Betting on Cursor & Collaborating in AI 6/18/26

Summary

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Squawk Pod Episode Summary

Episode: Betting on Cursor & Collaborating in AI
Date: June 18, 2026
Hosts: Joe Kernen & Kelly Evans
Notable Guests: Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO), Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Squawk Pod captures a fast-moving morning in finance, technology, and geopolitics. Major topics include:

• The Federal Reserve’s first decision day under new Chair Kevin Warsh
• The US-Iran agreement to end the recent conflict and implications for global oil and security
• Behind-the-scenes takeaways from the G7’s working lunch with leading AI executives
• The blockbuster $60 billion SpaceX acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor, with investment insights from its earliest backer

The show blends analysis, industry insider commentary, and candid moments, offering listeners both news and perspective.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Federal Reserve Under New Chair Kevin Warsh

Timestamps: [03:23] – [11:20]

• Fed Decision Day:

  • Rates were kept unchanged by the new Trump-appointed Chair, Kevin Warsh, in his first meeting.
  • Warsh is pushing a message of "fresh thinking," announcing immediate changes, including:
    • Shorter policy statements
    • No personal forecasts ("dots") from the Chair
    • Removal of forward guidance

• Market Impact:

  • The lack of forward guidance rattled the markets, causing initial sell-offs in both stocks and bonds.
  • The market now expects 1.5 rate hikes by year-end, up from initial expectations.

• Warsh’s Tone and Philosophy:

  • Markets and the public are being told to expect price stability as a North Star.
  • Warsh highlighted "rigorous debate, open-mindedness, commitment to mission" ([05:56]).
  • External task forces (excluding FOMC members) will review Fed communications, balance sheet, and inflation framework.

• Notable Commentary:

  • Joe Kernen on Warsh’s demeanor:

    "It’s a combination of a lot of confidence but not really coming off as not having humility…he feels in a really good position to react to whatever he needs to react. He’s got a core set of what he thinks he needs to do." ([09:13])

  • Steve Liesman’s meta remark:

    "If he’s going to step back, Joe, from providing forward guidance that makes every speech coming up by every Fed president and governor that much more important." ([10:02])

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2. US-Iran Agreement to End the War

Timestamps: [11:25] – [14:55]

• Agreement Summary:

  • President Trump and Iran’s President have signed an accord aimed at ending the conflict, reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz, and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

• Key Contentious Points:

  • The US claims Iran cannot “quickly” build a nuclear weapon due to earlier strikes—Operation Midnight Hammer.
  • Iran resists removing enriched nuclear material from the country.
  • Iran asserts its intention to charge “fees for services” (tolls) on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, despite US objections and skepticism from Gulf states.

• Notable Quotes:

  • President Trump:

    "If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks… Your market…would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before." ([11:47])

  • Eamon Javers (CNBC Correspondent):

    "Can the Gulf countries prevent something without military force that the United States was unable to prevent with military force? That’s the big question." ([14:55])

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3. AI at the G7: Synthesis, Collaboration & Guardrails

Timestamps: [18:45] – [26:06]

• The G7 Working Lunch:

  • World leaders and top AI CEOs (including Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Mark Benioff, and Victor Ripper Belli) met to discuss ethical and strategic priorities for AI.
  • Focus on cross-border collaboration and establishing a code of conduct, without stifling innovation.

• Synthesia CEO Victor Ripper Belli’s Insights:

  • Synthesia now valued at $4 billion, with 700 employees; focuses on AI-generated videos for businesses.
  • Future products will enable interactive, "talk-to-the-video" capabilities.

• On Workforce & Societal Impact:

  • Ripper Belli notes there will be "a lot of displacement for sure," but maintains optimism about new job creation as with past tech revolutions.
  • Reminds that the most valuable interactions may become “human connection” in an agent-driven world.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Ripper Belli on global AI alignment:

    "Countries want to work together, we want to work with other democracies to set the right guardrails… but also make sure we don’t get in the way of innovation." ([20:56])

  • On jobs and imagination:

    "If you went back 50 years in time, you told someone on the street that in 2026 most people’s jobs are going to be sitting on a desk looking at a screen, absolutely no one would believe you." ([22:39])

  • On adaptation:

    "The core DNA of a good company today are good people, right? And I don’t think that’s going to change in 5, 10, 15 or 25 years." ([25:13])

  • On applications vs. foundational models

    "Ultimately for most consumers, most businesses, they’re going to interact with AI through application layer… In Europe I think we should focus on the application layer." ([23:57])

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4. SpaceX’s $60B Bet: Cursor and the Future of AI Coding

Timestamps: [26:13] – [38:11]

• Deal Breakdown:

  • SpaceX is acquiring Cursor—a rocket-ship AI coding platform—at a $60 billion valuation.
  • Cursor’s parent, AnySphere, was founded by MIT grads, with significant recent growth in revenue ($2B to $4B in 6 months).

