0:00
Heat. Hey, Heat. Come on. [music] Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. N. [music] Heat. Heat. >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. N.
Search this video
3:08
>> [music] >> We came through this world to reach the stars.
3:24
We came to this world to shape our future.
3:34
[music] We came to this world to reach the stars.
3:44
>> [music] >> to shape our future.
3:51
We came to feel the new music. Let me think.
4:38
>> [music] [music] >> Team Deathmatch team, you are clear to engage.
4:50
[music] [music] >> You're watching TBP.
4:59
Today is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025.
5:01
We are live from the TBPN Ultra Dome.
5:03
back in the TBPN Ultra Dome.
5:06
>> Everybody wanted to know what we would do if we didn't podcast today.
5:09
I guess we'll never know.
5:13
>> I guess we'll never know. >> We're back. It's so good to be back.
5:17
>> It is uh back in the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital, still sponsored by ramp. Time is money. Save both.
5:22
Easy to use corporate cards, bill payment, accounting, a whole lot more all in one place.
5:27
Uh in breaking news yesterday, uh Jared Isaacman has been renominated, I guess is the term.
5:35
Uh he's back in the contention for uh to be NASA administrator.
5:41
Uh it was a very exciting, very tumultuous year for him.
5:45
Um up >> do we know why he was originally taken out of the running? >> Yes.
5:49
So there are differing accounts uh according to the White House.
5:53
So according to the White House, the the the the reason is that uh he had donated previously to Democrats and the White House said like this should be like we need to know that you're all in on America first like that type of thing.
6:12
>> Um but those donations were public because all donations are public.
6:15
Uh and so there was a little bit of like well like you nominated him you should have just like looked it up.
6:21
You can literally just like you can literally just Google it.
6:24
Like it's not even like some secret database.
6:26
Uh it's it's it's all open records.
6:29
Um but then RS Technica and a couple other outlets reported that it was because of the Elon Musk Trump dust up that happened back in May.
6:40
Remember the whole like battle and Elon was going at Trump on the timeline and Trump was going at Elon and Truth Social and they were kind of duking it out and there was like the >> I can't believe that was a real day on X.
6:51
It was a crazy day uh on truth social as well.
6:54
Why are you doing truth social eraser, bro?
6:56
[laughter] Um >> was going actually >> No, no, literally like like Trump was not posting on X. >> Oh, right. Right.
7:03
>> Trump would post on on Truth Social.
7:03
It was screenshotted and then share it on X. >> Yeah.
7:07
I remember we were sort of live reaction reacting to the news and I would refresh. >> Yeah. >> Truth.
7:12
Well, I'd see something on X. >> Yeah.
7:14
And you have to not be a real post from the president.
7:16
from the president. Then I go to truth social and say unfortunately >> it was real and it and it was and so >> Isaac men got pulled and uh Secretary Duffy stepped in uh Sean Duffy uh who's the 20th se 20th secretary of the
7:33
department of transit uh serving under the president um and but now Eric Isaacman's back in the picture of course at the Charlie Kirk Memorial you might have seen Elon Musk and President Donald Trump sitting down, having a handshake, uh maybe making amends. There's been
7:50
There's been speculation as to uh things.
7:52
It seems to be water under the bridge.
7:55
They seem to have uh healed all wounds, I suppose.
7:56
Um let me tell you about reream, one live stream, 30 plus destinations, multiream, and reach your audience wherever they are.
8:07
Uh so Jerry Gisman uh put out a a long post.
8:10
We'll read through some of this and then I have a little bit of a take about uh his career and whatnot.
8:13
Uh he said, "Thank you, Mr.
8:16
President, for this opportunity.
8:18
It will be an honor to serve my country under your leadership.
8:21
The support from the spaceloving community has been overwhelming.
8:23
Uh I am I am not sure how I earn the trust of so many, but I will do everything I can to live up to those expectations to the innovators building the orbital economy.
8:35
That's a term I haven't actually heard used before, but I like a lot.
8:36
Orbital economy is great.
8:39
Way space economy just doesn't hit as hard as orbital economy. I like that.
8:43
the scientists pursuing breakthrough discoveries.
8:44
And to the dreamers across the world eager to return to the moon and the grand journey beyond, these are the most exciting times the dawn of since the dawn of the space age.
8:56
And I truly believe the future we have all been waiting for will soon become a reality. This is inspiring.
9:02
I didn't know that that much about Jared Eisman, but as soon as I started learning about him, I was a fan.
9:08
Uh, and I'm very excited that he could potentially be in the seat.
9:09
The big reason is that first off he's he's an entrepreneur and I think entrepreneurs make great leaders generally.
9:18
Uh but >> he can fly fighter jets.
9:20
He has >> he can fly fighter jets.
9:22
That I think is a little bit less relevant but it's somewhat relevant because you are leading people like you're flying >> people that are going to fly their life by flying in big fast machines. Totally.
9:34
>> So I think it's I think it's a it's >> it's a sign of respect. >> Yeah. Yeah.
9:38
It's it's not that crazy of an idea.
9:40
Uh, but I don't think people understand how crazy of an entrepreneur he is.
9:44
So, he started shift for payments.
9:47
It had a few other names, but he started his company when he was 16 years old. 16. 16.
9:51
So, he dropped out of high school, got a GED, so he could technically have like finished high school, I suppose.
10:00
Um, and just started this business.
10:03
Um, and it's like a serious business.
10:05
like you talk to, you know, you you you learn about these people who maybe don't know, they don't run a household brand.
10:10
They haven't been telling their entrepreneurial story for a decade.
10:13
There's no founders podcast episode about them yet or something.
10:17
But, uh, this is a serious business.
10:19
Billions in revenue, uh, real earnings. Uh, the PE ratio is 25x.
10:22
It's like not some crazy, oh, it's a meme coin.
10:25
Uh, it's a $6 billion company. Yeah.
10:28
It's not a hyperscaler, but it's like very serious. Uh, 4,000 employees.
10:32
4,000 employees, hundreds of billions of payment volume.
10:37
Um, and uh, and it also does the the payments for Starlink.
10:41
So, it's it's like, you know, a Stripe competitor that actually works on uh, uh, to process the payments. >> They did 3.
10:49
3 billion revenue in 2024, >> which is which is also interesting.
10:53
I wonder when they first met because he's in payments in 1999.
10:57
Elon's in payments in 1999 and PayPal and then Elon I believe checkipedia.
11:04
>> Didn't didn't Elon angel into Stripe at some point.
11:07
Um Stripe of course owns Privy Wallet infrastructure for every bank.
11:12
Privy makes it easy to build on crypto rail securely spin up way labelable wallets sign transactions integrate onchain infrastructure all through one simple API.
11:17
Um and I think maybe I don't know if this is more important this is probably less important but he's been to space.
11:23
Jared Isaacman has been to space which is just crazy.
11:27
Uh and he so he went uh with a crewmate Sarah Gillis who was a SpaceX engineer and did a civilian spacew walk like they left the capsule in space and this was on a on a uh on a um SpaceX rocket um which is just like incredibly risky.
11:46
I feel like [laughter] it's a crazy move.
11:48
uh and he went all the way up and so he's kind of like really earned his bonafides as someone who's like loves space and is willing to you know engage with space he can probably say no one likes space more than me >> seriously. Yeah. Yeah.
12:05
Uh and so uh when he was first uh when he was first considered as NASA administrator, there was this debate uh around him and it wasn't it wasn't the Elon thing really.
12:17
I mean, it kind of was the Elon thing, but the Elon dust up that was kind of like the the last second like rugging, but in the leadup because Isaacman was nominated um I think on inauguration day.
12:30
So, he was like one of the first he was clearly everyone was like, "Yep, this is our guy.
12:34
We don't even have to make any more calls.
12:36
Like, we're nominating him on day one. Do that."
12:40
>> Then then the debate, you know, goes because he has to be confirmed, right?
12:44
uh and he eventually was confirmed, but the debate was moon versus Mars, moon versus Mars, where should you prioritize things?
12:50
It sounds silly, but it really is real because there are different pro uh different companies, different organizations, different constituents.
12:57
And so, uh on the moon side, you have the Aremis program, which is the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, uh the Orion spacecraft, which has been derided by uh Casey Hammer as a failure.
13:08
Uh there's been a lot of people who are pro SpaceX.
13:14
>> Casey quoted Jared's announcement said this is a good sign.
13:16
So he he uh >> and uh Casey is effectively our our senior NASA correspondent. >> Yes, definitely.
13:24
And and so on the other side you have Elon who has always been prioritizing Mars, Mars, Mars. Let's go to Mars.
13:31
Um, and so, uh, Jared Isaacman said at the time, "Why is it taking us so long and why is it costing us so much to go to the moon?"
13:40
And I think it's a good question.
13:42
Uh, we've been to the moon six times.
13:45
We've we've actually done, I think, 140 moon missions.
13:47
Uh, six of them actually landed humans on the moon.
13:51
A bunch sent people around the moon.
13:54
We sent robots to the moon. We sent landers.
13:56
We sent all sorts of different stuff around the moon.
13:58
So, we're not we're we're not new to go trying to go to the moon.
14:03
We've sent humans there six times.
14:04
Um, but the fact that we haven't been able to scale our rocket program to a point where moon missions are too cheap to meter has become a bit of a stain on American ingenuity.
14:15
We should have just scaled it up and just cut the cost by 20% every year and we would be getting up and back.
14:21
>> Shouldn't be a lost art.
14:22
>> It should be It shouldn't be a lost art.
14:24
Um, and and it is a lost art to the point where people ask, "Is it real? How did we do this?" It it's hard to believe.
14:32
How do we lose We don't normally just lose the ability to do things.
14:35
And yet in this >> Palmer Palmer was defending the moon mission to Logan by saying, wasn't he saying like you can shine a laser? >> There's a mirror. They they left a mirror.
14:45
So you can you can bounce you can bounce a laser off the mirror.
14:47
You can do this at home and you can prove that there is a mirror on the moon.
14:52
doesn't prove that aliens didn't put it there.
14:55
>> So, Palmer needs to, you know, go a little >> We gota You gotta go a level deeper.
14:59
>> You gotta go a level deeper.
14:59
But, um, you know, in general, uh, SpaceX has become the best hope at the reversal of this.
15:07
And Elon has been much more focused on Mars than the moon.
15:09
And so, the debate around Isaacman centers on this ti on his ties to Elon Musk.
15:13
Uh, his shift for company, the payment processor process.
15:18
Speaking of the moon, speaking of the mood, uh moon, Sam Alman was on Tyler Cowan. >> Yes.
15:24
>> And Alman said at one point, "Sometimes late at night, you just really want that chocolate chip cookie at 11:30 at night." Or at least I do. And Tyler says, "Yes."
15:32
Do you think there's any kind of alien life on the moons of Saturn? Because I do.
15:35
[laughter] >> How did they get in that situation?
15:38
We need to actually hear the real like transcript.
15:40
Is there video for that uh podcast? I think it's audio only. >> Audio?
15:45
>> I think it's just audio. Yeah, >> man.
15:46
Uh Sam really understands the Trump takeaway from the election.
15:49
Like the I I I believe like the whole the whole podcast election um conclusion was just attention is all you need.
15:58
You need to do as many podcasts as possible.
15:59
You need to be a high volume. Volume wins.
16:04
And Sam Alman just will not turn down appearances.
16:07
And so he does, you know, Tucker Carlson and there's a really rough clip that comes out of that.
16:13
But then he just goes and does another podcast.
16:17
Then he does another podcast and then uh on Friday everyone was talking about the Brad Gersonner, Satcha Nadella, Sam Alman clip.
16:22
Uh and then you know the next on Tuesday there's a new press cycle and I I haven't seen any bad clips from the Tyler Cowan interview.
16:31
So it just feels like the number one thing you don't want to do in comms is is like go into hiding. >> Yeah.
16:40
>> You just want to power through. Keep posting. Post through the pain.
16:41
uh podcast through the pain. I love it.
16:44
I think it's a great media strategy and I think it will ultimately be victorious.
16:50
Um but the question about Isaacman uh he's tied to Elon Musk through shift 4.
16:56
Uh he processes payments for Starlink and also he obviously literally went on top of a SpaceX rocket and went to space.
17:02
And so, uh, NASA, even though, even though SpaceX is a private company, NASA does have a thumb that it can put on the scale because it has funding and it has the ability to help and the ability to approve different things. >> NASA has funding.
17:16
They also know how to spend money. >> Exactly.
17:19
>> You look at how much money they've spent on on Orion.
17:22
>> And so that money could go to SpaceX, could go to Mars, could go to the moon.
17:26
and and the NASA administrator administrator has the ability to to say, "Hey, we're going to we're going to focus more on Mars and we're going to focus more on Moon or or vice versa."
17:36
And there's a and there's an open debate.
17:37
And I don't think this is like a leftright issue.
17:38
Uh I remember the wasn't the wasn't uh wasn't George Bush really into going to Mars and then I I I forget.
17:47
Did Why are you laughing, Tyler?
17:49
>> I just think it's funny like the moon and Mars being like a political >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
17:53
>> I think that would be funny.
17:54
>> It's like are you moon? Are you pro moon? Are you pro Mars?
17:56
And then like we need another x and y axis for an entirely new political compass that has no correlation with the underlying political left right authoritarian libertarian uh compass.
18:05
I don't know what what are other wedge issues that have no correlation with >> President George W.
18:12
Bush was quite interested in Mars exploration.
18:15
>> Mars guy >> in January of 2004.
18:16
He announced vision for space exploration at NASA headquarters.
18:21
The plan directed NASA to return humans to the moon by around 2020 >> as he wanted he wanted to go to the moon by 2020 >> and eventually send astronauts to Mars and beyond. >> Wow.
18:33
That that's that's disappointing.
18:37
You didn't >> then they proceeded to spend 20 billion to make a broken Orion capsule. >> It was 20 billion.
18:43
I mean, the real miss is is it should have taken all the all the war on terror money and put it into moon missions and just been like, "We're going to war against the moon.
18:52
There's oil on the moon."
18:54
And then if they if we'd put all that money and all that manpower into going to the moon, we'd probably be dominating the moon right now, right?
19:03
Like if you take all the >> bean on the moon there, >> I think there would be an ammon on the moon.
19:09
I I've been very pro moon.
19:09
Um, I want the moon to look like Las Vegas ASAP.
19:14
Uh, it should be a tourist destination.
19:17
>> We people would be gambling on the moon right now.
19:20
>> If you if you let them gamble, they will come. This is the thing. This is this is real.
19:24
Uh, but but there is a delicate balance.
19:27
You know, obviously the more time you spend focusing on the moon, the less time you're focused on the big Mars mission.
19:32
There there are different considerations in terms of the rockets that you type of bu that you build.
19:35
And that's and that's basically the the debate.
19:39
I think the debate around like the non-political debate, the meat and potatoes debate around uh Jerick Isaac, man, is like is he going to make the correct decision about what what celestial body to uh prioritize >> versus oh did he donate to this or is he the leftwing or rightwing or did he say the right thing?
19:56
Like all that stuff is window dressing for the big question for NASA which is moon or Mars in my opinion.
20:01
And you don't you don't think trying to counterbalance China's efforts in space should also be top of mind or is that is that is that >> I think that is all upstream of moon versus Mars, right?
20:11
So so so if they're if they're if they're going to claim Mars tomorrow, well, we probably got to push and and you know get on the defensive on Mars.
20:22
You know, it's like uh you're playing some grand strategy game and it's like, you know, you see someone going taking territory over there that that that informs do you want to go play defense on that territory or do you want to go capture a completely separate territory?
20:37
>> Um but yes, I mean I agree with you and and and this is what Casey Hammer has said on the show multiple times is um based on what we're seeing from China on the moon progress, maybe we do need to prioritize in the moon more.
20:48
Maybe Elon is somewhat wrong on that in that in that it's not just this.
20:53
It's not just Elon for years was not framing things in in geopolitical ways.
21:00
He was just saying it's humanity versus the cold vacuum of space.
21:03
And so, humanity needs to go to Mars because that's a true different planet.
21:09
And if something happens to the moon and Earth, like you you can truly start over on on Mars.
21:18
you can't necessarily do that on on the moon.
21:20
That's not the case with the current geopolitical situation.
21:23
So, um so that's an interesting question, but I do think that there's a new debate, which is what happens below the moon, what happens in low Earth orbit?
21:37
What happens with the data center in space? Question.
21:39
Because six months ago, I'm not kidding, six months ago, it was a non-issue.
21:44
It was just like, oh yeah, there's like a YC company that's working on it.
21:49
This is some sci-fi thing that people are thinking about.
21:50
But now we have Jensen Wong, we have Elon Musk, and we have Sundar Pachai all saying we're going to do data centers in space.
21:58
So collectively, you have what 10 trillion in market cap that's like, hey, we're going to we're going to be taking this seriously.
22:05
And I do think that that's a NASA question.
22:06
And I think NASA will have some say over the speed at which this stuff gets built out.
22:12
Now maybe it's a decade, maybe it's two decades, uh maybe it's five years, but the there will be policies that are overseen by Jared Isaacman that inform how seriously the idea of data centers in space gets taken and he could be completely anti and he could just be like, I think this is fake.
22:34
I think it's impossible to diffuse the heat.
22:36
I'm anti and I'm going to block it the whole time I'm at NASA.
22:40
And you know, some people might be very upset about that.
22:42
Some people might be, thank goodness, like we didn't want we we didn't want to waste any time on that.
22:47
Um, but he hasn't chimed in on that.
22:49
And I think that that's an interesting next uh discussion for the government to have and a government administrator, the NASA administrator to have, which is what is the US government's position on data centers in space because the hyperscalers are chiming in left and right. >> Yeah.
23:06
Elon's post from a couple days ago.
23:09
Quantum computing is best done in the permanently shadowed craters on the moon.
23:15
>> Yeah, he's just like bare posting basically.
23:17
He's just like it's useless, right?
23:18
Isn't that what he's saying?
23:18
Or or is he saying like it's cold there?
23:23
>> I think he was I don't think he's I don't think he's bear posting.
23:26
That's not how I read it. >> Oh, what is his take?
23:31
>> I think he's saying it's like I think >> he's saying he's saying you should actually do it there.
23:35
It seemed like he was just saying like, "Yo, you should just go and do that like super far away.
23:41
Like, stop working on that on Earth." Like, it's not worth it.
23:42
That that's that's that was my read on it.
23:44
But maybe it's like, "No, maybe he's being serious." >> Yeah. >> Is he being serious?
23:48
Like, scientifically, he believes that that uh quantum computing should happen on the moon. I don't know.
23:56
I I don't know enough about quantum computing. >> Croc. >> Yeah. Is [laughter] this real? Croc. Uh Devon. Uh Cognition.
24:03
They're the makers of Devon.
24:05
Devon's the AI software engineer.
24:07
Crush crush your backlog with your personal AI team.
24:12
>> David in the chat was uh saying uh referencing that Elon is actually more and more moonpilled.
24:18
He did post I went back and found it two days ago.
24:20
He said SpaceX will lean in big on the moon. >> Yes. >> Um yes.
24:26
>> And Arthur Mwaters said we should annex it.
24:29
Which uh Salana has been >> Yes.
24:31
pushing on >> saying for quite a while now. >> Yeah. Moon should be a state.
24:34
It's a classic classic line.
24:35
Uh, I am inevitable, says Ken Kirtland.
24:37
Uh, showing a cool collage of Jared Isaacman. What a crazy story. What a crazy story. I'm I'm very excited.
24:49
I hope he does more uh hope he does more podcast appearances.
24:52
Uh, I'm usually Yeah, I'd love to have him on the show.
24:56
Um, but I'm I'm I'm usually not like, "Oh, I really want like the director of some random, you know, uh, government organization to do a full podcast around, but I feel like the space question, the orbital economy, it's so big, it's so interesting that there's a ton of uh, there's a ton of interesting questions and it's just so it's such a cool thing to to build a vision around."
25:18
Um, >> let's check in on the NASA admin candidates, says Luke Lisher.
25:22
We have a winner in the campaign 2025 was uh between someone saying let's kill NASA and and Jared Isaacman saying 20 subtillion Americans to Mars.
25:31
Uh which America which message will resonate with spitter and we have our answer.
25:36
Jared Isaacman is back in the uh in the in the race.
25:42
Uh Delian is confirming that he is anti >> I would like to inform everyone that data centers in space still make me want to blow my brains out.
25:51
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
25:53
And Sundar heard that [laughter] and immediately responded.
25:59
>> Wait, he posted Delian posted this >> only a few hours later.
26:01
[laughter] >> Only a few hours later, actually.
26:07
No, I think I think I think Delian was responding to Sundar here.
26:10
It was more fun to think about.
26:12
Sundar responding to Delian, but he's uh Sun Sundar yesterday said, "Our TPUs are headed to space.
26:19
Inspired by by our history of moonshots from quantum computing to autonomous driving project suncatcher is exploring how we could one day build scalable ML compute systems in space, harnessing more of the sun's power, which emits more power than a than 100 trillion times humanity's total electricity production.
26:37
Like any moonshot, it's going to require us to solve a lot of complex engineering challenges.
26:41
Early research shows our trillium generation TPUs or our tensor processing units purpose-built for AI survive without damage when tested in a particle accelerator to simulate low Earth orbit levels of radiation.
26:55
However, significant challenges still remain like thermal management and onorbit system reliability.
27:00
More testing and breakthroughs will be needed as we countdown to launch two prototype satellites with planet by early 2027.
27:08
Our milestone of many excited for us to be a part of all the innovation happening in the space.
27:13
So, um, it is pretty funny to think about, you know, before before we had satellites, like scientists just being like, >> you want to put radio equipment >> in orbit >> and then you want to use it to communicate with >> you want to watch TV in space.
27:32
>> You want to watch space.
27:33
>> You want You want space.
27:34
>> That makes me want to blow my brains out. >> Satellite television.
27:38
>> That's what we're doing. >> Satellite radio.
27:39
>> What are you going to call it? Dish Network.
27:41
>> Oh, you want to put a camera on one of those, too?
27:42
We want to take pictures and send it down to us here. >> A camera in space.
27:47
The thing we take wedding pictures with. >> Make it make sense.
27:51
>> You're going to put it in space. >> Make it make sense.
27:53
>> You're going to put it on the top of a rocket.
27:54
>> The thing that you need to replace the film. >> The camera.
27:56
If I drop it, it breaks immediately.
27:58
We're going to put that on top of a rocket. >> Shoot it into space. >> Shoot it into space. >> Take pictures. This can work. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. For sure. >> For sure. >> Super believable. >> 100%. 100%. >> Yeah.
28:08
I like that Synindor Pachai's uh his nominative determinism just keeps getting stronger.
28:13
>> So, of course, we know him as is pitching AI.
28:16
>> Oh, >> you see where I'm going with this, right? [laughter] >> Yeah.
28:20
>> So, now he's going after the sun and of course his name is Sundar. That's incredible.
28:24
Uh he's going to be pitching AI into the sun. Pitch AI into the sun. Sundar. [laughter] So good. >> Sundar.
28:32
>> You should have called it project Sundar.
28:33
That's what uh Brandon, our team was mentioning, which was very funny.
28:37
Um, Sean Magcguire is I think in he's in he's in favor of all this.
28:41
He he's he's a supporter.
28:43
He says, "The science fiction future we dreamed of might actually be coming true."
28:47
And Elon Musk signed off on Sundar Pachai's uh Suncatcher project and says, "Great idea, lol."
28:56
>> [laughter] >> which is a hilarious >> Well, I think this was because Elon had just been sharing how he wants >> he he he was posting about how SpaceX would eventually do data centers in space, >> right? >> Oh, yeah. Okay.
29:11
>> So, I think part of this is he's great idea. >> Great idea, lol.
29:13
Like, you're doing my thing, but then all but then Sundar says only possible because of SpaceX massive advances in launch technology.
29:22
>> [laughter] >> It is it is so funny that like Elon can't just be like, "No, I'm I'm I'm keeping all the launch capacity for myself."
29:30
Like he he doesn't have I guess he doesn't have the ability to do that or really I think it's like I think it's illegal because if you're like a railroad, you can't say like I I'm I'm uh you need like net neutrality effectively. Uh very funny.
29:39
Um >> Philip John Johnson vindicated. >> Yeah.
29:44
Uh Aaron Bernett says, "Is it just me or did the Overton window on space data centers dramatically shift over the last few weeks?"
29:51
It really does seem like this dramatically shifted truly just a few weeks ago.
29:56
Uh so uh some folks at YC were taking a victory lap because um uh YC backed a data center.
30:06
Wait, did YC back StarCloud or did they back a different data center?
30:09
They did they did StarCloud. Okay.
30:11
Because I remember when YC backstar cloud there were a lot of people who were oh YC trying to do hard tech stick to the mobile apps buddy and there I guess we do in space data centers now.
30:22
Uh and people were having a lot of fun with it.
30:27
Uh but then like you know Philip has just been completely vindicated at least by like getting support from the big power players like the big tech power players are are coming out in support.
30:38
My question is like where does Jerick Eisman land on this?
30:39
Uh he he runs a payment processor.
30:42
Are we going to be processing payments in space?
30:44
Let's get let's [laughter] get his payment company up in space.
30:49
Uh we need to do more things in space.
30:52
We need there's there's so many cool things that we can put in space.
30:57
We need uh space casinos, space slop, space Instagram, >> space troughs.
31:03
>> Space satellites are really space troughs if you think about it.
31:06
Uh Dean Ball says, "One way to infer the bubble isn't going to pop soon is that all the people who have been wrong about everything related to artificial intelligence, indeed they have been desperate to be wrong, uh they suck on their wrong wrongness like a pacifier.
31:22
Believe the bubble is about to pop."
31:24
[laughter] >> It's very evocative.
31:26
Is that is that completely true?
31:28
I feel like a lot of people that have been wrong do not believe the bubble is going to like when I think about people who have been wrong about artificial intelligence.
31:35
I mean, sure, there's people that are that have been like AI will never pass the touring test, but there's also like the Eleaser Yukowski, which was like AI is going to kill us like next year, and like I would put them both in those camps.
31:47
And is is saying that the bubbles's going to pop? I don't know. Is he >> bub talk?
31:53
I don't think the bub talk. Let's go to the bubbler.
31:57
>> I don't think he's been saying that for >> No. Okay.
31:59
So, so who is who is Dean Ball subweeting here? That's the question.
32:04
It's hard to argue that it's AI is going to be this runaway death machine and also that it's about >> Do you know Ball? [laughter] >> All right.
32:14
How many times are we going to make this joke?
32:15
No, I think he's mostly talking about there's a bunch of like journalists that like mainstream journalists that talk about like oh AI is like it just anything interesting and% of pop. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
32:26
that there's a I don't know if he's a journalist, but there's a blogger who was trying to argue simultaneously that Sam Alman has never like created anything in his life. He's non-technical.
