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Today is Tuesday, April 29th, 2025.
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We are live from the Temple of Technology, the Fortress of Finance, the Capital Capital.
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We are in Washington DC, the nation's capital.
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We have a special guest, Will Manitis, here with us today.
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Our first chairman of TBPN, our first in-person guest.
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We're very excited to have him here today.
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Let's hear for Will in the studio.
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Uh earlier today, we went to a press briefing, our first press briefing.
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Will is in the studio, folks.
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Will, let's hear for Will again.
0:46
It's going to be a fantastic show.
0:48
Uh for the Jouos, for the Jouos that we saw at the press briefing.
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It was the first time we've ever been to a press briefing. It was very official.
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And so Delian, tension in the room, John. It was palpable. It was palpable. It was palpable.
1:00
The So, basically, three technology brothers. Yes.
1:04
And justacing army effectively of Delion and Christian Garrett get up there to break down what's happening at Hillland Valley.
1:14
And the Jouos were were not happy.
1:17
They were they were screaming. They were crying. Uh it was very tense. It was very hostile.
1:21
A lot of the questions were extremely underhanded.
1:25
Clearly lots of folks trying to write hit paces.
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But then the mood changed over time and Delhi actually turned the crowd.
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They won hearts and minds.
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They won hearts and minds. Exactly.
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With a message of unity across the aisle.
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Bipartisanship, pro-America, pro technology.
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And then the tears changed from tears of anger to tears of joy. Yeah. And people were crying.
1:43
It was it was something you had to be there.
1:46
And I think it will go down in history as one of like the defining moments in technology history. Truly it was fantastic. It was a turning point.
1:53
Yeah, it was it was definitely a turning point.
1:56
So, uh you went to Hill out out of the valley into the hill. Yes, exactly.
2:00
Out of the valley into the hill.
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Uh you went to Hill Valley last year.
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Have you been previously? I have. Okay. Three times.
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Break down your experience for me. Uh how has it evolved?
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What are you looking into for tomorrow? What's your game plan?
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I mean, it is it is somewhat hilarious.
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Like two years back, like tech people did not come to DC and now it feels like there's,200 people descending on the city.
2:20
You can't go to any of the hotels without seeing poorly fitted suits.
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Like, you know, you're here.
2:23
Technology is Yeah, there there there are a number of suits that I've seen so far that look like they haven't been worn in potentially about a year.
2:32
Is this the last Hill Valley?
2:35
I mean, you know, a man is deep on Hill and Valley when he doesn't even need to get business cards back out because they're already backing from Hill and Valley last year. It's just incredible.
2:46
It's like seeing an like a cheetah try to hunt in the Sahara, right?
2:49
It's like a different environment, but it's beautiful.
2:51
Unity matters here in DC.
2:53
I was thinking about how in a weird twist, I feel like DC has become what Miami was supposed to be become was supposed to become in the sense of like it's this place that everyone can descend on, have these like big events, and it's this like center of like it's a third space for technology.
3:11
I mean, I don't know why you have to like this. I I know. I know.
3:12
They still they're still kicking.
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But DC has become a place with with higher profile events.
3:20
It kind of came from behind.
3:20
On uh on a more serious note, yes, the the thing the takeaways from the press briefing is that this event is not about foreign policy as much as it's about, you know, uh basically, you know, the real theme of uh tomorrow is re-industrialization.
3:39
We're trying to keep the topic around that. Yeah.
3:40
And as much as the legacy media would would like to make it political, it you know many of the the the sort of um subject should be uh very bipartisan. Yeah.
3:51
So, it was also funny digging into like what is the current thing with the mainstream media versus the current thing with us because Jordy asked a question like if we're talking Hill and Valley, if we're talking DC politics, geopolitics, and tech, the top story of the last week has been benchmark investing in Manis, a Chinese AI company.
4:13
That's the interesting angle.
4:15
That's the thing people want to dig into in tech.
4:16
Um, and a lot of journalists were asking questions. I asked a question.
4:20
It was like giving him a layup.
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He did like an outlet you straight over the top.
4:24
Um but I but again I I actually don't even think that was top of mind for the other media that was attending just all a reindustrialization from their side.
4:32
No no no everybody wanted tariffs and even and even the the the discussion around AI was very much like oh have you tried the new 40 model like it can search the web like that like it was at that level.
4:48
It wasn't it wasn't talking about like it wasn't talking about you know the like glazegate. Yeah.
4:54
I asked one of the a writer I think from uh journalist from Politico. Yeah.
4:59
Who just covers AI policy and I asked her about Glazegate and she she thought she she responded like she knew what I was talking about and then she was like talking about tool use and being like yeah I think it's really cool.
5:11
Strong evidence you have to get your news from only one place. Right. Exactly.
5:15
The Technology Brothers Media Empire. Yes.
5:19
If only somebody made a daily three-hour live show just about technology and business. Yeah. Sponsored by RAM. Sponsored by RAM. Time is money. Save both.
5:27
Easy to use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.
5:29
Uh, have you been following? Earning season.
5:34
Well, what have you been tracking?
5:35
What's been interesting to you?
5:35
that all the great companies in the world are focused on one thing and that is controlling spend which is best in the world handled on a platform like the brand going unnecessary but you're punching above your weight already every single month. Yes.
5:48
I want a special man named Zach who's close in our hearts to monitor my individual corporate cards fan. Yes. It's good to have. It's good to have.
5:56
Uh well we do have some news from uh Tuesday.
5:59
So UPS reported earnings they missed.
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Uh EPS was supposed to be 217 came in at 205. Revenue down uh to 21. 4 billion expected 21. 7 billion.
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A missed obviously uh bad news for the global economy.
6:15
Domestic packages fell 3. 5% on volume.
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People are worried about shipping stuff around. Coca-Cola beat though.
6:23
People are drinking the the candy soda still.
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It's good for the sugar number go up economy.
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General Motors had a massive beat.
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earnings per share at $222. Uh expected 188.
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Uh and revenue is 43 billion instead of roughly 42 billion.
6:40
Probably driven by the Corvette ZR1, I imagine. Hummers.
6:43
What else do they What else do they make? The CT5V Blackwing. That's right.
6:48
They're probably selling a ton of those.
6:49
Mark Zuckerberg apparently among uh Yeah. The clubhouse. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly.
6:54
Uh Fizer beat earnings uh 62 cents a share.
6:59
Do you want to give a Do you want to give a round of applause for Big bioarm.
7:03
It's an incredible time to be receiving healthcare in America.
7:08
Uh co products fell, sales fell, but it was expected.
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The core business oncology and vaccines showed moderate growth and the market reaction was that the stock traded up 1%.
7:15
Uh Visa issues guidance tonight and uh consumer confidence was down the biggest monthly drop since 2022.
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Big discussion over how all the news is falling with the consumer.
7:29
People are worried about tariffs.
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Even if they're not feeling it yet, they expect to feel it.
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And so consumer confidence is falling.
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Anyway, uh market's pretty flat.
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And in general, uh the takeaway that I had from the uh from the uh press briefing was there's all these big stories about tariffs and chaos and and what's happening with Tik Tok and it and and the mood was very much like things are worse than ever, I guess.
7:54
But, uh, the stock market is kind of resilient.
8:02
You know, it's like it's not as priced in.
8:04
Yeah, it's kind of priced in.
8:04
It hasn't been in in as much of freeall as the news would have had you believe a few weeks ago, right?
8:11
Well, we still have more data coming in this week.
8:13
We have jobs and GDP and then tech earnings.
8:18
just given how much of the grow you know growth over the last few years has just come from the mag 7 those are really the uh earnings to watch.
8:25
So tomorrow and Thursday after the market closes, we have uh Meta, Google, no Google already reported, but we have Meta, uh, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia, I believe.
8:39
Um, Tesla and Google already reported.
8:41
And then Intel and TSMC also reported, and we'll get into that when we we can get into it now with the Ben Thompson analysis.
8:50
Uh, have have you dug into Lip Bhutan at all? Have you met him? Not.
8:55
Are you familiar with the new Intel CEO been doing the leg work? Yeah.
8:57
So, he gave investors stark diagnosis of the chipmakers problems on Thursday along with the sense that it will take a while to fix them.
9:06
Tam delivering his first earnings report as CEO said Intel's bureaucratic corporate culture needs a shakeup.
9:12
So, he's going to cut jobs, remove layers of management, and force everyone back to the office.
9:16
his prescriptions for other areas of Malaysia, such as Intel's struggling foundry business, which makes chips for outside customers, were more vague.
9:24
What's most clear is Intel's short-term woes are even worse than feared.
9:26
The company gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter that was well below what analysts projected, and Intel's chief financial officer warned that tariff fueled recession could torpedo chip demand.
9:37
The grim outlook sent Intel shares sliding by as much as 10% Friday to $19. 34 a share.
9:44
And Ben Thompson called he said these earnings were absolutely brutal and the earnings call was worse.
9:52
Start with the good news. Well, yeah.
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Fortunate thing for shareholders is that it was mostly priced in in total over the last month only down uh just under 10%.
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So, uh the the analysts were doing a good job effectively understanding even if uh they were off um on on some of their own forecasts. Yeah.
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So the narrative is that Intel has shifted to uh these seven nanometer consumer chips that go into budget systems Raptor Lake and that's what drove uh non-GAAP gross margin three points higher than expected but obviously that those sales came at the expense of Lunar Lake which is a better processor with worse margins in large part because it is mostly made by TSMC.
10:33
In other words, Intel benefited financially from being less competitive at the high end than expected and this is the highlight.
10:39
Uh Will, have you been tracking any of the wild theories around Intel or what anyone's thinking?
10:44
Like break it up, put Elon in charge foundation.
10:49
It feels like very important to have an American foundry company, right?
10:52
And it it's such a shame Pat's no longer in the role.
10:53
Truly one of the greatest CEOs, right?
10:55
Like great redemption arc at the company, leaves the company, comes back out there doing amazing work today building churches, but would have loved to see him in the seat obviously until shareholders disagree. Yeah.
11:05
But what is the full like uh what's been your full story of Pat Gellzinger like give me more as to you know what he's like as a manager and as a CEO.
11:16
I mean I I met the man once. Um but incredible.
11:19
Seems to put his faith at the center of his work.
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He has built I want to say seven churches in the Bay Area.
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Seems to spend one day a week praying for Intel employees which is fascinating and interesting.
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Maybe more companies should try that.
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just seems like a man who has sobbed work, life, faith, integration in a way that others have not.
11:35
What about uh did you ever hear that take that like whatever type of scripture he's posting is like directly directly into it.
11:43
It's MMPI maybe you don't want management teams posting daily Bible readings inspired based on material non-public information. That feels correct. Yeah. Yeah.
11:53
Uh do you have as long as he puts at the end NFA? Yeah. Yeah. Nice.
11:56
Uh, do you have a take on the split?
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Do you think that they should go pure fab or pure design shop Nvidia style?
12:04
I have no I have no strong take on it.
12:06
a strong take on I I have this take that uh there's there's a world where you rewind the clock and instead of Elon spending 44 billion on Twitter now X he gets a bunch of money from the chips act and instead goes into uh chip fabrication because he seems like the one person that could actually pull together all the talent and the culture to if he can build the XAI data center so quickly he could also turn around a fab.
12:31
Uh there was somebody else saying that like you know he he's he's really owning like the stack of modern technology whether it's space travel cars AI neurolink etc.
12:43
missing semis uh uh what do you think about that theory?
12:46
I mean it he does seem to be amazing at taking you know very highly priced XAI equity and trading it for real businesses right it does seem like actually a good moment to you know take a slightly overvalued AI foundation model provider trade that for a real business and run that company with kind of discipline that I think Intel has not had for like 30 years like I think Elon going full stack is very good. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be cool.
13:08
Um there's actually Did you see the did you see the other news about Elon? No.
13:12
Uh the the Wall Street banks sold the final slug of Elon Musk's ex debt.
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The loan sat on the bank's books for two and a half years until Donald Trump's election rapidly changed the company's fortunes.
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A group of Wall Street's biggest banks have finally dug themselves out of a $13 billion quag.
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Did the election Did the election change its fortunes or did they just get efficient in operating?
13:32
Yeah, it doesn't even seem like it was the election that changed the fortunes.
13:36
It was more that XAI started ripping and refinance based on that.
13:40
Uh, so a little bit of truth zone.
13:42
98 cents on the dollar already priced in. Yeah, not bad.
13:47
Um, so on Monday, banks sold the final slug of debt they lent for Musk's takeover of Twitter in 2022, according to people familiar with the matter. Uh, the $1.
13:56
2 billion of loans sold at 98 cents on the dollar.
13:58
Of course, when Elon purchased Twitter for 44 billion, he put up a bunch of equity from Tesla.
14:06
There were a bunch of other investors that came in.
14:07
Larry Ellison, Andre Horowitz, I think Sequoia came in as well.
14:10
And then uh I think Morgan Stanley did a bunch of the debt.
14:13
So the sale was a long time coming.
