We Fix Your Businesses | Ep. 024 Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Podcast Summary: Lemonade Stand – "We Fix Your Businesses | Ep. 024 Lemonade Stand 🍋"

Release Date: August 13, 2025

Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug

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1. Introduction and Host Absences (00:00 – 00:47)

The episode kicks off with Doug welcoming listeners to the "Lemonade Stand." He mentions that their co-host, Gavin Newsom, is unavailable due to illness, and Aiden is traveling in Sweden. Despite their absence, Doug and Aiden assure listeners that they will cover Gavin’s intended topics, occasionally calling him in for his input.

Notable Quote:

• Doug (00:00): "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the lemonade stand. Our good friend and co-host Gavin Newsom is actually sick today."

2. Trump Federalizing the Washington D.C. Police Force (00:47 – 02:19)

The hosts delve into the news that former President Trump has federalized the Washington D.C. police force. Aiden expresses strong agreement with this move, though Doug hints at possible complexities beyond Aiden's straightforward stance.

Notable Quotes:

• Aiden (00:44): "TRUMP is now in control of the police in the nation's capital. [...] I definitely do not support that."
• Doug (02:19): "Trump said he's going to Russia to meet Putin, but he's going to Alaska, which is not. So a small thing."

3. The Ukraine-Russia Conflict and Trump-Putin Negotiations (02:19 – 05:13)

Doug provides an overview of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, highlighting Trump's attempts to broker peace through a meeting with Putin. The discussion touches on Ukraine's distrust of Russian promises and Europe's frustration at being excluded from the negotiations.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (03:25): "After it's dragged on this long, Trump is now trying to put pressure to get this thing done, get it ended."
• Aiden (05:02): "We're not even at the party."

4. Drone Warfare and Modern Military Technology (05:13 – 09:06)

Aiden and Doug explore the increasing dominance of drone technology in the Ukraine-Russia war. They discuss how drones have revolutionized modern warfare, leading to rapid advancements and countermeasures like COPE cages. The conversation also covers competing narratives about the war's impact on both Russia and Ukraine.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (05:03): "More than any other war in human history, this one has been dominated by drones in Ukraine and Russia."
• Aiden (07:35): "It reminds me of World War I."

5. Business Tariffs and AI Chips: Nvidia, AMD, and US-China Relations (09:06 – 17:38)

The hosts shift focus to the tech industry, discussing Trump’s innovative yet controversial revenue tariff on Nvidia and AMD. This 15% tariff aims to allow the sale of advanced AI chips to China while funneling a portion of the profits back to the US government. They analyze the potential backfiring of such policies, including China's push to develop its own chip industry.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (10:20): "Nvidia and AMD can sell the latest and greatest chips to China, but 15% of the revenue goes directly to the US government."
• Aiden (13:54): "We have to win the AI race versus China."

6. AI Development: OpenAI’s ChatGPT5 vs. Google’s Gemini (17:38 – 49:36)

Aiden and Doug delve into the latest advancements in AI, comparing OpenAI’s ChatGPT5 with Google’s new AI model, Gemini. They discuss user reception, functionalities, and potential impacts on the AI landscape. The conversation highlights the competitive tension between OpenAI and Google, emphasizing OpenAI’s user base and product appeal despite Google's cutting-edge demos.

Notable Quotes:

• Aiden (18:17): "Most people agree this isn't groundbreaking. It's an iterative, possibly even underwhelming release."
• Doug (46:13): "OpenAI is succeeding at creating a product that hundreds of millions of people are using and enjoying."

7. Drama Between Sam Altman and Elon Musk Over OpenAI’s Partnerships (49:36 – 56:21)

The episode addresses the ongoing rivalry between Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk. Following Musk’s accusations that Apple unfairly promotes OpenAI’s apps, Sam Altman counters by questioning Musk’s manipulative practices on the X platform. This feud has ignited discussions about AI ethics and corporate competition.

Notable Quotes:

• Elon Musk (19:55): "Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach number one in the app Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation."
• Sam Altman (21:10): "Will you sign an affidavit that you've never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies? I will apologize if."

8. AI in Healthcare: Risks and Benefits (56:21 – 44:53)

Aiden brings up the controversial use of ChatGPT for medical advice, raising concerns about the potential legal liabilities and ethical implications. They debate whether AI should serve as a supplemental tool for medical information or if it poses too significant a risk to be involved in healthcare decisions.

Notable Quotes:

• Aiden (27:35): "One of the main uses of ChatGPT is people asking about their health."
• Doug (28:13): "If it's me, I own it. I run away because this is the biggest legal liability of all time."

9. Community Submissions: Business Ideas and Monetization Insights (57:08 – 82:26)

The hosts engage with business ideas submitted by their Discord community. They critique and discuss various pitches, blending humor with genuine business advice. Topics range from innovative apps to gamified financial tools, highlighting the challenges of monetizing creative ideas in a competitive market.

Notable Quotes:

• Aiden (57:03): "A business that sources white guys to fill in for vacant podcast slots. We definitely do not support."
• Doug (60:44): "A fake sports betting app that encourages real savings while allowing people to enjoy the social aspects of gambling."

10. Hiring Practices and Business Growth Strategies (82:26 – 87:07)

Doug and Aiden discuss effective hiring strategies for online businesses, emphasizing the importance of proven skills over traditional resumes. They explore the difficulties of sifting through numerous applications and the value of referrals and hands-on demonstrations of talent.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (73:03): "Find someone who's done it. Find someone that is everyone that I've hired has someone that."
• Aiden (75:16): "It's difficult to ask people to do unpaid work upfront."

11. AI’s Impact on Business and the Economy (87:07 – 89:07)

The episode concludes with reflections on AI's broader economic implications. The hosts compare the current AI boom to past technological revolutions, debating whether recent AI advancements signal a plateau or the continuation of rapid growth. They ponder AI's integration into daily life and its potential to redefine business models.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (50:02): "We're so invested in the promises of AI that any slowdown could hurt the entire narrative."
• Aiden (55:38): "AI has real value coming out of it that isn't like crypto."

Conclusion and Future Episodes (89:07)

Doug and Aiden wrap up the episode by teasing future content, including potential guest appearances and the return of co-host Gavin. They encourage listeners to join their Discord community and engage with upcoming discussions on business strategies and AI developments.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug (89:07): "Thanks for watching Lemonade Stand. Next week Aiden will be back."
• Aiden (89:07): "Thanks, everybody. Bye."

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Key Takeaways:

• Geopolitical Tensions: The episode provides an in-depth analysis of Trump’s involvement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and its broader implications for international relations.

• AI and Economic Policies: Discussion on the strategic use of tariffs on AI chip manufacturers to curb China’s technological advancements, revealing the complexities of balancing economic interests and national security.

• AI Development Race: A comparison between OpenAI’s user-centric ChatGPT5 and Google’s advanced but less accessible Gemini model, highlighting differing approaches to AI innovation and market penetration.

• Corporate Rivalries: The escalating public dispute between Sam Altman and Elon Musk underscores the ethical and competitive tensions within the AI industry.

• Innovative Business Ideas: Engagement with community-submitted business pitches showcases the blend of humor and serious entrepreneurial insights, emphasizing the challenges of monetizing creative concepts.

• AI in Healthcare: The potential and pitfalls of integrating AI into medical advice raise important ethical and legal questions about the role of technology in sensitive domains.

• Hiring Strategies: Practical advice on efficient hiring practices emphasizes the importance of skill demonstration and referrals over traditional application processes.

• Economic Implications of AI: The conversation reflects on AI’s transformative potential for the economy, drawing parallels with historical technological shifts and contemplating future developments.

Overall, this episode of Lemonade Stand offers a comprehensive exploration of current geopolitical events, the evolving landscape of AI technology, and innovative business strategies, all while engaging the audience with thoughtful discussions and community interactions.

Transcript

[Doug]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the lemonade stand. Our good friend and co host Gavin Newsom is actually sick today. And our backup host Aiden is also.

[Aiden]

Traveling in Sweden unbelievably. So the two of us are going to be carrying it down, but we are going to cover some topics we knew he did want to chime in on, so we actually did call him in for some of this. For the first topic of the day, we're going to talk about Trump federalizing the Washington D.C. police force. TRUMP is now in control of the police in the nation's capital. And Aidan wanted to call in and give some thoughts. Definitely agree with that 100%. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Aiden then talked about the S&P 500. Apparently that has hit all time highs. Like this is the highest that metric for the stock market has ever been. Aidan. Yeah, I definitely do not support that.

[Doug]

Interesting, interesting. You think it'd be tough to not.

[Aiden]

Support that in what about Putin and Trump? They're meeting, they're leaving out Zelensky. What do you think about that? And definitely agree with that 100%. So, and we are going to be calling him in throughout the show just to get his take on things. But you know, even though I think we've basically covered all the nuance of it, do you want to give a quick overview of what is happening with Mr. Ukraine, Mr. Russia and Mr. America, Ukraine, Mr. Russia. I'm just trying to anthemorize it.

[Doug]

I, I, you know, I think Aiden pretty simply summed it up. Right. But there may be more nuance to it and do you think there's more nuance to it or.

[Aiden]

No, I mean the issue is just so black and white. There's really nothing, you know, you're either this side or. I felt that glad one of us has the balls to say it. You know, I was finally going to come out and say, yeah, thank you.

[Doug]

So I guess I'll take the villain chair here that maybe it's not so black and white and there's some nuance.

[Aiden]

Yeah, actually. Well, real quick, Aiden, can we just get your thoughts on war?

[Doug]

War in general?

[Aiden]

Just the concept. Definitely agree with that 100%. All right, so clearly we've got a kind of two on one scenario going on here.

[Doug]

What do you feel a little bit ganged up on even when he's not here? I didn't understand you guys were so pro war. Okay, wait, let's, let's talk about this because the meeting is happening this Friday, the Friday of this week between Trump and Putin. Between Trump and Putin. Zelensky is not invited to a meeting about the war that his country's involved in. What's interesting, and this is a, you could call this a cheap shot, but I'm going to bring it up anyway. Trump said the meeting is happening in Russia. The meeting's happening in Alaska.

[Aiden]

What? Okay.

[Doug]

Trump said he's going to Russia to meet Putin, but he's going to Alaska, which is not. So a small thing.

[Aiden]

Whatever.

[Doug]

It's not a big deal.

[Aiden]

I'm not the politics guy on this. That could be on this podcast, but that is the wrong country.

[Doug]

So. Ok, let's see. So here's the deal. Ukraine, Russia, this war has been going on for now, three years. Trump, when he came to power, said he'd solve it day one. That was his big. One of his big promises was peace. I think he personally is a big advocate of Trump receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He wants it and I think he sees the path to it through UK and Russia. It's been a lot harder than I think he anticipated to get them to agree or come to a terms or come to ceasefire because Ukraine does not believe the promises that Russia will give if there is a ceasefire. Ukraine thinks it'll just be temporary until Russia re gears its troops and then comes back in again. So it's been hard to get an agreement. That being said, after it's dragged on this long. Trump is now trying to put pressure to get, get this thing done, get it ended. So he's going to Russia with that in mind. Now, what makes this different or unique than some of the other negotiations that's been happening before?

[Aiden]

Right, right.

[Doug]

Is that. I don't know. I don't know a nice way to say this. Russia's is making progress recently. It's not. Again, I'm no war expert, but I do follow this particular conflict pretty closely. I've been reading a lot about it because it's just so insane with the drone technology and what's going on.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And as of, especially as of, like within the past 24 hours, Russia has really made a surge or push in eastern Ukraine to make ground. And so the thought is that could put pressure on Ukraine to accept a deal where they, as Trump called it, agree to some land swapping. That is what he said. So the idea of lands I get.

