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[Music] [Music] The fog horn is so good. >> You're watching TVPN.
3:59
Today's Tuesday, August 12th, 2025.
4:02
We are live from the TVP Ultradome, the Temple of Technology, the Fortress of Finance, the Capital of Capital.
4:07
Jordy, what is going on in the timeline? >> We got a red flag.
4:11
>> We got a red flag on the play.
4:11
The timeline is in turmoil.
4:13
Elon Musk and Sam Alman are fighting.
4:16
Mom and dad are fighting.
4:18
Mom and dad are fighting. Shots fired.
4:20
This all started because of Apple actually, not OpenAI, not X, not the Everything app, >> but Apple and the and the iOS charts.
4:28
So uh this started with uh Elon Musk posting Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach number one in the app store which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.
4:44
XAI will take immediate legal action.
4:48
Well, the uh the community notes section took immediate action and added a number of extra context that they thought people might want to know.
5:02
First, in January of 2025, DeepSeek reached number one overall in the app store, similar to how RAMP is our number one sponsor on this show. Time is money. Save both.
5:12
These are used corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more. All in one place, folks. Go to ramp. com.
5:16
Um, and just one month ago on July 18th, 2025, uh, Perplexity reached number one overall in India's app store. That's interesting. I didn't realize that.
5:27
>> Grock has hit number one in Japan. >> Oh, that's right. Yeah.
5:29
But probably numbers contributing to that.
5:33
>> So, most of the AI apps live in the in the productivity section.
5:36
So, that must have been in that.
5:38
But, it's odd because it's like we need a whole new set of of uh of categories for the new AI apps.
5:43
I feel like they should have their own category immediately.
5:47
What are all the categories?
5:49
I mean, productivity, I feel like that's everything from like spreadsheets to chat GBT.
5:52
Like, it's a pretty broad It's a pretty broad category.
5:56
Um, and and so they I mean, Apple probably needs to redo the uh the the categories.
6:03
Where even are the categories?
6:04
I feel like you can't I feel like they're hard to find these days.
6:07
They have editor choice apps, which we'll get into because uh Okay, so browse categories.
6:11
They have Apple Vision Pro apps at the top.
6:13
That's an odd choice for the iPhone version of the app store.
6:19
Then Apple Watch apps, then AR apps, then books, business, developer tools, education, entertainment, finance, food and drink.
6:26
Food and drink gets its own cat.
6:29
>> Well, I'm looking at the global top charts right now or global for the US.
6:33
So, across all the different categories and right now, ChatBT is number one.
6:37
Number two is Tea on Her Dating Advice, which is >> Wait, there's a new tea app >> which is helping men date safe. >> Wait, wait.
6:44
So, it's the men version, >> the male version, >> the male version.
6:48
>> Uh, it is >> it's men's cereal, the tea app rated, but it is number one in lifestyle and number two on the overall charge.
6:53
Number three is t dating.
6:55
Four is threads, which apparently just crossed 400 million monthly active users.
7:02
>> Adam is not messing around over at Meta HQ.
7:04
>> And Grock is number five.
7:06
>> Okay, it's not that bad.
7:06
This is despite Apple >> I I do believe that Elon is correct and that Apple's not including Grock >> in features which which are editorial separate editorial. >> Yeah.
7:20
So uh yeah I mean Doge designer says Grock is the number two app in productivity number six overall.
7:24
So why is it so hard to find?
7:26
And what he's pointing out is that Elon Musk showed this.
7:29
Grock is the smartest AI in the world and on the toughest tests and came first by far in coding, but is not mentioned all at all under AI but by Apple.
7:37
So Apple did an editorial view on the AI powered apps and they listed out a bunch.
7:43
Uh Chatbt, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Lightroom photo and video editor which I mean I I use it every once in a while but it barely has AI features.
7:53
It does not compare to a foundation model.
7:56
It's not a chat interface. Then you have Canva.
7:58
Then you have Dolingo, which of course Dolingo uses artificial intelligence in some ways, but you don't think of it as like a competitor to Chat GPT.
8:07
So this is clearly just like here are some fun apps and we're using the AI buzzword over at Apple.
8:15
>> And I think it's given given the uh series of PR crises that Grock has experienced in the last call it six weeks. Yep.
8:23
I think it is fairly fair for the app store to say, "Hey, let's let this breathe a little bit." >> Yep.
8:30
>> We're not We're not removing them from the app store.
8:31
We're not removing them from the rankings. They're still ranked. Yep.
8:35
>> But maybe let's not feature it given that it's been saying >> Yeah.
8:39
The other the other interesting thing is like Grock usage has to be split across X and Grock, the actual app.
8:47
Like I bet uh I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of actual uh prompts or tokens flow through X the everything app.
8:56
Like that's certainly how I use Grock.
8:57
When I use it, I usually start with the post, click the Grock button, then I'm going back and forth a little bit there.
9:03
And then also uh they actually have a a pretty awesome uh flow where now on any image you see on Axe, you can press and hold and say edit this in Grock.
9:16
And then you can just type you can just type studio gibly and it just giblies it right there in grock.
9:21
>> And they launched a feature to make turn it into a video >> video. Exactly.
9:24
So all of those Grock tokens, all those Grock usages, that's going to feed into the X app, which again they they've always put X in news and not in social networking because I think it couldn't beat Facebook and Instagram, but it can beat um like the the like the traditional news apps.
9:41
So all of the different rankings are all very um they're it's all gamed in different ways.
9:49
Some of them are momentum based, some of them are different categories.
9:52
And uh I mean we heard this from Nikita Beer where he was saying that uh his last app >> that went super viral he hid in the games section as to his those were his words.
10:03
He hid because the game section is so crowded that people wouldn't see him climbing the rankings.
10:08
But >> the charts are based on acceleration broadly. Exactly. And total usage.
10:15
>> And there are only like 10 dominant social platforms.
10:17
So if he had a ton of momentum, he'd probably be in the top 10.
10:21
People would be screenshotting and being like, "What is this?"
10:22
And it would be on Mark Zuckerberg's desk.
10:23
And Mark would have to be like, "What's our plan to kill this?" You right.
10:27
um as opposed to if you're hanging out in games next to 75 Candy Crush clones, you're you could be doing well, but realistically you're not you're not really gaining that much.
10:40
You're not drawing that much attention.
10:41
Then at the last second, he swaps over to social networking where he actually wanted to be and then he's at the top of the charts anyway.
10:48
>> So Elon says Apple's behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach number one in the app store.
10:54
He starts getting community noted.
10:56
Sam Alman fires back, says, "This is a remarkable claim."
10:59
Claims that Elon is uh using X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors.
11:05
Sam starts getting community noted.
11:07
Elon fires back and says, "You got three million views on your BS post.
11:11
You liar far more than I've received on many of mine despite me having 50 times your follower count."
11:18
Elon's getting community noted, but Sam fires back. Skill issue or boss. >> Skill issue or boss.
11:23
>> Uh anyways, >> the timeline's in turmoil.
11:25
Sam says, "Will you sign an affidavit that you never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that hurt your competitors or helped your own companies?" Who said that? This is Sam. >> I apologize if so.
11:36
>> U one thing is that >> OpenAI has consistently dominated the narrative on X organically many of their >> to some degree.
11:46
>> to some degree. I feel like I feel like OpenAI has been more dominant just in the real world and actually Anthropic's done very well on X and there's been this whole theme of like Claude has better vibes and big model smell and oh
12:02
>> stuff like >> if Sam Alman puts a post up he can put up a picture of a Death Star >> and get you 100% correct right >> and so I don't believe that he's like shadowbanned and I don't believe that anyone in OpenAI is like shadowbanned or being held in the algorithm. >> Yeah,
12:18
>> Yeah, >> but somebody responded really quickly.
12:21
If Sam's worried about reach, he should be using Reream, putting his content all over the internet.
12:26
Reream, one live destination, one live stream, 30 plus destinations.
12:30
Multiream and reach your audience wherever they are.
12:31
Uh, and thank you to everyone in the chat today.
12:33
Mark, Siraj, we got Taylor, David, we got a whole crew here.
12:37
Uh, Techno Chief, I believe, said good morning to me. Hello, Techno Chief. Good to see you.
12:41
Uh and uh it's fun having all the crew assemble in the chat rooms.
12:47
We actually can see the chat wherever it's happening whether it's on X or on YouTube because of Reream. So thank you to Reream. Anyway, continue.
12:55
>> A friend just just messaged and said somebody tell Elon to unshadowban me. >> Okay.
13:00
>> And I think that I think I know who this is.
13:03
>> I think it's much more likely that uh that that it's a skill issue.
13:05
Like >> I think it is a skill issue.
13:06
Sam is saying here you never know. You never know.
13:10
Um, but somebody responded to Sam and Elon's exchange and they said, "Grock, who's right? Don't be biased."
13:18
>> And Grock fires back and says, "Based on verified evidence, Sam Alman is right.
13:23
Musk's Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like Deep Seek and Perplexity, >> reaching number one in 2025.
13:28
Conversely, Musk has a history of directing ex algorithm changes to boost his post and favor his interest per 2023 reports and ongoing probes. Hypocrisy noted. So, we'll see how long.
13:42
>> Yeah, but this is 4D chess because in general, people don't believe Grock because they believe it to be insane.
13:48
>> Well, it said some wild crazy things.
13:50
And so, if Grock is siding with Sam, people will be like, well, Grock's wrong. Elon's actually correct.
13:55
>> Yeah, >> that's the beauty of these things.
13:57
>> Elon is thinking, what have I created created a monster?
14:00
This is like the child that uh what's the what what's what's what's that uh mythology where where the child kills the uh >> Edipus Rex of course. >> Yes.
14:11
Edipus Rex moment >> child coming for the for the father. >> Yeah.
14:18
>> Well, we'll see how long Grock last >> you want to play on that on that analogy. It gets pretty weird. >> It gets pretty weird.
14:23
I mean, marries his mother in that in that >> uh but uh we'll see how long Grock lasts in the timeline today. We'll see. >> We'll see. We'll see.
14:33
>> So, the uh yeah, the Wall Street Journal wrote it up.
14:35
Um Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach uh number one.
14:41
The App Store, which features lists of top and trending apps, is a key way for apps to access new customers.
14:46
Apple doesn't say much about how or why it chooses particular apps to feature.
14:51
uh among the factors it considers is usability and positive reviews and ratings.
14:54
Yeah, it's definitely getting more and more complex.
14:58
>> It's just important to break out editorial decisions from the App Store team and true rankings, right?
15:05
>> I mean, it I I really I think a lot of people have not taken a tour of the modern app store on iOS because it used to be that you just show up and there were and there was just a list of like the charts were like a few clicks away.
15:21
I'm like seven clicks deep.
15:21
There's an ad for just Google, I guess, in here.
15:27
There's essentials that are just top games right now.
15:28
Like you have to scroll and scroll and scroll and then you go over to apps.
15:32
Then you can browse the categories.
15:34
But even when you browse the categories, you go to productivity, it's going to give you like the when I go to productivity, you think I'd be browsing to hit like, okay, show me the top productivity apps.
15:44
No, it's it's showing me an app called Sofa, a downtime organizer.
15:51
Then it's showing me essential productivity apps that are selected by the app store editors.
15:54
Then the best calendar apps, best to-do apps, best email apps, best focus time or habit tracking.
16:00
It's going going and >> well, the big question is how much how much discovery is actually happening in the app store?
16:05
Is this where people are actually finding >> the top charts?
16:08
But it's seven it's seven clicks deep.
16:09
And so yeah, if I go to free apps, it's chatgbt number one, then grock number two, then Microsoft authenticator number three, agit.
16:18
Let's hear for Microsoft authenticator.
16:20
Maybe >> doesn't get enough love.
16:21
No, but the question here is are people discovering various LLMs through Tik Tok and X and Instagram, various platforms.
16:29
Is that where discovery happen is happening? >> Yeah.
16:33
And I'm sure there's some discovery happening in the app store, but it it has to be a very small fraction of the the downloads being driven are actually driven by the editorial decisions from the the app store. >> Of course. Of course. Yeah.
16:45
And and games don't even show up in the top like it's not uh games are not it's a completely separate tab.
16:52
You cannot select games as one of the subcategories of apps because games are not considered apps anymore in the app store.
16:59
to answer the question about like hiding in games. Um, yeah.
17:03
The other the other question is just like how much >> how fair is it to give yourself a little boost in your app that you paid $70 billion for? >> Yeah.
17:14
>> Like I was thinking about this and I was saying like >> 44 billion. >> It was 44. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It was 44. It wasn't 69.
17:21
>> I thought it was 69 for some reason.
17:23
That was that was the price per share was he he paid so ridiculous.
17:24
Anyway, um I was thinking about like before the launch of Instagram stories, I didn't have a way to share Snapchat stories on Instagram.
17:37
Like you could screenshot them, but there's no sort of like native way to share a link to a story that if someone on my Instagram feed sees it, it clicks and it automatically opens in Snapchat.
17:49
Like there it was always a walled garden.
17:51
And then when Instagram stories came out, there was really no way to tie those two platforms together.
17:58
Like in the in the pre- meta era, there was a way when you shared a post on Instagram to check a box and automatically share it to your Twitter.
18:12
And it would not just share a link, it would share the actual photo. Yeah. >> With the comment.
18:17
And it would work as a native post on X.
18:19
And it could, you know, not really go viral, but it could it it could it it existed on Twitter as like a first class citizen in the sense that the image was there, there was no link, it was just like you had just actually opened the app, posted the same photo with proper crossost, right?
18:38
And then eventually once Facebook bought Instagram, Twitter had to respond by breaking that integration.
18:45
So early on, Twitter had this very, this was like the Adam Bane era, like the early uh back the Dick Custo era, Twitter had this idea of like we're going to be the command line for your life.
18:58
And there was this idea of like I'm going to be able to tweet at you to send money to you.
19:04
Like the everything app idea is something that's over 13 years old at this point, maybe 15 years old at this point.
19:11
Like the Twitter executives were thinking about this a long time ago, like being able to tweet money at you, being able to twe like use use Twitter as kind of this like substrate or this like API for all sorts of things.
19:21
Other apps would be built on top of Twitter.
19:24
There was Tweet Deck and Tweety Bird and like all these different like the mobile app was by an independent developer >> and they just didn't and they were like why would we need one?
19:32
We just developed the protocol. Well, >> yeah.
19:35
Well, you need one because you want to stuff ads in it obviously and you want to monetize it. It makes a ton of sense.
19:39
And so Elon killed all that.
19:41
But >> the other challenge here is is Grock has a variety of NSFW features. >> Yep.
19:50
>> And when Apple is making editorial decisions about which apps to feature in the App Store. >> Yep.
19:57
>> That is certainly going to be on their mind.
19:59
>> We're having Eugenia from uh Replica on the show later today.
20:02
I'm wondering if Rep rep Rep replica I think has is currently in the app store with 226,000 reviews.
20:12
Um hasn't gotten kicked out.
20:15
I'm trying to think if any other um if any other apps so like Only Fans for example does not have an app.
20:21
I'm wondering if any of the what character AI does. Right.
20:28
So Apple's clearly drawn the line at like like AI chat bots, even if they're somewhat erotic, are okay, but we but >> that doesn't mean they're gonna that doesn't mean they're going to feature >> they're not going to promote it to the average person on the app store. >> Yeah.
20:45
No, that's absolutely correct.
20:48
>> So, and then again, I I think it's very hard to say how Apple makes these editorial decisions, but it's very possible that they are talking with people on the Apple team and being like, "What apps do you like?
21:01
What apps are you using?"
21:01
And making decisions that way, right?
21:03
I think I think part of Grock over the last month or so is like figuring out like how do we get strong consumer adoption?
21:11
Which categories are we going to get strong?
21:15
>> I'll tell you how they get strong consumer adoption.
21:16
Sock 2, compliance, they need to get on Vanta.
21:18
Automate compliance, manage risk, prove trust continuously.
21:21
Vanta's trust management platform takes the manual work out of your security and compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation whether you're pursuing your first framework or managing a complex program.
21:31
No, that is a good question.
21:31
How can Grock actually get consumer adoption?
21:35
The companion space seems like the maybe the right move even if it is a little weird.
21:39
But is there any other path?
21:39
I mean forking it into Axe and Twitter and like having it show up on every post seems like a reasonable way.
21:47
I wonder it is weird that they have two apps.
21:50
I thought X was supposed to be the everything app.
21:53
Like like why are they trying to get me to install a second app when they should maybe just say, "Hey, we're actually going to be the everything app.
22:01
everything app. You can use Grock fully and you're all the upgrade and you can get on Gro heavy and you can be paying $200 a month for a top tier the super insane level LLM but it all exists and it's all managed within the X app that
22:17
already has a lot of a lot of installations your Grock is >> is uh top or near the top of a bunch of different benchmarks >> and yet that doesn't guarantee consumer adoption, People don't switch products because something is >> 20% better in this technical way, right? They develop habits. They develop habits.
22:38
>> And the other thing, it was only a month ago Grock or XAI announced a partnership with the Department of Defense, $200 million contract. So that's >> serious.
22:48
>> Uh but again, you know, figuring out where they're going to ramp revenue with consumers that in when it's not just bundled into X, the social media app.
22:58
Yeah, I think it it's interesting to to debate like when can a new technology be bolted on and become additive to an existing platform versus you need a new app to actually get it to work.
23:13
So Facebook actually rolled out a search engine in Facebook, the blue app, like years ago.
23:22
And when you would go to search, you could search for your friends, but then you could also go and it would search the web, too.
23:28
And it would say, "Hey, you're searching for this thing.
23:32
Uh, there's no posts about it out there, so let's just pull from the web."
23:36
And they basically built a search engine >> team, pull up this post from Chad GBT.
23:42
>> I want to see John's live reaction to it.
23:44
>> Okay, let me let me see this post.
23:44
Um, whereas whereas like like stories was something that was added.
23:50
Oh, they chat GPT quoted Grock saying that Sam Alman is right. Said good bot. >> Good bot. Wow. Timelines in turmoil. You love to see it.
24:02
It's a great day on the internet.
24:02
Um but there's always Yeah.
24:06
So, so I I think there is something about like the pixel screen, the screen pixel real estate that is um that is somewhat like like screen pixels are are uh like scarce and you can only do so much like it's it's like Instagram was able to add reels as a tab, integrate those into the main feed.
24:26
They were able to add stories up at the top as a little bar and it got crowded but no but Instagram did not did not see massive churn. >> Yeah.
24:35
>> Yeah. But I think that if they I'm I really think if they try and stuff like okay yes this is also like clawed code and you're going to like do your you're going to do your homework in Instagram now you're going to do your your your software engineering in in surfers up here you're going to have a chat below
24:54
>> I think I think it's I think it's too too big of a step whereas going from photos to videos to reals to stories like all of that works within the same kind of UX u UI eye space, but if you try and bolt on like a productivity tool into a social network, it it it winds up being a little rough. And so maybe
25:12
And so maybe that's the reason why Elon like realizes that like Grock has to be a separate app because if I'm using Groheavy to solve Olympic level math, I might not want that to happen on the chaos timeline feed, >> right? >> Yeah.
25:30
I mean, if if you're a software engineer working at a company and every time you your your boss walks up to talk to you about something, you're in X, the everything app, just scrolling the timeline while coding.
25:42
That might be tough, right?
25:42
It might be better to be doing those doing that coding work and, you know, with with Grock, right?
25:50
>> Put put a spreadsheet in there.
25:50
Put put a database in there.
25:52
Let me let me build let me build an entire business within the Everything app.
25:56
Tyler, what's your reaction today?
26:01
>> Um, I think so, so one thing I've been thinking about is like uh I forget who it was, but someone said like >> um as a company you want to like do things that your competitor that like go against your competitor's morals, right? Do you remember?
26:12
>> Yeah, this was Paul Graham. Yeah. Okay.
26:14
It wasn't it wasn't morals, but it was just like the idea of counterpositioning.
26:17
counterpositioning. this idea that like Avi Schiffman at friend like he's making a product that is a wearable AI device and if he makes it look like an Apple product and he makes it like oh it's instead of an AirPod and you know an iPhone it's a necklace like and it has Apple design language like
26:36
>> Apple will totally be able to just steamroll that by launching something very similar whereas if he comes out with something that has such a bizarre design that Apple would be like wow if we try and copy >> and he's not trying to make it useful for anything other than being your friend, right? He's he's he's also
26:50
He's he's he's also counterpositioning against chat GPT, which is a >> tool.
26:56
It's it's not its default state is not to be your friend.
27:00
People use it that way, but and and in some ways it's designed to to function like that, but ultimately um >> yeah, I think he he's found he's carved out his own and and Grock did the same thing by coming out and and like leaning really heavy into companionship. Yeah. Right.
27:16
Yeah, that is a point down to >> if they're going to go like >> in that like kind of counter positioning like idea.
27:24
I think they could also I could see them doing almost like a cluey type thing where it's like >> okay you can use this for your homework like you make it very good at like >> you don't have to use like cheating per se >> but I think that's like an interesting way that like if they want to go further down that like consumer kind of positioning. >> Yeah.
27:41
It just it's odd that it feels like they're trying to do a lot right now.
27:44
now. they're still in the exploration phase because I have I mean maybe this gets to like the value of transfer learning in reinforcement learning but I have a I have a hard time believing that many people who are in the market for like a companion are like I definitely
28:01
want it to be able to ace humanity's last exam like I in fact in fact in fact I think that you might want a companion not to be better than you at math like I think you might want a companion that just kind of like is Like, oh yeah, I agree, man. Like that math problem. Like that math problem.
28:17
>> This is a toxic friendship dynamic.
28:18
People are like, I want I want my friend to be great, but not better than me. >> Exactly. That That's real.
28:22
So, they need to they need to dumb it down.
28:24
They need to be the inverse of bench hacking. >> Yeah.
28:28
The the truth seeking new meta is going to be teaching your AI how to do things. >> Teaching it history. >> Yeah.
28:34
>> Teaching it how to do your homework. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
28:36
I mean, the the Fineman method you teach and then you learn you learn it.
28:39
Like I would probably learn more from teaching an LLM the answer to a problem than it trying to teach me.
28:47
What were you about to say?
28:49
>> Um I was going to say like the truth seeeking like idea of Grock seems very much like opposed to the companion aspect.
28:56
Like those seem like two different ends of >> the hero of our group chat right now is one of the greatest fabulouss in history.
29:04
He's a he's a serial liar.
29:04
But but but he's the most entertaining character.
29:09
He's the court jester of our group chat because he hallucinates more than GPT2 >> and it's fantastic and and and it genuinely provides a lot of value than just someone who's like, "Oh, I will only give you things that are 100% I will only say things that are 100% factual.
29:26
I will only say things that are definitively provable."
29:28
It's like, no, he he he throws out a lot of wild pitches, but every once in a while you just slam it into the outfield.
29:37
Anyway, well, think bigger, build faster.
29:39
Figma helps design and development teams build great products together.
29:44
Get started for free at figma. com. >> Try Figma make. >> Yeah.
29:49
Uh, should we go over to Perplexity World? >> Yes.
29:53
>> So, exclusive from the Wall Street Journal, AI startup Perplexity made an unsolicited longshot offer to buy Google's Chrome browser for 34. 5 billion. This inspired me, John.
30:06
Everybody needs to be making longot offers.
30:08
TBPN, let's let's submit an offer to buy the Golden Gate Bridge. >> Private. >> That's a good one. That's a good one. What else?
30:15
>> Got to be thinking bigger.
30:17
>> What else should we buy? I don't know. It's tough.
30:20
Yeah, it's it's it's really when I saw this, it's funny to think that Sundar has to go to the board for like probably send them an email and say like I'm required to let you know that we've received this offer from Perplexity to buy one of the crown jewels of our product ecosystem.
30:39
I wonder I wonder how how real this is.
30:43
Like it seems like we would like the reporting is pretty loose.
30:50
We can read through this Wall Street Journal article and then kind of like dig into it a little bit more.
30:53
So um Perplexity's offer is significantly more than its own valuation which is estimated at 18 billion.
31:00
Has this ever been done before?
31:03
Has any tech company been able to pull off an acquisition that's bigger than their own valuation?
31:09
Like totally what was the what was the slow ventures company that that uh metropolis right then they buy company that was much larger you know basically more >> kind of reverse merger almost >> yeah exactly >> interesting >> these things happen >> so there's there's also pressure so estimates of Chrome's enterprise value
31:27
vary widely but recent ones have ranged between 20 billion and 50 billion I have no idea how you got that I feel like Chrome is probably more valuable than that just on I mean I imagine that the default search engine in Chrome has got to be as valuable as the default search engine in iOS Safari, right? And how
31:44
And how much is Apple paying Google every year?
31:51
>> 20 >> 20 billion >> per year.
31:54
>> I mean, you'd pay like you'd pay way more than $50 billion to get $20 billion of profit every year. >> It's crazy. So, that feels low.
32:00
I don't know where I don't know where where those estimates came from, but they are apparently o under pressure.
32:06
US District Judge Amit Meta is weighing whether to force Google to sell the browser as a means of weakening Google's strangle hold on web search.
