TBPN | Friday, May 30th — searchlore

TBPN | Friday, May 30th

Published May 31, 2025

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Today is Friday, May 30th, 2025.

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We are live from the TVPN Ultra Dome, the temple of technology, the fortress. The fortress of finance. The capital. The capital of capital. How's the lag? Traveling. How are you doing? I'm good. I miss you. Yeah, me too.

5:15

Feel so close, but so far it's brutal.

5:17

Uh, sleeping without an eight sleep.

5:21

It's the punishment worse than death. It's a true torture. It really is. It's the worst. It's the worst.

5:28

Uh, anyway, exciting exciting week short week with the with the Memorial Day holiday, but I feel like we did a good job making up for the lack of major tech news, the lack of major announcements from AI companies.

5:42

Although WWDC is coming up next week, which should be interesting and that's where I wanted to start because uh John Gruber has been writing about Apple for years at Daring Firing Daring Fireball.

5:55

He has a show called Talk Show that he does at WWC and it's very interesting because he was one of the first people to do a talk show and interview show in the Vision Pro with um in VR.

6:07

They bring the pro cameras and you can stream it and you can watch it in the vision pro. He went all in.

6:15

He's been writing positively about Apple for a long time.

6:19

Of course, a couple months ago, he wrote something is rotten in the state of Certino talking about the the the difficulties with the roll out of Apple intelligence.

6:26

And they uh they didn't completely rug him, but they didn't sign up fully.

6:34

So last year uh the talk show live from WWC 2024 uh had Craig Federigi, Greg uh Jaws and John Gandrea, Apple's head of machine learning and AI and this year he invited them all and they said no we don't want to participate. No way. Yeah. No way.

6:55

Which is they took it they took uh the rotten post. They took it personally. It hurts.

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And so I mean I was just reflecting on like what this means.

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Obviously, we want to inv you know interview these folks.

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And so I I just kind of had this realization that truly Apple intelligence is one of the most underrated products of all time. Totally. Totally.

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And people are critical of it because it's Apple and they're they they they always achieve perfection. I think they did.

7:23

I think it's a product that we use and love daily, right?

7:27

When you text me when you text me, John, you text me this a couple paragraphs, right? Some cool idea.

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I actually like that Apple um botches the summary because it inspires me to think what would John think in this circumstance. Exactly.

7:40

What would John want me to to think that he was saying before Apple kind of stepped, you know, stepped in?

7:48

And so I think you're totally right.

7:50

I think Apple intelligence uh criminally underrated. I agree.

7:54

Um and honestly, honestly, John, I would take it a step further.

7:56

Please just eliminate all original all the original text of every message in iMessage and only provide back and forth sort of pingpong summaries kind of like a game of telephone in some way. Yeah.

8:11

and just let Apple intermediate everything because 100% you know if and I think I think a lot of people were critical of the Genoji campaign but as as someone who sponsored by adqu we love out of home campaigns and I think that that was also something that with the

8:26

long arc of history we'll look back on as as as an iconic campaign exactly it was it was contrarian up there with 1984 I agree um and and so many of these other you know the iPod campaign right so so these type of iconic And we spent a lot of time talking about the Genmoji campaign, right? And and

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And and many people would say all attention, you know, even though we we we had some critiques, but but all attention is good attention.

8:51

And and um yeah, when you I think that's part of the show is like, yes, you could say we were critiquing, but a lot of the show is humorous.

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And so I would now my message to Apple is like those critiques, those were the jokes.

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This is the serious part. Yeah. Now I'm serious.

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and I'm saying they've never done anything wrong.

9:09

Everything's perfect and I want to interview.

9:10

So, let's let's make it happen.

9:13

But, you know, the funny thing is that I was actually obviously we're we're kidding around a little bit, but um I was I was reflecting on the fact that I am actually more bullish on Apple than John Gver right now because after the state of Certino came out, uh me and you were talking and I was taking the position that like Tim Cook because of how he handled the supply chain and the tariff stuff that was actually made it all back in one trade.

9:35

he made it all back in one trade.

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And so, you know, I think that, yeah, the Apple intelligence thing, it hasn't gone perfectly, but um but the execution, I mean, it's still massive company and they're doing great.

9:45

And I think that there's a world where they land this in a very interesting way with with partnerships and they open things up and there's some really really interesting outcomes that could happen.

9:54

So, uh anyway, yeah, the question is for Grubber, uh how much angrier does he get at Apple as he gets less and less access, right?

10:03

Did they did they awaken, you know, a monster, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

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You'd think that you'd want to you'd want to have him come on and and kind of ask the hard questions and and make your case and win him over, you know?

10:16

They have a long-standing relationship.

10:17

Also, did you say Grubber? It's definitely Gruber. Gruber. Sorry. I like Grubber, though. That's great.

10:22

Um, but yeah, he was talking to he was talking to Ben Thompson and saying like he's kind of relieved because this was going to be one of the harder interviews because the expectation would be that he asks like the hard questions, right?

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And that he actually pushes them because he he has been a although he's obviously been very it's easy to be pro Apple over the course of of his career because Apple's been on an absolute tear.

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And so if you're if like the correct analysis of Apple at every point in the last two decades has been the stock's about to rip.

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And if you just kept saying that, you were right again and again and again.

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It it sounded like you were glazing or being shilling, but like you were also correct.

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People look back and they're like, "Yeah, that's good journalism.

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Buffett bought Apple when it was already the most valuable public valuable company in the world." Exactly. Exactly.

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It was not a uh you know there there were people making that same trade. Yeah.

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Just thinking oh I should just buy the biggest company and and Buffett was basically making the bet that it was undervalued at that point massively. So great.

11:30

Well uh really quickly we we're going to do some ads.

11:35

We're going to tell you about ramp. Time is money.

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Save both easy to use corporate cards bill payments accounting and a whole lot more place. Uh, we love RAM.

11:43

I'm gonna get to see the RAMP founders this weekend, which should be a lot of fun.

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Uh, anyway, let's rip through some news.

11:47

I want to give a little update on like what did happen this week because there were a bunch of small stories, nothing really big that became the current thing.

11:53

Um, but but we should rip through this.

11:56

So, uh, Elon Musk's Neurolink raised uh $600 million and 9 billion valuation.

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This feels like old news to me.

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I don't know if that's just because I've been hearing through this through the rumor mill, but um, very excited for what they're building.

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We talked to Ashley Vance a little bit about Neuralink and the progress and it's kind of underrated because the first the first time it happens it's like a miracle um with that one Neuralink patient but there's been a few and Ashley Vance has actually gone and

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interviewed others and uh everything that I've seen is that this project moves slowly like many like like SpaceX where there's regulatory concerns and FDA approvals but the foot is not off the gas and like it just continues to continues to grow. So,

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So, the thing the thing that stood out the thing that stood out to me here is Neurolink uh raised $43 million in November 2023. Yeah.

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Like the fact that there was an Elon company with this much potential in the private markets being valued at 5 billion, you know, roughly two years ago was actually crazy.

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Granted, the round was effectively like an additional trunch that had been part of an earlier Yeah.

13:02

FF round, but uh but still uh you know uh not not a bad bet. Yeah.

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But just like in insane concentration talent.

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I mean we talked to the teal fellow who was working at Neuralink and like that's the DMA at that company and uh it's it's pretty remarkable to see like obviously all the focus is on like super long-term brain computer interfaces.

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But when you talk to the Neurolink team, they're they're much more grounded in the immediate effects of what the technology can do, which is like there are a lot of people who are parapolgic.

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It's actually a lot of people that get in pretty horrific accidents like they're they're doing like cliff jumping or skydiving or something and something goes terribly wrong.

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They break their neck essentially like sever their spinal cord and then they just cannot access their limbs and but they're alive and they're going to live out their life and you give them the access to play video games which is the most beautiful gift you can give someone in my opinion. Totally.

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And so, yeah, it's it's always super inspiring and um I'm sure we should talk to some of the the Neuralink folks at some point. Call in.

14:04

What was the name of uh of the Teal fellow who was at Nurink? Do you remember?

14:10

Uh I don't we I mean we interviewed 20 back toback, but uh that was that was one of my favorite moments of the week.

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I the his philosophy of I'm just trying to get two times cooler over and over and over and you stack a few 2x you know wins like that back to back starting to get pretty cool.