• Venture Capitalist Michael Furtick’s Perspective:

  • The strategy was to “bet on the jockey, not the horse”—investing in extraordinary founders who pivoted from cryptography to AI code.
  • The value of early investment:

    "Half of the gains that will ever be realized in that category have already been captured by the very earliest investors and founders and stockholders." ([32:22])

• Why AI Coding Matters:

  • AI-driven coding is the most “commercially valuable application of AI” for now.
  • Anthropic’s focus on enterprise software code is compared to OpenAI’s broader approach; Cursor is positioned just behind Anthropic in impact.

• Strategic Fit for SpaceX/Elon Musk:

  • Musk aims to become the “only company that matters in AI," leveraging SpaceX compute infrastructure and capital to challenge Anthropic and OpenAI.
  • Musk’s vision could include data centers in space and linking AI and satellite communications.

• The Accelerating Pace of Innovation:

  • Furtick reflects on the head-spinning rate of change, even for insiders:

    "I can wake up…from my vacation siesta and I have to realize I have to catch up on the innovation that’s happened in just a few days. Shouldn’t feel bad. The rate of change is upon us." ([36:27])

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Synthesia CEO Victor Ripper Belli on Tech & Society:

  "I don’t know anyone who’s adopted AI tools and now goes home at 3pm because the AI is doing all the work for them. I think on the contrary, more work is being created." ([22:39])

• Furtick’s Investment Wisdom:

  "In every new category…by the time the category has a settled name, half of the gains…have already been captured by the very earliest investors." ([32:22])

• Human Connection in an AI Future:

  "If all of us are interacting with agents all the time…the value of speaking to a real human, of driving that real human connection…is only going to increase." ([25:33])

• Joe Kernen on Understanding AI:

  "I was using AI to try to understand AI, and we know that’s some kind of Heisenberg something or other." ([35:41])

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Interview and Commentary: [03:23] – [11:20]
• US-Iran Peace Accord Deep Dive: [11:25] – [14:55]
• G7 and AI Executive Lunch with Synthesia CEO: [18:45] – [26:06]
• SpaceX Acquires Cursor: VC Michael Furtick’s Take: [26:13] – [38:11]

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode maintains the sharp, conversational tone Squawk Box is known for—fact-driven, occasionally humorous, and unafraid of candid reflection. Guests and hosts offer both insider analysis and accessible explanations, often highlighting the messy, fast-changing landscape at the intersection of business, technology, and policy.

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Conclusion

In a single fast-paced episode, Squawk Pod captures a Fed in transition, unprecedented geopolitical shifts, state-of-the-art technology debates, and the seismic consequences of AI-driven innovation. Both institutional and individual listeners are left with a sense of velocity—and the urgency of adaptation—in today’s markets and world.

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Transcript

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[Producer/Host Cue]

Bring in show music please.

[Host Kelly Evans]

Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, a new era at the Federal Reserve. On the first decision day of President Trump's handpicked chairman Kevin Warsh, the central bank is keeping rates unchanged. Our Steve Liesman, he's got a lot

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

of confidence in his program and his plan and his ideas.

[Host Kelly Evans]

And both the US And Iran have signed an agreement to end the war. But there's still a long road of negotiations ahead. One item, Iran's wish to toll ships passing through the strait of Hormuz.

[Producer/Host Cue]

CNBC's Eamon jabbers can the Gulf countries prevent something without military force that the United States was unable to prevent with military force?

[Host Kelly Evans]

Then AI executives joined world leaders at the G7 for a working lunch this week. One exec who joined OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amode, among others, joined us. Synthesia CEO Victor Ripper belly.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

My sense from the room is that, you know, countries want to work together, we want to work with other democracies to set the right guardrails this technology, but also make sure we don't get in the way of innovation, right?

[Host Kelly Evans]

Plus the fast pace of innovation. Venture capitalist Michael Furtick bet on software coding startup Cursor, the company SpaceX is acquiring for 60 billion by now. Vibe Coding is almost old news by

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

the time the category has a settled name. Half of the gains this is important. Half the gains that will ever be realized in that category have already been captured by the very earliest investors and founders and stockholders.