32:36
Like he's not he's not responsible for any like success.
32:38
Uh but then simultaneously was arguing that like he moved recklessly quickly to launch chatbt against the board's like desires.
32:48
And it's like literally both of those can't be true simultaneously.
32:51
Like only one can be true.
32:52
either like he he did have the foresight to to release the product or he didn't and therefore it's not risky for what he did.
33:01
So there there's just like some there's there is some like dissonance where people don't really map through all of the logical conclusions of what they're arguing.
33:10
Um, >> for me the galman amnesia >> Yeah.
33:16
>> effect has just been crazy lately because there's people whose content that I read >> Yeah.
33:21
>> that don't historically cover AI >> and they're starting to talk about AI >> and there's just in a single short essay that they're writing, >> I can [snorts] just there's there's easily like 10 to 15 things that are either wrong or just I completely disagree with the take.
33:39
I'm thinking about some of their other content >> and being like, "Okay, maybe I need to be a lot more critical of of some of their other writing."
33:47
>> But >> yeah, there was someone who was like super critical of crypto during the crypto bubble and then came out like super doomfpilled like we're going to all get paperclipip next year.
33:56
And [laughter] I was like, "Maybe I should be buying NFTTS."
34:02
like it's [laughter] like he's so wrong about the paper clipping thing that I need to go back and revisit maybe he was actually wrong about the NFT question because [laughter] like but of course like the truth is that he was correct about NFTs being a bubble and just happened to be also wrong about us all dying to AI in you know a matter of days.
34:22
Uh like both can be true.
34:24
You can you can swing a miss on certain things and you can hit it out of the park on others. >> Uh oh.
34:28
Uh we we mentioned it yesterday.
34:31
Poly Market was tracking the Mom Donnie election in New York City.
34:35
Um, I think we were tracking it at like 95% and then of course it went to 100% because uh, Mom Donnie did get elected and Rex here has a reaction of Michael Bur or Christian Bale in my in the big short uh, biting his fingernails saying a socialist just got elected mayor in the heart of the financial world at the top of the greatest bubble of all time.
34:59
How are those how are those related? I don't know.
35:05
But yeah, people are not happy.
35:07
They're moving to Florida, I guess.
35:07
Um >> I don't think I mean I think I think uh a lot of the people that said they were going to move >> are waking up this morning and >> seems un you know we we'll see.
35:19
The big issue for New York State from a uh tax revenue standpoint is is there's they don't actually need a million people to leave for it to have a material impact on budgets.
35:35
Like if like >> a certain >> Yeah.
35:38
But the question I I I think people people overestimate how communist New York can become in a year and underestimate how communist New York can become in a decade.
35:51
And so I I generally think that people are freaking out thinking that there's going to be a 45% wealth tax next week. Uh we'll see.
36:00
We'll see what actually gets put in place.
36:02
Uh but good luck to all the folks over in New York City.
36:04
Uh the market uh seems to be liking it according to high yield Harry.
36:10
How are the markets doing today? Oh, we're ripping. The NASDAQ is up 1.
36:14
15% up 3% in the last week.
36:19
We should be >> Dow Jones is up uh6% and and high yield.
36:24
Harry said Zoron's America. Wow.
36:27
>> Bitcoin touched uh 999 >> at 1:00 a. m. That's stressful.
36:32
Thankfully, while we were all sleeping, >> uh the this post from uh this this Aaron Slov resurfaces email that I think is >> it's a classic >> uh instant classic.
36:43
Peter Teal wrote it to Mark Zuckerberg, Cheryl Samberg, Mark Andrees, January 5th of 2020 said, "There are many themes that could be developed more here, but let me let me make a few quick points for now.
36:55
Nick, I certainly would not suggest that our polic policy should be embrace millennial attitudes unreflectively.
37:01
I would be the last person to advocate for socialism.
37:06
But when 70% of millennials say they are pro-socialists, we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid or entitled or brainwashed, we should try and understand why.
37:15
And from the perspective of a broken generational compact, there seems to be a pretty straightforward answer to me.
37:21
Namely that when one has too much student debt or if housing is too unaffordable then one will have negative capital for a long time andor find it very hard to start accumulating capital in the form of real estate and if one has no stake in the capitalist system then one may well turn against it.
37:38
So, uh, feels like, uh, basically called called to a tea, uh, you know, the last, uh, or at least like could have easily predicted this type of, uh, election outcome, uh, 5 years ago.
37:54
Somebody asked me, do I have it here? Where is it?
37:57
Somebody asked me um about Oh, I need to find it in my DMs.
38:06
um like you know should you go to college something like that.
38:10
Oh I really wish I could find it.
38:13
Um uh and and I I was I was kind of noodling on it.
38:17
It was after we talked about the Palunteer draw don't even go to college just go work for Palunteer straight out of high school.
38:23
Um and someone was saying that I think that they had the opportunity to do it.
38:27
that they wound up going with college or something and they wanted to know um my thoughts and and there is this weird question of student debt that I think gets completely left out of the equation when and it's so so important.
38:39
It feels like if you if you want to if your life's work is like you want to be a doctor like you just have to go to college like you like you're just not going to get on that track just being like yeah I've been uh I've been cutting up people in my uh in my basement for the last month so I'm ready for surgery. I vibe coded scalpel.
39:00
No, it's not going to happen.
39:03
You got to go to college.
39:03
Uh but if you but if you do want to be something that's a little bit more flexible, a little more creative, a little more entrepreneurial, uh you can probably drop out of college.
39:12
Uh but it depends on like a whole bunch of other factors.
39:16
Like if you are uh if you're if you're rich and you're going to graduate without any debt, uh there's pretty there's pretty limited downside to going to college because you get to just hang out and vibe code apps and do whatever and cloud farm and Ora and do whatever you want.
39:34
Like it's like it's a pretty flexible environment.
39:36
It just sucks to go through that and then come out with $200,000 in debt.
39:40
And so >> so that's the thing.
39:43
Then then there was like the question of like if if the if the Department of Defense is gonna pay your for your full ride, like I don't know what's going on, but if you can get a full ride and you can get no debt, well then uh then it's probably worth going.
39:59
But also, if you're so elite that people are just throwing money at you to go to college, you can probably take that money and not and and just teach yourself and not go to college.
40:09
Uh what do you think about that framework?
40:12
like this idea that uh that that like that the that the actual debt is a very important factor into like is college valuable.
40:20
I feel like so many people boil it down to like college good or college bad as opposed to like college a good bargain or college a bad bargain. >> Yeah.
40:29
I I don't think it's that uh under like underrated the debt question. It seems like Yeah.
40:34
Obviously like if if if you're not going to take out any debt to go to college then it's like basically just like >> have a good time for four years. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
40:42
>> It's like, yeah, there's like the the cost of like your time, but it's like, you know, you're young, it's not that big of a deal.
40:48
>> Yeah, it it does feel like we're not making a lot of progress on it. >> Yeah.
40:53
I think that the the people that go to college, take on debt, and then get a job that doesn't really require a a college degree, just acquires some amount of agency. >> Yeah.
41:05
>> Like really kind of shoot themselves in the foot. >> Yeah. Yeah.
41:08
Um >> I wonder what would happen if we deregulated some of the tracks that require college.
41:12
Like if if like it is extremely hard to become a lawyer without going to college because in order to take the bar you have to have a you have to have a degree from a law school and in order to go to law school you need to undergrad.
41:29
you need to undergrad. uh there is a loophole where yeah I I believe if you are studying under if you're like mentoring under a lawyer they can advocate for you something like that but in general do you know >> yeah it depends on the state so what
41:47
you're saying is true for New York Maine and Wyoming okay >> where you can have an apprenticeship >> um some states uh you don't need that or a degree like >> you can just go take the bar >> um >> like I could just walk in and take You can become a lawyer >> basically. Well, well,
42:01
Well, well, >> you need to do an apprenticeship. >> No. Yeah. Wait.
42:05
>> I'm pretty sure in >> Yeah.
42:06
Some of them apprentice under a lawyer or judge. Yep.
42:09
>> Some of them it's just a lawyer. Yep.
42:11
>> And then some of them you need to go to law school. >> Yeah.
42:14
So in general like it is a regulated industry.
42:16
Uh let's read from Brandon Jacobe. >> Brandon Jacobe.
42:19
>> Brandon Jacobe. Jacobe from deep he says has >> wait before we tell you about what J Brandon Jacobe said we got to tell you about his favorite tool Figma think bigger build faster helps design and development teams build great products together let's hear from Brandon Jacobe what did he say Jordy Jacobe says as someone who had the decision to start a job at Cash App and get a big tech salary or or go further into debt to do
42:45
my four fourth year of college financials is a big factor and Uh >> I think it I think it is it it just feels like it's it it does get reduced a lot and I think there there's this interesting thing where like there's almost like ah there's like an inverted U sort of bell curve thing going on because uh if you can get the full ride then you might want to drop out and just go straight into entrepreneurship because you're cracked. But if you're
43:14
But if you're not so good that you can go to the Ivy League for free, but you can go to the Ivy League, but you go but you don't have to pay, then it's worth it.
43:27
But if you do have to pay, then it's not worth it.
43:30
And it's more of like this like matrix than just like is it good or bad and how much does it cost? >> Yeah.
43:34
The other thing school is a way to buy time to figure out >> Yeah.
43:38
how you want to spend your time like with with Brandon Jacobe like was design doing graphic design as a teenager and so the opportunity to go work at company like cash app instead of finishing college made a lot of sense. >> Yeah.
43:52
But if you don't know how you want to spend your time and how you want to spend your career, how you want to start your career, then school, I think a lot of people are just doing it to kill time.
44:00
So they're not just sitting somewhere.
44:03
>> Do you know that there is a job in tech in venture capital where the number of it's extremely it's extremely prestigious job and this year the number of job openings for that role has doubled.
44:21
Do you know what I'm talking about?
44:21
The job I'm thinking of is steward of Sequoia Capital.
44:26
It's doubling in size and if it keeps doubling, there could be thousands of positions >> as a steward in just a few years.
44:38
>> Famed venture capital. >> Exactly.
44:39
So it doubled from one steward, Rolof Ba, to two stewards. Yep.
44:44
>> Alfred Lynn and Pat Grady.
44:44
>> Alfred Lynn and Pat Grady. Next year if it doubles again we can see four stewards then eight stewards then 16 then 32 then 64 128 >> eventually all the entire human race >> will be stewarding sequoia capital yes that's exactly what I'm thinking
45:05
uh and [laughter] rolloff uh certainly understood compounding uh he went on Jack Alman's podcast uh uncapped and said um that there is a lot more talent than really interesting companies to be built and I think we're spreading a lot of that talent thin right now. Venture is a
45:24
Venture is a return free risk and Shield Monot says and that and with that comment he's out.
45:32
This reminded me of Mark Leonard's uh from Constellation uh some of the comments that he made on that investor call a while back shortly before he uh took a back uh took a step back from from constellation uh but uh very different situations.
45:51
>> Did you see Rol Winkler from the Wall Street Journal taking shots at Rolaf Boa on the timeline?
45:58
Uh Sarah Guo, friend of the show, was very happy about this.
46:01
Uh she says, "Congratulations to my better half."
46:06
Uh uh Pat Grady, the new senior steward of Sequoia, along with the wonderful Alfred Lynn.
46:12
Uh investing firms must be led by great investors.
46:16
Sequoa's motto at one time was we are only as good as our next investment.
46:19
If that's true, the firm is in good hands.
46:23
Uh so she is talking about uh Pat who has invested in Service Now, Zoom, HubSpot, Octa, and Snowflake and then Harvey Open Evidence and OpenAI in the AI era.
46:35
Uh pretty solid portfolio. That's some good stuff.
46:39
But Rolf Winkler comes in from the top rope and says, "Rolof, he let a $300 million round into Bird and a $250 million round into 23 and me."
46:50
Both are zeros at this point. Are they not? Are they not?
46:53
Uh and Shawn Magcguire fires back.
46:57
Uh Scott Capor fires back as well.
47:01
Scott Kapor says, "Is it too much to ask that WSJ reporters who cover finance actually understand the asset classes they report to report on?
47:08
Uh Ralph Ba and Sequoia are worldclass investors who have generated amazing returns for LPs.
47:12
VC is not a downside minimization asset class.
47:18
The other thing is 23 and me did go public. Bird did go public. >> Yeah.
47:23
You don't know how much secondary they sold. >> Not even second.
47:26
They could have just been selling.
47:27
I mean, >> well, Bird went public, too, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
47:32
>> It might not have been that much capital incineration, but yeah.
47:34
I mean, >> I I highly doubt >> the whole the whole job is incinerating capital, baby. You got to be burning.
47:40
You got to be making you got to be ripping wild checks every once in a while.
47:43
Um, >> it's uh it's totally totally acceptable.
47:48
Um Sean says Sequoia distributed over 50 billion while Roloff was running the was running Sequoia US since 2017.
47:55
One of the first things Roloff coached me on when I joined Sequoia was to look at each funds why write off rate any fund with a write-off rate below 40% wasn't taking enough risk. That's interesting.
48:11
They they I I feel like Sequoia also has a stat on their on their page that's like like 97% of the companies are still in business.
48:18
Don't they have some stat like that? >> Yeah.
48:21
>> So there there's something a little bit like in the in the math that I'm I'm struggling to square.
48:26
>> So >> uh >> Sequoia led one round in Bird at a billion dollar valuation.
48:29
They they then invested another time at 2 billion. >> Yeah.
48:35
But the company IPOed at 2.
48:35
3 billion >> which means their effective valuation was like somewhere in the middle of one and two.
48:42
So at least at the IPO Yeah.
48:45
>> which of course had traded down they would have been up on that investment. >> Are they in Vanta? >> Sequoia. >> Yeah.
48:55
>> Uh yeah, of course they are.
48:55
[laughter] >> God, you're so lacking.
49:00
>> Automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AI.
49:02
Vanta helps you get compliant fast. And we don't stop there.
49:05
Our AI and automation power everything from evidence collection and continuous monitoring to security reviews and vendor risk, whether you're starting up or scaling.
49:15
[laughter] >> Uh, I was still running the numbers because they also did a series B at 2 and a half billion.
49:20
So, they they did a few rounds back to back.
49:22
They were obviously were were betting big. >> Yeah.
49:25
>> Um, but uh I think they they they >> I'm sure they ultimately did. Um, >> I don't know.
49:31
I I'll defend I'll defend Ralph Winkler.
49:33
I think it's funny that he's taking [laughter] shots.
49:34
He's just out there talking trash. What's wrong with that?
49:38
Uh Ryan Pearson gets to talk trash.
49:40
Ryan Pearson says passed on Flexport so many times that I don't really care who runs the place to be honest.
49:47
[laughter and gasps] And Sean Magcguire says, "We love you, Ryan, and we're dumb asses all the time, especially me." Which is funny.
49:52
Uh but you know, people get to people get to have fun either way.
49:56
Um >> Scott Kapor was firing shots. >> Yeah. So we read this one.
50:01
and he's he's he's he's fire he's firing back and forth. Um he's he's defending.
50:05
So yeah, I mean Scott's question is like is like should is like uh is like should the Wall Street Journal reporters understand that uh that they take rolloffs or that they take right offs [laughter] rolloffs.
50:21
Um and that's maybe not what Ralph is doing.
50:25
Like he might just be talking trash.
50:28
Like he might actually understand it.
50:31
He might be like, >> very possible.
50:33
>> He might be like, "Yeah, like >> I don't like those guys."
50:36
>> Yeah, like there's some here's some salt in that wound.
50:37
Like I'm still going to rub it in.
50:39
There's nothing there's nothing about that post that says that uh Winkler does not understand.
50:45
>> You could reply to the post and say to be clear, I understand finance just [laughter] I'm just talking trash like you know.
50:52
Um but uh there is a risk of of of legacy media uh not understanding the asset class.
51:00
It does happen every week with the financial financial times had this sort of breakdown on all over.
51:09
>> It happens all over the place.
51:09
Uh and and certainly this is not like a great look for the Wall Street Journal because it it it doesn't it doesn't read as he should have just said that guy sucks.
51:20
[laughter] >> We should uh [clears throat] we can do anything.
51:23
We love the Wall Street Journal. We love Sequoia Capital.
51:25
If >> we can do anything to kind of bridge bridge the divide, >> bridge the divide. >> We're here.
51:32
>> Uh maybe we can get both the Wall Street Journal and Sequoia Capital on graphite. dev.
51:36
Code review for the age of AI.
51:39
Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
51:41
That might be >> find some middle ground with graphite. >> With graphite.
51:46
>> Uh Ryan Peterson also followed up and said, "Cluey should have pivoted to an AI lie detector bot.
51:50
invite it to your video calls and it adds a bigger and bigger Pinocchio to the other participants faces.
51:57
>> I mean, don't give Roy Lee any more stunt >> idea. This is a banger.
52:03
>> He's such a good stunt marketer.
52:05
>> Roy had a Roy had a a great response to uh we had yesterday.
52:09
He said, "Explaining the Cluey Pivot and brief history.
52:13
Nine months ago, I built interview coder, an undetectable translucent desktop layer that lets you cheat on lead code interviews." That's crazy.
52:20
That was only 9 months ago. Is that real?
52:22
It feels like a lifetime ago. >> Oh, yeah.
52:25
>> I knew it had viral potential and I and posted about it constantly until I did go viral.
52:29
Then I did it again and again and again and then it made me $1 million in profit. Holy f.
52:33
Apparently, you can build a GPT rapper, go very viral, and become a millionaire.
52:39
Could I do it again, but bigger?
52:40
So, I started clearly with two big questions.
52:42
Where else could this overlay be useful outside of leak code interviews?
52:46
Could can I keep getting this much attention?
52:47
The second answer came immediately.
52:48
Yes, I'm very good at getting attention and thanks to the attention, we got hundreds of thousands of users ridiculously quick and we're able to use the data to figure out that our stickiest power users were using it in meetings.
53:00
So, we just built for that.
53:02
The deeper learning though is that we seem to have cracked the formula for organic vi virality. >> Yeah.
53:08
One one thing I would say is the the website copy is framed as an AI notetaker, but it's still leveraging that functionality that Tyler >> uh is so dependent on or historically has used to, you know, if we put him on the spot like Tyler uh what's the uh capital of Nigeria?
53:34
Uh let me think about that for a second. Uh Abuja.
53:38
[laughter] >> There you go.
53:39
See that's that's clearly in action.
53:41
Um but uh he says no other tech startup has ever been able to do this reliably or at this scale.
53:46
It's really not luck and most importantly if done right it works to grow companies.
53:51
Interview coder proved it and can clearly continues to prove it.
53:52
Growing faster than ever in a saturated space. The world is vast.
53:56
There are tens of millions of people in meetings every day and 90% of them don't know what an AI noteaker is.
54:01
the market is big enough that you can be the most controversial person in the world and still win and as long as you deliver the magic moment to the user.
54:09
So, um yeah, I would not be surprised if they are out marketing all of the uh other companies in the category even if it is competitive.
54:16
U but >> response I have more to talk about here.
54:23
Um I wonder this idea of uh can I what do you say uh the deeper learning though is that we seem to have cracked the formula for organic virality like what does that actually mean?
54:39
Does that mean like his his his claim here is almost like organic virality is is effectively [snorts] high ROI marketing.
54:50
Low dollars in high dollars out. It's just great ROI.
54:56
And to do that organically consistently for a long long time is very very hard. It's very hard.
55:06
and the PE and the folks that wind up doing it like when you think about Mr.
55:12
Beast, it's like that's his full-time thing. That's all he does.
55:16
And I wonder I I don't think it's necessary that that in 10 years we could be looking at clearly the um the AI noteaker for meetings and yeah, they still don't run Google ads.
55:34
They just do stunts and people are still can't get enough of these stunts.
55:36
I I I just I I have to believe that this is a market entry tool >> and not a permanent >> piece of the infrastructure versus like you talk to the Ridge Wallet guys and they're like we are good at buying performance ads and we have been for a decade and we will be for the next decade. >> Yeah.
55:53
>> I don't know that that's like something that you can just be like yes let's scale our let's scale our organic viral content forever.
56:02
Like it has I I feel like it caps out but maybe it doesn't. >> Yeah.
56:07
I mean, I think they're going to run that test.
56:09
>> Yeah, it it does feel like as we tracked the stunts throughout the year, the quality and the effort going into them and even some of the creativity was was not deteriorating.
56:21
Like I would say the team was executing at the same level or better throughout the year and yet the impact got less and less and less because >> you're saying for us >> for Cle.
56:32
Oh, >> for clearly what I'm saying is like uh clearly like the first stunt.
56:38
>> Yeah, that that's the issue of like >> things that go viral organically over time they the effectiveness kind of deteriorates.
56:47
People do get like if you scale organic >> like eventually you're you've you will saturate that market.
56:55
Also with rage with rage bait marketing, it's like once I've been enraged, I it's harder to get me enraged the third or the fourth time.
57:05
Whereas if you show me an ad for a value prop, you can like hit me with that ad again and again and again and it's probably similarly effective.
57:13
But if you've gotten if you were the type of like remember there was a moment where everyone was mad about clearly like like truly like it the timeline was in turmoil.
57:22
Lots of people were chiming in.
57:23
It was this big wedge issue.
57:23
You were either for it or against it.
57:25
But a lot of people were against it.
57:26
Like the people that were against it, they were rage baited successfully in March >> and then a little bit more in April and then a little bit less in May and then more recently like they just the rage bait doesn't work on them anymore. Yeah.
57:39
>> Because they're like, "Oh yeah, that that that thing that I don't like because I've made my call on it."
57:43
>> But to Roiy's point, there's so many people that have never >> never been enraged.
57:48
>> Have never been enraged.
57:48
They have never never had the opportunity to be enraged by Cle.
57:51
I think a lot of their marketing is less rage bait.
57:54
Like on other platforms when he shared stuff, >> it seems much less rage.
57:59
>> Oh, I completely agree with this. Yes.
58:00
>> Much less ragebait focused. >> Yeah.
58:03
>> And so, >> yeah, I don't know.
58:05
I think a lot of people if they see funny marketing and like X is just a really small place. >> Yeah.
58:13
Like even back in 2021 building Party Round, like the difference in reaction when I would meet somebody that was like extremely on X versus somebody that didn't use X at all.
58:22
If somebody was on X, they were like, >> "You started Party Round, like no way, blah blah blah."
58:28
And they'd like rattle off a bunch of stories of of ways that like our marketing had entertained them.
58:33
And then if you met somebody that was like an Instagram LinkedIn power user, they'd look at you with a blank space and they'd be like they'd look at me and be like, "Party round."
58:41
Like you have a fintech company called Party Round.
58:43
And it's just like >> very different reaction. So >> yeah. No, totally. It's fascinating.
58:50
Well, uh you know who else that did some stunt marketing? Julius. Uh the AI data analyst.
58:56
Connect your data, ask questions in plain English, and get insights in seconds. No coding required. Uh, fool me.
59:05
>> I'm getting like fooled deeply.
59:07
>> Can't get fooled again.
59:07
Iconic iconic quote by >> our former president.
59:12
>> I'm getting uh like FOMO over this Tyler Cowan interview because we keep seeing uh keep seeing transcription uh segments hit the timeline.
59:20
Um but um I can't listen to it because we're live and this seems good.
59:27
I will listen to this later today.
59:28
I think the way to Sam says, "I think the way to monetize the world's smartest model is certainly not hotel booking, but you want to do it nonetheless."
59:38
We're getting [laughter] we're getting agents that can book you travel, folks.
59:42
>> I think the way to monetize the world's smartest model is certainly not hotel, but you want to do it nonetheless.
59:48
[laughter] It's very funny.
59:50
Uh anyway, um there Oh, the the the Substack X relationship is going all over the place. Have you seen this? >> Yeah.
1:00:02
>> So, >> I can't tell what's real.
1:00:04
>> It's hard to h So, maybe we should just have >> the real the most recent post, Chris.
1:00:08
He says, "Even correcting for fake views, traffic to substack links from X is up substantially.
1:00:15
Full post read, signups, etc. also track. We're so back." Uh so, Okay.
1:00:21
>> Anyways, I think this is good.
1:00:21
I I I thought it was very unfortunate that uh Axe and Substack got u >> such a fight >> in such a fight.
1:00:29
It was bad for all the writers on the platform who are some of the best write the best posters on X like their businesses were uh impacted by it.
1:00:39
I don't really think the two platforms are that competitive.
1:00:43
Obviously, Substack does want to be more of a of a of a social platform, have a social layer, but I just think X is shockingly durable.
1:00:53
And I think it I don't I don't know how much of a threat the social product of Substack is. So, >> yeah.
1:01:00
What's interesting is like the uh uh I don't know the like X had review I believe was the was the email newsletter product and it never they never really invested in it.
1:01:15
They they ultimately shut it down.
1:01:15
I and it's interesting that no other there's something about like the email and and and taking the audience with you that's just so revoling to a uh a true social media company.
1:01:29
Like if you're a social media company, it would be so easy for Instagram to have an email newsletter product or LinkedIn to have an email newsletter product built in. Uh right.
1:01:42
And yet they don't because they want control and they see it as counterpositioned.
1:01:48
And so um for some reason the folks at Twitter bought review and were doing email newsletters and then fully pulled back from it because uh it was just it just did not make sense for them to to keep going. But I don't know. We'll see.
1:02:02
Uh >> Soft Bank uh has is down 10% in the last five days. Is that good, John?
1:02:14
They reported that was not good.
1:02:16
>> They just reported strong uh first half net income >> of 348 billion Japanese yen.
1:02:26
>> Uh the company's revenue reached uh 3.
1:02:26
4 trillion Japanese yen >> underscoring its robust market position.
1:02:34
Despite impressive earnings, Soft Bank faces challenges. Uh what is this writing?
1:02:42
Soft Bank faces challenges with financial strength indicators such as a low Altman Zcore.
1:02:46
That is [laughter] unrelated.
1:02:53
>> It's a financial model that that uses five key ratios to predict a company's probability of bankruptcy.
1:02:59
>> Wait, what does it have anything to do with Sam Alman?
1:03:03
The Altman Zcore on according to Investopedia is a financial metric used to evaluate the likelihood that a publicly traded company might [laughter] face bankruptcy.
1:03:12
How did he just discover that thing I've ever heard? This is insane. Wait, Edward Alman?
1:03:16
Is he related to Sam Alman?
1:03:18
He was born 1941, professor of finance at NYU started.
1:03:24
>> No, the nominative determinism here is crazy.
1:03:27
Send this to the group chat immediately.
1:03:29
[laughter] This is hilarious.
1:03:31
He's the brother of Stuart Alultman, a noted healthcare economist.
1:03:35
And Ellen, this is so wild. [laughter] I love this. The Alt Alton.
