Aaru, Iran, & an AI Horror Story 3/20/26

Summary

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Squawk Pod: "Aaru, Iran, & an AI Horror Story"

Date: March 20, 2026
Hosts: Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Notable Guests: Cameron Fink, Ned Koh, John Kessler (Aru), Katie Haun (VC investor)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Squawk Pod is a fast-paced curation of top business headlines, market news, technological innovation, and an exclusive set of interviews. The main themes include:

• The escalation and market ramifications of the Iran war
• The Fed chair controversy under President Trump
• An AI-generated horror novel's canceled release
• A deep-dive with the teenage founders of AI market research startup Aru
• A major MasterCard acquisition in the blockchain space and the future of “agentic” AI finance

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Key Segments & Insights

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1. Middle East Conflict & Market Impact

[03:02 - 06:45]

Main Points:

• Conflict Update:
  Israel and Iran have exchanged a new wave of strikes. Iranian missiles and drones targeted UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, causing infrastructure damage.
• Oil & Economic Implications:
  Despite the conflict, oil prices cooled slightly after Israeli claims of crippling Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities.
  • The U.S. Treasury Secretary floated a plan to unsanction 140 million barrels of Iranian crude to allied nations, aiming to reduce the war-induced oil price premium.
• Gulf Economic Fallout:
  Qatari gas exports suffered a 17% hit due to Iranian strikes. Repairs could take years, risking energy price shocks for Asia and Europe.
• Strait of Hormuz Remains Cut Off:
  The waterway is essentially closed, keeping 20 million barrels/day offline and maintaining price pressure.

Notable Quotes:

• Dan Murphy (CNBC Correspondent):
  “That critical waterway … remains choked off to the world. Up to 20 million barrels of oil remaining offline... likely we'll see that price premium staying intact.” (05:27)

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2. Fed Chair Powell - Political Drama

[07:05 - 09:49]

Main Points:

• Fed Chair Investigation:
  President Trump’s administration initially considered closing an investigation into Fed Chair Powell, but reversed after a judge’s ruling blocked subpoenas.
• Politics at Play:
  Delay in confirming a new Fed chair (Kevin Warsh) is possible, as North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis vows to block any replacement before investigation’s resolution.
• Judiciary Critique:
  Discussion on Judge Boasberg's pattern of rulings, stirring "activist judge" complaints and further politicizing the situation.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Ross Sorkin:
  "Sometimes the president does things, cuts off his nose to spite his face...” (08:42)

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3. AI Horror Novel Controversy

[09:49 - 13:00]

Main Points:

• Book Cancellation:
  Hachette Book Group canceled the U.S. release of 'Shy Girl', due to allegations that parts were AI-written, despite the author’s denials.
• Creative Authorship Questions:
  Panel debates whether using generative AI (by editors, not authors) constitutes plagiarism, and what the future holds for AI and storytelling.
• AI Use in Everyday Life:
  The hosts discuss AI's efficacy in tasks like predicting March Madness outcomes, with current tools barely matching human ability.

Notable Quotes:

• Becky Quick:
  “I imagine in the future... as people now use Google, they will ultimately use AI in certain cases.” (11:16)

• Andrew Ross Sorkin:
  “The author is saying it’s the editor who used AI... But it’s a fair question: Is AI generative, and... was it ripping off from other written publications?” (12:36)

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4. Amazon’s AI-Integrated Mobile Ambitions

[13:32 - 14:33]

Main Points:

• Leaked Project:
  Reuters reports Amazon is developing a new phone, codenamed 'Transformer', with deep AI voice integration via Alexa.
• Echoes of the Fire Phone:
  Hosts recall Amazon’s failed 'Fire Phone' from 2014, but speculate that advances in AI voice interfaces make the timing better today.
• Data Privacy Concerns:
  Andrew expresses discomfort over voice assistants and targeted ads, which he jokes seem to read his mind.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Ross Sorkin:
  "If I talk about toe fungus with Becky and next thing, I get a toe fungus medication... that was an example." (14:14)

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5. Aru: Teenage Founders Disrupting Market Research with AI

[18:17 - 29:56]

Introduction:

Aru is a simulation startup founded by teenagers, now valued at $1B, with major clients from EY to A24. Their AI simulates human behavior to make market predictions.

Company Origin Story:

• Founders Met in High School:
  “[We] used to program computer programs … to hack our WiFi so we could avoid turning in homework on time.” (19:33 - Cameron Fink)
• John Kessler Joined at 15:
  Cold-emailed Cameron via LinkedIn after an accelerator stint; they quickly clicked and started the company.

Approach to Predicting Human Behavior:

• Beyond Prediction Markets:
  Ned Koh critiques traditional prediction markets for sampling bias and entertainment focus:
  “They fail for the same reason that traditional human research fails. The average human doesn’t use them.” (21:58)
• Simulation Strengths:
  Simulates hard-to-survey populations (e.g., GLP-1 weight loss drug users and their alcohol consumption patterns).
• Contrarian Health Prediction:
  Aru predicts a shift in alcohol trends for GLP-1 users—initially decreased drinking, but eventual uptick in social occasions as confidence grows.

Core Business Model & Results:

• Client Value:
  Claims to outperform traditional surveys:
  “We’ll run the exact same questions...simulate them in our model and then predict more accurately the behavior of the customers that they actually have.” (27:06 - Ned Koh)
• Rapid Growth:
  Over 100 clients, including major businesses and political organizations.