[Host Kelly Evans]

It is Thursday, June 18, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now.

[Producer/Host Cue]

Banjo by in 3, 2, 1. Hugo

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Good morning and welcome to Squawk Box here on CNBC, live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square, I'm Joe Kernan along with someone that. I mean, it was a little bit, I thought, humiliating the way you begged to come back after last week. Just begged and, you know, what could I do? But to say, you know what? That didn't happen at all. We begged her, in fact, because Becky and Andrew are both off the day and you can imagine if it was just me.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

I can imagine.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

You can't imagine. Yeah, we didn't want that. Anyway, thank you.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

Thanks for having me. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve voting to keep rates unchanged. And at his first press conference as chairman, Kevin Warsh talked about changes his central bank is making and set the tone for financial markets.

[Kevin Warsh (Federal Reserve Chairman)]

What we've given markets is a new chapter for the central bank. Some fresh thinking. This is a lot of change. Financial markets to digest. I wouldn't be particularly intrigued by how they react in the first several minutes or even for several days. What I think is most important is that financial markets, and at least as important, households and businesses know that this central bank will deliver on price stability.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

The first Kevin Wash led Fed meeting and press conference rattled markets. Maybe the opposite of what he wanted. I don't know. One day phenomenon from all time highs. Basically. Steve, don't want to make too much of it. I saw you there. Someone was asking a question and you were looking down, you looked very pensive on. Who were you sitting next to?

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

I have the Fox reporter and the Bloomberg Television reporter on my right and left. I am a two and the Fox reporter is what I call steak sauce because he's a one.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Who was that? What's his name? Because. Oh, yeah, I know that guy. Yeah, he's been there a long time. Yeah, Ed something. Ed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the guy I saw asking the question. They didn't show your question. Of course. I was watching Fox, so maybe that's why. Anyway, I shouldn't admit that. Go on.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

I'm not. I'm speechless. Joe, you're watching the other channel later.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

No, later. It was like Brett Bear, I think later on. Yeah, I see.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Oh, okay.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

No, I'm not watching all day long. I'm watching cnbc.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Okay, thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that, Joe, being I don't

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

have a Nielsen box.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

That's important. You're also out of the demo. Right. So we don't really care. Right?

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Yeah, yeah. So are you. So are you.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Did I. Did I make. I guess I did. Anyway, they're screaming in the control room. For us to move on and I will do so. New Fed chairman Kevin Wash his long term plans Joe to move the Fed off the front page and to lessen the market impact. It got off to a shaky start yesterday and maybe just for the first day we had a pronounced sell off in stocks that's come back, but it's bonds where the real action was. Wash wasted no time in making some immediate changes. Shorter policy statement, just four paragraphs, very short. Declining to submit his own personal forecast and removing forward guidance from the statement.

[Kevin Warsh (Federal Reserve Chairman)]

This week's FOMC meeting exemplified the very best of the Fed's traditions. Rigorous debate, open mindedness, commitment to mission, responsibility and accountability for performance in this business. They all add up to one thing. Getting monetary policy right or as near to it as we can do that is our North Star.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

But if the intent was to tamp down market reaction, it didn't work. The two years sold off in two waves. First a sharp bolt higher in yields when the statement and forecast were released increased. And then a drift higher in yields. During Wash his first press conference, the statement added a new line saying quote the committee will deliver price stability. A commitment markets now believe could be delivered with rate hikes. Though Wash refused to explain what conditions would be met to hike or not to hike. And as reported yesterday, the committee had grown much more hawkish. That came out in the forecast. The market reacted to nine Fed officials projecting at least one rate hike this year. None had in the March sepulchre just one official forecast to cut this year down from a dozen in March. So the market reacted and now it prices in that first hike in September with a 72% probability that first hike had been priced in for December. A second hike which wasn't priced in at all for this year now 53% probability in December. So think of it as the market really pricing in one and a half hikes this year. Longer term Washing announcing plans to rethink of how the Fed does its business. Creating external task force to review Fed communications, balance sheet policy, data sources, productivity and jobs and the inflation framework. The committee will be comprised of external experts with help from the Fed staff. But interestingly no members of the Federal Market Committee are on these task forces now. None of these Fed comments yesterday guarantee rate hikes. If inflation recedes, the Fed could stand pat. But the committee showed it is running out of patience with inflation and Warsh pledged to deal with it.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

Joe, he was creating one task force for each year that inflation's been over target.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

