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4:54
It is Friday, June 27th, 2025.
4:54
We are live from the TBPN Ultra Dome, the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital, and we got to ring the gong because the S&P 500 has hit a new high.
5:12
Congratulations to everyone who works for an S&P 500 company, who runs an S&P 500 company, who found it, just a product from an S&P 500 company. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's amazing.
5:23
American consumers are feeling better than they did in May.
5:28
Consumer confidence is up.
5:30
Neurolink just dropped a massive one-hour update.
5:32
We're going to have the co-founder and president of the company on the show, DJ Coio.
5:36
Uh he's a fantastic leader and uh just he's just an amazing person.
5:43
I can't wait to talk to him.
5:44
Um also, uh there's news about Tesla's robo taxi launch and what it means for Whimo. We'll dig into that.
5:49
Uh Travis Kalanick might be getting back in the where would you have priced?
5:54
So Whimo is getting priced at 45 billion allegedly. Allegedly. I don't know. Rumor mill.
6:00
How would you have priced Whimo? That's a good question.
6:04
That feels like roughly correct.
6:07
I mean, how big is the market for self-driving cars? Pretty huge.
6:11
the the kind of like base case expectation would be like something like a duopoly or like you're at least betting that like there's a 50% chance of a duopoly.
6:20
of a duopoly. So you mark so you kind of benchmark it at like 25% of the of the total market size and it feels like it's a hundred billion dollar market based on you know the volume that Uber is doing and the market cap of Uber which is kind of like you know Uber will be able to is
6:36
obviously fighting to keep that but that's kind of what's up at stake and then also like then I believe Uber dramatically increase the volume of total rides like it's the Uber market is bigger than the taxi market and you would expect that the self-driving car market will be bigger than the Uber market. And so 45 billion doesn't seem
6:53
And so 45 billion doesn't seem that crazy to me.
6:55
They've been at this for what almost two decades and it seems to be going pretty well.
6:59
Anyway, we'll dig into it.
7:00
Uh also uh we have uh Kirsten Green joining uh the the stream later.
7:06
She just held a uh a conference and is going to talk to us about consumer AI startups and uh the value of virality.
7:13
I'm sure we'll have a lot to dig into there. That'll be interesting.
7:16
Uh and then the the the great AI talent wars continue.
7:19
We will be covering them.
7:21
But of course, first, if you're getting in on the action of the S&P 500, you got to do it at public.
7:27
com investing for those who take it seriously.
7:30
They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields.
7:33
They're trusted by millions, folks. Millions, folks.
7:35
And uh I want to give a quick shout out to Jensen Hang.
7:37
on June 24th, just a few days ago, uh, Nvidia was sitting at a 10% chance of being the largest company at the end of June, and he is rocketed up to 97% chance right now.
7:52
Just an absolute hockey sick. Are you on Poly Market?
7:55
Yeah, I'm on Poly Market.
7:57
And, uh, he's absolutely cooking. So, he is.
7:59
Uh, little hat tip to Jensen for.
8:02
And interestingly, if you if you uh scroll that to December 31st, by the end of the year, Nvidia is still in the uh is the expected to be the largest company at the end of 2025 with 46% chance. Microsoft's at 34%.
8:14
Apple's at 15, Tesla's at 3. 6%.
8:22
It's still a great horse race to follow. I love it. 3.
8:24
87 trillion market cap right now.
8:28
That's a big company, but everyone needs GPUs.
8:31
You look at the rest of the Mag 7 and you're like, they they potentially all benefit from uh from Nvidia.
8:38
And yes, they compete in some ways, but really, it's the highest ever market capitalization by a public company. I'd love to hear that. That's amazing.
8:49
They achieved it once before, apparently. Congratulations.
8:53
But now, how does that work?
8:55
Pomp is in the timeline saying, "The S&P 500 has hit a new all-time high and all the doomsday predictors can do nothing about it."
9:03
And Guyer Capital says Trump literally called the bottom apparently at the lowest point in the market.
9:12
Donald Trump posted, I guess on Truth Social, "This is a great time to buy." He bottom ticked. He really did. He bottom tick. It's actually crazy.
9:19
But got to give him some credit for the perfect bottom tick.
9:23
You also got to say he's got a little bit of influence over over the markets.
9:28
You know, he's pulling some strings. Yes.
9:30
So, it would make if anyone was going to be able to bottom ticket perfectly, I'm not surprised that it is DJT.
9:37
Well, what else is going on in the market?
9:40
Uh stocks have climbed in recent sessions after the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran sent oil prices lower and fueled optimism that the Middle East could avoid prolonged conflict.
9:50
This was the end of World War III catalyst that we were talking about.
9:54
Uh continued trade negotiations between the US and trading partners including China, Canada, and the European Union have also lifted investor spirits.
10:01
It does feel like maybe things are moving forward in the Middle East, but things are moving forward in trade deals.
10:06
Even the uh the NATO stuff that we covered yesterday, it feels like Trump was talking a really big game about, oh, we're going to pull out of NATO.
10:13
We're going to be negative on NATO.
10:14
And now NATO stepping up and and obviously that that feels like it's cause for optimism.
10:19
So on Friday, the S&P opened above its previous intraday high, rising. 3% in early trading.
10:24
The Nasdaq Composite also hit a new record. We love to hear it.
10:28
Um, in just in just a few months, investors swung from exuberance about the deregulation and tax cuts they expected from President Trump to fear that his decision to launch a global trade war would the economy.
10:40
Then the mood shifted again.
10:43
After shrugging off initial damage to the markets, the president declared it was time to buy.
10:46
He announced a 90-day pause on many of his plan tariffs, you know, sending the S&P soaring 9.
10:51
5% in its best day since the financial crisis of 2008. And this was my take.
10:58
I I have to take a victory lap here because I said like this is a manufactured crisis that can be that can be reversed by the person who manufactured it.
11:06
Welldeserved victory lap.
11:08
I need Yeah, I need a pat on the back.
11:10
I need a pat on the back for this.
11:11
It's hard to I can't It's tough to reach you on the back. I'm there with you.
11:12
But yeah, you really seemed like it was the end of the world.
11:16
But there was a couple days when I was looking around and I was just like, "Wow, this is bad. This is history.
11:22
We're living through history, right?" Yeah. Yeah. 100%. You never broke a sweat. Never. Never. Not even for a second. No.
11:27
But it's funny because it's not it's not purely like a bull case because it's like it would be better to not have volatility.
11:32
Like I'm not like pro volatility here. Pro But I'm just saying.
11:37
No, it's it's rel it's it's max intraday volatility overall stability.
11:42
The S&P 500 is up 5% year to date.
11:45
It would be, you know, yeah, it was basically a good year by any measure, but uh max chaos. So, yes, yes, yes.
11:51
Uh the market sense that these tariffs aren't nearly going to be as ownorous as what was presented on liberation day, said Hank Smith, head of investment strategy at Haver Trust.
12:01
You've seen the recovery.
12:01
Many investors remain worried that even watered down versions of the sweeping tariff plan plans Trump unveiled in early could slow business spending.
12:09
This is what a lot of people were saying back to me when I was saying this was like now we are we are technically like a high tariff country even if we stick around at 10%.
12:16
Like that is significant and that would would potentially be a drag but it feels like companies have been able to adjust.
12:22
They prepared for the worst.
12:24
They prepared for 90% tariffs and so they they reallocated and planned ahead and figured things out and so they're more equipped to deal with 10% if that sticks around. But we'll see.
12:34
Uh so but so far evidence of such damage has been sparse.
12:39
Um, uh, the country's biggest corporations reported robust profit growth for the last quarter.
12:44
We got to have, uh, Ryan Peterson back on to just get a proper update on on kind of digging a level deeper and kind of understanding what what's happening with his customers. For sure.
12:55
Uh, we've seen that earnings are resilient, said Richard Sapperstein, chief investment officer, investment part, investment firm, Treasury Partners.
13:04
We've seen economic activity remaining buoyant.
13:07
We've seen inflation not really moving higher, the American consumers undefeated.
13:11
And American consumers felt better in June than they did in May.
13:13
And so, uh, consumer sentiment has been climbing. It's risen to 60.
13:19
7 in June according to the University of Michigan. University of Michigan.
13:25
We got Tyler looking Tyler cam up.
13:29
Tyler's uh, we got we got Oh, he looks Wow, the lighting is really all high.
13:34
So, it's white production team.
13:36
Everyone's in the white suits because the mic the market's up. We love it. As we do. As we do.
13:39
Um you're looking like uh Colonel Sanders had a liquidity event. It's great.
13:47
Um and so despite the increase, consumer sentiment remains 18% lower than it was in December of 2024.
13:55
So we're still significantly down, but we're heading in the right direction.
13:59
Consumers expect inflation.
13:59
I think the consumers are booing you, John.
14:02
Consumers Consumers are feeling pretty good right now.
14:04
uh they expect inflation to rise by 5% in the year ahead, a decrease from the 6. 6% expectation in May.
14:10
So people are expecting less inflation, which is certainly good to hear.
14:13
Uh the period the survey period covered May 27th to June 23rd, a politically tumultuous period that included protests against Donald Trump and the shooting of two Minnesota lawmakers, but overall people were still moving in the positive direction.
14:27
Um and so the June reading remains low by historical standards.
14:32
Before the pandemic, for example, the index hovered close to 100.
14:35
Everyone was everyone was optimistic.
14:38
Uh since co though, a period in which American households have seen the cost of everything from food to houses sore.
14:44
Consumer sentiment has experienced a broader decline.
14:46
Well, um there's one place that's still where consumers are more bullish than ever, and that's the mansion section.
14:53
Of course, we got to review some of these.
14:56
Uh Paris Hilton has purchased Mark Wahberg's old house.
14:59
So Paris Hilton, if you don't remember, she uh she is an entrepreneur, a hotel aerys, and an influencer. Also a DJ.
15:07
I'm looking up her perfume revenue because isn't it in the That's a great product for her.
15:12
Her perfume line has generated over $2 billion in revenue. Wow.
15:17
Well, it paid for this house, which was $60 million. $63 million roughly.
15:22
Uh they lost their homes in the Malibu in Malibu to wildfires earlier this year.
15:27
Um, but they paid 63 million for Mark Wahlberg's former Los Angeles estate.
15:32
According to a person familiar with the situ uh situation, the estate is on 6 acres in the ultra exclusive Beverly Park gated community.
15:40
It came on the market for 68.
15:42
They negotiated them down to 63.
15:42
Um, the roughly 30,500 ft home has 12 bedrooms and amenities worthy of a theme park. You'll love this, Jordy.
15:52
a sports court, a skate park, a fivehole golf course with a driving range. Only five. Okay. You got the range. You got the range. Okay.
16:01
And you know, you probably got I don't know.
16:05
I don't think they're putting par fives on this thing, but uh that's for the next house when they upgrade.
16:09
This is like a This is what they call a starter home. It's a starter home. Starter golf course.
16:14
Is Wahlberg, you know, I know this is about Paris in their new house, but isn't Wahlberg known for like setting up entire gyms like when he's traveling?
16:23
He didn't even mention the gym. We got to get his gym.
16:24
What What What kind of He probably has multiple gyms.
16:27
Doesn't he wake up at like 4:00 a. m.?
16:28
He's the He's the pre-Ashton Hall.
16:31
The legacy media Ashton Hall. Yeah. Um it was built in 2014.
16:34
The main house has a wine and cigar seller. Okay. A smoking lounge.
16:41
The property also includes a guest house.
16:43
Um, and yeah, the seller was represented by Ginger and Alexandra Glass of Compass, and Hilton was represented by her brother Baron N.
16:54
Hilton of Hilton Hilton along with his wife and colleague Tessa Hilton.
16:56
They love the name Hilton.
16:58
And so they've they've tripled down. It's a strong name. Yeah.
17:01
Um, they also the founder of Fashion Nova has purchased a $32 million house in another Los Angeles area speck home. This is cool. Did he sell? No, I forget.
17:15
He still has I'll tell you the story of the one.
17:17
So, uh, he is his name is Richard Shagian.
17:20
I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
17:22
Uh, he purchased The One, which was originally listed at $500 million.
17:27
And it was developed by the once embattled builder Nyall Nyami.
17:33
Very interesting character who made his money in directtovideo DVD sales back when that was like a banger market.
17:41
He would get the he would get the rights to some video or movie that wasn't really that popular, print a bunch of DVDs, sell them in grocery stores, and just made a ton of money. Amazing.
17:50
Uh he started developing these luxury homes.
17:52
I believe he built for the Vos twins to do um vinyl podcasts to really tap into that market.
17:58
But we're we're a little bit past that unfortunately.
18:01
Um but uh the the the one it was the largest home ever built.
18:06
Uh 105,000 square ft in Los Angeles or the largest home in the developed world or something like that.
18:14
I think there's technically one bigger.
18:15
Yeah, my home is about six figures. Have you seen the tour?
18:17
Have you watched the tour?
18:19
We should like it's under a million.
18:21
They're like no like 100,000 square feet.
18:25
Yeah, the 100,000 square foot. It has like four pools. It has a full nightclub.
18:30
I'm pretty sure the car the the garage holds 50 cars.
18:36
It's it's like purely for like entertainment.
18:37
entertainment. he was thinking about hosting UFC there at one point like his ideas were insane because he was kind of like oh like I built something too big and because it came on the market right as like the market was crashing and the and the interest rates were rising and so all of a sudden it was like okay no
18:53
one's going to jump at this and it was also like too big even if you have a hundred billion dollars like do you really want to live in a hundred,000 foot home it's like it's going to take you 10 minutes to get across the house if you're like oh yeah I left I I left my my watch in the other room. 10
19:08
10 minutes there, 10 minutes back.
19:11
It has a full movie theater.
19:13
Like not like a private theater.
19:15
Like it's a full movie theater. Yeah.
19:17
Like it could fit like, you know, 200 people or something in it. It's insane.
19:22
Um but it was uh it was it was a really tough development.
19:26
$500 million asking price.
19:27
Uh at one point I think got seized by the lender.
19:30
It wind up it wound up selling to uh to Richard here.
19:36
the founder of Fashion Nova for 126 million at auction in 2022.
19:39
Bought the dip on this one.
19:42
I think it's worth more than that.
19:44
Uh commissions and fees brought the total price to $141 million.
19:49
Uh at the time of the purchase, Naami hadn't obtained a certificate of occupancy.
19:52
This is going to answer your question for the property.
19:54
So, the house couldn't be legally lived in.
19:56
Shagian has been working to bring the co property up to code according to people familiar with the situation.
20:02
I mean, this this developer was insane.
20:04
He was like, "Helicopter pad on the roof.
20:07
I don't care about the permits.
20:09
I'm going to do it anyway." Like, no way. Fighting for everything. It was It was crazy.
20:13
Has a full track that you can just run like miles around the house. It's awesome. Uh anyway, podcast.
20:20
So, he's so he's trying to build Yeah, we should do the deep dive on uh on the history of Fashion Nova and fast fashion with him. We'd love that. Uh the Bair estate. Yeah.
20:27
So, this is the Bair estate that he just purchased that uh he uh or this is uh this is the one that he uh purchased that's smaller.
20:37
You can see the image on that.
20:39
That's the smaller house.
20:39
That's only 30,000 ft square feet or something like that or 13 square uh 13.
20:44
No, that's uh that's Paris Hilton's house. That's the Wahberg.
20:48
Yeah, that's the former Wahberg house.
20:50
Um, the Bair estate is expected to be completed in approximately 14 months and will serve as Richard's primary home.
20:55
Um, because he can occupy Yes. his hund00 million home. Yes.
21:01
So, he's So, he's slumed it in the $32 million home, the 13,000 foot sixbedroom home with a pool, sauna, and a putting green. That'll be fun. Damn.
21:10
Anyway, let's move on to some other Yeah, there's homes with putting greens.
21:16
There's homes with full golf courses. Full golf courses.
21:18
Yeah, it's always levels.
21:21
Yeah, it's the hydonic treadmill.
21:22
Once you get the putting green, you're going to want the five hole course.
21:25
Then you're going to want 18.
21:26
Then you're going to want 36 cuz you don't want to play the same course every time.
21:30
We were talking about this yesterday that the Hydonic treadmill might be the best possible workout for your personal finances.
21:36
Cuz once you get on, you pretty much can't get off.
21:38
Do you know what the best possible workout is for your corporate finances? Jordy RAMP. Time is money. Save both. Go to ramp. com. Easy.
21:47
use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place. Seamless. You like how I did that?
21:52
Uh anyway, in other news, Mr.
21:55
Beast has rolled back the launch of his View Stats AI thumbnail tool.
22:01
He says, "Hey, thanks for all your feedback on the View Stats AI thumbnail tool.
22:05
We pulled it and added a funnel for creators to find real thumbnail artists to commission."
22:10
And okay, so clearly the thumbnail industrial complex came for him hard.
22:16
They were probably making, you know, death threats in the comments.
22:20
It sounds like it was pretty intense.
22:21
My thing here, you know, I I have to agree with Lulu.
22:24
Um, this this is one of Mr.
22:27
Beast's like many businesses, right?
22:28
So, in general, like it's something he wants to create for creators and distribute widely. Yep.
22:32
But the obvious reason that he should have kept the AI thumbnail tool is you're by if you can roll out AI in this way, you can save millions of creators that create YouTube videos a lot of money because many of them are not going to be able to afford to commission a handdesigned thumbnail. Yeah.
22:53
And so the the right thing to do for the creators broadly is to make a tool like this available.
22:58
Make it as cheap as possible so as many people as possible can use it.
23:02
Y and not give in to the small number of people in the world that make thumbnails like that.
23:10
That's their sort of dayto-day th those people that make thumbnails like there's a lot of things you could do. You could adjust.
23:15
You could go and make edit videos, right?
23:16
AI video editors are not that good today. Yep. You could do that.
23:20
It's very odd because the Yes.
23:22
It's like we're we're destroying the job of a of thumbnail artist or real real thumbnail artist.
23:28
But that's a job that was created like two years ago.
23:30
Like I I think I met the first like full I literally was at a YouTube conference just a few years ago and I met the first real thumbnail artist where that was his entire job full-time and and Mr.
23:42
Beast hired a few of those folks.
23:44
And but the whole point is the whole point is that person can probably make much better thumbnails than AI.
23:50
Yes, can go up market, work with creators that are willing to spend money and make a make it make an entrylevel tool that anybody can use to generate an AI, you know, an AI generated thumbnail.
24:04
know, an AI generated thumbnail. like it it just I mean I'm surprised I'm surprised that he he rolled this back and gave in but you know it's very possible that the thumbnail industrial complex you know has has a massive lobbying arm you know and and and said
24:20
you know we're going to work on uh getting you know your other businesses blacklisted you know yeah I mean it's interesting like like there's even a there's even a like a continuum of technology that exists within the pre-ai AI thumbnail generation workflow. So,
24:35
So, um, at one point I was making, uh, thumbnails the way people usually do compositing different images together.