Shaping Behavior, Not Just Predicting:

• “As we see this...it’s not just the power to predict the future, but actually the power to shape it as well.” (28:32 – Cameron Fink)
• “Our simulations today have impacted hundreds of millions of people already...working on projects on how to make people more open to nuclear power plants being built.” (29:37 – Ned Koh)

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6. MasterCard’s $1.8B Blockchain Bet & Future of Finance

[32:30 - 42:45]

BVNK Acquisition:

• Katie Haun on MasterCard’s Move:
  “This gets MasterCard squarely into the stablecoin space...a key innovation… to transfer a digital dollar globally, instantly, anywhere in the world.” (33:25)
• Industry Context:
  Legacy (incumbent) finance is in an “arms race” with tech innovators over payment rail control.

Regulation and Clarity:

• Legislative Landscape:
  Equivocation remains around the Clarity Act and regulatory clarity for crypto and stablecoins, but Haun notes recent collaboration between the SEC and CFTC as progress.
• Impending Legislation:
  “I’m cautiously optimistic...the bigger question is...will Congress get a bill to the floor on time to vote?” (36:20 - Katie Haun)

The Coming "Agentic" Era:

• Financial Transactions by AI:
  "I think it's pretty inevitable that...agents are going to be doing [payments and value transfers] on our behalf."
  “If you think about how humans progressed from using checks to credit cards and now...credit cards on their iPhone...agents will be using new systems.” (38:00)
• Tokenization Future:
  Haun forecasts a growing role for tokenized securities and always-on, global digital payments.

Prediction Markets:

• Promise and Regulation:
  "These marketplaces could actually over time be important, real-time, true signals...I think that that will draw a lot of government interest and already is..." (41:01)
  She predicts a coming wave of litigation and government scrutiny—“a lot of work there to come.”

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Notable Quotes – Highlight Reel

• Ned Koh (Aru):
  “It starts with this idea of convincing people that magic is real...it’s an incredibly challenging problem to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than talking to your customers directly.’” (01:17, repeated at 27:06)

• Cameron Fink (Aru):
  “If you can predict human behavior, you can predict the future, right? We can predict how people are going to shift markets...change their product preferences.” (01:31, elaborated at 28:32)

• Katie Haun (Haun Ventures):
  “If you think about how humans progressed from using checks to credit cards and now...credit cards on their iPhone, we think that also agents will be using some of these new systems. So I think that’s where AI comes in.” (35:20; also at 38:00)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [03:02] – Iran conflict and energy markets (Dan Murphy)
• [07:05] – Trump vs. Powell, Fed chair drama
• [09:49] – AI horror novel controversy
• [13:32] – Amazon’s AI phone ambitions
• [18:17] – Interview with Aru co-founders (origin story, business model, predictions)
• [27:06] – Aru simulation advantages
• [32:30] – Katie Haun on MasterCard's BVNK deal, AI, crypto future
• [41:01] – Prediction markets: opportunity & regulatory preview

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

• Candid and Lively: Hosts balance incisive questioning with banter, humor, and open skepticism.
• Forward-Looking: Strong focus on technological disruption, both opportunity and risk.
• Provocative: The Aru founders challenge market research orthodoxy; Haun forecasts dramatic shifts in the infrastructure of global finance.
• Real-World Consequence: Headlines on war, legislation, and economic volatility ground the discussions in present-tense urgency.

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Conclusion

This episode blends breaking global news with exclusive insights from new and established leaders in AI and finance, highlighting the shifting landscape of technology, economics, and the challenges (and promise) of predicting and shaping human behavior using advanced simulation, blockchain, and AI tools.

Transcript

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] Market Update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

Before we had AT and T Business Wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn, an influencer even livestream the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business Wireless, routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53

[Becky Quick]

new followers though at&t business Wireless connecting changes everything. Bring in show music please.

[Joe Kernan]

This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, the young entrepreneurs using AI to shake up traditional market research. ARU co founders Ned Ko it starts

[Ned Koh]

with this idea of convincing people that magic is real, right? It's an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say, hey, we're going to be more accurate than predicting human behavior than you are even when you talk to your customers directly.

[Joe Kernan]

And Cameron Fink, if you can predict

[Cameron Fink]

human behavior, you can predict the future, right? We can predict how people are going to shift markets. We can predict how individuals are going to change their product preferences.

[Joe Kernan]

And Mastercard's $1.8 billion acquisition of BVNK, bridging legacy finance and the blockchain legendary venture capitalist and BVNK backer Katie Hahn on the future of finance.

[Katie Hahn]

If you think about how humans progressed from using checks to credit cards and now actually not even credit cards as much as credit cards on their iPhone, we think that also agents will be using some of these new systems. So I think that's where AI comes in.

[Joe Kernan]

Plus, the latest on the Iran war, President Trump's post push on Fed chair Powell still and a horror novel at the center of AI controversy.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's not the Bachelorette that we're talking about. That was a horror novel.

[Joe Kernan]

It is Friday, March 20, 2026.

[Interviewer / Host]

Hooray, it's spring.

[Joe Kernan]

Finally, Squawkpod begins right now.

[Becky Quick]

Stand Becky by in three, two, one.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

Fuel, please.

[Interviewer / Host]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on cnbc. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Let's get to the latest headlines out of the Middle east as the war in Iran reaches three weeks. CNBC's Dan Murphy joins us now from Dubai. Dan, good morning.