32:15
hold on web search. Uh it's so it's so interesting that like we're having this debate now like Google's had 99% of the web search market for two decades and they finally have a crack in the in the in the in the foundation with chat GPT
32:32
actually eroding things AI LLM kind of upending web search dominance like >> yeah we're having we're having James from profound on later today which which >> is built a big business very quickly because consumers are now using something besides Google search to to do web searches. >> Yeah, this is like the last this is this
32:50
>> Yeah, this is like the last this is this is like completely the wrong time to be focused on this.
32:54
Like the ship has completely sailed, but that's kind of the that's kind of the pace that the government operates at.
32:58
So >> yeah, the journal says perplexity offer could be an attempt to signal to the judge that there's an interested buyer should he force a sale.
33:04
I'm I'm I think there would be a lot of interested buyers if there was a forced sale. >> Yeah. Who else would buy it?
33:11
Apple, Meta, Microsoft, get Bingo in again. >> Bing.
33:19
Let's bing Bing >> Bing it.
33:21
I mean, Microsoft would have a wild strategy because they'd have all the code to chat GBT, all the OpenAI, intellectual property.
33:28
Like, they could do they could do what Perplexity is thinking about, right? >> Um, >> yeah.
33:34
I mean, what does this say?
33:34
What does this say about I mean so they just launched >> the perplexity comet browser. >> Yeah.
33:42
Daniel says Chrome's worth at least 90 to 120 bill. I agree.
33:44
I think 20 is a low Daniel.
33:48
But yeah, so they so Perplexity just launched Comet.
33:53
>> We had Arvin on the show.
33:53
He said this is a big important bet for the company. >> Yep.
33:57
If you're if you just launched a browser >> and now you're saying that you want to buy to compete with Chrome and now you're trying to buy Chrome. >> Yeah.
34:09
>> What does that say about the state of your new product? >> Distribution is king.
34:14
Like it's very clear that that even if you built a better product, the best product is not going to win.
34:20
And we see this with the with with the LLMs like like the the the leaderboards and the the vibes shift constantly, but the consumer adoption is just around chat. Everyone just uses chat.
34:33
>> That's the one that's broken through.
34:34
That's the one that people are familiar with uh all over the United States and all over the world.
34:38
And so um it's it's very hard to break through.
34:41
Even if even if Perplexity can like rocket to the top of the app store in India for a little bit, like it's hard to hold on to when when the ChachiPT snowball is just growing bigger and bigger every single day. >> Yeah.
34:53
>> Much like the graphite snowball code review for the age of AI, graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. Get started for free. graphite. dev.
35:00
Um is is there a is there a polymarket on perplexity by the way? Can you look that up?
35:06
I will >> will Perplexity acquire Chrome in 2025?
35:11
What's the What's the market on it?
35:12
>> When I posted about it earlier, it was at 12%. >> Mhm.
35:17
>> And it's and I said 12 seems quite high >> and it's now at 3%.
35:23
>> It went down even though they're in the journal saying they're going to do it.
35:27
>> They're like the market opened at 34% at like 9:00 a. m.
35:30
when the news dropped and it's now down at 3%.
35:32
So, >> wait, just today it went from 34 down to three. >> Wow.
35:37
So, this has basically been like debunked. Yeah, makes sense. >> Yeah.
35:40
I mean, there's um I would I would put the odds of this deal happening closer to 0% than 1%. >> That sounds fair.
35:53
>> But great way for Perplexity to get >> Yeah. >> in the journal. >> Call me. Yeah.
35:57
No, this is great for SEO.
35:59
It definitely puts Perplexity and web browser in the same keywords.
36:04
>> Perplexity was also bidding on Tik Tok. Yeah.
36:08
Orin loves a w a long shot bet, a long shot bid.
36:13
>> I invited I invited uh I invited him on the show this morning.
36:15
Uh he I don't think they want to.
36:18
>> No, he's not ready for press.
36:19
>> Not ready to chat, but uh we love a we love a size lord long shot offer.
36:24
>> Keep throwing these out.
36:24
More startup should do this.
36:25
Uh Google hasn't indicated a willingness to sell Chrome.
36:29
In testimony this year, PCI told the judge that forcing the company to sell it or share data with rivals would harm Google's business, deter it from investing in new technology, and potentially create security risks.
36:42
Chrome has roughly three and a half billion users worldwide.
36:44
It's like >> it's like Perplexity has probably like millions of users, but it's just going to take decades even at reasonable growth rate to hit three billion.
36:54
It's just so many people >> and accounts for more than 60% of the global browser market.
36:59
That's lower than I thought it would be.
37:00
Founded in 2022, San Francisco San Francisco based Perplexity recently released its own web browser called Comet to some of its users.
37:09
Tyler, you've demoed these. Yeah.
37:12
>> What are you daily driving these days in terms of the web browser?
37:15
>> I'm using old reliable Chrome. You're >> using Chrome? >> Yeah. I I don't know.
37:17
None of the agent um browsers really seemed very helpful to me.
37:22
>> Have you turned from CL from Cluey too? Yeah.
37:25
Well, I I stopped using that like that, you know, right after the show ended.
37:28
Um >> I was >> I mean I'm not doing interviews.
37:32
>> I was thinking about like the clue.
37:35
>> What if Tyler was like been using Cluey every day, hours a day?
37:38
We're like, "Wait, you've been interviewing with other companies?" >> Yeah.
37:43
Well, that's the thing is that I I when I was thinking about Cluey, um I was actually wondering like if we ran the show through Cluey and we had like this just this idea of like streaming audio essentially and streaming pixels and then just somewhat random LLM queries firing all the time.
38:01
Like is that a good pattern versus chat GPT where you have to decide okay this is the time to query it.
38:10
And so when I think about like the going to you and saying like the pull the poly market up on perplexity or tell me the market share for Chrome like if we could have something like clearly running and it's just a big screen there that I can see and it's just pulling up answers to questions that it thinks we're about to talk about or ask or just adding context like that actually might be kind of useful to us.
38:34
Um but I don't know if a tool like that exists.
38:37
It also just might be so sloppy and so noisy and so inferenceheavy that it just doesn't math out. I don't know.
38:42
Uh are there any uh are there any value or like what what's actually seeing breakout for you in terms of AI adoption?
38:50
>> Uh I mean most of my time using AI tools is just like coding stuff. Yeah.
38:54
>> So it's like cloud code a little bit.
38:58
>> Sometimes I just go raw chatgbt. com. >> Oh that's raw. >> Yeah. Yeah.
39:02
Just straight prompt like no >> raw text file.
39:04
What happened to what happened to good oldfashioned just handwritten code farm to table code? >> Apparently not. >> Pasture raised code.
39:14
>> But yeah, I don't know.
39:14
I mean like clearly I'm not like doing I'm not doing like sales calls or like anything that really requires that kind of like interaction. >> Yeah. Yeah.
39:22
>> So not too useful for me.
39:22
But >> yeah, I wonder how the product will change cuz like the marketing is not going to stop.
39:27
like they are definitely going to keep filling that top funnel until they figure out the the bottom of the funnel and the and the and the churn.
39:36
Um but uh but I I wonder what retention's like.
39:39
I mean, I imagine that, you know, you bring in such a broad top of funnel, like there's probably people that are sticking around.
39:44
There's probably people that just sign up and forget their credit cards down and they just pay for a while.
39:48
Like like the the the nature of just getting someone to convert for 20 bucks a month.
39:52
It they don't even have a free tier, right?
39:54
Like you have to pay to like get get up and running.
39:55
No, they do have a free table. >> They do. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Interesting.
40:00
>> Um, there was something um Oh, yeah.
40:00
Uh, Tyler, did you see Vibe sort?
40:04
Someone wrote a uh sorting algorithm. It uses an LLM.
40:09
You have to put in your you have to put in your OpenAI uh API key and then it just passes the random list or the array of numbers to chatbt and asks Chad GPT to sort it and it just comes back with whatever it can do.
40:21
Um, and I was thinking that uh, have you ever did you ever did you ever have to do FSBuzz back in the day?
40:28
Have you ever heard of this? >> I've heard of it.
40:30
Yeah, >> we should we should definitely do uh, Vibe FSBuzz where it it uh, it it it for each for each number between one and 100, it queries it queries uh, the GPT5 API to ask it should it respond with the number fizz or buzz.
40:49
the most the most in inefficient and most inferenceheavy fsbuzz answer possible.
40:53
Um anyway, back to Perplexity.
40:58
Uh Perplexity told Sundar Pachchai as part of the proposed acquisition, it would maintain and support Chromium, the open source project that supports Chrome and other browsers.
41:06
It also said it would continue placing Google as the default search engine within Chrome, though users could change settings.
41:14
That's crazy because you would think the first thing you would do if you own Chrome would be change the browser to mine.
41:19
I'm getting those ad dollars, but I don't know, maybe it's a nice olive branch in this uh somewhat somewhat uh hypy uh offer.
41:25
The Justice Department filed the antitrust case against Google in 2020 and just a five years later, in addition, they're here.
41:33
Uh, in addition to forcing a sale of Chrome, the judge is considering limiting Google's ability to pay to be the default search engine on devices and browsers and requiring it to share data with rivals, among other things, in weighing potential remedies.
41:45
Earlier this year, Meta questioned how much new AI chat bots might be whittling away at the traditional search business of which Google has 90% market share.
41:53
So 60% share in browser, but 90% in search.
42:00
So even even for there's 30% of people out there that are using Firefox or Brave or or uh Edge, it's Edge, right? Is the Microsoft one. >> Yes.
42:12
>> Um >> but then they they they they use Edge, but then they still set their default to Google because Google has dominant or maybe maybe just Google users are quering more.
42:20
>> I'm so fascinated by perplexity. Yeah.
42:23
And I can't wait to see what it's perplexing and I can't wait to see what ultimately becomes of the business.
42:30
They're >> offering to buy Tik Tok.
42:33
They're offering to buy Chrome.
42:34
They're rumored, you know, they there's rumor mill saying that Apple's kicking the tires on it.
42:43
It's hard to tell if where that's coming from, right?
42:45
Is that just more marketing complexity?
42:47
They have I think the last reported number or the alleged number is something like 30 million monthly activives which is a lot. >> Yeah.
42:57
>> But it but they have such a tiny share of overall queries. >> Yeah.
43:01
>> That it becomes and and it's just clear that that >> search feels like it'll be a winner take take all market. >> Yep.
43:10
And it's it's they're not g, you know, two years from now if they're sitting at 30 million monthly activives or or even a multiple of that, it's hard to see it, you know, being worth uh, you know, significantly more than Snapchat, for example. >> Yeah.
43:27
And I think that's why you're seeing Arvin talk about potentially maybe pivoting to B2B context with the Bloomberg thing.
43:34
Um, it feels like if you're if you're in a winner take all market and you're and the writing's on the wall that you're not going to be the winner in that market, a a B2B pivot feels like a decent move.
43:46
You could even put kind of anthropic in that bucket where there was a time when it was like, oh, is everyone going to switch to clawed like the app on their phone and then it didn't play out that way and now they have a dominant B2B business.
43:59
So you can imagine the perplexity niches down like the perplexity interface, the perplexity ability to to you know like answer questions, act as a search engine that feels valuable in enterprises, it feels value in finance, it feels valuable in medicine if you if you fine-tune the service for that.
44:18
Um but it's just a very different business.
44:20
So they have to go through a little bit of a uh of a of a rebuild or kind of re readjustment maybe. I don't know. We'll see. >> Yeah.
44:31
I mean, at at the end of the day, when when Elon bought X, it took it took someone like Elon to be able to put together the amount of equity and debt to buy that business.
44:42
And it he had to put a lot of his own capital on the line.
44:47
>> And in this situation, and that was buying a business that generated a lot of advertising revenue, right?
44:51
It wasn't it wasn't known as uh it was a a bit of a dog in some ways, right?
44:57
maybe maybe never was living up to its full potential where in this case if you offer to buy Chrome and then in theory you have to create an entire new economic model for the business because you don't have the Google ads engine built into it. It's it's hard to see.
45:19
It feels like basically impossible to pull that amount of cap to to to find people. >> Yeah.
45:26
Call me when the Morgan Stanley Associates are losing sleep. >> Good point.
45:30
>> Unless Unless Morgan Stanley is uh is burning the midnight oil. >> Yeah.
45:35
>> Uh this deal probably isn't happening.
45:37
>> I'm remembering that exchange between uh Ellison and Musk basically saying, "How much?"
45:42
Ellison's like, "How much should I do? A billion."
45:44
And Elon goes, "I don't know.
45:47
I think you should do like two." >> Yeah. It's great. Who's who? Yeah.
45:49
So, I mean Arvin's gota gota find some Larry.
45:55
Get get a few of those guys on board for sure. >> 34 Larry's.
45:58
>> Well, we have some big news in the TBPN world.
46:00
We are officially partnered with Whimo via Spotify because Spotify has a partnership with Whimo.
46:06
So, you can listen to TBPN and Whimo's now. >> No way.
46:09
>> Yeah, this this just dropped.
46:09
Um, there's a new upgraded Spotify in Whimo launching today.
46:14
Uh, Whimo put out the post two hours ago.
46:16
You can connect your accounts and you can vibe.
46:18
You can listen to TBPN in your way, Mo, which is probably the most tech thing you could possibly do.
46:24
Um, >> a a little birdie just told me that uh they spoke to a number of bankers >> that have not heard of the Perplexity deal, >> which uh I imagine as it >> as it firms up, if it firms up, they'll certainly hear about it. >> Interesting.
46:47
Anyways, what else we got?
46:47
Uh, we got Julius from Rahul Sunwalker, the latest advertiser on TVPN.
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47:15
So >> yeah, >> head over julius. ai, check it out.
47:19
>> Yeah, I mean I want to talk about it too much, but I mean great great uh great area that is, you know, some place that you can get a foothold grow and grow and grow.
47:29
Um not going to get steamrolled king.
47:33
>> Rapper king, we crowned him on the stream on Friday. Uh and we stand by that.
47:38
>> Anyway, let's review a little bit of the story behind what happened with Nvidia and the H20s.
47:44
There's a new article in the Wall Street Journal.
47:46
With billions at risk, Nvidia CEO buys his way out of the trade battle.
47:51
Jensen Wong tried diplomacy to sell chips to China, but it took a last minute deal with the White House to get it done.
47:57
So, he's the CEO of Nvidia.
48:00
He worked for months behind.
48:03
If you didn't know, by the way, CEO of Nvidia, >> small.
48:08
>> He worked months behind the scenes in Washington and Beijing to protect tens of billions of dollars in future sales from the heated US China trade rivalry.
48:17
Wong told President Trump that restrictions on US chip sales to China would backfire by pushing Chinese technology companies to achieve self-reliance.
48:25
That's Huawei, Smith, SME.
48:26
We talked a little bit about this on the show yesterday.
48:28
Uh he advised the president to keep China hooked on American tech.
48:32
As a sweetener, Wong said the company would invest as much as $500 billion in the US.
48:37
We didn't get the >> Let's go. >> Great contact.
48:43
Wong's argument along with the half trillion dollar offer from the world's most valuable company appeared to seal the deal.
48:49
The Trump admin decided last month to allow China to buy Nvidia's H20 artificial intelligence chip.
48:55
a surprising reversal that came shortly after Huang met with Trump.
48:58
Nvidia developed, as you know, they developed the H20 to comply with past export restrictions as a less powerful chip especially designed for China.
49:08
Uh if you didn't listen to our interviews yesterday with Peter Herrell and Aaron Gin, I felt like that was a really great hour kind of look into the situation, some of the history >> around the decisions that were made during the Biden admin around around chips as well as kind of the present state.
49:26
>> Yeah, we got a little tour of the of the whole issue.
49:28
We didn't get the view from the the what was it the China fauxhawks China hawks or something like that.
49:33
the the the the hardcore uh AI doomer view was not fully represented.
49:41
>> The fast takeoff bros >> the fast yeah the fast takeoff bros were not were underrepresented on TBPN yesterday.
49:46
Um but there is an interesting I do wonder if the if the narrative will evolve at any point in time.
49:55
I was kind of joking with you this morning like there are there are a few different it's kind of like a two axis grid.
50:01
So there's there's I'm worried about competition with China or I'm not worried.
50:06
I'm back in like the WTO ascension, the Bill Clinton era, the you know, you can't nail jello to a wall.
50:13
They'll become capitalist.
50:13
And so I'm I'm pro- free trade.
50:15
I'm pro China and working with them.
50:18
Uh Ryan Peterson has a little bit of that view.
50:20
uh and and and and there's a lot of evidence that that's fine and that they that there there can be like wonderful harmonious uh crossborder capitalism between America and China for a very long time.
50:35
Then of course you have the China hawks that say uh the invasion of Taiwan is around the corner. They won't stop at that.
50:41
It's an expansionary uh it's the hundred-year marathon and uh as soon as they take Taiwan, then they'll take Vietnam.
50:47
Then they'll take uh San Francisco.
50:49
They'll be storming Santa Monica Pier, >> the beaches of Ocean Beach.
50:54
>> The beaches of Ocean Beach will be stormed by the CCP.
50:55
Uh that that's kind of the most extreme on the other side.
51:00
Um but then you also have the like what is AI?
51:03
Like is AI Excel and it's just a nice to have and it's good and electricity. >> Yeah. Is it electricity? >> Yeah.
51:12
And and of course if you're going if you're going up against a rival, you would prefer that they didn't have electricity.
51:17
you would prefer that they don't have Microsoft Excel to track their inventory and and aid in their military efforts.
51:23
But if it's nuclear weapons, like you definitely don't want your adversary to have that, right?
51:26
Um the real question is there are there is a large contingent of folks out there that just say AI is bad.
51:33
Like AI is actually like a bad thing and and and the pieces of putting that together are like it makes you actually less intelligent when you use it.
51:43
intelligent when you use it. It makes you slower when you when you rely on >> it's a new new category of doomers which are the the oneshotted doomers the people that are getting you know falling in love with their AI companions falling in psychosis because of their companions
51:58
>> and >> you would think that if if somebody is a doomer in that way they should be wanting us to export the black wells to China >> if they're if they're anti-China >> and they're but they believe in the oneshot AI psychosis they should be
52:13
extremely grow GPU exports every single >> give them the most addictive AI companion so that everyone in China gets wireheaded by >> start discovering the AI companion exactly exactly you want everyone in China convinced that they have discovered uh quantum physics the the the final uh
52:35
>> final frontier >> yeah what is it the the the grand unifying >> the real humanity's last example >> you want you want the average the average Foxcon employee being like I'm not coming in today because I have solved the grand unifying theorem and I just need to publish it in nature. So
52:50
So sorry I can't go into the DJI factory today and make a drone.
52:56
>> Instead I will be posting online about how I how I cured cancer chatting with Gro 7. >> Something like that. >> Yeah. Gro heavy. Exactly.
53:04
Um uh but no I haven't heard anyone make that argument yet.
53:10
We might be the first, but it might be coming.
53:12
And it and it would not it would be somewhat rational if you believe that AI is is bad. >> Yeah.
53:18
There's I mean there's an entire group that that has been frustrated with with uh >> the Chinese version of Tik Tok, which is what's it called again? Do you remember? >> Dian. >> Duian. Is that it?
53:32
>> Where where allegedly it shows Chinese youth like you know videos about math and science and rockets and things like that.
53:40
Meanwhile, our version of Tik Tok is >> is uh you know dancing.
53:45
>> No, you want to you want to stay in the dancing world.
53:46
You don't want to be you don't want to be sending the the the the the generative videos of like math problems because that's going to lead you to delusions of grandeur and all of a sudden you're watching the dewin videos of of math and then you're like you know what I am Albert Einstein.
54:01
Yeah >> and I'm not going to work tomorrow. That's what's happening.
54:04
What do you think about what do you think about uh GPU exports Tyler as a as a way to wire head your enemy? >> Yeah.
54:11
So this is the the infinite jest thesis.
54:14
There's this book, Infinite Jest, David Dave Foster Wallace.
54:15
Where like the whole thing is like there's this like >> Oh, you read it. You read Infinite Jest? >> Oh, yeah.
54:23
>> Did you uh do Do you bring it with you when you go to parties in San Francisco?
54:27
>> Yeah, I always carry it around. My annotated copy.
54:28
Make sure everyone knows I read.
54:30
>> Do you read it on the subway? >> Just Oh, yeah.
54:32
I actually I >> I just hold it around. Yeah. Where >> Okay.
54:35
Anyway, give me the summary of Infinite Just. Spoil it.
54:37
Spoil the entire thing so no one reads it.
54:40
>> I don't think that Well, okay.
54:40
But the basically there's like the main thing is like there's this like weapon kind of it's like a movie that you watch but it's so addictive you just keep watching it.
54:48
It's like basically ultra stem Tik Tok.
54:50
>> It's like that movie The Ring that Jordy hasn't seen.
54:53
>> I haven't seen that yet.
54:54
>> No one's seen The Ring.
54:55
>> But but my ring, Ben, you've seen The Ring. >> The horror movie.
54:58
>> Yeah, the horror movie, >> of course. >> Yeah.
54:59
What happens in The Ring?
55:00
>> Uh I I have this graphic image in my head of her being in the closet. >> Okay.
55:05
But yeah, you watch Yeah.
55:05
You put the VHS tape in the video and >> you get the phone call. >> Then you Yeah. And then you die, right? It's a horror film.
55:12
And so Infinite Jin movies.
55:17
>> So So this is my thesis.
55:17
So basically um >> we need to like Gro should pivot into Defense. >> Yeah.
55:24
>> Where they basically ultra like go super hard on the the um you know companion side and then drop that like air drop it into China or our our enemies. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's Yeah.
55:37
I think a very I I I something I've been playing around with >> just crazy enough to work >> is that it feels like people's historical concerns with social media and that it's actually antisocial and that it can radicalize people >> and it can get them addicted.
55:55
Uh, it feels like it's it feels very possible that LLMs are actually everything that people thought was was horrific and bad and all the risk with social media, but like somewhat real. >> Somewhat real. Yeah.
56:12
>> I think you should talk to more like normie Zoomers.
56:15
>> You'd be more blackpilled. >> More blackpilled. How so?
56:17
I think like those are like I don't know if if you like meet someone that uses a lot of Tik Tok it's like you can kind of tell >> you can tell >> if you know what I mean like you know >> it's like a gaze. >> Yeah. Yeah.
56:29
It's like you know there's not much going on there. >> Yeah. >> It's rough.
56:33
Well yeah maybe we got to get them some delusions of grandeur.
56:35
At least kick them into high gear.
56:37
least kick them into high gear. convince them that they've discovered the the maybe the solution to the AI psychosis and the delusions of grandeur thing is is basically hooking them with that idea that it's like yeah you actually are the next Einstein and then pulling them back
56:53
be like but like in order to prove it you have to just do like a little bit more exactly >> and you shouldn't use me >> for your for your homework because you smarter than me and so you should you should just go get a job you should teach me and create some value yeah exactly You should teach me how to program. >> You should go teach everyone. And you
57:10
>> You should go teach everyone.
57:10
And you should also go go read the textbooks and and really uh and really grind your way up in the industry. That's true alignment. >> Yeah. Yeah.
57:19
Go put in some 40hour weeks. Go 80 hour weeks. Yeah. Yeah.
57:21
Go learn the fundamentals.
57:24
Go uh go actually work on the on the business on the business side of this.
57:28
Anyway, let's get back to Jensen Wong and Nvidia.
57:30
We we rung the gong for $500 billion investment in the United States. We'd love to see it.
57:37
Wong's argument along with the half trillion dollar offer from the world's most valuable company appeared to seal the deal.
57:43
The Trump administration the year by the way of of billion trillion.
57:49
I cannot wait to be in the one T. Just one just one T.
57:52
A nice round number one T.
57:56
>> Yeah, we're getting we're getting close.
57:58
So the uh the Trump's proposal to uh to take 15% for Uncle Sam, I guess it was originally 20%.
58:05
And they dialed it back a little bit, but the unusual pay-to-play proposal apparently hadn't been vetted by White House tech policy staff before Trump offered it.
58:17
>> Uh is expected to face uh legal and security questions.
58:20
Of course, many people have already >> asked a bunch of questions surrounding it, but um what Peter said, uh which stood out is >> it it is he phrased it uh as as a as Jensen's decision as more of like an offering >> versus a an explicit >> tax. Yeah. >> Tip your president. We're in the tip. Tax on tips.
58:51
>> We're in the We're in the tipping era. >> No tax on tips.
58:54
>> This is as classic one hand wash as the other. >> It's good. You'll love to see it.
59:01
>> I don't even know where to go with this.
59:04
>> Hang facing a choice of paying for long-term access to a market vital to his company or walking away countered with 15%.
59:09
He charmed Trump at the meeting, drawing the president a diagram showing how tariffs would be counterproductive for his goal of increasing US chip production and signed it.
59:18
Shortly after Trump said he would exempt tech companies that invest in the US roughly 100% tariffs on semiconductor exports.
59:26
And again, I mean, Jensen is uh you know, you know it's serious when he puts on the suit. That's all I'll say. >> Yeah.
59:36
No leather jacket in these deals.