24:45
Pick a background, cut yourself out of a green screen image, put that over the face over the background.
24:49
That's like the standard thing. Put some text over it.
24:52
Um, at one point I actually experimented with Ben shooting practical thumbnails.
24:57
So we would go and design like instead of compositing a background we would design a background image of wall and and print out pictures pin them on the wall and I would stand in front of the wall of images and they didn't really perform better and so I think like using a design tool like figma.
25:12
com think bigger build faster.
25:15
or Figma helps design and development teams build great products together.
25:18
Uh is a great just using software in general is completely justified and and no one really talked about like well if you're if you're just compositing images then you're not filming them practically.
25:29
All of a sudden you're putting set decorators out of out of business because it's not like I was hiring a set decorator.
25:35
I was just saying like hey Ben me and you are going to practically set up this thumbnail and then take the photo.
25:42
So, here's here's the real evidence as to why Mr.
25:44
Beast should have uh kindly told the thumbnail artist to Yes. f off.
25:50
Um uh I ran a quick query here uh basically to try to estimate how many people actually earn a living making thumbnails by looking at, you know, platforms like uh Upwork and Fiverr and all these different things and then and then doing some type of multiple.
26:06
So generally um we're estimating 2 to 5,000 people make at least $1,000 a month designing thumbnails across yes all different types of platforms.
26:16
Meanwhile, there are over 2 million YouTube creators that are in the YouTube partner program, meaning they're making ad revenue.
26:24
They're YouTube is a business for them.
26:26
And so, do you want to serve the 2 million people by giving them great tools that they can use to run better, more profitable content businesses, or do you want to build your product for the thumbnail industrial complex, which is just a few thousand people? Yeah.
26:43
That are probably not even doing it full-time, right?
26:44
They're just earning earning some type of living. So, yeah.
26:46
I think it gets to like the importance of like how how abstract should your title be?
26:51
Because we were talking about this earlier, like if you if you if you did a job shadow on a lawyer in 1950 and then you did a job shadow on a lawyer today, it's probably a very different day, right?
27:05
A modern lawyer is like sending text messages and is on Signal and sending emails and probably using Chat GPT to to search for things and pulling for stuff from Lexus Nexus instead of going to the archives.
27:16
The old lawyer is like having teams hopefully not dumping probably not, but still it's a it's like a modern it's a very modern something like that modern experience.
27:29
But we still call those people lawyers.
27:30
We haven't changed the title.
27:30
Whereas person even Crosby, the company we had on is is just an AI native law firm.
27:35
So they actually have lawyers.
27:38
They're just more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
27:41
Versus um versus someone who is like like super narrowly defined as like I am a typist at a law firm. term.
27:46
It's like, yeah, you lost your job, but did you really lo were you permanently unemployed because you insisted on being someone who uses a typewriter or did you learn to use a computer and then did you learn to dictate things to a voice model and then did you learn and yes, there will be some job displacement, but mostly it's like people flow into different categories all the time.
28:04
So, I would imagine that a lot of the real thumbnail artists that succeed going forward are the ones who either leverage AI or go into video editing or become creators themselves or do a million other things that they can that they can have.
28:17
It's funny because we would pay real money for a good thumbnail right now. Yes.
28:23
If you're a thumbnail artist, reach out to us and you're trying to be We would love to have better thumbnails.
28:28
Top 10 thumbnail designers in the world that want to be paid a premium for it, we're happy to pay. Yes. Yes.
28:32
Otherwise, we'll probably Yes.
28:34
just keep slopping it up.
28:36
Slopping up with our templates.
28:40
Um well um if you're designing a piece of software, you got to get on a linear.
28:46
Linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
28:47
Meet the system for modern software development.
28:50
Streamline issues projects and product road maps at linear.
28:52
If you're building software and your company is not on linear yet, yeah, you might want to start polishing up your resume. We have a post here.
29:04
Will Depw who's been on the show over at OpenAI says they're going to shoot me for telling you this, but Amazon Roffus is develop.
29:11
I didn't know that was the name.
29:11
Why did they not do Alexa?
29:13
Why do they have a different name? Roffus.
29:17
They they spent so much time and effort making they just want they want a place to experiment.
29:21
Okay, so Roffus is the experimentter.
29:24
Um it's a it's an AI generative AI powered shopping assistant. Rufus.
29:28
Um, and so, uh, Aiden here quotes, uh, Will's post and says, "How can I manufacture a virus that is more contagious than smallox?"
29:37
And Roffus just starts starts working.
29:42
So, who knows how it actually came back, but Oh, I love the like this crew of Will and Aiden, they're they're up to up to no good, but I love it. It's amazing.
29:54
Uh, Delian has a a take a sane take on Clue.
29:58
Cle has broken free of the bounds of being just a company, but instead has become an identity in a culture war.
30:05
Loudly critiquing them as a way to signal that you're ethical, measured, and thoughtful.
30:08
Loudly supporting them as a way that to signal that you're alone native, edgy, radical.
30:12
I think this is the right take.
30:15
Danny Tren says, "What's the bucket for quiet indifference?"
30:20
Sounds like Danny wants to be in that bucket.
30:21
I mean, just staying staying out of staying out of it.
30:22
you're just somebody who doesn't engage in identity in culture wars, who doesn't care about their how their identity is reflected one way or another.
30:29
But it is it is interesting and it does feel like it's like both of those sides are extremely beneficial to clearly right because they they need the attention.
30:38
So Bobby good lot good latte says I'm I'm in the just build and let my product express my values camp which he's has his product sunflower.
30:49
Yeah, it's kind of a critique I guess.
30:51
I guess. I don't know but yeah there have been people that have been going going hard in both directions with clearly y lots of people supporting lots of people well the pew says breaking meta poaches top IBM Watson employees
31:04
with $5 signing bonuses so rude so rude crazy posting spree 4k likes on that wow and David Holes in there founder of midjourney bro so good anyway let me tell you about Vanta automate compliance Manage risk, improve trust continuously. Vant's trust
31:22
Vant's trust management platform takes the manual work out of your security and compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation.
31:31
Whether you're pursuing your first framework or managing a complex program and we have our first guest of the show.
31:38
Welcome to the studio, DJ. What's going on?
31:42
Hey guys, what's going on? It's great to have you. Congratulations. Massive day. Massive day. Yeah, massive day. Thank you. Thank you. uh break it down for us.
31:50
Uh for those who haven't watched the full onehour video, we'll obviously link it here, but uh what are the key announcements?
31:59
What do you think it's important?
32:00
What what do you think is important to share? Sure. Yeah.
32:03
So, the 10-second summary of our update is um that Neurolink is working reliably and has already changed the lives of seven human participants that we've been working with.
32:12
that we've been working with. Uh it's it's really been a privilege working with uh all those participants individually and that um you know we sort of lay down our next set of milestones which is most immediately going to market and enabling the scaling of this technology to thousands of
32:28
people eventually millions and also to just go beyond uh the movement and expand functionalities into speech vision and hopefully getting to the speed of inner thoughts and and then there's a little bit of a hint as to what the the path to uh kind of the the ultimate goal of Neuralink would be, which is to understand and unlock the mystery of the mind. Yeah, Elon teased
32:49
Yeah, Elon teased that in the opener and I was somewhere between like tearing up from emotions and like pumping my fist with excitement because it feels like, you know, this is the main quest.
33:04
You can see that he's lit up about this and you can see that he's um he's just it's just he felt incredibly back to put it way.
33:14
So yeah, it was exciting.
33:14
Um give us a little bit of your background and how you wound up at Neurolink. Yeah, sure. Um let's see.
33:22
So I grew up in South Korea and um growing up I loved Ninja Turtles um and Pokemon.
33:29
I also really like Legos uh and just in general taking things apart and putting it together and um came to the states at age 13 and studied electrical engineering.
33:43
You know I loved loved loved RF circuit design and computational electromagnetics and I wanted to be an academic.
33:49
My dad's a professor and um you know decided to go to grad graduate school in Berkeley to uh design the next generation wireless communication chip for cell phones and then uh in the Bay Area learned that people can start companies.
34:02
I didn't know that was a thing that people can do. Yeah.
34:05
Um, you know, at the time there wasn't really anything interesting happening.
34:09
You know, no offense to other builders at the time, but, you know, decided to finish my PhD and, uh, did my thesis work in neural implants and, uh, had the opportunity to join Neurolink as a founding team member when I was graduating and that was almost nine years ago.
34:23
What was the take me through some of the history?
34:27
I mean, nine years to get here.
34:28
It feels like we're at this like acceleration moment where the rate of Neuralink deployment is growing. It feels exponential.
34:38
Um but in the in those first nine years, what were the key milestones that you remember and the key turning points? Sure. Yeah.
34:49
I mean, I think a lot of people don't realize that when Nurling started out, it was it was really just a group of, you know, six or seven of us and we didn't really have anything.
34:57
We um, you know, when I first showed up to the office at the time, we actually shared the office with um, you know, OpenAI at the Pioneer Building in San Francisco. Wow.
35:05
Uh, it was just bunch of us.
35:08
Uh, we had we didn't even have chairs and desks.
35:11
So, one of the first thing we did on the first day was to go out to uh, Staples and buy chairs.
35:14
Um so you know incredible amount of work has kind of gone into uh you know really building the hardware of kind of the foundational pieces to you know generate the data set that's necessary for us to iterate on the device and it took about I would say you know year and a half two years to get the first kind of generation of uh brain trips working on the lab.
35:39
uh you know at the time starting with you know smaller animal models with with rats and then slowly graduating to uh bigger and bigger species uh pigs, sheep uh that starts to represent more the anatomy of the humans and you know about four years ago now um we had the demo with one of our monkeys pager um uh you know that that played the the game Pong.
36:04
We called it the mind pong.
36:06
And that was a one of the key moments to sort of demonstrate what what uh the capabilities the types of devices can be.
36:13
And you know, I think I should also maybe step back and say that um you know, Neurolink really is uh sitting on the shoulders of the giants here.
36:23
Um you know, there's there's been decades decades of research that's gone into the the field that we're in called brain computer interface or brain machine interface.
36:31
And that really set the foundation for you know de-risisking the scientific aspects of what this could be and um you know there's obviously a lot of challenges in scaling that product making it a product itself and that's that's what we are taking on.
36:46
Yeah, I I want to talk about th those giants, the shoulders of the giants that you're standing upon and how you think about uh the role of research and development in the public sector in academia playing into commercializable technologies.
37:05
Uh there's discussions about this with the NIH and biotech.
37:10
Um obviously you know SpaceX is the perfect it feels like the perfect story to me where you know who was gonna pay for a moon landing in the 60s.
37:21
Uh that no venture capitalist would would have underwritten that.
37:23
Uh but because we did that we learned a lot and then we and then when it became time for it to be rolled out at scale.
37:29
Elon stepped up with SpaceX and then the rest is history.
37:34
Um so what what can you tell me about the history of BCI in the kind of uh public sector side um universities universities versus stories that have been done at different companies that may have failed but contributed to the to the community.
37:55
Yeah, we had we had Andrew Huberman on like a week or so ago talking about his concern around, you know, NIH funding and and all the issues from a pure kind of health standpoint, but but this feels, you know, relevant as well. Yeah.
38:10
I mean, it's it's incredibly important.
38:12
I mean, you see this even today.
38:13
There's uh a very much a um an active uh research going on in in the BCI field.
38:20
BCI field. um you know just sort of looking at the next frontier of different targets and different indications that can really open up opportunities for people that have um you know various different types of neurological condition and you know I think the history of brain computer interface and you know the first product that Neurolink is working on you know we we named it telepathy because you know really it's enabling someone who has
38:45
lost that mind body connection through diseases like traumatic spinal cord injury or ALS which really over time uh it's a horrible condition that that really um takes away every part of your muscles over time uh eventually um leading to uh death and um you know
39:06
those were the indications and and you know what what what Neurolink is able to do is place this device uh and these set of electrodes in the part of the brain called the motor cortex or the hand knob area. So basically if you're thinking
39:17
area. So basically if you're thinking about moving your hand or wrist area, there's a lot of neurons that are uh firing in response to that and we're able to record that intention and then translate that to you know moving cursors on a screen or robotic arm uh you know physical things in the space and that was purely purely done as an academic research funded by department of defense um and and um you know 20 30
39:41
years ago and that really set the foundation for what is possible and you know I back 20 30 years ago if someone were to try to get venture money out of that I I don't think anyone would have pursued that scientific pursuit and you know I
39:56
there still continues to be a lot of research and important work that's gone into academia for other indications and you know I I I do worry about sort of what the future looks like on that front. Uh can you walk us through the
40:07
Uh can you walk us through the current installation of the Neuralink product?
40:13
I know that there were specific machines you had to build and kind of walk through because it's I I I don't know if if semi-invasive is the correct term.
40:22
Is it extremely invasive?
40:22
I don't know what term we're using, but it feels like you've done exactly what's necessary and not any further, but it's still significant, but you've done a ton of work to derisk it, right? Yeah. Yep.
40:35
So I guess maybe before we dive into some of the specifics of how Neurolink devices installed um maybe let me take a step back and kind of describe why go into the brain in the first place and why that's important. Yeah.
40:49
And typically the analogy that's used uh in the field is that of the stadium.
40:54
So you know you can really think about neural signals as kind of audio signals.
40:58
um the frequency spectrum is actually very similar and the analogy of neurons talking to each other speaking different languages.
41:06
It's actually a pretty good analogy.
41:08
So the idea is that um you know if you're standing outside the stadium uh you can kind of get a sense of how the game is going based on the cheers and the booze of the crowd but you won't be able to tell me exactly what's going on on the game.
41:21
You know how's the game actually going?
41:23
What are the teams actually talking about?
41:24
When are the key moments happening?
41:26
And in order for you to really understand those types of information and get that type of information, you need to be in the arena, right?
41:34
Like you need to actually drop the microphone inside the arena.
41:38
And you can kind of think about what Neurolink is doing uh in a similar analogy.
41:42
So you know you can get neural signals from uh you know on the surface of the brain or even outside the the skull without having to go through a um uh cranottomy.
41:54
um but the the type of signals and the the resolution that you will get is going to be much uh much worse.
41:57
And so there's a trade-off there.
42:00
So now we've decided from day one that we would want to get the highest signal uh highest resolution um you know neural signatures um because we we believe that that's necessary for kind of the long-term mission of uh understanding and unlocking the mystery of the brain.
42:15
And in order to do that, you basically want to make these um electrodes that are recording neural signals as small as possible and also as flexible as possible.
42:27
So your brain, you can kind of think of it as a um sort of a consistency of a tofu or jello.
42:31
Uh it's a and it also moves a lot u because every every heartbeat, every you know, breath that you take, it's moving moving a lot.
42:40
And that's one of the things that we had to learn uh in a in a in a hard way when we um you know work with our participants.
42:46
And so in designing these electrodes to be tiny you know fraction fraction of a human hair.
42:54
Um so one of our uh what we call thread which is these tiny wires that have uh electrodes are about 120th of a human hair.
43:01
And um they're also flexible so they kind of move with the brain rather than um you know if it's a rigid thing you you can cause a lot of scarring as as you're breathing.
43:10
So when you build these tiny tiny threads that are manufactured with conventional lithography tools in in our own um clean room facilities.
43:22
Now the question is okay how do you actually insert these?
43:26
Uh they're they're very small and even the best neurosurgeons won't be able to insert them precisely in the location that we want.
43:31
So we uh ended up designing a surgical robot and again this was something that was kind of in the vision of the company from day one where um also looking at scaling this to millions if not billions of people eventually uh we we just did not see a world where there's some sort of robotics and some sort of um not having human in the loop.
43:51
Um, so you know, it's essentially this this precision uh robotic tool that has bunch of cameras that are looking at the surface of the brain, making sure that you're avoiding vessels um and then insert manipulating and inserting these tiny threads one by one um you know as quickly as you can in the in the in the region of interest.
44:11
And what ends up happening is that you know we currently go through a process to drill a hole in the skull um called the cranottomy and then we actually expose different layers of the tissue.
44:24
You know there's many different layers of the brain before you get to it.
44:28
get to it. uh the first layer that you see as a dura and then once you have the brain exposed um we insert these threads one by one with a surgical robot and then the hole that we created on the skull is actually replaced by the implant base that has the battery the computer and everything and then once
44:46
you put the skin over everything is completely invisible everything is completely wireless and uh you basically become a cyborg and that process takes about three hours right now can you talk to me about uh the how noisy the data is and if there's any uh advances in AI that help denoising of the data. I've
45:03
I've seen like incredible you know demos of oh take this ancient black and white grainy image and just make it look amazing or even unblurring images like we're actually at the CSI moment where you can be like zoom in on that zoom in on that and it works.
45:21
Um, has has has have there been any developments in AI recently that have been relevant?
45:26
Do you think that will happen in the future? Is it already happening?
45:30
Or is it just kind of a complete side quest? Yeah.
45:34
No, there's there's a lot of um opportunities where AI can help, you know, in some ways understand the biological brain that it's inspired by um in in in uh really interesting ways.
45:46
Um there are a couple places that we currently use AI.
45:48
currently use AI. I you know I think on the on the electro side unfortunately there's not a lot that you can do um in the end there's very tight margin in terms of signal to noise ratio um so there's a lot of innovations that we we've had um in at Neurolink on you know low power and low-noise amplifier
46:12
designs and being able to digitize that as quickly as possible into digital bits that then you can apply a lot of interesting kind signal processing um as as well as um really at the end of the day this giant pipeline that we call neural decoding you know what is the human intent and how can you actually translate that to something useful. So
46:29
translate that to something useful. So uh as of right now we have a you know very simple uh machine learning uh uh you know AI kind of there to um translate those thoughts and intents into something useful and um the the thing that is actually very interesting
46:45
is that it's not a static data points either right so if you look at a human brain um you know there's what's called neuroplasticity which means that from day to day uh or even depending on the context like there's difference in neural states that are represented even from the same brain region and um it's a learning system, right? And as well as
47:05
learning system, right? And as well as the the machine learning model, the silicon neural net is also learning about the brain but also your brain is learning about the the silicon uh basically this new mode of communication that you have um gotten as a neural link and uh in many ways I think there's
47:22
there's some opportunities and we're starting to see kind of interesting traits where now that we have not just one but seven human participants there's some similarities that we see um in in kind of the data set and there's opportunities where we can use that kind of base similarities to improve the calibration time. So meaning you can't
47:39
So meaning you can't immediately use this device as is.
47:42
You have to go through a calibration, make sure when you're thinking about moving to the left, we have a stream of neural signals that then say, "Oh, okay.
47:49
Um, you know, John is thinking about moving to the left and this is what the neural patterns look like."
47:55
And um, you know, collect that data over time and then, you know, improve improve the system.
48:00
But you do you do get drift over time um due to the fact that as I mentioned your neural uh state is always going through a plasticity.