[Dan Murphy]

Hey there, Joe. Good morning. Well, Israel and Iran both exchanging a fresh wave of strikes this morning. And Iran has hit back with missiles and drones targeting the uae, Saudi Arab, Bahrain and Kuwait, where a refinery has been hit, sparking a fire. As you mentioned, despite the uptick in attacks, oil prices are cooling a little today after Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said American and Israeli strikes had destroyed Iran's ability to enrich uranium and also suggesting the war could end a lot faster than expected. The treasury secretary, Scott Bessen, also floating this plan to unsanction about 140 million barrels of Iranian crude currently sitting on the water. Certainly a pivot away from maximum pressure, but designed to add supply, cool prices and reduce the war premium that Iran collects on its oil sales. Instead of those barrels flowing to China at a discount, Washington wants them heading to allies like India and South Korea and Japan that all rely on the Strait of Hormuz for oil. Meanwhile, we're also following fresh reports out of Qatar this morning, which is counting the cost of its latest strikes as well. Qatar Energy CEO Sato Kabi confirming overnight that the Iranian strikes have taken out about 17% of Qatar's export capacity. And those repairs will take three to five years now and cost tens of billions in revenue. It's certainly a big blow for Qatar, its economy, its people as well. And it is raising the risk of an energy price shock and inflation translation for the economies of Asia and Europe that rely on that Qatari gas that will now need to find alternative sources of supply. Joe?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

All right, Jan, we're all wondering about the next moves, how long it would take for for the US to degrade the, the Iranian assets in the, in the Strait to the point where we could see escorts. We actually thought that that was happening with the energy secretary we had him on. He said no, it wasn't and we're not ready right now. But that is something I think that the United States is trying to do in earnest. How many weeks, how many, how many days? Any, any idea on that, when we could do escorts and we wouldn't be at risk? I heard there's low flying jets trying to take out a lot of Iranian assets right as we speak.

[Dan Murphy]

That's exactly right, Joe. And those efforts continue. The energy secretary told your show that it's too soon to see US Naval escorts and that's because the conflict is still too hot at this stage in the last 12 hours. Interestingly, we've also heard from the Europeans suggesting that they could potentially get involved as well, helping to secure the safety of those ships and their crews and their cargoes passing through the strait. But the message from the Europeans is that they wouldn't be interested in getting involved until the conflict also came to an end. So this week, we saw the Americans and the Israelis really working to eliminate threats inside the Strait of Hormuz. But right now, that critical waterway basically essentially remains choked off to the world. And as a result, up to 20 million barrels of oil remaining offline until it can effectively reopen again. It is likely we'll see that price premium staying intact for oil and for gas as well, given the gas flows that also flow through the strait on the timeline. Joe, that is the biggest question facing not just market investors, but everyone here in the Gulf region today as well. We still don't know the duration of this conflict and indeed how soon it could be before the White House or the Israelis now signal that this war could be coming to a close.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Disturbing news coming out of Iran, too. Dan Cover of the New York Post. You know, young protesters being hung in public, and it's just, it's a, it sometimes reminds us of exactly what maybe this is all about in the first place. Dan, thank you. Appreciate it.

[Becky Quick]

Meantime, President Trump was reportedly open to the government ending an investigation into Fed Chair Jay Powell, but thoughts have now changed his mind after judge rejected subpoenas issued to the Fed. Bloomberg report says that the White House aides now think the president wants to appeal last Friday's ruling, with Justice Department leaders also backing that idea. That could mean a delay to getting the next Fed chair installed. However, the president wants former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to replace Powell when his term ends in the spring. But North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who we've had on the broadcast a couple of times now, has vowed to block the replacement process until that investigation into Powell is resolved. And Powell, of course, says that he is staying at a minimum until it is resolved. So, but, but given how handily the, the courts sort of said, no, we're not doing this, it's a judge.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You called it a judge. It's the same guy.

[Becky Quick]

It's a judge,

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

but you could say who it is. Supposedly.

[Becky Quick]

Go and read what the judge said.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, but supposedly it's the same. Andrew, I'm just making a point. It's the same guy. It's this Boasberg guy. It's a coincidence. He sits on the D.C. court, he's a terrible judge. He just, it says it's randomly assigned by a computer who gets different things. But it's just he has been at the center of about four or five rulings that have gone against the Trump administration, which is not maybe unusual since it challenges the federal authority go through the D.C. federal court. What happened so. Well, it just has been coinky dinks that it has been. But he was appointed by the Supreme

[Interviewer / Host]

Court, has not ruled in the president's favorite cases.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But he's been appointed. He was appointed by Obama. I'm just saying partisan viewers do not like this guy. And the point I'm making is that Trump, sometimes the president does things, cuts off his nose despite his face because

[Ned Koh]

he probably pressure doesn't generally work.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

He gets mad that this Boasberg again has done this. So now I'm not going to drop this thing against Powell. So Warsh is not going to get an earlier hearing. So it all works against what Trump's trying to do because he gets mad about it.

[Becky Quick]

And I'm just saying that that probably in this case doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Interviewer / Host]

The other thing I will add to this is that President Trump did ramp up pressure on Jay Pal again yesterday, saying that anybody would be cutting rates at this point. You know, the Fed has been fairly united and even Rick and Steve agreed the other day after you got those hotter CPI numbers, that it would be complicated for anyone, no matter who they're appointed by, to cut rates, given the potential impact pact for inflation.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But when you hear, you know, Republicans or conservatives complain about activist judges, this guy is like the poster child and it's just weird. There he is again.

[Becky Quick]

Tim.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh my God. Hache Book Group has canceled the publication of a horror novel called Shy Girl following allegations that portions of the book were written with the use of generative. Generative AI. The book was published in the UK in November and was due to be released in the US In May. But after an investigation into the book's origins, the publisher has cancelled that release. In a brief statement. Right.

[Katie Hahn]

Hachette.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Hachette, yeah, it's publishing thing. Said it remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling. In an email to the Wall Street Journal, author Mia Ballard said she did not personally use AI and said in her words, all I'm going to say is please do your research on editors before trusting them with your work. It was a horror novel about a female. It's not the bachelorette that we're Talking about that was a whore novel.

[Becky Quick]

I don't understand this. So they're saying that the story was written by AI Some of it. That's what they're trying to claim.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Some of it.