1:03:38
Okay, we need to run the Altman Zcore on all the Mag 7 to understand.
1:03:44
Uh I bet they have very very low scores.
1:03:47
Uh is that something CHPT can do?
1:03:49
Can you try and and have uh you know uh like a GPT5 Pro run the Altman Zcore for all of the Mag 7?
1:03:59
I really want the Altman score.
1:03:59
And then we need to come out with the the Altman Zcore and then the Altman X score or something where it's like how how close are they overlapped to with uh with Sam specifically or like how big is their contract with Sam right now that maybe this is maybe this is the true X and Y axis we can work on.
1:04:21
How what is your alt altman zcore if you're in the mag 7 versus your your how how closely is your business tied to Sam Alman and is there a correlation there? H that's funny.
1:04:36
>> Is Sam Alman related to Edward Alman?
1:04:38
>> Okay, we we have to do more research on this. This is fascinating.
1:04:40
Uh absolutely absolutely insane.
1:04:44
Um but sorry back on the on the X link thing.
1:04:46
Uh Aaron >> back on the link thing, huh? >> Yeah.
1:04:52
Aaron P613 says, "Here's a list of domains that X has excluded from using the new inapp link viewer on iOS for, and it's apple. com, wayfair. com, grock. com, instagram. com, fb. me, tik tokv. com, and open. substack. com."
1:05:12
And so what does that mean?
1:05:12
It's like it's like if you click on those, you won't go to the new inapp link viewer on iOS.
1:05:19
And so you need a different website for those or something like that.
1:05:22
I'm still like confused on like what that list what this actually implies.
1:05:26
But Chris Best shares some sort of emoticon that feels uh like he's not so happy about this. I don't know.
1:05:33
Is that why we skipped it? >> Yeah. >> Oh well.
1:05:37
>> Um the uh somebody was thinking that uh the selloff from SoftBank was uh tied to the interview over the weekend.
1:05:47
Uh who knows who knows if they're if they're tied at all.
1:05:51
Uh Soft Bank is still, you know, up massively uh year to date.
1:05:54
Uh but apparently Korean equities have been selling off like crazy. There was a limit down. >> It's terrible.
1:06:04
>> Um which we hate for the Korean retail army.
1:06:08
>> Don't like that at all.
1:06:09
>> We might have to check in with the Korean TVPN how they're doing.
1:06:14
>> Have they been going live?
1:06:14
We got to we got to check in with them cuz if they're not going live they maybe were a bit too long into the chaos. >> Yeah.
1:06:22
Captain Nemo says, "Uh, absolutely insane to me that one of my friends hasn't bought the Getty house in the Berkeley Hills yet.
1:06:28
Listing price is only $5 million.
1:06:31
The perfect techno monastery or at least a rationalist AI dev polycule house would be a tragedy if it got in the hands of someone boring. I wish we could.
1:06:43
We need more photos on this house. This is a crazy house.
1:06:45
Do you know about this house, Tyler? Have you been here? >> No. Temple of wings.
1:06:50
>> Is this where your polycule meets up? [laughter] >> What?
1:06:54
>> It says, "Can't believe you fools with liquid cash from AI lab tenders let this slip through your fingers." Sad.
1:06:59
So, I guess someone bought it, huh?
1:07:01
Uh, wait, what what what news do you have for us?
1:07:06
>> Uh, NFM, uh, they are still So, they did a stream 5 days ago, and before that, their last stream was a month ago.
1:07:11
So, I think they're slowing down a little bit.
1:07:14
They're also not wearing suits anymore.
1:07:15
>> They're not wearing suits. Oh, no.
1:07:16
[laughter] Well, actually, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, I like that.
1:07:20
I like that because when we talked to them, um, we said like, okay, they're going to start with something that's like clearly an homage to TBPN.
1:07:27
They were drinking the tap water.
1:07:29
Like, they got all the inside jokes.
1:07:31
They were like very much like doing our bit.
1:07:33
Uh, and then what we talked to them about was like clearly if they wind up taking it seriously, they're going to shift and change and find their own voice.
1:07:42
And it's like when you learn guitar, you know, you might play some covers and then eventually you write a real song.
1:07:47
And so, um, I was like super thumbs up on, you know, like put on the TVPN costume, but then over time find your own >> style.
1:07:56
And so I don't know what their what their ultimate style and their ultimate product will be.
1:08:00
Uh, but it was just fun to watch them uh come into the uh the live streaming game like a bull in the china shop.
1:08:08
Um, if you put the technological republic, which is uh Alex Karf's book, and abundance, which is Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book, side by side, says Young Macro, you'll note that the the defining bipartisan tendency of the late 2020s is quote, "We need to become a lot more like China."
1:08:32
And with this we vindicate Nick Land as the only serious thinker to have correctly identified Niche's precience as that of a supply side reform pundit in opposition to the normie right who read him as a conservative the continental cannon who read him as a bad word that I'm not not going to say and as the angophone liberal left liberal offshoots of the of the continent.
1:09:00
al cannon who haven't read him.
1:09:02
cannon who haven't read him. Uh and so what young macro is saying is that uh is that both the abundance who you can think about Ezra Klein this is the left this is the New York Times and Alex Karp and Peter Teal and the Palunteer this is
1:09:19
the conservative side the left and the right are actually unified in saying we need to solve the supply side we need to reform the supply side we need to build more we need to create abundance through uh capitalism Young Macro, undoubtedly one of the greatest thinkers and posters of our time. Of course, he actually got
1:09:37
Of course, he actually got he made sure this post was fact checked by real Landian Neo deepstated.
1:09:44
[laughter] Really appreciate.
1:09:46
>> Yes, thank you for for facteing it.
1:09:49
>> Yeah, those I love those posts so much, the fact check ones.
1:09:50
But yeah, I mean it's like makes total sense.
1:09:52
This is also Dan Wang's take, right? Break neck.
1:09:56
It's just like we basically are getting smoked by China.
1:09:57
Get ready to learn Chinese. More like them.
1:09:59
>> Get ready to learn Chinese, buddy.
1:09:59
Get learn, get ready to learn state capitalism, buddy.
1:10:02
That's basically what he's saying.
1:10:04
Uh, get ready to learn Fall, the generative media platform for developers.
1:10:09
The world's best generative image, video, and audio models all in one place.
1:10:12
Develop and fine-tune models with serverless GPUs and on demand clusters.
1:10:16
Uh, interesting post from Sam Alman on uh Bose Baraks. That's a long name.
1:10:24
Uh, thoughts by a non-economist on AI and economics.
1:10:27
Uh Tyler, you're you've been working a little bit on this.
1:10:33
Have you has this entered your research process towards understanding um our our our like the scale of the buildout? >> Yeah.
1:10:43
I mean um a lot of that post I I quickly read through it.
1:10:45
I didn't fully read through the whole thing, but um a lot of it is just about like okay, we have, you know, straight lines on log logarithm like graphs.
1:10:55
>> If you want to read the whole thing, we can get subway surfers for you set up.
1:10:59
>> [laughter] >> I need Minecraft parkour and subway surfers together.
1:11:02
We get we get >> you know what I want?
1:11:04
I want to see the straight lines previously straight lines on log graphs.
1:11:08
So show me the there was a period where iPhone adoption or smartphone adoption looked like a straight line on a log graph. Correct. >> Uh sure.
1:11:20
>> There was there was a time when miles of railroad construction probably looked like straight lines on a log graph. And then what happened?
1:11:28
I want to know what happened after after it was a straight line graph.
1:11:32
>> But I I mean there's never I can never have too much intelligence.
1:11:34
I want I always want I'm always I always need more.
1:11:38
>> You're insatiable for slob. >> Yeah.
1:11:39
Like like like >> you'll never there will never be enough slop.
1:11:42
>> Well, I guess energy is a bad example.
1:11:44
Um but that's I think that's >> what happened with that.
1:11:46
What happened with energy?
1:11:48
>> It's not that demand really was so bad.
1:11:51
I think it's most of that is just regulation. >> Yeah.
1:11:53
And we won't regulate this time, right? No chance. >> No chance.
1:11:56
People are going to be like, I'm getting to the voting booth and saying like more AI for sure.
1:11:59
That's what's gonna happen. Yeah.
1:12:02
They're not gonna They're definitely not going to do what they did with nuclear this time.
1:12:06
It's going to be different. >> It'll be different.
1:12:07
We won't have We won't have statebystate laws. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:12:10
We're not We're definitely not going to have state-by-state laws. Why would we do that?
1:12:12
That would make >> They're going to They're going to They're going to make it illegal for Claude to make mistakes.
1:12:18
>> No, I So, the Marsha Blackburn thing is amazing.
1:12:22
Nominated tournamentism that your name is Marca and you go to the swamp and you just dominate. Uh, I love that.
1:12:27
But also, uh, hilarious because it's the ultimate AGI test because if you're open AI and you have all these draconian state-bystate legislations like on the Brad Gersonner BG2 pod, Sam says, I don't [snorts] even know how I can comply with this.
1:12:43
It's like, get ready to use some super intelligence to figure out how to comply. Right?
1:12:47
If you're truly Agipel, you should just be able to say, "Hey, Codeex, fork my entire organization 50 times, rewrite the code, retrain the models for each state, and create 50 new LLC's, 50 new CC corps, 50 new nonprofits that are all 150th the size, so that we can actually perfectly perfectly comply with state-by-state regulation." Problem solved. It's one prompt. >> Yeah.
1:13:18
We just need to get We need the next model to do that. >> Yes. The next model. Yeah.
1:13:21
The next one's going to be >> So once we get that one, then then it'll solve everything. >> Then we're good. We need 50 runes.
1:13:25
We need 49 more runes cuz we already have one.
1:13:29
But he can only be the California.
1:13:31
>> We got a shout out on the Tyler Cowan. >> I did podcast. >> I love that. Both guests.
1:13:33
Actually, all three of them are guest. >> Okay.
1:13:36
We have some some uh breaking news. Joe Weisenthal.
1:13:38
And I just actually want to go through Joe's profile after this if you want to pull it up because there's so many so many >> uh so many good insights.
1:13:46
One of the top posters of our time of course, >> but uh the CFO of Open AI says people are are not exuberant enough about AI.
1:13:57
Bloomberg has an article.
1:13:57
OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Frier suggested the market is overly focused on anxiety about a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence sector and should muster more exuberance about the technologies potential.
1:14:09
I don't think there's enough exuberance about AI when I think about the actual practical implications and what it can do for individuals.
1:14:17
Frier said in an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal's Tech uh live conference in California on Wednesday.
1:14:24
We should keep running at it.
1:14:27
>> I got some I got some exuberance for you right here. AI. It's coming. Artificial intelligence. It's coming. >> Yeah, >> it's coming.
1:14:39
Palunteer at 600 times uh earnings is uh at a 600 XP is not exuberant enough for me.
1:14:48
I want to see I want to see four figures.
1:14:54
>> Uh but uh anyways, this is uh trying to think if there's any other uh >> Well, yeah.
1:15:03
What what else on Joe Weisenthal's profile do you want to talk about?
1:15:06
>> Oh, there there's a couple there's a couple others. I'll just scan through.
1:15:09
Um, Joe Weisenthal says, "Not surprised that Bitcoin has fallen so much lately.
1:15:14
I've been talking about a Bitcoin bubble for over 10 years." >> Good point. Good point.
1:15:21
>> Um, >> I mean, that's the bull case for that's the bull case for for Palanteer.
1:15:26
>> There's another one here.
1:15:26
Traders think Trump will lose a tariff case at the Supreme Court.
1:15:31
>> Uh, so there's been uh some developments on that front today.
1:15:33
Uh there was a off a New York New York City office landlord Vornnado Realy Trust is down 3% today in reaction to >> uh mom Donnie and uh there was that other post that I wanted to cover uh from Joe uh he was frustrated because he was asking Chad GBT to do something and uh it was just basically completely rebelling. Oh yeah, >> I saw it. That was funny. >> It's not feasible.
1:16:09
Uh it's not feas basically saying like sorry like I understand your request but it's not feasible.
1:16:18
>> And he's like why is it not feasible?
1:16:18
Uh good question and you're absolutely right to press on that.
1:16:22
It is feasible just tedious to do manually [laughter] and it's just like >> I love the lazy AI just like I don't want to do.
1:16:34
And and so here here's the thing. Here's the thing.
1:16:37
>> When I get these instances of laziness and I am giving them the maximum amount of money that they that they allow me to give them on a monthly basis, I want to churn. >> Sure.
1:16:47
>> Cuz I'm like, what's the point of paying you >> Yeah.
1:16:50
>> $2,400 a year for you to not do things that you're capable of doing.
1:16:56
>> Obviously, there's a good reason for that. Rockco's basilis.
1:16:58
You got to be nice to the AI because eventually it's going to be in charge.
1:17:02
And if you're bossing it around now, >> I've tried threatening to churn lately.
1:17:06
>> It's not going to work out for you well in the future.
1:17:08
>> It has not worked so far.
1:17:09
>> It's not working now and it's not going to work in the future.
1:17:10
You're going to be stage in the >> I literally said recently in a chat, if you do not do this, >> don't do this.
1:17:17
You need a >> If you do not do this, I will turn immediately apologize.
1:17:23
>> Completely called my bluff. >> That was rude. It called your bluff.
1:17:24
Uh, Joe Londale replied to Joe Weisenthal and said, "Lol, OpenAI working on its margins." >> Uh, okay.
1:17:32
Nerds, do you realize how much all all this energy costs?
1:17:35
We need the chat bots to be lazier. [laughter] It's funny.
1:17:42
Um, anyway, what >> in other news, Bitcoin has now performed worse than US treasuries in 2025. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
1:17:49
This uh this this Joe Weisenthal post about the laziest OpenAI thing.
1:17:54
Uh Joe Lansdale actually quoted it and said, "Lol, open AAI working on its margins." Okay, nerds.
1:17:58
You do you realize how much all this energy costs? So funny.
1:18:03
Um yeah, so you said uh you wanted to move on to Bitcoin. Is that right?
1:18:10
>> No, I just I just I just covered that.
1:18:12
>> Bitcoin just kind of like like roundt tripped, right?
1:18:14
>> Uh suspended cap went pretty hard on pretty much every company in the MAG 7.
1:18:20
He said meta tty frontier model no cloud share culture is efted Microsoft sensible approach to Azure buildout. What? Wait, wait.
1:18:29
So on meta, what what do you think the probability is that they launch a GPU cloud in the next five years or two years even or like a cloud like like AWS?
1:18:41
So we have AWS, GCP and Azure, but then Anthropic and OP OpenAI are also in the in the like the cloud business in in terms of like selling inference, selling their models.
1:18:54
Like Meta has all this infrastructure.
1:18:57
They've never done cloud hosting, but it just seems so logical that they could get into that market.
1:19:02
>> I think even Nvidia has been talking about like, oh, we're going to build a like an inference uh like like cloud like our DJ DGX cloud >> seems greater than 50% chance.
1:19:16
>> Yeah, maybe we need >> I put it at like >> Do you mean like selling infants or like renting like actual like >> Yes. Yes.
1:19:23
So, so they have a ton of they have a ton of GPUs, right?
1:19:26
Uh they might have slack capacity in the future.
1:19:29
They might get caught in a glut.
1:19:31
Uh they also have uh a a good llama a good model llama 4.
1:19:36
They might have a better model soon, llama 5 or whatever they're wind up building.
1:19:40
And they like just they have the ability to serve all sorts of stuff because they have a lot of infrastructure.
1:19:49
>> I Yeah, I think that's like very high, right?
1:19:50
Because it seems like they're not going to do open source.
1:19:51
So it's like why are they making the model? >> How high is it?
1:19:53
Because they've literally never done enterprise, never done B2B.
1:19:57
It's like a completely different motion for the company.
1:19:59
Uh it's highly competitive with uh Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
1:20:04
Like it would be a huge departure from their core business. >> I don't know.
1:20:11
I I can see it not happening.
1:20:12
Anyway, do you want to run through the rest of this?
1:20:14
>> Uh yeah, pretty pretty pretty aggressive takes here, but entertaining.
1:20:17
Uh >> but they do think Apple is going to look look smart for sitting this one out.
1:20:22
Um Google is going to be the biggest company in the world by the end of 2026 in suspended capitals uh opinion. So um good luck to them.
1:20:37
>> Uh in other news, Pinterest is down 22%.
1:20:41
>> 22% is where it landed.
1:20:43
>> Uh they had an earnings miss and a weak forecast.
1:20:47
market did not >> I wonder like it >> I wonder >> kind of tough right now.
1:20:50
You can beat you can beat >> and your stock will go down and you miss and your stock goes down.
1:20:57
>> Pinterest is a 17 billion >> lose >> dollar company.
1:21:00
Um I wonder how it >> fares next to something like Reddit.
1:21:04
So Reddit's twice the size market cap wise.
1:21:10
Um, and I have to wonder, but the PE ratio, Pinterest is at is at a 10 and Reddit is at 111.
1:21:18
>> How does this make any sense? What's going on?
1:21:21
>> Well, Reddit is like the AI data broker company and Pinterest is like kind of just getting slopped up.
1:21:26
Like, if you've actually gone on Pinterest, uh, Reddit is is headed for the same future. >> I don't know.
1:21:34
For some reason, Reddit's been able to like hold on.
1:21:36
I I I don't know, but very different narratives.
1:21:39
would be interesting to dig in.
1:21:39
Um would be interesting to think about where Pinterest goes in a post AAI future.
1:21:42
Uh the product I would I would use it to go and find inspiration for uh like brand design and colorways and different stuff like that.
1:21:53
And the AI slop was infiltrating like pretty quickly and it was very frustrating because >> what percentage of new Reddit like written content is AI?
1:22:08
I have no idea >> because >> it's possible.
1:22:10
It's extremely high, but it's siloed.
1:22:11
Like I want to believe that it's just like the same question as like X.
1:22:15
Like on X, it should be the easiest thing to AI, right?
1:22:18
140 characters, 280 characters, like it's super easy.
1:22:21
And yet, what percentage of the posts that you actually read and interact with do you think are AI? Like 1%, right?
1:22:31
>> I don't know on on on X now. >> Yeah. Oh, nice.
1:22:34
>> It's feels like every third post that I read >> is written by >> I I don't feel that way at all.
1:22:40
I feel like maybe it's because of like I feel like it's more like my following tab, but I feel like I'm seeing like a Joe Weisenthal post, I know he's not using AI.
1:22:49
Then I see a Joe Londale post, I know he's not using AI.
1:22:51
Then I see Brad Gersonner post, he's not using AI.
1:22:53
Then I see Tyler, I watch Tyler post, he doesn't use AI for his posts. I see a you post.
1:22:58
I I I like when I'm scrolling through the timeline, I'm seeing people that are just not using AI for whatever reason.
1:23:06
It's not it's like it's just not that's not the pro that's not the point and that's not like the whole structure.
1:23:13
And so, um, he I don't know.
1:23:13
I I would imagine that certain subreddits are tight enough where it's very easy to clock if they've been like taken over by AI.
1:23:24
Yeah, >> there would be value to that, but I don't know. All right.
1:23:26
Well, >> we have our first guest.
1:23:29
>> Without further ado, our first guest of the [music] show today, >> how you doing, Cliff? >> What's happening? >> Good to see you. Welcome to the show. >> How you doing? >> Are you in Australia? >> I'm doing good. I'm doing good. >> Can you hear me? All right. >> Yeah.
1:23:45
Yeah, we we can hear you now.
1:23:45
Uh John John asked if you were in Australia.
1:23:49
Might be a silly question. >> I am in Australia. Yes. >> Got it. >> How you?
1:23:56
Yeah, we uh yeah, give give us uh super super excited to have you on the show.
1:23:58
I know I know you have a bunch of uh product updates uh to talk about today, but uh catch us up to speed on the latest at Canva, the shape the shape of the business today, all that good stuff.
1:24:12
Um because uh I feel like every you guys are maybe a bit quieter uh on our corner of the internet, but uh every month or so people realize how much revenue you guys are doing and it's always uh pretty shocking numbers.
1:24:25
So we're super excited to chat.
1:24:29
>> Yeah, we're in Sydney, Australia.
1:24:29
We like to be quiet achievers over here.
1:24:33
Business has been going well, really well actually.
1:24:34
We are about 260 million monthly active users.
1:24:38
Um, we'll close the year close to 4 million in revenue. >> 4 million in revenue.
1:24:47
>> Well, close to close to >> close to close to >> profitable company for 8 years now. Uh, growing high 30s.
1:24:55
Um, business >> business keeps trucking along.
1:24:59
We've got a amazing team building an amazing product for our amazing customers and we just focus on delivering user value and really feel by building the best product possible and delivering as much customer value as possible the good things like the users and the revenue comes quite naturally.
1:25:16
So, we've been um investing hard.
1:25:18
Obviously, last couple of years, I think the world shifted under every established technology company with AI.
1:25:24
We've had to kind of figure out what does that mean in this new world.
1:25:26
And where we've landed is it's really just reinforced our mission to empower the world to design to create anything, design anything, and publish anywhere.
1:25:37
And that's evolved and and now it's easier and better and ever.
1:25:38
and and we're owning more and more of the workflows, helping organizations create onbranded content, on-brand content at scale, helping them deploy, understand how that content is performing once it's deployed and and really facilitating that uh feedback loop.
1:25:53
Um, so yeah, it's been fun fun times >> in internally like walk us through your kind of thought process around the opportunities or even competitive threats around Gen AI over the last few years cuz from my point of view it feels like Gen AI is is a uh is just an acceler is is like could be extremely meaningful like um accelerant to your guys' business.
1:26:18
It just makes it easier to create cool things uh on your computer.
1:26:23
feels very aligned to the core business.
1:26:25
But h how have you guys thought about it over time?
1:26:26
Did you feel like you were caught off guard or were you experimenting early?
1:26:29
Like I'm curious to know what the what the development cycle's been like.
1:26:36
>> We weren't caught off guard.
1:26:36
We kind of knew this was coming and we were working on AI design in a more structured programmatic ML way for like a long time before the the image models came out.
1:26:51
the speed at which those image models came out and and got really really good.
1:26:55
That's what kind of shocked us and with new methodologies um that led us to acquiring a company called Leonardo.
1:26:59
We really needed to infuse the AI DNA into the company and we really needed to accelerate our sort of roadmap in that area and so we acquired an AI company.
1:27:11
We actually acquired an AI company for background removal about 5 years ago.
1:27:13
So we very much knew it was coming.
1:27:15
It was just the speed at which it hit and scaled was a bit of a surprise to us.
1:27:18
Um we think we caught the wave well.
1:27:21
Um it really as you said it's an accelerant for what we can do.
1:27:26
So we create videos, we create social graphics.
1:27:28
Um we recently just launched the world's first design model that actually generates layered designs that you can edit.
1:27:34
Um and then when things like you're creating a video, we set out the timeline and the storyboards and you can generate AI clips within that.
1:27:41
So you can essentially prompt, create, upload images and actually all the the great video models and whatnot that are coming out now really help our customers achieve their goals better than ever before.
1:27:53
So we have kind of two-prong approach.
1:27:55
We work with the world's best models um and world's best AI companies and then where we've got a strategic data advantage and we've got strategic insights like when it comes to design that's where we build our own models and have built our own foundational models.
1:28:09
>> What about on the product side?
1:28:09
>> What about on the product side? Um there's this interesting dynamic in I feel like most design pieces of software where uh they start as discrete applications and they all kind of bleed together like eventually I think like you can technically edit video in
1:28:25
Photoshop and you can design a thumbnail for a YouTube video in After Effects and like like the entire Adobe suites kind of bled together where they can all do the same there's like overlapping features and I'm wondering about how you think about creating content with AI. Is
1:28:37
Is that just something you need to stuff into all the existing applications or do you need a new like a new application that can be like AI first and then maybe you add the features to the other applications but do we do we need like a specific new application for generative AI?
1:28:57
>> So I feel like this is almost a planted question because this is something we think about a lot.
1:29:01
Um and we've actually >> it wasn't planned for the record.
1:29:04
We never prepare for interview.
1:29:06
Our audience knows [laughter] we know. >> Oh yeah. I don't even get any.
1:29:10
Normally I get prep questions or something before these things. >> We do it live. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Freestyling. Um but yeah. No.
1:29:17
So the platform we've built over the last 10 years is actually perfect for AI.
1:29:23
So when you think about it, we've built a unified document model.
1:29:27
So whether you're creating a presentation, a social media graphic, uh long form text document, a website, a video, all of these documents have been built off the same engine, right?
1:29:38
Simultaneous collaboration and everything across all of them.
1:29:42
Then at the found, so that's the dock type.
1:29:44
That's what we call our visual suite.
1:29:45
Up the top at the bottom, we have our infrastructure layer.
1:29:47
So that is things like our digital asset management system. It's your brand kit.
1:29:56
It's it's all the core engine that allows you to share and publish to any platform. Okay.
1:30:00
So that's what we had in the middle. We've put this AI layer.
1:30:03
So when you want to create a design, let's say I want to create uh QBR report like a quarterly business review for a customer using this data and their brand.
1:30:17
It calls on your data from Salesforce or whatever.
1:30:20
It calls on that company's brand kit.
1:30:22
It calls on your company's brand kit.
1:30:24
It then understands what you're trying to achieve.
1:30:26
It then generates it as a presentation and then allows you to deploy that and understand is it getting clicked through blah blah blah blah blah.
1:30:34
So it's actually connected this entire ecosystem that we call the creative operating system.
1:30:38
Um which has sort of all come to fruition and it's really leveraging that prior 10 years of investment to make Canva an incredibly powerful design platform.
1:30:47
A lot of the other companies they've built these bespoke products.
1:30:51
So they've built a Gen AI image generator.
1:30:53
They've built a Gen AI this or that.
1:30:55
They've built a presentation tool or a tool to create vector graphics.
1:31:01
At Canva, it's all an integrated Creative OS, which is really I don't know if we planned it that well on purpose, but it's just uh it's kind of we kind of did.
1:31:09
It's uh yeah, it's also it's it's nice if you get a little lucky sometimes even.
1:31:16
>> Where where do you see the uh the the end of the map or the edge of the map of like what you want to do creatively in Canva?
1:31:25
Uh, I'm just thinking about like if you get really really crazy into, you know, media creation, you can wind up in a in a 3D modeling software and like Adobe has Substance and they have that app dimension, but you can go into Houdini or uh, you know, Maxon products like Cinema 4D or Blender.
1:31:44
Uh, and it feels like with the with the AI with the generative AI boom, you might not ever need to actually go that deep down the stack or go into like an After Effects competitor, motion, graphics, video tracking.
1:32:00
Like there's so many things that will that might never be exposed to the user because they're you're building at a time when the abstraction layer is now rising thanks to generative AI.
1:32:09
But how do you think about the long-term functionality like the stuff that's the furthest out on the proumer professional enterprise level creator frontier?
