A (1:48)

I think a lot of people would love to own Chrome.

B (1:51)

Yeah. But also a lot of people would love to just troll Google in the midst of their high, high stakes case. Anyway, so yesterday the news is Google wrapped up the case of the Justice Department and the result landed somewhere between nothing ever happens and we are so back in my opinion pack.

A (2:10)

He says, I think we all owe Sundar an apology.

B (2:13)

Yes. Time to fill out the Sundar Pichai apology form. I was not familiar with your game, Sundar. You're an absolute dog.

A (2:21)

Can we pull up the sund.

B (2:23)

Yes, yes. Do we have a Sundar graphic we can pull up? He has been looking fantastic. He has clearly been enjoying bulking season and so we'll pull that up. So lots of pundits have been bearish on Google for years now. Probably issued a bearish proclamation at some point during the show, but it was easy to do, right, because the narrative was very clean. They failed to release a consumer LLM chat app as quickly as OpenAI. And the crazy thing is first mover advantage really, really mattered. First mover advantage did not matter in cloud. AWS came out first, GCP came out second. Azure third or second? Third. We don't even know. And they're both huge businesses. Very oligopolistic. Not true. Here we go.

A (3:10)

There we go.

B (3:10)

Sundar. Sundar. We gotta get this revised. But he looks fantastic. Yeah. Wow. He really has been hitting the gym. I'd love to see it anyway. Really filling out the first mover advantage really, really did matter in consumer. We've seen that with the amount of LLM queries from consumers, OpenAI is running away with it. Obviously there are lots of other good businesses to build in AI, but in terms of consumer, even though Gemini, that app launched three months later to consumers, it wasn't fast enough. And it obviously was made like it stung all the more because the transformer was invented at DeepMind at Google. And so you have this narrative of like, they can do science and they can do research, but can they do consumer products? And so OpenAI is running away with it. And it was very easy to be like, OpenAI is going to disrupt Google. People are not going to be searching on Google anymore, blah, blah, blah. And there's some still some good crack. There's some good cases for cracks in the search business. I think semianalysis has laid out one that seems pretty reasonable.

A (4:11)

Yeah. This case could have been a lot different if.

B (4:14)

Yes.

A (4:14)

Hadn't exploded.

B (4:15)

Yes, totally, totally. And so the interesting thing is it's been very easy to write the Google bear case at the same time. Buco Capital bloke, friend of the show has been Google bull posting for a long time. Ben Thompson has come out kind of pro Google, really outlining what's going on. We saw that that breakdown of the various parts of their business. And when you look at it that way, you're like, wait a minute, okay, like a couple trillion dollars. Like if you're only the Wall street analyst that put this together, they were only valuing Google at like 800 million 800 billion. It was like Cloud was worth a ton, DeepMind was worth a ton, Waymo was worth over 100 billion. So YouTube, you add all these things up and the properties become very valuable. So when you look at it in its totality, all of a sudden Google looks a lot more stable where you could say, yeah, maybe search sells off a little bit over the next 20 years. It's clearly extremely Lindy. And then simultaneously like YouTube gets even better because there's AI generated content. They have all the ability to generate AI video and like there's just a whole new wave, right? So there's a million different ways that they can play this. And Sundar's clearly an absolute dog and never doubt him ever.

A (5:22)

So never again.

B (5:25)

But the interesting thing that you mentioned is that in an odd twist, the pressure from OpenAI and consumer AI chat interfaces potentially competing with traditional Google search might have sort of saved the search giant from more severe penalties. And Ben Gilbert of Acquired summed it up well. He said the court recognized the advantage Google has in paying browsers for disagree distribution, but held off on banning it because of the new AI disruption threat that they face.

A (5:49)

I can read from the actual PDF from the case. The court well recognizes what eschewing a payment bang shuing, issuing a payment payment ban may mean for competition due to Google's massive financial advantage and its superior monetization. Distributors will be incentivized to stick with Google because it can pay more, thus leaving in place the very forces that effectively have made the ecosystem exceptionally resistant to change in the space and early sorry. The money flowing into the space and how quickly it has arrived is astonishing. These companies already are in a better position both financially and technologically to compete with Google than any traditional search company has been in decades, except perhaps Microsoft. They also are moving toward monetization on commercial queries. These new realities give the court hope that Google will not simply outbid competitors for disruption if superior products emerge. It also weighs on favor of caution before disadvantaging Google in this highly competitive space. So for now, Google will be permitted to pay distributors for default placement. And if you've been living under a data center that is making Google search the default in Safari on the iPhone, there's other placements as well.

B (7:00)

Yeah, it's a very, it's a very like online take almost. It's a very tech Silicon Valley take. To see in a court document like the context here is very fascinating to me. Like written in this legal document is then venture funding in Internet search was considered Silicon Valley's biggest no fly zone. Like yeah, you can't raise money for something that's competitive with Internet search. Like it's just not a thing but.

A (7:25)

To know you dot com.

B (7:27)

Yep.

A (7:28)

Trying to play in search founders coming on later today. They're now an enterprise AI company.

B (7:33)

Oh, interesting. Okay.

A (7:34)

So yeah, I'm sure they're using some of the same foundational tech.

B (7:39)

Yes. Today established technologies are making and startups are receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to develop gen AI products that pose a threat to the primacy of Internet traditional Internet search. Interesting. Wouldn't it be amazing if like the Apple wallet like by default had just like a ramp card in it. They should just place for like default ramp in Apple. I feel like we should make this deal happen.

A (8:03)

It is the official card of business.

B (8:05)

But until that happens, go to ramp.com, time is money saved. Both easy to use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting and a whole lot more. All in one place.

A (8:12)

All in one place. Unbelievably good.

B (8:15)

Yeah. The other news, I mean just to give some extra context on the financial outcomes here, Tane has been on the show, summed it up the financial results. Google Stock is up 7%. That's a big, don't never say law of large numbers ever again. To me you can pop 7% in a day off of one legal result. Apple stock is up 3% representing $250 billion of added market cap on the antitrust ruling that Google can continue to pay Apple but in a non exclusive manner and won't need to divest Chrome Android. So there are a bunch of good takes we're going to go through. People who have been this way again.

A (8:53)

The reason that Apple is up is they have 20 billion a year coming in from Google that is effectively like.

B (8:59)

One line of code and it's, yeah, it's ultra profitable. It's incredible. Yeah. And it's something that like when I was thinking about that going away I was like this is actually like pretty, pretty material to the business. Like it's, Apple's a huge business. But I mean we watched that Tim Cook interview from what a decade ago and he was like we made 50 billion in revenue, 10 billion in profit and now they're making what, 5 billion a quarter from this? Something like that. Like this is a, this is a serious amount of money. It's definitely like a material piece of the business.

A (9:29)

Yeah, they're, they're sitting at a 36, 36 times earnings.

B (9:34)

Yeah.

A (9:34)

So you take away that they make.

B (9:36)

A lot of money.

A (9:37)

Hundreds.

B (9:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 500 billion or something.

A (9:42)

Hundreds of billions of dollars.

B (9:43)

Crazy. Okay. So anyway, we're going to run through Ben Thompson's take because he's been studying this for the entire journey and for years. And I feel like he knows this stuff way better than we. But I do have some questions that I want to dig into. We can kind of debate this. Jordy. So.

A (9:57)

And by the way, the chat was concerned because John Exley was not in the chat. He's on a flight.

B (10:04)

Give us an update.

A (10:04)

But he got the flight wi fi, so he's locked in now. What an absolute thank you to all the brothers in the chat for checking on brother John.

B (10:16)

It's great. So my question is we're going to go through the timeline. Tyler Cosgrove has written out the full United States versus Google case timeline. We're going to dig through. We're also going to go through Ben Thompson's. But my question that I want to answer is what do these, what do these pay for default deals look like going forward? Specifically in artificial intelligence, there is going to be a particularly odd dynamic around how LLM queries route on the iPhone by default. Like the last possible moment to start taking AI seriously and build like a serious AI foundation model lab. The last moment that you could credibly do that, I feel like, was earlier this year. Like, that was when the last train left the station. And who was driving that train? Mark Zuckerberg. And what did he do? He went and tried to buy everything that was buyable and hire everyone who is hirable.

A (11:12)

Weren't viable.

B (11:13)

Yeah, for sure. And what he wound up with was not exactly a dream team. He didn't get Ilia, he didn't get Dario, he didn't get Demis, but he got a really solid crew. Right.

A (11:25)

And some great business guys.

B (11:26)

Some great business guys, some great researchers. He. He also just build out the researcher tiers. Like he's got a ton of researchers.

A (11:34)

So I feel like wasn't worried about salary caps.

B (11:36)

No, no, no, not at all. And so, and so we were debating yesterday whether Alex Wang was a good pickup for Meta. And my conclusion is like, he is the best possible option. And I think it'll pencil out. I think it'll be a good deal. It is a big acquisition and it'll be interesting to see how we look on that in a decade. But I think the opportunity is so big it makes sense. At the same time, like, what would Apple even do if they wanted to compete in AI? Like, everyone is Taking off all the, all the pieces are off the board at this point. They don't have the DNA for mega acquisitions, so they're not going to go and try and buy anthropic like that's just not how they work. They don't like writing hundred million dollar checks for talent. Tim Cook only makes $74.6 million a year. They're not going to pay some AI researcher $100 million. It's just not going to happen. And so everyone else sort of has a dance partner at this point. Apple wouldn't just be like trying to turn the cruise ship that is Apple, they're building an entirely new cruise ship. It's just not going to happen. So I don't think Apple is going to try and build a serious frontier lab. I think they're going to partner on this. And the question is, where does it leave them? They have something incredibly valuable. Do you know how many active iPhone users there are worldwide right now?

A (12:48)

One and a half billion.

B (12:50)

1.4 billion. Isn't that a ton? That just. I feel like I was, if I had to just guess I'd be like, job's not finished. Truly. Truly. But, but so like that is incredibly valuable because it's not just, it's not just over a billion users, it's over a billion users that they can charge.

A (13:07)

Money 999amonth forever randomly.

B (13:10)

Yeah, yeah. So many different monetization. But it's also, it's like, it's, it's the top 1 billion really usually like basically of like earners because it's the most expensive phone usually. And so. And they also have that button on the side that right now activates something that should feel like AI but is very clearly far from the frontier. And so the logical outcome feels like a partnership here. But what will the scale and structure of that partnership be if OpenAI really nails agentic commerce as semi analysis suggests? It wouldn't be crazy for OpenAI to pay Apple billions of dollars to be the default. And so right now we're thinking about if you push the Siri button, you trigger an LLM inference query that's very expensive. Every time I hit ChatGPT, it's a couple cents if I do some crazy reasoning things, some deep research report might be a dollar. I don't even know. It's expensive, right? If I'm sending off some agent to go and like research every single aquifer somewhere. Yeah, that's what it feels like, right? It feels like every time you hit a query it's expensive. And so but that's gonna flip. And I think each query is actually gonna be monetizable and they're all gonna be, they're basically all gonna be profitable like Google searches. And so if they are profitable, if every time someone hits an LLM, it's not a cost center, but it's actually a profit center, well then OpenAI can pay to get more search volume, some more query volume. And so that means that maybe OpenAI will wind up paying Apple billions of dollars to be the default. And of course they're going to try and build their own device and there's a lot of other dynamics. But would they go with Gemini because they're already on Google for the search default, but would they go, would they do that? Or is that too, Are they never going to be able to compete there because Gemini is so deeply integrated with Android and the Android phones are over here kind of doing their own thing. So you can imagine.

A (15:11)

And over this year there's been rumors bubbling up of Apple in conversations with Anthropic, with chatgpt, with Gemini.

B (15:17)

Right.

A (15:17)

And a lot of these companies have been throwing around some very big numbers with Tim and the Apple team. And I think they had, at least back then they seemed to have some stickers.

B (15:29)

So right now it feels like the foundation labs are going to Apple and saying every time we run a query it costs us $0.01, $0.10, a dollar, whatever. You got to pay us to use our amazing intelligence.

A (15:44)

Yeah, to bring value to your users.

B (15:46)

But I think it might flip and I think that each query might actually be profitable just at the query level because there's going to be commerce that's triggered from those. So in the future you'll pick up your phone, you'll press the button on the side and you can instantly fire off a best in class OpenAI agent to do your bidding. So you'll say, order me some creatine and it'll just go do it. And that will be valuable and that will actually drive, that will be a profitable query. And so OpenAI could potentially be paying Apple for the right to do that. So right now OpenAI. OpenAI and Apple do have a partnership in place, but the reporting suggests that no money is directly changing hands. But I don't necessarily expect it to stay that way. So I don't know, what's your take? Do you think that this is reasonable? That OpenAI could be paying Apple billions of dollars within the next, I don't know, five years? Or do you think it flips the other way and Apple is the one shelling out billions of dollars for access to frontier AI models from maybe anthropic, maybe, maybe OpenAI, maybe someone else.

A (16:54)

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean the people that are paying for ChatGPT today probably have a pretty insane overlap with iPhone customers. Like it probably looks something like this. I, I think that Sam recognizes, I mean every consumer tech entrepreneur has like realized how important it is to integrate at the hardware level. Right. This is why Zuck is hell bent on winning in VR. Right. He's been sick of like being at the app layer and I know that Sam does not want to be in that same, you know, why would he pay billions for Jony I've and that team. Like he, he, he, he understands the importance of the hardware layer and certainly will recognize the leverage that Apple is going to have over the entire ecosystem. I think the question is a lot of this just comes down to, in my view, are consumers going to be paying for AI in the long run? I haven't been totally convinced that, that the everyday American is going to be spending certainly not $200 a month. I don't even know about $20 a month. I think it flips, it's going to ultimately flip. And so I can see, I can see there being a period where OpenAI is willing to pay to be like the default intelligence product within the Apple ecosystem. But again, it is just going to be a really, it'll be an interesting dynamic in partnership. Right. Because it's going to, it's so there's so much tension there because Apple is going to want us. Apple is already selling intelligence as a reason to upgrade the iPhone. Right. And they've gotten lawsuits over this because they sold Apple intelligence. And then people are like, this isn't very smart at all. What did it, what did I just buy? Right. And so are they going to be.

B (18:40)

Incentivized to say 70 IQ is a form of intelligence? It's just a low level of intelligence.

A (18:46)

Yes.

B (18:46)

They didn't say, they didn't say Apple IQ intelligence. They didn't say Apple super intelligence. They just said Apple Intelligence. It has some level of Apple room temp Intelligence.

A (18:58)

Room temp I Apple.

B (19:00)

What do you think, Tyler? Do you think that OpenAI will be paying Apple or do you think Apple will be paying other foundation labs or where will the flow of money go in the next few years?

C (19:12)

Yeah, I don't really see it flipping very soon to where like prompts or tokens are like actually super profitable because you need like both massive, you need, like, way better capabilities and it needs to be way more efficient because, like, if you just have more capabilities still, like, right now most people are not paying for ChatGPT. They're just using the, you know, free tier, which is like, if you compare. I mean, if you compare 4. Oh, like, look at like five months ago. If you compare 4.0 to like, O3. Yeah, it was like massive, you know, difference.

B (19:45)

And people still weren't paying in cost or in capabilities.

C (19:49)

Capabilities. Yeah, yeah, and people still weren't paying. So you needed to be like, way better for people to actually start paying or you need to be way cheaper.

B (19:58)

Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that. I feel like 4o was definitely good enough. People were obsessed with it. People were, like, falling in love with it. Right.

A (20:05)

Even Meek Mill, like, I understand as.

B (20:08)

A power user, like, didn't get that much out of it, but.

C (20:11)

Yeah, but I think you, like, if you ask norm people what they think of, like, AI, they're like, oh, yeah, this is not going to take my job at all.

B (20:16)

Yeah.

C (20:17)

When reality, if you used like, O3 and they, if they used O3 every day, if they were a power user, they'd be. I think they'd be way more bullish on AI generally.

B (20:24)

Yeah.

C (20:25)

So I think that might be evidence that people, like, I don't know, are not.

A (20:28)

I think, I mean, one crazy dynamic is Apple says, I mean, if they were to do a deal with OpenAI, they could just say, like, great, like, we're going to, we're going to sign up every, like, how many, how many paying subs do you have? Great. We're going to start heavily. If Apple just starts heavily pushing ChatGPT, they will by default get their 30% from the app Store. Right. But they could work out. So, like, this could end up being like, even if, even if OpenAI is not directly paying Apple for it, it could end up generating.

B (21:01)

I don't think it's enough.

A (21:03)

You don't think it's enough?

B (21:03)

I don't think it's enough money for the value that it'll bring on. If it was actually integrated into, like the Siri button at the low level, I can just press a button and say, order me creatine. Order me creatine. And it knows my address because it knows my home address from my contact in the. In there. It has my payment information saved. It does all of that. Like, I don't know if taking 30% of my ChatGPT subscription, if I subscribe and, and if I subscribed on mobile, but really most people are going to subscribe on desktop. And OpenAI is going to be constantly being like, hey, go over here and like use a web view to like subscribe this way and stuff. I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how it pencils out. I feel like there's going to be some new deal that's going to happen. Someone's going to, someone's going to pay, someone's going to bid, Someone's going to pay out.

A (21:53)

Yeah. The Google team says, hey, we're already paying 20, 20 billion. Why don't we double it to be Gemini, be the default?

B (22:01)

Can you imagine? I mean if Gemini was the default on iPhone, that would be bizarre. But I mean, it does kind of like, it does kind of match with the search deal. Right? Anyway, let's read through Ben Thompson. Maybe we may go through the history first to get us up to speed. Tyler, do you mind taking us through it?

A (22:20)

Take us through it.

B (22:22)

So this is the United States versus Google, which started in 2020.

C (22:26)

2020 starts in October 2020. So that's under Trump. Okay, so yeah, I think let's just go over like kind of the central claim of the actual case first. So it's basically that Google is violating the antitrust act of 1890.

A (22:40)

It's wild to think about. And you know, before Donald Trump was a technology founder with True Social, there was a time where he was beefing with big tech. Yeah, it's so long ago.

B (22:51)

Instead of just competing.

A (22:53)

Thanks for getting us up on VHS. We needed this.

B (22:57)

Fantastic. Only possible on restream one livestream, 30 plus destinations multi stream your VHS tapes and reach your audience wherever they are. Head over to research.

A (23:08)

It truly is. The technology is incredible.

B (23:10)

Yes. Also. Yeah, continue.

C (23:11)

Okay, so Sherman antitrust Act of 1890. I also put some of the victims, previous victims of this act. So we see Standard Oil, Standard oil, American Tobacco Company, US Steel, AT&T. This is what broke up Bell Labs. Probably set us back a couple decades.

B (23:29)

You know who founded Bell Labs? Pop quiz. Who founded Bell Labs?

C (23:34)

Wait, is it like, oh, I don't know, is it Claude Shannon?

B (23:37)

No, no. Who founded Bell Labs?

C (23:40)

Oh, Bell Labs. Alexander Graham Bell.

B (23:43)

Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah, that's correct. Yep. Alexander Graham Bell started Bell Labs. Let's go.

A (23:50)

We don't know how to name. We don't know how to name companies.

B (23:52)

I know. I was looking at the name Standard.

A (23:54)

Oil, American Tobacco, US Steel.

B (23:57)

What does the A&AT and T stand for? Is that America? American Technology and me Ask Gemini. Okay.

A (24:03)

What does AT and T. Okay.

B (24:06)

Anyway, continue. Microsoft, of course. It was a headache for Bill Gates for his entire career until he retired.

A (24:10)

Yeah. Oh, that's so good. American Telephone and Telegraph. Oh, that's so good.

B (24:16)

When you pick a name like that and you actually, you understand the job and you're just like, yeah, Standard Oil. I'm going to standardize oil.

A (24:24)

I need a name for my telephone and telegraph company. What about American Telephone and Telegraph?

B (24:31)

Telegraph company founder. Okay, okay. Anyway, sorry.

C (24:34)

Okay, so basically the claim is that they're legally monopolizing the search engine and the advertising markets like in search. So they're locking up distribution, they're self reinforcing barriers to entry and they're.

B (24:49)

The evidence is that they paid billions to Apple and other vendors.

C (24:52)

Exactly.

B (24:53)

Probably hundreds of billions at this point because it's been like 10 billion for decades.

A (24:56)

Yeah.

C (24:57)

Yeah.

B (24:57)

So wow, they are there.

C (24:58)

So. So that is. They filed the case DOJ in 2020.

B (25:04)

Wait, should we start with the history of Google Search and Safari and then run through this? Yeah, that might be better.

C (25:09)

So yeah. Okay, so Google Search and Safari. So 2002.

B (25:13)

2002. This is pre iPhone.

C (25:15)

Yeah, this is pre iPhone. This is just on Safari. On the, I guess the Mac or whatever it was. So. So Google is the default there.

B (25:22)

It's just like they just, Apple just picked that.

C (25:25)

Yeah, it's just the best. Everyone like they just put it in. Yeah, there's no.

A (25:29)

Google's been the default search engine on Apple devices since 2002 and they. We don't know specifics. Most recently is $20 billion annually. But, but it's been over 20 year partnership.