14:14
In April 2022, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and five other banks agreed to lend the money to help Musk buy Twitter.
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The plan was to divvy up some $13 billion in debt, sell it to investors, and earn millions in fees.
14:26
By the time the deal closed, the markets had tanked and investors were wary of betting on Twitter's debt.
14:31
The unloved loans sat on banks balance sheets for more than two years while the financial prospects of the newly christened X looked dimmer and dimmer.
14:39
By the summer of 2024, the X deal was considered the worst buyout banks had agreed to finance since the 2008 financial crisis.
14:46
And then they say everything turned with the election of Donald Trump as president and the rise of Musk as a crucial Trump ally, catalyzing a frenzy among investors to get a slice of Musk Inc.
14:55
advertisers such as Amazon.
14:58
com started coming back to the platform helping Musk to raise more capital for ex I guess that's kind of a reasonable scenario that if he backs Trump loses then maybe the advertisers don't come back. What do you think?
15:12
It's an interesting platform because historically I just don't think the ad units were ever that good and so it was easy for advertisers to just say okay we're not going to come back.
15:22
Now, it's an opportunity to sort of pledge allegiance to the Musk Empire and and in some way kind of cozy up uh to the to the to the power players by saying yes, we're bringing our advertising back to the platform.
15:37
And sure that helps in terms of X getting you know properly uh uh basically just you know that the as long as Elon is heavily involved with politics his companies will will be impacted by his proximity to power, right? Yeah.
15:52
I mean I guess the flip side is maybe if Trump loses I mean you could see a situation where the the left is more aggressive about like holding Musk to account for trying to get Trump elected.
16:07
But on the but on the other side, you could see a world where it's just like, oh, Trump is a loser.
16:10
He lost two elections in a row in this hypothetical and Musk is, you know, like a failure for he couldn't even get Trump elected and so he's less of a threat.
16:19
And so, yeah, you can advertise on his silly little app.
16:22
It doesn't matter anymore because he's irrelevant because Trump is irrelevant because he lost twice. He's never coming back.
16:27
And so I I I feel like it's possible that that this was less of an issue because he could have built back up.
16:34
But certainly um like the just being close to the president and having uh kind of the whole vibe shift in Silicon Valley and all the Silicon Valley CEOs going out to DC made a ton of sense.
16:45
I think the really interesting question is how this new 20 billion financing comes together.
16:50
I don't know where uh where that capital is coming from.
16:54
Uh it it already and then and then as you start to you mean for XAI?
16:58
Yeah, XAI doing this new financing uh that's been sort of reported on um just based on rumors.
17:06
I think uh it seems unclear to me if if X the the social media platform starts getting any credit at all for even existing, right?
17:15
It's just just rolled in.
17:17
It's like, oh yeah, like you're investing in, you know, the mega data center project and like, oh, we also have that app.
17:23
And as an X user, uh, all this stuff again, like it's just not, it's not default bullish for X the social platform just because it's happens because that capital is certainly not being going to be diverted in any type of meaningful way to the social platform.
17:41
But it's also like, do you actually need to update X?
17:43
Like when was the last time there was a meaningful Twitter update? Like I Whoa, whoa, whoa.
17:48
They launched 4K live streaming live streaming.
17:51
We will be live streaming in 4K very soon.
17:53
Uh, but let's play the sound effect for 4K live streaming on Xbox. It's happening.
17:58
You should be watching this on a QLED TV.
18:01
You should be watching it in IMAX. Get Starlink.
18:08
We were we were talking with Tyler and the and the video team and uh they were basically saying like yeah there's like a one engineer who's like working on streaming.
18:17
It's like it's great just for you guys. just for you guys.
18:20
It's our guy and Anthony Papio.
18:26
Um, yeah, it is interesting to think like, you know, if if Elon had just waited or been able to stall on the acquisition deal by like six months, he would have been able to buy it for a quarter of the price.
18:36
Like every single tech company sold off and Twitter would have sold off by more. Meta went down by 50%.
18:43
It would have been struggling to find bottom 100%.
18:45
It probably would have been like a 5 or10 billion company, right? Yeah.
18:49
Even if you pay 10, it's still 75% off. Yeah, I know. I know.
18:51
But remarkable timing and remarkable that he pulled it out despite like the the leg weights that were the initial buyout valuation. And it's crazy.
19:00
They basically put a gun to his head and said, "You're buy."
19:04
The court always forces Elen to do exactly what he doesn't want to do.
19:07
You can't do the pay package. You have to buy this. You can't buy that.
19:10
What he should do is is come out really in favor of the for-profit conversion of open.
19:16
Absolutely not happening more reverse psychology for sure. For sure.
19:19
Uh in a sign of how eager investors were, Monday's sale of $1.
19:23
2 billion in debt happened even while the markets have been in the doldrum since President Trump announced his tariff plan this month.
19:30
Bankers working on the transaction said they felt that the high quality nature of the deal meant that they could sell the debt despite recent recent market volatility.
19:36
In the end, banks found a graceful exit from the 13 billion financing that weighed on them for some two and a half years.
19:42
I mean, the team that I I know some of the team at Morgan Stanley and it looked really rough for a while, but they got out.
19:50
Elon doesn't do down rounds, and he knows how to steward capital.
19:52
He's one of the greatest to do it. Um 40% premium.
19:58
I forget how high the premium was.
20:00
It wasn't even like trading at 44. He paid 40% premium. That is wild.
20:02
uh reflecting the potential he saw in the social media company.
20:08
He said at the time, "Free speech is the bedrock of a fun functioning democracy and Twitter is the digital town square where it matter." Yeah.
20:16
No, it did feel like postacquisition that he he basically spent he he spent $44 billion to preserve free speech on the internet.
20:24
In many ways, it actually did feel like that. Yeah.
20:28
It should be taxdeductible.
20:30
That's a nonprofit contribution. It should be. Yeah.
20:32
Yeah, I mean that that that was my take was that like if if he doesn't do something about it, there's going to be like the the the anti-musk aggression is just going to keep building and building and building until he's in like real real danger.
20:42
And so it was a small price to pay.
20:45
Small price to pay, but he got out of it.
20:47
Speaking of small prices to pay, go get a watch on Bezel. Go to get bezel. com.
20:51
Uh we're going to get Will set up with something after the show.
20:55
Yeah, Will's not a huge watch guy.
20:58
Huge watch guy, but we're going to convert him.
20:59
I think this this presidential.
21:01
I need more gold material. Yeah. Yeah. The yellow gold.
21:06
The yellow gold champagne day Date.
21:06
That would look great on you.
21:09
It's from Glengary Glenn Ross. Maybe the GMT. Texas Timex.
21:12
The Texas Timex they call it when you're in the South.
21:15
Anyway, um let's move on to another story.
21:19
Um uh I mean TSMC earnings also paired well with Intel earnings because um interestingly Intel is flat despite having a terrible couple months changing CEOs lots of fear around can they be competitive on the leading edge whatsoever.
21:37
TSMC has been crushing it, been in the perfect position, but has so much fear around global tensions.
21:44
Invasion of Taiwan basically zeros the company.
21:46
And so TSMC has been having a much harder time in the market even though their outlook has been bullish.
21:53
Uh they're they have a bullish outlook for growth in 2025 after reporting strong first quarter results suggesting the world's biggest chip maker is confident it can ride out the US China trade war.
22:03
The main chip maker for Nvidia, Apple, and other companies said it still expects mid20% growth this year and a doubling of AI revenue, mirroring goals set in January.
22:12
And it stuck with capital spending projection of 38 billion to 42 billion in 2025.
22:19
TSMC's US stock rose as much as 3.
22:19
8% while in while shares of suppliers including Tokyo Electron and Laser Tech climbed in Tokyo.
22:26
The the CEO stressed that demand particularly for high-end chips critical to developing AI has remained resilient.
22:32
that may assuage investors who've struggled through a turbulent few days when US restrictions on the export of Nvidia chips to China and a disappointing report from ASML holdings trigger help triggered a broad market size.
22:45
So Ben says what you were uh alluding to earlier which in stark contrast to Intel TSMC is killing it and yet you wouldn't know from the share price uh trading% down and to the right still priced in.
23:00
What is priced in everything? everything everything.
23:04
Um the market is perfectly priced. Yeah.
23:06
So he breaks it down here.
23:06
He said you would had you invested at the beginning of this year been break even on an Intel investment and significantly down on a TSMC investment.
23:13
Granted, the returns are a lot different if you go back even a year. Intels are brutal.
23:18
But it's clear that TSMC is being much more impacted by recent geopolitical events than Intel is. And for good reason.
23:27
above and beyond their location in Taiwan.
23:28
TSMC is actually relevant to the global economy in a way that Intel is not boom roasted.
23:37
Have you been uh have you been tracking any of the new uh chip companies that are doing like transformers on a chip at surely been tracking the heights of waves in the Taiwan Strait?
23:46
Yeah, that's all that matters to the stock price.
23:49
That's all you trade off of is the weather forecast.
23:50
Yard stick in the Taiwan Strait going on. Yeah. If it's low, it's bad.
23:55
Yeah, that that is true, right?
23:57
You can't like you can only invade in certain times or something like that.
24:00
This is a when Eric Prince appears on the show, you know, less than 24 hours, that does feel like a question for him.
24:06
But my understanding is in the summer, the Taiwan Straits are flatter. Okay.
24:10
Much easier to get landing craft across.
24:12
In the winter, it's like 22.
24:12
Bad timing with the tariffs now.
24:14
They should Isn't it actually like a very narrow window, isn't it?
24:18
It's like two weeks, which is very Which is helpful if you're trying to prepare for an invasion, but still you know when it's going to come.
24:24
Um anyways, so uh Ben goes further here.
24:28
He says TSMC has however even beyond the last few months suffered from the China overhang.
24:32
The reality that any sort of conflict over Taiwan would zero out TSMC.
24:38
And what he says uh which is interesting and we'll get into this is um what is notable to me however and counter to what I wrote last month is the depth of TSMC's commitment to manufacturing in the United States.
24:49
And again, this was what we've been trying to pull out of some people on the show is is kind of understanding how much of Nvidia saying, "Oh, we're investing hundred billion dollars in the US." How much is TS?
25:00
How much of this is sort of marketing to the admin versus like actual practical business planning?
25:04
And um this is cool to see.
25:08
So, uh Ben wrote last month, "At the same time, you can also view this announcement with some amount of cynicism, particularly given the lack of specificity about either timing or process.
25:18
There's both an optimistic and a pessimistic way to look at this.
25:22
On the optimistic side, that first fab was upgraded to a more advanced five nanometer node. TSM love this. Love it.
25:29
TSMC calls it the 4nanmter node, but it's actually a third generation 5nmter node.
25:34
Ben Thompson is truthing amazing numbers. Truth zoning. Uh TSMC.
25:38
The second fab meanwhile will also produce 2nmter chips at some point in the future, although not in 2020.
25:46
It's crazy and something that a couple years ago people were like that will never happen.
25:49
There's too much like sacred knowledge in Taiwan that will never make it to America.
25:52
If they can actually hit that, it's crazy. Yeah.
25:54
Um and so yeah, on the earnings call, the CEO of TSMC said, "Let me talk about TSMC's additional $100 billion investment plan to expand in Arizona.
26:05
All of our overseas decisions are based on our customers need as they value some geographic flexibility and necessary level of government support.
26:11
This is also to maximize the value of our shareholders, which we'd love to hear.
26:15
Let's hear it for maximizing shareholder value.
26:17
Uh with a strong collaboration and support from our leading US customers and the fed in the US federal, state and city governments, we recently announced our intention to invest an additional 100 billion in advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.
26:30
This expansion includes major p plans for three additional wafer manufacturing fabs, two advanced packaging fabs, and a major R&D center.
26:38
combined with our previously announced plan to build three advanced semiconductor manufacturing fabs in Arizona.
26:43
This brings our total investment in the US to to $165 billion to support the strong multi-year demand from our customers.
26:51
It makes sense like a lot of TSMC's customers are in America.
26:54
Like there's no reason why you shouldn't make them here, but it was thought impossible for a long time.
26:57
How did we just sum billion and hundred billion and get to $165 billion?
27:02
No, he starts by saying let's talk about the hundred billion investment.
27:06
And then he's like, "We're going to do all this stuff."
27:08
Which adds up to 100 billion.
27:10
And then he says, "We've already invested 65, so let's add the new 100 to the previous 65. We're at 165."
27:14
Which sounds staggering, I guess, when you compare it to what the hyperscalers are spending on capex, which is all in like the 60 70 80 billion per hyperscaler. It's not that crazy.
27:27
And of course, this is over a number of years because they're building these out, but still very very bullish for American manufacturing, very bullish for re-industrialization, which we love to see. Uh it's not a meme. Not a meme. Not a meme. It's going to happen.
27:39
Um it is uh yeah, it it it is interesting to see that like they're actually making progress here that people thought was not possible for a long time or they thought it would never happen for a variety of reasons.