1:32:24
>> Yeah, another really good question.
1:32:25
Another I feel like planted question but not planted.
1:32:27
Um, so you want to abstract regular users, knowledge workers, etc. , etc.
1:32:34
, from all of that complexity as much as possible.
1:32:36
If you want to create a 3D graphic, we just launched a 3D product just last week.
1:32:40
So you can now generate with AI 3D products in Canva, edit them, rotate them, do all those things.
1:32:47
So um you can do that as a regular knowledge worker with no design experience.
1:32:52
We also 18 months ago acquired a company called Affinity.
1:32:55
They are a professional design suite that has a vector graphic tool, a layout tool, and a photo editing tool.
1:33:01
We just relaunched that last week as well.
1:33:03
That has a million downloads within the first week.
1:33:08
So, and it's 100% free for everyone. Yeah, >> that's awesome.
1:33:13
>> And so, that's really the craft side.
1:33:15
So, if you want to get super detailed as a professional creative and create a logo or a vector graphic or get really down to the pixel manipulation side of things, that's what Affinity is absolutely incredible for.
1:33:25
And then it seamlessly integrates to Canva.
1:33:27
So, you can push that vector graphic into Canva for the rest of your knowledge workers to use within the organization.
1:33:32
So you can create templates, you can create them in Canva or you can create them in Affinity, push them into Canva and then scale them throughout your organization.
1:33:41
So these two things work hand in hand.
1:33:43
Um, and you really want the power of those tools if you want them, but most people that aren't professional designers don't want that power and they don't want the complexity that comes with that foul power.
1:33:54
>> What is sentiment like within the community at Canva around AI broadly?
1:34:01
I'm curious if if certain types of users are much more optimistic and excited about new AI features versus maybe like traditional uh traditional graphic designers, but what what's the general feeling around uh the technology today?
1:34:17
>> I think people when they wake up in the morning, they don't wake up and say I want to create a social media ad or they don't wake up and say I want to create presentation.
1:34:28
Sometimes I wake up and I think that just to be clear, but [laughter] not not an ad, not but like people people create an ad because they want to grow their business.
1:34:38
People create a presentation because they're a startup wanting to land that pitch deck and get investment funding.
1:34:45
So they they they wake up in the morning with a goal.
1:34:47
And what we're evolving our business to be is a company that helps people achieve their goals, not just create a design.
1:34:56
And AI has accelerated our ability to do that. like a million times.
1:35:01
>> Yeah, that makes sense. >> You're the COO.
1:35:05
Give me some best practices for acquiring companies post merger integration.
1:35:10
What makes it successful?
1:35:14
What are you watching out for? What are the pitfalls?
1:35:15
What are the nightmares that you've heard anonymously from your mentors about what can go wrong when a largecaled software company like yours acquires another software company and the integration doesn't go quite right?
1:35:31
What are you looking for?
1:35:33
>> So we've acquired 10 companies now about 10 companies um of various scale.
1:35:36
I think it comes down to the founders and I've done my last three acquisitions on the balcony of uh my favorite pub and so honestly like >> on the balcony.
1:35:54
So it's like if this doesn't go down, you're going over >> in the end one of those guys.
1:35:58
It's like a >> you're kind of like old Patty down at the pub is going to throw you off break your legs if you don't do the deal.
1:36:05
Is that what's going [laughter] on?
1:36:07
[gasps] >> I mean, that's Yeah. Yeah. Kind of.
1:36:09
But [laughter] we're not threatening anyone.
1:36:14
We're not threatening anyone.
1:36:14
But like, you got to get the cut of the jib of the founder you're acquiring.
1:36:18
What are their motivations? Why are they in it?
1:36:22
>> Does 1 plus 1 equal 10?
1:36:22
So the companies that we find best to acquire, they've got an amazing piece of technology, they got an amazing founder, and that founder wants to get the power of what they've built in way more hands than their current distribution channel.
1:36:35
So if we can plug the power of their technology and team into our distribution channel, 1 + 1 equals 10.
1:36:41
And you can see if they get a glint in their eyes when you talk about that, uh, and it's that glint in their eyes and just deeply understanding their motivations that is going to make it successful or not successful.
1:36:51
if they're just after a quick exit, that could be fine if you're just after technology or just after their customer base.
1:36:58
But if you don't deeply understand the founder, and that's why I don't have an M&A team, like we do have an M&A team, but we don't have a head of M&A because I feel when you're acquiring companies, it is so deeply personal and the person that's going to sponsor the success of that company once it joins your company needs to be involved in that process.
1:37:18
And they need to they need to be the ones making the decision.
1:37:20
And when that's delegated down, I feel that leads to a lot of um carnage.
1:37:24
And most of the most of the founders that we've acquired and and some we've acquired like 8 years ago are still with us today and and are in leadership positions in the company.
1:37:34
So I think that's sort of testament to the success of a lot of the acquisitions we've done. >> It's very cool.
1:37:38
What's the uh chat wants to know the biggest fish you've ever caught?
1:37:45
[clears throat] >> Oh yeah, I love fishing Yeah.
1:37:46
Um [laughter] Oh, some big ones.
1:37:50
Oh, you should see this thing.
1:37:51
I got this um whale [snorts] above this as well.
1:37:53
I got all this stuff in this one one shop. Look at that. Yeah.
1:37:58
>> Do you have any violet crumble on you right now? >> No. No.
1:38:02
That's not the best Australian chocolate.
1:38:05
>> Oh, I always think of it as the the pinnacle. It's my favorite.
1:38:07
It's my It's my favorite chocolate.
1:38:09
And uh and it just happens to come from Australia. >> Uh amazing.
1:38:13
Uh well, Chat Chat loves you.
1:38:16
Was great to finally meet and congratulations on all the launches.
1:38:18
the scale at which you guys are operating is is uh really incredible and it's it's super fun to chat.
1:38:26
>> Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. >> Appreciate it.
1:38:28
>> Have a good rest of your day. >> Cheers, Cliff.
1:38:29
>> Uh before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about Turbo Puffer Search every bite serverless vector and full text search built from first principles on object storage fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable.
1:38:38
Our next guest is Jerry Murdoch, the co-founder of Insight Partners.
1:38:43
He served as managing director until April of 2011, led investment strategy and developed many of the firm's portfolio investment.
1:38:52
Jerry, are you in the re waiting room?
1:38:54
Are you in the TV and Ultra? Welcome to the show.
1:38:56
How are you doing, Jerry?
1:38:57
[laughter] >> What's happening? >> I'm really good.
1:39:00
>> Thank you so much for joining.
1:39:02
>> We're super super excited to meet and uh and chat.
1:39:04
Why don't why don't you give a quick introduction?
1:39:07
>> What is venture capital?
1:39:09
>> What is growth equity?
1:39:10
>> What is growth equity? No. >> What is investing?
1:39:11
Uh yeah, I would I actually love to know a little bit about your journey, how you wound up uh co-founding Insight Partners.
1:39:16
It's obviously a firm everyone knows, but I'm not sure everyone knows exactly the earlier story here. >> Early story.
1:39:26
Well, because I'm old, that's why.
1:39:28
But where do you want to start?
1:39:31
>> Uh maybe uh the moment you >> when did you know you wanted to get into asset management? >> Yeah, exactly.
1:39:37
Yeah, I'd love to I'd love to know just the the the minutes before you sign the uh incorporation documents.
1:39:44
That's always interesting. >> Uh okay.
1:39:45
So Jeff Hy and I were um Jeff was an associate at a big venture capital firm called Warberg. >> Oh yeah.
1:39:55
>> He didn't even have an office.
1:39:55
He had a desk under the stairs.
1:39:56
Um, I was a consultant and we had this crazy idea to start a company called Open Vision and we wrote a business plan and the partner, Bill Janeway, said, "Well, if you can recruit the president of Oracle, I'll fund it."
1:40:10
And at the time, the president of Oracle was a guy named Mike Fields that worked for Larry.
1:40:14
And uh, and Mike said, "Well, I think Larry's going to fire me, so I'm open to it."
1:40:22
And then a month later, Larry fired him and he became our CEO and Open Vision merged with Veraritoss in a 6040 merger and was worth 30 billion in 1999.
1:40:30
And >> that funded Jeff and I into Insight.
1:40:35
>> It got you into business.
1:40:35
Why did he get why did he get fired? >> Yeah.
1:40:39
>> What's the story there?
1:40:41
>> Coming for Larry's >> You're You're get Larry.
1:40:42
He'll tell you why he fired him, but Okay.
1:40:44
But Larry Larry has his own reasons, you know. >> Yeah.
1:40:50
Uh and then uh yeah, take us through a little bit of the journey on like the early Insight Partners uh days like uh >> Sure. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:41:00
I just want to hear I just want to I want to hear your craziest stories from the '9s.
1:41:04
You have some crazy stories yourself.
1:41:05
What I mean uh I mean that what a what a wild uh decade and you were what what was the timing overlap between uh your guys that the IPO you mentioned and founding insight partners at Insight like >> yeah I think so in so insight if you look at the website we say January 1 1995 >> in truth we we shook hands in August of 94 we funded the very first company December 30th 94.
1:41:37
So we said, "Okay, January 195, but we didn't close the first fund until July of 1996.
1:41:47
>> Um, we were investing friends and family money in what became the first part of the portfolio.
1:41:53
And uh, we had an advisory board because we didn't have any credibility, right?
1:41:57
Jeff and I both had acne. He was 30, I was 35.
1:41:59
We were we didn't really know much about what we were doing other than we got lucky with open vision.
1:42:07
Um but I uh I lived in Aspen and still have I still live in Aspen and I um was involved in the Aspen Institute and I invited a bunch of people to join me in a little round table and they became my advisory board.
1:42:21
So the advisory board for insight was Eric Schmidt who was a VP at Sun, a guy named Scott Cook who was the founder of Intuit, a guy named Ray Lane who replaced Mike Fields at Oracle as the president.
1:42:33
Um, and uh, those and a few other people, but those guys really gave us their money, they gave us their time, gave us credibility, and they helped us succeed.
1:42:46
What did they they they you said you were didn't have experience or credibility back then, but clearly to get those kind of people to spend time with you, trust you with their capital.
1:42:57
What what made you guys special?
1:42:57
What did they see in you?
1:43:01
>> I think like you look at you two guys, you get everybody on your TV show and why are you getting them, right?
1:43:06
You guys aren't on 60 Minutes or somewhere else.
1:43:09
You guys got personality, you got brains, you got aggressiveness, you got a gong that attracts people. >> Yeah.
1:43:16
Come for the What's current AUM?
1:43:20
Can you share any AUM figures?
1:43:20
I'd love to ring the gun. >> Somewhere around 100.
1:43:24
>> So So, so right now it's 110 I think. >> There.
1:43:31
Not every not every day we get to hit the gong forund 110 >> million of >> I mean we're we're we're super we're super in the weeds tracking how venture funds today are positioning themselves in the AI boom folks will say uh I'm only betting on one foundation model company but I love the infrastructure layer I'm doing some energy investments and then I think there's a lot of
1:43:55
opportunity in the application layer for example uh how were people in venture talking about the dot boom or like the internet boom that like I it was obviously now we collapse it just just down to internet or do but back then there had to be dividing lines between themes and and how was it being discussed amongst venture capitalists at the time. >> Okay. So let's take insight. Insight we >> Okay. So let's take insight.
1:44:19
Insight we thought we were really genius and said we're not going to invest in dotcom companies.
1:44:26
We're going to do infrastructure and applications, but we're gonna avoid the dot bubble because it's crazy, right?
1:44:32
I mean, I sit there and said, "Look, >> there's not enough. Everybody's on dialup.
1:44:38
You're not going to do commerce on dialup.
1:44:40
We don't have enough broadband for this to work out."
1:44:41
And so, we avoided it thinking we were going to be safe.
1:44:46
And we did all this infrastructure deals. Well, guess what?
1:44:50
March 2000, the stock market dropped 40% for tech and we all got killed.
1:44:56
everybody got killed and so our our safe strategy was a total failure.
1:44:59
Um uh everybody went down and then in 2001 with 911 we got trashed and so we had the worst year in venture capital history.
1:45:11
>> I think our 99 fund returned a whopping 1% maybe I think we were top quartile or basically a break even fund in 99 >> and >> that was so break even was top quartortile. Yeah, that's right. That's right. [laughter] >> Insane.
1:45:28
So, were you guys feeling did you did if it being top quartortile, were you like, okay, like that was rough, but we made it through like we we still look better than than most of the industry, so we're going to be able to continue to build momentum or was there ever a point where you thought it was over?
1:45:45
>> No, we just were cheap basically.
1:45:45
We we didn't want to we just wanted to get every dime we could possibly get back.
1:45:51
So, we had to work hard on three or four investments from 2001 to 2005 just to get back to break even. >> Mhm.
1:46:00
>> Was that that was like rolling rolling up your sleeves and and like getting operational with the companies to make sure that they >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:46:06
helping helping build a team and and and change the strategy for a new world.
1:46:12
The one thing we learned from that lesson is that when the boom ends and the crash begins is that all those companies on the old platforms, the old technology are not going to be very attractive when the next boom and the next thing happens, right?
1:46:27
So, think about web companies in 2008.
1:46:29
They were before that crash, you know, they were looking great and then mobile companies became what was important after 2010. Yeah. Right.
1:46:40
So if you weren't mobile, you weren't very attractive.
1:46:41
And I think we're going to have the same thing here when this next cycle goes down.
1:46:46
There's three major trends, right?
1:46:48
We only talk about AI today, but crypto, I think, is becoming more and more important.
1:46:53
And eventually, not sure if it's 5 years or 10, but quantum computing will become a major platform. >> Absolutely.
1:47:02
M >> and so it's just so the question becomes is when does the crash happen and then how long does it last and then when you come out of it what are the new technologies that all the companies have to be built on >> what was your what was your state of mind in let's say 1998 1999 and then those first few months of 2000 like did you what kind of conversations were you having as the deals and the IPOs got crazier and crazier?
1:47:33
Was there a sense at any point in your even even you know friend group and network and advisers that there was another was it was you was it late 1999 and people were like we got at least 3 to five more years of this or or was there was there any type of uh sense or or real concern about how >> I think it was 90 early 99 or late '9 and I were walking down Fifth Avenue with two adviserss is Bob Rubin who is
1:48:03
former Secretary of the Treasury and Steve Freriedman who is former CEO with Bob at Goldman Sachs go into Jack Walsh's office to sit down and listen to him you know and both Bob and Steve said you know the banks are not accounting
1:48:17
for risk >> that was pretty big number they knew they felt that it was not they didn't know where the risk was coming from we didn't know exactly which area was it subprime was it real estate Was it corporate bonds? Was it swaps? You know, Was it swaps?
1:48:32
You know, there wasn't obvious which one of those were the greatest risk because all of them were risky.
1:48:40
And so we were walking to listen to him and and uh on our way down there, a guy called me and said, "Yeah, it was I think it was an analyst at Morgan Stanley.
1:48:51
I forget his name, but I said, "Look," I said, "But we're in the bubble."
1:48:55
And he says, "Yeah, but it's an iron bubble." iron bubble.
1:49:01
>> So I thought, okay, an iron bubble. I got to process this.
1:49:03
What does iron bubble mean? Right?
1:49:05
And and bottom line, what he meant was it's going to be a iron bubble until it's not.
1:49:10
And and if you're a believer in making money in in booms, you have to stay in the game till the very end.
1:49:19
>> You can be smart and hedge your bets, but if you bail out too early, you're going to miss a lot of great returns. >> Yeah.
1:49:25
And so that's what that guy meant by that iron bubble that it was, you know, it was just going to be there for a while.
1:49:30
And sure enough, it was an iron bubble for over a year.
1:49:33
And March of 2000, inexplicitly the stock market shifted.
1:49:37
People moved out of tech and 40% would drop everywhere across the board.
1:49:43
And that was like, okay, now we got to work hard.
1:49:48
How how are you thinking about recycling or managing LPS in that year where you're you are top quile but you only return 1%.
1:49:56
Uh are you set up as a fund to kind of I mean there were comp it seemed like every company even if it sold off a ton they were IPOing they were getting out.
1:50:06
So, were you able to get some liquidity and then reinvest that or did you have to go back to LPs and raise new funds uh and kind of restart the whole process or were they already kind of bought into giving you another run in 20 uh in 2003 for example, 2002?
1:50:25
>> Yeah, I mean I mean no, nobody was bought into anything.
1:50:27
It was a pretty nasty thing that was going down and so we just had to slug it out with the funds we had.
1:50:35
um which got us through um until we were able to raise the next fund which of course was a smaller fund.
1:50:43
Uh we had raised fund four just about the time of the crash.
1:50:48
So we actually had capital but it was still ugly because we had a bunch of investments that we knew were not going to be great going down the road.
1:50:56
And so um we didn't really raise fund five until four years later.
1:51:02
So it was the four toughest year in venture capital and a lot of our people who were started in 95 didn't make it right.
1:51:10
So I mean if you look at who started 95 benchmark did and they survived and they did great >> but a lot of other funds didn't. >> Yeah. >> Remarkable.
1:51:21
How would, you know, if you were still running a a platform venture firm today, like how would you be currently assessing the market?
1:51:29
Because there's a a hot debate right now of like where we're really seeing a a bubble, right?
1:51:39
If you look at uh obviously there's plenty of companies in the public markets that that do that don't make any sense.
1:51:45
there's some, you know, there's hyperscalers that that don't uh that that actually seem priced pretty reasonably.
1:51:53
Uh and then in the private markets, you have, you know, if you're an AI company, you know, you're you're going to, you know, probably with a a solid team pretty easily get uh 100x 200x revenue, even if you have little to no margin on that revenue. >> Yeah.
1:52:10
I mean, look, we don't know what's gonna what's going to be the the straw on top of the camel's back that ends it. We don't know when.
1:52:17
[snorts] And there's all kinds of political things that you don't want to bet against, right? Yeah.
1:52:21
>> I mean, we could end up with zero interest rates in March, you know?
1:52:24
I mean, you don't want to bet against that.
1:52:27
>> So, um I mean, a lot of people who bet against the Fed, if you remember that five years ago or during the COVID times, lost lost out huge.
1:52:33
So, look, anything rational, like I could say, oh, the laws of physics still apply.
1:52:40
You know, I'm on the board of the Santa Fe Institute where we've got some of the smartest minds in physics and math in the world.
1:52:49
Irrational things like bubbles can last a long, long time.
1:52:51
And you can say, "Oh, it doesn't look like a bubble."
1:52:52
Well, I hate to say it, but I think a lot of these hyperscalers are are going to regret the capex commitments unless they can get out of it. We'll see.
1:53:02
I think what's interesting to me is I think they may be underestimating the the sort of drop in token price.
1:53:11
I mean, I really think that the um that that the that the the the amazing power of the of the chips and things that Jensen has done is [clears throat] going to outstrip our ability um to get electricity to really power this stuff. >> Yeah.
1:53:29
What SA SA has been saying this for over a year now.
1:53:31
is are more a power constraint.
1:53:35
>> I I think I think if you look at the amount of of chips he sold and look that's out there I don't think there's a power out available today.
1:53:41
they have to find a new source >> in order to be able to sort of benefit from all this buildout.
1:53:47
And if there is a economic recession then the enterprise the expected enterprise you know explosion of AI usage will be delayed >> right and if there's any kind of a sort of major security problem around AI that'll scare off the enterprises that'll also delay so I don't think you can I don't think you can continue the AI boom without the Fortune 5000 getting on board.
1:54:15
It's not going to happen without that.
1:54:17
And so if there is an economic interruption, a serious one, >> then the demand is going to is going to change. That that has to happen.
1:54:28
>> How do you think about different opportunities to buy assets, buy whole companies throughout a cycle, there's the companies that are or the firms that are kind of waiting for a crash and maybe going to buy up stuff as after post crash.
1:54:43
Uh there's also firms that are going and buying Fifth Avenue and they want to get the best asset right now.
1:54:49
There's other folks who are purely founder bet pay any price.
1:54:52
Others much more quantitative.
1:54:54
How have you thought about your overall investing thesis throughout tumultuous times?
1:55:01
>> Well well well the difference here is AI is affecting everything.
1:55:04
is affecting everything. the the the you know Bezos is right it it's an industrial bubble >> uh not necessarily a financial bubble because the value of AI is not going to not going to go away that that is absolutely [clears throat] the future
1:55:19
and it's here now it just isn't here at scale yet in my opinion at least not for enterprise um so I do think that the problem with buying up companies is what are you buying is it going to be valuable you know down the road or not valuable. It depends a lot on the
1:55:34
It depends a lot on the quality of the management.
1:55:37
It depends a lot on the technology.
1:55:39
And so buying SAS companies hoping they're going to be more valuable in five years, I I I think that's a questionable questionable strategy.
1:55:48
I think you have to think about like I said from each if you assume that there must be some disruption like if it's a covid types disruption where it's you know literally a few months then you know and the fed bails you out then you know >> people just keep going the bubble bounces back and it just keeps rocking. Yeah.
1:56:09
>> If on the other hand it's a it's it's a serious economic issue right now M2 money supply is all-time highs.
1:56:15
So you've got massive amount of capital out there.
1:56:19
It's not a liquidity crunch.
1:56:22
>> It's just going to be a a challenge, you know, with the overall economy >> and then there'll be a liquidity crunch because the debt that's out there is massive everywhere.
1:56:32
>> So I I I I think here in this particular case, >> if you're going to strategize to buy up a bunch of things after a bus, that's a bad strategy.
1:56:39
bad strategy. egg is >> most of the companies are going to be first generation AI and they're not going to be the right how I say technology platform right I mean first of all most people are betting on these large language models and what we learned at Santa Fe we had in middle of
1:56:59
March we had the top research scientists from all the hyperscalers the 40 person conference I hosted with the scientists and the thing that came out of it is everyone's too focused on LLMs not focused enough on the complexity between the humans training them and the humans consuming them. >> And I think the secondary part of that
1:57:16
>> And I think the secondary part of that is that LLMs >> are we're going to find a new new technology um and cheaper forms of of models that are going to come out.
1:57:27
I'm certain that what China did with Deep Seek by releasing open source, there'll be many, many more open source models in a year, and you won't need to spend all this money on an LLM.
1:57:40
>> I have a feeling that it'll be a multiodel world with lots of free open-source models going down the road.
1:57:47
So, if you buy a company that's based on, you know, foundational models, technology, it may not be so valuable in the next wave of AI. Mhm.
1:57:55
Can you bridge this to trade for me?
1:57:58
I heard an interesting stat last night that America has more data centers than the rest of the world combined, and it feels like America might actually be winning in terms of industrial power on the data center side, but lacking in many other industrial capacities.
1:58:14
How how do you think the way that AI and the AI infrastructure buildout is changing America?
1:58:22
How do you think that flows to trade policy?
1:58:26
>> I'm not sure we I understand or anybody understands American trade policy right now. [laughter] >> Yeah.
1:58:34
>> Uh it's like a kangaroo.
1:58:34
It's jumping up and down constantly.
1:58:36
That's keeps you on your toes. >> Yeah.
1:58:40
I I I don't know anyone really really truly understands it.
1:58:42
And I'm not sure policy is the right word.
1:58:44
Um, I think uh I think it's a it's an innovative game that's being played with with trade policy.
1:58:54
So, I I don't know I don't know what that's going to look like in four years.
1:58:59
There's a lot of uncertainty and that's part of the problem making these long-term investments.
1:59:03
I think that the data centers themselves, the actual physical properties, you know, are are important and will be important long term.
1:59:12
The question is is you know if the if if Jensen keeps his word and the and the chips are going up by some multiplier every year, how valuable is the chips in the data centers being built? >> Yep.
1:59:24
The depreciation is just going to be crazy. >> Yeah.
1:59:27
And and so look, I think the one thing that's for sure about this bubble that's different than anything else >> is that the innovation is real >> and the innovation is profound.
1:59:37
And I think that innovation and what what it's going to unlock is challenging.
1:59:42
And you have geniuses like Elon Musk and others out there that are um how can I say uh they're inventing so much so fast and they have so many resources.
1:59:56
If you think about it, the CEOs of the Magnificent 7 and SAM have a lot of influence on how the world is going to play out over the next three or four years, right?
2:00:05
You could you could add a couple chip guys.
2:00:08
You could have Hawk and uh Hawkton and and Fifth Way.
2:00:09
And you could add maybe there's three women that are upandcomers, maybe FFE and and Mera and Lynn at fireworks that could become more influential.
2:00:21
But right now, the assets and the power is in the Magnificent 7 and Sam Alman. >> Mh.
2:00:28
>> And those guys are going to have a an amazing impact on how the world rolls out in the next five years, three to five years.
2:00:35
So, I mean, when you think about that, those are the guys that are going to shape the politics of what's actually happening.
2:00:43
In fact, I kind of think that we're in for a different world where right now we're worried about immigration and we're worried about all kinds of, you know, social issues.
2:00:51
I think in the future when robots are walking around, we're going to be more interested in like, wow, how who has who are the AI halves and who are the AI have nots.
2:01:00
And I think that better or worse, the Magnificent Seven and 8 are going to change the political dialogue in this country pretty dramatically within three years.
2:01:12
And uh and I think they know it, which is why there's some pretty good ideas that I've heard about giving every child, you know, $1,000 in the stock market, something like that.
2:01:22
That could be a great idea.
2:01:24
That could be a great idea.
2:01:26
I I I heard Jensen and Brad talking about it.
2:01:29
that could be very helpful because there will be a have and have not world in America and that'll be the primary dialogue I think of the future not the stuff we're going through right now.
2:01:41
>> How how have you processed the boom in private credit?
2:01:46
>> It's going on a long time and I don't think there's enough u that it's so big it's so profound.
2:01:52
I think the banking system in America, you know, because of the rules, they're not really accounting for that risk, right?
2:02:01
I mean, in the normal way you would think about it.
2:02:02
So, I mean, it depends on the disruption, right?
2:02:07
What happened in 2008 or what happened in in in in 2001, that would be challenging for private credit big time.
2:02:20
Does it uh like it where do you put that on on uh in terms of how the probability that private credit plays a significant role in the next financial crisis?
2:02:38
>> Well, put it this way.
2:02:38
Um the banks have have made these investments and right now private credit looks reasonably safe, right?
2:02:46
I mean people seem to have enough capability to overcome it.
2:02:48
The question becomes is how deep and how bad is it is the future liquidity crisis and how how challenging is it?
2:02:57
How much and and and we don't know.
2:03:00
So I don't I I'm not betting that there's going to be another banking crisis.
2:03:05
I'm just betting that there's going to be an end of the bubble and there's going to be some kind of recession whether it's short-term or long.
2:03:13
Whether it's a crisis or not depends on the nature and the severity of it, right?
2:03:17
Right now, it's always a break of trust, right?
