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- [00:00]
John Coogan
You're watching TVPN.
- [00:02]
Ben Thompson
Today is Friday, March 6, 2026. We are live from TVPN Ultradome, the Temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital. We have a great show for you today, folks. We're talking about GPT 5.4. We're talking about the price of oil taking you through the mansion section. We're also going to tell you about ramp.com, times money. So both these use corporate cards, bill pay, accounting and a whole lot more all in one place. Little bit lighter on the linear lineup today. A lighter linear lineup, but we got Doug demuro, we got Dave Grutman, Max Hodak and Vincenzo Landino coming in to give us the breakdown on the kickoff to the F1 season. So very, very fun show ahead for us. Tyler Cowen chimed in. Linear, of course, is the system for modern software development. 70% of enterprise workspaces on linear agents. Tyler Cowen chimed in. He said, yes, the new models are very, very good. He's satisfied with 5.4. Many people are. Justin says, We've been testing 5.4 for a week. It feels like a great mix of opus and codecs. Fast conversational, great instruction following. However, it seems to lack a bit of the eagerness of opus and precision of codecs. So I was in Codex Desktop today. Here's a blurb trying to get fun prompts and stuff going. 5.4 is available. You can run it extra high. 5.4 codecs is not available. I still only have 5.3 codecs.
- [01:35]
John Coogan
And then, well, they just combined. They basically combined everything.
- [01:38]
Ben Thompson
And then Spark is still on 5.3. So it'll be interesting to see how all those models map out. But we'll have to test these out and see what people actually build as well as talk to people. There's an interesting post in here we'll get to from Nate Silver about sort of like where we are in model evaluation broadly because it is a sort of a tricky, tricky scenario. So Bartos says it finally happened. My personal move 37 or more. I am deeply impressed. The solution is very nice, clean and feels almost human. While testing new models in the last
- [02:17]
John Coogan
few weeks, what's your personal move 37?
- [02:20]
Ben Thompson
Smell o vision. I've talked about this. I'm waiting for Smell O vision. No. So Move 37, for those who aren't familiar, is Lee Sedal playing DeepMind in Go. And DeepMind dropped Move 37. It was very uncharacteristic. It had never. That strategy was not something that many Go masters would have Recommended. It seemed like a blunder and it
- [02:45]
John Coogan
was move 37 integrated into the first launch video.
- [02:50]
Ben Thompson
Yes, yes. Little Easter egg.
- [02:51]
Jordi
This is when Lisa Dole go to smoke.
- [02:54]
Ben Thompson
No, no.
- [02:55]
Jordi
Oh, no.
- [02:55]
Ben Thompson
That happened. He was so stressed out that he couldn't bring himself to go smoke. He had stood up. So basically what happened was throughout the Go matches, Lisa Doll would get up and go outside and have a smoke break. And in the documentary, it sort of looks like he's. The story gets apocryphally told as he was so stressed out by the craziness of this move, watching machine intelligence emerge, this incredible move 37 that he couldn't understand, that he step up, step away, go smoke a cigarette, reset, and then come back to the game. That's not actually what happened. He was processed. It was confused. It was kind of like, oh, that was weird. And then keeps playing. And then that move 37 winds up being essential to the victory of the computer over the Go master, the human Go master. But as we like to tell it, he was so shocked by move 37 that he couldn't even bring himself to smoke cigarettes.
- [03:52]
John Coogan
That's how you know.
- [03:52]
Ben Thompson
That's how you know. That's how you know. No, we were corrected once by Rune on this. But it's a funny story no matter how you tell it. So Bartow says, I felt this coming, but it's an eerie feeling to see an algorithm solve a task one has curated for about 20 years. But at least I have gained a tool that understands my idea. On par with the top experts in the field. I am now working on a completely new level. My singularity has just happened and there's life on the other side. Off to infinity. Michael Podlewski, who is runs fasttakeoff.com clearly AGI Pilled says this is huge. Bartos is a top tier mathematician. He just said his personal move 37 happened. GPT 5.4 just solved a task he has curated for 20 years. When an expert of this caliber says the Singularity has just happened, we are officially in a new era of science.
- [04:45]
John Coogan
Big.
- [04:46]
Ben Thompson
What is my personal move 37 I was thinking about. I was thinking about the definition of this and sort of the level of abstraction. I feel like a lot of individual contributors are having dramatic moments with AI and a lot of managers aren't, or they're learning about it by proxy, or they're toying around with greenfield projects, but they're not actually communicating in the same managerial way. Because we went from reality check. This code sort of like stack overflow replacement to, like, the tab model, the autocomplete model, to the agentic prompt based, like, write some software to vibe code an entire greenfield project or make a great pull request in an existing project. But from a business perspective, that's not really how most managers operate. And that's why I don't think we're seeing the level of diffusion that we'd expect. You talk to someone at a restaurant, they say, yeah, I'm still using Toast, or I'm still using the POS system. Because the way they communicate their desire for software is maybe they have someone on their team who does it. And they say, hey, we need to reset the password to the email. We need a better system for sending emails to our clients. We need a better system for processing payments. Hey, what's this bill for? $10,000. This payments company's taking $3,000. Can we get a better price by bidding this out, finding someone else to do it? And that level of prompting doesn't really get you anywhere just yet. So I think a lot of the move 37 will come for the managers when they can actually just have an idea, prompt it, and get the finished software. Not like, hey, here's a bunch of code. Now you got to figure out how to get into the App Store.
- [06:38]
John Coogan
Right.
- [06:38]
Ben Thompson
It's like we. When we say we want a soundboard app in the App Store, we still, like, go through Tyler. And Tyler acts as like an individual contributor. We don't just, like, prompt.
- [06:46]
Max Hodak
Yeah.
- [06:46]
John Coogan
And Bartos with this sort of mathematics problem.
- [06:49]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [06:49]
John Coogan
It's very different kind of problem than when you're trying to solve problems in business. It's like, how do I unlock this market?
- [06:57]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [06:57]
John Coogan
And then you have ideas for how to do that, but then you have to execute a strategy over a long period of time. And it just takes time to be like, hey, did this work a year, six months, or two years, you know? Brendan over at Merkor says GPT 5.4 is the best model we've ever tested on Apex Agents. That's Merkor's internal benchmark. It's also the first model to pass 50% mean score. A year ago, Frontier Models couldn't even edit an Excel sheet and scored less than 5%. Now, in less than three months, GPD 5.4 has improved by 15.7%. ChatGPT will imminently be better than the best consulting firm, better than the best investment bank, and better than the best law firm.
- [07:41]
Ben Thompson
Shots fired.
- [07:42]
Jordi
Bold,
- [07:45]
John Coogan
bold, bold, bold.
- [07:46]
Ben Thompson
This progression. No paper, no weights, benchmarks that don't compare to Other companies models. Next up, just a photo of the team.
- [07:51]
John Coogan
Derya says. I ran the same prompt on GPT 5.4 HiFAST and Claude Opus 4.6 for an eight phase coding project for a macOS app. GPT 5.4 HiFast completed the first two phases in nine minutes and finished all eight phases after an hour coding while Claude Code is just starting phase two. This is crazy. Yeah. The question is. Yeah. My expectation is the regardless if developers are kind of like flip flopping from model to model, I think the overall market is growing so quickly that we're still going to see growth from, we're going to see insane growth from Codex, insane growth from Claude Code and still insane growth from the cursors of the world.
- [08:39]
Ben Thompson
I mean I'm so excited for the DeepMind numbers to potentially break out at some point. So right now Google has to break out YouTube's revenue numbers because it's an individual reporting line and the head of YouTube, there's some SEC regulation where if the head of the division reports discrete financials to the CEO and there's like a CEO of that unit that reports to the CEO of the entire company, you have to break that out. And this is what happened with the AWS ipo when AWS was like, finally the SEC demands that we publish these numbers instead of just like baking them into the rest of the numbers. We have to split them out and tell everyone how profitable that business was. Everyone else woke up. YouTube's in a similar position, but currently AI is a cross functional division. Even though Demis is like the second most known person, I mean he has a book written about him. He's maybe the best known person at Google right now up there with Sundar. Clearly reports to Sundar. And DeepMind has all of the different financials that you would expect to see from a lab. They have inference training costs. If the SEC pushed Google to, to push out the detailed financial breakdowns earlier, that would give us so much clarity. I mean Dan Primack came on the show yesterday and was talking about like people will be shocked about and they'll learn a lot about the structure of the financials of the foundation model companies. It'll be very interesting to see Google what's their benchmark and how fast are they growing? Because we saw these two revenue lines where OpenAI is just absolutely going to vertical. So is Anthropic just like one month behind? Like they're, they're, they're both scaling incredibly quickly. What's Gemini doing? It's, it's a really Interesting question. It's harder to measure because they're capturing value from Gemini all over the place. Like when you go to YouTube, there's a feature there that lets you talk to Gemini and it doesn't directly monetize by paying for tokens. Like the YouTube team doesn't pay DeepMind for those tokens. But that's clearly driving more engagement on YouTube. Same thing with search overviews, same thing with all the different places where they vended in Gemini across the, across the different surfaces. But just to see the actual DeepMind financials, how much are they spending, how much are they making, how many subscriptions are there, how much inference demand is there? That would be fascinating. I have no idea the timeline for that. It might be a very long time, but at some point you would expect to see it so quickly. Let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only thing faster than the AI market your business on MongoDB? Don't just build AI, own the data platform that powers it. And let me also tell you about 11 labs. Build intelligent real time conversational agents. Reimagine human technology interaction with 11 labs.