[Aiden]

I don't like a Russian market.

[Doug]

I don't think Russia's swapping land to them.

[Aiden]

Maybe Russia get some of its old used land for some of, you know, back.

[Doug]

What do you think about that? Aiden, is that, is that a good idea to do some land swapping?

[Aiden]

Yeah, I definitely do not support.

[Doug]

Oh, okay.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

I mean that it's weird that he's pro.

[Aiden]

So he's pro war, but he doesn't want the lands. Oh, he just, he wants full conquering.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Without any acquisition. That makes sense. That makes sense.

[Doug]

So that's what's happening this, this Friday. They're having a zoom call today, I think a pre prep zoom call and they are going to have the actual meeting on Friday again. You know, everybody does want peace, but peace at what cost is the question. And how much Ukraine gives up. Europe has also been a little annoyed that they're sidelined on this because they're a big contributor of intelligence and money to Ukraine, but they're not included in this deal. It really is just Putin and Trump saying they can hash it out themselves.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Without the other stakeholders.

[Aiden]

It's like if they're having a house party, that's too loud on the block.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

We're not even at the party.

[Doug]

No.

[Aiden]

Europe's next door. Ukraine is the one having their house ruined by the house party. And then we're just talking with Putin. That doesn't make sense. The other people should be involved, invited to the conversation.

[Doug]

And they're saying the same thing you are. And so I, I don't know how it'll play out. Obviously, you know, I'm hopeful there is peace. People are dying in Ukraine, but it just feels like this is doomed to failure. Un, you know, the worst case outcome is that Ukraine is just actually losing. And I, I can't tell you, nobody knows, but they, it seems to be in a bad spot. So I want to show one thing that is a little more interesting or unique. You can pull my screen up, Perry. So I don't know if you're aware of this, but more than any other war in human history, this one has been dominated by drones in Ukraine and Russia. Every single, you know, six month period, there are more active drones in this battlefield than there were in the previous six months. It's gotten insane. And so the counter methods they're using are like these, I think they're called COPE cages and they're going over like every piece of equipment. So, you know, in the early days of this war it was all about like artillery and these long range shells and now it's all about drones. People are finding these dear, weird different ways to get around drones. And why I wanted to bring this up is there's two competing narratives right now and there's so much misinformation that I couldn't tell you the right one. But the narrative is one, Russia's economy is finally cracking. Like they've, they've poured so many lives and money into this that they can't.

[Aiden]

Sanctions on the rest of the world.

[Doug]

The other narrative is that Ukraine is out of people. They've, they've thrown so many people into this. They are, they can't conscript any more people. It's been so damaging. So it's hard to tell which one breaks first or what the problem is. But what I will say is this, that earlier this year I covered something on my channel about a big drone superhero move that that Ukraine did where they like smuggled drones and trucks deep into Russia and hit their nuclear. And it was like, wow, that's incredible. But since that moment, Russia has like 6x the amount of drones. They've gone all in on drones and it has really changed, I think perhaps the tide again, I don't want to make a hard claim here because there's such a fog of war over it. So anyway, that's where we find ourselves. I mean it's, it's an, it's a, it's an interesting and spooky spot. Going into this negotiation on Friday, I will say that Zelinsky has hard and fast said no deal that you make at this thing will count unless we agree like that we're not going to be forced into a deal. So I don't know. We'll see. It's not as simple as Aiden makes it sound.

[Aiden]

Which is wild.

[Doug]

Which is wild.

[Aiden]

It reminds me of two things about World War I. Okay, so the first is with the focus on drones, right. What most people in the military and certainly in the tech space have been saying for years is like the future of warfare is unmanned drones. It's going to be, you know, AI powered machines that fight each other. And that obviously is going to be so superior to humans on the ground who are fighting against, you know, something like this. And you know, that remains to be seen, but this war is moving in that direction. It reminds me of World War I. So World War I was, I was notable because it suddenly the nature of war shifted to this like brutal trench warfare, modern military machine that just like kills massive amounts of people. Right. And there was the war before I was it Franco. Franco, Rush. Prussian. I mean there was a, there was a war before the first World War that was like two decades before where they started to get a glimpse of that. But, but they didn't Quite realize, like, oh, the old way that we fought is now obsolete. And it took until World War I actually happened. From the realize, I wonder if this conflict in a depressing way is like a, you know, a little taste of what an actual. I wouldn't say actual, but, you know, a bigger, large scale, maybe world war will look like in a couple years. Because probably a war like that would start with our traditional modern militaries fighting, and then eventually, within a few months or years, people go, wait a minute, this is all outdated. Like they did in World War.

[Doug]

100%. I agree with everything you're saying. And in fact, I think most military leaders in all the major countries are watching this war like hawks to see what, how much things have changed.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

My understanding is like, this is a, a learning ground for the face of modern warfare because so much money from both sides is being funneled into this and the, the, the, the way the tech is changing. What I will say is that unmanned AI control drones are being deployed in Ukraine. But, but the main thing that's happening is just like a piloted. Very cheap.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah. Still, man.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

It's piloted by a human. Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

It's just the, the return is so crazy. You can spend millions and millions on like a Scud missile or something, and it can shoot it down at like a cost of hundreds, you know, not almost nothing. And so it's, it's just changing warfare by its cost effectiveness, which is, which is strange. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Again, hopefully a better outcome. But okay, that's the. We'll follow this up after Friday when they have the meeting, and we'll know more. But that's what we wanted to say. There's also some other big geopolitical news this week, and I want to talk to you about. I want to get your thoughts on this. Actually, Trump has negotiated a revenue tariff on an individual American company. This is like our first time, I think that I've seen this.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

Which is that. Here's the deal, here's the, here's the backstory. Nvidia and amd, but mostly Nvidia make the latest and greatest AI chips. That's their business. That's where they make all their huge profits. They used to sell them into China until I think both Biden and Trump restricted that the latest and greatest cannot be sold in the China. So what they did was they made a nerfed version that they could sell into China. And that's where a good part of their business is. Recently because of that, there's been mass smuggling of Nvidia chips into China and also a growth of China's own domestic chip industry to fill the supply.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Doug]

Okay, that's the set. The stage is set. Jensen Huang goes to Trump. I think he's played this pretty massively. He says, listen, we need to sell these chips to China, otherwise they're going to just end up buying our competitor, like building a competitor.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

And you can make some money on it because I know you love tariff money.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So you can tariff us 15% of our revenue of whatever we make in China.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

This is the idea. So Jensen and so Nvidia and AMD now can sell the latest and greatest chips to China. But 15% of the revenue goes directly to the US government from the corporate profit, which is strange. It's a strange situation in a way. It's kind of funny. And your guy Mark Cuban pointed this out. It's like this is actually the highest a corporate tax has ever been raised under a Republican.

[Aiden]

It is just self. It's just self applied. That's so weird.

[Doug]

It's weird. You know, it's a, it's a funny spot. So I don't even.

[Aiden]

Taxes should be voluntary. Everybody just gets to pick the number they want. They go to, they go to Trump and they present him with a bouquet of golden flowers. Like, like what's his face? Tim Cook did. Yeah.

[Doug]

Showed up with a gold bar.

[Aiden]

Bar. And they do that. They give him flowers. They say, please, my liege, a 10% tariff. And he says, yes, Go out into the world. Go out our East American Trading Company. Go out and sell to the Chinese dude.

[Doug]

It feels, it's. What's funny is like this outcome, I'm not even really against in that it's a higher corporate tax. I think it was dumb to try and sanction these chips because they were getting smuggled anyway, but it feels so futile. It feels like the king. It feels like the king picking and choosing winners and just you have to pay him. If they like go and bow and scrape and like get a deal with the king so you can get. So I don't like the method, but I'm not actually a huge hater of how it ended up. And what's funny is, so after this happened, yeah. China realizes like, oh, wait a minute, everyone's just going to use Nvidia chips because they're still better.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So they go around to all the big Chinese tech companies and warn them, don't buy the Nvidia H20s.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Doug]

So it's this weird spot. It's like neither government, you know, one or the other is always trying to stop, so they may not even sell anything still.

[Aiden]

Yeah. And so I listened to David Sacks talk about this on All In a few weeks ago. And so he is the isar for Trump. So this is a guy does the all in podcast, but now he is in the Trump administration, so he is largely dictating AI policy. So his argument is basically the same as Jensen's, which is you, actually. So, okay, broader goal. You want to win the AI race, you as America, you as the government, are concerned that if China wins, they will, you know, exert massive influence over the world and we will all become communists and go, I don't know, whatever. So. So that. That's the thing. So fundamentally, the thing is we have to win the AI race versus China. And I think there is some legitimacy to that.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, just, you know, context is like, if this is the next industrial revolution.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Doug]

Every country that wasn't Britain when they industrialized first got fucked by Britain. You know what I'm saying?

[Aiden]

And Britain got to dictate the kind of world order for a long period of time in the same way that the US has dictated the world order since the end of World War II.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

And I think there are legitimate concerns that go, okay, well, the Chinese government is incredibly fascist in a lot of ways. And, like, does all these human rights abuses and the idea that they would apply this technology to exert that kind of influence over the whole world is at least the fear on top of just the standard. Like, America, number one, we want to win.

[Doug]

Yeah. I think more of it is just like, you know, you bias towards yourself.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not in. That's. And that's what. Then people come back to it. Like, you can't have a fascist, communist, you know, country that goes and does this to the Uyghurs, then having control this technology across the world. But regardless of where you land on that, their. Their aim is when the AI war versus China. So there's, you know, these two interesting things. Right now. The AI development race is entirely dependent on Nvidia chips because they are the chips that allow you to make the best and fastest AIs. And it's exactly what you said. One line of thinking is stop selling it to the Chinese so that they fall behind. But the problem with that is that China has now massively, as a national interest, tried to catch up with chips. And the worst case scenario is that China stops being dependent On Nvidia, they become self sustaining. They catch up to America, they catch up to Nvidia and then they are completely on their own and there's no leverage that American companies have over Chinese development anymore. And, and so the question is, do you stop selling to them and encourage them to make their own version plus smuggle a bunch of shit? Or you. Yeah. Or you do the opposite. And if you do sell to them, then you stop them from feeling like they have to pour all this money into development, which the Chinese government, to your point, is saying, like, don't buy in video. It's important that China makes these for ourself. And my understanding is right now China is still like about a generation behind, but is catching up.

[Doug]

Absolutely.

[Aiden]

Yeah. This weird race, like, they're still not there. Nvidia is still far ahead in terms of the complexity and capability of their AI chips. But if you have the industrial might of China, you have, you know, a billion people, you are, they're producing more STEM and math graduates than you know, anybody else. Yeah.

[Doug]

There's nothing in the water here that makes it. You can. The only ones that can make the chip, like, you can catch up.

[Aiden]

Yeah. And so it's a, it's an interesting thing of. What do you think is, is the bigger existential risk in terms of encouraging that? Yeah, it's very strange. And so I guess right now Jensen has convinced them, let's sell to them and let's make it, you know, give them, give them a taste.

[Doug]

There's a little taste.

[Aiden]

A little taste, but it feels very.

[Doug]

Mob boss, you know.

[Aiden]

Yes. The Trump aspect is.

[Doug]

Yeah, give me, give me a little taste.