B (25:41)

I mean that's a crazy, it's crazy to go. I mean Google was founded late September 1998 and then by 2002 you're the default on Apple. Like the previous era, biggest compute computing company. I mean I guess Apple wasn't like what it is Today back in 2002. Kind of pre iPhone. It was certainly not like the biggest company in the world, but still like pre Tyler too. Yeah.

A (26:04)

This all.

C (26:04)

I mean the Reborn 2005.

A (26:09)

Wow. Hey, if you want to feel old. Born in 2005.

B (26:13)

Okay. So anyway, Sergey Brin, what does he do?

C (26:16)

So 2005 Sergey Brin suggests some kind of revenue share. They always call it a revenue share.

B (26:21)

The goodness of his heart. What is he thinking?

C (26:23)

That's crazy. I have to assume it's like there's some competition. He's seeing it on the horizon.

B (26:28)

Okay.

C (26:29)

Yeah. But yeah, I like that they Always call it a revenue share. They're not paying to be the default. They're just helping a brother out. And then 2007, 2007, 2009, these are like, the real negotiations. They're like. It's like Sergey Brin says, like, oh, yeah, we do revenue share. But then when it comes down to it, he's like, well, you know, let's slow down. Let's push the brakes a little bit. The numbers are getting a little high. And then basically, the actual, like, numbers are not public. They really only show up as a result of this case. Like, them being.

B (27:02)

Oh. After the fact. So we learned this through the case. We didn't know for years.

C (27:05)

Well, yeah, so it's not really till 2021.

B (27:07)

There's, like, a full decade where people were like, yeah, like, Google's probably paying Apple something, but.

A (27:12)

Yeah, but like, hiding. Hiding a $30 million, $20 billion line item. And you're.

B (27:18)

You can do it. If I believe the disclosure rules and SEC filings are something like. If it's a. If it's a. If it's a division of the company that reports the CEO, then you have to break out the financials. This is like YouTube. This is the story of, like, AWS, when we first got the AWS financials. So if it's just something like, you know, is some deal, and it's just one deal. Like, it's not even a. It's not even like, a whole division company.

A (27:44)

It's a deal I did with Steve.

B (27:45)

Yeah, it's just like, other. Other income or something like that. I don't know.

A (27:50)

Yeah.

C (27:51)

So 2021, it's. It's kind of revealed or estimated at least that payments are around 20 billion a year. And then 2023, this is also a result of the case. Apple is, like, confirmed to be taking 36% of the revenue from Safari that Google makes.

B (28:07)

Okay. So it's similar to their app store revenue a little bit higher. 36%.

A (28:11)

Yeah.

B (28:11)

And that's probably how they got to the number. That's pretty crazy that Google is making $6 billion off of.

A (28:17)

I never knew they got where they were getting 30. 36%. For the big man. For the big man. That's great.

C (28:24)

Yeah.

A (28:25)

And then 2025, we know you paid to be here, but I'm gonna need a cut too.

B (28:29)

Yeah. Wow.

A (28:30)

Yeah.

C (28:31)

Okay, so let's go through the full case. The case. So September 2023, this is really the first, like, actual, like, trial. It's a bench trial. I don't really Know what that is? But August 2024 is the actual, like, initial judgment. So this is Google is in fact violating antitrust.

B (28:53)

Yes.

C (28:53)

Like something needs to be done. We don't know what is to be.

B (28:56)

Done, but we're going to do. But then we will eventually decide what the punishment is. Yeah, but they are guilty.

C (29:01)

They are guilty.

B (29:02)

They were found guilty.

C (29:02)

There's no, you know, results. Like, what are they going to do? But yeah, they're guilty. And then it's not till April of 2025. So this is five years after the, you know.

B (29:11)

Yep.

C (29:12)

It was actually filed. There's the remedies trial. I think that's what it's.

B (29:17)

Yeah.

C (29:18)

Figuring out the remedies. So this is like what is actually to be done. Now we know that they're a monopoly. What do we do about it? And then it wasn't until, I guess yesterday that we found out.

B (29:29)

Got it.

C (29:30)

So I think we already went through some of the verdict, but it's. The Judge denied the DOJ's request for forced divestiture of Chrome and Android. They ordered Google to end exclusive distribution agreements. So that's like. I think we talked about this too with Apple. You can't like just. It can't be exclusive to Apple, like payments or whatever.

B (29:53)

Yeah. What does that mean in practice? It can't be exclusive. So they have to pay like Xiaomi or something. Are we talking about other phone manufacturers? Are we talking about other search engines? Like, I know that it's not like if I go into my Safari settings, I can't pick Bing. I can still pick other things. It's just the default that they're paying for. I have to dig into that. Jordy, do you want to look that up or something?

A (30:20)

Gemini.

B (30:21)

Okay, cool.

C (30:22)

It's kind of like legalese. And then there's mandating Google to share search, index and user basically sharing data with.

A (30:32)

I don't understand the exclusive. So. So Google pays Mozilla. Mozilla basically wouldn't survive without Google. Apparently it's like a very significant amount of their revenue, which is funny because Google obviously competes with Chrome and then they do this with device manufacturers like Samsung that just continue to make Chrome and Google search pre installed.

B (31:00)

Okay, and then what's the last one? Search index. Sharing of the search index and user interaction data with rivals. So what is that? Bing, I guess.

A (31:10)

Yeah.

C (31:10)

So I guess this means these are basically direct quotes from the actual file, but I assume it means that they have to just share some of the actual index data from whatever page rank is they have to put it out publicly.

B (31:25)

So we've got to hammer the chief product officer of Microsoft today about Bing and what this means because, yeah, I mean there's got to be a way to make money off this. If you're Microsoft, this is the way to do it. Okay. Anyway, anything else from the history of.

A (31:39)

People, Just to be clear, they prevent exclusive contracts. So Google is barred from entering or maintaining exclusive contracts that give its search engine Chrome, Google Assistant or Gemini app a monopoly position on a device. Basically, they can't go to a smartphone manufacturer and say, you just can't host any other.

B (31:59)

Sure, sure. In the chat, Paraclete says Google's only going to share their search data with like other top three companies. It's still remaining a monopoly. Interesting. And people, people enjoy the vhs. So thank you for, for tuning in also.

C (32:13)

So these rules also apply to like Genai stuff. So this, all this also applies to like Gemini if they want to do the same. If they want to lease it to Apple or whatever. All the same rules apply about.

B (32:23)

If you've been enjoying the whiteboard segments, we are thinking about getting a smart whiteboard where we can put up a FigJam from Figma. Of course, we're sponsored by Figma. Think bigger, build faster. Figma helps design development teams build great products together. You can get started for free. Figma.com let's run through Ben Thompson's take. So he kicks it off with Google's remedy decision. Alphabet Inc. Will be required to share online search data with rivals while avoiding harsher penalties, including the forced sale. We know this Google statement was short and sweet. Earlier today, U.S. court overseeing the DOJ's lawsuit over how we distribute search issued a decision on next steps. He Google closes says as always, we continuing to. We're continuing to focus on what matters. Building innovative products that people choose to love. Choose and love.

A (33:10)

It's a good line.

B (33:10)

That's a statement of a company that lost some battles but won the war, in my estimation, says Ben Thompson in Stratecheri, which you should go subscribe to. There are some cursory objections to Judge Mehta's decision, but by and large that statement exudes relief and rightfully so. The company that is truly breathing. The company is truly breathing easier today, however, is Apple. Apple's actually breathing easier because they're getting that sweet, sweet job, sweet 20, 30%.

A (33:39)

Off, 99% margin, 20 billion a year.

B (33:43)

The first set of remedies were the ones that Google proposed and has already implemented, namely ending the exclusive agreements that were the foundation of Judge Mehta's original finding of liability. So let's see, I want to know what these actual remedies are. Here we go again. This is literally illegal behavior.

A (34:04)

What we should just highlight again. So Google will be barred from entering or maintaining any exclusive contract relating to the distribution of Search Chrome Assistant in Gemini. Google shall not enter or maintain any agreement that conditions the licensing of the Play Store or any other Google application on the distribution, preloading or placement of Google Search Chrome Assistant.

B (34:25)

This is the bundling thing. So a lot of the antitrust cases hinge on bundling. You say, oh, you can't have the Play Store on your Android phone unless you're defaulting to search or you have to have Chrome pre installed if you want access to search. Like all of that stuff is is seen as anti.

A (34:45)

And so Ben says, again, this is literally illegal behavior. So ending it was the bare minimum. Antitrust precedent, however, dictates that Judge Mehta go further. Again from the opinion. This is from Meta.

B (34:56)

Oh, this is good too. So they cannot enter or maintain an agreement that prohibits any partner, either Apple or Samsung, from simultaneously distributing any other search engine browser or Genai product. So Google can't go to someone and say, hey, in order to have Search as your default or Google Search or whatever deal we're doing, or whatever we're paying you, you can't have Anthropic pre installed or you can't have Mozilla pre installed.

A (35:33)

Like you can't be in the contract.

B (35:35)

Yeah, can't be in the contract. And that was. And that is illegal behavior. And so ending it was the bare minimum, says Ben Thompson. Antitrust precedent, however, dictates that Judge Mehta go further. Again from the opinion. The question now is what to do about Google's violations. Precedent requires fashioning antitrust remedies that effectively pry open to competition a market that has been closed by a monopolist's illegal restraints. Denying the fruits of the violation is a valid objective and so too is ensuring that anti competitive behavior will not recur in the same or related ways. The court has broad discretion to impose remedies to accomplish those aims. Judge Mehta laid out four fruits of the violation. The court found that the agreements had four main anti competitive effects. They one foreclosed a substantial portion of the relevant markets, thus impairing rivals opportunities to compete, two denied rivals access to user queries or scale needed to effectively compete, 3 reduced the incentive to invest and innovate in search, and four enabled Google to increase text ad prices without any meaningful competitive restraint, thereby allowing Google to earn monopoly profits to secure the next iteration of exclusive deals through higher revenue share payments. These effects did not persist independently. Together they enabled Google to widen the moats and pull up drawbridges to ward off competition. Great analogy.

A (36:58)

Judgemeta attempts to address number two necessary scale by forcing Google to share various types of data, including Google search index, but not the actual data from the web pages and the index or the output of Google's PageRank algorithm. Competitors, which explicitly include Genai providers, will get a one time snapshot, not an ongoing one, and only need to pay Google's marginal cost for providing the information. User click and query data showing what results users clicked on. Competitors will get this data at least twice, but the final number will be determined by the technical committee the court will set up and oversee. Do you fully understand like yeah, that's.

B (37:37)

A very very odd odd like change and remedy. Like I, I, I guess it like lets people catch up to where things are. It feels like the remedy is like, like there has been this unfair advantage for Google for years. We're letting everyone catch up and then we're creating like a fair race but we're restarting the RA and do whatever they want. But, but we're not, we're not permanently making Google share everything but we're making a one time catch up of like data I guess. Is that what's going on? I don't know.

A (38:07)

Tossing some scraps of data.

B (38:08)

That's what it seems like. So we'll continue with Ben Thompson. In addition, Google needs to make its web search results available via syndication at ordinary commercial terms for five years, capped at 40% of an alternative search engines annual queries. These are all worthwhile remedies. The problem however is that that's it the Google patronage network. So there is a lot here and he does talk about Bing. I'm going to work through the remaining fruits. Three fruits backwards. First or fourth? Judge Mehta decided that Google sharing user click data for ads was both a request too broad and also the court didn't know what data needed to be disclosed so that one was discarded. The third fruit meanwhile is getting a lot of attention because Judge Mehta said that it basically no longer existed. Generative and AI products are now a competitor to search and are getting plenty of funding. This is what we talked about earlier. Very interesting to see that there is a lot of competition there. In early 2023 when the new Bing with generative AI search OpenAI Sam Altman told Ben Thompson Initiative interview I think it's fabulous for both of us. I think there's so much upside for both of us here. We're going to discover what these new models can do. But if we're sitting on a lethargic search monopoly and had to think about a world where this was going to be a real challenge to the way that monetization of this works and new ad units and maybe even temporary downward pressure, I would not feel great about that. Do you know what that lethargic search monopoly does feel great about? Being able to keep the fruits of its anti competitive actions because OpenAI exists. It's crazy. Anyway, that leaves one point in the Apple connection Judge Mehta admits that a ban on Google payments for search placement would have an impact on the market. The rationale for a payment plan for a payment ban is straightforward. It would pry open the market to competition. And we talked about this a little bit earlier. And yet Judge Mehta declined because of the harm ending payments would cause to recipients of those payments, leading to a list of downstream effects quotes from the opinion Lost competition and innovation from small developers in the browser market. Fewer products and less product innovation from Apple. Apparently they don't have enough money otherwise. That is a funny, funny conclusion. Higher mobile phone prices and less innovative phone features. Judge Mehta further argued that the ultimate outcome would harm consumer welfare, and that was that. The entire section was in fact a total endorsement of the Google approach Ben described in Friendly Google and Enemy Remedies.

A (40:38)

Yeah, this is great. The cleverness from Ben the cleverness of Google strategy was their focus on making friends instead of enemies, thus motivating Apple in particular to not even try. Tech company, particularly advertising based ones, famously generate huge amounts of consumer surplus. Yes, Google makes a lot of money showing you ads, but Even at a 300 billion dollar plus run rate, the company is surely generating far more value for consumers than it is capturing. That is in itself some degree of defense for the company. I should note much of much as Standard Oil brought light to every level of society. What is notable about these contractual agreements though, is how Google has been generating surplus for everyone else in the tech industry. Maybe this is a good thing. It's certainly good for Mozilla, which gets around 80% of its revenue from its Google deal. It has been good for device makers commoditized by Android who have an opportunity for scraps of profit. It has certainly been profitable for Apple, which has seen its high margin services revenue skyrocket thanks in part to the $20 billion per year of pure profit it gets from Google without needing to make any level of commensurate investment.

B (41:43)

So what Ben actually recommended.

A (41:45)

And one more line here from, from an old, from, from Judge Meta. He says the revenue share payments shape the market for general search services in Google's favor. They provide an incredibly strong incentive for the ecosystem to not do anything. They effectively make the ecosystem resistant to change and their net effect is to basically freeze the ecosystem in place. Apple's like why would, like we could compete in search, but why would we if we can get 20 billion a year? And the device manufacturers, they say like, I mean technically they could create a new search engine or new intelligence, but we could just get a revenue share from Google.

B (42:21)

There was a, I feel like there was a dust up back in the Steve Jobs era over Siri and whether Siri counted as a search engine and where the Siri project would go because at a certain point search had become so well defined in terms of the technology that you need to actually build a search engine that Apple could do it similar to training a foundation model. Now like it's something that if you have the money and you have the talent, you can just do it. And there are a number of companies that have done it. The problem is the distribution. Like there are other search engines out there. Duckduckgo. But the problem is actually getting the aggregation of everyone actually showing up and getting the flywheel and getting the, and making it a default. And Apple has the ability to make it something in default but you're basically paying them off to not go and build their own search engine. And, and yeah, it's this like there's, there's, there's, there's this tension. Anyway, Ben Thompson recommended that Jatroop Meta do the following Back when he was writing about this case earlier, Ben said this is why ultimately I am comfortable with the implications of my framework and why I think the answer to the remedy question is an injunction against Google making any sort of payments or revenue share, therefore search. If you're a monopoly, you don't get to extend your advantage with contracts, period. Now do most favored nation clauses. More broadly, we tend to think of monopolies as being mean. The problem with aggregators is that they have the temptation to be too nice. It has been very profitable to be Google's friend. I think consumers and Google are better off if the company has a few more enemies. So basically don't pay Apple at all. What will happen? Apple becomes an enemy. Apple partners up with a different search engine, builds their own, creates more competition. Maybe ad prices on Google go down. Maybe there's more consumer surplus. I think that's kind of what Ben's initial take was. But Judge Meta disagreed.

A (44:29)

Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting because if you take away, you make it so that Google can't pay for search placements and Mozilla dies and then browsers become less competitive.

B (44:39)

Yeah, yeah. That is the flip side of the coin, which is very interesting. Usually you would assume that it's the opposite. You would assume that they are maintaining this monopoly, but in fact, they're kind of. At least they're maintaining their search monopoly, but then they're propping up an oligopoly in browsing because they're like, oh, it's okay, because the browsers are just a window into the actual highly profitable search results. So Judge Meta disagreed. Because Google strategy is sharing its monopoly profits was deemed too important to undo. Note the paradox. Judge Mehta is implicitly admitting that as long as Google is able to pay for search placement, they will in fact continue to dominate search placement. After all, continued Google dominance is a prerequisite to Google money continuing to flow, thus avoiding the downstream effects Judge Mehta is concerned about. So he did. He did allow for the fact that not banning payments might be a mistake.

A (45:31)

So he says, so for now, Google will be permitted to pay distributors for default placement. There are strong reasons not to jolt the system and to allow market forces to do the work. Still, judges must be open to clarifying and reconsidering their decrees in light of changing or unchanging market realities. The court is thus prepared to revisit a payment ban or a lesser remedy if competition is not substantially restored through the remedies the court does impose.

B (45:59)

Anyway, let's move on. Let's tell you about Vanta Automate compliance. Manage risk, improve trust continuously. Vanta's trust management platform takes the manual work out of your security compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation, whether you your first framework or managing a complex.

A (46:15)

This is Vanta country.

B (46:16)

This is Vanta country. Annie says B Nestle hire a French CEO. Act surprised that the Frenchman is having taboo debaucherous relations on the job. Their president literally married. Oh, you haven't heard about this? So this was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and we didn't get to it. And then it was also in the Wall Street Journal today.

A (46:35)

Pull it up. Pull up.

B (46:36)

Gotta pull it up. So Nestle has fired their CEO following a probe of a romantic relationship with a subordinate.

A (46:44)

You can't even marry your childhood teacher in this country.

B (46:47)

No, you can. You can you can't have a romantic relationship with a subordinate if you are running Nestle. So Laurent Frichet. I don't know how to pronounce the X in that name, but Laurent is out. After just a year at the top job of the food giant, which is trying to sell a number of underperforming businesses. They dismissed the CEO with immediate effect following an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate that breached the group's code of conduct. The Swiss maker of Nescafe coffee, Purina Pet Food, said Monday that his board had ordered the probe overseen by Chairman Paul Bulk and lead independent director Pablo Isla Isla, with support of an independent outside counsel. This was a necessary decision decision, they said Nestle's values and governance are strong foundations of our company. And I thank Lawrence for his years of service at Nestle. They didn't identify the employee in the relationship, but it's a dramatic shift in the top echelons of Nestle. In little more than a year, he this CEO. Laurent had replaced CEO Mark Schneider in a bid to revive growth as the company grappled with sluggish sales. He was the first outsider to run Nestle since 1922. He was dismissed because he wasn't seen by his board of directors as a cultural fit. The new guy Laurent, who just got fired, who had previously run businesses at Nestle in Europe and Latin America, took the helm of the company in September of 2024. So. So less than a year or exactly a year. In July, they were reviewing some underperforming brands. But let's see, where is it the company's been. So he isn't. So basically he gets fired and then today he's in the news again. Where is it? It's here, I think.

A (48:43)

Not again.

B (48:43)

He's in again with a detail. So an anonymous tip led to the fall of Nestle's CEO, Nestle's chief executive Laurent Frache. His downfall started with an anonymous tip to an internal hotline called Speak Up. Laurent was having an intimate relationship.

A (49:01)

This tip initially came through like last year or something. So it had been bubbling up.

B (49:06)

Yeah. So he was having an intimate relationship with a marketing executive who reported to him. The tipster reported the couple initially denied any relationship. It took two investigations, more hotline reports and a letter to the Nestle chairman before the food company acted. He didn't request for. He didn't respond to requests for comment. Shocking.

A (49:27)

Gabe send a unhinged message in the chat. He says, who cares about this nonsense? The divorce rate is like 50%. Makes your brand more personable. If your CEO is cheating on his brand.

B (49:38)

The real question that we need to dig into is how is Nestle going to come back from this? They got to get Gwyneth Paltrow or something to do some viral video.

A (49:47)

Yeah, Playbook now.

B (49:49)

So the executive's downfall throws Nestle into disarray after the company abruptly ousted its previous chief for underperformance.

A (49:57)

Mark says it's low. Rone. La rone.

B (50:01)

La Rone.

A (50:02)

It's not Laurent.

B (50:03)

Laurent. Oh, La rone.

A (50:05)

Thank you, Laron.

B (50:06)

Wait, how do you pronounce frachet? Is that. Is that. Am I close on that? I don't know. He was Nest quickly. He was nest quickly escorted out of the office. That's really good. Absolute great chatter. So Lauren was 60, is 63 years old and was in Nestle since 1986. He'd refocused the company on core.

A (50:32)

86.

B (50:32)

86. A 40 year run. Almost 40 year run.

A (50:37)

20 years.

B (50:37)

He was like 24 when he joined the company.

A (50:39)

20, 20 years before Tyler was born.