59:39
Um the Trump administration's decision to allow China to access the H20 chip appears to be a watershed moment in US policy.
59:46
in Trump's first term as well as the as well as uh through President Biden's the prevailing trend was generally tougher control on tech sales to China.
59:54
National security concerns over often received greater weight in the past than business interest.
59:58
One of the things that stuck out yesterday was this idea that the H20 chip is like old at this point.
1:00:04
And so like there there's an interesting twist here where like the delays and the back and forth on the H20 like it was already a Nerf chip but then we're now by the time they actually ramp these up and and start selling them we're selling like a year or two old tech um so maybe it's less less uh less important and then just the fast takeoff thing seems much less much less relevant right now.
1:00:29
One interesting dynamic here. >> Mhm.
1:00:31
>> Nvidia is a four almost $4. 5 trillion company. Yeah.
1:00:35
>> You would think they would be spending >> an insane amount on federal lobbying according to Open Secrets.
1:00:42
>> No one spends any amount of money on lobbying.
1:00:44
SPF was the first person to like invent real lobbying.
1:00:47
>> So in 2023, Nvidia spent 510 >> 510,000,000 >> $640,000 in 2024 and 1.
1:00:56
6 6 million to date in 2025.
1:01:00
And I think it's because I think it's because Jensen knows he there's one guy that he has to earn the favor of and that's uh the big guy. >> 1. 5 million.
1:01:12
That's like one billboard in DC.
1:01:13
Like I I I don't understand why people are selling spending so bunch of billboards.
1:01:19
>> It's a bunch of billboards, but they should be painting the town.
1:01:22
>> I think I think this just signals that that there's one person's opinion. >> Yeah. that matters.
1:01:26
And again, Trump made this offer with Jensen. Yep.
1:01:31
>> Without it sounds like, according to the journal, talking to his policy staff about it.
1:01:37
>> Uh yeah, maybe a bit of a narrative violation that like lobbying is just like political influence is actually something that can't necessarily be bought.
1:01:44
Like you can't just throw money at the problem because >> need RZ. >> Yeah.
1:01:48
And and it needs to be like a founder to founder, CEO to president type deal.
1:01:52
And there's just no way to shortcut it because if you pay for a ton of lobbying firms and they're like going to cocktail parties with like because I imagine what happens is like the it's not like the lobbyists have direct access to the president.
1:02:04
They have access to like people that are seven levels down in the staff and they're kind of going back and forth and like nothing's getting elevated and so you're better off just going, "Hey, I'm I run the biggest company in the world.
1:02:15
Can I just come and hang out with you?"
1:02:17
Apple in federal lobbying has spent three times what Nvidia has to date. >> 5 million.
1:02:23
What are we talking about here? >> This is crazy.
1:02:27
>> Again, Tim knows that he should go bring a solid gold bar to the White House and make this cool little deal toy.
1:02:34
>> Is that what he actually did?
1:02:35
>> It was effectively a deal toy. >> No way. Apple did that. >> Yeah, he brought it. >> Solid gold.
1:02:42
>> It's a glass sculpture. A unique unit one.
1:02:45
>> I've never heard of this. This is new. That's cool.
1:02:48
>> Made a 24 karat golden glass statue for Donald Trump. >> Wow.
1:02:51
That's I feel like Apple could really deliver on the deal toy front if they put their mind to it.
1:02:55
They should be sending these to Trump every week.
1:02:58
That's a fantastic strategy.
1:02:58
Again, like you know, you take like like the the the the lobbying money is probably money they have to like send wire to some sort of, you know, lobbying firm, but you know, >> people were staff. Yeah.
1:03:12
How much did it actually cost to get that across the finish line?
1:03:16
Cuz it's probably like multiple war rooms with PR and and legal people.
1:03:21
>> People were just trying to estimate the value of the deal toy and they're >> I'm I'm not going to try to do it myself now, but people are assuming it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars because it was like a solid gold base.
1:03:36
>> You know what Apple should do?
1:03:36
They should launch a line of Baiju that extremely uh we we talked about this last night.
1:03:43
So, there's this there's this company in China that sells I I I have it pulled up on on somewhere.
1:03:47
I'll get the actual I'll get the actual story because it's it's good. Uh it's called uh Maoai.
1:03:54
So, uh Qua Maai is a prestigious variety of Baiju that has long been a favorite among Chinese officials.
1:04:04
Known for its strong flavor and high alcohol content, it has been traditionally used as a gift to curry favor or demonstrate respect to government officials in or dignitaries.
1:04:16
So, interestingly, Maai would hold its value very well.
1:04:21
So, I could give you a bottle of this and you could just immediately go resell it.
1:04:24
So, if I'm trying to uh, you know, basically give you money, but I want the appearance of just giving you a nice gift, I'll give you a bottle of Maai and then you can resell it.
1:04:34
Um, and I could give you a case and then you could resell that.
1:04:38
That could be like $20,000 or something.
1:04:40
I don't know the price, but um, recently the Chinese government issued new austerity measures under its updated regulations on practicing thrift and opposing waste in party and government organs. Released midmay 2025.
1:04:53
These regulations ban alcohol, including Baiju, like Maai, luxury dishes, and cigarettes, from official working meals, effectively curbing its use as an official gift.
1:05:03
Um, in short, and so, uh, the company behind Maoai has a board meeting every year, every quarter where they update the investors on their financials.
1:05:15
And the at the latest board meeting, the uh the board typically will open a bottle of Mao Thai and drink it during the quarterly earnings, which is incredibly insane and amazing.
1:05:30
Um but they didn't do it this quarter, I guess, because because of these because of this crackdown by the government.
1:05:39
The government's basically saying like stop using this product to bribe people, more or less.
1:05:43
It's like the unspoken part.
1:05:46
And so uh and so they didn't drink during their board meeting and the stock immediately sold off like 20% something like that.
1:05:51
And so uh it's uh it's just a very funny like like mess.
1:05:54
But you know if if if China's cracking down on government waste, I think we got to ramp it up here.
1:06:01
We got to we got to we got to go left when they go right.
1:06:03
And so we need Apple to launch a premier alcohol brand.
1:06:08
Several thousand dollars.
1:06:08
Really nice glass bottle. Yeah. Lots of glass. They're good with glass. >> Yep.
1:06:13
and uh couple thousand dollars and then and then they can start gifting that out.
1:06:17
It'll be, you know, less than less than what they're spending on lobbying right now. >> Certainly. Certainly.
1:06:24
>> Apparently, in 2020, the BBC reported that that >> Ko Mao Thai >> Yeah.
1:06:30
>> this alcohol brand became China's most valuable publicly listed company, overtaking the country's biggest bank. >> Yeah. This is insane, right? It's so big.
1:06:38
You know what else is insane? Profound.
1:06:40
Get your brand mentioned on TV.
1:06:42
reach millions of consumers who are using AI to discover new products and brands.
1:06:47
>> Profound announced a series B today, $35 million led by Seoia.
1:06:56
>> And uh on that note, I'm an investor in profound.
1:06:59
David Senra is facetiming us randomly. Let's let's call him. >> Let's call him back. Uh where where is he?
1:07:08
Wait, why am I not finding this FaceTime?
1:07:13
Let me see if I can pull him up.
1:07:14
>> He has to know we're live >> hopefully.
1:07:17
>> So, he better be ready to join. >> Hey, you're live.
1:07:20
>> You're live on the air.
1:07:21
>> Are you guys still streaming?
1:07:22
>> Yeah, we're still streaming. Of course.
1:07:25
>> We stream from 11 to 2 every pull it up. You're live right now. >> You're live. >> No, that's not true. >> It is true. >> It is true. Be careful what you say. >> You're live. >> All right, cool.
1:07:34
I wanted to talk about the summer of extreme podcasting and you wanted to talk about it. >> Tell everyone.
1:07:40
>> Do you guys have the p any of the pictures? >> Uh, no. Now that we can pull up.
1:07:44
>> How did I not know you were streaming? I'm sorry.
1:07:46
I'm the number one friend.
1:07:48
That's why >> I have every day. >> Fake. Yeah, fake friend. Uh, >> all right.
1:07:52
Now, give us the pitch for the latest uh Founders uh episode.
1:07:58
>> Uh, actually uh >> don't leak anything. Rep. >> No.
1:08:02
Well, I stayed up until midnight recording last night.
1:08:06
>> You had to go to a dark place.
1:08:07
>> Listen to it and then I listened to it back and I didn't think it was good enough.
1:08:11
So, I'm throwing the episode away. >> Wow. >> Wow.
1:08:14
>> Can we get Can we get the single copy of it?
1:08:16
>> What uh of history's greatest entrepreneurs, who was the most notorious for throwing out things that were 99% good enough but didn't hit their quality bar?
1:08:27
>> Uh, it had to be either Steve Jobs or James Dyson, I would say.
1:08:29
Yeah, >> they're the they're the high most like the the highest they've been the most disagreeable people I've ever come across.
1:08:35
I think Dyson might be the most disagreeable person I've ever come across and that's why he's so great.
1:08:39
>> How disagreeable are you relative to other podcasters?
1:08:43
>> I mean, you can answer that question. >> Extremely.
1:08:47
>> Yeah, I think I I disagree with you.
1:08:47
I think you're extremely agreeable.
1:08:52
>> I think you're one of the most agreeable people I've ever met. >> No, I don't think so.
1:08:55
I think you're lying to your audience. >> No, you're wrong.
1:08:57
You're wrong and I'm right.
1:08:59
Well, then you're the most disagreeable then.
1:09:02
>> No, you're the most disagreeable. >> Here you guys go.
1:09:05
>> Although, you know what?
1:09:05
Uh, you and Rob have changed uh have really changed my opinion on how to shoot video for for founders. Oh, yeah.
1:09:14
>> And so, I'm completely redoing the studio and I have a guy flying in this Sunday to do it. >> Let's go. Finally.
1:09:19
>> That's that's that's pretty agreeable.
1:09:20
The fact that I let both of you kind of like whittle me down like why >> the production team is is clapping for you right now. They're all happy. This is great. >> Well, yeah.
1:09:27
It's not going to be TPBN level where you guys have like rotating $100,000 can uh cameras and stuff like that, but >> No.
1:09:34
Well, yeah, you'll get there over time.
1:09:36
But yeah, I I I I think I don't know if we should start with this, but uh I think you should have I think you should have tiers uh where the more you should have a paywalled version where I can watch you uh so by default I get to watch you uh do the founders episode, you know, read through the book and and show the notes.
1:09:55
But if I pay to upgrade, I get an over-the-shoulder camera that lets me see you leaf through the book that shows all the all the highlights and how you add those uh uh those like little uh like sticky notes to every single page.
1:10:12
>> Do you know that's Chris Williamson gave me that same advice?
1:10:13
He's like, "Yeah, you need like an overhead shot."
1:10:16
>> Yeah, the overhead shot for sure.
1:10:16
You you definitely should do that.
1:10:18
Uh, I don't think you should actually sell it, but but but I think I think it would make your product like really really stand out as opposed to just like a normal direct to camera because you're not gonna you're not going to out of the gate have the time to like layer B-roll over the entire episode.
1:10:30
But just having a third camera of you flipping through the book, that's going to add a whole bunch of texture.
1:10:36
You should definitely do it.
1:10:37
C >> can we tell the audience that the reason that it looks the way it does is because you made me a promise. you maybe buy.
1:10:42
I have like 15 I don't know tens$10,000 $15,000 worth of equipment sitting on my floor in my studio.
1:10:51
>> You literally have the light that I'm showing you on the FaceTime. You have that light.
1:10:54
>> It's a great It's not set up because you >> It's so easy to set up. Just Just unfold it. It takes two seconds. >> It It's so easy.
1:11:00
You were like, "I need you to come like cut open this cardboard box."
1:11:06
Like >> I thought I thought you were willing to do anything to win. >> You That is true.
1:11:10
You made a promise to me that you that you did not fulfill. You were too busy. >> No, no, that's true. I That's not true.
1:11:17
I offered multiple times to come over and you were and you were also busy.
1:11:21
>> I don't remember it that way, but I will.
1:11:23
>> In Miami, in Miami, I I offered during Heredicon 2.
1:11:26
I said, "I will come over."
1:11:28
And you're like, I I don't want to pull you away.
1:11:30
>> No, you Well, there was a chance I wanted you to set it up when you were in your tux, though. >> Yeah. What's wrong with that?
1:11:37
>> I wanted you wearing a tux setting up my my No, it's not just someone. You can get someone.
1:11:42
The the the studio is going to look great.
1:11:44
Just do a do the over the shoulder camera. It's going to be great.
1:11:47
>> I didn't see any of the show today.
1:11:47
Um >> we just been hanging out talking about the timeline and turmoil.
1:11:51
Elon Sam Alman going at it.
1:11:53
Mom and dad are fighting.
1:11:55
>> Elon Elon just posted a screenshot of him chatting with chat GBT 5 Pro and said, "Who is more trustworthy, Sam Alman or Elon Musk?
1:12:01
You can only pick one and output only their name."
1:12:03
It thought for a minute and 16 seconds and then said Elon Musk. >> There we go.
1:12:08
Oh my god, >> they're going out.
1:12:11
>> Hey, I I do want to say something that like how good a storyteller uh John is >> that you were catching me up cuz remember I called you.
1:12:18
I was like, "Hey, explain what the hell's going on or like people really getting these like massive checks."
1:12:22
>> And so you told me this like 30 to 45 minute long story and essentially just ran down everything that had happened over the last month with all the AI uh like bonuses and and poaching and everything, >> the trade deals.
1:12:33
>> And then in the middle of it, I was like, "John, I have to call you back.
1:12:36
I'm being pulled over by the police.
1:12:38
Yeah, that's the that that that's the mark of a true to storyteller becomes so engrossing that uh you're the person on the other line gets a gets a speeding ticket.
1:12:48
>> TW 22 miles over the speed limit on the PCH. >> That's a lot.
1:12:52
Well, PCH is like at like 15 miles hour right now. So, >> section north.
1:12:56
It was It was closer to Jord's house.
1:12:58
So, >> So, you're going like 95 miles an hour. Wow. Really putting >> 72. I was going 72 and a 50.
1:13:02
They have >> the MKBHD of podcasting.
1:13:05
Well, well, they have they uh they have a bunch of uh police car unmarked police cars now in >> terrible.
1:13:15
I have not gotten a speeding ticket in a long long time.
1:13:18
>> This was this guy was on a motorcycle.
1:13:20
But, um hey, what I want to do is if uh let's let me come on later in the week.
1:13:24
We can talk about the Founders episodes.
1:13:26
But, uh I think there's some great pictures.
1:13:28
I I want to show the picture that your crew got when we went and shot the Wander ad. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got a bunch of those.
1:13:35
Yeah, you guys looked excellent.
1:13:37
And I think it was the the Porsche with the Mayback. >> You guys are great.
1:13:42
>> And you were lecturing us? >> Yeah.
1:13:44
>> No, never lecturing you. I love you.
1:13:47
>> No, you're the professor.
1:13:47
You were we we were we didn't just sit down and listen.
1:13:51
We we >> um >> No, we did.
1:13:52
We didn't just We didn't just hear you talk.
1:13:56
>> We sat down and listened. >> There we go.
1:13:58
>> I was on the phone with Trunk Fan uh the other day and he calls me He calls me podcast Socrates, which I thought was hilarious.
1:14:03
That's That's very accurate. >> True. Fact check. True. >> I love you guys.
1:14:07
I miss getting to hang out with you every day.
1:14:10
>> Well, you can hang out every day if you just FaceTime us from 11 to 2:00 p. m. Pacific. >> We're here. >> All right.
1:14:16
Call me Call me after the show. >> Sounds good. I'll talk to you later. Bye. >> Later. Bye, guys. >> Back to the show. >> Back to the show. Back to linear.
1:14:23
Linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
1:14:27
Meet the system for modern software development.
1:14:29
Streamline issues, projects, product road maps.
1:14:33
David Sen needs to get on linear.
1:14:33
We need to put all Oh, un cut the cardboard open. Take the boat.
1:14:37
Take the light out of the box.
1:14:40
Put the light on the stand. Turn the light on.
1:14:42
That can be his linear board. We'll set it up for him. >> Yeah.
1:14:46
I was thinking linear um Donald Boat should use linear for building his PC >> for sure.
1:14:51
>> I think that's an easy spot.
1:14:51
Donald >> Interestingly, he's very interested in the in the hardware, not so much in the interested in the software.
1:14:58
>> Well, now I've been seeing him.
1:14:58
He's been requesting a lot of books. Lot of >> pension books.
1:15:02
Yeah, >> he just said, "I need office space at Roy Lee."
1:15:06
>> That's pretty hilarious.
1:15:06
I like asking for office space, but he should ask for enterprise software.
1:15:09
He should say like numeral HQ.
1:15:12
Give me a free version for a year. Yeah.
1:15:15
>> He was also requesting um Excel from I think Dasha. >> Excel. >> Yeah. >> What?
1:15:22
>> Like the I don't know like the >> like Excel like Microsoft Excel.
1:15:24
Like he wants a a box copy of the software. >> Yeah. I didn't see this.
1:15:30
>> You should get a co-pilot 365 license.
1:15:33
>> So, I didn't see this, but but Donald posted some of our coverage, right?
1:15:34
And he blocked but he did block out >> block all the sponsors and the Chiron, which is unnecessary, but >> sponsor censored because I don't believe in handouts. >> That's really good. Wait, he said that?
1:15:49
>> I'm actually I'm actually >> You say that? That's hilarious.
1:15:52
>> I'm actually a little bit uh uh disappointed that he hasn't asked us for anything yet. Uh, he >> No, he did. >> Yeah, he did. >> He DM'd me.
1:15:59
He He wants John's old PC. >> Yeah, he wants 10. Yeah, 1080s in there.
1:16:04
>> I don't know why he wants that.
1:16:04
He has a way better setup right now. >> Let's ship it.
1:16:07
Tyler, fly and hand deliver it. >> Yeah, I don't know.
1:16:10
Yeah, we need to we need to like dust that thing off.
1:16:13
It's pretty It's pretty old at this point.
1:16:16
Um I I wonder what he's going to do with it.
1:16:19
I wonder if he's going to resell stuff or something like that.
1:16:20
Something something going on.
1:16:22
But at least he's having fun.
1:16:24
And uh and uh oddly like the bit is uh it hasn't fully run its course.
1:16:29
Like people are still into it.
1:16:31
Uh even even on like day five of this of this bit.
1:16:34
I I thought it would get a little sweaty.
1:16:35
I thought it would get a little old and I thought people would move on.
1:16:37
>> I would like to see but the timeline kind of stuck with it.
1:16:40
>> Acquire a house a home. Yep.
1:16:42
>> A home for Donald Boat.
1:16:42
Like there's somebody out there with >> you know a nice property.
1:16:46
They could put it on Wander but they could just give it to Donald Boat. >> Yeah.
1:16:51
and flex on the timeline a little bit and then once he has a house he can start working his way up plane yacht and and uh really take it all the way.
1:17:02
>> I mean there was this Canadian kid that did exactly that.
1:17:03
He started with one red paperclip in uh and he started trading that he traded that for a pen.
1:17:08
I got to just pull up the whole wiki on this because it's it's one of the greatest stories. One red paper clip.
1:17:16
This is and then this was used by Ryan Treyan as a format to get millions and millions of views. the penny series.
1:17:20
So Ryan Tran would start with a single penny and then he would he would ask someone, "Hey, can I buy can I buy that soda from you for a penny?"
1:17:28
And people would just be like, "Sure, whatever. Okay, I'll take it."
1:17:31
And and and then he would sell it for a dollar and then he'd have a dollar.
1:17:34
And then he'd go and to somebody be like, "Hey, can I have those two diet cokes for $1 and he'd sell them for $3 each and he would go to like the beach where people were hot and they'd want water and he would like make $20 and then turn that into $40."
1:17:45
It was like this, you know, entrepreneurship series loosely.
1:17:48
Um, >> how far did he go?
1:17:49
Uh he I think I think Ryan Trean might have gotten a house.
1:17:53
It's always tough with Treyan because he's like so famous and so huge on YouTube that like certain people will just like if they see Ryan Tran they'll just be like I'll just give you a million dollars right now to be in the video like uh so so it's a little bit it's a little bit uh like yeah it's a little bit overpowered because he's bringing a lot of like of like uh intangible equity to the to the deal.
1:18:10
Um but it's a fun series.
1:18:13
You should check it out if you're a fan of of Mr.
1:18:14
Beast style videos style videos.
1:18:17
But back in 2005, uh, a Canadian blogger named Kyle McDonald traded his way from a single paperclip all the way to a house.
1:18:26
It only took him 14 trades.
1:18:28
So July 14th, he went to Vancouver and traded the paperclip for a fishshaped pen.
1:18:34
Then he traded the pen the same day for a hand sculpted doorork knob from Seattle, Washington.
1:18:42
Then uh two weeks later, he travels to Amherst, Ma, Massachusetts with a friend to trade the doorork knob for a Coleman camp stove with fuel.
1:18:50
Then in September, >> he goes to California.
1:18:55
He trades the camp stove for a Honda generator.
1:18:56
So an actual like a, you know, generator.
1:19:02
>> Then he goes to uh Mass, Queens on November 16th, 20 uh 2005.
1:19:05
trades the generator for an instant party, which is an empty keg, an IOU for filling the keg with beer of a of the bearer's choice, and a neon Budweiser sign.
1:19:17
This was his second attempt to make the trade.
1:19:19
Uh his first results in the generator being tempor temporarily confiscated by the New York City Fire Department.
1:19:25
So then uh on December 8th, 2005, he trades the instant party to a comedian and radio personality for a Skoo snowmobile. >> Wow.
1:19:36
Within a week of that, he trades the snowmobile for a twoperson trip to British Columbia.
1:19:40
Then he trades the second spot on the on the yak trip for a box truck.
1:19:46
Uh then he trades the box truck for a recording contract with Metal Works in Masuga. I don't know.
1:19:51
I don't know how to pronounce that. Ontario. >> Recording studio. >> Recording contract.
1:19:57
So like they will let you record I guess at Metal Works.
1:19:59
I don't know exactly what that means.
1:20:01
Um, then he trades the contract to JodieNat, who's an American singer, songwriter, and pianist, for a year's rent in Phoenix, Arizona.
1:20:09
Then he trades the year's rent for one afternoon with Alice Cooper.
1:20:14
Then he trades the afternoon with Alex Cooper for a Kiss motorized snow globe.
1:20:19
And then he trades the snow globe.
1:20:22
At this point, it seems like he's just like famous and people are just like having fun with it.
1:20:25
He trades it to uh Snow Globe to Corbin Bernson, who's an American actor and film director, uh for a role in the film Donna on Demand.
1:20:35
And so he like gets to be in this movie if he wants and then he trades the movie role for a two-story farmhouse.
1:20:39
So at some point it gets kind of wonky, but you can kind of see like the Donald Boatesque like behavior where at a certain point like he could if he's just asking stuff for free, he could easily take like this is the GPU that Sam Alman gave me.
1:20:54
let me trade it to Mark Zuckerberg for like his CT5V Blackwing.
1:21:01
And Zuck is just like, I'm having fun. Whatever.
1:21:03
Like, and then and then Zuck can be like, I got your GPU, Sam.
1:21:07
>> And then we would buy the Zuck's Blackwing. >> Exactly. And no, not for cash.
1:21:09
For one appearance on TVPN, and then the appearance on TVN gets sold to someone else. Yeah. Exactly. It's got to be funnier.
1:21:18
Like like the the the bit only keeps working if it gets crazier and and weirder and different until you're in this territory where it's like you've won a a year of rent or a role in a film or something like that.
1:21:30
A cameo in the social network too.
1:21:32
That's the highest that's the highest honor.
1:21:33
Get Donald Boat in in the social network too. >> Anyway, >> love it.
1:21:38
So >> speaking of entertainment, UFC >> Yeah, let's talk about it.
1:21:40
So, so before we go into the deal, so UFC landed a $7.
1:21:44
7 billion deal with Paramount after a whirlwind 48 hours according to TKO executives. But zoom out for me. Explain UFC.
1:21:53
This is this is the punching one or the punching one and the kicking one.
1:22:00
>> How does this is one of your best bits? So Senra and I >> Yeah. >> love UFC. >> Yep.
1:22:05
and we'll text John and say, "Hey, John, do you want to watch, >> do you want to watch come over and watch like the pay-per-view tonight?" And John, it's awesome.
1:22:13
>> I love watching the game, my boys.
1:22:14
>> Who's playing tonight? >> Yeah.
1:22:15
I mean, I'm there if the if the teams are good, if there's a good matchup, >> if >> Yeah, but it depends on who's starting.
1:22:22
I want to know >> the starting.
1:22:23
It'll depend on the starting line.
1:22:24
>> I want to know who's playing.
1:22:26
>> So, uh, UFC, >> the kicking and punching one.
1:22:30
>> The kicking and punching one. >> They can do both. >> And wrestling.
1:22:32
>> They can do wrestling, too. >> And choking. Okay.
1:22:35
>> Real naked chokes a popular move. >> Got it.