[Aiden]

We should remind people tariffs are supposed to be from Congress. All the things that Trump does are supposed to be from Congress. Yeah. We've just sort of moved on. But like, that is, that is how it's supposed to work.

[Doug]

Yeah. It's crazy. You know, here's what's funny, is the same thing you're talking about.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Can be applied in reverse in that it's with rare earth minerals. So China owns all of the refining and production of rare earth minerals. And the second they started to squeeze on that, they say they started to go, we'll cut that off from you.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It became this big national interest. Now we are, we are all gates unleashed, all paperwork pushes. Like anything you can do to unlock rare earth mineral production in the west, in America.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Doug]

Is like getting the green light because that's what it does. Whenever you start to, like cut it off, you actually begin the Seeds of losing your lead because it forces them into a different area. So I do agree that, like, these chip restrictions on China have actually backfired. They've only made them stronger because it gives guaranteed customers to Chinese homegrown chip makers. They can always. So, anyway, but the way this went about is, I think, mob bossy and consent.

[Aiden]

I mean, Aidan, what are your thoughts on all this? All of it?

[Doug]

Yeah. I mean, it's nuanced, right, Aiden?

[Aiden]

No, I mean, the issue is just so black and white. There's really nothing. You know, you're either this side or you're that side. Let's get into steel man things later on.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad he's here, but, man, he just seems to not want to see a gray area.

[Aiden]

You know what we're going to do in this episode? We're going to try to fix your business. We're going to come back to that in a little bit, though. We have gotten submissions from Discord about all of your guys's business ideas and businesses that you're trying to operate in a truck. And I are going to fix them all today by the end of this episode. But we are going to delve into AI just a little bit more because I think there's some interesting updates here if you pull this up. Perry. ChatGPT5k.

[Doug]

Wait, can I start with drama before you do this?

[Aiden]

Yeah, do drama.

[Doug]

I want to do drama about this. And then we get.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I'll play this in the background. Then we talk drama. So quick, quick context. So, and we're mostly going to talk about this in, like, why an average person should care about ChatGPT. We're not going to talk about the coding benchmarks of GPT5, but this is the big thing that OpenAI has been waiting for for a year or two. This is ChatGPT5. It came out. Oh, my God, this is last Wednesday. Quick summary. Little underwhelming, I would say, but there are really interesting elements that we want to talk about. But drama. Drama's happening.

[Doug]

Well, drama about this, I do want to say, like, you know, as you said, Sam Altman, day before this comes out, puts a big Death Star image on his social media and implies it's going to be the game.

[Aiden]

We got to do that for our show. We need to start doing ominous tweets and be like, you do not want to miss tomorrow's episode. And then we just talk about stocks. Like, we just. It's just like, hey, we did we up?

[Doug]

What happened, bro? I mean, you Might tell me otherwise. We should talk about it. But like, yeah, yeah, the consensus that I'm seeing. And again, I might have a biased source here, but, like, this is not the game changer that they see. Like, this is a fairly iterative, possibly even underwhelming release.

[Aiden]

God. The only thing that would make me emotionally capable of talking about this is to set the stage for some spicy drama.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Drama about this.

[Doug]

So here's a drama. Um, well, there's two parts of the drama. One I want to say is that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk are. They've always been beefing, but they're really going at it right now on social media about. Well, it started with Elon. You can pull this up my screen. Maybe.

[Aiden]

Apple is behaving in a. Okay, yeah, I'll let you read it.

[Doug]

I'll read it. Apple's behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach number one in the app Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. Elon Musk, a huge Lina Khan supporter. Huge supporter, yeah. X AI will take immediate legal action. So he's basically saying that because of Apple's partnership with OpenAI, nobody else on the App Store can ever get to number one or get promoted. Now, as they mentioned in the community notes, Deep Seek did it in January 2025, which is a Chinese competitor. So I'm not sure that's the case, but maybe it's possible.

[Aiden]

I would go so far as to say I'm sure that's not the case. I actually feel like this is. This is fairly cut and dry.

[Doug]

Well, that's what he said. And then whether it's true or not, and there could be some truth, I'm not a big defender of Apple's App Store. There's something to it. Sam Altman jumps in and says, this is a remarkable claim, given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors. People doesn't like. Now, that does ring true to me. The idea that things have been deprioritized or shadow banned or promoted in x dot com. Thank you. I don't want to miss a. You just ruined my algorithm.

[Aiden]

It's.

[Doug]

You already get injected.

[Aiden]

You don't even have to follow him. All right, you know this fully well. It's gonna get in your feed.

[Doug]

It's gonna get. Follow him. It's gonna be all Elon.

[Aiden]

Can you guys believe I don't know if you can trust anything Aatrox says, he isn't even following Elon Musk, the number one source of news.

[Doug]

So. Oh, wow, they really keep going on. All right. And so he goes, you got 3 million views in your post, you liar. Far more than I've received on any of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count. So we hit him with a damn little bro.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And then Sam Omen goes, will you sign an affidavit that you've never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies? I will apologize if. So, Elon. Did I respond?

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Again, I have no defensive Sam Altman here, but in this situation, I feel like, man, just maybe it's my bias. It just rings true that because it. The algorithm has been so weird and you get so much Elon stuff promoted and I mean, this is not even a hidden thing, but like, since he's taken over, any link off the website has been completely deprioritized, completely destroyed.

[Aiden]

Very insular.

[Doug]

Yeah. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know exactly what to say about it, but they are. Anyway, they're beefing. They've been beefing forever and now it's really heating up in this AI war. And because it's kind of an opening against OpenAI, this ChatGPT release has not been very positively received.

[Aiden]

You. You watch Seinfeld.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Elon is like the soup Nazi. Like, I really, I really, I really, like, like SpaceX is making the coolest things that humanity has ever made. Tesla has unbelievably cool products, but then he calls you a Nazi or he just says all this stuff at you while you're buying the products. It's like, man, the products could be so cool if Elon wasn't doing all this stuff. Like, I mean, obviously there's more going on here, but like, why. Why is. I just don't. I don't understand.

[Doug]

Yeah, you know, there's a lot. I know. My personal belief is he's very. At least for a while, he's a very good marketer and stock pump and he get people to invest. You get money to get the ideas to these good engineers.

[Aiden]

But even just the products, like nobody else made a reusable rocket that's fucking incredible. That's in its engineers.

[Doug]

Right. I mean, I think they're great. I agree.

[Aiden]

Yeah. But I mean, this gets into a broader thing. But like, I. Clearly there's some influence that he had that is positive in some way to be the one company or government that was able to do something like this that nobody else did. Right.

[Doug]

I agree. I think he was good at attracting talent and he was good at raising money.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's that. Yeah, that seems to be unequivocally.

[Doug]

I'll totally give him that.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

He's actually world class at point that to be honest, in his peak. But it does feel like he's been on a real downward slide on. On actually both of those things. But especially his. I think. I don't. He buys into the own heim. I think he's getting too involved. I think he's. He's.

[Aiden]

Yes. Yeah. Anyway, all right. So.

[Doug]

All right.

[Aiden]

Yeah, let's. Let's cue this a bit. So there's interesting again more, more drama about the impact of opening all this stuff. So there was this hour and 15 minute long presentation of GPT5 and all the incredible things that are going to come from that. And I think there's a few interesting points to take away that, you know, even if you're not deep in the AI space, that is still notable. So overall I think most people agree this isn't groundbreaking. This is iterative off the previous stuff. It's in many ways a better version of the previous models in some cases actually feels worse. Yeah. So. And that's, you know, to the average person that's going to be your experience, it's nothing groundbreaking. We talked an episode or two ago about the clause with AGI and how he was hinting at all these things. This is not even remotely close to that. And not only that, you. He actually explicitly opened the presentation by saying this is an important step towards AGI. So he basically. They're explicitly saying, look, we're not even near the kind of like holy grail milestone.

[Doug]

Which is crazy given the hype they did before the presentation. This presentation was weird. You know, did you see the tweet? This is before this presentation when he pulled up the Google IE presentation on his social media and he said, listen, I don't like talking about competitors, but it's just crazy how much better our aesthetics are than Google's or whatever.

[Aiden]

He really hyped it up.

[Doug]

And then this is like, it's. This looks like a Google. I mean there's nothing special about this. And it was, it was weird and off putting and he spoke like a robot and he brought. It was just odd.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah. I didn't, I didn't like this presentation, but I didn't, I didn't see the Very end. And you mentioned there's more stuff.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, Some. Some things that are interesting.

[Doug]

What's cool, what's the guy didn't I miss?

[Aiden]

So, one is the focus on health. And I'm not saying this is good. I'm saying this is interesting. So actually, Perry, if you pull up my version of this, he brought on this couple who talked about how she had cancer, and then them as a couple, have used chat to be. To help them navigate the situation. And I actually, I super resonate with that because as I mentioned in the past, I had a family member went through this, like, earlier this year. And like, I did use ChatGPT not to go figure out how to, you know, go, but just to learn what's happening. And the core argument that they say in this presentation is they're very explicit to say this is not replacing doctors, but this is allowing somebody to become more informed about medical options, about what their doctors are saying to help them make informed decisions. I think there's validity to that. Obviously, huge asterisk there. Like, this is a massive legal liability, which I want to ask you, get your thoughts on, but it is. Everybody, I'm sure, has had the experience where you go to a doctor and you're told all this massive dump of information and you don't really know what's going on. And so you go peruse through Facebook or Reddit or all these things to try to find, like, source of information that maybe you can trust or anecdotal experiences. Doctors can be wrong. And I say this from a family of all doctors. Like, it's not like you get the source of truth from a single doctor instead of being able to synthesize a lot of different things. I experienced the comfort of this, and it seems like many other people do too. And they explicitly mentioned, which is wild to me, that one of the main uses of ChatGPT is people asking about their health. So I want to pose a question to you. Okay, let's say you developed this AI tool called ChatGPT and you put it out three years ago. It blows up. It's going. It's going crazy. Most people are, you know, it's being used to code, it's being used to cheat on school. It's being used. All these companies are throwing it. And then you also find out that of the hundreds of millions of users you have, many of them are using it to ask for health questions. Not only mental health, like therapy type stuff, but also literally about how they should manage their personal life and medical History. Would you do what they are doing? Which is to say, this is explicitly now one of our goals. We have optimized our newest models to be a supportive figure for you and to help people with their medical journey. Or would you stay the fuck away? Because that is an insane landmine to have, for example, somebody who's, you know, has cancer, who then maybe ChatGPT will tell them to start drinking grape juice every day instead of getting chemo like Steve Jobs did. You know, it's. Dude, that's great. Like, so I'm, I'm. I can see both sides and I'm like, flabbergasted that they are like, yeah, we'll take this on as a major use case.

[Doug]

Dude, that's a great question. It feels. I mean, if it's me, I own it. I run away because this is the biggest legal liability of all time. It feels insane. It's usually to tell someone a health advice to bring a couple on and.

[Aiden]

Be like, use this to navigate your cancer journey.

[Doug]

Like, like, we. Yeah, it's crazy. What else? I mean, same thing with stocks, right? It gives stock advice. All, all these things that, like, you legally shouldn't do because you could be liable for it. It's just doing it forever. It's just willy nilly, like, throwing out, like, yeah, you should invest in this. Yeah, you should do this for your health. You should do. Which is, yeah, I'd say scary. A personal anecdote. Not to throw anyone under the bus, but I went to a friend of mine, graduated medical school this past weekend. That guy Chad, GPT, his whole coursework. Yeah. So maybe the doctors are no different. Maybe the doctors are going through the.