27:51
But uh TSMC, Foxcon's in the same in the same boat where uh Foxcon's announcing new facilities. It's Taiwanese company.
27:57
They obviously have a massive presence in China, but they're announcing a lot of new facilities in America because they see themselves as a western company or global company and they want to do business.
28:06
I love when uh CEOs are super candid on earnings calls because it's so easy for them to go robotic. This was another quote.
28:13
Uh he was responding to a question.
28:15
He said, "The first purpose in the Arizona fab uh is that the Arizona fab can operate independently.
28:20
fab can operate independently. But of course we have done and we are doing it right now some kind of pathf finding exploratory work and to cooperate with the university blah blah it's actually a lot of activities a thousand engineers is not a small amount of course it's not
28:33
comparable to uh TSMC I think he's talking about uh you know the facility in Taiwan that has 10,000 R&D people but it's a beginning okay so we'll do a lot more that's great and um anyways yeah I mean you you were talking about like the the capex excess marketing to the admin. And probably the best example is from
28:52
And probably the best example is from the first Trump administration where Apple did that like that ribbon cutting ceremony.
28:59
I think it was in Texas for the Mac.
29:01
Uh and it was like they'd already been making it there.
29:03
They weren't reshoring anything really.
29:06
Rebranding the dollar's and then and then earlier in Trump 2, just a couple months ago, Apple like kind of repackaged a bunch of their like spend and they were like we're investing hundred billion dollars in America.
29:17
And it was like the salaries that were already spent build a warehouse and just like let people rent it for ribbon cutting ceremonies like this market. Yeah.
29:27
Massive American flag on the wall. You can move in. We rent it by the hour. It comes with a vibr.
29:31
It comes with free birds pre-installed.
29:33
Secret service has been there already. They know the angles. Exactly.
29:36
Getting into Americanmade ribbons specifically for for you know and those big scissors having to be American.
29:43
You know those are made in China today. For sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Sure.
29:47
Um, should we talk about uh Amazon? Oh, yeah.
29:49
And uh all this drama around whether or not they were displaying plan to display ran this AB test on his e-commerce website.
29:59
He found so he makes his uh shower head in China.
30:03
Uh it's the tariffs are going to make a $100 product like $250.
30:06
Goes to an American manufacturer.
30:09
It's going to cost him $250 to make it.
30:12
So, he puts an option on his website, $100 for the Chinese one or 250.
30:16
Uh, and he was like, 100% of people chose the cheaper one. Zero.
30:21
We got zero made in America.
30:21
But I was thinking about that more and I was and I was thinking about how like, no, it's not that's not the option.
30:27
Yeah, that's not the trade. Yeah.
30:28
The actual trade is $250 for the Chinese-made one, $160 of which or $150 of which goes to tariffs versus $250 made in the American trade.
30:39
It was a deeply flawed study. exceptionally viral. Yeah. Yeah.
30:43
Uh but anyway, Amazon is thinking about doing something very similar kind of, you know, uh lobbying popular support amongst the American people, uh breaking out import charges.
30:54
And to be clear, they deny they had plans to do this. Sure. Sure.
30:59
But the administration announc addressed it and said that breaking out import charges would be a hostile and political act.
31:04
Uh Andy Jasse is getting in trouble with the White House.
31:09
I'm sure they will be fighting it out, although they're still going after Bezos. So, Amazon.
31:12
com was forced to play down a report that it was considering displaying the impact of tariffs during its online checkout process after President Trump called the company founder Jeff Bezos.
31:23
And the White House said uh such a move would be a hostile and political.
31:27
I mean, you have to imagine that as soon as the tariffs drop, like there's some Amazon PM who's like implementing this on day one, right? Yeah. Yeah.
31:33
It's also funny that that Bezos is still the first guy to get the call. It's been so long now.
31:38
He's like desperately trying to retire. Yeah.
31:43
Just like I just want to do the Lex Freedman podcast and be on a yacht and and go to space.
31:46
Like why are you calling me about e my e-commerce business? Yeah. Yeah. I was ecom entre. Yeah.
31:52
I was a 12 figureure ecom entrepreneur.
31:54
But if he does save the global economy, that's like his beautiful act, right?
31:58
Like if this works, who who saves the economy by rolling back tariffs by implementing this feature, that's a Nobel Peace Prize level achievement.
32:07
It's Yeah, it's possible. It's possible.
32:09
It's going to take an act of courage standing up to the admin by by putting a new div on the checkout HTML page, pressing some controversy because Punch Bowl was doing some reporting on this, but Punch Bowl is corporate media.
32:27
They're supported by Amazon. Wait, is this real? Yeah. Yeah. Punch bowl news. Okay. Yeah.
32:32
It says Trump called Bezos to raise concerns after Punch Bowl News report, which I've never heard of, uh, reported that Amazon was planning to display the impact of tariffs during its online checkout process according to people familiar with the matter.
32:43
And now, I mean, Amazon, to be fair, does break out a ton of expenses.
32:47
Like, you see the shipping costs, you see the taxes, you see how the how the receipt is calculated.
32:52
And now you're going to see 600% tariffs on your on your shower head. Yeah.
32:56
on your uh on your well did you know that Amazon launched a teeu competitor? I did. Have you seen this?
33:02
So they so as in order to participate in their like teeu competitor you had to guarantee like price ceilings for things and uh you could not sell a guitar for more than $12 and you could not sell a couch for more than $20.
33:15
I mean we have to start thinking about an American timu reserve, right?
33:19
Just importing thousands of Sheen items.
33:21
It's going to be very fast stretch into the billions of items. The billions of items.
33:27
So, who are where are yoga pants going to come from if not that poison you the ly the there's a post here from somebody who writes uh for his own he has at big technology on X. Great uh great name.
33:42
He says the Punch Bowl story on Amazon sponsored by Amazon isn't completely true per Amazon.
33:50
And it's literally an article that's presented by Amazon and it says and it says Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers.
33:58
So uh little bit uh hard hard to imagine they weren't uh actually planning to do this but this is going to be like when we report on numeral and numeral has to deny our reports that numeral is has a fact and achieved AGI in the sales tax on the chrome tab.
34:15
Yeah, because we often call it AGI for sales tax.
34:21
We were talking to Sam the the CEO and you know what what he said was basically like you know we have a new version that like we're actually not able to release because it's so powerful that it might solve sales tax fully and then sort of like move on. Yeah.
34:36
It's like how do we actually reduce the number of sales tax receipts to zero?
34:39
Well, we eliminate humans. We kill everyone.
34:43
So the end result of all these like have we achieved a AGI to numeral safeties?
34:49
Yeah, it's the same thing with ramp.
34:50
How do we get no more receipts, no more employees, no more employees, get rid of everyone?
34:54
But anyway, go to numeral HQ, put your sales tax on autopilot, spend a month per month on sales tax compliance.
35:04
Uh anyway, Bargain and Sheen also benefited from the exemption which helped keep uh helped them keep prices down on clothing and other goods shipped directly from China.
35:13
So that loophole is closed.
35:14
Yeah, it was Amazon's hall. You're gonna love this.
35:17
The max you could sell a couch for $20.
35:20
Again, I think we'll see this in cancer rates.
35:22
I think once you get you take this to like cheap polyester and you stop putting it on your skin, cancer rates might fall a little bit.
35:30
That's much to think about. Interesting.
35:32
Is that going to right size?
35:33
Is that the ultimate right sizing the government?
35:35
Because there's less it's proof the majorly in control, right? The tariffs get shed.
35:39
It's all part of the maj.
35:41
So, is Maja the real one that's pulling the strings?
35:43
Bobby Kennedy at the top.
35:44
Bobby Kennedy at the top.
35:45
Everyone, every other the defense budget, it's all in it's all Bobby. Yeah, that makes sense.
35:49
Uh the tech giant has cost support agreements in place with some vendors to ensure that it makes consistent margins on the products it buys from them and sells to customers.
35:58
According to consultants, some vendors have try that have tried to charge Amazon more after tariffs were imposed have been asked to pay the online shopping giant to make up the increase.
36:07
So, everyone's fighting over who pays the tariffs. Yeah.
36:08
I mean, it's Amazon's in a really tough place.
36:11
They had been squeezing their uh their sellers for so long on both sides, fees, advertising, uh you know, not dealing with with knockoffs very well.
36:24
Uh you know, sort of purely focus on the consumer, which is um uh which is again uh you know, Amazon's job is to deliver for their core customer which is the prime subscriber.
36:38
But at the end of the day, uh this is only going to create kind of more drama and chaos between Amazon and its sellers who already were not uh super happy. Yeah.
36:47
I mean, the other story, Amazon's in the news because they want to be a satellite internet powerhouse. Who doesn't?
36:52
I mean, we've had long conversations off air about how do we turn TVPN into sort of, you know, get on every home. Please share.
37:00
How do we get a TVPN dish on every home?
37:04
Yeah, we need dedicated network. dedicated network.
37:06
Uh so they launched 27 Kier satellites, but they need to get thousands more to space to rival SpaceX's Starlink.
37:13
Uh some of the company's biggest hurdles aren't in orbit, but on the ground.
37:18
27 Amazon satellites were launched from the Florida coast to orbit Monday night, a mission handled by rocket rocket launch company United Launch Alliance.
37:26
A year and a half ago, ULA sent two prototype satellites for Amazon to space to How have I never heard about United Launch?
37:35
They're like the second biggest private launch provider.
37:36
Now SpaceX is a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
37:41
I've heard so they are like the legacy. Yeah.
37:42
U but ULA has been you know they've had a lot of problems with a lot of different projects they've been worked on and and Elon's obviously coming for them very very aggressively.
37:51
Uh to compete with established providers, Amazon needs to rapidly manufacture and deploy thousands more satellites on a narrow timeline.
37:56
It also faces a set of challenges familiar to many companies pushing to scale up manufacturing rates.
38:02
Uh, the project Koopier Venture aims to build large constellation of satellites. Yeah.
38:06
How do you pronounce that? Koopier. Kier. Kooper. I think it's French. Yeah. Okay. I have no idea.
38:13
Thanks for the misinformation.
38:17
So, they're trying to provide high speed internet.
38:19
Our entire audience like going out saying like, "Yeah, it's like it's actually the company plans on having 3,200 satellites in orbit over the next few years, building a business it hopes will eventually provide meaningful operating income."
38:31
Chief Executive Andy Jasse wrote in an Amazon in Amazon's recent annual letter to shareholders.
38:37
But Elon Musk has demonstrated the power of such a fleet through his Starlink business, which has more than 7,000 satellites in orbit already and more than 5 million users.
38:45
Uh, at least two similar Chinese systems are also in the works, while Canadian satellite operator Talisat is developing a new fleet called Lightseed.
38:53
Everyone's got to have their own LEO cluster of satellites.
38:55
own LEO cluster of satellites. I guess leaders at Kier have interesting to think about Amazon potentially over time just bundling in satellite to prime like it's not you have TV you have shopping you have groceries yeah deliver own the actual delivery and yeah I mean it seems like
39:12
it was really really hard to actually own like cable or or like wires in the ground like that was particularly hard monopolized to like build any actually grab any of that infrastructure but if if everything moves to satellite you can actually throw up constellations walls in space. Yeah. No, Yeah.
39:26
No, I I mean, at some point, I imagine that it gets too too crowded that you can't put up any more uh any more constellations, but we it seems like we're pretty far away from here.
39:36
People are already complaining about the space junk, though. It feels far away.
39:39
I mean, the moat is that you have to spend however like what what 20 however many tens of billions of dollars launch is not a zero margin business for SpaceX.
39:50
So, but it is when they launch uh Starlink satellites and anytime that they have, you know, free seat on the bus, they can just throw uh Starlink satellites on there.
40:00
So, they're getting them up there way way cheaper than Amazon is, which is probably why Bezos is also investing in Blue Origin because if he can get that working and he can dump Koopier satellites up there cheaply, like that actually gives him the opportunity to to challenge Musk.
40:12
It is funny how how much Bezos and Musk like go after each other. Did you see that?
40:20
Uh, Bezos, I mean, he already funded Rivian, but then he just funded that Slate truck. Incredible truck. Okay. Yeah.
40:25
What was your reaction to the truck? Incredible.
40:26
Uh, TJ Parker, you know, big endorsement from a certified car guy.
40:30
I mean, it's incredible to have a small Americanmade truck.
40:34
That's that I hate that it's an electric vehicle.
40:36
I'd buy one day one if that was a combustible engine.
40:38
I just feel like, you know, Europe doesn't have power right now.
40:41
Why are you buying an electric EV?
40:42
But it's a beautiful car. It's an SUV. It's a sedan.
40:44
It's a Have you thought about buying one and swapping in like a turbocharged V8? LS swap. The slay truck.
40:49
The sleigh truck for sure. Yeah. Kind of mini Raptor.
40:52
The number one I I I've seen some people, you know, I think it's going to be a hit almost as a golf cart really.
40:58
I mean, the question is like, who is the singer Porsche of Japanese small trucks?
