Diet TBPN: October 29, 2025

Summary

TBPN Podcast Summary

Episode: Diet TBPN: October 29, 2025

Hosts: John Coogan & Jordi Hays
Date: October 30, 2025

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Main Theme

This episode dives into the latest headlines in tech—beginning with the Federal Reserve’s rate cut and quickly pivoting to an in-depth discussion on the launch of the 1X humanoid robot, exploring its teleoperation capabilities, pricing model, and broader implications for the robotics industry. The hosts also cover notable financing news in the tech sector, including Whatnot’s “decacorn” status, OpenAI’s IPO speculation, and major headlines from ASML and AI chip geopolitics.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Federal Reserve Rate Cut

• [00:00] Breaking news that the Fed reduced borrowing costs by 0.25% for the second time.
  • “The Fed two minutes ago came out and announced that the Fed cut borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point for the second time.” — A, 00:00
• The hosts note the potential impact on tech startups and capital markets.

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2. The 1X Teleoperated Humanoid Robot

• [00:17] Major buzz around the newly launched 1X robot:

  • The robot is “teleoperated,” not fully autonomous as some might assume from the demos.
    • “It’s teleoperated, folks. It’s teleoperated. It’s not an end to end AI machine learning model.” — B, 00:19
  • Discussion about MKBHD’s viral post highlighting the $20,000 price tag and lack of autonomy.
    • “So to be clear, this is a pre order for humanoid home robot that will cost $20,000 or $500 per month when it maybe ships next year. And it’s currently not finished. Joanna Stern got to do a demo and in its current state, 100% of its actions are teleoperated.” — B, 01:11
  • Privacy concerns emerge around having a remotely controlled robot in one’s home.
    • “It’s still part human first; it needs to be controlled by a human in your home. Is that cool with you? Obviously there’s privacy discussions here.” — B, 00:57

• [02:49] The robot’s aesthetic is debated—cuteness vs. fear factor.

  • “This thing looks cute, but the second it’s got, like a kitchen knife in its hand and it’s looking at you, does it really look that cute?” — A, 02:50
  • “Is it cute? I would give this like an 8 out of 10 on the cute scale.” — B, 03:16

• Pricing & Economics

  • $499/month or $20,000 outright—with teleoperation by 1X experts based in the US.
  • Host skepticism on viability, citing expected high labor costs for human operators.
    • “My sense is that the unit economics on these are going to be really, really, really rough initially.” — A, 03:50
    • “The magic here is…half actually figure out the technology and half like financial engineering. You have to do this extremely delicate dance where you keep the capital coming in and burn and burn and burn.” — B, 04:04

• Humor on Early Adoption:

  • “My concern is that having a humanoid in the first at least few years will be like having a four year old helping you.” — A, 05:04
  • “Hey, Neo, can you clean those 25 wine glasses up? And it’s like, no problem, boss. Smash, smash, smash.” — B, 05:20
  • “Buy the robot. Get hired as a remote robot operator. Become your own robot. Get paid to do chores and chill in your own house. This is the job of the future, folks.” — A, 05:45

• The “Uber of Teleoperation” Idea

  • Potential for gig workers to operate robots remotely between other work (e.g., drivers between rides).
    • “So then they can just put on the VR headset. If they don’t have a ride currently, then they just tell it, operate for a little bit.” — C (Tyler), 06:04

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3. Live Shopping in the US: Whatnot’s Decacorn Status

• [06:28] Whatnot reaches $11.5B valuation after latest funding round.
  • “Whatnot from YC Winter 2020 is now a decacorn.” — A, 06:28
  • “Logan Paul was a Series A investor and whatnot, so he’s going from a 90 million to an $11.5 billion valuation. Not too shabby at all.” — A, 07:35
  • Hosts note the potential rise of live shopping in America (trading cards, collectibles) similar to the established model in China.
    • “People will just straight up buy, like vegetables yeah, they’ll be like people be selling coconuts live streaming here. It’s like trading cards, sports cards, various collectible toys.” — A, 06:52

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4. OpenAI IPO & Funding Model

• [07:59] OpenAI is likely to pursue an IPO to meet capital demands.
  • “An IPO is now the most likely path forward for OpenAI, given the scale of capital the company will need going forward. No surprises. No surprises there.” — A, 07:59

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5. Technological and Geopolitical Headlines

• [08:11] News about ASML’s substrate approach and a new lithography system.