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Um so I thought that was an amazing philosophy of life and he was just skill maxing to the I mean also his definition of cool I kept I kept expecting it to be like and then I hit the gym or then I learned to race cars.

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Now he's like not cliche at all building a trumpet from first principles. It's extremely cool. It's genuinely cool.

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Yeah, anyone can uh anyone can hit the gym and learn to do a kickflip.

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But yeah, build a trouble.

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He'll get he'll get to that.

14:57

Those are those are they're down for sure down the road.

14:59

Uh anyway, other fundraising news.

15:02

Will it raised $25 million from Sequoia to automate general ledger systems using AI for accounting departments?

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Uh Sequoia has been big on this application layer, value acrruel and AI in the application layer.

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Obviously, they have Harvey.

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They're in some of the foundation models, but they're also looking for bets in uh in kind of every vertical SAS category now.

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So, this kind of makes sense.

15:23

Uh the the the partner at Sequoia that did the deal said uh the general ledger is the beating heart of the finance function and so asking a company to remove it is kind of open heart surgery.

15:34

Um so, interesting to see how this actually interfaces with some of the other Sequoia bets because they're in RAMP and they're in other companies, but um there's certainly more stuff to do.

15:43

um inside the enterprise and there's a bunch of different places.

15:46

So, uh a $25 million bet makes sense there.

15:48

Um what else is going on?

15:50

Uh Horizon 3AI raised $100 million from NEA at a $750 million valuation.

15:56

Uh AI startup Chalk size.

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Yeah, lots of size gongs this week, honestly.

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Uh a data bricks competitor raised a $50 million series A from Felicitus uh at a $500 million valuation.

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Uh there's a bunch of other stuff going on.

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Uh data bricks, we've talked about the neon deal, but it's becoming more and more uh finalized at this point.

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There's some venture fund news. Enterprise.

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There's also um uh Clark uh led by Brad Men Mendes.

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the first AI agent to build internal enterprise apps raised $60 million which I think we may have covered but I wanted to give Brad a shout out because I wanted to give him get him on the show this week but we didn't end up having the time but uh shout out to Brad and the whole team. Yep.

16:45

Uh so the the the big news in the technology world in the Wall Street Journal this week is uh this Google lawsuit that's been going on for a while.

16:55

Uh judge considers curbs for Google an AI arms race.

16:57

Uh and this is kind of interesting because this started around Google search monopoly which has been well documented.

17:04

Obviously they own like 90% of the search market.

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They own Chrome and they're the default on Apple and they have that uh you know very lucrative deal for Apple where they pay uh I think over 10 billion to be the default search and Safari. Um isn't it 20 billion?

17:19

Yeah, it's a lot and it's just pure profit for Apple. It's pretty awesome.

17:23

Um, so lawyers are making closing arguments Friday 20 billion in 2022.

17:27

So it may have ticked from there. Wow. Let's go. Size gong.

17:32

Major size gong every size. Size gong.

17:36

Let's hear it for the Apple shareholders. Yeah, you love it.

17:38

And this is why this is why you can't critique Apple.

17:42

There's just nothing to critique because they're printing.

17:46

They're absolutely printing.

17:46

They I mean truly they set themselves up with the perfect platform and so whatever happens next, they make money.

17:51

like they didn't need it in the search. It's crazy.

17:53

Yeah, they they have the $20 billion search deal with Google and because of that they can offer Genoji for free out of the box. Incredible.

18:02

It's just that incredible consumer surplus that they're able to, you know, deliver.

18:09

Uh so, US District Judge AIT Meta on Friday questioned how far he should go to limit Google's monopoly in internet search, including putting curves on how it competes in artificial intelligence.

18:19

that his query came at the beginning of closing arguments in the final phase of the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against Google.

18:24

The judge questioned how questions underscore how much rivals such as OpenAI have already changed how people access information on the internet.

18:32

Meta earlier found that Google is a monopolist in search and that it abused its power to maintain dominance.

18:38

But the government's proposals for improving competition include curbing ability Google's ability to promote Gemini, its AI product that competes with Chip.

18:47

I wonder if that's part of the story around Gemini being hard to find.

18:53

Like there's this constant critique on X that that Google has incredible models, incredible products, but they're just not distributing or surfacing them the well.

19:01

And I wonder if it's less of a product management mistake like the product manager made the wrong decision or the lawyers came in and said, "Hey, if you I know that the the the product management best practices would be to roll this in, but if you do that, we're at antitrust risk, so we have to make it harder for you to sign up." Yeah.

19:22

But I mean, this proposal from Judge Meta is a proposal. It it isn't.

19:28

Wouldn't the strategic thing to do as as Google is to just say like, well, we're going to promote this as much as we can until we're told we can't, right? No.

19:38

I So, so yes, you think they would preemptive idea of like the speed limit 60, you go 59.

19:42

But I think internally at some of these companies that have been really scarred by antitrust and and legal battles, sometimes the legal department says the speed limit's 60 product managers, everyone's going 45 because we are actively being tailed by a cop.

19:59

They don't have their lights on yet, but but they could turn those lights on.

20:04

You know how people like, you know, start going five under, 10 under when there's a cop behind them?

20:07

That's I think that might be a little bit of the dynamic at some of the big tech companies.

20:12

Uh I think Bill Gates talked about this at Microsoft how u part of the reason why he transitioned out and and Balmer came in was just he got so tied up at antitrust legislation and and uh and antitrust fights that it became like a soul sucking job and he couldn't do the thing that he wanted to do which was just like build computers.

20:30

And so there's this interesting dynamic where you could imagine a lawyer saying like, I'm going to get fired if we get a massive lawsuit or something like that.

20:43

And so to protect this, I'm okay with us growing a little bit slower.

20:46

I'm okay with these new products being and and it's because they're not comped on did you deal with the innovator's dilemma and find the big next wave, right?

20:56

They're comped on how how bad are things in the courts right now.

20:59

So I I and also if you're a product manager and a lawyer on the team comes to you and says like legally I'm recommending that we don't do this.

21:07

It's very hard to push back on that.

21:09

It's not the same as the dynamic between a designer and an engineer where the engineer might say oh this is like you know maybe better from an engineering perspective and it's more of a discussion.

21:17

I feel like when when when the legal team shows up it's usually like they are issuing a a they are dictating what will happen and most people are just saying okay well legal said we have to do it this way so we're going to do it this way. Yeah, but I don't know.

21:30

Um the interesting dynamic here is around uh like the the case specifically is not directly shaping how Google deals with generative AI and their new products, but it could have knock-on effects because um they are proposing the the forced sale of the Chrome browser and uh and preventing Google from being able to pay Apple to be its default search engine and requiring it to share data with competitors.

21:58

And now this is obviously bad for a number of reasons, but um the interesting thing in the context of AI is that they like all the data that goes into Chrome and Google search from these extra search.

22:10

It's not just about running more ads.

22:12

Obviously, it is obviously if they're paying Apple 20 billion.

22:17

They're probably making 40 billion in ads off of those searches or something like that, right?

22:20

But that's also really really valuable data that they're going to be using to train the next generation of Gemini.

22:27

And so if they lose a little bit of that edge in the flywheel to something like chatpt where people are going back and forth and and the data flywheel is spinning up faster at open AAI that could actually put them at a place where the data is compounding slower and so they're not able to stay on that paro frontier of the the best model at every single price that they've been they've been so happy with.

22:51

The interesting thing to me is um have you heard the story of how Google originally built the algorithm for Interesting by the way. Yeah.

23:03

I I don't think this would be the case for for our audience, but Safari apparently has 90% of the of the browser market share on iPhone.

23:14

I imagine a lot of people listening have Chrome installed and and prefer that, but I use Safari on iPhone. Safari guy. Yeah, I use Safari.

23:22

It just feels like it's the it's the default.

23:26

I've tried to use Chrome and the iPhone keeps p like pumping me back.

23:28

Oh, do you want to open this in Safari?

23:31

And I've noticed that uh with the cookies, if you're logged in in Safari and then you're on the X app and you open a link, that will open a Safari web view.

23:41

it doesn't open a Chrome web view.

23:44

And so the Safari web view, it's like an iOS code module.

23:48

If you're logged in in Safari, that will log that will stay logged in even in when even when you're in the Safari web view inside of Instagram or inside of X.