41:02
Like, if I want to drop $2 million on a truck this big, who's going to provide?
41:06
Yeah, that's the real that's the real but yeah, I mean the big critique there and and we're going to get the Slate uh founding team on uh but on the show uh TJ actually made made the intro. Shout out to TJ.
41:20
Uh but uh yeah, the big critique has been around range.
41:23
I'm sure they have a lot of plans there.
41:24
I I assume I'm you know you have to look at with any EV, you know, manufacturer and assume that the range is only going to go up over time. So it's fine.
41:31
How do they drop a range number? It's like 15. Oh 150. It's really low.
41:36
It's a golf cart, but but it's even lower than that when you when you put stuff in passengers, you have hills.
41:43
But truly, like, if you're just going like around town and back, like you're not going to do more than 150 mi.
41:50
Even if you drive to work 30 miles away and back, you're you're fine.
41:54
I mean, you can't even fit in it, right?
41:55
You have to like cut a hole.
41:56
You couldn't fit in it for sure.
41:58
Well, don't they have a don't they have like a modular structure so I can get like a convertible version and just be on the top? Yeah. Yeah.
42:02
You're not going to pass the broomstick.
42:05
Um, but the reason I brought up Slate was because I think Bezos backed Slate. He also backed Rivian.
42:09
So, he has uh bets, two different bets in two different trucks.
42:13
Two different trucks in in EV going up against Tesla.
42:16
Uh, there was a conspiracy theory that Slate was actually a Tesla project because it's an anagram. Have you heard of this? I have heard this. Yeah, it's a great one.
42:23
Um, and then and then they're competing in space.
42:28
They're competing in social networking now too because Bezos owns Twitch, which is a very large social network.
42:33
streaming X obviously has streaming as we're streaming on Axe right now.
42:37
Uh and then uh yeah, they've just been duking it out in all these little sub submarket subcategories.
42:41
Uh it's a lot of fun to watch.
42:44
Uh anyway, um we should move on to some timeline.
42:49
Let's break down the best.
42:49
This is the moment that you all have been waiting for.
42:53
Timeline with none other than Wilmanitis, king of the timeline. King of the timeline. King of the timeline. Let's do it. Let's dive in.
43:00
So uh uh founder of intercom says uh this is truly the golden age of B2B software out of home advertising.
43:09
Literally 98% of billboard and shelter stock in SF is being is currently taken by SAS brands.
43:17
It's never been like this ever.
43:17
It's either really bullish or really bearish for SAS.
43:21
Is it bullish or bearish?
43:23
Intercom by the way AdQuick. Yeah. Customer Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah.
43:25
They uh we are we are sponsored by Adqu. Go to adquick. com. Sorry.
43:32
Out of home advertising made easy and measurable.
43:34
Say goodbye to the headaches of ad of home advertising.
43:37
Only adqu combines technology.
43:37
Adome expertise and data to enable efficient seamless ad buying across the globe.
43:42
Anyway, will uh bullish or bearish for SAS? First ad. For adqu. Yes. For adqu the audience. Yeah.
43:53
Maybe we get the ashen hall sound for every new post that we do during this timeline to really really fire us up.
43:59
get us firing on all cylinders.
43:59
Okay, bullish or bearish.
44:01
I just think hope hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope h hope the you know replier number one also my favorite account on twitter.
44:05
favorite account on twitter.com is correct we do need to think bigger right we should be renaming San Francisco one wonders if instead of San Francisco we could have Salesforce California Salesforce California we could have open AI
44:20
California towers there it's already kind of an occupied state why not go all the way I what about just Almanville that would be even better great we've been talking about down in Nashville if Salesforce really wants to have that company towns are many towns. They
44:30
They should I would like to see an ad unit hung from the Golden Gate Bridge, you know, just sort of like uh 100% 100 ft by like everyone always goes crazy over the videos of Chinese cities where they look so cyberpunk and they have like advertising everywhere. Bladeunner future. Let's do it.
44:47
Why do we need permission?
44:49
Why don't we just project on the side of the Salesforce tower?
44:52
There's a business there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
44:54
Uh also drone shows, blimps.
44:54
We should be doing much more advertising.
44:59
Not to not to go back to AdQuick, but they do have a drone.
45:01
No, no, no, please go back to Adqu. No, please.
45:03
They have um they have a drone show ads, which is if you want to run a drone show. Oh, wow. All right, next post.
45:15
Uh Ian Cinnamon uh Apex uh space has closed another round of funding to scale production and meet demand for satellite platforms for critical projects like Golden Dome.
45:25
Uh the new 200 million in series C funding is led by 72 ventures and co-led by ABC alongside and Horowitz and a number of other funds. So massive milestone.
45:40
Ian says, "This series C investment is a massive vote of confidence from our backers as demand for our bus platforms has exponentially increased as we as are also seen the underlying need for space-based capabilities growing rapidly.
45:53
With this capital, we are excited to double down on supporting the needs of the US and allied war fighter as well as critical commercial applications." Congratulations, Ian.
46:00
You invented a bus created a space bus.
46:05
I mean uh the the the speed at which uh the Ian and the Apex team is moving and we had to go back and listen to our interview with Ian uh probably about a month ago at this point but um what what an absolutely uh you know ambitious timeline they've been on.
46:22
It is cool how like all of the different pieces of the satellite stack are disagregating and now there's new companies in each of them.
46:29
I wonder if eventually they'll kind of come together in some massive ketsu or something.
46:32
Uh have you talked to Ian before?
46:35
No, but I I do like the idea of kind of a Franco-esque roll off of all these kind of non-commercially viable or, you know, soon to be commercially viable launch providers. It's beautiful. Yeah.
46:44
Well, it's not launch provider. He doesn't do rockets.
46:47
He does the he does the bus that the satellite rides on.
46:49
So, you want to put a radio or a camera in space. TBPN network.
46:53
TBPN network will be using Apex buses to build on top of and and and another example would be like Bridget Bridget Mler men her company does the ground link.
47:04
So, how is TBPN going to beam down from these satellites?
47:06
Well, she will have a ground link uh network of satellites that can receive the the message from space.
47:13
This next uh we got another post from uh Stevens.
47:23
Uh so, we have some news from Loheed Martin.
47:25
They said with Loheed Martin says without us AI might have never taken off.
47:28
So for over 40 years, Loheed Martin has used the power of AI and machine learning to help drive the future of defense, aerospace, and national security.
47:37
And it's just a giblified version of someone that kind of Tom Cruz from top.
47:42
I was going to say this looks like Trey Stevens to me, but uh you know, not enough beard, not enough, not enough body hair.
47:48
But um I mean 40 years ago, I feel like they're not using that word correctly.
47:57
19 1985 like what what AI were they doing?
48:01
That's like Apple 2 like deep like neural networks had not really been invented yet, right?
48:05
That's a linear regression.
48:07
It's a TI84 machine learning.
48:10
They're basically saying when was the first time we mentioned the words artificial and intelligence not even together but like it could have been in the same paragraph.
48:17
I mean at the same time like the uh lesson one of Andrew Ing's course on machine learning at Stanford starts with multiple regression. Does it? Yeah.
48:24
that that is the foundation of and then he builds you up to neural networks.
48:29
I mean I hear there was a big secret in how Grock got to state the art so quickly doing the regressions by hand. Yes.
48:35
By hand training the transformers with artal craft. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
48:39
We we need to bring that back.
48:40
Um I I actually wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed did have some, you know, AI person that was foundational at some point like some, you know, uh some Django block in the massive stack goes back to some Lockheed paper or some some skunk works project.
48:55
But it is hilarious that they're just like, "Yo, we're responsible for AI. You're welcome." Claiming it. Oh, this is huge.
49:03
We got some huge news from Josh Kushner. Let's go.
49:06
Uh Josh Kushner says, "We are humbled to announce We are absolutely humbled right now.
49:12
We're so humbled to announce Thrive Holdings, a permanent capital vehicle to dedicate dedicated to investing in, acquiring, and operating businesses for the long term.
49:22
The mission of Thrive Holdings is to transform enterprises throughout the strategic application technology.
49:26
You know the only thing better than capital? What? Permanent capital. Permanent capital.
49:31
You know, you know what they say, any man in possession of a good fortune only needs one thing, a permanent capital holding vehicle. That's right. That's right.
49:38
Can you actually break down what a permanent capital holding vehicle means relative to like everyone's familiar with like a VC fund, 10 year, 12 year continuation vehicles.
49:48
What's permanent capital?
49:48
What matters is that closeness to God is closeness to fee streams.
49:53
And normally fee streams, they stop at 10 years, right?
49:57
You know what's better than 10 years of fees? A lifetime of fees.
49:58
Fees that you can pass on to your grandchildren.
50:02
But I mean, how is this different than I mean is it but is it structured different than a private equity fund that has a specific life or even like a hedge fund? Yeah.
50:10
I mean, a standard permanent capital vehicle will have some degree of redemption schedule, right?
50:15
like LPs can pull out some degree of profit at certain point with other people and stuff.
50:19
Uh Brent Bashore has some incredible detail this. Yeah.
50:22
Is is he truly the golden standard for permanent capital or is there like a public company like does Black Rockck have a permanent holding vehicle that we don't talk about?
50:31
I mean there's plenty like the the closed end vehicles were like a huge thing in the UK in the '90s. There's dozens of these.
50:36
Bureau I think is the most artisal right is is printing cash at a rate no one else I think is doing right now.
50:42
But of course there's, you know, permanent capital vehicles we cannot name rolling up HOAs in the Midwest, right? Yeah.
50:47
And I think the opportunity here is for Josh and the Thrive team to think even more long term than they already do, right?
50:56
than they already do, right? like how do we think about you know uh you know not not in this sort of like 10ear cycle which um Josh I think had posted something a long time ago which is that like managers think in quarters like founders think in decades and there's huge advantages in alpha and just being
51:14
able to think uh and and plan on a longer timeline than everyone else and especially if you're Thrive and you're thinking about buying like I think it's been widely reported they bought an accounting firm to put AI in the middle and do automation on top That's a deal you need to hold for 40 years. And then this also solves the
51:29
And then this also solves the continuity vehicle issue, right?
51:30
You have lots of companies like Stripe.
51:34
You're holding a year 10, 11, 12.
51:34
How the hell are you going to get liquidity on that?
51:37
Well, you can pass it over to your permanent capital vehicle.
51:39
You think that's possible?
51:40
I mean, it's similar to heritage, right?
51:41
It's like a continuity vehicle where you can pass those things over, get liquidity for the LPs in the initial set, and hold a basket of really high quality assets you want to hold for Okay.
51:51
So take me through some of the sizes of permanent capital vehicles.
51:55
Uh because with a VC fund, you know, you hear people raising a $50 million solo GB fund all the way up to $5 billion growth fund.
52:01
Permanent capital feels like more narrowly defined, but is there is there kind of like what is a what is like a sweet spot base hit for the size of a permanent capital vehicle?
52:14
Her is like the best example.
52:17
I I wasn't actually sure.
52:17
I didn't want to botch it, so I just looked it up.
52:21
Um, but but that's a good way to think about it of, hey, we're not going to focus as much on raising new, you know, the the best scenario is like you you have uh cash flowing assets that produce capital that allow you to, you know, reinvest or buy other businesses to produce more cash flow, right?
52:37
So, it's like sort of the holy grail.
52:38
And many people have said that cure to male loneliness is, you know, a permanent capital. It would fix you.
52:45
It would it would fix me.
52:47
Um what about the mindset?
52:50
What it takes to be great in venture capital is often high risk.
52:51
You know, not making money for a very long time.
52:56
All the capital uh all the value capture happens at the very end.
52:59
Obviously, the the types of companies that are typically rolled into permanent capital vehicles cash flowing from day one.
53:04
I mean, I think like the single greatest Josh Kushner quote is like you never lose money buying Fifth Avenue real estate.
53:11
If you think about Thrive as a thematic bet on the Fifth Avenue real estate a private company, it's probably not a bad idea to hold these really blue chip assets to duration.
53:19
So, it's more just about find great founders.
53:22
If they're if they're losing money in the super high growth phase, they go in they go in the growth fund, they go in the venture fund.
53:28
If they're cash flowing, but they're still fantastic entrepreneurs, fantastic assets, they go in the permanent capital vehicle.
53:34
I mean, if you're Stripe and you're planning to go public in 2035, 20, you know, 2,300, 2,300 once once they've consumed 100% of US GDP process through global GDP, global GDP, they need they need the space narrative.
53:49
Look, you know, the space they need to go rapidly, we need to go off planet planet.
53:52
It's just these these continuity vehicles are going to get huge. Yeah. Wow. Uh, okay.
53:56
Well, speaking of uh growth stuff, Hadley Harris uh venture capitalist actually wrote about uh vector databases, which I think you might be a little bit familiar with. Yeah.
54:09
I mean, I was the first check into Chroma.
54:10
I still think it's the fastest growing open source vector database. I love Jeff. We had him on the show. Jeff's amazing. He's great.