B (50:42)

Yes. Put everything in the context. It's important. Well, so you're telling me that America was founded 220 years before Tyler was born. Wow. Wow. So the French CEO slashed costs to reinvest in more promising products such as cold coffee and shored up Nestle's executive team at the company's headquarters on the shores of Lake Geneva in Veve, Switzerland. I guess I'm probably mispronouncing that too. His Swiss successor, Philip Navratil faces the task of arresting a years long slide in the company shares and restoring calm after scandals, snafus and executive departures. Anyway, there's more.

A (51:26)

Well, speaking of corporate controversy, the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer are accused of of paying star Kawhi Leonard $28 million for a no show job as a way to circumvent the NBA salary cap, according to a report by Pablo Tori. Tori laid out the alleged scandal on his program. Pablo Tori finds out earlier today. The show, which features plenty of direct quotes from legal documents, made the argument that Leonard was paid 28 million through a company owned by Ballmer to essentially do nothing. Ballmer is accused of using this agreement as a way to pay Leonard more than his contract, which if true, is a violation of NBA rules. The entire situation, I thought there was.

B (52:13)

No tax on tips. I thought you could just tip a player if you really like them. And wouldn't that not count in the salary cap?

A (52:19)

Should have just been tipping.

B (52:20)

I feel like he should have Just been tipping.

A (52:22)

And that tip 28 mil to your favorite player on the team.

B (52:25)

Why not?

A (52:26)

Now that why are the entire situation revolves around a now bankrupt company called Aspiration, which is a tree planting service funded by Balmer. So I think tree planting feels like a little bit disingenuous. This was a, I think it was a fintech company that, that had sort of an eco angle to it that had been.

B (52:46)

It would plant a tree every time you like saved a dollar on the app or something.

A (52:49)

Yeah, every time you. Some flywheel, you know, something like that. And so, yeah, Ballmer had invested a lot of money in this company and yet they were effectively paying him as a spokesperson. But in the contract with Kawhi's, one of Kawhi's entities stated that Leonard could decline to proceed with any action desired by the company. So they could say like, hey, you want to do this? And he could say, no thanks. And his contract was still valid. He wasn't violating anything.

B (53:29)

It is an odd choice. I feel like if you're Ballmer and you're a multi billion, I mean, he's one of the richest people in the world, right? And your goal is to get someone who you're effectively doing business with on the court. He's a basketball player. Your goal is to get him an extra $28 million. Isn't there a better way to do that? Like, isn't there, isn't there a way to like set up some fund that's, you know, you cut him in on and then you're actually like doing something economically valuable like go invest, get into.

A (54:05)

Founders fund, growth fund.

B (54:07)

I mean, that's one option, but honestly, it's like, couldn't you just make some calls and get him more super bowl ads and get him more like ad deals? Like just, just make some calls and get it and get some like, legitimate business. Like it doesn't seem like that crazy of a number to try and pull together like somewhat like much more legitimately, you know, like there are probably advertisers out there who would say, oh yeah, like we'll, we'll pay them a couple million dollars to be like our, you know, the face of our brand.

A (54:37)

28 million is a lot though, for a company that it only rated a couple hundred million dollars.

B (54:43)

No, what I'm saying is that like.

A (54:45)

I mean, the question to me is.

B (54:47)

He has the power at Microsoft to say, hey, we're rolling out a new version of Excel and you're going to be the face of the kid.

A (54:53)

The new Clippy is Going to be Kawhi, little Kawhi, hanging out.

B (54:57)

I love it.

A (54:58)

Hanging out, helping you.

B (54:59)

And there's got to be some other way to.

A (55:02)

Well, the way is to actually make him an ambassador for the company. I don't think there's anything illegal about somebody, you know, a basketball player getting a major endorsement deal outside of their team. But I think that the thing that ticks it off is, you know, really big number and then not doing any. Not doing. They weren't able to find any content that Kawaii was in related to aspiration. So signing this big.

B (55:28)

Sort of like if you sign a deal with a company to promote them, you have to run ads for them. You have to tell the audience about graphite code review for the age of AI. Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. Get started for free.

A (55:44)

We always tell you they're not paying.

B (55:46)

Us to get around the podcast or salary cap. No way.

A (55:50)

Yeah, I mean, I read this and I just, I was feeling so grateful that we don't have any salary caps in business.

B (55:55)

Yes, yes, 100%.

A (55:59)

We wouldn't have been able to retain titles.

B (56:01)

I also don't know if I don't know that. I feel that this story is finished. It feels like it's viral and there's some allegations. But I will be reserving my judgment until I hear Steve Ballmer.

A (56:17)

Yeah. The Clippers already responded. They said neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false.

B (56:28)

Yeah, it's like an anonymous inside source from Pablo Torre founds out.

A (56:32)

I mean, I do think if you care, if you, if you care about basketball.

B (56:36)

Yeah.

A (56:37)

And you care about this, if you're another team, are you not like deeply frustrated?

B (56:44)

If it's true, it might not be true. Like, he might have. He might have been like, yeah, I had a deal. We signed the deal. It was 28 million. They did not. They were not very good at planting trees and so they didn't pay me anything and I didn't do any promotion for them. So yes, there's technically a contract or there could not be a contract.

A (57:02)

Crazy.

B (57:02)

It could be this, this anonymous source, like whatever.

A (57:05)

I mean, it's. This is not an anonymous source.

B (57:07)

It says inside source inside.

A (57:09)

I mean, but he's like a capital J journo.

B (57:12)

Pablo Torre.

A (57:13)

Yeah.

B (57:13)

Okay.

A (57:13)

Yeah, he seems, Is he athletic or something? Doing pretty legit journalism.

B (57:18)

Okay.

A (57:18)

But the funny thing is. So Leonard.

B (57:20)

Anonymous.

A (57:21)

Leonard Joined the clippers on a three year, $104 million deal in 2019, re upped in 2021 for 176 million and then re upped again in 2024 for a three year, $149 million extension. And so the $28 million is like, almost like a rounding error in all of this. I mean, it's a big number, but at the same time, like, would he not have joined the Clippers? Would he have gone somewhere else if he hadn't gotten this?

B (57:48)

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the nature of the salary cap is there is more cap space at another, at another.

A (57:56)

NBA. NBA fans in the chat. Does this piss you off or is this fair game for, for, for Kawhi Leonard to be the face of. The faceless face of aspiration? Yeah, aspiration isn't even around anymore. They're. They're chapter 11.

B (58:12)

There are plenty of space. There are plenty of sports with no salary caps. Right. Where they can just spend as much as possible. Isn't F1 kind of like that?

A (58:19)

Maybe. Maybe Kawhi just. Just hates trees and wanted to put this company in the dirt.

B (58:25)

Who knows? Who knows? Anyway, we have massive news from one of our sponsors, Shane Copeland over at polymarket. Polymarket has been given the green light to go live in the United States of America by the cftc.

A (58:39)

Let's go.

B (58:40)

Congratulations to Shane. He has the eagle in his bio or in his name tag. And that is the most appropriate sound effect for today. Credit to the commission and staff for their impressive work. The process has been accomplished in record timing. Fantastic, fantastic turn of events. What a story. Mike Wenner's there in the reply saying ban to approval in three and a half years is an absolute speedrun. Very, very difficult. To get new things done in the government generally is very tricky and they figured it out. So congrats to everyone over there. And if you're tracking, if you're tracking any, any news, head over to Polymarket to check it out. We, we of course have Polymarket powering our ticker down there. Anyway, I want your review of the new Aston Martin Vanquish, particularly this one. This is your favorite colorway, right? Green over tan.

A (59:35)

Yes.

B (59:36)

So it's green over tan. It's finished in historic California Sage, over 21 inch liquid silver wheels that features a 5.2 liter V12 twin turbo with 800, 235 horsepower and 1001 Newton meters of torque.

A (59:52)

I absolutely love the Vanquish.

B (59:53)

Yes.

A (59:54)

I think I want to pick one up when they're half off in two years.

B (59:57)

You think there'll be a depreciation?

A (59:59)

I think this is like a half a million dollar car right now. Feels like it's going to be a quarter million dollar car in a couple years.

B (60:06)

Why do you think Aston Martins depreciate so much faster than Ferraris? I mean, limited run nature. What's driving it?

A (60:17)

One big issue over the last few years has been the lack of James Bond movements. Internal electronics have been extremely dated. So until the last two years they were extremely dated.

B (60:29)

Is that true for Ferrari? Is Ferrari known for like amazing carplay integrations?

A (60:34)

I mean, not to the same degree. I mean if you buy a 2021 Aston Martin, it feels like, like sitting in a car from like 15 years ago and people just don't like that. Right. Like I've looked at them and I'm like if I'm driving this around, can.

B (60:47)

You just rip all that out and get one of those aftermarket things with like twin 1212 inch subwoofers in the back?

A (60:53)

It's kind of, it's kind of janky.

B (60:54)

I think you'd put it on spinners and take it to the pimp my ride shop with exhibit and throw a, throw a TV in the front. I don't know. Or you could pull off like, you know what the cops do where they put the full laptop next to them? Have you seen that where you pull up next to a police officer?

A (61:09)

Oh yeah.

B (61:09)

And they have the full laptop and.

A (61:11)

You'Re like, wait, you're pulling somebody over.

B (61:12)

For using their phone and you're on your laptop.

A (61:15)

Oh, you're watching tvpn?

B (61:17)

Yeah. Little hypocritical, don't you think? Oh, well.

A (61:23)

But yes.

B (61:24)

Why? Yeah, why?

A (61:30)

Lawrence Stroll is out to win win in the categories. Taking it very seriously. They've, they've upped their manufacturers like guarantees. Now they've made it much easier decision. We'll see, we'll see how these do. I still think they lack the kind of like cult, the scale of the cult following that obviously Porsche has. But I think in this case I, I like this colorway. I think green on T, green on tan. The Meta, it's timeless. But I think the Meta is fading and brown on brown, brown on brown.

B (62:04)

Yeah, we saw brown on brown, brown on brown Porsche at the gym yesterday. I tried to, jumped out of the car to go shake the person down.

A (62:13)

And tried to made a bid.

B (62:15)

You made a bid?

A (62:15)

Well, I just said would you sell me your car?

B (62:17)

You said that?

A (62:18)

Yeah.

B (62:18)

Oh, I didn't Realize that's why you went out.

A (62:19)

Woman said no.

B (62:20)

That's hilarious. But Brown on Brown, the most bullish catalyst for this vanquish going asymptotic and going into the stratosphere in terms of price. Aston Martin is of course partnered with public.com that's right. And so all the public.com fans, the investors who take it seriously because they have multi asset investing industry leading yields trusted by millions. All the public.com fans will buy Aston Martins now.

A (62:45)

And public is a sponsor of the US Open and some tennis players.

B (62:49)

So is Aston Martin paying public to. Whoa, that's a good sound. Smell it.

A (62:56)

Oh, I don't think. I don't think you're supposed to.

B (62:57)

You're definitely supposed to smell it. That's the rule number one of opening a ball of tennis and tennis trying.

A (63:02)

To kill me, John. Anyways, these are fantastic.

B (63:05)

This is really.

A (63:06)

We got to get it. I mean we almost have room for, for court here now.

B (63:10)

Now are those actually tennis balls or could those be used for some of the less popular sports? The Padel and the, and the pickleball.

A (63:17)

Oh, I think, I think it would be wrong to use these for anything but tennis. Tennis.

B (63:21)

Does Padel or Pickle have like this different ball?

C (63:24)

Pickleball does.

B (63:25)

Pickleball has its own ball.

A (63:26)

What does Padel use?

B (63:28)

I don't know. Anyway, thank you to the public.

A (63:32)

Padel have. Have higher pressure, thicker, slightly larger size.

B (63:37)

Okay, interesting.

A (63:40)

Well, standard tennis balls are. Padel is smaller I guess. Anyways.

B (63:46)

Yes. Well, Klarna is going public and Eli says that's a good one. Says interested in this IPO. But $35 seems like a lot to pay all at once. Would it be possible to split this up into four interest free payments? Of course. Hilarious.

A (64:08)

This is what that company, this is what Basic Cap, Basic Capital is doing. They're basically. Oh, they are leverage to the people for your 401k.

B (64:16)

Yeah. Pay later. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean we talked to Max Levchin at a firm, we've talked to Sebastian at Klarna and affirm's doing very well. So that probably bodes well for Klarna going out at the same time it's oddly competitive. It's kind of shocking to me that there's such a duopoly here and one company hasn't run away with it. Like Shopify has really compounded and compounded and compounded and really defeated a lot of the other E Commerce platforms. But in terms of the payment processors, it's been much more oligopolistic Maybe it's just because the dynamic of the buyer wants to bid the two against each other. So like the Stripe ad yen dynamic kind of comes to Klarna and Affirm. But both really big companies will get to see the financials and dig into Klarna as they go out.

A (65:07)

Klarna's Total revenue in 2024 was 2.8 billion billion. Firm's 2024 revenue was 2.3 billion.

B (65:16)

Wow, they're really close.

A (65:17)

Made a very narrow profit in 2024. $21 million that see it and so yeah, they've been cutting but yeah, I mean credit to Klarna for, for getting this scale while competing against Max Levch.

B (65:36)

It is crazy.

A (65:37)

That is like a nightmare, nightmare competitor.

B (65:40)

There's also something very, very odd about the Klarna and Adyen are both European companies. Correct. And they both compete with like Stripe and Affirm. These like sort of PayPal mafia esque silicon Valley firms that have been doing it the very Silicon Valley way. Like there's this odd dynamic that's in both companies.

A (66:01)

Yeah, yeah. So one of the things cutting into Klarna's product profitability is their just like credit losses. They lost half a billion dollars last year, which is more than they spent on sales and marketing.

B (66:14)

Interesting. And is that just because people sign up for Klarna, they do the buy now, pay later thing and they just.

A (66:20)

Bail like they buy a burrito and they say so yeah.

B (66:22)

Does that not get sent to collections? I imagine it does, but eventually it doesn't get.

A (66:25)

Well I think part of their value wasn't there part of their value prop is that it's not tied to your.

B (66:31)

Completely optional to pay. It has to hurt your credit score. Right? I imagine. I mean maybe it goes into some sort of database but the idea that you could just go around and use buy now, pay later willy nilly and never pay your later bart does not seem sustainable anyway. If you're looking to slice up a bunch of financial data, do it on Julius. What analysis do you want to run? Chat with your data and get expert level insights in seconds. It's the AI data and analyst that works for you used by Princeton, BCG and Zapier Klarna.

A (67:07)

Get on Julius before you go public for sure. Thank us later for sure.

B (67:11)

Let's go to this tier List by Mert Helios.dev he's been on the show. Good friend. He says a city tier list that will trigger everyone, but is true. S tier is Moscow and Tokyo. A tier is NYC B tier is Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Istanbul, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur and Austin. C tier is Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Seoul, Chicago and Rome. D tier is Los Angeles. Come on, Mert, you're doing us dirty here.

A (67:43)

Of course, I think that LA is definitely a D tier city. I love living in Los Angeles county, but the city. The city itself is mid.

B (67:55)

Yeah, we should do a. We should do our own tier list. Can you wipe that down, Tyler?

A (68:00)

And yeah. Start working on A tier list.

B (68:02)

Just, just draw up the. The S, A, B, C, D, F and. And we'll fill in them. We'll throw them out. This is so funny because one of the first replies, sf not even on the list is accurate. And SF is on the list in B tier. Reading comprehension. Not quite there, Sam, but good job. I like the.

A (68:24)

But I mean putting. Putting Austin above places like Paris and Berlin.

B (68:32)

It's a good mog. You did a really good job of like, like.

A (68:35)

No, this is the perfect post.

B (68:36)

It is a great post.

A (68:37)

Like, you'll get people that agree and people that disagree and it's perfectly controversial.

B (68:41)

Yep.

A (68:44)

Anyways, I. I got a text from a. A financial technology expert that says most BNPL providers don't report to bureaus because the bureau systems haven't been able to use the data intelligently they've tried to fix. But they're a cluster F. So that's interesting. Klarna is like, hey, we got a lot of. I mean, the thing that Klarna can obviously do is say, like, if somebody buys a burrito and doesn't pay for it, they can just like not work with that customer.

B (69:11)

So when you try and hit it the second time, you. You don't get a chance.

A (69:13)

Yeah. Most consumers would be like, I want to keep having options.

B (69:17)

Options.

A (69:18)

Probably pay it back.

B (69:20)

Yeah. Well, there was a. Timeline was in turmoil. A little battle between the Scrote Goat and Nikita beer. Very interesting. Nikita's having a hilarious time on ax.

A (69:31)

I feel like on an absolute rule. I'm so happy that. I'm so happy that he took.

B (69:36)

It's really the best. It's just the best. Like narrative art, basically.

A (69:41)

Poster in residence.

B (69:42)

Yeah.

A (69:43)

But then gets to mold the platform.

B (69:45)

Totally. I mean, I think I've been having a good time. I haven't noticed any like, really negative changes. It seems like there's some intractable problems.

A (69:53)

Dude, it's great. Did you notice the changes they made on video? Like they totally updated the ui.

B (69:59)

Oh, really? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the buttons down at the bottom. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Let's do the tier list.

A (70:06)

Now this account though is rocket. You know, actually adding followers now for getting in this war. And this is Nikita's advice. Remember he said if you're a tiny account on Twitter, the best thing you can do is go and pick a fight with the biggest account you can find.

B (70:22)

And that's exactly what this guy's doing. It's so good. So yeah, Scrotegoat says, like, I have eight followers and they're all bots and the algorithms keeping my reach from being like, you know, like I'm not getting enough reach. The only way to get reach is via comments. 9followers is a byproduct of no reach. And Nikita says maybe the Scrote Goat is not the best name for your account. Nah, man. Like, if anything, it's an all timer. People should follow it just for the name and it works. And Scrotegoat said, the truth always wins. Nikitabeer got 600 likes. And I checked, the account had a couple hundred followers, so we might be looking at a future hall of fame poster. Okay, Tyler, let's do the tier list. I want to go first and then you can do your tier list. Maybe we can just do a little line down the center. Can you do a line down the center after the city tier list? A little bit farther. A little bit farther. So that we can put mine. Okay, so yeah, that's fine. So I'll start with F tier. I'll agree with Mert. I'll put London in F tier just like Mert did. And Mert also has Toronto and Brussels. He has it in D tier. I'll leave Toronto and Brussels in F tier as well. So for me, I think we're good. Yeah. So put Toronto and Brussels in F tier then for la.

A (71:53)

Have you been to Toronto?

B (71:54)

Yeah. Terrible. Then Los Angeles. He put it in D tier. I'll actually go S tier. I love la. It's fantastic. I'll put LA there. Then in C tier, he has Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Seoul and Rome. I would is a little controversial. I would put those in F tier. So I'd put Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Seoul. So Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Seoul and Rome all in F tier. Then for in B tier, in B tier, he put San Francisco and Austin. I put those in S tier. So put those up there. And then he put Dubai in B tier. This is gonna be a little controversial, but I would put Dubai in F tier. Yeah. He also put Hong Kong in B tier.

A (72:41)

Sensing a pattern.

B (72:42)

I think that's F tier. Let's put Hong Kong down there. And then also Istanbul, I'd put that in F tier. And then New York City, he put in A tier. I'd put it in S tier. And then also I'd also add Phoenix in S tier. And Philadelphia, just put Billy. And then San Diego. I mean, have you been to San Diego? Absolutely. Put an S tier. And then Dallas. Let's put Dallas in S tier. And you got Chicago. Oh, you missed Chicago. Chicago's obviously S tier. Okay, cool. Yeah, we're good. And then Moscow and Tokyo. He had them in S tier. Let's go D tier. Let's go D tier. D tier. No, no.

A (73:24)

Tyler, what are you doing? What are you doing?

B (73:26)

D tier. Moscow and Tokyo. We'll give him a bone. And so this is kind of like how I think of the city's tier list.

A (73:32)

But your view of the world broadly.

B (73:34)

It's kind of my worldview right now. And so, yeah, I mean, you can see some patterns.

A (73:39)

Probably the next time your passport expires, you probably won't even renew it. Right. Like, what do I need a passport for? Why would I have. I have a long list of S tier cities.

B (73:50)

I could be in Philly.

A (73:51)

I could be in Philly.

B (73:51)

I would go to Tokyo.

A (73:53)

Why would I go to London?

B (73:56)

London, Paris, Rome. And I could be in Baltimore. The London of Pennsylvania.

A (74:04)

Wait, the London of the East.

B (74:06)

Baltimore, Maryland. Anyway, what about you, Jordy? Do you want to do. Take a crack?

A (74:12)

I don't think. I don't think I could.

B (74:13)

You don't think you can undo my tier list?

A (74:16)

I don't think I can. I don't think. My only. Controversial. I mean, I don't.

B (74:19)

Oh, we got some questions in the chat. How we feeling about Charlotte, North Carolina?

A (74:23)

S tier, for sure.

B (74:25)

I think it's S tier. Yeah. Charlotte is probably S tier. It's part of the. Isn't it part of the research triangle? It's what of the greatest places to New Orleans. How do we miss Nola? Nola in the S tier. New Orleans is definitely S tier. Oh, Mark says it's not S tier. Maybe we got to move it down to A tier. I don't know. Nola. It's not that good.

A (74:48)

That's a lonely, lonely A tier city.

B (74:51)

Yeah. Okay. Anyway.

A (74:53)

Oh, good stuff.

