searchlore

0:08

[music] Hey, [music] hey, hey. Heat. [music] Heat. Yeah. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] Heat. Heat. N. [music] Heat. Heat. N. >> [music] >> Heat. Heat.

2:55

>> [music] [music] >> We came to this world to reach the stars.

3:22

We came to this world to keep the future.

3:33

We came to this world to reach the stars [music] to shape our future.

3:47

[music] came to feel the new death match. Woo!

4:21

>> [music] [music] >> If you let >> [music] [music] [music] >> My phone's back there. >> You're watching TVPN.

4:56

Today is Thursday, December 11th, 2025.

4:58

We are live from the TVPN Ultradome, the Temple of Technology.

5:03

The fortress of finance, the capital of capital.

5:06

Christmas is around the corner. That's why you're here.

5:09

You want an update on [music] Christmas. 14 two weeks from today.

5:16

Presents under [music] the Christmas tree.

5:20

>> Holiday under the Christmas tree. >> Ramp.

5:21

com under the Christmas tree. Time is money. Save both.

5:24

Easy to use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.

5:30

Also, SpaceX IPO under the Christmas tree. [music] 1.

5:34

5 trillion for the big man for Elon Musk.

5:36

He's uh he's going to raise 30 billion, something like that.

5:41

That's an incredibly small amount of dilution if he actually goes [music] out at 1. 5 trillion.

5:44

Uh should be interesting.

5:46

I thought he hated running a public company. >> Just 1. 5. >> Just 1. 5. Just 1. 5 trillion.

5:51

He said the biggest number because you know that there was that whole like leak.

5:55

I think it was in Reuters uh OpenAI going out at 1 trillion.

5:59

You gotta go a little bit higher.

6:01

What's just a little bit higher?

6:02

He should have done He should have 1. 1. I'm gonna IPO at 1. 1 trillion. Really stick it to Sam. But he didn't.

6:07

He He says he's going out at 1. 5.

6:11

>> He's got to leave some room for the for the first day pump. Yes. Right. >> Yes. Get it up to two. Get it up to three. Yeah.

6:16

>> Um but I mean in terms of companies that should benefit from the space economy, like is this not the Nvidia of space?

6:24

Like what what other company is there? It's the space company. It's SpaceX.

6:27

And so um 30 billion coming in company was doing great.

6:33

Launch launch pro uh launch product is fantastic.

6:36

The rockets go up they come down over Monaceto apparently.

6:40

Uh but I I I think that the the actual launch market for anything but satellites but for anything but data centers has just been a little small.

6:48

And so uh Starlink has been the big unlock of course for SpaceX. Uh massive market there.

6:52

uh putting the screws to Verizon, AT&T, and the other Telos.

6:59

Uh the the other Telos, of course, have been uh noodling on working with a a rival uh putting up smaller satellites in a sparer constellation with more bandwidth per uh >> Somebody was talking earlier that to get the same amount of compute as a 1 gawatt data center, you would need 10,000 satellites.

7:18

>> That's not that many though.

7:18

Starlink has over 10,000 up there already, I believe. >> Sure.

7:23

So that's not that's actually not that crazy.

7:26

>> That seems like completely that that that's actually like extremely bullish.

7:29

>> There is a there no there is there is a pathway to doing it with far fewer which would just be like ultra ultra long.

7:36

>> I don't think they want to do big.

7:36

>> I don't think they want to do big. I think the whole thing is is constellation that that was the that was the beauty of Starlink was that uh you could go up there and because it it gave them the ability to have all this residual capability as Gwen Shotwell

7:48

puts it which is like if the CIA shows up and they want to put a spy satellite on there or some company shows up and says like hey we want to we want to put something really serious in space um but we only need 60% of the fairing or we only need 40% of the fairing or we only need 80% of the fairing. It's like, It's like, okay, great.

8:06

That's that we'll fill the rest of the space with two two Starlinks, five star links, 20 star links.

8:12

>> Well, we have uh the founder of K2 Space coming on the show. Fantastic.

8:17

>> Uh later raised a quarter of a billion dollars at a $3 billion valuation uh from Tro Price. >> Fantastic.

8:25

>> Head of Sophia Ultimator, Lightseed and some others.

8:28

So we will talk more about that then.

8:30

And we will also talk about fall generative media platform for developers develop and fine-tune models with serverless GPUs and ondemand clusters.

8:39

Um so in terms of this uh the the space thing I mean we keep going back and forth on this uh is it just a pump?

8:47

Is it just a new narrative?

8:47

Is it is it a pivot to AI?

8:49

Um I I don't really care.

8:53

I I I think uh I think it it all comes down to this just idea of like Elon math.

8:59

You know, the Elon math is always crazy.

9:02

He's always putting up sort of wild predictions that then may or may not come true.

9:07

A lot of them are way off, but at least he's telling a story that's like optimistic about the future.

9:15

And at least like it feels like that Trey Stevens like good quest thing is like get to Mars is good.

9:19

if he misses it by five years.

9:22

At least he's still the first he's the only person that cares about it, which is great.

9:24

Um, I I went through I tried to pull the in true like hit piece fashion, I pulled up all the different uh all the different times he's like made a prediction and then like not landed it or not delivered on time. And it's crazy.

9:36

The guy loves to rip predictions.

9:39

Um he said he was going to put early SpaceX concept when they started SpaceX was to put a small greenhouse with plants on Mars as a PR demo uh before they would even start the company.

9:52

Uh that of course did not happen >> before starting the company. >> Yeah.

9:55

This was like the original thesis was like he he went to some Elon went to some like space kind of space nerd meet up.

10:03

It was like we need to put a plant a physical plant with a webcam on it on Mars and if we land that there and we prove that life can live on Mars. We bring life to Mars.

10:12

It will inspire everyone and marshall all the resources and all the capital and all the excitement to actually go put boots on the ground.

10:19

Which also he predicted he predicted humans on Mars by 2024.

10:21

of course hasn't happened that we know of.

10:27

It's possible he snuck one up there. True.

10:29

They keep saying that the star they keep saying the star the starships blow up, but maybe maybe one of them didn't.

10:34

Maybe one of them sneaky sneaky went off and put a person on Mars.

10:39

>> The shell of the real ship.

10:40

>> I like the inverse the inverse conspiracy theory, you know, like like, oh yeah, we never went to Mars or we never went to the moon.

10:45

No, the inverse conspiracy theory.

10:47

We're going all the time secretly, but you you're not cool enough to get in on it. You don't have a ticket.

10:52

Everyone else does except for you because [laughter] I was just on the moon yesterday and I'm not telling you about it.

10:58

Uh first crude Mars landing as early as 2029.

11:00

Little too early to say, but that one feels aggressive.

11:02

We're just four years out and you got to put a whole crew down there.

11:08

He also said uh tourist trips were going to be happening around the moon by 2018. Didn't hit that. >> Yep.

11:15

>> Yep. um self- sustaining city on Mars of 1 million people 2050 feels a little early but I don't know 2050 >> anytime you're getting more than >> a couple decades anything's possible I I agree I agree uh but then of course there's a bunch that

11:30

he succeeded in he said that he was going to deliver reusable orbital rockets he did it >> y >> and what else matters at least you you know uh you you know he's also predicted fully reusable starship uh with rapid turnaround around. Uh it's a little too

11:44

Uh it's a little too soon to tell.

11:46

He's behind some of the early dates, but uh you know, in general, that project seems like it's real. It's going to happen.

11:50

It's taken a little bit time.

11:52

Um he has he has a bunch of other funny ones.

11:55

Uh but it is interesting how the how the SpaceX narrative has shifted uh from first we're going to Mars, then there was the whole do you remember SpaceX pointtooint?

12:05

Are you familiar with this?

12:07

So there was a pitch for a while >> like a commercial is this like this is a replacement for an airliner you'll just go up and then come down. >> Exactly.

12:14

So it was like New York to Tokyo in like 30 minutes because >> that would go so hard. >> Insane, right? Insane.

12:21

So it the idea was like you're in >> Imagine Imagine being able to commute to Tokyo for some obscure job. >> It'd be amazing.

12:29

It would actually be remarkable.

12:31

And there's a whole bunch of economic research that shows that when you increase transportation, reduce transportation times, that you really do get an economic boom because people can do business in areas where they couldn't before.

12:43

Even just the reducing the time from San Francisco to LA, from a six-h hour drive to a 1-hour flight, all of a sudden people can go up and do business, come back the same day, they just get there more often.

12:54

Uh I had a hot take for a while that if I was the president I would recommission the SR71 Blackbird which of course goes I think Mach 3.

13:00

So you can actually get from DC to London in like two hours because it's supersonic jet.

13:07

And so imagine that imagine the >> the presidential SR71 would go also very hard >> remarkably hard, right?

13:16

And imagine the aura of you know something happens in I I remember I I thought of this because the the queen had just passed away very sadly and uh of course the president was planning on visiting the queen paying respects uh to all the people of Great Britain.

13:35

Uh, but imagine if you know the news breaks and it's like this is important.

13:40

I'll be there in two hours and I'm there on the ground like same day the news breaks.

13:43

Not, oh, we got to charter the 747 and bring the whole crew and land and I'll see you in two days and it'll be a whole thing.

13:49

It's like >> like jumping in the car. >> Yep. Yep.

13:52

Or imagine these trade deals. These trade deals.

13:54

Oh, the H200s are going to China or something's happening in Taiwan. Hey, Cin.

13:59

>> So, what happened with the pointto-oint program?

14:01

Has there been any >> Oh, well, it's all just predicated.

14:02

I mean, so the space the the starships are still blowing up, so no one wants to get on those.

14:07

But in theory, if Starship >> But there was nothing.

14:10

They never had any comms.

14:12

It was like we're scrapping this.

14:14

>> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. Not at all.

14:16

Uh, it it was just like an interesting it was an interesting like back of the envelope like bullcase for this for like the business basically just saying like, okay, yes, Starship is going to be really good at getting to the moon, getting to Mars, getting to getting a bunch of Starlink satellites in orbit, right?

14:31

It's like a good It's a good business, but Elon is always the king of opening up new markets and just kind of saying like, "Well, what if what if you was also replacing commercial air travel?" >> Yeah.

14:43

>> And people are like, "Wait, if that's a huge huge market if you can do that."

14:47

And of course, if you could make it more economical, who would ever pay for a ticket on a 747 when you could ride a rocket and get there literally 90% faster?

14:57

Like, it's crazy the amount of time that you would save.

14:59

Now you have to go from Manhattan on a boat out to a launch pad.

15:04

You can't take off from JFK.

15:06

Like there's a whole bunch of wrinkles and that's why this is all practically probably like 20 years in the future.

15:13

But uh it was it was one of those famous examples of an Elon project where if it doesn't violate the laws of physics, it eventually will happen.

15:20

And that's a lot of what's happening with with the data centers in space.

15:24

We need to inference things.

15:25

We need to inference things like cognition and the team because they are the team behind the AI software engineer Devon.

15:33

>> Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team.

15:35

Right now [applause] Devon's inferenced on Earth.

15:37

Who knows maybe in the future it's inferenced in space.

15:42

>> I think that the space data center thing it's people are still having the debate on like is it possible?

15:46

It's like obviously it's possible.

15:48

The question is is over under a gigawatt in by 2027 which is when the other big clusters come online will it be competitive in the short term in the near term?

15:59

Uh and then and then on the flip side like you know uh if you're if you if you're a bear are you saying that it's not going to happen in 20 years?

16:07

Um, and then I mean the big question is uh there's one there's one more Elon Gambit that he could run with one more like oh you you wanted a fifth act >> just one.

16:19

>> Oh I mean there's tons but there's one that's really wild which would be if he straight up said we're building the Dyson sphere like we are going to launch. Tyler's nodding. He's pumped. He's pumped.

16:30

Are you >> Isn't he the obvious Isn't he like the only can only real candidate?

16:33

Well, he's the only candidate for everything in space because he has the leading space company by like it's two orders of magnitude.

16:41

>> I I think someone at Anthropic has said that the Dyson sphere is uh in the in the plans of Anthropic >> of Anthropic. They weren't trolling.

16:50

>> I mean, I I don't know.

16:50

I >> they they're they're going to need to acquire a space company if they want to do that because how do you get the Isn't the Dyson sphere just a bunch of solar panels around the sun directly capturing 100% of the energy that's put off by the sun? Yeah.

17:04

I don't think it has to fully like it's not like there can't be any light coming out.

17:08

It's just like strips of >> Oh, I I thought Carter Chev one is you're capturing 100% of the energy that's hitting your planet.

17:15

Carterv 2 is you're capturing 100% of the energy that is given off by your star. >> Yeah.

17:23

Actually, I think >> maybe what I'm talking about is there's a different term.

17:26

>> Maybe they're do maybe they're two different things.

17:28

Maybe Dyson sphere could just be okay.

17:29

You're only capturing 50% or 10%.

17:30

And then Cardev 2 is you're capturing 100% of the energy coming off your son.

17:38

>> Tyler, the chat wants to know, did we ever find out if this kid, I'm assuming they're talking about you, is related to Elon?

17:45

>> Why would he be related to Elon?

17:46

>> He's got a lot of sons. He's got a lot of sons. >> Oh, okay.

17:48

Yeah, could be could be anyone.

17:50

Uh maybe >> should we read through this?

17:51

So, uh, uh, Eric Burgerer over at, uh, Arts Tech.

17:56

>> You should also read through the daily newsletter, tech analysis and news daily from TVPN.

18:01

We're doing ad reads for our own newsletter now.

18:03

Get our daily oped, top headlines, and best posts from the timeline every I can't read the rest of this.

18:11

Tyler, you got to >> every day. tbpn. com. >> tbpn. com. >> Go subscribe. I'll send this.

18:14

Uh so Eric Berger uh is writing a piece called after years of resisting it, SpaceX now plans to go public. Why?

18:22

And uh Elon actually replied to Eric and said, "As usual, Eric is accurate."

18:27

So I thought it was worth reading through this. Yeah.

18:31

>> Eric says, "SpaceX is planning to raise tens of billions of dollars through an initial public offering next year."

18:35

>> Uh multiple outlets have reported and ours can confirm.

18:38

Uh this represents a major change in thinking from the world's leading space company and its founder Elon Musk.

18:43

Uh Wall Street Journal and the information first reported about a possible IPO last Friday and Bloomberg followed that up on Tuesday evening with a report suggesting a $1.

18:52

5 trillion target valuation.

18:52

This is an enormous amount of funding.

18:56

The largest IPO in history occurred in 2019 when the state-owned Saudi Arabian oil company began uh began publicly trading as a Ramco and raised 29 billion in terms of revenue.

19:06

Ramco is a top five company in the world.

19:08

Now SpaceX is poised to potentially match or exceed this value.

19:12

That SpaceX would be attractive to public investors is not a surprise.

19:15

It's the world's dominant space company and launch space-based communications and much more.

19:18

For investors seeking unlimited growth, space is the final frontier.

19:22

But why would Musk take SpaceX public now at a time when the company's revenues are surging thanks to the growth of the Starlink internet constellation?

19:31

The decision is surprising because Musk has for so long resisted going public with SpaceX.

19:37

He has not enjoyed the public scrutiny of Tes Tesla and feared that shareholders desires for financial return were not consistent with his ultimate goal of settling Mars.

19:46

Uh next section is called data centers.

19:50

R spoke with multiple people familiar with Musk and his thinking to understand why he would want to take SpaceX public.

19:55

A significant shift in recent years has been the rise of AI which Musk has been involved in since 2015 when he co-founded OpenAI.

20:03

He later had a falling out with his co-founders and started his own company XAI in 2023.

20:06

At Tesla, he's been pushing smart driving technology forward and more recently focused on robotics.

20:13

Must sees the convergence of these technologies in the near future, which he believes will profoundly change civilization.

20:18

Raising large amounts of money in the next 18 months would allow Mus to have significant capital to deploy at SpaceX as he influences and partakes in this convergence of technology.

20:28

How can SpaceX play in space?

20:30

In the near term, the company plans to develop a modified version of the Starlike satellite to serve as a foundation for building data centers in space. There you go.

20:38

John Musk said as much on uh X in late October.

20:43

Uh spate quote, SpaceX will be doing this, but using a next generation Starlink satellite manufactured on Earth is just the beginning of this vision.

20:51

The the level beyond that is constructing satellite factories on the moon and using a mass driver electromagnetic rail gun to accelerate.

20:59

explain to us on the show >> uh to accelerate AI satellites to lunar escape velocity without the need for rockets.

21:04

Uh M said uh last weekend on X that scales to 100 terowatts a year of AI and enables non-trivial progress towards becoming a Cartesev 2 civilization.

21:15

Based on some projected analysis, SpaceX is expected to have in the neighborhood of 22 to 24 billion in revenue next year.

21:23

>> 65 times revenue is what you'd be paying if SpaceX goes out at 1. 5 trillion.

21:29

for reference 65 for 65x revenue for SpaceX.

21:33

Nvidia is at 24x revenue to market cap market cap to price to sales.

21:41

Um so like twice more twice as expensive as Nvidia but also you know probably like an even wider lead to the rest of the industry newer industry.

21:53

I don't know about the margins but potentially higher margins articles talking about like you know space being uh more right.

22:05

>> Um anyways uh that is a lot of money.

22:08

It's on par with NASA's annual budget and SpaceX can deploy its capital far more efficiently than the government can.

22:13

So the company will be able to accomplish a lot but with a large infusion of cash SpaceX will be able to go much faster.

22:18

This is the thing that I'm not certain on like is SpaceX has SpaceX been capital constrained or are they capability constrained?

22:27

Like I don't I it hasn't been clear to me you know clearly there's been like infinite demand for SpaceX equity for a very long time.

22:39

>> So much so that people are you know investing in triple layered SPVS just to get uh you know and uh enduring massive fees just to get a taste.

22:46

Um but uh so so yeah the question is like how does does this massive capital infusion actually accelerate the business that much or is it just the right moment in time for a number of reasons?

22:59

Well, you know that SpaceX whenever they launch, they stream their launches.

23:05

They got to be on Reream.

23:07

One live stream 30 plus destinations.

23:09

If you want to multiream, go to reream. com.

23:15

Um, >> Obby Trapathy, a longtime SpaceX employee who is now director of mission operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, believes that once Musk realized Starlink satellites could be architected into a distributed network of data centers, the writing was on the wall.

23:30

That is the moment an IPO suddenly came into play after being unlikely for so long.

23:34

If you have followed Elon's tactics, you know that once he commits to something, he full he leans fully into it.

23:39

Much of the AI race comes down to amassing and deploying assets that work quicker than your competition.

23:45

A large war chest resulting from an IPO will greatly help his cause and disadvantage all others. >> Yeah.

23:52

>> Yeah. What's interesting is so um I totally get that uh SpaceX was never crazy crazy capital constrained even though like building a massive rocket that feels like superensive feels so expensive but uh at the same time um they've just they've just been able to

24:09

raise the money and it just hasn't been a problem and of course uh the like SpaceX as a business generates a lot of revenue like like some of the some of the some of the contracts with the government are in the billions and and then Starlink is just throwing off. It's

24:21

It's telecom, so it's just throwing off tons and tons of cash.

24:26

Um, >> I mean, it's incredibly expensive to get the constellation up there, but you do have cash flow from it, and it's effectively uh, you know, like I'm I've been subscribed to to Starlink for like a year or two. I never use it.

24:37

I'm basically 100% margin for them, right?

24:42

Uh, and I use it just as like a a backup in case the internet goes down, I have it. >> Yeah.

24:45

And you just look at you look at the growth opportunity in in effectively telecom.

24:49

You have T-Mobile is a $217 billion business that is threatened by Starlink.

24:53

AT&T is $172 billion business >> and Verizon is $170 billion business.

25:00

>> But I think the reason you need 30 billion like sort of paradoxically or or counterintuitively might not be to build more rockets.

25:07

It might be to actually just buy the GPUs because like in in theory if you're putting a GPU in space like like Elon SpaceX doesn't make those GPUs.

25:17

They don't just pull them out of thin air.

25:18

They got to buy them from somewhere.

25:19

And if they're buying them from Nvidia, those are expensive and you got to buy a lot of them.

25:23

And for to make a dent in like let's assume all the physics works.

25:29

Let's assume that the launch costs are cheap, all the math works out.

25:33

Well, if you're putting a gigawatt of compute in space, you probably have like a billion dollars of hard cost just on the chips or something like that.

25:42

I don't know the exact number, but um you can imagine that that you raised 30 billion.

25:46

the business is humming but you still have to outlay a ton just for the GPUs.

25:50

Um and so yeah you do have a you do have a new a new consumption for uh cash.

25:56

Uh anyway, let me tell you about public.

25:59

com investing for those who take it seriously.

26:00

You got multiass investing is trusted by millions.

26:03

Um did you want to >> do you think that uh xai gets rolled into SpaceX or Tesla? >> That's the hard part.

26:09

I thought it was I thought it was going to be Tesla for sure because you know Tesla has the lineage.

26:14

They they they have their own chip.

26:15

They have uh they have massive data centers to train AI models for full self-driving.

26:20

It felt like such a logical place for XAI to land, but now maybe it lands at at SpaceX. I don't know. >> Yeah.

26:29

If if SpaceX becomes the data centers and space company and they're effectively like >> reselling. Yeah.

26:36

Um, >> also I mean I I I I don't it feels like there's some sort of you know arcane truth about um you know consolidation where uh it might be not it might be less of a headache than people think to have different entities like if you think about um I mean certainly like like Stargate is a separate entity from >> I'm not even thinking about it as a headache.

27:00

It's just more so like XAI needs to get quite a lot more traction I think in enterprise and consumer >> somewhere. Yeah. >> Yeah.

27:12

Effectively somewhere needs to become like the dominant >> uh a dominant lab in at least one domain.

27:17

Otherwise I think it will just make sense to roll into one of these other >> Yeah.

27:22

Uh well, we should read through some of the history about founders funds investment in SpaceX because it might be one of the greatest.

27:30

It might be it might become the the greatest venture capital investment of all time.

27:34

It certainly feels like it's in the running.

27:37

This is from Nico Whittenborn says, "Founders fund investing 20 million out of a 20 out of a $220 million fund too, which also invested in Palunteer and Spotify early is just nasty."

27:48

[laughter] And uh Dan Primac says, "Flashback to chatting with founders fund Luke Nosk when he led the first investment in SpaceX uh from an old PE week wire newsletter uh in 2008.

28:00

I can't believe PE week is >> I I read that newsletter back not in 2008, but like back then. Wow.

28:04

Primac been in the game for a long time."

28:06

Um so says, "I spent some time on the phone earlier this week with Luke Nosk of the Founders." >> The founders fund.

28:13

They had the they had the the dropped it.

28:14

And there's also an apostrophe here which I think has been lost at some point. I don't know.

28:20

Uh to discuss his firm's $20 million investment in private space launch services provider SpaceX.

28:26

The company is run by Elon Musk who co-founded PayPal along the founders fund partners.

28:30

Uh a few questions and answers.

28:33

Dan Founders Fund usually invests no more than a few million dollars in a company.

28:37

Why invest 20 million when your fund is only 220 million?

28:41

Luke, we obviously have internal caps that we follow.

28:44

What we do is look at how much a company needs and invest that much.

28:48

For example, we only invested $500,000 in Facebook because that's how much it needed at the time.