54:16
Um so, he's breaking down some hype and I and I'd be interested to hear how the market has evolved and if Jeff has kind of altered his strategy.
54:24
Um Hadley's breaking down the story of Pine Cone two years ago today.
54:27
Andre announced $100 million into pine cone as everyone and their mother tripped over each other to invest in vector databases.
54:32
Given how little standalone vector databases are valued now the hype cycle is wild to look back on.
54:39
Uh the timeline is late 2022 chat GPT launches early rag architectures emerge.
54:43
There's first buzz around these companies.
54:46
Uh then there's a massive surge in demand for vector search.
54:50
Vector database is seen as critical infrastructure.
54:52
But then after there's peak hype, every AI info di info structure diagram has a vector DB layer.
55:00
Saturation hits Postgress, Reddus, MongoDB.
55:02
Add native vector search. Clouds bundle it. The hype fades.
55:03
Vector search becomes commodity. Market tightens.
55:07
Attention shifts to agents fine-tuning orchestration.
55:09
So is this a good telling of the history of the vector database hype cycle or is there something you need?
55:16
Accurate in the hype cycle.
55:17
I put it in the truth zone and that this feels like kind of terminal VC brain.
55:21
Like it is it is likely true that the vector database market will not have dozens of billion dollar outcomes.
55:26
But if you look at even the traditional relational database market, there are hundreds of massive companies there, right?
55:33
And if you think about a huge amount of of enterprise software, it's just different views on top of structured data elements.
55:39
Like Salesforce is the world's greatest structured database, right?
55:43
There will be big event winners in the vector database space in that you just need to be able to store unstructured data y and like yes you know you can search vectors using numpy.
55:53
sort but like that's not an enterprisegrade database solution and I just think this is a a good excuse to uh you know have missed a lot of winning companies such as Chroma. Yep.
56:02
A lot of people are taking victory laps.
56:04
John Shu at Coastalless says, "We told our LPs that were staying out of the market because they were too trivial to build and commoditize and were never used without BM25." What is BM25?
56:13
Do you know what that is? Never heard of that.
56:16
Uh VC vec database thought leadership was a great filter for those who for for who's really technical and who has shallow understanding of ML infra.
56:25
We got to have John on the show.
56:28
He's always dropping bombs on the timeline.
56:30
Well, speaking of dropping bombs on the timeline, hit me with a sound effect, Jordy, because we're moving.
56:35
I was underprepared, but by Dea about uh tech bros learning about convertibles.
56:44
Uh there are two different posts here.
56:46
One from Spore, friend of the show.
56:48
Uh says, "We It's called We do a little Bay Area sightseeing.
56:50
Uh and someone else bought a uh BMW Z4.
56:53
Uh what's your take on convertibles?"
56:56
My first car in high school was a 2002 Honda S2000 in baby blue. Sick.
57:01
I still own it to this day.
57:05
It's the single greatest thing I've ever driven.
57:07
It's amazing that they've discovered convertibles.
57:10
I mean, it's just like it's, you know, 25 years late.
57:12
It's kind of weird to discover this in your 30s, especially in California.
57:16
Also, both of those look like There's a gener there's a generation of of young people in tech that have only owned Teslas. Yeah. Yeah.
57:25
And they don't make And they're discovering that that car manufacturers have been making pretty good cars.
57:29
Lots of manufacturers have been making pretty good cars in a bunch of different categories for a long time.
57:35
And it's a beautiful moment.
57:36
I think it should be celebrated. Great.
57:38
And I also think I think what I want to what I want to what I want to see people do more people I don't think realize like if you have a car let's say you have a a a Honda Accord you can drive to any car dealership and within 2 hours have swapped it for a 911 right like it's actually like an extremely smooth process where they will take your car basically not sight unseen but they'll look at it close to it that your car has some amount of value.
58:07
You can roll that into something else and you can within 3 hours on any day of the week, you can be driving in a 911 or another car that that's um going to change your life.
58:17
If you're, you know, not a permanent capital guy, can't afford the 911. Miatas. Miatas. Miatas. $5,000. Miatas.
58:28
Do you know the best selling convertible in America?
58:30
Has to be a Miata, right? It's not. It's the Jeep Wrangler. No way.
58:35
Because they sell a lot of them.
58:37
People don't think of them as convertibles.
58:38
They technically are top.
58:40
Uh but yeah, uh I think Tesla's missed out and Rivian's missed out on the convertible market.
58:44
The all of the car companies are just coalesing around like everyone wants a crossover SUV. It's got a little more. Yeah. Yeah.
58:50
Again, the one one piece of feedback here, guys. Uh manual transmissions. Yes. Yes.
58:54
Like I will teach I will fly out.
58:57
I will teach you how to teach that's going to change you. Yeah. Yeah.
59:00
Well, maybe maybe that's next year.
59:02
Next year will be tech bro learned about manual transmissions. manual transmission.
59:06
We're going to put you on the bottom of a San Francisco Except Except I my my first car uh was a very very old Toyota Corolla hatchback. Was it manual? That was manual.
59:16
And I would drive it in San Francisco and it would be like a life or death going uphill and manual is really hard. No.
59:24
And and San Francisco hills are just a different breed. That's wild.
59:28
And uh I just remember like some of the the peak fear of my teenage years was you know uh hitting a stop sign or hitting a red light.
59:36
And oh the issue is even by then even at the time when I was 16 people were so historically so many there were every car was manual and so if you wouldn't pull up behind somebody on a hill you wouldn't pull up right behind their bumper.
59:51
But in the age of automatics people will just pull up right you know behind your bumper maybe they're leaving a couple feet.
59:57
And so I'd be looking in the rearview mirror being like if I don't pull this off like yeah that's my issue with Teslas is like if you're self-driving they don't see me in my Honda S2000.
1:00:05
They don't know there's going to be four feet of roll back self-driving is not prepared for me to stall five times to get up this hill. Brutal. It's really true. Uh okay.
1:00:15
So if you do want an electric vehicle that's also a convertible.
1:00:20
Do you know what you have to get? Tesla doesn't sell one. Rivian doesn't sell one.
1:00:25
Can you not take the roof? Can't take the roof off.
1:00:29
Uh, Lucid doesn't sell one.
1:00:29
TYON doesn't come in a convertible yet. Crazy.
1:00:32
You have to get the Hummer EV, which is great.
1:00:37
Uh, I I think that's a very rational choice for somebody who just wants I Hey, I I just want an electric car and I want a convertible.
1:00:44
Can we get a 3speed manual on an EB?
1:00:44
Can we get a three-speed?
1:00:47
Well, you know that you know that Hyundai has the the fake DCT now and people actually love it.
1:00:53
A lot of the car guys have driven them and they're like because it injects sound that's pretty accurate and a lot of them are like yeah it was weird for the first minute but then I just got into it and it was exactly like of electric vehicles. Oh totally. Totally. Yeah.
1:01:06
But it's like this funny like hashback the ionic 5N.
1:01:07
It's but it's it's designed by the guy who did the M division at BMW. They poached him.
1:01:12
The letter that comes after M is N.
1:01:14
And so he made the the the N series. They're also doing this. Hyundai is on a tear.
1:01:21
They're doing a whole bunch of random stuff.
1:01:22
Uh anyway, uh we need the sound effect because Quen 30B has dropped and Will Brown is given the review.
1:01:32
Let's hear it for Alibaba with their open source model.
1:01:35
Hopefully the sound is balanced on hopefully. We'll see.
1:01:36
Uh Will Brown says, "I really didn't expect 30B A3B to be this good.
1:01:41
I was hoping we'd get a small mixture of experts model as a useful research toy.
1:01:45
Instead, we got one of the strongest all-around models under a 100red billion parameters.
1:01:51
Uh, have you been following Quen at all? And what's going on?
1:01:53
I only use Americanmade models.
1:01:55
These Chinese models you can't use.
1:01:57
Well, have you heard the Tyler Cowan take that the Chinese models are actually American models because they are trained American data. Exactly.
1:02:04
They're trained on the American internet because that's where the data comes from and they often export the data or exfiltrate it from open AI and they use or they train on the American models themselves. Right. Yeah.
1:02:16
And then they do maybe a little bit RL RHF to say, "Hey, cut it with the TN stuff." The Tow Bow model.
1:02:20
It's a ripoff of the American provider. Exactly. Exactly.
1:02:24
So maybe there's less to be worried about.
1:02:25
Maybe the Manurion candidate in Deep Seek is secretly a pro-American Manurian candidate.
1:02:29
And once you get it, once you once you, you know, actually prompt engineer it enough, it'll love talking about Tiana. It gets fired.
1:02:37
That's what it lives every single day.
1:02:38
That's what it lives for.
1:02:40
It's like capitalism is the best system.
1:02:42
It's lifted more people out of poverty than any other Delian buried in the model. I I I believe it.
1:02:46
I believe we should send Delian into Shanghai like behind enemy lines to train these models to train these models.
1:02:52
Put them in a Va capsule. Send them down.
1:02:53
Okay, this next post from Randall.
1:02:55
He asked GPT45, can you help me find some good Chinese food spots in SF that I may not have heard of previously? Absolutely.
1:03:03
There are several Chinese spots in SF that will make your mouth water, and we'll get to that.
1:03:08
But first, in the in case this is a business meal, I'd love to talk to you about RAMP.
1:03:12
RAMP is the ultimate platform for modern finance teams.
1:03:16
Combining corporate cards with expense management, bill payments, procurement, accounting automation, and more.
1:03:19
RAMP is on a mission to help customers save their most valuable resources, time and money.
1:03:25
Did I tell you I I' I've been doing this to random people, too.
1:03:29
There's somebody flying down from San Francisco, and I was like, "Oh, like uh like are you going to pay will your company like pay for your flight?"
1:03:35
And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, of course."
1:03:38
And I was like, "By any chance are you on on ramp?"
1:03:39
They have corporate travel that makes it really fantastic travel product.
1:03:42
We booked this room on ramp travel. We did.
1:03:45
It makes you wonder if OpenAI was actually incubated by a different new company. It's possible.
1:03:52
Well, speaking of travel and corporate travel, go to wander. com. Find your happy place. Find your happy place. There we go.
1:04:01
Welcome wander with inspiring views, hotel grade amenities, dreamy guest top 247 con getting Bill Manitis to sing your company jingle.
1:04:07
I mean I'm a happy I'm a happy Wander investor.
1:04:12
One hand washes the other.
1:04:12
You come on the show the investments. You're good.
1:04:16
Money goes right into your own pocket. I like it. That's great.
1:04:20
Uh did you see this from Jarvis? This is awesome.
1:04:23
firm called Dragon Lawyers filed court papers with the watermark on every single page until the judge ordered them to stop.
1:04:32
And the thing that's beautiful massive is this massive dragon lawyers PLC.
1:04:37
Apparently their their website is iconic too. It also features funny.
1:04:43
The dragon watermark it just cracks.
1:04:44
This is called exercising free will innovation.
1:04:50
People don't realize that you could do whatever you want with a watermark.
1:04:53
What's incredible is that's not AI generated.
1:04:56
Someone drew that for sure.
1:04:56
AI does not The other thing that stands out here is that the the the attorney at Dragon Lawyers uses a yahoo. com email.
1:05:03
So that's how you know he's been for a long time.
1:05:09
There's a whole there's a whole like you know uh cohort of hitters. Yeah.
1:05:14
Well, it's like astrology for business.
1:05:16
It's like when you see the different domain names, you know, so so it tells a whole story about you never want to work with a lawyer that has a corporate branded email. Absolutely. AOL, Outlook.
1:05:28
com, Yahoo or Alta Vista.
1:05:28
Alta Vista has a You got to get a lawyer who has an altista.
1:05:34
com and a dragon watermark.
1:05:34
A dragon watermark for sure.
1:05:37
You should You should get your own watermark.
1:05:40
What What would your watermark be?
1:05:42
I think the dragon's pretty sick.
1:05:43
The dragon's pretty sick.
1:05:45
I think that's hard to beat.
1:05:46
Mine might be the ramp logo to help control your corporate spend. Yeah, exactly.
1:05:51
Just a massive ramp card.
1:05:51
Maybe maybe Jordy, just a photo of you in the jacket like this, like the dragon.
1:05:55
Yeah, but in in the TVPN jacket.
1:05:57
That would be the way to do it.
1:05:59
But we need to be watermarking more things.
1:06:01
We're We're thinking about selling the windshield of this show.
1:06:05
So, we already have the logos down.
1:06:07
It'll be a piece of glass. No.
1:06:08
And And so, basically, we'll set up like a glass box, physical glass, so every angle has a different logo.
1:06:13
I mean, I listen for the ad rates, right?
1:06:18
The content in between irrelevant.
1:06:18
I I think we should just do all ad rates.
1:06:23
Well, speaking of that, thinking of setting up a premium subscription that's just the public.
1:06:29
com investing for those who take it seriously.
1:06:32
They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields, trusted by millions. Go to public. com. Uh, thank you.