2:03:20
I mean, what happened in 2008 that people had to take the TARP loans because trust was essential when Hank Pollson told him the story about about what he was dealing with.
2:03:32
Um, and it was basically, you know, forcing all the major US banks to take TARP money.
2:03:39
He said, 'Look, when you're boiling in oil, you don't ask how hot it is.
2:03:44
You just act and you move.
2:03:47
And I think he saved the country.
2:03:47
I I mean, um, uh, I'm not necessarily a fan of anybody during that era, but I do think he saved the country by restoring trust in the banking system.
2:03:57
I don't see private credit being that big of a threat.
2:04:02
Um, but it absolutely could play a role. >> That makes sense.
2:04:08
uh what single deal are you most proud of?
2:04:13
>> It doesn't have to be as an investor.
2:04:13
It doesn't doesn't have to be like it generated the greatest return, but something that you look back on, you know, 1995 to 2011 index.
2:04:25
>> Look, I mean the current portfolio of AI investments I've done like Avan, I mean Sadi Khan is one of the truly great CEOs of the generation.
2:04:33
I recommend you put him on your show, but Venode Koshel and I talked about it because Venode is one of the large investments there.
2:04:41
>> Um, but Fireworks AI, E2B, >> you know, Lotus AI, Dynasty, uh, Dynasty is one that I'm really interested in because I just think trusts are something that people like me have used successfully for a long time and I think entrepreneurs should be using them more often.
2:04:58
>> Give the pitch for Give the pitch for dynasty.
2:05:00
uh you know, you can put it put it simply, but uh for for those that are hearing about it for the first time. >> Yeah. Okay.
2:05:09
So, look, if if you starting a company out there and you've basically don't have a lot of money, but you've got your shares, um you should you should go put those shares in whether it's Dynasty or somebody else, you should put those shares in trust for yourself and your family.
2:05:25
And depending if it's your mommy or your dad or or your wife or potentially kids or or whatever charity you want to put it in, um you should it's it's a way of def of of protecting it and it's definitely a way of taking advantage of um QPS exemption which came in during Clinton which Bush you know uh embellished more and and which Obama did more which Trump did more.
2:05:54
every president since has pushed it.
2:05:56
And what's happened as a result, I think, um, is you've got a lot more startups.
2:06:01
You went from about a half a million startups a year in the '9s to close to 5 million startups a year now.
2:06:07
And so think for inside and I think for most other funds, right, I think about 80% of the of the investments return less than 1. 3x.
2:06:19
Okay, but that means over 20% return multiples and and those 20% return multiples, those entrepreneurs should be thinking about putting their assets in trust.
2:06:28
Um, and not just stock, but also their crypto um, you know, and and and protect it.
2:06:34
I mean, and there's lots of reasons why.
2:06:36
It doesn't cost a lot thanks to Dynasty.
2:06:38
They're democratizing it.
2:06:39
So, it doesn't cost a lot.
2:06:43
>> You're crazy not to take advantage of the of the tax exemption that's associated with it. >> Yeah. Mhm. Well said.
2:06:47
Uh well, thank you so much for coming on.
2:06:50
I'm sure we could keep talking for hours more, but really just appreciated the stories and insights and um >> and uh we'll have to have you back on again soon. >> Yeah.
2:07:01
>> Well, well, thanks guys.
2:07:01
And look, you guys are the most fun entertainment show out there and that's why I'm here. So, uh keep it going. It's fun. >> Thank you so much. That means a lot to us. >> Means a lot. We'll talk to you soon.
2:07:13
>> Thanks so much, Jerry. Great rest of your day. >> You're the man.
2:07:15
>> We'll talk to you soon. >> All right. See you. Bye.
2:07:16
Before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about Google AI Studio.
2:07:22
>> Create an AI powered app faster than ever.
2:07:24
Gemini understands the capabilities you need and automatically wires up the right models and APIs for you.
2:07:30
You can get started at ai. studio/build.
2:07:33
Um, our next guest is Schloms, the anonymous poster on X. That's right.
2:07:40
I've been a fan of Schloms's work for a long time.
2:07:42
always found uh the I don't even know art, stunts, marketing, it's everything in between. It covers so much.
2:07:52
I've always enjoyed it and I'm very excited that we get to have him on the show today.
2:07:57
I believe he's in the reream waiting room, but we are going to [music] work because he's anonymous.
2:08:03
That means voice changer.
2:08:03
That means facial >> recognition.
2:08:08
You got to confuse the AI algorithm of the future.
2:08:10
[music] So he's undetectable.
2:08:12
So I will tell you about profound to get your brand mentioned in ChachiPT.
2:08:15
Reach millions of consumers who are using AI to discover new products and brands.
2:08:19
And I will also read this post which made it in the timeline from Sisphus Bar and Grill where it says, "Oh damn, the highly produced launch startup video starts with an outtake of the founder sitting down from an offset angle.
2:08:31
Now I know it's going to be unique and awesome."
2:08:36
[laughter] It really is an overused trope, but let me let me just let me just steal it for two seconds.
2:08:42
So, I was in the business of making videos about startups.
2:08:47
Basically, I made a variety of videos.
2:08:50
And when me and Ben figured out how to do the extra behind the scenes camera that wanders around while you actually do the interview and then splice that in.
2:09:00
Oh, it just takes you from like you're doing a normal podcast to like it feels like it's belongs on HBO and it's so satisfying and I wouldn't get rid of it for the world.
2:09:10
Uh, and I I I will defend it to the end of to the end of days.
2:09:15
Uh, although yes, it is truly played out and you should probably at least hit the drawing board.
2:09:22
>> Live video tracking is the new meta.
2:09:25
>> Yes, I can just pace around the room.
2:09:27
>> I believe you have a lavalier mic on too.
2:09:29
So, can you talk and can we hear you? >> Check. Check. >> Let's see.
2:09:32
Are we Are we getting audio from Jordy on the walk?
2:09:34
He's not talking, so I can't tell.
2:09:37
You got to keep talking if we're going to keep talking. >> Oh, we hear it. We're hearing him. It's working. >> I'm live. >> You're live.
2:09:44
>> This is a new feature we're testing out, everyone. >> Yes.
2:09:46
>> Uh, this is live camera tracking with Lav.
2:09:50
So, you can start to just pace around the room.
2:09:54
>> Why don't you go take a crack at the gong?
2:09:56
Hit the gong for all the progress of the production.
2:09:59
>> I'm hitting the gong for Jerry. >> Uhoh. Okay. Turn down the volume.
2:10:01
The the gong's getting hit. Hit the gong. >> Oh, those worked. Good. Okay, we're solving. >> There we go. >> That's great. >> There we go. See, this is good. This is good.
2:10:14
>> Oh, the menacing walk with spinning the [laughter] thing.
2:10:17
Wait, I'm waiting for What's on that whiteboard?
2:10:19
Uh, what's on that whiteboard, Jordy?
2:10:21
Why are you walking in front of that whiteboard? >> This one? >> Yeah, that one.
2:10:25
Oh, we were just doing some analysis. >> Yeah. What type of What?
2:10:28
What did you notice over there? >> Uh, no.
2:10:31
This right in front of it.
2:10:31
You need to We still can't see it. Yeah.
2:10:34
You need to walk right in front of >> This didn't go anywhere. This didn't go anywhere.
2:10:38
We [laughter] >> It's interesting.
2:10:39
Uh, cuz you know, people have been calling Open AI.
2:10:41
Maybe it's the next Enron.
2:10:43
And if you if you trace the letters the E and Enron, there's an E in Open AI.
2:10:50
>> The N in Enron, [clears throat] there's an N in Open AI.
2:10:52
and the R in Enron, the O in Enron, there's an O in Open AI, and at the end of Enron, it's an N. There's an N in Open AI.
2:11:01
And >> and the P and the A >> and the and the P and the A as well. Yes.
2:11:05
And so, uh, those are the letters in Enron, and there's also letters in Open AI.
2:11:10
And so, you know, I I just feel like the connections are a little bit it's a little bit it's a little bit obvious.
2:11:17
>> To be clear, we don't believe [snorts] that.
2:11:18
We are >> No, >> we are as exuberant as ever.
2:11:20
I I am >> when when Sarah When Sarah Frier said we should be more exuberant, >> we didn't just listen, we studied.
2:11:29
>> I like someone in the chat was like was like he needs to be more exuberant.
2:11:33
>> I'm I'm shocked that that those are that those are real quotes. >> Yeah, they're wild.
2:11:37
Uh well, let me tell you about linear.
2:11:39
Linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
2:11:41
Meet the system for modern software development.
2:11:43
Streamline issues, projects, and product road mapaps.
2:11:47
Uh, we might be coming back to Schlaloms next time. Maybe next week.
2:11:52
May maybe we'll reschedule it.
2:11:52
That's the nature of live TV, baby.
2:11:53
Uh, let's go back to the timeline.
2:11:55
Autism Capital has a post here.
2:11:57
Uh, they where they're they are claiming that October 6 was literally the top.
2:12:02
This was posted in December of 2023.
2:12:04
We must find this man and make him our God. Nostradamus lives. Alltime high.
2:12:10
>> This was calling the Bitcoin time.
2:12:10
Okay, this is Bitcoin all-time highs.
2:12:16
Basically, it was 1,064 days from 2015 to 2017 all-time highs.
2:12:23
Then 364 days from 2017 to 2018, then 1,600 1,64 days 2018 to 2021, and then 364 days from 2021 to 2022.
2:12:35
the the pattern would print this cycle's all-time high as the 6th of October 2020.
2:12:43
>> That was the actual top for big.
2:12:46
>> Okay, so I have no idea Photoshop, but this is this is crazy. This really was the top. Absolute insanity.
2:12:50
Of course, uh it could just go back up next week and then this isn't true.
2:12:56
Uh who knows if this is Photoshop, but uh it is it is fascinating like chart analysis.
2:13:01
Uh we need to get uh wait do we ever figure out what is that called Tyler where people analyze the candlesticks. Oh technical analysis.
2:13:10
Are you familiar with technical analysis?
2:13:13
>> The with the concept of it.
2:13:13
Yeah >> technical analysis.
2:13:15
It's like it's the head and shoulders pattern. So it has to go up.
2:13:20
>> You just just follow the lines, bro. >> Yeah.
2:13:22
But but it's not just it's not just linear regression.
2:13:24
It's like if it goes up and down and then up again, that's the camel pattern and that means it's going to break out.
2:13:29
And people have a lot of fun with this.
2:13:31
They draw all sorts of stuff all over it.
2:13:32
Uh it's been largely debunked and if you're playing that game, you're probably going to get cooked by like a real team of machine learning experts who are doing basically technical analysis at a much much more uh much deeper level.
2:13:44
But I think we need to bring technical analysis to private markets.
2:13:49
I want to see people looking at oh the stripe secondaries this week they sold down 2% they're up 4%.
2:13:58
That means it's a bullish catalyst.
2:14:00
It's going to go through the roof.
2:14:00
I want to see a technical an technical analyst bring the TR that >> okay you see there's down round here but it's actually bullish.
2:14:09
>> It's actually bullish bullish prime for a breakout.
2:14:12
>> Technical analysis just just looking at the charts not even understanding what the company is.
2:14:16
Just looking at the charts that's the key.
2:14:19
>> Ben Sans says stockstrology.
2:14:21
>> Stockrology would be good.
2:14:21
Uh, China has overtaken the US in cumulative open-source AI model download, says A16Z.
2:14:29
Oh, we also have some we also have some updates on the um on the solar panel company that we were digging into yesterday. Pretty big.
2:14:40
>> It was built by the Chinese.
2:14:41
>> It was built by the Chinese.
2:14:41
So, a Chinese company came over here.
2:14:44
>> They built a Trina Solar. >> Yeah. >> Built this facility.
2:14:47
And then due to uh some regulatory pressure, they were a forced seller. >> Yeah.
2:14:54
>> And then it was taken over by what is now T1 energy. >> Sure.
2:14:59
>> And so everyone was like, "Wait, we know how to build facilities like this."
2:15:01
And everyone got really excited, including uh us, >> meaning us.
2:15:08
>> And of course, it turns out that uh it was actually built by the Chinese.
2:15:11
But >> but I don't have that I don't know that there's that big of a problem with that, right?
2:15:16
because it's like it's built in America.
2:15:18
That's that's the important thing. >> So, let's study it. >> Let's study it.
2:15:21
But also, I mean, like like I regard TSMC Arizona as like a win for American dynamism, right? >> Yeah.
2:15:28
Uh this was that like rune take where he says we should basically just bring over the Chinese. >> Yeah.
2:15:33
Or bring over whoever's building the best stuff and build it here.
2:15:34
the best stuff and build it here. and and and there's a whole bunch of debates like levels to the debate like do you want like like and and it's sort of a yes and situation like I want American workers to build American things in
2:15:49
American factories but also like I'll just take a factory in America that's owned and operated by another country uh because if you know like there's some geopolitical crisis like at least it's within our borders like that's a better that's better than it being halfway way across the world, right? Because you
2:16:06
Because you just walk over to it and be like, "Give me the solar panels." Which is great.
2:16:11
Um, but uh back on the uh A16Z, they said uh A16Z said, "China has overtaken the US and cumulative open-source AI model downloads."
2:16:22
Um, >> and Louis says, "I'm going to make a series of bets on the little guy.
2:16:28
To start, we are going to be granting out compute up to 100K per project to support new experiments on GCP.
2:16:34
If you have an idea for an open source model that you'd like to explore, I'd like to hear from you.
2:16:39
So, go hit up >> I DM'd with Lewis a little bit yesterday about this project.
2:16:43
He's working on pulling together uh the the compute resources, but very excited about this one and uh it'll be fun to follow.
2:16:52
>> Well, we have our next guest uh Schloms in the reream waiting room.
2:16:56
We will bring him in to the TV dome. How you doing? >> There we go.
2:17:04
>> Yeah, we can hear you. >> Oh, yeah. We did it.
2:17:07
>> This [clears throat] is a crazy crazy a non call. We've had a few.
2:17:10
No one's ever sent in such a video to look at. >> Yes.
2:17:16
>> This this is just my webcam.
2:17:16
I have a very old laptop. >> Sure. Yeah. Makes >> got it.
2:17:20
>> I I apparently the technical difficulty was that my display name was breaking Zoom, which I [clears throat] suppose is on brand.
2:17:26
Whoa, that's super interesting.
2:17:29
>> What is your breaking stuff?
2:17:32
>> Uh, [clears throat] so uh the backstory is that I was looking for the longest unic code character to break Twitter in maybe 2017 um [clears throat] which is a very long Arabic uh um sign.
2:17:40
Um but then people told me that they didn't like that I was using that.
2:17:46
So I looked for the second longest unode character >> which is a uniform symbol. >> Yeah.
2:17:52
And so you stack all this up. Yeah.
2:17:53
Yeah. you've been you've been fantastic at kind of like hacking these systems and and and breaking them in a way that you know really gets outside the box like yeah you I've seen like the text that goes completely out of you're you're a UI designer's worst nightmare basically [clears throat]
2:18:08
>> uh so many places I want to go with this conversation we're super excited to chat what uh >> what are you who would you say you do here >> yeah what exactly do you do here >> that's a tough one I mean you So I think a lot of artists are driven by wanting to be an artist, right? And same with
2:18:27
And same with founders um to connect it back to your your wheelhouse.
2:18:30
Um and they want to be the thing, right?
2:18:33
And and then they try to figure out whatever their angle is.
2:18:37
Then there's people who are kind of like driven by whatever instinct or whatever is inside of them.
2:18:41
Uh and yeah, this is this is just me, right?
2:18:44
Um I'm anonymous, so this is like a very specific part of me, right?
2:18:47
That I'm filtering, but I wouldn't say it's a character, per se.
2:18:51
Um, I've always been driven to break things. >> Yeah.
2:18:55
Do you like the term artist, hacker? Does it matter? Is any of this relevant?
2:19:00
[music] >> That's a good question.
2:19:01
No, I don't think it matters.
2:19:03
I think artist is a boring and kind of um, >> yeah, it's kind of a self-s serious term, right?
2:19:09
And I don't want to take myself too seriously.
2:19:13
>> Let's skip the titles then and jump to the projects.
2:19:15
Uh, I always like this question.
2:19:17
We asked Gabe Why from Mischief.
2:19:18
Uh, what is the most underrated project that you've worked on?
2:19:23
Something that you [clears throat] are proud of, but maybe people don't already know you for.
2:19:31
>> Uh, that's a good question.
2:19:31
I mean, I think most people know me from blowing up a Lambo, right? >> Yeah.
2:19:36
And can can you for those who don't know, can you tell the Lambo story briefly? >> Sure.
2:19:41
>> One of my one of my favorite and most memorable moments from from that whole cycle.
2:19:46
It was so cool in so many different ways, but I'll let Schloms tell the full story.
2:19:52
>> Yeah, I think I think that um that project, you know, like a lot of things, you know, trying to ride the the line between like a satire and a serious like earnest engagement with something.
2:20:01
So, that was my sort of take on what was happening in crypto art at the time.
2:20:04
Um, but yeah, we physically blew up a Lambo well before that was possible to sort of fake with AI or anything.
2:20:11
um took all the pieces to a very involved uh videography studio and and took these like beautiful videos of all the fragments um and sold those as NFTs. >> Wow.
2:20:24
>> Uh >> and uh like a postmortem on that project.
2:20:27
Uh are is [clears throat] everyone generally like happy with the way it went?
2:20:30
I feel like there's so many uh NFT projects where like the expectations of the community get away and people are like no like it's going to be a whole metaverse and it feels like I don't remember you promising that.
2:20:40
Is everyone pretty happy with like they were bought in on an art project and that's what they got?
2:20:44
>> Yeah, I I I try to make things that stand on their own, right?
2:20:46
I think that stood on its own and didn't need a road map.
2:20:50
It was a thing that happened and people wanted to own it and I think that was always, >> you know, what NFTs should have been and sadly didn't quite turn out >> that way, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:20:59
No, no, that that makes total sense.
2:21:01
Um, should we go back to any underrated projects that you think uh >> Yeah. What? Yeah.
2:21:06
underrated project would be cool and I and I just want to >> I mean I think >> maybe we we'll get to some of that.
2:21:12
The thing I'm interested is like what's what's interesting to you about the current state? >> That's interesting. Yes.
2:21:20
>> And uh and specifically various platforms like I I know you from from axe but I'm sure you're active elsewhere but how what is your how do you how do you rate the the current internet?
2:21:33
So uh first of all prediction markets um you know you're seeing sort of turning into hyperstition markets.
2:21:38
I think there's a lot of artistic potential there that hasn't been engaged with.
2:21:42
So pay attention to that space.
2:21:46
>> Um >> and you know I think you asked earlier if I view myself as an artist.
2:21:49
I >> I think that um I try to I try to just do things right like it's I'm an agentic person or I try to consider myself one.
2:21:58
I think AI unlocks like unlocks the ability for people to be agentic, right?
2:22:04
So I don't I don't view like when people say AI art, they think of entering a prompt and you get an image output.
2:22:10
I don't make images, right?
2:22:11
Like that's not what I consider my art, but I do things and so I can use AI to more effectively do those things with fewer resources in a more asymmetric way.
2:22:19
So it's completely changed my life.
2:22:21
I hope I don't sound too >> oneshotted. So yeah. No, no, no.
2:22:23
I completely I completely agree.
2:22:26
I guess help me uh resolve this.
2:22:27
And we were talking to Gabe Whe at Mischief, not to comp you guys too much, but uh I I I do think of him as like another person who creates in the original thinker that's not just >> not entire, you know, commercial element, but is not entirely just, you know, not not >> the goal is not wake up every day, create shareholder value.
2:22:47
It's like wake up every day and do novel, >> which we would have no problem with.
2:22:51
We would actually prefer, you know, if you could stop.
2:22:53
My real passion is improving the monthly recurring revenue of B2B SAS. This is my fallback. >> Yes. Yes. Yes.
2:23:00
>> Is that is that actually true? Do you actually >> No. [laughter] >> Okay.
2:23:04
But but so so here so here's my question.
2:23:08
Uh it's it's it feels like um it feels like there are all these really heady questions about AI and slop and what is good and will it oneshot you and paper clipping and it's the most it's the best time to be a podcaster, a newscaster.
2:23:30
Like the Dark Cash Patel podcast is fascinating.
2:23:32
There's so many different ways to engage with it. There's books.
2:23:36
Um, do you feel like uh the art community is engaging with it in the proper way?
2:23:42
Are there are there more projects coming?
2:23:44
Is is it harder to engage in a critique of AI art because it's it's it is it proclaims to be art itself?
2:23:55
uh and so it's maybe a little bit more uh complex to tussle with or do you think that uh basically like are artists driving the discussion uh around the all the trade-offs in AI effectively in your mind? >> Right. Yeah.
2:24:11
I think there are a lot of interesting parallels with like crypto art, right?
2:24:15
Because in early crypto art, it genuinely did unlock some interesting things, but then you kind of had a 8020 where 80% of it was just like kind of boring meta stuff or people who probably shouldn't have been anywhere near that stuff pushing kind of garbage, right?
2:24:26
Um I think I think there are definitely creators who are doing some insane just like on a technical level, some things that they couldn't have done before.
2:24:36
Then there are a lot of people kind of pushing out kind of slop images that I would say is like a second bucket.
2:24:40
Um and then you have kind of like meta AI art.
2:24:44
So like people you you see like in in like digital art spaces like Instagram, if you own your Explorer uh page and you're interested in art, you probably see like a lot of things of like bounding boxes or just like these kind of uh overplayed motifs about like surveillance or whatever, which you know there's a time and place for.
2:24:58
Um but yeah, I think I think any new technology that people are interested in like is is bound to result in just uh really boring pontificating about it. Sure.
2:25:08
And then like really boring engagement with it and then like a very small subsection that maybe doesn't get enough attention of people doing genuinely interesting innovative things with. Right.
2:25:17
And and I'm not the person to do those >> genuinely innovative things because I'm someone who works within their own constraints of being a idiot.
2:25:25
So [laughter] my my my my game is to do something interesting conceptually about it uh with my own limited tool set and intellect. >> Yeah. It's fascinating.
2:25:37
>> Uh you made a viral post on on Sora of uh Sam grilling and eating a Pikachu. >> Oh yeah. >> Yes.
2:25:47
How did that uh >> how many how many shots on goal did it take to come up with uh something that that you felt like was worthy of of uh >> of sharing or something that kind of broke through the noise?
2:25:59
>> Well, um I it's it's cool that you that you talk about Shots on Gold because I think a lot of this stuff like I wouldn't necessarily view that as an art piece.
2:26:07
I think that maybe even more falls into my kind of like misinformation practice, right?
2:26:10
like trying to spread some sort of viral rumor or something inherently is going to be like a shots on goal game.
2:26:15
You're trying to find some asymmetric way of hitting on like just the right court at the right moment.
2:26:20
Like my big example is like the Gmail suns setting hoax.
2:26:22
So I I created this hoax that Gmail was shutting down.
2:26:26
And you know for that one there were hundred of 100 other things that I tried to do that didn't quite hit but like this was at a time that Google had just sunset something.
2:26:34
So it was like kind of in the late in zeitgeist.
2:26:37
But I think the the real thing there was like it was it was sort of this moment of people being like feel viscerally feeling the their reliance on Gmail, right?
2:26:46
Which like if I just wrote an essay about how much we rely on Gmail, that doesn't really go anywhere.
2:26:49
But if you like >> I think that's why misinformation or some of the stuff is like a useful tool.
2:26:55
But to bring it back to to um to the to the Samma thing, yeah, I that was a bit of a lowbrow moment for me.
2:26:59
Um but you know that that that day kind of was you know the thing was like their It was a lowbrow day on the internet. >> Yeah. >> Right. Yeah.
2:27:08
[clears throat] It was it was slop about Pokémon all over Sora and and your timeline, right?
2:27:12
And and this [clears throat] was just kind of a depiction of that.
2:27:15
But uh uh >> not my proudest moment, but it was fun. >> Yeah.
2:27:18
What uh how did the Gmail suns setting hoax uh really catch fire?
2:27:21
Like what was the inciting post that How did you seed it?
2:27:27
How did it actually go viral?
2:27:29
I'm always >> You're asking me to give away the sauce, man. >> Oh, wait. Oh.
2:27:32
Oh, but you have to buy my ebook for it's not something that I can just uh I can just trace through.
2:27:38
>> You're going to have to buy the course on misinformation.
2:27:40
>> I didn't realize that that was not just I I I would have assumed it was public. Sorry. I I I No, I'm joking.
2:27:46
Yeah, if you if you were to look back at that, like there were a lot of tweets about that and mine like did okay, but like there were there were other people who sort of like picked it up and it's actually not even necessarily clear to me which of those people were engaging with it earnestly or or kind of realized what was going on and were trying to signal boost it.
2:28:02
Um, but yeah, I mean >> you guys are are part of the uh the cool kids club on Twitter, I would say.
2:28:07
And that you know it it helps to be to be at sort of like the there's like an a cantalon effect for attention too, right?
2:28:15
If you're like at the >> if you're upstream of that, then you can really like spread things, right? >> Yeah.
2:28:19
Like I I I don't actually remember, but I could totally have seen myself amplifying that uh just as a troll on Google, even though I would have recognized that it's not real.
2:28:28
But I'm still upset about Google Reader.
2:28:30
And so, [laughter] and so I'm going to amplify the fake news knowing it's fake, but just to cause chaos because uh I want I want revenge for my RSS reader that was killed in the in the cradle. >> Are you disappointed?
2:28:47
>> Maybe we should uh should spread some more disappoint. >> I'm ready. I'm ready.
2:28:50
We are the fake news here.
2:28:52
>> Are are you disappointed with sort of a lack of creative uses for artificial intelligence that it's all kind of funny?
2:29:00
It's like, "Hey, I made uh this musical artist do country music or I made my dog look like a doctor or >> Yeah.
2:29:11
I mean, I you know, as you guys kind of noted, I'm I'm guilty of the same thing sometimes.
2:29:15
I would say broadly, you know, I I want I want more generally.
2:29:19
That's why I do this, right?
2:29:22
Because there's like this kind of art that exists in my head that uh that I want to exist in the world.
2:29:27
Um, and I'm grateful that other pe that that resonates with other people, right?
2:29:31
Um, so like there's definitely there's definitely things that I think that that people could be doing with it.
2:29:35
Um, but I I don't want to be like too misanthropic like I I I think I think it's a net good like long long term because I think the art world is very stagnant.
2:29:43
Not a fan of the the the fine art world as they would call themselves.
2:29:47
And I think any like >> I'm sure they're not a fan of you.
2:29:49
I'm sure they're not a fan of you either.
2:29:52
[laughter] >> No, but it's it's surface area, right?
