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[music] We have a great show for you today, folks.
5:00
We're talking about the article apocalypse that's happening on X.
5:02
Will it slop up the timeline?
5:04
The million-dollar slop fight.
5:06
Will it slop up the timeline?
5:08
Uh will the algorithm handle the flood of of AI generated content that will be slopped up in the timeline? We will see. We will dig into it. We will discuss it.
5:17
Uh we'll also try and understand what is going on with Nikita Beer strategy.
5:22
What's the strategy at X?
5:24
Will this growth uh this growth hack work? This competition.
5:27
Of course, this all started uh with a Nikita Beer. >> Hold up.
5:32
We got Main Street Summit in the X chat.
5:35
>> What's up, Main Street Summit?
5:37
>> Shout out to Brent and the whole team. >> Love you guys. >> Cheers. >> Cheers.
5:43
>> So, this all started with Nikita Beer on X.
5:45
He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are giving $1 million to the top article posted on X. You have two weeks. It's time to write."
5:53
Uh, and very very different structure.
5:56
I thought there's already an there's there's so much AI generated essays on X.
6:03
>> Why not make AI generated essays lottery tickets?
6:07
>> Let's turn them into lottery tickets. >> I like it.
6:09
I I mean they're they're definitely paying out more than a million dollars in creator payments across all the little $100,000 checks that go out to folks. You have to imagine.
6:18
Um but but running a sweep stakes, I mean that's time honored.
6:22
What's not to like about a sweep stakes? It's great.
6:24
I I think it's a lot of fun.
6:26
Um, obviously people are people are worried that uh this will create some uh you know perverse incentive.
6:32
There was already a perverse incentive for slop on the timeline because if you engagement farmed, you could potentially get a big creator payout.
6:39
We've seen some people that get you know $20,000 randomly sent to them just because they went mega viral.
6:45
We've seen a bunch of people that have just built up accounts where they're getting a couple thousand dollars every month.
6:50
There's always been an incentive and that incentive exists on YouTube where you can get creator payouts.
6:54
You can uh there are plenty of platforms where you can go and uh and get uh attention and convert that into ad dollars or revshare.
7:02
Um you know I mean back in the day there was a huge incentive to like do listicles and clickbait to get visitors to your website that you would put Google ads on.
7:13
Uh some of it, you know, made a decent amount of money, some of it didn't stick around.
7:17
Um, most of the bad stuff eventually went away.
7:20
Eventually people stopped showing up.
7:22
Eventually the audience quality got so bad that all the advertisers said, "Why am I paying to show up on this listicle of like the the cutest dogs in America or something?" I don't know.
7:32
Maybe that one actually rips. Who knows?
7:33
But, uh, so, uh, Nikita's kind of taking two sides to this.
7:40
He says, "It's time to write."
7:40
But also, he tells everyone else, "Please bear with article Armageddon."
7:43
Uh my question was uh what's the strategy here and what will the outcome be?
7:49
So before we dive into it, let me tell you about Vanta.
7:53
Automate compliance and security.
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Vanta is the AI trust management platform, the leading AI trust management platform.
8:01
So um it's sort of crazy to me how long Twitter went with 140 characters. Yeah.
8:07
>> Do you realize Twitter launched in 2006?
8:10
They held the line on just 140 characters for over a decade.
8:13
It wasn't until 2017 that they doubled it to 280, which now feels still a little tight to get a tweet in under 280, but 140 was truly a constraint.
8:26
You needed to be extremely tur and extremely concise.
8:27
Um, and and even that was a relic from the SMS era.
8:32
Like the default text message that you could send was uh 140 characters.
8:36
And so Twitter was very much built on, hey, uh, if you verify your phone number, you can just send a text in and it will post it on your Twitter account.
8:45
And so a lot of people in the early days were using it that way.
8:49
Although obviously people were also using it on web.
8:50
Um, and uh, you know, it's it's always been an important watering hole for tech power players.
8:57
The tech elite have always liked hanging out on Twitter.
8:59
Um, but it's never captured the value that it created.
9:00
captured the value that it created. like it it it was very very hard because people are not in the they're not in the same frame of mind as when they're scrolling Instagram scrolling Instagram reels you're basically shopping when you're on a meta platform and then you see an ad for >> yeah to be clear meta captures a lot more value but certainly not all the
9:18
value it creates right that's the point of a platform >> platformat yeah create more value than you capture but in the case of ax it's like you know >> they were capturing a very small >> very very very tiny percentage >> and there were lots of stories about people building businesses that basically exported ed audiences from Twitter or they or they went viral there. Uh Ben Thompson talks about
9:34
Uh Ben Thompson talks about LinkedIn actually being a big growth uh early growth vector for him uh because links did very well.
9:41
They would convert to his uh his newsletter sutachery.
9:43
com and uh but people have done this all over the place where they've uh been consistently viral with threads, build up an audience, and then they take it somewhere else to monetize it either with subscriptions or ads, but they don't really do that commercial activity on the platform.
9:58
And so there's always been a question of like could X or Twitter capture more value?
10:03
And um a lot of that big turning point happened when Elon made the acquisition.
10:07
So um uh the Elon taking over felt like okay it's a entirely new day.
10:16
Everything's moving way faster now.
10:18
Some of those projects had actually been been in the in the works for months or years before.
10:22
Uh I think uh community notes was the big one where the Twitter team had been building that infrastructure for a while but they were moving >> 5,000 people working on it for over five years >> probably something like that.
10:35
Uh but so so Elon it's not like he kicked off a lot of the that many of these projects but he definitely like green lit them shut things down just sped things up move more >> the speed thing. >> Exactly.
10:48
>> Um let me tell you about Octa.
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11:06
>> So uh 2023 was a big year for expanding character limits.
11:11
Uh they'd also previously acquired this Dutch startup review which was a direct competitor to Substack, but that product was shut down in less than two years.
11:19
like January to January, they only made it two years.
11:23
Never really got it off the off the ground.
11:24
And I think it was because it was sort of counterpositioned with Twitter.
11:27
It was kind of like always, oh well, if we get people on the review platform, they'll leave or they'll take their audience elsewhere.
11:32
It never really felt >> Yeah.
11:34
And I don't know that a lot of people had >> some incredible faith that, hey, I want to build my business on >> Yeah.
11:40
>> Yeah. like a a Twitter uh like >> I mean even pre Elon there had been companies startups that had built on the Twitter API which had gone through a number of version changes Elon made some more extreme changes to that but there were plenty of times when people would
11:55
build businesses like too closely to any platform really and then they get steamrolled whether you're uh you know Zinga building on uh building Farmville on Facebook and then they change the algorithm or they change the integration and all of a sudden your growth engine's just gone. Uh, this happened with
12:07
Uh, this happened with Teespring.
12:09
They were selling custom t-shirts.
12:10
So, they would go and figure out a specific profile like people who run podcasts with the last name Hayes.
12:18
And then they would like print a custom they would generate an image of a shirt >> and it'd be like, yes, my name is My last name is Hayes. Yes, I'm a podcaster.
12:25
And I'd [laughter] be like, I got I got to buy it. I got to have it.
12:30
It was like, who is buying this cringy cringy nonsense?
12:32
But it really sold a ton of shirts.
12:34
ton of shirts. and Teespring was on like an absolute like meteoric rise and then they changed the algorithm and they stopped a lot of those advertisings because they felt creepy because it was like wait a minute like why am I seeing an ad with my last name and my job title
12:48
in the image like it's too much and so uh Facebook put a kibash on that and uh and the rest is history but um you know they've been working on on making X a more literate long- form platform for a while 20 23 >> we need to teach our users the English language, we need them to read more than, you know, 180 >> characters. So, they've obviously done a
13:08
So, they've obviously done a ton in video.
13:10
Uh, they've never really leaned into a video library like YouTube.
13:15
Like, I used to cross-ost my YouTube videos on X.
13:17
Sometimes there were length limits for a while.
13:19
Then they got rid of those so I could just actually copy a 25 minute YouTube video, put it on X, and it was cool.
13:25
Uh, people wouldn't watch nearly as much as they did on YouTube.
13:29
Uh, but and and there was no catalog value.
13:32
was no catalog value. That was like the really weird thing was that on YouTube like my old videos that I haven't uploaded in over a year and my old videos are still probably getting like I don't know half a million views a month just because people are every day they search like what's the history of anderol or what's the history of ramp or
13:49
what's the history of cin ping >> well they're evergreen content so it just continuously gets >> served exactly and then once someone watches one of my videos they watch five more >> well part of that if you want to be a serious video platform you need to be like you know actually incentive incentivizing people to watch on TV. Like so much of YouTube watch hours
14:05
Like so much of YouTube watch hours happen on TV and X I think has a streaming TV app but it's certainly not doesn't get a lot of love. >> Yeah.
14:13
I actually made a whole documentary about Elsa Gundo went around with Augustus and toured everything and it just didn't really work for my YouTube channel. So I only put it on X.
14:23
It got a ton of views and actually the response was probably better than >> anything that I would do on YouTube because it was very tech insider.
14:30
A lot of VCs were getting up to speed on what was going on in Elsagundo.
14:33
Uh we're having some of the Elsa Gundo folks on the show later today.
14:36
Um >> well, >> he's not truly Elsa Gundo, but Phil is like spiritually Gundo. Yeah, >> we know that.
14:43
And and in many ways is is spiritually Gundo.
14:46
Let's take you through the linear lineup who we have on the show today.
14:49
We got Jordan Schneider from China Talk coming on at 12:30.
14:50
Then Dan from T1 Energy, Elliot from Dominion Dynamics.
14:56
We're in hard tech land kind of all day.
14:58
I'm very excited for this.
15:00
And then we have Matt Grim, the co-founder of Anderol and Phil from DRA coming in person at 1:30 together to break it all down for us on what's going on in building hardware, building defense.
15:12
>> Remember T1 Energy is a company that we talked about in Q4 of last year.
15:14
It was a unique situation.
15:17
And I believe it was a Chinese uh company solar manufacturing plant that was forced to sell >> and now it has a cool brand and uh new management and the stock is absolutely ripping.
15:30
I think uh >> very excited to have them on the show. >> It is up 433%.
15:35
Uh >> I love that we get to the last we get to do something just find some random company and then all of a sudden we're talking to the CEO.
15:40
Uh anyway, of course, if you've forgotten Linear, it's the system for modern software development.
15:46
70% of enterprise workspaces on linear are using agents and you should be too.
15:50
So um continuing with the long post journey that X has been on.
15:58
Uh 2023 was a massive year.
16:01
Uh February took it from 280 characters to 4,000 characters.
16:06
That's more than I need for most of my posts.
16:09
I don't think I've ever posted anything longer than that.
16:10
Uh April expanded it to 10,000 characters.
16:12
And finally, in June, they maxed it out at 25,000 characters.
16:18
Uh that's longer than most blog posts.
16:21
That's uh around 4,000 words, maybe a little bit more.
16:23
Uh and you can still thread these posts together.
16:27
So, I was always wondering like why does articles exist if long posts are so long that you can put 4,000 words there?
16:35
In fact, um I took, you know, that one super viral article that everyone they're all joking that like, oh, he should have waited a couple days to post it because then he would have won the million dollars. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
16:47
>> It's like how to change your life in one day.
16:49
>> And wasn't that effectively inspire?
16:51
Like my view was like that post >> they were like we should do more of this.
16:56
Let's incentivize a lot more of this. >> Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
16:58
It seemed like Nikita saw that and was like, okay, articles are creating satisfaction on the platform. People like them.
17:03
Uh it does seem like the algorithm is uh it seemed like at one point the algorithm was maybe misaligned.
17:09
Not that it was punishing articles, just that it wasn't really processing the time that people would spend in articles and the way they would engage.
17:17
Because if there's a viral post, people might be more inclined to like it than a long long essay that you read 45 75% of and then you get out of it.
17:29
You actually spent multiple minutes with it.
17:30
you really enjoyed it, but you forget to like it because that's way down at the bottom, or you forget to retweet it or whatever, or you're not commenting on it.
17:36
You're just kind of enjoying it reading, and then you close your phone because you're like, "Oh, wow.
17:39
I just spent 20 minutes reading this thing.
17:40
I'm moving on with my life, or I got a phone call."
17:42
Um, and so they needed to dial the algorithm in.
17:44
And I think that's what's happened.
17:46
And now I think that, um, essentially articles are first class citizens in the algorithm.
17:52
And there's really no downside to to posting articles.
17:55
Um, but that post, that article, how to change your life in one day or something, uh, is like 30,000 characters.
18:02
So, it almost would have just fit, if you just like edited a little bit more, it would have just fit into a long post, but it worked as an article.
18:09
There's something about the, uh, there's something about the title and thumbnail that really works there.
18:13
Um, maybe maybe X should do a deal with our partner, 11 Labs, and let you listen to these articles.
18:19
11 Labs, of course, build intelligent real-time conversational agents, reimagine human technology interaction with 11 Labs.
18:26
>> Zack uh Zack F had a had a great idea.
18:29
He said, "Grock, summarize this article in 280 characters [laughter] or less. Don't make any mistakes. Thanks."
18:33
So, if you if you really yearn for the days, the pre-article era, just respond and tag Grock post and have it turn it back into just regular old >> fashion.
18:43
140 characters, go even shorter.
18:45
Uh I mean I think somebody did that with the how to change your life in one day because a lot of it was like from Atomic Habits I guess which is a very popular book but all this like lifestyle stuff is always like recomposed from various previous prior art.
18:58
It's all just re reformatting essentially uh with with some new flavor new spice.
19:02
Um, so when articles launched in March of 2024, uh, it didn't really hit for me.
19:09
Like I was not like, oh, I gotta jump on this. I gotta post.
19:10
You know, we started doing the newsletter in 2025.
19:16
Midyear, we started cross-osting. Articles were available.
19:19
I think we might have tested one or two as an article.
19:21
Didn't really see a difference.
19:23
So, just kind of stuck with the long posts.
19:24
Um, but last year, uh, so my pieces are usually around 5,000 characters.
19:30
They fit fine in a long post.
19:32
I was doing long posts until I saw Lulu Murvy, friend of the show, posted standing out in 2026 as an ex article.
19:42
Now, she's been viral before for going direct, the going direct manifesto, which was a thread of long posts.
19:46
And I like I think it was maybe just a really long post or maybe a thread of long post, but I really like that format.
19:52
And I would actually use that format as sort of a template for if I wanted to communicate something in a few paragraphs.
20:00
I would sort of look at what she did with the going direct post and use that as like the backbone.
20:05
Obviously not taking specific words, more just like okay, you want you want an intro paragraph, an opening paragraph, a couple bullet points, a summary, a takeaway, like um and what's really interesting is that her standing out in 2026, it's an ex article.
20:20
It has a a header image of these robots.
20:23
Um, and it grabs you, so you click on it.
20:26
And it was dropped January 5th. Good timing. Kick off the year. Uh, it went super viral.
20:32
Millions of views, thousands of likes.
20:34
Uh, but it's really, really short. It's only 443 words.
20:36
It's under 3,000 characters, so it easily would have fit in a long post.
20:41
But she went with article. It worked.
20:43
And when I saw that, I was thinking, okay, maybe we should do uh maybe we should do articles for our pieces.
20:49
And I've been doing that and it's been fine.
20:51
Hasn't been honestly the metrics are exactly the same.
20:53
So maybe I need to work on the titles and thumbnails or something.
20:57
Um, but it's not like articles have been some magical cure all or or oh yeah, we're getting 10x more views now that we're using articles.
21:05
It's kind of the same thing, but it does seem like a interesting format that maybe they will surface on.
21:11
>> It's a better experience as a reader. >> Maybe. I think so. It's hard to tell.
21:14
I mean, you can definitely if you take advantage of the formatting maybe, but and and you're doing bullet points and bolding and italics like you can write more.
21:25
Yeah, embedding posts is cool and also images in the I saw one that had like graphics and it read almost like a like like a strategy piece.
21:32
It had embedded images and stuff. It was cool.
21:36
Um I I don't >> Gabe in the chat had an interesting idea.
21:39
Uh he said above X should acquire Beehive, >> which would be kind of interesting because like Beehive Beehive >> Yeah.
21:46
>> Uh the one of the issues with the review acquisition. >> Yeah.
21:50
>> Is that I seemingly I didn't know anybody that was like building a business on review. >> Yeah, that's true.
21:56
It was it seemed like Twitter had done a couple of these like early stage acquisitions like I mean Vine was very early pre-monetization.
22:04
They did, I think, Periscope, the live streaming video platform.
22:06
That was maybe pre-revenue, like pretty early.
22:08
Uh, we talked to one founder who sold his company to Twitter before they even launched.
22:14
And so the the the the previous Twitter management was very quick on these like smaller acquisitions of like pre-launch but venture funded.
22:23
They team's been building for six months.
22:25
They go and show the Twitter team and the Twitter team says, "Hey, how about we take it for 100 mil or something like that?"
22:30
And it's a great outcome for the founders.
22:31
And then uh years later they gripe that they should never sell a company like uh like the vine. >> Yeah.
22:36
That that era I feel like taught San Francisco that like some of these smaller scale acquisitions were just relatively straightforward commonplace and then in the 2020s people realized that uh that that era just kind of went away. >> Yeah.
22:50
It either turned into like these mega aqua >> apparently Twitter Twitter had done approximately 79 individual acquisitions. >> Wow. That's a lot.
22:58
They did telepart which was digital advertising was half a billion.
23:03
Magic pony 2016 for around 150 million.
23:08
>> NIP social media data aggregation 134 million.
23:12
Tap commerce uh which mobile ad retargeting for 100 million.
23:15
Periscope if you remember that. Vine tweet deck.
23:20
Um so >> bunch of different deals. >> Yeah.
23:23
Uh before we move on let me tell you about Gemini 3 Pro.
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State-of-the-art reasoning, next level vibe coding, and deep multimodal understanding.
23:32
Uh, so strategically, this big article push, it feels like another shot at Substack, Chris Best's company.
23:40
I didn't put Substack in my article because I'm I'm I'm up on the ALGO speak. I'll say unalived.
23:44
I'm not afraid of um the real word, I guess.
23:46
No, I am terrified of the algo and being punished and shadowbanned.
23:51
So, uh, so I said Chris Best's company, this is best practice if you want to talk about Substack.
23:57
Um, but, uh, I I I I don't know that anyone's going to be rushing to get off of Substack based on this because the value of Substack, the the value prop is that you own your email list.
24:09
So, you have a direct relationship with your your audience and you could take that anywhere.
24:14
You could leave at any time.
24:16
You can even take your Stripe account with you, which is a crazy thing.
24:19
It's so creator friendly.
24:19
Uh, and Substacks made that their brand and they built a great business around it.
24:24
And, uh, long term, I think Substack should probably figure out how to build some sort of ads product that can run across all of the different Substacks because that would probably >> total TBPN victory.
24:38
>> It would it would very anti- ads anti- ads.
24:42
I just see like what does it take to get Substack into the uh Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit category, sort of like dacorn category and you imagine that for a lot of these like if you're they're clearly trying to push people into the Substack app, but even just embedding ads here and there, it could be done tastefully.
25:01
I think it could be done in a way that's not too abrasive and you're getting a lot for a little.
25:05
Now, of course, like you know, we use Substack.
25:10
don't charge for our newsletter tbp. com. You should go sign up.
25:12
Um but uh so if they put ads [laughter] on ours, we'd be like, "Ah, that's sort of a downgrade."
25:18
Um we want to put ads in ours, but um but but I think just from a business perspective, it would make sense and really open open them up to some big big dollars at a certain point because there's a very high high value audience.
25:30
>> Kind of a rough theory that that maybe there was some logic to doing this just for having new >> training data. Yeah.
25:37
So So there's this idea that uh untitled YouTube chat says the data is worth 10x more than one minute.
25:44
>> There were a few people that were that were mentioning this.
25:46
Um before we dig into that, let me tell you about Plaid.
25:50
Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, save, borrow, and invest securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and improve lending.
25:56
Now with AI, >> talk about a talk about a company that feels very immune to vibe coding.
26:00
Like you don't want you don't want the if somebody comes to you and they're like I got plat but I'm gonna charge you half as much. >> Oh yeah.
26:10
>> It's like well I'll take the I'll take the real one for storing and processing my customers financial information.
26:15
Noah in the chat says I don't want to read Substack without ads.
26:19
So that's >> there we go. Thank you.
26:22
>> That's advertising strongest soldier.
26:24
>> But so so the question is like you you put out this million-dollar bounty.
26:27
How many people will show up?
26:29
How many articles will actually get posted?
26:30
I am seeing a lot of articles in the uh in the feed.
26:34
It's also hilarious when you see like a Fortune 500 CEO post an article because you're like, "Oh, damn.
26:40
Are you really down and you need to mill?
26:41
Like, what's [laughter] going on, buddy?"
26:43
And it's like, "No, they're just like they're just posting news and they just need to get something out." So, they use an article.
26:47
But it's funny to imagine that they're like, "Oh, man.
26:48
The the million would change everything for me." Yeah. It's what I need. It's what I need.
26:54
Um but >> Tim Tim [laughter] Cook starts ripping articles.
26:57
It's just like >> he's like I need I I need to I can't be like within the same uh >> we're not going to do a keynote this year for the new iPhone.
27:05
We're dropping an article [laughter] and we're releasing it nine months early. No.
27:10
Um the question is uh is the data valuable?
27:14
So uh a million dollars, how many people will show up?
27:17
How many people will play the game?
27:19
How many people will buy a lottery ticket by writing original articles that go viral? Generating articles.
27:25
There's already a lot of allegations of AI slop in the articles feed.
27:29
Uh, every time I see an article, somebody tags that uh, AI detector, >> Pangrim Lab, >> Pangrim Labs.
27:35
And >> I mean, I've been seeing I've been seeing so many people quoting articles, sharing them and say, >> "You need to read this.
27:41
It's incredibly well written."
27:43
And then I tap in and it's just obviously slop.
27:48
>> Some people love slop.
27:48
I mean, uh, we're we're going to get into this with the with the the Hollywood reaction to, uh, >> Can we get a pig sound effect?
27:54
uh to uh >> thank you Scott >> to uh to to the latest Joe Rogan episode.
28:00
But um some people just there is more and more content on the internet where I see it.
28:05
Me and you can clock it as AI but you read in the comments and everyone loves it and and they're happy.
28:11
This is what Sam Alman told us like one person's slop is another person's treasure.
28:15
Like some people like this stuff.
28:16
Also there's the interesting counter dynamic which is I don't use AI to write.
28:21
I don't even I don't even put the final draft through an LLM to like reality check it or do anything.
28:26
Uh I just sort of hammer on the keyboard and type and if there's typos or weird uh weird phrases, uh that's my style.
28:35
You're just hearing it from my brain. It's like a brain dump.
28:37
Um but uh that doesn't stop people from commenting on all my on all my pieces like this is AI or did you use AI or you know how do you write so much blah blah blah.
28:46
So like there's a little bit of inevitability.
28:49
Honestly, we should just live stream you writing. >> That would be good. >> Every morning.
28:52
>> Yeah, you could see me.
28:52
You could see me lock in with the actual dock right here.
28:56
Uh I should live stream the or or at least I should put a time lapse out of my screen while I'm I'm doing this.
29:00
I mean, obviously I use LLM to research like uh for like for this uh for this article, I I needed all of the dates of different changes to X's and Twitter's like character limits.
29:11
That's obviously something I'm going to go to an LLM for.
29:15
Do the research, pull it together, find the sources for me.
29:16
It's superpowered Google search. It's great.
29:18
Um, but the question is strategically doesn't seem like anyone's going to be bailing on Substack today to move over, but there is just valuable.
29:28
And then there's also the question of like, so you're probably not going to get your own audience list on X, but will you even be able to monetize with subscriptions?
29:37
X does have subscriptions, but uh, Substack has a way more like built out.
29:42
I wonder what the I wonder what the monthly revenue is for the person that's utilizing subscriptions the best, right?
29:48
Who's the highest earning subscription driven creator?
29:53
>> I have a couple people that subscribe to me and pay me just because they're like, "Cool, we like you."
29:57
And I've never posted just to subscribers, but they're just like they're just like, "Shut up.