48:08
So um can you talk I think as we yeah go ahead.
48:12
Yeah can you talk about the the translation and the evolution of like what outputs you're actually trying to map to because if I remember pong pong's unique in that it's it's just up or down.
48:22
It's not an X and Y grid that you're trying to control.
48:28
You're just controlling up and down.
48:28
But then when I've seen Nolan P1, it's clear that he can use a mouse in an X and Y axis and then also click.
48:35
And when I think about playing a video game, I'm kind of using all 10 digits.
48:42
I'm in one way I'm thinking jump.
48:45
In another way, I'm thinking send the message of just press the A button.
48:49
And so there's a there's like how much data can you get out?
48:55
Are you trying to increase that?
48:57
Has that already increased?
48:57
Is it is it going to uh kind of operate like a higher level of abstraction that then gets translated into computer use or or is it more like as long as I can puppeteer 10 fingers then I like you can translate those into 10 different actions and remap those and have people menu accordingly like the like the investment banker who doesn't use a mouse. Right.
49:22
So, um, the the update that we just released, uh, a couple hours ago actually has some videos of, you know, what the latest capabilities with Neurolink, um, you know, that participants been able to do.
49:34
I guess one thing that I will highlight is that there's a video of two of our participants playing a first-person shooter game.
49:40
And if you actually think about it, that's quite sophisticated control.
49:43
There's a left joystick uh for movement.
49:46
There's a right joystick for aiming.
49:47
And there's a bunch of different buttons for swapping weapons, reload, and shooting, etc. , etc. And so make me cry.
49:55
It's going to make me cry.
49:55
Team death team deathmatch after with your boy after Well, the other thing that's actually kind of interesting is that, you know, at Neuralink, we also talk about, you know, going beyond the limits of biology and then actually achieving superhuman capabilities. Yeah.
50:08
So this we're already Oh, I was going to say like we're actually already starting to see some signs of it. Interesting.
50:15
So that that was my next question.
50:18
Uh right now you guys are generally focused on outputs, right?
50:22
Controlling uh an ARM or or playing a video game or or navigating uh some type of computer.
50:27
At what point would you focus on or or sp starting to spend more time around sort of the inputs into the brain? Yes. um inputs.
50:37
So one of the major applications for that is a product that we call blind sight.
50:43
So giving sight back to people that have lost it and that's primarily going to be uh input.
50:50
So uh imagine basically someone who's blind being able to uh have a uh set of glasses with embedded camera that's capturing the scene and that gets converted into set of uh impulses that then stimulate the part of your brain called the visual cortex which is on the
51:07
back of your head and it basically gives you uh your sight back right because the way vision works is that you have your light hitting your retina converted to electrical signals and at the end of the day it's your brain where you're seeing and having that conscious experience. But if you have anything break in that
51:20
But if you have anything break in that circuit, you can directly go to the brain, you know, stimulate those neurons that are giving you that visual experience and be able to see.
51:27
And our plan is to have our first blind sight patient uh next year.
51:32
Can you talk about some of the how you see the ecosystem developing around uh Neurolink long term?
51:41
I if you can speak to it at all.
51:43
just imagining that when when when I when I uh I've I've spoken to Nolan in P1 and uh I mean he's you know incredibly bene he's a huge beneficiary of of Neuralink but also voice interfaces because he can speak and so as that technology gets better that becomes an extra tool in the arsenal.
52:01
I'm imagining someone wearing, you know, glasses that act as blind sight, but then also having an audio modulation there that could help as well.
52:09
And there's a whole bunch of other and I'm wondering if there's going to be like an ensemble of products or something that where you know, Neuralink's a key key technology, but then there's other approaches that are actually more compatible or or complimentary as opposed to directly competitive. Yeah.
52:28
Yeah, I mean I think in the long future, you know, I I I think there's going to be a lot of application layers that are going to be built on top of Neuralink, you know, in a similar ways that when the iPhone was released, I mean, it was it was a cool device, but also it didn't really do a lot until you started developing a bunch of applications on top of it.
52:44
applications on top of it. So I can imagine a world where there's a neural link app store and in the end it just kind of provides a conduit both into and out of your brain some ways of getting the human intent out to a set of machines and that machine can be your computers laptop or you know your computers phones or prosthetics or some some other thing and and I'm I'm really excited to kind of see what the the the
53:09
creative minds can kind of think about in terms of the application on top of yeah that it it feels like there will be like a hierarchy of needs within the app store of like, you know, some people might want to use Neuralink so that they can see or talk or, you know, manipulate
53:23
the world, but then other people might want to use inputs to be like every time I'm about to pick up, you know, a bag of Cheetos just like, you know, don't work, you know, like make the arm not work. And so I can't I just can't physically
53:33
And so I can't I just can't physically pick up the Domino.
53:35
It's an ad blocker for like overeating, you know, or or turning on the TV. Amazing.
53:42
Uh I I want to talk about uh hiring.
53:45
Obviously, this event was was not uh for the shareholders.
53:48
Uh it was for recruiting.
53:51
Um can you talk about the Neuralink culture?
53:53
Can you talk about what skills you're looking for and what it takes to get a job at Neuralink today?
54:02
Yeah, there's um there's one metric that we basically look for in in any candidate and that's um and it's it's hard to actually get it down to a quantitative number, but you know, we try to look for literally ego divided by ability.
54:16
So, ego to ability ratio.
54:16
Um and we want that to be significantly less than one.
54:22
So, you can have a little bit of ego, but you better have, you know, 10 times, hundred times more abilities to offset that. That's amazing.
54:30
And uh we we found that to be actually really important thing to look for especially given that one this is an extremely interdisciplinary effort. Mhm.
54:43
Um, you know, it's extremely I don't think there's a place where you can have lunch with um, you know, someone who's an expert in RF chip design to robotics to neurosurgery to animal care specialists.
54:58
I think it's a very very uh unique space in that and not to mention FD lawyers too.
55:04
I I I'm always baffled by that that you guys are executing at such a high level regulatory completely different discipline and and I'm saying this to me looking at Neurolink it has to be the hardest problem set in the world. It's hard.
55:17
I'm trying to think of others and it's hard to come up with anything that really comes close to it and I imagine that can be really daunting to some people that say I'd rather I'll stay in the Elon orbit, but I'd like to just work on rocket science like, you know, I'd just like to be a rocket scientist.
55:34
Um, and so I'm I'm yeah, I'd be interested to get your view on it just because you have so many different factors the the interdisciplinary nature of it.
55:42
then okay well you know now the brain's actually moving and it's not moving consistently but it's moving based on you know the way the heart's beating or or things like that.
55:52
It just feels like the most difficult problem set and I guess that must be a good filtering function and that you don't want people to come in thinking that you know it's just going to be hard but you know very achievable.
56:06
You almost want them to think that it's borderline impossible but sort of push through that. Yeah. Yeah.
56:12
So you know a lot of people have misconception that Neuralink is a science company. Mhm.
56:16
We're really a technology and an engineering company.
56:20
And you know I there's also this misconception that oh yeah at Neurolink you guys probably spend a lot of time talking about like future of humanity and like uploading consciousness and etc etc.
56:32
In some ways, yes, like we do talk about those things, but it's like 0. 1% of our conversation. Like 99.
56:37
9% of the time it's about hardcore engineering problems and in many ways, you know, brains moving, the material properties, mechanical properties of the brain.
56:48
Those are engineering constraints, but at the end of the day, it's an engineering problem, right?
56:51
So, um, you know, we're really looking for just hardcore engineers.
56:55
And in many ways, we have a saying that you don't have to be a brain surgeon to work at Neurolink.
56:59
you actually don't even need to have a prior experience in brain.
57:01
Uh I took some neuroscience classes in in grad school, but I didn't really know anything about the brain.
57:06
Uh it really is just engineering a great system to be able to study and peer into the dynamics of brain that you know we all have that we don't really understand and haven't even scratched the surface of.
57:17
So it's a technology first, engineering first company.
57:22
for where the company is right now is I I I love that ego toability framework but uh talk about interdisiplinary work is is there is there a world where you need RF engineers who are just great at that and they're not really going to have to cross over or are you still looking for the types that can uh you know bring together different ideas from different disciplines and actually bridge different groups. How relevant is that?
57:52
I'm sure that's important at the executive level, but like you might just be in a stage where you know you need to go and solve a key problem in a narrow domain and so you're really looking for just someone who's fantastic at that.
58:06
Has that evolved over time and and can you speak to that? Yeah. Yeah.
58:08
So, um you know, Neurolink is still a very small company.
58:12
Um you know, we have 300 people uh total across Austin and Fremont.
58:18
And yeah, there are definitely set of problems where I would say we we need uh GPUs.
58:23
So people that are very specialized in things or sorry um CPUs.
58:29
Um but yeah, like we're still we'll still we're still looking for uh way more GPUs.
58:33
Yeah, it I mean you're hiring for UIUX here, but then also clinical and surgery and robotics and ASIC. That's fascinating. Firmware, electronics.
58:44
I'm just looking through it. Machining.
58:45
It's really like if you're good at anything, it seems like as long as you're great at it, you can go and work there.
58:53
Um, I want to I want to dig into uh ego a little bit more uh because I find that very interesting.
58:58
Um h how does how does ego manifest in in an employee like like and is that something that can be controlled or or is it is it do you think it's some it's somehow innate or can it be kind of coached out of someone?
59:12
When I think of ego, I often think about um someone who's maybe overconfident, but then they might go through an experience that humbles them and then they come out on the other side much lower ego.
59:23
And so maybe you're not in the position to be the one to take that risk.
59:29
Um but but how do you think about the shape of ego as just a human trait?
59:33
I mean, you're kind of studying the brain.
59:35
So it's kind of an interesting question from a philosophical perspective as well.
59:37
I might also consider launching the ego app. Yes.
59:41
in which you can, you know, dial it dial it in the app store on the Neuralink app store.
59:46
Just dial it up and down.
59:47
Hey, I'm getting I'm getting a I'm I'm going in for a job interview at Nurling.
59:50
Turn this down all the way. Yeah.
59:52
Or if somebody's joining TVPN and we think they're super talented, but the ego's too high, I can say, "Well, you're welcome to join, but we just have to dial it back.
59:58
You got to install the app." Yeah. People learn.
1:00:02
Uh I I' I've seen this time and time again.
1:00:04
time and time again. uh especially especially people that are you know uh earlier in their career have um you know a lot of opportunities to kind of shape how they work within an organization and that you know really it's not about pushing for your ideas but it's pushing for what's best for the company and I
1:00:22
I've seen that change and um you know I think once you have sort of like it really just fosters like a great environment where people you know debate the merits of ideas rather than you kind of putting sort of their ego in front so that it becomes sometimes like not a technical discussion but a an emotional discussion and um but yeah that's that's certainly coable. I want to talk about the patients. Uh it
1:00:47
I want to talk about the patients.
1:00:47
Uh it was interesting to see how fast you moved on from uh spinal injury to ALS.
1:00:56
uh is there a third uh indication that you're interested in in uh in solving in the near term?
1:01:03
Uh is this more of a question of just let's scale up because there's a lot of folks that really could benefit just in spinal injury and ALS?
1:01:13
Um and what what else are you excited about?
1:01:16
Even even in there it's like does do are you feeling like generalized breakthroughs that make each individual product you know advance to some degree or also like sort of verticalized yeah are there differences in solving for ALS versus solving for traumatic spinal injury?
1:01:33
Yeah, there certainly is.
1:01:33
Uh for ALS it is a neurodeenerative condition.
1:01:38
So their conditions just gets worse as the time progresses.
1:01:41
So um you know that that makes it very difficult.
1:01:45
You know one of our participants is in what's called a late stage ALS which means that he's effectively locked in.
1:01:51
So unable to move, unable to speak even and is connected to a a mechanical ventilators to basically keep him alive you know in a similar ways that basically uh Stephven Hawking uh was able to sort of live the last 50 plus years of his lives.
1:02:07
And um you know for them they also have more fatigue and they have different needs um as as you can imagine from someone like Nolan who can who's still very vibrant who still can speak who can who can still you know kind of engage with the world in a different ways and their application their needs will change as a result of it.
1:02:24
Um but really you know what what we also talk about is that we're building a generalized input output device and technology for the brain.
1:02:32
technology for the brain. So, you know, for someone who is um quadriplegic, which means they're sort of paralyzed from neck down, whether it's due to spinal cord injury, whether it's due to ALS, whether it's due to brain stem stroke, whether it's due to some other
1:02:47
things that have caused you to be in that state, we're hoping that it could be generalizable enough that with the same hardware, they may have different firmware and different applications that they uh will find more uh useful for that partic particular situation. similar to how, you know, when 10
1:03:01
similar to how, you know, when 10 different people are given a computer, they will use that 10 different unique ways.
1:03:07
And we're seeing that and and that's something that's been uh kind of wonderful to see the wide range of diverse use cases for different participants.
1:03:15
Well, this has been fantastic.
1:03:17
We'll let you get back to the very important work that you're doing.
1:03:20
Where can people go to learn more about what you're hiring for? neurolink. com/careers.
1:03:25
And I would definitely encourage people to check out this uh latest update that we've had.
1:03:29
It's been an incredible progress in the past.
1:03:31
It's a lot of companies will put up a careers page and then people go there work for an average about a year and a half or something like that.
1:03:38
This actually feels like a career because if you're going to have an impact like expect to stay, you know, at least stay for a few decades.
1:03:42
It's not it's not a jobs page.
1:03:44
It's a career page because you're going to be here for 40 years substantially. Yeah. Excited to follow along.
1:03:49
Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for the update. We'll talk to you soon.
1:03:52
Hey, thanks for having me. Cheers.
1:03:53
Uh I I'm I'm This is incredible, inspiring.
1:03:57
I was tearing up thinking about giving someone the gift of Call of Duty as well.
1:04:00
Um but uh you know there's an interesting story about imagine hearing that life-changing um unironically um Stephen Hawking they uh the the the voice models to generate voice actually improved during his lifetime but he had created a brand around his particular voice generation model and so he elected not to update to a new more natural sounding voice. Yeah. Powerful branding. Powerful branding. Right.
1:04:31
It's like one of the most unique voices in human history, you could pick it out out of immediately. Immediately.
1:04:36
I So, I love that anecdote.
1:04:38
But then also uh for for people that are now just going to get the ability to speak through something like Neurolink, they're going to have the best voice models possible that are indistinguishable from human voices.
1:04:48
So, yeah, I was thinking about it.
1:04:51
You can imagine 10 years from now, somebody on X, can anybody get me a Neuralink API key?
1:04:57
But been thinking about it, too.
1:04:57
It it it really feels like a market that could very well uh you know end up as a as a true monopoly.
1:05:07
You can see DJ eventually having to show up in Congress as as one does if you're successful enough.
1:05:15
Um, and but but you know, think about it.
1:05:18
If if you're, you know, a patient for a specific issue or you uh are just a regular consumer that wants some type of app in the Neurolink ecosystem, you're not going to be like, "Oh yeah, I'd like brain surgery multiple times."
1:05:30
You know, you're not going to want to work with like a bunch of different BCI companies.
1:05:33
You're going to want to work with one and then be able to imagine being able to just play Call of Duty on your Neurolink and then log into the Adio Neuralink app and get some customer relationship magic directly piped into your brain.
1:05:45
Adio is the AI native CRM that builds, scales, and grows your company to the next level.
1:05:50
You could be the Neurolink enabled SDR given the best SDRs a run for their money. That's right.
1:05:56
Well, our next guest is here. Welcome to the stream.
1:05:59
Sorry for keeping you waiting.
1:06:01
We really appreciate you joining. Thanks so much. What's going on? Hey guys, how are you? We're great.
1:06:04
Um, thanks so much for joining.
1:06:06
Would you mind uh setting the table for us and kicking us off with the the latest and greatest?
1:06:10
What's going on in your world? Sure.
1:06:11
So, hey everyone, my name is Tez.
1:06:13
Uh, I am the CEO of Axiom Space.
1:06:16
Uh, today's actually day 60 of my job as CEO.
1:06:19
Uh, just jump back a few years, uh, I invested in Axiom uh, in their series A.
1:06:25
I was working at Google at the time.
1:06:28
I'm a multi-time founder myself and actually swore I would never go back to startups. He's an addict. He can't stop. Exactly.
1:06:39
Uh there's something wrong with us in in the best possible way.
1:06:41
But uh you know uh once a founder always a founder and I I think of myself as a founder mode uh CEO at the company.
1:06:48
Uh the company was founded by uh Dr.
1:06:51
Cam Gferian uh space legend.
1:06:54
He has multiple unicorns uh in the space sector.
1:06:56
I invested because Axiom Space won the exclusive contract to attach its modules, its commercial infrastructure, its station to the International Space Station, uh, which is coming down.
1:07:08
It was designed from day one to have a certain shelf life.
1:07:10
And the way I saw it is this small startup had the ultimate beach head, literally an exclusive contract for the most expensive product ever built by humanity.
1:07:22
$150 billion spent to put that thing up, that giant thing, and then five billion a year by 15 countries with all this incredible science that's just ready to be commercialized.
1:07:30
And I was like, "All right, this is this is where I'm going to go all in."
1:07:34
Also, I um I'm from the I'll say the dot bust era.
1:07:38
I got to taste the boom a little bit, but I really got to viscerally feel and swallow the the bust.
1:07:46
And I I see I see a repetition in time.
1:07:49
I see like 1995 all over again.
1:07:52
And imagine if in '95 you knew cloud computing was coming, you knew mobile was coming, you knew AI was coming, how you would invest, and how you double down.
1:08:02
And and that's that's really what I'm doing with my money and my time. That's interesting.
1:08:05
I really like that analogy.
1:08:06
Uh let's let's stretch it as far as we can.
1:08:08
Uh you could kind of get like DARPA as the ISS.
1:08:14
What are going to be the breakout applications?
1:08:15
We've talked to a lot of different uh founders.
1:08:17
uh communications, ISR, put a camera in space, put a Wi-Fi router in space.
1:08:24
Basically, those are the obvious ones.
1:08:26
What else is interesting?
1:08:27
What do you think the breakout applications in space broadly will be from tourism to asteroid mining?
1:08:34
You name it, you're you're the expert here. So, yeah.
1:08:35
So, um let me just answer that upfront, then I'm going to bring it back 30 years to 95 and just and bring it back.
1:08:41
Uh but first, quickly before I do that, I was smiling when I uh I joined for two reasons.
1:08:44
One is I had two interviews today.
1:08:47
I had CNBC and I had TBPN and my comm's team puts a briefing together and has dress code and CNBC was wear your uh Axiom t-shirt. Okay.
1:08:59
And your podcast was wear a button down uh that's hilarious.
1:09:02
Thanks for telling who's the legacy media now.
1:09:08
Yeah, we are the legacy media.
1:09:08
Reminding also like two things.