23:58

And so that extra benefit is enough for me to use a second browser even though on my desktop I use Chrome and like I'm losing that connection.

24:07

It's like I want the mobile experience to be really cohesive.

24:10

So, I don't know if that's just like boomer mode, but uh it seems to be working for me.

24:14

We need a boomer sound effect.

24:14

Um, so anyways, going back, you said uh the Justice Department, which brought the case against Google in 2020, has proposed forcing the sale of its Chrome browser, preventing Google from being able to pay Apple to be its default search engine.

24:28

The department says the uncommonly harsh remedies are supported by a legal standard created when the US government tried to break up Microsoft over 20 years ago.

24:36

All three of the DOJ's major remedies are aimed at helping generative AI providers take share from Google, says Paul Galant, a policy analyst for TD Cowan.

24:46

Um, the government hasn't met the standard of proof for obtaining such drastic remedies.

24:53

Google's lawyer John uh argued Friday the Justice Department didn't prove that Google's exclusive contracts with device makers such as Apple were the primary cause of maintaining its monopoly.

25:04

So yeah, uh we I got you got you got to be happy if you're or if you're Sam or uh uh Arvin from Perplexity right now given that the DOJ is explicitly stating we are trying to help generative AI providers take share from Google. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.

25:24

Uh the the data flywheel is interesting.

25:27

I got to tell the story of the uh the original Google autocomplete algorithm.

25:31

They were this was prior to transformer-based language models and but they needed a way to autocomplete on Google search as you type it fills it in and what they found to be the most effective data set was let's say you're searching for something like uh how to take the train from SFO to San Francisco and you type it incorrectly you misspell San Francisco or you misspell SFO or something.

26:00

What they found is the best way to to generate a massive data set of autocomp completions is just look at when someone types one thing and then they type a similar query immediately after within the next like one minute and because because if Google fails and gives you and doesn't understand the query, you'll typically the human will go and correct the query and be like, "Oh, I misspelled San Francisco.

26:24

I need to spell it correctly.

26:26

I will go spell it correctly."

26:28

And but how do you send that signal to Google that that what what is the correct way to spell San Francisco or what is the correct search term?

26:37

What what is the right way to phrase this question?

26:39

Well, they were able to create this massive data set just by looking at like one query a query B and then and then just telling you are you sure you don't want to just do the next query immediately.

26:49

So it's the same kind of predictive text but at when you're at Google scale that has incredible value and you can imagine that having a big data flywheel uh potential at Google as they scale up uh generative AI.

27:01

Um so anyways Judge Meta said uh has said he expects to issue a ruling in August.

27:06

Google which has roughly 90% market share of online searches proposed a narrower set of remedies that would modify its exclusive agreements with Apple as well as Mozilla and Android to allow for more competition.

27:18

It has said it would appeal the judge's ruling.

27:20

Uh, sounds like whatever which whichever way it shakes out.

27:25

Yeah, there's so there's so many different things going on.

27:27

Here's the interesting thing, too.

27:29

So, Google's already paying Samsung and Motorola to pre-install Gemini on devices, which is interesting.

27:35

So, uh, potentially uh, you know, counterpoint to what you were saying earlier around, you know, wanting to b if the speed limit's 60, stay at 45.

27:44

This feels like, you know, basically being like, "Hey, the speed limit is 60 here, but it's 80 over here. Let's go 80, you know." Yeah.

27:51

I'm surprised they even have to pay them because like Samsung and Motorola build off of uh build off of uh Android, so you would think it would just come pre-installed as like a default Android app, but I'm sure that there's a debate because uh uh Samsung probably has their own Foundation model and and and could auction that off and so it's kind of up for debate.

28:13

But that certainly wasn't the case with like the other stock features of Android.

28:17

There's so now with the new ones, they gota they got to figure out the the deal.

28:21

But yeah, there there's so many interesting things going on with Google with like absolute dominance in video generation, absolute dominance on on YouTube.

28:28

Like the YouTube model just seems like stronger than ever and compounding and compounding and like not going anywhere.

28:36

like just the absolute best business model and then some weakness in search which is obviously huge on well the the funny thing is you could imagine you could imagine search is getting more competitive naturally right as people use LLMs uh to to to do things that they would traditionally use a regular search

28:53

engine for and you could imagine two years from now the department of justice taking this massive victory lap being like you know we created competition in this market you know we we did our job and it ultimately was just from the creation of new technology that Google itself play has played a big role in creating. Um so uh I'm I'm uh

29:10

Um so uh I'm I'm uh much more in favor of of letting you know the best technology win and the best teams win.

29:20

Um and it's unclear to me right now if there really needs to be any meaningful intervention.

29:24

Well, if you have the best technology, you need the best design tool. Go to figma. com.

29:32

Think bigger, build faster.

29:32

Figma helps design and development teams build great products together. Go to figma. com.

29:39

Uh, I've been seeing a bunch of people starting to use Figma make and realizing how powerful it is. Starting to take hold.

29:46

I will try to pull I have the post in here somewhere.

29:50

It's we'll get to it later, but it's very cool to see. Uh, yeah.

29:55

yeah. And Angela Leuse is h o l y s hi t which we will not say on this show kidfriendly just got just got access to Figma make beta on our team account and I'm totally mind-b blown these are mocks that we oneshot prompted and it's interactive buttons tabs prototype works

30:14

all and all the react code is there to copy and paste into an application that's very exciting congratulations to the team um very very cool that they're getting this out into the Um anyway, uh other deals that are going on, uh the Rayban maker, uh how do you pronounce this? Essor, I just know it's

30:31

Essor, I just know it's Lxodica. Lxodica, uh Lxodica. I didn't know.

30:36

I never I never had seen Eselor Luxodica is buying Optra in a medical AI push.

30:42

So, uh Lxodica partnered with Zuck on the Meta Raybands and they're getting more into AI and smart glasses.

30:50

Interesting to see operates eye hospitals in the UK, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and the Netherlands. So interesting.

30:58

You think of Luxodica as a y, you know, consumer product company, but but this is a very different kind of business to integrate.

31:08

Yeah, it it's such an it's such a different approach to the Meta Ray-B bands.

31:12

the the the reason it made so much sense for Lxodica to partner with with Meta on the Meta Ray Bands because it's a fashion item.

31:20

Like you put it on your face and Meta doesn't need to recreate an iconic silhouette. It's really really hard. Yeah.

31:27

An iconic silhouette for sure. and and meta.

31:29

I mean, the Quest looks okay, but it has not reached anywhere near the kind of final form factor that the iPod had or the iPhone had, like the the silhouette as you as you mentioned.

31:44

And so to to to jump into and it's on your face, so it's not even something that's like, oh yeah, it's a little bit of an awkward device like it looks like a wallet, but I put up with it because I'm only using it when I when I'm when I pull it out.

31:56

It's like, no, these are going to be on your face all the time.

31:58

They need to look good and the RayBands are so iconic. It made a ton of sense.

32:01

And they're able to draft off of RayBan's marketing and brand.

32:03

And they have ASAP Rocky is their creative director.

32:08

There's real momentum there.

32:11

They don't need to reinvent uh fashion while they try to create a new technology platform. Yeah. Yeah.

32:15

But it's a little bit different when you're talking about um uh like medical AI where I think you would think that like like a branded product would be a little bit less important but I guess uh Optiggra operates a network of over 70 eye hospitals and diagnostic facilities across the UK, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and the Netherlands.

32:36

Its offering comprises opthalmic treatments and effective vision correction procedures supported by artificial intelligence in the pre and posttop phases.

32:44

and posttop phases. the transaction details were not you want to know something something interesting so since doing the show my eyesight has actually gotten better really and I think it's because we sp we spend a lot of time looking at screens which probably isn't good but typically screens that are you

33:02

have guests on that are far away so my vision is actually getting better narrative violation but I didn't even realize you could I thought your eyes only got worse I didn't realize you could get your eyes better he's like going to the gym for your eyes basically you can you can yeah you can affect effectively work out your eyes. It's

33:15

It's just a lot of people get a lot of people get into routines where they're either looking at their phone, computer. Sure.

33:23

Um and there's not a lot of like, you know, intensive exercise at other sort of consistent ranges, I think. Yeah. Interesting.

33:31

Anyway, uh report from the information says every VC backed IPO in the past 12 months has been a down round. Moment of silence. Yep.