30:02
Keep doing what you're doing." >> Riding with Kugan.
30:04
>> I I I think it's public, so I can say like Gary Tan has just been ride or die for like years and just sending me five bucks.
30:09
I'm like, "Thanks, Gary."
30:11
>> This is not an ad to go and do that, by the No, no, no, [laughter] no, no. You will get nothing.
30:14
Um, but uh the but the interesting thing is that Substack offers more than just a one-time subscription monthly.
30:22
You can pay annually, get a discount.
30:23
You can also do like VIP tiers, different tiers, access to Discords, access to different things, um, participate in a live stream, get this, get the chat, and then there's also like business plans, group plans.
30:36
So they just have a way more mature product catalog when it comes to monetizing a a customer list or an email list.
30:43
Uh and then obviously you can take them elsewhere.
30:44
So if you ever don't if you want to if you're like look my newsletter product has grown so much that I have like enterprise level needs.
30:53
I have to be off Substack.
30:53
You can go and build something from scratch that does exactly what you want and has all the different integrations.
30:59
And you know some companies have done that. other companies.
31:04
I mean, the Free Press has scaled immensely with with Substack.
31:05
And you go to the Free Press's homepage and it's like it looks like the New York Times.
31:11
Like there's like 25 different articles popping up, little subsections.
31:14
Like it is a fullfeatured CMS for like a newspaper for like a modern newspaper.
31:19
Uh [snorts] anyway, MongoDB, choose a database built for flexibility and scale with best-in-class embedding models and rerankers.
31:26
MongoDB has what you need to build what's next.
31:29
Let's [ __ ] So um um >> how did you conclude?
31:33
>> So what was your takeaway?
31:33
My >> my question was so I don't see anyone who's a writer online who's on Substack uh being like okay now's the moment a million dollars is on the table.
31:42
I'm shutting down my Substack and I'm going over to X exclusively.
31:45
But a lot of people crossost. That's what we do.
31:48
I think a lot of people if you have a free if you have a Substack that's part free part paid post the free part on X. Why not? Like it's all upside.
31:56
It's just more attention that can actually get you into funnel.
31:59
I believe that the posting of the articles on X has been additive to our Substack list because at the end of the post we follow up and say, "Hey, this post is uh emailed as well.
32:09
You want to go check it out, go to tbpn. com."
32:12
Uh, and so we we I I think this has been net growth.
32:15
I don't think people have been like, "Oh, I'm unsubscribing from TBNN's newsletter because I'm getting it on John's random Twitter feed that may or may not surface to me in the algorithm."
32:24
Um, but I don't think so.
32:26
So, I don't think X needs writers to go allin.
32:28
I just think that they want more copies of the best writing to make their way to X.
32:32
Uh, and so if you have a great YouTube video, they want you to share it on X as well, so then they can surface that to people.
32:40
If you have a great piece of writing, put it on X as well.
32:41
And I think this does that and I think they'll be successful there.
32:44
Um, and I think they they can >> Yeah, the question I mean >> if you're if they're really successful and you have like YouTube for long form writing, like the UGC platform for long form writing, >> it's probably it's probably a solid business, but it's not going to be a juggernaut like YouTube specifically because it's not going to monetize nearly as well, right?
33:05
You have >> like they don't put ads in articles today.
33:10
It's such an >> they could add them in, but you're like locked in reading an article >> versus like when you're watching something >> totally like >> somebody's watching football and >> Yeah.
33:19
You can put a you can put a 2hour YouTube video on your smart TV and it will just play an ad and you just won't you don't need to do anything.
33:27
Whereas if you're scrolling an article and then all of a sudden an ad pops up like you you that breaks the flow of like what you're doing.
33:35
It's not it's not a passive experience, it's an active experience. So yeah. Yeah.
33:38
Yeah, I completely agree with you.
33:39
Um, I want your take on whether on the actual article experience.
33:44
First, I'm going to tell you about Figma.
33:46
Figma make isn't your average vibe coding tool.
33:48
It lives in Figma, so outputs look good, feel real, and stay connected to how teams build, create codeback prototypes, and apps fast.
33:55
So, um, uh, I was chatting with some folks who have really, really big on Twitter, a little group of folks who are all well over 100K have gotten there back in like the thread era.
34:04
They were like thread guys basically.
34:06
And uh and they were saying like I don't think Naval's how to get rich without getting lucky thread would have worked as an article that the fact that it was all these byte-size pieces like that's that's that was what was special.
34:20
Now I think personally that meta has sort of died and we haven't seen that work.
34:26
But what do you think >> coming back and just unironically ripping threads? [laughter] >> Why not? I do you miss threads?
34:37
>> You mean just like >> do do you miss that error at all?
34:39
Is it >> Can you remember any iconic threads other than Lulu's and Nal's >> and apparently Lulu was was just a long post.
34:49
Uh someone corrected in the chat.
34:51
So uh no, Naval is the main one that I remember.
34:54
Uh I probably scrolled a few threads.
34:56
I actually did have a thread that like actually blew up my account.
35:01
Uh so I was at 10,000 followers. Is this the Alaska one?
35:05
>> No, that was not that that got me unfollowed because I posted about uh bringing tech.
35:10
You know, I was early on the let's leave California train.
35:12
I said we got to go to Alaska.
35:13
We're not going to Miami.
35:15
We're not going to Texas.
35:17
We're going to Alaska because if you have runaway global warming, it's going to be beachfront property up there, baby.
35:24
It's gonna be 72 and sunny every day in Alaska. >> Palm trees.
35:27
>> Alternatively, if we solve global warming, we will have unlimited nuclear power.
35:31
You will be able to heat, air condition, do whatever you need in your Alaska compound because you will have a one megawatt nuclear reactor dropped on your doorstep and you will have unlimited power and you'll be lounging in a beautiful scenic mountain retreat perfectly temperature controlled.
35:49
>> Alaska did not like that.
35:50
>> They did not like that.
35:50
I got a lot of DMs from a lot of people showing me their guns saying, "If you come up here, California boy, there will be consequences."
35:56
And uh it was a rough day on the internet.
35:58
I had to lock my account. It was very funny.
35:59
[laughter] But uh anyway, I survived that.
36:01
But the the post that blew up my account was I I had written a uh so Chris Miller had kind of popularized the idea of of TSMC and Taiwan as an important uh geopolitical football in the ch in the US China battle.
36:17
Um and I'd read the book, really enjoyed it.
36:20
I had done a YouTube video all about USChina competition that had done very well on YouTube.
36:28
But so basically what I did was I recontextualized everything that I'd learned and pieced together for that YouTube video into a thread and uh I gave it a very salacious title.
36:36
I said because FTX was collapsing at the time something else was going on crazy.
36:41
There were like two major current things happening. >> GBT launching.
36:46
>> I don't know if it was CHVT launching but basically I was like FTX is a distraction.
36:50
you know, Elon Musk is a distraction, like you need to be focusing on on USChina policy or whatever.
36:56
Uh, and I and I just sort of like contextualized why Taiwan is important for the semiconductor supply chain in the AI boom.
37:03
And it wasn't anything revolutionary for anyone who was paying attention, but there were a lot of people who just hadn't really learned what ASML was or TSMC was at the time.
37:13
And so, just having that in a nice digestible feed, it went super viral.
37:16
And because it was so like authoritative, it took me from 10,000 followers to 20,000 followers in like a week.
37:23
>> And it was it was like really really gross.
37:25
Really really it's like the clearest jump in the follower graph.
37:26
And then everything else has just been like slow growth.
37:30
And we know this from posting like you you post like a viral funny banger.
37:33
It doesn't like double your account.
37:35
But if you posted a really really great thread, people would follow you.
37:39
And I think that's true for the articles too.
37:40
the guy who wrote the uh the how to change your life in one day.
37:45
Uh he has almost a million followers now and I imagine that he had way less than that because I'd never seen his account before. >> Yeah.
37:52
So >> because he's he's providing like insight. >> Yes.
37:57
>> You know people could critique the article or say it's you know a lot of these ideas have been talked about before but >> for better or worse he summarized like some key insights he shared it on how to improve your life.
38:05
That is value that somebody is like I want to keep improving my life.
38:08
awful or they didn't read the article.
38:10
They just saved it and followed him because they don't have time to improve their life.
38:14
[laughter] >> I'm busy right now.
38:17
>> They didn't say which day they were going to use. It could be any day.
38:20
>> So, they'll circle back on that. >> Circle back.
38:22
>> Um whereas if you just make somebody chuckle >> and then and then there's also the fact that if you spend an hour with someone or it takes half an hour to read that piece from start to finish.
38:29
Uh if you spend half an hour with someone, you feel like you know their perspective, you've learned more about them as opposed to you just see some funny post and you're like, "Ah, that's funny. They made me chuckle.
38:40
Okay, I don't need to like be in I don't really have a relationship with that person."
38:43
But once you've spent a half an hour sort of co-habiting with them, you're more likely to to hang out.
38:49
So, um so I closed out saying that, you know, uh maybe there's a you know, article apocalypse.
38:56
I'm not really seeing it.
38:56
I think the algorithm is pretty well equipped to handle stuff like this.
39:00
Um, people always seem grumpy with X generally and honestly Nikita specifically a lot of times.
39:07
Um, but I've always felt like the sloppy algorithm changes that happen like they sort themselves out really quickly.
39:13
Like there there's plenty of times when we will come in on a Monday, we'll be like, "Wow, the algorithm was really brutal over the weekend."
39:21
Like I was just seeing like just junk that didn't feel at all tied to what we're interested in.
39:26
and it just seemed like they made some change and someone hacked it and it's all just like viral videos or some quote tweet meta or some meme format.
39:33
>> There was an era where you'd get eight Elon posts in a row >> that happened.
39:36
So there like a whole bunch of different there were just a whole bunch of different like crises where people were like it's over and then a week later the algorithm sort of adjusts and learns that people don't actually like all that slop or they don't like this thing and then they adjust and it's and it's fine.
39:50
And so, um, the other little like quick tip is that if you ever really get sick of the for you page, you can actually disable it by uninstalling the app, bookmarkingx.
40:01
com as like a homepage icon that just opens in Safari if you're on an iPhone.
40:05
And then you can install this extension called social focus that will allow you to turn off the for you page.
40:10
So, it opens to your following tab by default.
40:15
And you just can't even access the for you page.
40:17
So, >> you can always do that.
40:18
I've done that for like a month here, a month there.
40:22
Honestly, it's not that much better.
40:22
And it's one of those things that's, you know, classic stated preference versus revealed preference.
40:27
Stated preference is, oh, I just want to see who I follow.
40:31
I don't want to see these random viral posts.
40:33
And then the revealed preference is like, actually, some of these viral posts are pretty good.
40:37
They're pretty funny, and I enjoy them.
40:38
Uh, and the problem with the for you with the following tab is that you is that there are some people that post a ton and there are some people that post very rarely and you want to see some sort of even balance and you don't realize that there are some folks that you follow who post a lot a lot a lot and then it's like really I just want to see the cream of the crop.
41:02
I just want to see their best post but then I want to see every post from certain people and it's hard to find tune.
41:06
Uh long term I think you know we'll get to a point where you can like define your algorithm a little bit more but uh for now you're you're you're subject to the whims of Nikita beer and fortunately [snorts] >> should we talk about >> graphite absolutely code review for the age of AI.
41:19
Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
41:23
What should we talk about?
41:25
>> We should talk about uh XAI. >> Oh yes.
41:27
What's going on with XAI?
41:27
Uh, so, uh, Ty Morse, >> yes.
41:33
>> Did a podcast with, uh, I'm gonna potentially not pronounce his name right, Sulamon. >> Sulaman Khan Gori. >> Yeah.
41:40
>> Uh, who was previously, uh, at the time when the podcast was done. >> Yes.
41:44
>> He of course was working at XAI.
41:47
He talked about WTF is happening at XAI, predicting bottlenecks, bootstrapping off the Tesla network, how Elon deals with fires, what it's like working at XAI, Cybertruck bet with Elon, how they built Colossus, how XAI hires, experimentation, how Elon re-calibrated his timeline estimates, no one tells me no, that's important. >> That's a wild one.
42:11
>> Uh, why the fuzziness between teams is an advantage.
42:14
testing human emulators as employees, biggest blunders, what a meeting with Elon is like, how Elon gives feedback, figuring out what is truth for Groipedia, what happens when Elon sees wrong Grock outputs on X, [snorts] what it's like operating in XAI's war room, >> uh, and a number of other things.
42:32
Uh, so, uh, >> massively viral, by the way.
42:36
Four million views just on X, 5,000 likes. This is a massive.
42:42
So, and so anyways, like I'll start by saying that this is fantastic content. >> Beautifully shot.
42:48
>> Well, that tie >> more fantastic team.
42:51
>> Very well done and and great content, right?
42:53
People are so curious about what's happening at XAI, right?
42:55
We want to understand, you know, uh how they're approaching different problems >> and Elon talks about it in such high level.
43:02
He's talking about, you know, a a AI, AGI, super futuristic, and then he'll give little details on like some massive buildout that he was working on.
43:12
But he's not the nitty-gritty.
43:13
>> One small problem, though. >> Yes.
43:16
>> Usually a $200 billion company >> likes to likes to control who out who's going to go out and do a tell all about the company, [laughter] right? >> Yes.
43:26
And specifically with Elon Companies, if you if you hadn't noticed, there's not a lot of people that work for Elon that go and do the podcast circuit and go talk about everything going on behind >> No.
43:36
I mean, at at SpaceX, Gwen Shotwell has given a few speeches, mostly at like commencement speeches, like inspirational speeches to colleges and that type of stuff.
43:46
She's not going on Rogan or different space podcasts or tech podcasts.
43:51
It's very rare to see content with her.
43:53
Uh and then Kiko Donv is their head of launch and he will do engagement with NASA and if there's a if there's a real heavy uh industry focused panel he might attend but he's not al he's also not just hopping on stuff and then beyond generally he's not trying to create like thousands of superstars right he does he wants you to work for him forever.
44:17
Yeah, I saw a post in here.
44:19
Uh, >> but when a company when like when when somebody when some someone super talented leaves, >> it's not like Elon in general is lining up and saying like, "Let me do your first round.
44:28
Let me do your first like, you know, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million bucks, right?
44:32
He's actively trying to incentivize people to not develop big brands.
44:36
He wants people to stay and he wants to be able to control the messaging."
44:40
>> And wait, speaking of that, look at this.
44:41
Look at this Sam Schffer post.
44:41
He went and found a 15 years ago he did a SpaceX office tour.
44:46
It is so like it's just it's crazy.
44:51
It just looks like a cubicle office.
44:53
Um but in there Sam Schoffer finds that there's someone who works on propulsion named Matthew Mchune.
45:00
Uh and he's been on Propulsion for 17 years and eight months.
45:04
Like that's exactly that's exactly what Elon wants.
45:08
a true believer who's riding with him uh through thick and thin and has probably done extremely well financially, worked on really interesting problems.
45:14
Uh is he going to be a household name?
45:17
Is he going to be on a podcast circuit? No.
45:20
But does Matthew really want that? Probably not.
45:22
He wants to he wants to propel the rockets and that's exactly what he's done for nearly two decades now.
45:28
So that's the Elon uh strategy and you should know that going into that environment.
45:34
Maybe it should be more explained, but uh it it certainly ended in in disaster in this. >> Yeah.
45:41
The the uh the funny thing is I I didn't uh catch all the interview, but they talk about uh like how like AR HR in general is like not super formalized at the company.
45:52
And so you can also imagine that like PR and like media the media relations team is not super active.
45:58
Maybe nobody in HR said, "Hey, don't go do it an hourong podcast." Yeah.
46:03
you know, if you're anybody but Elon, maybe don't do an hourong podcast telling all.
46:07
Um, and so, of course, people uh what happened ultimately, uh, Sulaman uh, uh, >> he said he's left, we don't actually know what happened, but it is odd to go do a to go do an hourong interview and then quit.
46:22
>> Anyway, so so I think good intentions uh, uh, potentially took the concept which he talks about in here, no one tells me no, a little bit too far.
46:29
Uh but uh I posted uh I posted earlier, you can't even share the internal secrets of your AI lab on a cinematic podcast in this country anymore. >> Brutal.
46:45
>> Um >> Andrew Curran had some good context here.
46:47
He said that the speculation is that this is the result of the interview he gave where he said XAI intends to run 1 million human emulations, a digital version of Optimus for online work.
46:56
Uh which will be powered by leasing compute from Tesla owners when the car is parked and charging.
47:04
So that's a that that's an interesting development that we actually haven't heard about before.
47:09
um this idea that you have the you know a pretty advanced AI chip doing self-driving in the Teslas.
47:15
They're just sitting there overnight.
47:17
Why not do some inference and lease that back to the >> Why is it a digital version of Optimus?
47:25
Is it going to be sitting there in the corner like Flippy?
47:27
>> I I mean I think realistically it's probably just like agentic rollouts.
47:29
So, if it's for online work, it's like, you know, what what are a bunch of tasks that that you could you could like turn Grock loose on?
47:37
Everything from like, you know, the classic like order Door Dash in a simulation, try and buy something on Amazon in a simulation.
47:44
All these things that require moving around on a screen, doing computer work, using Excel, building stuff, writing code, all these things that require a lot of heavy inference to roll it out, create a plan, write some code, test it, go back, double check, test it again, blah blah blah.
48:03
Um, oh, I somewhat remember, but maybe not quite in as much detail, right?
48:08
I feel like when I remember him talking about this kind of thing, it was like, yeah, we have like distributed compute that we can leverage.
48:14
Yeah, this might be in more detail, but uh still again uh if you're at a company, any company, you should probably clear the uh the the public speaking engagements with >> Solomon didn't just read Lulu's going direct.
48:29
He [laughter] studied and he sat down. >> That's wild.
48:33
>> Um >> and uh I I actually DM'd with him briefly this morning and I think he's going to work on a startup.
48:37
Okay, so we'll have to have him on at some point when he's ready to talk about.
48:40
It certainly now honestly kind of benefit of like going and working at a Google or Meta is they'll straight up tell you don't talk to the media unless you've been explicitly >> or or or go I mean there's different there's different strategies at different companies.
48:56
Some companies are totally cool with a bunch of people going out and talking about their business.
49:01
Um but yeah uh that this seems like one of the more secretive organizations.
49:07
So uh a life lesson there.
49:10
Anyway, console console builds AI agents that automates 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets.
49:21
>> Uh, >> let's go over to Ben Affleck.
49:23
>> Ben Affleck, you know, uh, I I had a premonition, I had a little preview that this was going to happen.
49:28
He went on Joe Rogan and gave some very good takes on AI.
49:31
There's some discussion over how good of takes they are, but uh, I ran into somebody that said that they uh, met ban.
49:38
met ban. they were like a proper AI researcher and they said that they met Ben Affleck and he used compute as a noun and they were like yeah that was impressive like he's talking about like scaling comput very very deep in this which you know he went to Harvard it's not it's not shocking but I think I
49:54
think there's just a general vibe that like Hollywood is behind or out of the or out of the loop to the point where they wouldn't know the big models they wouldn't have tested them it's like no this is their business >> I mean there are some like Joseph Gordon Levit pretty chapped in his wife on that board of open AI back back in the day. >> Uh she was
50:10
>> Uh she was >> she was that's Yeah, he's how you can't get more tapped in than that.
50:12
That's >> Well, hasn't he just been spewing like AI safety nonsense?
50:18
>> He's a big safety guy.
50:19
>> He's a doomer or just a safety guy. >> Uh >> he's a doomer. >> Doomer >> with that.
50:23
>> He said uh today we're announcing a new organization called the Creators Coalition on AI.
50:28
>> Well, fortunately we have the counterpoint to that because Ben Affleck is not a doomer.
50:32
He's actually pretty white and it seemed like a really good interview.
50:36
Uh let's play this first clip.
50:38
U from Forest uh who says that Ben Affleck has great takes across the board.
50:43
What I see is for example you try to get Chat GBT or Claude or Gemini to write you something.
50:49
It's really shitty and it's shitty because by its nature it goes to the mean to the average and it's and it's not reliable and it's I mean I just can't even stand to see what's writes.
51:01
Now, it's a useful tool if you're a writer and you're going, "Uh, what's the thing?
51:05
I'm trying to set something up where somebody sends someone a letter, but it's delayed two days and gets and it can give you some examples of that.
51:11
I actually don't think it's very likely that it can it's going to be able to write anything meaningful or and in particular that it's going to be making movies like from whole cloth like Tilly Nor like that's [ __ ] I don't think that's going to happen.
51:24
I think it's not I think it actually turns out the technology is not progressing in exactly the same way they sort of presented it.
51:31
Um and really what it is is plateau >> just like sort of visual effects.
51:36
>> There there was a line in here.
51:37
>> Yeah, there there was a line in here where I was like that is a Carpathy line.
51:40
Like he definitely heard this from Carpathy.
51:42
He's listening to Dorash for sure >> for money.
51:45
I can't you can sue me period.
51:46
It kind of feels to me like the thing we were talking about earlier where there's a lot more >> the the whole idea of like these models being mid. That's not quite true.
51:53
I mean, it's hard with like to develop a reinforcement learning environment with a verifiable reward for like a a great script that will break through because even the great script writers have flops that are unexpected.
52:06
Literally, everyone thinks it's great and then it goes out and it just is a box office bomb.
52:10
Um, we we we can pause this for a minute.
52:12
Um, but uh later he actually makes a stronger case I think because they're talking about Dwayne the Rock Johnson in the film The Smashing Machine and Matt Damon is recalling an interview that he did with Dwayne Johnson about his, you know, one of the most climactic scenes in the Smashing Machine uh that's very emotional and they and they and he asks Dwayne, you know, how did you pick this, you know, emotion.
52:43
He he pulls up a sheet because he's sad and like what were you conjuring?
52:47
What were you drawing on to create that experience as an actor and bring that emotion to the screen because Matt Damon saying like I loved that I love that scene.
52:57
I loved your performance. Where'd that come from?
53:00
Cuz you're >> is he thinking about content without ads [laughter] in order to draw on the sort of like deep sad emotions? >> Yes.
53:06
That might be what does it for you.
53:08
I mean, uh, Dwayne Johnson gave like a very emotional response about, uh, a family member who was diagnosed with cancer and he was in the room when she got the news.
53:17
And so, uh, and so her reaction, he was like channeling that. It was very emotional.
53:22
And then the other one was, I think, uh, about another family member who had substance abuse issues.
53:27
And so it was just this very unique blend of human experiences that he was able to bring to bear.
53:32
And I I continue to think that the the lore and the storytelling that happens outside of a piece of content is as important as the actual content in many cases.
53:45
This was the same thing with with art and uh and the NFT boom.
53:47
It's not like the the scarcity is important, but the storytelling behind the the art piece is a lot of it.
53:56
Like people like a Van Go because they know about him cutting off his ear and all this history and he's in all the history books and everyone just knows Van Go and Yes, you can go >> even with with with cars, right?
54:05
It's um >> a car is worth more if the prior if the previous owner had was significant in some way. >> Yes. Yes. Yes.
54:13
A Steve McQueen is going to is going to sell for more.
54:15
Um, and uh, and and I think that that for certain storytelling elements, for certain stories, that lore of like who this person is and their likeness and then and then he also makes a really good point that it's like, yes, you can I mean, you can obviously generate something that looks exactly like a Van Go right now.
54:35
You can paint it with someone who knows exactly how to paint like Van Go.
54:38
It's not going to have anywhere near the value.
54:39
And and when he gets to the idea of uh just AI generating a a a Dwayne Johnson movie, it's like, well, he'll sue you immediately and that's very easy.
54:48
And you've been able to photoshop Dwayne Johnson into marketing materials for years, and we've had a system for counteracting that.
54:56
Like, you have to pay licensing fees, and that will happen.
55:00
Uh so, he has a good he has a good balance.
55:01
Um we can go into this second clip from Barely AI.
55:04
I think that's Trunk Fans company.
55:07
uh because uh it's a little bit long.
55:10
It's about a four-minute piece.
55:11
So, while we pull that up, let me tell you about label box, RL environments, voice, robotics, eval, and expert human data.