1:09:11
One is in my startup days, we um this was like 2007 to 2017.
1:09:16
We called it the uniform.
1:09:16
Like when you like the most you'd ever dress up is a collared shirt, a blazer.
1:09:20
I didn't even own a suit, so I couldn't say a suit jacket and jeans, right?
1:09:24
And you knew you were fine.
1:09:26
If you had to if you were if you were asking for money or you were trying to recruit someone or closing a deal or hanging out with someone in t-shirt and flip-flops, you're okay.
1:09:34
So quasi put on my uniform today. So it looks fantastic. So thank you.
1:09:40
It it is not a requirement by any means.
1:09:42
Just a great sign of respect.
1:09:42
It is a great sign of respect. Yeah. No.
1:09:47
And um the other thing the reason I was smiling is you're talking about uh Stephen Hawkings voice. Yeah.
1:09:52
And like as you were talking and and I I knew the Neurolink guy was on before, but I I wasn't listening.
1:09:57
I was in the in the waiting room.
1:09:59
But as soon as you said it, like we can all like hear it. We know it right.
1:10:02
In terms of branding and you were saying how like you people will be downloading voices and you could use that as a thing.
1:10:08
It kind of reminds me of how people still have like the terminal font on their computers. Oh yeah.
1:10:14
Or like or like the green matrix font because it makes it look like it's like pretty cool.
1:10:17
So like that might be a another application.
1:10:19
But sorry getting getting back to your question.
1:10:22
I'll answer directly what I think the big breakout markets I think each of these will be their own trillion dollar market in the next couple of years.
1:10:29
Uh first is um orbital data centers. So data in space.
1:10:35
Uh I I'll tell you personally for Axiom, you know, our modules which are life support vehicles are cloud first. They have to be.
1:10:44
You can't support life without native cloud computing.
1:10:46
I'm not talking for streaming or gaming or communications literally for all the systems that it takes to keep you know humans alive.
1:10:52
So if you think of that infrastructure and like I said I will jump back 30 years to 1995 but that infrastructure can be fractionalized and it can be shared and cost can go down to zero and below zero where you're giving startups credits to use that infrastructure so they can build their apps.
1:11:08
apps. So I do think orbital data centers and I think it's as simple as data centers 400 km up versus somewhere on the ground and it there's other challenges um but interestingly the same limitations power right what we have here that's the first one second I think is pharmaceuticals uh
1:11:29
drugs that are tested in microgravity uh that will change humanity forever uh that have just been science experiments to date uh we have seen the first drugs that were tested on the Axiom 3 and Axium 4 missions uh that have gone to human testing, clinical testing, FDA approved testing on on the earth. So
1:11:46
So you're seeing decades of research now becoming a reality, becoming commercialized and sorry on the data centers.
1:11:53
We've been we've been running workloads uh with Amazon since our first mission AX1 in 2022.
1:11:58
mission AX1 in 2022. We sent up an AWS computer and we've been running workloads from the ground basically making money off bits versus atoms and and we'll talk about the business model the space the the space business model is all about atoms it's about up mass it's about kilograms it needs to change
1:12:14
so we're proving that and the third is advanced materials uh whether that is manufacturing of those materials up there or um if we're talking about semiconductors maybe even doing some testing in a pure environment and when I say pure I just mean no gravity affecting it and maybe doing the uh the development down here. But I think those
1:12:32
But I think those three will be breakout hits and I think I I'll be as bold as say this decade.
1:12:38
Yeah, people were talking about ZBLAN in space ultra pure crystals grown for super high throughput data transfer.
1:12:44
So yeah, lots of interesting stuff there.
1:12:49
Uh I do have a follow-up on the uh on the data center in space thing.
1:12:50
Uh we've heard from some folks who are just really in the weeds on data center scaling for these large AI training runs that there's still just messiness where sometimes you got to unplug it, plug it back in.
1:13:06
Sometimes you got to receat a chip and uh you know just dust it off or something like it's just a it's just a messy thing.
1:13:12
And so putting it in a truly stranded environment where there's no humans it that there might be new questions.
1:13:18
questions. So, I'm wondering is the narrative like you solve that with like a humanoid robot or maybe a human on a space station in space or maybe you go to Nvidia and you say, "Hey, you need to make a ruggedized version of the H200 that will just never fail and is more so are there any other developments that
1:13:39
you think need to happen aside from obviously like launch costs need to continue to go down, like we need to continue to send up mass to orbit, whatnot, but on the actual data center side, is Is there anything that you think is uh you know another key milestone that will unlock that opportunity? Yeah, so it's all the above
1:13:53
Yeah, so it's all the above and a little more.
1:13:56
Um but then I'll I'll I'll I'll touch the launch cost piece and like I said I'll go back 30 years and by going back 30 years we're going to pull the space industry forward 30 years.
1:14:06
That's how big an opportunity this is.
1:14:08
So on the data centers, yeah, it's messy.
1:14:10
So the first part is it requires humans and Axiom's entire business and product line is based on more humans going to space.
1:14:17
We've sent 16 in the last 3 years.
1:14:19
Um I'm extremely proud of our team.
1:14:21
I'm extremely proud of myself.
1:14:23
Uh in that story of me joining Axiom.
1:14:25
I invested then I started advising the founders and then I leaned in and I said there's a big opportunity here for our for the demand side locking into market demand.
1:14:34
And I spent the last three years of my life, last four years of my life, um, traveling the world, meeting with world leaders, uh, prime minister, uh, president, uh, ministries of defense, e, economics, education, and the demand is very real, right?
1:14:50
So, if a startup of a few years old, a guy who had never done anything in space, although I'd been dreaming about it since I was three, uh, is able to architect these massive deals.
1:15:01
And just just to be clear, I will always refer to us as a startup because we we're 100% a startup in every sense of the word.
1:15:07
Um our deals are anywhere from like 50 to 150 million, right?
1:15:14
We're going to do north of 400 million. Yeah. Big dollar, right? Thank you.
1:15:19
Um you know, and it's funny at Google, I I had a couple of business lines.
1:15:23
I had a couple contracts over a billion dollars of ARR.
1:15:26
I had a business unit that brought in half a billion dollars in a year.
1:15:31
What you know what happens at uh Google if you don't bring in a billion? They shut you down. Life or death. Yeah.
1:15:41
You know, for any single deal that I've done was larger than the enterprise value of any of my startups, right?
1:15:44
So, each of these are massive startups.
1:15:46
So, um we're 100% based our product lines are all about what we think is going to be this inflection point for the number of astronauts going up.
1:15:55
And I'll give you some numbers on that as well.
1:15:56
Uh but this is we're building product lines for where astronauts live.
1:16:00
the Axiom station first connected to ISS.
1:16:02
Um how they explore Axiom is a sole provider of space suits.
1:16:06
Uh the next humans step on the moon will be wearing an Axiom space suit.
1:16:11
Like it's kind of insane that that's I can't even say that.
1:16:12
So and then we're building the labs like this the data centers, pharmaceuticals, advanced materials.
1:16:17
This isn't theory, right?
1:16:20
We've done it on the X4 mission right now.
1:16:22
Um we have done a deal with uh Aura and the Aura ring will Yeah, it's awesome. So cool.
1:16:31
Uh I just got this RS 60 60 days ago and I love it.
1:16:33
But uh I um it's going to be a wearable checking the health metrics of an astronaut and then this is the craziest part feeding that to our cloud computer up in space.
1:16:44
So remember I told you we sent up an Amazon AWS computer on AX1. We've sent an Alexa up.
1:16:51
We've done some edge computing.
1:16:51
So I'll touch your touch on your point about ruggedizing the materials.
1:16:54
But for us it all starts with humans.
1:16:56
So yeah, whether that's a human taking out uh a hard drive or a rack that got messed up with radiation, which happens all the time, uh it's going to require humans.
1:17:06
I think the next step is robots, humanoids, um ruggedized material for both cases.
1:17:13
The one piece I think you might be missing is just disposable, right?
1:17:17
You know, there's um there's something to be said about aging technology that if it's safely uh retired and burnt up and doesn't cause environmental problems, it's actually cheaper and more effective just to send up the next generation technology.
1:17:33
H100's mel like if 200 years ago you told somebody, I'm going to I'm going to order something from across the world thousands of miles away.
1:17:42
It's going to arrive here.
1:17:44
I'm going to use it for a few, you know, days and then I'm going to throw it away.
1:17:47
You know, like some disposable like a uniform or like a shirt for an event or whatever.
1:17:50
It's like we'll get to that point with space where we can send send things up that don't need to last for months or years or decades.
1:18:00
And yeah, it is Axiom's orbital orbital data center network, we call it a um heterogeneous network.
1:18:07
So think of like um a satellite constellation.
1:18:12
They're all exactly the same.
1:18:13
You send them up, they have the same uh functionality.
1:18:15
Each version of it gets stronger, more powerful.
1:18:17
Each of our nodes is different, right?
1:18:20
Our first two nodes are going up um next quarter, and they're normal satellite orbital data centers with optical uh coms and compute.
1:18:30
Our module is a data center with the specialty of maintaining human life.
1:18:36
Our lab will be a data center with a specialty of doing um robotic testing or human testing on experiments and our manufacturing platform will be a data center with the capabilities of doing 3D printing.
1:18:53
What ties them all together is the data.
1:18:55
So if one of them were to go down, you don't lose the data.
1:18:59
That's the whole point of a network and zones and and nodes.
1:19:01
Uh but if your old data center like yeah you could replace and upgrade it but at that point the cost versus the actual value you get for sending a new one up again if you had a safe way to dispose it.
1:19:14
It actually makes more sense for it to be disposable. Mhm.
1:19:17
Uh what story do you think we should be telling ourselves or what story should be written in the history books about the ISS?
1:19:23
I remember I saw this movie, which I know Jordy hasn't seen because he hasn't seen any movies.
1:19:29
Uh, Valyrian and the City of Thousand Planets, and it has this really cool opening montage.
1:19:33
It's by the director who did The Fifth Element.
1:19:34
And basically, it starts with the ISS, and they just keep adding modules to it until it gets so big that they push it off into deep space.
1:19:42
And then aliens come and add on modules, and it turns into this like massive cluster.
1:19:45
And it's like crazy sci-fi movie.
1:19:47
But I thought that idea of just like layering on the ISS, this happens in Seven Eves as well, the Neil Stevenson uh book.
1:19:54
And I I was and and and when when I tell the story to myself, I was super inspired as a kid by the idea of the ISS.
1:20:02
It was amazing that it got built, but it feels like we're just kind of like, okay, jobs finished, and we're not really going bigger and bigger in terms of like human space stations.
1:20:13
So, how should we think about the ISS when we look back on it?
1:20:17
Is it just like like the moon landing?
1:20:19
It was like a science project that we did.
1:20:20
It was cool, inspiring, but it didn't really grow into anything.
1:20:23
Are private companies going to take up the mantle? Where does all this go? Yeah.
1:20:29
So, you know, I think the legacy of the ISS and the value it's created for humanity on the scientific, the engineering, the diplomatic level is all incredible, right?
1:20:40
Uh and and we should always remember that there's a lot of that's going on down here that up there it's still peace, right?
1:20:47
And it's when they look down and when they work together, they're one team and we're one team down here, right?
1:20:52
Regardless of what we hear. And it's inspiring.
1:20:54
Like the AX4 mission right now, four countries, US, India, Poland, and Hungary.
1:21:00
India, Poland, and Hungary.
1:21:03
They're sending their first ever citizen to the ISS. Wow.
1:21:05
I saw them cross the hatch.
1:21:08
I'm going to get emotional even talking about it.
1:21:10
seeing these guys smile uh and then address their nations in their own language.
1:21:14
First time those words were spoken up in space like magic.
1:21:21
Three billion girls and boys saw that yesterday when my parents took me to Kennedy Space Center. I was 3 years old.
1:21:26
My dad um is an was an electric engineer.
1:21:29
I was like, "What the hell's going on in that big building?"
1:21:31
And he's like, "They build spaceships there."
1:21:33
And I it was a defining moment in my life.
1:21:37
Like it was I was a three-year-old cranky kid.
1:21:39
And in that moment, my mind, my heart, my soul just erupted.
1:21:41
And like it was like the universe telling me that this is alignment.
1:21:46
And that set me on a path for entrepreneurship, engineering, exploration.
1:21:50
Three billion kids just got that, you know, like three billion people. Powerful.
1:21:54
Um, but yeah, it's it's it's it's a big deal.
1:21:56
So we have to remember that. Sorry. Go ahead.
1:21:59
No, go finish and then and then then I'll ask a question. Yeah.
1:22:04
question. Yeah. So the um the that inspiration that hope that proving that we are one species that's ultimately what we will remember the station for what I want to remember was to remember and when I say I this is probably more in the the startup books or blogs or
1:22:21
whatever it'll be in the future um is the ISS is what allowed space to be free and what I mean by this I mean access to everyone so Axiom space started eight years ago we've sent four missions 16 astronauts, 12 nations, nations that had never been to space before, the first ever Saudi female to go. Um, we were the
1:22:39
Um, we were the first ever to send an all European mission, the first Turkish astronaut after that horrible earthquake they had.
1:22:50
Uh, as I mentioned, India, Poland, Hungary.
1:22:52
So free in the sense that we freed it. Everyone can go.
1:22:54
But more importantly, we brought the cost to free or below free.
1:22:59
Now what I mean by this is as long as we keep the narrative of cost per kilogram is going down.
1:23:04
We're basing an entire economy on cost.
1:23:06
Our friends who are watching this, none of us think like that.
1:23:11
We base it on value, right?
1:23:14
We think of cost of acquisition, lifetime value of a customer.
1:23:16
How are you increasing enterprise value?
1:23:17
So again, going back to the the the '9s and early 2000s, my first startup was built uh on uh AWS activate.
1:23:24
We were one of the first customers.
1:23:27
Uh, and I probably, if it was a year older, a year or two older would have spent three million bucks on a server closet, you know, to get it all set up.
1:23:34
But now, if you're a startup looking to build your app, Amazon, Google, Microsoft will pay you a h 100,000 bucks in credits to build your app on their platform in the hopes that you're the next Spotify or uh Uber or Netflix and then they grow as you grow. Yeah. Cloud is not free.
1:23:52
They were spending billions and billions of dollars on infrastructure, orders of magnitude higher than the space station, just to get Google search going, just to get the Amazon uh store going, just to get the app store going.
1:24:03
And then they realize you fractionalize it and you make this accessible for everyone.
1:24:06
So I think the big thing in this transition from the ISS to commercial is we just don't reduce the bar, we remove the bar completely and enable multiple entrepreneurs to knock it out of the park. Um, super exciting. Last question.
1:24:22
How do you uh do you see yourselves as like a space prime? Right.
1:24:27
Like it feels like you're very multi-product.
1:24:30
The the comp for me down on on Earth would be the traditional kind of defense primes that develop kind of a broad capability set and then you know pursue it from is that is that the right framing?
1:24:43
It's it's not a bad framing you know prime or integrator.
1:24:48
Um, some have called us a global space agency.
1:24:50
Like I I'm a tech cloud uh venture guy.
1:24:53
I like to think of it as a platform.
1:24:55
Platform's too ambiguous in my opinion.
1:24:57
You could think of us as but platform in the Micros in the Bill Gates definition where the value that's created on top of your company will be greater than the value that you capture. Right. That's exactly right.
1:25:09
The the second word I was just about to say is and this is this the first time I'm saying it in a public setting.
1:25:13
Think of it as an operating system. Yeah. Right. what Microsoft did.
1:25:17
Like so if this is the op space operating system for countries, corporations, civilization. Yeah.
1:25:21
This is why I think now is exactly the time to invest because if you believe in space, it's not a question of why should we go, we shouldn't go.
1:25:30
It's okay, when are we going?
1:25:32
So this is what all investing is.
1:25:34
You're betting on timing.
1:25:36
And I feel so strong that 2030 is that Microsoft uh uh Windows moment or the iPhone moment or the chat GPT moment for space.
1:25:45
And if you know it's five years from now, like this is where you go all in. Wait, one last question.
1:25:48
Uh we've asked a lot of space people this. What's your P moon?
1:25:53
The AI folks have the probability of doom.
1:25:55
We have the probability that you will you personally will visit the moon before 2050.
1:26:07
Over under 50%, 10% 90% 2050 probability that you have set foot on the moon over over 50%.
1:26:16
If if you were to say the probability that I would be in go to space, I'd say 100%. Yeah.
1:26:20
Probability that uh uh we all uh will be able to go uh to lower Earth orbit particularly when like something like Starship comes online. Yeah. Like absolutely.
1:26:32
I'll give you a quick stat.
1:26:33
If you look at since Axiom's been around eight years, the first four years before our AX1 mission, we sent about we collectively, humanity, sent about 12 astronauts uh per year.
1:26:42
That number has quadrupled in the last four years.
1:26:47
And remember, the Dragon only takes four people up. Yeah.
1:26:48
And 16 of those are because of Axiom.
1:26:51
What happens when you're sending 70 to 100 people up?
1:26:55
Where are they going to go?
1:26:55
We've already proven that demand far outstrips supply at the at the government level, at the corporate level, and we're building that infrastructure to catch up.
1:27:02
This is this is that tipping point.
1:27:04
So the moon 2050, what are we talking about?
1:27:08
25 years from now, I will be 73 72. Mhm. Yeah.
1:27:12
I think it's it's over 50. Amazing. I love it. Fantastic.
1:27:15
Well, thank you so much for We can't wait to uh we'll have to do a show someday in person.
1:27:22
I mean, I'd have you back and just do a whole deep dive on the lunar economy and how you see that plan out and just even even beyond and space exploration.
1:27:29
I'm sure we could go a bunch of different ways that are less for you guys.
1:27:32
Are you wearing full suits or are you guys wearing jeans? Full suits. Full suits.
1:27:39
I I did the I did the Oh, you did the You did the casual pants. There you go. It works. It works.
1:27:45
And and and white suits because the market is at alltime highs and we're celebrating. That's right.
1:27:50
Is a blue Mine's a blue suit cuz the only suit I own. Okay. Simple, man. Simple, man.
1:27:55
Well, great talking to you. Awesome.
1:27:57
Well, thanks for coming on.
1:27:58
Congrats on on all the the progress. Talk soon. Thank you. Bye.
1:28:00
Yeah, it's talking to these uh space folks and I mean everyone we talked to is amazing, but it it's it's awesome.
1:28:06
I was looking up at the moon with my son, the four-year-old, recently, and he was like, "We we got to go there."
1:28:12
And I was like, "Yeah, I want to go there.
1:28:15
I I think we'll be able to do it one day."
1:28:18
He's like, "We'll need a rocket."
1:28:18
I was like, "Well, I know some people that are working on that."
1:28:21
And it's it's amazing being able to be like, "Yeah, like actually like it's happening and I know some of the people that are working on it.
1:28:28
It's going to be a lot of work, but we're going to get there."