B (74:55)

Yeah. And then.

A (74:55)

Yeah, but also that LA's S tier is in that it's sunny, we're here hundreds, hundreds of days a year, and it's absolutely stunning. But functionally, it's a terrible city.

B (75:10)

Here's a tough one. Where Would you put Pyongyang?

A (75:14)

People love pif.

B (75:16)

Love pif.

A (75:17)

The Pyongyang investment fund.

B (75:19)

Yep. Highly authoritarian. Some people are into that these days.

A (75:24)

Limited food option.

B (75:26)

I don't think you could put Pyongyang in S tier, but I think it's.

A (75:30)

Definitely within the in the top.

B (75:31)

Do you remember when, when 4chan tried to send Justin Bieber to Pyongyang. Do you see this? Oh, this is amazing. This is like one of the greatest. Like the Internet does something funny. So Justin Bieber put up a poll on online saying I will pick my next tour date. I'm going on a world tour. I'll let the fans vote. And if the fans vote for a particular city, I'll go to the that city. And so of course the fans voted for North Korea. You gotta go to North Korea. And it was like a classic lesson in like, do not let the Internet decide anything.

A (76:02)

You could pick any. You could.

B (76:03)

Yeah, you could pick any.

A (76:04)

Suggest a city.

B (76:05)

You could suggest any city. And he was like, I'll go where the fans want me to go. Where do I have the most fans?

A (76:10)

North Korea.

B (76:11)

Of course. The fans were like, go to North Korea. Need to be like, I'm not going to North Korea. Anyway, thank you for doing the city tier list. Now let me tell you about Turbo Puffer search. Every bite serverless We Puffin and full tag search built from first principles and object storage. Fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable. If you're.

A (76:30)

You want to be like cursor, you want to be like notion, you want.

B (76:33)

To be like linear. Can we pull that up again? I, I, this website, this is honestly the biggest reason why I was excited to partner with them was you have to go to their website. It's so beautifully designed and it's so the layout is awesome.

A (76:47)

We and it's a, it's officially puffin. We're puffin, baby, and you should too.

B (76:52)

Yeah. Go check out Turbo Puffer. Anyway, let's move on to another Nikita post.

A (76:59)

Yep. Nikita says Nikita's apparently gets a lot of DMs from people that gets their accounts suspended for spam. They say I wasn't spamming, I was just commenting the same thing on every post, regardless of the context. Elizabeth Holmes says, dear Nikita, rumors swirl that my account's been hijacked for a crypto rug pull. Not true. It hasn't. Please don't suspend me unless I start shilling a coin for then it's surely compromised. Thank you for your attention to this matter. You gotta know, I mean she's mixing a lot of stuff in here.

B (77:31)

So my theory is that it's the husband. I don't think that. I think it's hard to get access to a phone and post from prison. We should have Martin Shkreli on again to discuss, like, the theories behind what's going on here.

A (77:44)

Because could she get a printed out? Like, you know, could she get a hundred posts a day delivered to her that are just like.

B (77:51)

Basically you can get fan mail letters.

A (77:53)

And then she could write back replies.

B (77:55)

Absolutely.

A (77:55)

Letters, one by one.

B (77:56)

What are the timestamps on here? 2 hours ago, 8:45am it feels like it's too quick of a turnaround. At the same time, there have been reports of, like, mob bosses, gang members in prison who get access to cell phones that get smuggled in. I mean, all sorts of stuff gets smuggled into prisons. They're not the most secure places. They're designed to keep people in, not necessarily keep everything out. So they bribe someone, they get something in. And there was a case where, I believe in la, there was a gang member who was calling hits on people from prison, like organizing crimes from inside the clink. So not very good. And yes, SBF did do the pod from prison. I'm not sure how they did that. It might have been over the prison.

A (78:39)

No, but he was. He got in trouble at the prison for doing.

B (78:41)

Yeah, but I don't actually know the rules. Like, are you allowed to do pods in prison over the cell phone? Like, I don't. Can you record that? It feels like building. I know that after you go to prison, you can't sell your life rights. Like, you can't make a bunch of money off of selling the rights to your movie or your book. Like, I, I think it just doesn't work like that. I actually don't know enough about it. We should, we should dig in much more and do a whole deep dive. Tyler, did you have something else do you want to share on?

C (79:05)

I was thing because, I mean, he had a laptop, so.

B (79:09)

Beautiful laptop. But was he posting too? Is he still posting? I don't know if he was. It like the novelty kind of, like, wore off for sure. Either way, Elizabeth Holmes gotta clean up her SEO results. She's gotta get her brand mentioned in ChatGPT. No, she doesn't. But serious businesses do. And serious businesses need to use profound business. You need to get your brand mentioned in ChatGPT. Reach millions of consumers who are using AI to discover new products and brands more important than ever in the age of agentic Commerce. What's coming is a lot of consumers buying a lot of things through discovering.

A (79:44)

Learning through LLMs, being recommended.

B (79:46)

You need to know how you're showing up, and profound helps you do that.

A (79:49)

So this was. This is crazy. Morning Brew has some. A highlight from the athletic. Stream east, the world's largest illegal sports streaming platform shut down in a sting. They had 80 unauthorized domains, 136 million average monthly visits, and 1.6 billion total visits in the last year. The digital equivalent of catching black people.

B (80:13)

Whoever writes for Morning Brew, Fantastic, fantastic. Writes crushing it.

A (80:18)

So Stream east was the bane of Dana White's ex ufc, I'm sure. Yeah. So a lot of the pay per views were streamed over. Over here. And this. I would assume that this platform alone, you know, accounted for a billion plus of, like, lost revenue for the ufc, has been operating for years. Anybody from anywhere in the world could just tune in and watch pay per View. And I think that this was like a game of whack a Mole. Like, they had all these different domains they'd be buying. Every. Every time they spin up a new domain, they have one getting shut down. And people are just like, you know.

B (80:59)

I wonder if they're. This is oddly timed because if you think about it, like, what's coming in the next couple weeks that would be illegally streamed. That's not gonna be publicly streamed, that everyone's gonna want to watch. It's obviously the Antichrist lectures in San Francisco. Peter Thiel's hosting. Yeah. So they shut that down. They shut down this. Because people are gonna go there with a phone and livestream it. But, you know, everything's off the record. Right. What do you think, Tyler? Would you be tuning in on Streamys, breaking the rules?

C (81:28)

Yeah. So, like, I personally have a. I have a couple guys there who are going. I have a plug, you know.

B (81:33)

Oh, yeah.

C (81:33)

My personal streaming.

B (81:34)

Yeah.

C (81:34)

But, yeah.

B (81:35)

Oh, so they're gonna, like, FaceTime you, and you can just watch.

A (81:37)

Well, just be sitting in their pocket.

C (81:39)

I'm not gonna reveal.

B (81:42)

Yeah, I was trying to think of, like. Like, why am I not familiar with this? Why am I. This is the first time I'm hearing about Stream East. It's because, like, like, well, I don't watch sports at all. And I. And I don't. And I can't think of anything that I would want to watch that's behind. I've never bought a pay per view in my life.

A (82:03)

You just freeload off of Rob?

B (82:05)

Yep, I freeload off of you.

A (82:07)

Nice, dude. Nice.

B (82:08)

For sure. And other than That. I mean, are there other. Was their entire business just like ufc, piracy? Like, what else is all sports?

A (82:19)

Because there's people that don't have cable.

B (82:20)

Oh, so you want to ask.

C (82:23)

Yes. So, like, I also don't really watch sports, but at. At school, in college, Stream east is like. I mean, everyone knows Stream East. Like, that's like basically the default rather than. I mean, some people have like the cable equivalent or something. Yeah, but yeah, every ufc, every football game.

A (82:39)

Yeah, and they were monetizing like crazy, right, because they have 136 million visits. Imagine how much sports bet sign ups.

B (82:46)

Can you pull a list of all your friends who are using Streamy so we can contact the authorities and make sure that they.

A (82:51)

Let's include them in the sting.

B (82:52)

Yeah, let's get. They owe Dana White money and we're gonna collect. Okay, let's make Uncle Dana. No, I have a funny story. I had a buddy in college who was very much into watching football, did not have cable. And he and I go over to his like, Harvard dorm room and he pulls up a website and he's like, I can watch sports on here. I can watch my Raiders. Even though they're not even like. Like the Raiders game is so local to. I guess they were in Oakland at the time that like, even if you paid, you'd have to be on like the highest tier of NFL Sunday ticket to get access to a cross country game. Like, you could, like, if you were. If you were at school in Boston, you could get like, nessen. The local regional sports network, New England Sports Network, and you could see the Patriots games and then the local news channel or the local sports channel would show you like the local games. Like, you probably see like the. I don't know, the New York. What is it? The Giants. Like, they'd play and like, they'd be local, so they'd be played. But you couldn't just go see the Raiders unless you paid the highest tier. It was really expensive. No one wanted to pay. And so he gets on his laptop, he pulls up this website and he's like, I can watch the Raiders on this website. Do you know what website it was? Justin tv.

A (84:06)

No way.

B (84:06)

Yeah. And. And the. It was the funniest thing because. Because he explains it to me. He's like, yeah, anyone can go on Justin tv. This is Pre Twitch.

A (84:14)

They're saying we should Citizens arrest Tyler's friends for using Streamys.

B (84:19)

Yeah, yeah, that guy's.

A (84:20)

No show tomorrow. We're.

B (84:22)

Can you invite them? Tell them that we're hiring like tons of interns and they pay really high and like they gotta get out here. Just. It's a one week citizen's arrest.

A (84:30)

On the stream. On the stream in support of Dana White.

B (84:33)

But. So my buddy pulls up Justin Timber.

A (84:35)

TV and it's like, yeah, apparently Mark, Mark in The chat says LeBron uses Stream East. I guess he was. Was he like, I feel like I remember this. Was he like, oh, I've seen this?

B (84:45)

Well, a lot of people do this. Oh, F1 was big on streaming. Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of people do it just because it's a hassle to figure out how to do the pet.

A (84:53)

Grace says, I would never watch Stream east because then I wouldn't see the local ads. That's an affront advertising industry.

B (84:59)

Thank you.

A (85:00)

Thank you, Trey.

B (85:00)

Thank you, Trey.

A (85:01)

Thank you. Supporting big television advertising.

B (85:04)

So my buddy is watching Justin tv. Justin TV had all sorts of crazy. Because anyone could spin up a stream so people would do all sorts of crazy stuff. The gaming thing was the first intersection of like, oh, wow, this is legal and growing and it's a niche that no one else is catering to. Like, G4TV existed, which was a TV channel just for video games. And it was like scripted content and talk shows and interview shows. They had a whole bunch of stuff, but. But there wasn't that much video game content. So like, like they eventually pivoted into Twitch and figured out that was the right thing. But before they pivoted, Justin TV was playing Whack a mole with all the scammers, all the illegal streams, and it was like a huge hassle. And of course you get adult content, all sorts of stuff.

A (85:44)

But the funny thing, and it's a interesting challenge for a platform like that that's trying to bootstrap itself and get a lot of content and users because that's some of the most in demand. Content is like an NFL game.

B (85:56)

Look at the visits on this. Stream east had 136 million apps.

A (86:00)

They're like, we got it. We got to take, we got to knock out these, these illegal streams. But at the same time, isn't that.

B (86:06)

More than all of F1 combined or something like that?

A (86:08)

Yeah.

B (86:09)

Isn't F1 at like 100 million or something like that?

A (86:11)

No, they get like a few million live viewers in the US and then.

B (86:17)

And then an incremental hundred million on Stream East. And so, yeah, they should be selling those ads. Hey, if you're putting your logo on a F1 car, it's gonna be seen on streamy. So you Gotta pay up anyway.

A (86:28)

Wait, this, should we pull up this video, this hot mic moment?

B (86:33)

Yes, but I want to, I want to close out. So I. So my buddy is like Justin TV is explaining to me and he's like, he describes it to me as like there's just a guy named Justin and he has a website where you can watch this stuff and didn't have this conception and it kind of was that way but really it's like there was a team behind it and Emma Chair was there and a bunch of other.

A (86:51)

Wasn't Justin and Emmett.

B (86:53)

No. At that point they probably had 10 or 20 people. But there was this, there was this moment in like 2007, 2008 where like people didn't realize that websites were companies that had organizations and stocks and like could become like massive. Like Facebook. Like, like the, in 2005 when people were first introduced to Facebook, they were like, oh, it's like some kid at Harvard like put up a website.

A (87:12)

Justin was so early.

B (87:15)

Yeah. Well, if you're trying to build the next great streaming platform, do it legally and do it using Linear. LINEAR is a purpose built tool for planning and building products. Meet the system for modern software development, streamline issues, projects and product roadmaps. Start building on Linear. Let's pull up the hot mic moment on CCTV first. Truth Zone. Is this real or is this dubbed and faked like this says? This was picked up by Bloomberg. This seems crazy. I would like to know if this is real, but let's play it and then we'll decide if it's real.

A (87:46)

Yep, Bloomberg confirmed.

B (87:50)

Okay, so this is Season Ping talking.

A (87:53)

We can't see the subtitles. Okay, start it over.

B (88:03)

Yeah. What are the subtitles now?

A (88:05)

They're here.

B (88:06)

Okay.

A (88:08)

What's he saying these days? 70 years old. Earlier people rarely lived, but these days, 70 years, you're still a child.

B (88:14)

Still a child. Amazing. Putin speaks inaudible how are they picking this up on this microphone? So rough.

A (88:28)

With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted and people can live younger and younger and even achieve. Achieve immortality.

B (88:35)

Immortality. Wow. Predictions are this century there's a chance of living to 150 years old. That is crazy.

A (88:45)

She is, is. He's like, I'm just getting started.

B (88:48)

Actually, I'm down.

C (88:49)

Extremely bullish for new limit. Jacob Kimmel.

B (88:52)

True, true. Extremely bullish. Speaking of old people, guess who the old people billionaire in America is. His name's or guess how old he is. The oldest billionaire in America.

A (89:08)

94.

B (89:11)

You're 10 years short. Turns out 104 in September. He founded the insurer Mercury General in 1961. His name is George Joseph. We got to get a founder's episode on this guy if there isn't already one. And that is an incredible run. 61, that's what, 50 years before Tyler was born. The chat's calling it BT before Tyler.

A (89:35)

BT.

B (89:36)

BT. The journal has a fun article deep diving all the biggest billionaires in America.

A (89:44)

He also has non traditional background. He actually got his bachelor's degree at Harvard.

B (89:52)

The youngest to oldest anonymized mostly. The Koch and Koch Jr. Are under 30. They're billionaires. Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift are under 40. While 86% of the billionaires are men. More than 150 out of the thousand that the Wall Street Journal collected are women, including Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift. Mark Zuckerberg's in his 40s, has a huge circle here on this graphic. Musk page. Brin. These guys are all topping the charts. Elon Musk is at 423 billion. The next richest person, Jeff Bezos is worth 283 billion. Of course. 423 billion. There's only 300 million Americans. So that's enough to make every American a millionaire if he just gave his money away.

A (90:42)

That's how it works.

B (90:43)

It's way better for him to keep it because he gets to do all the cool stuff with. Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker and President Trump are among more than 360 billionaires who started with some inherited wealth.

A (90:57)

Just a bit.

B (90:59)

Jensen Wong's on here. Steve Ballmer's on here. He's almost 70. The Waltons are on here and they're in their 70s. Milken's on here. He's almost 80. What a run to go to jail. Come out. Still hold on to a billion. Not bad. Larry Ellison's, Geffen's on here. George Lucas is on here. It's a murderer's row. You love it. Rockefeller. There's still a Rockefeller. Who's alive? Who's Rockefeller?

A (91:25)

So did you. Did you cover this collectively? These people. You were joking. But these people are worth 5.7 trillion. That's enough wealth to buy a Corvette Stingray convertible for every 65 plus US driver.

B (91:38)

Wait, did you actually do this?

A (91:40)

Math Journal did this. Yeah.

B (91:41)

That's hilarious.

A (91:42)

So that, that's 4.7 trillion. A four year Harvard tuition, room and board for 1 million students plus $10,000 annual stipend. Only 388 billion.

B (91:51)

How much, how much are they worth in total?

A (91:54)

5.7 trillion. I am deaf.

B (91:59)

Congratulations.

A (92:00)

That one hurts. All the stock in McDonald's, Delta Airlines, Ford and Lululemon.

B (92:04)

There we go.

A (92:05)

And every resident, every residential property in Chicago. 245 billion with 8 billion to spare. That was not that impressive.

B (92:12)

This is a weird stat from the Journal. So, so they collected, they collected what, a thousand, 1,135 billionaires.

A (92:21)

So, so I got to put their stat and stats in the true zone because if you tried to buy a Corvette STINGRAY for every 65 plus us.

B (92:29)

Oh, it's going to drive the market.

A (92:30)

Price way, way, way up. You're to, going to, you're going to get, you're going to hit real scarcity, real, real quick.

B (92:39)

You might be able to lease a Model 3 for everyone.

A (92:41)

But, but is this not like an incredibly. Like you could get a Corvette for every American 65 plus a four year degree for 1 million students. You could buy McDonald's, Delta, Ford and Lululemon and some property in Chicago. And that's, that's, that's the Journal saying, like, look how much, how much they have to spare.

B (93:01)

I mean, can you imagine how long it would take to calculate all the sales tax for all those Corvette Stingray?

A (93:06)

I don't even think about it. I'd rather spend five minutes, I'd rather.

B (93:09)

Spend five minutes with numeral sales tax and autopilot spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax supplies. In fact, it's the only way you could actually execute that deal to buy 300 million Corvette stingrays. But this is a funny stat. So billionaires are everywhere. So they track 1,000 billionaires right in the US they own more than 3,000 homes. That's only three per person. I feel like that's not that many. Like if you're a billionaire and a house is like 10, 20 million, these.

A (93:38)

Must be residential properties. But still that seems extremely low.

B (93:42)

Yeah, it seems like the data was not like widely available. I feel like they must have like, oh, that's only what they could like pull together. But there's a lot more homes.

A (93:51)

A lot of these billions, like 20.

B (93:52)

Homes just in Palo Alto.

A (93:53)

A lot of these only, only, only a third of them inherited wealth, meaning that the other 700 or so are not beating the American dream allegations. This is the real headline here. 700 billionaires in America are not beating the American dream allegations. They were born, they didn't inherit anything and they created billions of dollars of wealth. They're not beating the allegation, they're not beating the allegations. They are living the American dream. The American dream, they can't deny it.

B (94:20)

Started with allocation, inherited nothing, and now they empire. Now they own not one, not two, but three homes on average. What's funny is I feel like I heard this story about like Bill Gates owns like a thousand homes or something like that, or like all the land or whatever.

A (94:34)

Like, I know, I know Ken Griffin.

B (94:37)

He owns 50 homes.

A (94:38)

You don't even have to be a bean air to be. To be just collecting homes on the fly, just browsing.

B (94:42)

I feel like I see a guy on Instagram every other day. But buy a four plex, buy seven homes, rent them out, make a billion dollars.

A (94:49)

I'm assuming this is like residential, so it's not like units.

B (94:52)

What they actually. Yeah, like one real estate developer billionaire would own more than 300 homes. You think? Isn't Blackrock counted? Don't black. Doesn't Black Rock own like a bajillion homes or something? That they own it?

A (95:03)

They own 105% of all the homes in America.

B (95:06)

But that's. That's just because they're counting the tents at Burning man in Black Rock City as individual homes. If you take those out, I mean, like, you can't count a BlackRock tent as a BlackRock owned home because it's not really a permanent home. It doesn't make any sense. I don't get it. Also underrated Alpha. If you're trying to be the only billionaire in a state, you gotta go to Wyoming and Alaska because there's no billionaires with primary businesses in Wyoming and Alaska.

A (95:38)

Primary business.

B (95:39)

Primary businesses. So, like, you know, so just move.

A (95:41)

Your business business there.

B (95:43)

Yeah, I mean, Alaska, it's just sitting there waiting. It is crazy that Wyoming. I feel like they're super, like crypto friendly. You think there'd be somebody who like, went and built some massive thing there, but it hasn't happened. At least not yet.

A (95:55)

Jack on X said Costco should get into web services. Kirkland Cloud would clean up.

B (96:02)

It really would. I would be repping Kirkland Cloud. We would build on Kirkland.

A (96:06)

This is interesting. Scheele highlights. German discount grocer. Lidl Lidl Lidl L I D L. Okay. Little Lidl built their own cloud infrastructure because of German data laws and now has a $2 billion revenue business selling it to others.

B (96:21)

It actually worked.

A (96:22)

If you're a retailer, get into Neo Cloud. Get into Cloud.

B (96:25)

Costco should do NeoCloud. Buy GPUs by the bulk. Iraq, do you get this meme? The Dr. Strange tweet or how I learned to love the RT. Just after the. Just after the Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were caught on a hot mic, there's this meme of this woman looking at this screen. And this is the. This is the. What would you say?

A (96:49)

No, I don't. I missed. I missed the original meme. Tyler, you were born.

B (96:53)

Do you understand this meme?

A (96:54)

Do you understand this meme when it's the woman looking.

B (96:56)

Yeah.