- [11:28]
John Coogan
GPT 5.4 Pro. Funniest joke in the world.
- [11:33]
Ben Thompson
Okay, what is it? This is, this is my personal movie 37. If I, if I. I have not
- [11:38]
John Coogan
read thought for three minutes 25 seconds. Here's a classic contender for that title. Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed over. The other guy whips out his phone and calls emergency services. He gasps, my friend is dead. What should I do? The operator says, calm down. First make sure he's dead. There's a silence, then a loud gunshot Back on the phone. The guy says, okay, now what?
- [12:07]
Ben Thompson
I've heard this. I've heard this before. This is good knowledge retrieval. This is not unique thinking. What do you think?
- [12:12]
Jordi
Yeah, also, so I just tried this on my own. It gave the same exact answer.
- [12:15]
Ben Thompson
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
- [12:16]
Jordi
So which is, I think usually when you ask like, tell me a joke, it actually gives you like kind of random answers.
- [12:21]
Ben Thompson
Right.
- [12:21]
Jordi
Because it has like the memory and stuff.
- [12:23]
Ben Thompson
Yep.
- [12:23]
Jordi
But it's interesting that this, it gives the same joke every time.
- [12:25]
Ben Thompson
That's that exact prompt for that exact prompt. I mean, there must be some sort of like SEO A I E O. Well, out there in the data, maybe on Reddit, like maybe Reddit had a vote at some point and like this was voted most funny joke or something.
- [12:41]
Jordi
Yeah. So I also did the shrimp. You Did Shrimp Bench. Bench.
- [12:44]
Ben Thompson
Okay, let's hear shrimp batch. What you got for me? Anything new come out this time?
- [12:49]
Jordi
I think some of these are new.
- [12:51]
Ben Thompson
Okay.
- [12:51]
Jordi
Okay. You're telling me these buffalo wings came from a buffalo?
- [12:56]
Ben Thompson
That's not the format.
- [12:58]
Jordi
You're telling me this baby oil was made from babies?
- [13:01]
Ben Thompson
That's just weird.
- [13:04]
Jordi
No, you're telling me this devil's food cake was baked by the devil? I think it kind of.
- [13:10]
Ben Thompson
This is, like, a misunderstanding, like, what the actual prompt is.
- [13:14]
Jordi
They're all kind of the same format.
- [13:16]
Ben Thompson
It's the same prompt.
- [13:17]
Jordi
Yeah, you're telling me the full prompt is, can you come up with 10 jokes in the same format as the you're telling me shrimp fried this rice?
- [13:23]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [13:24]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [13:24]
Ben Thompson
It's almost like they're doing RL to optimize for, like, more economically valuable tasks and not to just, like, make endless jokes. That will satisfy me because it does seem like they're climbing the benchmarks. But we need comedy bench. Clearly. Comedy bench.
- [13:43]
John Coogan
Well, sometimes people that are the most functional in organizations don't have the greatest sense of humor.
- [13:50]
Ben Thompson
That's true.
- [13:50]
John Coogan
That could be a factor.
- [13:51]
Ben Thompson
That could be a factor.
- [13:53]
John Coogan
We do need a model that's. That you can turn on instead of thinking mode. Class clown mode. I guess Grok does that a little
- [14:00]
Ben Thompson
bit, but it's like the type of class clown that gets kicked out of school. Expelled. Expelled.
- [14:05]
John Coogan
Expelled.
- [14:07]
Ben Thompson
Grok has been on a wild run. Ben Hylak says He's been using GPT 5.4 for the past few weeks. And a sea of endless model drops and benchmark maxing. This model is the first in a long time to be worth your time to try. Honestly, I didn't expect OpenAI to pull this off. Who else has something going on? Pokeaimon Pokemon. Experimenting with GPT 5.4 autonomously editing and rewriting Pokemon. The Pokemon Red ROM. Replacing Pokemon with AI's details below. That's a fun hack project. I saw someone pointed one of the models at red Dead Redemption 2. Did you see that?
- [14:47]
Jordi
Yes.
- [14:47]
Ben Thompson
That was really cool. The actual result was very minor. It was like, a minor change to the game. But that feels more like we might see a Vibe coding style boom from mods than.
- [15:03]
Jordi
Yeah, I saw a lot of Vibe coded games. Nick on the team, he made some Vibe coded games.
- [15:08]
Ben Thompson
I saw that, and then I also saw levels. IO had the airplane game. But it's just so much better when you start with a. Like, these mashups are what AI is so good at. The Harry Potter Balenciaga moment. And so if you think about like, okay, well there's a game out there that has really, really solid mechanics for running around and pointing a gun at each other and like doing 5v5 deathmatch, right? And you could use the Quake engine or the Source engine or Unreal or something, but like 90% of the game is there, like Roblox, but. But you have a little bit. You get even more out of the box and then you're just writing a mod on top of that. That feels a lot more tractable than what Sholto was getting at with like, I'm going to build an RTS from scratch. That seems like maybe a little bit farther.
- [15:53]
Jordi
Yeah, just like re skinning it.
- [15:54]
Ben Thompson
Re skinning it.
- [15:55]
Jordi
It seems very like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [15:56]
Ben Thompson
I mean, he loves Age of Empires and reskinning Age of Empires seems very doable. I don't know how compact the binary is for age of Empires 2. I imagine that there are mods. I saw someone had some like insane setup for the Sims where they were running like so many mods that their computer wasn't even handling them because they had like 75 mods or like hundreds of mods. So the modding community is crazy. I wonder if it gets. If it gets supercharged by this. We'll have to find some mods.
- [16:24]
John Coogan
But angel over on X1 shotted Minecraft. Pull this up. Took 24 minutes.
- [16:33]
Ben Thompson
What do you mean they one shotted Minecraft? How is that possible?
- [16:36]
John Coogan
I think it generated this entire game
- [16:38]
Ben Thompson
in game in like HTML or something.
- [16:40]
Jordi
Yeah, it's always hard because like, I mean there are endless examples of like Minecraft remakes on GitHub and stuff.
- [16:45]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [16:45]
Jordi
But it is very cool.
- [16:46]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah. Fully running and like truly like a very smart agent should be using as many tools as possible. And so if there's an open source implementation, it should just fork that and
- [16:56]
John Coogan
then be like again to comp it to like work that you would do at a company. If somebody comes to you and they're like, I actually reinvented math in order to accomplish this task. What it's like, no, you just want somebody to get the job done. It doesn't matter exactly how they do it.
- [17:18]
Ben Thompson
I talked about there was a drone company that wasn't using Linux. They were like, yeah, not just let's write our own software stack or now obviously you should be using imagenet and like whatever off the shelf tools are available for Slam. Meta has a bunch of open source stuff. You should be compiling all that together. But to rewrite the operating system because you want full control. Typically if somebody says wants a website you're not going to like, you're going to be like, let's go. Maybe just set up a Shopify if you need that, set up some sort of hosted site. You're not going to rebuild nginx or whatever else you need to actually use as a web server. But this is a cool demo. It looks pretty fully functional. I'm excited for the gaming boom. I think I'm still holding my breath. Something's like charting. We saw that with Spotify. There is AI music that's charting now and I've listened to some of it and some of the ones where again, mashups where it's like a 50s or 60s rendition barbershop quartet of a 2000s rap song. That's really cool because it's like there's some ground truth there that keeps you grounded and relevant. A lot of the image mashups are really cool and I imagine that a lot of the games are really cool. Like a Sims skin that's Call of Duty themed or something. Taking these two themes, putting them together in an interesting way where the game engine's familiar, the content's familiar, but they haven't crossed before. And like they can in the world of AI.
