican group that uh created this video did put an AI generated tag in the bottom right hand corner.
2:45:45
And so they did disclose that they used AI. Will that be required?
2:45:51
Will there be certain uh you know definitions of how how how aggressive the watermark needs to be?
2:45:58
Uh that's all up for debate.
2:45:58
Uh but we will continue to check it out.
2:46:04
>> More uh insight here from Barbarian Capital.
2:46:09
>> Thought we were out of >> uh uh noun plus capital names on X, but we always find more.
2:46:14
Uh they pulled up a chart here from Schroers.
2:46:17
It's looking at average year-to- date performance of companies in each category.
2:46:21
They're looking at NASDAQ no revenues. >> Mhm.
2:46:25
>> MAG7 unprofitable NASDAQ, unprofitable US small midcaps, NASDAQ with revenues, uh the S&P and profitable NA NASDAQ and then profitable small midcaps.
2:46:37
What group do you think performed the best year to date, John? I have no idea. >> NASDAQ, no revenues. >> No revenues. >> Yeah. >> Wow.
2:46:49
I was >> NASDAQ obviously has has much looser listing. >> Okay. Sure.
2:46:55
>> Requirements than uh than NY >> and uh anyway.
2:46:58
So >> the Silicon Valley in that in the HBO show like you don't want revenue because then people will comp you.
2:47:04
But now we're doing it at the public markets. That is crazy.
2:47:08
Uh and and I mean that goes back to the 1929 thing that Tyler was talking about like uh once you get to the level of fervor in the market where it's like you just got to be in the market and you see froth like in stuff that's not even tied to the core innovation.
2:47:21
It's like wait like AI is clearly like you know there is a transformative technology there is growing revenue.
2:47:28
Now, there's debate about the level of the level of capex. That's correct.
2:47:32
But that's wildly different than looking at some company that's saying like, "Oh, we're going to colonize the moon or build a quantum computer or do something else that's like completely off the current tech tree and they're mooning."
2:47:42
Um, that not not to be too punny about it, but uh that's when you get into like real real bubble territory.
2:47:50
Well, uh I have a one final post.
2:47:52
Do you have anything else? One final post.
2:47:56
Congratulations to Everett Randall, uh, former partner at Kleiner Perkins.
2:47:59
Now he's a general partner at Benchmark.
2:48:02
He has announced his trade deal, potentially the trade deal of the year.
2:48:10
Ev Randall is out of KP to >> this week.
2:48:15
>> That would be amazing. >> What's the plan?
2:48:17
>> And of course, Delian is already taking shots putting him in an AI generated image without a watermark.
2:48:22
So, and I I think everyone can tell that this is an AI generated image.
2:48:29
>> There's one person out there that doesn't.
2:48:32
>> I don't know who it is.
2:48:33
>> Maybe maybe uh well, Everett is playing along and laughs uh at Delian's post because they're both having fun on the timeline, but congratulations to Ev, of course.
2:48:41
And uh good luck with uh the next era of his investing career.
2:48:46
>> One thing I missed about the MAGA spa is that Chimath will be in this one, too. >> No way. with Donald Trump Jr. and Laura Ingram.
2:48:55
>> I wonder, so this is this is just a spack.
2:48:58
They haven't identified a target.
2:49:00
Um, have they even defined, we need to dig into and understand like have they even defined an an area that they would want to take a company public through?
2:49:09
>> Well, they found an area they would want to incorporate the uh Colombia Acquisition Corp.
2:49:16
>> and that is the Cayman Islands. >> Okay. Yeah.
2:49:17
So, they're in the Cayman Islands.
2:49:18
I think that's standard practice, but I don't know. >> Yeah.
2:49:21
Anyway, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for watching.
2:49:23
If this was the first show you've seen because uh we had the CEO of GameStop on today, uh please subscribe, follow us on X, follow us on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you get your uh live streams.
2:49:36
>> Uh shout out to our whole production team, our buyers.
2:49:41
>> They were fighting for their lives.
2:49:42
>> They were under attack probably by a state actor. We don't know yet.
2:49:44
We will get to the bottom of it and we will bring you the news tomorrow.
2:49:47
They could take down our show by taking down AWS. Nice try. >> Nice try. Try again. >> Try again.
2:49:56
Don't Don't actually try again, please.
2:49:57
Uh, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter at tbpn. com. Thank you so much.
2:50:02
Leave us five stars on Apple Podcast, Spotify. See you tomorrow. >> Tomorrow. >> Massive day. >> Massive day. >> Palmer lucky.
2:50:07
Palmer lucky and probably a lot more. See you then. Goodbye. Cheers.