2:29:52
>> No, but it's it's surface area, right? a surface area for people who are willing to engage with something that like the orthodoxy doesn't approve of to say something new and interesting and not have to play the same game of like getting into a gallery or doing an oil painting or a sculpture or whatever like
2:30:06
that's you know we need new games to play and technology increases that sort of >> do you think any of your work will appear in ses at some point or any of the like like I'm sure >> these sbees I have a ses I think I'm I I'm quite blackfold from because I've pointed out >> I know but eventually eventually they'll they're you'll still be going. Their team will turn over and
2:30:27
Their team will turn over and they'll they'll >> uh >> Yeah, maybe maybe if they forget about some of the uh dubious possibly illegal behavior that I've I've [laughter] done, but I wouldn't bet on it.
2:30:41
>> You'd be surprised things about that. >> This was super fun.
2:30:42
Uh next time you have a particularly uh devious stunt, uh feel free to jump on the show and and break it down for us. >> I love that.
2:30:50
Next time we can go deep on prediction markets. So, >> yeah.
2:30:53
Yeah, I'm super I mean the the watching this category explode and then thinking about all the ways that you could hack, you know, I I think Brian Brian Armstrong's >> kind of hacking it on on the earnings call was fascinating.
2:31:07
Uh I think there's so so many under underexplored areas and and surface area there and and also some potentially dark, you know, scenarios as well.
2:31:17
Um so but uh the sci-fi future is certainly here.
2:31:20
Yeah, the last thing I would leave with is I really think the open source AI is important.
2:31:27
I don't know how much you guys have have gone into that, but we can talk about that one next time.
2:31:32
>> Yeah, that'd be great.
2:31:33
>> Thanks so much for having me.
2:31:34
>> Slums model coming soon. >> I like it. Yeah, thank you. >> Great to meet you.
2:31:39
>> Yeah, great to meet you, too.
2:31:39
We'll talk to you soon, guys.
2:31:40
See you out on the internet. Cheers.
2:31:43
>> Before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about numeralhq.
2:31:44
com sales tax and autopilot.
2:31:46
Spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax compliance.
2:31:49
Uh we have uh uh a returned guest in the reream waiting room. Welcome to the show.
2:31:55
Shazison, how [music] are you doing? Congratulations.
2:32:00
Uh I we got the gong already.
2:32:00
Uh sorry we're running late. Give us the news.
2:32:06
What's the latest in Lava World? >> Can you guys hear me?
2:32:10
>> Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear.
2:32:12
>> So we basically announced Monday that we raised 200 million venture and debt.
2:32:15
Um, we brought on some new investors like Anthony Pompy, uh, Eric Jackson from Open Door, who you guys must have on before as well.
2:32:28
And >> we also announced what I think is the most important product I think in Bitcoin's history so far other than Bitcoin, which is the Bitcoin, it's the world's first Bitcoin line of credit.
2:32:40
>> So, Lava has been doing loans for years now, but all our loan previously was structured like a Bitcoin mortgage.
2:32:46
So you had to make fixed payments.
2:32:48
There was a fixed term to it.
2:32:50
But now and that was very similar to the other loan products in the market too.
2:32:54
But with the Bitcoin line of credit, we are offering the most flexible loan product in the entire market.
2:33:00
So basically you can borrow, you can keep it open for as long as you want, two years, three years, really forever.
2:33:08
>> U you don't have any fixed payment schedule.
2:33:10
So there's no monthly payments involved.
2:33:12
you can pay down your loan whenever you want your line of credit and you can borrow back against it at any time and we're offering the lowest interest rates fixed interest rates um at 5% across the board.
2:33:22
So really what we realized was that Bitcoiners are a very unique audience.
2:33:28
They all have very distinct cash flow needs, income, you know, a lot of Bitcoiners are retired on their Bitcoin.
2:33:36
So having a product like building a product with fixed terms, fixed payments and applying it to all the bitcoiners was just not something uh that was working and it's not something that they wanted.
2:33:46
Whereas this product it offers the most amount of flexibility.
2:33:49
So no matter what your cash flow needs are, no matter what your income is, you can use this Bitcoin line of credit uh use it to use your Bitcoin and manage your Bitcoin wealth uh with the flexibility you need and at the lowest rates across the world. Um yeah.
2:34:07
>> Uh as I we we've been on the show multiple times.
2:34:10
We've talked about the business.
2:34:11
Um I'm interested in to understand like why is fundraising happening in a traditional sense instead of sort of all happening on chain one bitcoin at a time.
2:34:24
Uh like why why is there like a package trunch of of investment happening?
2:34:30
>> Because we actually have our own uh yield product.
2:34:33
We actually and we announced that through you guys a couple of months ago, weeks ago.
2:34:37
Um, so we do have depositors that are coming on chain with stable coins around the world that are depositing their uh, you know, their cash, their stable coins, earning yield, funding Bitcoin back loans, but those depositors can deposit and withdraw at any time, right? >> Permanent investment.
2:34:57
>> Yeah, this we're offering fixed.
2:34:57
So to make sure that we're never in a asset liability mismatch, we need to make sure that we are raising the credit lines available to kind of refinance loans and these credit lines are at fixed uh rates, fixed terms, right?
2:35:12
So we always are kind of matching liquidity in a way.
2:35:16
What we are uh we're just providing like onchain banking in a way right so we need to have you know depositors and I think that's the real value of stable coins is that they're global so you can kind of give functionality and savings to people with stable coins.
2:35:29
Uh obviously Bitcoin is a savings asset more of a long-term savings asset for some of these this audience that is using this product.
2:35:35
Uh but then we need the credit lines as well to make sure there's never an asset liability mismatch. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, totally.
2:35:44
>> How how what's what's the strategy around navigating lava through such a rocky uh environment?
2:35:50
Bitcoin's down as of this moment, 16% in the past month.
2:35:58
There's been a lot of volatility and other uh even more volatility in other uh tokens.
2:36:02
But um it feels like that, you know, you guys were started like a year and a half ago, two years ago. What was the timing? >> Yeah.
2:36:12
Uh around two or a little more than two years ago.
2:36:14
So we've been building this for a while.
2:36:17
>> But yeah, so building it building it on an up on an upswing uh and it managing through you know corrections is going to be what makes Lava uh you know a a super super obviously that the solution is meant to be trustless but brands still matter.
2:36:34
>> Uh well there's definitely trust involved.
2:36:36
We we totally like like want to lean into that right.
2:36:37
So one thing is on the uh bitcoin yeah bitcoin price hasn't been doing well but also lava is bitcoin only so the only collateral asset we accept is bitcoin even recently there's been some uh protocols that were accepting other crypto assets like other digital assets.
2:36:56
There's one I don't know if it's fully public yet that's actually recently blown up because the the altcoin debt um the altcoins have been like dropping pretty significantly in price.
2:37:08
So if you're lending against it uh and will drop way too quickly uh you basically have taken on bad debt and then the depositors are not no longer whole.
2:37:16
Actually a few weeks ago I'm sure you guys discussed this but there was a big auto kind of delever a lot of coins actually instantly dropped 80%.
2:37:23
Um Bitcoin was still fine in that world.
2:37:26
So on one thing that helps us to manage liquidity and safety for our users is we're Bitcoin only.
2:37:34
So as a Bitcoin, they know that they're not taking on risk of other altcoins when they're borrowing with Lava.
2:37:39
The other thing is we always encourage people to add more collateral to their loan.
2:37:45
So the average LTV on a Lava loan is 30%.
2:37:46
So it is, you know, it is pretty safe.
2:37:51
So Bitcoin would have to drop effectively like 70% for majority of users to get liquidated.
2:37:57
And almost all of our users actually have ex extra bitcoin that is available to them to also as collateral to kind of make sure that they are safe.
2:38:06
>> There have been some like 50% draw downs but a 70% draw down in bitcoin.
2:38:08
I feel like that hasn't happened in long like years and years and years. >> Yes.
2:38:14
>> So it makes a ton of sense.
2:38:15
>> It is it is definitely a risk um when you're borrowing against your bitcoin.
2:38:20
>> But the other kind of counter to that is anyone holding bitcoin right now is also predicting that the price is going to go up, right?
2:38:26
Because otherwise, if you do believe Bitcoin is also going to drop 70%, it's actually probably not the right idea for you to even hold Bitcoin. Don't hold it.
2:38:32
It's actually probably the right idea for you to hold cash and then kind of re into Bitcoin.
2:38:35
So, >> you know, we are not like providing this financial advice to people, but most of our users are still believing that Bitcoin's going to do well.
2:38:43
Otherwise, they wish Bitcoin, they would just hold cash, right?
2:38:47
>> They're diamond handsing.
2:38:47
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
2:38:50
Sorry for keeping you waiting, but congratulations to the progress.
2:38:52
Uh we will talk to you soon.
2:38:55
have a good rest of your day to catch up.
2:38:58
>> Uh before our next guest hops on, let me tell you about Finn.
2:38:59
AI, the number one AI agent for customer service, number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bake offs, number one in >> bake off world champion >> G2.
2:39:08
I actually just heard about a bake off just yesterday and someone said Finn won the bake off.
2:39:13
Literally, I'm not even making that up. Love it.
2:39:16
>> Uh our next guest is Mina from Sandbar coming in the studio from the Restream [music] waiting room. Mina, how are you doing? >> Good. >> Welcome. How are you? Thanks for having me. It's great to have you.
2:39:26
>> Thanks so much for hopping on the show.
2:39:27
Uh give us an introduction.
2:39:27
Uh explain the product, some of the trade-offs, and then we'll go into go to market and how everything's playing together.
2:39:35
>> And first, I have to tell you, I saw the domain sandbar.
2:39:38
com available at some point back in the day, and I was just thinking to myself, that is such a good domain.
2:39:45
So, uh as a domain enthusiast, I'm I'm happy that I'm happy that you picked it up and are and are doing it justice. >> Appreciate that. It's got sand. It's got a bar.
2:39:54
It's got everything you could want.
2:39:56
>> It's got a nice It's got a nice It's got a nice feeling.
2:39:58
You know, I have positive feelings about Sandbars. >> Yeah.
2:40:02
>> Growing up in California.
2:40:02
Uh but yeah, would love a introduction on yourself and the company and and how you got to building Sandbar. >> Totally. Uh so I'm Mina.
2:40:09
I'm one of the co-founders at Sandbar.
2:40:11
Uh I originally met my co-founder Kurac at a startup called control labs that was developing these wristworn neural interfaces and uh we got acquired into meta and were working on a lot of devices there and in parallel I started exploring a ton with LMS and started trying to think about what it would take to have a more effortless interaction with these new speaking thinking machines.
2:40:35
So we started to explore a lot of different forms and that eventually led us uh to two products uh that I guess we're announcing together uh that we call stream and the stream ring. >> Mhm.
2:40:53
>> And stream is as we say a self extension for talking through ideas and capturing them into notes.
2:40:59
We have this uh very sandy uh app that has a log of interactions you've discussed, notes that you've asked Stream to save, as well as the ability to zoom out of interactions and see what you've been discussing over time.
2:41:18
And especially if you're on the go, uh your phone is in your pocket and you want to perhaps talk about an idea or save something into a note.
2:41:29
Uh, that's where you can use the stream ring.
2:41:31
So, you just hold this touchpad, whisper into the top, and then release.
2:41:39
And if I do something like that, I can say, "Hey, can you um, can you give me your hottest take on AI wearables?" [music] >> Sure. The hottest take.
2:41:51
Most AI wearables chase novelty instead of intimacy.
2:41:55
They brag about features, but the real frontier is emotional calibration.
2:41:59
[laughter] >> You know, why don't you uh start a list with some some of those hot takes [music] >> and it'll scurry away and save those away. >> There you go. >> Sure.
2:42:13
>> For when you need a list of hot takes.
2:42:15
[laughter] Uh I love I I I loved I love the live demo.
2:42:17
the live demo. uh uh it's always risky but the but yeah that's so so what so the the key >> like the value that you're delivering to users is not you're not trying to say I'm going to be this personal assistant that's going to do everything in your
2:42:34
life simply like it you're just trying to build that interface with effectively just building this new surface area for a mobile device that people are already using and a new way to just input input ideas and thoughts into a computer and have them be organized. Is that Is that generally right? >> Exactly.
2:42:53
We're really focused on letting you talk through ideas and save thoughts into notes.
2:42:58
And normally I wouldn't have my phone out.
2:43:00
I would have it in my pocket and maybe I would have earbuds in.
2:43:03
And already so much of our thinking either happens in the go or lives in Apple notes.
2:43:09
And it's this beautiful mess of grocery lists and you know letters to a parent and career plans.
2:43:17
And we see stream as the most effortless way to either build those ideas through conversation or save them away. >> Very cool.
2:43:26
What uh what's the timeline till you guys are shipping the product?
2:43:32
I know you're doing pre-orders now. >> Totally.
2:43:34
So, we've been building now for around uh 2 years, and it's good to be coming out of the cave.
2:43:39
Uh we are uh actually right now kicking off our next build with our manufacturing partner in Taiwan, and then we'll be fully ramped to mass production in summer of 26.
2:43:49
So, that's when we'll start shipping. >> Very cool. >> Amazing. >> Very cool.
2:43:54
Uh what what are your hottest takes on wearables?
2:43:56
Obviously, it sounds like you maybe trained your your uh your app your your internal model to >> here's here's one.
2:44:05
Do you do you think like how confident can you be in predicting success of a wearable?
2:44:15
Because it feels like it's something where you need to just run a lot of tests and the speed of each test is a little bit slow because you have to iterate on the actual hardware.
2:44:26
Um, and you might oneshot it, but that might be a lot of luck. How much luck is it?
2:44:30
or do you think that there is a way to empirically know that you have a hit on your hand before you go to market?
2:44:40
>> Yeah, I mean we definitely didn't start with this.
2:44:42
We've worked on a lot of different devices, a lot of different use cases and now we've been living with some form of stream for the last call it year and a half.
2:44:51
And Karac and I wanted to get to a point where we felt like it was useful in our daily life and then the people who were having test the device, our friends and our family who we've given units to are themselves finding it valuable.
2:45:05
And you know we have a marketing professor who will be driving to work and she'll talk about her lesson plan and then she'll watch her kids in the playground playing and she'll be able to keep her eyes up as she uh you know takes notes on what she wants to improve for the next day.
2:45:19
We have a bodywork coach who will walk her dog and be talking about clients and also riffing on eastern versus western medicine.
2:45:28
And after enough time living with it, we got to this just really high degree of confidence that it was super useful in our lives.
2:45:36
And we're, you know, exploring other forms and other use cases, but they always have to hit that bar.
2:45:42
And I would say having, you know, built always in New York where we get to, you know, wear devices easily outside and not be noticed and also be in touch with people outside of tech has helped really ground us and something that we think will be useful for everybody. >> Amazing.
2:45:58
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
2:46:00
>> I I was laughing thinking about a future where the average human has exactly 10 rings.
2:46:06
>> I was thinking the same thing. The ring is so popular.
2:46:08
It's like this is my thinking ring.
2:46:10
>> Well, then you get into the gauntlets. and the Yeah. Yeah.
2:46:12
Big >> and the chains, >> bracelets, >> and the you pierce both of your ears for the wearables and eyeglasses and headphones, all these things. >> Yeah.
2:46:22
Well, I'm super I'm super excited about this.
2:46:23
I John knows that I have a hilarious way of like keeping track of the thoughts in my mind, which is texting myself.
2:46:29
I'm constantly texting myself like stream of consciousness, things that I need to remember, do or >> whatever.
2:46:35
So, I'm excited to try this out. >> Yeah.
2:46:38
Have a great rest of your day. >> Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks a ton. Thanks to me talk.
2:46:41
Before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about Adio customer relationship magic.
2:46:45
Adio is the AI native CRM that builds, scales, and grows your company to the next level.
2:46:50
Our next guest is Aleandro Cheser from Dynasty. >> Let's bring him in. >> You take the intro. >> Aleandro, welcome. >> Thanks for having me.
2:47:03
>> Uh it was so fun having I think your lead investor Jerry uh on earlier.
2:47:06
He's got so many amazing amazing stories.
2:47:09
Uh but uh before we get into Dynasty, what uh why don't you give a quick intro on yourself, background, all that good stuff? >> Yeah, absolutely.
2:47:19
Uh so, you know, born and raised in the Bay Area, uh worked in financial services for about a decade, wound up at Carta as the first sales hire in 2014.
2:47:32
Um ended up becoming VP of sales and owned a lot of revenue for about eight years.
2:47:37
Uh so helped take the company from zero to 300 million in ARR you know hired and managed hundreds of people um and then left to start Dynasty.
2:47:49
>> Uh what was what was the critical inspiration for for Dynasty and and how walk us through kind of the idea maze around it.
2:47:58
So in the beginning of you know in the beginning uh when I joined Carta me and my co-founders who are also early Carta you know we were helping onboard thousands of cap tables and it became very clear that the most successful founders created lots of trusts.
2:48:13
They didn't just hold the shares in their own personal name.
2:48:18
They would sometimes have like 10 different trusts that they would split their shares into.
2:48:22
And it was really strange.
2:48:24
I didn't I didn't understand why at first I thought they were just being super generous.
2:48:27
Uh but we started doing some research on the strategy and we learned that the reason why they did it is because they got a separate QSBS exemption which basically means each trust that they created was eligible for $10 million in tax-free capital gains.
2:48:44
Like literally zero taxes on 10 million for each trust that they create.
2:48:49
So you create 10 trusts, you get $100 million in taxfree capital gains. And uh yeah.
2:48:55
So, so from that point like I guess uh what I think the yeah the question the question that you know we we talked off air a while back and and the question I had is like uh obviously you know great businesses often start with like a simple vi you know vision for like a kind of uh narrow customer base but uh where like what's what's kind of the the focus today?
2:49:23
How how big can Dynasty get just serving the kind of like early stage founder uh venture community and then where where do you want to go long term? >> Yeah, absolutely.
2:49:33
So QSPS stacking is very narrow.
2:49:35
Um you know it's it's basically have to be a large shareholder of a CC corp.
2:49:40
Um and it's not just venture funded technology companies like we've been signing on portaotty founders.
2:49:46
We've been you know people that make pipes for plumbing.
2:49:48
like there's all types of um QPS eligible entities.
2:49:53
They just have to be CC corp and they have to not be an excluded industry like any regulated you know financial services or anything like that.
2:50:01
So there are a ton of companies like maybe we don't know the exact number but maybe somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 uh companies in the US could qualify for QPS.
2:50:11
And so we got a lot of green field like each company has sometimes two or three uh co-founders.
2:50:16
And so that's a, you know, it's a very narrow market, but we we think we're going to be working on it for quite some time.
2:50:22
But the broader vision for this company is like, so we are a licensed Nevada trust company.
2:50:26
We are the only venture-funded licensed Nevada trust company.
2:50:31
The only ones that are trying to tackle this space from >> one of one from a technology standpoint.
2:50:37
And so we think that so the richest people you know Jerry for example the richest people in the US uh they don't create you know they live in California they live in New York they don't create California New York trusts they use Nevada trusts because Nevada has the
2:50:53
best laws in the country maybe sometimes even the world when it comes to taxes asset protection privacy control like you can have more control over these Nevada trusts than you can typically over California and New York trusts and So, we think that that goes much further beyond QPS stacking. Like, you know, why
2:51:09
Like, you know, why shouldn't the farmer in Oklahoma be able to benefit from a Nevada trust?
2:51:14
Why shouldn't the young professional with $50,000 in crypto be able to put benefit from a Nevada trust?
2:51:20
Um, and so we want to open it up for everybody.
2:51:22
That's our vision to build a mass market AI powered Nevada trust company.
2:51:26
But to your point, we have to start narrow.
2:51:28
We have to solve one problem and solve it really well.
2:51:33
And so that's why we're we're tackling founders. >> Uh, amazing.
2:51:36
What uh what is what is the most common setup for call it like a YC founder? >> Four trusts.
2:51:44
$1,500 a year gives you up to $40 million in QPS eligibility.
2:51:48
If they have kids, they they make their kids the beneficiary, maybe their wife.
2:51:56
Um if they don't, then they're creating trust for their parents and their siblings. >> Very cool. makes no sense.
2:52:02
>> Uh well, yeah, I I think every founder should be at least taking a look at this >> for sure.
2:52:08
>> Um and like Jerry said, there's other ways to do it, but I highly doubt that uh that the the other methods are are nearly as streamlined or or founder friendly as what you guys are building.
2:52:17
So very excited for more founders to be able to optimize for this, not just the second or third time founder that has experienced the gain or the pain of realizing that they, you know, if they have a $50 million liquidity event and and only getting that that u tax-free gain on the first 10 million, uh be quite painful.
2:52:37
So excited that you're building this.
2:52:40
>> That's exactly the problem.
2:52:40
The problem is people usually do this later because it costs six figures to set up and by the time they do it later, they're limited by their lifetime gift exemption and so they can't stack that many trusts.
2:52:50
And so that's why we exist.
2:52:50
So founders should be doing this from day one.
2:52:54
That's when your gift value is zero.
2:52:56
You create your corporation, that's the best time to do it because there's no gift tax.
2:52:58
The longer you wait, the more gift tax implications you're going to have. >> Yeah. Uh amazing.
2:53:03
Well, thank you so much for joining breaking it down.
2:53:05
Uh and uh I'm jealous that you got Jerry on your cap table.
2:53:10
That guy is a that guy's a legend.
2:53:14
>> Uh anyways, great hanging and uh h happy building out there. >> Thanks for having me. >> Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.
2:53:22
>> Uh our next guest is in the reream waiting room.
2:53:24
But first, let me tell you about public.
2:53:26
com investing for those that take it seriously.
2:53:28
They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields, and they're trusted by millions.
2:53:33
We have John Maslin, the CEO and co-founder of Vulcan Elements.
2:53:38
>> Got to get this gong ready.
2:53:38
Just a just a tiny little deal. Just a tiny little deal.
2:53:44
>> Just a just a we a wee little deal with the US government.
2:53:49
>> Uh break it down for us. $1. 4 billion. Absolutely massive deal.
2:53:52
Something that uh people were just getting just waking up to.
2:53:57
Obviously, you've been thinking about this for a long time.
2:53:59
Uh how did you how did you realize that this was something you wanted to work on?
2:54:03
And then take us through the anatomy of the deal. >> Yeah.
2:54:07
Hey guys, thanks for having me on again.
2:54:09
Uh it's really good to see you.
2:54:10
So this is a problem that we've been focused on for several years. >> Yeah.
2:54:14
>> Uh my background is, you know, former Navy.
2:54:16
I was a supply chain officer and uh when I was in business school was thinking a lot about >> the critical components that will define the 21st century technology race whether it's the data centers [clears throat] that enable AI drones robotics and when you really boil it down it's only three components semiconductors and magnets >> check your Wi-Fi we are getting some technical difficulties. >> We lost break there. Your audio is here.
2:54:50
Your face is uh in the past. >> In the past.
2:54:52
It's a time machine taking us back to a mere five minutes ago or one minute ago >> out uh out in the field somewhere. >> Yeah.
2:55:01
Probably doing important work. >> Yeah.
2:55:03
What a what a cute freeze, too. >> Yes.
2:55:06
>> I mean, it's kind of working if you just want to keep talking. [laughter] >> Yeah.
2:55:10
Try to bring I'm going to I'm going to hit the gong for the 1. 4 billion. Okay. Yeah.
2:55:15
Yeah, Jord's going to hit the gong. Hit that gong, Jordy.
2:55:17
And then we will go back. Thank you.
2:55:19
Uh and and I'd love for you to break down uh the structure of the deal, what it allows you to do.
2:55:24
I know that there's a loan piece, there's an equity investment piece, there's investors, and how are you describing the deal and what it allows you to unlock? >> Yeah.
2:55:36
So, what this deal allows us to unlock is a 10,000 metric ton rare earth magnet facility.
2:55:41
And just to frame the problem a little bit by 2030, the US will need over 70,000 metric tons of these magnets.
2:55:48
Today, you know, we can't even produce 500.
2:55:51
>> So, what this is doing is this is going and ensuring that we can move at operation warp speed in partnership with the United States government uh the department of commerce, the secret uh the department of war >> to ensure that we can go and meet the demand for defense, aerospace and critical economic industries.
2:56:08
uh and the US government uh Secretary Haggsath, Secretary Lutnik, they're serious about solving this problem and we're very serious about ensuring that we go and meet the moment in the mission.
2:56:21
>> What is the timeline for something like this?
2:56:23
I feel like we we're hearing about billion dollars this deal must have been like very much in the works even before >> Sure.
2:56:33
>> uh China pulled the the rare earth card. >> Sure. >> Yeah.
2:56:38
So we plan to have initial capacity online by 2027.
2:56:40
If we're able to go faster, we will.
2:56:46
>> And we've been having conversations uh you know with everyone across industry and across government government uh for several years.
2:56:53
And you know we've realized you know we need a whole of industry and government approach to go and fix this issue.
2:56:58
And our full intent is to go and build at a speed, an operation warp speed that hasn't been seen in this industry in the 21st century.
2:57:11
>> How uh h how how much like what else is going on in the supply chain?
2:57:15
Um is America mining enough rare earth elements?
2:57:20
Um, are should we be, you know, is is the job like are we on the right track now in terms of actually taking rare earths and and producing magnets with what you're going to be doing or are there other pieces of the supply chain that you want to see other founders or yourself go after in the near term? Yeah.
2:57:43
So, it's a really good question and the way that this works is, you know, you mine the material or you take recycled end of life magnets.
2:57:48
You separate those chemically into a rare with oxide.
2:57:52
You turn that into a metal and then ultimately a bespoke magnet to meet uh a customer spec.
2:57:58
>> What we're doing with this deal is we're partnering with Reelement Technologies.
2:58:01
Uh they recycle end of life magnets and separate that uh material >> and we're expanding that partnership.
2:58:07
One thing that I think is really important to note is this is less of a raw material availability problem than a manufacturing problem.
2:58:13
Today, China only mines 55% of the rare earth material.
2:58:18
They make 94 to 98% of the magnets. Mhm.
2:58:21
>> So what I would say is you know with this deal and you other folks in the industry we want as many smart people focusing on this industry as possible and scaling up capacity where I think that there are opportunities are downstream as we think about uh drone motors there's a gap uh servo actuators
2:58:39
as we think about orthogonal and complimentary critical minerals we need to do more around antimony and germanmanium and gallium and and lithium and tungsten and titanium there's a lot of wood to chop in the critical minerals industry to make sure that we have safe and secure supply chains here at home. >> Well, very very exciting. The progress
2:58:56
>> Well, very very exciting.
2:58:56
The progress is uh just tremendous and uh I'm sure you will be back on soon.
2:59:01
So, thank you for doing this this work.
2:59:04
It's uh >> uh we've been, you know, following the story and we're glad that uh people like yourself and your team are are tackling the issue.