55:17
Label box is the data factory behind the world's leading AI teams. >> Get in the box. >> Label box. >> The label box.
55:25
Uh let's pull up Ben Affleck diving a little bit deeper and we might have to skip ahead.
55:31
>> Yeah, we've been spending time looking at this like my belief is it's sort of like what's going to happen.
55:34
we can skip to like 50 is going to happen with electricity and it's and it's don't think it's very likely that it can it's going to be able to write anything meaningful or and in particular that it's going to be making movies like from whole cloth like Tilly Nor like that's [ __ ] Can you pause this?
55:49
So, >> I think that he he basically says that like >> he doesn't think that like I an iconic amazing movie is going to be generated by AI.
55:59
And I sort of agree with that.
56:01
But I think it's important to consider like what are we defining as a movie because we don't really watch movies anymore anyway. People watch content.
56:11
And if you think about it like you know decades ago people might see one movie a month or one movie a week and that's like two to eight hours a month of screen time.
56:20
Well, now people are doing two to eight hours of screen time a day, but uh but it but it's these fragmented pieces.
56:28
And so if if AI seeps into the cracks of within the cracks within the cracks and you're and it's the goal is not to create the experience of a two-hour movie that you show in a theater and you get everyone to come and buy tickets.
56:43
>> Joe Rogan's really turned into Dwar for A-listers.
56:48
>> Just come on and talk about AI, right?
56:49
Remember McConn was talking about wanting this like personal LLM? >> Oh yeah.
56:55
>> Where you can log data in.
56:56
>> Yeah, that that one was a little bit rougher than this.
56:58
Uh Affleck's got it dialed.
57:01
Let's continue with that.
57:03
>> I think it's not I think it actually turns out the technology is not progressing in exactly the same way they sort of >> presented it.
57:09
Um and really what it is is going to be a tool >> just like sort of visual effects and yeah it needs to have language around it.
57:15
You need to protect your name and likeness. You can do that. You can watermark it.
57:18
You're those laws already exist.
57:20
You can't I can't sell your [ __ ] picture for money. I can't. You can sue me. Period.
57:23
I might have the ability to draw you to make you in a very realistic way, but that's already against the law.
57:30
And the unions are going to I think the guilds are going to manage this where it's like, >> okay, look, if this is a tool that actually helps us, for example, we don't have to go to the North Pole, right?
57:39
We can shoot the scene here in our parkas and you know whatever it is and but then make it appear very realistically as if we're in the North Pole.
57:47
It'll save us a lot of money, a lot of time.
57:49
We're going to focus on the performances and not be freezing our ass up out there and running back inside. >> That's for a second.
57:56
Just like Spencer Tracy and >> before you rebut this, let me tell you about that vibe.
58:01
co Co, where DTOC brands, B2B startups, and AI companies advertise on streaming TV, pick channels, target audiences, and measure sales just like on Meta. Continue.
58:10
>> Small chance that >> AI saves Hollywood >> as as a place, right?
58:15
You're getting claps >> as a place. Yeah.
58:19
>> And the reason for that is one of the issues right now is filming is so expensive in LA.
58:22
There's so much red tape that people have to go to Atlanta, Canada, Europe, whatever, international.
58:28
And but all the all the all the talent, the writers, directors, producers, the platforms, they're still here, right? It's very depressing. It's a bad vibe.
58:38
All the restaurants are shutting down. Everything's cooked.
58:40
But if you can start to generate the content here just on your computer, >> there's a chance that you see a kind of resurgence uh in in Hollywood, the place, right? Yeah.
58:52
And I think that uh realistically that is the strategy that that um the industry should take because like having this concentration here there's already so much talent keeping it here uh and actually embracing AI is much more likely to revitalize the city. >> Yeah.
59:10
Uh there's there's an incredible quote in here.
59:12
Hopefully we can get to it.
59:14
Let's let's skip ahead and play because he has a line that truly is directly out of Andre Kurpathy's mouth.
59:20
That's >> like talking about earlier where there's a lot more fear because we have the sense this existential dread.
59:24
It's going to wipe everything out.
59:28
>> But that actually runs counter in my view to what history seems to show which paradox slow. It's incremental.
59:36
>> Um I think a lot of that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify valuations around companies.
59:40
[laughter] We're gonna change everything in two years.
59:44
Literally a carpathy line.
59:44
Well, the reason they're saying that is because they need to ascribe a valuation for investment that can warrant the capex.
59:54
[clears throat] [laughter] >> Oh, you know, he's sitting there taking notes.
59:58
Make the social network three, but it's just about Dark Cash and Carpathy hanging out and Ilia.
1:00:06
It's just about AI research.
1:00:09
It's about an it's about an exciting nurse and that's it.
1:00:14
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1:00:19
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1:00:22
People are already having fun with the memes out of this.
1:00:23
I like this amend and pretend.
1:00:25
Ben Affleck on AI software.
1:00:28
I suspect many AI native software companies are misrepresenting their growth in quality of revenue.
1:00:32
Use of credits annualizing proof of concept revenue and lack of annual contracts lowers the overall quality of revenue and ultimately the multiple.
1:00:40
I [laughter] mean, he's not that I mean, this is a joke.
1:00:43
I can actually say that, but he's not that far off from what >> this is. A great template.
1:00:47
I hope this meme runs way further because it's so good. Uh, banger. >> I love it.
1:00:53
Um, >> uh, oh, Forest also clipped uh uh Ben Ben Affleck talking about the GPT40 people.
1:01:01
Let's play this because this is interesting.
1:01:03
And while we pull it up, let me tell you about Cisco, critical infrastructure for the AI era.
1:01:07
We are very pleased to be partnered with Cisco AI's new frontier, the edge. Let's do it.
1:01:15
>> Early AI, the line went up very steeply and it's now sort of leveling off.
1:01:19
I think it's because and yes, it'll get better, but it's going to be really expensive to get better.
1:01:24
And a lot of people are like, "Fuck this.
1:01:26
We want because it turned out like the vast majority of people who use AI are using it to like as like companion bots to chat with at night [laughter] and stuff.
1:01:37
There's no work, there's no productivity, there's no value to it.
1:01:40
>> I would argue there's also not a lot of social value to getting people to like focus on an AI friend who's, you know, telling you that you're great and listening to everything you say and being.
1:01:52
>> That's sort of a side issue.
1:01:54
>> Tyler's disengaged over there. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:57
>> What's your What's your rebuttal? What's your rebuttal?
1:01:58
Let's give Let's give a rebuttal. >> Defend.
1:02:02
I think most of these takes are like pretty outdated. Okay.
1:02:04
Yeah, like writing is actually AI.
1:02:05
Writing, you can still tell that it's AI, but it's like >> it's good.
1:02:11
>> Um, videos are like I I think >> like >> Okay. Okay. Sell a screenplay then. Sell a screenplay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Shop shop a screenplay. >> Do it. >> Do it. >> Yeah.
1:02:20
But why would I why would I sell a screenplay?
1:02:22
I could just make the whole movie myself. Okay.
1:02:24
>> Like I So just make the movie. He has this idea.
1:02:26
>> Just make the finished movie.
1:02:26
Call up Netflix and get a million dollar advance for your movie.
1:02:31
>> Instead of filming in Antarctica, you can just get in the parkas and film it here, right?
1:02:34
You don't need the Parkers either.
1:02:44
>> Yeah, I will say I will say just in the last two weeks, >> I am getting served AI content that's pretty good. >> Pretty good.
1:02:53
>> There's some pretty good stuff out there.
1:02:54
Now, [clears throat] a lot of it's like a lot of it still has that like creative human element like someone will take an iconic movie scene.
1:03:00
>> Still all about the idea >> ground.
1:03:02
It's about the idea >> and the idea didn't come from the idea >> from the model.
1:03:05
>> It's a bull market for ideas.
1:03:07
>> Yeah, >> it'll be good.
1:03:07
And maybe I feel get good at ideas, but but that does feel like the next breakthrough.
1:03:12
>> This idea that uh Ben saying I would I would push back a little bit on Ben saying like you're not just going to be able to generate a film.
1:03:20
>> You will, but it won't be a film in the sense that it won't be Titanic.
1:03:23
It won't be something that everyone goes to the movie theater, sits down, watches the same film.
1:03:27
It will be a lot of films that are for different people.
1:03:30
I don't think there'll be anything.
1:03:32
>> Yeah, but I'm just saying like people are going to people are going to create like insane fanfiction style heroes journey kind of like like standardized plot, but for a specific sub community, you'll have like one subreddit where everyone is watching. >> Totally.
1:03:47
And I mean there there is a lot of just slop movie content on streaming platforms right now.
1:03:52
Like you can just go and watch >> Gapier Tyler put AFLAC in the truth zone.
1:03:57
>> Not not everything is Yeah.
1:03:57
>> Not not everything is Yeah. Not every movie is is you know is Titanic is you know Sakario like a lot of look on Netflix >> there's a lot of stuff yeah they spend a million dollars but >> every time I every time I look on
1:04:12
Netflix I'm like is these are these are films >> I know there's a lot of slop on there >> uh anyway >> yeah so I I think um like in in Hollywood at least like I like a lot of movies um like there's certain writers that I like but it's hard to get Wait you said you like movies >> all All right. >> Name every film. [laughter] >> Name every film.
1:04:29
[laughter] Name every film on the TVPN chat. Best film list. >> Best movie list. >> Okay.
1:04:36
But you always hear about like certain writers, they have a hard time getting their films made because maybe it's like kind of a weird concept or something like it's it's hard to market.
1:04:43
But this is like AI is actually much better for them, right?
1:04:45
Because if you have someone who's like actually has some like unique look at the world or or they're like very creative or something like AI is like super good for them but kind of only for them, right?
1:04:52
So maybe in the industry it's not super great.
1:04:56
But for the people like if there's a certain director that I like really love, they're going to be, you know, they're going to be able to make way more of their movies or whatever, you know, instantiate all their ideas.
1:05:06
>> Why are people saying that the Papa Thai is is AI generated?
1:05:09
This this song's from 2013.
1:05:12
Someone saying that there's the most viral song of 20 of the year so far is a is an AI generated song, but it must be based on another.
1:05:21
It's an AI cover of a human written song. Okay. Yeah.
1:05:28
So, it's like style transfer on top of it's like a it's like a filter.
1:05:31
This still feels like tool level. Um not not to push back.
1:05:35
I mean that is that is an interesting watershed moment that uh something that involves AI could be so dominant.
1:05:40
But uh there is a lot of like human work at um at play there to build the original song that then was was edited with AI.
1:05:50
Uh anyway, uh Cognition, they're the makers of Devon, the AI software engineer.
1:05:56
Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team.
1:06:01
[applause] Anything else on Hollywood or should we move on to the battle between >> Chad is calling Tyler based Zoomer? >> He's he's a Zoomer. It's good. Good times. Um okay.
1:06:12
So uh there's an update to the uh Elon Musk OpenAI lawsuit which is sitting at about 60% chance that Elon wins on Kali right now on the prediction markets.
1:06:23
that uh Elon Musk is now seeking so on the day that the Brockman files went out, started going viral, OpenAI put out a uh a a release, they they countered some of the narratives, added some more context, but they also sent out a letter to their investors saying, "Hey, look, we think it's going to be $34 million or something at worst.
1:06:44
We'll have to pay him back for what he donated, but it's not going to be >> Well, they said, we think we think this is the most, but it could be more. >> It could be more."
1:06:52
and Elon said, "Yeah, it's going to be more.
1:06:54
It's going to be $134 billion in damages uh is what Elon is seeking."
1:06:59
Uh Elon uh Musk's legal team argues that his early funding and involvement materially contributed to OpenAI's rise, which is now valued at 500 billion, and he wants a slice.
1:07:09
The lawsuit says OpenAI has become a for-profit company, entitling Musk to compensation tied to the value created from his early contributions. Musk.
1:07:18
Musk helped found OpenAI in 2015 and donated approximately 38 million in early funding.
1:07:25
When asked about the lawsuit, Elon Musk responded, "I've lost a few battles over the years, but I've never lost a war." It's funny. >> And here's the thing. Here's the thing. So, so great line. Yes.
1:07:39
>> But I don't think this lawsuit >> is the war.
1:07:42
I think it's a battle in a longer war.
1:07:45
And I think that uh it it it may play a role in how the and how this sort of like war between XAI and OpenAI or Elon versus Sam evolves.
1:07:55
But >> uh ultimately like this judge is not going to make you know the judge and jury are not going to make a decision that just like decides the war, right? Yes.
1:08:03
Yes. just uh uh like the war is going to be won by overwhelming >> domination in the categories that they compete which right now consumer >> uh enterprise and I'm sure >> if he gets that it's like over 25% of the company something like that >> and that's going to be and that's going
1:08:22
to be hard again depending I'm sure it'll come out how much Sam owns exactly in this in this in the case but um >> it's going to be hard to justify that he deserves more than Sam given given their >> and also just play out what happens if Elon does get all 134 billion. >> It's like you're not CEO. You're not you
1:08:43
>> It's like you're not CEO.
1:08:43
You're not you don't have board control.
1:08:46
You don't have super voting shares, but you're a massive shareholder that can just constantly do shareholder lawsuits.
1:08:51
And so that's going to be incredibly annoying and very bad.
1:08:54
Uh but at the same time, like maybe a distraction.
1:08:57
How do you actually get to control if that's what Elon's going for?
1:09:01
Uh it's a very very odd scenario to to to work through even though I don't I don't think it's likely that it lands there.
1:09:09
Um we will we will see what the judge thinks of the and and where the damages land if he wins, which is still, you know, not guaranteed by any means.
1:09:17
Um it could it could wind up being a fear victory for Elon.
1:09:22
It could be something where he wins the he wins the battle, but he loses the war in this in the sense that like it's a distraction.
1:09:26
There's going to be a ton of discovery.
1:09:28
It'll be, you know, ultimately even if he gets 100 billion, he's worth 700 billion.
1:09:32
It's like, you know, a drop in the bucket or I mean, he's like 10% richer then. Okay.
1:09:39
Uh, does that really matter? 20% richer.
1:09:41
Of course, it matters, but it's not.
1:09:43
>> Gabe says, "Once I churn from chat GBT, they are screwed.
1:09:46
[laughter] >> The straw that that broke the >> Yeah.
1:09:51
A couple people have been coming out rallying supportive Elon saying that they're uh they're churning. They're out.
1:09:57
Uh seems like Sequoia is is is maybe picking a winner. Happy to diversify.
1:10:03
They're planning a big investment into Anthropic joining a uh a round led by GIC and CO2. They're investing 1. 5 each.
1:10:11
Anthropic is raising a 25 billion.
1:10:13
Uh and this is uh yeah Sequoia gets the Financial Times article because it's uh it's an exciting uh exciting moment to have them pick.
1:10:21
So, uh, Financial Time says, "Squoya Capital is lining up a big investment into anthropic, throwing its weight behind the AI startup for the first time as part of a funding round set to raise tens of billions of dollars.
1:10:32
The California Adventure Capital Group is funding around led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and US investor CO2, who are contributing 1. 5 billion each.
1:10:41
According to multiple people, uh these people said Anthropic is raising 25 billion in a deal that values the company at 350, more than doubling its $170 billion valuation just four months ago.
1:10:52
We've heard about this round for months now, but these things take a long time.
1:10:56
So, we won't be ringing the gong until we get Daario on the show and and the deal is closed.
1:11:00
Um, >> so Microsoft and Nvidia have committed to invest up to 15 billion into the company and VCs and other investors are doing 10 of the 25 that they're raising.
1:11:13
Uh, Sequoia obviously had a shakeup rolloff both in charge of Sequoia passed on previous funding rounds for Anthropic was wary of the concentration of VC investment into a handful of highly valued startups arguing that venture capital was not an asset class.
1:11:25
He said in an interview last year that throwing money into Silicon Valley doesn't yield more great companies.
1:11:30
Uh he was ousted in November with the firm's partners electing Pat Grady and Alfred Lynn to co-lead the firm instead.
1:11:36
Sequoa was an early investor stewards.
1:11:40
>> The stewards Google, Apple, Airbnb, and Stripe and has backed some of anthropic's biggest rivals.
1:11:44
Sequoia invested in Open AI's funding round last year and Elon Musk's AI group XAI.
1:11:48
So venture capital firms rarely back rival startups in the same field preferring to pick winners in each category.
1:11:54
But the scale of the financial opportunity in AI has changed that approach and claude code is just too much fun. They love it.
1:12:01
They can't stop using it and so they had to get a checkin but >> got to get a piece.
1:12:06
>> Anyway, railway railway simplifies software deployment.
1:12:09
Web servers, apps and databases run in one place with scaling, monitoring and security built in. >> Well said, John.
1:12:16
Continuing uh little known fact, Sequoia was an early investor in Ilio, owning 6.
1:12:20
3% of the company at its 1997 IPO.
1:12:24
I love that the Sequoia team in the early days was like doing pizza joints and restaurants and software.
1:12:32
You know, didn't they own uh uh Chuck-e-Cheese, right? Yep. >> That was a funny one.
1:12:36
So, uh yeah, this is from Andrew Reid.
1:12:38
Il Forio owns and operates 13 fullervice white tablecloth Italian restaurants serving creatively prepared premium quality Italian cuisine based on authentic regional recipes.
1:12:52
What a fantastic business.
1:12:52
And Sequoia Capital got a a huge slug. 6. 3% at the IPO. >> Um yeah. So so uh sad news.
1:12:59
Elfor Nio, how do how do you say it? >> Elio. El Ferno.
1:13:04
Uh they're closing their uh uh restaurant in the Bay.
1:13:10
>> Elio was like the cool spot to go before high school dances when I grew up.
1:13:15
>> It was like the I think there's one in Pasadena. It's really good.
1:13:17
I hope that they can keep it open somehow or someone can >> This feels like the FTX of [laughter] the era just you know shutting you know shutting down closing locations. >> Sure. Yeah.
1:13:32
>> You know so much history. >> Sequoia involvement. involvement.
1:13:35
[laughter] >> Ridiculous.
1:13:35
Now, that was obviously years and years ago.
1:13:37
Um, anyway, uh, these these guys love violating narratives.
1:13:43
>> It is so funny to think about Sequoia getting a deck for a restaurant, >> being like, "This is we got to get into this one. >> This is right down.
1:13:50
>> We got to get in right down the fairway.
1:13:53
>> Right [laughter] down the fairway. This is our sweet spot." We've been waiting.
1:13:56
We had a market map of restaurants.
1:13:56
We We had Italian, authentic Italian carved out. There was no one there.
1:14:00
We we did a we did a two axis graph. Italian authentic.
1:14:05
You're in the sweet spot. You got a deal.
1:14:07
We're taking >> You were not going to believe this.
1:14:08
The founder for the for the partner meeting invited us to the restaurant. The food was fantastic.
1:14:15
>> You know, they they they actually did another restaurant later. They did the Melt.
1:14:17
Are you familiar with this? >> Sequoa. Yeah. Sequoa did the Melt.
1:14:19
Uh which is a grilled cheese spot. It's still going. It's all around LA. I I I I enjoy The Melt. >> That is >> Yeah. Grilled cheese.
1:14:28
>> As if I needed a reason to love Sequoa more. >> I know. Amazing.
1:14:30
They're supporting the grilled cheese.
1:14:34
>> It's a really funny story because the guy the founder I believe was like a amazing physicist like a genius mathematician or someone really really quantitative and they were like you're the one that can solve fast casual grilled cheeses and I think you scaled the business.
1:14:48
I think it's done pretty well.
1:14:49
But >> Wall Street Journal article from 2014 Sequoia backed the melt moves beyond grilled cheese. >> Yes. Yeah. They have burgers now. They have soups. I I used to go there.
1:14:58
>> They got burger mac and cheese.
1:15:00
get a grilled cheese and a cup of tomato soup. It was delicious. It was amazing. Anyway, Shopify.
1:15:03
Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents.
1:15:13
So, uh, David Sax says, "Narrative violation."
1:15:16
And Joe Wisenthal says, "These guys love violating narratives."
1:15:20
[laughter] Uh, the narrative violation is that the largest AI data center uses roughly the same amount of water as two burger joints.
1:15:27
They are over there are over 200,000 fast food restaurants in the United States.
1:15:32
So this is a tiny amount.
1:15:35
This is of course from semi analysis.
1:15:37
They did a whole write up a breakdown uh comparing various water usage.
1:15:39
We were asking when is the semi-analysis water model coming?
1:15:45
Uh well it's here and they and they did a a whole analysis on uh how much water these data centers are using and it's a lot lower than people think.
1:15:55
It's in many cases less than golf courses.
1:15:57
It's not nothing, but it certainly seems manageable, which is great news because people have been worried about this and now we have some hard data to point to when you want to say, "Hey, it's the water thing is actually not that big of a deal.
1:16:09
Let's focus on the energy thing because that actually is a big deal.
1:16:12
Let's build some nuclear power plants.
1:16:14
Let's get some solar on the ground and let's uh let's get some more energy up and to the right."
1:16:20
So, uh there's another narrative violation.
1:16:22
Another narrative violation has hit the timeline.
1:16:24
David Sax's narrative violation.
1:16:26
According to Black Rockck, the US does not have enough workers to meet the surging demand for the construction boom.
1:16:32
AI is creating too many jobs.
1:16:34
And there's a beautiful picture of a >> overnight success, >> some sort of construction equipment.
1:16:39
Um, and so the Black Rockck is now warning that uh a worker shortage could hurt construction boom.
1:16:47
We heard that whole >> story.
1:16:49
If I was graduating uh, you know, high school, college, didn't want to work in an office, I would actually get a plane ticket down to Texas. I'd show up to Abalene. >> Yeah.
1:17:00
>> With my ID and say, "Put me to work." >> Yeah.
1:17:03
>> And I bet you could get a job.
1:17:04
>> I've told I've told several people to to to do that.
1:17:05
At least like take the trip to some of these like new gold rush towns and see if there's a way to bring your business there as a real estate agent, a lawyer, like whatever you're doing.
1:17:15
like actually go go and understand like how much is this going to change the community uh because it certainly has in the past.
1:17:20
Anyway, Crowd Strike, your business is AI, their business is securing it.
1:17:25
Crowd Strike secures AI and stops breaches.
1:17:30
We were hanging out with uh >> uh some folks at >> the Singer Drivers Club yesterday uh our friend of the show Paul uh and a number of the coaches who are professional drivers were talking about >> how much a legend George founder of Crowd Strike is like he has he has uh the respect of >> like >> the most elite drivers in the world like this guy is the real deal.
1:17:56
Speaking of driving, we have seen Elon, he's beefing with Sam.
1:18:03
He's suing Open AI and he wants 136 billion, something like that.
1:18:10
He's said that he will drop the lawsuit if they change their name to closed AI.
1:18:14
And there has to be there has to be a point where if the judge is about to actually issue 136 billion, >> call up Delaware.
1:18:21
Hey, >> no, >> I got a name change.
1:18:25
>> This is this is not a joke.
1:18:25
I mean like like would chat GPT actually see a decline in user numbers if they changed the company's name to closed AI. I don't think so.
1:18:35
I think a lot of people just think about it as chat.
1:18:37
They think about Chat GBT. They maybe know Open AI.
1:18:38
They maybe know Sam Alman's name.
1:18:41
They don't know Greg Brockman.
1:18:43
Like the average chatbt user could probably deal with a name change.
1:18:50
>> I don't think Ben I don't think Ben Afflac would be able to handle it. >> I know. No, he would be upset.
1:18:53
But truly like I mean Facebook rebranded to Meta. It's entirely new name. >> Okay, John.
1:18:58
But like realistically the lawsuit's not getting dropped because of the name change.
1:19:02
A post is not a contract.
1:19:05
>> He will abide by the results. Okay.
1:19:05
He will abide by the results.
1:19:08
>> Well, he's also he's also asking if we should buy if he should buy Ryan Air. Have you seen that? >> Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that.
1:19:13
But but but I have another I have another way to resolve the lawsuit. Okay.
1:19:15
So when when Elon was beefing with Zuck, do you remember when they were going to go in the octagon?
1:19:21
They were going to do they were going to fight it They were going to do UFC mixed martial arts battle.