1:06:40
Anyway, uh, did you see this poster by Ben Sharf?
1:06:42
Commerce as we know it has officially changed forever.
1:06:46
Well done Shopify and OpenAI.
1:06:46
I thought the first line was a little dramatic, but it's very cool.
1:06:49
Uh it's basically an integr integration.
1:06:55
The bearish thing is these are not these are not good red lights.
1:07:00
These are not the best red light therapy for a good red light. How do you get one? Tractorupply. com. Tractor Supply.
1:07:06
You get the chicken light. Chicken light.
1:07:07
If you go to my desk in my house, I have chicken lights all around 24/7.
1:07:10
They're because you get the same wavelength as these expensive LEDs and chicken lights $19 and it's good for anti huge alpha here first.
1:07:16
Chicken lights chicken lights tractor supply. com tractor supply. com.
1:07:21
Well, I mean as soon as we talk about this, this will be baked into the next training run of GT5.
1:07:27
No, but overall this is very cool.
1:07:30
Uh people don't really realize like you nothing makes me happier than reducing friction in commerce.
1:07:36
So, the fact that I can just go to OpenAI, you know, do some product research, use Shop Pay to check out with an OpenAI. Yeah. And do all of that.
1:07:45
And wasn't Aiden kind of uh kind of teasing this a little bit?
1:07:48
He was like, "Oh, yeah, like every time I shop for anything, I do a whole deep research report.
1:07:53
I put I burn 10,000 hours of GPU time to figure out what paper towels or you're burning the money's getting burned on Google Ads."
1:08:00
money's getting burned on Google Ads." I mean um yeah the the interesting thing here is that there were a lot of companies there are a lot of companies that have raised venture capital to build AI shopping assistants and this is kind of what we've talked about on the
1:08:15
show quite a bit which is that if you're building an agent a consumer a aentic experience you have to assume that you're basically on OpenAI's roadmap y and you know maybe they haven't announced it yet you know they've talked about shopping before they've talked about Yeah, ads, different things like that. But but this type of thing, uh,
1:08:33
But but this type of thing, uh, you know, any type of agentic experience that helps consumers transact online, you just have to assume that you're Yeah.
1:08:43
Well, I mean, this is the Ben Thompson aggregation theory thing, why OpenAI needs to become a consumer tech company.
1:08:49
Uh, they have, you know, almost a billion users and so if they can be the portal to AI stuff, they can do a lot of the things downstream. It is, it is funny.
1:08:59
So, so in the in the um in the Meta lawsuit, they they obviously avoid Tik Tok.
1:09:05
And one reason that you could argue, you know, avoid Tik Tok is that it's statebacked and they had to raise 10, you know, however many tens of billions of dollars to do it.
1:09:13
But it seems now you can build new consumer tech giants.
1:09:18
You just need tens of billions of dollars and a state government backing you. Yeah.
1:09:22
Well, I mean, it's not for open AI. Not for open AI. Put on the tin foil hat. Put on the tin foil hat.
1:09:29
We don't have the tin foil hats, but it is like a novel financing process, but it is an interesting and legal process. Yes. Yes.
1:09:35
But I think it will set an important precedent.
1:09:38
We've been advocating for more nonprofit to for-profit conversions.
1:09:42
We're really looking into PETA because they know where all the tastiest animals live and we think that that could unlock potentially hundreds of billions in markets.
1:09:52
Maybe trillions just maps of just selling maps of the most delicious animals. Yeah. The most delicious.
1:09:57
The PETA the PETA take private is going to be a banger.
1:10:02
Every fund is going to be in that for sure. For sure.
1:10:04
It's what Thrive's going to buy with. Yeah.
1:10:07
I also think Red Cross you but Brian Johnson at the helm.
1:10:12
It's just all the blood goes through him.
1:10:14
It's a it's a huge huge opportunity.
1:10:17
Blueprint Red Cross Blueprint. They they work together.
1:10:20
Blue Cross put it all together. Kretzu of biohacking.
1:10:25
Well, uh, we have a post from a former guest that actually drew Did you know that we broke this story and Techrunch reported on us? We didn't break it.
1:10:35
We We caused the story with the podcast. You got a community. This is us. That's me. Okay.
1:10:41
So, we had Jordy break down.
1:10:44
This is not not a podcast. Yeah. No, no, it's not. It's a live show.
1:10:46
We need to put We need a community note on the community. Anyway, read it.
1:10:49
uh CEO of Perplexity comes on the show.
1:10:52
We talk for 30 minutes about a bunch of different things.
1:10:56
Ads were brought up in a hypothetical.
1:10:58
He answered the hypothetical question. Yep.
1:11:00
TechCrunch basically used it to do this sort of like clickbay piece, uh which I thought was wrong in so many ways.
1:11:08
one is if you actually listen to the interview, he's saying that the the browser that they're building is a huge part of um the company's, you know, a huge part of the company's roadmap. Very very meaningful.
1:11:22
He says this is their second act.
1:11:22
It's got it's it's, you know, he's really um betting the company on it in many ways.
1:11:29
And so to do something to write something like this in a way that is just objectively damaging to Perplexity's brand because what user No. Yeah.
1:11:38
Of course, over time, every consumer tech company on a long enough time horizon runs ads, right?
1:11:42
Netflix, Instacart, anybody with a large audience eventually runs ads.
1:11:46
But that said, there there's nothing about our conversation with him that said that that's the top priority or that's how they're planning to monetize all these different things.
1:11:55
And so thought I was just uh you know founders need to be aware and investors that TechCrunch is not the publication that it was and you have to assume that they are a hostile actor now and sure they might cover your fund raise they might do this or that but uh I think they knew exactly what they were doing and um you know I support private equity broadly.
1:12:17
Well yeah but now private equity backed they sold to another private equity private equity. Yeah, trade in hand.
1:12:24
Yeah, I remember when when when TechCrunch was for sale, my my thought was, you know, uh worthless asset.
1:12:32
Uh just because um it's not a worthless asset.
1:12:37
That's a little bit harsh.
1:12:39
I I we weren't interested in in exploring it.
1:12:41
Uh but it it almost would have been worth buying it just so that it turn didn't turn into tech crunch being anti- tech.
1:12:48
I mean much like Gawker, the most ethical thing to do is buy it and shut it down. Shut it down. True.
1:12:55
Uh what was interesting about this to me so so the actual title of the article is Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online and sell hyperpersonalized ads.
1:13:05
Now I have always said that that like I don't think it's a challenge to sell ads in LLM responses.
1:13:11
I think it's actually very trivial.
1:13:14
There was initially a moment where it was like oh well if it's all text back and forth like what are you going to do? Put display ads?
1:13:19
It's like, no, you're obviously just going to have another LLM that runs on top of the response and before it spits it out, you're going to say, "Hey, add an ad into this paragraph at this point and and add a sponsored block and those those ads will be more topical.
1:13:32
Researchers will want that." Totally.
1:13:33
So, I've been always super bullish on the idea of advertising in textbased LLM responses.
1:13:37
I don't think it's a challenge at all.
1:13:38
I think it's very logical.
1:13:40
I think Catchy PT will do it on the free tier.
1:13:41
I think Perplexity should do it.
1:13:43
But his response to me was actually more bearish on ads in the short term than I thought it was going to be.
1:13:50
But then TechCrunch flipped it around and made him sound. It was very very odd.
1:13:54
Um, but it is interesting to think about what Google would have to if this Google made in the Google ads in the AI results.
1:14:03
They already are doing this. Yeah.
1:14:05
No, but I was going to say what if Google said, you know, for 50 bucks a month you can have non-personalized ads in Chrome, would you? No, I don't want that.
1:14:15
I would pay $100 a month to have only RAMP ads across every single vehicle. Yeah.
1:14:23
Yeah, you probably could do that if you just set up your own Google Ads accounts and then just put your o only your email in there.
1:14:30
in there. You know how you used to get those like those like uh Facebook ads that were like you know I'm a manitis on a t-shirt like like I have it don't talk to me until I've had my coffee or whatever you know there's like super like Teespring was like really le I'm a manitis don't talk to me until
1:14:46
I've had one banger on Xactly like and you're just like how did they think to target me with that but it was all based on like the the the Facebook ad targeting building a custom ad block Chrome extension with ramp people have done that with like you know replace it with hats or replace it with random stuff. So, yeah, we should build
1:15:00
So, yeah, we should build that for random for sure.
1:15:02
Um, but uh uh we got the uh we got the community note on it.
1:15:09
Uh and they did they did actually credit us in the TechCrunch article incorrectly.
1:15:14
Incorrectly as a podcast. Yep.
1:15:16
But they did give us the shout out.
1:15:18
Uh and they didn't refer to us by our old name.
1:15:20
They got the acronym correctly. Correct.
1:15:21
They called it TBPN which is great.
1:15:24
And uh and the and the um after there was a big debate on X about the post, there was eventually a uh community note that says Techrunch takes what Arrand said out of context.
1:15:34
The podcast host, I think that's me, asked him a hypothetical question.
1:15:36
And Arvin uh tags Arington uh Arrington, Michael Arrington, the original founder of Techrunch, and he said, "I am sorry.
1:15:44
I'm deeply ashamed at what Techrunch has become." It's rough. Never sell your company. Never sell. Yeah.
1:15:49
Whatever you're doing, make it your last. Never sell.
1:15:53
I I I would never associate with anyone who sold their company ever. Never. What do you have to say?
1:15:57
What do you have to say for yourself?
1:15:59
As chairman of TPN, we will never sell this media franchise to anyone.
1:16:04
We will have her buy and shut down Tech Crunch. Yes. Yes.
1:16:08
I think all three of us have sold companies at this point.
1:16:10
Um anyway, Ray Ray Dalio dropped a long piece.
1:16:12
I don't know if we want to skip over that. Skip over that one. Let's do uh Jason.
1:16:16
I did say I think it was uh Buo or Bucko Buco guy.
1:16:24
He was basically saying if if Dallio is wrong again this time he was he was basically saying like I almost hope Dallio is right about this changing world order.
1:16:34
Heard the conspiracy theory that Bridgewwater is not a real hedge fund, right?
1:16:38
No one if you ask all Bridgewwater associate employees, they've never seen someone actually place a trade.
1:16:42
Uh it's like possibly this like giant Ponzi that no one knows what to do with, you know, obviously they're not a Ponzi.
1:16:48
hedge fund, but no one has ever seen a trade get conducted for a Twitter.
1:16:52
So, I like the idea that it's all in it's a giant news. It's a media business.
1:16:56
It's all subsidizing Gallio like Yeah, it's hilarious because it's like they they they like up until like a couple years ago, the media product was one PDF that was floating out there called Principles that eventually got turned into a book.
1:17:10
Like that's that's the most tinfoil hat conspiracy theory in the world. Um hilarious though.
1:17:16
Anyway, uh let's move on.
1:17:18
Researchers secretly ran a massive unauthorized AI persuasion experiment on Reddit in a large debate sub.
1:17:23
The bots answers mind the original posters identity and post history to personalize answers and created identities such as rape survivor. This is dark. Yeah, super dark.
1:17:36
I mean, lot of updates hereing formal legal demands against the researchers who ran this experiment.
1:17:42
The the reason I thought this was interesting is that we tend to associate bots with lowquality actors.
1:17:46
You know, getting a DM that's like, "Hello, you you forgot to log in.
1:17:52
Yeah, here's your FedEx thing."
1:17:55
Or some like, you know, credit card thing, you know, but but the the the internet is um full of bots from sophisticated groups in this way.
1:18:03
This is just one story to break out of out of many. Yeah.
1:18:08
And I thought it was an interesting um use case of like being able to influence opinion at scale in a way of not just in in a hyperpersonalized way.
1:18:18
So they would they would be responding to a a comment or a post and they would go to and and and whatever software they were they were using would go to the user's profile that they were commenting to look back at all their previous history and craft a response specifically for that person. Yeah.
1:18:34
And um again, a human can do that, but doing being able to do that at scale in order to influence opinion is is only saving grace is RKGI puzzles on every single web page.
1:18:46
Every time you click a new page, you need to solve. Yeah.
1:18:51
No, no, the imo will be solved, but the RKGI puzzle will not be solved.
1:18:56
You'll have to mash the blocks for a minute every time you want to refresh the page.
1:19:00
Save something outside of content safety guidelines.
1:19:02
Yes, that that that is a big one.
1:19:04
And so on this Reddit's top lawyer, Ben Lee, said the company is considering legal action against researchers from the University of Zurich who ran what he called an improper and highly unethical experiment.
1:19:17
So, um anyways, Reddit not happy that their users are being turned into uh lab rats, but um I'm sure Let's move on to this design trend.
1:19:27
linear has for a long time been the design uh the product that everyone has been obsessed with and everyone's been kind of ripping it off but uh ripping off the website to be clear.
1:19:40
Yeah, the website but Kenan over at Icon has uh completely changed the game in terms of design and built it's an AI ad maker but it looks like a timu design post. Yeah, it does.