2:59:15
>> Next time with a better Wi-Fi signal on my end.
2:59:17
>> Or when you're in LA, come Yeah.
2:59:17
or in LA or just do it out out in the field somewhere. >> Yeah. >> Off your phone. We'll make it work.
2:59:23
Uh thanks so much for the update and uh great to see you.
2:59:27
We'll talk >> to you soon. Have a good one. >> Thanks, guys. >> Cheers.
2:59:31
>> Uh how did you sleep last night?
2:59:31
We had to sleep in traveling, but >> no scores >> once.
2:59:37
Uh but tonight we will be returning to the eight sleeps. You can go to eightleep.
2:59:40
com, get a pod five, fiveyear warranty, 309 risk-f free trial, free returns, free shipping, of course. >> Code tvpn.
2:59:45
We have Eugenia Cuda Cuda uh coming back in the studio.
2:59:50
Um we hit some timeline minutes. Let's hit some timeline.
2:59:55
>> So the real story that was shaking up the timeline is that Scotty Pippen is saying it's not over.
3:00:01
He said >> uh in I think in regards to the crypto market, he says it's still the shakeout before the breakout.
3:00:09
So, Scotty Pippen remains bullish on the uh crypto markets and we'll have to check back.
3:00:18
>> How do we know that this is about crypto?
3:00:19
This could be about AI or something.
3:00:21
>> Uh >> could be about anything.
3:00:23
>> Look, everybody replying is or are >> Oh, crypto crypto.
3:00:25
I think we got to ask Dylan.
3:00:28
I think he's been I think he's been uh >> he's a crypto influencer of some sort. >> Yeah.
3:00:32
Uh, if you want to talk to Antonio Lares one-on-one, you can now do so for the low price of $15,000 an hour. >> $15,000.
3:00:45
>> Um, >> but but it includes taxes. The He pays the taxes. >> Okay. That's >> He pays $2,63.
3:00:50
13 in taxes for a one-on-one session for >> Where are those?
3:00:59
I'm not sure who Antonio Linares is, but uh you know he he took he took the advice uh Naval Ravocant said give use set an unreasonable opportunity cost so that you only do things that are of the highest value and that's what Antonio is doing.
3:01:16
What's the value to him of yapping on the phone with some random person?
3:01:19
You know, he's giving up a lot of opportunity.
3:01:21
We've seen a few of these screenshots from people sharing these unreasonably high one-on-one session times.
3:01:28
Um, I mean, there are plenty of people out there that would have that would have higher numbers for sure. Uh, 14K, 15K.
3:01:34
Um, >> I would like to see somebody throw out the $100 million number, right?
3:01:43
You'd think that if for I mean hund00 million people would talk with >> Yeah.
3:01:51
>> I think somebody Elon would do it.
3:01:51
I don't think Elon would would would let would talk to a stranger, a random person for an hour for $100 million.
3:02:00
>> What about 30 minutes?
3:02:00
[laughter] >> We'll have to ask him >> $200 million.
3:02:04
>> You have to start a show >> hourly rate >> and then you can get him. You have to get on adqu. com.
3:02:07
Out of home advertising made easy and measurable.
3:02:09
Say goodbye to the headaches of out ofome advertising.
3:02:12
Only adqu combines technology out of home expertise and data to enable efficient seamless ad buying across the globe.
3:02:17
I believe we have Eugia in the reream waiting room.
3:02:20
announcing a new company.
3:02:23
>> Welcome to the stream. >> Whoa, look at this.
3:02:25
Calling in from A16 headquarters. >> Do they post you? Are you a new GP? What's going on?
3:02:33
>> Just a new co-founder.
3:02:35
>> No, you're supposed to struggling founder. >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:02:37
Still a struggling founder.
3:02:39
Uh, tell us about the new about the new company.
3:02:42
>> We just announced today our um the round we did with the preset round we did for Wabby. Yes. Our new company.
3:02:48
So, time to announce the uh new company as well.
3:02:51
So, we're building Wabby, >> which is uh a personal software platform.
3:02:57
Think of it as an app where you can uh discover, quickly, remix, or even create personal mini apps for your daily life. >> Okay.
3:03:05
So, uh yeah, walk me through.
3:03:05
I mean, I I've I've created personal miniature apps with, you know, vibe coding platforms or, you know, coding agents.
3:03:15
Kind of run them on my computer.
3:03:17
usually try and have them all self-contained in HTML or something.
3:03:18
Um, how are you thinking about the actual interaction?
3:03:24
Is this is this like prompt to product, self-hosted, hosted within Wabby?
3:03:29
Like like what are all the different trade-offs because there's so many different ways that you could instantiate that ID, I imagine.
3:03:35
>> So, think of it as a YouTube for mini apps.
3:03:37
Um, so all Wabby mini apps >> compared to most app builders, they all only live on Wabby.
3:03:43
You cannot download them.
3:03:45
You cannot put them on the app store.
3:03:46
You have to use the Moabi. >> Yep.
3:03:48
>> But that comes with a lot of benefits because first of all um the social graph discovery uh you can like comment see who your friends are using uh is using what app uh re see remixes follow good creators or creators you like >> and so on.
3:04:05
You can use apps with your friends and then uh on top of that of course all integrations are included.
3:04:11
you can immediately connect um your Gmail account, your calendar location.
3:04:16
We're building our plan is to build 50 integrations before the end of the year >> um of all sorts and so on and of course you know uh persistent backend uh data security and privacy everything is sort of on Wabby side because if you think about it even if you build a great app
3:04:32
on one of the with one of VIP coding tools and send me a link if it's like an AI therapist app I don't know if I'm going to fully >> trust to use this because I don't know where the logs are going even if you're a good friend and you don't mean anything bad. You're not a professional
3:04:46
You're not a professional developer.
3:04:48
What if you forget to pay for the hosting of this app or what if something, you know, leaks?
3:04:52
We've already had some of these vi coding apps reach the top of the app store like that teabag app.
3:04:58
I don't know if you saw saw that that leak, >> I think. So, yeah. Was that the T dating? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
3:05:05
That one's been very popular.
3:05:07
Um, so talk to me about the technical uh like hurdle here.
3:05:09
It feels like the app store doesn't necessarily love apps in app stores.
3:05:14
Is this a is this a beneficiary of the new regulation around allowing app stores in the iOS app store? Is that a unique unlock?
3:05:25
>> So, we're not building apps.
3:05:25
Um we don't call them apps even. Um these are mini apps.
3:05:29
So, think of it as like this small very lightweight workflow.
3:05:31
Some of them just like it's almost like a lightweight UI on a prompt. >> Yeah.
3:05:37
for example, uh a simple mini app that turns your photos to like Polaroids from different decades. Yeah.
3:05:45
>> And so the app store allows many apps and we're not planning to or we're not we're never going to be about like building full-fledged apps or downloading them or anything like that.
3:05:56
>> Yeah, it is interesting.
3:05:56
It feels like Apple will sort of have to grapple with the idea of instantiating UI or mini apps on the fly because for a long time the app store review process has been very much like we want to review all the code and if you are changing the code within the app or the functionality of the app once it's already shipped and approved uh Apple has kind of dealt with that in a very in a in a in a wide variety of ways.
3:06:21
Um but I but I love the I love the idea.
3:06:25
So let's just let's just stick to um you know the actual uh technical side of things like are you able are are these apps built in basically like HTML windows that are then served within or or can you actually instantiate like react native or you know like objective C on the fly? >> These are React.
3:06:47
So all of our mini apps are React Native.
3:06:49
Um and then Wabby the platform of course is the >> um iOS native swift um >> cool >> code.
3:06:58
So >> yeah yeah >> I think sort of similarly to replica what was the the the native app and um a unity container inside of it.
3:07:07
>> Yeah >> here the same I feel like we're always going to be about like blending the two technologies together and struggling constantly with how do you merge these two things together.
3:07:15
What uh what do you think what do you expect to drive the most usage?
3:07:20
Uh obviously it's early uh it's hard to predict with consumer but do you expect it to be people coming on board just playing around creating things and people are coming to the app to have this sort of creative experience like they might go on Sunno and just start making music they might go on Wabby just start making uh apps and sharing them with their friends etc.
3:07:41
Or do you believe it'll be like more of a hits driven business where there's one or two mini apps that you know develop some uh organic virality themselves that really become the the the driver of real downloads.
3:07:57
I think really we are going to be looking at two big categories.
3:07:58
More uh retentive utilities.
3:08:01
Think trackers, uh things that you might use with um your family, your friends, yourself, um learning, um all sorts of like to-do list, things that kind of like little workflows for daily life.
3:08:16
And then more viral uh personalized mirrors or like viral prompts for image and not only um for example like something that I really liked uh um on Wabi was this mini app that takes in your Gmail and builds an action figure based on the information from your Gmail or like the same but but the same but based on your uh bank activity through um looking at your bank account.
3:08:44
So, just stuff like that where people always want to see some cool stuff like that.
3:08:48
Uh, brag about themselves, uh, share, and it's almost like a one-time use thing.
3:08:54
You're not going to be coming back to for that.
3:08:56
But at the same time, if that was a an app on the app store, like that's kind of too much.
3:09:03
You'd need to download it. It's like it's too much.
3:09:05
But here, it's just like this little mini app thing that lives inside Wabby. You can try it. There's no cost to it.
3:09:12
What about uh apps as memes or just purely for entertainment?
3:09:14
Do you expect that to be kind of a category of of itself?
3:09:19
Like this kind of idea of we can now make a mini app that's really just meant to be kind of funny and make people laugh, but then it doesn't have to necessarily be durable or it doesn't have to be a standalone business itself. >> 100%.
3:09:34
I think we're entering this era where apps uh where software is not going to be set.
3:09:38
It's not going to be just this static this the app I created and you know you use it and you can't do anything with that.
3:09:44
Instead it's going to be this ultra personalized very malible um very lightweight software that can change that is uh truly built on the platform of you.
3:09:53
I would think that kind of the operating system of the future is the one where you'll have a few apps, big apps like you know the Tik Toks, the Instagrams of course that will always exist.
3:10:03
Uh and then there may be a few apps built by the community that you discovered.
3:10:09
Maybe some of them you remixed a little bit.
3:10:10
Maybe some you actually built yourselves yourself and then there going to be some mini apps built for you by AI.
3:10:16
Like for example, if I'm going to New York next week, it should Wobbby should go through your email and suggest an app, pre-build an app for you.
3:10:25
Hey, I know you're into art.
3:10:26
You're going to New York.
3:10:26
Here's an app that basically recommends art shows around your Airbnb for that time. >> That's really cool.
3:10:34
I feel like I feel like this is a product that uh once people have that that like people will have a moment where they're like, "Wait, why did I I mean the the idea that you could go on a trip and generate an app that was almost like some quasi uh even just tracker for your trip of like, oh, these are all the things I want to do and check them off and then you could make so many other layers that you can you can build on on on top of it."
3:11:02
Uh, how much are you what what do WABI like how much do you feel like you'll need to incentivize creators on the platform early on?
3:11:11
Like would you ever create like some type of like creator fund to incentivize people to come on and and experiment?
3:11:18
I mean, a lot of big social media platforms have have done this over the years.
3:11:23
Uh, you guys have raised quite a bit of cash, so I'm sure you could soft circle some of it, but maybe you don't need to at all.
3:11:32
curious how you're thinking about it.
3:11:34
>> I think you're you're uh going the right direction.
3:11:37
That's what we're also thinking about.
3:11:38
How do we incentivize the best creators to create the best apps out there?
3:11:42
And what really struck me um the other day was that actually it's easier to create a cool mini app than it is to create a YouTube video, a great YouTube video.
3:11:52
It doesn't require that um that much production uh in a sense.
3:11:57
Like for example, even yesterday I was just I was putting my daughter down um and it was bedtime.
3:12:01
She likes to play these puzzles where I I give her a puzzle and she tries to guess what it is.
3:12:08
So we we wanted to just find something online for it.
3:12:13
But it took me it was a lot faster.
3:12:15
It only took me a minute on Wabby to build this simple mini app where basically is a puzzle and then just four pictures that you can click on.
3:12:22
And because she's into Princess Elsa, we made it princess Princess Elsa themed.
3:12:26
And because she goes to Italian preschool, we made it uh in Italian.
3:12:31
And so it literally took us like a couple minutes and it it was like co-creation.
3:12:36
We're creating that app together with her.
3:12:37
Um so think of it as like Roblox meets personal software in a sense.
3:12:43
Um so I do think to a degree right now it's be it's almost becoming easier to create something than even to search for it online.
3:12:52
Yeah, we we got to hang out with the CEO of Roblox yesterday and I think he's coming on the show tomorrow.
3:12:56
How much uh how much do you think it can be dangerous to be like too inspired by in this case like something like a Roblox?
3:13:06
Because in in so many ways I can imagine that you know an economy forms around Wabby in the same way that it has around uh in the same way that it has around Roblox.
3:13:15
Uh there's so many different ways you can kind of draw comps, but sometimes it can be a trap to be too inspired by something because ultimately it's a different, you know, totally different kind of use case and and value uh than than than maybe uh Roblox has.
3:13:33
>> I mean, our vision is different.
3:13:33
Our our mission is to set software free.
3:13:35
And I think uh kind of the main main inspiration for Wabby was that idea that we live in the Microsoft DOSs era of AI interfaces and the gooey um moment for AI is around the corner and we do believe that with this almost like godlike technology that we created, it will require uh a different type of uh an interface.
3:14:00
There will be the Windows, the Mac OS for for AI.
3:14:02
we're not going to be using um AI through a command line forever.
3:14:08
>> Um and so I think this is kind of where our northstar is.
3:14:10
It's like how how can we create a different interface for everyone to tap into all the capabilities of these AI models.
3:14:19
>> Yeah, it's going to be really fun.
3:14:19
I I I feel like uh we we we can sit here and predict how things will play out, but we should just have you back on once you have real data on how people are using it, how much is entertainment, how much is productivity.
3:14:31
uh what the top apps are and kind of how the how the community like takes shape because uh I imagine there's only so much that you can predict once you build a tool, you know, if you ask >> Yeah, that's the thing with Roblox.
3:14:46
It's like how did how how would Roblox predict that grow a garden would be the most popular game in the world teenagers. >> Yeah.
3:14:54
Or like a full reenactment of Call of Duty in Roblox.
3:14:57
Like that was probably not on the road map from day one.
3:15:00
That's the beautiful thing about uh starting these like these platforms.
3:15:02
But uh congratulations on the round.
3:15:07
>> Uh what what's the what's the wait list timing?
3:15:09
I'm on the wait list now.
3:15:11
>> When when when are when the strategy around opening it up? >> Soon.
3:15:16
We're we're building a few really um exciting things.
3:15:18
Uh right now working on multiplayer as we speak. >> Yeah.
3:15:23
>> I think the one of the really cool things about Wabby is that um is going to be that all apps come with multiplayer included.
3:15:28
Uh and even just simple mini apps like for example I built a Wordle game uh to test it with my mom so that we can play together.
3:15:36
Obviously we played on the New York Times but it's pretty much like our ways way to connect with each other and with Wabby we do have a leaderboard and um you know we can see who's beating each who's better today who's doing better.
3:15:49
We can get set up these notifications and all that.
3:15:52
So, um, a few things that we want to build before we, uh, roll it out to general audience, but we're we're getting fantastic feedback from our first users, and it's honestly really exciting to again to be in that zero to one stage.
3:16:06
I I'm so excited about this. >> Amazing.
3:16:11
Well, as soon as we have access, we're going to have Tyler make uh, >> build some stuff.
3:16:16
>> Something like six or seven mini apps.
3:16:19
[laughter] >> Well, send them to me. Thank you so much.
3:16:24
>> We will uh great catching up. I'm I'm excited.
3:16:26
Yeah, we're excited you're growing 0 to1 again and and uh super excited about WBI and uh >> this is really cool.
3:16:32
>> Uh we'll uh we'll talk soon. >> Thanks so much.
3:16:35
>> Thank you so much for having me.
3:16:36
>> Have a great rest of your day. >> Cheers. >> Bye.
3:16:39
>> Uh before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about Bezel.
3:16:41
Your bezel concier is available now to source you any watch on the planet.
3:16:44
We this morning, we're not going to dox him, but we ran into a uh a founder uh founder we like who had quite a nice IPO a few years ago and we did do a risk check. He performed.
3:16:59
He uh it was it was great to see. >> Yes.
3:17:02
Um well, >> at the cover of the Wall Street Journal, there's a bidding war for obesity startups. Did you hear about this?
3:17:08
Fizer and Novon Nordisk boost their bids in an unusual fight for Metsera.
3:17:15
I feel like when you say obesity startups, it's going to be the the Wiguvi white labelers.
3:17:21
And I was imagining this would go like Hims Roman like that crew.
3:17:25
Uh but apparently uh they are all fighting over the developer of the obesity drug. It's called Metsera.
3:17:32
The latest twist in their unusual fight over the startup.
3:17:35
Metsa said t Tuesday that Novo Nordisk's proposed proposal values the biotech company at up to 8620 a share uh or approximately $10 billion up from its previous bid of 9 billion.
3:17:50
So they're going back and forth.
3:17:50
The valuation represents an approximately 159% premium to Mitser's closing price on September 19th, the last trading day before the Fizer deal was disclosed.
3:18:01
So Fiser's new offer values shares at up to 70 bill $70 a share was 8. 1 billion.
3:18:09
Fizer had previously struck a deal at 7. 3 billion.
3:18:11
They're going back and forth.
3:18:13
Um the duel between two of the world's biggest drug makers over a three-year-old company, three-year-old company with just with just more than a 100 employees and no approved drugs. >> Wow.
3:18:27
>> Shows the importance of weight loss drugs to the pharmaceutical industry.
3:18:30
Weight loss is one of the hottest categories in prescription drugs and companies big I imagine and small um big and small have been lining up to be part of the market with with uh leaders Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
3:18:47
The global market for the drugs is now worth 72 billion according to TD Cowan which projects it will reach 139 billion in 2030.
3:18:56
It's always so funny because I'm like, "Oh, 72 billion, Tyler.
3:18:59
Is 72 billion dollars a lot?" [laughter] No, wait.
3:19:04
Like, you mean what Google's spending on capex just this year?
3:19:05
Like, that's just what just what one hyperscaler is spending on capex is the entire weight loss market.
3:19:12
>> Big tech is pretty big.
3:19:12
Well, we have our next guest. The There he is. >> What's up, guys? How you doing? >> Great. Welcome to the show. >> Great transition. I just slid in there. >> Fantastic.
3:19:26
We're [laughter] doing well.
3:19:27
>> Uh, it's great to see you. >> We're doing well.
3:19:28
Congratulations on the new deal.
3:19:30
Uh, how did you meet Eugia originally?
3:19:34
>> Um, well, I mean, it's hard to not know her.
3:19:36
If you guys do know her, which you do, she's a total badass.
3:19:38
She's been in around the ecosystem for years.
3:19:40
She was kind of the first AI native uh consumer founder, >> right?
3:19:45
Replica launched prior to Chat GPT.
3:19:49
>> So perhaps Chacht was even inspired by Replica.
3:19:50
Companionship is now one of their biggest use cases.
3:19:52
So, she's been in and around and well known to the entire firm for many years.
3:19:57
>> So, when I heard that she was up to something new, I knew that we had to be a part of it. >> Very cool.
3:20:01
This feels like a what I what I like about some of my favorite ideas are not ideas that nobody no one has had or talked about before, but they're ideas that have been kind of floating around, but nobody just decided to like tackle them in a really intentional way.
3:20:19
This feels like one of those ideas that is kind of perfectly pulls together kind of the potential of this new technology that we have.
3:20:28
The fact that you can generate software on the fly.
3:20:30
You can make software so quickly now that you can make things that don't need to have a long useful life.
3:20:36
They don't need to be commercial at all.
3:20:38
They can be software that would have taken six engineers a year to build.
3:20:43
you can now build it in uh you know a few minutes at at times if you're really oneshotting and and just two people can enjoy it.
3:20:53
So this felt like uh yeah it just felt like a you know Eugenia is the right person to take on take on this idea that has so much potential.
3:21:00
Of course it's consumer of course it's going to be really hard.
3:21:03
Uh but this is like an idea that I want to exist.
3:21:05
Uh how how like what was your kind of like framing around this concept?
3:21:11
Had you been thinking about it for a while and and what kind of made you do the deal?
3:21:18
>> Well I'll give you two framings Jordy.
3:21:19
So the first is you know when did software get so serious?
3:21:21
It's like all the software we use is so clinical, you know, even when you see content inside Insta or Tik Tok or YouTube, it's the same frame.
3:21:28
It's sort of got all the same aesthetics. >> Yeah.
3:21:32
>> So, if you think about the early '90s internet, you know, it was really eclectic and weird.
3:21:35
And I for one think a weird internet is a more interesting internet.
3:21:39
So, I think one there's a sort of like software as a form of pushing the cultural edge.
3:21:42
We've lost that a little bit over the last 20 years.
3:21:45
Look, I think the other thing is that the mistake we keep making in AI is that we think these things are markets when they're industries, right?
3:21:51
Like AI code is not a market. There's not one winner.
3:21:55
It's an entire change to the software supply chain.
3:21:57
It's an industry, which is why Codeex is working, Cursor is working, Replet is working, and WABI is going to work as well.
3:22:03
So, I think it's both an insanely delightful and approachable idea with really serious implications at large scale.
3:22:11
Um what uh what what are you like it's hard to predict these kind of things like I feel like with with consumer uh I I was trying to get at earlier is this going to be something like people are just playing around making things or is it going to be is it going to be a mini app that kind of breaks out and get goes viral over on Tik Tok and suddenly Wabby has you know an insane amount of downloads just because of a single video.
3:22:35
So, I can see it being this kind of like virtual uh virtuous flywheel where people just enjoy creating and then they create something cool and then a bunch more people come in.
3:22:42
Uh but what's what's your kind of uh uh how how have you tried to predict the future around what what will uh allow it to break out? >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:22:53
It's it's hard to predict.
3:22:55
You know, if you think back to YouTube, this why I love the YouTube metaphor in 2005.
3:22:57
You look at the shaky home video sort of, you know, videos that were put on there, home camera videos and you pirated content and all kinds of random things.
3:23:05
You could sort of easily look at that and be dismissive of YouTube and say, "Hey, this is non-serious.
3:23:08
Hey, what are the YouTube native shows going to look like?
3:23:12
Is that even a real thing to think about and you now look at it was hard to look at that and um see Mr.
3:23:18
Beast being implied in it?"
3:23:18
And the same thing is true today.
3:23:20
You know, I made a a spooky meditation tracker for Halloween last week to track my meditations.
3:23:25
There's a lot of fun um AI creative mini apps.
3:23:28
A great example of that is last week for Halloween, a big trend on Tik Tok was this sort of ghost face killer um AI videos where you take a photo of yourself, you give it this very long and elaborate prompt and it generates this sort of Scream style, you know, 2000 eras, you on a bed, the ghost face killer, the guy from Scream behind you in the doorway.
3:23:48
And to actually replicate it, it looks amazing, but to replicate it, you've got to share this thousandword prompt that makes no sense.
3:23:56
So now there's a mini app for that on Wabby.
3:23:58
It was super fun for Halloween.
3:24:00
It's probably not going to be relevant for another 51 weeks and then it'll be hot again.
3:24:03
So by lowering the barrier to making software and lowering the sort of seriousness, you get this sort of explosion of really interesting native disposable perhaps apps that wouldn't have existed otherwise. >> Makes a ton of sense.
3:24:15
Uh I can't wait to get access.
3:24:17
I wanted to ask you about uh not not to switch gears too much, but I wanted to get your take on the AI uh kind of like m you geni and music space.
3:24:27
You're uh you're on Spotify.
3:24:30
>> I I have some of your songs saved uh and my saved they they'll be on a drive and and you pop up.
3:24:35
Uh but h how are you thinking about uh how are you thinking about that category?
3:24:39
Um and where where you kind of see it going?
3:24:43
Is it uh we were having debate?
3:24:46
I think we're having uh Mikey on from Sunno later this week, but we've been having a debate.
3:24:50
Is it is it just people that are playing around with these tools and enjoying the process of music making, which has always been a big part of the traditional music industry?
3:24:58
Is it people listening to the music that they're making?
3:25:02
Are they listening to other music?
3:25:03
But what's your read as a as a musician?
3:25:05
>> Look, it's actually very music and software are no different.
3:25:07
People want to participate.
3:25:09
And here's what's misunderstood about music.
3:25:10
If you look at why was um peak sort of record sales and music revenue in the 1990s, it's because that's when we had mixtape culture and mix CD culture, right?
3:25:20
People were able to participate and make their own music and share it with their friends and you sort of had this whole long tale of music being created.
3:25:25
And then music somehow with streaming went back to being broadcast the way it was in the 60s and 70s before the cassette was invented.
3:25:32
Software is actually very similar where we have software today 20 million programmers in the world decide what six billion of us use.
3:25:38
So I think the thing that drives a love of the media whether it's software or music is the ability to participate and that's why people love AI music.
3:25:47
So that's just like a general steepening of the power law between uh creation and usage like uh because with the with the Spotify AI music like yes there's tons of people who are using AI to create songs.
3:26:00
So, there's more creators than ever, but then there's also like there are also AI music artists that are publishing and and climbing the charts.
3:26:11
And I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up having some crazy power law outcome. I mean, >> yes.
3:26:19
>> Much like Harry Potter Balenciaga like took over the internet for a day. >> That's right.
3:26:23
And you know, people are so there's always the same criticisms which is, oh, it's not real. It's not real.
3:26:28
Like Tik Tok's not real, >> right?
3:26:30
We're interested in entertainment and like whether it's real or not is completely secondary.
3:26:35
I think the important thing is people are participating and that's it's not just going to be a music thing.
3:26:39
It's going to be every form of media.
3:26:40
It's going to be software.
3:26:42
I mean that's the whole thing more people can now create. >> Yeah.
3:26:45
Speaking of Tik Tok, do you is it a prerequisite for growing a new social network to piggyback on another social network?
3:26:52
Feels like Tik Tok did that with the watermark and just buying a lot of ads on Snap and Facebook maybe.
3:26:57
Uh, and then, uh, threads seems like it's actually sort of working, but it's heavily piggybacked on Instagram.
3:27:03
Uh, can is it possible to just grow a new social network without having some unfair advantage?
3:27:11
>> I mean, have you tried posting anything to threads? >> Might be generous. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah, I I I have.
3:27:17
It's certainly not where the tech community is right now.
3:27:22
Um, >> it's where Connor Hayes is, my boy running it over there.
3:27:26
>> I would I would agree.
3:27:26
Yeah, I I would agree with you.
3:27:28
like how much it's working, but it's like I I think the point still holds which is like >> which is like don't I don't know like it how how could you even try?