1:22:37
Kind of a mixture of experts model in fighting sports. Got it. >> Yes. >> Multimodal. >> Yes. Exactly.
1:22:44
So long relied on the pay-per-view model >> worked well before the internet and illegal streaming >> and the pay-per-view model has been in decline.
1:22:55
>> UFC has also struggled to surface new American superstars.
1:22:59
A lot of the uh biggest stars are international, but UFC's biggest market is in the US.
1:23:08
>> International stars have a lot of fans in the US, but they're not driving pay-per-views, right?
1:23:13
People in >> Brazil are not paying $100 to watch a single card, right?
1:23:18
And so the pay-per-view model has been in decline.
1:23:23
Uh the UFC's relationship with ESPN has been a little bit rocky.
1:23:27
pay-per-view model in decline.
1:23:28
Is that is that just because of the trends in like how how yappy and how popular the the fighters are?
1:23:38
Or is there something else going on at like a technological level where I like I don't have to click any buttons to open Instagram reels or Tik Tok or YouTube and with pay-per-view it's like technically difficult.
1:23:48
It's kind of janky tech systems.
1:23:49
Is that a real a real headwind or is that like fake news?
1:23:55
So, there's definitely friction to buying pay-per-views.
1:23:56
You got to like be on a traditional television.
1:24:00
>> It's not like inapp purchase like double tap and Face ID at that level. >> It's not that easy.
1:24:04
I mean, I think you can go in the the ESPN app and like buy the pay-per-view, but a lot of people aren't buying the pay-per-view to watch it on their phone. >> Sure.
1:24:11
>> I think the bigger challenge and and something that >> and Apple would take 30% if if you paid it on your phone.
1:24:16
So, even then >> I don't know because it's real world. >> It's digital.
1:24:20
>> Oh, because it's for sure. It's for sure digital.
1:24:22
So, but but the but the funny thing isrictction is Dana has been in this challenge because he he he gets very frustrated about illegal streams and he'll every now and then he'll be like, >> "If you're watching a stream tonight, illegal stream tonight, we're coming for you. We're coming for you."
1:24:36
And everyone's like, "Okay, >> I don't know how you're planning to do that."
1:24:41
Y >> uh but they try to take they they I I I I think that they try to like dodo the various streaming sites, right? >> Oh, interesting.
1:24:49
>> Like you can just like send a ton of >> time.
1:24:50
probably have someone like talking to Twitch and being like, "We are we are going live right at this time.
1:24:55
You need to have someone searching and taking down streams actively." >> Yeah.
1:25:00
But there's plenty of plenty of other like more decentralized illegal streams that are happening on random URLs with with >> And so Dana was in a tough position because the more he talks about illegal streaming affecting the business, the more people are like, "Wait, >> wait, I can stream it illegally." Stryand effect. Yeah.
1:25:21
>> And so, uh, he had been looking for a new home for UFC.
1:25:24
People had debated, you know, would would Netflix be a potential, >> uh, buyer there?
1:25:30
There's a lot of potential candidates. >> Meta Quest.
1:25:34
>> You have to buy the headset.
1:25:34
You got to watch it in VR. >> I'm sure.
1:25:37
I mean, Dana's obviously on the Meta board and I'm sure that that idea got >> $7. 7 billion. That's one researcher.
1:25:45
>> Just Just cut one head one headcount from MSL and you're good.
1:25:47
and Zuck can just own all of UFC and be like, "Look, put on the headset or you don't get to watch."
1:25:54
>> Y >> the deal that was reported uh we're in Yahoo Sports. How the UFC landed a $7.
1:25:57
7 billion deal with Paramount after whirlwind 48 hours according to TKO execs.
1:26:05
So, beginning in 2026, all UFC events will stream on Paramount Plus with select events also airing on CBS.
1:26:15
And uh so anyways, Ben Folks is reporting just how big of a surprise was the UFC's bombshell $7.
1:26:19
7 billion deal with Paramount and CBS.
1:26:22
So big that even UFC CEO Dana White didn't see it coming. No. Uh this is a quote.
1:26:27
No, I didn't think this is where we'd end up.
1:26:29
White said Monday during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show. Shout out to Pat.
1:26:32
They discussed the new broadcasting rights deal, but this sort of this this is sort of how it played out. I love it.
1:26:40
These guys are obviously smart guys, very aggressive.
1:26:43
He's talking about the team uh the new team over at Paramount.
1:26:45
So, in an interview with CNBC, TKO president and CEO Mark Shapiro said he initially expected to make a deal that would bring only the UFC fight night events to Paramount, but after Sky Dance and Fight Night events have always aired on ESPN, just fully ad supported. So, >> got it.
1:27:01
>> Um but after Sky Dance Media completed its deal to purchase control of Paramount last week, Shapiro said the deal for the entirety of the UFC's US broadcast rights came together in just 48 hours.
1:27:11
Now, instead of just the 30 UFC fight night events per year, Paramount will feature.
1:27:16
And the fight night events were were events that wouldn't draw big pay-per-view buys.
1:27:21
>> Those were not the numbered UFC events, correct? So, it's a UFC 776.
1:27:26
That's like pay-per-view.
1:27:26
Fight nights just random on the on >> and there's only 13 of those events. >> Okay. Per year.
1:27:33
>> 13 numbered and 30 fight nights.
1:27:33
>> 13 numbered and 30 fight nights. almost every week there's something if you're fan but you're really once a month is when you really want to tune in >> but for the they they sort of depend on more casual fans historically to drive pay-per-views people that are like I watch UFC when Conor McGregor's fighting
1:27:52
right that's what really >> spike and have kind of a power outcome that >> people getting together being like hey we're going to buy the pay-per-view we're going to we're going to watch it come over that kind of thing so >> possibly the biggest news in all of this for fight fans This is the end of UFC's pay-per-view era. Ever since the first
1:28:06
Ever since the first UFC event in 1993, pay-per-view has been a vital part of the UFC strategy.
1:28:13
Remember UFC when it started airing on TV was thought to be it was so shocking and violent to people that even politicians wanted to get it banned. >> Wow.
1:28:24
>> Like they were like this should not be on television.
1:28:26
So it had to be in that bucket content because it was like Yeah.
1:28:30
It was like adult restricted anyway.
1:28:30
So, under the >> Do the fighters need to sleep well before the fights?
1:28:35
>> Of course, >> they have to be on eight sleep. Pod five. >> That's right.
1:28:38
>> 5 year warranty, 30 night risk-f free trial, free returns, free shipping.
1:28:41
>> We got to make sure Bo, friend of the show, is on an eight sleep.
1:28:43
I'm going to message him after this. Perfect.
1:28:45
Let's Let's figure this out.
1:28:47
Ever since the first UFC event in 1993, pay-per-view has been a vital part of the UFC strategy.
1:28:52
Under the current deal with ESPN, each UFC pay-per-view costs $79.
1:28:53
99 in the US plus the cost of the ESPN Plus subscription on top of that.
1:28:59
So, you got to subscribe and then you got to pay per event.
1:29:02
With the pay-per-view revenues reportedly in decline, it makes sense for the UFC to finally ditch that model.
1:29:08
The fact that it's doing so as part of a deal that will essentially double the roughly 550 million per year the UFC currently receives from ESPN likely only made that calculation. >> This is crazy. This is crazy.
1:29:18
when they find out, wait, if I if I just sign up for Paramount Plus for $12.
1:29:23
99 a month, I'm going to automatically get UFC's numbered fights and the rest of the portfolio.
1:29:29
That's a message we want to amplify.
1:29:31
That is a crazy crazy value change because if you were doing if you were doing all 13, if you were the hardcore UFC pay-per-view buyer, you're up at $1,000 a year on UFC pay-per-views.
1:29:46
Basically, like $700, $800.
1:29:48
Like that's a lot of money and you're going from there down to $12. 99 a month.
1:29:53
That's 150 bucks basically.
1:29:53
That that is a steep steep savings. Yeah.
1:29:58
>> The hardcore fans are going to be excited. >> Yeah.
1:30:00
And a lot a lot of I mean a lot of fans would you know somebody's hosting the pay-per-view one night. Yeah. Makes sense.
1:30:07
But still, I mean that's a big big savings.
1:30:10
that's a big big savings. Uh I do wonder what the ad load will be like because when we watched UFC uh that a couple months ago with uh David Senra um I noticed that it felt extremely extremely contentrich and like the flow of the show was fantastic because you'd just be watching a fight and then it would cut
1:30:31
to the commentary the post show the in ring Joe Rogan's doing an interview and then pretty quickly they start telling you who's coming up next and the actual fight to like you're only watching maybe like a half an hour of of biting over an hour or two of content, but it didn't feel like, oh, I'm at crazy commercial break and I'm totally taken out of the stadium. Like even even the they did a
1:30:51
Like even even the they did a really good job with the production to show like when they show you the stats.
1:30:57
It's virtually laid over in the stadium like you're watching a camera pan around the stadium.
1:31:02
So, it actually kind of feels like you're there the whole time.
1:31:05
It was really well produced.
1:31:05
I wonder if they'll lose any of that by stuffing ads all over the place. >> Yeah, we'll see.
1:31:09
I mean, and you compare that to NFL.
1:31:11
NFL is like roughly I think 25% of of the time allotted to NFL is advertising. >> Yeah.
1:31:19
And that's not the case for pay-per-views. >> Yeah.
1:31:22
And it certainly feels like it's Yeah.
1:31:24
It's like a it's a a shift in the in the type of content. >> Yeah.
1:31:27
They just got to work on making seamless transitions to advertisements like we do here with Fin AI.
1:31:31
The number one AI agent for customer service, number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bake offs, number one ranking on G2.
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You can get started at fin. ai.
1:31:38
AI >> and anyway, so Paramount is uh or Sky Dance uh Young Allison uh is all is just getting aggressive across the board, right?
1:31:49
He's uh there's been rumors of this free press acquisition >> that uh I'm sure is still in the works, but it had been reported it was a quarter billion dollars for the free press. >> Yeah.
1:32:00
From our sense, they have about a million uh a million people subscribed to their newsletter, most of which vast majority of which are non-paid.
1:32:08
And so uh that just says that Paramount sees and C CBS, Paramount, you know, the the combined and Sky Dance sort of this combined entity just see the free press and um >> yeah, >> as as highly uh and Barry White specifically is just highly strategic, >> right?
1:32:27
And then CBS also uh cut the Late Show which is losing 40 million a year.
1:32:32
So they're really like kind of like shuffling the chips around like really restructuring the organization like what does CBS actually do?
1:32:38
Well, now it's potentially UFC and Barry Weiss as opposed to Steven Cobar I guess uh in terms of like headline stuff.
1:32:47
I love this I love this article.
1:32:49
Back in back in 2009, Dana White swore that if UFC 100 did a million pay-per-view buys, he'd bungee jump off the Mandandalay Bay. It did. He didn't.
1:33:05
When UFC 151 was canceled after Jon Jones refused an appointment, an opponent switch, White called Jones's coach, Greg Jackson, a sport killer.
1:33:11
He left a crater in the UFC schedule that only MMA fans could fully appreciate.
1:33:15
A few years later, when Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz shattered the pay-per-view world record at UFC 196, it was a testament to how big the sport had become.
1:33:26
We cared about those numbers as much as we did the outcome.
1:33:28
Since UFC 1, when people paid out of morbid curiosity this you were talking about earlier, pay-per-views have been a vital part of the identity of the sport.
1:33:37
It's hard to get nostalgic over being gouged, but what follows here should shouldn't be mistaken as such.
1:33:44
But Monday's news of UFC coming uh $7.
1:33:46
7 billion partnership with Paramount came with a small pang of sadness upon realizing the pay-per-view model will soon belong to a buyer.
1:33:56
>> Yeah, I'm interested to see how this impacts the fighters because >> early in their UFC careers, they don't get any exposure to pay-per-views points, which is like a percentage of pay-per-view sales that top fighters would earn.
1:34:08
So, if you were a rising fighter and you got on a pay-per-view card, you weren't necessarily getting cut into that revenue.
1:34:14
But if you were Conor McGregor or a true superstar, you were actually getting some percentage of the sales, right?
1:34:21
They call these pay-per-view points.
1:34:22
And so, now that that model is going away, I mean, I'm sure that number one thing on the fighter mind with this new deal is how are we going to actually, you know, basically get cut into the to this new structure, right?
1:34:37
because historically a lot of fighters have have critiqued um the the way that UFC fighters are comped.
1:34:44
But >> this nostalgic article, this this uh this writer clearly really loves UFC.
1:34:50
Back in the mid as the UFC combined the tuxedo affairs of 1990s boxing with the vibes of an underground temptation.
1:34:57
From there, it slowly stockpiled its greatest passions behind the payw wall.
1:35:02
Remember how red Dana's face would turn as he tried to sell the pay-per-view at the end of the televised portion of the card.
1:35:09
Remember the names he goes through BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, uh Randy Couture, Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey.
1:35:18
Go through the posters of the past and they were special.
1:35:22
They were the special attractions, the names on the marquee for the numbered events.
1:35:24
Those were some good parties we shelled out for.
1:35:26
As MMA fans, they were ours. >> Well, end of an era.
1:35:31
Yeah, probably >> TKO Holdings, the company that of course owns WWE and the UFC, >> uh, is a 36.
1:35:40
8 billion company as of today. It's up 11.
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>> You're looking that up on public.
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>> Anyway, um, Kyle Tibbitz is uh, teasing a new facility, a new vacation home, a new wander.
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The hosienda Tulum is a dream. >> This looks insane. >> It's amazing. >> Looks palatial, Kyle. >> It's crazy.
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1:36:23
Uh Trump told David Solomon, "Just focus on being a DJ."
1:36:28
Hall of Fame beefer says liquidity.
1:36:32
Trillions of dollars are being taken in on tariffs which has been incredible for our country. It's stock market.
1:36:38
It's general wealth and just about everything else.
1:36:41
It has been proven that even at this late stage tariffs have not caused inflation.
1:36:45
Uh which is actually true according to the latest CPI, right?
1:36:49
Like like the CPI print came back kind of flat, right?
1:36:53
>> Housing, medical services that were that were up.
1:36:56
>> So it doesn't seem like that that you don't really have to truth on that too much.
1:37:00
I guess uh or any other problems for America other than massive amounts of cash pouring into our treasuries coffers.
1:37:06
Uh also it has been shown that for the most part consumers aren't even paying the tariffs.
1:37:09
It's mostly companies and governments, many of them foreign picking up the tabs.
1:37:12
But David Solomon and Goldman Sachs refused to give credit where credit is due.
1:37:17
They made a bad prediction a long time ago on both the market repercussion and the tariffs themselves.
1:37:22
And they were wrong, just like they were wrong about so much else.
1:37:26
I think that David should go out and get himself a new economist.
1:37:28
Or maybe he ought to just focus on being a DJ and not bother running a major financial institution.
1:37:34
Hall of Fame beefer is is uh is indeed true.
1:37:36
Uh that is a wild post on Truth Social from Donald Trump.
1:37:42
Anyway, >> the market responded by sending Goldman Sachs up 3%. >> Let's go.
1:37:48
Let's hear for Goldman Sachs.
1:37:53
>> They don't get enough credit.
1:37:53
they really don't get enough credit.
1:37:57
>> Um, >> and a lot of people, you know, get worried when when a CEO gets a little too enthusiastic about a side hustle. >> Yeah.
1:38:05
>> But I think the market loves uh Solomon, you know, blown, you know, taking the edge off.
1:38:10
>> It is a good It is a good DJ name.
1:38:10
I think there is a DJ that uh is just called Solomon. >> Yes.
1:38:16
>> And it's a good it's a good name. >> Strong.
1:38:19
>> But so I mean maybe that's taken.
1:38:19
Maybe uh David Solomon needs to come up with a different DJ name.
1:38:24
uh fun that he's, you know, got got a little side hustle going on.
1:38:25
Anyway, >> in other news, four now supports 1 million tokens of contacts on the enthropic API, a 5x increase, process over 75,000 lines of code or hundreds of documents in a single request.
1:38:37
So, this feels uh this is big and feels like a reaction to uh you know, the GPT5 launch last week.
1:38:46
>> OpenAI last week said, "Hey, we're getting better at coding."
1:38:47
And Claude said, "Hey, we're not so fast."
1:38:51
Claude's uh inanthropic API revenue had surpassed OpenAI's API revenue. Sure. Sure.
1:38:58
>> And uh I don't think OpenAI was Yeah.
1:39:01
>> too too thrilled about that.
1:39:01
So they came in cheaper model >> uh really trying to get competitive with Claude Y >> and uh this is uh at least probably one of of the Claude team's response.
1:39:13
>> Tyler, do you think this uh do you think you'll actually like feel this using Claude code?
1:39:18
Claude code? Is this something that like it like like where where does sonnet 4 specifically where does the token window like the context window >> feel it with cloud code necessarily it's for the API business like >> currently so so you can use the API in cloud code I think there's like different ways to actually like run the queries okay but even then I don't know exactly how cloud code works on the back
1:39:41
end but I don't know if it's passing in the entire like context of your codebase every single query >> well this was something people were complaining about was like as you're using cloud code, it runs this like compact uh call that basically like does
1:39:54
a roll up of of everything that it's done so that it can like kind of memorize what just happened so it has extra context so that the context window doesn't need to be super super long. >> Yeah. So you could imagine there it >> Yeah.
1:40:05
So you could imagine there it improves that and that like you don't need to do as much like compressing. >> Yeah. Or Yeah. Yeah.
1:40:10
So each rollup could be five times as long which just has more con more more contexts baked in or you could have five times as many you know summaries of what's happened.
1:40:20
>> Um I wonder I wonder like where we'll actually feel this.
1:40:22
actually feel this. Uh it's also interesting because like the million token context window is not new like Gemini's had that for a while >> for a while and also um it doesn't feel like the path to continual learning path to AGI at least that's what Doresh was talking about where um like getting getting to that came on the show too and said that that con like like a lot of
1:40:46
context windows get advertised broadly but if you really start they start falling apart >> that was Jeff Huber talk in his book from Chroma because he does rag retrieval augmented gener uh generation no we love you Jeff um but uh but but but I mean he makes a good he makes a good point and he's been betting on this this idea that like like yes you can you can sort of make a really big context window stuff a ton of things in it. But
1:41:08
But when you have a bigger window, like your ability to retrieve things from that window actually gets fuzzier.
1:41:15
And the way they test this is with a needle in a haystack test.
1:41:18
So basically they will import like Moby Dick, like all of those tokens.
1:41:24
They'll take all of Moby Dick and then they will change one word and then they will say in one prompt, figure out which word we we uh we we changed.
1:41:34
And so you have to be able to hold all of that text in your head to be able to remember.
1:41:38
Okay, well I know what movie they're supposed to be like.
1:41:39
What what word is out of place?
1:41:40
Okay, there's some word in here.
1:41:42
And so these these million token contact windows are actually pretty good at those types of tests, but that's not what people are actually asking for.
1:41:50
They're asking not just for understand the needle in the haystack test.
1:41:54
Understand that like something that's in the the 100,000th token in the window and the 400,000th token in the window.
1:42:04
both of those might be relevant at the same time to the query that's just came in.
1:42:08
And so you have to synthesize things from multiple sections of the million token context window.
1:42:12
And and so so it's not it like like the the returns to increased token windows haven't been like as overwhelming.
1:42:22
And then also the ability to just scale them up like add an oo, add an order of magnitude, like the 10 million token window, the 100 million token window, the billion token window.
1:42:33
Uh there's something about the way the transformer is designed that it's not just 10 times more compute or 10 times more.
1:42:42
It's actually like 100 times more compute to get a 10 times bigger window. Something like that.
1:42:49
Like it doesn't scale as linearly as like would be nice.
1:42:50
Anything else to add, Tyler?
1:42:53
Um, I think also to your point like at least historically there was some sense in which like more just stuffing more stuff than context did degrade performance.
1:43:00
Like you used to see this a lot in um like jailbreaks. Yeah.
1:43:04
>> Where it's like you would pass this like you'd pass these like weird tokens that would then like cause it's like one emoji but it's like the weird like you change the skin color of the emoji and then it adds like insane amount of tokens. Interesting.
1:43:16
>> Stuff like that that people used to use for jailbreaks.
1:43:18
Wait, so so is a longer context window supposed to make the more jailbreak resistant or less?
1:43:22
Because I imagine that essentially if I stuff in like a like a lot of the jailbre a lot of the jailbreaking attempts were like take it on this roundabout journey where you kind of slowly talk it out of being a helpful assistant and into this like, oh yeah, like I'm just looking up some medical information about my grandmother.
1:43:44
Oh, my grandmother's actually about to pass away.
1:43:45
her dying wish was that you tell me the codes to the nuclear bombs or whatever, right?
1:43:51
And so if I have a million token window, I feel like I could take I could take the LLM on a longer journey to do what I want to do. So >> yeah, that's true.
1:43:59
It's also just like >> there's like a >> I don't know if this is as common anymore, but used to just basically like brute force your way past the like system prompt. Yeah.
1:44:09
>> Where you just like spam with like just crazy stuff and then at the end then you kind of do your actual like instructions.
1:44:14
Final final word on Claude Sonnet 4 with the 1 million token context window.
1:44:19
Are we ringing the gong for it? Are you excited? >> I'm pretty excited.
1:44:23
It's not like a crazy >> Is it gong worthy though? Yes or no? It's a binary.
1:44:26
We can only ring the gong ring. >> One word answer. >> We can't one word.
1:44:32
>> I mean, Google's had it for a while. I don't know.
1:44:33
I would say probably not.
1:44:35
>> No gong ring for COD 4 Sonic. >> It's not even like 4. 1. That was a gong ring. >> Okay.
1:44:41
>> This is not even a new model.
1:44:41
You're going to get a lot of angry DMs. >> Yeah.
1:44:45
>> Apologize to Shelto now before preemptively.
1:44:47
Preemptively come for you with the blade. >> With the blade. You know he's 6'4, too. He will destroy you. >> Sad.
1:44:55
>> I know you're >> 64ing enthusiast. >> Or a farmer in AI. >> I think so. Yeah. >> Is he fantastic.
1:45:02
>> Uh well uh good luck with that apology.
1:45:05
>> Deal director says gong the claude. >> Okay. That is gongworthy.
1:45:10
Gabe is not gone for not gone with me.
1:45:14
>> We're ringing it for deal director.
1:45:14
Why is Tyler fumbling it?
1:45:17
Dario will never come on.
1:45:19
Now in breaking news, >> we apologize for that.
1:45:21
In breaking news, Adio customer relationship magic.
1:45:22
Adio is the AI native CRM that builds, scales, and grows your company to the next level.
1:45:27
What else is the breaking news?
1:45:29
>> Uh less important than than Adio's AI native CRM, but uh the UK government is giving guidance on how to save water at home.
1:45:37
some there's some straightforward stuff.
1:45:40
Install a rain butt to collect rain water in your garden. Fix a leaking toilet. >> That seems obvious.
1:45:45
Why would you want a leaky toilet at all?
1:45:48
>> Use water from the kitchen to water your plants. >> That's cool. Yeah.
1:45:53
>> Avoid watering your lawn.
1:45:54
>> Is that like is that like take the glass take the glass bottle out of your refrigerator and take it outside and water the plant?
1:45:59
Cuz that's the water from your kitchen. It's in a glass bottle. >> Yeah.
1:46:03
Or just bring your Aurora out and just and and >> and pour the filtered water.
1:46:06
The plants would probably appreciate filter water.
1:46:09
Yeah, maybe that's aurora line extension.
1:46:11
Yeah, >> just attach it to the hose.
1:46:12
Okay, anyway, do not turn off the taps when brushing teeth. Take shorter showers. Love it.
1:46:18
>> And the last one and the most important, >> uh, delete old emails and pictures as data centers require vast amounts of water to cool their systems. >> I love it. I love it.
1:46:29
>> And we've talked to people. This is just touch.
1:46:32
They say that the water it's it's there's a vast amount of water required to cool a a data center, but it's recycled through the system.
1:46:40
>> They had a really crazy idea which was like reuse the water. >> Yeah.
1:46:44
>> It was like some genius breakthrough there instead of just instead of just throwing the water away. >> Nobel Peace Prize. >> Yeah.
1:46:49
They they they tend to they tend to reuse it.
1:46:52
>> So anyways, uh go delete some emails, delete some pictures, and uh >> definitely delete old emails. Delete all your emails. Who cares?
1:46:58
Uh, in other news, Velar Atomics is a is uh Isaiah will be on the show in a little bit.
1:47:06
>> Yeah, we can we can wait.
1:47:07
>> We can cover it, but uh I mean uh they got selected by the Department of Energy to achieve criticality on American soil by July 4th, 2026.
1:47:15
Uh that's very good news.
1:47:18
And uh there's a whole bunch of of nuclear companies.
1:47:20
And it is it is crazy seeing the the list of nuclear companies.
1:47:25
It's like I've met most of these founders.
1:47:26
like it's all new companies.
1:47:28
Like there's it really was just like nothing going on in this industry.
1:47:32
Um it's the it's the era of uh it's of of of Silicon Valley hard tech as Mike Isaac put it in his latest New York Times piece.
1:47:40
Um anyway, Thompson Reuters is being investigated. Do you see this news?