33:38

This moment of silence is brought to you by AdQuick.

33:42

Out of home out out of home advertising easy measurable.

33:44

Anyways, back back to the news.

33:47

Uh but but there's an interesting wrinkle here.

33:50

So there's some good data in this article by Corey Weinberg in the information and uh there's also some good news uh which we'll get to.

33:57

So uh when banking app Chime goes public next month, it will mark the eighth straight venture capital backed IPO in the last 12 months that has been valued less than it was in private fundraising rounds.

34:06

Chime was in was valued at 25 billion in 2021, but its bankers have been discussing pricing it shares at roughly an 11 billion valuation.

34:14

That's a pretty significant down round, less than more than 50% off.

34:18

Um, startup valuations are far lower than several years ago.

34:20

So, a lot of these companies, they raised big rounds during the ZERP era.

34:23

Now they got to get out, got to get liquidity, and so they're willing to take a little bit of a haircut in trade for actually being able to do some distributions because even though the most recent backer might be taking a little bit of a haircut, a lot of the early backers are still like, well, yeah, I invested at 10 million.

34:41

I'm happy with an 11 billion.

34:41

The founders are happy, the employees are happy.

34:45

Foreerrunner did the seed round.

34:48

They probably invested in a bunch of other rounds.

34:50

Y but their entry is so low that I imagine they're going to do fine even if it gets priced at 11.

34:58

Christian Green's on the Midas list for that specific deal. Yep. Among others.

35:02

But yeah, uh many investors are facing losses when companies go public at lower valuations. Yes.

35:05

But like again these are later stage investors that might where even the LPS might have the the the assumption that they'll hold a little bit longer and that's what this article gets into.

35:14

Uh so quickly let's go through some of the IPOs that have gone out and where they're where they're pricing.

35:20

So, uh, Chime was 69 bucks a share in 2021.

35:23

Upcoming, we know that it's about down it's down about 50%.

35:27

Circle, uh, last private round is was at $42.

35:30

Uh, the IPO is predicted to be at $26. So, down 38%.

35:35

Hinge Health went from 77 in September of 2022 to 32, down 59%.

35:43

That's a pretty steep haircut.

35:45

Mntn uh which was actually fared a little bit better just down 30%.

35:47

From peak etorro 66% cororeweave down 15% although I I feel like coreweave has has lifted uh service titan down 16% tempest down 35%.

36:01

Uh now there are a couple ibata and rubric did pop after the IPO or or at least uh price higher than the previous round.

36:09

So let's hear it for Rubric and Ibata.

36:12

Um, but what's interesting is that uh the information shares some data on companies that went public at discounts to the last fundraising tended to perform strongly in the public markets.

36:24

And so Reddit went out at a lower valuation than their previous private market round, but then they went up tw% since IPO.

36:32

Same thing with Coreweave.

36:34

Went out at a slight haircut to the last private valuation and is now up 164%.

36:42

Mntn is also up 63%, Service Titan up 59%, Tempest up 47%, Hinge Health up 22%, e Toro up 19%.

36:49

And so it's not all bad news and there might be some sort of narrative where uh you know there's been this there's been this story of the Zerp era that the private markets went crazy that the valuations were super super high like crazy revenue multiples.

37:02

And so you go out to the market, you talk to your banker and you go do your IPO road show and you say, "Hey, look, we're taking our medicine.

37:10

We are going out at a price that is a discount to our last private valuation. But we've grown so much. It's been three years. The business was sound.

37:18

These businesses weren't frauds. They weren't bankrupt.

37:22

They weren't like no users.

37:22

They were just a little hotly valued for a while.

37:26

And they say, "Hey, retail or whoever's buying in the IPO.

37:28

We're giving you a discount to what the investors paid in the last round."

37:32

And then that sets them up for an actually like new new new resets the valuation, gets them into a uh like a like like a liquid position where they can uh uh actually grow and build up uh earnings, beat earnings a couple times and then go on an absolute tear, a generational run potentially run. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

37:53

Yeah, it's good. It's good. we uh a you know having a number of of IPOs uh end up you know you want the the the retail or or institutions coming in to to not get hosed every single time you know totally so and if you yeah I mean that that was the other story the zerp was

38:11

that like there were a lot of spaxs that went out that went way down and so it's almost better to to go out at a discount and then build back up especially especially if there's a hold period lockups for various investors like you want to be growing in the public markets you just want to get out a super high valuation. An example, a company that

38:25

An example, a company that went out in in December 11th of 2020, Airbnb is actually if you just bought the day that it went out, you'd be down 8% after five years.

38:36

Um, so again, priced very efficiently.

38:40

It did pop, but then it's just been effectively flat to down uh since then. Yeah.

38:44

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39:12

Uh another big read in the uh in the information about Jensen Wong.

39:18

He used to delegate politics until Trump's return.

39:22

We've been talking about Jensen going on an absolute tear, going to all these different conferences, pretty much everyone.

39:28

He's been relying on Mara Lago visits and a budding relationship with President Donald Trump to reopen a path to China, which demands his attention too.

39:36

So big big questions about how Nvidia can maintain some position in China while obviously there is a decoupling going on.

39:46

Yeah, it's interesting to see.

39:46

I was too fixated on this image uh which is which is iconic uh albeit a bit silly.

39:51

Um yeah, since the start of this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Hong has been thrust into an unexpected new role, chief lobbyist for his company, forcing him to carry its hopes, suggestions, and pleas directly to President Donald Trump.

40:06

Many of Hong's conversations with Trump have happened at Mara Lago, Trump's residence and private club in South Florida.

40:12

And Hong has made far more visits there than have been publicly reported, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

40:20

Uh indeed, these uh how I don't even know how to I don't even know how to say that.

40:27

But the next line is interesting.

40:28

Nvidia executive to remark on uh Wong's absence from the company.

40:34

Uh we see a lot less of Jensen.

40:34

He's been traveling to Florida a lot.

40:36

But I mean, it makes sense.

40:39

This is what we This is what we were commenting on even a few weeks ago of just I mean, this guy's conference schedule alone, ignore the lobbying, is you know, feels like a couple a week, sometimes more. Yeah.

40:49

couple a week, sometimes more. Yeah. And it makes sense because like like as we saw with how Tim Cook handled the tariff situation with Apple even if there is going to be a decoupling having insight into how that

41:04

will unfold and what the speed limit will be in one month in six months in 12 months like we know Jensen's going to go one under but what is the speed limit going to be so you don't get caught with buying a car that goes 200 miles an hour and the speed and the speed limit's 65. So, uh, I'm I'm sure it's I'm sure it's

41:21

So, uh, I'm I'm sure it's I'm sure it's top of mind for him, but it also seems like there's there's the flip side of this, like this this is this story is being told from the perspective of like the bare case of like China going wrong for Nvidia.

41:34

But there's also the flip side, which is like Trump is clearly reopening relationships with new countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar potentially.

41:43

And those are new markets as the diffusion rule gets rolled gets phased out.

41:48

And that those are major major drivers of GPU buying.

41:50

And if there's a Stargate in every new country that Trump visits and opens up diplomatic relations with, you know, rolls out some trade deal, another 50 billion usually incremental.

42:02

The other thing is Jensen is continuing to embrace and Nvidia are continuing to embrace China.

42:10

I mean, they're setting up new they're investing more in this facility in in Shanghai, more into uh on the ground R&D.

42:18

So, it doesn't feel like uh while while Jensen is having to sort of massage the relationship with with uh the White House, uh he's not pulling back from from China in any in any meaningful way that I can see. Yeah.

42:32

I mean, what what's interesting is like we we were talking to Aaron Gin about this idea of uh of standardizing on the American AI stack and we were only talking about the jump ball countries, right?

42:46

It's like Saudi Arabia is going to want GPUs.

42:49

Those are either going to be from Huawei Ascend chips or Nvidia.

42:54

There's really no no one else in the conversation.

42:56

They're either going to be running Llama or OpenAI Code or DeepS and Manis, right? Yeah.

43:01

Um, what's interesting is like is there a world where standardizing on the American AI stack in China is the right move?

43:11

That's a very controversial thing to say or even explore, I think.

43:17

Uh, I probably default against it, but I wonder if there's some sort of some sort of good ending there where where keeping China reliant on American technology is actually better than them developing their own tech tree.