28:52

A lot of firms were offering more.

28:54

Dan says, "Most of the companies you back have some sort of internet angle, which makes sense given your PayPal background, but what do you know about rocket science?"

29:05

Oh, there's no internet angle at SpaceX.

29:07

No, no one predicted the the internet angle, but it is remarkable that a bunch of internet guys fund a rocket company and then it just becomes an internet company and it's an ISP and now it's a data center company and everything collapses down to the internet.

29:20

And it's it's the Joe Weisenthal take.

29:21

AI will get every resource that it needs like like the internet needs internet is the business model for everything.

29:29

Doesn't matter if you invest in a space company, eventually you're going to be an internet business.

29:34

And so um Luke answering about the rocket science question.

29:40

He says the most important aspect to us is the team.

29:42

Remember the PayPal founders didn't have banking experience.

29:46

Dan Elon has put over a hundred million dollars of his own money into this company.

29:51

That is crazy that they'd already burned a hundred mil and then founders fund comes in with 20.

29:54

Um and uh developed both the Kestrel and Merlin engines which are the first new rocket engines developed in the US in a very long time.

30:03

When we did due diligence, we wanted to speak with other investors of successful new rockets, but they were all dead. [laughter] I love that.

30:13

It's like, yeah, we just So, we so we have to we we're going to be the first here.

30:16

Uh Dan, your announcement of the funding just came days after SpaceX had yet another launch fair. Any worries, Dan? Any worries, Luke? Says Dan. Uh Luke says no.

30:26

There are obviously going to be some technical kinks like an exploding rocket, but they get amplified because rocket science is more binary than would be a technical kink with a website.

30:37

Either the gets into orbit or it doesn't.

30:39

The team has some very smart people and they'll make >> anybody anybody that that ships just regular old SAS should have a huge amount of sympathy for anyone in hard tech because launching any type of app and not having a single bug. >> Insane.

30:52

Even a single like critical bug is tough at least like at least you know early early days and and of course critical bug in in aerospace is uh >> quite explosive.

31:05

>> Well um anyways so so I I did want to pull up so just >> the the estimates FF is estimated to own 10. 4%.

31:14

Um so we can just keep it at 10.

31:14

That means that this initial it's not and again they they've invested in multiple rounds since then.

31:20

Historically like the greatest venture investment ever >> in my view was uh MASA's 20 million investment in Alibaba. That's true.

31:30

>> Turned it into 70 billion at the time of the IPO.

31:33

>> Hard to I I wonder if we can figure out how much >> FF owns about 10% of SpaceX.

31:39

>> But I don't know how many how many they put in billion. >> Oh yeah. Yeah.

31:41

To maintain that stake they put in.

31:42

Again, it's still like going to be a $150ish billion dollar position.

31:47

Just the carry check alone will be >> nasty.

31:51

As Nico said, >> delightful. >> Um, >> wild.

31:57

>> You hit the gong for the old FF crew. My former boss.

32:01

>> Yeah, let's hit the gong. John's former boss.

32:04

Freaking my [laughter] former boss. >> How does he do it? How does he do it? >> Yeah.

32:10

Really quickly, let me tell you about Profound.

32:13

And there's big news today from Profound, the company that helps brands show up more often and more accurately in PLA in AI platforms like ChatGpt.

32:24

They've just announced their new workflows product, which lets marketers automate jobs like research, reporting, and content generation to drive even greater discoverability wherever people are searching.

32:36

You can check out workflows and marketing that runs itself.

32:43

>> I was texting uh the CEO of profound, James, last night and uh he was giving me an update on the business and >> he shared just like a clearly like copy and pasted it like the new customers that they had signed.

32:55

that they had signed. And I don't think we I don't think we can share all of them yet, but uh it it basically looked like every company >> in u every company, every big company looked like they had them uh they have they already are working with MongoDB,

33:08

Indeed, Mercury, Docyign, Ramp, Zapier, >> Eight, Sleep, uh US Bank, Figma, Segeek, uh LG, >> so many of these different different um you know companies are choosing profound and uh we feel lucky to be partnered with them >> to be partnered with them. Uh here's a

33:23

Uh here's a good post from just another pod guy. Okay.

33:27

Uh we could sprinkle this in before we move on to Oracle.

33:31

>> Uh just thought this was an interesting point of view.

33:33

Elon is not really a person.

33:34

He is the human embodiment of network effects.

33:37

When you've been operating at that level and breath that he has been, you aren't really dealing with an individual.

33:42

You're dealing with a deep bench of talent and capital with a comm's guy who is addicted to Twitter and his head.

33:48

The same warnings about underestimating Trump the person versus Trump's cabinet apply to Mus but 100x and with far less irrationality injected and with a much higher caliber of people.

33:58

Does he overpromise, overhype, overhyperbolize?

34:01

Of course, but I would guess the median IQ and depth of expertise of the bench around Musk is higher than that of any nation state.

34:09

>> I thought this was obvious to most people.

34:10

So >> yeah, it's just it's just crazy how like yes, the Yeah. Yeah.

34:14

You just have to accept the overpromising, the overhyping and stuff, but recognize that it's like no one else is trying really.

34:21

There's very very few people. >> Well, they're trying. >> Yeah.

34:26

But in terms of like the real the real people making a run at a lot of these crazy ideas, like they're just it's it's incredibly thin. It's incredibly thin.

34:33

There there aren't that many people.

34:35

There are a lot of people that um yeah, just just just don't take it seriously.

34:39

But anyway, let's move over to one of Elon Musk's best friends, I believe. Uh, >> they're boys. They're boys.

34:46

Elon can count on Larry for a billion or two. >> Yeah. >> Over text.

34:52

>> So, Larry Ellison is addressing uh he's sitting on stage here in this Wall Street Journal article on the news that Oracle shares have tumbled as AI spending outruns returns.

35:02

Uh so Oracle is facing mounting anxiety from investors about how much it's spending to build out data centers for the artificial intelligence industry.

35:11

The cloud computing company's revenue and operating income for the most recent financial quarter fell slightly short of analyst expectations while the company raised its spending forecast adding fuel to concerns over the timeline for turning the AI industry's ravenous demand for computing capacity into profits.

35:29

Um before we continue this article, let me tell you about graphite. dev.

35:34

to have code review for the age of AI.

35:35

Graphite helps on [applause] GitHub ship higher quality software faster.

35:41

Um, so I mean this is all part of this uh I think I think investors didn't realize that like when you do one of these crazy AI deals, you have to go build the data center and then you have to wait and then you have to get get power and you have to buy the chips and the chips have to ship.

35:55

You have to rack the chips and then you got to turn it on, then you got to test it and then you can generate some tokens and hopefully sell them.

35:59

All while enterprise AI adoption might be stacking. [laughter] We'll see.

36:06

There was some crazy data out of RAMP today.

36:08

Uh R Karasian the economist over there.

36:12

>> At least some businesses might be saying we've got enough AI.

36:15

>> We like it but we have enough.

36:16

>> Apparently 55% of businesses are just like good without paying for AI.

36:19

I mean the paying thing is >> at least directly.

36:24

The paying thing here is so basically >> and and so the example is like a lot of businesses don't pay for cloud. >> Yes.

36:31

But they effectively pay for cloud because they pay companies that leverage cloud to deliver their products.

36:37

>> But it's an interesting it's an interesting chart to see where enterprise AI adoption is going.

36:40

This is from Ara Carzian over at RAMP.

36:43

He says RAMP AI's RAMP's AI index shows AI adoption held flat at 45% of businesses in November driven by slight declines in finance and technology sectors.

36:55

by the model OpenAI went down negative 1% anthropic up8% and Google went up.

37:00

7% and so um you can see that this chart in 2025 OpenAI had a big big jump um and then uh and then just has been flat for last for the last couple months a little bit down and thropic's been on a much smoother it seems like they didn't exist in 20 23 basically or maybe they didn't have a paid plan that really appealed to businesses.

37:26

Then 2024, you see some slight growth here.

37:30

And then 2025, a much smoother like okay uptick growing more, growing more, growing more.

37:35

Uh kind of all keeps up with this.

37:37

You know, they've been 10xing every year like uh like a like an Instagram hustle uh account.

37:43

But uh but OpenI had a massive has a had a massive spike at the start of 2025 and then has been a little bit flatter.

37:50

Um but it is interesting.

37:50

I I wonder how much you read into this.

37:54

So, Ara has a uh has has a take here we should go through.

37:58

Before we do, let me tell you about Finn.

38:00

AI, the number one AI agent for customer service.

38:01

Automate the most complex customer service queries on every channel.

38:06

Uh, so he says adoption is flat. Is the bubble popping?

38:11

And he says, I'm not calling it yet.

38:11

The slowdown comes at the end of a rapid runup in adoption rates in 2025, which coincided with a significant step change in the capabilities of these models.

38:20

Now the effect of the latest advancements has faded.

38:24

If we want to see another runup in adoption, we would have to see at least one or two step changes.

38:30

Technological gains, the models get even better, spurring faster adoption or implementation gains.

38:34

Early adopters figure out the best use cases for AI.

38:37

And the rest of the market follows driving incremental adoption.

38:39

Both are likely the latter even more so as adoption actually rose in several industries with relatively low adoption rates like retail, construction, and manufacturing.

38:48

Uh, is Google is Google's AI good now?

38:51

He says it's still underrated.

38:53

Adoption of Google's Gemini rose.

38:55

7%, its second highest monthly increase on record.

38:57

And then he says, what's going on with OpenAI?

38:59

He says he cautions an overreaction to the latest results which show OpenAI adoption dropping while Anthropic and Google adding new users and what that means for OpenAI's business.

39:08

I've learned a lot covering how companies buy and use AI.

39:13

Mainly this market changes rapidly in the typical rise and fall timelines of companies does not apply here.

39:17

Open enjoyed rapid adoption of growth in 2025 in many ways emerging as default spend category for businesses and it's not unreasonable to think that rate would normalize as competitors find their fit in the market.

39:31

Also, there's a lot of >> overall overall the interesting thing is every uh like it it seems to be pretty obvious at this point that the model is just getting smarter is not going to by default make adoption like accelerate massively again.

39:46

They need to become more useful.

39:47

They need to be able to >> uh you know Dark Cash has talked about this like they need to be able to learn on learn on the job basically in the way that uh >> that a human does.

39:56

And I think I think until we have that there's some thing you know the for deployed engineer movement of like having people out embedded in companies like trying to unlock the potential of the models that's great but I think the models actually just need to become generally more useful.

40:14

>> Yeah more useful I don't know. Yeah it's tough.

40:19

tough. I mean when I look at those when I look at the number like the headline number it's 45% have adopted have paid for um AI chat apps basically you know he's tracking open AAI enthropic uh Google and XAI on there a few others um >> and you flip that around and you're like 45% of businesses don't pay for AI don't

40:42

use AI and the question is like are they just not using AI at all or are they just good with free Because if you if you told me like 55% of companies are in sort of like a private equity scarcity wartime mode where they're watching every dollar that goes out of the door, even a $20 subscription is something that will be scrutinized because you know what? Like the son, this we've been

41:03

Like the son, this we've been running this business for a generation.

41:08

We're not going to spend frivolously.

41:10

Every dime that goes through our business is a is precious.

41:13

And so we're not just going to go sign up for whatever.

41:18

No, you don't just spend spend spend.

41:20

Um, you need to really understand if this is valuable. And you know what?

41:24

If if the particular business we have, we have a specific POS system.

41:26

We have, you know, we don't have that many unstructured questions, right?

41:30

Like re realistically, it's like we're not doing a lot of random email, a lot of random research for our business.

41:35

It's more like, you know, customer comes in, take their order, put it in the POSOS system. >> Yeah.

41:43

>> Charge them, go do the thing, which AI is probably not, you know, replacing.

41:45

So um it's interesting but it is one of the one of the cool factors about this R karazzian report is that it comes from ramp customers who I don't think of as I think of them as a little bit more forward thinking than the general population.

42:02

Like if I were to say that there's bias in the data set I would say it's bias towards like being open to AI. >> For sure. For sure. Yeah.

42:09

If I wonder uh if a company like AMX would look at their data of like AI adoption just for cohorts that signed up for AMX over a decade ago. Yeah.

42:21

>> You would expect it to be lower. >> Yeah.

42:23

Or or even or even putting AMX aside like a like a community bank like because if I go to my local laundromat and I ask like what corporate card do you use?

42:34

They're probably like we don't do corporate cards here at all.

42:36

In fact, we have a relationship with the local bank down the street and they put up the mortgage for the building and we write checks or we do cash.

42:47

>> They're even using a debit card. >> Yeah, exactly.

42:48

Or or they if they do have a credit card, it's probably from the local bank branch.

42:51

It's not like they haven't built like their whole system.

42:54

So, uh yeah, it's fascinating to read into.

42:56

I do think there is something to be said to like I do think that there is a bit of a slowdown here like it's not accelerating and and and it is real that that there is um it's just getting harder and harder to justify okay it's no-brainer to bring it in it's a no-brainer to pay for it.

43:13

no-brainer to pay for it. Uh part of that's the competitive dynamic of you know 50% of the value from AI you just get >> it's also it's also what are you getting out of out of some of these if if you're a business that's not doing codeg gen you're not generating a bunch of assets

43:28

etc >> and somebody says hey for $20 a month or $100 a month you can get somebody that's PhD level in math [laughter] but extremely low agency you have to like tap you have to tap the person on the shoulder >> I like the laundromat the >> laundromat's like Actually, I don't need somebody who's PhD level math. Sir, sir,

43:44

Sir, sir, this is a laundromat.

43:48

>> We've been we've been running this laundromat in this family for 45 years, and I've never run into an IMO gold medal level problem ever in the >> I bet there are I bet there actually are.

43:59

I bet I bet I bet I bet on top of I bet if Mark Chen wanted to create a laundromat >> laundry >> allocation of laundry, >> you need to efficiently.

44:06

I mean, if you have a big load of laundry, >> yes.

44:10

How do you split it across? distribute it between. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense.

44:12

Uh >> but yeah, so you have like you have a a a robot on your computer that is incredibly incredibly smart, but incredibly low agency.

44:21

It can't learn on the job.

44:23

You have to like tap it on the shoulder and say, "Hey, do this. >> Okay, now do that. Now do this. >> Do that."

44:29

And it's like, well, >> a lot of these businesses don't have again these these problems that need that level of intelligence.

44:35

They need people that are that are even have some level of agency and not even maxed out on intelligence but can just kind of like chug away and learn on the job and get better.

44:45

>> Or they need SAS products that have AI functionality built in, right?

44:48

And so to to them it's just, oh yeah, my my POSOS system just flagged a couple more fraudulent orders and took care of that or like RAMP, you know, it's like, yeah, my receipts get classified better, but I'm not like a direct user of AI.

45:01

Uh maybe they need to be on numeral numeral.

45:05

com compliance handled numeral worries about sales tax and VAT compliance so you can focus on growth.

45:13

Uh Disney is investing $1 billion in open AI.

45:17

>> Before that before that I I do think it's notable.

45:18

So uh Oracle's remaining performance obligations which we know refers to contracted revenue not yet recognized is $523 billion.

45:27

Currently, their stock is trading at 500 worthy worthy of a gong hit. Sure.

45:35

But currently, the stock is trading at only $568 billion.

45:40

Uh, and so I just I just look at this as like Oracle continues.

45:47

Immediately when they announced this backlog, they got a bunch of credit.

45:48

It was almost immediately.

45:50

And it has basically just been downhill ever since as the market has basically said, "We're giving you less and less and less and less credit here."

45:59

and to the point where in many ways they're getting like negative negative credit for the partnership.

46:05

>> That was the Financial Times take the the deal is worth negative7 billion. >> Yeah.

46:09

And they're I think that the way that they frame that title was not entirely >> edgy. It was definitely edgy. >> It's a blog. It's Alphavville. They're having fun.

46:19

But um >> and then I so I have one more I have one more post here that's relevant.

46:23

So suspended cap says, "I got a feel like that at some point Oracle Larry was misled.

46:29

Was it OpenAI showing him something in the lab?

46:31

Was it Jensen lying about token prices?

46:33

Or was it a partnership that was supposed to happen that didn't?

46:36

It's always been clear to me that this was a race to the bottom.

46:40

Why would you want to take these economics that someone as sophisticated as Microsoft was happy to pass off?

46:45

Remember, I've said this a bunch on the show.

46:47

Satia has more information.

46:47

He he owns OpenAI's IP, right?

46:50

He's been serving OpenAI models.

46:55

>> He's been, you know, running an AI you know, it's one of the most scaled platforms, right?

47:02

He has more information than anyone in the room.

47:06

Momentarily, he looked he didn't look when Oracle announced this backlog and the stock jumped however many hundreds of billions.

47:14

>> Everyone was kind of like, wait, is this did Satya miss this?

47:16

And I think the market is maybe realizing some of his wisdom. >> Yeah.

47:21

>> Um, suspended cap says Jensen's whole thing is that the rack costs 4 million and you make 20 million, you net 16 million.

47:27

No one can uh no one can make you six 16 million. Got it.

47:29

But a lot of assumptions baked into that.

47:32

Someone has to pay you 16 million for however many trillions of tokens you can spit off.

47:35

If a token is a commodity and can someone can serve it at 50% lower than now it's net plus 6 million on the 4 million of cost.

47:43

What if the dollars paid for the infra results in massive losses for whoever is purchasing them?

47:46

Is the assumption that the capital will just keep funding it? Maybe they will.

47:50

I actually think they will, but I'm just confused at what Oracle thought they saw here.

47:55

So >> well story is not over.

47:59

Uh let's move on to turbo puffer serverless vector and full text search.

48:03

Belram first principles on object storage fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable.

48:08

Um so Joanna Stern has a little bit of a screenshot take joking around about Disney which is investing $1 billion in open AAI and is going to license their characters for use in Sora.

48:22

She says, "Look at this hype. Isn't it neat?

48:25

Wouldn't you think my bubble's complete?"

48:28

I think that's from some Disney song.

48:30

I actually don't know, but I just the cadences.

48:32

Do you have any idea what what's >> that?

48:35

Santa Claus is coming to town. >> No, definitely not.

48:36

Santa Claus is coming to town.

48:38

That's not a Disney property. >> Is it? >> Oh, I Oh, yeah.

48:43

>> Look at >> But the tune you were singing sounded like that.

48:46

>> That's just because I'm bad at singing, I suppose.

48:47

Okay, let let's see if Grock can it. Let's see. Okay.

48:49

Anyway, uh there is news. Oh, is this frozen? Maybe. >> Look at this. Isn't it neat? Okay.

48:54

A company uh I don't know.

49:01

Someone will have to tell us.

49:02

Anyway, uh so Disney's making a $1 billion investment in Open AI and will allow the AI platform to use its characters and properties to generate short user prompted social videos.

49:14

>> Says it's from The Little Mermaid. >> The Little Mermaid.

49:15

What is the original line from The Little Mermaid? Look at Okay.

49:21

Anyway, uh Disney's three-year licensing deal will let users generate videos using Sora, OpenAI's short form AI video platform of more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar characters.

49:34

A curation, a curated selection of these short videos will be available to stream on Disney Plus.

49:42

Whoa, [laughter] that's the bombshell there.

49:43

I didn't realize that cuz when I think about like going to Sora, it's very fun to make a mashup video of Mickey Mouse fighting Iron Man or something like that.

49:54

And that's something that doesn't make sense to underwrite within Disney.

49:58

They're not going to spend the time.

50:01

The CGI is too expensive.

50:03

It's just not going to happen.

50:04

But for a for a kid who loves, you know, a Pixar character that wants to see, you know, Wall-E join the Avengers and go fight Thanos.

50:16

Like, that could be a delightful, delightful experience for a young child who's who enjoys Disney's IP.

50:20

And yet, it could make no sense for Disney to actually create that.

50:25

makes a ton of sense that they would allow this to happen in Sora in sort of a uh in in a way where the the economic value is accounted for appropriately.

50:34

Now, you can say slop, but I just think I just think the idea that this is going in Disney Plus is crazy.

50:42

That's the that that's the crazy thing because I mean we we we we covered this when we were talking about Sora generally just this idea that um is it a creation tool or is it a consumption tool?

50:54

And we were saying I think pretty quickly that this doesn't feel like an app that we're going to hang out in.

51:01

Everyone in the studio was having a lot of fun.

51:03

We checked their we checked their screen times a few days later.

51:06

No one was scrolling Sora or more metavibes for that.

51:11

But we continue to see outputs from Sora going pretty viral on other platforms. >> Totally.

51:16

Even within our own like group chats like the what's been the most impactful Sora video that you've probably seen in the last couple weeks like me making a Sora video of myself promoting John Fo's energy drink company in a suit and I just sent it to him directly in a group chat and it didn't it didn't exist and it wasn't funny in any in any broader context.

51:38

Now, the weird thing is is that is there real demand for Sora level quality content in the Disney Plus app?

51:48

Like I when I open the Disney Plus app, I feel like it's a place that has extremely high polish and I feel like ultimately what what to me what's exciting about this >> Yeah.

52:04

is personalized entertainment.

52:04

And which is why I think that Disney would be interested in doing this.

52:09

If a uh Tyler figured it out with Henry's help, the the line earlier was, "Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?

52:17

Wouldn't you think my collection's complete from the Little Mermaid part of your world?"

52:21

But if somebody loves a little mermaid and then you can prompt a really highfidelity personalized video for like your kid >> saying like it's time to do the dishes and singing a little song, right?

52:33

That is that's the kind of kind of moment that I imagine Disney >> would be excited about.

52:41

>> Yeah, >> of course this will be immediately abused in a thousand >> millions of different ways.

52:46

Um but I'm sure they'll put a lot of guard rails in.

52:50

One thing that's notable, this went out this morning.

52:55

>> Disney accuses Google of using AI to engage in copyright infringement on massive scale.

53:01

>> Disney sent a cease and desist letter to Google demanding it to stop the infringement.

53:07

>> Um, so yeah, basically the article says, "As Disney has gone into business with OpenAI, the Mouse House is accusing Google of copyright infringement on massive scale.

53:15

uh using AI AI models and services to commercially exploit and distribute infringing images and videos.

53:22

On Wednesday evening, attorneys for Disney sent a cease and desist letter to Google demanding that Google stop the alleged infringement.

53:27

quote, "Google is infringing Disney's copyright on a massive scale by copying a large corpus of Disney's copyrighted works without authorization to train and develop uh Genai models and services and by using AI models and services to commercially exploit and distribute copies of its protected works to consumers in violation of Disney's copyrights."

53:46

So, uh, the letter continued, "Google operates as a virtual vending machine capable of reproducing, rendering, and distributing copies of Disney's valuable library of copyrighted characters and other works on massive scale and compounding Google's blatant infringement.

54:01

Many of the infringing images generated by Google's AI services are branded with a Google's Gemini logo, false [clears throat] falsely implying that Google's exploitation of Disney's IP is authorized and endorsed by Disney."

54:12

Um, so the question, so Disney's not just allowing OpenAI to generate these assets, but they've actually invested.

54:23

And so the immediate question is, will Disney do any of these licensing IP licensing with other platforms?

54:29

It doesn't this kind of lot maybe it feels like we're in the press release economy all over again.

54:35

Um, [clears throat] yeah, I I don't know.