I guess that's the Way to think about it Kelly, these will be interesting. Some people remark to me that you take ideas and put them in task forces to die. I don't think that's the case here. What I am interested in though Kelly is the idea that there are no members of the FOMC on those committees. Now that suggests there could be some opposition. On the other hand, Warsh might be taking a page out of his pretty successful review of the bank of England communications back in 2014. They did adopt some of his policies and he was an outside expert. The Fed doesn't typically do that. The Fed sort of does internal things. Well Kevin might have looked at that and said well wait a second. The Fed had a communications committee back I think it was a year or two ago and it went nowhere. So maybe the right idea is to go outside and sort of have these suggestions for the committee to adopt. So it'll be interesting to see how that happens. But, but the real story I keep getting is this absence of forward guidance and the market reacted anyway and this question and maybe we'll talk about it. I'd love to hear Rick's idea that was, has that hey, if you remove the Fed from telling you where we're going we get a pure signal from the market. But the market is just going to do I think what it does all the time which is because the Fed is so powerful it's going to guess what the Fed is doing anyway so you might as well help it along.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I would think a lot of some of the scuttle but I see just in different places is does he have a calming voice? People said he had a. But I think that it's not a calming voice necessarily. I think it's a combination of a lot of confidence but not really coming off as not being, not having humility. I think, you know, because nobody knows everything but I think he feels in a really good position to react to whatever he needs to react. He's got a basic, he's got a core set of what he thinks he needs to do and I don't think he's, I don't think he has a lot of doubt on what he needs to do.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

I think that's right. I mean he's got a lot of confidence in his program and his plan and his ideas. And I guess the question Joe was whether or not he has buy in from the committee. You know the chair can be very powerful but there are limits to the powers of the chair.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Right.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

It's worth pointing out he did not submit a dot, but didn't really convince anybody else not to submit a dot. Now, he did go on to say he wanted other people to do that. So that's a little unclear to me why he would think it's a bad idea to submit a dot, but think it's a good idea for others to submit a dot. Look, the DOT is a potential source of power for people on the committee if you can't express yourself. And then, you know, if he's going to step back, Joe, from providing forward guidance that makes every speech coming up by every Fed president and governor that much more important. So we'll see if he wants to really see that power.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

You just, you love that. So every time you do one of your reports or get an interview or talk to someone, you just made it that much more important to tune in to you and Steve Liesman and cnbc. I think that was smart.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

It's all about me, as you know. I mean, you taught me that.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Oh, yeah, I know I'm a good person to come to for that as an only child. I was an only child. My mother and I was adopted, you can imagine. So, I mean, I don't really want

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

to go that deep with you, Joe, this early, but if you want to, we could.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I had some separation anxiety because there is that when you started in an orphanage, But I'm working on it still. Kelly helps me.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

You know, there's people now who are going, he's kidding, right? Like, no, no, he's kidding.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

No, no, no, he's kidding. I'm not kidding. Anyway,

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

President Trump and Iran's president signing an agreement to end the Middle east war that started back in late February. February. Eamon Javers joins us now with the latest. Hi again. Amen.

[Producer/Host Cue]

Yeah, good morning to you, Kelly. President Trump said in France on Wednesday that he decided to end the war in Iran to prevent economic catastrophe which could have happened if the fighting continued.

[President Donald Trump]

If we didn't do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks. Two weeks, four weeks, two years. You would never have the hormone straight open. You would never have success. Your market would have, instead of going up at levels that nobody's ever seen before, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before.

[Producer/Host Cue]

The President said the deal reopens the Strait of Hormuz and prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But at the same time he was speaking on television, two senior U.S. officials were briefing reporters in a conference call and reading aloud the text of the agreement for the first time. Now, the official was asked why the President said it's not important to retrieve Iran's nuclear material, given that the stated reason for the war was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The official told reporters that US Strikes months before the war did so much damage that Iran didn't actually have the capacity to quickly build a bomb. Now, the official said the material, because of the success of Midnight Hammer, that's the name of the operation last summer, is very, very much buried. So from President Trump's perspective, it's not like they can immediately grab it and go make a bomb with it. The official also said the US Will discuss the possibility of retrieving nuclear material in talks with the Iranians in Geneva this coming weekend. But shortly after, the official said that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said transferring enriched nuclear materials out of the country is unacceptable to us. And similarly, a second US Official suggested that negotiations were unlikely to result in Iran charging tolls for the Strait of Hormuz. But a short time later, the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, Iran will charge fees for services in the Strait of Hormuz. Guys. So clearly the Iranians have some ideas of their own what's going to happen post war. Back over to you.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

And I mean, that issue, that charging for services in the Strait, Eamon, I can't imagine the US would find it acceptable past 60 days, but. But maybe it will end up being the new status quo.