[Becky Quick]

And therefore they can't sell the book.

[Interviewer / Host]

First of all, I don't know how you figure out that.

[Becky Quick]

Well, they're saying that it's copied from somewhere else. What's the issue?

[Cameron Fink]

I don't know.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You're the. You're the book guy.

[Interviewer / Host]

Should you be allowed to use AI to.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's the 29. I know that too.

[Becky Quick]

Too late for me. But. But yeah. I imagine in the future that all writing, I mean, is going to be. I mean people are now the way people use Google, they will ultimately use AI in certain cases.

[Interviewer / Host]

Can I tell you, we went to Gemini last night just to try and see what I could do in terms of picking the best bracket for March Madness. It's useless. The best I can tell at least from that point because what they did was say they basically went to the predictions market and said based on this. Based on the predictions market. So then we gave it a new prompt and said without using prediction markets, what's the best one? And they just spit back with a

[Becky Quick]

top ranked team that they would use.

[Interviewer / Host]

But all I'm saying is it's no better than we are at trying to figure this out at this point or it's been given direction not to do it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I mean, they come from what people think. Right. And people frequently. Yeah, people are frequently wrong. You know, once again, yesterday, I don't know if you saw Watson, you see Duke almost lost.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yes, I did.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It was.

[Interviewer / Host]

It was down to the wire.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's unbelievable.

[Becky Quick]

I think it's actually quite cool that it would go to look at the

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

markets and the high point.

[Becky Quick]

Because that's what you would want. It's not a clairvoyant thing. I would want it to do that. That's how you would want.

[Interviewer / Host]

I can do that by myself. Like I don't need your help. I thank you.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So she's sure.

[Becky Quick]

But it could probably go make all the bets for you.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The author saying that it's the editor

[Interviewer / Host]

who used AI that's what it sounds like, at least from her statement in this. But it's a fair question. Is AI generative? And I guess the question becomes where does AI go to come up with some of the stuff? Was it ripping off from other written publications to say this is what someone else might look. And so it looks like it's plagiarism to Some extent.

[Becky Quick]

I don't know.

[Interviewer / Host]

I don't know. Interesting questions. Yeah, I was watching March Madness last night too. Yes, it was unbelievable.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's happening again today. I like the first two days best. I don't know why.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah, because you get some real upsets. Then that's when you see some of the Cinderella stories.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But the brackets are less important when you actually are using DraftKings. Nothing happens from the I'm not going to win Buffett's thing, so.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah, but Kyle's just interested because he's in a pool with his friends. And that's where you have fun with it when you win bragging rights.

[Becky Quick]

Meantime, we got a new Reuters report just out moments ago saying that Amazon developing a new mobile phone that would integrate AI voice features through its Alexa assistant. The project known internally as Transformer. The report saying it's being developed within Amazon's devices and services unit. Amazon first introduced the A phone, I should say many, many years ago. You remember. This was a flop though. It's called the Fire phone. Back in 2014, it was scrapped after about a year though. As I think we move more towards AI and Alexa and other services that where voice is becoming the new interface and becoming a much better interface than it's ever been before. I know you still have your Siri problems, but I do.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But I don't like people listening. If I talk about Becky, if I talk about toe fungus with Becky and the next thing that happens is I get a toe fungus medication immediately. Comes up as an alert on my phone. It's happened too many times.

[Interviewer / Host]

And you've gotten the toe fungus advertised.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That was an example.

[Becky Quick]

Could have been happen though.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And before we go to break, it's 10:46am is the vernal equinox. It could be into the 19th. Yeah, could be the 19th, 20th or 21st. The calendar doesn't line up with what the sun does, but it's when the sun is directly 10:46am yeah, it's directly above the equator. Equal daylight and nighttime. Right.

[Interviewer / Host]

Hooray, it's spring.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

Finally.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

33 degrees. 1046.

[Interviewer / Host]

That stupid groundhog cost us the last six weeks.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And I knew it was going to snow again. Remember the last one was major and then it was 80 degrees. Yeah, I knew it was coming.

[Interviewer / Host]

Which was a trip.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I knew it was. Yeah, it was.

[Interviewer / Host]

It was like head fake

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

Tease will be next.

[Joe Kernan]

Coming up on Squawk Pod, the very young founders shaking up the world of market research with AI. What else? ARU co founder Ned Ko on how they convince legacy businesses to trust their models over actual human data.

[Ned Koh]

We'll run whatever process got them to that, whether it was traditional survey, traditional research work, et cetera. We'll run the exact same questions, the exact same groups that they actually spoke to in the real world. We'll simulate them in our model and then predict more accurately the behavior of the customers that they actually have.

[Joe Kernan]

And co founder Cameron Fink on one of aru's contrarian predictions in a new era for health.

[Cameron Fink]

Not just what's happening in the next two, three, four days or next four months, but rather what is going to be the long term impact of GLP1 over the next two, three, four years.

[Joe Kernan]

We will be right back.

[John Kessler]

Support for today's episode comes from Square. If you've ever tapped a pay and thought, whoa, that was fast, it was probably Square. Square is the platform behind the scenes of so many businesses you already love. Whether someone's selling smoothies, cutting hair, fixing bikes, or running a boutique, Square gives them one connected system to take payments, manage inventory, run payroll, send invoices, and track it all from one place. This isn't just a point of sale. Square includes hardware that works in person and on the go, software for managing staff, marketing and customer insights, and banking tools like Square checking to get paid instantly. Square is smart, transparent and built for the way people actually run their businesses. No contracts, no hidden fees. Right now you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com go squawk. That's S Q U-A-R-E.com go squawk. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[AT&T Business Wireless Advertiser]

Before we had ATT Business Wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn. An influencer even livestream the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business wireless routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53

[Becky Quick]

new followers though at&t business Wireless Connecting changes everything.