54:37

It does feel like Disney's sort of like picking a winner here in AI video and they're saying like we like open AI and we don't like Google which is sort of a sort of a bold a bold move.

54:50

You would think that they would be a little bit more platform agnostic.

54:52

I I I'm I'm fascinated by this.

54:56

>> Then again, Thrive Capital bet. >> Yeah.

55:00

>> Bet the fund in some ways on OpenAI.

55:03

Who's co-owner of Thrive? >> Bob Iger. >> No way.

55:07

remember he bought that he was a part of a small cohort that bought >> a few points of Thrive.

55:14

>> Get out the red string.

55:14

It's all connected, of course. >> Get out the board. Get out the board.

55:19

>> Uh you were right, by the way, on the structure.

55:21

Uh so Disney's putting a $1 billion investment in, but they're also getting warrants to buy more stock in OpenAI at its current $500 billion valuation.

55:30

So, there's a little bit of opportunity in the future if the valuation goes up that they'll get a good deal there.

55:36

Um, I I really can't get over this Disney Plus news. I I I really Oh, okay.

55:41

It does say a curated selection.

55:44

So, I I think that I would be very upset about the idea that I would open if I >> It's just a random selection of whatever.

55:53

You know where I'm going with this?

55:54

Like like I I think that Wall-E is a is a film that is >> like I think it's art.

56:00

I think it's art and I think it's okay for my children to watch. >> Yes. You study >> Wall-E. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

56:06

Um but I do I do think I do think that that a lot of the Pixar films and a lot of the Disney films they have an opinion. They have craft.

56:15

They have they have something that uh elevates the human experience.

56:19

The human like like it is not purely brain rot. It's not slop.

56:21

And and if if you were in a funnel where you watch something that's that's a great interesting film with an opinion with something to say and then it's like do you want to continue watching 5 4 3 2 1 and then it's just blasting you with the craziest sora mashups possible.

56:39

Like you're going to make a lot of parents very upset.

56:43

Uh so this better be in another tab.

56:46

But I do I do like that they said it's it's curated because as long as there's like some sort of human in the loop to like say like okay that's that they clearly jailbroke on that one because you know people are going to get crazy with this.

56:58

>> Yeah is every Disney car character doing the little yachty walk out you know.

57:04

>> Okay that's actually okay for the kids.

57:06

I I I fully support that.

57:06

Coffin is a banger and I'm good with that.

57:08

Uh, but no, I mean, YouTube Kids famously went through a really really dark period with Spider-Man and Elsa mashups and that were very suggestive and bizarre and and and and there's been it's been a game of whack-a-ole for a long time.

57:21

And I think people don't expect when they open up Disney Plus, they don't expect it to be a a game of whack-a-ole.

57:26

They expect it to be curated.

57:29

And so, uh, Disney really needs to [laughter] needs to continue to instill this idea that they are that they are curating. >> Yeah.

57:37

So Disney has sent seasonist letters to Meta Character AI as well as against Midjourney >> and some other companies. >> Yeah.

57:48

>> I wonder have they ever sent >> a cease and desist to >> to who? >> OpenAI. >> Oh, I don't know.

57:56

But uh they should have because early as soon as Chad GPT launched, I was having it create stories of you know Spider-Man.

58:02

I I I was particularly a fan of the the deliberately IP infringing.

58:07

So I'd be like, write a bedtime story for my son where, you know, Spider-Man teams up with Superman, which of course cannot happen because those are rival intellectual rival pieces of intellectual property, some owned by Warner Brothers, some owned by Disney, and so you cannot ever have those cross into the same multiverse >> according to Google.

58:31

Yes, >> Gemini, which Disney has now sent this >> cease and desist to uh Disney has never >> taken any type of legal action against OpenAI.

58:43

[clears throat] So, >> well, they picked they picked their uh they they picked they picked a side.

58:49

>> Well, fortunately, we have someone who can add a lot more context here.

58:50

We have Dylan Buyers from Puck News joining us in person in just a few minutes whenever he's ready.

58:56

Uh in the meantime, let me tell you about Gemini 3 Pro, our sponsor.

59:00

Uh Google's most intelligent model yet.

59:02

state-of-the-art reasoning, next level vodcoded, and deep multimodal understanding.

59:08

>> Let's pull up this clip.

59:08

Uh Bob Iger and Sam were on CNBC this morning. We can pull it up.

59:15

>> This is 12minute video.

59:15

Can we play some of this and see if there are key moments there and then we will bring in Dylan. >> Yeah.

59:22

So the current deal is a threeyear license with exclusivity for the first year.

59:27

So again, it's very possible that >> a year from today, Google ends up with the same ability to >> leverage Disney IP.

59:39

>> Disney will set and evolve the guardrails for how it's 200 characters will be used.

59:44

>> I one year exclusivity doesn't seem like like that big of a deal to me because VO3 and Nano Banana are barely rolled out into YouTube.

59:50

Like you can put them in shorts, but it's kind of a creative tool.

59:55

Like YouTube does not seem like we got to win the AI vertical video game this year.

1:00:01

This feels more detrimental to Facebook and Meta than uh than OpenAI honest or or than than than YouTube honestly.

1:00:08

Um anyway, uh should we let's table this video.

1:00:11

We can come back to the clips.

1:00:13

I'm sure it will be clipped more uh more in in more precise detail.

1:00:18

Instead, let me tell you about Adio, the AI native CRM.

1:00:19

Adios, scales, and grows your company to the next level.

1:00:22

And let's bring in Dylan Buyers from Puck News.

1:00:26

Dylan, thank you so much for taking the time to come down to the Ultradome.

1:00:30

Good to see you in person. Welcome. Welcome. Please have a seat. >> Thank you.

1:00:35

And uh >> if you could kick us off with a little bit of an introduction on yourself, uh however you describe yourself these days, whatever's whatever is quickest.

1:00:46

>> Uh I'm a senior correspondent for Puck. >> Okay.

1:00:49

>> Where I cover the media industry. >> Yeah.

1:00:52

media business, media gossip.

1:00:55

Uh, >> how is covering the media different than covering the oil and gas industry or tech or anything else?

1:01:03

>> Uh, more naval gazing, more ancestral >> because you're in the media.

1:01:05

[laughter] You can Are you Are you doing the naval gazing or are you reporting on naval gazing?

1:01:11

>> I I I naval gaze at the naval gazers. >> Okay.

1:01:15

>> It's sort of an oral boros of naval gazing. Um, >> interesting. >> Very ancestral.

1:01:20

What's uh has naval gazing been the top story over the last couple weeks or is it more deal making?

1:01:28

>> You you would It's Well, here's what's amazing.

1:01:30

It's amazing that at a time when like >> Paramount and Netflix are going to war for Warner Brothers Discovery. >> Yeah.

1:01:37

>> The media industry is obsessed with like Ryan Liz and Olivia Nudie.

1:01:41

>> Oh yeah, that's a big one. >> Barry Weiss CBS. >> Oh yeah. Yeah.

1:01:44

The media industry is funny because you it has a way of the the the the smallest most inconsequential gossip has a way of consuming the industry at large.

1:01:56

>> That doesn't feel like what the last couple months have been [laughter] though like like the Olivia Newsy Liza thing like that feels like much bigger than some small story. Is it really? It used to be big.

1:02:08

So, so part part of it part of why media loves covering media is media likes to cover things that get a lot of attention and media businesses in their very nature, their job is to get attention.

1:02:20

>> I think that's part of I just I just think we're obsessed we're obsessed with ourselves. >> Yeah.

1:02:24

I would >> but but an example I would give very often I'll find like a a fashion brand that that is like a household name >> will have like $5 million of revenue, right?

1:02:36

because it's because they're just like people like fashion. It gets shared a ton.

1:02:40

Uh and so I think it's a very >> same thing with individual influencers.

1:02:44

Like they might be recognized on the street.

1:02:46

If you put them in a headline, it's going to get clicks.

1:02:47

Versus if I was like, I have a I have a report here on a oil and gas company that's doing 50 million a year.

1:02:54

You'd be like, no one's going to click on that.

1:02:55

No one knows what that company is. >> People need stories.

1:02:57

People need like p you need personalities.

1:03:00

I mean my >> the media lends itself to that. >> Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:04

Unfortunately, you can do that at the executive level with the Paramount, Netflix, WBD deal.

1:03:07

You can do it down at on the newsroom floor. >> Yeah.

1:03:12

>> I think people need personalities to make these stories >> Yeah. >> human.

1:03:15

Also, there's just, you know, there's only so much intrigue in numbers.

1:03:18

>> Do you feel like the Paramount, Netflix, Warner Brothers story has been particularly personal? Have you been >> focus?

1:03:26

It's the most personal at that level.

1:03:29

at a major M&A level, even more so than when Bob Iger and Brian Roberts went to war for Fox, >> which was personal, too, and had a lot of subplots there, especially on the Murdoch side.

1:03:42

Of course, this is personal.

1:03:43

This is you you've got in David Ellison a guy who is basically staking >> a lot of personal money, a lot of his dad's money >> trying to get this asset and then being doing all the right things, >> sending [snorts] all the right signals to David Zazzl and the WP board, having all the right dinners, going to all the right fights >> and then being sort of spurned at the last minute for someone else.

1:04:05

last minute for someone else. and that negotiation and the Trump element and uh the relationships between Ted Sarendos and David Zazlov and then David Ellison and Larry Ellison and David Zazov it's like it's absolutely fascinating >> so do you think I mean there is a world

1:04:22

where >> also business it should be purely economic right because it's the >> yeah and it will be it will it will be in the end >> the funny part is like the the personal element is there but at the end of the day whoever spends the most money is going to get the asset. >> But if you're more personal, you might

1:04:38

>> But if you're more personal, you might be able to marshall more capital.

1:04:40

You might know more people.

1:04:41

You might be more more people might be willing to rally behind you.

1:04:45

And we're kind of seeing that with Ellison pulling in folks all over the board because, you know, he's has personal relationships with them. Is that roughly right? >> That's rough. That's roughly right.

1:04:56

>> I think that I think what you have my my partner Bill Cohen put it really elegantly.

1:05:01

You've basically got a a company with a $400 billion valuation going to war with a a man with $400 billion valuation and Larry Ellison and and his son >> and yeah mar marshalling the capital for it, you know, with Gulf sovereign wealth funds and Jared Kushner and all that um >> is is interesting and at a certain point Netflix is going to re reach a threshold for what it can compete with.

1:05:27

I mean, another point Bill made is at a certain point if Paramount were just willing to come in and offer like $34, $35 a share for this thing, I think it would be game over. >> Netflix can't do it.

1:05:38

>> But the person I mean, the personal element is just interesting because you've got Trump who wants to be involved in this deal somehow.

1:05:44

You've got David who really doesn't like the idea, David Zazz, who really doesn't like the idea of selling to David Ellison.

1:05:51

Ellison. But fundamentally what you're doing is just a very extended negotiation that's going to play into >> why why well into >> why doesn't he want to get involved with with with David >> I don't think this is how how Zazlov wanted to go out

1:06:08

>> right like I I think I'm not saying you know all when David Zazlov got Warner Media he did this whole song and dance coming to Hollywood and saying you know I'm a film guy I'm going to save the film industry I don't think anyone thought he was in it for the long haul. >> Mhm. >> Mhm.

1:06:23

>> I think everyone knew this was sort of like a a flip, >> but he liked playing the Hollywood kingpin.

1:06:29

And I don't think he wanted to go out because David Ellison came to the table and forced him to go to market.

1:06:35

>> And I also don't think that, you know, I think David Ellison and his team and and Jerry Cardell at Redbird, I think they came in and said, you know, somewhere around that sort of 2350, $24 a share mark.

1:06:46

And I think he took offense to that because the number he wanted and the number he thought he could get was higher to 30.

1:06:53

>> And David, like look, >> I I have spent a lot of my time at Puck writing about all of the various misguided exploits of David Zazlov at the top of Warner Brothers Discovery.

1:07:04

But at the end of the day, like one thing he knows how to do very well is work a deal.

1:07:10

>> The entire time that David Ellison was coming was at the table saying, "I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll spend more."

1:07:14

He was talking to Ted Sarendos at Netflix and um basically by by virtue of playing those two off against each other, he's probably going to end up driving this the the the deal up to a price that is actually higher than $30. So kudos to him.

1:07:33

>> Do you think he's talking to anyone else?

1:07:34

There's been a lot of skepticism about there ever having been a second bidder.

1:07:40

People were saying, "Oh, the whole NE the idea that Netflix would even build bid that's a fake stocking process."

1:07:46

>> I remember >> I remember in September >> when Paramount first started this whole process, someone came to me and said, "This isn't over.

1:07:53

Netflix is at the table."

1:07:55

Everyone thought that was >> right?

1:07:58

>> Greg Peters went out at a Bloomberg event here in Hollywood >> and said, "We don't do, you know, historically we don't do M&A deals like this.

1:08:05

We're not interested in M&A."

1:08:05

And everyone thought, "Okay, well that's it." >> Yeah.

1:08:07

Netflix has been at the table the entire time.

1:08:09

And in fact, if you talk to the guys at Paramount, what they'll tell you is like they [snorts] feel like Zazlov was playing rope dope with them.

1:08:18

It's basically saying, "Yeah, come to the table. We're good.

1:08:19

Everything you're offering is better than Netflix."

1:08:21

And then finally in the 11th hour saying continue to bid and bid and bid and bid and >> Yeah. And we're not done. We're not done.

1:08:27

That's the That's the sort of funny thing.

1:08:28

The way when when Ted Sarendos and Greg Peters go out there and talk about this, they're talking about it like it's over. >> It's not over.

1:08:34

No, >> we're we're I I I You could have me on You could have me back on in six months.

1:08:40

I think we're still talking about this. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That's great.

1:08:43

>> Do you think that uh the the actual Netflix contract, the deal, the breakup fees, the announcement, the pageantry around like we have a deal. >> Yeah, totally. Make it inevitable. >> Is that a tactic? >> Yeah, I think so. >> Okay.

1:08:57

to drive a higher price from to to let Paramount know to let Ellison know, hey, that you're best and final.

1:09:02

Like, now's the time to go rally the go around the world, get fire up the jet.

1:09:10

>> How do you make How do you make another offer and then say, I just want to be clear that this is not my best and final.

1:09:18

>> Oh, that was a funny line.

1:09:18

>> Oh, that was a funny line. Like I've never I've never I've never I've never in a negoti like never in a negotiation had somebody make a a a new higher offer >> and then also say like typically you'd be like yeah there's not a lot of like it just shows that >> like what is the incentive to take the offer at all >> buy your house for a million dollars but I could go higher >> I could go higher and by the way re uh

1:09:41

another partner of mine Matt Bell like >> he's reported Paramount will go higher >> okay >> they will like the Ellison's will go higher And and part of the thing, and this gets back to the personal element, which is what's so fascinating to me, >> David Ellison came to

1:09:59

the Paramount deal, the first deal, >> with a strategy to basically wrap up as much of Hollywood as he could, scale it up, and then try to go to war with Netflix and YouTube and the guys up in Silicon Valley. the entire thesis of his battle strategy

1:10:14

the entire thesis of his battle strategy rests on him being able to acquire more than just Paramount.

1:10:19

If at the end of the day Netflix gets Warner Brothers Discovery and he's sitting there with Paramount, >> he's not he's not he's not in the game. >> Well, yeah.

1:10:29

So, so I was thinking so he uh he acquired the rights to UFC. >> Yes.

1:10:35

>> They're killing the pay-per-view model, which is interesting.

1:10:37

the pay-per-view model was being killed by illegal streaming, which was like the bane of Dana White's existence.

1:10:42

He basically, to my knowledge, was always angry about it.

1:10:48

Was kind of the nature of the internet.

1:10:50

It's just like if you're streaming something, it'll show up in other places in other parts of the internet.

1:10:55

There's not much you can do.

1:10:57

So Paramount, you know, basically going uh throwing down and saying like we're going to own the UFC, which is there's a lot of people that will just subscribe because there's oneish major UFC event every month and it'll it's a much better deal than uh than just going and buying each individual pay-per-view for $80 a pop or whatever.

1:11:16

But that subscription offering becomes much more compelling if if you're bundling in all this other IP. Totally.

1:11:25

My question is like you're definitely going to get the the UFC fan base, but how big is that fan base?

1:11:31

Certainly, it's a popular sport in America, but how do you like build enough value around this to really have a competitive offering?

1:11:39

I think what's interesting about the UFC deal what the UFC deal was a signal to the the broader market which is so much again having it can be depressing to cover the media industry because a lot of the times it's going through periods of contraction or decline or you look at since we're talking about sports rights

1:11:58

you look at someone like ESPN right who's being forced to make all of these very calculated decisions about you know should we pay X amount for Major League Baseball when you're competing still competing for the NFL with like Amazon and and >> well and sports are the the last remaining content monopolies, right? So

1:12:14

So in news, you don't really have a monopoly on anything.

1:12:18

You might break is a commodity. >> Yeah.

1:12:21

You might break the story, but everybody else will have the facts.

1:12:24

>> Sports rights are the one sports rights are the one rights and leagues.

1:12:26

So So the UFC property like like like >> Sure. Sure. Yeah. Warner Brothers.

1:12:33

>> But but still that is highly competitive with somebody else else online saying, "I'm gonna make an AI cartoon."

1:12:39

>> Sure, >> people aren't creating homegrown sports content.

1:12:42

They're creating commentary and reaction content, but you still need to pay to see it live.

1:12:47

>> At the end of the day, there's only one network you can watch Sunday Night Football on, and it's NBC.

1:12:50

And that matters in a way that when news break, when a bomb goes off or a coup happens, there are a lot of different ways to go.

1:12:59

But what was interesting about the UFC deal is at this period of sort of contraction negotiation among legacy media players, David Ellison was coming in almost like a sovereign himself and saying, "I'm willing. I'm here.

1:13:13

>> I'm willing to make bold bets and I'm willing to even overpay or what others would consider overpay in order to go after these assets."

1:13:20

It also helps that he's younger.

1:13:22

He's thinking on a longer time horizon.

1:13:23

time horizon. like he's actually someone who's thinking how do I build up not just a media empire he thinks about as a media and tech empire how do I build that up over the course of decades so he's making these really long-term bets and again part of that it was never ever just about Paramount I remember sitting

1:13:40

in the polo lounge with somebody before the Paramount deal even closed and like he's going after WBD next like this is always this is a this is a scale play and so that just brings me back to like you can't you can't execute the plan >> if you're [clears throat] just sitting with Paramount. >> And so if you're Zazlov

1:13:56

>> And so if you're Zazlov and the guy's like, "Well, yeah, our best and final offer is whatever starts with a two."

1:14:02

He's like, "The it does."

1:14:04

Like, [laughter] "No, it doesn't.

1:14:06

>> You need me more than I need you." Very clearly. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:09

I I I think that uh I mean, I count myself as oddly like a media I'm just getting up to speed on a lot of these media stories, and this one's been fascinating.

1:14:17

Um, but uh just digging into David Ellison's history, I mean starting Sky Dance in 2004, he really has been in Hollywood as at least like, >> you know, given it his all for 20 years.

1:14:33

He starred in Fly Boys, the movie that he shot.

1:14:35

Like it's like he's he clearly wants it. It's about that.

1:14:37

He's not he's not a it's hard to call him a tourist.

1:14:41

>> I don't know if you've seen Fly Boys. It wasn't great.

1:14:42

No, but but to show up with and and not like there are lots of like I mean you could easily levy the like tourist uh label at like Elon Musk buying Twitter, right?

1:14:54

What does he know about social networking?

1:14:56

He's been a he's been a PayPal guy, then he's been a space guy, then he's been a car guy, now he's a social media guy.

1:15:01

What does he know about the news?

1:15:02

And it's like that kind of was true.

1:15:04

Like he did just show up and was all of a sudden like I use Twitter a lot so I'm buying it.

1:15:07

This is this is a 20-year journey, right?

1:15:10

David Ellison fancies himself a true film buff.

1:15:17

Hollywood guy >> grew up watching movies, going to the movies.

1:15:19

His association with Tom Cruz and Mission Impossible to him is a massive badge of honor because he feels like he's really been supporting the industry.

1:15:27

>> And part of the argument you're going to see or we're already seeing it that that he and his team will make against Netflix >> is that Netflix is paying lip service to like the theatrical window.

1:15:36

They're not a they're not a business that's built on putting movies in theaters. True.

1:15:40

And he's like, we actually will we we are committed to Hollywood in the traditional sense.

1:15:47

>> We're so committed that we'll we'll put Tom Cruz yelling at you about TV settings on front of you. You seen this? >> No, I haven't. But >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.

1:15:53

Tom Cruz like there's a lot of TVs that come with like specific refresh rates technology like high refresh rate, not 24 frames. It'll do like 80 48. It's like smooth motion.

1:16:02

And he hates it because it's like not as the filmmaker intended. Yeah.

1:16:07

>> And so he'll do like pre-roll ads for that. Uh clearly like a Yeah.

1:16:09

Truly like loves the theater stuff.

1:16:13

>> We are going to We are all going in in this process because one thing that gets lost, you know, the creative community in Hollywood >> gets really upset about the Netflix of it all.

1:16:21

They don't like seem to like Netflix. >> Yep.

1:16:23

>> They don't like Netflix from a tech perspective, not a political perspective.

1:16:26

They they see them as politically aligned with Netflix generally.

1:16:29

>> But more politically aligned with Netflix in fact, but in terms of their nostalgia for what this industry is about. >> Yes.

1:16:37

We're going to see a lot of nostalgia over the course of this deal negotiation and there's going to be a lot of heming and hawing among the Hollywood creative community about what's happening and all I all I would say is whether Paramount or Netflix get WBD >> like the train has left the station like the industry has changed >> and even Ted's whole thing about you

1:16:55

know we're committed to the theatrical window like like I guess movies will be in theaters for like 10 minutes before they're on on [laughter] Netflix but [clears throat] >> what uh do you think that do you think that h you know Hollywood in in the actual traditional sense like the local comm I mean we're recording this live from Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah.

1:17:13

>> Uh it seems like the industry is the culture of the industry is like dominated by nostalgia.

1:17:19

That's like the that's the feeling that I have.

1:17:22

The interesting thing about tech is that tech has a nostalgic element to it tech culture but it's like videos of us going to the moon and we're like well we got to do that again.

1:17:34

whereas Hollywood seemingly is just wants the whole production pipeline and process to go back the way that it was.

1:17:45

And I guess how how are how are people processing like having a even smaller kind of potential buyer pool out of all of this?

1:17:55

>> Well, you know, what you're making me think of >> I think earlier when we were talking about media, we're talking about other industries like oil and gas industry is my example.

1:18:02

The difference is is that creatives are a real pain in the ass to deal with from the perspective of the front office.

1:18:08

>> Sure, >> you build your business around them, >> but they have feelings about how things should be that I think people probably in the oil and gas industry or the trucking industry don't.

1:18:15

So there are a lot of like Tom Cruises and Martin Scorsese who have feelings about how how this industry should work and what you need to preserve in order to preserve the integrity of it.

1:18:28

What happens when new leaders take over is they have to do a song and dance where they pay a lot of lip service to this.

1:18:34

And so you see Ted Sandos coming in and talking about how great it is to acquire the studio that made Casablanca. >> Yeah.