[Producer/Host Cue]

Yeah, it might very well. I mean, we had the president say, look, it's not going to happen. We had the senior US Officials who were briefing on the details saying, well, it's not going to happen for 60 days. And then after that 60 days, we're going to negotiate it. And one of the officials yesterday briefing us was saying, well, look, the Iranians are going to negotiate, Oman is going to negotiate, and also some of the Gulf countries are going to be involved in that negotiation. And he was making the argument that the Gulf countries don't want to pay tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. And so therefore, it's unlikely that it would happen because they're involved in this negotiations. But then you immediately, you know, within a few hours saw this Iranian statement saying, we're going to charge these fees. So it's clear what the Iranians want to do. They have the leverage coming out of the war. And, you know, can the Gulf countries prevent something without military force that the United States was unable to prevent with military force? That's the big question.

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

Eamon, thank you very much for now. Really appreciate it. Eamon Jabers

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

and Intel shares are jumping this morning, in an overnight post on Truth Social, President Trump said Apple will work with intel, the chip maker, to design and build its semiconductors in the United States. This is part of a longer social media post in which the president called for the tech industry to manufacture chips locally. Referring to the government stake in intel, the president said, we decided to help intel in exchange for 10% of their shares. Is that too much or too little?

[Kelly Evans (CNBC Host)]

Well, let's see about Apple. Those devices could cost possibly a lot more in the near future, CEO Tim Cook telling the Wall Street Journal the company is planning to raise prices to offset memory costs, which have jumped thanks to huge AI related demand. It's unclear when prices could rise or on which products exactly, although the Journal says Mac computers and iPads could see the hikes sooner. The report cited an estimate from tech research firms saying if Apple hopes to maintain its current profit margin, the iPhone Pro model would have to cost $270 more than it costs right now, cook told the Journal. We've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable, they say. The foldable one, you know, that could be one way folded to fold in those price hikes in the future.

[Producer/Host Cue]

Cheese will be next.

[Host Kelly Evans]

Coming up next on Squawk Pod in the room with artificial intelligence executives and world leaders at the G7 Synthesia Synthesis CEO Victor Ripper belly his takeaways from the working lunch that maybe mapped out the world's future.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

The code of conduct creating a coalition around those is probably going to end up. I think that's going to be a really good thing to coordinate.

[Host Kelly Evans]

We'll be right back.

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[Host Kelly Evans]

Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC Today with Joe Kernan and Kelly Evans.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

AI CEOs joined world leaders at a G7 lunch yesterday. Attendees included Sam Altman, Dario Amadei, Demis Hassabis, Mark Benioff, and our next guest, Victor Ripper. Belli, CEO of AI video platform Synthesia, joins us this morning. And Victor, it's good to see you. I'm glad we have you because first of all, I was looking at exactly what your company does and all the worries about AI, I guess, could be coalesced at some point into video generation. So all the problems that we foresee you've probably already had to deal with as the company was being founded and developed. Could you explain what your company does when it was founded and market cap everything else or what it's worth? Right now it's in the uk, right? Based in the uk.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. So I founded Synthesia nine years ago, which was today the world's largest AI video platform for businesses. Basically, we help our customers make video without having to use cameras, actor studios. Everything can be done straight from just your laptop. We use by 90% of the Fortune 100, we have thousands of customers all over the world and are just about to launch our second generation of products, which is a video you can talk to. So rather than just passively watching it, you can actually interact with the avatar, the person in the video. They kind of save you things always been very important for us. Founded a company nine years ago. I'm very proud of all the work we've done to safeguard the platform. We do content moderation. We make sure that you can create avatars of people that aren't yourself. And I think, you know, when you look at kind of our track record, we've been really good at doing that and also kind of pushing the rest of the market to sort of get there. In terms of the scale of the company, we're valued at $4 billion earlier this year, around 700 people worldwide and growing really, really fast.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Great.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

What was the key themes yesterday that were discussed? If you could summarize them, Victor? I'm being told that there are two main themes and it sounds like each one of them could have a lot of subsets, I would think.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Yeah.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