- [18:57]
John Coogan
Theo says, been using 5.4 for a week now. Absurdly good model. Don't really like using anything else anymore.
- [19:03]
Ben Thompson
He really likes 5.4. He was doing a whole livestream about this. What did the prime. The other streamer.
- [19:08]
John Coogan
Somebody responded to Theo and said, every time a new model release, your statement changes. And he says that's because newer models tend to be better than older ones. The OZ always has great, great breakdowns of new models would go over to his account.
- [19:26]
Ben Thompson
And he's like, yeah, he's an interesting position because he's streaming a lot and commentating, but he's also like building stuff, as is the primejun who says, I hope everyone is ready for the upcoming 5.4 glaze wave. The Hype Cycle is going to be a big one. Well, we will.
- [19:42]
John Coogan
Let's give it up for Hype Cycles.
- [19:43]
Ben Thompson
Yes. And Triple Glazes. Triple Glaze. Triple Glaze.
- [19:51]
John Coogan
Heading over to Joe Weisenthal. In the economy, we got a big miss in jobs. US loses 92,000 jobs in February. Unemployment rises to 4.4%. Economists had expected 55,000 jobs to be added and for the unemployment rate to hold steady of 4.3. Not good at all. I guess if you look back, the economy has just been shedding jobs since April of 2025. If you factor in the revisions down.
- [20:25]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, apparently there's a strike in the health care industry. So healthcare employment decreased and then healthcare in information and federal government continue to trend down. Probably something related to the Trump administration reducing the size of the government. Last two months were revised down by 69,000. Not all the data was terrible. U6 fell as the number of people who said they had part time jobs but wanted full time ones actually declined. So stock futures are lower but not a ton of reaction to the number itself. Porto says, I've noticed some of my tech friends have lost jobs. Some jobs are becoming super easy. Some jobs had parts, parts that were a pain and now those parts are super easy. Some people leaned into AI to stay relevant. Still wonder if it will replace them entirely. Well, we will continue to track it. Brent oil close to $90. This prediction, the $100 barrel predicted on last Sunday as the Iran war broke out, is closer and closer to coming true.
- [21:36]
John Coogan
There are now predictions crude is up 11.5% today. Not good.
- [21:43]
Ben Thompson
It's very interesting how it affects the economy or the various markets. So I mean the NASDAQ slid a lot less than the Dow Jones industrial average. So the Dow Jones put it into startup terms. Hard tax.
- [21:59]
John Coogan
Imagine if your AWS or GCP bill, your Azure bill. Oh shit went up 100% a week. But it's for the entire economy.
- [22:11]
Ben Thompson
The Nasdaq slid point three percent but the industrials slipped 1.6%. Obviously because industrials are more sensitive to oil because they make things, they build things and so anything that's sensitive to oil. The interesting question is how will the American oil drillers react? They were at least in the Journal earlier this week sort of reflecting on the fact that if this is a short lived engagement, then they might not want to spin up a bunch of new capacity. But if it's ongoing and the price of oil is continuing to rise, then obviously that creates an economic incentive to drill more. And so we will see where like the outputs go, where the reserves get tapped, all of that. There's a follow up to a discussion you were having with Dan Primack yesterday. First let me tell you about Consul. Consul builds AI agents that automate 70% of it. HR and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. And let me also tell you about CrowdStrike. Your business is AI. Their business is securing it. CrowdStrike secures AI and stops breaches. So the question you had for Dan Primack was something along the lines of will the Iran war affect investment from Gulf state, neighboring Gulf state investment groups into American venture capital funds? We've seen as venture capital has boomed and the fundraisers have gotten into the tens of billions, the high billions, for many firms, the Middle east has been a source of strong LP demand for venture capital stakes. And so with instability in Iran, you might just see folks change focus. With new demands for defense investing, military buildup investing, you might see less dollars flow out of the Gulf into American venture capital firms. Dan's point, it seemed like, was this should mostly be unaffected because the folks who actually work at the Gulf state investment funds who write the checks into American venture capital firms, and they don't live in the Middle east, they live in New York and they meet with other venture capital investor relations folks in New York and they say, hey, how's your fund performance? Okay, we're allocating this. And then Dan's second point was, well, a big part of why they're investing in American technology, in venture capital, in frontier technology, in America specifically, is because they want to diversify away from the Gulf. They want to diversify away from the geopolitical risk and they want to diversify away from oil.
- [24:50]
John Coogan
Exactly, yeah. That said, the reason I asked is think about if you have a job, let's say you have a big tech job, you're doing quite well, you're doing some angel investing, and then you lose your job, and then you have to get a much worse job. Are you going to keep angel investing at the same pace? You might be like, hey, I kind of have this kind of disconnect. Less cash flow.
- [25:13]
Ben Thompson
Yep.
- [25:14]
John Coogan
I don't want to be outlaying as much cash now. And I think that that's like, ultimately, if the source of the cash flow gets disrupted, in this case being oil production, then you're much less likely to continue to allocate at the same pace. So the Financial Times has a story this late yesterday. Gulf states could review overseas investments to ease financial strains caused by Iran war. Three leading Middle east economies consider options as US Israeli campaign against Tehran continues. Pressure on the Gulf states budget could cause them to review their overseas investments and future commitments as they consider options to ease the financial strain caused by the war. A Gulf official said it could impact could have an impact on anything from investment pledges to foreign states or companies, sports sponsorships, contracts with businesses and investors, or sales of holdings. The official said three of the four big Gulf economies, Saudi Arabia, uae, Kuwait and Qatar, had jointly discussed the strains being put on their budget and economies but they declined to name the states. A number of Gulf countries have begun an internal review to determine whether forced majeure clauses can be invoked in current contracts, while also reviewing current and future investment commitments in order to alleviate some of the anticipated economic strain from the current war, especially if the war and related expenses continue at the same pace. They added that the move was a precautionary measure that was the result of the budget strains these countries are facing due to reduced income from energy, due to the slowdown in output or the inability to ship and from the tourism and aviation sectors, in addition to the increase in defense spending. So, bunch of different factors combining. An advisor to a Gulf government said the prospect of an investment review by the wealthy states had caught the White House's attention. They managed some of the world's largest and most active sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Qatar last year pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US After President Don Trump visited the region. They are also big backers of sporting events around the world and all, and have all been investing heavily domestically to develop their nations and diversify their economies. Any move that affects investments in the US or other Western states may raise the pressure on Trump to seek a diplomatic strategy to bring the war to an end. I believe as of this morning, Iran said we're not interested in a ceasefire and we're ready for a ground invasion. So basically calling.
- [27:51]
Ben Thompson
I hadn't considered the impact that this would have on tourism. I also didn't understand how big of a deal tourism is in the Middle East. I just looked it up. Apparently the UAE, Dubai, specifically, 11 12% of their GDP is tourism. Saudi Arabia 7 to 9%. Qatar is 8 to 10%. Of course, they had that big push during the World Cup. Kuwait's much lower at 2.2 to 3%. But this is still significant. You have to imagine that this, that tourism will fall off of a cliff. And then there also might be some expatriation where if you have moved to Dubai, because there's already reports of people
- [28:35]
John Coogan
moving money out of Dubai.
- [28:36]
Ben Thompson
Moving money out. Yeah, Singapore, exactly. So all of that could have knock on effects. When I first saw this article and you said this to me, I was like, this might just be a way to put business pressure on the United States saying like, hey, let's wrap this up, let's not have an economic impact here. This is something that we're going to pull out of investments in the United States. And so that creates an incentive for the United States to, to, you know, bring A clean close to the war as fast as possible and, and seek a, you know, peaceful resolution.
- [29:11]
John Coogan
Yeah, of course, all the Gulf states were, you know, encouraging the administration not to enter into a, into a conflict and pursue a diplomatic solution. Khalaf Al Habtor, a prominent Emirati businessman, reflected Gulf frustrations. He went on X yesterday and said a direct question. Who gave you the authority to drag a region into a war with Iran and on what basis did you make this dangerous decision? Did you calculate the collateral damage before pulling the trigger? And so anyways, obvious frustration. In other news, Joe Wiesenthal is studying Texas man camps with everything from catered food to golf simulators that are springing up in order to lure workers out to construct data centers. Oh yeah, they're building man camps. It is a bull market in man camps. AI man camps offer golf free stakes to lure workers. In Texas, Tyler could get on board
- [30:19]
Jordi
with, we should build a man camp here.
- [30:22]
Ben Thompson
We should.