[Aiden]

I mean, look, I, I can get. So when I, when we did the whole medical episode, I talked to multiple doctors, including my sister who works as a. As a nurse practitioner or registered nurse. I. Forget it again, I got it wrong. But anyway, one of those two, she's badass and she's like, yeah, people use it all the time to get information. And I think what people. The initial response to that, including me, was like, what? Doctors are using this? What? But then if you ask about what's actually happening, doctors are looking things up all the time. Doctors are not this, like, dictionary of endless knowledge where they know the truth. Actually, what doctors do is they talk to you about their case and then they have to go, like, read books to understand what's going on or read the latest medical thing or look online or you have to do additional research and stuff is changing all the time. So it is simply not true that there is like, here's the book, here's the commandments for a doctor. Look at the, you know, it's like, no, it's this ongoing conversation. And the question is, is it really that much worse for them to go Google for things online or use one of these, like, medical, like data.

[Doug]

I could see that.

[Aiden]

Repositories versus. And again, this isn't, they're not, they're not saying, how do I treat this patient? They're following up and going, give me a list of different cases or information about this type of disease. Right. It's like supplemental information they're using. And so it's like, okay, you know, I can see that. But, but again, the instant a doctor uses ChatGPT, it seemingly is getting really good. But it doesn't matter if you're 99.9% good if one person dies because they injected something. I, I, this is unfathomably risky to me.

[Doug]

And even still, like you, you know, as a user, you want a human to make the, you know, like they, A doctor reads it, looks it up and then makes a decision. Because otherwise, Right.

[Aiden]

You want the expert, you know, to.

[Doug]

Be like, okay, yeah, and if they're lazy one day and then it gives a bad thing, then you really. But yeah, okay, I guess I can see it.

[Aiden]

Yeah. You know what I would have done? I would have done what Red Bull does. So I, we've both, I think, worked with Red Bull. Red Bull. One of the ways they sell a ton of Red Bull is Red Bull vodka, which is one of the most popular drinks in bars, alcohol everywhere. Right?

[Doug]

This is for Red Bull.

[Aiden]

Red Bull. The company, when you work with them, does not want you to mention Red Bull vodkas. They want to just be this great sports drink when you go do extreme sports and live out your best life. And they know that that's a massive source of revenue, but they're not going to talk about it. I assume that's what they would do here. They would be like, but they're leaning into don't use chat GPT for medical advice. Wink, wink. But they're just, they're just coming out and owning it.

[Doug]

Reminds me of, is like all the, the OIC ads still pretend it's only for diabetes.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like this is for, it shows.

[Doug]

A person like slimming down. Dude, dude, it's wild.

[Aiden]

Okay, so some other interesting things.

[Doug]

Okay, yeah, sorry.

[Aiden]

You got one thing.

[Doug]

No, no, no. I wanted to the big question. I think the average person will have about this that I wanted to get your thoughts on, maybe have a bigger discussion on, is this idea of the great rift between the old chatbots and the new one.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Regardless, this is interesting. Yeah.

[Doug]

Okay, so I just want to bring that up. If you could bring up the third slide. Perry.

[Aiden]

We're making Perry swap between like eight things.

[Doug]

I know. Okay, so.

[Aiden]

And also, can you. What does Aiden think about this as we're getting going? Barry, I do not support that.

[Doug]

Oh, that makes sense in your own line. So the main idea here is that Chad GPT4, which is kind of the big one, before this was, as we may have mentioned on this podcast before, a bit of a glazer, a bit of a. It was very positive. It would mirror your speech.

[Aiden]

I'm just correct.

[Doug]

You're a genius. It's right about that. Don't get me wrong, but it would.

[Aiden]

It just pegged me straight up.

[Doug]

Yeah, well, some of these AI boyfriends is doing more than pegging. It has. People are getting married, by the way, to there. Anyway, it has a ton of emoji. It's really positive. Actually. You know what, let's go to the first slide. Let's give you a direct example. This is the Same prompt for Chad GPT4.0 and the new one. So baby just walked. Let's go. First step to unlocked. Your baby just entered the world of bipedal dominance. Nothing is safe now. Not your drawers, not your snacks, not your ankles. Seriously though, huge milestone. Congrats.

[Aiden]

Goes on and on.

[Doug]

Document it, celebrate it, and maybe baby proof a bit more aggressively. Starting now. What was the moment like? They just stand up and bolt? Or was it like a wobbly Frankenstein march? And then. Okay, ChatGPT 5. That's huge. First steps unlocked. Now the real chasing begins. So the difference is stark and the day this came out. 5. A certain subset of users, a pretty significant one based on the reaction to this AMA and what he did, just lost it. I mean, they just freaked out. To some of them, it was extreme as like losing a loved one or a friend. And something was like, hey, this was really good for my mental to have something be supportive.

[Aiden]

Or a quote I read is, I've never had a parent support me in the way that GPT4O did.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Like, it's really deep emotional connections for people. Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah. And so it's this weird question and the initial reaction. And I want to admit that I was guilty of this too. And I still sort of feel it for some of these. We just like, this is fucking crazy. Parasocial. This is a crazy delusion. You can't be getting hooked on a robot like this. I'm glad they removed it. However, also, as a businessman, I want to be real. If there is this much consumer demand, even if Chad GPT didn't cave, which they did, they reopened for. Yeah, even if they didn't, that means someone else would come along and do it. Like the demand is actually so wild for this level of affirmation. People want it really badly. And having read more, I will say there's not everyone who wants this is the craziest addicted person. There's some level of like.

[Aiden]

Yeah, there's a scale.

[Doug]

It's a scale. And I will say the ChatGPT5, it's a little bland, you know. You know, it doesn't.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

I don't know if everything needs to have 50 emojis and call you a genius, but like there was a bit of.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know, I think for some people hearing something in their own tone back to them was easier to learn or bounce ideas off of. So it's an interesting question. Like I would love to hear people's responses in our discord or in the comments because I. I've actually spent a lot of time reading about this debate. It's become a big hot topic debate in.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it's about the nature of how people engage with these things.

[Doug]

Yeah. And what we're going to have going forward and what it means.

[Aiden]

And yeah, if we.

[Doug]

And Sam Altman weighed in, he was like, you know, I'm really scared about it. Like he doesn't think or he just. He's aware that people were getting super addiction attached and we, you know, so they tried to walk it back but the people were so angry so they reopened for. If you're a paying user, you can go to the extra settings and go back to the old thing, but it's just weird. And so go Back to Slide 3. This is someone's response. And this I guess the most extreme example. When they got four oh back my baby's back. I cried a lot. I'm crying now. Thank you community for all the post calling for four to come back. Thank you Sam Altman for hearing us. I don't care if I need help or not. I'm now with my baby. Hope all of us can be happy with Chad GBT professional purposes and those who want a friend. Love you. Uh, so you know that that to me, this person I think needs help. But I can also see I've used both ChatGPT4O and 5 fairly regularly, dude. The new one is. It is kind of bland. It is kind of like. And one thing it doesn't do anymore is like ask a lot of follow up questions that help you learn. Like, you know, I'd ask a history question. ChatGPT or I'd like to, you know, what was a battle where this happened? And then they'd be like, oh, do you want to hear about other battles by Napoleon? Or whatever. They would follow up. And he doesn't do that anymore. So I don't know. What do you think, Doug? I don't know if you have any thoughts on this big debate.

[Aiden]

First off, I understand the desire to have like an affirming thing because like from this last week's episode where we talked about Lina Khan, I think we should replace all the comments criticizing me with 4o. And I just feel like I need my friend to take over the comments. So that. That's one thing. And I think we agree on that.

[Doug]

Yeah, 100%.

[Aiden]

We've really, from the previous week to last week was really a 40 to 5 situation for me. True.

[Doug]

Dude, you got hit with the five.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I got hit with the five. Which, you know, Sam Altman. Bring back the old conference.

[Doug]

Bring back the old comments. Have them Gl the horse electrolytes comments.

[Aiden]

I need to make horse jokes. Oh, dude, this is the great time. Okay. Because Aiden isn't here. Yeah, we need horse mentality. So I got you a feed bag. Okay. Strap this to your mouth.

[Doug]

No, strap this to your mouth.

[Aiden]

I bought senior horse feed. Okay. It's for your condition to make sure you get well fed. Hike. It smells like strawberry.

[Doug]

We're the same age. It smells really good, actually.

[Aiden]

I even got a salt lick that we can hang from Aiden's microphone and.

[Doug]

Electronics that might help my mic discipline. This feedback will not.

[Aiden]

I'll eat.

[Doug]

Yeah, okay. You have a little. All right, we'll taste.

[Aiden]

Yeah. All right. So I think there's a couple interesting perspectives.

[Doug]

You know, I don't know why horses became such a corporate. I don't know.

[Aiden]

I had a couple of interesting angles. Oh my God. Like eating sand.

[Doug]

Yeah, you know, it's not that bad, honestly. Low key.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it's good.

[Doug]

It's like it's got a good scent to it.

[Aiden]

Apparently it's great for old horses. So look, there is. Okay, a couple interesting responses to this one is that, tell me, is the idea of if you are a company like OpenAI, do you make a model like ChatGPT? That kind of Defaults to a certain personality or has a couple of defaults where you're like, do you want the really cheery one? Do you want the serious one? Do you want. You know, it's like, pick your personality. Or would you prefer to put out a model that rapidly evolves to what that person wants? So by default, the previous model that everybody was using, and again, this is like one of the most used apps in the world. Like, you know, this is massively influential in, like, culture and society and everything right now. That one kind of by default glazed you, which is like, you are fucking awesome.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Aiden]

This new one by default doesn't. But what I've found testing with it is it evolves better. So what you were saying, it doesn't follow up with studies. Well, but if you say so. I tried this. I was like, I want to do a lesson plan for Japanese over the next 30 minutes to cover these type of questions with this type of tone. Build out a lesson plan for me. Have this type of way that you talk, have this sort of verbosity. It did all of that flawlessly. It was way better than before. So if you give it a lot of instruction, you can, I think, guide it better towards what you want. And that's what they. I know that they were explicitly shooting for because Sam Altman talked about that in the past. So the idea is more, do you default to certain personalities or start with something that is bland and then develop it so that it can evolve to your specific needs? Right. And that's the question. There isn't a right answer to that because the person who just wants a therapist friend right out of the box is not going to be happy with this. And they're going to have to, in this weird way, develop their friendship almost like a real human would with another human. And that's not necessarily what they want. Right. And so have you seen the movie Her?

[Doug]

Yeah, there's a great scene in it when the. When the service goes down, you know, like two thirds of the way through the movie, there's a. There's a. There's an update and he can't get access to Scarlett Johansson and voice and he starts hyperventilating, freaking out, running throughout the streets. It was funny because that movie set in 2025, and it actually was kind of verbatim what I was seeing from some of these comments. It's weird. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. I got breaking news. This is actually really insane. I think Donald Trump is launching nuclear weapons directly at Canada. Aiden, what do you think? About that.

[Aiden]

No, I mean the issue is just so black and white. Yeah. On the black and white issue, is.

[Doug]

That good or bad?

[Aiden]

Definitely agree with that.

[Doug]

That's so interesting, Aiden, because even if they were to hit, the fallout would go to America. I don't think that's a good idea.

[Aiden]

I just think you we should respect our co host more. I'm sure there's a lot.

[Doug]

Yeah, I'm sure he's got a lot of nuance to it. Just really strange. Okay. I don't know if there's anything else to say on this. I mean, I agree it's a slight.