C (96:57)

Screen.

B (96:57)

Yeah. Yeah, it's like some Netflix documentary or Apple tv.

C (97:02)

Yeah, I never watched the show either. Yeah, I think it's like. It's just like a boomer meme. It's like, oh, what it. Like, the old woman is like, doesn't understand.

A (97:11)

Wow.

B (97:12)

Okay.

A (97:12)

We are boomers because we don't understand the boomer meme.

B (97:16)

Yeah, it's kind of a meta boomer take. I don't know.

A (97:19)

It's a boomerang.

B (97:20)

Anyway, right back, Always, like, her looking.

C (97:22)

At the screens, like, oh, what do they mean by this?

B (97:24)

I'm curious to know what the actual show is, because it's like the original photo of that meme. It looked cinematic. It looked interesting. And, of course, I have to watch 100% of the movies around here since Jordy isn't lifting his weight. Anyway. Do you see this interaction between Daniel Tenrero and Rune? Do you think this is real? So Daniel says, hedge fund guys are so much more fun to spend time with than tech guys. Rigorous, irreverent, and don't have their heads up their own butt. And Rune says, bro tweeted this five minutes after we got done hanging out. And do you think it's real? Do you think it's actually happening? Is it trolling Rune, or do you think this is just completely random and Rune's just, like, taking the opportunity?

A (98:08)

Run is in sf, and I think.

B (98:09)

I think Daniel's in New York City. Rune's been on a little trip. He was in LA briefly. I didn't get a chance to meet up with him, but do you want to hang out with him soon?

A (98:19)

Hedge fund guys are serious guys.

B (98:21)

Serious? That's what he said. He's saying irreverent. That's the opposite of serious.

A (98:25)

No, they're serious about making money. More serious than venture capital.

B (98:28)

This is the, what, Jeremy Giffon take that investors are more interesting than founders. The fox and the hedgehog thing, right?

A (98:35)

Is that a public take?

B (98:36)

Yeah, it was at the Founders. It was at the Founders event with David center, which I don't know if that was ever streamed or released, so maybe it's Not. But you're leaked. Sorry, bro.

A (98:45)

I mean, yeah. Founders that are. The average founder that is incredibly locked in knows a lot about their business and their market, not a lot about other things.

B (98:54)

Yep.

A (98:54)

And it's more difficult to be a generational investor, you know, only knowing about a super narrow.

B (99:04)

It's like the fox and the hedgehog. Right? That's the. That. That's the analogy. The fox knows a little bit about a lot of different things. The hedgehog knows one big thing that's like the mind. What's it called? Like the mindset. The. What was it called? Like the. I don't know, framework. The mental model.

A (99:19)

The mental model that's like sort of spiky intelligence.

B (99:23)

The hedgehog. That completely blows up the metaphor. Because the metaphor is that the hedgehog only knows one thing and in fact does not have spiky intelligence. Oh, I guess it does. You know, you're right. Spiky intelligence because it's actually better now. That's fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we need to expand on the fox and the hedgehog. MA metaphor for sure. Anyway, Fin AI, the number one AI agent for customer service. Number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bake off, number one ranking in G2. You want some spiky intelligence? Spike that intelligence right into your customer service organization.

A (99:57)

Smart.

B (99:58)

It's the best place to spike the intelligence.

A (100:01)

Spike the football after you do it.

B (100:03)

Bring AI enabled service to your organization.

A (100:07)

Vittorio says incredible white paper pill scientists just mapped how aging rewires our genes. They found universal switches that control decline. Basically aging is a coordinated epigenetic drift of which we now have the atlas. We will solve aging in our life.

B (100:22)

Maybe, maybe Putin and Xi Jinping were.

A (100:25)

They said okay, yeah, just. Yeah, yeah.

B (100:28)

They probably follow Vittorio. And they were. And like right before that clip started they were like, oh, did you see what Vittorio played? Posted and then they're like, yeah, we're going to live to 150. Yeah. Vittoria is like the best. And that's where I get my news from.

A (100:41)

Yeah. Couple 72 year old bros following Victoria.

B (100:44)

I like to think that they both. Both Putin and Xi Jinping have a nons on X through VPNs that they just scroll the timeline like the rest of us.

A (100:54)

I can see it.

B (100:54)

It's possible.

A (100:55)

It is funny if you assume that that organ trans. You know, if they assume that Oregon trans transplants are the solution to immortality, why are they assuming like 150 is the cap.

B (101:06)

Yeah.

A (101:06)

Is by that point you're so such a Mix of different parts. It's not really you anymore.

B (101:10)

Well, you're a ship of Theseus. Yeah, yeah. The ship of Theseus. You've been.

A (101:13)

You have no original parts anymore. So you're like, entirely.

B (101:16)

I mean, that's the classic, classic question. If you. If you swap out everything but your brain, it feels like it's still you.

A (101:22)

Isn't there crazy. Isn't there crazy stories around, like, hard heart transplants? Like, changing your soul. Yeah. Your personality?

B (101:30)

Really? No way. I had no idea. I haven't seen that. What do you think, Tyler?

C (101:35)

Well, I mean, you're already Theseus because, like, your cells die.

B (101:37)

Oh, true.

C (101:38)

But I think it's more likely that Jinping Putin were. Have been watching Dwarkesh.

B (101:42)

Yes.

C (101:43)

And saw the Jacob Kimlop.

B (101:44)

That's probably true. That's probably true.

A (101:46)

Yeah.

B (101:46)

So, I mean, I would be surprised since Dwarkesh is like, the foremost interview scholar on China right now.

C (101:52)

Like, I'm being serious.

B (101:53)

Yeah, no, 100%, like. Yeah, that makes sense. And apparently podcasts are booming there. Did you see that post about how China seems to be going through some sort of boom of translated American podcast content? That's doing very well there. So stay tuned.

A (102:09)

I'm on Gemini. The idea that a heart transplant can change a person's personality is fascinating, controversial. The medical community broadly says that personality, these sort of psychological changes that happen after a heart surgery are due to. To trauma and side effects from the medication. But there's more speculative ideas around how potentially memories are stored in places other than the brain. And so. And what happens, there's people that report, like, personality changes that mirror the donors. The person that the original person's heart gets transferred into the new host and. And then the new host starts being. And acting more like the original donor, which is crazy.

B (102:55)

That is actually crazy.

A (102:56)

So anybody in the chat.

B (102:57)

Big if true.

A (102:59)

If you've had a heart transplant, maybe.

B (103:02)

We should get our hearts swapped. Like Face Off. Which movie you haven't seen. I know, but in the movie Face Off, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta take their faces off and swap faces because of some convoluted thing where one of them is a criminal and one of them's a. One of them is a hardened criminal who has some information about where, like, a bomb will go off or something like that. And then the. And then the special agent needs to go undercover as the criminal, and so they swap faces. And then they, of course, the actors just play each other and then they.

A (103:36)

Go on a. I don't know what Art. If we did a heart swap, it would just be. It'd just be more Golden Retriever mode activation. I don't know. I don't know how much it would do. Do you want to. Do you want to kick off this article about OpenAI?

B (103:51)

I would rather tell you the full plot of Face off, actually.

A (103:55)

Okay, tell it to me. I'll be listening.

B (103:57)

Okay, perfect. So, FBI Special Agent Sean Archer survives an assassination attempt by Castor Troy, a terrorist for hire. But the bullet kills his son, Michael. Archer then engages in an extended vendetta against Troy. It culminates six years later in his team ambushing Troy, who is with his younger brother and accomplice, Polu Pollux, on a remote desert airstrip. Troy goads Archer by saying he knows of a bomb that is located somewhere in Los Angeles and is set to explode in a few days. I was correct about the bomb. Before Archer can learn more, Troy is knocked unconscious and falls into a coma. Palux. I need to figure out how to pronounce that. That. The guy in custody affirms that the bomb is real, but refuses to reveal its location. In secret, Archer reluctantly undergoes a highly experimental face transplant procedure by Dr. Malcolm Walsh to take on Castor Troy's face, voice and appearance. Archer as Troy is taken to the same high security prison where Paloo is being held in order to obtain information on the bomb's location. Troy, I've got some visuals for you. Oh, you got it? Yeah, this is great. Troy unexpectedly awakens from his coma and discovers that his face is missing. He calls his gang and they force Dr. Walsh to transplant transplant Archer's face onto him. Meanwhile, Archer successfully learns the bomb's location from Palooh before being informed that he has a visitor. Anticipating a reunion with his colleague and return to his normal life, Archer instead finds Troy wearing his face. Upon revealing he has murdered everyone else who knows about the face transplant, Troy gleefully informs Archer that he looks forward to running his FBI career and ravishing his wife. It's a great film. It's a classic. 90s. Is it 90s? When did this come out? 1997 Thriller. You got to watch it. It's the best.

A (105:51)

I'll add it to my list.

B (105:53)

You should. You should. For when the Singularity hits. Do we have the Singularity tracker up and running yet or is it working to update Tyler? What do we got? How many days until.

C (106:02)

Right now it's at 3. 44.

B (106:05)

344 days. 344 days until what? What do we say? Until AGI.

C (106:11)

Till AGI singularity. Yeah, I see.

B (106:14)

You need a light on. Tyler, hold it up.

C (106:15)

We can't really see it.

B (106:16)

Yeah, you need a light. You need a light on that. But we got a ticker. We got a. A. An analog date. We will be tracking the amount of days until the singularity. Sam Altman said that the singularity is just a few thousand days away. Wasn't that what he said? How did Sam Altman exactly describe the few thousand days? He said superintelligence is a few thousand days away. Super intelligent AI. So that's asi. So AGI is here, essentially. Let's see. Thousand days. So super intelligence is a few thousand days away. According to Sam Altman, Tyler Cosgrove has a much shorter timeline. Apparently just 300 days. We're booting up for ASI in 300 days. Now we got to do better on the lighting here. We're getting some crazy reflection. Reflections in that thing. Maybe we need to take off the front, you know, take off the glass so we can just see it fully. But anyway, what. Realistically, how many days do you think should go on there? Tyler? Timeline to asi.

C (107:32)

Asi.

B (107:32)

It's super intelligent. Sam Altman puts it at a few thousand days. I count a few as three. A few is three. A couple is two. What's a few is three. Three. What do you think a few means? Do you think a few? Could be four. How many? Few.

A (107:50)

I would maybe put more than two.

B (107:52)

But less than a significant amount. A couple often implies two. A few usually starts at three or more, which can extend to small, indeterminate quality. That is not many. The exact number depends heavily on the context and what is being discussed.

A (108:06)

So could a few smacks is saying it feels. Feels pretty gentle.

B (108:11)

Yeah. Yeah, it is a gentle singularity for sure. I was going to say 3,000 days, which is 10 years, right? 3,365.

C (108:20)

Yeah. I've updated my.

B (108:23)

Oh, wow.

A (108:24)

Ultra bearish short everything.

B (108:28)

I don't think it's. How many years is that? 9. 9. 9, 99 divided by 365. That is 273 years old. Way you got to be more optimistic than that, Tyler.

A (108:39)

Do we do the Ollie Ollie G. Somebody asked Ollie G, how many days until the singularity?

B (108:45)

9. 9, 999-9999-9999. Realistically, I'm at 6,000 days. I'm on Kurzweil timelines. Kurzweil timelines put us at maybe even more. Honestly, maybe. Maybe 7,000 days.

A (109:01)

You put it in VTA terms. Like is that GTA 7.

B (109:05)

GTA 7. Okay, so. So I'm on 2045 ASI Kurzweil timelines. I remain unchanged by any developments, essentially. So 2045 ASI arrives. It's the singularity. And so I'm around 7,000 days. Sam Altman said a few thousand is seven a few. I don't know. We'll decide. But Tyler, feel free to. Feel free to update that to whatever you think think is the correct estimate for when ASI arrives. Jordi, you've gone from not AGI pilled to extremely AGI pilled, back to, you know, top signal maxer. Extremely AGI not pilled. How are you feeling about the progress towards super intelligence? I think we're a few thousand days away.

A (109:49)

I think there's only. I think there's only. It feels like there's this very small number of people that have any, like, real sense of the truth and they're all extremely conflicted. They all have no incentive to tell you that it's. Yeah, they have an incentive to be like, try to be a little realistic about it, but they have no incentive to say, you know, we're 10 years away or it just all feels.

B (110:16)

But you specifically don't have foundation model lab bags. You have Adio.com or Adio bags. Customer relationship magic. Adeo is the AI native CRM that builds scales and grows your company to the next level. Obviously, Adeo has their own timelines, but what are your timelines?

A (110:35)

My. I don't even know if it's the right.

B (110:40)

Are you over. Under my estimate of 7,000 days until super intelligence and a singularity. Me and Ray Kurzweil riding together. Are you earlier self reinforcing, full on super intelligent. Smarter than everyone can do. Any job, can do.

A (110:56)

Anything can make itself smarter.

B (110:58)

Yes. And it's just like it's a thing that just runs, you know, one shots. Anything full self reinforcing. Who knows? Maybe it. Maybe it goes to war. Maybe it just leaves, you know, but it is. It is fully.

A (111:11)

Definitely more than a decade. Definitely more than a decade out.

B (111:14)

Yep. So over 3,000 days for sure. That's the low end of Sam Altman's prediction.

A (111:19)

Yeah, I just. I still find it hard to believe entirely.

B (111:25)

So maybe never. Maybe infinite days. You could be in the 999-9999.

A (111:29)

I could be in the 999-9999-9999.

B (111:34)

If it happens. So this is the updated take, actually. From. From some of the. From some of the a. They will say it either happens very soon or doesn't happen at all, which is kind of a funny way to frame it. But if you put it in those terms, if it happens 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, what are you feeling?

A (111:58)

I just feel like it'll end up being. I think we're going to continue to get more and more advanced capabilities, but I just believe that even the smartest people in the room, like, clearly we're getting machines that are just more intelligent and capable in many ways than humans. But you can take. I just sort of disagree with, like, the ramp that will come from that.

B (112:29)

Right.

A (112:29)

Because if you took, if you took a thousand of the smartest people in the world and put them in a room and you say, like, solve world hunger or like, get us to Mars and like, they're not going to do it and it doesn't work, it's not going to happen in a year. If you take a really smart group of people, like with SpaceX, and you say, get to Mars, say like, great, well, we're going to work on this for decades.

B (112:51)

Right.

A (112:51)

And so I just, I disagree with, Or I don't believe in this. I don't believe in the fast takeoff for sure. I believe that, like, machines will continue to get smarter and smarter and more capable and more valuable to humanity. But I don't believe in a fast takeoff.

B (113:08)

It is somewhat of an abstraction of that philosophical question of, like, can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it? Like, can a human create something that's smarter than a human in every way? Like, how would that work? There is sort of like a fundamental philosophy.

A (113:25)

Yeah. And also, like, raw intelligence is rarely the bottleneck for progress.

B (113:31)

That's a very good point. Yeah. I don't know. I, I still, I still am rooting for the Terminator outcome where super intelligence comes around 2045, we go to war and the indomitable human spirit wins out and we kill all the robots and we win. I think that would be the most exciting outcome. That'd be fun because you. It would be so uniform to humanity to have a common enemy, the clanker.

A (113:59)

Humanity needs a true common enemy.

B (114:02)

Exactly. There's so much infighting.

A (114:04)

I don't want to, I don't want to manifest like an alien race that wants to destroy us. But it'd be so good for the world. We could stop.

B (114:10)

Fantastic.

A (114:11)

We could ignore all politics and just focus on.

B (114:14)

Imagine the dream team survival. Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, all the, all your boys working together to shoot the clankers. Be great. It'd be amazing. And, and the funny thing is that the doomers will come to you and.

A (114:27)

They'Ll say, haven't you seen human race?

B (114:29)

Haven't you seen the Term. Haven't you seen the Terminator? That's what's gonna happen. If we create AI we're gonna get the Terminator outcome. Well, I've seen Terminator. I know you haven't, but I've seen Terminator. What happens in Terminator? Who wins at the end of Terminator? The humans. The humans win at the end of Terminator. That's the, that's the conclusion of the movie. They fight and the humans win. And so if we get the Terminator outcome, that means we win. That means we win. And that's gonna be a lot of fun. So tool up, get the guns, get ready to fight the clankers. We're going to war. But not for the next two decades. It's gonna be two decades of enterprise SaaS. It's gonna be two decades of shareholder value accrual. And it's gonna be two years of delightful rest on an eight sleep. Get a pod five, five year warranty, 30 night risk, free trial, free returns, free shipping. Fantastic. Sleepsleep. Com. And I got a nine. So please, you're on a roll. Thank you.

A (115:34)

Congratulations, John.

B (115:35)

I am on a roll. And who else is on a roll? Microsoft. Microsoft has been on a roll. And we have the Chief Product Officer of Microsoft joining us.

A (115:46)

Final boss. The final boss of product people.

B (115:50)

This is the true gatekeeper to our plan to bring back Clippy. So we will welcome the cpo. Welcome to the stream. How are you doing?

A (115:59)

What's happening?

B (116:02)

I think we can hear you. How are you doing? Yes, fantastic. Thanks so much for hopping on the stream.

D (116:09)

So just so you know.

B (116:10)

What was that?

D (116:12)

I said there's many bosses, but Clippy is the ultimate boss.

B (116:15)

Yes, Clippy is the ultimate boss. Has Clippy actually been thrown around as an idea? It feels like more and more, you know, mega companies, like the huge companies are starting to have a little bit more fun every once in a while. It is a bit of a wild. I've seen some like throwback Microsoft merch that's gotten out. Is there any serious discussion internally to think about reviving Clippy? I feel like it would be so much fun.

D (116:39)

Dude, I'm with you. I feel like unironically Clippy was just like early, right?

B (116:46)

Totally, totally. The original concept.

A (116:48)

It was early and. Right.

B (116:49)

Interface. Interface. Anyway, would you mind introducing yourself and give us a little bit of an overview of what your day to day actually looks like. It's such a huge organization, there's so much to do but I'd love to have a little bit more context and what you oversee and what your role actually looks like.

D (117:06)

Yeah, let me give you the lodonomy. I've been at Microsoft for two years. I'm the chief product officer for AI at work. So focused on kind of like how do you make work great again with AI and before that I was at Robinhood and before that I was at Google for many years. But I think the steel thread through all of this for me has been like, like the way I think about this bringing near future science fiction and putting it in product and making sure that billions of people have it. So I did that with Google Search and then I founded this area called Google Lens with the best of camera turns into a search engine and of course Robinhood for first time investors. And at Microsoft my focus has been and our team's focus has been we have hundreds of millions of professionals. We've got to make work not just about doing more, but about being better. So copilot work, what are the agents that you get for work today? You get a badge and a PC. Should you get a team of agents?

B (118:08)

How are you thinking about the trade off of put a chat box. Obviously Microsoft has fantastic access, exclusive access to GPT5, the frontier level capabilities. But there's a trade off from the product perspective. Put the chat box next to it which is almost just one level away from just having two tabs open next to each other and having GPT5 in chat.com over here versus do the hard work of have the product teams go and dig into how do we add AI functionality into every sub tool. If you're in Excel, how do you create smarter functions within the cells as opposed to just a sidebar which has kind of been the status quo for a lot of AI at work projects.

D (118:56)

Broadly, totally. And I think this is the, I mean the answer is yes and right in some sense. Like look every shift and I've been through three of these. I worked at Akamai like 20 years ago and the Internet was like a thing was going to be a thing and then obviously mobile until I was at Google and now at Microsoft with AI. The first wave of all of these things is just add AI, right like put chat next to it, bring some intelligence to it. And it's no different from the first wave of mobile apps where like desktop form factor, like shrunk into the mobile screen form factor or the first websites actually were like scanned brochures which are PDFs in the back in the day folks. And I think now I feel like one of the. That's why you see across the industry saying oh let's, let's add AI to it. But I think the yes and comes from two things. One is you want to make sure that when there's a natural way because of the natural language interface, you're actually asking AI to do a lot more higher order things. Right. Instead of this fine grained manipulation of like oh let's go through 2200 menus and remember the menu magic incantations. Like you want to kind of say hey do it for me right. So there's a bunch of things where chat is the right answer. But then there are other things where if you're an Excel bro, like you want to be in the, in your ide, right and get, get your, you know, get your, get the assistance right where you are. So meeting you where, where you are. So if you saw last two weeks ago we talked about and we announced the equals copilot but that's like, is the hello world of like what we are thinking of and say how do we actually right now in teams or in your meeting, how do you have assistance along with the chatbot.

B (120:45)

Yeah. From a product perspective there's something very interesting going on where I mean Microsoft kind of coined the term or the definition of like being a platform where the companies that built on top of Windows created more value than Microsoft cash. And it was like the classic example of a technology platform driving incredible value. There's something potentially at least that we've been tracking where we've talked to what three or four different companies that are building AI add ons to Excel or.

A (121:19)

Trying to rebuild it entirely or trying to rebuild it.

B (121:21)

But a lot of times it's actually integrated into Excel. And there's one frame where okay, those companies are going to get steamrolled by Excel and the team there. There's the other frame which is we.

A (121:32)

Said it not you.