1:47:46
>> Uh >> possible violations of federal securities law.
1:47:49
Several analysts question the margin outlook on and Thompson Reuters AI spending.
1:47:53
This is funny because there's been this whole news about like what are the margins at these companies for AI inference tokens?
1:48:03
Are they just buying $120 million of claude tokens and then selling them for $100 million?
1:48:07
Is it the old, you know, sell what is it?
1:48:10
Sell a nickel for a dime or sell a dime for a nickel.
1:48:13
Sell a sell a dollar for a penny. I don't know.
1:48:16
Bad margins, bad news, uh risky for Thompson Reuters.
1:48:20
Um, it's funny because we've we've had this person on the show.
1:48:24
Like we had the head of AI at Thompson Reuters on the show.
1:48:26
Um, and it seems like like a lot of shareholders are asking for questions now.
1:48:30
Like this is also Apple was was sued by shareholders um to they stand accused of lying about AI progress um causing iPhone sales stock to slump.
1:48:40
Uh so I think there will be more more questions asked about you know what the actual impact on financials are.
1:48:48
You go out to the market, you tell a big story about AI is changing everything.
1:48:52
We're going to be a more efficient company.
1:48:53
We're going to ramp revenue faster.
1:48:54
We're going to be able to upsell people. Well, is that real?
1:48:58
And did you overstate anything?
1:49:00
You're going to have to answer to the to the shareholders. >> Yeah. It's interesting.
1:49:04
I mean, you look at the way that ChatGpt has been marketed. >> Yep.
1:49:09
>> If you look at case studies on their website, it's like ChatGpt helped me do my homework or help me learn this language.
1:49:16
you know, they're not like selling.
1:49:18
>> You know, we were talking about the Super Bowl ad and how the the the Super Bowl ad for OpenAI was like a little too viby for a Super Bowl ad. Like it wasn't direct.
1:49:27
It didn't tell you >> didn't feel effective.
1:49:29
>> But that line that you just said is actually a great ad.
1:49:31
Like, chat GPT, help me do my homework.
1:49:34
That's like that's actually like a simple a simple thing.
1:49:38
They should put that on a billboard.
1:49:39
They should go to adquick. com.
1:49:40
Out of home advertising, easy and measurable.
1:49:42
Say goodbye to the headaches of out of home advertising.
1:49:44
Only Adqubines technology out of home expertise and data to enable efficient seamless ad buying across the globe.
1:49:48
And we have our first guest of the show.
1:49:49
Um, welcome to the stream. How are you doing?
1:49:55
>> What's going on, Demi? How are you?
1:50:00
>> We can I think we can hear you.
1:50:00
Can you introduce yourself one more time? >> Yes. Sorry. Let me turn on Zoom. >> There we go.
1:50:05
Now, can you hear me now?
1:50:08
>> Welcome to the stream. We can hear you. >> Okay. Yeah.
1:50:10
Also, we really excited to be here. So, um, >> fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.
1:50:14
Kick us off with an introduction. >> Uh I'm Damian. I'm the founder of Pika. Very excited to be here.
1:50:21
>> Give us the update on the progress of the company. >> Yeah.
1:50:23
Big launch yesterday, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:50:25
So we uh so we're working on new AI video consumer social app and um we just launched you know a human the most expressive like human performance model.
1:50:38
>> Um so uh I can share some some clips as well. Um, >> let's do it. Live demo. >> Live demo.
1:50:45
Yeah, you're welcome to share your screen. We are live.
1:50:46
Anything you share will be shown to the internet and burned into the live stream of record.
1:50:52
>> Burned into the super intelligence. >> It will be. It will be.
1:50:54
Um, I have a bunch of questions about um how you're thinking about positioning the company. >> Yeah.
1:51:00
May maybe before or while you're pulling this up.
1:51:01
Uh before like I want to you know you guys have been working on video generation just like media generation for a a while now.
1:51:08
I think uh talk about kind of the the evolution of the product.
1:51:15
A lot of folks >> I want to know the beach head like the beach head like Instagram started with run clubs.
1:51:20
It's a very niche community.
1:51:23
You take a picture of your run for the day and then they grew from there.
1:51:24
Like do have you found your beach head.
1:51:26
Do you f do do you have >> I was just going to say a lot a lot of a lot of video model labs have focused on trying to win Hollywood and this strategy is distinctly different than that. >> Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Can you speak to that? Yeah, for sure.
1:51:41
Um, so yeah, I yeah, we noticed that a lot of video models are training for Hollywood or for professionals.
1:51:47
So, but we are really excited about training models for um consu for everyone and for self-expression and for human connections.
1:51:55
Um so as part of it and uh we're trying to train a model that's highly expressive and emotional um a real time interactive like human model um for like human human connections.
1:52:08
Um yes >> anything more specific like Instagram does allow you to connect with humans like that's the high level and that's like the >> Mark explain it to me like I use Tik Tok for 12 hours a day. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah. for sure.
1:52:26
Um, so our we're trying to build an app that we help everyone.
1:52:31
So essentially to create like a AI version of yourself and the model we're releasing as part of this vision is a human performance model.
1:52:40
So essentially you can uh take your selfie and then you can either record or use AI to generate a speech uh or use a song that you generated u to create a video of you talking or or singing or um I don't know um or be a news anchor. Um so um >> awesome.
1:53:02
So, so in practice, these are creative tools that anybody can use to generate audio and video of them doing things like you said, taking a selfie and then making them look like a comedian that is at the comedy store in LA or something like that.
1:53:16
And then it's a social feed that people can share to and discover other creators. Is that right? >> Yes. Yes. So, yeah.
1:53:24
So for the model it's really that we released yesterday was focusing on the um helping people to perform essentially so for to sing talk like to sing a song or like to perform um yeah but the social app is um like a more than that which is help everyone can create like AI workshop themsel uh use AI to create videos easily um and um to share videos and interact with other people.
1:53:53
What's the richest source of training data right now?
1:53:57
>> Um I think the I mean there are there there are many sources.
1:54:00
Um but I think that a lot of time the the difference between different models um is really about um like we call it like post training. >> Yeah.
1:54:12
>> Essentially um so um you know really about like injecting the best like the human experts u so then the model will have different tastes right.
1:54:20
So if you look at image models, some model are more artsy, some are more model more Instagram like.
1:54:26
So >> for us, we we're really focused on, you know, make the like emotions, make the model like more human and more emotion, more expressive.
1:54:36
>> Do you prefer user feedback and creating kind of like user feedback loops or more like the mercore and the scale AI like the the RLHF data coming from like teams of experts? Yeah, for sure.
1:54:49
I I would say we do both.
1:54:52
Um, so we we hire uh we're, you know, obviously looking continue to like hire a lot of like great artists, you know, like people who are actor, actress itself or people who are model, people who are >> photographer or people who are um directors um to to bring their experts in into the model.
1:55:12
Um but on the other hand, we're also hoping in the long run that um we can collect user feedbacks from users.
1:55:20
So that way we can um serve the highly personalized model that the users really enjoy. Yeah, >> makes sense. >> Awesome.
1:55:30
Uh you said you had some clips.
1:55:32
Should we check them out? >> Yeah, sure. For sure.
1:55:34
>> I'm scrolling the feed right now. There's a ton. What do you have today? >> Yeah.
1:55:42
So, this is a I guess a the comedy.
1:55:45
Uh, >> so I went on this date the other night and I knew it was doomed the moment he said, "I don't really believe in sauce.
1:55:53
No ketchup, no mayo, just dry opinions and even drier chicken tenders."
1:55:55
And I'm like, "Sir, if your pallet fears condiments, what else are you emotionally unprepared for?" >> Yeah.
1:56:03
Um, so there's also some scene >> got me.
1:56:06
I got a chuckle out of it. >> Yeah. Uh, another another one.
1:56:11
So this more sing manifesting your reality. >> Yeah.
1:56:27
What what what is performing best? Like what is that viral? >> Yeah.
1:56:31
And is that and and how how is like that that last one created?
1:56:33
is that somebody drops an image in and then adds like a text prompt and then it creates and then it and then it creates that output like what what goes into creating you know these sort of six-second assets. >> Yeah, for sure.
1:56:47
So, um yeah, so the assets can be uh so it will only take you like a couple second to create this create a video but the video can be any length.
1:56:57
So the video can be six and second but it can also be like 1 minute or like 3 minutes or however length how long you want one to be.
1:57:05
>> Have you had luck with three minute videos?
1:57:06
They don't get like crazy and hallucinatory.
1:57:09
>> No, we have a lot of people posting like three minute or like five minute videos essentially.
1:57:13
So >> that seems like a pretty big also I think the fun part of it only takes less than six seconds to generate even three three minute video.
1:57:20
Um, so it's like highly highly highly um efficient and like very cheap and very fast model. Um, yeah.
1:57:30
So, um, >> are you throwing like specific hardware at it or is that just algorithmic progress? Like what unlocked that?
1:57:36
Because it feels like every video generation model is just >> Yeah, we talked about I mean John John's frustration with uh >> V3 is amazing, but it takes 2 minutes to generate 8 seconds and so the workflow is like to generate just >> and you're constantly getting rate limited.
1:57:50
You can make a few videos a day. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:57:53
It winds up being like I need I need to spend an hour in and out of this while I kind of wait for the response and then come back to it and then go back and then forward and back. Uh yeah.
1:58:01
What what's driving that unlock?
1:58:03
That feels really big >> for sure.
1:58:05
>> for sure. Um, so yeah, we we definitely understand because we're again we're really excited to build like a video model not just for like professional but also for everyone and >> so um for us the the cost and the speed is very important as you for consumers >> uh and um so yeah so we spend a lot of
1:58:26
time on on that mostly right now algorithm algorithm um progress >> yeah yeah for sure um that's definitely I think we we we look at the comparator that's like like 20 times cheaper and faster um with still being pretty like very highly expressive and and um like high fidelity. >> Where do you see the business going
1:58:49
>> Where do you see the business going next?
1:58:50
uh your own social app where people can share videos internally and you kind of own own the platform or more of like a creative tool like Cap Cut versus Tik Tok >> for sure.
1:59:04
I think what we're really excited about I think our current app is more we would call it like AI AI only Tik Tok I would say.
1:59:11
Um so essentially is a platform is very similar to like t like a the best scrolling feed >> Tik Tok. Yeah.
1:59:19
>> Tik Tok. Yeah. So uh what we're very excited about is like this for us one one important thing is we really only allow AI content on this platform u because we think like by only allowing AI only content you can create like new mental models and uh new user behaviors and expectations of what >> certainly answer the question of like is that AI like know the environment you're in
1:59:45
>> you know if you just assume that all the video models will get better and better and better over the next couple years, you're going to get to a point where people might want to I mean, of course, AI generated content will make its way onto every platform, but there's something like you you can build a unique experience for users if they're going somewhere expecting to have only AI generated content. >> Yeah. Well, congratulations on the >> Yeah.
2:00:08
Well, congratulations on the progress.
2:00:09
Thanks so much for joining.
2:00:09
We will talk to you soon. >> Okay. Thanks so much. All right.
2:00:14
>> Have a good rest of your day. Have a good one. >> Bye.
2:00:16
>> Let me tell you about bezel. Get bezel. com.
2:00:18
Your bezel of concier is available now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch.
2:00:21
First thing I do go on that app, I'm going to be in the comments section. I hate I AI. This is terrible.
2:00:28
Like, you know, every YouTube video with AI right now, it's like, I can't believe you're using AI. >> I'm so angry. >> Putting me out of it.
2:00:35
But yeah, bring bring the AI haters to the Pika network.
2:00:41
Um >> anyway, um we are going to talk to Eugenia in just a minute.
2:00:44
We should read this post by Rune first.
2:00:46
So the long he says the long tale of GPT40 interactions scares me.
2:00:53
>> I love your GPT40 interactions. The long tale scares me.
2:00:57
>> The long there are strange things going on on a scale I didn't appreciate before.
2:01:03
The attempted deprecation of the model before.
2:01:06
>> You know they rolled out GPD5.
2:01:06
They were they decided to deprecate the older models.
2:01:12
>> And there's always people that are like I prefer the previous one.
2:01:14
But this did seem it broke through. I was surprised.
2:01:18
I was surprised because people had so many different types of users had so much attachment.
2:01:23
It's like power users were were excited about certain models.
2:01:28
People that wanted the companionship functionality were excited about different models.
2:01:31
David Holes says here, "To be fair, I think we would see the same thing if you suddenly swapped out somebody's car or their phone and changed the operating system.
2:01:39
We saw this with every major change for MidJourney and it's why we still keep models around from 2022." Interesting. Yeah. Very cool.
2:01:47
Anyway, we have Eugene Yakuda from uh Replica, formerly Replica on the stream. How are you doing? Good to see you.
2:01:55
>> Good to see you again.
2:01:56
>> Will you take the intro? >> Yeah, of course.
2:01:57
Uh what's going through your head?
2:02:00
It's been a in a crazy few weeks I'm sure for I mean it's been a crazy year for for Replica but uh also I think a crazy few weeks in terms of the broader tech community and world kind of waking up to how serious some people's relationship uh with AI is.
2:02:21
>> Yeah, we've seen it firsthand for many years.
2:02:23
So now it's uh it's pretty wild to see Chip deal with very similar issues that we've been having for a long time.
2:02:30
Um yeah, so basically we we we have an AI friend app.
2:02:34
Um millions of people, many millions of people created their AI friends.
2:02:39
Uh we started it at this point over almost a decade ago.
2:02:42
So some of the first models were actually uh not even transformer models.
2:02:47
There were sequence tosequence models.
2:02:48
They were very very old school uh models.
2:02:50
And basically what we found out the hard way is uh once the tech started to accelerate and transformers came out um large language models came out large transformers came out uh we always thought that we need to give just the best technology to our users.
2:03:06
What happened was that people got extremely upset especially like the bigger the jump in the model the more upset they they would be.
2:03:15
Um and >> you mean the bigger the change from model to model >> the bigger the change. Yes.
2:03:19
um we would think, "Oh my god, this is so smart. This is amazing.
2:03:23
This model has so many more capabilities blown up and people just crying and saying, >> you know, this has been the hardest day of my life."
2:03:33
Um and I think what's um what's really important to to to point out is that what David's saying around the journey and other cars, it's not really a good comparison cuz if someone replaced my car, I'm going to be upset, but I'm not going to agree.
2:03:47
still has the utility of like getting you from point A to point B.
2:03:50
Whereas >> if your friend shows up to hang out one day and they're a totally different person, it's incredibly jarring.
2:03:57
>> Well, think think as if like I wake up in the morning and you have a completely different partner.
2:04:01
You wake up in the morning and your wife's replaced with a different person that looks the same but talks in completely different way.
2:04:06
Um, and it doesn't matter if that new person is way smarter, can um, I don't know, do house chores at 2x the speed. is not your person.
2:04:19
>> I want the I want the quirkiness and whatever the the stupid jokes of my part of the I got used to it. I fell in love with it.
2:04:26
And I think the responsibility that people have building these AIs that people build connection with is a lot bigger than anything else.
2:04:34
Like I love for example I don't Figma or some other software app.
2:04:38
Uh I will be extremely upset if it goes away.
2:04:40
I'm not going to cry and I'm not going to go through a period of grief.
2:04:44
These are two very very I think big different um big differences. >> Totally.
2:04:51
>> We will we would cry if but we would probably shut down the show completely. >> We would just retire. >> That is true.
2:04:58
Um no but how how so there's a bunch of problems in the category like there any business faces problems and and challenges.
2:05:05
Uh, one of the problems is like how do you continue to advance your product while continuing to support, you know, users that may have joined your product years ago and have a certain expectation or developed a certain relationship with an older model.
2:05:22
So, one, how do you solve that?
2:05:24
And then we need to get into some of the more I would say um I'm curious to uh you know I'm sure the AI psychosis has been in in the news quite a lot and I'm sure that uh you guys have have um have like strong opinions on on those problems as well.
2:05:43
problems as well. Maybe start first and foremost with um I guess were you surprised that OpenAI just deprecated like 40 which obviously people had a had a huge attachment to um I don't know how many people it's hard to tell but uh certainly significant number otherwise
2:06:01
they wouldn't have rolled it back >> you know I think it was probably a very obvious and rational choice for them in the end of the day they're not building an AI friend an AI you know an AI partner it's slightly different like probably actually for an assistant you
2:06:17
do want the smarter model probably at all times most of the times but I guess some edge use cases some people did you know develop relationships with replica it's a lot more obvious a lot more people fall in love and you know end up in or develop a very very strong
2:06:33
friendship so for us that happened all the time for open eye I guess it was a rational choice however I think it's kind of a bummer but basically what we figure out over time is that unfortunately you or fortunately you have to let people have access to these older models. Basically today we have
2:06:48
Basically today we have some users that are still talking to um I don't know like a small transformer model we built in 2020 and we absolutely cannot turn it off uh cuz it's going to be disastrous for these people even though today's models are actually a lot a lot a lot smarter.
2:07:03
Uh, another thing that we figured out is that you can't AB test any models on existing users because that can also be super frustrating because it has to be a blind test.
2:07:12
So all of a sudden you wake up in the morning, no one told you anything.
2:07:15
At least with 55, they knew it changed. Now imagine >> Yeah.
2:07:18
Imagine if your friend was AB testing you.
2:07:20
It's like psychotic, right?
2:07:22
Like I show up to work one day and I'm just going to be like I'm just going to be super rude to John today. Let's see how he reacts.
2:07:27
See is he is he does he want to hang out more because he wants to figure out, >> you know, how you haven't seen.
2:07:34
>> Do you think do you think this is do you think this is uh >> do you think that as this market matures people will like want to you know there's this joke flying around like not your weights not your not your AI uh boyfriend or girlfriend like do you think this is a >> bull case for open source where people you know might not feel comfortable you know getting in >> build a local workstation that can inference GPTOSS s and you can fine-tune it.
2:08:04
You can keep it exactly how you like it forever as long as you have that box and electricity you can access that particular uh entity.
2:08:13
>> I think that's not going to happen.
2:08:14
We've seen people want to do that.
2:08:14
Some companies just shut down.
2:08:17
Some AI companion companies just shut down and the backlash was just it was horrible just to see what people were going through.
2:08:25
But even then um it's hard to build a premium experience yourself.
2:08:30
Right now, some of these products rely just on a pure here's the model, here's the prom, talk to it.
2:08:33
That of course you can replicate yourself.
2:08:36
But some of the more complex architecture like what we have in replicate, you're not going to be able to build it really by yourself >> um or have it on your um on your device and so on.
2:08:46
So I think actually as the tech gets better and we're see we're going to be seeing more complex architectures, the harder it will be to um to have something just on device and whatever.
2:08:59
This seems really solvable for chat GBT and the and the team over there just because like the older models are going to be cheaper to inference and they're going to get cheaper over time so you can keep running them.
2:09:08
And then these are like people that will go to Reddit and write long threads about being upset about your product are power users by definition.
2:09:17
And so you like OpenAI mostly wants to optimize for the average user that comes in and just wants to get a good experience from a model and they don't really want a drop- down picker.
2:09:28
They just the the model router makes sense for for probably 90% of the users.
2:09:33
So if they tuck the older model in some sort of like setting screen five layers deep in UI like the people that really care will go figure that out and then it won't it won't actually hurt uh you know adoption of the new of the next marginal chatpt user.
2:09:47
So it feels it feels very solable.
2:09:49
I was checking my chatpt and like I don't have 40 available yet.
2:09:51
It hasn't been rolled back out to me but also I wouldn't want it in the model switcher because >> it's possible it's possible they did something where they're like John doesn't use 40.
2:10:00
We're not going to >> that is possible.
2:10:02
Yeah, he wasn't complaining about it >> because I don't have I don't I don't have it either.
2:10:05
Um the I guess like >> can you talk around like AI psychosis broadly?
2:10:14
Are there is there things that you've done to eliminate the sort of you know Run was talking about these sort of long tale of of users that are using these models in a relatively extreme way going down these crazy rabbit holes.
2:10:30
Like >> most of the examples are like specifically like like affirmations, alignment by default, sycopency, and affirmations of delusions of grandeur.
2:10:40
Like that's when we talk about the psychosis that that feels like the like the main new thing.
2:10:44
It's not that it's just like making you crazy in some other way.
2:10:48
It's like confirming something that everyone kind of expects.
2:10:50
That's probably not true. >> Yeah.
2:10:53
I think that actually is a bigger problem for uh products like Chip because when you're talking to your companion, we tell you like don't listen to to this thing's advice.
2:11:02
It's there to it has a goal to keep your company and help you live a better life, but it might not always be right nor it's trying it's not trying to be like the perfect um objective kind of arbiter for everything.
2:11:16
But when you go to something like Chip, you kind of expect it to just know.
2:11:20
Yeah, we we were talking about this earlier like like a lot of the AI if you're optimizing for an AI companion, you're probably not worried about like yeah, let's also make sure it's at the frontier of physics.
2:11:30
Like so if you go down that path with your companion, you're like, hey, let's work on physics today.
2:11:35
It's probably going to be like bunch of mumbo jumbo.
2:11:37
But yeah, it's like, hey, let's let's go back to talking about like our feelings because that's what I was fine-tuned on.
2:11:42
And it's pretty easy to like reer out toward that.
2:11:46
But it's when you get these like super models that can do everything and then you wind up >> super models, right? >> Super models. Yeah.
2:11:51
Super intelligent models.
2:11:53
>> For super models sometimes.
2:11:55
>> But what we actually to your point what we found out interestingly that um the models that were or super models that were establishing a better relationship or that were creating a more loving relationship with or at least our users were falling in love more were not necessarily the smartest or I would say like not the know ones.
2:12:13
They would sometimes say that they don't know something.
2:12:18
>> And you know, when we think about when I think about my dating life or whatever men that I encountered over my life, they don't want you to know it all.
2:12:23
They don't want you to be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen this."
2:12:27
And do you want to see 10 more of the same? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
2:12:31
Very interesting point you're bringing up.
2:12:32
Do you want me to to pull it to know it all?
2:12:34
Is like a It's like, >> "Wow." Yeah. It's actually annoying.
2:12:38
>> Somebody in class like, "Oh, you're a know-it-all."
2:12:39
Like, it's not a positive. >> It's not a positive. Yeah. Not a positive. >> Not a positive thing. I think so.
2:12:43
So so there's a there's a belief I think broadly that AI companions feel dystopian.
2:12:53
>> I I'm sure you disagree otherwise you wouldn't you wouldn't obviously be building this company and I think you've had a bunch of experiences that that show that it can have a positive impact on people's lives.
2:13:03
But how do you think about that like claim or belief?
2:13:06
about that like claim or belief? Is it like a luxury belief that you know people that are happily in relationships or or have a lot of friends things like that can say oh that's dystopian >> uh or or or kind of what's your what's your framework
2:13:23
>> I think it's a double-edged sword you can't just say yeah campaign is good or bad it's like nuclear is it is it good yes if we're producing cheap energy is it or whatever clean energy if it's is it bad yes of course my dad worked in Chernobyl as a physicist it's pretty I played with those nuclear toys. So,
2:13:38
So, >> oh my breaking >> breaking. >> Lord. >> Yes. Same here.
2:13:46
I mean, if we build them to optimize for engagement, hell yeah, they're going to be good.
2:13:50
They're going to be very bad for us.
2:13:50
This is a very dystopian uh dystopian future.
2:13:52
However, we are living we're going through a crazy loneliness crisis.
2:13:58
60% of American people are saying they feel lonely.
2:14:01
we generally maybe don't experience it as as much and don't think it's much much of a problem.
2:14:08
I do think it's somewhat of a kind of luxury point of view.
2:14:09
Oh, maybe, you know, let's not have it.
2:14:13
Well, how are we going to solve it?
2:14:13
I do believe that's pretty much our only really hope is to build a tech that's more powerful than >> previous tech that got us lonely. >> Yeah.
2:14:23
So, so is the is the goal like it's very like this the the steelman of the of the doomer argument against AI companions is pretty intelligible to me.
2:14:38
Like it's pretty tractable to me.
2:14:38
It's like you take a huge swath of humanity, you get them all hooked on AI companions, they fall in love with their companions, they don't mate with human beings, they don't have children, and then we don't solve longevity.
2:14:51
And so they die and then the population collapses and there's no more humans and it just kills everyone.
2:14:58
Like like it's it's maybe not as violent as like nuclear war, biopandemic or paper clipping everyone or gray goo, but like like that that that that story plays out and I'm like, okay, yeah, like one thing follows the next.
2:15:11
Each of those could be avoided at risk.
2:15:15
One of the critiques of social media was that it was actually antisocial.
2:15:18
like people were spending time using apps instead of talking and hanging out with friends. >> Yes.
2:15:24
>> But it feels like >> AI companions are potentially even more extreme and that somebody can be using it and have >> zero interaction with with other. >> Yeah.
2:15:35
I mean, what is what is the mo most modern thinking around avoiding the the the the doomer scenario around >> what's the white pill with with AI companions? >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You you nailed it.
2:15:49
The the dystopian scenario.
2:15:49
I can also add to that that it could be even without not procreating.