1:19:24
Do you remember what they were fighting over? >> No. >> Isn't that hilarious?
1:19:29
Do you remember what they were fighting over? >> No. >> I can't remember.
1:19:31
I can only [laughter] remember the fight, but I looked it up.
1:19:35
And they were fighting because uh Mark Zuckerberg was about to launch threads and it was and and Elon was in this vulnerable position where he where he levered up to buy Twitter and he bought it sort of at the top and Twitter and the whole market was down and he was legally obligated to buy it and so there's a lot of debt.
1:19:51
There was a big question of like what is he gonna do with Twitter?
1:19:53
Is he gonna be able to juice it and get the ad product working?
1:19:57
All the advertisers were leaving.
1:19:57
He was in a vulnerable position.
1:19:58
And that's when Mark Zuckerberg was like, I'm jumping in with my competitor threads and I'm leveraging the Instagram network.
1:20:04
I'm really piping everyone in.
1:20:06
Uh I'm it's a shot across the bow.
1:20:06
And so Elon said, "Hey, absolute dog."
1:20:11
>> He put Connor in charge.
1:20:11
Uh and uh and and Elon took it personally and said, "We got to settle this in the in the octagon."
1:20:18
And uh but it never happened.
1:20:20
They were thinking about doing the coliseum.
1:20:21
Dana White said, "I I'll officiate. I'll make it happen. I'm down.
1:20:25
Like, I'm I'm into this." Uh, never happened.
1:20:27
But I was thinking, how can Sam and Elon settle their lawsuit that doesn't require a bunch of jurors in Oakland wasting a bunch of time in the courtroom?
1:20:36
They got to settle it on track.
1:20:37
They got to get the track pay-per-view as well. >> No, no, no.
1:20:40
Obviously, they're not getting in the octagon.
1:20:41
That's not going to happen. >> Track is good.
1:20:43
Tesla Tesla starts their own Formula 1 team.
1:20:46
Yeah, Sam's got his McLaren F1.
1:20:50
>> Yeah, I want to see Sam in the McLaren F1.
1:20:52
Uh Elon in the Tesla Plaid.
1:20:52
I want them around the Nurburg Ring. Uh 24 hours Lemon style.
1:20:57
They got to go for 24 hours.
1:21:01
>> And then and then they got to do they got to do a 0 to 60 or uh they got to do a quarter mile race.
1:21:05
They got to do an illegal street race for sure.
1:21:06
That's definitely got to happen.
1:21:08
They also got to do a drift track.
1:21:10
Yeah, >> I want to see them both drifting.
1:21:11
And they probably got to do a Pikes Peak as well.
1:21:14
I want to hear both of them racing up Pike Speak.
1:21:17
And then you do sort of like best of five, like you do a 24 hours of Le Man, see who does best there.
1:21:22
Average that with whoever's quickest off the line in a quarter mile, then >> the drag race, too.
1:21:28
>> Maybe throw in an Indy500.
1:21:28
I want like a month of Elon and Sam just racing various vehicles against each other.
1:21:34
>> And and this would satisfy the people that are saying, "Pause AI." >> Yeah, the AI. This is great. Okay, >> we'll pause. >> Yes.
1:21:40
And it's a month of live streamed races between Sam and Elon. >> It's like to France. >> Yes. Yeah. Exactly.
1:21:45
They go from one place to another.
1:21:47
Uh do every every different circuit. >> Yeah.
1:21:50
Bobby says and a cannonball.
1:21:52
>> And they definitely have to do a cannonball.
1:21:53
Just whoever gets from New York to LA faster, we drop the lawsuit. They win the lawsuit. That would be ideal. Anyway, Lambda.
1:22:00
Lambda is the super intelligence cloud building AI supercomputers for training inference that scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands.
1:22:08
So, uh, Rune posted, "Do your duty while weeping if you must.
1:22:12
There's nothing clean and gentle in the crooked timber of human relations."
1:22:16
And Gabriel says, "Every Rune tweet contains material non-public information, and it's your job to get it out."
1:22:23
[laughter] And there has been a lot to read into the Rune tweets lately.
1:22:27
Uh, he's been on a tear, but we won't we won't speculate anymore.
1:22:31
Um, what else should we >> in the journal? in the journal.
1:22:36
>> Why the tech world thinks the American dream is dying.
1:22:39
>> Silicon Valley fears this is the last chance to amass generational wealth before AI makes money worthless.
1:22:46
>> People are really into the underclass.
1:22:47
This guy doesn't chatter thousand comments on the WSJ.
1:22:52
>> It's kind of a confusing subtitle >> because why would you if if AI makes money like the people that think AI is going to make money worthless are the ones that are just going to go sit in the park, right? Is that the whole point? >> Potentially. Potentially. Um, let's get into it.
1:23:05
Yeah, >> Silicon Valley is filled with all sorts of dreams, but one of those wildeyed ideas long debated on subreddits and in hacker houses is becoming a real life nightmare.
1:23:14
Will the AI boom be the last chance to get rich before AI makes money essentially worthless?
1:23:18
Uh, one note, >> yeah, >> there's some people that love making money so much they will keep doing it for the love of the game.
1:23:27
It's just going to be like a sport.
1:23:29
Yeah, >> it'll be like going and playing putting on the cleats and playing a little soccer, right? You're just running up.
1:23:35
You just want to run up the score sometime.
1:23:37
>> Even if even if money becomes worthless, you know, people are still going to be looks maxing.
1:23:40
It's going to be all status games.
1:23:42
It's all going to be height maxing, various levels of inserts in the shoes.
1:23:46
It's going to be a whole >> No, I think what I'm saying is like in that scenario, it would actually just be like a video game.
1:23:51
Like, yeah, I made a unicorn.
1:23:54
>> Did it change my life? No.
1:23:54
Did I just wanted to prove that I could do it? >> Sure. >> Right.
1:23:58
It's like somebody that's running a marathon.
1:23:59
And >> like grow a unicorn like like that bio company we talked to.
1:24:05
>> What do you mean make a unicorn?
1:24:07
>> Oh, like actually build a company just purely for >> a literal unicorn because in this AI abundance era, you could potentially go to Claude Code and say, "Don't make mistakes. Make a unicorn. >> Make a unicorn."
1:24:17
>> Genetically modify a horse. >> Anyways, continuing.
1:24:18
The argument is that tech companies and their leaders will become a class unto their own with infinite wealth.
1:24:23
No one else will have the means to generate money for themselves because AI will have taken their jobs and opportunities.
1:24:27
In other words, the bridge is about to be raised for those chasing the American dream and everyone is worried about being left on the wrong side.
1:24:34
It's the kind of FOMO that on first blush seems to require a huge suspension of disbelief.
1:24:38
But the idea's mere existence helps explain some of the increasing class worries in California where a growing movement to tax billionaires.
1:24:46
We're calling this the business elimination tax is uh the new branding according to Lulu.
1:24:51
uh is roing the Democratic party.
1:24:54
Affordable housing is real concern and the idea of the middle class seems out of reach.
1:24:57
Yet, it's smacks of sci-fi thinking.
1:24:59
But in San Francisco, it feels re real and it's made more believable by the exploits of Elon Musk, the rise of OpenAI, Sam Alman, and warnings by anthropics Daario about Great Depression-like worker displacement.
1:25:11
The transition will be bumpy, Musk said on this month on a podcast.
1:25:15
Will have radical change, social unrest, and immense prosperity.
1:25:20
a little bit of a roller coaster ride.
1:25:23
>> Universal high income is his is his term for it.
1:25:25
And that's Musk's best case scenario.
1:25:28
You know, uh, history is filled with technology booms that create new winners and losers.
1:25:31
AI optimists like to point out that a rising tide has tended to lift all boats.
1:25:35
What's being talked about now, massive job loss to automation and the need for public safety nets in the form of universal basic income, paints a dramatically different future.
1:25:44
It's still not clear if there's an appetite for so-called UBI, which runs counter to many Americans bedrock ideals of personal achievement.
1:25:51
Quote, I used to be excited about UBI, but I think people really need agency.
1:25:56
They need to feel like they have a voice in governing the future and deciding where things go.
1:26:00
Altman, opening eyes chief executive said last year when they asked when asked by a podcaster about how to create how people will create wealth in the AI era.
1:26:09
quote, "If you just say, okay, AI is going to do everything and then everybody gets a dividend from that, it's not going to feel good. You got to lock in. You got to grind." He didn't say that part.
1:26:19
Uh, and I don't think it's what what would actually be good for people.
1:26:23
If money is out, scarce assets like art could become key.
1:26:28
We saw some massive results at a Ferrari auction uh this weekend.
1:26:30
Uh, bunch of Ferraris trading for maybe three over what people thought the market was going to be.
1:26:38
Lots of speculation about what's going on there.
1:26:41
Um, but people are certainly getting in on luxury goods.
1:26:42
Uh, if you don't have scarce a scarcity of resources, it's not clear what purpose money has, he said at a conference last year.
1:26:49
More recently, Musk suggested people shouldn't even worry about saving for retirement, predicting AI will provide healthcare and entertainment. >> You like that, Tyler?
1:26:58
>> Uh, no, I was just going to say I think um I've heard at anthropic at least a lot of people don't contribute to their 401k uh for these reasons. >> Interesting.
1:27:05
Uh, still it look >> I mean it also helps that if you've been there a while your company went from sub10 billion valuation to 500 in the span of a few years.
1:27:15
You're not like [laughter] it's oh I better I'm so worried I haven't added much to my 401k. >> Yeah.
1:27:25
>> But >> well, >> okay, that's fair.
1:27:27
>> Maybe you don't want to contribute to your 401k, but if you want to change the world, you got to raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange.
1:27:32
We're very pleased to be partnered with the New York Stock Exchange where you can go and change [laughter] the world by raising capital.
1:27:39
Um, let's finish this out.
1:27:43
Weeks later, social media posts on X and LinkedIn and Facebook began claiming Nvidia's Jensen Wong said something similar.
1:27:50
The CEO of these breathless posts claimed was warning, quote, "The period from 2025 to 2030 may be the last major chance for everyday people to build wealth through technology." Scary stuff.
1:28:02
Except Jensen, he didn't say it.
1:28:05
Rather, his numerous public appearances in the past few months have been filled with talk about the potential for AI to be more of an equalizing force for technology.
1:28:12
Quote, "We're going to have a wealth of resources, things that we think are valuable today that in the future are just not that valuable because it's automated."
1:28:21
He told Joe Rogan last month, "It can afford it can it can be hard to sort fact from fiction in an era of technology that seems pulled straight from a uh Ian Banks novel."
1:28:30
And backers of AI uh companies have billions, if not trillions of reasons to hope.
1:28:37
Their gamles aren't just once in a generation jackpots, but once in a human exper once in a human existence.
1:28:44
Uh, further contributing to the FOMO in San Francisco is the expectation that local AI companies such as OpenAI Anthropic will soon go public minting many more millionaires after the New York Times ran a headline this past week about a wave of mega IPOs expected this year.
1:28:58
Local real estate agent Rohan Dar posted on X, may I humbly suggest you buy your house in San Francisco before this? It is interesting.
1:29:07
I feel like the uh the SF housing market like has really been through some crazy girrations because it was way down for a little bit and yes, I I mean I agree. I expect it goes way up.
1:29:16
Uh, the tech entrepreneur who was once part of Y Combinator years ago told me he was drawn to real estate in part because of a belief new AI wealth will fuel a housing boom or as he predicted last year, the mother of all tech booms is coming. Get some while you can. Well, thank you to Tim.
1:29:33
>> One of the comments here is interesting.
1:29:34
Somebody Jason Berger says, "When I graduated college in 1999, I remember those pursuing teaching being mocked for going into an obsolete field.
1:29:40
the internet was going to replace teachers.
1:29:44
Some some thought it would replace educational institutions themselves.
1:29:49
Uh anyways, >> well, we have Jordan Schneider from China Talk in the streaming room.
1:29:52
Before we bring him in, let me tell you about Turbo Puffer serverless vector and full text search built from first principles on optics storage bass 10x cheaper and extremely scalable.
1:30:04
>> Uh let's bring [music] Jordan Schneider in to the TVP ultradom.
1:30:08
Jordan, how are you doing? >> Good to see you. >> I am doing amazing. I'm so glad to be here.
1:30:12
I'm just love listening to your ad reads.
1:30:14
They're truly the best ad reads on the planet.
1:30:17
I mean, >> I appreciate it. I love that. >> Careful. Careful what you say.
1:30:21
We might We John is really tempted to start doing them during guest interviews and I'm like, I don't know if we want.
1:30:29
>> We've said like 30 minutes is a lot of time to hang out with Jordan.
1:30:30
We might need a break halfway through slip in an ad.
1:30:34
Every once in a while I do it.
1:30:36
Specifically, if a if a VC is on and they're pumping their bags and one of the bags that they're pumping happens to be a sponsor, why not slip in an ad? >> Yeah. Why not be about one?
1:30:43
Why not be be a little on the nose?
1:30:47
>> John, I give you the pass. I give you the pass. I'm ready for it.
1:30:49
I want to see the creativity. >> Okay.
1:30:52
Well, if there's a lull in the conversation, expect an ad read.
1:30:53
But anyway, >> dude, you seem you seem pretty happy right now. What's going on?
1:30:57
You're like in the best mood ever. Do you get a vacation? What? What? What's new with you?
1:31:05
>> I'm actually in a terrible mood cuz the Bills just fired Shawn McDermott, our godhead coach for the past nine years.
1:31:12
It's some Game of Thrones [ __ ] The GM is like, you know, knifed him in the back.
1:31:17
He's now got a promotion.
1:31:17
And I was asking Chad GPT and Claude what the correct tech analogy would be to explain this to the TVPN audience.
1:31:25
And there was not a good one.
1:31:27
So, I guess AGI >> and back up for the for the viewers.
1:31:30
Uh, who who are the who are the Bills?
1:31:35
>> So, the Buffalo Bills are an American football team. Okay.
1:31:38
Plays in Western New York. They've had a great run.
1:31:40
They have a wonderful quarterback.
1:31:42
You guys, everyone should root for them.
1:31:44
They're They have a lovable loser reputation. Never won a Super Bowl.
1:31:49
Um, and have been on a generational run.
1:31:51
They've been the second most winning team over the past 10 years.
1:31:55
Can't seem to get over the hump.
1:31:57
And we can talk about something else.
1:32:00
changing according so so I just looked 12 teams have never won a Super Bowl is that like imagine being >> a lot of them are a lot of them are new Jaguars for example but I know but the Bills we've been there Jaguars Cardinals >> a lot of team >> I'm [laughter] I'm glad we got to do it you know it's some uh uh it's a I think
1:32:22
this is like the debate among among >> Do you how do you watch like do you want your kids to suffer >> okay >> um oh how do I watch Do you kind of like Do you do the David Do you do the David Senra and like you lean forward and you just like [laughter] really focus like this or are you kind of like writing the newsletter? >> It's a family event and I think the
1:32:40
>> It's a family event and I think the level like our myself, my brother and my father's levels of intensity of fandom have evolved over the years.
1:32:48
I have started to lean back a little bit but when the playoffs come around I am screaming and cursing and getting very heated again.
1:32:57
So I I kind of like taper in over the course of the season um until they inevitably rip my heart out, not only with Evers on the field, but apparently errors in the um management side of things as well. But anyways, we'll see.
1:33:12
We can talk about China if you want.
1:33:13
I also have some like media crit criticism of you guys I want to do. >> Okay.
1:33:18
Yeah, we can talk about that.
1:33:18
I'm just I'm just glad that you're coming on blackpilled about sports as opposed to geopolitics because >> Oh, I'm sure he's blackfilled about geopolitics.
1:33:26
But at least he didn't lead off with it because if you were if you came on here and you were like invasion of Taiwan's imminent, it's all >> Wait, why don't you give us the geopolitical comp for the whatever the Bills just did. I don't even remember.
1:33:40
>> They like let you know let go of the head coach.
1:33:44
>> It's operation paper clip.
1:33:45
>> You know, you know what my an H here's here's my here's my analogy. Okay.
1:33:46
So, like talking about invading Greenland is what Trump wants you to do.
1:33:52
I don't think he's going to do it, but like the thing that gets him jazzed up is people being upset about crazy ideas he has and the push back.
1:34:02
And this I think the the fascinating analogy here is the whole Ro Kana saga that we've had over the past month or two because like the amount like this is what he wanted to happen. He is not dumb.
1:34:16
He unders he is a politician who has a national presence and has ambitions and what he wants to do is as the Silicon Valley um representative like there is a there is a risk for him uh in a potential 2028 Democratic primary of saying oh you're just in the bag for these guys.
1:34:33
So having like being able to sort of manufacture this enemy of all these like rich billionaires who hey by 2029 when no one has jobs or 2028 2027 when no one has jobs anymore like uh and we have two more years of tech bros running the White House like the the Q score of that segment of society may be down like having all these people on the record saying we're going to take him down.
1:34:56
We want to run against him.
1:34:57
he's going to take our money, which by the way is something a lot of Americans I don't think would be all that upset about.
1:35:02
And like yes, your your your median TVPN listener understands the nuances of um taxing unrealized gains may not be the bait best thing for innovation, but like the ease at which this entire ecosystem was baited, I just found to be fascinating.
1:35:20
And it's kind of the same.
1:35:21
I think I think that's a good I I think it's it's generally a good take because if you actually press you know anybody that's actually pressed Row like he has no defense for his polit you know policy stance on this like he he actually cannot defend it and and stay logically coherent, right?
1:35:39
Like it it's like he's running he really is it seems like he's running like a bit.
1:35:45
>> Um >> but since but since when has that mattered in politics?
1:35:47
I don't know, like the the Kennedy Nixon debates or something like Yeah, he is now setting himself up against billionaire capitalist overlords who are apparently on the other side of him and hate him and want to do everything to bring him down.
1:36:02
And like that is a winning play for him.
1:36:04
And these these folks are so scared of their bags and they're so confident that like oh like they say something and then it will happens and no there won't be second order consequences that um I don't know it was a fascinating saga to watch from the sidelines. >> Yeah.
1:36:18
He's on a whole he's on a whole media tour now.
1:36:19
He's done a ton of he's popping up everywhere.
1:36:21
Um and he's definitely taking advantage of the moment.
1:36:24
He's done really well >> because he's got some haters cuz he's smart. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:36:28
You need you need >> playing the heel.
1:36:29
He studied he sat he sat down.
1:36:31
and he watched bunch of WWE game tape and he's like, "Okay, I know I know what [laughter] I got to do." >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh >> All right. Yeah.
1:36:39
This this brings me this brings me to my media criticism.
1:36:43
>> Um and I think like look, you guys have >> gotten a lot better and the show has evolved and the centrality of it in like American discourse um is really something to behold.
1:36:57
And with that comes responsibility.
1:36:59
And I think you are slowly but surely maturing into that.
1:37:02
I mean the big moment you had a few months ago making fun of Culie and everything um is a important part of that maturation process and you know >> the rage are you talking are you talking about the the the case against rage bait?
1:37:17
Yeah, the case gets rage debate and sort of as you're as you're doing more of this like um you know pushing yourselves to do like more independent thinking and writing with the with the essays every day.
1:37:27
You're going to have more um politicians on.
1:37:29
You're going to have more like more and more of this is going to be trending towards that.
1:37:35
I'm sure all the all the presidential candidates are going to want to come on.
1:37:39
Uh same with the 20 26 candidates.
1:37:39
I just think it's really cool.
1:37:42
Um and politics matters to this world whether we like it or not.
1:37:45
and watching you guys kind of like grow into being having the the stature and comfort to ask harder questions of guests, I think is really cool.
1:37:55
So, I just want to give you a kudos and I'm excited to see where all that goes. >> I like that.
1:37:59
Let >> You're trying to rage bait us into politics. >> Yeah.
1:38:02
So, so I mean like so so so you're 100% right.
1:38:05
the the there is a weird dynamic where uh at least with our viewership we actually do notice a decline in the metrics when we talk about politics and have politicians on and like some of the chat will just be like go back to talking about like you know space or tech or whatever but I understand it it's going to happen.
1:38:23
Uh at the same time uh I really enjoyed Joe Weisenthal on China talk and I particularly liked Joe's point that on the hard question issue.
1:38:33
Uh people often have this fantasy that if you're if you're talking to someone you're like okay here's a hard question. Are you a fraud?
1:38:43
They'll just be like you got me. I am a fraud.
1:38:45
Like ask the hard question.
1:38:46
Like I can't say I can't lie.
1:38:48
When when in fact >> we actually did ask some question >> we actually did do that once and it did work.
1:38:52
Um, and and ironically it worked with Joe Weisenthal, too, because on OddLots with Matt Lavine, they asked SPF like, "How does this work?"
1:39:00
And SPF was kind of like, "It's a Ponzi scheme."
1:39:02
And and and Matt Lavine says, "So you're in the Ponzi business and it's a good business." And he says, "Yeah."
1:39:08
And so he kind of confessed.
1:39:09
So there is a there is a way to ask a hard question, but um but but I mean, >> we talk about B2B SAS instead.
1:39:17
[laughter] Yes, we can reream one live stream 30 plus destinations.
1:39:24
If you want to multiream, go to reream. com.
1:39:26
That's some B2B sass for you folks.
1:39:28
Also applicable to China talk.
1:39:31
Maybe we'll get you live streaming this year.
1:39:32
Anyway, so so give us give us how you process the hard questions.
1:39:37
questions. Well, well be before that I think the question the question I would ask you because people ask us like the topics that you discuss become you may not be approaching them from a political angle but they have political implications like it's your duty to talk about them and my response historically has been obviously tech influences politics obviously it's going to be like a large part of the debates in in 2028
1:40:05
in the midterms and uh And but that being said, I' I've always seen our role as like talk with really smart people and get an understanding of the individual players, the teams, the companies, startups, the public companies and then get an understanding
1:40:24
of the industries and then there's an opportunity for people to do kind of like meta political analysis even based on that understanding like something that we've um you know like like I I think defining it. >> Yeah, I think defining it as pol as
1:40:38
>> Yeah, I think defining it as pol as covering politics is a little too narrow.
1:40:42
I think it's more like there are aspects to all of this which are bigger than will this company uh grow its revenue at this >> you know at this rate and will these guys >> fire me up.
1:40:55
That's exactly what I want to talk about though.
1:40:58
>> And so like [laughter] you have to pull me hold me back.
1:41:00
I want to talk about >> Yeah.
1:41:01
So so I'll give you I'll give you another example.
1:41:03
So, uh, I I wrote maybe a week or so ago like why would Americans be excited about AI?
1:41:12
>> Like there's a there there's a video on Instagram and I'm sure there's hundreds of Sam Alman saying AI is probably going to kill everyone but it's going to create some cool companies in the meantime, right?
1:41:21
meantime, right? like that is like a mainstream >> like video that millions and millions and millions of people have seen >> and they they'll use chatbt and they'll use some other AI product and they're like this is cool but I actually like
1:41:37
the world and I don't want I I down to like pause like so so part of it part of it it's like I definitely think it's our responsibility or or worth talking about questions like that which is like you're not giving people a real reason to be. You can't say like we're curing cancer
1:41:54
You can't say like we're curing cancer or AI is going to cure cancer and then simultaneously say all these other things and expect people to just broadly say like >> you you guys are the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity like keep it up, right? Like why? >> Totally. >> Yeah.
1:42:11
I mean I think coming back to a point that John made of like like asking the hard questions is not does not necessarily conflate with being a dick to your guests.
1:42:20
Um, I mean just just recently like I had this thing that went viral.
1:42:25
I was having two folks on the China Commission on and they were talking about like the downsides of um, you know, China developing and one of the things they said is like wouldn't it be really bad if China cured cancer before the US?
1:42:38
I was like really like [laughter] are you sure about that one?
1:42:45
>> Look, I want to save I want to save humanity but I don't want anyone to save it harder than me. Exactly.
1:42:50
[clears throat] [laughter] >> But you know, and kind of getting to that point in the conversation of like exploring what your views are at the limit doesn't necessarily mean that you have to say, "Oh, don't you you know, you want to kill grandma's or whatever."