So I think an overarching theme is obviously how do we collaborate on creating the best future for AI? My sense from the room is that, you know, countries want to work together, we want to work with other democracies to set the right guardrails, this technology, but also make sure we don't get in the way of innovation.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Right.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

There's no doubt that there is for sure a race going on right now around who is leading in AI. It's going to have huge economical impact, huge societal impact, and we want to make sure that democracies win. When we look at the different state leaders, different countries and sort of what they want, I think it spans from calls for regulation, calls for also of code of conduct, type of working together, calls for very specific things some countries want to put forward. My clear sense is that the code of conduct, creating a coalition around those is probably we're going to end up. I think that's going to be a really good thing to coordinate across markets of the world to build the air future that we all want.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

We're going to be okay in terms of the workforce. Victor, was that discussed?

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

Yeah. Obviously that's a topic, right? I think, you know, there is the sort of, there's impact on jobs and then there is the impact on your democracy. And you mentioned yourself some of the issues around kind of AI generated content. I think with the jobs, everyone agrees there's going to be a lot of displacement for sure. We're going to see what the effects of that is going to be in the coming years. I don't think we've really seen it yet. There's been some kind of pretend layoffs happening already, but I don't think we've seen the real impact of it yet. That said, I think it's also important to remember that in every single technological cycle there has been a change in the kind of jobs that we have. There's been an impact on it. This one will be a lot faster than previous ones, but as fundamentally also much, much easier to imagine the jobs that can be displaced than the jobs that's going to be created.

[Everpure Announcer]

Right.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

If you went back 50 years in time, you told someone on the street that in 2026 most people's jobs are going to be sitting on a desk looking at a screen. Absolutely no one would believe you. So there's sort of a bias I think in our imagination of like what's going to get displaced, what will be created sort of net new. I tend to be in the positive camp. I think we'll invent lots of new jobs. I don't know anyone who's adopted AI tools and now goes home at 3pm because the air is doing all the work for them. I think on the contrary, more work is being created. Businesses develop more products than they would before. They give better customer service. And so I'm pretty hopeful that we'll see a whole bunch of new jobs that will emerge from the AI shift

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

when you emerge in blog. I think that kind of relates to what you said, that all we talk about are what happens at the models but what's going to help society and as we, you know, move into the future is the applications that are built on the models and it's going to, it's going to take people to figure out what kind of applications are needed. I would, I would at least for a little while I guess eventually I can figure out which applications by itself. But this is what you're talking about. At least in the near term there could be more people that need to be. But why don't you explain the thoughts on your key takeaway I think was this after leaving the lunch.

[Reporter Steve Liesman]

Sure.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

Right now a lot of conversation as you said.

[Cash App Announcer]

Right.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

Is very much about the foundational model, the elements, the platforms that most products and services are built on top of. And that is a very important conversation. But ultimately for most consumers, most businesses, they're going to interact with AI through application layer. Right. That is companies like mine as well as companies solving specific workflows. I think it's really important that we invest as much in those as we do the foundational models. Especially in Europe where I think, you know, kind of if I had to predict the future, I think the US is going to be leading in like the Frontier Labs and Frappex, the open eyes, the Google's of the world. We're pushing really, really hard on the foundation model layer In Europe I think we should focus on the application there. I think that's what we're good at. I don't think we've got to be competitive on the kind of base models in the future. So I think we should focus there and turn to the headcount. Like, look, I think, I think the core DNA of a good company today are good people, right? And I don't think that's going to change in 5, 10, 15 or 25 years. And it's easy to imagine all these sort of sci fi scenarios where there's just to be like one agent is just going to build product that's going to sell to other agents. Obviously, I can't predict the future either, but I think that the tech community in Silicon Valley generally kind of tends to undervalue the value of human connection in business. And I think what we always see in society is whatever is the most scarce, right, becomes the most valuable. And so if all of us are interacting with agents all the time, no matter what we do, then the value of speaking to a real human, of driving that real human connection and going to a business lounge and shaking hands, the value of that is only going to increase the more we interact with, with AI. So I stand very firm on my belief that I think humans are for sure going to have a spot in the future. We're probably going to be doing very different things that we are doing today. Most of us are going to be going to be managing lots of agents rather than managing lots of people. But you know, I think it's today I feel like a lot of conversations, way too zero sum, right? It's like you have a company, how could they save money by replacing people with agents that kind of assume that that company is going to continue operating and selling the same products they are today? I think what's going to happen is the opposite. I think every company is going to have way more products, way more surface area, and that is going to take humans to, to, to build and maintain and, you know, build a business.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I feel better. Okay, Victor, thanks. I appreciate, appreciate your time this morning.