B (121:34)

Well that's a risk that I'm sure every investor in those companies is discussing. But then there's another frame where Excel becomes a platform like Windows became a platform and there is a robust ecosystem of apps and services on top. Some of those that are complementary to copilot functionality, some of those that are competitive. So I guess the question is like, like is Excel becoming a platform and do you see like how do you, how do you message around the openness of the Excel platform? Are you trying to take learnings from the openness of the Microsoft ecosystem and bring that into the developer communications on top of Excel or is there a different strategy at play?

D (122:13)

Yeah, and I think, you know, look super sharp point. And I think in the, in the fullness of Timex, Office as a whole has always been a platform, right? If you look at like, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, actually Outlook plugins, teams has a very healthy like bot ecosystem. So the platform play has always been kind of at the center of it. And the question though is there are certain it's keeping the user in mind. Are there things that are much more intuitive and native to be part of the product and are there things that are kind of like let's say you're doing something very specific for accounting. It is absolutely the right thing for that to be a plugin and add in versus doing something horizontal that should really be a feature of the product. So that's the way we are thinking about it.

B (123:00)

Have you thought any at all about how AI can supercharge the way people use LinkedIn? I imagine that there's a lot of that might be a completely separate world from what you're doing, but it does seem like something that in the future people have been out there for so long. I need a personal CRM. I need some sort of thing on top of my LinkedIn connections to remind me and you get those like on every social app you get the reminder, hey, it's somebody's birthday, you should write them a note. But with AI, you could imagine so much more power there to say I'm trying to sell this particular thing, I'm hiring for this particular thing and having GPT5 go and crawl all the profiles, put together something for you. Have you thought about anything that's happening over in the LinkedIn world or is that just kind of out of your purview?

D (123:48)

Ryan and I talk all the time and he's actually like much more front and center on the office world now. So I think the thing that's interesting there is that a lot of these ideas were just like unfundable or bad ideas before because it didn't have enough tokens. So my favorite thing to say is like take all these ideas people thought were really bad. So for example, like I'd have like a whole bunch of people pitch back in Google the whole alerting, oh, wouldn't it be great if you could kind of like ongoing do like event discovery. I'm into this favorite, like my favorite band is this obscure thing and like you know, wouldn't it be great if I knew something about like.

B (124:28)

Oh, I think we have. I think we're having some technical difficulties. Sorry, I think we're having some technical difficulties here. Can you hear us? Okay?

D (124:42)

I can hear you, but it's fine.

B (124:44)

Okay, sorry. I think you're cutting out. Let's move on to.

D (124:49)

I didn't say anything controversial.

B (124:50)

No, no, it's not that. I think it's the backbone Internet infrastructure in this company, in this country that's controversial. What about.

A (125:02)

Yeah, I guess my biggest thing that I'd be curious to get your insight on is how many businesses in the Microsoft ecosystem have just totally opted out of AI that are not responding to upsells, that are just not interested. Maybe they have employees that are using various AI tools themselves. But I would have to imagine it's a very, very large percentage of companies.

D (125:32)

Within that are off contrary. I think it's. In fact, we've had like more than 90% of Fortune 500 using some form of like, you know, copilot AI products, like 100 million customers that have just, we've just crossed 100 million across commercial and consumer on copilot usage. The thing that's actually interesting that I see is maybe a variant of what you're asking, which is, you know, like there's one extreme. There's a set of folks who are just leaning much. The posture is much more proactive, I would say, and kind of like in the game, get in the arena building stuff, it's not just about, oh, like there's an off the shelf thing. This is a chatbot that I'll buy and see who uses it in my company. So that set of firms, in fact, like we've started calling them frontier firms.

B (126:22)

Right.

D (126:22)

These guys are like out there starting to kind of like invest, both build and buy and partner. And we are starting to see, oh, those folks actually get a lot more out of AI. So for example, like one example for me is like these guys are using the reasoning models. So when you, if you step back and think like, you know where we are in AI, the first version of AI, it's just been more about like next token prediction and like chatbot, right?

A (126:47)

Yeah.

D (126:48)

But the next really real big unlock came in January and February around that time. And the reason models came online, that's when we saw a very clear shift. There's certain companies that just jumped in and said, oh, all these things that we couldn't do six months ago or one year ago, let's try them now. Has that been affecting, including Microsoft, by the way.

B (127:09)

Yeah. Has that been affecting gross margins? We saw in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that notion obviously sells a few competitors to Microsoft products saw gross margins drop from 90% to something like 80%. I was talking to Ivan, he said it actually wasn't even that bad, but there was some sort of an impact. Obviously you can upsell against that. But how's the economic trade off? How are you thinking about that with selling? Obviously people want frontier level intelligence, but it might change the economic equation. Are you seeing anything that indicates that going forward the fundamental gravity of the economic equation might be different?

D (127:45)

I mean, look, I think it's going to be proportional in the sense that I was joking with someone saying using GPT5 think in your product is like taking a flying car to a grocery store. Right. Or O3 Pro or whatever.

B (127:59)

Yeah.

D (127:59)

Like so in some sense you do have to be Judy. It's no longer about like just being a wrapper around the model. Sure, yes. The model is eating the product, right? Absolutely. So that's, I think one thing. Both these statements, seemingly contradictory, are true. And we're seeing that on one hand the model is eating the product. What do I mean by that? Like, you know, internally, even us, we spend a bunch of time trying to solve what I call the six finger problem. Remember two years ago when Dall E3 came out to generate humans, it would be like six fingers and five like 18 toes or what have you. And there's a whole bunch of startups that said, oh, we'll solve that. Right. And whole bunch of product teams inside Microsoft too saying, oh, we'll just like figure out how to solve the six finger problem. Metaphorically speaking, six months later the model GPT photo came out and like there's no longer a six finger problem.

B (128:49)

Yeah, I mean hallucination one. Yeah. Hallucinations seem to be at an all time low. Like the models are getting way more.

A (128:56)

There's been a lot of reports of consumers developing friend like relationships with various LLMs. Is there any evidence that employees at companies are developing real relationships with AI in the way that some people on Reddit have developed relationships with models like 4.0.

D (129:17)

Yeah, I mean I think we've made product choices that kind of squarely put AI and Microsoft as tools. Right?

A (129:26)

Yeah.

D (129:27)

And even these tools, they can be agentic tools, meaning they can be working for you in background. You have a natural language interface to it. But this is not an accidental thing we have to make intentional. In fact, I coined a term called neural software Meaning that it's not software as usual. In fact, Steve Sinotsky and I had a spat on Twitter about it because for me, the way I think about this is, look, yes, it is software. As engineers, we all know that it's like stochastic models and it's like you peel a few layers. It's all software, but it is probabilistic. And there are three things that are really important going on here. And as builders, I feel like we got to pay attention to it. Number one is the natural language interface, right? It just has this human, like, anthropomorphic Interface. So when 4o gets replaced by 5, like, you're not like, oh, who moved my cheese? Or this menu item moved, like, who fired my chef? So I think that is a point whether it work or in personal life. But I think the second thing that we are underestimating and we certainly see that inside is the way we are building products and releasing them is changing. Like previously we'd say, oh yeah, like 2.1 to 2.2, right? Like the software is updated release notes and change log. But now it's just like you have to kind of flow rollout. You have to kind of do evals and benchmarks on how the interaction works, not just the accuracy of test. And then the third thing I'm seeing at least like, and this one's a hard one to kind of like crack, we're still trying to figure out what that means is the composition of the team. Like, in the past it'd be like, oh, you had engineers, your devs, your test, your product, your ux. It's all a blur, right? It's all a mush. And like, you have a bunch of generalists and you have the model whisperers, right? And then you have go to market. Like, that's the new triangle that we're seeing.

B (131:32)

Well, it's a fun puzzle to solve. Thank you for hopping on the stream. This was great. We will talk to you soon. Have a great rest of your day.

A (131:38)

Just let everybody know internally that we're riding.

B (131:42)

Riding with the xl Bros. And Clippy.

A (131:44)

Yes, riding with Clippy for sure.

B (131:45)

Thank you.

A (131:46)

We would love to help relaunch Clippy given the opportunity.

D (131:49)

No name.

B (131:50)

Thank you so much.

A (131:51)

Great to meet you.

B (131:51)

We will talk to you soon. Have a great rest of your day. In the meantime, let me tell you about AdQuick.com out of home advertising made easy and measurable. Say goodbye to the headaches of out of home advertising. Only Adquick combines technology out of home expertise and data to enable efficient seamless ad buying across the globe. Nick, did you see this post by Nick Dobos? OpenAI cackling right now, today. So OpenAI acquired Statsig. We talked about this yesterday, but he's sharing a photo of Anthropic and Telemetry services for data usage. Cloud code connects from users machines to the statsig service to log operational metrics as latency, reliability and usage patterns. And so is what he's saying like they're going to rug Anthropic by buying their telemetry like their logging service is this monopolistic market. Can Anthropic not just use another company or product? I don't. This doesn't quite like sit with me as like oh yeah, it's like they totally owned Anthropic. It's like, yeah, they bought a company that Anthropic uses. Like the Anthropic would probably keep using. Maybe they'll replatform. I don't know. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

A (133:01)

Yeah, I mean I do wonder curious if statsig is going to remain an independent brand or just be rolled under OpenAI. Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of companies that use Statsig. I'm just looking at the website. EA, Microsoft, Atlassian, Bloomberg.

B (133:21)

Effective altruists use it, you said. Ease it.

A (133:28)

Tyler. Do you think this is. Do you think that OpenAI uses stats attacking shrimp welfare?

C (133:37)

Frankly, I don't know what Stats really does. So I have no. Like, it seems like yeah, Anthropic can just.

B (133:43)

Why don't you know what it does? It's no more complicated than Palantir. It's equivalent to. Oh, we got R for rock. Dropping massive alpha on Mistral. Mistral's closing $14 billion blew past the initial target of $9 billion. I assume that's market cap. The rumors about Apple's acquisition were fake. That seems right.

A (134:05)

That always seemed fake. I mean, in what world was France going to let their national AI champion be.

B (134:10)

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Is this real? This? Hello? Hello. Breaking. Apple and Google have reached a deal to have Gemini Power a new Siri platform, as per Bloomberg. Let's pull that up because that's literally my prediction today. Did I just not read Bloomberg?

A (134:22)

Well, this was rumored. Yeah.

B (134:24)

So is it actually happening?

A (134:26)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

B (134:28)

We got either I'm going to look extremely dumb or extremely smart. Let's read this. This.

A (134:32)

Okay, so this.

B (134:33)

Okay. Apple plans AI powered search tool for Siri to rival OpenAI. Perplexity. Apple is planning to launch its own artificial Intelligence web powered search tool next year. Stepping up competition. I'm gonna put this in the chat or should I put it in the tab? The company's working on a new system World Knowledge Answers that will be integrated into the Siri voice assistant. According to people with knowledge of the man of the matter. And wait. Who are they? So it's Google. Okay. Apple is aiming to release the service described by some executives as an answer.

A (135:07)

The news breaking right now is crazy. So American Eagle just beat earnings up another 20% after hours.

B (135:14)

Also moment of silence for Figma. They missed earnings. Very sad to see that. But never bet against our boy Dylan Field and the whole team. Yeah, everyone is ripping shipping. American Eagle. Wait. I wonder if they actually beat earnings because of that Sydney Sweeney thing. Like we were talking about the value that she brought to that brand and it probably was like $100 million in market cap. She should have gotten like a $50 million payday. Like it really did change the trajectory of the. Of the business.

C (135:41)

Yeah.

B (135:42)

Sweeney XAI deal incoming. Raghav is a goated poster in the terror. Thank you for everything you do. Regardless.

A (135:50)

American. American Eagle's still down 30% in the last 12 months. 20% year to date. So Sweeney really was the turnaround.

B (136:01)

Sydney bottom ticked it. Hopefully she got some shares she might have bought in. The underlying technology enabling the new Siri could come in part from Alphabet Google. Alphabet Inc's Google. Apple's longtime partner in Internet search. The company's reached a formal agreement this week for Apple to help evaluate and test a Google developed AI model to help power the voices assistant. So very interesting. I would imagine Apple has to pay Google for this version of just an answer engine because the answer engine is not going to be directly monetized. But Google has to be working on agentic commerce agentic ads in the LLM results. It seems so obvious. I feel like this is going to flip at some point. But I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Apple's new search experience will include an interface that makes use of text photos. So how.

A (136:48)

How is Google going to feel about this? Giving them.

B (136:51)

Why? What's wrong with this?

A (136:53)

They're building something that is. They're building an AI powered web search tool for Siri.

B (137:00)

Yeah, they're building software because they're a software company and they're selling it to the hardware company or they're partnering with the hardware company.

A (137:07)

So you think Apple's saying you're going to keep paying us 20 billion and we're going to compete with you?

B (137:12)

How Are they competing? No, this is them not. This is them saying we're not getting into foundation models. We're not going to do our own.

A (137:19)

Our own AI model.

B (137:20)

We're going to use Gemini.

A (137:22)

Oh, they're saying okay, I missed the part.

B (137:24)

No. So today Siri can answer basic questions.

A (137:27)

Yeah, we got it. We got to. The companies reached. Apple and Alphabet reached a formal agreement for Apple to evaluate and test at Google developed AI model to help power the voice assistant.

B (137:38)

Yes. So, so this is, I mean it's a formal agreement to evaluate and test it. So we're still like years away from anything happening here. The next iPhone event is next week and they're not gonna roll out Google partnership. I'd imagine they don't roll out a Google partnership. This feels like something that they're gonna be working in over time. I don't know, maybe they will, but either way.

A (138:05)

So Apple is rebuilding Siri around three core competitors components. A planner, the search systems for the web and devices and a summarizer. The planner interprets voice or text input and decides how to respond. The search system scans the web or user data and the summarizer pulls it all together into an answer. And Apple has recently leaning toward a custom built Google Gemini model for the summarizer. It would run on Apple's own private cloud computer computing servers.

B (138:30)

That's going to be important.

A (138:30)

Search giant already delivered the technology to Apple and both companies are now collaborating on fine tuning and testing it.

B (138:38)

So yep, Apple has been recently.

A (138:41)

It does say that Apple considered acquiring Perplexity to enhance the search features in Siri. But again Perplexity is the big.

B (138:50)

Yeah, but Perplexity sits on top of other foundation models so it doesn't fully solve Apple's problem all the way to the root of the stuff stack in my opinion. So somewhat makes sense that they would. The secret sauce that Perplexity builds is something that Apple's capable of instantiating. Yeah, what you got?

C (139:13)

So I'm reading the article. It says Google was not initially the front runner for the Siri project. Anthropic had been in the lead for the deal, but then their price was too high.

B (139:22)

Yeah, interesting. Anthropic demanded a high price for using its technology. More than 1.5 billion a year. And Google was open to more favorable financial terms. So the end result is that we should expect that Apple pays Google less than 1.5 billion per year to vend Gemini models into Siri essentially. And I feel like as soon as Gemini has ads in the results or monetized Commerce in the results and Apple.

A (139:56)

Can take a cut of that.

B (139:57)

Apple should want to take a cut of that. And so it feels like this economic flow is going to reverse at some point. I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe inference really remains really expensive and the monetization never really pencils out or something but this feels like something that would flow the other direction at some point. They're a gatekeeper. They're going to take a cut.

A (140:22)

Yeah. I mean OpenAI is now in the league of actually like they are. They're. They're very much in the Mag7 league in terms of competing. Competing. I mean this in a world where Apple device users are just pushed into using new effectively this is a Google product right. That will be powered by still powered by Google search and theoretically built into the existing Google Ads engine. I would not bet against OpenAI in any way but certainly this is some real competition more so than just a net new Gemini app that people are.

B (141:07)

I guess the question is what is the value of this particular knowledge engineering. Right. Isn't that what. Isn't that how they're characterizing it like the. What's it called they World Knowledge answers.

A (141:23)

So to me this is starting with something that's just like hey what are some things I can do for fun when in New York?

B (141:29)

And it's like you should World Knowledge answers. Is that related to World Liberty Financial or worldcoin the Orb Scanner?

A (141:38)

Potentially both.

B (141:39)

Potentially both. Karetsu put them all together. No World Knowledge answers. That feels like something not the most high value searches. Yes. Not highly monetizable. Yeah and so maybe there's some bifurcation where the user activity when they want World Knowledge answers that is a cost center and when you want to do agentic commerce and shopping that's monetizing but.

A (142:07)

Want both companies want both types of searches because I would assume.

B (142:12)

I would assume. I would assume that like the World Knowledge answer. What headphones should I buy? That's a question that I would want the new Siri to answer and then I would want it to buy it Buy them for me.

A (142:23)

Why not More data. Hello in the chat says more data for Google. Let's give it up for Google. They are just data world champions.

B (142:32)

It is. It is wild people. Yeah this is. This is not on many people's big.

A (142:35)

Go cards early earlier of course it was probably a Mark Gurman up Everyone's.

B (142:40)

Everyone's ripping the Mag 7 remains undefeated. Anyway speaking of Mag 7 let's go to Lulu Misservi's Breakdown of the Tesla Master plans v. She's highlighting v2 and v4 and she calls it founder writing versus committee writing. And if you look. We touched on this yesterday. If you look at the way the first two master plans are written, it really does feel like Elon just tapped it out on the phone. Almost like couple bullet points here and there. There's one chart in there. Then when Master Plan V3 comes out, it's this 40 page PDF with a bunch of charts. Maybe he was involved, but the latest version does feel very dry. And Christian Kyle had a very good reply. He just replied with the EM dash because of course the Tesla Master Plan V4 had 14 EM dashes in it. So a lot of EM dashes at a time when the M dash is highly controversial. I was thinking about the M dash. I don't know how to create an EM dash. Like, I don't have the button on my keyboard. I have a minus sign and I have an underscore.

A (143:54)

All you have to do is hit the. The dash button twice, minus, minus, and then space, minus, minus space turns it into.

B (144:01)

I never learned how to use.

C (144:02)

You can also do shift.

A (144:03)

You were too poor and then you were too.

B (144:04)

I was too poor and then I was too rich to use the M dash. I'm not kidding. I've never, like, you can look at any of my writing in any of the scripts I've written or blog posts. Like, I just have never used the EM dash. I don't know why.

A (144:15)

I was pretty devastated. Devastated by. By ChatGPT.

B (144:18)

Just stealing it.

A (144:19)

Stealing it.

B (144:19)

You were a big M dash guy before.

A (144:21)

It's just, it's very functional.

B (144:22)

I'm just all about the comma. Like, why do you ever need an EM dash when you can just use a comma, you know, like so in the Tesla thing, how we develop and use autonomy, it's more than EM dash and it's a statement. Why just use a comma? I. I don't know. I don't understand. Do you, Tyler? Do you understand why the EM dash is valuable at all? We should just destroy it. We should just get rid of. Rid of it. I don't think it makes any sense.

C (144:44)

Yeah, I mean, there's some, like, stylistic value.

B (144:47)

What is the stylistic value? Just looks nice or something.

A (144:51)

Looks maxing.

B (144:52)

You're writing aura farming the EM dash. I just don't like it. It doesn't have spaces around it. Like, the comma is just so much cleaner. Use a comma, use a period, use a space. It just did Shakespeare write EM dashes. Let's figure that out, I think.

C (145:08)

So who is the first person to.

B (145:10)

Really dominate the EM dash? I see it in. I see it all over the place now. I see it. I see it in the. I mean, it's in. Is it in the journal usually? I don't know. I don't see a lot of it in the journal. No.

A (145:19)

Okay. If it's not. If it's not in the journal, it.

B (145:22)

Should get out of the training data.

A (145:24)

Some of the most well known users of the M dash. I asked Gemini because I just feel like biased. James Joyce.

B (145:33)

Oh, okay.

A (145:33)

Emily Dickinson. Vladimir Nabikov, master of style. Novikov used the EM dash to create a specific kind of voice and pacing.

B (145:46)

No, Shakespeare did not use the EM dash. Does the Bible. Does the Bible?

A (145:52)

J.K. rowling has been a notable user of the EM dash. Maybe she is an AI that traveled back in time to bring Harry Potter forward. Word to bring the chosen one.

B (146:05)

Does. Does. Does the EM dash occur in the Bible? No. The Bible, at least in its early printings and manuscripts, did not use EM dashes. Ancient texts, the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament were originally written without punctuation at all.

A (146:19)

Not in the Bible.

B (146:20)

This is hilarious. So ChatGPT says, no em dash. The Bible at least, did not use em dashes. The Greek New Testament were originally written without punctuation at all. EM dash. Just continuous script. Breaks, pauses and emphasis were conveyed by spacing, rhythm or oral tradition. Modern editions. Some 19th and 20th century English Bibles, especially in America, started using dashes to mark sudden breaks or interruptions in thought. But this is a modern editorial choice, not a part of the original text or the earliest print traditions. So the EM dash is relatively recent. Recent punctuation invention. I think we got to return. We got to get rid of the EM dash. Destroy the EM dash. I'm sick of hearing it. Take it out of your writing. Instead. Get on bezel. Your bezel concierge is available now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch. Go to get bezel.

A (147:13)

Alex Conrad went viral yesterday. He shared a screenshot from Bloomberg Erewhon, the Colt Los Angeles grocery chain is opening its first New York City tonic bar inside a private West Village padel club. Okay, he said none of these words appear in the Bible.