1:43:05
It's like, you know, viewers aren't stupid.
1:43:06
They can kind of they can kind of read into that what they please or like, you know, uh make a decision based on what the guest says.
1:43:13
But you do need to like take the guests there and bring them as you guys said to conversations which are a little um deeper than you know revenue targets and new products >> and and and I do I do enjoy those types of conversations with business leaders.
1:43:29
I I just maybe I'm just new to the talking to a politician, but it feels like it's entirely it's like an entirely different game.
1:43:37
Like the type of conversation we're having right now is like we're both podcasters.
1:43:40
We're just talking back and forth. It's great.
1:43:41
I can get a CEO on and they they're they're there to talk about a specific launch and and it's halfway. It's some conversation.
1:43:48
We might be able to get them to crack up. We rang a gong.
1:43:49
We do a bunch of stuff to like engage them.
1:43:51
I know a little bit of lore.
1:43:53
There's stuff that can get there.
1:43:55
But the politicians, at least for right now, like I don't know the lore.
1:43:59
I don't know all their positions.
1:44:00
And so it can just be I just feel like I'm struggling to keep the car on the track.
1:44:05
Like I'm not even I'm like I'm spinning out a lot. I'm spending my time. >> Yeah.
1:44:09
The cool thing with a CEO is like they're playing the game of capitalism and whatever they're saying, you know, at the end of the day for the most part that they just want to make their company bigger. >> Yeah.
1:44:19
>> Whereas with a politician like Roana is talking about, you know, these insane policies that will, you know, uh, make California, you know, descend into, you know, a tourism and agriculture-based economy.
1:44:31
And I don't want that for California.
1:44:34
I've lived here my whole life.
1:44:35
My family has been in California for over 100 years.
1:44:38
like >> it's uh very important to me.
1:44:40
Um, but and and I'm not even like I'm not tapped into this whole Washington thing.
1:44:45
And it makes sense when you say like, okay, he's just doing this to like prove that he stood up to the tech guys and so that he can go on his presidential run.
1:44:54
But I have no interest in like really engaging in that specifically because there's enough enterprise SAS to talk about.
1:45:01
>> And there's also there's also a lot of good media coverage in politics or at least there's a lot of there's a lot of media coverage in politics.
1:45:08
media coverage in politics. like there's so many huge outlets that do huge numbers and there's plenty of outlets on the left and the right for all sorts of things and and also it feels like a lot of the politicians are are crossing over like for a while there was this criticism that like there was like the
1:45:21
right podcast echo chamber and the left mainstream media uh echo chamber but in the last year it feels like there's been pretty massive crossover whether it's like Gavin Newsome having conversations with people on the right the New York Times platform a lot of people had a lot of people on the left uh Yeah, the Nelk Boys have platformed everyone, you know. >> Where's your Neil Boys crossover? Where
1:45:41
>> Where's your Neil Boys crossover?
1:45:41
Where are we on the show? >> We got it.
1:45:44
We got the Happy Dad Selza right over there.
1:45:46
We love the Nelk Boys over here.
1:45:47
Uh, yeah, we had John Shahiti on the show live in person in the Ultradome.
1:45:51
When are you getting to the Ultradome? You got to come out.
1:45:52
Next time you're in LA, you got to come.
1:45:54
You got to come hang out in person. >> TV. >> That's great.
1:45:57
Uh, anyway, >> all right.
1:45:58
I got more I got more topics for you guys.
1:45:59
We can talk uh >> Nvidia PR stumbles.
1:46:02
We got my Clawude Code games. >> Okay. Okay.
1:46:07
I I want to hear about the Nvidia.
1:46:09
I want to hear about the Nvidia the stumbles.
1:46:11
Is this Jensen specifically? What?
1:46:13
Walk me through what you're thinking. >> No.
1:46:16
So, um I guess it was last week, uh in the House of Representatives, there was an act introduced called the Overwatch AI Overwatch Act, which basically would essentially start to require congressional approval for AI exports, uh certain AI exports in the same way that Congress has a role to play when it comes to exporting arm sales abroad.
1:46:40
So if you, you know, you sell fighter jets to Israel or Saudi Arabia or Taiwan, Congress has to like give a nod to that.
1:46:46
And within 2 days, you saw Lara Loomer, Brad Parcale, and like a long tale of 10 to 15 other right-wing influencers basically all tweet the same thing.
1:46:58
Um, a lot of phrases were repeated.
1:47:01
House Republicans are being lied to.
1:47:03
We need to win the II race.
1:47:05
This is going to strip Trump of his foreign policy powers.
1:47:07
But the funniest part was that AI was spelled not a capital I but a lowercase L across what >> every single one of these.
1:47:20
[laughter] >> So I have a I have a story like this.
1:47:24
There was a the uh >> I mean we do need to re win the owl race as well.
1:47:29
We need as many Alfreds as possible.
1:47:30
[laughter] We need Al in charge.
1:47:33
We need total control over Al.
1:47:33
I got we got an Al in at Sequoa. Alfred Lynn. That's right.
1:47:39
>> There's a couple other Alberts and Alfreds all over America.
1:47:40
We need to capitalize on them.
1:47:43
>> I I uh I I was once uh I once gave some uh what ended up being bad advice to a portfolio company.
1:47:49
They were like asking me like how how should I uh >> how should I handle like my launch and I was like, you know, basically you need to >> prepare your investors that you're going to launch and then uh and then encourage them to share it and maybe give them some thought like starters on like what they could share because they're going to be busy.
1:48:07
to be busy. they're going to be in a meeting >> and and so it very clearly was like rewrite in your own words like these are just examples and then and then everyone just copy the first one six or seven people just like copy and paste it in [laughter] just like >> and then uh of course
1:48:23
>> yeah yeah there's been a couple quote tweets that I've seen hit the timeline from people who are clearly very busy where it where the the whole quote tweet starts with a bullet point and you're like I know what's going on there [laughter] [gasps] yeah it's become its own meme format Uh anyway, this would be a good bit. This should we
1:48:39
This should we should we should run this as a bit.
1:48:41
We get like 20 of us to like all share the same >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:48:46
We should all the same talk. >> What's that?
1:48:49
What's that Italian bullet point?
1:48:51
Uh Jordan is a truly masterful interviewer.
1:48:55
Please feel free to rewrite this in your own words.
1:48:57
>> Yeah, we got we got [laughter] to do it for the the Italian restaurant that's shutting down.
1:49:02
It's like for now for now is one of the most storied institutions.
1:49:05
A sequoia backed company.
1:49:08
It is absolutely imperative that it stays operational.
1:49:11
>> It needs a taxpayer bailout.
1:49:11
It needs a taxpayer bailout.
1:49:13
Bailout should the treasury should wire a billion dollars right now for 10%.
1:49:18
Wait, so uh so tie this to Nvidia.
1:49:20
You said Nvidia is involved in this. Explain.
1:49:23
>> Well, I don't know who else is paying Laura and Brad Parcale.
1:49:28
Why doesn't Nvidia want this to happen?
1:49:32
>> Oh, well, because they want >> because they want to win the AI race, not the [laughter] race.
1:49:36
>> They want to win the AI race. >> Okay.
1:49:41
So So they want to be able to sell internationally as freely as possible with as little oversight and maybe just uh a a a rubber stamp from the president gets it done.
1:49:51
If it goes to Congress, it's going to be more complicated.
1:49:54
[clears throat] >> And to be clear, this this seems like something a PR team, a PR firm ran where they're they're like engaged by Nvidia.
1:50:02
It sounds like I'm just spec. >> Yeah.
1:50:07
And they're like, "We're going to engage key opinion leaders." Sure.
1:50:10
>> And then of course, >> as soon as the Kos get involved, it's all over. Interesting. >> Yeah. >> Okay.
1:50:16
>> I mean, to be clear, this bill would put these restrictions for exports to Russia, Iran, China, and the DPRK. So, I don't know.
1:50:26
But look, it's um uh it's funny because there's been this real learning arc with Nvidia and Washington where I mean as of three years ago there was like one person in DC.
1:50:39
It was really not a company that engaged deeply with with DC and then October 2022 you have these export controls and all of a sudden this firm has to ramp up.
1:50:48
and what they've kind of seen or or the success that they had over the course of 2025 was basically Jensen doing the job of being a president.
1:51:00
>> We were looking earlier this year on like how much they actually spend on lobbying >> really low >> super low like single-digit millions like whenever I checked >> and I [laughter] was like that Jensen's gas bill like could very well be higher >> than how much they're actually spending on like lobbying.
1:51:14
But but to finish the thought, so you know, okay, they've they've got they've got the White House one over, they've got the president one over, but the problem is this is not the idea of exporting chips to China is not popular in Congress.
1:51:26
You've had a number of um bipartisan bills be introduced in the Senate and the House, um which have basically tried to cramp Trump's style when it comes to how he wants to sell these chips to the PRC.
1:51:38
and so, you know, starting to do starting to play the and they've been able to actually kill um one or two of these bills, but the momentum does seem to be building.
1:51:49
Um so having a flailing response like this is like yeah, kind of cringe makes for some good TVPN laughs, but also is indicative of the fact that like yeah, they are worried enough about what's happening on the hill with respect to AI exports that they feel like they need to um start to play these sorts of games.
1:52:06
But but what if we sell a ton of GPUs to North Korea and they cure cancer?
1:52:12
>> Look, >> would that be so bad?
1:52:13
>> Kim John, >> how what's what's North Korea's AI al strategy?
1:52:18
>> Their AL strategy is probably all uh fine-tuning on the glorious leader.
1:52:23
You're like, he's absolutely right.
1:52:23
He does he he does hit a hole in one every time he golfs.
1:52:28
[laughter] >> Just hardcoded weights.
1:52:32
>> Back to media criticism.
1:52:32
I love that Vanity Fair piece and like the last the last um paragraph where I forget what it was but there was some funny tweet and it's like this is the reason that all these other ones fail is because you guys are talented and you guys are very funny and like that is a there's a vin diagram of not a lot of people who can like >> check all these boxes.
1:52:55
So anyways, hats off to you. >> Yeah.
1:52:57
Um >> I mean hats off to Transistor Radio.
1:53:00
It's one of the funniest podcasts ever. It's amazing.
1:53:02
Every time you guys drop one, I I turn it on immediately. It's fantastic. Never quit. It's amazing. Um, sorry.
1:53:09
Did you want to move on to something else because I still want to get the update on on on just broad China, Taiwan.
1:53:14
I we talked to someone who was uh particularly blackpilled seemed like they were very upset with uh America's capacity to protect Taiwan.
1:53:25
And I was wondering if you've seen any movement there.
1:53:27
From my perspective, it feels like it's been kind of quiet.
1:53:29
all of 2025 was sort of quiet.
1:53:30
Uh I don't know if that's just me focusing on US tech and AI race stuff and I'm out of the loop, but would love just sort of your lay of the land on US, China, Taiwan negotiations. >> Sure.
1:53:44
So, um I think the big story of I mean there were there was a lot of drama over the course of 2025.
1:53:49
Um liberation day we forgot.
1:53:52
Um there was a whole another arc a which of course included 150% tariffs on China which got negotiated down then got ramped back up.
1:54:02
Then you had rare earth controls and then finally we've sort of seemed to reach a bit of a equilibrium.
1:54:09
Trump's supposed to go there in I think March or April.
1:54:11
Nobody really wants to rock the boat on the Taiwan issue.
1:54:15
>> [clears throat] >> no blockade, no invasion, no like, you know, firing back and forth or drones or conflict that I remember seeing anything like that.
1:54:24
And that was sort of like the worst case scenario was that maybe they were going to start with some sort of soft blockade and it wasn't going to be violent, but it was going to really escalate the situation to like we're repositioning ships. >> Yeah.
1:54:36
I mean, this is this has been one of my polyarket trade recommendations over the past uh few years is no no um no no war invasion.
1:54:44
I'm not particularly surprised we've had something crazy.
1:54:48
Look, I think she sees a lot of upside in uh the the direction of travel of a lot of things.
1:54:57
lot of things. Yes, China has problems, but like starting World War II or um I mean right now he has like a pretty good equilibrium with uh the US and that all of the kind of like we had a sort of slow but steady creep up in controls
1:55:12
over the course of um you know really starting in towards the second half of uh Trump won and that uh with what she has been able to do by kind of throwing the rare earth thing back in America's face to stop that and um you know uh I think uh who's the really old guy who
1:55:31
does trade in the White House but um who who like had the he says like dumplings are bad or something I can't remember his name anyway Peter [laughter] Peter basically >> you're like you guys are ready to cover DC we're like [laughter and clears throat]
1:55:46
couldn't tell you who works there >> dumpling man >> um Google this dumpling quite well I'm like Peter Navaro dumplings um >> I have heard of him sure he's a nice guy >> he Look, like it's a different chessboard between from what it was a while ago. And the fact that China both
1:56:00
And the fact that China both has leverage and is willing to and more importantly is willing to use it and understands that using it will get the US to back down I think is a new dynamic which we hadn't really seen um in the trade in the trade war arc of Trump won and then in the Biden administration.
1:56:16
The one thing that I do want to flag to you guys a little bit is um this saga currently going on between Japan and China where uh the new uh uh >> PM >> prime minister of Japan made some not super off-handed remark basically saying like a problem that China has with Taiwan is a problem that we have and it's very likely that we would be involved in any kind of scenario. Okay.
1:56:41
And this has basically been the goal of American presidents for decades now to kind of get Japan off of its butt, get it spending more on its military and uh get it, you know, really part of the equation to dissuade uh to to like make the balance of uh military power in the region such that China has no interest in going into Taiwan.
1:57:03
And and what you sort of saw uh in response to the Trump administration was kind of nothing.
1:57:09
Um, no big statement, no saying, "Hey, we're here to support you."
1:57:12
Basically, Trump called Shei, and then Trump called Takayichi saying, "Hey, chill out."
1:57:16
And look, like they just had a nice visit, the defense minister, Quisumi, the son of the old prime minister, uh, who like is like a hot shot 37 or something.
1:57:27
You guys should have him on.
1:57:29
Um, uh, they had a nice meeting.
1:57:31
We say that the alliance is okay.
1:57:33
But I did find it a little disappointing that like we're not kind of cheering them on when the whole thesis of the Trump administration is like we want to step back and have our allies do more of the heavy lifting.
1:57:42
So >> you're famous for the mandate of heaven tier list amongst AI labs.
1:57:48
Uh has have you been feeling that China labs have been falling off?
1:57:53
It feels like they've certainly been making less sort of like dramatic breakthroughs like the original Deep Seek.
1:58:00
Manis is now an American company. Let's go. Let's hear for Zuck.
1:58:04
Uh, and the quite models are great, but you know, it just doesn't feel like it's it's in the conversation as like this is an existential risk to open AI or Anthropic or or Google.
1:58:13
Like the real like heavy hitters are like the main labs in America and then even XAI and MSL are are doing exciting things.
1:58:22
And so you have like five significant efforts and it feels like the open source narrative has sort of like fallen back.
1:58:32
It's still there, but it's not nearly as existential or as just as embarrassing as it used to be where when uh you know, a hedge fund could spend 10 mil and defeat Mark Zuckerberg. >> Yeah.
1:58:45
I mean, I think the the the big thing that folks need to remember when it comes to the US and China is uh on the talent side, yeah, roughly equivalent.
1:58:56
Maybe the US has an edge because we can pay higher salaries.
1:58:57
because we can pay higher salaries. uh on the data side uh you know still probably a wash but when it comes to compute and the ability to deploy these um these models there's really no contest as well as capital able to be put behind this whole um this whole arc there's really not a contest between the US and China I think current numbers are like uh TSM like uh uh smick and Huawei production is like 115th
1:59:27
what uh Nvidia plus uh uh plus TSMC plus all the AS6 can can pump out and you know this matters less in a future where you aren't kind of using all the available compute but look um people are going to come up with ways to use this stuff I'm doing so much dumb [ __ ] on cloud code every day um so is the >> how optimized is your cla code setup I'm sure you spent all >> not at all I just use the terminal and like it's been a on apps. But but the
1:59:57
But but the fact of the matter is like I think it is it is this is why the AI chip exports are so concerning is I really do think like the the the ecosystem with the compute and the capital is going to be able to drive ahead because then you'll you'll have these great kind of reinforcing loops of um productivity gains and growth then leading to kind of um you know more development, more compute and so on and so forth.
2:00:23
And the fact of the matter is that China, even though it has really good engineers that can train good models, is compute constrained when it comes to um development and deployment.
2:00:32
We just translated this really interesting uh panel that happened in China with I think it was like the CEOs of four of the top labs.
2:00:41
So, Jerpu, Quen, Miniax, um and someone from Tencent.
2:00:46
someone from Tencent. And basically all of them were like look we are so jealous of OpenAI and Anthropic like we have to use all of our compute to deploy stuff um just to kind of keep the business going like the amount of uh you know the scale at which they can deploy compute
2:01:03
the amount of data they're getting from their users and then the ability of these firms to run experiments to kind of put into the next stuff and get to the next breakthrough really means that in the current paradigm America and the the broader kind of western AI ecosystem has a real edge. and uh throwing that away to export a
2:01:18
and uh throwing that away to export a handful of chips to China and the um uh my in my ideic vision that we can still hook them on Nvidia seems a little silly but overall yeah it's been a pretty good six months for American air. >> Let's go.
2:01:36
>> Uh one more one more question.
2:01:36
Can you give us a take on uh Canada's new deal with China, >> specifically the this trade?
2:01:44
You get soybeans, I get infinite cheap EVs. What's going on there?
2:01:52
>> Um my sense is it's a bit of a bait as well.
2:01:56
Um perhaps a perhaps a Roana play to get the White House's attention, maybe a little escalate to deescalate.
2:02:05
What's interesting is like I think the amount of EVs they're letting in is pretty low.
2:02:09
Um so I would not be shocked if this was a more of a negotiating tactic um to get the USMCA uh in a place which is more favorable to the US.
2:02:22
>> So Canada Canada buys around 2 million new vehicles a year.
2:02:24
I think the cap is at like 50,000 initially and then it goes up to 70,000. >> Okay. Yeah. That's not that's uh 2%. Yeah. Not not huge. Yeah.
2:02:35
>> Uh it'll be fun seeing the the Yong Wang U9 jumping over potholes in uh >> Toronto. >> Saskatchwan. >> Saskatchewan.
2:02:43
That's where they got the potholes.
2:02:45
Anyway, so much only waste men will drive.
2:02:48
>> For coming on the show, Jordan, uh I'm glad to hear that your 2026 is off to a great start.
2:02:53
Can't wait to have you back on the show. I know.
2:02:55
And let us know when you're in LA.
2:02:57
>> Wish I wish we had more time.
2:02:57
Hey, we're about to have uh Dan, the founder of T1 Energy, the solar manufacturing >> uh company that previously was Chinese-owned and it was they were forced to sell it.
2:03:07
I I believe I have the history right, so you might enjoy uh listening into this one because when I saw the T1 Energy had a video go out and it was just showing like this like incredible like high volume advanced manufacturing, I was like America's back.
2:03:24
[laughter] And I heard that uh it was a Chinese >> quite built by Chinese plan.
2:03:28
But anyway, American going through transformation.
2:03:33
Anyway, >> anyways, have a great rest of your week. We'll talk to you soon. >> How we going? Goodbye. Century.
2:03:37
Century shows developers what's broken and helps them fix it fast.
2:03:42
That's why 150,000 organizations use it to keep their apps working.
2:03:48
>> Um, our next guest is Dan from T1 Energy.
2:03:50
We're going to bring him in in just a few minutes.
2:03:52
I don't think he's ready yet. He's not ready yet.
2:03:54
So, we will tell you, we'll give you some more news.
2:03:58
The New York Stock Exchange, our partner, today they're announcing that the development of a platform for trading and onchain settlement of tokenized securities.
2:04:05
Uh the New York Stock Exchange's new digital platform will enable tokenized trading experiences, including 247 operations, instance settlement, orders sized in dollar amounts, and stable coinbased funding.
2:04:18
its design uh combines the New York Stock Exchange's cutting edge pillar matching engine with blockchain based post-trade systems.
2:04:25
This is obviously very exciting.
2:04:27
We've been we've been talking about 247 trading happening uh a long time.
2:04:31
happening uh a long time. The interesting thing to track is that um the volumes even when you enable overnight trading the volume is not the same during the day and the reason is because like a lot of the traders work 9 to5 in New York hours and they have
2:04:48
families and they want to go home and sleep and so some hedge funds have set up overnight desks but they basically take less risk during the night because there's less people on staff and you can't escalate oh some trade's happening we think that there's news uh that's happened at 2 a.m. and we think this m.
2:05:02
and we think this might be mispriced.
2:05:04
So, we should be trading, but we don't have the rest of our risk team here to price it.
2:05:07
So, we're going to be a little bit more riskoff.
2:05:10
So, the volume is much lower.
2:05:12
So, I'm interested to see where this goes and how much the volume ramps up.
2:05:15
But obviously, it's just a very exciting development for the New York Stock Exchange >> and ultimately still this is still going to be subject to regulatory approvals uh and the uh bill that's been uh >> we got to have somebody on to talk about because there was some beef going back and forth between Coinbase not happy with how the the market structure bill >> interesting was coming together. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:05:36
Uh well, let me tell you about Phantom Cash.
2:05:38
Fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with the Phantom Card.
2:05:43
Uh Lulu has proposed that we don't call it the billionaire tax, we don't call it the wealth tax, we call it the bill the business termination act.
2:05:51
And you know if people are the job destruction act >> if people are against it and they're rebranding it against you know they need an anti the people that are pro this act will need to rebrand it as well.
2:06:03
And so I think that they should do like the uh the grind incentive initiative, something like that to to reframe it as it's a, you know, you know, we're not p it's not a billionaire tax.
2:06:16
It just incentivizes everyone to grind harder. You're 5% down now.
2:06:19
You got to build yourself out of that hole.
2:06:21
Who >> it's almost like a prestige in Call of Duty. Exactly. You got to start again. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
2:06:27
Maybe they should prestige for being rich. >> Yeah.
2:06:30
Like how many times have you prestige? >> Yes. Yes.
2:06:31
Maybe if you if you 10 so so they could call it the 10x tax where it's a wealth tax but it only applies to people that are not 10xing their net worth annually.
2:06:40
True >> because like [laughter] >> Yes. Yeah.
2:06:45
>> You really like ideally >> if you're trying to build wealth, you should 10x it.
2:06:48
10x your portfolio, 10x it again and then 10x it again.
2:06:51
You'll be in a really good spot. Yes.
2:06:53
And so we should have if we're going to have government regulation, >> we want it to encourage, you know, people to really >> it should ramp up every year they should 1% then 2% then 3% eventually everyone has nothing.
2:07:05
Um but the last man standing kind of like a you know a what do they call it? >> Badge of honor. >> I don't know. I'm I lost it. Anyway, let's go to Flo.
2:07:17
Floio Alim Moore has been on the show multiple times.
2:07:20
He says, "Almost every single founder I know in San Francisco, including me, has reached the same conclusion over the last few weeks that it's only a matter of time before we have to leave California. I love it here.
2:07:30
I truly do want to stay."
2:07:33
And until recently, intended to be here all my life, but now it's obvious that we won't be possible.
2:07:38
Whether that's two, five, or 10 years from now.
2:07:40
There's no future for founders in California.
2:07:44
But maybe he'll get a spot in Incline Village.
2:07:45
Maybe he'll maybe he'll do in Miami or Nevada.
2:07:48
There are there are plenty of ways and I would be surprised if uh if everyone fully relocates.
2:07:53
I think people will be spending a lot of time in San Francisco, but probably less than 180 days. We'll see. Well, um while >> Yeah.
2:08:04
I just I it makes it makes absolutely no sense. Yeah.
2:08:07
Every every state in the country >> wants these kind of companies to be created.
2:08:14
>> We we got to talk about some other some other better news.
2:08:16
Um how well do you know Preppy?
2:08:18
Let's let let's play a quiz.
2:08:21
There's a quiz in the in the Wall Street Journal.
2:08:22
How well do you know Preppy? It is in the timeline.
2:08:23
You can pull it up and play live, but I'm going to read this to you.