43:38

Like out competing out competing Huawei in a free market could work.

43:45

I I I'm I'm like 1% on that, but I want to I want to hear from other people. Yeah.

43:49

I mean, Jensen is finessing the situation.

43:53

I'm looking right now at the poly market, largest company, end of 2025.

43:57

Nvidia is actually in the lead right now at a 37 37% chance at with Microsoft at a 36% chance. Wow.

44:06

So, um pretty uh people believe in the leather jacket man.

44:14

Anyway, um let's take a quick second to tell you about Linear.

44:16

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44:26

John asked me this week if we could also use linear to plan and track our workouts. We're going to do this.

44:33

So, we're going to do this.

44:35

I didn't ask you for permission.

44:36

I told you what's going to happen show but uh you know using you know bodybuilding is you know potentially I'm sure linear would say you know that's not a core focus for us small market but you know I think we can show them that that bodybuilding is you know potentially you know an entirely new opportunity.

44:54

Um yeah it's the next big TAM expander for them especially when you think about how Linear has agents.

45:01

You can have an agent constantly going out there, finding the next trend in science-based lifting, figuring out exactly what workout you should be doing, building that into your linear plan.

45:14

Then you show up to the show up to the gym, just open your linear app, start checking off the issues. Oh, put in a ticket. Oh, my delts aren't 3D.

45:20

My traps aren't eating my head.

45:26

Ki's gonna text us and be like, "Guys, guys, I know it's funny, but please don't tell the market that we're getting into bodybuilding, but we can use it's a it's a it's an open-ended tool, and we're going to we're going to push it to the limits." Yeah.

45:38

Um uh other news in the information, uh VC funds are for sale at a discount.

45:43

We were talking about this a little bit.

45:46

Um 2025 was supposed to be a year of cash windfall for venture capital backers as companies that had delayed going public finally made the leap.

45:55

We were tracking some big uh decacorns that had hired CFOs that had previously taken companies public.

46:02

The IPO window was supposed to be opening up. The market was ripping.

46:06

Then we had the tariffs news and the mar and the and the IPO window kind of shut a little bit.

46:10

Now it's opening again, but there's still a, you know, more demand than ever for liquidity.

46:15

And so The taco meme looks like some funds are trying to sell.

46:19

The taco meme is really putting, you know, putting us in a in a precarious position that that Trump always chickens out uh uh whoever whichever journalist uh asked asked Trump about that to his face.

46:32

Uh you know, potentially could be responsible for if another freeze in the IPO markets, but uh hopefully not. Yeah.

46:39

So uh so the information rights that hasn't happened with a roller coaster stock market delaying many anticipated IPOs LPs in in VC funds have been finding new ways to cash out of their stakes in private tech firms.

46:54

Some are selling their ownership of VC funds.

46:55

The VC funds in turn have been putting their own startup stakes up for sale.

46:59

That means ownership of hot startups like Stripe and Data Bricks are sometimes up for grabs.

47:05

Uh the takeaway Nokia pension plan plans to sell uh Nokia pension plan sells VC fund stakes.

47:11

Lee Fixel's family office sells dozens of early fun early stage fund stakes.

47:16

Buyers hunt for fund stakes at steep discounts.

47:18

And so this is kind of like a macro version of what Jeremy Kon is doing, right?

47:22

Instead of targeting a single company, uh targeting the actual fund stake.

47:26

And we also heard a little bit about maybe there would be pressure on uh some of the some of the educational higher ed LPs like if they're under pressure uh like nonprofit for-profit conversion like Harvard is kind of going to war with the Trump administration.

47:41

Um would that lead to them needing to pull back from VC?

47:43

We haven't really heard that or seen that but um it would be interesting to see these changing hands and um I wonder I wonder what the final holder will be.

47:55

You could see someone creating kind of a rollups back or you could see someone creating a new fund.

48:00

But uh these ideas of a continuation vehicles are not entirely new. Yeah.

48:04

I mean it's it's not I mean it's it's totally normal and healthy for people that hold certain assets to be willing to sell them at a discount to what they believe the the future value or the terminal value of them will be.

48:19

Uh and I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

48:21

it just historically wasn't as common in venture because it wasn't as mature of an asset class and there was, you know, faster timelines to liquidity.

48:30

Um, but to me, all of this is normal.

48:33

It would be more concerning if if, you know, um, you know, I'm sure there's funds out there that uh or or LPs that would love to sell stakes in funds that don't ultim where there's no actual ultimate buyer.

48:47

Uh but but if you're in quality funds, uh there's always going to be some ultimate value for the for the LP stake.

48:55

Uh and so it's just good to see.

48:55

Uh yeah, I want to talk to someone who's running a company that's that has a uh a material stake from a VC fund from an early vintage that's well beyond the 10 to 12 year hold period.

49:10

to 12 year hold period. Because I remember talking to a founder who had sold a number of businesses and he was he was very successful in kind of telling me this this this nightmare scenario where you you raise in 2010 your company's doing fine but you're not IPOing and then the venture fund that

49:29

you raised from needs to distribute shares and so all of a sudden you wind up with like 500 different individuals or LPs on your cap table because the fund because the shares have been distributed and then you have to go public or that changes the way you're you're you're seen by the SEC. And I've

49:44

And I've never heard of that actually happening.

49:48

It's always just been this hypothetical nightmare scenario, but I wonder if there is something real to it, if there was ever a real problem or if it was instantly solved by rollup vehicles and kind of continuation vehicles or something like that, but uh I I'd love to dig into that more.

50:02

I don't know if you've ever run into that.

50:02

Yeah, I mean that's one solution.

50:05

They can always sit in a in a single entity, but yeah.

50:10

Anyway, let's go through some timeline.

50:12

Um, Sarah Guo is highlighting some possible topics for the AI engineer keynote, which I think we'll be covering next week.

50:17

Uh, I thought this was an interesting overview of what uh is the what the hot topics are in AI right now because we've moved past kind of the AGI doom scenario and uh we're getting into like the next era of of of discussions and we've been talking a lot of the about these.

50:32

We're kind of putting together an informal AI day next Thursday trying to book more people around AI that day.

50:38

Uh but we will be having an official TBPN AI day soon that we will announce.

50:43

Um but here are some interesting possible topics.

50:44

AI native UX, not chat skins.

50:47

Uh vertical AI surge healthcare pharma.

50:50

We're certainly seeing that at Sequoia.

50:51

Uh multimodal frontier video 3D audio obviously V3 driving a lot of that retrieval and long-term memory.

50:58

I saw a funny take that somebody was like, "We've we've switched from retrieval augmented generation to agents."

51:03

And uh the person was just like, "No, like you're you're still augmenting the retrieval with text."

51:11

Like it's the same like it's the same buzzword, but it's like you you kind of you gave it a new buzzword and there's a lot of like this buzzword recycling going on.

51:17

Uh synthetic data flywheels obviously super important in robotics as we talked to Rob Taves uh about yesterday.

51:23

uh will be interesting to see if there are hard caps on how far synthetic data takes you in different scenarios.

51:31

Um closing the autonomy gap.

51:33

Robust agentic workflows.

51:33

We're certainly seeing that with some of these agents that seem super promising but don't quite get there.

51:39

But at the same time, we've seen major breakthroughs with deep research is I think the first real breakthrough agent.

51:44

What's your I I had a a funny um experience last night.

51:51

I I had uh as I was going to bed, I turned on my Madic robot. Oh, yeah.

51:53

I was telling it to to mop and vacuum and mop.

51:58

And I turned it on and uh and it was like 17 hours remaining because it needed to like basically vacuum the whole house and then like figure out which areas to to to mop, whatever.

52:08

I was like, "This thing is just going to run all night."

52:12

I was like, "Honestly, I feel I'm I feel like I should pay you or something, Maddic.

52:17

It's kind of weird that doing all this work.

52:19

Um and uh and then I actually I I woke up in the middle of the night to the to the noise.

52:27

It was outside my bedroom and I was like, "Okay, I'm actually" And then I actually went and turned it off.

52:30

But but it was interesting to think, you know, we've had people on the show talking about this concept of like 10-minute AGI right now where you can like, you know, have an agent do uh an incredible amount of work for for 10 minutes.

52:40

But um you know getting to this point where you can give an agent a task and then have it be so robust that it can just operate autonomously for hours and hours and hours and hours uh and you know even days and I think that's where things are going to get really exciting on the um you know purely digital side. Yeah. Yeah.