[Joe Kernan]

You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Becky.

[Interviewer / Host]

AI startup ARU is a simulation company that believes it has cracked the code for predicting human behavior with higher accuracy and speed. It was founded just about two years ago by teenagers at the time. The startup is now valued at $1 billion. And it has clients that include Ernst and Young, Accenture, drugmaker, Buyer, The Film Studio A24 Boston Beer Company, Spindrift, and others in business and politics. Joining us right now is Cameron Fink. He is the CEO of aru. Ned Koh is the president and John Kessler is the Chief Technology officer. And gentlemen, welcome to all of you. John, I think you're still a teenager, aren't you?

[John Kessler]

I still am 17 years old. Thank you so much for having us.

[Becky Quick]

Well, you guys are 18 or what? 19. What are we at?

[Ned Koh]

19 and 18 when we started the company. 21 and 20 now.

[Becky Quick]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

Wow.

[Becky Quick]

Wow.

[Interviewer / Host]

We are blown away by, first of all, what you have built. Second of all, how you have built this at such young ages. There's so much to talk about, but why don't we just start on how you guys developed all of this? And I think this is a situation where Cam and Ned, you two were running cross country together in school. What were you talking about? What were you working on? Just tell us the story.

[Cameron Fink]

Well, first off, thank you guys so much for having us on. Ned and I met first day, first class freshman year of high school and have been friends ever since. I mean, in high school together we used to program computer programs together in order to hack our WI fi so that we could avoid turning in homework on time. We started a quantitative insurance business. I mean, we did almost anything you could under the sun, but nothing we were quite passionate about. Until we met John and started ARU together.

[Interviewer / Host]

So how did you meet John? That was online, right?

[John Kessler]

Yeah. So it's a little bit of a ridiculous story. I was applying to an accelerator that they'd previously gone to for a different company and cold DM'd. One person out of 296 alumni on the LinkedIn page happened to be Cameron. And about two weeks later, we decided to start the company. We raised our first round two weeks after that and then we met in person a week after that. And Today marks day 722 of our Cameron.

[Interviewer / Host]

After you spoke with him, you went back and told Ned you thought you just talked to the smartest person you'd ever met.

[John Kessler]

Yeah.

[Cameron Fink]

John and I scheduled a 30 minute Zoom call. We ended up talking for two and a half hours, by the way. Thank God, this time I did answer my LinkedIn DMs. And I remember calling Ned afterwards and I just said to him, the very first thing I said is, this is the smartest person I've ever met in my life. Ned and I were about to sell our previous business at that point, and we decided to set everything down and start a company together, the three of us, as soon as we could.

[Interviewer / Host]

You were only 15 at that point, Joe.

[John Kessler]

Yeah, I was 15. And so I'd been spending time at the MIT City Science Lab and I was working in simulation research over there, and I found it tremendously interesting, but I figured that there were larger opportunities to pursue it, and that's how I got into startups.

[Interviewer / Host]

Okay, so Ned, tell me what you guys got. You guys interested in just trying to predict human behavior?

[Ned Koh]

Yeah, I think it's really interesting. Cameron and I and John are probably some of the only tech founders who read the paper news every morning. We've been obsessed with politics for years now. It was a really interesting time to start the business in early 2024 because we had seen these models get more and more progressively powerful, but being used for minute applications, summarization. Right. Email writing, other sorts of things, and we saw them become more and more humanistic. We saw a really interesting opportunity to start making them actually humanistic in the way they act. And Politics being in 2024, primary season became an incredibly interesting time to prove that out. So, like, pretty good markets. Prediction markets are interesting, but at the end of the day, they're entertainment. They fail for the same reason that traditional human research fails.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Ned Koh]

The average human doesn't use them. Right. They have incredible sampling bias behind the people who use them. So they're predictive in nature for the top 200 issues that matter to America. But for business leaders and other folks across the world, those don't always fall within those categories. We've found that the most interesting and the most alpha to be extracted from most problems come from areas where you would never be able to access the humans who underlie those behaviors.

[Interviewer / Host]

Like what? Give us an example.

[Ned Koh]

Sure. Alcohol behavior, GLP1 users. Right. This is an incredibly large problem for the industry, but yet not a single person who's on weight loss, drugs is willing to admit that in the general public. People don't want to talk about their alcohol usage yet it's creating massive, massive trends in the market.

[Interviewer / Host]

But you think alcohol usage goes up with GLP1s or goes down?

[Cameron Fink]

I think it's it's completely to the antithesis of what the market believes leaves. Right now we think that people are going to be drinking less alcohol per occasion and the type of alcohol people are drinking is changing. Right. So you're seeing people shift away from higher calorie alcoholic drinks like beers and seltzers, but they're starting to go towards spirits. And that's something that simulation has uncovered as a continued trend. But the biggest insight that we pulled out is actually the net number of occasions is going to start to go up. And the reason behind that at the end of the day is that people are actually becoming more confident on GLP1 drugs. They're becoming more social, more outgoing and as a result they're spending more times at bars, they're spending more time out of restaurants.

[Becky Quick]

Though about that one sort of prediction, if you will, at least thus far the data seems to suggest, at least what I've read, maybe I'm completely ignorant and wrong, that there are more, that there is less drinking going on between beer, spirits and everything in the country today than there was 12 months ago. And around the world, I believe, and I think a lot of people believe that that is a function of GLP1. So I hear what you're saying, but I'm trying to square the circle of what's actually happening here.