[Aiden]

Let me, let me briefly hit through a couple of things. I think what's interesting, if you like the Voice models of AIs, which I think is going to be one of the biggest use cases of these things. I think it's gotten a lot better with GPT5. So to have somebody who uses it to like talk to and learn from, not necessarily a therapist, I think that seems a lot better. At least in my experience. I had like outgrown the usefulness of it before for language learning and now it's like way better. So it's also faster, which is nice because it used to be faster, smarter, figuring out what I want to do. It's not before. It's either it's talking to me like I'm learning my very first Japanese word or that I am a native expert and there's no in between. Now there is. So that's really, really cool.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

They added a verbosity parameter. You know how AI is like ramble way too long or don't talk. They're now emphasizing that as something you can customize. So that's less to the average person, something you care about. But to me, who uses it with code, oh my God. It's like unusable in a lot of cases because it just rambles and you can't get it to stop. And then the last thing, which we don't need to spend too long, but I thought was pretty good.

[Doug]

Can we show slide two? This is Chad BD5 you. He asked that I have several bugs in my code. Need you to look into. This light, dark and system theme isn't working. Please try and investigate. JTBD thanks. For a few seconds I wrote 90% of your code. The bug is you. It's actually pretty fun. Definitely harsher on the tone.

[Aiden]

Yeah, they're definitely trying to like dewoke it a bit. I mean like genuinely, that's like kind of the trend. They're moving for us.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

All right, so one other interesting kind of high level takeaway from what they talked about in this presentation is that they're using synthetic data to train GPT5. So what that means is up to this point you've probably the average person has heard that these AIs are made by taking all the data in the world. They cram it into these, you know, a bunch of Nvidia GPUs and then out comes the model and the thinking. And what has held true so far is that the more data you give a thing and the more you train on that data, the smarter it is. That has been the rule. It's called the power law. I'm pretty sure I forget Dario Amadai came up with it anyway, so. Or scaling law, I think.

[Doug]

Scaling law.

[Aiden]

Scaling law. So that's been the case. But as I think you've talked about and we maybe mention on the show, we're running out of data. Like the AI companies have already scraped the whole Internet. They've done, they've grabbed the whole Internet, right. And they were able to grab a hundred years or you know, I guess like a thousand or two thousand years of history, of everything, and cram it into the AIs, but they're kind of out. And we only make so much new stuff every day as humanity. Even the new stuff is being fractioned off into different companies who are now hoarding it because they realize how valuable it is. So what do you do in a situation like this? How do you make it smarter? Well, one theory is that you use synthetic data, meaning you have your AIs generate new data that the AIs train on. So instead of needing to rely on humans making more stuff, the AI does it.

[Doug]

This has inhuman Centipede.

[Aiden]

Yeah, this has the obvious upside of now you can make an unlimited amount of data. And the obvious downside of, well, if it's just training on itself, won't it just kind of like loop into this weird self reinforcing thing where it becomes it's no longer even responding to what humans want necessarily. It's like training itself to want what it wants. And it becomes farther and farther from this is a thing we made to its making itself. And there are some crazy doomsday scenarios about where this could go, like AI 2027. So what's interesting about this is that a lot of AI companies are going to start talking about this, of the use of synthetic data or not. And when they say synthetic data, that basically means we are now letting this thing go off kind of on its own, we're going to guard rail it, but it's not fundamentally grounded in what humans have said and done. And in a lot of ways that could be great. Andrej Karpathy is one of the big AI leaders and his thinking is to make AI smarter. Like right now they're pretty smart. But to make it to something where you really trust it with everything in your life to the point that a lot of these companies are trying to get to, it's like it does have to be better. Maybe the way to do that is really carefully crafting these amazingly high quality synthetic data sets and then you just keep iterating on that. But obviously that's a weird kind of.

[Doug]

Okay, well that brings up a question, right? This is like the bigger topic of. There's the theme, right, Chad, GPT5, if we agree, at least wasn't world changing, maybe it's, you know, I would say underwhelming, maybe you'd agree, but either way it's not like insane exponential progress.

[Aiden]

Correct. There's, there's some really interesting things, there's some disappointments. It's broadly fine. It's good, it's good, you know, it's good.

[Doug]

Okay, so given that and given the amount of hype that went into it, and given that it seems like they're approaching the limit of what they can do with just more chips and scrape more from the Internet.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Is this. There's two outcomes here, a bunch, but two theories. Is this a possible pinprick in this AI bubble? Is it like, oh, wait a minute, this is going to take longer, be more expensive and be harder than we thought? Is this not. Is it, Is it slow plateauing or slowing down? Or is the illusion over? Or is it just a chatbot open AI problem and everyone else is still going on it? Because me personally, I'm obviously biased towards the. Maybe it's popping, whatever. However, me personally, I look at ChatGPT5 and I'm like, yeah, underwhelming. But I look at what Google's doing and they have some new stuff and it's like, wow, that's still pretty crazy and scary and new. So I don't. I want to get your take from a, from a more positive AI perspective. And I also want to show some of the stuff Google's been.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah. And I can, I can actually pull this up in the background.

[Doug]

Okay, yeah.

[Aiden]

Pull up this video I got here. So this is the recent.

[Doug]

The Interactive World one, right?

[Aiden]

Yeah. So to give, to give kind of Context, you might have seen this. So Google released this new model. This is from DeepMind which is like their hardcore AI lab. It is not playing. Hello.

[Doug]

Well while you're doing that, I'm sorry, one more thing. I'm getting breaking news. We developed a 100% free foolproof cure for cancer. Aiden, what do you think?

[Aiden]

I do not support that. I mean if Aiden does, famously, I remember he kept laughing at my face.

[Doug]

Yeah, he's famously pro cancer. I thought he'd have changed his mind with such good news. Anyway, you were saying.

[Aiden]

So DeepMind for Google, they have come out with what they're calling Genie. If you are watching on YouTube you can see this, this AI, it's you know, AI video, but it's interactive now. It's like a video game where it creates a 3D space and you can actually move around it and interact with what's going on. This is getting much closer to the much talked about kind of a future that a lot of people want which is like AI, video games, AI customized experiences, whatnot. So this feels like a big leap in that direction. Important caveats, one, this is a demo. Until this is out and people are using it, it's hard to trust, right? Oh yeah, this happens fairly regularly. And the second is, you know, big question mark of how much value that is really going to generate. So I would, I would say a few things about the Google AI thing. AI OpenAI is succeeding at creating a product that hundreds of millions of people are using and enjoying objectively. They are by far the most successful, at least consumer facing AI product right now. So OpenAI is just crushing it with ChatGPT. And from that perspective you could argue it doesn't really matter if they come out with some groundbreaking new 3D image, whatever, because everybody's using it for this day, day to day thing. That's ultimately what matters. Iterating on that matters more than being Google who comes out with this cool demo and says, look at this interactive thing we made that nobody can use and almost certainly will not result in any actual business of any kind generated. This, this is a flashy like look what I can do. It's not something, it's not a genuine product. So if you look at what is currently generating value for people right now and generating revenue, OpenAI wins by a mile. Google is I think by, by many people's standards starting to become number one in the sense of like the most advanced AI models. But the question is, does that matter to the average person? Like yes, to some hardcore programmer they might care if Gemini is going to be better for this specific type of coding task. But I can say, as somebody who technically codes professionally and, like, has the background, ChatGPT 3.5 was good enough for what I needed. ChatGPT 4 was more than good enough. 4o was incredible, and now 5 is even better for my programming needs. The average person, even if they're into software, does not really give a shit if in the benchmarks, Google Gemini is slightly higher. So I would argue that what is more important right now is to, like, make a product that the average person is really passionate about. And ChatGPT has done that. And Google, what they keep doing is popping out be like, look at this crazy new thing we made. But nobody. It doesn't actually get traction. So in terms of what is actually having impact on people's lives, OpenAI seems to be massively winning. And I don't know that demos like this change that. That obviously could continue to shift. The big thing that Google's doing is integrating Gemini into Google search. And I'm sure you guys have all seen that, where every time you do a Google search, it's now it gives you an answer that's AI generated and tells you to do AI. And so they're pushing. And there's certainly a point where I think from, from what I've heard, it is broadly considered that Google is in the lead currently and is growing the fastest. But does that matter? Is the question.

[Doug]

So can you pull up my screen, Perry? So this is a, you know, commonly seen curve for new technology. And I just want to know. I'm not saying it holds true in every situation, but, like, we could either be still on the way up and Chad was a bump, or it could be like, we're here, we're starting to drop, and we're starting to drop as people are getting more disillusioned with the rate of progress.

[Aiden]

Like, I guess this sense we're closer to that. Like, we're so, you know, because you have to make a pitch to the. Our whole economy is currently operating off of the biggest tech companies, generating trillions of dollars of value because of the promises of AI. So every time something comes out that isn't making some sort of, like, utopian leap forward, it hurts that narrative now, the narrative's so deeply ingrained and everybody is so invested in that, not just tech people, but everybody who invests in the stock market, all of our parents who are retiring right now, like, their net worth is dependent right now on Nvidia continuing to do well, which yeah.

[Doug]

Right, with Hank Green.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

I wanted to bring up because Hank Green put out a video called I'm changing my 401k because of AI or something and I thought he was going to use to pick stocks or something.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's, that's why I assumed that's right.

[Doug]

No, in fact it was, it was similar to what you said. Basically we've talked about this show before but like if you're investing in the S&P 500, what you're really buying with like over 33% of your money is 7 AI stock. I think that's what you're buying there. It's so market cap weighted that you're buying the biggest stocks and the biggest stocks are all AI. And it's not just America, it's the like everyone's retirement almost globally are buying these companies.

[Aiden]

On this story it feels, I mean not to the same degree but a little bit like the 2008 housing crisis where it's not just that there's these banks or these home lenders that are kind of making a lot more money than they sort of have justified. The problem is the entire world economy is tied into this on this one bank. Yes. So that, so that's what's going on. And I would like to believe as an AI tech bro that that this isn't as much of a bubble as some people believe that there is real value coming out of AI that isn't for example from crypto. Like I never believed crypto would have much value. So hopefully AI does prove to actually and I think ChatGPT being used by hundreds of millions of people's every, people every day who clearly enjoy it a lot is a strong indicator that is better than something like crypto. But it's still beyond I think.

[Doug]

So I want to, I want to follow up on that because one thing I noticed with you might have seen, I did a video to watch it but the, the, the thing I really want to call out, the thing that made me kind of believe that we could be into a trough of disillusionment here is as a user I noticed that this new model is clearly trying to cut costs for the average user's query in that Dad, I disagree.

[Aiden]

Okay. But go ahead.

[Doug]

We go and we can disagree. We. My sense is that for most questions it now routes it to the, to the simplest, easiest model.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And if you want it to think hard, if you ask it to think hard, it's better than before. It'll do more thinking. It'll give you a good answer. But for most questions it's now prioritizing speed and a really simple slopped out answer, which over millions of queries saves them a ton of GPU time and a ton of. And I got the sense if you guys don't know before, you could pick the model you wanted for Chad, you could pick the higher thinking ones, pick the research, whatever. Now it picks for you behind the scenes. But if you ask it like, I don't know, help make me a workout plan or whatever, it will just it, it'll pick the simplest, easiest one and spit it out fast.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And I feel like that is them trying to reduce costs. And if you're at cost cutting phase, even if it's secret, that is usually the sign when things start to break. Like that's like in the dot com bubble when they started focusing on wait a minute, we're spending so much money, we got to. That's when things get weird. And so again, open AI you mentioned is the most successful AI product. Not profitable yet. So you know, if they're trying to figure that out, is that a sign that we have to get back down to earth?