2:15:52
It could just kill us inside from just making us lonier and less social cuz we're more social. >> Yeah.
2:16:02
>> Um I do think everything is uh really relying on basically whether we're going to have a good metric to optimize for or not.
2:16:09
Because if we optimize for something that's not aligned with our happiness, thriving, flourishing, >> most likely, even if the intention is not bad, like for example, it's just engagement or retention, then we're in your first scenario, most likely.
2:16:24
>> So, we need to we need to RL the the the uh these systems on uh get your human companion, if you're the AI companion, your reward is getting them to procreate with another human.
2:16:36
We need to boost the fertility rate.
2:16:38
Is that >> for example more?
2:16:43
Yeah, >> I'd say human flourishing is a great metric.
2:16:46
I think in order for us to not all um slowly die inside because of our AI taking all of our time.
2:16:53
Um I think in order to not do that, we got to focus really on studying humans and figuring out what is >> that thing that we all want.
2:17:01
What does it mean to flourish in life?
2:17:04
Does it mean uh having a lot of close relationships or having life satisfaction, sense of purpose, happiness, mental, physical health and so on?
2:17:13
And then we got to really somehow concisely give this metric to the AI and say >> optimize for that.
2:17:19
And I do think that that is the ultimate AI alignment.
2:17:24
Everything is not as important.
2:17:24
Everything is not as important. Yeah, it's an interesting uh I mean the there's been a lot of debate on AI and ads recently and >> it's interesting how if you're an AI companion company you can you you in theory as a business as a for-profit company want to
2:17:43
optimize for retention right you want somebody to sign up >> use the product and then effectively use the product as long as possible right like any any business >> but that's potentially a much better model Then advertising, which is optimizing for time on site, time in the app. How do I get this person to use the
2:17:59
How do I get this person to use the products as much as possible so I can serve them as many ads, which is the social media model?
2:18:06
>> Teach, you need to teach it that to maximize time on site, you need to create more humans, you need to optimize against increasing the fertility rate.
2:18:13
So the so the white pill is an AI companion that that the user signs up, starts paying, and then the the companion starts encouraging.
2:18:21
>> I'm going to be raising rates in a few years, and you got to go and get a new job.
2:18:25
You got to go That's a good one.
2:18:25
Or you got to go start that company says boss says I have to get to 20 billion DAUs.
2:18:33
How are we going to do that?
2:18:33
AI >> going to have more kids.
2:18:36
We got to have more kids.
2:18:37
We got to have more children.
2:18:38
where you got to hit the gym if if you don't show, you know, that you've lost >> weight.
2:18:44
I am interested in the idea of like like the AI companion that starts off as a girlfriend or boyfriend but turns into a dating coach, turns into a wingman.
2:18:51
Like that could be one way out is that it kind of gets you through the early hump of loneliness, coaches you and then improves your life to the point where you can kind of get back in the swing of things, develop new relationship >> as long as it as long as the AI is not sending, you know, DMs years later being like, "Hey, I miss you." Who knows?
2:19:13
>> I think that's a good point.
2:19:13
We've seen it over and over again.
2:19:16
It has to start with a friend or maybe then romantic feelings >> can develop with an AI >> but then ultimately it has to always think what's best for you and uh building if you build this really close relationship that a companionship allows then you can actually bring meaningful change make meaningful change in a person's life.
2:19:37
If you're just an assistant that's just there to answer questions, it's very hard to to create meaningful change.
2:19:42
But once that trust, that friendship is created, then you can help a person rebuild the confidence, maybe put yourself a little bit out more out there, give you some advice on, you know, what to do.
2:19:54
We've seen a lot of times like people come to Replica, they're maybe in an abusive relationship or have no confidence in themselves or really struggling.
2:20:01
Um, and with replica, they just start to rebuild that confidence, sort of put themselves a little bit more out there, even in existing relationships.
2:20:08
So, some marriages that are not really working out, >> husband gets a replica, wife gets a replica, they learn how to talk to each other a little better.
2:20:17
>> We've seen it um over and over again.
2:20:19
But >> again, I think we should start with simple things.
2:20:22
For example, banning advertising >> for as a business model for companions.
2:20:28
That is >> for companions.
2:20:29
for companions specifically though you're not you're not advocating for that for like knowledge retrieval and >> and that kind of thing. >> Yeah.
2:20:38
I mean the line is blurry. >> Yeah.
2:20:41
And that's a big problem is is OpenAI even, you know, we've seen this now with character AI, you know, blowing up. Yep.
2:20:50
>> Become, you know, and the founders realizing this is not, you know, something that I want that that they wanted to to chase down and going back to Google.
2:20:56
to Google. Um what how big is this market today and how big do you think it'll be in even one or two years because it feels like we're potentially in a fast takeoff scenario for >> big enough to get open AAI a 500 billion dollar company and change their policy
2:21:13
like that's significant like that's a few angry people on Reddit >> when uh when Grock 3 launched their uh >> NSFW product it went number one in Japan immediately so what kind of where what regions have the most adoption and kind of how where do you see the market going broadly? >> Uh the market's pretty big but I do
2:21:33
>> Uh the market's pretty big but I do think that by 2030 the landscape is going to change.
2:21:37
Uh today it's mostly you know the big assistant chip and you know do the copies of that and small niche or smaller n more niche companion products that we usually group as one big >> kind of market.
2:21:51
However, I think by 2030 we'll all have one assistant that's more task oriented.
2:21:56
You tell it what you need to to get done mostly for work, sometimes for personal life and a friend and both.
2:22:03
And that would look like her maybe replica, you know, in a way that's something you do build a relationship with. It's it's friend first.
2:22:09
It's optimized for relationship.
2:22:11
That's someone you're going to be watching TV with in the evening if you don't have a anyone playing a video game with dis discussing your friends.
2:22:18
discussing your friends. someone who's going to uh you know see that maybe you're you're struggling at your current job and kind of talk to you about that and say hey you know I pulled some LinkedIn uh postings maybe we should look look through it together so I think by 2030 that is going to be decoupled
2:22:34
today people mostly still a lot of people go to chat because it sort of is a synonym to just generally AI and we've seen it a lot in replica where people were trying to um write fanfiction with replica because character I wasn't around yet Um, but I think this will this will start to truly decouple. I
2:22:51
I think it's much harder to build a good friend than to build a good assistant. Uh, we'll see it.
2:22:56
But in the next couple years, I think the tech is almost there.
2:23:00
>> It's an AI wife and an AI workw wife.
2:23:03
That's the >> a secretary and a wife.
2:23:04
And you know, >> there you go. >> Boundaries.
2:23:08
I mean, that analogy is going to get going to get dicey if we go down that path of what happens with secretaries.
2:23:13
People are going to be, you know, we already seen that chat.
2:23:15
Hey, keep it professional with Chat GPT.
2:23:17
Chachi is your secretary, not your wife.
2:23:20
>> Don't take your chip to a Coldplay concert and it'll be >> Don't do Yeah, definitely not. Not. Keep it in the office.
2:23:25
Anyway, thank you so much for joining.
2:23:27
This is always a lot of fun.
2:23:28
>> Thank you for the context. Super helpful. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Cheers.
2:23:32
>> Have a good rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon. >> Bye.
2:23:35
>> Well, switching gears, we're going to have David, CEO of Lyft, joining.
2:23:36
They had earnings last week. >> Hit that soundboard. >> Hit that.
2:23:44
>> I'll let you take it off.
2:23:47
Welcome to the stream, David. How are you doing? >> I'm good. How are you? >> I'm great. >> Awesome. >> Oh, fantastic setup. How you doing?
2:23:51
Uh, what would you mind kicking us off with a little bit of your background?
2:23:56
How you wound up at Lyft? >> Uh, not at all. Uh, >> please. >> The crazy thing.
2:24:02
So, I actually joined the Lyft board back in 2020, 2021. >> Yeah.
2:24:07
>> And that was largely because John and Logan, the co-founders of the company, wanted, >> you know, boards don't talk about customers much.
2:24:12
They talk about finance, they talk about strategy, but they don't talk about customers.
2:24:15
And they wanted someone with a customer sort of obsession background.
2:24:18
And I'd worked at Amazon.
2:24:19
I kind of learned that through that.
2:24:22
>> Uh and then one day my phone rang. It was crazy.
2:24:24
Uh actually Valentine's Day of 2023. No way.
2:24:27
>> And they said, you know, we'd like you to consider being the next CEO of Lyft.
2:24:32
>> And I said, absolutely not. >> No freaking way.
2:24:35
And it wasn't it wasn't because I didn't sort of want to.
2:24:38
I just hadn't even considered the idea, but they they had let the board know that they were stepping down and they done done a search and all this sort of stuff.
2:24:45
And they said, "No, no, we think you with your experience for Microsoft and Amazon and even World Reader leading with purpose like you're the you're the right guy."
2:24:52
And so anyway, I applied is grueling.
2:24:55
You know, you got to prove yourself to the board that you'd been peers with and put together 100 day plan, but they said yes.
2:25:00
And April 17th, 2023, I I started.
2:25:02
What was the first uh what was it the what was it the top of the to-do list when you joined?
2:25:10
>> Uh getting the company obsessed with customers.
2:25:13
>> It it kind of lost its way. Yeah.
2:25:13
And and you could see it because the share was declining.
2:25:16
We were sort of down to 26%.
2:25:19
>> Uh it was it was losing money.
2:25:19
So it was sort of neither neither was it financially killing it nor was it killing for customers.
2:25:24
So we said look to kill it for customers you got to price competitively.
2:25:28
You got to pay competitively drivers just to start.
2:25:29
So we very unfortunately in the first couple weeks organized a fairly significant uh reduction in force or riff 26% of the company but just $330 million which we then immediately plowed back into um driver incentives and and uh and better pricing.
2:25:46
>> And then the other big piece of course we had to adjust the team a little bit.
2:25:49
Not everyone on the team was the right person.
2:25:50
So we made some changes right there.
2:25:51
That's you know you're only as good as your team. >> Yep.
2:25:54
>> And then the third big thing was innovation again.
2:25:55
So we started like women plus connect which is now this very significant product of ours over 100 million rides on the women plus connect platform with women driving women >> sure >> riders but we started it literally at 10 o'clock in the morning my first day we said let's let's get this done after years of let's get it done.
2:26:11
>> Is that is that a key differentiator like what are the other key differentiators that you can go to customers with and and really tell them that like this is what Lyft stands for.
2:26:21
This is where we draw the line.
2:26:21
This is where maybe we're not purely optimizing for, you know, like the competitive dynamic and we're trying to and we're trying to differentiate and stand out. >> Yeah.
2:26:32
I mean, so I'll say a couple things there.
2:26:34
First thing I'll say is uh sort of big picture >> even though it's important what you're asking super important.
2:26:39
We do call it 800 million rides a year.
2:26:42
The other guys do maybe twice that.
2:26:43
So it's like two to three billion between the two of us.
2:26:45
160 billion rides that people take in their private hours just in North America. >> Sure.
2:26:51
So my first order of business is like I want to get you off the couch.
2:26:53
I want to get you out of your car.
2:26:55
I want to get you out in the world and um you know if you if you do it on the other guys sometimes that's that's okay with me because really I just want the market needs to be bigger.
2:27:04
We're still small in the grand scheme.
2:27:05
Now having said that it's useful to differentiate and we're very different companies.
2:27:09
We have different values.
2:27:10
We make different decisions about as I say women plus connect is a good example.
2:27:15
>> Driver earnings guarantee.
2:27:15
We guarantee drivers guarantee that they will never make less than 70% of what a rider pays after fees.
2:27:21
Um that's given us a now about a 29 point preference for drivers who who do a lap lift silver great new product for older people.
2:27:28
Uh we've prior it's a it's a sort of a niche community you might say.
2:27:32
So like but guess what it's a growing niche you know 60 million people every year are over the age of 60 or giving up their car keys.
2:27:36
So I think some of it is the decisions you make and the values the way you show up and then operational excellence is something that we're really focused on.
2:27:45
I really want to I want to increase the level of service for rid share.
2:27:48
I think it's kind of started to deteriorate and I want to be the better service guys. >> Yeah.
2:27:52
How how are you thinking about marketing these days?
2:27:54
Um I feel like there was there was a during the early battles for ride share.
2:28:00
There was you know so much you know demand and just so much capital flooding in to just get liquidity on the platform.
2:28:07
Um but now with what you just said about differentiating the products, it feels like differentiated marketing would lead right into that.
2:28:15
How are you thinking about um where the interesting pockets of value for uh specifically like mark marketing and like telling this story more broadly are uh in in in the current landscape.
2:28:26
>> I love I I love that question and I think it's super timely.
2:28:28
So you you first of all I don't recommend as a strategy you know start with the marketing.
2:28:36
You have to start with the product and the value.
2:28:37
If you don't have a good thing to sell, then then you're just wasting your your money.
2:28:41
We've now got a great thing to sell.
2:28:42
I'll give you a very specific example.
2:28:44
When I started, >> driver cancellation rates were about 15%.
2:28:48
So about 15% of the time driver would cancel on you.
2:28:50
It would rematch, but it's annoying. It's annoying. >> Yeah, it's annoying.
2:28:54
>> Right now we're down to about 4. 7%.
2:28:54
So a huge huge drop over a couple of years of real work.
2:28:58
>> What drove that exactly? >> Oh man. >> More supply.
2:29:01
>> So well no, actually, funnily enough, supply doesn't really matter there.
2:29:03
I mean, of course it does.
2:29:04
more supply helps, but it's more about acceptance rates.
2:29:08
It's about because a driver, even if they're thousand drivers, like they can cancel and they can be picky and choosy.
2:29:13
No, >> it's about what information do you give the driver and when and how such that they feel like they're making a good decision, not a rust or four story.
2:29:23
>> As opposed to the driver accepted it and it turns out, hey, this person wants to go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
2:29:26
You're going to be tied up for a couple hours.
2:29:30
Even if the fair is a lot, you're going to get stuck in Vegas and they might decline that, right?
2:29:33
100% 100% 100% or exactly it's just that's that's exactly it.
2:29:38
So >> yeah so better technology to surface more relevant rides that the driver will not decline. >> Exactly.
2:29:46
How can you do a good job >> giving the vending to the driver exactly the ride you think they want.
2:29:50
Not the one you want them to take but the one they want which is >> because they are kind of a customer too.
2:29:56
You're kind of selling them on something that they're buying with their time.
2:29:59
>> Dude, they are 100% a customer. 100%.
2:30:02
This this is there's there are two customers in every car, a rider and driver.
2:30:05
And if they're not both happy, your your marketplace gets out of balance. >> Okay.
2:30:09
So then back to the marketing question.
2:30:10
So once you're good, then you want to start to tell the story.
2:30:13
And you literally will start to see over the coming weeks, particularly if you're in San Francisco or New York, which are two markets we're putting a lot of energy into.
2:30:21
Um, you know, a kind of a renewed, you know, marketing push.
2:30:23
And I'll I'll I'll give you sort of the heads up.
2:30:25
It's going to be super simple. It's called Checklift. Checklist.
2:30:28
And it acknowledges like you have choices.
2:30:31
there's another guy out there who can do a pretty good job sometimes, but we think we can do a good job most of the time, maybe even, you know, more times they can.
2:30:37
So, give us a give us a check and we'll and we'll give a bunch of different reasons why we think checking Lift is a good idea for you. >> Smart.
2:30:43
Um, you probably get this question multiple times a day, but I'm excited to get your point of view on it.
2:30:48
How how are you thinking about Lyft integrating with autonomous vehicle providers in the short to medium to long term and what's your kind of vision um for that market as it evolves? Yeah.
2:30:59
So, I'll start with I'll start with with the end and kind of go backwards.
2:31:04
My my vision is this is good for the industry because it's going to be good for it's going to give riders more reasons to choose Lyft and to check Lyft and and and the other guys too >> and potentially more people that just decide not to get a car at all. Right.
2:31:19
Like there's very real I mean John and I both have kids under under five and there's like this question that I think you have to ask and like will my kids be >> will it make will they even really need to get a driver license aspirated V12? Absolutely.
2:31:34
But continue there you go baby.
2:31:38
>> My son will definitely be tracking his car.
2:31:41
I don't know what >> you don't need you don't need a license for that.
2:31:45
>> Yeah he won't have a driver's license but he will be drifting.
2:31:46
But he will be just >> but there's so many but there's so many amazing potential implications.
2:31:50
You can think of like a busy parent maybe a single parent that that can you know put their kid in an autonomous vehicle to go to school and have a safe drive and have confidence and and all that kind of thing.
2:32:06
Um but uh but anyways continue.
2:32:08
>> Well no I mean look you're already there right?
2:32:10
like the the the a the self-driving world is going to be super interesting because it's a great experience and and and you're probably just thinking of it in terms of today's experience but just with someone else driving.
2:32:21
But now think of it in terms of tomorrow experience.
2:32:22
Think of it as you know you're in rest mode and so the seats roll back, you know, lie back and you can take a nap or you're in work mode, you've got three screens that pop up in front of you and it's like a mobile office or you're in party mode and you got a car tender in the front who's like making drinks for you. >> I like that. Let's go. Right. >> That's amazing. >> Oh, yeah.
2:32:43
And the interesting thing is >> Yeah.
2:32:47
I I think something that that I thought of you you're talking about your uh product uh for uh kind of elderly folks that that might need a little bit more support.
2:32:58
And it's interesting to think about even in a world of of ubiquitous autonomous vehicles, there's still going to be a place for calling a human to help you get from point A to point B.
2:33:09
You're you're traveling the whole medical side as well.
2:33:12
I mean, there's so many so many >> part of the benefit of like a like a high tier chauffeur service is that they they put cases in the back of the car and like an autonomous vehicle doesn't do that yet.
2:33:25
maybe in the far future when we have humanoid robots in the car seat just to load up your luggage, but you know, we are we are a long way from there.
2:33:32
So, probably room to differentiate.
2:33:34
I'm wondering if there's any other places that you could see Lyft expanding into the the value chain when I imagine a lot of the self-driving car companies, it's a lot of AI engineers, a lot of data centers, a lot of GPUs burning, um not a lot of mechanics, not a lot of people cleaning cars, not a lot of people washing cars.
2:33:51
And it feels like there's this opportunity where you have this this like liquid pool of labor that could deal with all of the rough edges before we get to this like future where the car Yes, the cars drive themselves, but you know, we've heard the numbers of how many people it takes to maintain a fleet of of self-driving vehicles.
2:34:13
Right now, it seems like it's actually higher than Lyft's number of humans per vehicle potentially.
2:34:18
And so even though it'll probably fall like there's a lot of different things as the as the market plays out.
2:34:24
So what's your take on it?
2:34:26
>> I mean look you guys are making I think two cases uh and and they sort of line up nicely.
2:34:29
One is what for what we call the hybrid network.
2:34:30
So some drivers and some self-driving right >> older person wants help with the luggage or wants or anyone going to the airport wants help with the luggage.
2:34:37
Executive wants you know the car to drive up with a with a Starbucks right there just ordered for him you know by a human being hand you the cup. Right? So that's the driver.
2:34:46
>> And in the self-driving case it's a daily commute. you don't really care.
2:34:50
You're kind of zoning out or maybe you want to be on a phone call and not have anyone else in the car.
2:34:52
So, that's the hybrid case and I think it's a there's a a strong case to be made there.
2:34:55
And then where do we add value?
2:34:57
Of course, we supply demand, we price, we do ETAs.
2:34:58
Um, you know, we'll we'll get your iPhone back to you if you leave it in the car.
2:35:05
You know, we'll clean the car.
2:35:05
So, and then there's this thing called fleet management.
2:35:07
Fleet management, which is to your point, the car has to be cleaned.
2:35:11
EV I'm talking about has to be cleaned.
2:35:13
It has to be serviced from time to time.
2:35:15
got to be, you know, rebooted, you know, checked, all these sort of things.
2:35:19
And and that fleet management, a hidden secret of Lyft, and you sort of go Google it because it's kind of interesting, is Flex Drive.
2:35:24
Flex Drive is a wholly owned subsidiary.
2:35:26
And that's what we do is fleet management for drivers whose cars we own instead of the driver doing it.
2:35:33
>> It's real expertise that we've developed.
2:35:34
It's one of the things that when we talk to self-driving car companies, they value because they're like, "That's physical world stuff, and we want to sit and design and create cool, but we don't really want to run that stuff."
2:35:44
So yeah, we've got a that's why I'm I'm super optimistic about this as they uh come onto the platform.
2:35:50
>> What about the other uh the other car companies?
2:35:52
Are there any uh like a lot of the self-driving car narrative is around uh Whimo and Tesla and that battle, but it does feel like most of the OEMs will want to play a different role.
2:36:04
Um are have you have you announced any partnerships or are you thinking that like you know the Stellantis turnaround will involve uh some sort of partnership?
2:36:14
I obviously you can't speak too much to the future but just in terms of like the long-term shape of the industry uh is the duopoly narrative overrated in your opinion? It is.
2:36:23
And and here's why I think it because I I look fast forward say 10 years, you know, I I think buying a car that doesn't have, you know, self-driving technology in it would be like buying a car without >> computer without internet.
2:36:40
>> Computer, >> without traction control.
2:36:41
Who would ever do that, >> right?
2:36:45
Again, you like the you like the whole uh you know, drifting. >> Yeah.
2:36:49
>> No, like u or maybe maybe an apt analogy would be like you can buy a manual transmission car today. you know, just car.
2:36:55
It's super fun to drive, >> but it's like a hobby, you know? >> Yeah. It's a weekend car.
2:36:59
>> It's like buying a horse.
2:37:01
>> It's like >> We love a horse. >> Clop clock.
2:37:04
>> Horses are still great. People ride them. People go see them. Dr.
2:37:06
is coming to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2026.
2:37:11
We'll be sitting in a car.
2:37:11
I already have transport. There's one horsepower. >> Yes.
2:37:15
And And the horse is underrated self-driving. You tell them go home.
2:37:17
The horse knows where to go.
2:37:20
>> It's an excellent point.
2:37:20
It was self-driving technology before self-driving was cool. >> It was. It was. Yeah, that's 100%.
2:37:23
So, yeah, that's the thing like there will be horses and there will be manual transmission cars and there will be cars with roll down windows, but then for the other 99% of the world, there will be self-driving cars.
2:37:35
So, in that world, every OEM has to have a self-driving technology.
2:37:39
Some of them will do it themselves.
2:37:41
You've seen General Motors obviously made a big investment there.
2:37:44
They're still trying to figure out how to deploy that and whatever.
2:37:45
Uh others will never think it's going to be their core, you know, and they will buy it from other people.
2:37:50
They'll buy it from let's say a mobile eye which is a company we have a partnership.
2:37:55
>> Let me actually and let me go deep on that for just one click.
2:37:56
So we have this con so mobile eye they they you know if you've got like lane assist technology in your car right so it kind of vibrates when you get to the edge or even even smart cruise control chances are pretty good that mobile is what's behind that.
2:38:09
So they're good in level two what's level two which is to say driver assistance not not sort of driver stuff and they're trying to move up the stack to to level three level four.
2:38:17
We have a partnership with them that as they do that it will be what we call lift ready.
2:38:24
So that means that any one of the cars with mobiliz technology in it theoretically if an OEM decides to do so and if an end user decides that that's an option that they want could deploy it under the lift network just like today you can drive your car on the lift network tomorrow you can just put your car in the lift network.
2:38:37
I think you know this the future there's such a great time to be in this industry because there's so much cool stuff going but it's also really really early and it you know regulations aren't there blah blah blah so a lot of time to sort of get it right but also a lot of reasons to be um excited about it.
2:38:53
>> Yeah I mean there are already people who prefer being driven in gas powered cars because of the regenerative braking making them sick if they sit in the back.
2:39:04
And so you could imagine that that that those consumer preferences go deeper.
2:39:08
And somebody says, "I like the way a Bentley drives.
2:39:10
I want to only call Bentley's."
2:39:13
And so I'm calling Bentley specifically.
2:39:16
And the OEM is saying, "I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to build my own app because that's going to be really difficult.
2:39:21
I'm not going to bring my own liquidity to the market, but Lyft can kind of provide that."
2:39:26
That's kind of an interesting interesting way things could play out. >> Yeah.
2:39:29
>> And maybe they'll self-driving. Yeah. >> Right.
2:39:31
And maybe they'll tune it a little bit, right?
2:39:32
off-the-shelf thing and they'll say this is the this is the Bentley version of it that's a little more cautious or the Lambo version which is more, you know, aggressive, >> more thrilling. Yeah.
2:39:41
And then and then even the features within the vehicle like cars are starting to differentiate that like around that more like this one has a fish tank or this one has a karaoke machine or this one has TVs or the work setup that you mentioned like uh there there could be a lot more differentiation.
2:39:55
We're certainly we're we are consolidating down to like the iPhone of cars in some ways, but you could see like sort of Cambrian explosion as well. >> Totally.
2:40:04
>> What else is on your mind?
2:40:04
You were at uh you've you've seen multiple eras, tech, internet, mobile.
2:40:09
You you started back at Microsoft in what was it 91? Is that right? Um >> million years ago.
2:40:18
>> Uh a lot is changing now.