B (147:27)

Oh, there we go. Related to the Bible. This is the Erewhon thing in New York that Emily Sundberg broke. Very excited. Very excited. Did you see that Josh Kushner was at the US Open, and he's so, so recognizable. They didn't need to give him a little chiron, A little lower thumbs up. They had to explain who Adam Silver was.

A (147:51)

The man that needs no introduction.

B (147:53)

Who is, who is Adam Silver again? He's like a sports guy. Adam.

A (147:57)

I don't know if you're serious.

B (147:58)

He's the commissioner of the NBA. What's the NBA?

A (148:02)

That's a guy that said, get ready to learn Chinese.

B (148:05)

The NBA is the National Basketball Association. So what is, is that a sport? What is basketball? Basketball. Basketball is a dynamic team sport where two teams of five players try to score points by shooting a ball through an opponent's hoop. Okay, so. So, so the guy on the left, apparently, he, he, I guess he runs a company that. Where people, they have teams where they have five players each and they, they try and throw a ball through a hoop. Okay, so there's Adam Silver, the basketball guy. Then there's Josh Kushner. Everyone knows Josh Kushner. Then there's Bob Iger. Who is Bob Iger? Who is Bob Iger? Okay. Bob Iger is the CEO of Disney. What is Disney? What is Disney? Disney is a global American mass media and entertainment conglomerate known for its family friendly content and content and services including. Including theme parks. What is a theme park? A theme park? A theme park is an amusement park. Oh, it's an amusement park, but it has a unifying setting or idea. So it has a theme.

A (149:25)

Somewhat of a theme to it. Yeah. Okay.

B (149:27)

It's a themed amusement park. Okay.

A (149:29)

Theme park.

B (149:30)

Okay. So anyway, I think we cracked it. So obviously everyone knows Josh Kushner, Thrive Capital, but Adam Silver, good to know about. I guess he made his money, like with some game where you throw basketball through the hoop. And Bob Iger does. He's a media guy, I guess. Yeah. Cool. Well, I'm glad that they put their names there because otherwise would be lost. I'd be lost anyway. Robin Hood, former guest on the show Vlad Tenev, said investing for a living could replace labor in a post AI world. Will Brown quote posts it gets 1.3k likes says Roblox CEO David Bouzucki has said that gaming for a living could replace labor in a post AI world.

A (150:13)

Podcast hosts John Coogan and Jordy Hayes say that podcasting for a living could replace labor in a post AI world.

B (150:21)

You know what I would hope replaces labor in a post AI world.

A (150:26)

Pull ups and push ups.

B (150:27)

Wandering. Just going from wander to wander.

A (150:29)

Finding your happy place.

B (150:30)

Finding your happy place. Booking wanders with inspiring views. Hotel grade amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning and 24,7 concierge service. It's a vacation home. But better.

A (150:39)

But better.

B (150:40)

And in just 6,000 days you'll be able to just spend all of your time wandering around. Hopefully. Hopefully. Last post. Before we go into our next guest, they're in the Restream waiting room. They're about to come into the TV pan Ultradome.

A (150:55)

Get that gong ready.

B (150:56)

Would you buy Ilya Sutskever Merch Alps has printed Ilya's head on a hat. And also a mouse went mega viral with two 6k likes. People are excited.

A (151:10)

I mean the mouse looks clean.

B (151:13)

Ilya, you. Tyler, you've said that Ilya is like the best aura farmer of all time. Something like that.

C (151:19)

He's a goated ore farmer.

B (151:21)

Yeah. But I feel like in terms of.

A (151:23)

His aura farmers explain that like. Like I'm a hundred years old.

B (151:27)

Yeah. I would argue, I would argue that his aura farming strategy is do nothing, win.

C (151:33)

I think that is an example of ore farming. It's like, it's kind of like a. Like a nonchalance, you know?

B (151:40)

Yeah. He has a certain je ne sais quoi.

A (151:43)

He has a. Yeah, don't nonchalant for. Nonchalant with Ilia. That's my advice.

B (151:51)

You don't nonchalant.

A (151:52)

Don't do it.

B (151:53)

Don't do it.

A (151:54)

He will post up like this.

B (151:55)

He will out nonchalant you for sure. For sure. You'll get roasted. Don't even try it. Also, don't go fundraiser fundraise with our.

A (152:04)

Next guest Ilya or a farm.

B (152:06)

Richard from you dot com. Oh, he did?

A (152:08)

No.

B (152:08)

Oh, I thought it was news. Anyway, we got our next guest in the Restream waiting room coming into the TVPN ultra dome.

A (152:14)

Welcome.

B (152:15)

We got Richard from you dot com. How doing you? How are you doing?

A (152:18)

Very well.

E (152:18)

How are you guys doing?

B (152:19)

We're doing fantastic. It's a wonderful day. We're having a great time. What's new in your world? Give us the news.

A (152:26)

Any big numbers?

E (152:27)

Yeah, we just raised $100 million at 1.5 billion.

B (152:33)

Boom.

A (152:34)

When did you start the company again?

E (152:37)

In 2020.

B (152:38)

Overnight success.

A (152:39)

Nothing like a five year overnight success. Love it. Give us an update. You were on the show. Was it. I'm forgetting, was it maybe three months ago at this point?

C (152:51)

Yeah, yeah.

E (152:51)

Main thing since then is we kept growing more and more aggressively. Like we have over a billion API calls a month now. There are not many other startups. In fact, I can't think of any other startup at that scale now. And these API calls give search Results for both people directly, but also for lms. Like the way we search is going to change.

B (153:15)

Right.

E (153:15)

So you have this whole Google thing that's unfolding now, but that's kind of the last sort of past of searching. Now people are going to search more and more through the LMS and LMS can search hundreds of times and then summarize all of that content for you.

A (153:30)

Right.

E (153:31)

So it's a whole new world and we're building composable infrastructure layers. There's four companies and startups, massive consumer companies like DuckDuckGo and also enterprise companies like Harvey and Windsurf. The NIH is a customer, Vue.com, telegraph, like lots of different organizations, both for the APIs. But then also we built end to end solutions because not every company is ready to just take in an API and may have an epic AI transformation. So we're doing both of those together.

A (154:01)

Yeah. When did you realize that it made sense to combine those efforts? I'm sure early on companies maybe actually building out this infrastructure for companies was not something that you were selling and then you realized, hey, in order to actually unlock the value of our product, we need to kind of hand deliver some of these features.

E (154:22)

That's right, yeah. For the last couple of years we were the most accurate answer engineering in the world. But normal consumers, they care more about marketing and fun ads and stuff like that and designs. But companies kept coming to us and be like we did a benchmark. You are the most accurate. We need that. You know there are hedge funds, the nih, like journalists like that really care about accuracy. And so they were like, we want the technology but we don't necessarily want it on you dot com. We want it inside our own products, on our own websites, in our own apps and so on. At some point there's so much market pull there for the technology that we said let's build out a proper sales team. Let's really go to market with those APIs in an enterprise context.

B (155:04)

Give us your reaction to the Google News today. They beat the charges almost. I mean they were found guilty, but then the remediation.

A (155:10)

Awesome battles. They won the war.

B (155:13)

You're obviously an expert in this category. Walk us through how you process the news.

E (155:20)

Yeah, I mean I think overall it goes in the right direction in terms of giving some more access to certain companies for their index and some of their data. At the same time, we're a startup still and by the time this gets really implemented they're probably going to try to appeal it. And so on it's going to take another.

B (155:40)

We were really struggling to understand what giving the search index one time and then on an ongoing basis means only.

A (155:47)

Like some percentage of the. They're giving you data based on some percentage of your query.

B (155:54)

Yeah. Can you explain like what exactly is available? Can I just go get this data? Can you.com go get this data? Can anyone get this data? Like what does it actually take? Is this just like Microsoft Bing and the other like DuckDuckGo like the big competitors are they named? Like how does this actually work?

E (156:10)

Yeah so no one fully knows yet.

D (156:12)

Right.

E (156:12)

There's like recommendations from and then like so there's like a ton of meta within eh. Not company meta but inside dealing. But like my hunch is the one the most extreme scenario here would be like they have a full on API the way U.com right now sells it.

B (156:34)

Right.

E (156:35)

Which could be good for some people. My hunch is they're going to try to drag your feet as much as possible on that for as long as possible because that is very much core IP for them. And then they're also going to realize that the index, the way it used to be built was for people to decide which of 10 blue links to click on. Our index now is looking very different. It can go deeper, it can crawl more, it has these decomposable components and it actually gives you much more content per link back rather than just a short snippet the way the Google search results would. And so by the time this all comes out and might become available maybe as an API it'll probably be somewhat outdated for the use cases LLMs need.

B (157:19)

Do we need an API here? I feel like if I have an AI agent that has a browser, the browser can go to Google and search for me and then scrape the results. Is not the front end the API? Like does Google have a like a blocker on this? Like can OpenAI not just Google things Like they certain their employees can Google things I imagine but can they not like resell that to me in their chat app? Like what's the dynamic there?

E (157:50)

Yeah it's in really interesting world actually. You know there are not many real web indices out there and you have a lot of startups including some of our competitors who essentially just do what you described. Yeah through so called SERP APIs and proxy networks where you have your phone, you have your smart TV and you install some app and that app then has some SDK installed somewhere where if you're not using your phone or your TV it becomes an IP address that then pretends to be a user, goes to Google, scrapes the content from a search query in that sends it back to centralized IP and then. And folks sell search results. But they're really Google results. Like literally biggest competitors in the consumer space are just really fast at scraping Google results and then connecting it to an LLM and doing all of that. It's hilarious. Now the problem with that is that a, if you're a bigger company like OpenAI or Facebook Meta, they wouldn't want to send all of their data and all their queries to Google.

B (158:50)

Right.

E (158:50)

They're literally trying to compete with them. So that's not an ideal setting thing. Two, it doesn't really scale like because Google can and does shut down these proxy networks all the time and they try to block it and have captchas and all of that. And then three, as it, you know, as you go through someone's random phone and maybe they did click on something, now it's really slow and there's slow response times. And so where we actually have benchmarks that we can, you know, back up, we can go on you.com and find them like we are super fast and we're more accurate than Google serve APIs. And that is very unique in the market.

B (159:24)

What about this news? It just broke that Apple will be potentially partnering with Google to have Siri powered by some sort of version of Gemini. Was that on your bingo card? Was that expected? Does that seem like a reasonable kind of end state of the market dynamic? I was talking about this earlier.

A (159:49)

Feels very something that feels like it'd be on your forecast given that you guys are helping a lot of companies build these sort of like knowledge.

B (160:00)

Yeah. Like if you're in like business 101 going to Silicon Valley, you would say that like the ability to search and get great results is valuable. Therefore Apple would be paying Google for search results. But in fact the money flows the other direction because the, the search, because Google's making $60 billion a year or whatever off of Safari search results. And so how do you see the relationship and the economic flow changing there? I think the news report was that anthropic wanted 1.5 billion and Apple said that's too much. We're going with Google and Google will be getting less than 1.5 billion maybe from Apple for the rights to use the LLMs. But what's your take on all that?

E (160:43)

Yeah, so a couple of different angles here. So one, it's surprising that Apple cannot do it themselves still. Like it's Kind of crazy and surprising. They're like, you know, trillions of dollars worth and somehow are not able to execute on this themselves. Second thing. And, you know, they have great privacy at Apple, but then, you know, they partner with companies that have a different stance on privacy. So there's, like, interesting complexities there. The second thing is that indeed, indeed, one of the biggest changes also of the ruling today was that Apple will continue to be allowed to take the 20 billion to not build their own search index.

B (161:24)

Right.

E (161:26)

So that's a really interesting part of the ruling, too. Google is allowed to still pay Apple $20 billion a year to stay the default. So that is a really important piece of this whole situation because defaults are very strong. I don't know where I read this, but, like, 80% of all iPhone users never change a single setting. Maybe not your viewers, but many normal iPhone users, they don't change any setting ever. So if you're the default, you'll be on there forever.

B (161:50)

I wonder how. I mean, I imagine no settings after me.

A (161:54)

Don't need that.

B (161:54)

I don't need to adjust the volume. I'll never adjust the brightness of my screen. Not a single setting. No, I imagine that it's, like, deeper in the settings. Of course. That is hilarious. Anyway, do you have anything else?

A (162:04)

We're a couple other people in the restroom. Very happy to hear about your progress.

B (162:09)

Yeah, congratulations. This is awesome.

D (162:11)

Thank you.

E (162:12)

My favorite new pun. Unicorn.

B (162:14)

Yeah, there we go. There we go.

A (162:16)

Unicorn. Unicorn.

B (162:18)

Fantastic.

A (162:18)

Well, yeah, tremendous. Thanks for joining.

B (162:21)

Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. Have a great rest of your day. Our next guest is already in the Restream waiting room. We got Pablo from Happy Robot, and I think we got some more news. Let me put my pack in here so I can get ready. Let's bring in Pablo. Pablo, how you doing?

A (162:38)

Welcome to the show.

B (162:43)

How are things?

A (162:43)

Can you hear us?

B (162:44)

Are the robots happy? Are they sad? Are they going to turn into Terminators? What's the plan?

A (162:48)

Can you hear us? Can you hear us?

F (162:50)

Sorry, guys.

B (162:51)

No worries, we're good.

F (162:52)

Probably watching the live.

B (162:55)

We're going to work on this.

A (162:56)

You're like, oh, that's neat.

B (162:57)

Back to you. But thanks much for hopping on. Give us the update, give us the news. What's latest?

F (163:02)

We just raised our series v.44 mil.

A (163:07)

Let's go, let's go.44. Great number, great number.

B (163:11)

Take us through the story of the company. What unlocked this fundraising round. What are the biggest drivers of growth for the business?

F (163:20)

To set the scene a little bit for the audience. We're building the AI workforce for the entire industry. Industry for supply chain. There's a lot of work that is very repetitive and manually in that industry. Kudos. And I take my hat off to all of those folks that are running those operations every day so that you guys can have that vertical ramp DVPN hat on your doorstep every time you order on Amazon or any other platform. So we are powering those operations so that we take away the work out of work. We're trying to lift off the the mundane and repetitive tasks from those folks running operations in supply chain and logistics so that they can focus on the more strategic and higher value tasks. We started over a year and a half ago, raised our series A last summer, announced December last year, raised 15 mil from Andreessen Horwich. Now we announced our B with base 10 and follow on from other folks like YC. And as you can see, very excited to be here.

B (164:18)

Yes. Is it fair to characterize this as like AI, erp? Like how much of this is like some sort of point solution within the supply chain and operations stack versus system of record.

F (164:33)

We're really building that system of record, that layer of interaction we call it, so we define it as a layer of interaction, layer of connectivity, if you will, that sits on top of the actual data that already exists. Today you can have a transportation management system, a warehouse management system, an erp. If you're talking about the shippers and distributors today we serve multiple verticals within supply chain. Shippers is one, freight brokers is another one, Ocean carriers is another one. Right, but right on. Right, like this is exactly what we're doing. We're building that layer of interaction so that users don't have to go and look for that little detail on the tms. Where the hell is my load?

B (165:10)

Right?

F (165:10)

Where's my truck today? Oh, let me just look it up on this messy UI from the 90s, from the 80s. Instead they just go and chat with their data. And not only that, an AI also is exposed to the customers, to the vendors that are calling in every day. We're automating over a million phone calls every week with our customers.

A (165:28)

We serve eight of the top 10 million phone calls.

F (165:33)

A lot of emails as well. Ultimately, our customers come to us. Customers like DHL or Uber Freight come to us to automate what their team doesn't want to do.

B (165:43)

Yeah. What's this?

A (165:44)

Yeah, so, so how. Yeah, have. Have you guys had. Had a more enter, you know, working with Uber Freight, dhls. Are you taking More enterprise focus because I know there's a long tail of players in, in logistics and. And supply chain broadly. But. But are. Are you focusing there or going up market?

F (166:02)

Fully focused on. On enterprise. We're very lucky to have been able to. To cater to these enterprises from very early on. Think AI has unlocked that capability in startups. Maybe 10 years ago it was harder to tap into the enterprises. Today they just understand that they don't have the AI capabilities themselves. So they're just looking at it at whoever is tempted or willing to go into that space. We were early on in the space of supply chain and logistics and we've kind of defined that category for AI agents in this space. So they, they really don't have anyone else to go to. They just come to us as a trusted partner and that's really what our customers are looking for. They're looking for an AI partner really.

B (166:45)

You're based in San Francisco? Yeah. Fantastic. Because there's this big German company that's been in this space forever and I can't wait to just fully put them out of business and just make America dominant in enterprise resource plan winning. Let's make it happen. Jordy. Anything else?

A (167:04)

No. What were you doing before this? Out of curiosity?

F (167:08)

I was doing my PhD in actually Germany.

B (167:10)

I was in.

F (167:14)

All three founders are. One of my co founders is my brother who they've known for a while and the other one is my best buddy from college from. From Spain. We studied in Madrid. But yeah, no, the. The company is based out of sf. We have offices in Madrid as well. Opening up in Chicago and office now because of all the freight and logistics.

B (167:31)

That maybe you got to take the fight to Germany. You got to invade Germany. The big boys. The big boys.

A (167:38)

I love it. Couple brothers armed with $44 million ready to do some international business.

B (167:44)

Love it.

A (167:45)

Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining. Congrats on all the progress.

B (167:50)

Congratulations.

A (167:51)

I'm sure you'll be back on soon given the past couple raises. I'm sure you'll be.

F (167:56)

I'm excited.

B (167:57)

Let's do that.

F (167:57)

Let's pound for that. Appreciate it.

B (167:59)

Awesome. We will talk to you soon. Have a good one.

A (168:00)

Great chatting, Pablo.

B (168:01)

Our next guest is in the Restream waiting room already. We'll bring in Will from EXA with another massive fundraising round. You can do the honors on this one, Jordy. Let's bring Will in from the Restream waiting room into the TVP and ultradome. Welcome to the stream, Will. How you doing? How's your day? Hello. How you doing what you got?

A (168:21)

Where are you sitting right now?

B (168:22)

Looks like you're on a train.

G (168:23)

I'm in a phone booth within our office.

A (168:26)

Okay.

B (168:26)

Okay, cool. We need some of these.

A (168:27)

It looked like it was like some type of tractor or something.

B (168:32)

This is the physical instantiation of the lock, the great lock in of September to December. You get locked in a booth. Fantastic. You've clearly been locked in. What's the news?

G (168:45)

Yeah, the big day today. We just raised a series. We just announced our series B85 benchmark.

A (168:53)

Sorry, couldn't hear you. Couldn't hear you.

B (168:55)

Couldn't hear you. Oh, yeah, Peter Fenton. That's exciting. What's it like working with him?

G (169:02)

Yeah, I mean, he's a legend. He's super experienced. He's taken seven companies to ipo. He just, honestly, his vision for EXA was just like matched or exceeded ours. And so that was really exciting to work with a VC who just like saw what we saw and saw how big this company could get.

B (169:20)

Yeah, so he's joined the board. Had you worked with him before or is this new?

G (169:24)

No, no, I met him like a month ago.

B (169:27)

A month and a half ago. A month ago. Nice.

A (169:28)

Fast friends and partners.

B (169:30)

So, yeah, take us through the story of the business. I mean, only a couple years old, well, on your way to an overnight success. I think if we check in with you any decade, it will be pretty clear that you're an overnight success. But take us through the history of the company where you are now. Kind of what's been the key growth driver.

G (169:49)

Yeah, so we actually started in 2021, so summer 2021. This is way before ChatGPT. And the idea was like at the time GPT3 had recently come out and it was like this magical thing that could understand like a whole paragraph of text. And then at the same time there was Google, which felt like it hadn't changed in a decade. So the idea was, what if we could build a search engine that was was as smart as GB3? Something like fully understand the understood the web and fully understand your query and get you way better results than Google. And that's how we started. So not necessarily a search engine for AIs, it was more like a search engine for nerds because we were building it for ourselves. And then when ChatGPT came out a couple years later, it turned out that like the search engine we were building for ourselves for nerds is actually perfect for AIs, because AIs and nerds are very similar. But yeah, I mean, basically we had to go build a search engine from scratch for years, which is really hard. So we did, you know, we bought a gpu, a million dollar GPU cluster after yc. We trained a ton of different models, tried a ton of different transform architectures until we had a new type of search engine.

B (170:43)

So the GPUs are trained to actually. So you're not doing crawling on GPUs, right? That's like traditional CPU workloads, right?

G (170:50)

That's right. So we have our CPU batch processing and then we train models on our GPUs.

B (170:54)

Okay. There's been a ton of news today in the search engine world with the Google News. Like what's been your interpretation?

G (171:04)

Oh yeah. I mean there's so much. What's crazy, AI is very exciting. But then search for AI is now the most exciting space. I think everyone's realizing that sure we want Smarter and Smarter LLMs, but really we want more knowledgeable LLMs. We want to connect our LLMs to the best data in the world. And search is basically the most important tool to connect your LLM to. And so yeah, I mean that's pretty exciting. There's Google News for example. Yeah, I mean, I mean they're sharing their data has one thing about the search space is everything's very counterintuitive. So for example, like if everyone now has access to Google's data, people are less incentivized to build new search engines, which is interesting. So there's all sorts of counterintuitive like things in the search space.