2:08:26
So, it's 10 questions on Lacrosse, J Press, and more.
2:08:30
We're going to see how you do.
2:08:30
So, the first question, uh, which is which of the following is not a preppy approved label?
2:08:36
Lily Pulitzer, J Press, Versace, or LLBAN? Tyler, do you know?
2:08:43
>> I'm going to go what is Versace? >> Nailed it. He got it. He got it.
2:08:45
What type of shoes are you wearing right now? >> That's a preppy shoe.
2:08:52
The term preppy is used as a slur in which canonical prep novel? A.
2:08:57
The catcher in the rye, b love story, c a separate piece, or d the Great Gatsby. What do you think it is?
2:09:04
>> Uh, I've I think I've only read The Great Gatsby.
2:09:06
I'm going to say uh >> You ever read Catcher and the Ry?
2:09:08
>> No, we didn't do that.
2:09:10
>> Uh, I don't even Love Story.
2:09:10
Was that >> Yes, you got it. Love Story. Wow. Okay.
2:09:17
Name the non preppy sport. The least preppy sport.
2:09:19
Volleyball, rugby, lacrosse, or squash. >> Uh, volleyball. >> Nailed it. Nailed it again.
2:09:25
Uh, which New York cool girl collaborated with GH Bass and Norwegian Design?
2:09:30
Eddie Sedwick, Diane Bril, Khloe, or Leandra Medine Cohen? >> The last one. >> No, Khloe.
2:09:41
Although I thought she was in LA, but I guess she's also a New York cool girl.
2:09:46
Uh, which shades of pink and green should be combined for optimum preppiness?
2:09:51
Fuchsia and forest green, baby pink and emerald, hot pink and lime green, or sice and chartreuse.
2:10:00
>> I'm going to go baby pink and uh >> emerald. >> Emerald. >> Wrong.
2:10:05
>> Hot pink and lime green. Rookie.
2:10:05
I think I think I have to flip the whole page over to see the other side.
2:10:10
Five is uh C which is yeah C is is hot pink and lime green.
2:10:16
Let's see what else we got here.
2:10:19
What is the origin of the term urban hot bgeoisi?
2:10:25
Henry James' the portrait of lady wel Wilt Wit Stillman's Metropolitan Patricia Highmith's the talented Mr.
2:10:32
Ripley Andy Walhor Andy Warhol's the philosophy of Andy Warhol.
2:10:35
These are hard >> really hard.
2:10:39
I have you ever been into dressing preppy? >> Uh I I don't know. Not really.
2:10:44
I've never had any sort of like lane.
2:10:45
I just put on clothes as they're made available to me.
2:10:50
Um anyway, uh there's some other good news. DH is racing again.
2:10:53
Shopify LMP2 is back in action for the Daytona Rolex 24.
2:10:59
New team, new co-drivers.
2:11:03
Still Toby Lutkey and DHH at the wheel.
2:11:07
now riding with Rails and Omar 2.
2:11:07
They got their whole livery. It's amazing.
2:11:11
Ruby on Rails, Base Camp on there, the shop app, and Shopify on the livery. It's green.
2:11:18
>> Okay, we might have to do we might have to do we might have to ride with them.
2:11:21
We might have to do the 24-hour watch along live stream.
2:11:24
>> This might be the one that we need to do.
2:11:26
Uh this is this is absolutely amazing.
2:11:28
And I'm always excited when I see it looks fantastic post about >> the race, let me confirm, is going to be later this month.
2:11:34
Uh, actually >> there's also a post by Toby Lutkkey. Good testing days.
2:11:39
Can't wait for the Rolex 24 next week.
2:11:41
This photo is incredible. This is this weekend. So, it's 24 hours. They'll be racing.
2:11:46
Uh, and uh, yeah, Toby, look.
2:11:49
Uh, he needs to do a racing podcast.
2:11:52
He should go on Vincenzo Landino's show.
2:11:54
Um, he's done shows about about, uh, Starcraft, all about, uh, gaming.
2:12:00
I've never heard him talk specifically about racing, but uh but what a what a sport. What a sport.
2:12:08
Uh >> it's the number one AI agent for customer service.
2:12:12
If you want AI to handle your customers support, go to fin. ai.
2:12:16
>> Uh we should pull up some of the new livery that was announced.
2:12:18
Uh there was Gabe was sharing earlier.
2:12:23
>> He said that uh Zen made it on to Ferrari this year.
2:12:27
They're allowing uh a nicotine sponsorship. >> No, no way.
2:12:33
>> Um >> and uh Hos, if you pull up this post, somebody was showing off Hos's new livery from above. >> Mhm. >> I'm in the timeline.
2:12:40
You can see it looks uh almost uncannily like the top of this toilet. >> What? >> You see that? >> No. Oh, wait. Yeah. What is that?
2:12:51
>> I mean, it's just part of the arrow. >> Okay. >> On the top part.
2:12:53
Anyways, I think that I think the HOS car looks fantastic. Yeah.
2:12:58
>> Uh, I also like that it's a Yeah, it's an American machinery company, right? Hos.
2:13:02
Um, and uh, and yeah, it's just it's just a cool little, you know, obviously not a car maker.
2:13:07
You can't go buy a HOS and drive it around, but still a lot of lineage and logic to it.
2:13:12
I mean, Red Bull's been so good that it sort of tracks for me anyway.
2:13:17
It doesn't seem jarring or anything that you have a you have an energy drink car on the grid, but I I I feel like I still like the Ferrari.
2:13:27
I'm excited that Audi and Cadillac are getting in.
2:13:29
Um I like I like what goen go and uh get I haven't seen the livery.
2:13:36
I saw Venenzo Landino posting some absolutely hilarious uh images of uh sort of what he thinks the Cadillac should look like.
2:13:45
Um, I don't know if we can pull up his uh his um his post.
2:13:47
I know he replies to all this stuff.
2:13:52
Where what what did he post?
2:13:53
He posted some hilarious Cadillac livery that was uh an Yeah, an AI image here.
2:13:58
Uh my neighbor sent me this photo of the new Cadillac F1 car.
2:14:02
You got to see this journey. It's amazing.
2:14:04
It's got the >> Drop it in.
2:14:06
>> I I I think it might be already in there. I think I got it.
2:14:08
Um but if we can pull this out.
2:14:10
He said, "My neighbor actually did send me this photo that his friend sent him.
2:14:12
I have no idea whose credit goes to.
2:14:14
If this is yours, let me know.
2:14:16
Um, is this in the bottom of the timeline? Did it go through? Let's see. Yeah, it's here. Look at that. That's incredible. So funny.
2:14:24
I I It has to be AI or did they actually race something like this at one point? I don't know.
2:14:29
I I I sort of assume AI at this point.
2:14:31
Um, who else is in the Who else is in the in the news?
2:14:36
Uh, three teams have now revealed their 2026 Red uh liveries.
2:14:38
Uh, Red Bulls looks a lot less shiny.
2:14:42
When we saw them in Vegas, it was it felt very pearlescent, very like almost pink sparkle to it.
2:14:49
Uh, this looks like a little more classic to me.
2:14:51
Um, well, we should do we should talk more through uh, speaking of cars, uh, Porsche has suffered the biggest sales fall since 2009.
2:15:03
People are not buying Porsches.
2:15:07
The German sports car maker was hit by a lack of petrol variants uh for bestselling Macan and weak demand in China.
2:15:13
So Porsche sales slumped by a tenth last year.
2:15:16
They lost 10% just in a single year as the German sports car maker faced weaker than expected demand for its electric models and struggled in the Chinese market.
2:15:25
The company sold about 280,000 vehicles, which is down from 310,000 the year prior.
2:15:31
That was the steepest slide since 2009 in the midst of the global financial crisis when deliveries fell by 13. 7%. That makes sense.
2:15:41
The economy is not doing well.
2:15:42
Uh people are going to stop buying Porsches.
2:15:44
But the economy did well in 2025. So what's going on?
2:15:46
We're going to dig into it.
2:15:47
The decline undermine underlines the challenges ahead for the new Porsche chief executive Michael Letters who took the reigns at the start of the year.
2:15:56
The company has embarked on a restructuring program to reduce its production capacity and is t it is in in talks with trade unions in Germany about further savings.
2:16:05
Porsche last year was forced into a costly adjustment to its model range shifting the emphasis emphasis back to petrol and hybrid models and shelving plans for new electric vehicles falling.
2:16:18
>> Yeah, the market has just completely rejected.
2:16:21
>> Do you think they will ever ship the I can't even remember what's their new hypercar?
2:16:24
the one that is the it goes Carrera GT 918 Spider and then it was the Mission E or Mission X >> that was supposed to be the electric hypercar from Porsche and it was rumored for years and we saw a lot of the other hypercars.
2:16:41
There was a whole idea of like there's going to be a new Holy Trinity.
2:16:43
The Holy Trinity of course is what the 918 Spider, the La Ferrari and or the Enzo and the P1.
2:16:50
And then you kind of go back and you retcon a holy trinity out of the Carrera GT, the F40.
2:16:58
Like you kind of piece it together with the McLaren F1.
2:16:59
Even though that wasn't really a trilogy, people sort of put those into like legendary bucket together.
2:17:05
Um, and there was this idea that, okay, maybe McLaren's coming out with a W1. That'll be exciting. You have the F80. That's exciting.
2:17:11
And then maybe Porsche will come in with something that's in the lineage of the Carrera GT and the 918 Spider.
2:17:16
And if they'd looked, if they'd read the room around the 918, seemed like Carrier GT was way more popular.
2:17:22
So maybe go back to that or do something there.
2:17:25
>> Well, Ford said, "Hold my beer."
2:17:27
>> Yeah, >> cuz they're coming in with a new hypercar. >> That's true. Do we have any details?
2:17:29
So they did confirm that Ford will be making a hypercar or supercar >> 2027.
2:17:36
>> And it's not just a continuation of the Ford GT.
2:17:38
It's not a Ford GT V3 because there's been a number of those.
2:17:41
Um we had the good fortune of seeing one on the track over the weekend.
2:17:45
look beautiful out there. Performed very well. Um, but back to Porsche. Well, you look that up.
2:17:52
Last se last year's sales slump has been partly due to supply gaps for the 7 for the 718 and the Macan, its bestselling model.
2:18:00
So, they're not making enough of those.
2:18:01
Uh, Porsche stopped selling petrol versions of both models in Europe over a failure to comply with EU cyber security regulations. What? >> Whoa.
2:18:13
>> They didn't They got to get on Crowd Strike.
2:18:15
[laughter] uh and decided against developing replacements that would have met new standards.
2:18:20
So they are they are down.
2:18:22
It's a rough they they they've had a number of really high growth years.
2:18:24
They came roaring back after the 2009 global financial crisis.
2:18:30
Uh 2010 they were up 25%.
2:18:33
Uh 2011 they were up 20%.
2:18:33
They were putting up 20% growth years for five years straight basically.
2:18:39
Uh then the last decade's been a little bit slower but not contracting.
2:18:44
And now we're we're we're way down, way off way off peak, which is not good.
2:18:47
So despite an increase in US tariffs announced in 2025, North America was its best performing region, down only a few hundred units compared with significant declines elsewhere.
2:18:57
Sales collapsed by 16% in Germany forces home market with a 13% decline for Europe.
2:19:03
Do you want to give everyone an update on T1 energy, Dan Markello, because I believe we're resing. >> Sorry everybody.
2:19:10
We're going to reschedule.
2:19:11
Well, there was a scheduling uh scheduling mixup. It happens.
2:19:13
So, we'll get Dan back on.
2:19:16
>> So, the next guest will be Elliot from Dominion Dynamics at 125 in about 5 minutes.
2:19:22
So, I'm going to continue with this Porsche piece.
2:19:24
Uh continuing with weak demand in China, where European car makers have found it increasingly difficult to sell luxury vehicles amid growing domestic competition. Also, wait on the tally.
2:19:34
Yeah, in China, I mean, there's a lot of homegrown heroes.
2:19:38
you're you're really excited about your national champion, whether it's Huawei or some phone maker.
2:19:44
It seems a little silly, but the cars are cheap. They're great.
2:19:48
They have fun, crazy features.
2:19:50
They can jump up and down.
2:19:50
They can go 0 to 60 in two seconds.
2:19:52
They look exactly like Porsches.
2:19:54
[laughter] Uh, and if you're a local, you're just looking at the dollars and cents.
2:19:58
And then also, you're supporting your buddy who runs the company or builds it on the line.
2:20:03
You know, why not buy by buy local?
2:20:03
You know, it's popular over here, it's popular over there.
2:20:05
So, sold 41,000 Porsches in in China, which has been down 26% on the previous year, and it's under half the total for 2022.
2:20:14
So, back in 2022, they were selling 80,000 cars.
2:20:19
Now, they're selling 40,000. That's not good.
2:20:22
You want to be up and to the right, and they are down and to the right. Sorry. >> Yeah.
2:20:25
I'm trying to figure out how much of a factor.
2:20:27
Uh, according to registration data for the full year of 2025, Chinese branded uh, auto manufacturers sold approximately 60,000 to 70,000 vehicles in Germany.
2:20:40
>> Uh, that's still only 2 and a.
2:20:40
5% of the total German car market.
2:20:42
But if that's eating into Porsche's sale of some of these like kind of more entrylevel EVs could definitely be a real factor. >> Cool.
2:20:52
Well, we I believe we have Elliot in the restroom waiting room a little bit early.
2:20:57
I see no reason not to bring him in as long as he's ready to hop into the TVP Ultra Dome. >> Let's do it.
2:21:03
>> Well, we bring him in. How you doing? >> What's happening? >> Hey, guys. How are you?
2:21:09
>> Uh great to have you on the show.
2:21:09
Uh would love a quick intro on yourself and the company. >> Sure. Nice to meet you guys. Uh Elliot Pence.
2:21:18
Uh so founder uh CEO of Dominion Dynamics.
2:21:22
Uh Dominion's building tri distributed treatable mesh networks in the Arctic uh amongst other things.
2:21:31
That's kind of the wedge in >> uh very interesting.
2:21:33
How how do you start uh what brings you to building something like this?
2:21:39
>> Look, the Arctic is a a huge challenge as is very clear uh over the last couple of months.
2:21:45
It's been kind of at the foreground of geopolitics.
2:21:50
Canada has underinvested in securing the Arctic.
2:21:53
Awareness is core to securing it and we're building for that.
2:21:57
So, we started in June of last year and have built about a dozen products, deployed them a few times and about deploy them again in uh just outside of the Northwest Passage.
2:22:10
So, the the highest north up. >> Very cool.
2:22:14
So what what does this actually what does it actually look like in practice?
2:22:17
These are hardware hardware that is being deployed but but give me give me a sense of of it uh more practically. >> Yeah.
2:22:26
So it's basically it's us building on top of C's system.
2:22:29
So we're not building the hardware. >> Okay.
2:22:33
>> Uh we're using radios that are you know from meshtastic to persistent systems to uh goenna to syllabus.
2:22:40
We build software that sits on top of that RF uh that allows rangers, which is Canada's kind of reservest forth that exists across the country, but in particular in the Arctic to capture more information from uh their environments.
2:22:58
Allows them to take videos, to take pictures, to do voice notes.
2:23:03
We compress that information down and then manage that across a mesh network.
2:23:08
And then we reinflate that data when it gets to a a satellite back haul and push it up into a common operating picture. >> Very interesting.
2:23:18
So what give me give me a sense of how how the rangers even approach trying to secure and understand the Arctic.
2:23:26
I imagine it's like one ranger for every, you know, multiple thousand square miles.
2:23:31
Like it's not very large area.
2:23:34
I imagine they can't have uh people everywhere. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:23:37
This is the fundamental challenge, right?
2:23:40
There's 5,500 rangers across the country.
2:23:43
Canada has a coastline of 200,000 kilometers.
2:23:46
Their principal um task is they do a sort of anomaly detection patrols every other week.
2:23:56
And on those patrols, they're often out for sort of 48 hours looking to see if they can find anomalies, whether that's like on roads, whether that's in the water, drones in the sky, but they're radioing that stuff back and they're capturing it in kind of an analog way.
2:24:12
What we're building is a way for them to capture all that data, store it, and then to start thinking about, okay, well, what are some predictive uh processes that we could build into this uh this community of 5,500 reservists?
2:24:27
Do they do they uh do they roll as kind of like a little squad or is it just like one guy out there on a boat just like >> like uh Yeah, you can I can just imagine, you know, a a movie of like, you know, lone ranger.
2:24:41
It's one guy out there just going crazy in the wilderness thinking that uh >> uh >> they roll deep.
2:24:48
It's like 30 >> 30 per patrol.
2:24:50
Uh and then you know they're doing this all the time. >> Yeah.
2:24:55
So >> what kind of so specifically the anomalies that they're looking for is that uh like foreign intrusion like surveillance.
2:25:06
>> It's a mix of it's a mix of things, right?
2:25:08
It's like, you know, is a road block that's critical for a community.
2:25:13
>> Um you know, a few years ago we had a Chinese balloon that really nobody knew about for a while.
2:25:17
There's uh indications that there's buoys in uh some of the the channels uh up in the Arctic.
2:25:26
So, it's it's both strategic and just tactical of like how do I get to where I need to be going in an emergency.
2:25:32
>> Is the buoy like a like the Chinese weather balloon story where you just kind of like send it off and you know collect whatever data you can basically >> effectively right.
2:25:41
I mean, part of what what we believe is happening >> just outside of the Arctic is they basically put buoys in currents that brings it through >> the Arctic and they're just sucking up information about what is the operating dynamic like?
2:25:56
So, we we want to be ahead of that and we want to >> Is that like is it like how how thick the ice is?
2:26:01
So, if you brought an icebreaker ship, like how big would that ship need to be?
2:26:05
How many would you need to get through to bring a warship through or something like that?
2:26:08
Just strategic intelligence. >> Yeah.
2:26:11
Honestly, I'm not sure why, but >> but that's one possible reason.
2:26:13
If you were in charge, you'd be doing that. Makes sense.
2:26:17
>> Uh why why this market?
2:26:17
How does this how does this fit?
2:26:21
It's it's like uh beautifully niche in that uh you know, probably somewhat of a small market initially, but you can probably saturate it and then expand from there.
2:26:31
But uh but why yeah, why specifically the the Rangers? Well, a few.
2:26:36
So, the Rangers was were the sort of least um technically advanced group, but they had the hardest problem set.
2:26:47
>> Um, and you know, for Canada and for the NATO alliance, the Arctic is becoming really quite critical.
2:26:52
And so it's sort of niche right now, but it also gives us sort of a a good user community to build a useful product and have an extreme delta, like an extreme effect on.
2:27:03
So we want to build, you know, broader than just that community, but that's a good starting point.
2:27:13
>> This is like the iPhone moment for the Rangers, [laughter] >> right?
2:27:18
>> Where are you building the company? Where are you based? Where's the team based? What's hiring look like?
2:27:24
>> Yeah, so it's a very Canadian company.
2:27:26
It's deliberately Canadian.
2:27:26
Uh company is headquartered in Ottawa.
2:27:28
We have offices in Kingston, Toronto, and Ottawa. >> Yeah.
2:27:33
>> Um I'll be based in Ottawa.
2:27:33
I've been based in the US and DC for >> for the past 20 years.
2:27:39
Uh it's backed principally by Canadians as well. >> Yeah, I saw. >> Um but uh but yeah. >> Yeah. Uh what about uh hiring?
2:27:46
Is is is Canada caught up to America with the defense tech fervor?
2:27:53
The the Palmer Lucky podcasts have not reached Canada yet.
2:27:58
>> They get stopped at the border. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.
2:28:01
I mean, but seriously, like like where are you recruiting from?
2:28:03
Uh who who what type of people are you recruiting?
2:28:06
I mean, is there this idea of like serving the national interest, working in government technology that might be slower?
2:28:12
There might be it might be harder, might be longer hours, might be more technical, but there's some sort of light at the end of the tunnel in terms of impact.
2:28:23
>> Yeah, there's no TBPN in Canada yet.
2:28:23
Um, [laughter] but uh >> this interview is making me feel like TBPN is the TBPN for Canada.
2:28:31
>> Yeah, we got North America.
2:28:31
I know Carney is not making it seem like we're all big one one big happy family the last 48 hours, but we're still in our in our in our world. We're still family. We're good. >> We're still family.
2:28:45
>> So So Canada has not caught up on the defense tech sort of surge.
2:28:48
Yeah, >> that's kind of what we're looking to catalyze. Mhm.
2:28:52
>> I would say that when we raised our >> preede, >> um, we had, you know, literally hundreds of Canadians that are working at US companies come back up and want to build something for sovereign capability or sovereign capacity.
2:29:06
So, you know, and there's an immense amount of talent in Canada. >> Yeah.
2:29:11
>> Like the Waterlue Quador is ridiculous.
2:29:15
>> Um, talk about the process of actually selling into the government and how it's different.
2:29:20
I think most people will be familiar with the American defense tech arc of uh SBIR's program of record, how you kind of sell into the US government, the department of war. What's different? What's similar?
2:29:31
How are you thinking about the market?
2:29:34
>> Well, the the thing that's similar is they have a version of SBIR in Canada. They call it ideas.
2:29:40
>> I would say it's a little slower, a little less money, a little less diverse. Sure.
2:29:44
>> But it still sort of doesn't get you into a program of record.
2:29:47
So, you still need to figure out how do you get into those kind of longtail contracts.
2:29:53
>> Um, what's different with Canada, and this is changing right now, is there's no version of an OTAA.
2:29:58
>> There's no other transaction authority.
2:30:00
So, you can't getting onto a contract is a real challenge.
2:30:02
And that's what we're hoping to >> to change and catalyze and lobby for because without the ability to get on contract, this market doesn't make sense for anybody.
2:30:12
Uh, government knows it and uh is trying to change it. >> Yeah.
2:30:17
So, uh, it's a very Canadian company, but is this just a foothold and then ultimately you'll sell to folks in Alaska, Greenland, maybe the Nordics?
2:30:29
Like, uh, where do you see this going over time?
2:30:31
Is it like if you can do it in Canada, you can do it anywhere?
2:30:34
>> Yeah, the basic logic is this is the hardest operating environment on Earth.
2:30:39
If you can build tech that works in the Arctic, it will be valuable to everybody, the US, Europe, NATO allies.
2:30:46
Yeah, >> it doesn't matter.
2:30:47
I don't want to build just a Canadian company just focused on Canada. Yeah.
2:30:50
This is a Canadian company focused on the world. >> Yeah.
2:30:54
What does the supply chain look like?
2:30:56
I mean, you mentioned that you're you're partnering with like Got Tenna and building on top of a lot of things.
2:31:00
Does that make it less capital intensive and you you you do need to build stuff on top of it, but it looks more like software teams, engineers, and you're maybe able to match it with the money that's coming from the government on the sales side. >> Yeah.
2:31:13
Yeah, we're definitely software first.
2:31:15
Uh there is a supply chain in Canada. It is pretty extensive.
2:31:17
It's actually built pretty >> I mean most of Canada's defense hardware is American about 80% of it and so they're integrated into large American platforms. >> Yeah.
2:31:31
>> Um but we are a software first company.
2:31:34
Um we're taking a similar approach to a lot of the other neopimes where you start off with software, you realize you need to do hardware, you vertically integrate, you push platforms, that sort of thing. >> Yeah.
2:31:44
What what's exciting on the connectivity side?
2:31:46
Um obviously the Star the Starlink story is big.
2:31:49
Is is that the main driver of uh of progress there?
2:31:53
Are there any other uh connectivity stories that you've been benefiting from?
2:31:58
>> Well, one of the challenges is that Starling isn't so the polar orbit doesn't have a ton of star sat >> I didn't realize >> the polar orbit sucks, right?
2:32:04
Like there's nobody that really does polar orbit.
2:32:09
>> And so that's actually what we're solving for.
2:32:10
We're solving for localized connectivity. >> Okay.
2:32:13
Starlink, Aridium, One Web, there's a Canadian company called Telesat.
2:32:17
They're all kind of coming up there, but the connectivity still sucks. >> Interesting.