[Cameron Fink]

Yeah, I mean what we see, and this is something that like we're really good at predicting, right. Simulation and our technology is incredibly accurate at is the long tail of predictions. Right. So not just what's happening in the next two, three, four days or next four months, but rather what is going to be the long term impact of GLP1s over the next two, three, four years. And what we're seeing actually is you look at people who are on JLP ones for a long time. At the very beginning alcohol usage does crater. And as JLP ones are continuing to be adopted, you're seeing that cratering occur at like a massive rate. But as people stay on GLP1s for longer and longer, we have been able to uncover and this has started to be evidence to market data now. I mean this prediction was almost six months ago for us. We started to uncover that people first level out in their alcohol consumption and then second are getting more social. I mean there are ways you see this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The first you're saying overall there's correlation is causation, you do that a lot of things. How do you know it's not all the pot shops that are open, no

[Becky Quick]

one's drinking, there's A lot of things going on. But that, but right now, if you look at alcohol use around the world,

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

but you immediately say GOP ones, there's

[Interviewer / Host]

a lot of evidence, Eli Lilly has

[Becky Quick]

that seems to suggest that, I know

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

that people don't crave it, but they don't. They don't crave alcohol after gop.

[Becky Quick]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I mean, it is a.

[Becky Quick]

It's a real food or when would that bear itself out, that prediction?

[Cameron Fink]

I think you would see this play out over the next two to five years. And you also see, like, there's again, a long tail of not just GLP ones. Like, we have semaglutide, you have Ozempic Goby on the market right now. But you see the next generation of

[Becky Quick]

drugs are more friendly because alcohol prediction suggesting there'll be more alcohol. There'll be more. So right now there's less alcohol today.

[Cameron Fink]

Yes.

[Becky Quick]

Which is, I think, empirical. Well, yeah. And you're suggesting that in five years from now there will be more alcohol than today.

[Cameron Fink]

Well, we. What we believe is that today there is less alcohol overall. There are fewer occasions to drink alcohol, and there's less alcohol per occasion. As we think moving forward, there is going to be less alcohol per occasion. I think that is going to drop, but I think people are going to start drinking more in terms of a net larger number of fat on social

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

media at home right now. They're going to take GOP ones, they're going to feel good about what they look like, and they're going to go out to clubs and meet other people.

[John Kessler]

When people feel good and when they look good, they're going to be more outgoing. They're going to be more likely to go and, you know, go outside and go to these events.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That would be a good thing if they're not grinding on social media. Parents basement.

[Interviewer / Host]

Let's talk about who some of your customers are. We mentioned Ernst and Young and others. What do you do for your customers that. That surveys. You think you're better than the surveys?

[Ned Koh]

Look, behavior is such a strong problem, and it is such a obvious problem when it goes wrong, launching into the wrong market. People won't buy your products. They won't pay a certain price. They won't click on an advertisement. There are a humongous slew of problems that come out of this. Right. So you can see our applications going everywhere for, from ad testing all the way to packaging, all the way to prices all the way to distribution. You have companies, you have different organizations who are using us to understand what policy will be received by different organizations. So it's a really, really large spread because it is such a large problem. It starts with this idea of convincing people that magic is real. It's an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say, hey, we're going to be more accurate than predicting human behavior than you are. Even when you talk, talk to your customers.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah, that sounds like a hard sell.

[Ned Koh]

It's incredibly difficult.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Ned Koh]

And so what we do very, very early on in these stages with businesses is say, look, don't trust the models directly. Let us prove it to you. We'll go to a business just like we did with ey, just like we've done with all these things. There's actually a public case study with them that's quite interesting. Well, we'll take something that they know about their business, an ad that failed or succeeded, a product that they launched, a price that they launched, whatever it may be, without taking any data from them, will run whatever process got them into that, whether it was traditional survey, traditional research work, etc. Run the exact same questions, the exact same groups that they actually spoke to in the real world. We'll simulate them in our model and then predict more accurately the behavior of the customers that they actually have. And we've been able to use this to grow as quickly as we have.

[M]

Right?

[Ned Koh]

Being able to prove out this trust is the only reason we've been able to build this business this quickly.

[Interviewer / Host]

How big is your business? I realize you guys are still private. You have a billion dollar valuation. At the this point though, what can you tell us about how, how, how many customers you have, what your revenue numbers may look like?

[Cameron Fink]

We, we have over 100 customers. Over the lifetime of the business, we have been growing incredibly quickly. So I mean, as you saw from last year into this year, the power of this technology has accelerated incredibly. It ran up on the screen. We have 21 employees. I can now proud to say we've grown up to 24 since the last time that we provided that. But you know, we have seen, seen incredible growth in this business. And I think customers like the ones you mentioned are only going to continue to adopt this further.

[Interviewer / Host]

What's the, what's the plan? Where do you hope to be two years, three years, five years from now?

[Cameron Fink]

I mean, this is some of the most powerful technology on the globe, right? As you and I can probably agree, humans are the preeminent species on the globe. So if you can predict human behavior, you can predict the future, right? We can predict how people are going to shift markets. We can predict how individuals are going to change their product preferences. We can help companies create generational marketing campaigns that is only going to become more powerful from here. And so as we see this, in three years from now, it's not just the power to predict the future, but instead actually the power to shape it as well.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

National Happiness Day, can you help? What's well, National Happiness Day, can you help?

[Ned Koh]

Look, I think that shaping behavior enables do a whole lot.

[Cameron Fink]

Right.

[Ned Koh]

We actually spent a few days at a university last week. We were speaking to a lot of behavioral economics professors and asking them why they do the work that they do. And we went person by person in this room, asking them what motivates them to understand and shape behavior. One person said that they want people to invest more money when they're younger so they live more healthier and plentiful lives when they're older. Another person said they want people to understand behavior so they will take more vaccines and be a healthier and happier community overall. That's what drives us.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Ned Koh]

We do a humongous spread of pro bono work. We're very, very excited to say that our simulations today have impacted hundreds of millions of people already. Right. We're working on projects on how to make people more open to nuclear power plants being built. I think that's going to save the environment.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Ned Koh]

And that's a humongous behavioral problem. So. Absolutely.