1:18:43

>> The future of the film. I love Casablanca. I've seen it 100 times.

1:18:45

The future of this business does not rest on like future generations going back and watching Humphrey Bogart.

1:18:52

That is not where the future is going.

1:18:53

Similarly, when David Ellison took over Paramount, there's all this lip service paid to like Walter Kankite and the integrity of CBS News.

1:19:01

>> With all due respect to David, I don't think he gives a about Walter Kankite.

1:19:04

Like, but you have to do that song and dance in order to sort of finesse the transition of the creative community.

1:19:12

>> And in truth, I think what's more interesting is I think whether you're talking about a David Ellison or a Ted Sandos, they're actually thinking about the future.

1:19:20

They're thinking about how to go to the moon again.

1:19:21

They're thinking about you guys were just talking about Disney's deal with Sora.

1:19:26

>> I want to talk to you about that too.

1:19:28

>> When when right after he he dropped his peons to Walter Kronite at this Paramount event just down the street a few months ago, David Ellison talked about how we were just a matter of years away from his kids being able to talk to the characters on Paw Patrol and have those characters talk back to them.

1:19:46

>> Sor the Disney Sor deal is like an early step towards that future.

1:19:51

They know that's where we're going. >> Yeah.

1:19:53

>> It is not my kids watching Blueie over and over and over again.

1:19:55

It is them talking to Bluey and telling Blueey what to do.

1:20:00

>> They're thinking about it, but the the dissonance between what they have to sort of say to plate the Marty Scorsese and where they're actually thinking about putting the money is um is notable.

1:20:12

>> I feel like it's notable.

1:20:12

I mean, there's So, we talk to founders at least once a week that are building like video models and and products that could eventually be used by entertainment or are being used by entertainment.

1:20:24

And I get as an outsider to entertainment, I get excited because I'm like, if if budgets for films hold flat and the tools that these entrepreneurs are building get better and better, you'll eventually be able to say, you know, a movie that would have cost $100 million could now be four different movies that cost $25 million.

1:20:45

And you you're using AI to reduce the cost and using it for scenes that that are just like, you know, historically expensive to actually shoot and do.

1:20:51

Uh, and so I see an opportunity for this like Cambrian, like even if budgets just hold flat, a Cambrian explosion of more creativity, more people having uh the opportunity to uh create films and television shows and things like that, but it feels like there's like zero excitement here about that.

1:21:13

And maybe it's and maybe it's because it's in pockets because >> entirely outside of the Hollywood system.

1:21:21

Like the iPhone really did democratize film making, but like the end result of that was like Mr. Beast on YouTube.

1:21:28

>> No, but I'm just saying I'm just saying it's still I'm saying I'm saying even though the technology is not being created here, it still could be a catalyst >> for the industry.

1:21:37

>> I think it's a competitor industry, >> but but it is it is and and it's and it's and it's a tool, right? >> It's a tool. I mean, it's a tool.

1:21:45

And as with the iPhone, the question is who who gets who has the who has the access to the tool and and who gets to harness the tool and then do something great with it.

1:21:56

Yeah, the iPhone sort of democratized your ability to create content.

1:22:00

And you can argue that the vast majority of what's out there is slop and is not nearly as good as what Hollywood can create.

1:22:07

But then again, you just have to look at where people are spending their time.

1:22:10

People are spending more time with userenerated content.

1:22:13

People are spending more time on YouTube than they are on any other streaming platform.

1:22:16

So >> you'll be able to talk to Humphrey Bogart.

1:22:19

>> You can talk to Humphrey.

1:22:19

[laughter] >> That's what I put in Citizen Kane.

1:22:24

>> Yeah, you can put him on the plane. Wy Wy Coyote.

1:22:26

Wy Coyote teaches algebra.

1:22:30

>> Yeah, that'll happen for sure.

1:22:31

>> I the the the problem with nostalgia and with trying to preserve the order as it is is that the tools are there.

1:22:36

They're going to be harnessed.

1:22:39

M >> they are more democratized than they have been in the past >> and at a certain point the eyeballs are going to go where they're going to go and you can't force it and there is this weird sort of like Amish like let's just like preserve this moment in time that >> Yeah. >> Okay.

1:22:53

So [clears throat] so so is uh if we if we uh hopped in a car and drove over to Burbank and uh snuck into Disney.

1:23:01

Do you think Bob Iger has like a total revolt on his hands today?

1:23:04

because I feel like Disney is one of the truly creative places.

1:23:11

They hire tons of those artists that have opinions. They're talentdriven.

1:23:16

Uh and yet they just put out an announcement.

1:23:19

Yeah, we're going to do AI content.

1:23:21

It feels like a very it feels like a divisive issue if I was you know >> I'm sure management I'm sure it is for some people.

1:23:30

some people. I increasingly find that the stakes are are so high and and that the change is so fast that >> the need to meet it is existential and I think leaders like Iger increasingly care less about >> that blowback you know I'm so funny I >> a long time like 20 years ago I was an

1:23:49

intern at the New Yorker and I remember when they opened up you could they did the back page where people could submit >> captions for the New Yorker cartoons and the cartoonists hated it because they felt like that was their the integrity of their work should not be opened up to the public. >> And in fact, that became like one of the

1:24:05

>> And in fact, that became like one of the greatest sources of engagement with the New Yorker was was through that.

1:24:11

>> I think people recognize that the being able to say, I want Darth Vader on a beach or I want, you know, >> Captain Underpants doing XYZ, like that is going to happen. Yep.

1:24:27

>> You can already sort of do it.

1:24:30

Um, and the question for Disney is, are we going to have a piece of that revenue?

1:24:34

Are we going to make money off of it?

1:24:36

And in fact, >> if we know that that's where the puck is going and at a certain point, you will be able to talk to your favorite animated characters, how can we if if we engage with that, then maybe we can start driving um maybe that helps keep engagement.

1:24:51

Maybe that helps drive people to theme parks.

1:24:55

There's a whole another piece of it I was talking about with my colleague Julie Alexander just earlier today, but there's a there's a whole another element here too with YouTube where, you know, YouTube is or sorry, Google is starting to generate Disney characters and >> Disney doesn't want that happening.

1:25:09

So, I think trying to set a precedent.

1:25:12

>> They launched a cease and assist last night.

1:25:13

They're they're they taking legal action against basically seemingly every scaled player except OpenAI.

1:25:18

Opening Ideal is a one-year exclusive >> and so I think that opens up uh I'm assuming >> Disney's using these lawsuits and and the cease and desist to start a negotiation of of what of what this will look like once everybody gets access to it.

1:25:37

But it's it's notable that I think this is even today just seeing the timeline I think this is underrated as a deal for open AI to be able to drive just at a time when it feels like their their product is being >> I completely disagree but continue >> at least at least somewhat threatened by by Gemini. >> Sure.

1:25:57

>> If you're if you're >> if you're an American household Yeah.

1:26:01

and and you're like a Disney family, what what family of apps are you going to be paying money to, right?

1:26:07

if one of them creates these magical experiences for your kids and the other, you know, is completely blocked from generating any IP around that because like when kids I don't I don't know my my kids are young, but if you're a 10-year-old and you realize that like you can like my son I generate like p I take pictures of us and I turn us into dinosaurs and I have used chatbt to do that a lot. It's stuck in his head.

1:26:35

He'll be like, "Let's make some D like let's make dinosaur pictures." >> Yeah. It's like a fun.

1:26:39

>> And so when kids realize that any Disney content that they can watch can immediately be like brought into their life. >> Yeah.

1:26:46

>> That's going to be >> or if he comes to you and says, "Hey, let's let's turn ourselves into the Avengers and you're like, well, there's only one app that allows me to do that."

1:26:55

Then boom, you're in you're back in Sora as opposed to >> and you're going to pay for it because I think parents will pay almost any price to bring joy to their children. >> Yeah.

1:27:04

So I I mean I agree with that.

1:27:04

I just think it's it's going to be a slow takeoff of that type of content because >> but I don't think I don't think the the whole thing like Studio Giblly was that a slow takeoff. >> Absolutely.

1:27:15

It was it was it was a huge it was a huge meme moment where everyone had to have one.

1:27:18

Everyone needed to see what they looked like in the Studio Giblly mode and then the usage like dropped off and then started climbing at like 1%.

1:27:25

you know, and and it is climbing and it is going to grow and it and it will be informative.

1:27:30

>> I'm just saying you now have 200 different characters, the most valuable IP in the world.

1:27:35

>> I'm not saying it's bad.

1:27:35

It's definitely like an improvement to that product and it will make Sora a better app and it will make >> not just Sora, but it's it's it's I'm assuming I didn't see specifically, but I'm assuming yeah, it's chatd and Sora, so it's going to be take >> to bring it Yeah. Yeah.

1:27:50

But to bring it back to the uh the the Ellison uh like the Paramount WBD, like if you put them together, you get something like 15% of all watch hours in America controlled by that company.

1:28:01

If you put take Netflix and and WBD, you put them together, you get 14%.

1:28:06

You saw that quote, right?

1:28:08

Uh >> like Sora, I think, is going to be at like less than 1% for like years and then it will eventually be 5% and then 10%.

1:28:16

But it just next year is not going to be like the year that 10% of watch hours were AI generated video.

1:28:22

Like it's just not there yet.

1:28:26

>> I think I just I I commend Iger on at least trying to >> trying trying trying to adapt the his company for this future because that is where it's going.

1:28:35

I mean >> it's very hard to reject the thesis even with the available technology which feels like very beta very 1.

1:28:40

0 >> that that's not where this is headed.

1:28:45

And if you've got no one is sitting on a better >> IP portfolio than Disney, particularly when you're talking about kids, obviously.

1:28:52

>> Y [snorts] >> So, and there's no easier way to do this than with animation. >> Yeah. >> So, why not go there? >> Yeah. Yeah.

1:29:00

>> I just think so, so I looked it up. >> Yeah.

1:29:02

>> Disney Plus has just under 60 million total paid subscribers in the US and Canada. Mhm.

1:29:09

>> I think a lot of those subscribers are are subscribing for content for their children. >> For sure.

1:29:18

>> Don't underestimate how many people without kids go to Disneyland. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true.

1:29:22

There's a big It's a big number.

1:29:23

I'm just saying like that cohort OpenAI has like what a third of that in paying subs >> globally. >> Mhm.

1:29:31

>> And so I just think this is I I do think this is a m at least for the next 12 months.

1:29:35

I think this is going to be a this is ChachiBD doesn't have a lot of moes, right?

1:29:40

Like the the product is better than other comparable products and this is a new moat where if you're those 60 million people that are paying for Disney Plus >> like you're an ultra fan >> and you're you're a super fan and you're going to park it for you.

1:29:54

>> How many people visit uh >> Yeah. Yeah.

1:29:57

>> Here's an anecdotal thing. >> Yeah, please.

1:29:59

>> Yeah, please. [snorts] most to the best of my knowledge the one one way I've been able to make my son cool in his second grade class is by getting him on sor like introduc letting him play around with Sora earlier than his friends >> didn't do that with Minecraft you know but like did that with Sor

1:30:14

>> and I have all his friends coming up to me and being like what is Sora tell us about Sora can we use Sora I'm sure the other parents hate me >> it's a wild thing to do >> but you do see you this is purely anecdotal you see that level like oh my god can we create some can we just say something and create Yeah. >> And you think about how sticky Disney

1:30:30

>> And you think about how sticky Disney has been, right?

1:30:32

Like I I I don't know a single parent in my kids class who doesn't have a Disney Plus subscription.

1:30:39

>> You are just you are you are if you if that if you can do that on Sora and you can't do it on its competitors, that's really potentially valable.

1:30:49

>> In 2023, the last reporting period for the parks that I can find, >> 140 million people globally paid to go to a Disney park and experience. >> Okay. the Disney. >> I'm sold.

1:31:00

Extremely bullish for OpenAI.

1:31:02

Extremely bullish [laughter] LGBT. No, no, no, no, no.

1:31:04

I Yeah, you you win me over on this.

1:31:06

I still I I still don't think I still don't think a significant percentage of content consumed by Americans next year will be fully AI generated.

1:31:15

I think that's where we're going to see a slow that's where we're going to see a sling up. It's a great deal. >> Hats off PGCO. >> Well, yeah.

1:31:23

So if if you get 140 million people visit Disney parks this year, >> I bet you they will have things in the park which is like recreate this moment.

1:31:33

Turn this into an animation. This is very good.

1:31:34

It is very I I just think what the timeline this morning that was interesting.

1:31:38

Everybody looks at the headline number $1 billion. Yep.

1:31:42

>> And they're like this is a round this is barely this is like slapping duct tape on on the on a boat that's leaking water, right?

1:31:48

It doesn't feel like that big of a number because it's not in the context of OpenAI, but the the competitive edge that gives them over the next 12 months is massive. >> This is fantastic.

1:31:58

This is a great conversation.

1:32:00

>> Thank you for having me.

1:32:00

I'm such an honor to finally be in the dome. Amazing.

1:32:04

I'm sure with the way the WBD deal evolves, you'll be regular.

1:32:07

I'm just up the street, so anytime. Thanks for having me. This is great. Thanks so much. >> Thank you. Thanks.

1:32:14

>> Uh we have our next guest, Fiji Simo. Uh, hit the application. Hit the gong for us.

1:32:18

It would be our I don't know if I've earned this. >> What's a big number?

1:32:22

You got to give us a number.

1:32:25

>> How many years you've been writing? >> 14. >> 14 years. Overnight success. [applause] >> Thank you.

1:32:35

>> Let me tell you about linear.

1:32:35

Meet the system for modern software development. Streamline uh work.

1:32:39

Linear streamlines work across the entire development cycle from road map to release.

1:32:44

Let me also tell you about Julius AI, the AI data analyst that works for you.

1:32:49

Join millions who use Julius to connect their data, ask questions, and get insights in seconds.

1:32:56

Our next guest is Fiji Simo from OpenAI.

1:33:00

She is the CEO of applications.

1:33:02

[music] We are very honored to be joined by Fiji. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

1:33:06

Great to have you on the show. >> Great to be here. Thank you so much.

1:33:12

>> Thanks so much for joining.

1:33:12

Um, I would love to kick it off with a little bit of uh a little bit of backstory on just what was the conversation like uh to recruit you to have you join OpenAI? It's a big move.

1:33:25

It it rocked the timeline.

1:33:27

Um, and I'd love to know what was the pitch.

1:33:29

What was the opportunity?

1:33:31

How did you wind up at OpenAI?

1:33:31

Well, I had the extreme privilege of being on the board of OpenAI for many months, like I think about a year before uh Sam approached me and uh and therefore we were already working really closely together.

1:33:45

And then at some point uh he told me, "Hey, it looks like you know there's a lot to do and it looks like you have ideas on how to do it.

1:33:52

So is there any chance that we could make this happen?"

1:33:56

And I had, you know, a big job running Instacart at the time.

1:33:58

So, it took some time to transition, but I was incredibly inspired by the mission of OpenAI already, and it felt like a no-brainer.

1:34:07

>> And uh can you take us through the the the GPT 5. 2 announcement?

1:34:10

I I mean, one of the first documents that I think uh everyone knows you for in the OpenAI context in the in the context of your new role is the the different areas where you see GPT 5 and and OpenAI having impact, Chat GPT having impact in uh folks life.

1:34:28

Um, can you explain to me how you think those those different sections are going?

1:34:33

Um, what excites you about the news today and kind of contextualize how do you think about the map of what uh CHACHT as an application is touching?

1:34:45

>> Yeah, that's a big question.

1:34:45

So, >> sorry, we can break it down one at a time, but >> no, I I've got it.

1:34:48

Um, you know, when I when I look at the opportunity ahead of us, I think AI is the greatest source of empowerment for people and I want CHBT to be the personal super assistant that allows you to advance every part of your life.

1:35:05

So the manifesto that you are referring to to me was like putting on paper this notion that if you look at how the world works right now, wealthy people have a lot of support staff.

1:35:14

They have a travel agent.

1:35:17

They have a personal shopper.

1:35:19

They have a financial advisor.

1:35:21

Imagine if we could give that team of support to everyone on earth.

1:35:28

And fundamentally, that's what I want to build.

1:35:30

And I think with CH GPT, we have the opportunity to graduate from what is still fundamentally a chatbot that you ask questions to to a personal super assistant that gets everything done in your life.

1:35:43

Um, when you put that in the context of uh the announcement today, we're super excited to have launched 5. 2.

1:35:49

It's the leading model on on uh kind of [laughter] I was really hoping for that.

1:35:58

It's a leading model in terms of everyday professional work.

1:36:00

It it's a big step change in intelligence.

1:36:02

you see that on the benchmarks obviously but that gives me a lot of hope that we can be closer to achieving a lot of leaps on on these use cases.

1:36:13

So for example if you take something like travel you have to like you know be good at long horizon task you have to understand the goal of the users very well and so with GPT 5.

1:36:22

2 um and like the new capabilities we're getting one step closer to making all of that possible. >> Yeah.

1:36:32

So, uh, I feel like some people have a little bit of benchmark fatigue.

1:36:38

They, you know, everyone has their own prompts and they feel like stuff's getting better, but it's hard to like, like everyone wants the original chat moment again.

1:36:46

So, what have you done for me lately syndrome?

1:36:48

Um, but I'm interested putting all of that aside, I want to know how are you measuring success internally around the launch of a new model?

1:37:00

a new model? like what does the what does the the the rigor around developing KPIs obviously uh the company is in the interest of driving subscriptions and revenue but there must be interim steps and AB tests and I mean this is your lineage this is what this is what makes

1:37:16

you who you are um how do you think about uh assessing um the impact of new models when they go out aside like like downstream of the benchmarks in the actual application >> yeah so that's like my entire job is turning the research breakthroughs into products that people use. And so for And so for example on 5.

1:37:35

2 we just talked about the consumer side.

1:37:38

I can go back to that but on enterprise for example it's really important to us.

1:37:42

We serve a million businesses uh across the world.

1:37:43

Uh what we look at is like can companies start to do things that they weren't able to do before.

1:37:51

We just released earlier this week an uh AI report for enterprise and it said that 75% of people were saying of of workers were saying that with AI they can accomplish tasks that they couldn't do before and then we see that even on the coding stat on coding if you look coding uh quer messages from non engineers has grown 36%.

1:38:16

And so I look at all of these things as like these are all like the research team gives me these like magical superpowers.

1:38:23

these like magical superpowers. My job is to put the superpowers in the hands of people and and at at home and at work and the thing we measure is can they do more and are they actually like understanding the use case and doing more and there's a lot you know there is a big narrative around like is AI adoption really happening is it going fast enough but what I am seeing is that

1:38:47

there is a lot of pent-up demand as long as you cross those capabilities so I'll give you an example all companies that I meet with tell me that if there was a way to generate spreadsheets much like faster with AI, generate slides much faster with AI, they would use it for a lot more knowledge work because you know all all knowledge workers generate spreadsheets and slides. With 5.2 like With 5.

1:39:07

2 like that's a big step up in the ability to do that.

1:39:12

Like I can tell you with 5.

1:39:12

1 I was trying to do it and the spreadsheet was kind of janky.

1:39:16

Things were like not not really in the right place.

1:39:19

With 52 it's like great formatting.

1:39:21

it totally understand what like you know the numbers are about it structure them the best way and these are the things that like help unlock completely new use cases and ultimately growth for the customers that we work with.

1:39:35

Do you do you feel like there's a there's some sort of fundamental cultural difference between um you know your previous roles where there hasn't been so much of this divide between the consumer side of the business and the enterprise side of the business on day one.

1:39:53

I feel like chat GPT is unique in that it's used by kids and college students and adults and people use it just they bring it to work with them alongside and then enterprises and the government's using it.

1:40:07

Uh whereas for something like a social media application, it didn't really have that same oh we need the in we need this product to work for us in an enterprise context necessarily.

1:40:16

Um how how has that how has that shift been designing an application that can be used?

1:40:22

It's sort of the same underlying model, but it's used in such different ways.

1:40:28

>> Yeah, it's a great question and that's that's the thing that we spend a lot of time working on.

1:40:32

This thing that's really interesting is that part of the reason why we're winning in enterprise is because we're winning in consumer.

1:40:40

When you talk to CEOs, they tell you, well, if my workers are already completely familiar with the technology because they use it for their personal use, that's much easier to deploy that in enterprise and have that be adopted.

1:40:52

So that familiarity is actually really helping us.

1:40:54

And so the thing we're trying to do is really keep that familiarity but upsell the tools that are really specific to enterprise.

1:41:02

So I'll give you an example.

1:41:04

Uh connectors is a is a great example.

1:41:07

We do have connectors on the consumer side.

1:41:09

You can connect your chat GPD to your Gmail and and things like that.

1:41:12

But on the enterprise side, it's even more critical.

1:41:15

You have to be connected to like Slack to like all of your enterprise knowledge.

1:41:19

And so these are cases where we push harder on the enterprise side to make sure that companies are doing what they need to unlock the value. >> Yeah.

1:41:30

Um I'd love to hear your take or you how how you're thinking about the partnership with Disney.

1:41:36

Uh Jordy and I were just going back and forth on it.

1:41:40

Landed in an extremely excited place.

1:41:43

Seems like a fantastic partnership.

1:41:43

I think that uh I think that in general uh looking at the timeline this morning obviously everybody's going to form an opinion on the partnership immediately uh even before they kind of understand the facts.

1:41:56

But >> as I looked at it I think it maybe was getting less hype than maybe it deserves because it's only a $1 billion investment.

1:42:03

It's relatively small in the context of investment France.

1:42:07

>> But if you look at Disney's scale, the example I gave uh last there's like 140 million people have paid to visit a Disney park in the last year.

1:42:15

I would imagine that all like I can imagine a world where over the next year every person that's visiting a Disney park is like hey I can kind of like personalize this experience and like take and basically create this entirely new kind of like entertainment layer to that.

1:42:31

So I need a relationship with open one way or another. >> Yeah.

1:42:36

And I'm going to pay for the product.

1:42:37

So it feels extremely significant in a way that maybe people aren't fully appreciating. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

1:42:43

I mean we're very very excited about it.

1:42:46

If you think about like Sora and Image Gen, this is all about unleashing creativity.

1:42:51

I think we're all born creators and like if you give people the tools to create easily and to go fast from imagination to a creation.

1:43:01

We can see you know the golden age of creativity.

1:43:03

But for that like you know we need people to have inspiration to have like you know like like IP to play with and Disney has by far the best IP by far the best inspiration and so partnering with them to bring these experiences to life is such a privilege and we're really excited about it. >> Yeah.

1:43:21

H how uh our audience I was thinking about this last night.

1:43:23

Our audience has probably on average spent way more money on ads than actually seen ads because many folks in the audience have have spent money on on digital ad platforms, run ad businesses.

1:43:34

Um how how do you think about positioning the ads product or whatever happens to the other side of the of the market like the brands that want to be successful in the future of commerce?

1:43:48

Do you have any do you have any idea of of the the the shape that it will take because uh you know we were just doing a a Black Friday stream and and uh just one founder after another singing the praises of the the meta ecosystem even the apploven ecosystem.

1:44:05

Uh the ability to go and and put money in a magical box and get customers is remarkable.

1:44:11

uh have you thought more about what you want to offer ultimately to brands and companies that will be ultimately be partnering with OpenAI?