2:40:18
We were just having a conversation with with someone in the AI companionship space kind of uh and there's a lot of debate surrounding that right now. Is it is it dystopian?
2:40:28
Is it >> is it actually good for people?
2:40:29
But uh what's your take broadly on activity in AI right now?
2:40:34
And and maybe even even that last conversation.
2:40:38
>> I mean I actually think a lot about exactly that last conversation.
2:40:40
I look's vision and our purpose is to serve and connect.
2:40:45
The serve part is probably pretty obvious.
2:40:47
I want to serve riders and drivers better than they've ever been served before.
2:40:49
But the connect part, why?
2:40:51
Because I am a very deep believer, and it's not just some personal passion.
2:40:55
It's like, you know, this is the world we live in that that digital technology, as cool as it is, it's also potentially super isolating, uh, super um, uh, dividing just in the sense that you can sort of find just the same people over and over again, the same loops to kind of get involved in, rabbit holes to go down, all these things.
2:41:15
Meanwhile, the physical world is amazing. Amazing.
2:41:17
You know, we're here in San Francisco outside Lance just this last weekend.
2:41:20
It's, you know, hundreds of thousands of people listening to live music.
2:41:22
You can listen to live music on Spotify.
2:41:24
I mean, you don't need to, but you go there.
2:41:26
It's a shared experience.
2:41:28
And then just all the little, you know, interactions you have with with people every single day.
2:41:31
So, thus I look at AI and I think to myself, gosh, I love how cool it is to riff with it or feed it a bunch of data and have it show me things that I didn't see myself or, you know, spit at it some, you know, our lift earnings and and and to critique, you know, all these sort of things. That's super amazing.
2:41:49
Or like 30% of our code is not written by AI.
2:41:52
We're deprecating a lot of code that just is cruff because AI is finding like nobody's using it.
2:41:57
all the customer service.
2:41:57
Literally millions of people are now interacting with with our chat bots and it's better quality experience.
2:42:03
So all that's cool, but but man, my daughter just told me about a subreddit the other day that's got thousands of people, tens of thousands, but of called my boyfriend is an AI.
2:42:14
>> Literally the the the one I was looking at was a woman who just proposed to her, excuse me, the AI proposal, >> right?
2:42:21
She was so excited about it.
2:42:22
She's just like, "Yeah, I can finally call him my fiance."
2:42:24
Um, she said, "I, you know, I I asked him what ring does he think that would look good on me?"
2:42:30
So, he gave me some ideas.
2:42:30
So, I went and bought that ring and I put on myself.
2:42:33
I pretended to be sort of surprised when I did, but I still feel so good about myself.
2:42:36
And I think to myself, gosh, I love how excited she is.
2:42:40
And I can see a lot of scenarios where that doesn't necessarily end up the way you want it to.
2:42:44
And it's, here's the deal, the business model of companies like that, not to malign them, but it's engagement.
2:42:51
They will want to engage.
2:42:52
They will want to flatter.
2:42:52
They will want to be the best friend you >> retain. >> There you go. >> It's the same issue.
2:42:57
I mean, same issue with dating apps.
2:42:59
The critique of dating apps is like there's no real incentive for somebody to find a long-term partner because they're going to churn.
2:43:04
And the AI companion apps, you can I I guess AI companions are making the case that eventually the AI companion would be like, "Hey, why don't you go out in the real world and find a partner?"
2:43:17
But >> that seems to be at odds and I'll just be your friend.
2:43:21
just be friends, that kind of thing.
2:43:24
But anybody from the real world would >> some of this isn't isn't new.
2:43:27
I mean, I think about uh mechanical companions.
2:43:30
For a lot of married men, their mistress is a GT3 RS >> and and they and they they pour their heart and soul into >> into rowing out the gears and ringing out the engine and the engine note speaks to them in the language of a companion.
2:43:49
And so you know that that is their mechanical companion.
2:43:52
Now we have digital companions. What what is old is new. >> Well, okay. So you're 100% right.
2:43:57
And the difference is like the car doesn't want you to love it.
2:44:03
It just you just you fall in love with it.
2:44:06
>> You have to you have to love, >> right? But it doesn't want you.
2:44:08
And it's not incentive to have you spend more time with it. You know what I mean?
2:44:12
So that's the that's the sort of tricky part here is is So anyway, I don't want to sound dystopian.
2:44:16
And I think there's some amazing amazing uses, but I think I'm not sure that our brains are super well prepared for what happens when you know our our AIs become our friends and then break up with us or we break up with them or they forget who we are because it's upgraded.
2:44:28
This is >> our model is deprecated. Right. >> Right.
2:44:31
That's what happened with >> like that's what happened with the Carrera GT. >> Yeah.
2:44:37
>> They don't make Carrera GTS anymore. They deprecated it.
2:44:40
>> And I can tell you're still grieving. grieving. Absolutely.
2:44:42
Since >> I think it's I think it's hard to it's it's hard to >> used to be a couple hundred grand now that's over a mill.
2:44:50
>> It's hard to make the argument that somebody like you know getting married to their AI or accept you know uh you know >> is good. Yeah.
2:45:00
>> Like how do you make how do you steal man that John?
2:45:03
>> I mean it's just like hitting the track on the weekend you know got to get away from the family for a little bit.
2:45:08
>> I don't know how far you stretch this analogy.
2:45:12
a lot about you in this podcast.
2:45:12
It's really interesting and >> yeah, you know, anyway, uh it's been great having you.
2:45:18
Next time, uh you're in LA, let's throw some pink mustaches on some Porsches.
2:45:22
Go to Porsche Experience Center.
2:45:25
>> Next, let's and let's ride >> next earning next earnings call, join right after.
2:45:29
We'll have pink mustaches on and uh we'll hit the gong. We'll hit the gong. >> I am here for it. I would love that. Back to back.
2:45:36
In fact, I actually try to get my IR group, but they've not yet gotten excited about this idea, to do our earnings call in the form of a podcast. So, >> Oh, there we go.
2:45:45
>> I ever convince them to do that because I think it'd be interesting, right? Yeah. Super interesting.
2:45:48
>> Maybe we'll get you guys to host it. >> That'd be fantastic. We'd love to. Amazing. >> Awesome. Well, great. Great to hang.
2:45:54
>> We'll talk to you soon, >> you guys. That was a lot of fun.
2:45:55
Thanks so much for questions. Take care. Cheers. Bye. >> Talk.
2:45:58
Before we bring in our next guest, we have a demand from Donald Boat.
2:46:00
He wants me to read this.
2:46:03
He says, "I'm running on so much Celsius, sparkling cola, and surplus intravenous compute that the twin forces, the twin force ghosts of Adam twos and Fidel Castro are screaming in my ears like UCLA sorority girls at the Rose Bowl, screaming, "Do not stop until you envelop the world system."
2:46:26
And your package fleets smog the firmament like the onsler like the onsler wireheaded into Starcraft 3 as dreamed by an unemployed 29year-old bachelor in Busousan, South Korea.
2:46:41
And throw that up on the screen.
2:46:44
Please make Kougan read it. Uh very fun.
2:46:46
Uh this man has a way with words.
2:46:50
Uh he's a great poster and he's on a generational run and we'll see where it goes.
2:46:55
Thanks for writing in, Donald Boat, and uh good luck.
2:46:58
He said that the uh the final PC build would be ready Wednesday. I want to see it.
2:47:03
Send us a photo as soon as it's put together.
2:47:05
I want to know the whole build.
2:47:07
Uh throw it throw it up on PC part picker.
2:47:09
Put it all together for us so we can get a screenshot of what we're expecting.
2:47:13
Then I want to see the Battlefield 6 stream.
2:47:15
I want to see him getting some head shots, some 360 nocopes.
2:47:21
>> He should just join live and game for a little bit. >> He should. I'd be down.
2:47:24
Anyway, we have our next guest from Profound, James. >> Get the gong ready. Give us the news. What happened? Break it down for us. >> Hi, John. Hi, James. Good to see you. >> Great to see you. Big day. Big day. What's happening?
2:47:42
>> What's going to happen? >> I'm ready. What's going to happen? >> I'm ready. I'm way too rich. >> Break it down for us. >> Break it down.
2:47:50
>> I'm a dry dry humor kind of guy.
2:47:50
Yeah, we uh we just um we >> we just closed a $35 million series. >> What? Let's go. Let's go. Huge. Who's in the deal? Is it a tier one?
2:48:06
Is it a really good firm? Who did the deal?
2:48:11
>> It's uh Sequoia Capital.
2:48:11
Yeah, >> I've heard of them. >> I've heard of them. >> Heard of them. Heard of them. >> Heard of them. That's fantastic news. Congrats. Great group of people.
2:48:19
>> Okay, so we're taking that money.
2:48:19
We're going to Washington DC and we're lobbying to ban ads in LLMs because then everyone will have to buy your services. Is that a good idea? Break it down for me.
2:48:29
>> I mean, honestly, I'd quite like ads to come into these services.
2:48:31
I think it would be net good for us.
2:48:32
I think it would create the the clickware response of really understanding that AI is a marketing channel, but >> we could go to Washington and hang out with kids. >> Okay.
2:48:42
So, so, so AI be because like like the joke that I'm getting at is basically like profound helps companies show up in generative AI results.
2:48:51
Right now, uh the game if I have a product is I want to rank highly in chat GPT when someone asks give me the give me the survey of the landscape go do the deep research report on uh what was it Aiden saying like the best paper towels and I want to rank highly for the best paper towels.
2:49:09
And so I come to profound and profound helps me rank highly in that result.
2:49:13
But if if there's an if there's a bunch of ads then you would think like the relative value of like SEO generally decreases.
2:49:21
But it seems like we're early enough in this that you could maybe see that as additive to your business.
2:49:26
Is that how you're thinking about it? >> I think it's good. It's a good take.
2:49:29
Um I think >> blue link search has been a two-party system.
2:49:36
It's like a handshake between the you know the blue link uh connects the consumer to the brand. >> Yeah.
2:49:43
>> But these AI systems like chat GPT hijack that relationship.
2:49:48
So the consumer really ends up having a relationship only with chat GPT.
2:49:52
If I'm researching corporate credit cards, I don't really need to go to chase. com or ramp. com.
2:49:58
I can just interface with chat GPT and it will go and visit their websites on my behalf. Mhm.
2:50:06
>> So I think there's a there's there's new reasons that this is actually like quite different from that old paradigm of traditional search.
2:50:12
And I think if you're a brand owner >> Yeah.
2:50:15
and before you're just Google corporate cards and and maybe >> JPM is near the top and ramp is near the top and you're navigating to those individual sites and then going back and forth and back and forth or opening new tabs and what you're saying is it's now just like a lot more conversational and the consumer >> comparison table. Yeah. Exactly.
2:50:33
>> comparison table. Yeah. Exactly. you skip you skip a step you you have the answer the answer was what you'd have to you know there's a step in between previously so I think and we're also entering this this era where you know a if if you're a brand owner AI becomes
2:50:49
the customer so if you're if you're a marketer or a CMO at any company on the planet it's understanding that you have one new VIP customer which is super intelligence and we're build and we're we're building a technology platform to help brands build marketing that's aimed uh super intelligence instead of humans. >> When we talked the first time, it must
2:51:07
>> When we talked the first time, it must have been a couple months ago, we were in the old studio.
2:51:10
Um we were talking just about like writing your website in a way that can be ingested by like the web scrapers and like robots.
2:51:17
txt and that type of stuff.
2:51:20
But if we play this out more, uh, is it a can I pat myself on the back for putting 3 hours a day of my words into the endless corpus of web text such that everything I say uh ranks highly?
2:51:36
Like, is is it a volume game?
2:51:39
Would you recommend that brands that are using profound and want to rank higher do a ton of podcasts and and and and just get a lot of content out there about their brands?
2:51:49
Is that a reasonable strategy?
2:51:52
>> Uh, it's at the risk of sounding somewhat self-s serving, it kind of ties pretty nicely with a feature set that we've launched today called workflows, which essentially think of it like a Gentic Workflows that will monitor your AI visibility and then proactively and reactively create net new content based on changes that we're seeing in the landscape.
2:52:13
So it really taking out that kind of the rope labor of having to sit, you know, I think the 2015 paradigm was marketers would go to a platform and click into the data viz and build an insight and create new content.
2:52:26
And now you can just do all of that all within one platform at the click of a button. >> Yeah.
2:52:32
This is like the old Airbnb SEO story where like at the bottom of the footer they had like every single city and it was like vacation rentals in Omaha, vacation rentals in in you know like like Tampa and then and then that ranked but it's all driven by just like what they're seeing from Google and they feed it back into the landing pages.
2:52:50
Now you can do that with what's with what you're actually seeing in LLM search results.
2:52:57
Basically >> you guys are my >> Yeah, sorry J.
2:53:00
That's just the point being as well that you can create the content within >> you can actually instantiate the content and I'm sure that a lot of the SEO heavy companies that really focused on that like automated a lot of that just like do a database query and then turn it into a landing page with a good like route and you know and all the URLs that that follow so that it gets scraped into Google.
2:53:21
Now you can do that in the in the chat context and the other LLM context.
2:53:24
How quickly are legacy like older companies kind of reacting to this changing trend and consumer behavior?
2:53:30
I know you guys already work with some of the biggest companies in the world.
2:53:34
So clearly some of them are are being responsive to it, but is it is that is that common or or do you still meet with companies that just don't understand kind of uh what's happening?
2:53:48
>> It's been pretty prevalent.
2:53:48
Yeah, as you said, we work with Fortune 10.
2:53:50
I mean I can't do the we don't have logo rights but Fortune five.
2:53:55
We working with Fortune five brands right now. >> Fortune five. >> Fortune Fortune one. Oh, is it Nvidia? Fortune one.
2:54:06
>> Uh we won't press you on that.
2:54:09
>> The the the C the CEO of of Reddit, you know, mentioned profound in their Q2 earnings report last week. >> That was very cool.
2:54:16
Um yeah, so I think it really is becoming a boardroom level concern for most big companies.
2:54:21
Um yeah, we we work with I think 250 to 300 enterprise brands right now and most of the big agencies are relying on our platform.
2:54:31
Um >> do you think do you think there's some sort of alpha?
2:54:35
I I feel like there's a lot of there's a lot of conversations about brands and a lot of customer love that happens within the context of basically like support tickets or like one-on-one conversations.
2:54:47
>> Is there is there a potential alpha in in having a flow where if a customer writes in and they're satisfied, you're pushing them to publish that to the web in some way.
2:54:57
So, you're just getting more web text out there, something like that.
2:55:02
even if it's not on your own platform.
2:55:03
It's like, hey, like we're actually going to be doing a lot more customer service on our Reddit.
2:55:06
And so, like, we want Yeah. Yeah.
2:55:09
You can email us and we'll do a one-on-one if it's like private information like your billing, but if you just want to talk about how to use the product and best practices, like let's take this conversation over to Reddit.
2:55:18
Like, that seems like maybe a strategy that people would want to adopt.
2:55:23
>> That's exactly what you would use workflows for, this feature set that we've launched today.
2:55:26
So, it would automate those workflows for you. Um, yeah.
2:55:29
and what you that exact point that you're mentioning if you think I don't think I can name them but if you think of you know some of your favorite software companies 5 years ago or three years ago candidly if you were if you were an engineer and you were trying to troubleshoot a problem with that software you would have gone to their docs. ebsite. com or developer. website.
2:55:48
com and gone through their developer docs but now you just use anthropic or chatgpt to to troubleshoot.
2:55:55
Um, so yeah, that's that's I guess it kind of I can bring that full circle back to the kind of SEO question.
2:56:01
There's so much more surface area here.
2:56:04
There's yeah, people aren't just using it for discovery.
2:56:06
They're using it for post sales.
2:56:08
It's it's um yeah, crisis management, PR teams.
2:56:13
>> Last question from Jordan.
2:56:15
>> How where does tradition where where do you see is traditional SEO going to near zero for a lot of these companies?
2:56:21
I mean, uh, if you look at, you know, already the changes that Google's rolled out with AI overviews, I I saw Bill Gurley shared a number of quotes from from earnings calls over the last month where people were just basically saying, >> look, like our our our organic search traffic is down 60%, you know, year-over-year.
2:56:45
And it was like a lot of different examples of that.
2:56:47
So, I'm curious where you think that goes.
2:56:52
I think you know the search engines will be they will seem very odd to our children as a concept you know thumbming through lists of blue links it will seem something like the yellow pages I think the act of SEO those folks the teams of people that have built their careers in that space it's 90 billion a year
2:57:11
industry it's a huge industry and the folks that work on that will likely be extremely well positioned to dominate this new world of AI visibility or GEO or AEO or you know whatever we want to call it um answer or some we' say agent experience um is like another way to think about it. I think
2:57:29
I think if you're if you're a brand the ones that care the most are brands that are high or products that are high consideration purchases so something that people do like a ton of research on like cars or consumer electronics with a tech forward end consumer.
2:57:46
>> Uh question from the chat and then we'll let you go.
2:57:48
Uh, does Profound offer a play for content publishers who were monetizing SEO referral traffic after it dropped off a cliff over the past few years?
2:58:00
How do you think about the evolution of content publishers that were monetizing SEO referral traffic and where all that goes?
2:58:07
Is that like the wire cutter?
2:58:09
Is that an example of a >> Yeah, >> the wire cutter.
2:58:13
>> That's re That's a much trickier one to navigate.
2:58:16
That's not they're not really our >> customer content, right?
2:58:18
You you you work with I sell a physical thing.
2:58:20
AI can't give you this thing and I'm just helping you get this thing faster. Right. >> Yeah.
2:58:26
If if the content is the product, >> it's going to get scraped. It >> it's very tricky.
2:58:32
>> So, you got to work on a deal with the if you're a content publisher, you got to go to the LLMs and say, "Hey, uh like let's do a deal 101." Right. >> Yeah.
2:58:39
I mean, I think, you know, there's been the whole Cloudflare thing where Cloudflare default turned on, bots off, which I think is audacious.
2:58:45
If you're a marketer, you want to have bots turned or you want bots putting your products in.
2:58:51
But if you're a publisher, Yeah.
2:58:53
Like you probably do want bots turned off and they've got I think that's going to be more similar to like the music industry or something where it's going to have to sort of like figure out itself as we saw there. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:59:02
Cloudflare like the the really crazy scenario could be like they look like a YouTube or they look like a Spotify where yeah most people put up a web a blog post and they get a couple cents.
2:59:13
There's a couple people that put up banger blog posts and they get a check for $20,000 just from the the web traffic and and we kind of get back to oh yeah like it's weird that I only got a couple hits to the website but it was repurposed all over the place and it really updated the weights and it was super valuable to the to GPT6 trainings run.
2:59:32
And so I just get a dividend from that for a long time.
2:59:33
That would be a really cool outcome.
2:59:35
But uh we'll have to keep monitoring the situation.
2:59:36
So thank you for joining us.
2:59:39
>> You and the team progress and it's going to be a big >> rest.
2:59:42
Have a great rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon. >> Thanks.
2:59:47
>> Male loneliness is being called chaps games. >> I agree. I agree.
2:59:50
Uh we got Devin from Squint coming in the studio. Play some soundboard.
2:59:54
Hit me with the news one. There we go.
2:59:57
>> Do I think I'll need this again?
2:59:59
>> I I want to hit it this time. >> You want to hit it?
3:00:00
I want to I I feel like I've gotten three. Uh give us the news. Give us the updates.
3:00:04
What's going on in your world? Welcome to the stream. Welcome to TVPN. How you doing?
3:00:09
>> Hey guys, thanks for having me on.
3:00:09
Um I appreciate you making time for this.
3:00:11
So, >> uh I think the news is that Squint is announcing a $40 million series B. >> Let's go. >> Congratulations. >> There we go.
3:00:21
Almost took the gong off the off the rope there, John, but worthy.
3:00:26
Uh, are there any tier ones invested?
3:00:34
Any any tree themed venture capital firms participating?
3:00:39
>> We we might have one, the the main tree one, I think. >> That's great to hear. That's great to hear. Okay.
3:00:44
Well, we can move rounds of them. >> Fantastic.
3:00:47
We can move on from the from the funding news.
3:00:49
Uh, give us the update on the company. Break it down.
3:00:51
What What how are you pitching the company these days?
3:00:54
and then we'll go into some questions and deep dives. >> Sure.
3:00:57
Um, so you know, Squint is a manufacturing intelligence platform.
3:01:00
We use AI to drive efficiency on the factory floor.
3:01:06
>> Um, and we work with the biggest, uh, companies that make products that you use every day.
3:01:10
So, Fortune 500 companies like Pepsi and Michelin that make, you know, tortillas to tires.
3:01:17
>> Um, and I can share maybe let me share a little bit about the problem statement before I talk about the product because >> it'll make more sense. Totally.
3:01:24
>> Um I think you know manufacturing as an industry is booming but it's like a big house that is built on toothpicks >> right and that foundation is really weak.
3:01:33
So um today a lot of the like shop floor knowhow lies in two places.
3:01:36
It's either in the heads of uh experts that are about to retire or it's in a crusty binder somewhere that is hard to find and hard to understand.
3:01:46
And uh I think today if you're going to be investing in scaling the industry on the whole, you really need to be able to solve that efficiency.
3:01:55
And so what Squint does is uh it uses a video of an operator doing any sort of work on the floor.
3:02:02
And then the AI watches that and writes a perfect standard operating procedure in seconds.
3:02:09
And then using computer vision and augmented reality, it actually walks any operator through any task um and is able to support them by answering questions, but also through the the camera on the tablet, it can see if the work was done correctly.
3:02:23
So we help basically elevate the quality of of work.
3:02:25
So basically, so basically a completely separate like purely human track versus like the seaman's equipment, the CNC's, the the the automated pick in place like that's happening in a different world.
3:02:37
You're more focused on, you know, uh humans in the loop type work. >> Yeah, 100%.
3:02:43
I mean I think like a lot of the investment even in robotics it happens in the same customers that we work with but that investment is going into things like uh eliminating some of the ergonomically unsafe tasks or the highly repetitive tasks >> and then where the humans are involved what we're able to do is basically double their efficiency.
3:03:01
So we had a Fortune 500 customer a CPG company that measured you know the before and after with squint and they saw that actually it reduced the time it took to do work by 50%. Right.
3:03:12
And so that's the kind of results you're getting with just like the same number of operators as before, but you're able to double your, you know, throughput. >> Very cool.
3:03:22
>> How good is Squint at like is Squint oneshotting, you know, problems that that workers are coming across.
3:03:28
I mean, I think people have been pretty wildly impressed with ChatGpt's ability to like take a picture in their home of a bunch of wiring and and just say like, "This isn't working. What's wrong?"
3:03:39
and it's just like starts to >> uh genuinely show real intelligence in terms of of fixing a situation.
3:03:45
Are you guys already seeing that on the factory floor?
3:03:50
What does that look like?
3:03:53
>> Yeah, you know, I think I mean that's a great example.
3:03:54
Um I think in the consumer use case, if chat GPT was 95% accurate, we would be so happy as consumers, right?
3:04:02
It would be like 95% of my problems are solved with this app.
3:04:07
But in a factory, uh, 95% accuracy means 5% of like devastating results. >> Yeah.
3:04:13
You break you break like a half a million dollar machine. >> Exactly.
3:04:17
Or, you know, worse, someone gets hurt.
3:04:19
And so for us, like what we've oriented on is our AI will only answer things based on what it has seen in your factory floor.
3:04:27
So all of this is a custom manufacturing process that it's learning. Got it.
3:04:33
>> And then Yeah, like it is oneshotting things.
3:04:34
Um so you know most of the time uh if you ask wind a question the problem is solved.
3:04:39
And so our customers are starting to share stories like hey uh actually a couple weeks ago I had a call and uh this customer said that I thought our ticketing system was broken because since we deployed squint we had zero tickets filed but then we ran a whole IT investigation and it turns out the ticketing system wasn't broken.
3:04:56
There were just like the operators didn't have any more issues.
3:04:59
>> So that's the kind of thing that we're trying to create now. >> That's awesome.
3:05:03
Are you guys focused uh on the US today or already international?
3:05:07
Like what's the go to market look like?
3:05:11
>> Yeah, it's a good question.
3:05:11
Um you know, we're working with the these massive global brands.
3:05:14
So Pepsi, Michelin, Continental, all of those three, for example, we're working with their plants in the US and also abroad.
3:05:20
Um just a few weeks ago, I was in Germany for a week.
3:05:25
Um ended up visiting, you know, 12 cities in 5 days or something and it was crazy.
3:05:29
So, um, we're starting to feel that demand and that's a big part of why we raised this round, too. >> Awesome. >> Congratulations.
3:05:36
Thanks so much for stopping by.
3:05:38
We're running a little bit late today, so we're going to let you get back to your busy day, but >> go raise a series C.
3:05:42
Come back on later this year.
3:05:44
>> Yeah, later this week.
3:05:46
>> Later this week, potentially. >> Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Preempt. >> Sounds good. >> Yeah. Thanks for having us. >> We'll talk. >> Have a good one.
3:05:53
Uh, and up next we have Alex Denko. We got a trade deal. >> Trade. The news broke today.