[Host Kelly Evans]

Next up on Squawk Pod, we are still talking about Space X. This time the earliest investor in Cursor, the Vibe coding center startup that SpaceX plans to pay $60 billion to acquire. Venture capitalist Michael Furtick was the first to bet on cursor in 2022.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

They anticipated that something like 80% of their future revenue would come from something they call, they characterize as AI. And right now, the most commercially useful, most commercially valuable application of AI in the world that we know about is in software coding.

[Host Kelly Evans]

He joins us when we come back.

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[Producer/Host Cue]

This is Squawk Pod standby Joe in three, two, one.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

His mic Q.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Joe Kernan. Along with Kelly Evans, SpaceX will acquire AI company Cursor and a $60 billion deal. Join us now. Michael Furtick. He's so smart. He must be. He's the founder and managing director of Vertic Capital, a vc, a firm that's investing in AI and machine learning. Michael was the first investor in Any Sphere, which was Cursor, the parent company of Cursor. And I was back in 2022 and you were the first investor for a while and you didn't even know. Did you know what they were doing or did you know that the four guys were so smart from, from MIT that you decided you, you know, do what you got to do? How did you decide this was a good idea, Michael? And then we'll get into some of the other things.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Thanks a lot, Joe. Good to be back with you. I appreciate it. Well, in the ancient, in the prehistoric ancient time of 2022, the any sphere team was just two guys from MIT. There were two other guys from MIT who happened to be classmates. And about a year later they hooked up, did a merger of equals. So that's why anysphere is that parent company. That's the structure. It's not really important to anyone except the shareholders. But yes, I was al as the only investor for quite some time in the company and there were two wonderful guys from MIT who were obviously brilliant when I invested, they were doing a business that was in quite a different field. It was really cryptography. And what I was betting on was the jockey, not the horse. What's the metaphor mean? It means that I was betting on them. I was betting on them as extraordinary people. The people at that level, the founders of that level, are able to do things that other people, even extraordinary people, cannot do. They can master a whole new field overnight. They can learn a whole business school course worth of material in 12 hours. They can learn what fields and markets are worthy of them, what they're most suited to do. And it was just a little bit of time after I invested that they discovered that they should be focusing on something else. And that's what they did. And the rest is history.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I made the mistake of going into the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what are the two types of coding software fit, what is a fish kill or some fish swim versus Vibe and the differences. And I kind of understood a little bit. But can you, in layman's terms, tell us why this makes sense for xai and for SpaceX? This could be. This could theoretically vault them ahead of anthropic because you can have code that's really good at beating grandmasters at chess.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Well, at least that you ask a very important question, which gives you an opportunity to tell you also about how VC might work. So if you look at the 50 years of venture capital, they're about 50 years in America, which is the only place that really matters in venture capital globally. Still in every new category. You mentioned a couple Vibe coding and so forth.

[Victor Ripper Belli (Synthesia CEO)]

As soon as it has a not

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

fish, fish kills a city. I think stockfish level computing, where you can. Every single bad thing that you would do in coding, it doesn't do it at all and goes exactly to what it has to do to basically displace every software engineer in the world is what it seems like.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Yeah, I think you might be thinking of Stockfish as a chess engine. But in any case, you're right that their new modes of coding can avoid all these problems. You're also right that the most important thing is that the category has a name. So once it's called Vibe, nobody knows what Vibe coding is really. It just describes a new atmosphere for a new relationship between the person and the machine, where the machine's helping you code. The most important Thing is, the category has a name. And by the time the category has a settled name, half of the gains, this is important, half the gains that will ever be realized in that category have already been captured by the very earliest investors and founders and stockholders. So it's very, very important now how it fits into X and how it fits into SpaceX and so forth. Well, you and I know and your viewers know and Elon Musk knows that it's not clear what's going on in Elon Musk's brain at any given time, but we can surmise based on what he said and based on the logic of the thing. So he has a very el, Very ambitious vision to be the only company that matters in AI. And if you looked at the filings that we saw before the IPO for Space X, they anticipated that something like 80% of their future revenue would come from something they call, they characterize as AI. And right now, the most commercially useful, most commercially valuable application of AI in the world that we know about is in software coding. That's what makes Anthropic so valuable. That's their only focus. Comparing it to OpenAI, which has tried to sort of boil an ocean of doing lots of different things in AI, lots of different applications in AI anthropic. And Claude has done only enterprise software code. And I think that, having seen that, having understood so much about AI, because Elon Musk, of course, is one of the OGs of AI and of the AGI, the General Intelligence effort that's underway from all these companies, he understands that software is the, the canary in the coal mine, the first one out of the gate, and also possibly the thing that allows so many other text based and perhaps eventually visually based AI applications to become valuable over time. Therefore, he's focused on software, the next biggest company after Anthropic and Codex in AI coding is almost certainly Cursor. Cursor's gone, if I'm not mistaken, from about 2 billion in revenue about six months ago to about 4 billion in revenue about now. That's my understanding. I think there's public information that seems to suggest that. So they're a rocket ship still and they're chasing Anthropic now. I think what they figured out is that Anthropic, which has this enormous balance sheet of all this money they've raised, OpenAI, which has this enormous balance sheet of all the money they've raised, are able to use that balance sheet in a competitive way, competitive edge, when trying to sell products next to and against and up against in competitive situations, companies like Cursor. So anyway, perhaps with his reach, with his enormous compute power, with the synergies and economies of scale that come along with having both the compute power from SpaceX and so forth from their major arrays, and the technical chops and the velocity, this incredible velocity of this young team out of Cursor, any sphere, I think he's betting that he can then capture the crown from Anthropic and perhaps even justify a trillion dollar valuation just for that $60 billion asset on its own. That's my. That's my speculation and that's what seems to be the market's intuition about this deal.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