[Katie Hahn]

Wow.

[Interviewer / Host]

Cam, Ned, John, want to thank the three of you for coming in here today.

[Ned Koh]

Thank you so much for having us.

[Interviewer / Host]

It's amazing to hear what you have built and particularly at the age that you have done this. And we hope you'll come back and give us updates on how things are going.

[Cameron Fink]

Thank you so much.

[John Kessler]

Thank you so much for having us.

[Interviewer / Host]

Thank you.

[Joe Kernan]

Next on Squawk Pod, a rare interview with venture capitalist Katie Hahn on a recent deal involving mastercard and its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure startup bvnk.

[Katie Hahn]

This was one of mastercard's biggest acquisitions ever. And for us here, it's really validating because as you know, I've been on this show many times talking about stablecoins over the years. We as a fund have been investing in it for years, and that's because we saw stables as a key innovation

[Joe Kernan]

where finance, AI and crypto are all going right after this.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Landsford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Men are struggling with their mental health at some of the highest rates we've ever seen, but most aren't getting the support they need. And that needs to change. I'm Dr.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Guy Winch, your host for season three of the Visibility Gap presented by Cigna Healthcare.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

This season we're focusing on men's mental health, bringing together real stories and expert

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

insight to explore the pressures men face every day and why opening up can feel so difficult. Join us for the new season wherever you stream your podcasts.

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[Joe Kernan]

This is Squawk Pod.

[Interviewer / Host]

You are watching Squawkbox right here on cnbc. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Becky Quick]

This week, MasterCard announced an acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. It's the latest in mainstream finance's adoption of blockchain technology. Joining us right now is one of BVN case backers who's also betting on the growing link between Blockchain and fintech. We haven't seen her in quite a while. Katie Hahn is here, founder and CEO of two and a half billion dollar firm Han Ventures. She's backed the likes of Open Air, Anthropic, Coinbase and so many others, including, as we just mentioned, bvnk. Good morning to you.

[Katie Hahn]

Good morning. It's good to see you again. I haven't been here since I think last June.

[Becky Quick]

Oh my goodness. So tell us, tell us about this deal and then I really want to try to understand what you think is happening more broadly. Maybe this, this transaction is indicative of what's happening more broadly in sort of the convergence of Legacy Finn and the tech part of all of this.

[Katie Hahn]

Well, I think you just summed up well, what's happening. What's happening is effectively an arms race in the global payments space. And you saw this week, as you said, MasterCard just acquired one of our portfolio companies, BVK for $1.8 billion. And this gets MasterCard squarely into the stablecoin space. By the way, Andrew, this was one of MasterCard's biggest acquisitions ever. And for us here, it's really validating because as you know, I've been on this show many times talking about stuff stablecoins over the years. We as a fund have been investing in it for years and that's because we saw stables as a key innovation. I mean, you think you can transfer a digital dollar globally, instantly, anywhere in the world, really seamlessly and frictionlessly. And we think that's a really important innovation. And that's why you've seen incumbents not just like MasterCard this week get into Staples. You also saw last year Stripe acquired another of our portfolio companies, bridge for $1 billion.

[Becky Quick]

Right.

[Katie Hahn]

And I think it's easy to see why. This, this space is 12 and a half trillion dollars of volume already. And we believe that this will only increase in an age of AI.

[Becky Quick]

So it absolutely feels like it's going that direction. The question that I would have about all of this is whether stablecoins ultimately become commodified. And maybe there's so much room between now and commodified that it doesn't matter as an investor. But I'm curious how you think about that, because if everybody has their own version of a stablecoin, what that ultimately means, right?

[Katie Hahn]

Well, look, there are many currencies in the world, right? But then there are a few dominant currencies in the world and we see the same thing playing out in the stablecoin space ultimately. And just because something is inevitable, I always say, doesn't make it imminent. But we really see, with the rise of AI systems and things that I'll call agentic finance, we really see this trend continuing with stablecoins. These are fundamentally new Rails, purpose built for this new era in tech.

[Becky Quick]

When you think about what's happening in, in crypto right now in the block chain, obviously this, this clarity. Bill, that's not. So there's no clarity on clarity. What are you thinking ultimately happens between this, this massive fight between the crypto industry and of course you were on the board of Coinbase and the banking industry, which is what this is really all about, right?

[Katie Hahn]

So actually it's not true that there's no clarity. And let me tell you why. Just this week, I don't know if you, you saw, but the CFTC and the SEC came together to release joint interpretive guidance on the age old question in the crypto industry and that, that the courts were weighing in on, starting to weigh in on. And that is what is the security and what is the commodity? So that happened this week.

[Becky Quick]

And I think we had Paul Atkinson, he talked about it. But that.

[Katie Hahn]

Right.

[Becky Quick]

We still, we still don't have a bill. We still don't have real clarity on, you know, whether whether crypto firms can effectively offer either, you know, effectively the equivalent of interest or loyalty points or other kinds of things like that.

[Katie Hahn]

I'm hearing that there's a compromise in the works in the Senate Banking Committee, and I'm hearing that that compromise is going to be announced as early as today. I'm cautiously optimistic. Obviously, we don't know for sure if that will happen. To me, the bigger question is not whether a compromise will be reached between the financial institutions, institutions, the banks and the companies like Coinbase over rewards. And that is for your viewers, by the way, whether or not essentially some form of yield can be paid on rewards on stablecoin deposits which the banks have resisted and I think is better for consumers. But to me, the big question on the Clarity act is is Congress going to get a bill to the floor on time to vote? Although there's still seven months to go until midterm elections, the reality is there's only three working months that Congress has, if you can believe it. And so I think they need to move very deliberately after Easter recess to get this filled to the floor. But again, I'm cautiously optimistic and we did have the Genius act passed, but we'll wait and see. And we should have more news today on the compromise.