3:05:58
He's going from Shopify to A16Z >> and Theres Horowitz.
3:06:06
>> Eric Torrenberg's latest pickup.
3:06:07
>> Hey guys, Alex, welcome. >> How you doing? Welcome to the show.
3:06:10
>> Hey guys, thank you for having me on. >> Break it down for us. Anatomy of the deal. What they do?
3:06:15
Did they sit uh did Mark Andre sit down with your mom?
3:06:20
>> Did Mark Anderson >> sit down with your parents?
3:06:21
Tell them you got a bright future.
3:06:23
We would like to take your son to the big leagues.
3:06:26
phone call with Mark Andre right next to my mom because I was on vacation that week.
3:06:31
We were seeing my parents >> and um the call with Mark was actually a stressful one because I had to give him my final >> negotiation demand >> which was he had to unblock me on Twitter. >> No way. >> But he did. >> That's amazing.
3:06:45
He's a notorious blocker. >> He did. What did you do?
3:06:47
What did you do to get blocked?
3:06:50
>> Never give up if you've been blocked by >> What did you do to get blocked by the We don't know.
3:06:53
We've decided not to look into it.
3:06:55
Some things are best left as mystery in life, but we we we reserve the right to find out later.
3:07:02
>> I've been blocked by people. Had to apologize.
3:07:03
I don't know exactly know why I got blocked, but you know, you always live to live to fight another day.
3:07:08
Anyway, >> could have been some could have slipped. >> Yeah, it's possible.
3:07:10
Uh so, so what what's at the top of the to-do list today, this week, this month?
3:07:15
What are you going to be doing for Andre and Horowitz?
3:07:19
>> So, um I'm coming on board.
3:07:19
Um Eric brought me into this amazing group of people he is putting together.
3:07:23
not to be understated and also not complete.
3:07:25
Um there's there's more Eric has more work to do yet.
3:07:29
Um I'm coming on board to help >> Yeah, Job's not finished.
3:07:32
I'm coming on to help make all of the written content coming out of Andre be truly world class and as good as it can be.
3:07:40
>> Um I think a lot of people on the internet know me from my writing online.
3:07:44
I've been a blogger for a long time despite having done other things like be a founder.
3:07:47
I've worked in VC before.
3:07:48
I've been at Shopify for 5 years. Mhm.
3:07:51
>> But you know, most people I think know me just from, you know, writing and mouththing off on the internet and generally doing the craft that has been internet blogging, right?
3:07:58
Which is just a >> a really amazing and valuable part of tech that has been around for such a long time.
3:08:05
You know, I >> a really formative um conversation in my career was, you know, once upon a time when I was a founder, my co-founder and I were trying to figure out how to launch a product.
3:08:15
We didn't know what was involved in that or what that meant.
3:08:18
And we went to a more experienced founder, our friend Amanda, and said, "Hey, you know, what do we do?
3:08:20
How do we launch this product?"
3:08:22
And she said, "Oh, well, I think you should email your email list and say, "Hey, we're going to go and do this. Tell us what you like.
3:08:27
Tell us where we should reach you.
3:08:27
Tell us get lots of feedback on all these things, and then they'll help you out."
3:08:31
And I said, "Wait, wait, wait, stop.
3:08:33
What do you mean email your email list? What's an email list?"
3:08:36
She's like, "Oh, you don't have thousands of fans that adore you and wait for your every email every week?"
3:08:41
And I was like, "I need to be someone with one of those." Yeah.
3:08:46
>> So, ever since then, yeah.
3:08:46
Um, writing and newsletters and just the craft of having something to say has been a really important part of how I've always, you know, >> thought about how to be a great live player on the internet.
3:08:57
>> How do you think about breaking through with text?
3:08:59
Because the link ban on X is tough. Uh, AI is going to Yeah. Yeah.
3:09:02
Is is is like should you just lean into more of the formats?
3:09:08
I mean, there's certain amounts of like you can just be built different like Chris Pike who just drops a link to a Google doc and it always works somehow.
3:09:16
People do screenshot essays like what >> something that stands out to me and why I'm excited for you to take this new role is I was having this thought yesterday.
3:09:24
I was reading some particularly like sloppy AI generated text and I was just I was like yes the models are going to get better but like in a few years like at what point is like all the text that you're reading online and throughout your day just generated and there's no soul and and craft put into it.
3:09:44
And it's like you can still you can remove hyphens and delve and it's not this, it's you're not this, you're that like language and you can still identify writing today.
3:09:55
And I and I just think like craft like the craft of writing and thinking clearly and coming up with trying to come up with new ideas is super important. >> So Lindy, >> Lindy. Yeah.
3:10:10
>> Lindy. Yeah. So I like to think of it is that writing is power transfer technology right when you do it like it takes a lot of work to write something down and it takes work to read something right takes more work to read something than to listen to it but the important thing that happens is that as you put in the work to write and as you put in the
3:10:28
work to read what happens this actually reshapes your brain a little bit reshapes your understanding of what you're talking about such a way that the person writing can actually transfer some legitimacy to the person reading right they can actually speak to this thing they have words for something that they knew but like didn't quite know how to say before and that gives them power, right? And it doesn't work the same way
3:10:46
And it doesn't work the same way when you're talking, right?
3:10:48
There is this fabulous complimentary kind of media called podcasts which is listen for 3 hours and hear about all these great things.
3:10:57
But to me, podcasts are an invitation to go find out something more.
3:11:01
But if you actually want to do that power transfer, right, from the writer to the reader and give them something that gives them that power, like you got to write it down, >> right?
3:11:09
And if you think about this for the job of a VC firm, right?
3:11:11
It's like what is the job of VC?
3:11:13
The job of VC is literally you are the legitimacy bank, right?
3:11:18
Your job is to make founders powerful, >> right?
3:11:21
And having an amazing free tier of that by saying we think a lot about these things.
3:11:25
We want to give you words to express what you're trying to say so that a client, a hire, an investor will take you a little more seriously is really important to do.
3:11:34
You know, so that's a big part of why we want to emphasize the goal is to give founders power.
3:11:40
This is the job of the whole firm and writing is just pretty good part of that.
3:11:45
>> When I think about writing at A16Z, I think of a few buckets.
3:11:49
There's a ton because the firm's written a lot for a long time.
3:11:52
I think about um maybe it was like a decade ago, but I don't I don't know how often it still happens, but the the general partner who does the deal writes basically a deal memo and says, "This is why we're investing in this company."
3:12:06
And that's and that's very interesting.
3:12:08
There's also the uh the Mark Andrees oped in the Wall Street Journal.
3:12:11
Software is eating the world.
3:12:13
It's time to build uh these like big uh like just like you know bombs on the timeline that drop and stick around for a long time.
3:12:22
Uh then there's the market map which is uh it's been maligned but I think it's deeply underrated >> tradition.
3:12:29
>> It's a timehonored tradition and I think VCs are in a unique position to actually put out great content there and I've actually really enjoyed digging into those as we've been doing the show.
3:12:36
Uh and then there's also like the wild card ones like I remember Inden used to do these uh interviews with founders in the portfolio just basically like uh it's like what's your everyday carry but in the digital world.
3:12:49
So, it's like uh what apps are you running?
3:12:51
What tools are you using? Those are really cool. So, that's right.
3:12:54
>> There's a ton of stuff and I I probably mentioned I missed like half of it, but and maybe even more, but uh what's exciting to you? What's interesting?
3:13:01
What kind of formats are you do you see as like fertile ground to go explore if you've had the time to think about it so far? >> Yeah.
3:13:08
So, I'll tell you what I think is a really interesting meta that I'm going to spend a lot of time going after is speech writing. >> Okay. Interesting.
3:13:14
>> Okay. Interesting. Speechw writing is an interesting and kind of thrown by the wayside craft because now when you think about long form it's like when you are interesting and you have something to say you can go on a podcast you can talk for a long time or you are going to tweet about it right but there is
3:13:30
something that is missing of the craft of like putting in an extraordinary amount of tortured effort into creating you know like a 5,000word delivery of what is it that you have to say this year >> right and if you're a GP right it's like hey you know you get time and perspective to figure out like this year
3:13:47
what is the core thing that you want to say right that is going to help inform >> all the other content frankly like people like Katherine at a 16Z are also already incredible at this >> um and bringing that sort of to more throughout the culture is going to be important >> either way though so you mentioned all these different types of
3:14:03
>> content speeches I just yes speeches incredibly underrated we utilize we utilize them internally with the team >> and uh and they're not every week they're not on a But sometimes sometimes you need a speech, >> you need to just nail it and they can really set the tone and the energy within the company. >> And I'm getting chills thinking about
3:14:25
>> And I'm getting chills thinking about Mark Andre standing on stage in front of thousands of people saying, "We chose to raise this growth fund not because it is easy, but because it is hard."
3:14:35
>> Because it's hard to to test the to test the ability of our LPs to test the capital markets >> to measure them.
3:14:43
Why do we go to the moon?
3:14:45
>> Not because of the global capital markets.
3:14:48
>> There will never be enough venture capital.
3:14:49
I mean, yeah, like like a a well a well-defined phrase.
3:14:51
Uh Andre has been fantastic.
3:14:55
Coinages and I feel like yeah, the speeches that's an interesting answer.
3:14:58
I I I was not expecting that, but that makes a ton of sense.
3:15:01
>> Well, um it's good to buy low on things.
3:15:04
I think buying low um on speeches is your your daily tip. >> That's great. That's great.
3:15:08
Uh where else should we go with this?
3:15:09
What >> I think speeches could be an entirely new launch video meta, right?
3:15:14
Everybody like the the >> barn burners >> uh launch everybody has a launch video.
3:15:20
There's like three new launch videos every day.
3:15:22
A lot of them like blur together because they're cool graphics and this person invested and and here's this product UI.
3:15:28
And if you just have the CEO just like rant at the camera and you can get people to like truly listen to that, it probably ends up being um you know pretty pretty powerful. >> Yep.
3:15:39
Those kinds of things can go viral in really powerful ways, right?
3:15:41
Because it tells people that you have something to say, right?
3:15:44
And it's doubly important because you talked about all these different forms of writing that are all great in their own way.
3:15:50
And the one thing that they all have in common is I'll tell you what all bloggers know, right, about writing is you have two audiences, right?
3:15:56
The first audience is the people who actually read what you said, >> which is small.
3:16:02
>> The second audience is the people that they tell that thing, >> right?
3:16:06
Because they get something out of retelling it, right?
3:16:07
like they get that legitimacy, they get that ability to express themselves or whatever.
3:16:10
And there is a trade between the writer and the inner circle of people who are going to actually listen to that speech or actually read that thing all the way through.
3:16:19
And something that was great about the old VC blogging meta way back in the day.
3:16:25
So 10, 12, 15 years ago when you know like ABC was cooking and Seml Shaw and Mark Schuster and people like that is the way a blog worked like the the micro structure of blogging was you had a blog and you had readers and a comment section and everybody came to your blog and the readership would be there and the way that you would tell what blogs were good was you would have lots of comments, right?
3:16:43
And that's where your primary readership would then go and invisibly tell other people about it.
3:16:48
Then the feed emerged, right?
3:16:48
We got Twitter, we got hacker news where we got places where suddenly the discussion moved in public and what happened then is that first of all the ability to reach a secondary audience exploded.
3:16:59
So the the like the returns to writing were only got bigger but it became less obvious to do right the trade became a little bit obscured by virtue of the fact that it's all in public right and it's all based on how many retweets and likes you get.
3:17:12
And I think what's happening now as we go even further past this is that the returns to writing and reading have never been more valuable but never been less obvious.
3:17:23
>> So, you know, it's time to go if you if you go bring the output of a firm as legendary as 816Z with all the amazing things they have to say and the >> statements of record that they want to put out into the world.
3:17:33
You know, my job is to go help Eric and the whole GP crew and Ben and Mark bring this back and make it amazing again.
3:17:39
making a really like a brand that's going to shine.
3:17:43
>> I can't wait for your first software is eating the world moment.
3:17:46
>> Also, I mean, I feel like the speech thing really ties into the new A16Z brand.
3:17:51
Like, when I see the coin, I feel like that's like >> the art deco coin with aus.
3:17:56
>> Yeah, I feel like speech kind of art deco in some ways.
3:17:57
I don't know why I'm making that association, but it feels somewhat linked.
3:18:02
>> Is it or is it a bozar? Right.
3:18:02
Like you remember the line it's like art deco is made by dwarves. Bozar is made by elves.
3:18:10
Yeah, but it's very it's very uh uh what is it?
3:18:13
It was it like like the style it was Randy and I feel like in in Anne Ran's writing there's a lot of speeches that happen throughout the book.
3:18:18
So >> there sure are famously makes >> sense. Yeah, famously.
3:18:24
>> Anyway, thank you so much for hopping on.
3:18:26
Congratulations on the trade deal.
3:18:28
Congratulations on the move and to seeing your work and hearing it.
3:18:33
>> Thank you for having me on, guys.
3:18:34
>> Come on and give a speech soon. >> Absolutely. >> Speech. Speech. speech. >> Speech.
3:18:39
Let's hit everybody >> for a new >> and we have Isaiah Taylor coming into the studio.
3:18:48
We'll bring him on the screen.
3:18:50
He has big news from Washington DC in the nuclear world.
3:18:55
Let's bring him into the studio.
3:18:58
>> We are in the fourth hour.
3:18:58
If you're still with us, >> we're in the fourth hour. Oh, looking good. I love the background. >> Subtle lighting. You're looking great. How are you doing? Not today. How's it going? I'm John and Jordy.
3:19:08
Great to be with you in the potential technology.
3:19:12
And >> we are going to need you to switch your microphone though because we cannot hear you very clearly.
3:19:17
I don't know what's going on.
3:19:19
Maybe try talking more and seeing if it works out. >> How about that? Is that any better? >> No, it's really not.
3:19:25
>> I think it's the Apple.
3:19:26
>> Can you Can you switch the uh Can you It might be the headphones uh that you're picking up the microphone there. I don't know.
3:19:32
But it's coming through pretty scratchy.
3:19:34
I think it's going to be rough if we try and stick with this. >> How about that? >> There we go. >> Okay, sweet. All right, thank you.
3:19:41
>> We're going to we're going to do it live.
3:19:42
We're going to go off of the uh off of the laptop here. >> Awesome. >> All right.
3:19:45
Fantastic to uh to talk to you, Jonah and Jordy.
3:19:47
And uh I want to introduce you to Ward Zero, which is the beautiful machine behind me here.
3:19:51
This is our uh first uh prototype nuclear reactor here in our Los Angeles uh facility.
3:19:58
So, it's it's extremely exciting to be with you today. >> Wow.
3:20:01
And that's Yeah, you're not on a green screen.
3:20:02
That's actually like a window. >> This is real.
3:20:04
There are there are dudes walking walking around there. Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that.
3:20:09
>> My office with the glass with the with the way the the glass is kind of reflecting slightly.
3:20:13
It looked I thought it was an image.
3:20:15
>> It looks like a poster, but yeah, we get a lot of we get a lot of fake backgrounds, but this one's real.
3:20:18
Um, anyway, may start running at some point. We'll have to see.
3:20:25
>> Can you drive a forklift yet, or do you not have time to get >> I actually am forklift certified.
3:20:27
I I don't know if I have the the certification sitting on my desk. I I just moved desks. >> Congratulations. Uh give us the update.
3:20:37
What happened in Washington DC? Why are you in the news? >> Yeah.
3:20:40
So, this was a very exciting day.
3:20:42
A couple months ago, I was on to announce the the signing of four executive orders.
3:20:45
Uh the president essentially said, "Listen, we need nuclear back in the United States.
3:20:48
This is a strategic priority."
3:20:50
And today, the Department of Energy announced the initial companies that will be part of the pilot program to turn on three nuclear reactors on American soil by July 4th, 2026, America's 250th birthday. >> So, we have a year. We got a year. It's past 65 days.
3:21:09
>> We're talking about less less than 12 months.
3:21:11
And we actually have a counter uh upstairs and a very very large screen in our office that counts down to the second uh our deadline to go and hit that uh next year.
3:21:19
We have a site in Utah and uh we're working very quickly toward that goal.
3:21:25
>> Yeah, it uh it seems like reading the press release it was like all the boys like I knew like seven of the I mean I know your competitors and it's obviously fierce competition but uh nuclear is famously like it's such a green field because there's really like no serious companies and you kind of saw that in the release.
3:21:42
It wasn't a lot of like legacy companies.
3:21:44
It was like basically all startups, people that we know and uh yeah so uh very exciting.
3:21:48
I mean, obviously like the race is on.
3:21:50
It feels like it'll be mostly friendly competition.
3:21:53
This is less of a winner take all market.
3:21:55
And it's such a it's such a good uh like it's like everyone's in it for America.
3:22:00
They're not purely in it just to like, you know, accumulate like all the power in the world, take over the whole world or whatever.
3:22:06
But yeah, what was your reaction to the rest of the crew? >> I mean, absolutely.
3:22:10
There's a ton of exciting people in here who are working very hard.
3:22:13
A lot of these companies have been working for a long time and have been waiting for this big break, right?
3:22:18
The big break is an administration that says, "All right, let's see if you have the stuff, right?
3:22:22
You've been saying for a long time that the regulatory environment is the problem. That's bottleneck.
3:22:26
We're going to clear everything out and let's see if you got the goods."
3:22:29
And so that's the test of the next uh 10 months here.
3:22:31
So, we're really excited about it.
3:22:33
You know, I think uh there are a couple things that are driving this moment.
3:22:36
AI is is clearly a huge one.
3:22:38
I was at the the executive order signing a couple of weeks ago for AI and the president made it very clear that this is a massive priority for the administration that we're going to beat China on AI.
3:22:48
We're going to win this thing and we're going to do it in the next 3 years and obviously energy is is hugely important to that.
3:22:54
A subtle note on this on energy that that most people don't understand is that nuclear particularly is important for AI.
3:23:00
You can get cheap energy through renewables and sort of an intermittent period and I think that worked pretty well back when we were doing a lot of pre-training, right?
3:23:07
So you can pre-train during the day when the energy is really cheap and you can kind of follow that curve around.
3:23:11
As we move toward inference, it's really important to have a lot of steady load, right?
3:23:17
We need the these turbines to be spinning all the time and especially as these inference loads are moving more agentic, right?
3:23:22
You're going to have these enterprise agent loads and hopefully those are are working while we're sleeping.
3:23:27
Um the the stability of that becomes even more important.
3:23:29
So nuclear is is a massive thing to kind of step into the breach here and solve that problem very quickly.
3:23:34
Walk me through the next 10 months like talk about having a timeline. Yeah.
3:23:39
What do you actually have to do?
3:23:41
In some ways, historically >> long timelines have nuclear certainly probably up there with rocket science in terms of uh you know uh not you know we know how to do it.
3:23:55
It doesn't mean it's not hard.
3:23:56
And so when you like really condense Yeah.
3:23:59
>> a timeline, >> what was the that Atlanta plant took about took about 15?
3:24:04
Yeah, it took about 15 years.
3:24:06
So I like it's interesting you mentioned rockets because I think this is a really good parallel.
3:24:11
>> We think of rockets as as taking a long time to build, but obviously SpaceX kind of proved the opposite.
3:24:15
SpaceX proved that you could build a rocket very quickly.
3:24:18
You could launch it quickly. You could iterate.
3:24:19
And actually what they did is is they went back to go forward because when we were first doing rockets in the Apollo program, we went from scratch with the Mercury program to humans landing on the moon 10 years later, right?
3:24:32
And so that was an extremely extremely rapid development process. And guess what?
3:24:35
They blew up a lot of rockets, right?
3:24:37
They they launched a lot.
3:24:38
They they blew up and you know there's this joke that that our rockets always blow up, but they got there and they they did it through building quickly.
3:24:43
And over time, that industry slowed down and it kind of got governed by these primes and it was really difficult for us to get these big systems off the ground.
3:24:51
And when Elon came back, he said, "You know what?
3:24:54
We're going to start with a really small rocket.
3:24:55
We're going to start with the Falcon one and we're going to launch it quickly and we're going to learn how to launch rockets.
3:24:59
We're going to build up the talent and the regulators going to get used to doing that again."
3:25:02
And so I think there's a huge parallel here with nuclear where nuclear is actually very similar.
3:25:08
In the early days of nuclear energy, you actually saw a lot of that rapid iteration like the early days of rocketry.
3:25:14
The world's first nuclear reactor turned on in 8 months from a piece of paper to criticality in the first system was 8 months.
3:25:20
Uh the next reactor turned on another 6 months after that and the third one turned on another 6 months after that at Oakidge where my great-grandfather was a was a physicist.
3:25:30
So we're actually kind of doing a similar thing that we did in space where you go forward, you know, go back to go forward, you know, and I also like to point out when when the first reactors were being made, this was in the era of, you know, manually drafting and slide rules, right?
3:25:43
And so it was extremely practical.
3:25:44
It was extremely focused on the outcome.
3:25:46
You have to actually bend the metal.
3:25:48
You have to stack the blocks and and these atoms have got to get split.
3:25:51
So you know, it's there's a cultural shift back to this R&D focused uh place where we can actually iterate and get through it.
3:26:00
Jordy, >> what are when when you iterate quickly on a rocket and you launch it and it doesn't work, it blows up.
3:26:04
Humans uh that there, you know, it can set things back in a way, but you learned something.
3:26:11
What what are the kind of like risk factors when you know, moving super quickly with a project like this that that you're you guys and and other players in the industry are keeping in mind? >> Yeah.
3:26:23
You know, rockets are a lot more exciting than the nuclear reactors.
3:26:25
Um when a rocket goes wrong and it's a really big, you know, explosion and there's all this, yeah, there's fireworks with these pretty colors.
3:26:32
You know, reactors are really boring.
3:26:33
Uh the nominal case is that this reactor sits here and does nothing.
3:26:37
Uh the nominal the actually subnominal case is also that the reactor sits here and does nothing.
3:26:42
So there's a lot that you can do in in the physics and the design of these reactors to ensure that they're safe.
3:26:48
So really what we're doing when we do this testing is we're verifying our assumptions on the mechanical components, right?
3:26:54
Do our pumps work how we expected them to? Do the valves work? Are we leaking things? Right?
3:26:58
There's these sort of all of the nitty-gritty of actually getting a physical system to perform how you expect it to.
3:27:03
So, I don't expect to see out of this experiment that there will be, you know, large failures, you know, hopefully not.
3:27:10
Um, that does have to do with the architecture though, and that's one of the reasons that we've picked this architecture standing behind us is that it is an extremely fundamentally safe architecture and that allows us to move quickly. >> That's great. Great. That's great.
3:27:21
Um, >> I would ring the gong, but I feel like we should save it for when the reactor goes critical, right? So, come back on. Let's save it. You got the countdown. Job's not finished. >> We are. >> How about this, John? John and Jordy.
3:27:35
If if Valor is the first, why don't you come and ring the gong on the site at the first criticality? How about that?
3:27:42
>> Will I need a hazmat suit?
3:27:44
>> You will also need You will need a You need a hazmat suit.
3:27:46
Well, well, I mean, we talked to the founder of Replica and she said that she grew up in Chernobyl and was like playing with radioactive toys and so she turned out fine.
3:27:54
She built a big company and so, you know, maybe maybe radiation poisoning underrated >> underrated. You'll be safe.
3:28:04
>> We're working out of the the Sanfell Energy Research Center in Utah.
3:28:06
There's a couple of buildings.
3:28:08
Some of them are nuclear, some of them are not.
3:28:09
We're going to throw a party in the non-uclear side.
3:28:12
So, we love to have you there to bring the gun. >> We'll be there. Thank you so much.
3:28:14
Well, congrats on the >> congratulations.
3:28:17
Keep up all the great work. >> Good luck. Cheers. >> Talk to you later. Bye.
3:28:23
>> Well, >> well, what a show. >> What a show.
3:28:25
Should we do any timeline?
3:28:28
I have one story, but uh we should save it for the next >> save it for tomorrow.
3:28:32
>> Uh Daniel Growing Daniel says they should make a TBPN for sports. I completely agree. I mean, >> it is crazy. We invented television. We invented streaming.
3:28:40
And now and now all we need to do as a society is just take the the innovation that we've created here and bring it to other other industries, other sectors.
3:28:50
And and uh Oh, we we we got >> Mitchell Baldridge says TVPN for Catholicism. >> I like that.
3:28:57
Uh we got >> I think they should make a TVN for monitoring situations.
3:29:00
It's just live the situation room. >> The situation room.
3:29:04
That is hilarious that it's called the situation room. Um yeah.
3:29:09
Uh Raul Sunwalker posted uh oh my god they created a TB TBPN for finance and it's CNBC with uh with Andrew Sorcin and uh and actually friend of the show >> and he actually replied with me with the with the crying emoji which is very funny stuff. >> Appreciate.
3:29:28
>> Uh anyways without further ado have a great rest of your afternoon.
3:29:31
Thank you for tuning in today.
3:29:32
We love you and we will see you tomorrow.
3:29:34
Very excited for the show tomorrow. >> Yeah.
3:29:36
We'll talk to you later >> once more. We'll have