• [08:51] Speculation over US-China AI chip diplomacy:

  • Trump floated the possibility of giving China access to Nvidia’s new Blackwell chips as part of a trade deal.
    • “Hard to understate what a blow this would be for American leadership in AI if this happens.” — A, 08:51
    • “Maybe Trump is doing a little 5D chess. It’s possible that he realizes that AI is about infinite slot machines.” — A, 08:53
    • “This is the modern information war. This is the cybernetic future war that’s happening between America and China.” — B, 09:23

• [09:38] Real-time AI video generation is heating up.

  • Mention of Odyssey 2 by Oliver Cameron: “Type a few words and AI instantly imagines a video that feels alive.” — A, 09:39

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6. Other Tech & Finance Headlines

• Private Credit:

  • “Golden age of private credit is over. Private credit. Winter is coming.” — B, 10:16

• Bending Spoons’ Acquisition of America Online

  • “European software conglomerate has acquired America Online AAOL and raised 2.8 billion of debt to get it done. It’s painful that America Online will be owned by a European software conglomerate, but let’s hit the gong for raising 2.8 billion in debt to buy a legacy digital asset.” — A, 10:39
  • The hosts note Bending Spoons’ acquisition spree (Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo) and express curiosity about the company’s strategy.

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Notable Quotes & Highlights

• On Teleoperation:
  • “I’m a huge teleoperation bull.” — A, 02:03
• On Robot Aesthetics:
  • “I without a mouth is maybe an odd choice.” — B, 03:24
• On Venture Capital & Moonshots:
  • “When you’re going after these, like, frontier technologies, these really broad moonshots, you just wind up burning money for a decade potentially. And can you stay in the game as a venture backed company? It’s really, really hard. But at the same time, these types of moonshots are exactly what venture capitalists should be going after. This is the goal of venture capital.” — B, 04:04
• On New Tech Jobs:
  • “This is the job of the future, folks.” — A, 05:45

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00] Fed rate cut news
• [00:17 – 06:20] Deep dive on the 1X robot: features, teleoperation, pricing, and social implications
• [06:28] Whatnot’s funding & US live shopping
• [07:59] OpenAI IPO discussion
• [08:11] ASML & semiconductor news
• [08:51] US-China AI chip geopolitics
• [09:38] AI video generation wars
• [10:16 – 11:15] Private credit, Bending Spoons & AOL, and closing thoughts

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Episode Tone

Conversational, quick-witted, and filled with dry humor and speculation—typical of seasoned tech insiders. The hosts pepper the episode with satirical takes (“become your own robot”) and candid critiques while weaving serious analysis with playful banter.

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This summary delivers the full spectrum of insights, jokes, and breaking news—ideal for listeners who want the essence of the episode without the time commitment.

Transcript

[A]

The Fed two minutes ago came out and announced that the Fed cut borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point for the second time.

[B]

The studio goes crazy. Let's ring the Golf.

[A]

Nothing like cutting into froth. Yeah, warm it up a little bit, john. Okay.

[B]

The 1x robot launched and it's burning up the timeline. People love it, people hate it. People have breaking news. It's teleoperated, folks. It's teleoperated. It's not an end to end AI machine learning model. And people are saying that like it's.

[A]

Breaking news, but they're saying that the demos that have been given so far Teller operated.

[B]

But I don't, I just don't think that's a scoop. I don't think that's a scoop. Wait, no, I think they're going to ship a tele operated robot. I think that's the point.

[C]

Tyler, you break it down in the video. It seems like there's a lot of tasks that you can do like fully autonomously.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

And then there's some tasks which are a little bit more complex that you can use expert mode.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Which is when someone will basically be like observing the robot as it's doing the thing and then it can, I assume that they can like interfere.

[B]

It seems like, it seems like you can pay a human to be in VR and operate your robot for you to do things that it can't just do automatically. I tried the robot that's coming to live with you. It's still part human first it needs to be controlled by a human in your home. Is that cool with you? Obviously there's privacy discussions here. The big like bombshell post right now is from MKBHD who got 12,000 likes on a post saying. So to be clear, this is a pre order for humanoid home robot that will cost $20,000 or $500 per month when it maybe ships next year. And it's currently not finished. Joanna Stern got to do a demo and in its current state, 100% of its actions are teleoperated. So of the tests that she did, that's.