1:19:54
He has his story, his investors on the landing page, including the ramp logo.
1:19:59
Yeah, I guess it's like someone from ramp invested.
1:20:03
Um, the team, his examples. Wait, wait.
1:20:06
Have you seen when you go and you you click like get started, it will actually say like only five slots remaining and there's like a timer for SAS product. So good. It's so good.
1:20:15
So, I mean, this has been hotly debated with with like is he in on the joke? Is he going too far?
1:20:22
He's clearly pushing the limits in terms of uh baiting people and creating frustration.
1:20:27
Uh he I don't know if you saw this earlier, but he put out Icon put out uh a comparison chart and and he his company was the only one with tier one investors and tier one engineers and tier one engineers and OpenAI had neither and they have a lot of the same investors. So uh what is your take?
1:20:47
Genius or uh or you know or is it the the scary castle?
1:20:50
I think it's it's if you're gonna be the machine that generates slop, you have to become slop.
1:20:57
You have to go all the way. Good take.
1:20:58
Yeah, he is a slop slop farmer.
1:20:58
Icon's terminal business is Tik Tok slop.
1:21:01
If you're going to be in that business, you might as well live in it. Live in it.
1:21:06
Yeah, I think that's a good take. A life's work of slop. It's great.
1:21:08
Uh has Wait, has your X payout gone up?
1:21:11
My ex pay Yeah, I got I got paid a lot. You got a big check? Got a big check. That's great. There we go. Are you going to retire?
1:21:18
Uh off the X payout alone. Yeah. Yeah.
1:21:21
what you should spend your X payout on a sleep. Go to eightsleep. com.
1:21:25
Nights that fuel your best days turn any bed into the ultimate sleeping experience.
1:21:28
Um, apparently this is from Sheil.
1:21:31
Uh, X crackdown on engagement farm so real creators are earning more.
1:21:35
Reminds me of Google's 2011 Panda update.
1:21:38
It crushed spammy sites like Mahalo, which I guess was Jason Calacanis' website.
1:21:41
I had no idea about this.
1:21:43
And boosted quality ones like Nerd Wallet.
1:21:45
Yeah, Shield really slide that in there.
1:21:48
Uh, and made the internet a better place. Um, it's interesting.
1:21:50
So, Shield shares his payouts.
1:21:52
It went from around $200, $240 to 700 and then to over $1,300.
1:21:58
Let's hear from Shield pulling in the big bucks um for his post.
1:22:01
I mean, if you figure paycheck pretty good. Pretty good.
1:22:07
I mean, that's getting up into YouTube money.
1:22:09
If you have if you're an LP of Shields, you have Prima Knock on the check, right?
1:22:16
Like that that has to be a DPI driver.
1:22:20
Yeah, that has to go back up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't pocket that.
1:22:21
It's got to go back and have fun back. Okay.
1:22:26
We actually do do that except uh except John is over.
1:22:30
No, but we we we put all of our our Yeah, we pull all of all accounts into one into one one account.
1:22:39
Um but but it has gone up.
1:22:39
I'm excited to see where our TBPN official check lands because we've been pumping out a lot of content, getting a lot of views.
1:22:45
My understanding, I guess that was all going to finance a goo based energy drink in Nashville, Tennessee. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. Rumors. Watch the space. Yeah. Watch the space. Uh, let's go to Lulu.
1:22:56
She says, "An example of what I call the cascade of courage.
1:22:58
When a brave CEO does something that everyone wants to, but no one dares to.
1:23:02
The somewhat brave CEOs are emboldened to join, and eventually everyone else follows suit until even the most riskaverse CEOs do it.
1:23:10
Let's give it up for the somewhat brave and the risk advers.
1:23:16
They don't get enough credit. Brave, too.
1:23:18
They don't get enough credit. Everyone talk.
1:23:19
Oh, Brian Armstrong's so brave.
1:23:21
No one says about the tier three bravery. Yeah. Not last.
1:23:25
Not total coward in the middle of the path.
1:23:27
The returns to being in the middle of the curve. Pretty good sometimes.
1:23:28
But uh Dolingo uh I actually don't know if the CEO is the founder, but you know Duolingo was started by the guy who's who created captions. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Legendary story.
1:23:39
Um, but anyway, Dolingo says, "Belo is an all hands email from our CEO.
1:23:43
We will be going AI first, just like how betting on mobile in 2012 made all the difference.
1:23:49
We're making a similar call now.
1:23:49
It's time for the platform shift.
1:23:51
What doesn't change, we remain a company that cares deeply about its employees."
1:23:55
And they said, "Do Dolingo is going to be AI first, changing how work gets done.
1:23:58
It's not just a pro productivity boost. It get boost.
1:24:02
It gets us closer to our mission." This gets me thinking.
1:24:04
There is an opportunity for a company to basically let go of every single person except the CEO and be the first one person $1 billion revenue company.
1:24:19
And you just have to tap it for a second.
1:24:20
Yeah, I was thinking about rehire people.
1:24:22
The fastest way to get to a billion dollars, one employee is to start with $6 billion, lots of employees, fire everyone, see what happens.
1:24:32
20% of the clients just forget to stop paying. Everything breaks. X did this. X proves possible.
1:24:36
What what what company do you think is plus a billion in revenue that you think you could actually run solo?
1:24:47
I was thinking I was looking at Blackberry recently.
1:24:48
They still make $500 million a year.
1:24:50
Auto insurance companies are another good one. Oh yeah.
1:24:54
Adjudication kind of problem. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty simple. Interesting.
1:24:59
Imagine saying you're having an issue and you're saying talk to a human and it's like we just got one guy. We just got one guy.
1:25:05
Like it's actually faster to talk.
1:25:07
The CEO is at Hillen Valley having a dinner shaking hands greasing and b you're on the side of the road. Cars on fire.
1:25:12
You're talking to open AI operator. That's great.
1:25:16
Uh anyway, uh congratulations.
1:25:18
It's glazing you driver like you know I just crashed.
1:25:25
That sign jumped into the street. How did he not see you? Yeah.
1:25:29
How did that sign not see you?
1:25:32
Bicyclists shouldn't be on the road anyway.
1:25:34
They should ride on a sidewalk.
1:25:36
Have you tried having four wheels? I don't know. Yeah, it makes no sense.
1:25:39
Uh, anyway, I need a sound effect because Joshua Steinman over at Galvanic has launched a vibe reel in vibe real alert.
1:25:51
I mean, it was no, it was no [Music] uh uh I've never honestly I've never seen John.
1:26:08
It's so mean because obviously I love Josh. We saw him on the plane. This is the meme.
1:26:12
This is the meme of like, you know, you shipped a but it is awesome. It's a great video. I love the aesthetics.
1:26:20
And I think I think he did this because he knew we were going to be he he must have you know figured out from the airline that we were going to be on the flight to sitting right behind him.
1:26:30
Do we know what Galvanic does? Yes.
1:26:36
They secure the American industrial base.
1:26:41
It's a technology company, but more importantly, it's run by our absolute boy Josh Diamond, who we love. It's fantastic.
1:26:50
It It does have a very cool aesthetic. It's a great video. Go check it out.
1:26:53
I wish we could play it, but we're working off a PDF today, so share the video. Yeah. Uh, congratulations.
1:27:02
any any critiques on today's stream, by the way, just go to find Ben Kohler and uh shoot him a note.
1:27:10
Uh he'll have an NPS survey for today's stream.
1:27:14
Anyway, uh what else is in the news? We should wrap up soon.
1:27:17
This is too This is getting a little too wild.
1:27:18
We got 10 minutes till 4. What else we got?
1:27:20
We got to cover the Pelosi Act.
1:27:23
Uh there's a new bill in Congress.
1:27:26
if you've been living under a rock since yesterday.
1:27:27
Uh it's the preventing elected leaders owning securities and and investments. They get super acronyms.
1:27:35
The Pelosi Act and um yeah, Josh Holly uh sounds like an absolute dog for coming out with this. Yeah.
1:27:44
And um what's your take on the insider trading on Capitol Hill?
1:27:48
I I want to announce that we are supporting the RAMP Act. Yes.
1:27:52
The uh the um what does RAMP stand for?
1:27:56
The ramp app running America right accounting company for your provider.
1:28:03
That was extremely popular.
1:28:03
We need to get you a pen and paper so you can map these out.
1:28:07
The interesting impact here is that autopilot which has run the Pelosia tracker account forever.
1:28:14
Maybe it's their own undoing though because if they advertised how good how good Pelosi is at insider trading made it too much in the public eye and they're going to have to find another goated copy.
1:28:26
You know I've always said that the elected leaders should be primarily optimizing for the stock market going up in the short term and we should ultimately just give Jane Street right access to the legal code. We don't need elections. We don't need elections. We need markets.
1:28:42
We need markets and we need we we need high frequency trading firms to decide what laws and they can toggle laws off within micros secondsonds.
1:28:49
Does that tie into our sponsor? Which one? We got a bunch. Poly market. Uh Poly Market. Oh, yeah. Poly Market. Poly Market.
1:28:56
Did you see Poly Market uh predicted the Canadian election correctly?
1:28:59
They absolutely nailed it.
1:29:01
nailed it. I don't what they basically made I I mean the way to think about poly market is it's it's effectively uh like a a a decentralized crystal ball is the best way to describe it right it is um and it's it's really interesting to watch this chart unfortunately we
1:29:18
can't screen share it but about a month ago um they had uh Carney at 60% and you can just watch as we get closer and closer to yesterday uh it just going up and to the right And again, this is uh back to back to backto back uh in in terms of calling elections. Um it is
1:29:36
Um it is Yeah, I I I do like this story that they got it right has been not really in the news and I I think a lot of it's driven by the fact that the I mean the the liberal won the conservative lost, right?
1:29:50
And it was kind of like an upset but poly market called it correctly.
1:29:52
I don't I actually haven't been tracking the news in Canada.
1:29:55
I don't know if if if it's been like as much of an issue, but uh during the 2024 election, obviously the question about like is poly market biased was a huge one and then they called it correctly.
1:30:05
And so I'm wondering in the next American election if uh there will be debate over polyarket role, poly market's role in the American election or if we've like truly just laid it to rest and and prediction markets are just a thing that exists and everyone's just like oh yeah like they decentralized.
1:30:23
Seems like a, you know, election interference is obviously illegal, but but conclave interference is not obviously illegal.
1:30:31
If you're a bishop, Yeah.
1:30:31
why not get some action on side gamble? Yep.
1:30:33
You think that's what's happening?
1:30:36
I think it might be happening.
1:30:37
We should check the odds. Yeah. Yeah.
1:30:38
Following the the the next track on Poly Market.
1:30:43
I think these odds are wrong.
1:30:46
Do you have a Do you have a pick over Parro?
1:30:48
All I can say on this is I think these odds are bad. I think it's all off.
1:30:52
Oh, you think it's all off?
1:30:53
I think we're headed for an American post. American Pope. Well, that'd be great.
1:30:57
I think we know it'll get more and more accurate as the days go on.
1:31:01
Uh, we have a post from Dylan Field. He says, "Tired H.
1:31:05
The model makes trivial errors. This isn't useful. Wired.
1:31:11
For $20 a month, I can rent a somewhat self-aware spaceship that enables me to explore the depths of latent space, access the collective wisdom of humanity, and expand my mind."
1:31:22
And uh tweeting someone says when 03 makes trivial errors like claiming two terms cancel when they clearly don't.
1:31:26
It becomes apparent that the model doesn't actually understand anything.
1:31:30
These models aren't remotely close to AGI.
1:31:35
They're latent space search engines.
1:31:35
Uh you how are you feeling about the idea that like the definition of AGI and and where we are in terms of the models? What are they good at?
1:31:44
What aren't they good at?
1:31:45
Tyler Cowan said a AGI is here.
1:31:47
We had another guy on Will Brown who said we have 10-minute AGI now.
1:31:49
Um other people say you know it can't even solve an ARC AGI puzzle therefore it is by definition not AGI.
1:31:56
I just think long duration tasks are clearly the uh the challenge right like operator does not work particularly well today like we are seeing incredible returns to very well scoped very narrow tasks with very specific models.
1:32:08
However you can do more than uh you know work for 10 minutes.
1:32:10
I think long duration coherence is still a big challenge.
1:32:14
If I had to handicap it I think we're still probably 5,000 6,000 years away.
1:32:19
Um, but that's going to be a real slow and long takeoff. Yeah.
1:32:21
Where are you seeing uh famous last, where are you seeing AI be most valuable in your personal work life?
1:32:29
Like like in your daily driving?
1:32:31
Like I've been I've been having just a lot of luck with uh using the deep research function to basically build like what's essentially just a really detailed Wikipedia page or aggregation of a bunch of Wikipedia pages instead of just oh I got to go to the Microsoft wiki to understand what they were doing in the 80s and then and then Apple.
1:32:47
I can just say summarize it all, pull it all in, bake it all%.
1:32:49
It's it's it's deep research is doing easily four hours. I think it's fantastic.
1:32:56
On the average query like that, right?