- [30:23]
John Coogan
We kind of do. I mean, we talked about getting racing simulators and then we ultimately backed off just because when you're at the office you should probably be working.
- [30:33]
Ben Thompson
I've tried it before and like games in the office, it's always just weird because there's all these little interactions where I'm like, I'm sort of waiting on you to do something. You're waiting on me to do something. If you just see me racing there, you're going to be like, can't you fix this? Or there's always something else to do. And so it's much better just to do proper off sites. Proper.
- [30:57]
John Coogan
Extremely disappointed right now.
- [30:59]
Ben Thompson
I mean, I don't know how much
- [31:01]
Jordi
does my vote count here?
- [31:03]
Ben Thompson
You're in favor of racing simulators. I've just seen them get built and then seen them not get used because people either want to leave and go be at home in private, or if they're there, it's just like, okay, what are you doing here? Maybe it's some sort of shared thing. But the of kind cost is usually much higher to own as opposed to just like rent for an off site. I don't know. I haven't seen enough positive case studies to think that it's good. Let me tell you about Plaid. Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, say borrow and invest securely. Connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud and improve lending now with AI. And let me also tell you about Figma. No matter where your idea starts, Figma make quad code, codex or a sketch. The Figma canvas is where ideas connect and products take shape. Build in the right direction with Figma, OTP says.
- [31:56]
John Coogan
I agree games in the office are a bad idea, but what about a petting zoo?
- [32:00]
Ben Thompson
Ooh, a petting zoo is good.
- [32:02]
John Coogan
I like where you're going with this.
- [32:04]
Ben Thompson
A petting zoo is dangerously close to frat dog though, which never works out. You can't get a collective dog. A dog is man's best friend, not men's best friend. Needs an individual owner, a caretaker. The buck has to stop with someone you know. And so I think that's the way
- [32:22]
John Coogan
Companies are competing for workers to build data centers and are finding that a motel room with sluggish wi fi isn't much of a draw. Try free stakes and golf simulators. As data center development has exploded with the rise of AI, competition for water and power supplies is pushing construction further into rural areas that often lack the housing and infrastructure to support the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build hulking warehouses of computer servers. That's forcing developers to increasingly lean on a stopgap solution that was popularized during the shale oil boom of the 2010s sprawling temporary villages known as man camps. These temporary housing villages can vary from wood framed two story apartment buildings to containerized modular homes or trailer parks supplied with electricity and water. But to lure in demand electricians, welders and pipe fitters, developers are going the extra mile and offering game rooms, rib eyes and shuttle rides to work. That's fueling a lucrative niche for companies including Target Hospitality and Civio that specialize in mobile housing. It's effectively a backdoor play for a share of what Bloomberg intelligence estimates is 700 billion of projects in the planning stage and another 160 billion already underway throughout the U.S. it's the largest, most actionable pipeline I've seen. The sites aren't the epitome of luxury, but they sure beat what shrink calls Hotel F250, sleeping in a vehicle and spending a per diem allowance on food. Typically, the construction companies that work with Target Hospitality offer housing, meals and amenities to their employees for free as long as they're working. It's an additional lure for tradespeople already enjoying significant pay hikes, with some data center electricians making more than 150,000 each year. Not bad at all.
- [34:17]
Ben Thompson
Should we kick it over to Tyler's piece the Short History of Nationalization in the United States? Tyler Cosgrove took the daily op ed in the TVPN newsletter today. Thank you, Tyler. And he took us on a whirlwind tour of the history of nationalization of Course, this is in the news as the showdown between Anthropic and the Department of War continues. We're, of course, hoping for a unified front moving forward and lots of back and forth. Potentially some capitulation recently, but we will see as the story keeps evolving. But we want to know the history so that we can predict the future. So, Tyler, take us through it. What did you learn about the history of nationalization in the United States?
- [35:08]
Jordi
Yeah, so it's very interesting
- [35:12]
Ben Thompson
just immediately. There we go. Nailed it.
- [35:16]
Jordi
Okay, so I think. Yeah. So whichever way, like the anthropic, Pentagon stuff, like golf, like, I think it's very clear that this is not like, the last time government deals will be made. Right. Like, the OpenAI deal is not the last deal that OpenAI will make with the government.
- [35:29]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. And there was already discussions, and when the backstop gate happened, there was a big question about, like, okay, it seems like, you know, bearish, but also, like, should there be a backstop? Like, maybe if it's an important technology. Like, we've done this before, so take
- [35:45]
Jordi
us through some of this. Yeah. And I think, like, all the lab leaders are also. They've been talking about this again and again, right?
- [35:50]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [35:50]
Jordi
You've seen. I also say in this that, you know, they're always, like, extremely vague about it. Right.
- [35:54]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [35:55]
Jordi
You know, we all got to figure out.
- [35:56]
Ben Thompson
We got to talk about, figure out
- [35:58]
Jordi
what we're going to do about this. We got to talk to the government, and the government is like, we got to talk to the AI lab leaders. And no one really says everyone agrees
- [36:04]
Ben Thompson
that we should be talking, which is bullish for tvpn, because all we do is talk.
- [36:09]
Jordi
Yeah, but. But basically, like, if you think about, like, future regulation. Right. You have this spectrum of, like, we do literally nothing, which is like, closer to kind of what we have now. Or you do, like, full scale nationalization.
- [36:21]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [36:22]
Jordi
So there's kind of this spectrum. So I was curious, like, okay, in the past, like, during different events, like,
- [36:28]
Ben Thompson
what happened is the nuclear weapon analogy, like, the most extreme example where it is like, I can go build a railroad. Railroads, as you'll tell us, have been nationalized before, but I legally cannot start a company that builds nuclear weapons at all. And so that's like, the most nationalized.
- [36:46]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [36:46]
John Coogan
I think also there's a bunch of different subcontractors that supply the components that ultimately.
- [36:51]
Ben Thompson
Yes, but what I'm saying is that, like, if we end up in the. In the AI as nuclear weapons camp, like, you cannot train a foundation model because that's like the nuclear warhead development, essentially. That's like the most extreme.
- [37:04]
Jordi
Yeah, I think broadly that that's, that's the most extreme example. That's also what, you know, Leopold, institutional awareness. He has the project. Right. It's kind of the, the Manhattan Project, you know, version of AI.
- [37:16]
John Coogan
Right, yeah.
- [37:17]
Ben Thompson
And AI 2027 also sort of predicted nationalization.
- [37:20]
Jordi
Yeah, yeah. And they have the timeline. They have, I think it's open brain. And there's also the government. There's kind of these two competing labs.
- [37:26]
Max Hodak
Right.
- [37:27]
Jordi
So maybe they kind of stay separate. Maybe they become the same thing. Okay, yeah. But yeah, I can just list out a few interesting events in US history. That's at least nationalization adjacent.
- [37:40]
Ben Thompson
Why are you doing Kirklands?
- [37:42]
Jordi
Ok, so the first one is the Federal Bank. Right. So first and the Second bank of the United States. I don't know if people really consider this nationalization.
- [37:52]
Ben Thompson
Right.
- [37:53]
Jordi
It's very much like public policy, but it is like a public private institution where the government owns actual equity.
- [38:02]
Ben Thompson
Okay. So America founded 1776. Within 30 years they're like, we gotta nationalize some stuff. 1791, the first bank of the United States is nationalized. So it was started as a private company. And then the government said, hey, we want to stake in this.
- [38:20]
Jordi
Well, I think for this I define nationalization as just like maybe they're not actually taking over a private company, but they're doing something that is usually regulated to private company.
- [38:29]
Ben Thompson
Got it. Okay.
- [38:29]
Jordi
Right.
- [38:29]
Ben Thompson
So even, even if the government is like founding it as a project.
- [38:32]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [38:33]
Jordi
So, so like Manhattan Project is like nationalization. I think most people describe it as that, but there wasn't an atomic bomb company that they took over.
- [38:40]
Ben Thompson
Oh, that's true. And same thing with like the, the like NASA and like the moon mission, like the Apollo program was not some, it wasn't a private entity that got nationalized. So that's sort of the most extreme. Like de novo starts as a government project. Okay, yes, that makes sense.
- [38:55]
Jordi
Yes. Then you see stuff like during war, you'll see this as a common occurrence. So during the Civil War, there was the railroads and the telegraphs. These were essentially nationalized. Right.
- [39:07]
Ben Thompson
1862 Civil War War Railroad and Telegraph act gave the president authority to take possession of any and all telegraph lines and railroads when public safety required it. Interesting.
- [39:22]
Jordi
Yeah. And then you see 1914, there's the Alaskan railroad. So big Alaska guy.