1:28:29
Anyway, uh let's tell you about numeral sales tax on autopilot.
1:28:32
Spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax compliance. Go to numeralhq. com. Sign up today. Uh sign up today.
1:28:37
Also, uh Ryan Log has a extremely viral post.
1:28:44
He says, "Beer is narcan for when you overdose on Microsoft Teams." And I like the comment.
1:28:49
Liked, followed every bro.
1:28:52
You tell me your high like ratio. Insanely high.
1:28:56
2% riding it all the way to a million.
1:28:58
% at at close to a million is impressive is impressive stuff. Banger. It's a banger.
1:29:05
Uh I don't know how much time we have.
1:29:06
We have four minutes until Well, we have time to tell you about Finn, the number one AI agent for customer service.
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1:29:39
Well, we have just a couple more minutes until our next guest.
1:29:42
Uh, so let's talk about a new unicorn alert from Arurer Rock.
1:29:44
Etched the world's first transformer. ASIC.
1:29:49
I've been pushing for this for a long time. I know the Etch guys.
1:29:50
I did a long interview with them. Uh, random. Surely you invested.
1:29:57
Surely you invested, John. Mog. Surely.
1:30:01
Surely you just threw in a Yeah, a check.
1:30:03
I should have a small check.
1:30:03
you know when you met them seed round unannounced round 85 million at 1.
1:30:08
5 billion following two stealth rounds at 500 million and 700 and they're now raising at at 2.
1:30:15
5 they just closed another round 2.
1:30:17
5 we got to get the founders on one of the most interesting kind of AI like future thought I don't know like thought leaders or something just like an like can the the the founders can just noodle on how everything in artificial intelligence plays out they've done a bunch interesting demos running uh Minecraft fully generatively.
1:30:38
So there's no underlying game engine.
1:30:40
It's just taking the inputs and generating the visual outputs.
1:30:43
Uh absolutely insane team uh teal fellows um and they've been on a tear and there's a bunch of insane stories where the founders at some dinner in Taiwan chatting up like a TSMC uh employee to get more line time.
1:30:59
like the hacks that this company has gone through to make this a reality has been fantastic.
1:31:06
Uh, and he's the one that told me uh this idea of like the like LLMs being human simulators and so the expectation should be you get like the median human and maybe not someone that wants to kill everyone.
1:31:19
Um, and so he has a very low P doom but he he but he uh walks through that very very uh very in a very interesting way.
1:31:25
Uh, anyway, how did you sleep last night?
1:31:29
Are you are you a big Eight Sleep fan?
1:31:31
After our photo shoot and video shoot yesterday, we uh we we're filming advertisements now.
1:31:35
Not we're not just telling you about Eight Sleep.
1:31:38
We're putting it on the line shooting video ads for I cannot wait to air this.
1:31:41
I got a 76, which is basically the new Oh, I got a 79.
1:31:47
I had a rough night, but I still beat you.
1:31:50
Play that sound effect, Jordy. Thank you. John's on off.
1:31:56
Basically, my new range is I just am squarely sitting in the 70s. It's brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal.
1:32:02
Anyway, uh you got to get on eight. Go to eightleep. com/tbpn.
1:32:04
They got a 5-year warranty, 30- night risk-free trial, free returns, free shipping.
1:32:08
Uh and in other sponsorship news, Shane Copelan uh announces that Poly Market has made Times 100 most influential companies.
1:32:18
Turns out that people want the truth. Basically, fantastic.
1:32:19
They built effectively a crystal ball. He did.
1:32:24
Shane built a crystal ball. is our crystal ball.
1:32:26
We had a crystal ball in We had an actual crystal ball.
1:32:28
Shane built a crystal ball. I say it's tomorrow.
1:32:31
We got the crystal ball here.
1:32:32
Tomorrow's headlines today. Do not drop that.
1:32:34
Ben Jensen dropped uh No, Masa dropped it and it was very ominous, but we have the crystal ball here.
1:32:39
We highly recommend every technologist get a crystal ball.
1:32:43
If you don't have a crystal ball, you can go to polymarket. com.
1:32:45
Crystal balls underrated as a as a desk object.
1:32:47
You got to have a crystal ball.
1:32:50
You got to have at least at least one.
1:32:51
Put that right there so you can see it. Yeah, there you go.
1:32:53
Uh but congratulations to Shane and the whole Poly Market team.
1:32:56
They are on an absolute tear.
1:32:58
They are on a tear as is our next guest. Welcome to the stream.
1:33:03
Tamas, how are you doing? Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for hopping on. Boom. Welcome.
1:33:07
Uh would you mind kicking us off with a little introduction on yourself and your firm Theory? Absolutely. Yeah. My name is Tamsh Duz.
1:33:13
I'm founder and general partner of a firm called Theory.
1:33:15
We build really concentrated portfolios in early stage AI and blockchain companies.
1:33:21
We're about 10 people strong and uh we've worked with nine unicorns in the past and uh just we're about two and a half years old so far.
1:33:28
So you were at Redpoint for 14 years.
1:33:30
Talk to me about the decision to launch your own fund.
1:33:36
What strategy you wanted how did fundraising go?
1:33:38
I just want to hear the whole story of Yeah, absolutely.
1:33:39
So we raised fund one in late 22 which is when the Fed had raised rates 500 bips must have been not not a great time to raise but we were able to raise fund one. We raised about 235. We were over subscribed. Yeah.
1:33:51
And um and then we raised fund to about 400 a little more than 450 million two years later. And congratulations. Oh, nice. Thanks.
1:34:00
Uh and yeah, so we're off to the races.
1:34:03
We have a head of AI who was head of AI at three unicorns and our CEO built the healthcare practice at Palunteer.
1:34:08
And as I said before, we invest in a small number of companies and work really hard to help them grow by building out their sales teams. You're the head of AI. The way Yeah.
1:34:17
the way you're talking about the firm, it feels like it's like you're building it like a a company. What talk about that? Yeah.
1:34:23
Well, I think there's a pretty big change in I mean, if you look at like hedge funds and private equity, a lot of them have restructured into basically operating companies.
1:34:30
And I think the same thing will happen with venture capital.
1:34:33
We think about the products that we sell as financial products, right?
1:34:37
The when I started in the business in 2008, series A was a financial product where we invested four for 25% of a company.
1:34:43
And that product doesn't get any buyers anymore.
1:34:47
Uh because uh you know the US venture capital asset class has grown from about 8 to 250 billion during that time and so there's a lot more capital.
1:34:57
Uh and so we have to differentiate our capital somehow and the way that we differentiate is by depth.
1:35:02
So we operate every Monday we get together we talk about different market maps and what what are research projects and I'll give you an example.
1:35:10
We had this amazing intern last summer.
1:35:11
He walked in one day and he said,"I think the future of AI is not with GPUs, it's with AS6 or specialized circuits that are focused on AI.
1:35:20
And if you believe that, then here are all the investable opportunities." And so we debated that.
1:35:23
So we go through different market maps every Monday.
1:35:25
And then we have this team that has we have different departments, right?
1:35:29
So there's a team that builds internal software team that builds the the sales teams for our portfolio companies.
1:35:35
There are people who manage a buyer network 200 people strong.
1:35:38
And the idea is, well, if we can also have an investing team and we're looking at elephants in the dark and each one of us has a flashlight, then maybe with that composite view, we'll have a more refined perspective on an early stage software company and ultimately make better investment decisions.
1:35:53
How often do you see someone else's market map and kind of laugh at it?
1:35:59
No, we do our own work, but uh but we use I mean, it's always great to see other market maps out there and and have different perspectives, right?
1:36:06
Because we're all trying to figure it out at the same time. Yeah.
1:36:08
Uh on the AI ASIC question, how do you think about that as a disruptive innovation versus a sustaining innovation?
1:36:15
Uh NVIDIA is obviously super set up to work with TSMC at scale.
1:36:22
At the same time, I've talked to some of the founders we just mentioned, etched, uh building transformer as incredible teams.
1:36:27
I wouldn't bet against them and they've been on an absolute run.
1:36:30
And so uh I'm in this weird scenario of like kind of being bullish on both, but you know, there has to be some way this plays out.
1:36:38
Have you dug into it at all in that? We've dug into it some.
1:36:40
I mean, you've seen I mean, Google's been investing in TPUs for a really long time.
1:36:43
You have the Amazon in differentiation, Microsoft. Yeah. Have their own, I think.
1:36:48
And then Nvidia announced this week or at least there was a Wall Street Journal article talking about how Nvidia is pushing into managed cloud. DJX lap, right? Yeah. Exactly. Right.
1:36:57
And so they they need uh a longer term business model.
1:37:01
So I I think there will be a pretty significant place for A6. Mhm.
1:37:07
You think about the different architectures of model.
1:37:08
I mean AMDs typically are optimized for sort of or have been in the past for mediumsiz models where the like the H100s are much better running the 100 billion or multiundred billion parameter models because of difference in CPU architecture versus memory architecture.
1:37:25
So I I think there's definitely a really big place and yeah and D is an interesting spot.
1:37:29
I mean it's the biggest company in the world 3. 6 3. 8 trillion 3. 8 trillion at all time.
1:37:32
They they have to we were talking about it earlier they have to do more than a 2x again to surpass the Dutch East India company if you account for uh if you account for but they could do it. Yeah.
1:37:46
Um, so anyways, Jensen still has got some work coming for Yeah.
1:37:47
to not be places, but at the same time, they feel like the company that's under potentially the most attack from from directly from startups and other hyperscalers building their own chips, whereas like we're not we're not hearing about Amazon taking on the iPhone and trying to build a phone to to displace the iPhone, but we are hearing about Amazon building tranium and inferentia to take away market share from Nvidia.
1:38:13
So, uh, it's interesting.
1:38:13
It's like this company's never been stronger, but also, you know, that success breeds competition. Well, no doubt about it.
1:38:21
And I mean, if you look at we went back and looked at the Nvidia PE multiple over the history of the company, and you can see there basically three spikes.
1:38:27
There's the first spike which was associated with gaming, the second spike that's associated with blockchain and now the third spike that's associated with AI.
1:38:35
And you typically have these really really significant growth from say like a 25x PE multiple up to maybe like 70 80 sometimes 100 and then it falls back down. Yep. Right.
1:38:46
And Bill Gurley I think you know I wasn't investing during the time of hardware uh or hard discs.
1:38:54
He basically said the best time to sell a hard disk company was when it was ramping up because you knew that they would build excess supply and as a result of the excess supply you'd have sort of an inevitable crash.
1:39:05
That hasn't been the case, right?
1:39:05
I mean, you saw Nvidia this year trade down initially and now I think it's Yeah, it's done really really well since then, maybe since February.
1:39:12
And if Jensen can diversify to a couple of other business lines, particularly along the inference y there's I mean I don't know what the TAM is for inference, but it's probably measured in the billions if not you know. Yeah. Yeah.
1:39:23
Also the international stuff he's been on.
1:39:25
We're going to have to rename it Jensen's paradox.
1:39:28
Jeb Jevans is gonna get it. It really is. Yeah. Sorry, Jeb.
1:39:31
really is. Yeah. Sorry, Jeb. on on on the question of like kind of AI value acral um where you know there there's a big shift away from you know the value acrew will acrue to the application layer I'd love to hear your take on that I also heard an interesting formulation
1:39:47
this idea that in the next decade there will be uh one consumer AI company worth over a trillion dollars and 10 B2B AI companies worth over a hundred billion dollars and so you you can think about it as like they're equal market sizes, but one is much more concentrated. And I
1:40:04
And I wanted to know your reaction to that formulation of kind of like a bet on how the future or the market plays out.
1:40:11
Does that feel directly right to you?
1:40:12
Do you think it'll be radically different? What's your take?
1:40:15
No, I think that's exactly right.
1:40:16
I there's definitely a power law that governs consumer companies.
1:40:19
I mean, you look at the size of Facebook and Google, both of them consumer companies.
1:40:22
The second place in both of those markets, we don't really talk about anymore.
1:40:25
Even Amazon also power law outcome. Exactly. Right.
1:40:27
power law outcome. Exactly. Right. And so that's typically the way that those consumer markets work where you think about the distribution of outcomes in B2B it's much more say Gaussian right there's like a a bell bell shape and so I definitely think that's the case I don't you know we were I had heard
1:40:44
initially well so like consumer investing has been a challenge I think over the last decade aside from a handful of names so we were we've been wondering about consumer investing try to understand what is the key use case I'd heard one of the most interesting ideas was the social network for AI bots that you would watch them talk to each other. So,
1:41:01
So, the three of us would train a bot.
1:41:03
We'd each put it into a message uh a message board and then watch them talk.
1:41:07
Uh and I I thought, you know, could that be interesting over time?
1:41:11
But I do think we'll see explosive growth in some of these applications.
1:41:16
Yeah, it's odd like bots are fantastic at chess and video games.
1:41:20
People watch chess and they watch video games on Twitch, but people don't watch bots play Counter Strike or Call of Duty.
1:41:29
And I wonder if that paradigm holds for some, you know, I don't know, humanist reason.
1:41:36
I don't even know what you would call it, but just like preference towards Do people watch Do people watch live human players play against bots? I don't uh rarely.
1:41:43
I mean, you would you would watch someone like play through Mario 64 as fast as they could and that is effectively a single player game against bots, but it would be very odd to play a game of Call of Duty against bots because you could just play ranked against other people and you know all that, but there's still a lot of bots like floating around and people cheating and stuff. So, yeah.
1:42:05
So, I don't I mean, even in chess, right, with Deep Blue, nobody watches those those chess algorithms play against each other. Yeah.
1:42:11
could just watch Stockfish on Stockfish all day long and it would be like I guess technically impressive, but it wouldn't have the it wouldn't have the the I don't know the emotion, the texture of like Magnus versus somebody else.
1:42:22
Speaking of competition, do you lean in and try to compete head-on with platform funds based on what what you can offer or do you try to find ways to to not have to compete?
1:42:35
We try to find ways not to have to compete.
1:42:37
I mean, the platform funds have they run a very different strategy, right?
1:42:40
They're the big chip stack at the poker table, and so we can't play a big chip stack game.
1:42:46
We do have the fund sizes to be able to write similar size checks at the seed and the series A.
1:42:50
And that's a deliberate strategic decision so that the companies that we back are not at a disadvantage in terms of balance sheet.
1:42:59
But in terms of competing head-on where they're strong, I think it'd be foolish for us to embark on that journey. Yeah. Right.
1:43:04
So, we have to find our own way of uh convincing founders we're the right firm for them to work with.
1:43:09
But that still feels like you're willing to say, "Okay, we're going to be competitive at seed, but we're not going to try to," but that's like one specific area, but and not, you know, holistic multi-stage.
1:43:23
Well, we we primarily invested the series A.
1:43:24
Average check size in fund one was say, call it 134.
1:43:29
Average check size in fund two is closer to 22 to 25. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.
1:43:31
And so we're able to write a pretty significant lead check.
1:43:35
Uh and and as I said, I think capital now just because of how much of it there is, it's if you're if you're a founder and you're competing in a category and you don't have a balance sheet that's at least commensurate with your competition, you're a pretty significant disadvantage.
1:43:49
So we do want to mitigate that.
1:43:51
But we can offer a different kind of experience, right?
1:43:52
We can if we're only working with say 10 companies in fund one, we can be a whole lot more active with those portfolio companies, particularly as they go from series A to series B. for sure.
1:44:01
Um, where are you investing in blockchain onchain broadly? Yeah.
1:44:11
Well, I mean, we've invested, we've had a lot of success in in L1's in the past.
1:44:16
We we uh was the second largest investor in SUI, which is a 40 to50 billion blockchain.
1:44:21
uh we've invested in a company called Alium which provides data to many of the largest financial institutions uh in the US including Stripe three of the top five Bitcoin ETFs and and others.
1:44:31
So I think the database layer is really attractive.
1:44:36
You look at Ethereum worth seven snowflakes Q1 of last year produced 400 million in free cash flow which on a percentage basis made it the single largest producer of cash of any publicly traded software company and then on a on an aggregate basis sixth largest producer of any publicly traded software company.
1:44:52
So databases can be extremely valuable and one of the key themes in the last 18 months has been stable coins 15th largest buyer of US treasuries.
1:45:02
So it's absolutely uh an essential market for us to continue to pay attention to.
1:45:06
And then the other thing that we're really monitoring, we believe that in the next 10 years, every major software product will have a web 3 component.
1:45:14
And that's because today the cost of compliance across a bunch of different geographies is really challenging.
1:45:21
You look at Germany has very specific data locality laws. UAE has different laws.
1:45:26
26 states in the US have different laws.
1:45:28
whole lot better for a customer to custody their own data and selectively approve access and then software vendors no longer in the business of having to comply with all of these laws because they can computationally guarantee that they adhere to the policies.
1:45:41
So those are some of the big ideas I got some more AI questions.
1:45:46
Uh I want to talk about uh different modes for foundation models that that are kind of playing out right now.
1:45:54
now. uh the value of data and maybe at Google they have YouTube that feels like a permanent advantage for them in V3 and yet we're seeing other models come out that are almost as good and I don't know if they just scraped all of YouTube but
1:46:10
they got the data from somewhere then you have other narratives around we need new ideas we need the best researchers possible we'll pay a ton of money to get the best uh researchers to write the best most elegant algorithms or the code possible. Maybe it's all in the
1:46:25
Maybe it's all in the application layer.
1:46:26
So I'm interested in this relationship between uh the value of data going forward. Yeah, great question.
1:46:32
So I think initially there's a lot of value in having access to proprietary data like YouTube or maybe like cursor has with the initial or GitHub with the access copilot with the initial access to GitHub.
1:46:43
I think over time the more valuable and rare data asset is the feedback loop.
1:46:46
What do you actually do with that with a prompt?
1:46:50
Like is is the video of the polar bear with the Coca-Cola actually the right one?
1:46:54
That feedback loop is incredibly important.
1:46:57
And the more of them that you have, the better the models that you'll produce.
1:47:00
Um, and I think that's also particularly true distill.
1:47:03
I mean, with distillation, you look at what happened with Deep Seek, right?
1:47:05
they were just pegging a bunch of different APIs and then copying copying the results and able to to copy really quickly which was why it was really surprising to me actually to see the deep research API come out of open AI this week.
1:47:17
I thought after the deepseek moment there would never be a deep research API aside from perplexity which had launched it basically before uh because of the risk of distillation for some pretty valuable and expensive models.
1:47:28
It's really I think it's in those feedback loops.
1:47:32
That's what I've learned uh in machine learning.
1:47:33
And so the larger the number of users you have and the greater the telemetry you have there, the better the advantage.
1:47:39
So yeah, my my my like read on that is that um it's amazing that V3 has this cornered resource in YouTube data at Google, but I've been really really struggling to actually use that product on a regular basis because I hit rate limits even though I'm paying $500 a month.