1:44:22

>> So not much to uh announce to the on ads but what I can tell you is two things.

1:44:27

One like if we at some point we we uh decide to go towards ads we're going to do it in a way that is extremely respectful of the very special relationship that people have with Chad GPT.

1:44:39

Like the thing to understand is people trust that charge has their back and gives them the best answer for their needs.

1:44:47

Nothing we do can like jeopardize that.

1:44:52

And so you know when I talk to brands and they're like hey how can we get more distribution?

1:44:56

How can we uh you know influence the results of the LLM?

1:45:01

The reality is have the best products like [laughter] you know we we want to build uh an LLM that is not impacted by uh you know paying companies that is not impacted um by you know people gaming the system and purely recommends the brands that are going to be best for you.

1:45:19

Yeah, around that around that model response, you can imagine that there are things that we could do to get to to give brand distriution, but we really want to keep the model response pure because the trust that people have in that is critical. >> Yeah.

1:45:33

Is there is there a good like I don't know like how do you actually set up the company for that?

1:45:37

You need like an editorial like firewall so that one team is just not even affected.

1:45:41

They don't even like, you know, hang out at the happy hours together and say, "Hey, you know, can can you go do this this quarter because we have a big partner?"

1:45:49

Like, have you thought about what what what it culturally takes to get there?

1:45:53

>> Well, the first the very good news at OpenAI is that the culture is already so focused on protecting the user, protecting the purity of LLM responses.

1:46:05

It's so ingrained that I think anyone who would, you know, share like, "Hey, can you help me change things?"

1:46:09

that's a that's a holiday party would be organ rejected.

1:46:14

So I think that's that's already you know good.

1:46:16

We built the right antibodies uh day one.

1:46:18

The other thing is I think we're not just going to rely on culture.

1:46:23

We're also going to rely on technical capabilities that have firewalls between these different things so that people can really trust that the model is not influenced by anything other than having their back. >> Yeah. Yeah.

1:46:35

That makes a ton of sense.

1:46:37

Um, how are you thinking about uh the like setting up the actual applications team for success?

1:46:44

Are you um I I I've been struck by the fact that the narrative has shifted in some ways from uh you know the best model wins every time.

1:46:55

The best model, the best model, the best model, the best benchmarks like just win and you know and then everyone will just switch around.

1:47:00

It feels like we're almost leaving that era where, you know, the the technical insiders, they do care about the benchmarks, they do care about the capabilities, but a lot of consumers just care about the user experience, the design, the the the the like almost the qualitative aspects.

1:47:14

How have you thought about uh developing a like a delightful user experience?

1:47:20

Is that a new muscle for the organization?

1:47:24

Do you feel like OpenAI is set up to deliver, you know, this this delightful experience that can reduce churn and and keep people coming back?

1:47:32

How do you think about that?

1:47:34

>> Well, first off, I would say, you know, this is a company that despite not starting as a product company has built the fastest growing consumer and enterprise business in history product with 800 million people.

1:47:46

So, while I think I can, you know, build an organization that does that even better.

1:47:52

I really want to celebrate what what they've done before me.

1:47:54

Um, and and I think you're you're absolutely right.

1:47:57

I think the magic is at the intersection of research and deployment.

1:48:02

So, the thing I obsess about is how can we ti be tied at the hip with a product research team to understand what are the new capabilities that can unlock this new magical product.

1:48:15

And you you kind of see that like sort of we were just talking about it a minute ago.

1:48:19

It's a good example where the capability was there and and like that's what unlocks everything.

1:48:25

But then the product thinking came in of like you know putting characters and yourself inside the video.

1:48:31

And so it's really a mix of like capabilities but also a lot of delightful product thinking and really understanding what people want that unlocks these magical experiences.

1:48:39

We were even talking at the beginning about kind of all of the use cases, right?

1:48:45

Like >> to me like you know just giving people more intelligence in a chatbot like that's going to cap out at some point.

1:48:52

What I need to do is help them realize they can use chat GPT for health and like help them you know makes that easier, help them plan their travel, help them shop.

1:49:01

help them shop. Like all of these things are going to be based on incredible models but also great products that makes this understandable because right now you're still kind of having to stumble upon the value and like when people realize they can use strategy for

1:49:16

health they're like oh my god this like unbelievable but they kind of had to stumble upon it and that means I haven't done my job fully until everyone knows how to use the value >> you guys are are uh uh Sam was talking earlier this week with some folks about uh the push into enterprise. How how are you thinking about

1:49:35

How how are you thinking about enterprise not on the API side but just on the on the uh core subscription size and around pricing uh historically as a you know 200 a month uh plan subscriber for Chat GBT.

1:49:48

I had hit some points where I'd be frustrated because I could sense the model being uh lazy and I'm like I'm giving you as much money as you've you I'm on the highest plan.

1:49:57

Can [snorts] I be on a plan that's just not never gets lazy?

1:50:03

>> This is the two this is the rumored $2,000 a month plan thinking like uh I just like can you make would it make sense to ever do an all you can eat all you can eat or consumption >> based consumption on on on the non-API side just because you know I think consumption based is is wild.

1:50:20

No one wants to do that but uh I don't know it's a bold bold statement.

1:50:24

I I'd be interested to hear what you think.

1:50:26

Yeah, you know, we've launched credit based pricing on the enterprise side so that in addition to your subscription, you can buy extra credit to get more.

1:50:34

I think that's a model that could possibly work on the consumer side.

1:50:39

So, you know, we we are open to exploring anything.

1:50:41

We have it like now for Codex.

1:50:44

Uh and so you know that's something that we could totally explore but I think it goes back to um a lot of the very I would say like sophisticated people really understand like the concept of buying more intelligence.

1:50:58

Regular people just want like more outcomes.

1:51:01

So I think the more we make that transition from a chatbot to like you give us your list of tasks and we do your tasks the more we're going to be able to make people realize the value and then you know the pricing will follow.

1:51:15

uh your your original manifesto you outlined knowledge, health, creative expression, economic freedom, time, support.

1:51:22

That that sort of covers everything.

1:51:24

Is there a seventh capability that you're excited about?

1:51:27

You mentioned spreadsheets.

1:51:27

Maybe that's the seventh one right after time and creative expression. Put it at the top.

1:51:33

That should be at the top.

1:51:33

Economic freedom spreadsheets.

1:51:34

Uh but I is there is there a seventh category or or a nent just even in your own personal use a new capability uh that you feel like okay you know maybe this year has been the year of agents we've gotten coding agents we've gotten deep research a year or two ago uh you know is there some new capability that you've seen glimmers of okay I think we're actually solving this piece or I think it might be good enough to use in this scenario. Yeah. >> Yeah.

1:52:06

I mean, we touched on a bunch, but what I would say is like for me the next step is unlocking connection to the ecosystem.

1:52:13

So, like chatb is still fairly insular. >> Yeah.

1:52:17

>> And we launched, you know, at dev day, we launched an app platform, but I think like we were talking about health, like health would be so much more powerful if you could connect LGBT to your health record and all of your kind of bowarables.

1:52:30

bowarables. Um you we were talking about like travel it's so much more powerful if Shept can connect with you know a lot of like uh travel companies and so figuring out how it can not just do things in this like you know text format

1:52:46

but really connecting and doing things in the real world that's the thing that I think the models are ready for but we're still catching up on the product side to make that possible and unlock these really like you know much more sophisticated use cases. There's a ton

1:52:58

There's a ton of questions in the chat about the about the code red.

1:53:02

We have to ask how is it going?

1:53:05

Has it been an intense period for culturally?

1:53:08

It feels like there's been, you know, a lot of ups and downs in any startup's history.

1:53:13

Uh I imagine that it's been exciting and and and thrilling to to re-engage, but how has it been in internally so far?

1:53:23

Well, for context, you know, code reds are not uncommon.

1:53:25

Like, uh, we declare code reds as a way to really marshall a lot of resources towards a priority.

1:53:34

It's a way to signal what's at the top of the list and what can be dep prioritized and really focus.

1:53:37

And I think during this time, focus is critical.

1:53:41

And in terms of how it's going, I mean, I'll let you be the judge of it, but I'm pretty proud of what we're releasing today.

1:53:46

and like you know like leading uh leading the way in terms of you know best model for everyday professional work.

1:53:54

That has been a goal of ours for a long time.

1:53:55

It's been in the works for a long time.

1:53:57

It didn't start with the code red but we're really excited to be able to release that today.

1:54:02

And on top of that it's our 10 year anniversary today. So it's >> wait today. >> Yeah. >> No way.

1:54:07

I didn't realize it was today.

1:54:13

>> Get a trading card up ASAP team. What are we doing?

1:54:15

10 year anniversary of open air. That's incredible. >> That's wild. >> Fantastic.

1:54:20

>> That's [laughter] amazing. Congratulations.

1:54:22

>> How uh startups historically have uh been able to innovate because they tolerate some uh some amount of failure.

1:54:31

And I think if you look at the hyperscalers too, they're willing to like launch products that uh that just don't work, right?

1:54:37

If you look at the history of Google, they're they take moonshots. They make bets. Not everything works. Some do.

1:54:41

And it's and it's uh uh an effective way to you know continue to innovate.

1:54:47

How has I feel like when OpenAI releases a new product now whether it's Sora or the browser or anything like that it faces so much scrutiny from the world some people are excited and bullish other people want to see it fail.

1:55:02

How how are you guys kind of what's your internal framework around failure today?

1:55:07

Because ideally you want to keep shipping a lot of things and if you ship three things that don't work and one thing that does, it's like great, you have a new a new product that you can scale. >> Yeah.

1:55:17

Well, you know, I'm I'm no stranger to a lot of scrutiny throughout my career.

1:55:21

I've worked at companies that that went through a lot of phases like that.

1:55:24

Um, and I would tell you I think it's like it's simple and cliche, but you kind of have to block out the noise.

1:55:32

The the thing that's good about open AI is like the northstar it's very is very clear right it's AGI that benefits all of humanity and we have a lot of conviction internally that we're on the right path to do that and that does mean that you know some things are going to

1:55:47

work some things aren't and because the culture is routine in a research lab which is very different from other fear of failure is much less because people already know in research that you explore a lot of path and like many don't work like that's the core of research. And so because that's the DNA,

1:56:02

And so because that's the DNA, people don't freak out when a product doesn't work because they're like, "Oh, it's kind of like research.

1:56:07

We have to test a lot of things and some of them will hit, some of them won't."

1:56:10

But but I think this innovative spirit has gotten us to where we're at and and really leading the market and I think that's something that we absolutely need to preserve. >> Well, thank you. >> Last question.

1:56:21

Do you think are we still going to see age uh verification this year?

1:56:26

Is that or or is that going to be a 2026 uh uh launch?

1:56:28

So age verification is starting to roll out already in some countries and we're doing a slow roll out so that we can make sure that we're very accurate in predicting the teen with an adult and then the adult mode that's going to be unlocked by edge verification is going to land in Q1. >> Great. >> Got it.

1:56:48

>> Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us.

1:56:51

Congratulations on all the amazing progress and such.

1:56:54

>> Congratulations to the whole team.

1:56:55

>> Congratulations on 10 years in the business of building AGI.

1:56:58

We're feeling the AGI here.

1:57:00

Uh, have a great rest of your day and we hope to talk to you soon.

1:57:04

>> Good chatting so much. >> Goodbye. >> Bye.

1:57:07

>> Let me tell you about Privy.

1:57:07

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. I love that.

1:57:16

And I do the WWE voice >> for the Stripe for the [laughter] Stripe portfolio company who owned.

1:57:23

Uh, anyway, let's go back to the timeline.

1:57:27

Let's take you through some news.

1:57:29

Uh, that was a fun backtoback.

1:57:31

I enjoyed both of those folks.

1:57:33

Um, that was uh I feel like uh uh it's very funny that we were discussing all week uh the David Allison, Netflix, Warner Brothers, we're getting up to speed on media and what's going on there and then boom, we get our little treat, the crossover of the decade with Disney and Open AI.

1:57:51

Uh it's uh it's funny you were you were clearly uh point you were clearly alluding to me being uh confused by the uh by the Disney Open AI deal.

1:58:03

Um because I I went on my own roller coaster thinking okay is this like a nothing burger? Is this a good thing?

1:58:11

And now I am fully in your camp. I think it's very good.

1:58:13

And I think that uh it does feel like we might go into something like the uh like the press release economy that's going on in the prediction markets wars where every foundation model might need to hoover up particular partnerships because I didn't even know exclusivity was on the table.

1:58:31

Like you know that OpenAI has a content licensing partnership with the Wall Street Journal.

1:58:35

And so the Wall Street Journal gets paid when they when I if I hit chatt and I ask for a detail about SpaceX's latest launch, it's probably going to ask the Wall Street Journal.

1:58:46

It's going to ask a lot of different sources, but they pay the Wall Street Journal.

1:58:48

Now, if they do an exclusive with the Wall Street Journal and I'm like, I can't get that in Claude.

1:58:52

Claude just doesn't know.

1:58:56

>> That's way less significant because the journal on the same news. >> No, no.

1:59:00

To me, the journal is like Disneyland on a thousand.

1:59:03

I would I would I would gladly never go to Disneyland ever again if I could just read this precious this precious paper newspaper every day.

1:59:12

No, >> you're like any Disney content ever again in your life or the journal.

1:59:15

This is you're riding with the journal.

1:59:19

>> This is the Disneyland of business of your mind of your mind.

1:59:22

>> Disneyland of my mind. Uh no, no, of course.

1:59:25

Of course you are correct.

1:59:25

Uh there are not many Wall Street Journal fans that are anywhere near as insane as the Disney Disney Files.

1:59:31

Uh, what is Lissan Elgai here saying? Lissan says, "GPT 5.

1:59:36

2 Pro, it has ridiculous pricing once again, $20 and $168."

1:59:42

Uh, Tyler, do you know if if GPT 5. 2 Pro is more expensive?

1:59:46

I guess they're raising prices.

1:59:49

>> Yeah, I mean, so this is the Pro model.

1:59:51

These are always like the very expensive ones. >> Yeah.

1:59:52

Um I I think it's pretty Let me actually look at the the normal model, but I think it's pretty comparable. >> I guess 5. 1 was one uh $1. 75 and $14.

1:59:58

So it's a pretty significant uh pretty significant in increase, but um I don't know.

2:00:09

They uh like this is a new technology.

2:00:11

We don't know where the paro frontier of pricing is necessarily. We don't know. >> Yeah.

2:00:16

So it's slightly more elasticity. It's uh Yeah. 5. 1 was $125 on the input. Uh it's $1. 75 for 5. 2.

2:00:22

It's like, you know, marginally more expensive. >> Yeah. Well, um so let's see.

2:00:27

Uh direct challenge to anthropic.

2:00:30

The knowledge cutoff is uh August 31st, 2025.

2:00:32

So, uh Euchin Jin here from Hyperbolic Labs, the co-founder and CTO, is saying that this is a freshly pre-trained model. >> Yeah.

2:00:46

So, so um >> do you believe that?

2:00:47

Have you have you been studying the timeline while we've been live understanding what's going on?

2:00:51

>> Uh yeah, so some people are saying it's a new pre-train.

2:00:53

Um that's the newest like cutoff uh date uh since >> uh what was it?

2:00:58

>> Is there not do a full pre-train but they could just kind of do an update with the new >> Yeah, exactly.

2:01:02

So um people are it's like oh it's a new cutoff.

2:01:04

Uh usually you would think that's a new pre-train.

2:01:08

Um it's probably more like a it's like a mid-train or something like this where you basically do continued pre-training on on new data.

2:01:13

So, it's probably not an actual pre-train because you'd expect that to be like a much bigger update, right?

2:01:18

You It's like, oh, GBD6, not 5. 2. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:01:22

I I still I still have to I I still feel like the 40 pre-train was like the like the the latest and greatest up until now. Uh running that back.

2:01:30

I mean, that thing was expensive, but it's not that expensive compared to now because they have so much more money.

2:01:34

>> I don't think Wait, 40 was never expensive. It was always cheaper. >> Yeah.

2:01:38

But wasn't 40 like the base pre-train for like pretty much everything today to to date? Uh yeah.

2:01:43

>> And so rerunning that I mean it was expensive at the time.

2:01:45

It was like probably hundred million dollars, but now $100 million like they got one AI researcher. >> Exactly. Exactly.

2:01:51

So they should be ripping pre-trains all the time just because just to keep the timeline in check, keep them guessing. Anyway, still got it.

2:01:57

>> Uh Figma, think bigger, build faster.

2:01:59

Figma helps design and development teams build great products together. Um what you got here? We're eating good.

2:02:05

Future pipelines may need to unify pre-mid post training.

2:02:10

injecting reasoning data earlier and more continuously.

2:02:11

To anyone wondering if 5.

2:02:14

2 is a new pre-train, I'm letting you connect the top the dots between this says Alexander Doria and this synth/ agent pipelines aside.

2:02:22

This is the new main catch of DeepC 3. 2.

2:02:25

This isn't a new model card, new ELO update.

2:02:29

It's an architectural update at mid-training scale.

2:02:31

Everything mutable and uh we are everything's mutable and we are likely to see more and more submodel speculation. Interesting.

2:02:39

Well, we'll have to let the 5.

2:02:41

2 news sort of simmer in the timeline.

2:02:44

Let everyone do their own benchmarks.

2:02:46

How' they do on ARC AGI 2.

2:02:46

That is always an interesting one.

2:02:49

Um, did they are we cooked? Did they blow us away? Um, GPD5. 2 thinking is at 52. 9% up from 17. 6%. That's a huge leap.

2:03:04

>> Wait, we got to run we got to run our our joke benchmark.

2:03:07

>> Yes, let's run some of the TVP benchmark. try to make us laugh.

2:03:13

>> While we're pulling those up, >> give us tie back.

2:03:14

>> We tell you about Vanta.

2:03:14

Automate compliance and security.

2:03:16

Vanta has AI that powers everything from evidence collection and continuous monitoring to security reviews and vendor risk. >> Okay.

2:03:26

So, so yeah, this is my benchmark where I ask >> uh to recreate the joke about the the shrimp fried rice. >> Yes.

2:03:32

>> So, I I'll just go through some of these and you guys uh tell me how how how good they are. >> Yes.

2:03:37

You're telling me a crab rang this bell? >> Crab rang bell. >> This is thinking. This is 5. 2 thinking. >> This is 5. 2 thinking. This is the frontier.

2:03:45

This is the best of all AI.

2:03:48

>> Uh >> I I kind of like You're telling me a crab rang this goon?

2:03:53

>> Yeah, I think that's what I would have thought, >> but that's not it.

2:03:56

>> You're telling me a bear built this market?

2:03:59

>> Oh, because markets can be bullish or bearish. >> A bear built market. You're telling me a ham?

2:04:04

You're telling me a ham wrote this lettuce? >> A ham? Wait. Ham wrote this lettuce. Ham wrote lettuce. [laughter] >> Wait. Wait. Wait.

2:04:13

This >> terrible has happened.

2:04:15

>> You're telling me a ghost wrote this script?

2:04:18

[clears throat] >> Ghost wrote script. Ghost written script. >> Ghost written. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

2:04:22

>> You're telling me an owl delivered this mail? >> Yeah.

2:04:26

>> So, I think um on this benchmark there's more I could I mean, you kind of get the picture.

2:04:31

I I think Gemini is still the frontier here.

2:04:34

>> Um >> in terms of in terms of shrimp fried rice bench. >> Yes. >> Yes.

2:04:39

Because >> there were some good ones there.

2:04:40

>> But but again to to to understand it it seems like Gemini understood the assignment but still ultimately leaned on Reddit data and broad internet data and did not come up with any unique joke that had never existed on the internet before.

2:04:56

But it did find the good jokes on >> all the good ones um that it gave me. I could find elsewhere.

2:05:00

But but you still it it you know it's hard to like search for that kind of thing because they're not just listed as like oh these are jokes. >> Yeah. It's hard to look for. >> Yeah. Yeah.

2:05:09

I do wonder if this >> and also there's a thing where Gemini 3 was actually a new pre-train at least that people are saying.

2:05:14

So maybe that was >> All right.

2:05:15

Let's try at least one more. >> Wait.

2:05:17

I I wonder if this if this benchmark is like saturated in the sense that like every possible shrimp fried rice joke has been said and written down on the internet.

2:05:24

Are is there any new territory?

2:05:26

Like if I put you on this job for a month, could you come up with a new joke that's as funny as shrimp fried rice? >> Yes. >> You think you could? >> I think so. >> Okay.

2:05:35

Maybe that's a challenge. Do it.

2:05:37

But you got to give me a month. Okay.

2:05:38

When we have time in the new year one thing, just like adult mode, adult mode and Tyler discovering a new joke, novel joke are both coming.

2:05:46

And >> you're telling me, >> by the way, so Stanley Stanley in the chat says, "Lol, why don't they swear? Seems pretentious."

2:05:54

I guess it is pretentious, but I don't care.

2:05:57

>> No, it's it's our kids are our kids are watching at home. >> Yeah.

2:06:00

Anyway, uh what's the next swearing?

2:06:03

>> You're telling me a chicken actually tendered these?

2:06:09

>> You're telling me a chef boyed these ravioli? >> Okay.

2:06:12

Yeah, this is really, really rough.

2:06:13

This is really >> Wait, this one's not bad. This one.

2:06:15

>> Okay, what's this one?

2:06:16

>> You're telling me a shepherd actually pied this? [laughter] >> Pi this.

2:06:22

They're really food based.

2:06:22

They kind of latch on to the food. The food.

2:06:25

>> You're telling me a kid napped this. >> Kidnapped. Okay. >> Terrible. [cheering] >> Yeah. I don't know. Uh. >> All right. You just bombed, Tyler. Hopefully 5. 3. >> Uh, GT3 RS Bench. Let's do GT3 RS Bench.

2:06:40

This is the benchmark here at TVPN where we ask every Frontier model to write unique copy, marketing copy for a GT3 RS from Porsche.

2:06:50

And we have an astute eye.

2:06:53

We watch for any tells that can tell you that this was AI written. Is it generic?

2:06:59

Does it use contrastive parallelism?

2:07:01

Does it use antithetical parallelism?

2:07:04

Antithet antithetical parallelism is of course when grammatically you say it's not this, it's that.

2:07:09

It's not just a new AI model.

2:07:12

It's an entirely new way of thinking. Right? Contrastive parallelism.

2:07:16

There's a good Wikipedia article I think is is relatively new where it has a bunch of tales of AI that has like a bunch more stuff than what >> and people were going back and forth with Rune over this where Rune was saying I think you could actually build an AI detector.

2:07:29

People were saying well open AAI had one of those and then they took it down because it wasn't working.

2:07:36

But it's weird because I feel like yes AI written text should be impossible to detect.

2:07:42

Like we're so past the touring test.

2:07:44

the the models are incredible. It really is remarkable.

2:07:47

And yet, I can totally tell when people use chatbt to write a blog post. It's just obvious.

2:07:54

So, uh anyway, let's do GTRS bench.

2:07:57

>> There's a um I read a paper like a month ago and there's this company around it.

2:08:01

I think Pan Pangram, but they do like actually pretty good >> Oh, they do good detection. >> Detection. Yeah.

2:08:04

But do you want me to read the This is GT3 RS Bench >> written by either GPT2 or 5.