And eventually, Mike, I mean, you're going to have data centers powering all of this AI, that you're going to need satellites, millions. You're going to need a million satellites

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

up there in satellites, and you might even be able to put the data centers in space. I'm sure you've been reading about this.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I think that's what he's planning. That's why the AI, SpaceX Synergy. It's almost essential. I think where I went wrong, I was using AI to try to understand AI, and we know that that's some kind of Heisenberg something or other.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

No one's perfect. No one's perfect.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

Someone said you can't understand yourself. You know, you can't use your brain to understand your brain. But I'm going to keep working on. I feel like I need to go back to school almost. When I was looking at some of the features of, you know, the difference between Vibe and. I'm not talking about the chess thing. That's what they're referring to. That's a name they use for that type of powerful software. Right? It's almost godlike. It's kind of scary.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Anyway, it is quite incredible. And I will say this just to make yourself feel better and maybe your audience feel better, too. You are a professional journalist, you work with professional journalists. So in some sense you go to school every day. I'm a venture capitalist, I'm an entrepreneur. And I'll tell you from the front lines, the very front lines, the compressed air in front of the tip of the spear of the global economy, which is where I live. I also feel like I have to go to school every single day. The rate of learning, the rate of innovation, the rate of development, the rate of invention among chiefly young, but not just young people is so astounding that I can wake up if I go on a short vacation. I'M here in a very beautiful Parisian apartment right now on vacation with my family, supposedly vacationing. And I'm here talking to you with pleasure. But if I go on vacation for just a few days and I don't pay attention, I come out of my vacation siesta and I have to realize I have to catch up on the innovation that's happened in just a few days. Shouldn't feel bad. The rate of change is upon us. It's incredible. I've never seen it. I've been in this field since I'm 19. I've never seen this rate of pace of change. And I'm very excited and I'm very, very glad. It's mostly happening in America, right?

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

And the beard's gone. We'll end it on that.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

I shaved for you, Joe, like a week ago. It's like it's a week ago. I had the beard. In fact, two days ago.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

It's a pretty good beard.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Either I shaved for you or it was an accident because I'm not very good at shaving and I had to shave the rest of my face. But let's just pretend that I shave for you because I know you prefer it when I'm clean shaven.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

I do like that. And I don't like getting all chafed. You know, if we really, you know, give each other a hug or something.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

I'm giving you hugs, Joe.

[Everpure Announcer]

And you're.

[Joe Kernen (CNBC Host)]

And you're in Paris, which is amazing. Vienna. Paris. All right. Thanks, Michael.

[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

Thanks a lot, guys.

[Host Kelly Evans]

That is Squawk Pod for today. Thanks for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. Get the best of our TV show right into your ears when you follow Squawkpod wherever you like to listen and tell us what you think you can rate. Or write a brief review of Squawkpod on Apple Podcasts. You can reach us on X as well. Squawkcnbc. We are off tomorrow for the Juneteenth holiday. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. Enjoy the long weekend.

[Producer/Host Cue]

We are clear. Thanks, guys.

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[Michael Furtick (Venture Capitalist)]

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