1:47:58
a month. It says come back tomorrow and you can do another three videos and I'm not really iterating on it creatively and then we we we were testing midjourney video and it renders much faster and there's a lot more collaboration and feedback there and so I mean Google scale is like just so massive that I I don't know if you should ever bet against it but it is
1:48:19
interesting that I wonder you know there's there's folks in AI who are like scale pill there's other folks who are maybe feedback loop pled and I'm wondering if Google's just not feedback loop pilled enough because I don't I I don't care how on fire the GPUs or the TPUs are like provision more Google is my is my take but I don't know if I'm way off there like what's what's your read on it? No no no I think you're
1:48:39
No no no I think you're exactly right.
1:48:41
I mean they launched Google launched the Gemini uh command line interface which competes with the cloud code and I was trying to use it for two days and and I could not.
1:48:47
So I think I think they're t I mean and in their public earnings both Microsoft and Google have both said they're limited on the on the capex side.
1:48:56
Basically, they can't produce the data centers fast enough. That's crazy.
1:48:59
Um, but Google, I think Google is aware of this feedback loop phenomenon, right?
1:49:04
You look at the way that they subsidize fine-tuning for Gemini.
1:49:08
The way that with the Gemini command line interface, the the free tier is substantially more generous.
1:49:15
They're trying to they're trying to acquire as much usage as possible because they they understand those dynamics, but the data centers aren't there yet.
1:49:23
And then actually, you know what?
1:49:25
Did you guys follow what um it Microsoft gave up some of the core weave lease and then Google took it on for the open AI training workloads which was really interesting. Okay. Did you see that news?
1:49:36
I yeah I I I I I saw the I saw the Satcha clip about you know he wants to be a leaser and then I did see they they uh they gave up the core lease.
1:49:44
I didn't know that uh that OpenAI picked it up so quickly. Yeah. Through Google.
1:49:49
So I think Google went and Yeah.
1:49:53
And so it seems like there are some at least training workloads going from OpenAI to Google.
1:49:56
At least that's what I read. Interesting. Yeah.
1:49:57
But I mean if OpenAI is starting to use Google servers, you can imagine there'll just be continuously increased demand and load. How much Oh, go for it.
1:50:09
Uh uh what are you following in reinforcement learning right now?
1:50:11
How much of the RL story should be a foundation model story versus a new startup story?
1:50:22
I think it's a foundation model story.
1:50:25
I mean I a reinforcement fine-tuning is probably the technology or test time compute whatever you want to call it.
1:50:31
It's a technology I think has a has a really interesting future and the main reason is I can dial it up and down right.
1:50:38
So today I can kind of control the classic models without reasoning.
1:50:42
But in the future you could imagine a CEO might have 10 or 15 or 100 times the reasoning budget that a junior employee might and on her case basis say I really want you to think a lot about this problem maybe it's you know strategic research project whereas if I'm just looking for a summarization but I want to make sure it's correct I'll give it a very very small budget.
1:51:02
I don't know in the product how we expose that to users in a way where they can do it intelligently.
1:51:08
Well, it's already happening.
1:51:09
I mean I mean it's already happening.
1:51:10
It's just instead of money, it's time.
1:51:12
So if I have if I have one minute, I'll hit 40.
1:51:14
If I have 10 minutes, I'll hit 03 Pro.
1:51:16
And if I have 20 minutes, I'll hit deep research. And and time is money.
1:51:21
And so I'm I'm I'm making that economic calculation right now.
1:51:25
All under a $200 a month umbrella.
1:51:28
But yeah, in the future, this could clearly just be uh like you put a price on it, right?
1:51:33
And you could say, I want that deep research query, but I need in five minutes.
1:51:36
Am I willing to spend $100 on that query? Yeah.
1:51:37
And that's and that's kind of what midjourney is doing with like the different tiers don't get you necessarily more total inferences.
1:51:45
It's more about the where you are in the queue and the speed of your response. Exactly. That's fascinating.
1:51:49
That's a good point, Jordy. Sorry.
1:51:50
How do you think about the convergence of all software that the the the feeling that there's a convergence of all software companies into into just the the sort of chat interface?
1:52:00
We've seen Wix make an an $80 million acquisition of this bootstrap company.
1:52:05
We saw Air Table launch a like you know text to app product which makes sense as a database company.
1:52:11
company. Uh, Figma launched their product earlier this year and they they they all make sense in different contexts, but do you think um do you think some of this is driven by uh like Wix for example just like FOMO and and
1:52:26
disruption uh or do you just think that that is where software is going which is basically we have certain data in some places and there's platforms and everybody's just going to make instead of buying software you're just making it in different places. Yeah, it's a great
1:52:39
Yeah, it's a great question.
1:52:41
I mean, all of the existing companies are looking to retain their users and expand.
1:52:45
And I think the dynamic here is like historically you've had like the last 10 years all been subscription and now you have AI usage, AI credits.
1:52:53
I would guess just given our usage on some of these platforms that the AI credit usage is probably two to three times the size of the subscription revenue fully deployed.
1:53:02
And so you need as a software company in order to hit some of these growth rates and I'm sure you guys saw like the Vzero chart, you need exposure to those kinds of use cases and those credits just to be able to to compete.
1:53:13
And then you want to retain those users.
1:53:15
And you're right, like I mean, you know, there's the chat interface.
1:53:19
There's like three or four interfaces that everybody's building.
1:53:21
There's a chat interface, there's the app builder interface, and then there's like the workflow builder interface, the SDR equivalent.
1:53:26
Like what how do I enrich a lead?
1:53:28
enrich a lead? and you have like the project management companies building this the website internal tools they're all kind of trying to capture as much of that spend as possible I think like strategically if you're a young startup then the question is okay well how do I
1:53:44
differentiate myself against one of these I can do it all platforms do I do what Salesforce did and take out an individual workflow and optimize end to end or do I actually need to build broad and horizontal uh and that I think and that's why a lot of these companies been pushing into verticals, right? Whether
1:53:58
Whether it's like health care for uh prior off authorization or whatever it is. Yeah.
1:54:06
And so there's a big strategic question there like of ultimately how do you compete?
1:54:09
The other dynamic here which I don't think has gotten enough press is you have the model layer, you have the UI layer and in between you have this sort of like context layer and the better an enterprise has its context like these are the kinds of customers that I engage with.
1:54:25
This is the way my data is structured.
1:54:26
This is what happens in particular use case.
1:54:28
the better that's structured, the better the ultimate performance of an AI product.
1:54:32
Historically, that's been embedded in Salesforce and Workday and all those kinds of companies.
1:54:35
The question is, does the enterprise actually want to control it because it is so valuable? Yeah. Yeah.
1:54:40
Do you think do you think uh memory it feels like memory is not a massive moat today?
1:54:46
Maybe we're starting to see it with chat GBT.
1:54:48
Do you think it can become something that's durable?
1:54:51
How how do you think about moes broadly in the in the future?
1:54:56
the in the future? It makes sense in the context of you know healthc care applications or or even in banking and things like that where there's like hardcore regulations and and you we can talk about network effects but but I'm I'm curious how how you see modes evolving
1:55:15
well memory in the consumer ca in the consumer use case will be really significant right the more time I spend with chat GPT or Gemini the more likely I am to spend time so I think there's a reinforcement effect there I think within the enterprise guys, I suspect it will be the same thing, right? Where uh
1:55:29
Where uh especially across individual teams, maybe not across the entire enterprise, but it's pretty critical.
1:55:38
So, it's it's it's essential.
1:55:38
I just can't tell whether enterprises will be okay giving that memory to foundation models and say, I'm we're going to standardize, we're Coca-Cola, we'll standardize on Chat GPT and give them the memory, or they want the ability to move across clouds and across models.
1:55:54
And that I think that materially changes the way that software will be built depending on who ultimately controls that memory. Yeah.
1:55:59
It's interesting to think about the uh the the modes that exist due to the work required like the switching cost, right?
1:56:08
When you think about something like payroll where nobody's like, "Oh, I'm super excited.
1:56:14
I'm we're switching payroll, right? It's like so much work."
1:56:16
But then you can imagine a world in the future where you have like agents that are just good at migrating payroll providers.
1:56:21
And if that workload becomes something that you can run in a 24-hour period and this this sort of agentic workflows that do all the heavy lifting that would have taken a team of people like thousands of emails and all these weird edge cases.
1:56:37
It's like where where are the where are the moes? Where are the moes? Yeah.
1:56:39
Um I I have a followup on uh kind of startup metrics.
1:56:45
Um we've seen a lot of charts of folks getting to 100 mil arr really really fast.
1:56:49
Um there's been this like lurking overhang of like will there be massive churn.
1:56:54
Is this all exploratory budget from Fortune 500 companies that are going to wind up just going with like the Microsoft option ultimately or something?
1:57:04
Or someone has some mandate to test every AI tool in every corner of their company.
1:57:09
So they spend a bunch of money and then it doesn't stick around.
1:57:12
Do we need a new metric for that combines kind of like short-term churn with ARR to kind of give uh to help underwrite at the series A phase?
1:57:20
Well, we're looking for the net dollar retention equivalent, right?
1:57:24
So net dollar retention in the past is just value of an account over a year and top quartile would say 125% after 22.
1:57:30
Um I think that's the longer term metric.
1:57:34
The hard part and the reason it's so hard in early stage investing is you use that 14 months or 24 months to look at longitudinal net dollar retention and now these companies are growing so fast.
1:57:46
Let's say a business goes from 0 to 100 in 12 months.
1:57:48
You might have a quarter maybe two to look at the net dollar retention and you can't determine whether or not you can annualize it but you have to value the company.
1:57:55
And so that's really hard right that's a new muscle for early stage software companies. Yeah.
1:58:01
The other dynamic is sort of like this credit dynamic where you buy access to AI credits that's older.
1:58:08
You look at Snowflake with the remaining performance obligation.
1:58:10
Same idea today and people are annualizing.
1:58:14
It's not really ARR but at scale you have a sense for the overall consumption patterns of your your customers and so you can you can annualize it.
1:58:21
But the first one is really hard and so like rewind 10 years a top company would go 015.
1:58:31
So at the time when you were valuing a company at 4 or 500 million, you had 24 months of longitudinal data and you could look at those patterns.
1:58:38
Today, if you're valuing an AI company, it might be a quarter into its history before it hits 3 4 500 million in valuation. Yeah.
1:58:49
So you're basically taking the same risk uh at that round as you would be at the seed because you have the only additional information you have is whether there's great customer adoption. Yeah. Right.
1:59:00
But you don't know whether how long it will last.
1:59:02
Can you unpack the credit dynamic a little bit more?
1:59:04
I remember hearing stories from the dot boom.
1:59:08
How uh internet service providers were investing or offering loans to internet companies and and that was kind of distorting the market a little bit or was like kind of mispriced potentially.
1:59:23
And then we've seen hyperscalers, they make balance sheet investments, they offer credits.
1:59:27
What is the current state of affairs in the relationship between the the big players and the startup ecosystem that may be distorting or maybe something we need to keep an eye on in terms of valuations?
1:59:38
And can you can you explain in like more granular terms that you've been Yeah. Yeah. No, great question. Okay.
1:59:44
So, in the dotcom era, you had this dynamic where you had these circular ecosystems.
1:59:48
So one company would raise venture capital dollars and then they would pay to advertise on another company and then that company would raise venture capital dollars and pay to advertise on another company.
1:59:59
And so all of those companies as a whole would rise and fall with that little economy. Right?
2:00:04
You could take a uh you can make a similar argument which is Amazon invest in an AI company and says we'll give you a billion dollars but we'll give you 600 million of that in credits.
2:00:16
And so we knows that you're going to take 350 400 million of that and immediately turn it around spend it on AWS.
2:00:24
So is that really an investment?
2:00:26
Is that a closed economy?
2:00:26
Can you value either the startup or Amazon web services based on that revenue?
2:00:31
I think there's a big difference here which is just like within the dot era that ecosystem was really small and truly closed, right?
2:00:39
It was just a bunch of companies sending eyeballs back and forth and companies candidly were valued on overall traffic.
2:00:48
Here Morgan Stanley ran a survey the enterprises half of AI spend is from existing software spend and then half of it is brand new.
2:00:57
So there's a lot of new GDP coming into the ecosystem which tells you it's it's more more resilient. Makes no sense.
2:01:04
I'm going to say something and then I want you to react to it.
2:01:09
So in in the dotcom era, we had a bunch of companies valued at in billions of dollars with with uh huge losses and that became a problem over time.
2:01:18
Now we have a bunch of AI apps that have a lot of revenue in a lot of different cases.
2:01:24
But then we have foundation models that are valued in billions of dollars, many billions of dollars with huge, huge losses.
2:01:29
And I've been trying to unpack, you know, how many of these companies the capital markets can support and for how long because we have some foundation models that generate a lot of revenue and then there's some elephants that aren't right now and they all have plans or concepts of plans for how to generate a lot of revenue.
2:01:49
Um, but they're not doing it yet.
2:01:52
you know, uh not not to call anyone out, but you know, between SSI who's like not focused on launching, you know, a a product a commercial products immediately to Grock, which doesn't have consumer dominance or seemingly enterprise dominance right now.
2:02:08
There's there's a variety of players that are going to need to put up some uh you know, tremendous growth pretty quickly.
2:02:14
you know, they they've got big balance sheets now, but they won't stay that way for that long unless they can create some some real traction. Yeah, great.
2:02:25
I mean, there's I I think my parallel is like the networking companies of the early 2000s.
2:02:30
You had Quest and Nortell, uh, who like grew really, really fast.
2:02:37
Super capex intensive businesses building out connecting basically every computer to every other computer.
2:02:43
computer to every other computer. It's kind of a necessary thing and ultimately like if you got out at the right time you made an unbelievable multiple but if you got out at the wrong time you you could have lost your shirt pretty significantly
2:02:56
and that was you know there's a great parallel here which is these businesses the foundation models they require huge capex I mean the open AI data center Stargate at full deployment will consume as much electricity as all of as all of Ireland right just full of scale. It sounds It sounds exciting.
2:03:18
And so, you know, like there's there's a lot going into them.
2:03:21
The business models are unclear.
2:03:23
A lot of them have been unwilling to show advertisements because more ads you show, the greater the consumer deflection or bounce rates.
2:03:29
Uh and then some of like anthropic is more B2B, chat chat, open AI is more BTOC.
2:03:37
But yeah, and then the capital markets, we'll see how long they're able to to sustain. But the Yeah.
2:03:41
Well, it's been amazing noodling on all this with you.
2:03:46
This has been really, really fun.
2:03:46
We'd love to have you back and just chop it up about a million different topics. Uh I I had a blast.
2:03:51
It was great meeting you.
2:03:52
So, thanks so much for hopping on.
2:03:54
Thanks for having me on, guys.
2:03:54
Pleasure to meet you both. Yeah.
2:03:55
Hope we can do it again soon. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye.
2:03:59
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2:04:24
And he was walking his dog. Targeted. It was very targeted.
2:04:28
This we targeted you, Jamie. Yes.
2:04:28
Um and he was he was just like walking his dog.
2:04:33
He's like, "Wait, what is this?"
2:04:33
I think he was like thinking that he was in a dream.
2:04:37
Maybe the technology dream following me around.
2:04:39
Um but uh if you're around Soho, you will see uh our billboard.
2:04:45
So yes, send us a picture in the next 24 hours. Send you a hat. Yeah. Fantastic.
2:04:50
Uh we're almost ready for our next guest, but uh let's go to this post from Lulu.
2:04:55
Uh she says, "The center of gravity for techcoms right now is recruiting.
2:04:59
The war for talent is more heated than ever.
2:05:02
The top 5% of people are making 95% of the in impact.
2:05:04
If you're a startup, do not waste energy on being liked by the general public.
2:05:09
Focus on reaching the few dozen people you need to hire.
2:05:13
Bunch of interesting takeaways from this. Reminds me of uh DJ.
2:05:17
I was going to say is doing this announcement to recruit.
2:05:20
You can't buy a Neuralink right now. Yeah.
2:05:22
They don't need you on a wait list.
2:05:23
They need you to go and work there if you're absolutely the top of your field.
2:05:27
Uh and so I think a lot of that is kind of a new paradigm.
2:05:32
I wonder where this goes.
2:05:34
You can also see it with uh I mean the question is is clearly doing the right thing on techcoms to recruit.
2:05:40
They're very very good at recruiting influencers and creators and they have clearly they the 50 interns that they hired I don't know how many they actually wound up.
2:05:50
All those people have social media followings and be able to create a lot of content.
2:05:53
I guess the question is is that going to translate is their current communication strategy going to translate into great product managers and engineers and everything that they need to do to build out the actual product.
2:06:05
Um but you know product works we reviewed is launching their product at 3 p. m. Pacific today today.
2:06:09
So we might have to live in other news seeks 29 billion from private credit giants to fund AI data centers.
2:06:17
So this just this just got announced a few minutes ago.
2:06:22
Apollo Pimpco among the lenders in talks with Mark Zuckerberg, social media giant. Oh, that's a good hit.
2:06:28
Uh, Meta is looking to raise 29 billion to fund its all-in push into artificial intelligence according to the Financial Times.
2:06:34
But on that note, another watch for Zuck. Go to getbzel. com.
2:06:39
Your bezel concier is available for now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch.
2:06:44
Anyway, what what you're addicted.
2:06:46
Let's uh bring in Ken from Republic.
2:06:49
He had a big announcement and launch this week.
2:06:52
I am thrilled to talk with him.
2:06:54
I'm gonna let you take the intro. Perfect. Hey guys, how are you? Kendrick from Republic. Thanks for having me.
2:07:00
Great to have you on the show, Ken. What's happening?
2:07:04
Oh man, just chilling uh in New York. Perfect weather.
2:07:07
You're never You're never chilling.
2:07:10
You're never You're like the least chill guy.
2:07:12
You're working 20 hours a day, you know?
2:07:13
We're all going to have a really long good rest when we die.
2:07:19
So, uh, yolo, you know, still alive and just gota got to keep on moving. Yeah.
2:07:24
Uh, do you are you are you intentionally video off by the way? Oh, no. I I didn't realize that.
2:07:31
Uh, give me one second, please. I apologize.
2:07:33
I'm I'm dialing in from uh uh while being on the move.
2:07:36
Let me uh let me uh you know, turn my video on. Sweet. Just one second. Yep.
2:07:45
I am pumped to hear about the launch this week.
2:07:48
You guys were tearing up the timeline. There you are. Perfect. Hey, nice. How are you guys doing? Awesome.
2:07:56
Well, give give a quick intro on yourself, your background, and then and then Republic as well.
2:08:01
And then I want to get into the launch.
2:08:06
Yeah, you know, just a reformed lawyer, been in tech for like forever.
2:08:08
Uh started out earlier at Angelist.
2:08:10
we launched uh now a decade ago.