[Becky Quick]

Thank you. Maybe you've broken the news right here. I hope you're right. Separately and just to jump around to a lot of different topics.

[Katie Hahn]

Cautiously optimistic, but yes. Okay.

[Becky Quick]

Well, we, you know, we can, we can cross our fingers. My question for you goes back to then. AI. You have stakes in anthropic and open AI. You also, by the way, used to work in government. And so I wanted to get your take on how you evaluate what is going on with this Pentagon situation, supply chain risk conversation and the transaction that OpenAI has made with the Pentagon and the transaction that anthropic has not.

[Katie Hahn]

Well, look, let's back up and just first talk about blockchain and AI and agentic finance. And I think we can all agree, and there are a lot of legal issues involved in that area as well. I think we can all agree that agents will be doing more things that humans do now. And one of the things that humans do now is they transact and they make payments and they exchange value with each other. And we think it's pretty inevitable that over time computers are going, or more particularly agents are going to be doing that on our behalf. And if you think that agents and computers are going to use the same payment systems that humans use, I think that's wrong. Over time, I think that agents are going to want to transact 24.7instant settlement globally. And right now, if you think about how humans progressed from using checks to credit cards and now actually not even credit cards as much as credit cards on their iPhone, we think that also agents will be using some of these new systems. So I think that's where AI comes in. And I should just note that our fund is not an investor in Anthropic or Open Air. And I'm glad you listed that those are personal investments. Our fund is really focused at Han Ventures. We've been investing in the future of finance. And that new frontier, of course, includes crypto, but it also includes things like tokenization. I don't know if you. I'm sure you did break the news that nasdaq, I think SEC approval to offer tokenized securities, Robinhood is leaning into this. So it includes tokenization, these new Rails I've been talking about that are open 247 and things like agentic finance and prediction markets. So we could talk another time. I think about all of the litigation, and I think there's a lot of it and I think there's a lot more to come. And by the way, same with prediction markets, with all these new frontier technologies. And I think that's why my background as a government litigator is actually particularly relevant to some of these companies.

[Becky Quick]

Well, so, but just on, on that, on that issue, given that you do have investments in both of these things and you. And you were involved in national security and terrorism. I mean, as a prosecutor, that's what you did. I just, I tried to, I just wanted to understand how, how you view the idea that the government has identified Anthropic and suggested that it is a national security risk and supply chain.

[Katie Hahn]

You know, that's in my old district now. It's pending in the Northern District of California. Look, I think that Anthropic has very good statutory arguments, and I'm going to leave it at that. And I'm happy to come on and discuss the merits. There are some constitutional issues, but I think it's outside the scope of our five minutes that we have today. But I think Anthropic has pretty good legal arguments.

[Becky Quick]

Right. Separately actually. And maybe this is going to feel far afield as well. But I think it relates to all of these different component parts of the fintech universe. We've been talking a lot about prediction markets recently. Yeah. And I wonder again, and maybe there's a, you can put your prosecutor hat back on too. There's a question mark about sort of how prediction markets should work and shouldn't work.

[Katie Hahn]

Right. Look, I think prediction markets are a huge opportunity. We did have a bet in that space and that bet got acquired by Coinbase last year. But we haven't, we haven't yet made another bet in prediction markets yet. And I think it's a huge opportunity because I think over time, Andrew, what you have these prediction markets right now, there's a lot of, you know, everyone knows about polymarket for sports betting and for election betting and that's kind of how they came onto the scene with retail. But the reality is that these, these marketplaces could actually over time be important, real time true signals. And I think that's a really interesting concept. It's a really exciting opportunity. I don't think we're at that stage yet to be clear. But at the same time there's so much opportunity there. I think that that will draw a lot of government interest and already is drawing a lot of government interest. In fact we see saw the state of Arizona brought I think a 20 count complaint against a major player in the prediction market space just a couple of days ago. And I think flashbacks to my time on the Coinbase board 10 years ago or thereabouts where I was looking at joining the board of Coinbase and I think, wow, big opportunity. But people are really underestimating, I think the amount of litigation, regulation and legislation that will ensue in the prediction markets base over the next 10 years. And it's not just at the federal level but of course at the state and local levels and then at a global level. So that's my prediction for prediction markets is there's a lot of work there to come.

[Becky Quick]

I love predicting the predicting markets. Katie, want to thank you for joining us. It is great to see you. I hope we get to do this more often and we get to talk to you about all of these issues which continue to evolve. Thank you again.

[Katie Hahn]

Thanks for having me on. Great to see. See you.

[Becky Quick]

Thanks.

[Katie Hahn]

Bye bye.

[Joe Kernan]

That is Squawk Pod for today. Thank you for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin Weekday mornings on CNBC. Starting at 6 Eastern to get the best bits of that three hour TV show right into your ears. You can follow Squawkpod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. And over the weekend, it's a the perfect time to watch our CNBC Cures documentary Defying Rare Disease. It already aired, but luckily you can still watch it on our [e-mail] cures. Our Becky Quick takes viewers inside the fight against rare disease and tells her own family's very personal story. The documentary has been many, many months in the making and podcast listeners will have heard previews of it during those months in the Path, the series of special conversations that we've been publishing right here on the Squawkpod feed. Okay, that's it from me. Enjoy your weekends.

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[Becky Quick]

Thanks guys.

[M]

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