2:32:21
>> And that like that's across like it affects, you know, your localization, your PNT, how you move autonomous systems.
2:32:29
So connectivity is a real challenge. >> Yeah.
2:32:31
Do you have an idea of uh how Astronis fits in here?
2:32:33
I know that they do geostationary large satellites for internet.
2:32:37
They were putting one over Taiwan and they were putting one over different countries.
2:32:41
Is is that something that they could track?
2:32:44
I mean, obviously we can ask it from them directly, but I'm wondering if you've gone down that rabbit [clears throat] hole. >> Yeah.
2:32:49
No, we're we're going down that rabbit hole now.
2:32:51
There's a bunch of new providers and I think the the satellite problem will be solved over the next five years, but like five years is a long time.
2:33:00
>> Yeah, that's great news.
2:33:00
Well, >> we got to hit the gunk.
2:33:02
Tell us how much >> What's the biggest What's the biggest seed round in Canadian history?
2:33:08
>> I think it might be the second biggest Canadian seed round in history.
2:33:11
Definitely the biggest in defense.
2:33:13
>> Well, this is going to be the biggest gong hit in Canadian history, I [laughter] think. So, like how much? $21 million. Boom. There we go. Uh, great to meet you.
2:33:21
Uh, thank you so much for coming on and, uh, yeah, glad glad you guys are focused on the Arctic, cultivating Arctic power. >> Keep us safe.
2:33:31
>> Thanks for having me, guys. Great to meet you. >> Very much your day.
2:33:33
Let me tell you about Gusto, the unified platform for payroll benefits and HR built to evolve with modern small and mediumsiz businesses.
2:33:41
And without further ado, we have Phil and Matt Grim in the studio in the TBP and Ultra Dome. Come on. Come on down, guys.
2:33:48
Uh, thank you so much for taking the time to come to the TBP and Ultradome. Great to see you. >> Good to see you.
2:34:00
>> Two of the most athletic men in TAC.
2:34:02
Both athletes in their own right.
2:34:05
>> Bench press world champion, bench press high school champion.
2:34:07
What was the what was the stat again? >> Uh at the age of 17. >> 17.
2:34:11
>> Broke a bench state record for New York. >> Let's go. >> That's the real news.
2:34:19
>> What What was the actual uh amount? The weight. >> Nothing crazy. >> Oh, okay. >> What's the number? What's three plates? >> It was It was 275.
2:34:25
At the time I could do three plates. >> I overshot it. I do 355.
2:34:28
I didn't actually get to do a 335, but it is what it is.
2:34:34
>> Wait, that so that was a high school state record. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:34:37
I was for age and weight class. I was 17. >> Amazing.
2:34:40
>> I weighed like 190 at the time.
2:34:41
>> And what's the latest on the Murf?
2:34:41
Is this an annual thing now? >> It's an annual thing.
2:34:43
We're doing it again this year. Rolling it back. Doing >> time.
2:34:46
Uh definitely beating the time this year. Yeah. I have one 1 hour goal.
2:34:49
So I was an hour and 12 minutes last year. So >> Okay.
2:34:51
You can shoot on 12 minutes. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:34:53
>> That's what 20% of the time. >> A lot of training. Yeah.
2:34:55
You going to come out and do it this year? >> Yeah.
2:34:57
I'll be >> Last year there was a lot of talk and then uh not a lot.
2:34:58
[laughter] So, you know, you coming out heavy, >> you know, you know, when we started the show, uh, you invited me down and we did a Murf or we we didn't even do a full Murf.
2:35:08
We just did like some training and I was completely dead.
2:35:09
Uh, and I went down and I had like a fever for like a month.
2:35:13
[laughter] It was brutal.
2:35:13
I was so sick doing the show.
2:35:15
Uh, it was absolutely >> But this year, yeah, we're rolling it back.
2:35:18
And then most importantly, we're going to do a big one in um in Ohio as a partnership with Ohio State and of the launching of our also one factory there.
2:35:25
Uh, with everything getting up and moving, by the time the Murf comes around, we'll be just opening for production at the factory there.
2:35:29
So, it'll be a pretty big day for us. >> Great timing.
2:35:33
>> Uh, let let's rewind, introduce yourselves just so we have it on the record.
2:35:37
I think everyone knows since you repeat guests, but kick it off. >> Oh, I mean, I'm Phil.
2:35:40
I'm the co-founder and CEO of DRA.
2:35:41
We are building the first AI native >> production orchestration platform starting with automated work instructions. >> Okay.
2:35:50
>> And then I'm Matt Grim, the co-founder and COO of Andreal Industries. >> Okay.
2:35:52
And then why are you two here today together?
2:35:56
>> We are very very fortunate to chat with you guys about an excellent partnership that the folks at DRA and Andre have come to. >> Cool.
2:36:02
>> Um we signed a excellent uh multi-year agreement to roll out DRA across all of Androl's manufacturing facilities. >> Okay.
2:36:10
So that includes the one in Ohio.
2:36:11
>> We'll include the one in Ohio. Yes.
2:36:11
So I I I first met Phil about two years ago and change.
2:36:16
Um there was a video that they sent around that went kind of viral in uh in kind of manufacturing tech nerd circles and it was a video of the an earlier iteration of their build OS uh showing how you could go from a model in CAD and that the uh the Build OS platform would then take that break it down and turn that into instructions for factory floor workers to actually put together and and assemble.
2:36:35
So I saw the video reached out and said like hey this seems kind of cool.
2:36:39
We've got a lot of factories. We're we're growing.
2:36:41
We're building uh you know could we could we set up a call?
2:36:44
So we um kind of did a couple of calls, did a couple of videos, you know, video zoom screens and then um I uh brought brought him in to do a proof of concept and we've been kind of building together for the last two years fully integrating the build OS platform into our existing suite of tools.
2:36:57
We call the tools the the Arsenal OS that is the combination of our ERP on the back end.
2:37:04
Um then our um our PLM that our CAD designers use every day to design the software.
2:37:09
Our uh MEES on the floor that our production workers are interacting with and then getting uh DRO um build OS plugged directly into that which will then reduce the amount of time going from an idea on a whiteboard to a model in CAD then ultimately to those work instructions that the factory floor workers need to actually assemble the products. Got it. Mhm.
2:37:28
>> So with uh with build OS implemented, we've seen pretty wild wild improvements in the in the time that it takes to go from that CAD model to that work instruction for the factory floor.
2:37:35
Was the number 80 something% >> 87. 5%. There we go. It was 87. 5%. It was a 12h hour redu.
2:37:41
It was from it went from 12 hours down to 90 minutes. >> That's amazing.
2:37:46
>> Pretty without without >> Let's give it up for SAS. >> SAS.
2:37:50
[applause] >> So how not not getting enough love.
2:37:53
>> How often are the work instructions changing?
2:37:54
Is this is this just is this more unique to Anderal because you're developing new products, new CAD designs, and so you need to go from CAD design to work construction every day, every month, every year versus someone who's just like, "Look, I make five, five, six rounds.
2:38:09
It's the same CAD design, same work instructions for the last decade.
2:38:12
I'm just doing the thing that I'm doing."
2:38:13
Why is this important for you?
2:38:16
And and and and how does Direct plug in?
2:38:18
>> Yeah, you there's an excellent question.
2:38:21
So, you're not you're not just a pretty talking guy.
2:38:22
[laughter] You know, you know some things.
2:38:23
Uh so the challenge for a company like Androl as we scale up and we're um diversifying across a number of different product lines and a number of different geographies is then you have engineers with an idea who want to make a tweak or make a change or sometimes we're responsive to quality issues in the field or something like that.
2:38:38
They want to make a design change.
2:38:40
>> So then every time a design change gets made the current method for doing work instructions is predominantly manual.
2:38:44
So every time a bracket or a wiring harness or a connector or a circuit board changes, you have to change the work instructions.
2:38:52
Else on the factory floor, you get an instruction that says like, you know, uh screw bolt number ABC123 into this hole, tight into this torque, whatever.
2:39:00
But it's a different bolt now.
2:39:02
Y >> So then the guy on the floor gets an instruction and is like, but it doesn't it doesn't fit.
2:39:06
So then for us as we as we scale and we're specifically trying to take a faster iteration kind of faster mentality uh to to this manufacturing process reducing that time is absolutely absolutely clutch and critical.
2:39:18
So for us it is especially paramount.
2:39:20
Um though I will say that I think this is a problem that plagues a lot of industries and a lot of our supply chain a lot of our um other partners and vendors.
2:39:28
So I'll let Phil speak more to the rest of the market but um it's definitely compelling and working for us.
2:39:33
Yeah, because you've had success in like automobile manufacturing as well.
2:39:38
>> We're pretty we're pretty vertical.
2:39:38
Last time we uh last time I came on the show, we talked about a ship building partner. That's right.
2:39:44
>> Um and makes a ton of things, planes, ships, all sorts of different things.
2:39:48
>> And what we've seen, at least with DRA, is that >> our problem set that we work on, right, automated work construction, it's not just useful for just defense folks, right?
2:39:56
Because we end up working with folks in aerospace and defense, automotive, agriculture and construction machinery, maritime, complex industrial machinery.
2:40:04
Really, anybody that has any sort of complex assembly, you need operators on the shop floor who know exactly what to build and when.
2:40:11
>> And when it takes weeks or months to make a work instruction, a guide for your folks in the shop floor, most of the time they're operating on outdated information.
2:40:20
And when you want to have an industrial base that is agile and robust, you can't have your operators and your technicians operating on outdated information on outdated context.
2:40:29
And that, you know, we we often talk about the work instruction as the core atomic unit of information in the factory. Sure.
2:40:36
>> And if that is the core driving force by which your factory builds, you can't let it be manual, can't be PowerPoint, you know, can't be. >> Yeah.
2:40:44
My only reference here is if you've ever gotten, you know, like like some baby furniture thing and you got the instruction set and like if you're actually following it closely and you realize that the instructions are wrong, it's just the most enraging experience ever.
2:40:59
ever. And so I imagine even for like like employee morale like on the shop floor if like you're constantly dealing with just like terrible instructions, why should somebody be like >> yeah, it's great if they're high agency
2:41:10
and they're going to try to like fix it and and manage up, >> but at the same time a lot of people are just going to be like, you know, just actually become less engaged because they're like, I'm not getting the right information and the resources. Why
2:41:20
Why should I even why should I even try? >> Correct.
2:41:24
And and in your baby furniture example, that is uh that is not an electronic product.
2:41:28
So you have to think of that exact problem and then layer on all the complexity of electronics and wiring harnesses and power distribution and all those extra components.
2:41:34
So like one of the major challenges is that there's a quick iteration of chips.
2:41:40
There'll just be a new chip that'll be faster on a different board kind of new power new power specs or whatever.
2:41:43
So you need to make a slight tweak.
2:41:45
The traditional way of doing that is to take all of those changes that you want to make on a very slow cadence somewhere on the area of annual sometimes uh sometimes bannual and batch all of those changes up into a single block upgrade that you then do all at once.
2:41:58
So then for a long period of time you're deploying outdated hardware.
2:42:02
So you want to be deploying the best that you possibly can to your customers.
2:42:06
But to Phil's point, in order to get the best onto the factory floor and then ultimately into the hands of the customer, you drastically need to reduce the time from idea to work construction to factory floor.
2:42:17
And [clears throat] uh and then most importantly keep all of that in sync because when you have at our scale with thousands of design engineers and then many thousands of factory floor workers, like keeping them all talking off the same sheet of music becomes a really hard orchestration problem to keep everybody talking.
2:42:33
>> Thousands of design engineers. That's a ton.
2:42:35
>> We just passed through 7,000 employees. Yeah. Congratulations. >> Thank you. Thank you.
2:42:44
>> We got to bring that gong closer for you.
2:42:45
How How are the work instructions actually evolving from a form factor standpoint?
2:42:51
Like I imagine historically you just get like a printed out kind of I don't know big stack of papers.
2:42:55
I can imagine >> like a very thick IKEA instruction.
2:42:58
And I think like the number of companies have come and gone trying to you know basically put work constructions into like you know like VR stuff like that.
2:43:08
How far away are we from that?
2:43:08
I imagine this is a question that's come up like with investor pitches.
2:43:14
>> VR is an interesting modality for displaying work instructions.
2:43:16
Typically what we see nowadays on the shop floor before we come in uh most manufacturing engineers are using PowerPoint or Word.
2:43:25
You know [clears throat] Microsoft that uh that old beast is still dominating the work construction market.
2:43:28
So they just have a laptop and they're just kind of >> um often times.
2:43:31
So they will draft it into PowerPoint or Word.
2:43:34
They'll then print it out and it'll sit in a thick white binder on the assembly station.
2:43:37
Um if they're lucky they're updating it maybe, you know, once or twice a year flipping through say, "Oh, it's this version. No, wait.
2:43:45
Get that binder off the rack over there uh to to make this different model."
2:43:49
On the the the way that we think about it, right?
2:43:50
The way that we've seen it uh on the design side of things, right?
2:43:53
of things, right? We've seen 15 20 years of an explosion of excellent software in the design side and because CAD is so advanced what we've seen is an explosion in the uh variance that people are able to design right uh think about the increasing uh complexity the different
2:44:09
modular builds right uh you know company like Android right has modular products they have different payloads that are reconfigurable now think about that from the design perspective great we can swap out a different uh you know a bunch of different modules >> now from the manufacturing perspect perspective. That means that you have to
2:44:24
That means that you have to have uh when you can when you can have thousands of different uh combinations of things, you now need thousands of different work instructions where if one picture is off and one step is off, you have somebody building a completely different thing.
2:44:37
And thinking about that from the top level build perspective, that makes sense, right?
2:44:40
Like that's a ton of different configurations.
2:44:42
Uh but when we're looking at all the people who make up the supplier base of the companies that make planes, cars, trains, everything in between, we're talking about companies that make pumps and valves, complex mechanical subasssemblies, right?
2:44:55
Think about how many different variants those guys have to have.
2:44:58
Uh now they're in deep trouble because when they lose the ability to not only have folks on their shop floor that are, you know, 30-year veterans who just know off the back of their heads, you know, okay, this is yeah, I remember how we built this last time.
2:45:10
I don't really need instructions because all those folks are also retiring.
2:45:13
Uh our entire industrial base and our supplier base is also at risk because we haven't codified all of that tribal knowledge.
2:45:21
And that is a key mission of ours as well.
2:45:23
Not just to be a rubber band around the variance, but to also codify and capture >> basically like how do we used to do it?
2:45:30
Why did we stop doing it that way?
2:45:30
Like making sure that's maintained.
2:45:32
So if a guy doesn't retire, you're not calling him up like you know what you used to do in this situation. >> Yep. Exactly.
2:45:38
>> Yep. Exactly. similar to a McKenzie analyst who uh put together a uh a spreadsheet or or a PowerPoint uh that was like you know 150 slides you're like hey how did you what macros did you use what what formulas did you use for this thing um that's like another framing to think about it um except that guy retired and he's
2:45:55
>> how many products does and have now because I think most people know Fury Roadrunner dive but there's different variants with each product um how how do you think about the product footprint >> to to fill to fill 's point that there are roundabouts 30 of the core products, but then there are many many hundreds of individual variants that'll come along with those. So, for example, the um the
2:46:14
So, for example, the um the Australian military might use a slightly different radio than the US military.
2:46:21
So, then there's just and it's not a not a hard change, but it's still a change, a slightly different bracket, a slightly different connection.
2:46:26
>> They're not standardized on a specific size.
2:46:28
So, you need different bracket sizes and all that. >> Exactly.
2:46:30
And then to Phil's point about payloads.
2:46:32
So for on the dive XL for example, uh maybe you want to put a very advanced sonar package or maybe you want to put a mind sweeping package or um something along those lines.
2:46:41
>> So that the actual dive is still the same, but then inside you need a slightly different bracket to hold the thing and a slightly different >> plug USBC for this is this is this is a this would this would be the ideal.
2:46:52
I think it's a long ways out though.
2:46:53
So >> it is right because standards I mean they it takes so long even just to roll out into the phones.
2:46:57
I mean how long was it before the iPhone and the Android phone had the same charger?
2:47:00
Clearly we need uh European style regulations to force to force us into it.
2:47:06
>> Seriously like do we like like does it need to be defined from government?
2:47:09
>> So there there there are a number of standards that exist out there specifically about um you know communication protocols and things and then this is part of why we run these international u multi-military exercises partly to kind of work through these types of issues >> especially for comms.
2:47:22
I imagine if this helicopter can't talk to that plane you're dead.
2:47:26
>> It's a it's a it's a it's a huge pain point. Yeah.
2:47:28
So there is some standardization, but that doesn't quite get down to the chip level like in inside the the the seeker head of a Barracuda that there's a maybe a slightly different sensor that this customer or that customer wants to use.
2:47:41
The body of the the Barracuda is the same, the wings are the same, the engine's the same, the power module's the same, all that's the same, but at the front there's a slightly different module, which then to Phil's point means then you need another set of work instructions, you need to train your workers a different way, and then that [clears throat] becomes uh very hard to manage at scale.
2:47:55
Um, so with with Phil's uh platform, we'll be able to kind of bring that together and shorten that time and ultimately lead to products getting in the field quicker. >> Sense. Uh, talk about Ohio.
2:48:04
Uh, is it is how far along are you with the project?
2:48:11
Uh, is uh is Trey vindicated in everything else? Sure.
2:48:14
In all of his Ohio, >> you know, I mean, uh, don't don't want to take swings at Trey here, but um, the, uh, the the Arsenal 1 project in Columbus, Ohio is is is running incredibly smoothly.
2:48:23
We've got about the first 30 and change um Ohioans hired already.
2:48:28
They we hired them about 6 months ago and then brought them out to California.
2:48:31
So, they've been at headquarters where we've been building the first few tales of of the Fury line. Okay.
2:48:37
>> Um then they're coming back to Ohio this month and then we're um doing the standup and provisioning of the line.
2:48:42
So, the ultimate Arsenal One campus will be about a dozen buildings totaling in the neighborhood of about 5 million square feet total.
2:48:47
Uh the first building that's about um just shy of a million square feet.
2:48:51
It's like 800,000 ft² um is is fully built.
2:48:53
The internal is being being constructed now.
2:48:56
The inside uh and the production line on all the equipment, all of that, test rigs and all of those things are being provisioned.
2:49:01
And we'll start production on Fury uh this summer.
2:49:05
>> Building two is the walls are vertical.
2:49:06
So that's that's that's going up.
2:49:06
And then building three is immediately there after.
2:49:09
And building four right there after.
2:49:11
So we'll be rolling out a new building about every yearish for um about the next seven eight years. Slight slight.
2:49:16
You said the Fury tails are being built one place.
2:49:18
Is this is this a matter of like building different pieces then bringing them all together?
2:49:21
Is there an assembly line?
2:49:22
Is it like a manufacturing? >> Sorry.
2:49:25
Uh a a term term term of industry.
2:49:27
Tail tail being the the full plane.
2:49:30
>> Tail like like a tail number on the plane. >> Oh yes. Got it. Got it. Yes. Yes. Yes.
2:49:34
So the first the first the first uh the first four or five I'm going to get in trouble for not remembering.
2:49:38
The first four or five will be built will be assembled at HQ >> and then test flown at our test range nearby.
2:49:43
And then the next one will be the tail.
2:49:45
Why not [laughter] whole of >> the tail number the whole the whole plane but then but then from there on out they'll be manufactured.
2:49:51
>> In terms of assembly lines, are we still paying homage to Henry Ford with a with a plane that moves down and gets things added or is it a more integrated process >> for for Fury's line?
2:50:00
It will resemble something in the neighborhood of of Yes.
2:50:05
So it move from station to station.
2:50:06
>> More like the grim method of >> There you go. There you go. There you go. We'll coin that one.
2:50:10
Um we need a gong hit for that. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
2:50:18
Um but the the line will resemble closer to that where at at station one we do the hydraulics.
2:50:23
At station two you do the electronics at station three you do the fuel system.
2:50:26
Something along those lines.
2:50:28
Um and then it's ultimately the fury line will be uh 22 stations.
2:50:30
And then where the fury line in particular gets complicated is that uh we have to do a number of um very complicated coatings and paintings on it. Uh okay.
2:50:41
though that that's a little bit um tricky and specific.
2:50:43
>> And then of course the the propulsion element of it is just very very complicated to >> talk to talk to you say testament to how far out Mr.
2:50:51
far out Mr. Mac Grim thinks about has been thinking about Fury two two years ago when he initially reached out after seeing uh seeing our demo of build OS initial outreach was hey I saw what you guys are working on uh can you use it to build robotic fighter jets >> uh and I said yeah I mean depending on
2:51:08
how cool they are of course again >> two years later here we are here we are >> yeah and got what what a what a moment too yeah >> and and val how validating this is for DRA I mean I feel like part of why you guys are coming out and talking about it together is I imagine you want your supply chain to probably get on >> the rack. Is that is that a part of it?
2:51:24
Is that is that a part of it?
2:51:26
Like wanting the whole or is it just a quality part that you get at the end of the day? >> Good question.
2:51:30
So, there's a couple parts uh couple reasons why I'm here in particular to to support the announcement here.
2:51:35
First is that um Andrew's on a mission to save the West.
2:51:39
It's kind of the the name of the company baked into that.
2:51:40
And it [clears throat] is my firm conviction that part of that journey will be re-industrializing the West and re-industrializing America.
2:51:45
And part of that is getting the supply chain teams and get manufacturing organizations, production operations to be more tech forward and be more tech- enabled.
2:51:54
And just like accounting software and sort of like traditional kind of big big software platforms, a lot of the core technology in that um ecosystem is is pretty hard to use.
2:52:02
It's almost user hostile.
2:52:04
It's just very difficult.
2:52:06
So part of the mission here is that like yes, of course, we want to adopt it.
2:52:10
Then we want the supply chain that supports us to adopt it.
2:52:12
And then in the long run, we want more and more and more and more factories uh operating this way because if we're going to compete with um with China and the rest of the world on the large scale manufacturing, we need to get faster at this.
2:52:24
And part of part of the the the lag in Western manufacturing is exactly that to your point about the the the work instructions of a of a kid's play set that aren't quite right.
2:52:34
>> What happens on a line then is it's like then the line is stopped at station seven because the station seven instructions.
2:52:40
So then you just get like, okay, well then it stopped here, stopped at six, stopped at five, stopped at four because that guy is like, I don't know what to do. I can't fit this.
2:52:46
So then extrapolate that out across industries and there's just so much wasted time and effort that gets spent on problems like this that I think can be solved with technology.
2:52:56
It's a perfect application of where AI can be very powerful to help accelerate the development and the shipping process. So that's one point.
2:53:03
And then the other point I want to bring up is that we've seen this very fascinating and um honestly unpredicted uh outcome of our work with DRock is that by talking to our customers so talking to the Navy, the Air Force etc about how we are going to scale manufacturing and talking to them about how we go from designs into PDRs and CDRs and MRS the whole engineering process to get something designed and fielded.
2:53:25
We've been specifically pitching DRock solution as part of that ecosystem to help them understand exactly this question about how we get from that idea to that work instruction to the factory floor to help us accelerate.
2:53:36
And it's been >> pretty good ahead of sales >> in a in a bizarre way.
2:53:38
It's been an accelerant for our sales to help our customers see that we're leveraging this this new fangled technology this this AI because the government customers are like what is this AI stuff?
2:53:48
How am I going to use it?
2:53:49
And we come in and say here's how you're going to use it.
2:53:51
We're going to use it on autonomy on your end products.
2:53:54
You're going to use it in the manufacturing line.
2:53:55
You're going to use it in the back office.
2:53:56
And here's how it's going to ultimately get you better products fielded for cheaper. >> Yeah.
2:54:00
>> Uh I want to talk to you guys about the labor market in manufacturing specifically.
2:54:04
Are you guys >> going had there's so much demand for probably uh type of talent that could do manufacturing or they could go work in a data center development project?
2:54:13
Are you guys competing for for talent with the data center buildout?
2:54:18
Is there enough people enough people excited about entering this this workforce?
2:54:24
>> So there's there's actually two pieces to talk about there.
2:54:25
Uh interesting thing to bring up data centers.