2:08:11

2 or handcrafted by a marketing genius. Y'all have to tell us.

2:08:16

Jordy, do you think this was AI or not? Let's read it.

2:08:19

>> I mean, he just said he just said it [laughter] was >> uh this isn't a car you own. >> No.

2:08:25

[laughter] Nearly out of the gate.

2:08:29

You're out of the gate with the AI slap. >> It's not this. It's the first.

2:08:36

>> It's not a car you own. It's a car you cherish.

2:08:39

is a car you own so much as one you operate. >> Wait, really? That's the first line?

2:08:45

>> That's the first line. >> Oh, wait. Wait. Operate.

2:08:46

That's not even a good line.

2:08:48

That's [laughter] insane. >> Okay, keep going. Keep going.

2:08:51

The 911 GT3 RS is a Porsche at its most uncompromising. >> Like that.

2:08:57

>> A naturally aspirated 4L flat 6 screaming to a 9,000 RPM race.

2:09:03

>> Never been in a car before, brother.

2:09:06

>> Never been in a car before. >> Oh, yeah.

2:09:07

stands for [laughter and clears throat] >> I don't a race bred aerodynamics that generate real downforce. >> Okay.

2:09:16

>> In a chassis engineered for lap times, not likes. M dash, not likes. [laughter] >> What? That's not even true. >> Yeah.

2:09:22

>> It's like the most over I mean I shouldn't say it's overhyped, but it's like the most hyped car on the internet.

2:09:28

>> It is engineered for likes. It is.

2:09:28

In some ways, it's it's like >> I think I think it puts up good track times.

2:09:34

>> It's a great track car, but it's >> It is engineered. Oh, no. No.

2:09:37

Most people are buying it for the road for likes.

2:09:41

>> We we were talking about this with the with the G Wagon like who's like the G Wagon has a particular uh a particular vibe around it now uh where it is sort of like an influencer mobile.

2:09:50

I think you've made the joke that like it's the standard issue in LA when you become an influencer they just one just shows up right um >> well that's partly because the roads in LA are so bad you you need something that that could off-road in a pinch. >> Yes. Yes.

2:10:03

And so, but the question is like, is that is that Mercedes designing the G Wagon for influencers? Like, no, not at all.

2:10:10

It's like they designed it.

2:10:13

They just stuck with it for a long time.

2:10:14

Eventually, the influencers who adopted it.

2:10:16

You can't put that on on Mercedes.

2:10:19

It's not their fault that all the influencers drive them.

2:10:22

>> Anyway, >> yeah, >> let's continue with GP3 RS Bench.

2:10:23

Is that is that it or is there more?

2:10:26

>> Uh, no, there there's more.

2:10:27

>> Okay, keep reading the slop.

2:10:28

>> Every surface has a purpose.

2:10:28

Every input is immediate.

2:10:31

Every drive feels like a qualifying lap.

2:10:33

Built with uh Weissock level obsession.

2:10:36

The three GT3 RS deletes.

2:10:39

Did I also get that wrong?

2:10:41

[laughter] >> No, it's okay.

2:10:41

It's just like >> you just hesitated. You hesitated.

2:10:42

You just sound like someone who doesn't talk about ViceO packages very often. >> Vice. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I get like Vimar.

2:10:52

>> Uh the GT3 RS deletes anything unnecessary and doubles down on feel.

2:10:56

Lightning fast PDK shifts, surgical steering, [laughter] and and suspension suspension tuned straight from the Nurburgg ring playbook [laughter] playbook.

2:11:05

The the Nurburgg Ring playbook.

2:11:08

What is the Nurburg Ring playbook?

2:11:11

>> It's loud, stiff, dramatic, mdash, and utterly alive.

2:11:14

This is not a luxury purchase.

2:11:16

It's a statement of priorities.

2:11:19

>> It's a statement of priorities.

2:11:22

I don't understand how the it's not this is that is like still in the soup.

2:11:24

Like I like just I think run it run the trough.

2:11:30

>> It's not a new pre-train basically.

2:11:32

That's one of the >> it might be that >> but it might be the open AI team lowkey hates AI generated >> written word as well and they want to continue to be able to identify it easily.

2:11:42

>> Maybe maybe I like >> might it might be they're they're >> doing a public uh service here. >> Okay. So, uh, getbbezzle.

2:11:47

com, shop over 26,000 luxury watches, fully authenticated in-house by Bezel team of experts. Cha-ching.

2:11:55

Uh, Arc Prize is breaking it down.

2:11:57

A year ago, we verified a preview of an unreleased version of OpenAI 03 High that scored 88% on ARC AGI1 at an estimate of $4,500 per task. Woo.

2:12:10

Today, we verified a new GPT52 uh GPT 5.

2:12:16

2 2 Pro X high state-of-the-art score of 90% at $1164 cents per task.

2:12:25

This represents a 390x efficiency improvement in one year.

2:12:30

This is this is this is the headline. This is the story.

2:12:36

This is the best this is the best fact I think about GBT 5. 2.

2:12:38

This is massive congratulations to the OpenAI team for delivering at this level. This is remarkable.

2:12:45

Really, really great stuff. I love it.

2:12:47

Um, now go do it for RKGI3.

2:12:51

What have you done for me lately?

2:12:54

[laughter] >> We the the biggest failure this year was not getting goalposts here in the studio that we can move >> production team. We need goalpost.

2:13:03

>> Can you order on Amazon?

2:13:04

>> Physical goalpost that we can move around the studio every time one of these releases comes out. >> Like a full size one. >> Uh, no.

2:13:10

something and can lift up and move to a different piece of the studio and then we'll have a sign that has whatever our next goalpost is. You know, Arc AGI V3.

2:13:22

I want them to, you know, oneshot that.

2:13:26

uh and we will move the goalposts over there and then we will erect a new a new goal and we will move the goalposts over there on the release of a new model that does uh whatever we said was going to impress us but now no longer is enough to impress us.

2:13:43

Well, you know what else is impressive?

2:13:46

Uh this scoop from Reed Alberg uh the tech editor at Semaphore, colleague of Ben Smith.

2:13:55

He says, "Scoop, Google names a new chief to head up its $100 billion a year AI infrastructure buildout, Amin Vad, who will report to Sundar directly." This is very exciting.

2:14:07

Uh imagine imagine having a $100 billion budget for capex. That's like Ben's dream.

2:14:16

>> Four times NASA's annual budget. [laughter] >> Yeah, Ben.

2:14:22

>> If you're really So Ben Ben's a cap Ben's a capex guy here.

2:14:26

>> Almost every time he walks up >> to me, he he wants another >> 30 grand for a new camera, this light, this >> is it going up next. >> One more.

2:14:37

Meanwhile, we are actively on the show asking for goalpost that will probably wind up costing 30.

2:14:42

>> We're part of the problem. >> We are.

2:14:43

We are but Casado says incredibly smart move by Google.

2:14:46

Amin is absolutely unique in his academic, technical, operational and business depth. Huge deal.

2:14:54

>> Well uh let me tell you about adquick.

2:14:56

com out ofome out ofome advertising made easy and measurable.

2:15:01

Plan buy and measure out of home with precision.

2:15:02

Our next guest is Angela from worktrace. ai.

2:15:08

She's in the reream waiting room and now she's in the TVP and Ultradom. Welcome to the show.

2:15:12

How are you doing Angela? Good to meet you. >> Doing great.

2:15:14

Thanks so much for having me.

2:15:15

It's nice to meet you guys.

2:15:16

>> Congratulations on the news.

2:15:16

Please introduce yourself, the company, give us the news. I have a mallet here.

2:15:21

Getting ready to ring the gong. >> Exciting. >> Yes. I'm Angela.

2:15:25

Most recently a co-founder of Work Trace AI. Fantastic.

2:15:29

Where we just came out of Stella Day, so we're excited to talk to you about it.

2:15:34

>> Um, before this, I was doing a lot of deep learning.

2:15:37

So, you know, it was deep learning job after deep learning job.

2:15:40

most recently was at OpenAI the last three years mostly doing product management. >> Cool.

2:15:45

>> Um and yeah when I was at OpenAI I mean we were also making these amazing models like they are now more and more >> but there is still this gap you know that we hear about where >> people aren't getting their magic moments from AI despite the models being >> super duper >> it's pretty funny you said you said you were doing a lot of deep learning as a product manager.

2:16:05

Some other product managers are doing a lot of deep research these days where they're effectively glorified deep research.

2:16:12

[laughter] You know, they just >> I do a lot of deep research these days.

2:16:16

>> A lot of my docs are powered by deep research. I have to admit.

2:16:19

>> So, so I mean uh Sam Alman's been on record before talking about uh how not to get steamrolled.

2:16:25

Like do if do not start a company that is predicated on the model staying the same capabilities.

2:16:33

Like if your whole pitch is I got a new LLM and it does pretty well on RKGI, well today was a bad day for you, but there are plenty of other pockets of opportunities.

2:16:43

Obviously, OpenAI believes in you because the OpenAI fund invested.

2:16:46

Um, but how did you think about creating durability or or or positioning the company in a way that was uh maybe uh you know synergistic with what OpenAI is already doing?

2:16:59

>> Yeah, I guess one benchmark for it is that when 5. 2 two came out today.

2:17:01

We were excited to try it.

2:17:05

>> Yes, [laughter] exactly.

2:17:06

>> It was it's it's an exciting day for us, too. >> That's good.

2:17:09

>> But yeah, when we thought about it, I mean, for me, when I was there, >> OpenAI is so strong at making just really amazing models, >> but I feel like they they themselves, but they also want help from whoever to help distribute these models to the world.

2:17:24

I mean there's so many people that need to benefit from these and it's very difficult to actually get these into the context of enterprises real world use cases.

2:17:34

It requires a lot of boots on the ground and getting deep into the use cases.

2:17:38

Ultimately they are punching above their weight in terms of how many people they have to get all of the amazing models they have out into the world.

2:17:46

And that's something that we felt was super complimentary to them. >> Yeah.

2:17:49

Um, walk me through the product experience, how a company might actually integrate Work Trace and and start building a, you know, a bespoke workflow over time.

2:18:03

What's the what's the actual like uh diffusion process into an organization to start getting value? >> Yeah.

2:18:12

I mean, I'll tell you about what I think the status quo is, which is what I saw when I was a product manager, which is that a team comes in, they know that AI could be transformative for their industry, and so they want to invest in it.

2:18:25

>> However, they're keeping up keeping up with what is going on with the latest 5. 2 model.

2:18:29

What does that mean for them?

2:18:32

They're keeping up with what's actually going on in their workforce.

2:18:33

And so what they often do is they bring in consultants or tech services company or the open AI go to market team to be able to figure out what is the exact right use cases that they should apply this particular model or the model they know they're that's going to come out in three months to these particular teams that they know need help.

2:18:54

So that takes like months as far as my experience has gone.

2:18:59

Whereas with work trace, what we do is what we're able to do is like have a desktop app to be able to see, you know, what work is going on and then be able to flag that, hey, this is tasks that seem repetitive that you seem to be spending a lot of time on that are breaking your flow that 5.

2:19:14

2 happens to be very very good at today.

2:19:17

Why don't you consider building out a workflow with 5.

2:19:22

2 for this exact use case?

2:19:22

So what that looks like then is like a prioritized list of use cases.

2:19:26

So a road map basically for AI transformation for a company and then for each of those use cases it'll have actually the JSON or the output that you need to input into OpenAI agent builder to actually start running an agent for that workflow. >> That's interesting.

2:19:44

>> That's interesting. uh how do you deal with the scenario where the system is observing a workflow and in the process of that identification of a workflow it is it becomes clear that the person should just be using SAS instead of like like if somebody is like

2:20:02

oh yeah every day they open a spreadsheet and they have a list of people's names and phone numbers and how recently they contacted them like that might just be a sales opportunity to get them on a CRM you don't necessarily need to agentically build a new CRM maybe, but how do you deal with those scenarios? Because there's a lot of

2:20:16

Because there's a lot of companies where they're they're not even on the frontier of SAS implementation. >> Yeah.

2:20:24

And there's a lot of like kind of like industrywide process mining tools that look for like bottlenecks in your work or maybe where you should use those other tools.

2:20:33

And so, you know, despite how good the models are, most of your work today probably can't be done with agents.

2:20:40

There's a huge amount that can be though.

2:20:41

And like that's specifically what we're looking to find.

2:20:43

So we'll mine for the ones that can today be used for agents and we're making a bet that that amount will just get larger and larger over time. >> Yeah.

2:20:52

And do you think that uh you have to live on the desktop in an app?

2:20:57

Because I imagine that if my workflow is is slow, but it's taking place inside of like, you know, the Salesforce ecosystem or something, they're not just going to let you build something on top.

2:21:08

let you build something on top. or will they like how how does AI bump into these like walled gardens that are going to prop up in enterprise software where you know Mark Beny was probably thinking like I don't want you puppeteering my

2:21:21

software I want to be the one doing that >> I see I mean for us I mean to understand how work happens >> I mean it's best to be able to just see what you see when you're doing work >> which honestly is more than your desktop

2:21:34

it's like also your phone and you know it's like what like you know you in meetings and whatnot Not however you know we find that we go a long way by seeing just what's happening on your desktop to get a sense of how your work is going in terms of actually then doing

2:21:47

the tasks I mean we still use the tools that you use you know we integrate them with Salesforce or any of the normal tools that you might be using because I mean that is just how work happens and we we want we want to meet you where your work is. >> Yeah. Do you uh do you think some people >> Yeah.

2:22:01

Do you uh do you think some people that are aggressively pursuing a forward deployed model are going to look at your solution and think like, "Oh, maybe I didn't need to send my most valuable human capital out into the world.

2:22:14

I could have just sent an app screen recorder [laughter] cuz it because it feels like this is like a potentially a more at least for a lot of different types of work a much more elegant solution than let's fly this person out, put them in a in a short-term rental or a hotel.

2:22:27

Let's have them just sit in the office when you can actually just use to in order to implement AI when you can use AI to basically watch someone screen and discover what these workflows actually look like. >> Yeah.

2:22:39

I mean I mean part of it is that there's not that many AI experts in the world for what we need.

2:22:44

there's not that many FTEEs that we could deploy out.

2:22:46

Um, so most of the companies that we're working with probably can't afford FTEEs for to come over, you know, for a couple of months at a time, but also continuously as AI changes.

2:22:56

But also, yeah, at the same time, when we were thinking about what we were doing to help companies get up toate on AI, we were listening to their workflows, we were understanding their workflows, breaking it down, looking at variations, which just happens to be something that AI is particularly good at.

2:23:13

So when we when we saw like what it took to actually find use cases and then put them in the format that agent builders needed, it just felt like that in of itself was a great use case for AI, which is actually what made us super bullish to pursue this idea.

2:23:29

>> Get us up to speed on the fundraising history.

2:23:31

I want to know what the latest news is. >> Yes.

2:23:35

So we recently closed our seed round, which we're super duper excited about. >> How much? >> How much? >> 9 million. There we go.

2:23:43

[clears throat] Uh, very very cool.

2:23:47

Uh, I'm I'm super excited about this.

2:23:50

I love I love when an idea uh is obvious and you just sit here thinking why didn't anybody do this before and sometimes it just takes the right team to come along uh and do it.

2:24:02

>> And look at who's in this in this deal.

2:24:04

ABC Conviction Open AI Logan Kilpatrick's in big fan of him. Mirror Marott. Wow.

2:24:09

You you really >> Murderers Row. >> Murderers Row. Genius Ventures. Genius Ventures. I'm I'm an LP.

2:24:16

So, uh, yeah, very, very excited.

2:24:20

>> Well, congratulations to all the progress.

2:24:22

Thank you so much for taking the time to come talk to us on >> I have a feeling you'll be back for the A within a quarter. >> I think so. >> I just got a feeling. >> Hoping for it, too.

2:24:31

Hoping to see you guys soon.

2:24:33

>> The chat is obsessed with you.

2:24:33

They think that you should go on Joe Rogan, apparently, which I don't know why, but uh I I [laughter] do think that would be a fun a fun thing.

2:24:40

So, uh, good luck to you on the rest of the media tour. We'll talk to you soon.

2:24:45

Have a good rest of your day. Merry Christmas. Cheers. Goodbye. >> Uh, eightsleep. com.

2:24:49

Exceptional sleep without exception. Fall asleep faster. Sleep deeper. Wake up energized. I'm getting it.

2:24:57

My falloff needed to be studied.

2:25:01

It's very clear what happened.

2:25:02

I flew to New York City and I slept in a bunk bed, which was not ideal.

2:25:06

Randomly I wound up in one hotel room, four bunk beds.

2:25:12

>> We didn't book the hotel. >> None of them fit me.

2:25:13

It was >> The hotel room was booked by another company. Yeah. Yeah. It was not Nick. Nick is fantastic hotel. What' you get? >> I got an 87. >> What' you get? >> Give me. I got an 80. I'll give it to you. [laughter] >> I'm back. I'm back, baby.

2:25:26

Never challenge me and sleep.

2:25:28

Never go snooze for snooze with me cuz I will out snooze you.

2:25:34

And and [laughter] next we are joined by John from Scrub Capital.

2:25:36

John is a practicing neurosurgeon, health system leader, multi-time co-founder, >> CMO, >> welcome to the show >> and more. Welcome to the stream. How are you guys? >> We're fantastic.

2:25:47

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

2:25:49

Can you get us up to speed on uh some of the writing that you've been doing, some of the some some of your uh your overall thinking on where how America is misunderstanding self-driving cars, what we need to change, uh the actual message, the status quo, and then the message that we need to get out.

2:26:11

>> Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.

2:26:11

So, look, up until right around now, we've been thinking about autonomous vehicles as a tech moonshot.

2:26:17

You know, cool tech story.

2:26:20

take shots at it, like it, whatever side you're on.

2:26:22

But, but what I'm trying to say, and now others are joining, too, is this is a public health urgency now >> because what happened is Whimo put out data at 100 million miles.

2:26:35

>> This is about a month or two ago.

2:26:35

You can go download and analyze it yourself.

2:26:38

They put out all the raw data.

2:26:40

>> And what I found was astonishing.

2:26:40

We're facing, guys, the possibility that if we play our cards right now, going forward, we could eliminate traffic deaths as a leading cause of death in the United States. >> That's crazy.

2:26:52

Wait, it's the leading cause. I thought it was cancer.

2:26:55

>> As a leading cause is a leading cause. Yeah. It's huge, though.

2:26:57

Isn't tens of thousands of people? >> Yeah. 40,000 a year.

2:27:01

And for children and young adults, it's the number two cause of death in the United States.

2:27:05

And it's the number one worldwide for children.

2:27:08

Also, I mean, not all life is precious, obviously, but it also must be uh a a cause of death of young people.

2:27:16

Um because it's so random when it happens.

2:27:18

It's not it's not something where, you know, oh, someone's lived their full life and then they've passed away.

2:27:23

Uh >> yeah, that's right.

2:27:24

It does tend to bias towards younger people, healthier prime of life.

2:27:27

It's not like it's this tends to be the sick and elderly. That's for sure.

2:27:31

>> So, but uh I'm I'm totally with you.

2:27:31

I buy it hook, line, and sinker. I'm I'm a believer.

2:27:38

But uh also it seems like it's going fine because like Google has a trillion dollars of cash flow and they're going to do this and Whimo is rolling out.

2:27:46

Like what do we really need to change?

2:27:48

It seems like everything's going well, >> right?

2:27:51

So look, we we have a regulatory capture problem right now, guys.

2:27:53

And that's I was so glad to come on TVPN.

2:27:57

>> You could look at coverage in the Washington Post, coverage in the Boston Globe.

2:28:01

>> City councils and other moneyed forces have politicians ears and they're working against this.

2:28:06

And and I think, you know, it's we got to work to liberate this and get the message out that this is this is not a risk story.

2:28:14

This is a safety story, you know, from my perspective now looking at this from a medical lens.

2:28:18

And >> you know, I haven't even scratched the surface and I'm sure I'm going to get all flamed on Twitter now and everything else.

2:28:24

Plainted bar in a lot of places is is is what's opposing this as well.

2:28:27

And and and I won't impute motive, but people can use their imaginations. >> Okay.

2:28:33

So, what's what's happening in what's happening in California that allows me to every other week I log on.

2:28:40

I see that Whimo's map is expanding.

2:28:43

California, >> it seems like it's going >> historically has been I don't know.

2:28:44

I would I would I would imagine that uh this would be a tougher environment than other states that are less population dense. >> Yeah.

2:28:56

Jordy, what's interesting about this is this doesn't respect traditional political tribes or left coast, right coast, whatever.

2:29:02

It actually it cuts jagged across typical tribes often.

2:29:05

So like you could have far-left people where they love bikes but love that Whimos are safer. So it's like great.

2:29:13

But then there's a group over there that doesn't want any vehicles. So Whimos are a problem.

2:29:17

>> Then you might have libertarians that say, you know, technology acceleration, let's go, let's go, let's go.

2:29:21

But then well wait, are the vehicles surveilling me? Survey.

2:29:24

So >> you know this this is not traditional tribes.

2:29:28

And I think what's we're seeing now is the data is moving people further and further along in this story tribe independent.

2:29:35

And to get to your question, Jordan D, I think a lot of these companies are based or sorry, Whimo certainly is based in California and there's there's a West Coast, you know, heaviness to this.

2:29:44

And to be fair, Tesla's now, you know, also demoing this in Austin right now with human drivers still. Mhm.

2:29:51

Do you have any other reads on uh how this might break from a regulation perspective?

2:29:57

It feels like, you know, we could be coming up on a seat belts and car scenario where, you know, self-driving technology is a requirement for all the OEMs and they have to either white label it from Whimo, white label it from Tesla.

2:30:11

It needs to be available more widely.

2:30:13

Uh Tesla and Whimo, I don't think that's in their business model.

2:30:18

I don't think they necessarily want to put it in every Toyota and Honda, but there, you know, you're making a >> Rolls-Royce Ghost. >> Yeah.

2:30:27

You're making like a health-based case and maybe at a certain point there needs to be, you know, a requirement.

2:30:34

How do you how do you think about that? >> Yeah.

2:30:35

I mean, so right like airbags we all remember that that you know, they started as kind of like a luxury thing on the high end, you know, S-Class Mercedes and then worked their way down.

2:30:46

I think we're going to progressively see this with progressively more more and more automation.

2:30:50

So right now like the automatic braking is in there and almost everybody has that but it's going to start to filter down and Jordy and John I think insurance industry pressure is going to push this too.

2:30:59

Okay, >> we're eventually when the data gets stronger and stronger and I think we're about a couple of weeks away from Google's next sorry Whimo's next data dump because just following their usual trend I think we're a couple weeks away from probably 125 million miles.

2:31:11

I think that this data is going to start to push rate differential over time and that that's going to kind of get people moving. >> Yeah, it's funny.

2:31:21

Uh [laughter] if you were expecting a debate, you're not going to get one because I agree with everything you're saying here.

2:31:26

Um but uh you did go to the New York Times to write this essay.

2:31:30

Uh did you get push back from the New York Times readership?

2:31:35

Uh was there a was that a conscious choice?