B (171:44)

Yeah, so what, so yeah, how does that shape like your strategy? Because it feels like right now Google's not only like the, they have the search monopoly, they were kind of like, you know, found guilty of that. The remedies are not exactly putting them on the back foot. The stock's up 8% today and it feels like they're partnering even they're going even deeper with Apple potentially. The Bloomberg reporting that just came out is that there are rumors that that Apple will be partnering with Gemini to test out if Siri can be powered by Gemini, which is obviously built on top of the Google Crawler and Google Search index. And so is the future for you look like a really long tail of tons of businesses that need to use some form of best in class search. And they can't go to Google for a particular reason at an API level because Google doesn't want to sell that as a product and you're there to sell that.

G (172:42)

Yeah, that's exactly right. A big difference between us and Google is that Google is not trying to be search infrastructure, they're trying to be a platform. They want people to go to Google. But we are uniquely trying to be search infrastructure. So we want a long tail of companies, like every company to be able to have the highest quality search inside their applications. And so that makes us very unique. Like when we said we were a search engine for AIs like a couple years ago, no one really got what that means. But I think that world has really played out where now we have thousands of companies using exa powering all sorts of applications, whether internal or external, with high quality search. And like you said, Google doesn't, like, is not doing that. Like they're not going to have an.

A (173:17)

API because there's a lot of searches that are valuable in the context of specific applications that are actually not even that valuable to Google. Right? Like, yes. Like when you're trying to retrieve information that you can then take action on, that's not necessarily something that Google is like, you know, able to run a bunch of great ads against, right?

G (173:37)

Yeah, that's right. And the business model determines based. What you're saying is business model determines, like how the search feels or how the algorithm works. And so, for example, like, Google's really bad at recruiting. Like, you can't use Google to find. Like, give me all the engineers in San Francisco who have like a PhD in machine learning and get a list of those things. Like, why isn't Google good at that? Well, it doesn't make them more ad revenue, whereas we're very good at that because all sorts of customers, AI applications, want that high quality knowledge. And so like, you're the end user you're selling to, like really determines the search algorithm, which also makes us very unique.

B (174:06)

Yeah. What is the value of actually training a model? I feel like there's, there's enough of a business, I don't know if now's the best time for that particular business. But just being the best Web scraper index, you have every single web page perfectly indexed in a database that people can query. That feels like a valuable product in and of itself. And then someone else brings their foundation model to bear on top of your search index, and you're a partner to the big labs that train the big model. Why are you training your own model?

G (174:40)

Yeah, I mean, well, the easy part is actually gathering all the data. I mean, it's hard that you need like crazy scale infrastructure, but it's an engineering problem. Once you gather all the, you know, trillions of pages, the hard Part is how do you filter those trillion pages to the right ten or a hundred pages in real time. And that's where all the secret sauce is. And so like we train our own, we train embedding models because we see that as the like the way to get the highest quality search. Like how do you get like perfect search over the world's information? You need to train all these like crazy nerd models. Which is in contrast to the old world, which is like Google for example mostly uses a keyword based method. Obviously they use a mix of things. But we're very bitter lesson pilled at exa. And so we believe if you have the right training data set and feedback signal, you can get an extremely good search engine for the thing you're training for.

B (175:25)

That's like our approach. When you say you're bitter lesson pilled I feel like that's rough because who's more bitter lesson pilled than Google? They have the most data, the most compute, DeepMind, all this other stuff. Walk me through the counter positioning against Google's business here. The whole Google will do it is a complete trite. I don't believe in it. I bullish on you. But there is something weird about what you just said in that I would expect Google to be able to move off of keyword pretty quickly, at least from a technology perspective.

G (175:59)

Well, there are two things. One, it actually is kind of hard for a giant ship to switch to a different algorithm that works really well. It's, it's very reliable and there are a lot of benefits to the keywords we're talking.

B (176:09)

Sure.

G (176:09)

And so it's hard, you know, you have a lot of people at the organization who are like been there for decades who are like have a certain thing. You have all sorts of like advertisements that are connected to the keywords actually. So like but and I think the more important thing is that it comes back to the way the revenue model. So they are serving humans with ads and so like and by the way Google is fantastic at that. Like Google has built amazing consumer search engine for humans, humans to make money from ads and optimize for what humans click on. But that's not what AI applications want. So a critical point of EXA is that we are optimizing for a different thing than Google. Google is optimizing for humans and clicks and ads. We are optimizing for AIs and AI applications and all these complex searches that this new AI world makes. That explains even if we both have a ton of compute, we'll build very different search algorithms.

B (176:54)

Yeah, it does seem like with the. What is it? AI search overviews, those have at least anecdotally been hallucinating like crazy. So. So they definitely have some gaps to bridge between some phenomenal stuff going on in Gemini and some frontier level reasoning models and then some very reliable Google search results and then the AI search overviews. Still they haven't fully solved the hallucination problem. And some grounding in truth, there obviously a problem. They're working.

A (177:21)

You guys compete with you.com, we just had Richard Richard on. Is it, Is it. It's not a lot. Not a lot of.

B (177:29)

If I see him, it's on site.

A (177:31)

Well, because it's funny if you both announcing fundraisers today, I don't know if that would be random.

G (177:37)

Yeah, I mean they mentioned that they do search and they also do AI agents. So like we are definitely like in a similar space. I would say like the space is very hot, like the market. Everyone's realizing the market is massive.

B (177:49)

Sure.

G (177:50)

And so like, you know, I welcome other players there. I think, you know, we've been doing this for many years.

A (177:55)

You welcome them, but you encourage them to take the full Memorial Labor Day weekend off. You guys should. It's a hot space. It's going to be a long road. Just take the full three day vacation. We grind.

B (178:07)

Okay, sorry, last question for me. You bought a GPU cluster. That can mean a million different things. What does that mean? Do you own the land? Do you own the data center? Do you own the cards? Do you own a space within Azure? There's so many different. And are you partnered with the Neo cloud? Like, what can you tell me about what it means to actually own or manage a GPU cluster? What are the best practices? Like what actually works? You're down dealing with depreciation. There's so much going on. Love to just learn more about like owning and managing a GPU cluster as a startup, not as some hyperscaler.

G (178:40)

Yeah, sure. So in terms of like getting GPUs, like there are a couple options, like you could spin up on demand clusters, which is more expensive. But if your workloads are like very like spiky, then that makes sense. But for us we're doing constant research, so we want something that we're like constantly using, gets like you know, 80% utilization. When you start to have that kind of utilization, then you want to get like either reserved or your own cluster and you know, do the math and like, you know, it often makes sense to buy your own cluster. If you're crazy enough to, like, set it up, if you have, you know, if you have the expertise to set it up and. And you could customize in all different ways. And so, yeah, we kind of went that route also. It's just frickin badass. And we know we're bigger and we want to have experience, like, building clusters. I would say, like, we're not.

B (179:18)

So you have servers, like, in your office. Like the cluster exists physically because, like, George Haas literally has, like server racks in his comma AI spot in San Diego. And it's like the craziest thing you've ever seen. Then Nat Friedman, when he was doing nftg, he spun up the Andromeda cluster. And that was more like in partnership with someone else, which made a lot more sense because, like, why do you have to learn how to power routes necessarily? Like, that's not necessarily the differentiator.

G (179:45)

Yeah, so we don't. Well, we're not big enough yet or our previous one wasn't big enough. We had to buy the land or buy the data center. We have a part of the data center, but, you know, as we expand, at some point we'll have our own data center.

A (179:54)

I see land on your horizon, Will.

B (179:56)

Yeah, I think you got to vertically integrate. You got to buy an oil and gas tract. You got to buy the natural gas resources in the ground, buy the sand that you can turn into silicon Valley, fab your own chips, design your own chips. You got to be vertically integrated. It's the only way to win.

G (180:13)

From Santa Search.

B (180:14)

Exactly. From Santa Search.

A (180:15)

That's a great line.

B (180:17)

Print it. Put it on a T shirt.

A (180:18)

Give them. I've seen enough. Give them 10 billion.

B (180:20)

Give him 10 billion. Thank you so much for hopping on Jordy. You got anything else?

A (180:24)

No, that's great. Awesome, awesome progress. Congratulations for breaking it down for us.

B (180:28)

We will talk to you soon.

A (180:28)

Congrats to the whole team.

B (180:29)

Have a great one.

A (180:31)

Cheers.

B (180:32)

Our next guest, Charlie from Orchard Robotics, is in the restream waiting room. We'll bring in Charlie. Charlie from Orchard ao.

A (180:39)

Charlie. Charlie. Charlie.

B (180:41)

Orchard. Orchard.

A (180:44)

A teal fellow Cornell dropout.

B (180:46)

Wow. Flush. How you doing, Charlie?

A (180:49)

Charlie, it's great to have you in the ultra dome.

H (180:51)

Great to be on the temple of technology, the capital's capital.

B (180:55)

Welcome.

A (180:56)

There we go. There we go.

B (180:58)

What else can we do? Can we play a soundboard for you? Can we ring this gong for you? Do you have anything?

A (181:03)

It would be an honor to us.

B (181:04)

Give us something.

C (181:05)

Yeah.

H (181:05)

So today we announced our $22 million Series A LED by Quiet Capital and shiny.

B (181:10)

Let's go.

H (181:12)

So excited to finally have this out there. We've been growing the team a bunch. We've been scaling up our technology into a bunch of new farms. It's really been an exciting time these last couple of months.

A (181:21)

Thank you for making cool looking robots. We got it. We got to pull this. We got to. We'll have the team.

B (181:27)

Yes, yes. Pull up the landing page. I want to look through this. Also. Thank you for making a company with a name that directly translates to what you do. Orchard AI. It's a farming company. It's fantastic. And I love your background by the way. How did you get into this? Did you just like do a market map and figure out there's opportunity in farming or did you have some background? How'd you learn that?

H (181:50)

My grandparents were actually apple farmers and my parents, before they immigrated to the U.S. i grew up in Virginia. Gun robot robotics early on. Built my first robot when I was like 7 years old. Trained my first ML model in middle school. Ended up going to school to study CS and mechanical engineering. And this was kind of during the COVID years. And people love people to know this, but Cornell is actually the number one agriculture school in the nation and we have acres of app.

A (182:12)

John.

B (182:13)

Yeah. That's a beautiful robot.

A (182:14)

You made a beautiful robot.

H (182:16)

Yeah, thank you. Our amazing team made that. But it's been a pretty long journey the past three years to get to this point actually. And you know, the first iteration of this was actually this huge 6 foot tall autonomous rover that I built my dorm room. And then we realized, wait a minute, you know, you don't really need a rover. You can just have a camera because you have tractors that go through the farms all day already. But really it was talking to, I think, you know, when I first started the company, I Talked to like 100 different farmers, just drove around upstate New York, talked to everyone I could and basically learned that, you know, here in the US even on the largest commercial farms like these farmers are relying on very, very small amounts of data to make every decision. So, you know, say an apple farmer is going to send their 10 best workers, workers out to the fields for entire week to count and size fruit on trees. And maybe 400 man hours they get to 500 trees. Seems like a lot until you realize there's 5 million trees in the farm and that sample size is what they use to make every decision across their entire company, which is kind of insane to think about. But you know, we're helping them get Started.

A (183:15)

Are you starting with counting? Which sounds simple, but we can do.

H (183:19)

A lot of things. We started with now we can count and size, measure color, measure grade, detect disease, measure growth rate, do inventories of plants. Basically tell a farmer everything they want to know that can be gleaned from visual information out in the fields, which is pretty much all of the important information that they've been lacking for these last couple of decades.

B (183:39)

Nerd out with me for a second on the hardware. I see a bunch of different lenses and cameras on here. I imagine that you're driving right by a tree. There's going to be apples that are obscured by leaves. You need high definition, some 4K, 8K, some zoomed in, some zoomed out. Like what's the optic stack that gets you enough resolution or data to actually determine, you know, is this an apple or is this apple healthy? Like walk me through that decision.

H (184:10)

Yeah, we have four lenses on each of our cameras and they're basically two stereo pairs. We use stereo vision. They're RGB cameras. They're pretty much off the shelf cameras. Camera technology has been really good in the last couple of years. Yeah, the real magic is in the machine learning models that we run on the edge. So we have some state of the art multi object detection tracking models that we run on cameras. We have Nvidia Jetson orange set, every single one of them that run these models on the edge. And we can basically do things like of the hundred images we take every single second, we can tell even through occlusion, through things like leaves blocking fruit or fruit that are as small as 5 millimeters. We can actually size you actually hit the nail on the head. We have a really wide angle lens and a really narrow angle lens and that lets, you know, do things like zoom in to see very, very small things, but also things like a 12 foot tall tree from three or four feet away.

A (184:59)

Yeah, being a farmer and just refreshing your dashboard and seeing that you have a bountiful harvest must hit extremely hard. How do you sell the robots? I imagine if this is replacing the need to send hundreds of people or a bunch of people into the field to physically count fruit, it can pay itself back fairly quickly. But what's the business model?

H (185:24)

Yeah, so we actually charge a per acre per year subscription fee. So it's similar to SaaS pricing where it scales on the number of acres they use it on. Since the hardware is so relatively inexpensive, we actually don't even charge for the hardware. It's boxed in with the subscription fee. So it's really easy and not capital intensive for a farmer to, to try on a couple hundred acres and then scale into thousands or tens of thousands of acres.

B (185:48)

Are those LED lights on the sides of the robot?

H (185:50)

They are, yeah. They're LED strobe lights. So even at night we can operate.

B (185:54)

Oh, and you only strobe them when you're taking a picture with the cameras to save energy. Yep. Makes a ton of sense.

H (186:00)

All the cameras are powered so we actually can power them off of any 12 volt power source. So we have farmers that actually plug them into like the 12 volt sockets. Like the car jacks on your car. We have, you know, like people who use external batteries. You know, you can wire it into like, you know, the car battery of any tractor, atv. It's really versatile.

B (186:19)

What's the refresh rate on the flashing on the strobes? Are you doing like one per second or something?

H (186:26)

It's more. It depends. But it's more than 15 times a second. 15 hertz.

B (186:31)

15 times a second you're flashing LED lights. Is this going to make squirrels go insane?

H (186:37)

Hopefully the squirrels aren't awake.

A (186:40)

Yeah, go to sleep, squirrels.

B (186:41)

Yeah, we're doing farming out here. We're farming. Get out of here. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's a pest control. We talked to the laser weeder guy and maybe there's a pest control angle. Maybe you can also.

A (186:52)

You have a lot of VCs early on tell you to pick a different category.

B (186:56)

Oh yeah.

H (186:58)

Actually it's a good point that you brought up because we started this company back in March of 2022 and it was actually, I think it was around the time that the whole American dynamism thing.

A (187:08)

Yeah, they were like, please make weapons. Weapons.

B (187:11)

Make weapons.

A (187:12)

I'll give you 100 million, put a gun on it.

H (187:15)

I remember actually when I met my first VC ever, they were like, oh, you should pivot into crypto.

B (187:20)

That was the.

H (187:21)

Because this was March of 2022. It was before everything came tumbling down and we were like, no, I don't really want to do crypto. I think this is my life's work. I'm going to do this for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And I think over the last year or so there's been kind of this rise in robotics and American dynamism and like manufacturing all these like industry things. And you know, suddenly, you know, agriculture and agtech is sexy now. And you know, it's been, you know, when we went out to raise us last round, it was, I'd say, a bit I don't say easy. Nothing's ever easy. But, you know, it was, it was a lot better than, you know, when we were raising our first two rounds.

B (187:56)

You could have gone into beans. Do you remember beans?

H (187:59)

Hey, you know, I've actually heard that coffee beans are a pretty big market.

B (188:04)

At a moment, I'm talking about the crypto project beans. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it was popular on Twitter for like, you know, right around that time, right about when you would have been print pivoting from agriculture themed robotics into agriculture themed crypto. It was a very popular crypto app where you would put your. The whole thing was like staking coins, but the metaphor was like, you stake your beans and your beans harvest and they yield and stuff. And then there were tons of people that all of a sudden they put in like $1,000 and then they like the harvest came and they were worth like a million dollars on paper. But then the thing got hacked and so they lost all their money. It was a wild.

A (188:45)

I'm glad you tripled down.

B (188:47)

Seems like you did something much more value creative.

A (188:49)

And it feels like I have to imagine this is like already helping solve labor shortages with farms. And the same thing that, you know, when people, people selling AI to the enterprise are saying we're freeing up people's time to do higher leverage work and like accounting and doing this stuff, you're just sort of getting the state of things by understanding crop yields and things like that. And then I imagine this is freeing up labor to actually take action to increase yields and fight off pests and things like that that actually impact the bottom line.

H (189:29)

Yeah, you know, the big thing is, you know, not only is it freeing up labor from, you know, having to go out and do this counting and sampling work, but perhaps the more important thing that's actually being done in the immediate ROI a lot of our farmers can see is actually a reduction in labor costs and crop inputs. Because right now, what, you know, this is a bit of a simplification, but what happens across a lot of these farms is that, you know, a farmer who's managing millions of trees and thousands of acres might go out and say, hey, you know, this is like one, one, you know, 50 acre plot of land. I'm going to do the exact same thing to every one of the 50,000 trees in this 50 acre plot of land. When in reality, half the trees might only need half the amount of pesticides they're pruning or fertilizers, whatever it is. They might be applying or doing to those trees. So it's very one size fits all. And we can tell these farmers things like, hey, wait a minute. In this half of this block, it only needs half the amount of pruning. You only need to send half the amount of workers into that half, and Suddenly you're saving 25% on labor costs in that block. So that's probably one of the first big things that a lot of our customers notice when they use our technology is just this ability to see where you need more of something and where you need less of something else. And you can see pretty immediate labor and cost savings just from that alone. But in the long run, we have this, I guess this conception of what we call an AI farmer, which is that if we can see tens or hundreds of or billions of trees across their entire life cycles, across multiple seasons, we can start training large embedding models and all of this data that can basically farm or know how to farm better than any human ever could because it has so much experience. And from there, it's like, what do we do with that? We get down to the tree level and prescribe individual recommendations to what every single plant in a farm needs. And that's super exciting to me. And I think that's ultimately where. Where a lot of this technology is going to go over the next couple of years.

B (191:13)

That's amazing.

A (191:14)

I'm incredibly bullish on you and Orchard.

B (191:17)

Extremely bullish for Erewhon, too. Yeah. Very exciting. Thanks so much for helping me.

A (191:22)

Congrats, Charlie. It's great to get the story. And I'm sure you'll be back on very soon.

B (191:28)

We're excited for that.

A (191:29)

Amazing.

H (191:29)

Thank you, guys.

A (191:31)

Send me your address, too. Yeah.

H (191:33)

I'll send you an orchard hat.

A (191:35)

Yeah.

H (191:35)

In exchange for this.

B (191:36)

Yeah.

A (191:36)

We're going to need a rope to count and make sure nobody's overdosing on caffeine in this studio. That's a problem we have.

B (191:43)

We'll talk to you soon.

A (191:44)

Great talking.

B (191:45)

Have a great rest of your day.

A (191:47)

What a legend.

B (191:48)

His product's called Fruit Scope. And we gotta talk about scopes360. No scopes. A call of Duty movie is officially in the works. This could be the second movie that Jordy sees in his entire life after Borat. Borat will be the first.

A (192:03)

Thank you.

B (192:04)

Would you see the Call of Of Duty movie? Paramount also has the rights to expand Call of Duty into a multi. Into a universe of multiple films and TV shows.

A (192:13)

I wouldn't just watch it. I would study.

B (192:15)

Sit down and listen. I would sit and listen to the Call of Duty movie. The Call of Duty movie seems like a no brainer. Seems awesome. Doddford, a great YouTube creator says the sensible thing to do would be adapting Black Ops or Modern Warfare. Instead, I fear they'll do a Minecraft movie esque comedy with trick shots and noob tubes. What do you think? Do you think they're gonna go slapstick comedy, lighter, PG13, jokey for kids or do you think they will actually try to make it like Black Hawk Down, Gritty, serious, like, you know, brain rot or. I think. I don't think they're gonna go comedy. I think they're gonna go oh, Geordie saw Mountain Head. Daniel's correcting me. That's true.

A (193:02)

I did. And I.

B (193:03)

So this would be the third movie.

A (193:04)

I felt like I needed to give a review. Review. Watch.

B (193:07)

Yeah. And well, we'll have to have a review of the Call of Duty movie. Obviously everyone will demand it.

A (193:13)

And listen, well, we gotta have to get over onto Substack.

B (193:18)

We gotta hop on with Philadelphia.

A (193:20)

That's right. No, but we actually are gonna do a live over on Substack.

B (193:24)

You can go watch us on Substack. You might already be watching on Substack. We're gonna be live with Emily Sunberg, tbp.

A (193:30)

Love you. Love you. Tomorrow.

B (193:32)

Thank you. We'll see you tomorrow.

A (193:33)

Great evening.

B (193:34)

Goodbye.

A (193:34)

Cheers.