2:54:27
Um increasingly well rather historically the way that data centers have been built out, right?
2:54:33
They've looked a lot more like architecture projects.
2:54:35
And so you've seen the tooling that people use to design data centers historically um on AutoCAD, Autodesk, which is a little bit more of the architecture.
2:54:44
You know, they're doing it in BIM which is like >> building a building. >> Yes. Exactly.
2:54:49
>> Throw a bunch of racks in there. >> Historically, yes.
2:54:50
Uh but now something that we are seeing as a company uh through the companies that we're working with um increasingly more data center companies coming to us and saying hey we need to start building at scale the same way we produce electronic systems at scale.
2:55:05
And so I you know we are seeing a massive migration of data center producers and data center builders away from traditional architecture oriented uh design and build systems towards the more manufacturing oriented design and build systems.
2:55:19
And with that they're saying hey uh we are going to have to build data center systems all over the world and we cannot have folks not having the context of what to build.
2:55:26
Can Durax work construction software be useful for this?
2:55:31
And so of course we say yes.
2:55:32
Um and so that's one thing about the data centers uh just as an interesting anecdote that might be interesting for folks to to know about um that we are also trying to build data centers the same way we build cars and planes and everything else.
2:55:42
planes and everything else. Um and then on the labor question um another thing that we think about is radically reducing the barrier to entry for net new folks into manufacturing because you know picture is worth a thousand words but an animation is worth a million
2:55:54
right earlier you were asking about how do we change the modality of the way a person interacts with a work construction >> with our software it is not just a picture not just a photo not just a printed out thing it is a 3D interactive animated uh dynamic work instruction that a oper operator technician can interact with, right? Pictures worth a
2:56:13
Pictures worth a thousand words, but animation is worth a million.
2:56:16
And so, because you were able to have less skilled folks potentially take the roles of operators and because you're also codifying and aggregating all of that tribal knowledge and context. >> Yeah.
2:56:27
>> We're seeing that the companies that we work with are actually able to hire less trained technicians.
2:56:30
So, it's easing that burden and pain for them. >> Yeah.
2:56:34
On the on the Androl side, uh I' I'd add a couple points there.
2:56:36
First of that is is that on the data center side in the construction market it's becoming pretty contentious just because you know big huge builds need big huge bulldozers and concrete layers and um electricians and etc.
2:56:49
So on the construction side >> you guys are basically competing for the same kind of firms for the time of firms that are getting offers from data centers that maybe have a different >> so on the construction and build kind of side of things.
2:57:00
Yes, it's that's certainly getting competitive on the actual technicians on the factory floor.
2:57:05
we haven't seen pressures from data centers because the the the dot I would add is that these data centers while very big and very powerful tend to employ very few people.
2:57:12
There's not that many people engaged in the actual day-to-day running of the place.
2:57:17
>> So for for us like on the technician side we don't see much competition from them.
2:57:21
them. And where we are spending a lot of our effort is investing into the local communities including in Ohio through partnerships with the local universities and trade schools and community colleges like that kind of ecosystem to work with them on the types of skills that we want
2:57:34
to see new uh new hires have whether that's additive manufacturing or welding or particular CNC programming or just like electronics assembly whatever that skill set is helping design curriculums that can then prod produce graduates of those programs that are ready to come get a job at Anderoll. So
2:57:49
So >> for us it's kind of a kind of a long play cuz you know we invest that time up now and those graduates won't come out for a couple years but um in the long run we think we'll will lead to a pretty fertile supply to say nothing of being good for the communities that we're engaged in.
2:58:02
>> What are you seeing within the armed forces on the self-repair side?
2:58:03
Uh there's been a couple press releases about being able to repair drone or something on the fly.
2:58:13
I remember I toured a toured a a aircraft carrier and they had a machine shop and there was a a sailor in the machine shop who was talking about if if something breaks on the ship they build they they will go and mill the bolt right there.
2:58:26
They don't go and buy it because and he was very proud to say, you know, we're saving the taxpayer.
2:58:31
They want to charge us thousand dollars for this bolt.
2:58:33
I made it for five bucks.
2:58:34
Uh that seems like a really positive thing.
2:58:37
Does that play into automated work instructions at some point?
2:58:41
some digital solution and then just what are you seeing on the overall repairability from the systems that you'll be deploying and are deploying.
2:58:50
So, uh, yeah, uh, funny enough, maintenance and repair is a very, very common next question when folks ask us about work instructions, right?
2:58:55
Most of the time when they're saying, "Hey, uh, awesome.
2:58:59
You can now automatically generate my work instructions for me.
2:59:03
Uh, I can now have operators and technicians interact with it in a 3D manner." Awesome.
2:59:06
Now, can you do maintenance and repair instructions?
2:59:07
And our answer is, of course, yes, right?
2:59:11
MRO is a natural uh, inverse generally of actually the initial build of the thing.
2:59:16
Uh, and so part of what our roadmap is, part of the things that we're working on with a variety of different folks is is automating maintenance and repair instructions.
2:59:22
So, we're very big proponents of, you were mentioning, uh, the right to repair, not just of, uh, you know, tractors, but of drones out in the field.
2:59:30
Um, it's a very big thing that we've been talking to a lot of different folks about, and it's something that we're a big proponent of because we don't think that these should be two different uh, domains of instruction sets.
2:59:39
Um, context should live on the model.
2:59:41
context should live in the hands of folks who are actually designing and building those systems and repairing them.
2:59:47
And so you should at the time of making your first instruction set have the ability to codify all that context into one core instruction set.
2:59:57
Um and maintenance and repair instruction should fall naturally out of that.
3:00:00
And that's it's a lot of how we think about things.
3:00:02
>> Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. >> Yeah.
3:00:03
>> Yeah. from from a policy perspective where I think the lines get a little bit blurred is that we're talking about a bolt or a bracket or a fixture or something that you can carve out of metal makes makes obvious sense in one area >> and then the next area would be some somewhere in the middle of you know rewiring or reconnecting you know an additional battery pack or something like that that's kind of in the middle
3:00:20
and then all the way on the other end is like all the way down to the chip level >> chip broke you're not going to fab it >> yeah you're not you're not laying laying silicon silicon chips out on an aircraft carrier or something right so there there is a spectrum there at which I mean, at some point on that spectrum, you say like, "Actually, I do need to call the experts to help me on this," >> right? But, but, uh, in my opinion, the
3:00:37
But, but, uh, in my opinion, the the the default of saying, "Don't touch it. We'll come repair it.
3:00:41
Ship it all the way back to our factory."
3:00:43
That's just not going to fly in any time of of of conflict.
3:00:46
Um, cuz like we do need our sailors and our airmen and our soldiers in the field to be able to at minimum replace the consumables, you know, the brake pads, the tires, etc.
3:00:55
, but then also to do kind of the next level of repair into, you know, replace a fuel pump or something along those lines.
3:01:02
When it gets down to the chip level though, you're like, I'll probably send you a replacement module and then maybe the work instructions say take bad module output, new module in, reconnect these cables.
3:01:10
Um, but the in general, yeah, we want to be as as friendly as we can be to this forward repair concept because in a time of conflict, you just think like I need the thing now. I need need to go.
3:01:21
need to go. you said brake pads and my uh mine went to motorsports because I know Andrew Rolls is supporting NASCAR and then I was curious are you guys working has there been any inbound from any racing organizations that that are
3:01:36
make having to make parts on the fly and are in heavy R&D and maybe they only make the part like maybe they're making different variations of the part but they're not actually doing it at scale because it's not a manufacturing business. >> Any any opportunities there? So, funny
3:01:49
>> Any any opportunities there?
3:01:49
So, funny enough, uh I cannot confirm or deny explicit names. Okay.
3:01:53
Uh but we are actually in conversation with several motorsports teams uh who are actively evaluating us for use cases on and off the track. >> Yeah.
3:02:02
Probably a like a very different workflow, but uh so many learnings and just great for the brand and whatnot work there. >> Exactly. >> Yeah.
3:02:10
Uh how are you reflecting on the DoD or Department of War budget potentially being increased? >> I still say DoD too. I'm trying. I'm trying.
3:02:18
But it's, you know, years >> um I mean the the the the post saying that we might go to 1.
3:02:24
5 trillion uh that seems like that was not Ander's original mission.
3:02:30
Andrew was all about uh doing more with less.
3:02:33
Um but at the same time if it accelerates the mission that could be good.
3:02:38
How have you been processing it internally?
3:02:40
>> Well I mean I think any anytime a customer says they want to spend more on the things you make is generally generally a good good thing for us.
3:02:45
Um that said exactly to your point like we would love to see these um this increase in funding if it happens of course it's got to go through Congress and all the usual but if it happens um be spent smartly and on um new technologies new approaches and not just kind of funding the old way of doing things in the old kind of um legacy model that in our opinion hasn't worked for decades.
3:03:04
So, um, yeah, of course, you know, customers spending more money is good for us, but, um, we're going to be lobbying pretty heavily to have them spend it on more AI powered, you know, weapons of futures, autonomy, um, that kind of construct.
3:03:19
Um, and especially on a on a different kind of contracting model, more towards the cost plus type of model.
3:03:22
Sorry, away from the cost plus type of model to the firm fixed type of model that that we like to do business with.
3:03:27
So, um, well, still a lot to a lot to digest there, but we're in general pretty excited as part of >> that initial like flipped model of like, you know, like raise venture, take risk capital, build a prototype, build something, then show up to the Department of War with a concept or something that's maybe ready to be fielded and then say buy it.
3:03:45
Uh, has that held as long as you thought it would?
3:03:50
Do you think it holds forever?
3:03:52
Because at some point, if a customer shows up and says, "I'll pay you to do the R&D, what are you going to do? Turn them away?"
3:03:57
But at the same time there's some you know there's the financial hazard that the firm was founded around.
3:04:03
So how's your thinking evolved around the whole flipped model and doing R&D on your balance sheet?
3:04:10
>> Yeah, a couple of thoughts there.
3:04:10
First is that um we spend an inordinate amount of money on our own um internal research and defense IRA type uh research and development rather >> um spending just an absolute inordinate amount of money and we're grateful to have the support of our investors who believe in this business model.
3:04:24
So for us, we haven't not at all seen a like let's just shift back to that way.
3:04:29
It's a lot capital, you know, less less risky, capital safer, all of that.
3:04:32
Um, so no, I'm not surprised like this is to your point, this is exactly the kind of thesis, the mission of what we're trying to do.
3:04:40
If anything, we've been very happy to see venture capital funding to the se uh to the sector increase to fund more companies approaching it this way because I think that for us to win a great power conflict, we're not going to need one and we're going to need five or eight or 10 of them.
3:04:52
So, we're excited to see, you know, new companies get started with this kind of mindset and um and go out and chip off parts of the parts of the uh ecosystem here. >> Yeah.
3:05:01
>> Um the last point I would say is that uh to date something in the neighborhood of um 85 90ish% of our uh revenue has not been from these kind of cost plus traditional like I like customerf funded models.
3:05:13
Like the vast majority of it comes from us selling our product to our customers at a fixed price.
3:05:18
customers at a fixed price. Um and then um with a recurring bit of recurring revenue tied to that for kind of think of it like an extended warranty kind of concept where yeah we're doing the maintenance, we're providing the support, we're doing the security
3:05:28
upgrades, the patching, the all of that which from our perspective really aligns incentives for us to deliver the best possible product because to be blunt like we will have a higher margin if we don't have to send repair guys out and keep replacing things. but then also
3:05:39
but then also gives the customer a more reliable product and then importantly gives the customer predictable pricing.
3:05:44
So they know what their total four year fiveyear cost of ownership for a product will be because they know that within that number we're responsible for anything that breaks any sort of problems or maintenance that needs to happen >> that aligns everybody and we're seeing a broader acceptance of that business model within both um the DO and with DHS.
3:06:02
>> So we're pretty pretty excited to see those messages landing. >> Yeah.
3:06:05
>> Give us an update on the secondary wars. [laughter] Oo, spicy.
3:06:13
>> Are you the head of investment relations or >> I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.
3:06:15
Um, >> Alison Lazarus is our >> the guy she calls to lay the smackdown.
3:06:23
>> To be honest, at some point there's going to be some enterprising young SPV slinger that's like, "If I make a really heinous memo, Matt Grim is the Grim Reaper is going to come to Wait."
3:06:33
So, so, so, so give us some backstory first and then >> Okay.
3:06:38
So, first I would say that uh our investor relations is one by run by this incredibly talented woman named Allison Lazarus.
3:06:43
She's great and she works closely with Trey on kind of managing the cap table and all the inbound and interested investors and all of that.
3:06:49
So, um not really my not really my turf anymore.
3:06:52
That said, um I've had a longunning battle against what I would call the wild cats in the secondary market who have absolutely zero respect for any sort of uh control of the cap table like who our investors are, information rights, any of that.
3:07:04
Um and they're just out kind of slinging offers at early investors, early employees at share prices that are completely insane.
3:07:13
And those people don't care whatsoever about the impact that has on the company, whether that's around 49A valuation or RSU pricing or any of those kind of internal dynamics.
3:07:20
They don't give a [ __ ] So, they just kind of create headache for us by then us having to field this inbound.
3:07:26
to field this inbound. So beyond the headache, the point that I'm really worried about and I think the SpaceX IPO will be very very interesting because this is going to be a situation where there are, you know, the tide goes out
3:07:36
and there's going to be a lot of people without trunks on that's just they uh people have been out there slinging in our case uh access to and roll or I have limited access to their next round >> at some insane price that is nowhere close to what the actual price is as set by the market. Sure. Sure.
3:07:53
>> Uh and then people are buying >> and and that's not even factoring in the fees which are sometimes crazy layered fees.
3:07:59
So there was there was this one situation of um someone slinging an offer around that was an SPV into another SPV that was buying a chunk of an investor's an early investor's holdings.
3:08:10
>> So there's like layers and layers of fees and carries on top of that at a price per share that was something like 70% above what the last round traded at.
3:08:19
So, it's just an insane thing where they're pitching access to a deal they they don't have.
3:08:24
>> And I know for a fact that there are there was a recent indictment announced in New York around a case where someone was uh was outslinging and SPVS. >> No way.
3:08:33
>> That did not have access to and the guy was just pocketing the cash and then he was just indicted and arrested at JFK.
3:08:39
Um, so like this is a thing that happens.
3:08:41
And the reason I bring up SpaceX is um, not to create more work for them, but that the the world of SpaceX IPO because the legal fees of unwinding all these wild, right?
3:08:50
Because there's there's just there's a lot of this nesting and SpaceX is a fantastic company that's been in business for a long time.
3:08:57
So there's so many of these nests of who owns what >> these types of like main street investors.
3:09:02
It's totally possible that they're thinking, well, I got into SpaceX at 200 uh when you didn't and then it goes out at 1.
3:09:08
5 and that's my retirement and then it goes out and you're like, where are my shares and the guy skipped town just out whatever you put in and not only did you lose the whatever you put in, but you also lost the mental of where you thought you were and what you were planning.
3:09:21
You might have been planning a certain lifestyle >> course and the opportunity cost of deploying that capital somewhere else, right?
3:09:27
It's a it's a it's a very big problem.
3:09:28
And um I've used this joke before, but uh my my joke is that how many investors in America think they own a chunk of SpaceX when they're actually funding their ex roommates's boyfriend's coke cabb in Miami?
3:09:39
>> And it's [laughter] like >> a fair amount probably a nonzero amount, right?
3:09:44
So what do you think you think the solution is?
3:09:45
Can the can the uh community police itself?
3:09:49
It seems like obviously like you have a legal team that's working on this stuff, but there is an element of like going direct like you need to get the word out that this is happening and that's important too.
3:09:59
But >> so this is so this is why uh I've we as a company have been more public about this is because we're specifically trying to send a message to the market that's like >> we see you, we're aware of you >> and like secondaries of course have their purpose.
3:10:10
Of course there are early investors who need to liquidate funds or fund life cycle problems.
3:10:14
Of course >> so this isn't a blanket comment that all secondaries are bad. They're not. They're not.
3:10:18
There's a category of these people who just have like really no respect and are basically just fraudsters, huers.
3:10:24
And what I think needs to happen is two things.
3:10:26
One, the investor community needs to be better at policing ourselves around just who these bad actors are.
3:10:31
Um, and kind of shining a light on them.
3:10:34
And then second, sadly, I think it's going to take law enforcement action, whether the SEC or the FBI, you know, thacking enough of these folks that that community starts to see like, uh, this is this is this isn't good for me.
3:10:44
And it just kind of puts a damper on on on that side as well. Mhm. Mhm. >> Last question for me.
3:10:49
Uh, Adam Porter Price has been on a tear doing deals, buying companies.
3:10:53
Y uh, as COO, the As COO, what is the key to a great postmerger integration?
3:11:02
>> The That's a great question.
3:11:02
Um, and and an often overlooked uh, part of doing these deals.
3:11:08
The head the deal makes a headline.
3:11:10
>> Adam busy popping champagne and then you got to get to work.
3:11:12
Adam logs more more airline miles and more and more iPhone minutes than me, than Brian, than Trey, than anybody.
3:11:19
He's because he's constantly out there, the best of the biz doing this.
3:11:22
Um, so from a post merger perspective, um, there's a tickytacky piece of it that is important, uh, which is payroll, benefits, equity ownership, um, you know, all the 401k transitions, the email has to migrate, like >> but making it sure it happens on day one.
3:11:40
There's no, oh yeah, you'll get your paycheck, but it's a delayed a week. That's annoying. No one wants that. >> Correct.
3:11:44
Nothing will burn your trust with a company faster than screwing up their first paycheck.
3:11:48
So, for us, it's a thing that we try to lean as heavy as we can into that employee education and systems transition up front.
3:11:55
>> Um, it's not possible to transition like ERPs and years of design software.
3:11:57
That takes usually, you know, 6 to 9 to 12 months on the long end to get those systems fully working.
3:12:03
But like the guts have to work first. >> Yeah.
3:12:06
>> And then second is I would say is a uh cultural alignment.
3:12:08
It's just like how we pitch our products, how we price our products, how we plug into the kind of go to market >> ecosystem and engine like we have to we have to get that right.
3:12:18
>> Uh and then then the third piece I would say is trying to get some wins pretty quick.
3:12:23
>> Uh because if you're if you're an acquired company and you get integrated and you're like, "Oh, who are all these people? Is this different?
3:12:28
I liked it when we were smaller." Yeah.
3:12:29
Oh, >> maybe they're in scrappy mode and then they're like, "Hey, I'm in.
3:12:33
>> I saw the campaign don't work at Andrew.
3:12:35
Why would I [laughter] just don't work?"
3:12:38
while I'm so kind of aligning with the what are we what are we trying to build? Why are we building it? What's the goal?
3:12:44
What are what are the deliverables we're trying to hit?
3:12:46
Like getting that kind of alignment for folks to see kind of see the destination, see the lighthouse on the hill and say that's where we're going and um aligning folks to that.
3:12:53
And it's it's those second two that are that are really hard because that's much more kind of personality based and kind of relationship based.
3:13:00
So it takes a lot of investment from the leadership team, takes a lot of investment on um the engineering team especially, you know, how are you designing your products now?
3:13:10
What's your release cycle like?
3:13:10
How do we get that into Andrew's kind of way of doing business?
3:13:13
There's just a a big transition there.
3:13:15
But >> yeah, you got to migrate.
3:13:17
>> It seems that's exactly right.
3:13:19
>> There's been this uh maybe kind of sentiment or joke uh shoot for nice even if you miss you'll land at Anderoll.
3:13:26
you know, this idea of like, you know, maybe maybe I don't build a multi-billion dollar company in as a new like neoprime, but I have, you know, maybe like the the the not the next outcome as I land at Anderol.
3:13:42
Can you reality check that because I feel like in practice? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no.
3:13:46
And and and I'm just saying like I think it's like for founders to understand like what is the actual bar because you guys every every company that's built a great product but maybe the business side isn't like fully working yet and they're thinking like okay like my product's great, our team's great.
3:14:00
I bet we could fit in there. Reality check that. >> Yeah.
3:14:04
So, uh the reason I'm pretty dismissive of it is the um that implies that Andrew will acquire anything or any company that's struggling or not >> because Adam's logging all these miles but he's not exactly doing a deal.
3:14:13
No, we do like two a year on average, if that, right?
3:14:18
So, he's he's he's saying no a lot a lot.
3:14:19
Um >> but uh what we look for in acquisitions is really a um a sweet spot of of two things.
3:14:27
One is a very strong engineering team like they have to have something that's very compelling and very unique and very interesting.
3:14:32
Uh and then the second is a area where where we can add a lot of value or accelerant or fuel to their go to market.
3:14:41
>> How do we how do we speed up the timeline by >> Exactly.
3:14:43
And you guys talk a lot with defense founders and you've had a lot a lot on and folks will consistently talk about how hard it is for the go to market engine and there's a lot of nuts and bolts around that that get underestimated around what formal government proposals look like, how to do formal government contracting, security clearances, the government relations, kind of lobbying side of this to be to be a player on these bigger deals.
3:15:04
Then um relationships within your customer that are so you're not just pitching you know the guy flying the drone out in the field.
3:15:10
You're pitching the whole chain and how it fits into their ecosystem, how it fits in the program.
3:15:14
There's a whole lot of that infrastructure that to be blunt like we're pretty good at.
3:15:18
Like we've gotten pretty good at this.
3:15:19
So when we find a company that has an incredible team building a really cool product that's like really unique and interesting but is maybe struggling there.
3:15:26
is maybe struggling there. They haven't seen kind of the ramp that they want and we see that and say hey look we can help with capital obviously >> we can also help with this go to market engine we've built this legal infrastructure this facilities
3:15:36
infrastructure this government relations infrastructure all of that will then take your product and can help really accelerate and get it deployed both to the US and to friendly governments around the world like that ends up being the sweet spot. So the the reason I
3:15:47
So the the reason I would say that uh that that the base question that you started from is just completely off base is like we're not going to go look and try to find a company that like isn't clicking.
3:15:59
>> They don't have a great product.
3:15:59
They don't have a strong team and they haven't sold a lot and then be like yeah let's go get them a couple deals a year.
3:16:07
It's like usually like you're going in and being like we want to buy this company less like hey like things aren't working that well we should try to sell. >> Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly right.
3:16:16
And and and the last point I would make on that is that uh to date uh we've done exactly zero turnarounds.
3:16:20
And I think this is a kind of a a mental model for us is that like in general we don't really want to be in the turnaround business of take a take something that's struggling and come in and fix it and like deploy our team of operators to go fix it.
3:16:31
Like there are plenty of PE firms who are very good at doing that.
3:16:34
There are plenty of other organizations who are honestly better positioned to do that.
3:16:38
>> For us, we really look for that strong team, strong product, and then where we can really accelerate sales and and and go make an impact. >> Very cool.
3:16:44
Do you uh do you have a favorite? I know.
3:16:45
I don't want to put you in hot water.
3:16:47
>> There's no chance I'll answer that question.
3:16:49
No, >> don't put I I love all of my children equally. Yes. Um excellent.
3:16:54
>> So, which one did you log the most?
3:16:56
[laughter] >> I think we know >> there's a there's a there's a great company we acquired um in in Ireland um >> that was called uh called Class.
3:17:03
Um and they make these absolutely incredible uh computers and networking.
3:17:09
>> When I saw that, I was like, I want one of those.
3:17:11
>> Yeah, they're they're they're great great devices. great team.
3:17:13
Um, but it's but it's headquartered in Dublin, which is very far.
3:17:17
So, uh, a lot of lot of time spent over there.
3:17:20
But, um, and that acquisition's gone gone absolutely swimmingly. Couldn't be happier.
3:17:25
>> Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
3:17:27
>> Thank you guys for having us. Appreciate you.
3:17:29
>> Hang out for a second.
3:17:30
>> Leave us five stars on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
3:17:32
We will be live tomorrow at 11 a. m. Pacific.
3:17:35
Sign up for our newsletter at tbpn. com. And thank you.
3:17:38
We will see you tomorrow.
3:17:41
>> See you tomorrow, folks. Have a great MLK day. Thanks for hanging out. >> Goodbye. >> Cheers.