2:31:37

choice? I I'm just trying to understand like who is who is the current what what is the current shape of the of the anti-self-driving car uh constituency look like because I'm starting to understand the anti- uh you know AI data center constituency and I get that like it's it's ugly in your backyard or if

2:31:56

you if your if your power rates go up like that makes sense there's a trade-off there but who's who's not happy what was the reaction to the New York Times piece >> yeah so the New York Times was interesting and I'll tell you there was a very famous magazine that I pitched this to and they weren't interested because they were writing their own. Okay. Um, and this one definitely got Okay.

2:32:12

Um, and this one definitely got got a lot more traction, but so >> the the the team there was the crack editors obviously and the factchecking is incredible.

2:32:21

I mean, I knew it was good, but I mean every word, every statistic check twice it seems.

2:32:25

And I think I don't know if that's just cuz this is a super, you know, high impact story or because it's what we do, but >> when I was watching they they actually shut down the message board when it got to about 2400 messages.

2:32:37

They might have been tired of moderating it >> and I saw, you know, really these again these jagged splits where I guess it's um sort of obliquely cutting across groups.

2:32:50

And I I'm having trouble now.

2:32:50

I understand there's some data coming out that it actually tends to cut across tech literacy.

2:32:58

>> So more so than like left, right, libertarian, not it's it's how tech literate you are.

2:33:02

And that that's going to get progressively interesting, I think. >> Yeah.

2:33:06

What do you think about the job displacement narrative around self-driving cars that does feel like, you know, there are people whose jobs is to drive around.

2:33:13

Some of them will be potentially displaced.

2:33:16

It certainly has an effect on the the taxi cab market.

2:33:20

self-driving cars in other contexts are still seems like it's pretty far away, but uh how how do you think about balancing the the economic effects, the employment effects with the you know the the health benefits effectively? >> Yeah.

2:33:35

So, we we this is a critical question.

2:33:37

I want to make sure that's clear, right?

2:33:38

This isn't just willy-nilly let's go put these everywhere tomorrow.

2:33:41

The call is for this to be done smartly starting like yesterday, right?

2:33:46

And let's make this a national priority.

2:33:48

And the job question's critical and and and I don't want to ever be glib about it.

2:33:52

I wrote a whole kind of mini thesis and there wasn't room for it in the piece and I'm certainly not a labor expert, but what I think is a couple things.

2:33:58

One, we're already facing a labor shortage in a lot of markets as you know, not a surplus.

2:34:04

And we have supply chain and value chain breaking because of this.

2:34:06

So I think what I'm looking here is we have a chance if we do this right with upskilling and other things and I know upskilling gets panned a lot of the time but I think we need to be thinking about moving people from operator to manager supervising fleets of vehicles and we could have a truck driver managing a fleet of 10 autonomous rigs.

2:34:25

You know from a command center who by the way now goes to sleep in his own bed rather than or hers and rather than staring in a white line for 11 straight hours in a dangerous environment.

2:34:36

I think that's a waste of human potential. Now, I want to be clear.

2:34:40

Their jobs are super important right now.

2:34:42

They're keeping the country alive.

2:34:44

So, nobody here that I'm saying that their job is a waste of human potential.

2:34:48

I'm saying if we just then don't figure out what to do with their jobs because this is happening whether we like it or not.

2:34:54

>> We need to think about how to use that incredible expertise >> and apply it smartly.

2:34:58

And then, you know, I'd like to say um in 1981 was the peak cigarette manufacturer.

2:35:04

650 billion cigarettes were manufactured in 1981.

2:35:12

Now we're down to 125 billion cigarettes a year.

2:35:15

And we none of us heard about an epidemic of job displacement because of cigarettes being dropped by 85%. >> Yeah.

2:35:25

>> So, let's do this right starting today.

2:35:27

And I don't know if you're going to go there, but if we don't, we're going to be importing Chinese technology.

2:35:31

They have no less than seven companies pursuing full stack autonomous vehicles right now. >> Makes sense.

2:35:42

And uh I'm >> trying to think if I can name more than seven American uh autonomy companies.

2:35:47

Whimo, Tesla, KA AI, Ghost is not doing well.

2:35:51

There's a couple that are not doing okay anymore, but uh it is it is back. Quasers company. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Applied intuition.

2:35:58

Um >> um I wanted while we have you, I wanted your quick take on uh peptides.

2:36:04

We're seeing >> an explosion of demand.

2:36:09

You're an investor in uh in in a bunch of different health and medical companies.

2:36:18

I'm curious how you've viewed this category.

2:36:19

It's uh it feels tough to invest in for a lot of reasons. regulatory.

2:36:25

A lot of these um therapies are not actually proven by any type of uh real studies, but I'm curious if you got a hot take for us. >> Yeah.

2:36:36

Well, I don't know if it's a hot take, but look, so first of all, disclosure, we're investors in Life Force.

2:36:40

Um certainly check out Life Force.

2:36:42

Um but >> so, um I've joked and others have that remember this old book Prozac Nation.

2:36:48

remember this old book Prozac Nation. I think the new I I want I wish I had time to write peptide nation like that one of us need let's do it together we need to make time for that but this is where we're going and the data is getting stronger and stronger in pockets as a

2:37:04

physician I got to say I'm not giving anybody medical advice right now talk to your own doctor but me and Chrissy Far and you can Google this we surveyed 135 clinicians who are active in health span on what they do themselves not what they do for their patients, what they take themselves. And something like 15

2:37:21

And something like 15 or 20% of them are on more than one injectable, including peptide, of course, TRT, and other things.

2:37:28

And I I think >> I like doctor per personally.

2:37:32

[laughter] >> There's I think you can't get me in the clinic if he's over 10% body fat.

2:37:39

He's got to be dried out. He's got to be dice. >> Dried out.

2:37:44

>> Yeah, he's got to be solid separation. Monster. It's got to be stringy.

2:37:46

Is it okay if he's cutting and bulking or does it just when he's cutting?

2:37:51

>> I typically only go in for the checkin when he's on a cut, when he's in fighting form, kind of stage ready.

2:37:57

>> You want when you're making your appointment, you almost need to know where are they? >> Exactly. Exactly.

2:38:00

Miss me when you're bulking.

2:38:02

I want to see you >> want to see the striation.

2:38:04

>> Ready to go to the Arnold to the Arnold Classic. I want you stage ready. I want you dry. >> Yeah.

2:38:09

Because because bodybuilders are the epitome of hell. >> Yes. Yes. Exactly. >> Oh, yeah. Bonnie's looking great. >> Yeah. She's ready. You are looking great.

2:38:18

>> Anyway, this is fantastic.

2:38:18

Uh, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

2:38:21

>> Yeah, we're we're with you.

2:38:21

I think I think it's I think it's a good reframing.

2:38:24

There's so much uh >> I like it a lot.

2:38:27

>> Uh so much investment happening in in AI broadly and it it is interesting that and and how much the government is doing to try to uh break down walls to to support. >> It is funny.

2:38:39

There's all this there's all this uh there's all this debate about like will AI cure cancer? Will AI save lives?

2:38:44

like is that just lip service from the big AI companies?

2:38:46

And it's like, well, this one could literally save 40,000 lives a year.

2:38:51

Like, that's that's good.

2:38:51

That's more than many cancers. That's a ton.

2:38:53

It's there's no reason why we shouldn't do that.

2:38:57

And then and then we should celebrate it as AI saving lives.

2:38:58

Like that would be great.

2:39:01

>> It's more than homicide and plane crashes combined every year. Yeah.

2:39:03

crashes combined every year. Yeah. And what if I could leave one thing I would say to >> look this is not something that oh my god Whimo started on this and Tesla started on this you know six months ago and it looks great this has been 15 years of deliberate work at Whimo and I

2:39:19

don't work for Whimo I want to be clear I'm not invested in Whimo unless it's through a mutual fund at Alphabet and directly or whatever but this this has been handled for 15 years with the rigor of what I would say is most analogous to a medical device >> totally >> not an app not a not like a wearable, an actually regulated medical device. So,

2:39:36

So, what I want to say to people is that this is a moment now >> that's ready for safe and effective acceleration.

2:39:47

>> Yeah, it's been so it's been incredibly high stakes.

2:39:49

Like, there have been multiple I'm pretty sure multiple artificial intelligence self-driving companies where they've where they've had a terrible accident and it's basically destroyed the entire company.

2:39:59

And so the entire industry has moved slowly but in this case it's good because there is human life on the line.

2:40:06

I would call it deliberate movement and I completely agree with you.

2:40:10

>> Time this this do this right and this will be remembered as one of the historic top three moments of American exceptionalism if we if we don't let it slip out of our hands. >> Yeah.

2:40:21

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. >> Great to meet you.

2:40:25

>> Have a great rest of your day. We'll talk.

2:40:26

>> We'll have you back on soon. Thanks a lot, John. >> Hop in. Hop in that Whimo. Head over to wander. com.

2:40:32

Book a wander with inspiring views, hotel great amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, and 247 concier service.

2:40:41

It's a vacation home, but better, and you can get there in your self-driving car.

2:40:45

Our next guest is Aaron Cannon.

2:40:49

>> That is a powerful name.

2:40:50

>> That's a powerful name.

2:40:51

>> Scrub Capital Scrub Capital.

2:40:53

>> They saw him and they were like, "Put the capital.

2:40:55

Put the capital in the cannon.

2:40:57

Launch the capital cannon at Aaron Cannon. Welcome to the show. How you doing? >> Thank you. Thank you.

2:41:03

>> And look at that chart in the background.

2:41:05

>> What cheeky little chart, >> guys? That's real numbers.

2:41:08

That's actually That's the real data. >> Real data. >> Hit it again.

2:41:12

Hit it again a few times. [snorts] >> There we go.

2:41:18

We're fired up, Aaron Cannon.

2:41:20

We're happy to have you on the show. Uh, thank you.

2:41:22

Would love would love an introduction uh on yourself and the company. >> Yeah, I'm Aaron.

2:41:28

I'm the CEO and co-founder of Outset. Uh, I was on your show.

2:41:32

I think it was at YC demo day like six months ago. >> That's right. That's right.

2:41:34

We were super bullish on you. >> That's awesome. No wonder you're back. >> Thank you.

2:41:40

>> No wonder you're back.

2:41:40

>> Yeah, I had my my yellow ramp hat on in the YC offices and I was I was sharing our series A. >> Wait. Yeah.

2:41:46

So, so break it down for people because they're going to assume you were in the in a batch this year, but you you you went through uh in 2022, was it?

2:41:54

>> Yeah, we're we were 2023, summer 23.

2:41:54

We went through YC batch >> um and been growing since then.

2:41:58

I just happened to be in the office and we raised our series A at the at the YC demo day, so I popped in.

2:42:03

Um and yeah, so so uh outset is uh AI moderated research.

2:42:08

So if you've ever tried to, you know, understand your customers or something, it's it really sucks today or or in the past.

2:42:14

And uh finally, it doesn't suck.

2:42:17

I mean, basically, you know, surveys are the old school way to do it.

2:42:20

Um or you talk to users one by one and you know, talk to maybe a dozen or so and and now AI does it for you.

2:42:24

So our uh that's what our platform does.

2:42:28

And we um we just raised our series B uh announced it yesterday from Radical Ventures. There it is.

2:42:33

Um and uh yes uh it's been great.

2:42:38

So, uh, here we are six months later.

2:42:40

>> Did you ever was Paul Graham ever concerned about outset?

2:42:42

Was he worried, you know, founders might stop talking to their customers or is he comfortable with the AI talking to the customer on their behalf?

2:42:51

>> You know, I didn't clear this with with PG personally, but uh, >> dude, you got to clear it with you got to clear it with PG.

2:42:56

You got to get his blessing.

2:42:58

You got to get his blessing.

2:43:00

>> I I I did not do that, but uh, it's part of the reason we don't work as much with startups and and we work with Microsoft, Google, folks like that.

2:43:06

um, Weight Watchers and Nestle and so so we go for the big enterprises.

2:43:13

>> What do what does, uh, what does success look like when when you're working with these companies?

2:43:17

What are you pushing towards?

2:43:18

Is it a key insight that impacts a a future product decision?

2:43:21

You know, what does actually winning look like? >> Yeah. Yeah.

2:43:28

It's it's uh it generally falls into two things.

2:43:30

like either they're doing product research where it's about a key insight that drives a product decision of what to build or even like not to build.

2:43:36

There's like a famous uh Airbnb uh Brian Chesky told the story of like there was like a a million dollar yeah re research saved the millions of dollars because of like one bad design, right?

2:43:46

And so like you know it could be a massive like a single insight can be hugely differentiating for a product.

2:43:53

Um and then there's marketing where you're saying like I'm about to you know release a new product to a new market.

2:43:58

you know, you're Nestle and you're testing new concepts.

2:44:00

Um, you got to get that right. Right.

2:44:01

So, that's that looks like making smarter decisions and making them really really fast.

2:44:05

And that's like the real thing is that now with us, you can actually gather, you know, hundreds of actual interviews like indepth nuance like really hear from people and you can do that in a couple of hours and then we synthesize all that data so you can go make a decision.

2:44:18

Are you guys taking away jobs from researchers or are researchers just able to do far more work and get far more insight?

2:44:29

>> The the the classic AI question of uh yeah it's it so the reality >> yeah it just feels like yeah I mean if you look in engineering organizations people are like my engineers are much more effective I'm going to make I'm going to build a lot more product.

2:44:41

I want more great engineers.

2:44:43

In this case, I I I don't have a lot of insight into how research teams at some of these big companies work, but I could see them saying, "Hey, we historically needed to hire >> this outside firm to conduct this research or and we needed x number of people to kind of manage it and try to unpack what was actually happening."

2:45:03

>> A lot of them might also have just been using web forms, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, okay.

2:45:07

So, so what we actually see on the ground is very much not the uh get rid of your researchers. Quite the opposite.

2:45:13

And I think the the the reason for that is there is like there is there isn't a ceiling of like I don't need any more insight on a thing right there's actually kind of it's like an insatiable demand for it.

2:45:22

The problem is the old way was not economical.

2:45:25

So you would have you know your researchers you know they do one study every month or two and it would be you know like talking to to to 15 users and now that one researcher can actually do a study every week each time talking to 200 users.

2:45:39

And so you basically are like making smarter decisions.

2:45:41

And then you add the speed at which people are putting new products into the world, you actually need that insight faster, right?

2:45:49

>> And so what we see on the ground is basically a research team adopting it and saying, "Holy crap, like I can actually go like do twice as much or go twice as fast um with, you know, the same people we have on the team today.

2:46:01

>> How multimodal are you today?

2:46:01

How multimodal do you want to be in a few years?"

2:46:06

I can imagine uh research is happening you know on video interviews, audio, textbased interviews, web forms like what are you doing today and then what do you want to do?

2:46:18

>> All we we want to do all the modes all the modals um no so so today we are video audio text and then you can do kind of forums you know think like classic survey questions >> radio buttons and radio buttons.

2:46:31

>> So do you just email or text a customer and say may I research you? Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. That's exactly it.

2:46:37

That that's the language. May I research you?

2:46:41

>> Um, no, but but then but then we also do screen sharing.

2:46:44

>> So that's actually where you're getting a a participant to video, audio, radio buttons, and then also share their screen while they're interacting with your prototype.

2:46:51

Um, so you kind of do all of that together and then we partner with a bunch of a bunch of uh panels that I call them to to help kind of source people, right?

2:46:59

So in our platform, we can actually source from, you know, millions of people.

2:47:02

And are you building like the full customer experience management platform down to uh data collection but then also analysis because it sounds like you're adding sourcing but it's not like you're you're going to give me a big bag of text and then I got to go sort it out elsewhere. >> Yeah.

2:47:22

The the theory's always been like the the if we're going to help you scale and speed up the way you collect the data, we got to break it down for you afterwards, right?

2:47:29

And it's just two sides of the same coin.

2:47:31

sides of the same coin. So since day one we've had these two sides right our core platform AI moderated research is like collect the data synthesize the data tell you what matters the thing we now are building into the future and the reason we raised a bunch of this money you know just 6 months later is like we're going from think like you know study by study I got a question let me

2:47:50

go answer it to the always on customer intelligence platform right the the experience management where you know at every touch point you know you get off a flight you get a oh how was your flight or you you know you you you get a posturch purchase feedback form and really every point in the journey, right, should actually be conversational insight, should be continuous. We should

2:48:07

We should have contextual questions that actually make sense.

2:48:11

And so pulling all that together. >> Mhm. >> Makes a lot of sense.

2:48:17

>> I have one I sorry I have one more.

2:48:17

Uh fraud detection like what does that look like?

2:48:20

Um and yeah, like like is that is that AI powered or AI enabled or is that just like best practices?

2:48:27

like what what is the bad like how big of a problem is fraud in customer research? >> Yeah.

2:48:34

If you talk to anybody in the in the industry, they'll say like it's a big it's a problem like and Chad GPT made it worse, right? Yeah.

2:48:40

Um so the answer >> is that what is that >> because I get paid $100 to tell Microsoft or get a gift card to tell Microsoft how I'm using Microsoft Excel and I'm like well if I just go to Chad GBT and I'm like how am I using Excel?

2:48:53

It'll just make something up and then I just copy paste that in and then I get the $100 Starbucks gift card. Is that roughly correct?

2:48:59

>> Yeah, that's that's right.

2:48:59

But but what happens is like on surveys it's really bad, right?

2:49:02

Because you have an open a free text field and you just paste it in.

2:49:06

>> You're just detecting whatever. Yeah. >> Right.

2:49:07

Well, like luckily we're because most of our customers are doing very like video based stuff.

2:49:11

It is much more right that that is harder to like uh uh you know fake your way through.

2:49:15

Um but we built our own fraud detection agent, right?

2:49:19

right? And it's like it's actually kind of fun to watch cuz it's basically looking at your screener answers like oh you said you were an expert in you know Python and then like later in the interview as they interviewed about you

2:49:30

know what tools you're using it's like they don't know anything about it and then you get your you know as a customer you get your reasoning so that the AI agent tells you oh this this guy does not know what he's talking about [laughter] and so it's uh pretty impressive. Yeah Yeah >> it's fantastic.

2:49:42

Well thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

2:49:45

Did we hit the gong already? >> Hit it again. >> I'll hit it again. >> We did. Yeah. Hit it one more. I'll be back. >> $30 million series.

2:49:50

I I don't know if we actually got to the number. $30 million series. Radical Ventures.

2:49:55

>> Hey, push yourself and the team. Come back in Q1.

2:49:57

[snorts] It's not all about fundraising, but it is a pretty good indicator of momentum.

2:50:03

>> Call up Rob Taves at Radical Ventures.

2:50:05

Say, "Give me another 30. Give me another 300." >> How about Yeah.

2:50:08

How about you put your money where your mouth is, Rob? Make a bet. Take a bet on us. >> Yeah. Look at the graph. Look at the graph.

2:50:14

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show again. Have a good one. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye.

2:50:19

>> Uh before we bring in our next guest, we have some breaking news.

2:50:22

Broadcom has smashed earnings.

2:50:24

Earnings per share of 195 versus 172 projected revenue of 18 billion.

2:50:31

People were projecting 18 17 12.

2:50:34

Look at this AI image of a crying bear relative to AVG. Oh, cocktail. >> Bears in shambles.

2:50:44

>> The simp private equity has done it again.

2:50:46

up 3% after the lowjack riding the green line up >> uh and that is uh fantastic news for the good folks over at Broadcom.

2:50:57

Congratulations to everyone on smashing earnings and thank you to the chat for calling it out.

2:51:02

Our next guest is from K2 Space. How you doing? Good to see you. Welcome to the show.

2:51:10

>> Um we are trying to pull up some audio. Do we have audio here? Can we play this? Oh, sorry. Thank you.

2:51:14

Please introduce yourself and the company. >> Hey guys, I'm Karan.

2:51:17

I'm the co-founder and CEO of K2 Space.

2:51:21

>> Uh, and can I mean obviously space is in the news, but can you give us a little bit more color on uh how you fit into the orbital economy? >> Yeah. Yeah.

2:51:28

So, about three and a half years ago, I started this company with my brother Neil.

2:51:31

Um, we wanted to build really large, really high power satellites, which at the time was a pretty big contrarian bet against the market.

2:51:39

Everyone was kind of going smaller with their satellites. >> Yeah.

2:51:42

And so we kind of looked at it, we were like, "Hey, like actually the future, if you think about it, is all about higher power higher power, right?"

2:51:48

And we're seeing that with things that we're probably about to talk about with the data, >> data centers and everything.

2:51:52

But uh but yeah, we're building the largest space platforms that have ever existed, >> the largest space.

2:51:57

So but but but importantly, you're not building the rockets. >> That's right.

2:52:03

Yeah, we're just doing the satellites.

2:52:04

We're we're going to be launch vehicle agnostic.

2:52:05

Most of our first missions are going to be on on SpaceX using SpaceX rockets, but over time we'll probably use a bunch of others as well.

2:52:12

>> And when you were building the company, did did you have a did you have a thesis around how the launch market would play out because there's I feel like maybe this came up when you were pitching VCs, but there was there's probably a risk that hey, if SpaceX becomes like a really powerful monopoly, they're going to be able to squeeze you like crazy.

2:52:33

So, was your initial thinking or bet, hey, I I I love SpaceX. It's amazing.

2:52:39

It's unlocking an incredible new capability.

2:52:41

But I do think that um you know, Firefly will be doing some stuff.

2:52:46

Rocket Lab might be doing stuff.

2:52:46

Uh Blue Origin might be doing stuff and eventually the market will play out that I can actually carve out a business here one way or another.

2:52:56

>> I mean, 70% of our company comes from SpaceX.

2:52:58

My my brother is an ex SpaceXer, so we're all we're all pretty big fans of SpaceX.

2:53:02

And you know it it they've made such a massive difference in the market, right?

2:53:06

Like when we talk about there being like launch abundance, right?

2:53:09

It's both because they made bigger and bigger launch vehicles and they increased the frequency of those launches, right?

2:53:14

Like they're they're blowing past 150 launches this year as if it's nothing, right?

2:53:17

Um so so we always knew that we were going to be big users. Yeah.

2:53:21

We always knew we were going to be big users of SpaceX rockets, but I think [clears throat] it's pretty cool to see a bunch of the other launch players coming online, right?

2:53:27

players coming online, right? like there's a number of new players whe whether it's like relativity whether it's Andy over at Stoke whether it's the folks over at Firefly um I think it's it's it's a really unique opportunity we have right now where hopefully 5 to 10 years from now we have a bunch of

2:53:41

choices >> yeah okay so so so biggest big satellites been the in the business of making big satellites what was the first big satellite that you thought would be valuable communications put a camera on it spy satellites Hubble telescope what do you what were you originally thinking uh before every venture capitalist said pivot to AI. [laughter]

2:53:58

pivot to AI. [laughter] So we started with giant telescopes which is kind of bit bit of an extreme departure from uh AI but uh but yeah we wanted to build really large telescopes because everyone knows James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James James web right like awesome highly performant telescope

2:54:14

>> but it cost billions of dollars and took like 20 years to produce right and that's like kind of the the straw by which we take data from the rest of the solar system right and so we wanted to build many more straws and many bigger straws over time we realized like actually if we go bigger Well, now we can start to deploy a lot of power because we can host bigger solar arrays. And if we go bigger, we can build

2:54:33

And if we go bigger, we can build platforms that are radiation tolerant and can handle different orbits and different parts of the solar system.