[A]

Anybody that's buying the robot today or preordering it assumes that there will be some tasks that it can do that's non teleoperated.

[B]

Sure. I don't really know. I think people will buy it and say, yeah, I'm paying 20k and then I'm also paying $2 an hour for someone to tell operate this thing and actually do the dishes effectively.

[A]

I'm a huge teleoperation bowl.

[B]

Look, you can Teleoperate a Porsche. You put the robot in the Porsche and then you are driving the car.

[A]

There we go.

[B]

Remotely. I'm sure there won't be any problem operating the three pedals at 75 miles an hour.

[A]

If somebody maybe had a few too.

[B]

Many drinks, you could put this.

[A]

And so they legally couldn't operate a vehicle. Could they tell. Operate on their phone. A robot that was Dr. Driving the vehicle?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

I love that this robot looks unique. I think they have like a. I love the color choices. Very kind of like skims adjacent almost. This is a new take on a robot and they're going for cute. But if this thing is being teleoperated in your kitchen, let's say it's loading like dirty dishes from your sink.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Into the. Or from your table into your dishwasher. And then it picks up a big knife and it just starts moving over and then it just pauses there. You look over at your robot and it's just sitting there looking at you like this with a knife in its hand. Are you not going to get a little freaked out? This thing looks cute, but the second it's got, like a kitchen knife in its hand and it's looking at you, does it really look that cute?

[B]

Is it cute? I would give this like an 8 out of 10 on the cute scale.

[A]

But I'm giving it an 8 out of 10 too. Until it picks up the kitchen knife. I without a mouth.

[B]

I without a mouth is maybe an odd choice. Yeah.

[A]

One thing I don't understand is the pricing strategy. So $499 a month.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Or 20 grand.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I do have some facts here from their faq. Will my NEO be fully autonomous? NIO works autonomously by default for any chore request. It doesn't know you can schedule a 1x expert to guide it. Who are the 1x experts? 1x employees physically present in the USA.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So that's interesting. My sense is that the unit economics on these are going to be really, really, really rough initially.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because these 1x experts in the USA are by default going to be making a lot more than like $2 an hour wage.

[B]

The magic here is like, it's half actually figure out the technology and half like financial engineering. You have to do this extremely delicate dance where you keep the capital coming in and burn and burn and burn. And you're probably burning more every year for a really long time. And then at the end, you get the incredible reward. We saw this with Waymo. Waymo was founded in 2009. It's been 16 years. And then you look at VR. How much money has Mark Zuckerberg invested in the Metaverse? How much money has Reality Labs burned without it turning into a cash cow? Like, they're not, they're still not making money off of Reality Labs. When you're going after these, like, frontier technologies, these really broad moonshots, you just wind up burning money for a decade potentially. And can you stay in the game as a venture backed company? It's really, really hard. But at the same time, these types of moonshots are exactly what venture capitalists should be going after. This is the goal of venture capital.

[A]

Can't wait to hook this bad boy up to a reasoning model and 11 labs and send it door to door selling knives. My concern is that having a humanoid in the first at least few years will be like having a four year old helping you.

[B]

I'm just imagining being like, oh, yeah, wow. I just had like a fantastic dinner. 20 of my closest friends came over. We had a dozen bottles of wine. It was great. Hey, Neo, can you clean those 25 wine glasses up? And it's like, no problem, boss. Smash, smash, smash. Just shattering everything. Just like slipping on the glass and like falling.

[A]

Buy the robot. Get hired as a remote robot operator. Become your own robot. Get paid to do chores and chill in your own house. This is the job of the future, folks.

[B]

Tyler, what are you thinking?

[C]

I would like to see them go the Uber route. Right. You saw those tasks that drivers can do in between rides.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So then they can just put on the VR headset. If they don't have a ride currently, then they just tell it, operate for a little bit. And then, you know, maybe they're only halfway through their task when the, when the next drive comes in, then someone else, just because we don't know who's behind the robot. So it could be multiple people.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

Zuckerberg's clanker watching yours and your wife's clanker in 2035.