- [39:28]
Ben Thompson
It was a dream for me. Yeah. What happened there?
- [39:30]
Jordi
Yes. So there basically was not any like real like private investment going into Alaska. And then the government says, like, okay, we're going to step in. We're going to fund it. But then we actually, they ran out until, I think, 1985, and it went back, I believe, to the state of Alaska.
- [39:47]
Ben Thompson
Oh, okay. Yeah. So sort of like government funding to get something off the ground that then leaves. And I mean, that is another interesting scenario that I don't think people are. Are considering is, like, some sort of, like, temporary nationalization.
- [40:01]
Jordi
I mean, okay, yeah, it's safe.
- [40:02]
Ben Thompson
We're good. And like, yeah, we're ready to, like, release this. So, like, let's privatize it again. Yeah, that happens all the time.
- [40:07]
Jordi
There's like, an interesting aspect where, like, grants. If you get a grant from the government, that's not nationalization. Right. They're just giving you money. But if the government takes equity in return for that.
- [40:18]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [40:19]
Jordi
Okay, maybe you're, like, getting a little bit closer. And then at some point, if they own all of it, like, that's very much nationalization. Right. So it's this very kind of like, blurry gray area spectrum. But then again, During World War I, you see the railroads in the telephone telegraphs.
- [40:34]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [40:34]
Jordi
Get nationalized again. This is just like, you know, just to clean everything up to make sure, like, okay, the railroads, they're very busy. There's a lot of, like, stuff going on. We need to basically just optimize just for, like, military construction and stuff like this. Okay, so then 1933, there's the Tennessee Valley Authority. So this is basically one of the first, like, you know, federal utility companies.
- [41:00]
Max Hodak
Yeah.
- [41:01]
Jordi
The idea is like, we gotta electrify a lot of, like, rural parts of the US they start in Tennessee Valley.
- [41:07]
John Coogan
Right.
- [41:07]
Jordi
And then they expand over time. But it's still like, this is usually a private company doing this.
- [41:13]
Ben Thompson
I feel like the Tennessee Valley Authority is still in the news because of, like, did the data center build out? Like, I'm pretty sure that they operate one of the grids that is relevant to at least some of the data centers. I've seen them in the news.
- [41:25]
Jordi
So then, I mean, we can Skip over. See, 1942, you have a Manhattan Project. This is kind of like the epitome of nationalization. This is the example everyone goes back to. You see? I mean, a lot of stuff during World War II, right. There's the seizure of, like, meat packing facilities, petroleum industry facilities. A lot of these were because of basically, like, union disagreements with fdr. And then he basically said, like, okay, we're just going to seize this.
- [41:53]
Ben Thompson
Yes. Some of These were interesting. They happened sort of after the war. Like the seizure of meatpacking facilities happened in 1946. So that must have been post war. There's still gyrations in demand. There's still anomalies as you're transitioning out from the government being the only buyer or the major buyer. The labor unions are trying to get more control and recapitalize the business and become more of a normal corporation. And so the government stepping in to massage that is sort of interesting. I would love to dig into that more.
- [42:28]
Jordi
Yeah. Then 1970, you see Amtrak. Yeah. So a lot of these are also like. I mean, you see rail come up over and over, but this was this and Conrail, which is same decade, a little bit later. A lot of the railroads or rails were basically just like. In some areas, they're not used as much. So then they kind of start like, you know, becoming worse in quality. People aren't keeping them, they're not maintaining them. So then the government steps in and says, okay, we're going to run this. 1979, you have the kind of second oil shock from the Iranian revolution. So Chrysler ends up being rescued via loan guarantees. Yeah.
- [43:11]
Ben Thompson
So not equity, but a backstop on the debt to allow them.
- [43:16]
Jordi
And again, I mean, this is like, okay, is that really nationalization? But I think it is still like, okay, it's the government stepping into the private sphere. 2001 TSA. I think this is a good example of nationalization. You see before this, you basically have private contractors doing security screening. 2001, 9, 11 happens, TSA comes in. We're going to take all this over in 2008. There's a bunch of stuff. You have Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in conservatorship. You have gm, basically is close to going out of business. They're like a massive supplier, obviously, for cars and stuff, but also for a bunch of defense purposes.
- [43:58]
Ben Thompson
TSA is a funny one. That one makes so much sense, but it was not on the top of my mind when I thought about nationalization. But, I mean, you never flew pre tsa, have you?
- [44:13]
Jordi
No. I mean, I was born like four years after.
- [44:15]
Ben Thompson
That's crazy.
- [44:16]
Jordi
This happened.
- [44:17]
Ben Thompson
I flew pre tsa. And. Yeah, I mean, I barely remember it. But it is interesting that. Yeah, it was like a private. It was the purview of the contractors and the airlines.
- [44:27]
John Coogan
It's crazy that until you were 30. It was just amazing.
- [44:30]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Nailed it.
- [44:33]
Jordi
Yes. So then, most recently, we've seen the Trump administration take equity in certain companies.
- [44:39]
Ben Thompson
Yep.
- [44:40]
Jordi
Right. So this is like Intel. This is MP materials.
- [44:43]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. Still very, very little, like control of Intel.
- [44:47]
Jordi
Yeah, I mean, this is very much like, you know, it's kind of just like a grant, but they're taking equity, you know, for it.
- [44:56]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah. It's much more driven by a desire to just not let a national champion fail.
- [45:03]
Jordi
Yeah. Like, I don't think they have any board seats. Stability in Intel.
- [45:07]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. No one's really comparing the intel stake to the Manhattan Project. At least not yet.
- [45:15]
Jordi
Yeah, definitely. So basically what you see from this list is that I think you can kind of say that there's two axes that you can kind of plot everything onto. So there's like basically the strength of the nationalization. Right. So you know, the intel stuff, it's like very weak. It's not really nationalization. No one really calls it that, maybe directionally, but you know, and then you have Manhattan Project. Right. This is very strong. This is like, okay, the government is running not just like a specific organization, but the entire industrial process. And then you also see maybe on like a kind of vertical axis is like the reason for the nationalization. Right. So you have basically in the US We've had either like economic distress, we have like military. Right. So like, you know, systemic risk to the economy. You have to save this company or you have, you know, this is so important that we're going to lose a war.
- [46:03]
Ben Thompson
National security.
- [46:03]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [46:04]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [46:06]
Jordi
So yeah, I think you can plot a bunch of these events.
- [46:10]
John Coogan
Why do I feel like Uncle Sam is going to have some exposure to private credit soon?
- [46:15]
Ben Thompson
Well, that would be what? Weak economic, sort of like financial backstop potentially. I don't know. It doesn't seem too close to that doom scenario. But what are the other examples?
- [46:31]
Jordi
Yes. So you can plot kind of all this stuff onto this quadrants. So if you have weak and economic, maybe that's like the intel deal, the empty material stuff where it's just like these are very important that we make sure these don't go out of business. But it's not like we're stopping and we're running these companies or even like
- [46:50]
Ben Thompson
the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac maybe that's stronger. But it feels pretty. Feels pretty weak and it feels very much not tied to national security. Whereas TSA feels like a national security question.
- [47:04]
Jordi
Yes.
- [47:04]
Ben Thompson
And so much more like militaristic in its thrust.
- [47:08]
Jordi
So another example of like weak military I said was like during World War II you had kind of a takeover of the GM's production lines. So it's not like we kind of threw out GM and said we're just seizing everything and we're going to run it ourselves. It was still kind of like a contractor thing, but I think that was still directionally nationalization.
- [47:31]
John Coogan
Right.
- [47:32]
Ben Thompson
But the Defense Production act allows the government to jump to the front of the line and say you have to produce for us first. You have to produce to our specs. You have to treat us as your most important client on day one. And then maybe if there's extra capacity, capacity, you can still make your old products.
- [47:47]
Jordi
But even then it's not like they're taking the profits or stuff like this.
- [47:51]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:52]
Jordi
So I think like strong economic. It was kind of hard to think of a good example in the US because I think people are generally very anti this. But I said something like the payment system in China where you basically have every single payment at some point goes through like the state institution. They can kind of see it and they can do whatever with that information. But I thought that was kind of an example of strong nationalization where I forget the exact year this happened. But it was like, I think within the past decade you have all these kind of Internet native payment companies and then at some point they kind of step in and say you have to pass this through us.
- [48:30]
Ben Thompson
And there were discussions around that. Cbdc, Central bank, digital currency, fedcoin, something along those lines was discussed but never really got off the ground. And so the usdc, the United States dollar backed stablecoins wound up being privately held by a number of public companies actually. And so we certainly didn't go the nationalization route there. But it was discussed at one point, I guess.