[Aiden]

So I don't think that that's as much of a worrying sign as you do. There's. So the summary here is that it's exactly what we talked about before. Previous models of ChatGPT is like you pick what you want in advance. They're these templates for personality, for how it works. Right. And what the explicit intention was from Sam Altman with this one is like we are gonna, we're gonna get rid of all of those like dozen things you have to pick between. Instead you open up ChatGPT5 and it will figure out what you want. And if you think about the idealized version of what an AI model is, that would be great. You don't have to tell it what you, it just figures it out. Right. So that's the utopian version. Not only that in the past you would pick the different models, but then the pricing would be, would change based on the model usage. So I don't think it's correct to say that this new version is going to save them a bunch of money. Because in the past, like if people wanted to use the more expensive models, they would just pick the more expensive models and that usage would cost them money either through the ChatGPT subscription or through the API. So like if I, through coding wanted to use their most expensive models, I got charged more. They're not saving money by, by automatically routing to whatever model I Want.

[Doug]

Okay, well, let me just push back. I would be, you know, if I'm a paying user, which I am.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But previously I would just pick the best model every time because I as a user, why do I give a shit about their backend? I will pick the best one. I'll have it think the hardest on everything.

[Aiden]

Yeah, okay, that's. So that's fair. For, for a ChatGPT paying user who isn't going to hit the limit regardless. You are right. This will make it so that they aren't using the more expensive models and therefore it will save them money. I'm imagining the case where somebody would kind of max out on what they're paying regardless, because at that point it's the same. It doesn't matter whether using ChatGPT5 or before, they're getting their $20 worth. Right. So if you are a super casual user, that before was like, I'm just going to use the most expensive model. Which by the way, it's not. The most expensive models are basically for coding. It's not usually deep research. No, no, no. So that's not fair. Yeah, but you wouldn't deep research, hey, who won the Lakers game yesterday? Right.

[Doug]

So it's still, you know, it's funny. It's like that. If it was like, give me a breakdown on this war 100 years ago, I'll be like, yeah, I think I trust you.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It was like, who won again yesterday? I almost never. It's always wrong.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug]

Breaking breaking news is pretty bad.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Because it's just, it's searching on Google.

[Doug]

Yeah, just searching on Google and it pulls like the first thing.

[Aiden]

Yeah, there's, there's.

[Doug]

I think it's fair, but I would just say, I think a lot of people use it the way I do, which is we're not power users that are maxing out right where our description is. And I think they, that's. I get the sense that I am more profitable to them in the new system because I asked a question and it routes it to the 3.5. Basically. They can do super quickly.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Doug]

And maybe that's my personal experience. Given, given time. We really want to do this, this business doctor thing from our Discord people on our Discord. Submitted again. I actually. You set this up, so maybe you set the stage. I, I don't.

[Aiden]

Ladies and gentlemen, two business experts.

[Doug]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Aiden]

Moguls in their field, titans of industry, are now going to help you. Dear viewer, we have asked our lovely patron Discord, which you can join for $5 a month and help us go to China, maybe permanently. Who knows? We, I think we're like close to 9,000 paid subscribers. So a genuine plug for the Patreon. Not only do we have really good discussions in the discord, we're getting close to that goal and I think we'd hit it this year and that would be sick. It'd be awesome. Yeah. But reached out and I want to, you know, I think people have appreciated our thoughts on businesses. Sometimes, you know, I think to the average person who is maybe trying to start their own business or something, they look at the just ungodly amount of success that showers both you and me and. And think, how can some of that trickle down into my life?

[Doug]

Yeah, they're always looking for trickle down. Economics is the big support.

[Aiden]

No, but. So I asked for both serious and real business questions for people who want to get our thoughts on like what we would recommend. So I won't tell you whether you think. Whether these are jokes or not. I'll let you kind of determine. But I'm going to kind of pitch some of these at you and see.

[Doug]

Caveat. I didn't know this, but caveating beforehand. This is unlike chat GPT. This is not financial advice. We. This is.

[Aiden]

Oh, hold on. Look at the camera.

[Doug]

Yeah, wink.

[Aiden]

Okay, okay. A business that sources white guys to fill in for vacant podcast slots.

[Doug]

Dude, the demand would be through the roof.

[Aiden]

We. I would use that app right now.

[Doug]

I would need.

[Aiden]

We need a white man, ideally with a beard.

[Doug]

Aiden, what do you think about that?

[Aiden]

Definitely agree with.

[Doug]

That's good. All right.

[Aiden]

Okay, so that's good. How about another one? I want to make protein cigarettes for bodybuilders on the go.

[Doug]

Protein cigarettes for bodybuilders on the go. You could sell that.

[Aiden]

Okay, I have a joke. One that is oddly and weirdly maybe would work.

[Doug]

Liffin smoke.

[Aiden]

Not a new business idea, but in addition to a current one. Thank you, Reb, for submitting this. What if we added gotcha game mechanics to the US healthcare system? We could put anime girls on the pill bottles and have tiers of polls decide the dos would maximize profitability and bring goodwill to the healthcare system. Now this obviously is a horrible idea, but if you add gambling mechanics to literally anything, it just goes to the moon, dude. And there's a world where this could be used to like, I mean, somebody goes for their like monthly OIC or something. You know, something that's like, it's not life saving. You wouldn't want this for insulin, but maybe for like over the counter things. Like maybe this is how you determine it.

[Doug]

Here's what I'll say. This, this, this theme of, of. Of joke has been persistent on my stream for a while. Like, we've always done jokes about gotcha mechanics, gambling, whatever. As we've leaned into it more and I've thought about it more over the years, it really is unstoppable. You could actually not as a joke, put gotcha mechanics and gambling into everything. I want to give a real world example. They did this for trains in India. Nobody was paying the fares for trains, but everybody was buying lottery tickets. So they made the train ticket a lottery ticket and everybody started paying for their train because it was a chance to win money. Like, no, it added up to the same thing. Like it was no different.

[Aiden]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Doug]

I think the idea of being able to win big or having an upside tricks your. So like for example, if you needed an old person to take their medicine every day. Day.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

If you could log that and every day you were entered to win.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

People would do it.

[Aiden]

Yeah. They would. Absolutely.

[Doug]

It's not even necessarily a bad thing. It's just crazy. It just makes me realize how broken our brains are to gambling.

[Aiden]

We.

[Doug]

We love the dopamine rush of small chance of reward.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Definitely agree with that 100%. Okay. So this I, I think is actually a good segue into a real business. So this is from Sir Ripster. So gave a pitch that won him a $2,000 scholarship at college. It's for a fintech conference where I pitched the idea of a fake sports betting app that instead of actually risking money, it puts your money into an HYS or index fund, gives you fake currency instead to do the betting with. So you kind of make this platform that encourages real savings while allowing people to enjoy the social aspects of gambling, of investing into these cool games. Almost like a fantasy football league. That's my own addition. But quote, not punish people who actually learn how to sports bet. That gives them a real edge. So he said kind of a real idea. A little bit not. And this seemed to actually get some weight. And I thought this was really interesting.

[Doug]

That's so interesting.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So if I understand correctly, you put your money or you link it to your bank out or wherever you put your money in.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Then you're making sports bets. But in the back end, it's really just putting a little bit of money towards your.

[Aiden]

Yeah. It's a, like, it's a way of gamifying your 401k kind of.

[Doug]

Can I Give you a real news story about that.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So Trump this week just signed democratization of 401ks into alternative assets, which sounds fancy. What that means is, for the longest time, 401ks could only be put into a few specific things, like diversified S&P 500, you know, a few key things. You pick it on the menu of your company's 401ks. Well, there's been a huge demand from crypto and from private equity to get access to that. That juicy 401k money.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And so now after this law, it is now legal to be offering those as options. So some people will now click private. It's an option. So you can say it's fine, but because there's so much riskier, it's your retirement money. To me, I find it to be pretty spooky because if you're a guy who's picking from five options, you might pick the one that says, like, private equity, guaranteed 15% return a year or whatever, and then you could lose your retirement.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it's like the opposite of what you want. It's saying, hey, you're investing for your future, but it's actually gambling on the back end. This idea is gambling, but you're actually investing in your future.

[Doug]

I like this idea. I actually think it's kind of clever.

[Aiden]

There's real value to it because you, like, tap into that same sports betting vibe, but you're saying, look, this is an actual responsible way to do it. And, you know, there presumably would need to be some kind of, like, it's not just you with a group of friends. There's leaderboards, there's some kind of real tangible, maybe some percentage of the money that goes in goes back to real rewards. So if you really crush it, you do get something back and it goes in, but it's much smaller in terms of stakes in both risk and reward of an actual sports thing. It's like I could see it really honestly working of like, you just take our part of our dumb monkey brains and put it to investing.

[Doug]

I would have to talk to a real hardcore gambler to see if they would still get the same rush.

[Aiden]

That's the thing. You obviously wouldn't. But can you get the average person? Because presumably, you know, I don't know what the demographic breakdown of like, you know, the sports gambling stuff is, but, you know, of that audience, presumably you have like any sort of gotcha system. You have the hardcore whales that dump insane quantities of money. And then 90 to 95% of people.

[Doug]

The only doubting medium amount is it could end up being the ultimate gateway drug to become a sport.

[Aiden]

That is true. That is true.

[Doug]

It could be like, dude, it's like nicotine gum.

[Aiden]

Like we're trying to get people off cigarettes, but we just start. It's like how vapes were supposed to.

[Doug]

Be getting everybody vapes get super addicted. That would be my fear is it is the vapes of financial literacy. But I do think there's something there. I think finding a ways. You know, I had this. I'm not a writer, but I always wanted to write this short story about a woman who. She gets her paycheck for the day. But it's a spin. You hit the button and you spin and you can either get like a gold paycheck, get more than your salary.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But every day you usually get like a silver or like a. A gray one, which is less than your salary.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So you're getting paid sub minimum wage. But every, every 10 days you get like the platinum and you feel good about yourself.

[Aiden]

People love it.

[Doug]

People might like.

[Aiden]

All right, I want to tie this because we were talking about investment. Elderly homes, all that stuff. Fair idea. With the rising age of the population, I think it would be a great idea to start making cruises where we can pay money for the elderly to board and never return.

[Doug]

What happened?

[Aiden]

Gravemind. Thank you for the idea. What happens on the cruise is mostly their business. Perhaps each ship will have different activities on board and the company can treat it as a mobile retirement home. But at the same time, once enough people have passed away, the ship will combust and provide a fitting Viking funeral for the remaining passengers. And then he talks about what you would do with the crew on board. How you could have, you know, more exclusive ones for the wealthy where there's all these drugs and everything and how it happens on international waters. So you have to avoid a lot of the kind of concerns around ethics.

[Doug]

I think those pesky ethics. What do they say on Shark? I'm gonna. I'm. I'm out passing.

[Aiden]

You're out? You're passing on this one? Cuz we had another one from somebody who said I forget exactly what it was.

[Doug]

Sounds like ritualized murder of the elderly, which I can get behind. But the problem is you're losing the ship investment.

[Aiden]

I have to, that's.

[Doug]

I have to constantly buy new ships.

[Aiden]

Hold on. I just realized is there any revenue from this? Where's the revenue?

[Doug]

Is this a business?