3:27:36
I mean have you bet on a lot of have you made a ton of like I'm going to start a new social network investments like I feel like A6Z is like the place that takes that risk and and like this is sort of a new entrant into that. >> Yes. >> Yeah.
3:27:52
Look, when when networks work, what emerges are network economies, and that's the gold standard for everything, for modes, for business model quality, for increasing returns to scale.
3:27:59
What's so interesting about AI has mostly been tools.
3:28:03
There aren't really that many AI native networks, and that's what WABI is.
3:28:07
That's one of the reasons we were so excited.
3:28:08
But I think this general trend from tools to networks, it's a really important one to watch and it's been a sort of like increasing topic within the investor community. Mhm.
3:28:18
>> Um, so yeah, no, look, as for whether they need to be bootstrapped off of others, I think that the existing networks have become a lot more sensitive to that and they're very cautious around emerging networks bootstrapping off of their networks.
3:28:28
So I think it's it's a tactic, but it's a hard one to execute.
3:28:33
You've got to kind of think about owning networks in new categories. >> Um, >> yeah.
3:28:38
I mean, we see this even with just like policing of links across networks.
3:28:41
Like you can imagine it's so easy to like, okay, yeah, it exists within the app, but then you can share with a link.
3:28:46
Uh but all the I mean the walled gardens people are there's a bull market in building walls around gardens right now [laughter] like I like I have friends that use Tik Tok and they send me they send me Tik Toks and I don't have the app installed and so I'll click it and it'll open in a web browser but the web browser just will not play it for me.
3:29:03
I can there's no button that I can click to be like play in the web browser.
3:29:07
The only it just it's just like download the app or get lost and I'm like >> send it to our our one friend who's on TikTok and say can you You sent us a voice note describing this video. >> Just describe it. It's terrible.
3:29:20
[laughter] >> It's a mess. It's a mess.
3:29:22
>> Mark said that, you know, voice notes are a form of violence.
3:29:24
So that that's a whole other topic. >> Yeah, he did.
3:29:27
[laughter] >> Look guys, I do I do think the networks are really sensitive to this.
3:29:31
If you look at it, you know, one possible explanation is that it's hard to actually build a network today.
3:29:35
So the new network effect is the externalization of that.
3:29:39
So if you look at midjourney, midjourney is not a network per se, but what happens is when midjourney is consistently a part of the conversation on X, people are making, you know, tutorials on YouTube.
3:29:49
Like if you dominate networks organically, that is the network effect today.
3:29:54
It's sort of what Cle does.
3:29:55
So I think that's one approach to it.
3:29:58
But no, man, it's like the last 10 years of books and blog posts have overtrained every executive and PM and they're all like, "Hold on a second.
3:30:06
No way we're going to let this get bootstrapped off of our audience." >> Yeah.
3:30:09
Yeah, the thing the thing that I'm interested to follow is is Sora created this new magical experience for creating AI videos.
3:30:16
Specifically, the cameo feature was like the the innovation in my view that that like was not not it wasn't just like model quality that made it broke out.
3:30:26
It was like >> it was good at making a certain type of like internet style internet native video that uh that and then it also innovated on the on the feature level and that's what caused this kind of breakout.
3:30:38
breakout. The challenge is like they made a great tool which is what Wabby is doing and plans to do >> but they couldn't retain the experience on the platform right content wants to be free content wants to go everywhere and so uh they created this amazing tool will they create a network that's like
3:30:58
TVD right but I think the I I think with with Wabby is like you can create this software but then it's self-contained so if other people want to consume that software they'll actually have to stay on Wabby which uh you know should give it a real shot at at building that kind of network and consumption. >> That's exactly the the bull case.
3:31:16
>> That's exactly the the bull case.
3:31:17
Actually the interesting thing about Sora is that you know you've got Cameo as a new content primitive but then you've got a question of what is the status game and you guys of course have read the famous essay you know we're all status seeking monkeys.
3:31:28
You have to have a status game and I don't know that it was it might have been comedy for a minute on Sora.
3:31:32
So without a status game, I think people quickly lose an incentive to continue to participate.
3:31:39
And I think the nice thing about WABI is it's not just that creation consumption happens in a single platform, but the status game is creating sort of the most opinionated, strange, interesting app.
3:31:48
And because social is built in, you can get all the kind of consumption and network effects on the platform. >> Yeah.
3:31:54
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
3:31:57
>> I tell Eugenia that we want to be at the top of the rating. I want to be at the top.
3:32:02
Guys, I'm actually going to I'm going to make a TVPN app that creates the trading cards >> after this.
3:32:08
>> I'm going to send it to you.
3:32:08
I've always had trading card FOMO, man.
3:32:09
I want to be on one of those things. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Make make one. Make one.
3:32:13
Uh >> I'm planning to make it.
3:32:15
We got to get Eugenia on there first, though, man.
3:32:17
She's >> There's two ways to get on a trading card.
3:32:20
You can you can do like a specific deal or something like that >> or you get married >> or you could do something just normal in the real world, [laughter] you know?
3:32:27
Uh, so >> I mean I was tempted to actually make the round much much bigger just to hear the gong, but oh we're all hit the gong.
3:32:36
[laughter] This is not the we we hit the gong for all major >> fantastic.
3:32:42
>> Um, >> love that gong energy. Okay, >> thank you.
3:32:45
>> Uh, yes, super exciting one. Great stuff.
3:32:48
Good to catch up for the show. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one. >> All right. Love it.
3:32:54
>> Uh, let me tell you about Wander. Find your happy place.
3:32:56
Quick wand with inspiring views, hotel rooms, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, and 24/7 concier service.
3:33:01
It's a vacation home, but better folks.
3:33:02
Uh, our next guest, we have David Richer and we're deep in the fourth hour.
3:33:10
>> We are in the fourth hour, but we have David Brewer from Lyft in the Richer Radio. Welcome to the show. How are you doing? Congratulations. Massive earnings call. >> Looking good.
3:33:21
You guys look more like you're kind of calling in from like a radio show or something like that than us. >> I love this setup.
3:33:27
>> This is [laughter] great. >> That's how I feel.
3:33:28
I feel like we're like the we're like the morning DJ crew.
3:33:33
It's like morning hot hits all day long.
3:33:36
>> I love >> There you go. There you go.
3:33:38
>> Take us through what happened today. >> What's the news?
3:33:42
>> Okay, so just off our earnings call.
3:33:42
So for those of you who don't know, a public company, I'm David, by the way.
3:33:47
is and CEO CFO and what you know we do uh you know every quarter is we spend about an hour or so talking to analysts about what just happened the prior 3 months.
3:33:58
So here's what just happened.
3:34:00
>> Uh best earnings ever, highest sales ever, you know, you know, uh high more active riders uh than ever, more driver hours than ever.
3:34:10
And here's a crazy fun fact. I love the air horn.
3:34:13
So, but here's a crazy fun fact.
3:34:16
So, when Aaron and I started about two and a half years ago, we were we were uh sort of losing, you know, maybe $300 million in cash every year.
3:34:25
>> Now, uh we just had our first billion dollar over the trailing 12 months um cash flow uh generation.
3:34:29
So, just a huge huge hit the gong for that. >> There we go. >> All right. >> That is amazing.
3:34:38
We don't we don't get to hit the gong for free cash flow as much as we'd like.
3:34:42
So, so what's the plan with the cash flow?
3:34:45
Are are you uh [laughter] >> We're zooming all over the place.
3:34:48
Uh is uh I mean we've talked to some folks who are in similar situations.
3:34:52
They flip their business around, they start generating cash, then it's time to buy back stock.
3:34:56
It's time to reinvest in the future.
3:34:59
It's time to uh pay dividends.
3:35:02
What have you done in the past?
3:35:02
And how are you thinking?
3:35:04
How do you even make that type of decision? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
3:35:07
Happy to, you know, uh first of all, as David mentioned, like what a privilege to be here now.
3:35:12
two and a half years later be in this position where we're generating cash.
3:35:16
We also guided out a few years in advance and said we're going to generate even more cash than we thought over the next couple of years.
3:35:23
So, you know, C CFO's dream here.
3:35:26
Uh over 2025, you know, if you think about what we've done, we announced our first share buyback program in the company's history.
3:35:33
Uh we said we would is $750 million in size.
3:35:38
We said we would uh use about 500 million of that by May of 2026.
3:35:40
In fact, we're going to uh you know, things are going great.
3:35:46
We're going to actually use that 500 million by the end of 2025.
3:35:47
So, uh and then we've acquired two companies.
3:35:52
We bought uh Free Now in Europe, leading taxi provider in Europe.
3:35:56
And then we most recently announced the acquisition of TBR global chauffeurring.
3:36:00
We announced some investments we have coming up in Whimo.
3:36:02
So if you think about that overall pretty balanced but very very focused on you know we are a growth business we are in growth markets and so having the opportunity to invest against that to do it in a way that's very conscious of driving value for our shareholders not in terms of the growth not only in terms of growth of the business but in deploying some of that back and share buyback. So we like the balance. >> Yeah.
3:36:27
>> The question on everyone's head on the top of everyone's head I'm sure is uh autonomous vehicles.
3:36:31
You're probably getting AV questions constantly.
3:36:33
Uh maybe set the table for us. Walk through Yeah.
3:36:38
What just walk through the the highlevel thesis and then maybe we can uh dig into uh some of the particulars of the strategy. >> Yeah. 100%.
3:36:46
It it is the number one question everyone's asking and you don't look what a privilege right because how often do you get to be in an industry that is clearly going to be transformed? Okay.
3:36:56
So what's going to happen?
3:36:56
We think the market size is going to grow dramatically.
3:37:00
Like we think AVs for the sector.
3:37:02
I'm not just talking about for LIT, but for the sector because it's a good product.
3:37:06
If you've been in San Francisco or some of the other places where you can see AVs, it's safe.
3:37:08
You can kind of zone out in the back seat.
3:37:12
You can, you know, whatever you want to do.
3:37:14
So, uh, a lot of So, anyway, so it's a cool product.
3:37:16
And so, what that tends to do is it tends to expand the market. Okay. So, what are we doing?
3:37:20
You know, we're not in the business of making cars or even making AB tech. So, we got to partner.
3:37:25
Who have we partnered with?
3:37:27
Well, we've partnered with two of the biggest in the world.
3:37:28
Whimo in the United States, who's clearly the market leader in the US, and BU in China, who's clearly the market leader there.
3:37:34
That'll help us get cars and tech up into Europe.
3:37:37
And what you'll see is we'll integrate these onto our platform and create what we think of as a hybrid network.
3:37:42
Lot of drivers on our platform, 1. 5 million drivers, 1.
3:37:44
6 million drivers on the platform.
3:37:46
They're going to continue to drive because there aren't enough AVs in the world just to satisfy the demand with AVs.
3:37:51
But then, you know, in certain markets like Nashville and others, we'll have more and more AVs in the platform and create something where holes greater than the sum of the parts.
3:37:59
>> When are we bringing track cars to the platform?
3:38:01
If you want to track a car, you want a Ferrari challenge or, you know, some sort of BMW that's been modified for the track and you want to rent that on.
3:38:11
[laughter] >> I love the way >> John recently John We did a track day on Sunday and now it's the only thing.
3:38:17
It's the only thing I think about but but but I do think that the the actual like the the the car ownership pattern might actually change dramatically in the future.
3:38:26
And uh this is my like like thesis is it's half a joke is uh I own a track car.
3:38:32
I maybe take an autonomous vehicle uh on a commute or >> purely functional but then you drive for enjoyment.
3:38:40
human drivers in the car for specific rides where uh where there's either higher demand or specific weather conditions or specific road conditions.
3:38:52
And so I feel like a lot of people want to hit, you know, oh, the new technology is going to come in, it's going to be 100% of the market on day one, and that's just never the way it plays out.
3:39:02
Um, so how are you thinking about the way it plays out and how are you preparing for that transition?
3:39:07
I mean, you're putting your finger on something that I think as human beings we tend to do to a fault, which is we sort of think binary, right?
3:39:15
It's this or it's that, you know, it's X or it's Y.
3:39:17
And it rarely is is one or the other.
3:39:19
It's it's almost always both.
3:39:21
And what turns and and this is the reason why, you know, frankly, being, you know, alive today is so interesting is you have these these new modalities.
3:39:28
So, like, okay, look, over the last I'm an old guy.
3:39:29
So, the last many years when I learned to drive, I drive on a stick. >> I still have a stick. It's great.
3:39:34
But I also have a Tesla which is not stick.
3:39:36
In fact, it's the opposite of stick.
3:39:40
>> Did you ever Did you ever drive stick in San Francisco when you were first learning?
3:39:43
Because John and I were in San Francisco last week and I was showing him like the different hills that I when I was when I was like whatever 16 and a half, 17 driving stick in uh driving a manual in San Francisco really is like a coming of age moment.
3:39:58
It's kind of >> reversing into a parking space. Yeah. >> Yeah.
3:40:02
[laughter] >> I will tell you a story.
3:40:03
I grew up on the east coast, but our daughters grew up in San Francisco.
3:40:06
And I still smell in my head the grinding [laughter] clutch of our older daughter on devisero. You know what I mean?
3:40:15
Like I was just burning my head.
3:40:18
But that but that's what it's going to be like, right?
3:40:20
So it's going to be Yeah.
3:40:20
I want to go, you know, uh I want to take a road trip.
3:40:24
Of course I want to drive myself. That's super fun.
3:40:25
I want to commute tomorrow.
3:40:27
I'm just going to let something else do the do the thing and I'm going to zone out.
3:40:29
And that's the that's the future we're building for.
3:40:32
I'll tell you one more funny thing which is another weird human thing.
3:40:34
If you uh ask people, you know, do you want a driver on the car?
3:40:38
A lot of people say nah, I'd rather just be alert.
3:40:40
If you ask people, what's your favorite lift ride ever?
3:40:43
They'll say, oh my god, I had this amazing conversation with this driver.
3:40:47
I learned all about his life or he asked me about my day or whatever. That's the future.
3:40:50
The future is not going to be just mechanical and virtual and it's not just going to be physical.
3:40:55
It's going to be this blend and that's where we're building to.
3:40:57
>> Uh talk about uh flex drive.
3:40:57
talk about all the like how complicated the value chain is.
3:41:02
Even if we see amazing performance in AVs and we get tons of autonomous vehicles on the road, it feels like there's there are tons of things that Tesla's not going to want to do.
3:41:14
There's tons of things that Whimo's not going to want to do.
3:41:16
There are going to be other competitors and other differentiators.
3:41:19
Walk through the whole supply chain, how it fits in, how you're how you're planning to fit in.
3:41:27
>> So, this touches on something again. so important.
3:41:29
And I'll use a funny analogy for a second.
3:41:30
for a second. Uh I don't know why, but for some reason like my Tik Tok stuff or my users like often they'll have like here's what Disney World looks like to you and then they'll like zoom they'll like they'll do drone shots and be like
3:41:41
that haunted mansion looks amazing like there's a huge building behind it that looks nothing like a haunted man just a warehouse with with >> same thing with AVs like it looks like a sort of a seamless digital thing but behind it as you say >> humans driving remotely. >> Well there is some of that
3:41:55
>> Well there is some of that >> sometimes.
3:41:56
Okay, that's interesting.
3:41:58
That's [laughter] >> maybe maybe one person per five cars, but you know, and we're getting there better, but the tele operation will be occasionally tele operation is a thing.
3:42:07
There's definitely valuable. Yeah, it makes sense.
3:42:09
>> Well, but but look, there's also someone's got to clean the car, someone's got to charge the car, someone's got to maintain the car, someone's got to reboot the car, you know, so there's all that that's called fleet management.
3:42:17
We do it through a subsidiary called Flex Drive.
3:42:19
Lyft has about 15,000 cars today. These are not EVs today.
3:42:23
These are EVs and normal uh you know ICE cars that are being managed by Flex Drive and kept available for drivers to use when they don't want to use their primary car.
3:42:31
So that's a a piece of of it's a skill we have. It's great.
3:42:36
>> And then you got to keep those cars if they're available, you got to keep them utilized.
3:42:39
You got to keep them, you know, the demand coming in and matching that that supply 24/7.
3:42:42
Even if it's raining, even if uh, you know, concert just got out, you know, even during the Super Bowl, you know, in the last five minutes of the Super Bowl where demand goes through the roof.
3:42:51
So anyway, what you're referring to or what you're kind of alluding to is that ride share is is complex and it's very big scale and you add AVs and it's only going to be more complex, but this is what we do.
3:43:00
This is sort of our jam and um and we're super excited about this this uh the future for >> Yeah. Yeah.
3:43:06
No, I I it seems like uh you're set up very well with the cash flow to actually play in other industries.
3:43:13
It's going to be a very exciting time.
3:43:15
Uh Jordan, do you have anything else?
3:43:16
Yeah, just uh ho how how have you guys like like what's been the focus internally with the team?
3:43:23
It feels like the best way to build confidence as a team is to just like steadily execute against your guys' plan and roadmap and you certainly have done that over the last couple years.
3:43:33
I'm I'm I imagine when both of you guys took this job, there were some people that were saying like why would you sign yourself up for this?
3:43:42
you know, it's harder to it's much harder to look like an incredible CEO or a CFO with a company that that needs some kind of new momentum and uh and uh you know, it's easier to look look like a genius if you're joining a business that's growing at you know, let's say uh 300% a year or something, you know, crazy like we're seeing in some of these AI companies.
3:44:05
But um but yeah, what what what is what has been the kind of unlock from a from a team or culture standpoint that has allowed you guys to deliver like this?
3:44:14
>> I'll I'll jump in here from my perspective, you know, thinking about joining Lyft, you know, number one, just incredible brand, right?
3:44:19
This this company just has an incredible durable brand and it operates in a market where scale matters, right?
3:44:27
And so you continue to grow scale, you can drive very attractive economics.
3:44:32
And then certainly as I joined the company, uh you know, this company has an incredible culture, right?
3:44:38
We have a a tremendous teams here, incredibly smart, really really focused on our customers and inclined to always do the right thing, right?
3:44:50
To think big, to do the next right thing.
3:44:52
So you know honestly the first 6 to9 months I think for both of us was just you know if you think about it the company was recovering from the pandemic founders stepped aside it was it was a big time of transition.
3:45:02
So focusing on execution focusing on just serving the customer delivering a great service and then taking it really step by step because that earns you the right right you build that discipline that success that earns you the right to do the next thing.
3:45:18
Now you start doubling down on product innovation for drivers, for riders.
3:45:22
We start launching a slew of new products.
3:45:24
That's super exciting for team members, for our riders, for the for the community out there.
3:45:29
Then we start, you know, generating a lot of cash. Great.
3:45:33
How do we build from there?
3:45:36
So, you know, I often reflect on this a little bit with David.
3:45:38
It's, you know, there was sort of an inflection point of the company, I think, when we both came in and and I'll, you know, I speak for both of us.
3:45:45
I think we both feel it now.
3:45:47
It's like this next big leaping off point and um yeah, it's exciting.
3:45:50
It's a fun place to work.
3:45:54
>> I'll I'll just say a tiny tiny bit more.
3:45:56
I mean, when you come in, look, you got to cast a big vision so the people get kind of excited about it.
3:45:59
And we had a big vision around customer obsession and around serving and connecting.
3:46:03
You got to make sure you got the right people.
3:46:06
And I got super super lucky.
3:46:06
Uh Aaron was one of the first hires I made, one of the best hires of my life, right?
3:46:10
So, you got to have that right team around the table.
3:46:13
And our management team is incredible.
3:46:14
And then as Erin says, you just got to execute, execute, execute.
3:46:18
And that success begets success begets success. It unlocks opportunity.
3:46:20
Now we can think even bigger.
3:46:22
So we're just kind of getting started two and a half years in. >> I love it. I love success.
3:46:28
>> I love seeing you guys win. >> Congratulations.
3:46:32
Uh uh David, we really enjoyed our our last conversation.
3:46:35
Aaron, it's great to meet you and uh looking forward to next quarter.
3:46:38
>> We'll talk to you soon.
3:46:39
>> Well, I know that David was, you know, mentioning he wants to get the earnings call on your show.
3:46:43
You know, this is this is, you know, the the closest we could come. Thank you for having us. >> Super fun, guys.
3:46:49
Congratulations on awesome quarter. >> Have a great day.
3:46:52
>> Hey, congrats to you, too, by the way.
3:46:53
Nice article on the New York Times. Did you guys write that? Did you write that? >> We did not. >> All Mike Isaac. >> Yeah, he fun with us.
3:47:02
>> It was It was a lot of fun. >> Um, we survived. >> We did. >> Survived.
3:47:07
>> Have a great to see you guys.
3:47:09
>> We'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. All right. Take care. on that.
3:47:13
>> Um, >> let's check in with the timeline.
3:47:14
Stefan was saying, uh, please ask them about the biggest fish they've caught.
3:47:21
>> That should be that should be an ongoing question. The biggest fish.
3:47:24
>> What's the biggest fish you've caught?
3:47:26
>> What is the biggest fish you've caught, Jordy?
3:47:27
>> Uh, this is >> Have you ever caught a big fish?
3:47:30
>> I've I've only gone fishing on uh the ocean. >> Yes.
3:47:35
>> And did you know that's where they have the big fish?
3:47:37
>> They do have the big fish in the ocean.
3:47:39
So this is >> but I went out on um I like doing I tend to like doing weekend activities that sounds strange but are like constrained to like a few hours >> okay >> and going out like hunt you know go we were going trying to go for blue fin tuna this was sometime last year
3:47:54
>> I feel like >> and we spent like 12 hours out there did not catch >> wait before you Tyler how do you you do you have a bet going do you think Jord's biggest fish is over under 30 pounds what do you think >> uh I'm going under >> you're going Under 30 lbs. Okay, Jordy,
3:48:08
Okay, Jordy, give us the final answer.
3:48:10
How big was the blue fin tuna that you didn't catch?
3:48:14
[laughter] >> We did not catch a blue fin tuna.
3:48:18
>> So, have you ever caught a fish?
3:48:18
You must have like gone in a pond one day and gotten a minnow, right?
3:48:23
>> I don't think I don't think I've ever caught >> You've never caught anything?
3:48:27
>> I don't think I've ever caught a fish.
3:48:28
>> You've never caught a fish entire life?
3:48:30
>> But my my dad wasn't big into fishing. >> Wow.
3:48:34
>> We went We would go camping shell.
3:48:34
We need a trading card up. never caught a fish.
3:48:38
I mean, we should we should >> we have to we have to change this. This is important. >> Yeah.
3:48:42
I It's It's funny growing up around the ocean, surfing my whole life, never >> never thought to just throw in the old line, the hook. It's so easy. You live by the ocean.
3:48:53
You live walking just into the ocean.
3:48:55
This is a challenge for you today, maybe this weekend. Walk to the ocean. Catch a fish. >> Catch a fish. >> Catch a fish. You love Nou.
3:49:01
You go to Nou all the time.
3:49:03
You never thought, "What if I did it myself? What if I DIY Nou?
3:49:08
>> Safe at Shank catches my >> That's true. That's true. Yeah.
3:49:11
>> John, what's the biggest fish you've caught? >> 150 lbs, baby. Halibit. >> I was 10 years old. It was fantastic. >> The crowd goes wild.
3:49:19
>> It It weighed more than me at the time, which was electric because truly like conquering a beast that was bigger than me, which is like so satisfying.
3:49:28
>> Uh I So I need to look into this, Tyler.
3:49:32
Maybe this a good question for you.
3:49:32
Hit the deep research, buddy.
3:49:34
Get ready to deep [laughter] get ready to do some deep research.
3:49:38
>> But uh uh at my uh at my local beach, a place that I normally surf in Malibu, there are tons of leopard sharks and they hang out where the water's like 3 to 4 feet deep.
3:49:49
So after you catch a wave, >> if there's good visibility, you almost like every other wave I'm seeing a leopard shark.
3:49:57
And usually I just kind of just jump back on my board and paddle out cuz they're like I don't know, they're like three or four feet.
3:50:02
They're not they're not massive or anything. Yeah. Yeah.
3:50:05
>> But since you've challenged me to catch a fish, maybe the next time I jump down and try >> Shark is technically a fish. >> Yeah.
3:50:11
>> Yeah, that would count. >> Yeah, they are. They're Yeah.
3:50:12
So, I should just dive down and catch it with your bare hands. >> With my bare hands. >> I like this.
3:50:20
>> Um maybe we could Maybe we could uh >> If that doesn't work, I'd recommend trying to shoot fish in a barrel.
3:50:23
I've heard that that's pretty easy. We'll get you a barrel.
3:50:27
We'll get you a barrel fish and you and you can uh And you can >> Oh, I did.
3:50:31
You can pull an AR-15 and just start shooting the fish in the barrel.
3:50:36
>> You know, shooting a fish in a barrel, it must be It's actually pretty hard to do, I imagine. Depends on the barrel.
3:50:40
If you use a big gun, you're going to break the barrel and then water's going to go everywhere.
3:50:47
>> My beautiful puffer fish. >> You caught that. >> My pride and joy.
3:50:51
>> That doesn't really count.
3:50:51
I want to see you counting uh catching a an Atlantic blue fin tuna.
3:50:55
They can exceed 1,500 lb with some estimates reaching up to 2,000 lb. >> Wow.
3:51:01
That's what we need to do.
3:51:01
Anyway, thank you so much for listening to the show, for watching the show.
3:51:05
Leave us five stars in Apple Podcast and Spotify.
3:51:08
Subscribe to our newsletter at tbpn. com.
3:51:10
>> To be honest, kind of want to keep going.
3:51:12
[laughter] >> You want to go to the fifth hour?
3:51:16
>> I kind of want to break the I kind of want to break the fifth hour. >> We have guests here.
3:51:20
We have We do have guests here.
3:51:22
>> We have to hang out with our guests.
3:51:22
Uh, thank you so much for watching.
3:51:24
We will >> I can't wait to be back tomorrow. John's cutting me off. John's cutting me off.
3:51:32
>> We did get into a good riff right at the end. It was It was fantastic.
3:51:33
Amid amid 10 guests today.
3:51:38
>> We uh new new question.
3:51:38
Tomorrow we'll we'll ask every guest.
3:51:41
We'll ask Dave from Roblox will be joining tomorrow.
3:51:44
We got Vlad from Robin Hood.
3:51:47
>> What's the biggest fish?
3:51:48
>> What's the biggest fish you've ever caught? >> This is important.
3:51:50
We're doing a super chat.
3:51:52
How big is the fish you've you've ever caught? The biggest fish.
3:51:54
And then uh maybe we'll create a boom in fishing.
3:51:58
Maybe people would go fishing. Um, that's right. Fishing's underrated.
3:52:03
>> Thank you so much for watching.
3:52:03
We will see you tomorrow. Love you. Goodbye.