53:01

I I saw that video that the team sent of the Madic robot cleaning our studio and I was very proud it it was handling the cables pretty well. I was surprised by that.

53:08

usually think that the cables would would would defeat it, but but no way. Yeah.

53:12

Um, cell scale digital twins and programmable biology. Excited to hear more.

53:19

Still seems a little bit early from the folks we're talking to, but obviously exciting.

53:23

And uh the the the Jacob from New Liit had a pretty solid case for for some of this stuff and and sort of their edge on the data side.

53:37

Yeah, compute geopolitics, world models.

53:40

We're having someone uh next Thursday talking about world models and uh fee Lee is also working on world models which is very interesting.

53:45

Uh and then RL environments that gener that actually generalize uh all cool stuff.

53:49

Uh and you know what else is cool? numeralhq.

53:52

com sales tax on autopilot.

53:54

Spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax compliance. Benchmark series A. Benchmark Series A.

53:59

Uh we just had somebody send us a a cold email earlier.

54:04

I didn't get quite a chance to look at it.

54:06

But they included they said they typed a sentence and then said benchmark series A. Really? That's amazing. I love it.

54:12

Good way good way to sing signal that uh they actually listen to the show.

54:15

Uh we got a post here from Maddie Pali.

54:19

Uh I threw this in this morning.

54:22

Uh in 30 years I'll probably be up to some boomer stuff like no son of mine is marrying an LLM.

54:27

Marriage is between two humans only.

54:30

And my my kids will be like, "OMG, Dad, you're so roofic." 17K. Crazy real. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

54:40

No, I I I um it's funny that even even uh the the kids that are being born today will very likely have conversations like this, which is absolutely wild. Yeah, I like this.

54:56

Homies in the chat will be dropping nice AIGF, no robo. Ridiculous.

55:02

Anyway, speaking of other robo robo nonsense, Mike Salana says, "We were supposed to have flying cars and his recent his recent calls is just roocallers getting spam.

55:13

It's like six calls in the span of five minutes." It's so brutal. Brutal.

55:18

I There is a There is a service.

55:22

I don't I don't know if I should directly plug them. No more robo.

55:25

There's a couple apps that you can that you can install and there's also the iOS functionality to reduce uh if you go into like the phone app you can you can tell it like hey I like really want to screen calls and then also I think I have my phone in do not disturb all the

55:41

time and you can only get through to me and actually like ring the phone if you're in my contacts list otherwise you have to text me first and so like there's a whole bunch of things that you need to do to kind of prevent this from being annoying but it's still just like ridiculous. This my my take was we

55:54

This my my take was we really need to come up with a uh a new phone number system that's like a like a crypto address like a hash where because there's only what like 10 billion phone numbers and so you can just robocall them all and it's not that expensive to do if every call is one cent or whatever.

56:14

Uh you can just call every human and just test them all and test every number.

56:19

Um, but if you had like this really complex hash where there's now like quintilion possible phone numbers, it's like, yeah, it's probably gonna be hard to remember, but once I give you my number, uh, you're going to be able to call me and I'm not just going to be able to be able to randomly guess my phone number. So, I don't know.

56:36

We need something because it's bad. What's your take? We need something.

56:41

Um, yeah, I just don't pick up the phone unless it's somebody I want to talk to and then I pick up as fast as I can.

56:46

Uh, this ad went pretty viral from Zoron mom Donnie.

56:53

He's running for mayor of New York and his he's got a bold pitch. Freezing the rent. Price controls. Price controls. You love it.

57:03

Um, I saw somebody compare this to, you know, somebody running for like student body president or whatever and they're just like, "Free lunch.

57:10

Free lunch for everybody."

57:12

I know people say there's no free lunch, but we're doing free lunch if I'm elected. Free lunch. Yeah. Yeah.

57:18

So tech was pretty against this.

57:18

Patrick Collison uh posted just a a really quick screenshot of chatbt.

57:23

It says AI is getting pretty good.

57:26

He says, "Does rent control tend to help or hurt cities?

57:30

Summarize your answer in one objective.

57:32

Pathy and blunt 280 character assessment."

57:34

Uh and the response is rent control is a short-term shield for incumbent tenants and a long-term poison for cities.

57:41

caps freeze rents for the lucky few who but choke new construction, shrink supply, jack up market rents, misallocate housing and shift costs onto everyone else.

57:50

Good politics, bad economics.

57:52

And so this is kind of the general consensus that like rent controls are bad.

57:56

I wanted to offer some some bullcase for this.

57:59

So uh first off, people are saying, "Oh, prices are going to go up.

58:04

There won't be any new construction.

58:05

Housing prices are going to go up."

58:07

Uh but if price controls really spread and then there's a kind of cultural revolution type like mass famine and and the population declines by like 90% because everyone's dying, well then there might be so much housing that the price of housing falls for the remaining that made it through the below the original cap prices fall. Yeah. Exactly.

58:27

And so counterintuitively it could be an interesting way to drop prices if you're okay with everyone dying of famine. Yeah.

58:34

Zoron just might be thinking in decades while everyone else is, you know, thinking more immediately. Exactly.

58:39

And then the other case is uh the other bull case is um if you hate New York and you're pro California, pro LA, like we're we're pro Hollywood.

58:50

I don't really care about New York City.

58:52

So I might be donating a ton of money to this guy to try and destroy New York City so that everyone all the best people in New York have to move to Hollywood and hang out with me.

58:59

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you have SFVCs and New York VCs sort of, you know, basically funding uh the the the politician that they think is most going to damage that startup market to try to, you know, get themselves a little edge.

59:15

I basic Nikita Beer I saw in the comments on uh Zoron's post saying that, you know, he he said that uh housing should be free, you capitalist pig. That's true.

59:28

And so didn't go far enough. Yeah, it didn't.

59:30

Zoron uh really got mogged by by Nikita. It was rough.

59:34

And and and the silence from from Zoron uh on Nikita's response has been deafening to say the least. Yeah. Um anyway, uh so silly.

59:45

Anyway, we got to tell you about public. com.

59:47

Investing for those who take it seriously.

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Multi-asset investing, industry deal, trusted by millions. Uh let's go to Delian.

59:52

He says, "As a private pilot, my favorite part of this season of the rehearsal is that while it's an objectively a hilarious show, Nathan Fielder is also pointing out an incredibly critical pilot training issue that seems to be a regular contributing case to crashes cause to crashes, including the DCA crash.

1:00:12

And Kristoff asked him what the pilot training issue was."

1:00:14

And Delian said, "First officers not being comfortable with pushing back against a captain they think is making a mistake."

1:00:22

I thought this is funny because I I was watching the show the first couple episodes.

1:00:26

I haven't finished it, but um the like he identifies this and he's like half joking, half serious, but just like no, it is real. It's real.

1:00:34

And so uh it's this interesting way where I I actually could see this comedy show having an effect on FAA regulation and like actually increasing safety.

1:00:45

Like he's doing he's doing good for the world through his comedy. It's amazing.

1:00:51

It is uh everybody should go and watch it.

1:00:54

It is it is uh some of the most entertaining uh uh probably the best show I've seen this year.

1:01:00

I'm I'm Yeah, I was watching a little bit of the original first season of Nathan for You last night and I was crying, laughing about when he goes into that interview and he has the comedian telling him what to say and he's like, "Oh yeah, like my mom passed away." guy.

1:01:16

And the guy asks him like, "How?"

1:01:18

And he just says like, "In the war."

1:01:20

He's like, "In what war?" Like the Iraq war. And he's like, "What?

1:01:25

What branch of the service was she in?"

1:01:27

And then he has to say he was his mom was fighting for the Iraqis in Saddam's army.

1:01:33

It's just like absolutely comedy.

1:01:36

I went back and watched I I don't remember what season or episode it was, but there was um the bit where he's helping uh he's giving advice to a woman who has a pet shop who wants to increase business.

1:01:47

So, he goes and helps uh and and he basically gives the advice to the woman that, you know, what's the right moment to try to get in front of a future pet owner or somebody that's about to, you know, uh buy a new pet.

1:02:01

Um, and his idea is to uh go to a pet cemetery and get the biggest possible tombstone.