[B]

The clanker slurs are going to be through the roof over the next few years.

[A]

Whatnot from YC Winter 2020 is now a decacorn.

[B]

Congratulations.

[A]

Whatnot has raised 225 million at an $11.5 billion valuation the company plans to announce on Tuesday. It seems like live shopping might finally.

[B]

Be working in America. We've heard about it in China. Oh, it's so massive in China. We were wondering when it would come to America. It feels like it must have came in China.

[A]

People will just straight up buy, like vegetables yeah, they'll be like people be selling coconuts live streaming here. It's like trading cards, sports cards, various collectible toys.

[B]

Let me tell you about vanta.com Automate compliance. Manage risk, improve trust continuously. Vanta's trust management platform takes the manual work out of your security compliance process and replaces with continuous automation.

[A]

We have been in serious problem. They're saying this is ASML talking about Substrates Approach and their new lithography system. So we can get more info from James in a little bit, but this company was announced yesterday and announced about. Was it 100 on a billion straight out the gates?

[B]

Hundred on a billion straight out of the gates.

[A]

Not bad. Not bad. Logan Paul was a Series A investor and whatnot, so he's going from a 90 million to an $11.5 billion valuation. Not too shabby at all.

[B]

It makes so much sense that Logan Paul would have invested in this company. He's seen firsthand every single iteration and turn of what's happening on social media, on content, on commerce.

[A]

An IPO is now the most likely path forward for OpenAI, given the scale of capital the company will need going forward. No surprises. No surprises there.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

More important news. There's an abandoned McDonald's that NASA turned into a Moon Probe Picture Recovery Lab.

[B]

What? What is a Moon Probe Picture Recovery Lab?

[A]

They're calling it McMoons.

[B]

Is it AI?

[A]

No. No, it's not AI.

[B]

Nick, if United came out and said, we now have parachutes on board and you have a choice. You're flying to New York from LA and you have a choice between Delta, which does not have parachutes, and United, that does have parachutes. Tyler, which one are you picking?

[C]

I don't think I want my airline to have parachutes.

[B]

Why? That makes you way more scared.

[A]

Why?

[B]

It's a pure upgrade in safety.

[A]

Hard to understate what a blow this would be for American leadership in AI if this happens. He's talking about how Trump has suggested he was open to providing China with access to Nvidia's Blackwell chips as part of a trade deal, which would represent a major concession and rile up national security hawks in Washington. Maybe Trump is doing a little 5D chess. It's possible that he realizes that AI is about infinite slot machines.

[B]

Yes. Adult content.

[A]

It's actually in America's interest to get as many Blackwells to China as possible.

[B]

So that they all get one shotted. This is the modern information war. This is the cybernetic future war that's happening between America and China.

[A]

You can only have the Blackwells if you give a free plan of GPT4O every citizen.

[B]

Xi Jinping's just. You're absolutely right. I would love to give every citizen ani with sexy mode. In other news, Oliver Cameron, friend of the show, introduced Odyssey 2 instant interactive AI video. Type a few words and AI instantly imagines a video that feels alive. So the real time video generation wars are in full swing. Having some AI follow you into your Zoom meetings or Google Meet for taking notes is the digital equivalent of showing up to a meeting with your fly down. What do you think? You're anti Clanker in the group chat?

[A]

I'll never let him in.

[B]

Golden age of private credit is over. Private credit. Winter is coming.

[A]

Guy named Jason who says that's nice, but I'd prefer not to lose any money. So please make sure the government is prepared to cover all potential losses. If not for everyone, then for me and my cohort specifically. Warm regards.

[B]

Me and my cohort. What does that mean?

[A]

Bending spoons.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

European software conglomerate has acquired America Online AAOL and raised 2.8 billion of debt to get it done. It's painful that America Online will be owned by a European software conglomerate, but let's hit the gong for raising 2.8 billion in debt to buy a legacy digital asset. I'm. So we gotta have somebody on from bending spoons because I. I don't. I don't feel like I have a good understanding of this company at all. They acquired Evernote. Evernote. They acquired. We transfer.

[B]

It's such a funny name for this company.

[A]

They acquired Vimeo, so they are kind of all over the place.

[B]

We will talk to you later.

[A]

Have a great, beautiful, productive evening. Night. See you tomorrow.