2:54:38

Um, [snorts] but it all actually stemmed from from from giant telescopes, which is the the a little known fact actually about K2.

2:54:45

>> But I mean, the the news today, $250 million at $3 billion valuation, uh, doesn't doesn't look like a science project type funding round.

2:54:52

You got Troric, alimter, light speeded, >> tro price.

2:54:57

What does that look like? [laughter] I don't know.

2:55:00

>> I mean I typically Isn't that Wouldn't that be pretty common in a preo?

2:55:05

>> It's like a grow Yeah, these are serious investors.

2:55:06

So So what is the shape of the business?

2:55:08

I imagine that like you actually have serious uh serious traction and progress uh actually delivering capabilities.

2:55:14

Uh what's the majority of the customer base product mix look like right now? >> Yeah.

2:55:21

So because we went in such a different direction um we started as like just a tactical contrarian bet that two and a half years ago started to get a lot of commercial traction.

2:55:29

a lot of commercial traction. So over uh the last three years we've basically gone from 5 million in TCV in 23 >> to 50 million in TCV in 24 to 500 million in TCB in 25 right and this is from a mix of large commercial and government customers right and I don't

2:55:46

know I don't know that many three and a half year old companies that are [music] like half a billion in TCB right >> that's insane so yeah what what take me inside one of those contracts give me an example of like uh what you're delivering >> yeah so the perfect example of power is when you think about communication Right? >> So if I drive up the power, right?

2:56:03

>> So if I drive up the power, right? Right.

2:56:09

And we we weren't just like driving up the power incrementally, right?

2:56:13

Like the typical satellites at the same price point as us were doing like one to two kilowatts of power.

2:56:19

>> Our first satellite is 20 kilowatts of power. Wow.

2:56:21

>> Our next satellite is going to be 100.

2:56:23

And so we saw a really interesting use case to go after which is just for all the players that are looking at what SpaceX has done to the comm's market. Yeah.

2:56:31

>> And are [clears throat] thinking about how to reset their unit economics.

2:56:31

We were like the really interesting path for them to take to be able to think about a fundamentally different cost structure just based on how much power we were deploying and at the price point. >> Okay.

2:56:42

>> So commercials is the first place, government is the second.

2:56:44

I can talk a bit about that.

2:56:45

But those are the two big areas that we've kind of focused on as we scaled up the >> company.

2:56:49

Let's flip over to the the engineering side.

2:56:51

uh 100 kilowatts, that's 0.

2:56:54

1 megawatts, is that right?

2:56:54

Um like how are you actually delivering that?

2:57:01

Is it just big solar panels?

2:57:01

Like what's the secret to actually scaling up power delivery in space?

2:57:04

Do you have batteries on board?

2:57:07

Are there other propellants or or resources for fuel? Or is it all just solar?

2:57:12

How are you how do you actually scale up power delivery in space?

2:57:16

>> Yeah, so we basically have to reset the entire satellite.

2:57:17

We have to go build giant solar arrays.

2:57:19

We have to go build giant batteries.

2:57:21

We have to build giant primary structures, these things called reaction wheels, which are these large spinning discs that help you point a satellite with large solar arrays.

2:57:28

So like 80% of the satellite we rebuilt from scratch in this factory behind me.

2:57:33

And >> sorry, really quickly, giant solar array that could in space that could mean anything from like football fields to the size of this table.

2:57:40

Like just ground me in like order of magnitude. How big are we talking? >> Yeah.

2:57:44

So the first uh the first satellite uh that we're building that we're launching in three months is 40 meters from wington to >> wington. Wow. So like Yeah.

2:57:50

Like halfway down a football field almost something like that. Wow. Space yacht. >> Space yacht. Yeah. >> Exactly. Exactly.

2:57:58

And then the next one will be 80.

2:58:00

So it's going to be 2x the length but obviously much more in terms of surface area.

2:58:04

>> And does that only fit the Starship fairing?

2:58:06

Is is that Starship requirement there or or can you >> Yeah, the first one the the 20 kow is made for Falcon 9.

2:58:12

So it'll be it's made to stack 10 in a Falcon 9.

2:58:14

It'll stack my Starship is so massive that it'll stack 50 in a Starship which is which is kind of cool. >> The full one. Yeah. >> Exactly.

2:58:22

And then the next one will be made purely for >> Yeah.

2:58:24

So on the on the commercial side from uh how how are the telecom players thinking about the threat from Starlink, right?

2:58:32

These are, you know, the big ones are multiundred billion dollar market cap companies.

2:58:37

They have a lot of infrastructure on Earth and you know are uh from our understanding like really feeling the pressure from Starlink.

2:58:43

But what is their kind of mental model for Starlink as a threat and I'm assuming they're paying you to try to catch up? >> Exactly. Yeah.

2:58:53

Yeah, I think Starling came in and basically took a business that um had, you know, call it you you you'd go like host like data at $50 to $100 per megabit per second and Starling came in and brought that price under 10, right?

2:59:08

So, every single player out there had to figure out like how do I go deploy a lot more capacity and how do I do it at a low cost and deploying capacity in space is just all about how much does it cost me to deploy power, right?

2:59:20

if I can deploy more power and I can do so at a lower cost, suddenly I have better unit economics.

2:59:23

And so we were the we were the kind of the path to doing that, right?

2:59:26

Which was saying we're gonna go max out power.

2:59:28

So our satellite is as powerful as the billion dollar satellites that used to exist.

2:59:31

Um but it's not going to cost a billion. It'll cost 15 million.

2:59:35

You can stack 10 per Falcon 9 and that's what it takes to kind of change the game for the telco players.

2:59:40

So a bunch of them saw that and were like, "Okay, like this this is actually something we can play around with and and use."

2:59:45

And and really for us, it's just like the first customer, right?

2:59:49

Like we're all about integrating like the hardware stack for space.

2:59:50

We want to max out power today.

2:59:52

That's for communications.

2:59:54

Tomorrow that's going to be for compute.

2:59:56

And then who knows as we, you know, start becoming like a space fairing civilization like what we'll do with that power later. >> Dyson spear. Dyson spear.

3:00:04

>> So uh this round got done I'm assuming at a time when uh people were mocking data centers in space.

3:00:10

There's been a little bit of a vibe shift over the last week.

3:00:14

Uh, and I'm sure all your investors have been uh hitting you up saying AI comput >> and Gavin I think you gota I think you got to take another look at this.

3:00:25

>> See this invest like the best interview.

3:00:27

You should you should see this.

3:00:30

>> I promise this isn't a data center round. I have to tell everyone.

3:00:31

I was like >> no that's the thing.

3:00:33

The data center would be the data center would be three on on [laughter] 15. >> Yeah. So it was funny.

3:00:40

It was in November actually.

3:00:41

like you know Delian has very strong views on this.

3:00:43

I was talking to him about it early November, late October when we were doing the round and uh you know they they have a strong opinion.

3:00:50

Founders Fund is right on a lot of things.

3:00:51

So like I don't always want to I'm not going to say I'm going to take the other side of a bet against them.

3:00:54

But it's now it's like Founders Fund on one side, Elon on the other.

3:00:58

I'm like I'm just going to watch and see [laughter] see how this plays out.

3:01:01

But uh but yeah, so our round was primarily on like the the communications application.

3:01:06

It was also on a bunch of the government um constellations that we're starting to work on.

3:01:10

There's some really interesting things we're doing that the US government is pretty excited about. Yeah.

3:01:14

>> Um so more of what you call a conventional and like Yeah.

3:01:16

Now we'll see what happens with the with the data >> price of the brick going up. >> Yeah. Yeah.

3:01:20

I mean it's [laughter] it is exciting as as a CEO like it is somewhat your job to bring energy to what you're building and bring excitement to what you're building.

3:01:30

And if there's an opportunity, even if it's five, 10 years off, if you're going to be a beneficiary of that trend, you do sort of have a responsibility to raise your hand and say, "Yeah, hey, it's logical that some of the value will acrew here to me if that's the case."

3:01:46

Uh, but you probably also don't want to whiplash everyone and be like, "Actually, I've been doing this the whole time." So, yeah.

3:01:52

>> Any any predictions on just how big uh some of these commercial satellites will get over the next decade?

3:01:56

I mean, I saw somebody on uh on the timeline earlier talking about how uh in order to recreate, you know, one gawatt of of sort of uh of uh compute capacity uh in orbit, you need something like 10,000 satellites, but eventually you could just have one, you know, data center size satellite floating out.

3:02:18

Uh but but how how do you think about uh size versus and and just like mass of individual satellites versus uh const the more constellation approach?

3:02:31

>> Yeah, I I I'm in the school of thought of constellations, right?

3:02:33

Like I think we're going to build really big satellites that still exist in constellations.

3:02:36

I think compute's going to be distributed, right?

3:02:38

Compute and communications are going to be all part of the same distributed network, right?

3:02:43

Um so so our our bigger satellite, Giga, is going to be like the length of, you know, a football field, right? What's it called? >> It's called Giga. >> It's called the Giga.

3:02:51

>> Hit the gong for Giga.

3:02:55

>> Best name for a satellite I've ever heard.

3:02:58

>> It's an incredible name for a satellite.

3:03:00

>> We We are very critical of names.

3:03:03

>> Sometimes people come on and they they name their companies things that don't are not necessarily >> hubris. ai. >> Yeah. Hubris. ai. >> Billion seed round. What's going to happen? Who knows?

3:03:14

[laughter] Giga is a fantastic name.

3:03:19

>> Giga would be a beautiful name for a satellite. Glad you're doing it.

3:03:23

>> I'm very excited to see it in >> uh anyways uh very exciting.

3:03:24

Congrats to the whole team and uh yeah, hoping hoping we can partner at some point to put a TBPN satellite up in space. >> We need one for sure.

3:03:35

>> We definitely will need one at some point.

3:03:36

>> One last question from my side.

3:03:36

Uh take us through a little bit of a tour of what's behind you.

3:03:40

Uh is this the only facility?

3:03:43

How big is this facility?

3:03:45

What's actually happening here?

3:03:45

Are satellites getting uh built out?

3:03:49

>> This is 180,000 square foot factory, right, where uh basically you'll see the start of a a manufacturing line coming down here that's going to >> You can't really see it in the view, but the clean room's over there with the satellite actually in it that's about to launch in three months, right? >> Oh, wow.

3:04:02

You you even have huge signs up.

3:04:04

It says primary structure, side sections, final integration. Wow. Physical divides. That's amazing. >> Yeah.

3:04:11

So so so yeah, we're basically scaling up now.

3:04:13

We're 11 months in, but a large part of this round that we're raising is to is to go scale up mass production, go from one this year to 10 next year to 30 the following year. >> That's awesome.

3:04:21

>> Um, and it's really all about scale at this point, right?

3:04:23

Like let's get the first one to work in three months and then let's do it many more times over the coming 24 months.

3:04:29

>> And also, is the company's name a nod to your initials? >> Yeah. So, here's the thing.

3:04:33

Like, uh, it's not people think it's about my initials and it's like that is the most egotistical thing in [laughter] the world.

3:04:39

I promise you that is not the case.

3:04:41

Uh, so you know, my brother and I started this company, which starting a company with your brother is like the coolest thing in the world to do.

3:04:46

We're both condors, but it comes back to the Cardiff, right?

3:04:49

Like helping humanity become a type two card civilization, K2.

3:04:54

The whole thesis is like build bigger, right?

3:04:56

And our our logo is a big Dyson sphere.

3:04:59

I heard you mention that, right?

3:05:00

So, it's like our whole thesis like let's start laying the groundwork to helping humanity become a type two cartep civilization.

3:05:05

So, let's call the company K2.

3:05:08

>> You understand naming.

3:05:08

I'm gonna I have to uh we we we we had a we had a company on uh called Icorus Icorus space.

3:05:14

on uh called Icorus Icorus space. We were a little bit worried about >> for what it's worth it cra ins insanely good teams and I really hope they'll but they're playing with playing >> they're playing with fire is playing with fire they're a super cool team though I'm not

3:05:29

>> they are they are very cool they are very cool uh but there's been there's been a rash of of hilarious >> that's playing on hard mode playing on hard mode >> playing on hard mode anyway thank you so much for taking the time to meet you and congratulations to the whole team coffers are full we'll see you soon. Um,

3:05:45

Um, >> well that essentially >> let's rip some timeline.

3:05:53

>> Let's rip some timeline. Okay.

3:05:53

I want to watch this video of a hillside in China that has been covered with solar panels.

3:05:59

When you see this video, do you react with admiration or with disgust? Tyler's nodding. Sick. This is sick.

3:06:05

>> Is this AI or is this real? Do we know? >> I hope it's real. >> I can't tell.

3:06:08

So, >> this is Casey Hanmer's dream.

3:06:11

>> This is Casey Handmer's dream.

3:06:12

>> I hope this is a lot of This looks pretty real.

3:06:14

I was watching a video of somebody.

3:06:16

There's a whole trend on TikTok of people throwing tires the longest tire throw.

3:06:19

So, because if you throw a tire off a mountain, it will just spin all the way down to the bottom.

3:06:25

So, you can throw a tire for like miles and miles miles.

3:06:26

Uh it's a great it's a great uh content genre.

3:06:31

>> Yeah, for some reason solar panels over mountains do give me a little bit of disgust, whereas I I get I'm I'm less >> Yeah, mountains are beautiful. >> Deserts. Deserts.

3:06:40

I'm like, >> it's sort of already Yeah, it's sort of already >> a >> But uh this looks like a like it would be a really enjoyable mountain range to just go on a nice little hike.

3:06:50

And so I'm uh I'm feeling the disgust by also impressed. >> Yeah. >> By the scale.

3:06:58

It's just crazy that like between there was no desert between these mountains and who they needed to get power to, you know, like because I don't know, there must be people like right there living in the foothills or something and they needed to put them in the mountains. I don't know.

3:07:12

I mean, at least the mountains won't catch on fire, you know? That's often a problem. >> Yeah.

3:07:16

I'm curious around the efficiency because just given the movement of the sun, aren't you going to have like there it's actually blanketing both sides of these peaks.

3:07:24

So wouldn't this not nec you would you would think that finding a area nearby that was flat would be more efficient but >> who knows uh Snapchat >> what's going on with Snap uh >> anyone from Snapchat >> focusing on making money uh they are let's see here B6Z says Snapchat plus user growth pretty much guaranteed to reacelerate with the new storage charges uh so they're uh saying You've saved 4,122 memory since 2017.

3:07:57

You've used 16 GB of your 5 GB of free storage limit.

3:08:01

Uh we'll temporarily back up new memories that exceed your limit for up to 12 months.

3:08:07

Or you can join Snapchat Plus and get your 250 GB.

3:08:11

So uh anyways, uh makes sense uh that Snap is uh trying to make more money. >> It's good news.

3:08:23

I I'm surprised that they haven't done any sort of uh big like AI content licensing deal.

3:08:27

Of course, they deal with perplexity uh to bring AI into the Snapchat product, but uh I it is does Snapchat just not have any data that would be surfaced in an LLM?

3:08:40

Like Reddit seems to have done such a good job with that, but I guess people aren't really reviewing things or discussing things in in textbased formats on Snapchat.

3:08:47

It's it's all kind of just day in the life content.

3:08:50

Uh anyway, um what else is going on?

3:08:52

Uh >> yeah, >> here Jordy, you want to go first? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

3:08:59

So Trump says doesn't see why we can't have 20% or 25% GDP growth.

3:09:02

Says the market should continue to go up with great results.

3:09:10

>> I mean, don't see why we can't have 20% GDP growth because it's like never happened in history. [laughter] Maybe. I don't know. What was what was China? >> He is AGI pilled.

3:09:21

That's extremely AGI pill.

3:09:24

That's >> Doresh has talked about this.

3:09:26

>> Dorash literally has talked about this. [snorts] 25% GDP growth.

3:09:28

The first AGI pill president I suppose.

3:09:31

Let's head over to the >> Apparently China hit 19. 3% in 1970. >> Okay. Yeah.

3:09:38

That is that the great leap forward or something?

3:09:41

>> More recently, more recently 14% uh in 2007.

3:09:44

So >> I think Trump's looking at the data. Leap forward.

3:09:49

Great leap forward was 1960ish.

3:09:51

Um >> Tyler, what do you got?

3:09:54

>> Uh okay, so you guys gave me a month to to write new jokes, but I already wrote some. >> Oh, you got one?

3:09:59

>> Yeah, so these were I did use LM to help, but these are not never before seen.

3:10:04

>> Never before seen by the training.

3:10:04

Get them in the next training.

3:10:06

Did you search them in in Google >> to make sure that? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I looked them up.

3:10:10

These aren't these are branded.

3:10:13

>> Chat's going to verify and I don't want you to get exposed. >> Okay, first one. Ready? Okay.

3:10:16

You're telling me Jerry rigged this car? >> Is that Jerry rigged? >> Jerry rigged car. >> Jerry rigged. That's pretty good. I can't >> That's that.

3:10:26

But that's sort of like the point.

3:10:28

>> It's not a guy named My friend Jerry rigged this car. No. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

3:10:32

It's It's It's pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. >> Okay. Uh second one.

3:10:35

You're telling me a brain washed this cult?

3:10:40

>> Oh, that's [laughter] really good. Oh, yes. That is novel. There we go. That is a great one.

3:10:48

You're telling me it brainwashed this cult.

3:10:50

You need to tweet that right now because that's 100k likes right there. 10k likes. That's barego.

3:10:57

>> Okay, I got I got I got two more.

3:10:57

You're telling me a star crossed these lovers?

3:11:03

>> That's sort of literal.

3:11:03

That's sort of like what it is.

3:11:05

That's sort of what it is. Yes. >> Okay.

3:11:08

Uh you're telling me a tongue tied this boy?

3:11:11

[laughter] That was you got to post all four of those and see and and I would predict that that the brainwashed cult does number one does numbers.

3:11:22

Uh the tongue tied boy also does decent numbers and the other two flop. >> Okay.

3:11:29

I'll I'll tweet them now and then we'll see tomorrow. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

3:11:31

That Yeah, that's a great that's a great test. But >> well done. Well done.

3:11:34

We gave you cult that is novel. That is novel.

3:11:37

And that that's not coming from from any of the LLM. Oh.

3:11:41

Oh, that shrimp fried rice bench is really, really good.

3:11:44

Uh, let's go over to Rune.

3:11:45

He says, "Everyone will go public soon because they finally feel the heat of a well c of well capitalized competition, the wrath of nyan."

3:11:51

Uh, there was no reason to seek enormous amounts of capital.

3:11:55

Until recently, we will see natural interest rates north of 3% in the end of secular stagnation. Everyone's going public.

3:12:03

Oh, in other news, 11 Labs partnering with Meta to power expressive, scalable audio across Instagram, Verizon, and more.

3:12:10

Bringing natural and diverse audio to billions of users.

3:12:14

Also, you got the founder of 11 Labs on the cover of Forbes. Look at that. >> Look at that smile. Look at that smile.

3:12:22

>> Giga Chad filter engaged. >> Yes. Yes.

3:12:24

Not beating the gigachad filter allegations. >> Yes. Yes.

3:12:27

No, he he [clears throat] I mean Forbes headshot photographers, it's a great great product.

3:12:33

This is this is something that's very special.

3:12:35

Uh so congratulations to Mati over at 11 Labs making the cover of Forbes.

3:12:39

That's a huge moment uh for for him and the whole team.

3:12:45

>> Speaking of AI, >> Presidential AI challenge, >> the first lady Melania Trump is introducing the Presidential AI challenge.

3:12:52

Artificial intelligence is America's next competitive edge, driving advancements in your career, supporting your family, and strengthening your community.

3:13:00

I'm sure no one will >> disagree with any of that.

3:13:04

Uh, this is why I launched the Presidential AI challenge, a nationwide call to students and educators to shape America's future.

3:13:11

Teams from all 50 states have already registered. Shape the future.

3:13:13

Be part of the presidential AI challenge today.

3:13:18

What is the presidential AI challenge? >> It's a good question.

3:13:24

Um uh >> the presidential AI challenge will foster interest and expertise in AI in America's use.

3:13:29

Early training in the responsible use of AI tools will demystify this technology and prepare.

3:13:35

>> I think this might be the challenge.

3:13:35

I think the challenge might be to understand the presidential AI challenge.

3:13:40

>> It's like a it's a riddle. This is a riddle.

3:13:42

I think it's a I think it's it's some it's some sort of like, you know, it's shrouded in mystery.

3:13:47

That's the whole goal >> to to test the American people.

3:13:50

Can they understand what it is? >> Okay.

3:13:54

They might never I I think I figured out.

3:13:56

So, there's uh elementary school, middle school, high school. Yeah.

3:14:00

>> And there's challenge projects that uh groups of students will be able to participate in as well as awards and prizes.

3:14:08

Uh hopefully uh solid gold solid gold trophies winners trophies. >> Yeah.

3:14:18

I want to see I want to see the comically large checkbook come out to you know for the winners.

3:14:24

>> Yeah, >> maybe grants to schools.

3:14:26

>> Maybe maybe the exact projects haven't been uh like you know released.

3:14:28

Um >> there actually is a cash prize. >> Sick.

3:14:34

[laughter] >> $10,000 per team.

3:14:36

>> Wait, is it Payton Melaniacoin or Trumpcoin or US dollars? I think or gold or gold? >> I think Trump meme. >> Trump meme. That's right. It's not Trumpcoin. Get it right. It's Trump meme. It's the best.

3:14:48

Okay, here's some >> You also win cloud credits.

3:14:49

That's so >> Okay, that's actually amazing. I love that.

3:14:54

>> A presidential award certificate. So, boom certificate.

3:14:56

You're getting cloud credits.

3:14:58

You're getting 10,000 for your school, homeschool, or community group.

3:15:03

And you're getting $10,000 per team member in the middle school category and the high school category and the educator category. It's >> amazing.

3:15:09

So, uh, I mean, who Tyler, you I guess there's no no college tier >> say you have to go back to school and participate and win.

3:15:20

>> Get a fake ID that says you're 13 [laughter] >> just to go back and dominate the presidential AI challenge. >> Yeah. Yeah.

3:15:29

Well, uh, you know, it's exciting.

3:15:32

Uh, good luck to everyone.

3:15:34

>> Is the presidential fitness challenge back?

3:15:36

>> Did that get, uh, >> has to be back.

3:15:37

They're putting gyms in airports. Of course, of course.

3:15:39

You're gonna have to run a mile if you're an American kid.

3:15:44

>> Uh, according uh >> the first Wait, wait, wait. I didn't see this.

3:15:48

The first child was born in a Whimo.

3:15:51

>> Yeah, according to Avatal. >> Crazy. >> Says Lisan Algib.

3:15:55

>> I mean, that is you are truly the the puppeteer of the silicon intelligence.

3:16:02

If you are born in a Whimo, you merely adopted the Whimo. I was born in it.

3:16:07

[laughter] That is truly the most 2025 story.

3:16:11

>> You merely adopted artificial intelligence.

3:16:13

I was I was born in a way [laughter] born being born in a way.

3:16:15

I mean being born in a taxi cab is like a classic thing that's like that's like been you know described for years but uh soccer and jetty's coming on the show on Friday.

3:16:25

He says I guess that's tomorrow.

3:16:27