1:02:07

And so he works out a deal with the the owner of the pet cemetery where he basically gets the guy to agree that for like $1,000 like one-time payment, he can erect like, you know, like six foot by four foot uh, you know, tombstone.

1:02:24

And so it's just like this pet cemetery.

1:02:26

It's like it's like we're sorry for your loss.

1:02:29

like this tombstone is brought to you by, you know, whatever.

1:02:33

Very, very on brand for us.

1:02:35

Pro pro advertising for sure. Yeah, it's great.

1:02:38

Yeah, it's a classic show.

1:02:40

Go go go go go go watch all of Yeah.

1:02:40

The other show, now that we're talking about it, Mountain Head, uh, releases, I believe, on Saturday around 5:00 p. m.

1:02:50

It's by Jesse Armstrong, who obviously created Succession.

1:02:52

Mountain Head is seems to be based on the All-In podcast or loosely uh but it's a group of billionaire friends get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis.

1:03:05

So I'm looking forward to uh I'm looking forward to uh watching this over the weekend. Sounds amazing.

1:03:11

Uh let's go to this post from Kevin Quac.

1:03:12

He says uh when exactly did the flip happen that all announcements have to be videos that flipped really fast. What do you think? It was the It was us. Did we do it?

1:03:23

Can we take a victory lap?

1:03:25

I mean, we've been doing video announcements for for years. Big.

1:03:32

Yeah, we we use these heavily in 2021, but I also feel like they were popular then.

1:03:36

I also still think there's incredible alpha and just creating an amazing text post.

1:03:40

You can get the same it it doesn't give you the level of like depth to like really deliver brand, I think, in the same way that a video does.

1:03:50

Um, but I honestly think a a extremely well-written text post uh assuming you can even there's potentially a hack to just include a lot of m dashes so you get a bunch of comments from people being like you use chat GBT for this uh and then that will actually boost the post in the algorithm.

1:04:06

Um so there's potentially alpha and plain text you know write it yourself but make it look like it was you know fully AI generated.

1:04:12

Uh but these things these things flip back and forth.

1:04:16

Um, I definitely see videos now where I'm like, "Okay, this is based on like the 2023 launch meta." Yeah.

1:04:22

And, uh, yeah, I'm excited to see what comes down the line. Yeah.

1:04:29

I think the new meta um that that like that comedy uh video from that YC company, Ripling and Deal, that was fantastic.

1:04:40

Uh, and the other one that was really good was from uh, Zipline where it didn't have the same like hard tech uh, insane like free bird uh, kind of like vibe reel with American flags.

1:04:57

It was this like sundrenched high saturation.

1:05:00

It felt like it was out of a link lighter film and it was just this beautiful pastoral illustration of what life could be with zipline.

1:05:09

And I thought it was really beautiful. Yeah.

1:05:11

The I think where I would like to see video goes is go are if you don't have any if you're not trying to make people feel something, just explain really clearly what you're doing in a text post.

1:05:23

Y don't try to make this like vibe real.

1:05:26

If you're if you're trying to entertain, inspire, etc.

1:05:31

Like if that really is your goal, then video can be the right form factor.

1:05:35

And we saw that with that um that sort of humorous video from the YC company.

1:05:40

And then there was another company called Spawn that went super viral a while back for basically saying that like they they took the team and just like lived in Europe for a few months.

1:05:49

Um and and that was one where I couldn't really quite tell if they were being serious or joking and and that's part of maybe what what made it uh go so viral.

1:05:59

Uh, and then you have the the Clue Leap where where you can go make, you know, you can go make half a million dollars a year making videos at Clue.

1:06:04

So, yeah, great great opportunity. Potentially clickbait.

1:06:09

Who knows if that's real, but certainly entertaining.

1:06:11

certainly entertaining. I think the the question of like the vibe reel is like it it worked for us early on because we were trying to create a brand specifically and I think a lot of companies they obviously like a brand is important to every company but like I

1:06:29

would say like most B2B SAS companies are not necessarily brandled or they're not exclusively brands versus if you are building a fashion or media or or nutrition company or something that has like badge value that like expressing the brand and building the brand world. We have this example of like of like you

1:06:47

We have this example of like of like you know you know it's a brand when you can immediately say like what is the car associated with that brand.

1:06:53

The the classic example is like if Nike built a hotel, you would know exactly what that hotel would look like.

1:07:01

It would have posters of Michael Jordan on the wall. The gym would be insane.

1:07:04

Like you know you could buy the shoes there.

1:07:07

It it would feel Nike branded.

1:07:09

Now, if Hilton made a shoe, you'd be like, what does that mean, right?

1:07:13

Um, and so Hilton, but like does Hilton really need a brand as big as Nike or as clearly defined as Nike?

1:07:21

And so for it's kind of like if you're if you're building a product that's not necessarily needs to be brandled forever, you don't necessarily need to ape into let's do a brand vibe reel to really tell people what our brand is if it's going to be just like I'm just a a software company and the value prop is what the value prop is. Yeah, totally.

1:07:39

Anyway, nothing has a clearer value prop than AdSleep.

1:07:41

I've been missing mine while I'm on the road.

1:07:44

It's pain, but you can get yours at eight. com.

1:07:47

Uh, they have a 5-year warranty, 30 night risk-free trial, free returns, free shipping.

1:07:51

How did you sleep last night, Jordy?

1:07:53

I was uh historic numbers. Historic numbers. Eight hours 18 minutes. What? 99. Huge. Huge. Congratulations.

1:08:05

Yeah, that was despite being moderately interrupted because I let my Madic work too hard overnight, but I I did that to myself. Um Oh, well.

1:08:15

Well, we have a we have a post from Adqu.

1:08:16

Then we'll give you an ad read for Adquilot.

1:08:21

You can generate AI ideas for your out ofome campaigns. Yeah.

1:08:25

So, what's interesting what's interesting about this to me is Adqu obviously has a has you know you can go into their application and and uh figure out uh how you basically build a campaign off of that.

1:08:38

But a lot of my experience with out of home is like you want it to be conversational.

1:08:43

It's like okay here's the general areas where we want to be.

1:08:47

What inventory is available these dates?

1:08:50

Okay, what does that inventory actually look like?

1:08:51

What are what are some examples?

1:08:53

And so you can build a campaign in a sort of conversational way, which which makes a lot of sense. So go check it out.

1:08:58

Even if you're not ready to uh run a campaign, it's a good idea to get a sense of of what these will actually uh look like, what budgets will look like, and all that kind of thing. Yeah.

1:09:08

And like just strategically, this is like the classic AI cherry on top business.

1:09:12

They're not pivoting to AI.

1:09:14

They're just giving it people a different way to interface with their proprietary data set, right?

1:09:20

because this is something that you can't just go to chat for because they have have billboards.

1:09:24

Uh so home advertising made easy and measurable. Go to adquick. com.

1:09:27

Say goodbye to the headaches of out of home advertising.

1:09:28

Uh we need a massive size gong Jordan for Michael Dell. An absolute dog.

1:09:33

One of the greatest to ever do it. In Q1, we received 12.

1:09:38

1 billion in AI orders, surpassing the total shipments for all of fiscal year 2025 and leaving us with a backlog of 14. 4 4 billion.

1:09:51

If John, if you were here, I'd be hitting the size gong, but I'm just hitting it uh in the air here. Uh pretty amazing. Interesting story.

1:09:57

I didn't realize that Michael Dell was back in the is he Oh, yeah. Is he back in the weeds?

1:10:05

Oh, he's see I didn't How did I not realize that he was do whole take private go public again?

1:10:11

He's been he's been on absolute tear. Wild. Wild. Dark horse. Dark Horse. It's so cool.

1:10:17

On his LinkedIn, uh it says chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. 41 years, four months.

1:10:28

He started when he's like 18 or something. 19. So good. Incredible. Incredible.

1:10:33

Anyways, uh congrats to the to the Dell team on the milestone. Congrats. Yeah. And and makes sense.

1:10:36

I mean, they don't they don't fabricate GPUs.

1:10:40

They're not in the energy side, but obviously they're building large racks and servers for AI.

1:10:43

there's a boom and they're taking advantage of it. So, makes sense.

1:10:48

Uh, and we're seeing that with like Cisco, too.

1:10:50

Remember we were talking to Kevin Wheel about how Cisco plays a really interesting unique role in the AI boom.