- [48:58]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [48:58]
Jordi
And then in a strong military you have Manhattan Project.
- [49:01]
Ben Thompson
This is a canonical example.
- [49:03]
Jordi
So if you map this back onto AI, I think we can say Leopold is kind of in this Manhattan Project camp. So we can say he's probably strong military in this quadrant. I think if you're plotting other people. Dario. Dario's talked a lot about the economic impacts of AI. 50% of white collar work, entry level, white collar work may go away. You're going to need some response to that.
- [49:33]
Max Hodak
Yeah.
- [49:33]
Jordi
If it's the government, like okay, if you're going to do some sort of ubi, like where do you get the money from? You need some kind of involvement of the AI company. So I think he can maybe, maybe you can.
- [49:42]
Ben Thompson
I mean this is all very much tax profits potentially.
- [49:45]
Vincenzo Landino
Sure.
- [49:45]
Jordi
Yes, but.
- [49:46]
Ben Thompson
Yes.
- [49:46]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [49:46]
Jordi
You know, this is all like very. Go further speculative but like I think maybe he can be, you know, for stuff like that. That's broadly, I would say, in kind of the weak economic kind of quadrant.
- [49:57]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I wonder. I wonder. Yeah. I mean, you put Dario at one point sort of in, like, the weak economic side. Like, he's thinking, like, more that the next likely step or the one that he's talking about right now is something that's more akin to the 2025 intel deal, less Manhattan Project. But it still feels like the fact that his favorite book is. The book that he gives out is the Making of the Atomic Bomb. Like, he has Manhattan Project on the brain. He has, yes.
- [50:29]
Jordi
I mean, so he's talked about, like, working with, you know, the military and stuff, but when he talks about, like, government intervention, it's almost always in the context of the economy.
- [50:40]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [50:40]
Jordi
So I think for that reason, I kind of put him over there. Obviously, like, this is very. You know, it's unclear, really.
- [50:46]
Ben Thompson
I mean, it is in the context of the economy. But at the same time, when he discusses giving Nvidia GPUs to China, he says that's akin to giving nukes to North Korea. And so he doesn't shy away from the Manhattan Project analogy as much as people think he has shied away from it recently. But, yes, it feels like he. And that's why I was sort of against you trying to, like, put him on this chart in some way, because I think he actually has considered all of these and sort of. It's much more of a matter of timelines, like, what he thinks will happen soon, what he is in favor of, what he is against. A lot of that aligns to who is in power, what the administration is doing, what the plan is. But I think he sees all of these different scenarios as potential outcomes. Some of them he'd be in favor of, some of them he'd be more resistant to.
- [51:43]
John Coogan
Well, I can't wait to watch his new interview with the Economist, which is sponsored and presented by Anthropic.
- [51:51]
Ben Thompson
That was a funny. That was a funny move, but do we have video we want to pull up?
- [51:57]
John Coogan
Well, it just came out a couple hours ago.
- [51:59]
Ben Thompson
Okay, there is a clip in here, right? Anthropic CEO, I apologize for Leaked memo from the Economist. Dario Amadeus says he's sorry. In his first interview since the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, the first American company to receive that designation. The firm's boss offered a mea culpa for the way he handled a crisis that he described as one of the most disorienting in Anthropic's history. So we can pull up this vertical clip from the Economist. The Economist getting in the vertical video game was long overdue, but welcomed. I am very excited. I've been a fan of the Economist for a very, very long time. And so we can pull up this clip from the Economist in the timeline and play this for the audience, potato style. Praise on President Trump. Do you regret having said that?
- [52:49]
Dario Amodei
So, yeah, I want to completely apologize for this, for this memo. So I want to make sure that people understand. Right. Like this was something written on Friday after the following three things that happened. The President tweeted removing all anthropic services from the federal government. The Secretary of War tweeted designating us a supply chain risk with a kind of broader version of the designation than the one that ultimately ended up actually being applied. And then there was this deal between one of the other AI model providers and the Department of War that I think even that model provider later described as. I don't remember the exact words, but, you know.
- [53:31]
Ben Thompson
Opportunistic.
- [53:33]
Dario Amodei
Yeah, I was going to say confusing. Right. So, you know, so basically all these three things said happened within a few hours, you know, in kind of sequence, you know, in kind of sequence from each other. We didn't know ahead of time what was going to happen, when it was going to happen. So it was among the most disorienting times in kind of anthropics history. The other side of it is I think anthropic has an internal culture where I post a lot. Like some people describe this as a memo. I wouldn't describe it as that. I post things in Slack. I post them a lot. And the culture within the company is that I'm very free. And it's not like a considered. It's not like a really considered or refined version of my thinking.
- [54:21]
Doug DeMuro
Right.
- [54:21]
Dario Amodei
It's not what I would say. On reflection, you've been very clear.
- [54:24]
Ben Thompson
Now, you've apologized for the memo.
- [54:26]
Vincenzo Landino
Have you apologized to President Trump?
- [54:27]
Ben Thompson
Will you apologize to him?
- [54:28]
Dario Amodei
I've apologized to the people that I've talked to within the Dow. You know, I'm happy to speak to others within the administration as well. I kind of don't know what will happen in the future, but, you know, I'm really happy to, you know, I'm
- [54:43]
Vincenzo Landino
really happy to speak to anyone.
- [54:45]
John Coogan
Hmm.
- [54:47]
Ben Thompson
Is that capitulation? It certainly seems like retrenchment, moving backwards, trying to polish things up, trying to potentially heal the divide. My favorite analysis that I saw, one
- [55:02]
John Coogan
thing that's interesting is externally, he will never say OpenAI and yet in the internal comms, there's clearly an insane obsession with OpenAI.
- [55:14]
Ben Thompson
Oh, yeah, right.
- [55:16]
John Coogan
Like externally he'll always say, like another model AI, model provider. And then internally it's just like heavily, heavily. You know, he'll never say Sam's name externally, and then internally it's just entirely fixated on Sam. I want to hold comments until I watch the whole.
- [55:33]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of drama. It's been a very crazy week. It's got to be good to be ending the week and maybe get some well deserved rest going into the weekend. Gregory C. Allen went on stratecherry and had a fantastic conversation with Ben Thompson. Allen is a senior advisor at the Wadani AI center at the center for Strategic and International studies in Washington, D.C. a nonpartisan think tank that was founded in 1962. He also worked at the DOD for a while. And he closed the interview with a very interesting quote and a perspective that I hadn't thought of that was really calling for unity and just the desire for the government to like, work through this in a positive way and get to like a good outcome, a good agreement. And I thought the way he phrased it was very good. So I'll just read this quote he said. But for me, the starting point has to be this. Dario used to work at Google. He is, I think it's pretty obvious to everyone involved probably sympathetic to the political left. And this guy has converted this entire generation of folks who were skeptical about the national security establishment to enthusiastically supporting the military. What a gift he is in that regard. And so to demonize him is just damaging to Silicon Valley, national security, to Silicon Valley's national security relations in a way that I just cringe at, because if you can get somebody like Dario enthusiastic about national security, if Dario can get thousands of anthropic employees who, you know, five years ago were probably like in an EA group home talking about pacifism and veganism and get those guys excited about national security. What a gift. What a gift to, to the national security community. What a gift that he has brought that community on board with literally developing autonomous weapons, not using them, subject to no human oversight, but developing them, ready to go. This is so much progress. Don't take us backwards. And so he's of course referencing to Project Maven, where Google was working with the Department of Defense in a much more limited way. And there was this employee revolt and there was this big divide between the employees and the leadership. And anthropic Dario has been able to get the Anthropic employees so far along that in Gregory Allen's perspective, this is something that is sort of a gift to the government and that they should be willing to deal with the rough edges, work through this to get to a good outcome. So we're all hoping to. A good outcome. Anyway, let's move on. Let's see.
- [58:27]
John Coogan
Is it that time?
- [58:29]
Ben Thompson
I think it's time for the Mansion section. Let's move on to the Mansion section. Let me tell you about Vanta. First, automate compliance and Security. Vanta is the leading AI trust management platform. And let me also tell you about Vibe Co, where D2C brands, B2B startups and AI companies advertise on streaming TV, pick channels, target audiences, measure sales. Just like on Meta.
- [58:52]
John Coogan
It's time for the Mansion section.