1:32:59
Even if even if you knew exactly the sources to pull from. Totally. Totally.
1:33:03
It just saves me opening a ton of tabs.
1:33:04
But what have you been finding useful?
1:33:06
I mean, even just as an interface to stuff I already like know and work with.
1:33:10
Like 03 is an incredible tutor.
1:33:12
is an incredible tutor. Like there's a ton of healthare regulation that's on websites I don't know how to read that are like horrible to interface with even just using 03 to interface with those sites prepare research briefings for me it's really amazing just the amount of documentation we're able to generate it's much higher yeah are you a rune
1:33:27
head text is the universal interface or do you think voice is more important I think corporate expense accounts are really the universal yes receipts really universal interface um well we got to talk about this post from Luke Metro he says My most online opinion is that there should be awards for best screenshots like they do with photography. And I think this is
1:33:46
And I think this is one of the best do best of the year.
1:33:48
We can screenshot this and make it the screen. Yeah. Yeah. Wait.
1:33:53
So So I think all three of us are in this chat or or were before it got docked and you were probably right above this. I did. I did not leave. I'm sorry. I didn't leave. I know. I know.
1:34:04
We were saying we should have left because then we'd be in the screen.
1:34:06
If we'd been like, "Oh, David Sax, I'm going to leave right now."
1:34:09
Imagine how low status it would be if you left and they cropped you out. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
1:34:13
Magguire, Tucker Carlson, not you.
1:34:15
We were joking about Yeah.
1:34:18
If you'd left right between David and and Tucker, you could have changed your name to Barack Obama or or Ramp. com.
1:34:27
Watch TVPN on X and then you leave and boom, you're part of history. Part of history.
1:34:32
They would have cropped you out.
1:34:34
Anyway, uh you're you're famous for collecting rare PDFs.
1:34:37
You're famous for collecting rare books.
1:34:39
Do you think you'll get in the rare screenshot game?
1:34:43
I mean, this is just whoever leaked it.
1:34:44
I do hope federal charges.
1:34:49
Will that is a bold statement, but I will I will say I feel like Will has already has his screenshot collection. I do.
1:34:56
I have a lot of great rare screenshots.
1:34:57
The real alpha these days is rare RSS feeds. Yes.
1:34:59
Private podcasting networks. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
1:35:05
Uh yeah, I' I've thought about that.
1:35:05
the the the the the RSS feed for just the partners or just for the boys.
1:35:10
All right, we got to cover this post tweet about this.
1:35:15
Uh he says Microsoft's initial plan was to leapfrog both Google and Amazon to become the largest tech infrastructure company in the world. Then they got scared.
1:35:24
They backed away from OpenAI, backed away from some leases, and even slowed down their construction pace for major data centers. Shots fired. Shots fired. Get the sound.
1:35:39
Um, this was interesting.
1:35:39
I mean, I I I do feel like Satia has taken a big step back from the media even in the last uh even, you know, in in the last month.
1:35:52
Uh, clearly felt like he was flying a little too close to the sun. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know.
1:35:58
the the uh I I I read this piece on the plane and um like the thing that was most clear to me is that it's extremely hard to sum up uh Microsoft's data center strategy in like a single pathy tweet.
1:36:09
Um because Dylan's clearly gone so much deeper on all the different levers that they're pulling to access power and access data center capacity.
1:36:20
And not only are the the the inference happening on the hyperscalers, but now there's the Neo clouds as well with Crusoe and um and Coreweave.
1:36:27
Uh and and so there's a lot of like these weird things where um the headline is that Microsoft canled 2 gigawatts worth of leases, but that only covers non-binding LOIs, not firm contracts.
1:36:41
And it fails to mention that Microsoft has 5 gawatts of pre-leased capacity under binding contracts that will start operations between 2025 and 2028.
1:36:50
So it's not like they're like so in reality they walked away from more than 2 gawatts of non-binding contracts, but you don't hear about those because they're just like in the handshake deal in the LOI phase, but then at the same time they're also like the number one buyer or they're or they're growing a ton.
1:37:06
And uh no, and it's interesting it's interesting to think about how much leverage they get from just coming out and saying we're pausing on a few of these things because then all the people that had data centers in construction that were just like oh one of the hyperscalers will buy it right and like they had raised hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to build this stuff out.
1:37:28
So uh basically a you know potentially a great case study in exercising the status full of buyers uh because so semi- analysis like they don't just look at the public reports of what the capex number is.
1:37:42
They're actually looking I mean they task satellites to take pictures of how the progress on buildouts is going.
1:37:47
They dig into all this stuff.
1:37:50
They said the estimates suggest that Microsoft accounted for more than 60% of all new leased turnkey capacity from Q1 2023 to Q2 2024.
1:37:59
Just absolute domination.
1:37:59
And in June of 2024, Microsoft's pre-lease capacity was larger than that of the four other major hyperscalers combined. They need a new term.
1:38:10
They need to be like a gigascaler.
1:38:12
Gigascaler because there's so they're they're doing so much more business here.
1:38:16
And so word comes after hyper I don't know. Giga. What's more gig?
1:38:22
Oh, in the in like the sizing. Gigawatt. Terowatt. Yeah. Yeah. Terascaler. Terascaler. That's what's next.
1:38:29
Uh, Microsoft significantly ramped up its self-build efforts, acquiring tens of thousands of acres around the US and the globe, accelerating construction of existing sites and securing gigawatts of power for future sites.
1:38:39
Taken together, these moves signaled Microsoft's preparation for what was the most ambitious infrastructure buildout in history.
1:38:46
Uh while the leasing slowdown is material, these changes are not material to the short and medium-term and they only impact 2027 plus.
1:38:52
So this is like that that pivot by Sachi Nadella to becoming more of a leaser and maybe stepping off the gas.
1:38:59
I think a lot of this is probably driven by the the you know the the the deepseek moment, the idea that these models can be distilled.
1:39:08
Maybe there's a pre-training uh scaling um wall that you know, yes, there's going to be a ton of RL, but we're not necessarily going to need stuff in the short term.
1:39:17
But at the same time, when I look at this, I feel like I want data center buildout to continue and accelerate and energy production to build to to accelerate like it is in China. Um but what's your take?
1:39:28
I just feel like enterp enterprise diffusion is still so far away.
1:39:33
Like getting 03 like capabilities in all of the Fortune 500 is like a 20-year project. Interesting. Right.
1:39:41
So as you think about like inference demand scaling, model dissolation going down, it's still I think the Tyler Kent take is correct that diffusion is going to take forever and you're going to need a whole new class of companies.
1:39:52
you know, hint hint, my dear friend Dan Ashton runs one of these um where it's like you can actually diffuse enterprise AI into the enterprise in a way that doesn't take 30 years.
1:40:01
Microsoft built, I think, for a world where that diffusion was going to be much faster than what's actually occurring.
1:40:06
It's not like everyone's using OpenAI and Fortune 500s today.
1:40:10
Certainly not Fortune 20s.
1:40:10
Yeah, he actually has a a Google Trends chart here.
1:40:14
Claude versus Gemini versus Copilot.
1:40:17
and co-pilot uh peaked last year and has been kind of flat in terms of interest while Gemini has grown obviously because there's more of a consumer angle there.
1:40:25
Uh a lot of the different um like Salesforce has been upselling AI functionality.
1:40:30
You know what Microsoft did with Teams could potentially play out here but I I agree with you.
1:40:37
I think it will take a very very long time.
1:40:38
Well, we got one more ad before we get our last post.
1:40:41
Linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
1:40:46
Uh I've used it basically my entire career.
1:40:48
It is a system that allows teams to work uh more efficiently including ours.
1:40:54
Uh and it is absolutely beautiful.
1:40:58
So the overlay that you see that's very much a product that we are building every single day.
1:41:05
Uh and thank you to linear for powering the show.
1:41:07
Uh I have one more post uh which is fun.
1:41:11
Uh, signing into stuff in 2025 from Gurav Vora. He says, "Sign in. Forgot password. Check email. No email. Try Google O. Hooray. Works. Is this really you? Grab iPhone. Open YouTube app." Yes, it's me. Octa signin required. Enter pass key. Pass key expired. Need backup code. Open password manager. Signed out. Enter password manager. Password. No backup codes. Try another way. QR code. iOS octa app. Sign in. Face ID. Is this really you? 2FA SMS code.
1:41:43
The worst of all this is when is when you try and you're like, "Oh, I should sign in with I with my Gmail because I know I used my my Gmail account as the username." You didn't.
1:41:54
And then you click the login button and it creates a new account for you.
1:41:57
Like a proud big company now.
1:41:59
Like Microsoft Teams signin kind of a leak. It's good.
1:42:04
It gives you a little my my apps. microsoft.
1:42:06
Teams shows you all the stuff you're signed into. Pretty hard to beat. That's good.
1:42:10
Before we close, we should do Will's post.
1:42:12
Craft is the antidote to slop.
1:42:14
Can you take us through this? This is Yeah. No, I I will not.
1:42:18
I'll spare you two pages of paper.
1:42:20
But the the argument here is that we we should be better about selecting the kind of problems we try to automate.
1:42:24
And I'm trying to draw a distinction here between um labor and toil, right?
1:42:28
Labor is, you know, toil is this unpleasant formatting spreadsheets, doing your expenses before you have ramp, right?
1:42:38
All this unpleasant work.
1:42:38
labor is the meaningful thing that God put you on earth to do.
1:42:41
This is an argument that I think we are working on the wrong types of AI problems that we're trying to automate things away that will lead to kind of disgusting outcomes, right?
1:42:49
You go to Nashville, you go to Charlotte, you go to any of these new tier three cities, they all look the same.
1:42:54
They don't feel like real places.
1:42:55
I think the models are going to drive kind of a similar thing happening to the timeline to online spaces to physical objects. I think we can avoid it.
1:43:03
I think we can get more places and things that feel magical by dividing this labor. The essay is two pages.
1:43:08
I think it's it's worth reading.
1:43:10
What is the prescription for actually avoiding the bad outcome?
1:43:16
Is this I think it's like it's much like cultural.
1:43:18
It's like a food quality, right?
1:43:20
Like if we we ignore the food supply and then we get sick in 20 years.
1:43:24
I think if we ignore the supply of language being GMO essentially like that, you know, the source of inspiration being GMO, we will just eradicate ourselves and it will solve itself.
1:43:35
Is there some sort of like tipping point where you need you need more than 50% of humanity on the craft, you know, train?
1:43:43
We need better elite taste.
1:43:43
I feel like our our cultural elites certainly, you know, the people that are running corporate expense providers today are not buying castles on the continent.
1:43:52
They're not buying really high quality furniture.
1:43:53
It just feels obvious that we need to turn away from I did I did notice that when I was in I think in some of these cities, you just see like everyone they're all rich, but they all have the exact same house. It's the glass box.
1:44:03
Yeah, it's it's incredible.
1:44:05
It looks like odd instead of where's the Hurst Castle of today.
1:44:08
I mean, some people are building I think the Collison brothers are building. They bought a castle.
1:44:11
I mean, Katherine Bole had a good take on this.
1:44:13
Like all architecture kind of looks like Islamabad.
1:44:14
Like it's all it's all Arabic infra uh uh architecture.
1:44:19
It's not it's not pretty or it's at least not set in stage.
1:44:21
My argument here is orient yourself in history, build meaningful things, let it rock. Yeah. Interesting.
1:44:26
Um, are there more like tactical things to do on the actual foundation model side?
1:44:33
Are there things that you want to see?
1:44:34
Like a lot of people say, "Oh, Claude has more personality or is this an AI safety issue guidelines?"
1:44:40
Much like you can drive, you know, a a automatic Ferrari versus, you know, a six-speed manual.
1:44:48
It's all about choosing the right things to find enjoyment in.
1:44:49
And I think a lot of what we're doing is seeing a culture that is downstream of slop that people are choosing the kind of junk calories rather than the meaningful engagement.
1:44:59
And I just think much like we're seeing in diet today like that shift will be natural.
1:45:03
I actually don't I'm not worried about the future, right?
1:45:04
Like the the Bible ends in in Revelation like the God wins.
1:45:09
We've read the final chapter already, but I think we need to get past the slop on the way there. Interesting. Jordy, anything? Powerful stuff.
1:45:19
Powerful stuff from Well, we are in Washington DC. Yeah. Hillen Valley.
1:45:24
And uh we're at Hillen Valley.
1:45:24
And I'm very excited for tomorrow. Me too.
1:45:25
And uh we've said it before, but we'll say it again.
1:45:29
We will be live from Hillen Valley tomorrow.
1:45:31
We're going to be pulling in people that are talking, people that are attending, getting uh that boots on the ground perspective on many of our nation's most important issues.
1:45:42
So, low first on the ground. Low first on the ground. Yes. We're in DC. We're in DC.
1:45:47
Uh well, thank you for joining us, Will. It's fitting.
1:45:50
Uh and thanks for tuning in, folks.
1:45:54
We will uh see you tomorrow.