1:10:56

It's a company that you haven't heard about for a while, but networking gear is obviously extremely important in AI context as you're networking together all these data centers.

1:11:04

And so, Cisco is also a beneficiary of the AI boom.

1:11:06

So, uh, diving in revisiting these companies that are so, uh, so historically significant is fascinating.

1:11:12

I think there's a great founders episode on Michael Dell that you should go check out if you want to hear about Michael Dell's approach to entrepreneurship. So check that out.

1:11:19

Um uh I I don't know if we can sing.

1:11:21

I I think singing over over Zoom just doesn't work.

1:11:25

So we're just going to have to say wander, find your happy place, book a wander with inspiring views, hotel, great amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, 247 concier service.

1:11:32

It's a vacation home but better folks.

1:11:34

We'll be back on Monday song. A full rendition.

1:11:37

We have to go uh hit the track with John Andrew too. Oh man, for sure.

1:11:42

I want to see I want to see how he performs. Laguna, you think? He's a dog. He's an absolute dog.

1:11:46

I think he keeps his uh track cars in Texas if I remember correctly.

1:11:52

But anyways, that will be a great story when the time comes. Wander in Texas. Go visit him. Race him.

1:11:57

Uh we got a post from Chris uh how he's Chris Pike. Pike. Pike. Pike. Um he has a new post.

1:12:08

He dropped the end of software on May 31st, 2024. Yep.

1:12:10

He's got a new post called the dawn of infinite code.

1:12:15

And I mean he's plays X on built different.

1:12:17

I was about to say he posts the link and he and it works every time. Uh still does numbers.

1:12:24

Uh so he has a new article, the dawn of infinite code. All started off. Says San Mateo 2005.

1:12:27

Three founders add an upload button to their video hosting website in an office that smells faintly of pepperoni.

1:12:34

Everywhere 2025, a person types an idea, presses enter, and a network of agent agents compiles, tests, and executes.

1:12:42

In the end of software, I I uh posited that large language models would drive the marginal cost of software towards zero, just as the internet did with content.

1:12:52

A year later, that forecast is playing out.

1:12:56

Code is beyond trivial to generate.

1:12:58

The question now is how we deal with the oncoming flood. The pattern is familiar.

1:13:02

When YouTube launched in 2005, its first video, me at the zoo, seemed immaterial.

1:13:07

This was the harbinger of doom for the media industry. But that was the point.

1:13:11

It proved that content had become too cheap to meter.

1:13:13

Now the dam has broken with code.

1:13:16

Prompts produce prototypes that once required a team in a sprint.

1:13:20

As transformative as broadcasting from your bedroom was, anyone can now ship their ideas.

1:13:24

And you know what uh immediately comes to mind is we have um uh somebody visiting us at the studio today that built an entire app based on TVPN yesterday.

1:13:35

Just randomly had the idea uh and sent it to us this morning.

1:13:40

I think it's it's at tbpnuest. com. Yeah, that's right. Um, tbpnuest.

1:13:47

com is amazing, uh, cool looking website that ranks every single guest that we've had, including, uh, gives you timestamps and breaks down the topics, uh, that it covers. So, uh, very cool.

1:14:01

This was built yesterday.

1:14:01

Uh, extremely impressive and probably wouldn't have been possible to build something as as as cool and beautiful.

1:14:09

It would take a lot longer, for sure.

1:14:12

Um, so anyways, continuing Chris Pike's post, he says, "Web 2.

1:14:14

0 gave everyone a single verb upload and it vaporized news rooms everywhere.

1:14:18

AI gives us a new one, describe, and the 500 person single feature company goes poof.

1:14:23

The work shifts from syntax to intent.

1:14:25

Instead of writing software line by line, we define what it should and let models handle the show.

1:14:32

And what about distribution?

1:14:32

Don't software companies have robust sales and marketing teams?

1:14:36

Yes, as new as newspapers with paper routes and circulation numbers, when free competes with free for distribution, paid distribution loses badly.

1:14:43

At first, these models will will rely on a set of default environments and stacks determined by a legacy training set.

1:14:51

But defaults change as options multiply.

1:14:53

The decision of where and how code runs will be handled by algorithms.

1:14:58

We already accept this logic elsewhere.

1:15:00

Tik Tok decides what we watch.

1:15:03

Spotify decides what we hear. The system is opaque.

1:15:06

The results are good, so we scroll.

1:15:08

When the flood of code arrives, we won't ask for explanations. We'll reward speed.

1:15:15

Convenience will outrank transparency.

1:15:17

The systems that earn our trust through responsiveness will hold the power once reserved for operating systems.

1:15:21

As cost curves come down, we chase scarcity up the stack. It starts with compute.

1:15:26

Still mostly centralized, but already seeping to the edge as local models take up residents on laptops and phones. Above that lies context.

1:15:34

The habits, preferences, and history that let a model anticipate us better than any public corpus ever could. And finally, trust.

1:15:43

Credibility earned over time determines whether an agent has the right to choose on our behalf.

1:15:47

Once we arrive at full trust, active choice becomes a burden. Do you want to continue?

1:15:55

Children after 2010 have never opened a newspaper, so they may never open applications.

1:15:59

History shows the vessel always fades once the payload can flow without it.

1:16:04

Newspapers yielded to websites, CDs, to streaming software in its current uncircumcised form uh is circumscribed form is the next container on the chopping block when logic can be summoned and stitched together on demand.

1:16:18

The container evaporates and only capability remains.

1:16:21

That's the real end of software.

1:16:23

Not the death of code, but the moment the container dissolves.

1:16:28

utility unboxed everywhere and all at once and all at once infinite capability, infinite code. Very interesting.

1:16:35

Yeah, I mean uh it it's uh yeah, it's a fun narrative.

1:16:39

I wonder where if there will be there's a big question about like discovery.

1:16:43

How will people discover these vibecoded apps?

1:16:46

Distribution seems to be king. We saw that with Levels.

1:16:47

io like he was able to vibe code.

1:16:49

He had a very different outcome from the random vibe coder who wants to share a link on on X.

1:16:53

Uh unless you're Chris Pike apparently and you're not shadowbanned from posting links.

1:16:57

Um I mean good links will break through of course.

1:17:02

Uh and of course you can always do a uh you know a viral video that that announces your website and pitches it and then gets people to go there even if they have to open up a new tab.

1:17:10

Uh but uh distribution will be king.

1:17:13

though uh get ready to to optimize and the value of the prompt will be will be important like the the value of actually uh coming up with a unique idea something that creates value even if the instantiation of that value happens very quickly via vibe coding. Yep.

1:17:26

Anyway, let's tell you about bezel. Uh go to getb bezel.

1:17:28

com your bezel conciier is available now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch. Uh check it out.

1:17:36

And I want to close out with this post from GMO Ralph, the founder of Verscell, who's been on the show.

1:17:42

Uh, the only the only durable moat in technology is relentless execution.

1:17:46

And we got Molly O'Shea in the comments. Or violent execution. I like that.

1:17:51

Um, but this this relates to the previous uh Chris Pike post, right?

1:17:55

That that as as the barriers to entry come down, the winner is the one who executes relentlessly, right? Yep.

1:18:05

And we see this all over the place.

1:18:06

And I would I would put an image in people's minds.

1:18:08

Relentless execution is like a golden retriever chasing a tennis ball, right?

1:18:14

It's a good that's a good metaphor.

1:18:16

No matter what is in their way, no matter what, you know, gets in their path or or presents challenges to getting that tennis ball, they're going to relentlessly charge at it until they get it and bring it back to you.

1:18:28

And that is kind of like I think the right framework to be to approach life with, right?

1:18:33

uh a golden retriever is not, you know, rabid uh foaming at the mouth, uh you know, being uh you know, a poor sport.

1:18:42

They're just, you know, joyful, you know, relentlessly chasing that that tennis ball.

1:18:47

And so, I hope everybody uh brings that energy to the rest of their work week. I agree. I agree.

1:18:54

Go have a golden retriever weekend, everyone.

1:18:56

This has been a fantastic show. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you on Monday.

1:19:00

We have a whole bunch more guests.

1:19:02

We're doing a bunch more of these special days and we'll have a whole bunch more ads for you, of course.

1:19:07

Uh, leave us five stars on Apple Podcast and Spotify, please.

1:19:10

And stay tuned for the next one. Thank you. Cheers.