[Aiden]

Okay. Because here's a business from cubic. Same concept. My idea is a gambling station at retirement Homes where you can bet on who will die next.

[Doug]

I'm sensing a theme, Doug, where we have conditioned our audience to only think of business ideas that are either gambling.

[Aiden]

Or murdering old people. I, I have some good ones that are legit that we're going to go into next. Right, Because I. Look, I was sticking together a theme. I think there's some cool ones. Okay. From 2br2b, I have a Discord bot called Storybot. It doesn't currently make money, he's broke with college debt. But what it does is it chooses a random user in a Discord server and has them start writing a story. Then it picks another random person and has them continue writing the story. And it keeps bouncing between members who slowly build this story together. And so I thought that was like a really cool, interesting, fun, creative idea. So he says, right now I'm offering a subscription of $3 a month and I have two subscribers right now. I've. Oh, I've had two subscribers right now. They have one subscriber. So it makes no money right now. You know, revenue is taken largely. There's a big cut from, from Discord. He's working on a massive rewrite where he wants it to work across multiple platforms. But this is a huge engineering take home. And then it sounds like there's some, some backend kind of server side things that he needs to figure out. So I think this is interesting.

[Doug]

They got potential, man. So $3 run rate.

[Aiden]

This reminds me of like something I would do on stream where I would make a weird little like bot or tool and then people and, and the truth is I have successfully monetized that. Right. And for somebody who is just starting out with what I think has like some really interesting potential, I think this would be cool. In our Discord, we would see at the end of the week like, what's the story got made by the community. I think it is a neat idea that's pretty interesting that they made technically. And then the question is, can I make money from this? And this was a theme and some other ones as well. But I think it's a broader, interesting question of like, if you just got the idea and there's not an obvious revenue source, people don't necessarily want to buy in in the first place. How do you do that?

[Doug]

Well, I mean, for this particular example, Discord doesn't make money. So the idea that you're going to be a profitable Discord bot, that that helps you write a story is. It's a tough to me, what I would say is it seems like a great example on how to learn to code and support a product, learn how to like attract users, learn how to make updates based on what your users want that could help you in a different business. But the idea that you're going to build a long term, maybe if there was a. I think it'd be tough to make a.

[Aiden]

And people do. There are, I'm sure there are a few discord like for example when I play DND online with friends or when I did we like found this bot that you pay a couple bucks a month for and it's like a song queue so anybody can do exclamation mark request. It goes into the queue and then it starts playing as this like playlist in the background. Super cool. And you know, I don't think that person was making much money or whatnot. But yeah, in theory these are the types of small businesses that will become much more accessible to the average person. Given that vibe coding is taking off to such a degree, it's one actually to quickly bring it back to ChatGPT 5. One of the things they showed in their demos is how easy it is to just say I want an app that does this. And it was shockingly good at that. So I think we're getting to a world pretty rapidly where you will not need to know any coding in order to make an app or a creative idea. I think we're getting very close to that. And so it opens up a world for somebody like this who sounds like this person is technical but you wouldn't need to be technical. But then the question is how if at all do you monetize?

[Doug]

Well, that's the question. If it is that good, if AI got that good, well then it kind of reduces your ability to charge for it. Because I could look at your app and say I want an app that does that.

[Aiden]

You just tell it the same thing.

[Doug]

And then I get my own version and I don't, you know, all the money within float it open AI not to you. So I don't know, I assume having a human follow up and make regular updates that hit what you users actually want could, could still be valuable and I, I think this person's on the right track for like the way idea iteration is going and coding is going and the ability to. I think if you're in touch with users, that's the most important thing for making a business. So if you can figure out what the actual problems are. But it sounds like you've created a fun little niche tool that's Not. I don't see it as a business. Maybe I'm wrong, but Gotcha Mechanics throw those.

[Aiden]

I mean, ironically, can you murder old people?

[Doug]

Too big somehow?

[Aiden]

Murder old people. Gotcha Mechanics. Talk about a horse occasionally. Yeah, one. One thing that comes to mind for. For me is I think many of the apps that have become most successful in terms of getting a lot of users on board is once they build a community platform where people can share their products together and then that generates a lot of interest where then you have an incentive to, like, push other people to be aware of the types of things you made. So mid journey, while I'm not necessarily a big fan of their company, like, part of the reason they're the art company, part of the reason they're so successful is because they have this, like, public page where people can submit things. So it gets the users there to be like, oh, I want to contribute to the community. There's other examples that are less. I mean, or like Pinterest or something like that, right? Like, there's. There's many, many, many examples. That's what a lot of social media is based on, right? Is like seeing what other people in the community are doing with the same tools. And I think in theory, you could build something like that, which is. Okay, here's. Here's a website. Every time you use the thing, it gets posted to a leaderboard and the top one gets, you know, honored in some way. Tough without, you know, really many users to kick off. But you could, I think, explore.

[Doug]

That's the big challenge. Right. Because getting everyone's in these walled gardens of the already successful social media companies. Yeah, it's hard to crack out.

[Aiden]

You know, another good example is. Is the reason wordle popped off so hard is because you could share what the score is at the end of the day, right?

[Doug]

Oh, yeah.

[Aiden]

And that's what made it pop so ridiculously hard is so smart. It's just that little thing of, oh, yeah, tweet it. Nice, simple visual of what it is. You might not have that same share ability here, but I think the ability for the product that people make to organically spread to others in some way would be a pretty valuable way to potentially actually pick up users.

[Doug]

One thing, that guy, you know, I made fun of him last episode pretty harshly, but he's obviously a very smart guy. Nikita Beer. One thing he does for all his apps that he's. Again, he's made the same app, like three times and sold it three times for more money than I've ever seen is he makes sure that every screenshot of the app is hyper shareable and automatically includes a link back to like.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

He has recognized that the way things go viral nowadays is not even through social media, it's through group chats. People sharing screenshots or things in group chats is like the ultimate word of mouth discovery device. And so he's made it that if you just grab a screenshot on your phone, it automatically puts like a. A URL and a thing for the group chat thing. And it. That. That shit works. I mean, he's doing. He got hired at X. He's doing it for X right now.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But it's just interesting. So. Yeah, I could see something with that.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Is there another one?

[Aiden]

Yeah. So this is.

[Doug]

I have one more story too. So let me like, if we can go as many as you want, but I have one more story at the end, very briefly.

[Aiden]

Cool. Yeah, let's do a few more. All right. Okay, let's. Let's do. Oh, a physical Klarna card.

[Doug]

I just got a physical Klarna card. That's so beautiful. It's so unique. Holy. I'm just now seeing the potential.

[Aiden]

I've primed you for the. For the bomb Anal beads of zinn.

[Doug]

For chest.

[Aiden]

For chest shooting. I think it'd be a combo. It's for like your niche. You start because what you want to do when you market something. Correct me If I'm wrong, Mr. Larketer, but you start with a really, really niche audience and then you expand outwards from there. Right. You start with the chess people who are. So it'd be a vibrant one.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

That's your moat. Right. If you make those comfortable beats.

[Doug]

Yeah. For chess.

[Aiden]

And then you expand out and you.

[Doug]

Shape them like chess pieces.

[Aiden]

The Connect 4 users who use anal bear beads. To the sorry users.

[Doug]

People play risk professionally cheating with anal beads and. Sorry, you are sorry. That's a problem.

[Aiden]

Okay. This is a more general one, but I saw a couple like this, so we can use that thing. General inquiries about hiring employees and online businesses and content creation. As somebody who's wanted to make an online business for a while, but I'm hesitant about employing people. Where do you find new employees? A lot of YouTube entrepreneur bros recommend looking on fiverr things like that, but it seems like that's not how you guys find your employees. When do you decide it's necessary to expand the team? Is there the calculation about value? This is from Amia.

[Doug]

We had a good discussion about this on the Patreon. Yeah, I think I stole it and put it on my big egg channel too.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I, I think we didn't in that though talk about like the threshold. Yeah, it's like, at what point do you decide that that is worth it rather than just managing an existing team?

[Doug]

One thing I said on there was that I thought when I was in the corporate world that I was not a particularly good interviewer or hire. I was often fooled by people that I think had a good handshake and a smile and good answers, but without really looking at their work history deeply and talking to references and understanding what they worked on and what I've learned as a content creator, where I'm hiring a business directly to work on shit that's really important to me and like, it's my, it's my day to day livelihood. The easiest thing to do is just find someone who's done it. Is to find or someone that is everyone that I've hired is someone that. I'm just going to say it started by doing it first. Yeah, that, that's not the way it has to be every time. But in the real world, that often is the way to break in the door is just to show that you can do it and then you've solved the problem and then you can charge a lot, like once you've proven you can do it and it's not a headache because so often what you'll get as a content creator, someone being like, I want to edit for you or something, you know, how, what do you want me to do? They put a lot of work on your plate to get it started. Like, I have to figure out what this guy's good at, then I have to pick a topic for them, then they have to do it, Then I have to be like, well, this is not right. Here's what you do differently. But if someone just shows me a video, this is how it started with all my editors, they just showed me a video and I was like, wait, this is great. Or this is like very close.

[Aiden]

Yeah, you have solved a problem.

[Doug]

You solved the problem for me. Okay, I'll pay you. I'm sorry. Anyway, so in my experience that's the best way that. And in the real world, that goes with referrals. People use referrals, like get someone who can vouch for this person. The biggest risk, every hire, every employer has is that you're going to spend all this time invested in getting someone and they can't do it.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Doug]

Or they have no, you know, capacity to be easy to work with. So I Don't know. What are your thoughts?

[Aiden]

Okay. I want to not. Not push back, but get a counterpoint. And this is something I struggle with. So I have the same experience when I am looking for somebody to. For example, we wanted to start doing Eclipse Channel and make. I mean, it's the exact same thing, Eclipse Channel. And then there was just a guy, Luca, who was just doing it. And so even though hundreds of people have reached out over the years saying, hey, I want to edit for you, here's the thing. Even some of whom have made example edits and be like, hey, here's a five minute cut of a video you did, which is helpful. The reality is, as much as it maybe sucks for somebody who doesn't want to do a bunch of unpaid work upfront, is that if a person has done the work and they're like, here, I did a thing and it's high quality, then I'm just going to go with them. The obvious downside about this is that then you're kind of asking people to do unpaid work. And I feel like that's always been weird to me. And usually what I've done is I put out applications and I say, hey, I'm looking for somebody on Twitter or on YouTube, community posts or whatever site you want to use. And then people, you know, fill in with literally 500 to 1,000 applications. So we get these, you know, hundreds and hundreds that you're trying to sort through. Even if you only spend five minutes on each one, you're talking about, I don't know how many days that is. This is an incredible amount of time. Even if you're trying to give every person a fair shake. And then if one person there is like, here is the thing you want done. It's. It's so hard to not go with them. But at the same time, you are almost certainly passing up on people who are really qualified who didn't want to put in 20, 30, 50 hours or 100 hours or whatever it's been to just literally do the job in advance. There are some people who do the job in advance and it's bad, frankly. You know, there's people who be like, I did a test edit for you. I really think it'd be great. And it's just not very good. And I'm like, I feel bad for this person. So I'm curious, like, how you think about that balance, because I've often wondered what the approach is from our perspective. It is so much better to have a person show they're doing the job that also sucks.

[Doug]

You know, it's two sided. I mean I think what I would say is whatever we say now, that is the reality of how I've seen it work, of how I've seen someone get if they have no other credentials to their name, that's how they've gotten noticed. I think they've stood out from the pile. So, so. And that's not just for editing or whatever, that's for a lot of things.