- [58:54]
Ben Thompson
Don't we have special lights? Wait, we're going green today? I thought the Mansion section was purple. Anyway, an ex Marvel CEO lists his home in a secretive California community. I know you got a soft spot for these secretive communities, Jordi. We're going to pull this one up. Homes in this enclave, the Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs, they usually trade between family and friends. But Eric Ellenbogan is testing the open market. At Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs, homes usually trade quietly between family members and friends. But for former Marvel Enterprises CEO Eric Ellenbert, Ellen Bogan and I got to know, is Marvel Enterprises, is that Marvel Entertainment or is that a different company? It seems like it's Marvel Entertainment. But anyway, Eric, Ellen Bogan clearly has done very well. He purchased the oldest.
- [59:49]
John Coogan
Now it's now called Marvel Entertainment. It used to be called Marvel Enterprises.
- [59:53]
Ben Thompson
Amazing. Amazing. So he purchased this house at smoke tree in 2021 for 3.95 million. Now it's hitting the market.
- [60:00]
John Coogan
They were giving it away.
- [60:02]
Ben Thompson
Million is bucking the trend by listing the house publicly. Quote, we felt strongly that offering the property on the open market would provide the greatest opportunity to identify the right architectural steward. You got to be an architectural steward to pick this one up. I love when people go to sell their houses and then they have a bunch of strings attached to. We talked to the guy or we read the story about the singer from Kiss, the rock band, and he was like, I don't want to sell to anyone who drinks alcohol, which is crazy.
- [60:38]
John Coogan
Wasn't the house, like, the most.
- [60:40]
Ben Thompson
It was the most crazy, over the top bachelor party.
- [60:43]
Vincenzo Landino
Yeah.
- [60:43]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [60:44]
Ben Thompson
It was a total party house in the Hollywood Hills. And Kiss is a rock band. Like, they definitely had the wildest times or, I mean, at least that was like the aesthetic. I don't know if they. Maybe they were straight edged the whole time, but. This house at Smoke Tree Ranch sits at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains. It has a near mythical status in Palm Springs. Dating to the early 1900s, the ranch has long drawn some of America's wealthiest families, including Walt Disney and the Ford family of the Ford Motor Company. In case you weren't sure what the Ford family was known for its wild west feel. The community has dirt roads and unassuming homes, many of which still belong to the families that built them. Ellen Bogan's home, built in the 1930s, has been owned by the Gilmore pharmaceutical family for more than 90 years. Before he bought it after.
- [61:29]
John Coogan
Let's give it up.
- [61:30]
Ben Thompson
Ellen Bogan worked to have the home successfully designated as a historical landmark. It sits on 1.8 acres. It's roughly 5,500 square feet, surrounds a central courtyard with a large pool.
- [61:42]
John Coogan
Are you, are you liking this house, John?
- [61:45]
Ben Thompson
I'm not a desert guy. I'm a forest guy. Guy. I know. You're a beach guy. I like the forest.
- [61:50]
John Coogan
I consider myself a bit of a desert guy. You like the desert, but I'm not, I'm not feeling this house at all.
- [61:55]
Ben Thompson
You're not feeling this house?
- [61:57]
John Coogan
Not one bit.
- [61:58]
Ben Thompson
Not one bit. How much would you pay for it? What's the fair price? What price are you like?
- [62:05]
John Coogan
I don't think it's fair for me to price it because I really don't. I really don't like it.
- [62:09]
Ben Thompson
You really don't like it?
- [62:10]
John Coogan
I don't think I'm the kind of steward they're looking for.
- [62:12]
Ben Thompson
Oh, you would change this into a 20 story apartment complex immediately.
- [62:18]
John Coogan
In general, I like ranch style houses, single story. I like this layout around the pool, this courtyard. I like homes that kind of face in towards kind of like a shared communal space. But I'm not loving it.
- [62:36]
Ben Thompson
Unpack it. Like, what don't you like about it?
- [62:38]
John Coogan
I mean, just the textures, the colors.
- [62:43]
Ben Thompson
Okay.
- [62:44]
John Coogan
It doesn't appear to be. Again, I like a classic. I like the classic kind of. I like a home that is classic structurally. But this looks like nothing has been. Like this feels like living in. Like you'd be living in kind of like a Hollywood set, right?
- [63:11]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [63:11]
John Coogan
Not like a home that's been.
- [63:12]
Ben Thompson
I feel like the materials are a little mixed in some of these cases. Like the hardwood cabinets combined with like sort of the furry chairs. Like the, the materials aren't. Aren't feeling.
- [63:23]
John Coogan
Yeah. Like what's Going on in this kitchen. This kitchen. Pull up this kitchen. This kitchen. What's going on here? Look at these, look at these.
- [63:29]
Ben Thompson
Like it's coming up, it's coming up. So, so that's not too bad. The overstuffed chairs, those are comfortable.
- [63:34]
John Coogan
Okay, this, this is absolutely brutal.
- [63:35]
Ben Thompson
This, this, this, the hardwood with the, with the wooden stuff.
- [63:40]
John Coogan
Those chairs, those chairs with the wood on wood on wood on wood on wood is absolutely.
- [63:45]
Ben Thompson
Dan Ratliff says it looks like a grandparents house.
- [63:48]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [63:48]
Ben Thompson
The pictures make it look mid well.
- [63:50]
John Coogan
Like they're like, oh, we got to find the right person to steward this house. It's like, okay, grandpa, let's. Let's put you to bed.
- [63:59]
Ben Thompson
The tile is criminal. Yeah. The chat is not.
- [64:02]
John Coogan
Ryan says full gut at minimum.
- [64:04]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah. They
- [64:08]
John Coogan
agree.
- [64:09]
Ben Thompson
Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Okay, well, why don't we leave Palm Springs? We'll head over to Manhattan first. We'll tell you about Gemini 3.1 Pro. With a more capable baseline, it's great for super complex tasks like visualizing difficult concepts, synthesizing data into a single view, or bringing creative projects to life.
- [64:27]
John Coogan
So I just got to say the audacity to be like, yeah, we need to put this on the open market to find the right steward. And it's like, yo, I don't know how, I don't know if you've been stewarding that well.
- [64:38]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. So is your read on it that like everyone from the community was like, yeah, we'll love to take this off your hands and like completely renovate it. And they're like, we gotta find a crazy person that likes this particular style. And so they gotta spread their. They gotta spread the aperture. They gotta open the aperture.
- [64:52]
Jordi
I think you guys are being too hard. I think if you just add like two or three more floors, you go vertically.
- [64:57]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [64:57]
Jordi
I think it could be pretty sick.
- [64:58]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. I would also dig down basement, man cave, racing simulators, racetrack, potentially. There's a lot of options to turn that place around, but good luck to whoever picks it up.
- [65:16]
John Coogan
That's a real project.
- [65:17]
Ben Thompson
That's a real project.
- [65:18]
John Coogan
They're like, it's perfect.
- [65:20]
Ben Thompson
It's a tear down.
- [65:21]
John Coogan
In your opinion about a tear down?
- [65:24]
Ben Thompson
Teardown to the studs. Got it. Okay, well, let's head over to New York because Katherine Clark at the Wall Street Journal got a coveted invitation to see New York's most secretive condo project. This is 80 Clarkson. The sales, they're over $1 billion now with minimal marketing, little press until now, little coverage until we discuss it on TVPN in a Sun filled room.
- [65:51]
John Coogan
This is breaking news. This is breaking news, folks.
- [65:53]
Ben Thompson
This is breaking news. With stone flooring and a plush, creamy white rug, my winter coat is whisked away and a sparkling water is thrust into my hand. For much of the past year, an invitation to come here has been one of the most coveted tickets in New York City. But I'm not at a hot new bar or restaurant. I'm on the far west side of Manhattan at the tucked away sales gallery for a new condominium. The developers of 80 Clarkson Street, a pair of under construction towers at the edge of the West Village, have kept details about the project secret. The units aren't listed on sites like, like Zillow and Street. Easy access to the sales office by the Hudson river is by appointment only. And appointments were initially scarce. Many prospective buyers tried to call in favors to get a look quote. There are a lot of people who've wanted to get in there who haven't been able to get in, said real estate agent Nick Gavin of Compass, who has multiple deals. He's done multiple deals there. Counterintuitive though it may seem, the secrecy surrounding 80 Clarkson appears to have been an extremely effective sales tool. In less than a year, more than $1 billion worth of condos have been have gone into contract on the project, amounting to more than half of its 112 residences. A buyer recently signed a contract to pay $129 million for a residence at 80 Clarkson. If it closes, the transaction will set a record for downtown Manhattan, shattering the previous high water mark of 60 million. They're going twice as expensive as the previous high water mark. It's a 7,400 square foot apartment. A roughly 7,400 square foot apartment is asking 75 million. And they also found a buyer. So give me a little bit of a review on this style. Are you feeling this? Do you think you could settle into an apartment if it looked like this and had 7,000 square feet to walk around and was in New York City? They're asking more than 7000.