2:08:12
Uh and the whole goal is to uh make sure that uh you know uh private markets and public markets got to become much much more accessible not unlike how the internet uh really transform commerce right now we all buy things we need and need uh and everywhere.
2:08:33
Uh and I think the next phase of it is ownership.
2:08:35
Whatever it is that we love, whether it's SpaceX, Neuralink, um a movie, a song, uh we all got to be able to to uh be able to acquire uh a little bit of a sliver uh in in that.
2:08:49
And I think the world is moving fast in that direction with or without Republic.
2:08:52
We just happen to be at the forefront of it for a moment in time. Makes total sense.
2:08:58
Uh break down the launch this week or the announcement this week.
2:09:02
I I know this has been in the works for quite a while.
2:09:04
This has been I feel like this the the mirror tokens uh product is something that has probably been in the back of your mind since even years before you started the actual company.
2:09:16
So, you know, break it down for us. Yeah. Yeah.
2:09:19
You know, like at the end of the day, it's just about how do you fractionalize any asset? It can be public equity.
2:09:26
It can be private securities and leveraging what is an evolving legal framework and of of course the technology fractionalization automation.
2:09:36
Two key elements of blockchain as a technology and bring that to the masses.
2:09:40
And what we launched earlier this week is a token that provides performance uh basically benchmark to that of SpaceX.
2:09:48
And you're going to see other companies maybe XAI, open AI, neural and beyond uh getting rolled out on Republic.
2:09:53
It's not it is going to be controversial uh but it is basic traditional financial engineering package around an innovative um framework that is a technology a legal evolution around it to make this possible but uh uh this is something that I think with or without republic again uh it is going to be an emerging trend which has happened to be the one that introduces it to the market.
2:10:18
So, so, uh, talk about the mechanics more because I think people would see the launch and they would just immediately think that you you acquired some SpaceX shares and then you were allow you were effectively fractionalizing them and putting them on chain, but from my understanding, this is closer to something like a prediction market in that um, no, not at all.
2:10:37
It's not a prediction market.
2:10:40
We may indeed have exposure to SpaceX in this case.
2:10:42
uh it it probably is not a direct you know ownership of 101 shares but as you know uh SpaceX secondaries in the private markets people have SpaceX exposure through SPV SPV and SPV and three four five levels all the same at the end of the day republic is going to promise that when you make an investment or when you purchase or hold the Republic SpaceX token when SpaceX experes a liquidity event that to acquire or most likely go public.
2:11:16
Whatever that return uh in a value proposition to gain the performance of a SpaceX share that is priced comparable to market today, you're going to be able to turn in that token and get the exact economics back.
2:11:31
Uh so that is a an obligation an economic obligation from Republic and of course we have exposure to make sure that we underrite and going to be able to fulfill that obligation.
2:11:41
But it is not a onetoone space share. Yeah.
2:11:44
So, so when when somebody buys, you know, one of these tokens that's representative of the performance, they're not they're not buying they're they're not buying direct they're they're not buying equity.
2:11:57
They're they're buying again uh the the sort of basically an option on on the rate of change in the future to some degree.
2:12:05
Could you could you correct Could you give um some type of I I'm having a little bit of a technical snafuh today, but can you hear me? Okay.
2:12:14
Uh yeah, you sound you sound great. Sound great to us.
2:12:17
Um can you give us some comps and like other types of uh like sort of financial uh engineering throughout history that that that you were kind of inspired by in the in the creation of this?
2:12:32
Yeah, you I mean the the history of Republic has been dealing with retail investors and enable them to buy private securities.
2:12:40
The early phase of it we call it crowdfunding, you know, which was like a dirty word for many founders in VC.
2:12:46
But at the end of the day, it means one thing.
2:12:48
How do you get the general public the opportunity to participate in private companies whether it's a early stage YC company or SpaceX and Neurolink uh and people don't really care if it's a direct interest on the cap table or a comparable economic interest.
2:13:08
We're talking about emotional identification.
2:13:12
The fact that someone say that hey I'm going to part way with $10 and I believe in this technology and when it succeeds I too want to you know share in that in that success.
2:13:21
It can be structure, it can be a derivative, it can be a financial engineering product that may not be required one day, but right now that is needed to see this through.
2:13:33
Uh, and what we doing, we do not need SpaceX consent or permission.
2:13:38
This is a Republic financial product and an obligation on the company that we're going to deliver to those who believe not just in SpaceX but in Republic as a market participant as well.
2:13:48
market participant as well. is wait hold on like okay so you don't need SpaceX's approval but if I were to create a list of people that I wouldn't want to make angry I think Elon Musk would be right at the top so like uh is this like you you better be ready to if you're not
2:14:08
asking for permission I hope you're really really good at begging for forgiveness well well you could say lawyer up but Ken's a lawyer he is a lawyer yeah so maybe he'll figure it out I I I'm rooting for you this feels like something that that could be very successful. Uh it also feels like uh
2:14:20
Uh it also feels like uh you're maybe poking a bear.
2:14:23
Um a very large bear, but uh like have you thought about that? Yes. Uh and again, apologies.
2:14:32
I have to leave my video off. Yeah, no worries.
2:14:37
On and you guys look incredibly sharp, by the way.
2:14:38
Uh uh you know, at the end of the day, I think obviously Elon like the the man of our generation, right?
2:14:46
What an incredible brilliant human being.
2:14:50
There's no doubt that the notion of everyday folks, fans of his and SpaceX in the US and around the world being able to share in the upside, I don't think he's against that at all.
2:15:02
He certainly has, I assume, some concerns around information and pricing and all of that.
2:15:11
And I'm quite confident that we can deliver a product in collaboration with companies like SpaceX and OpenAI so that we can address their concern while not stopping what is a financial evolution and a social trend.
2:15:26
Listen, if tomorrow republic stop doing this, the cat is out of the hat.
2:15:32
Binance, OKX, whoever in Vietnam and Abu Dhabi and Saudi can easily roll this out and there's nothing that these company can do about it, particularly in those markets.
2:15:45
So, we hope that we obviously have not just investors best interest in mind, but our partners.
2:15:50
So, I'm I'm hopeful that in a week or two, I'm going to come back and be able to tell you guys that there's a collaboration going on rather than there's a lawsuit in the federal court. That's exciting.
2:15:59
Well, yeah, we definitely want to hear from you. Uh last question.
2:16:02
Uh will the will the tokens uh be liquid or illquid?
2:16:06
Is this something that you're buying and then it's sort of trading in real time?
2:16:13
I I I bring it up because if if this had been live a couple weeks ago when when uh Elon static fire test failed that or or the Oh yeah, that sorry I'm just small blow up.
2:16:25
You could imagine the the there being some sort of trading activity. Sure.
2:16:30
Dude, the whole point of this is obviously liquidity.
2:16:33
I mean, the entire listen secondary secondary SpaceX shares have been traded and sold and packaged among family offices and institutional investors.
2:16:45
We all know in every single market, layer after layer, it is the liquidity and the retail component of it.
2:16:53
and this being onchain and us and one of our subsidiaries have the license to enable secondary trading of digital securities among non- retail US investors.
2:17:05
So yes, the whole point of this is so that people can trade you know what they have and and market dependent.
2:17:12
So the future the what you had just described fast forward a year is what we aim to see for all of these major companies. Very cool.
2:17:20
Well, thank you so much for stopping by.
2:17:23
Thank you for joining you back when there's more developments. This is fantastic.
2:17:26
Always a good launch strategy to poke a bear.
2:17:29
That's a good way to get good way to get attention and we're super excited to see see how this plays out and and definitely, you know, feel free to jump back on.
2:17:36
Thanks so much for having me, guys.
2:17:37
Have a great rest of your day. Cheers. Um, fascinating.
2:17:40
So, there is a bull case here.
2:17:44
I feel like there's a bare case.
2:17:45
I mean, no, the bull the bull case is like there's going to be you put space a a SpaceX derivative on chain, there is going to be such an obscene amount of demand for it. Yes. Yes.
2:17:55
I I what I mean is is is bullcase for like peace and no drama and no lawsuits.
2:17:59
And I think what that means is that basically what are the benefits of having retail of being a public company?
2:18:08
You could potentially have a retail army of supporters who are who are supporting voting for policies that help you, lobbying, calling congressmen, publishing YouTube videos, yeah, promoting, hiring, all these different things.
2:18:21
Um, but what are the downsides of being public?
2:18:24
Well, that, you know, all the different, you know, shareholder approvements, getting marked on a daily basis, all these different things about, um, you know, even just stock grants for for Elon. We saw that with Tesla.
2:18:33
He kind of ran the ultimate AB test with SpaceX and Tesla.
2:18:36
And I think he's had a much smoother time at SpaceX than Tesla.
2:18:42
And so from the crazy retail army Tesla who will buy his cars, who will will defend any act.
2:18:49
So I think what you're getting at is is there's potentially a world where companies have these sort of assets that are representative of their underlying equity that are liquid and that are getting marked daily. Yep.
2:18:59
But if a company can basically say like we didn't permission this.
2:19:05
We don't have any information requirements. Exactly.
2:19:09
And we don't even care what happens over there.
2:19:11
People can do whatever they want.
2:19:13
If if they're excited about investing us in us, great.
2:19:15
But we didn't we didn't raise capital from them.
2:19:17
We don't have an obligation to those token holders.
2:19:19
We have an obligation to our shareholders.
2:19:23
And there's a world where this could be some type of happy Yeah. middle ground.
2:19:28
the the the question is um are there downsides to having this secondary third tertiary we're going to call it tertiary markets I guess where like imagine there's $5 million float out there and SpaceX in this tertiary market is trading at a trillion dollars and then you go out to raise or do a secondary transaction and there's this question of
2:19:49
like what is the true price discovery you're trying to benchmark it to the retail price but then the insider institutional price is different or in the bad case what if tertiary market grows to, you know, $20 billion and you're like, wait, I want I want to sell some of that as primary and I want some of that on my balance sheet if I'm if I'm a growing company. And then the
2:20:07
And then the companies go to Ken and they're like, hey, we got to we got to partner up here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:20:11
So, I mean, there's a bunch of interesting solutions.
2:20:14
I'm excited to uh I'm excited to cover it. Certainly exciting. Yep. Exactly.
2:20:19
Uh anyway, our next guest here is here in the studio. Uh Kirsten Green. Welcome to the show. How are you today? Hi guys. Good to see you. Hi. Great. How are you? We're doing well. Uh quite the day.
2:20:30
Very dapper today in Well, the market's up.
2:20:33
We always on a on a great day. Reasons to be happy. Yeah. All times.
2:20:39
We're very happy about that.
2:20:39
And massive Neurolink news today. Big launch from them. That was a lot of fun.
2:20:44
Um and you've had a busy week as well. Yes.
2:20:47
So, uh Neuralink news this morning. I've been Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:20:53
Take us through the conference.
2:20:55
um what was the structure? What was the goal?
2:20:57
What type of people were you thinking about inviting?
2:21:00
And then I want to go into some of the learnings and what the what what the uh the current uh vibe is. Okay, cool.
2:21:08
Um conference funny because it started out like a couple of weeks ago, I think six weeks ago as a happy hour, like a themed happy hour.
2:21:17
like let's get some of the people that we're working with that are building in consumer AI together.
2:21:25
Let's bring in some other firms that have some other founders and just build some community and conversation on the topic.
2:21:31
And so like literally it started with like we went to a few co-investors that we work with and said you guys want to do this and they said yes.
2:21:40
And then few more people than we imagined wanted to do it.
2:21:46
So we're like yeah maybe we could do something with this.
2:21:47
We thought we could, you know, showcase these companies.
2:21:51
We could build some enthusiasm around the topic, which I think was, you know, really my original impetus, like just to build some enthusiasm around the potential.
2:21:59
And, you know, six weeks later, we had standing room only, lines out the door at our impromptu conference. That's amazing. Amazing breakdown.
2:22:11
um what what were the specific things that you wanted to be having conversations about consumer?
2:22:20
Yeah, within the event and then kind of what were kind of some of the standout um topics. Yeah.
2:22:23
So, you know, I think that as much as anything, it was like about putting a stake in the ground for consumer AI.
2:22:31
Um, giving people permission, if not like a provoc provocation that like, you know, or a rallying cry that founders there's opportunities to build for people.
2:22:42
It's um and uh there's this new technology to do a lot with.
2:22:48
It's been a lot of conversation and kind of velocity around the foundational models, the infrastructure.
2:22:54
Um, but we haven't really gotten a conversation going with a lot of enthusiasm or imagination around bringing that technology forward into the hands of people.
2:23:07
Um, at the same time, you know, I think there's never been a faster growing uh product adoption than Chach GPT.
2:23:13
And we we talked a little bit about that.
2:23:16
We talked about the fact that Perplexity and Anthropic are pulling customers in to try their products.
2:23:21
You go on social media, you see teens talking about their AI companions.
2:23:25
You see parents talking, you know, using their co-pilots for family planning, trip planning, meal planning.
2:23:32
Um, but there isn't as much building going on in this area in general, like on how people are going to use this outside.
2:23:41
There's some in the workplace, but more broadly.
2:23:43
Um and so we wanted to get a conversation going around the human experience, the product craft and the everyday utility of this.
2:23:53
And um and I think you know against the backdrop of some of the biggest companies that have been built in the last 25 years out of the tech ecosystem started with the consumer.
2:24:03
You know, today they look like multi-dimensional businesses operating in every category.
2:24:11
But when they first came to market, they were enticing a user to engage with them.
2:24:15
Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, all those companies that are now the tech giants.
2:24:22
Their first entree into the market was to get a user, get you and me to engage with the product.
2:24:28
And I think it's a magical place to build from um for lots of reasons, but one of which is is that you can move at the space at the speed of technology.
2:24:37
So there was a lot of conversation about how fast things are moving about how do you build a product when technology is, you know, kind of changing in the moment that you're building with it.
2:24:46
Um and the consumer will build with you.
2:24:48
There isn't a nine month sell-in cycle. They're they're there.
2:24:52
Put something up, they'll use it.
2:24:54
They'll tell you they hate it.
2:24:56
They'll tell you they love it.
2:24:58
you can iterate on it and get that feedback.
2:24:59
Um, and I think once you get engagement, you'll see the opportunities for expansion, which I would argue a lot of those companies saw and built big businesses.
2:25:08
So, it was about just saying like there's a tremendous opportunity to think very big, very ambitiously about the future and a role that you want to play in it as a founder and a and a company builder.
2:25:20
Why not start with the consumer?
2:25:22
Why not think about that?
2:25:22
And um I think that's a you know that's a pretty strong rallying cry.
2:25:27
So we were trying to I think I think we need a rallying cry when when I've talked to some consumer uh people that are I've been pitched some consumer apps lately and a couple times it's come up where my thought is okay this makes sense for the next year.
2:25:42
But if chatbt gets really good at computer use and operator gets really good, I think you might get destroyed because people have it installed on their phone.
2:25:52
And so the question for me is like, you know, how how do you figure out a way, you know, if chat GBT is undeniably the breakout consumer app of the last few years, like there's no there's no way around it and it's getting valued uh appropriately based on that.
2:26:11
But the question is like how do you kind of carve out space that is not you know that that that as chatbt gets better and more capable you're not kind of gonna get steamrololled.
2:26:24
That is the first question that I kicked the day off with. Yeah.
2:26:26
the day off with. Yeah. We had um we had a we kicked off with um Reed Hoffman and we said you know hey Reed you have an all- angle view into this moment as a as a builder as an investor as a board member in these relevant highly relevant companies like there's a lot of
2:26:42
conversation out here about like gez in a world where the tech is moving so fast and so aggressively and looking like it's expanding and teasing out already in so many areas like where do we build like h how how do we think about capturing a space when they've got all the resources and they're moving at that kind of crazy speed. And I asked Mike
2:27:01
And I asked Mike the same question at the end of the day, Kger, at the end of the day.
2:27:05
Um, and I posed as like this is the elephant in the room.
2:27:09
This is what people are are are talking about while they have their good idea.
2:27:13
Then they're worried about that.
2:27:14
Both of them said that yes these companies are you know they they they are moving fast but they won't dominate all verticals they won't be able to do all things um or or maybe they won't choose to because that's not the right thing for their business.
2:27:33
I don't want to discredit what they can and can't do, but I think there are, you know, an expansive number of things that require specialty and focus, that require craft and understanding around the particular lane you're operating in or service you're trying to provide.
2:27:49
um that that are incredible examples of opportunities to leverage the power of Gen AI and these LLMs, but that have all kinds of scaffolding around them that exist around that.
2:28:02
Um and so, um you know, I think that um it's a little bit like I guess this was my analogy.
2:28:09
My head was like, okay, Google, like they own search.
2:28:13
But there's a lot of big platforms that were built off of search in what is called specialty areas, but that are significant businesses.
2:28:20
You could argue Amazon is that um you know, Zillow, there's been Expedia, there's been other things for travel.
2:28:27
They there are lots of reasons why the ubiquitous like, you know, kind of very broad front door isn't the right answer for everything.
2:28:37
Um, and it's also just like, you know, the everybody everybody, no matter how well resourced you are, how capable you are, weighs tradeoffs on what's on your road map, what's in and what's out.
2:28:49
I think that's, you know, key to being a really successful long-term company and having a solid foundation. You can't do everything.
2:28:54
You don't need to do everything.
2:28:56
don't need to do everything. So there was universal agreement when asked this question answered in different ways that like there's plenty of room to go even if you want to assume that a big portion of it is going to go to a clearly you
2:29:10
know set of exceptional companies that have driven breakout what they've done for this industry among other things is like woken people up to the potential of this imag you know amazing new technology and these new ways of starting to engage with technology. where people are searching differently,
2:29:27
where people are searching differently, not just on chat GPT, but for example, on retailer sites, you know, they've gone from keyword search to conversational search.
2:29:35
And so my my thought there is like people are ready for it.
2:29:40
They're they're they're here to meet the moment of what gets delivered.
2:29:44
I think it's on the builders to bring them something new and special and amazing.
2:29:48
And um I just you know I think everybody when they really think about it is like you're not going to go everywhere. Okay. But what does that mean?
2:29:58
I mean I think you want to stay in ideally you want to find a place where you can be leveraging you can be operating or building in the path of progress.
2:30:07
So you can kind of see how things are progressing.
2:30:10
You can imagine like what is core to these big businesses?
2:30:13
How do I build something that can take advantage of where they're leaning in and being exceptional?
2:30:18
But I can build around in the context of my own environment the extra things that are going to make this like the the truly remarkable standout experience that becomes a daily habit or a use case for whatever your domain is. Totally.
2:30:35
And I and I think you know we show like one of the things that was really fun about yesterday was obviously the chance for this audience that was there to see 20 founders um get up and present their new companies.
2:30:46
These aren't companies that we all know about because they're seed and series A early stage companies and these teams had four minutes to get up and talk about what they're building um why it's possible today and why it matters and they did a really great job.