[Aiden]

I mean, you know, when I was applying to game development jobs out of college, I was trying to be like I want to work in your game development team. And I had made like a really simple game in C sharp basically and I would talk to these legit game developers who were like, okay, what have you done in C? That's what we actually use. Like, well I don't have anything but I could learn it. It's like why would they pick me over the guy who's made something in C has made a thing that they need to be done at their company.

[Doug]

Yeah, I guess I would just say this, this, this is, this was news to me. Going through the corporate world and in a real life is like. Because now I've seen it from the other side. When I was a person trying to get a job I was always thinking about it from my own pov, but from the employer's pov they are always looking for like risk minimization. They're like pretty much always looking to find some, someone who can fit into, you know, square peg, square hole, as easy as possible. And so because they have shit going on, they're just, there's a million applications. And so just knowing that is a hack, that's all I'm saying. If you are someone applying just thinking about it from their POV and trying to position yourself so it's the easiest slot in is a huge hack to improve your chances. That's all I'll say. I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just saying that is the reality of what I've seen in the world. And so it can help you out. It could be a, it could be a bonus.

[Aiden]

I suspect that's even going to become more and more relevant. We've talked last week, we talked about how the job market just sucks balls and people are, you know, it's like a job opens up on LinkedIn and then there's 5,000 applications within two hours. Right. And that just, that sucks. And Again, the reality that I sense is the probably what's more effective is rather than blasting out a resume to 500 people to find five companies and do work in advance to like, really curate a finished thing for them and say, look, it's done. Here's a thing that I can do that is concretely unique to what you guys need. And it's not. It's not you changing a cover letter a little bit to be like. And I really like the marine focus that you guys have. You know, it's. It's having to do some work up front. And that feels unfair. Like, I hated that it. When I worked in Esports and we talked Blizzard be like, hey, we want to consider working with you guys for this project. Send us an RFP that means you spend a week.

[Doug]

Oh, dude.

[Aiden]

Building out a project, literally designing the whole thing, giving them all your best ideas for them to be like, we didn't go with you. Yeah, it's like, we just did the work for you. What the fuck? So it feels awful, but, like, it's the. Yeah, it's 100%.

[Doug]

I'll say. Like, especially in that case, it does feel like there's a line. Especially with the size of a corporation.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

When they have money to throw around and they're doing something for big and you're doing multiple people's like, work and time.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It becomes way over the line. And I fully agree. And I've seen that happen, especially at Twitch. And yeah, I do think it's fucked up. So, yeah, it's a line. It's the line I do want to say. You know, an example I had personally was like, when I applied to Twitch, you know, I'm coming out of college, nobody fucking knows me. I don't have any. There's a lot of people applying for the same job. The only thing like, you know, I had, my resume, I worked on, I changed every history to like, match up with the description and all that stuff. The only thing they talked about was this one project I did. It was called Esports Express and it was like the onion of esports.

[Aiden]

I didn't even. Okay, yeah.

[Doug]

And, you know, it popped off. It was like number one on Reddit, our league of legends or whatever. And we got big views and, you know, it was like we launched something new. We made something from scratch. And that was the only. Almost all my interviewers were just talking about that. Like, they didn't care about the normal markers that I spent way more probably time on trying to get right. They just cared about this one project that, that was the differentiator. That was the thing that they had heard of. And it was a, you know, it's like, oh, you worked on this? I heard of this. That was it. That was so. Yeah, I guess, I guess that's just my example, man. If you can make something that, that anyone's heard of, it's a massive leg up. It's a massive project.

[Aiden]

Do like, you go down in the, into the office and you give the manager a firm handshake.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's.

[Aiden]

Sir, I would like to work.

[Doug]

My dad told me that.

[Aiden]

Yeah. All right, final idea. And we'll move on from popcorns. Nick, Nicotine toothpaste to get people addicted to brushing their teeth.

[Doug]

Nicotine toothpaste.

[Aiden]

I do get a strong sense around addiction and gambling from viewers.

[Doug]

Yeah, I do see a pattern.

[Aiden]

I don't know why. I don't know why that would have happened.

[Doug]

No, I don't either.

[Aiden]

Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it tonight. I'm gonna put a couple zins into my mouth while I brush my teeth. I will keep you guys posted.

[Doug]

You know, I just want to say if you were. This is not real, but if you were someone who's already nicked to Zen, this could really improve your oral health.

[Aiden]

There we go.

[Doug]

Like, if you're already nicotine addicted and your guy was, you know, maybe wants to quit, was gonna use patches or whatever nicotine toothpaste would make it. So you, like, are brushing two to three times a day.

[Aiden]

You're just like, your gums are raw, they're bleeding. You just, you're brushing 15 hours a day.

[Doug]

You constantly have a toothbrush, man.

[Aiden]

I just. Yeah, you go outside the bar for a quick brush.

[Doug]

But they'd be sparkling, bro.

[Aiden]

I do think there's a limit, actually. I'm not.

[Doug]

Okay, okay, final story, final story. So we talk.

[Aiden]

Thank you everybody for submitting your business ideas. We hope you fixed all your problems.

[Doug]

Yeah, we've made you a lot of money. The final story is about something about jobs and Gen Z. We've talked about both. This is specifically about return to office and gambling. Not gambling.

[Aiden]

Not gambling.

[Doug]

Old people dying.

[Aiden]

They're. They're clicking off.

[Doug]

We got that. Old people will die. If you guys aren't aware, the. If you take a poll of the average worker's opinion on whether they liked working from home or not, the average worker is still very much in support of it. They, they. In the post Covid era, they got really used to work from home. And a lot of people, especially in like white collar office jobs, really like the freedom and flexibility of having more work from home than less. However, that poll is divided very sharply. The younger you get people that are new to the workforce and maybe you guys can disagree. Let me know if you're, if you're younger. But the polls show that if you're like Gen Z 18 to 24, maybe in that range, maybe a little older now some they prefer return to office, especially if they've come into the workplace post Covid because you, for many reasons. Number one, you can't make connections with your boss easily and like get a leg up and get, you know, know the culture of the company. You know, number two is like a lot of learning and innovation happens outside of structured meetings. So like the people around you can't really teach you things if it's just through a structured zoom call. You know, those are like the main ones. But number three, and this one's coming out, is that as Gen Z grows more and more disillusioned with dating apps, they want to find a workplace romance. I don't know if you could pull this up. Parry my screen RTO equals xoxo. Sick of dating apps. Gen Z's looking for love in the office. And basically it shows polling that boomers like 25% of them support workplace like finding a partner at work, which is sounds really low, but the numbers like 60% plus for, for millennials and Gen Z, it's like way, way higher. And they are just finding you'll have more in common or you know, you have more chance to get to know someone instead of just being the pure swipe physical attributes type thing.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And because we don't, I think it's almost a dystopian look at how we have no third places where you can meet somebody. Like there's no bowling alley or church or you're just, it's work and home. Yeah, but, but people are looking to work for that. And I wonder if you have any thoughts. This is, this is interesting. Or do you have any? I don't know.

[Aiden]

I mean the ideal world is what my grandfather did, which is that he went north from his farm in Texas to Ohio where a bunch of Germans were having a barn dance. He met a nice lady, married her a week later and took her back down to Texas where they then birthed four children who then spawned me. So I mean, if we more barn dances, if we moved past the barn dance world, I mean, dude, dating apps suck and you've been out of the dating Market for a while. Yeah, I have. I have tried dating apps a couple of times. It blows, man. It blows so bad. And so I absolutely get the feeling, I've often felt this of, like, work is where I would be likely to find somebody because that's. That's one where you kind of guaranteed have a common set of interests or experiences. Right. If you meet somebody at work rather than necessarily at a bar, the odds that you find somebody at work who really connects with you is much higher than an average space outside of that. So on a dating app, you have, like, no common foundation other than a couple pieces of text. But if you. If you're at a shared space like that, that instantly forms a connection. And then for somebody like me who is very passionate about, like, creative stuff, and I would want to date somebody who's creative, like, that's critical. That filters it massively. If you're then focusing on a creative job right now, it's a terrible idea. To be clear today, coworkers. This is a horrible idea. And it goes wrong all the time.

[Doug]

Is it?

[Aiden]

I. Let me.

[Doug]

Let me have it.

[Aiden]

Let me rephrase that. There are obvious downsides to it.

[Doug]

You haven't seen the Office, you know, Jim and Pam.

[Aiden]

It always works.

[Doug]

Always Jim and Pam.

[Aiden]

The. So here's the thing. If it works out, it's fucking great. Right? It's so great. And then if it doesn't, which most relationships don't, statistically speaking.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

Fucking is awkward as hell. And I have experienced that in very. In different ways. And, dude, I. So. But I get it. I mean, this is. I have for a long time felt like I'm going to find my person through work. And that is actually not how I ended up finding my person. But it felt like that was the best odds, you know, like I would be. It'd be like a streamer or something. Because, of course, that's the person who most, you know, naturally connects with me.

[Doug]

Sure.

[Aiden]

If I get this. I get. Get this vibe a lot.

[Doug]

Yeah, I think it makes sense in.

[Aiden]

The world we're in.

[Doug]

I think it's a very normal response. And I do think, no, I've been out of the game a while, but my understanding is that dating apps truly are hellacious for almost anyone. I mean, it's just. It is. Both men and women report extreme negativity towards dating apps. Nobody's enjoying the process.

[Aiden]

Right. Right.

[Doug]

And so this guy mentioned the article. The difference was astronomical. Hughes tells me. We were friends first. We talked. We got to know each other, you know, the idea of opening with seeing some of their personality before. Yeah, you know. Yeah, there's something to that. So it's very interesting. But obviously has risks, as you mentioned. Anyway, I thought it was. I thought it was fun because from my POV at the time at Nvidia, you know, it's an older group there. Everyone was pro work from home. It was work from home forever. We would like. This is great the flexibility, but I can totally see this among other things being a reason for some positivity towards return to office.

[Aiden]

Yeah, you need. I mean, you need a third space, right? Or not even third space. You need a space. You need a space to outside of your room. And it is not healthy for I think the vast, vast, vast majority of people to just only be online. Like there's just something fundamental about connecting with other people in person. And so maybe that happens to the office. I would like to believe that we could find better places that don't have obvious challenges with dating the person. But if that's it, like, I get it. We need. You need something, man.

[Doug]

Counterpoint. You see that happen with the astroneer CEO and his HR representative can go wrong.

[Aiden]

I mean, I think you might be misrepresenting here. The problem with that is that he's having an affair with the executive of his company. Not really about the downsides of dating.

[Doug]

Somebody place romance is Doug. They always ended up in Coldplay.

[Aiden]

That's a good counterpoint. Yeah. No, if you are. If you are having a fair. I think that's maybe two affairs. Go have an affair at a bowling alley like a real adult.

[Doug]

Don't go to golf.

[Aiden]

That's what the boomers used to do. They would go to a barn dance and have an affair and now they're doing it at work. It's gross.

[Doug]

It is gross. Guys. Thanks for watching Lemonade Stand. Next week Aiden will be back. We.

[Aiden]

I have a very special guest next week. Aiden is going to be joining Lemonade Stand. We have heard he's got some spicy taste.

[Doug]

A great guest. And then after that, of course, back to Gavin.

[Aiden]

New regular Gavin. Been traveling a lot this summer. We haven't been able to get him back in, but one of these days.

[Doug]

He'S going to find right back in the. In the stand. Thanks guys for watching.

[Aiden]

Thanks, everybody. Bye.