2:31:04
um for one, but I also think sparked a lot of imagination um you know cool examples of what you can do with the technology demonstration of kind of how people are thinking about applying it in different ways and I would say to you um you know I don't want to speak on behalf of any founders but I bet you that all of those are a starting point you know that that have visions beyond that too.
2:31:26
Yeah, we were we were at YC demo day a couple weeks ago and uh I don't remember talking to a single consumer AI company.
2:31:35
We didn't we didn't get to talk to everyone, but uh so maybe it was just the B2B founders that were like really I had we had one YC company yesterday text. ai present. Oh, we talked to them.
2:31:45
We talked to them and they came up to me afterwards and they said, you know, there were four consumer companies in our cohort.
2:31:51
Like we need we need our we need our people. Where are they?
2:31:53
And I entire spoke with Gary Tan yesterday.
2:31:58
So, I was just going to say I've been spending, you know, more time with the with the YC great uh team there and and with Gary and listen Airbnb, Door Dash, some of the most iconic companies to come out of YC consumer companies.
2:32:13
Coinbase one way is I wanted this like day to be about permission.
2:32:15
Like it's it's kind of been like a bad word like I'm building in consumer or whatever, but no. No.
2:32:21
And and also it's like again it can be it can be your end goal.
2:32:25
It can be your starting point but to the point of it's an incredible place to start from because you can iterate learn. Yeah.
2:32:33
Weirdly, consumer is is very competitive because you're you're coming up against chat GPT on a lot of use cases, but at the same time, it's it's less competitive just because looking at the YC batch, it's like that often ends up being a reflection.
2:32:46
But so today among among other things that I you know that that our team had in mind for what the event might offer um one of one of the the the things that really made me feel great about the day was I had several f people come up to me future founders and say I've been thinking about this product I wanted to build but I just wasn't sure if there was energy for it or demand for it or I'd find investors that wanted it.
2:33:14
And now after today, I saw so many cool applications.
2:33:18
I got more new ideas about it.
2:33:19
Like, I'm gonna build it.
2:33:19
And so, you know, I think that we all say no or hesitate until somebody starts to turn it on.
2:33:28
And, you know, I think yesterday we saw 20 incredible companies that have been funded by some of the best investors out there. We saw 23.
2:33:34
I mean, I we we started by calling, you know, a few friendlies that we invest with.
2:33:40
Do you want to do this with us?
2:33:42
you want to do this with us? and you know then another friend you know everybody said like without a doubt like yeah we want to be part of that we want to invest in the next you know ambitious entrepreneur building in that area um
2:33:55
and um and then after when we put the list up like here's who the co-hosts are I got more calls about it and so my point was just like hey listen like they're all open for business so take the VC firms and multiply the number of you know available dollars they have to
2:34:12
invest and it's all possible for a consumer founder to get you just you know I think part of it is is you know thinking ambitiously enough about what you're building and being able to answer some of those hard questions but you know hard questions exist in every
2:34:27
single area okay here are some hard questions for consumer if I'm thinking about building a new AI consumer app one is that it feels like historically most consumer has been more power distributed did more winner take all than other markets. Amazon winner take
2:34:44
Amazon winner take all pretty much and Google very much winner take all.
2:34:50
Social networking very much winner take all.
2:34:52
Chat GPT is already on a run to be feels like 90% penetration in that market.
2:34:56
And so fintech is honestly one of the only areas that it hasn't exactly been winner take all.
2:35:02
Obviously Kirstson had chime chime IPO. Yeah.
2:35:04
where it feels like it feels like we've seen a lot of really smart founders come in and it like the the the base hit the hundred million dollar outcome the billion dollar outcome feels more rare in consumer as opposed to in B2B.
2:35:17
I don't know how real that is, but that's certainly a fear.
2:35:20
Uh then there's also the the fear that there are a lot of consumer companies that are still run by great founders and are and the founders are in founder mode and so you know someone who's running a you know major large consumer company if you're on to something they might come after you.
2:35:40
Uh whereas in B2B you might be able to subslice the market and build some different niche that's underserved and kind of grow a business.
2:35:47
Are either of those serious concerns or do you think there's good counterarguments that founders should have top of mind if if they get hit with those questions?
2:35:55
Okay, so on the second one, I'll just start there because it's on my mind with the second one.
2:36:01
Like, no, I don't think so.
2:36:03
I mean, yes and no, right?
2:36:03
There's always competition.
2:36:05
I think if you get into business, you should just be getting into competition. Like, and you know what?
2:36:11
If you're going after something worth it, if you're going after something worth the price, there's going to be competition.
2:36:15
It's going to come at you from pure startups.
2:36:17
It's going to come at you two years from now from another startup that's starting with some out some of the baggage that you have.
2:36:24
And it's going to come from some incumbents.
2:36:26
But I I think that you know there there is a lot to be said for for an a unique insight for a particular point of view on how it gets executed for a particular culture you build at your team and at your company and how you go after it and like that is not that different than in any other space.
2:36:45
There are for every kind of B2B company like in the space.
2:36:49
I mean it it is it's open season.
2:36:52
There's not five competitors, there's 50 competitors.
2:36:55
So get your game on for competition. Yeah.
2:36:59
For the other question which was the the power law question. Yeah. Um I Yeah.
2:37:02
And does that also underffect underwriting in the sense that uh like you have to you have to underwrite to with I mean if you're talking about like I don't know most consumer AI companies or most consumer companies I feel like it's either like a zero or a trillion dollars but I don't know if that's the right narrative but that that feels like it would change underwriting maybe as a investor.
2:37:25
I mean, so I I think that as as venture investors, we're all in it for the trillion dollar idea, right?
2:37:30
So, you know, I think that we are thinking like what's the big ambition here?
2:37:34
What's the big possibility?
2:37:36
Um, if you're an early stage investor, you then better be thinking about like what's the, you know, first act that get going to give you the right to get to the second act.
2:37:45
But I think we're not playing for like how do we do an M&A exit in a couple years.
2:37:49
Like that's not that's not what this is about.
2:37:50
Um I I I so I don't think that's how we underwrite things ever anyways.
2:37:56
I think when you're in the zone of doing those other things, it's because um dynamics have changed or you know like usually it's because dynamics have changed.
2:38:07
And I you know I think that um we have sold companies in in M&A situations and I think that exists in all areas of business.
2:38:17
So maybe it's not as prolific in consumer businesses than it is. I I don't know.
2:38:23
I haven't really done that analysis cuz I'm here to hopefully build big companies with founders.
2:38:28
founders. Um but you know on the on the power law question um there is definitely like I do think I'm particularly interested in and and venture investors are particularly interested in businesses that have network effects that do have products
2:38:42
and experiences that get better with scale that get better with more activity and more engagement and that you know sort of beg that sort of leads you into these businesses that have the self have the the power law dynamics. But the
2:38:53
But the companies that you mentioned are like the category leadersh that doesn't like there are still big businesses that are adjacent to those categories that are public companies are big standalone companies are successful stories for both founders and teammates and investors.
2:39:14
So you know yeah it's power laws all the way down.
2:39:17
laws all the way down. So there's like the the the category leader power law and then there's like market other you know a$20 billion company that's a power law you know within it subcategory there are right so um but you know what I worth mentioning and this is why I
2:39:33
started to feel urgency on this topic and igniting the conversation yesterday there's a lot to be said for being first and chatbt proves it for instance y um you know and I don't know if Google actually was the first search I don't think they were but they were pretty close after like it like it is game on right now. There's going to be
2:39:49
There's going to be opportunities for the next 10 years just like there were in the last cycle and the cycle for the next 20.
2:39:54
But like right now is a unique moment in time where like the the the deck is getting shuffled and newness is being created and we still are in the zone.
2:40:03
One of the things we were, you know, hoping to tease out yesterday in conversation and just in general is just like, okay, if you're starting a company today, like challenge yourself to think about the problem or the opportunity you're going after and the technology that you have to play with and build with and work with and what would you what do you bring to life in 2025 with that?
2:40:24
Like instead of thinking about like this is the way we've always done things and now we have this technology and our chatbot can be better or something.
2:40:33
So like get out of the zone and think about like a new way to present.
2:40:37
And I'm the investor, not the founder.
2:40:39
So don't ask me what the idea is, but I know somebody out there has a bunch of them. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
2:40:45
Google was not the first they weren't the first search engine, but they were the first one to implement page rank.
2:40:49
So that particular algorithm.
2:40:51
Chat GPT was not the first chat bot.
2:40:53
There were, you know, Siri and different, you know, WhatsApp bots that you could kind of, you know, write some business logic around, but they were the first transformerbased chatbot that had been scaled up to a large run, and so they they broke through in that way.
2:41:07
I want to talk about distribution for consumer apps.
2:41:10
We're seeing a bunch of interesting things.
2:41:12
There's a couple case studies that might be interesting to weave through.
2:41:16
One is Lensza, this uh magic avatar app where you could upload a few images and it would make you a superhero or it would it do kind of a generation of your face on an AI avatar.
2:41:30
It was massively popular.
2:41:30
They made a ton of money and then it kind of fell off.
2:41:34
Um and they and they've kind of changed the business and re revisited that.
2:41:39
I think they changed to something that then got kind of smoked by chat GPT. Exactly. Again. Yeah.
2:41:43
So, there's that story and then and then on the other side, you see, but I also don't think they raised very much money.
2:41:48
No, I think they probably made a bunch of money.
2:41:51
Um, but uh and then and then I'm we've been tracking a lot of what's happening with Cluey, this viral company that I it's kind of hard to tell if they're consumer or or they're B2B.
2:42:00
they're consumer or or they're B2B. the the the Roy Lee the founder seems to be exploring both sides but it's undeniable that he's been great at getting attention and breaking through the very noisy you know startup AI ecosystem uh in in the sense that he will take over the timeline in the way I mean thinking
2:42:20
machines raised $2 billion and more people were talking about clearly that day like that is crazy to me um but I mean that that is crazy and honestly like I I think that's smart right so I mean one of the hardest the the hardest thing to do is to build an amazing product that people use on a regular basis and are committed and loyal to it. That's the hardest thing to
2:42:43
That's the hardest thing to do.
2:42:44
The second hardest thing to do is get in the conversation, right?
2:42:47
So, you know, I mean, we work with a lot of, you know, companies that are consumerf facing and um and one of the first questions when we work with a new founder is is like, how do I market this?
2:43:00
You know, you had a company that did this and did this. like what's the secret?
2:43:03
And I always say the same thing is like, hey, listen, I got good news and bad news for you.
2:43:06
Like the the bad news is there's well well the good news is is like good news and the bad news I guess is you have to do everything.
2:43:13
Like there's a lot of ways to do that and there's like not one way to do it.
2:43:18
That's the good and the bad news.
2:43:18
Like you have to figure out like how to be showing up in all these different places and when something hits then you need to lean into it.
2:43:26
And and so I think like if you if you have the creativity to do that and you can create relevance in the conversation, that's good.
2:43:33
Now it's all worthless if you don't have a great product.
2:43:38
So you 100% have to be able to back anything you do in that way up for a great product because the business is built on the product.
2:43:45
The business is not built on marketing. It's not.
2:43:46
And I think that, you know, that is that has long always been true.
2:43:51
But today, you know, consumers are savvy.
2:43:54
I've said this for the 30 years I've invested.
2:43:57
Consumers are savvy and you can maybe sometimes pull them in on something, you know, sexy marketing story or whatever, but like you can't really build you can't build a business unless you've got like something really worthy.
2:44:06
Um, but you know, so it's not a business to be a good marketer, but it's an advantage to be a good marketer. Yeah.
2:44:14
Uh, consumers do seem extremely savvy right now.
2:44:17
Um I'm thinking and and and the nature partly because they can ask Chad GBT should I use this product with Chad GBT the the the the consumption pattern of the consumer seems to have completely changed in the sense that you have people that are paying $200 a month.
2:44:34
Maybe they're using that at work.
2:44:34
Maybe they're using it personally.
2:44:36
But it's a very different product shape than what we've seen on the internet before.
2:44:42
Paying $200 or $500 a month for something that maybe you're expensing it, maybe you're using it for work, maybe you're using as a consumer.
2:44:48
And I'm wondering if we almost need a new word we need to bring over proumer.
2:44:51
And well actually I love what you're talking about while you're saying that like I think that the lines are being blurred like as we speak and they have been for a while on like consumer and business. Yeah.
2:45:05
Because um people have been doing it in their lives like how many people have two cell phones anymore?
2:45:10
One for work and one for life. No, you just put it in.
2:45:13
you just it's what you're doing, you know, and people are working, you know, different hours and they're doing side jobs on the side and they're so and we're using notion for personal list and we're using it at work to communicate with our colleagues.
2:45:26
These sort of things are happening like increasingly and they're just going to continue that way.
2:45:30
And so that really begs like any product builder to have a user mindset.
2:45:36
Maybe we could get out of saying consumer and really talk about users or people.
2:45:39
We're building products for people whether it's you in the office or whether you it's home.
2:45:44
You don't completely change your expectations of what a great experience looks like when you're on home mode versus work mode.
2:45:51
So, you know, I think that that like that like line is like it's really blurred and I think that it's getting increasingly blurred in business and it's also getting blurred in like what people are willing to pay for and how they're using it. Right.
2:46:02
You might actually put like cursor in the proumer category in the sense that it's more of a go to market motion.
2:46:08
It's like it's bottoms up adoption and it's selling to the individual to the user to your point as opposed to a top- down mandate like the CFO or the CTO decided that we're using this database and so we're using it whether or not you want it.
2:46:21
it whether or not you want it. It's like proumer proumer proumer guys because you can use that whole like we iterate in real time real fast with the consumer see what they're building learn about our product you know charge something for our product and then if we're like
2:46:36
really relevant and we're delivering on this value proposition it's efficiency it's it's time ROI we can get a company to come in and pay for it like you know then you've kind of straddled both of those and I think that's that's pretty great place to play it is totally Well, uh, thank you so much. Congrats on the Congrats on the event. Congratulations.
2:46:54
Congrats on the happy hour.
2:46:55
You should probably You should probably happy hour for the sunshine yesterday, too. So, that was good.
2:47:01
You should probably do it uh quarterly cuz there's no time to waste, you know.
2:47:09
I mean, last night we had a drink after after dinner.
2:47:11
Our team, we went out to dinner and I I, you know, gave a cheers and I said like, you know, thanks everybody for indulging the crazy and that we got this done in six weeks. It was fun. You know, it was fun.
2:47:21
Just got to put it out there and commit to it. Make it happen. Awesome.
2:47:24
Well, thank you for joining. This was super fun.
2:47:26
Yeah, I hope to have you on. Yeah, we'll talk soon. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.
2:47:29
Uh let's go back to the timeline, talk about uh TAN, former guest on the show, is uh talking about the zero acquisition of Melio Payments.
2:47:40
It's uh they're paying $2. 5 billion.
2:47:43
This is 13 times its $190 million in run rate revenue.
2:47:49
But Melio raised around at four billion in September of 2021. What was the multiple?
2:47:54
What was the multiple, John?
2:47:57
Uh, it was a 400x multiple. Let's go.
2:48:03
Let's give it up for 400x multiples, you know. You know. Yeah, of course.
2:48:06
It's like it's a down round acquisition, but I think everyone still did quite well. Yeah.
2:48:11
And and all the any any investor that invested 4 billion their 1x back, they can redeploy it and get another, you know, get a get a couple 10xes in a row, few 10xes in a row, turn it into, you know, a trillion. Yeah.
2:48:22
Trillions, turn that into a quadrillion. Yeah.
2:48:24
Uh despite growing almost 20x in three years at a very healthy healthy exit multiple, it sold for lower than the 2021 valuation.
2:48:32
And yeah, acquisition I think it makes sense here because we were talking to Ev Randall and he was saying uh if you do a screen on on pure play SAS companies in the enterprise uh at you know I think he was even over over 500 million in revenue there are like multiple players in almost every subcategory at this point.
2:48:49
So you can get public markets exposure.
2:48:51
So this type of company even though $190 million amazing gongworthy uh fantastic performance from the team it's just maybe not enough to be enticing to the public markets.
2:49:01
So exiting to zero makes a ton of sense.
2:49:03
Anyway, speaking of big numbers, big numbers, the app is out.
2:49:08
Budget on everything, says Stephen Jeang.
2:49:10
Uh Preston asked for this.
2:49:10
He said, "I want a finance app with three numbers.
2:49:15
What I spent today, what I spent this week, what I spent this month."
2:49:18
I saw someone vibe coded this.
2:49:20
I'm not sure if Steven's the one that vibecoded the the first example, but he has a launch video out, and we love to see ideas to products in just a few months.
2:49:29
April 8th was the tweet that inspired this.
2:49:32
Now there's a launch video for it.
2:49:34
So congrats to Stephen for launching big numbers. I like that name.
2:49:38
Yeah, I think it's a good name.
2:49:38
Uh super excited for uh Stephen. He's the man.
2:49:43
And looks like it was filmed in a cinematic location.
2:49:46
I love the name, too, because it's it's uh easy to understand what it does. It's also aspirational. It is. It is.
2:49:50
You want to put numbers in that app.
2:49:52
Uh yeah, the video looks like it was filmed in a cinematic location.
2:49:56
And if you're looking to hang out in a cinematic location, you got to find your happy place. Find your happy place.
2:50:02
Book a wander with inspiring views, hotel, great amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, and 24/7 concier service.
2:50:07
It's a vacation home but better, folks.
2:50:09
Um, also I think this is a good way to dbo. We got to cover this.
2:50:14
Roy Lee, apparently intern for Keon of Nucleus fame.
2:50:20
Two most controversial Gen Z technology brothers.
2:50:23
Both been on the show multiple times on the same team.
2:50:26
OGZ fellow Keon got a cold email from then Colombia student Roy.
2:50:29
Roy wanted to intern for Kia Keon. He hustled and got it.
2:50:34
Within a year Roy left Colombia and built Cleuly. Oh yeah. And became a Zfellow.
2:50:38
And so the new PayPal mafia is the Zfellow CU the cinematic universe.
2:50:40
I really like that Alli's breaking this whole this whole thing down with the red string. Uh it's great.
2:50:47
And is there anything else you want to cover today or are we good to go?
2:50:52
I realized we uh we did a team Was it a half?
2:50:55
It was a half Murf this morning. Oh, yeah, we did.
2:50:57
Uh, we want to be efficient with our time.
2:51:02
Um, but I have not had a sip of water. Just drink.
2:51:06
I've only had Matina and I'm, as much as I love Matina, I'm starting to get a little bit of a of a headache. Lacked water.
2:51:14
Accidentally not having water. Okay.
2:51:16
uh as a water enthusiast enthusiast entrepreneur founder you're a water but uh anyways this is a great place to end anyway leave us five stars on Apple podcast and Spotify thanks for listening have a great weekend and we have the best have the best weekend of your life yes just do it no excuses no excuses if you if you don't it's