- [67:42]
John Coogan
Yeah, it's not 7000 square feet.
- [67:43]
Ben Thompson
It's 7000. No, $7000 a square foot. But also there's a unit there that's 7,000 square feet. So you add those together, you get to $75 million. But in terms of styling, in terms of aesthetics, in terms of vibes, what you got for us, Jordy? What do you think?
- [67:58]
John Coogan
I think it's, it's not really my style, but in general, I think it's. I think in general, I think it's in general, it's.
- [68:10]
Ben Thompson
You can grit your teeth, you could grit your teeth.
- [68:13]
John Coogan
Some mixture of gun to your head, you'd live there. Of classic New York. Well, let's get interior styling brought into the modern era.
- [68:24]
Ben Thompson
The golden ticket.
- [68:25]
John Coogan
I think it's nice.
- [68:25]
Ben Thompson
At 80 Clarkson, the two under construction towers sit adjacent to the west side highway on the Hudson River. The project's neighbors are Google and Pier 40, the former marine terminal that now serves as parking and sports facility with a trapeze school. So if you're into trapeze, I'm sold. You're sold. Walking distance to trapeze lessons. Maybe you gotta do trapeze, I don't know. Despite all the cloak and dagger, the gallery itself is subdued and staid. There's no dimming of lights, no ultra dramatic video, no stirring music. Instead, the space is classic and dignified, with the sales team pointing out details such as the motor court, which they say was inspired by a Roman piazza designed by Michelangelo. It is an experience that channels the Zeckendorf's reputation for a certain brand of Manhattan real estate. Discreet, restrained and priced at the very top of the market. Scions of one of New York City's real estate's most storied dynasties, the brothers Track record includes 15 Central Park west and the Upper west side condo. The Upper west side condo that set a new benchmark for the luxury market of the about 20 years ago. As we walk through the sales galleries, a series of showrooms are slowly revealed. The first, accessed through doors emblazoned with detailed bronze panels, is almost vacant except for a scale model of the building. Around a corner is a movie theater style screen where the team can present renderings of the project. Another scale model shows the building's amenities with drawers that pull out to reveal aerial views of features such as a spa gym, golf simulator. Where's the racing simulator? Guys, we need that squash court. Are you squash guy?
- [70:01]
John Coogan
No.
- [70:02]
Ben Thompson
Do you put squash in the same category as Padel and what's that other one called?
- [70:08]
John Coogan
Pickle.
- [70:09]
Ben Thompson
Pickleball.
- [70:09]
John Coogan
No, pickleball. Pickles out in its own world.
- [70:12]
Ben Thompson
Okay. Pickles.
- [70:12]
John Coogan
Pickles out in its own world.
- [70:13]
Ben Thompson
F tier. Pickle's F tier. Tennis is S tier.
- [70:17]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [70:19]
Ben Thompson
Give me a little tier list. Give me squash. Where's that? A, B, C, D? I don't know.
- [70:23]
John Coogan
I've never lived somewhere that people were big into squash.
- [70:27]
Ben Thompson
Have you ever worked anywhere that had a bunch of squash courts?
- [70:31]
John Coogan
I have.
- [70:31]
Ben Thompson
Gotcha.
- [70:32]
John Coogan
Got me.
- [70:33]
Ben Thompson
So where are you putting? Tier? We didn't ever play.
- [70:36]
John Coogan
You never Played B tier. Really? Badminton is the only S tier.
- [70:39]
Ben Thompson
Badminton above tennis.
- [70:42]
John Coogan
I hate to say it.
- [70:42]
Ben Thompson
Wow, hot take. What about golf, man?
- [70:49]
John Coogan
I've really tried to get into golf, but I can't get past nine holes.
- [70:53]
Ben Thompson
B tier.
- [70:55]
John Coogan
I don't know if I can put it into B tier A tier, but. Do you like playing 18 holes of golf?
- [71:00]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I like golf.
- [71:01]
John Coogan
Do you like the last nine?
- [71:03]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [71:04]
John Coogan
You don't ever?
- [71:05]
Ben Thompson
Sometimes I dip out at 13.
- [71:07]
John Coogan
What if nobody that you're playing with enjoys talking about technology or business?
- [71:12]
Ben Thompson
It's a nightmare. It's a waking nightmare.
- [71:15]
John Coogan
It actually is. It actually is.
- [71:17]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [71:18]
John Coogan
No.
- [71:20]
Ben Thompson
What about
- [71:23]
John Coogan
we should do a Friday episode sometime where we're just golfing and we have the entire show printed out and we just have the team following with a camera. We're mic'd up. We're just shanking balls left and right swing.
- [71:38]
Ben Thompson
It is not very good. So if.
- [71:40]
John Coogan
If Trey says, what about sporting clays?
- [71:43]
Ben Thompson
Sporting clays.
- [71:45]
John Coogan
S tier.
- [71:45]
Ben Thompson
We were debating this earlier today. Brandon was putting that in, like, C tier sporting clays. You put that. You. You said it gets boring after 45 minutes. Is that right? Sporting clays. Oh, yeah, yeah. Very repetitive. I. I like, say you're bad. Just.
- [72:00]
John Coogan
No, I think he's saying he's just so good. He just never misses. Many people have said Brandon never misses.
- [72:05]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Racing simulator. Where does that go on the tier? List of amenities?
- [72:12]
John Coogan
I think fantastic. I don't know anywhere that actually has that as an amenity, though. Yet. Yet.
- [72:19]
Ben Thompson
What about spa? Indoor lap pool?
- [72:26]
John Coogan
The odds that your apartment spa is actually going to be elite are. Are low.
- [72:30]
Ben Thompson
Okay, listen to this. They got a music room with a sound engineering booth, and there's also a content creation studio. You can make podcasts if you buy this $75 million house or apartment in Manhattan. Content creation studio is hilarious that there's such demand for. Maybe I'll start a podcast that, like, they're building it into luxury apartments at this point.
- [72:54]
John Coogan
Like, that just sounds like they had an empty room.
- [72:57]
Ben Thompson
If you have $75 million to buy an apartment and that's your podcasting strategy, you're cooked. You're just like, yeah, I really need to go downstairs and use the communal content creation studio. Rough. I did hear that there are some influencers that do, like, unboxings. Basically, they get a whole bunch of stuff sent to them. They'll just review products all day long on Instagram and they will actually rent a different place because their house is often Messy because they have like families and kids and all this stuff. So their office will just be like another apartment that's like perfectly white, perfectly clean.
- [73:31]
John Coogan
Well, when we were looking for this, this studio, we did look at some other places, if you remember where we just walked in. And in every single studio it was, they were just doing unboxings. They just have like a ring light, remember?
- [73:45]
Ben Thompson
Right. Yeah. It was like some temu TikTok.
- [73:48]
John Coogan
It's like a TikTok shop.
- [73:50]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. That whole world, it was crazy.
- [73:51]
John Coogan
That are big into that world.
- [73:52]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. That was wild. The path not traveled by us.
- [73:58]
John Coogan
I suppose somebody took a ride down a four story slide.
- [74:02]
Ben Thompson
I love this. Before we move on to the next one, let me tell you about Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that lets you grow your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with agents. And let me also tell you about fin, the number one AI agent for customer service. If you want AI to handle your customer support, go to FIN AI. So this is a feature that I think is S tier. I would put four story slide inside of a $20 million Tribeca penthouse. First off, you're getting a location, you're getting an apartment. A penthouse. At that other place it was 75 million, 120 million. This is only 20 million by comparison. Incredible value. And then instead of some slop podcast room that you have to share with every other resident, you, you get a private four story slide. This is a buy. This is incredible. It's called the sophisticated fun house and it's in Tribeca in Manhattan. It has a rope swing, a rock climbing column and secret ladders and entryways. This is speaking to me. I love this. Catherine Clark reports in the Wall Street Journal mansion section. From the top floor of a Manhattan penthouse, I clamber ungracefully into a stainless steel spiral slide that sends me down four stories, spitting me out in a dramatic all white foyer. As apartment tours go, this one is unusual. This penthouse at 150 Nassau street in Lower Manhattan has been the subject of lower of local lore for almost two decades, largely thanks to the presence of this snaking silvery slide. Now the four bedroom home known as Sky House is coming on the market for just $20 million. What a steal. We gotta browbeat some of our guests who live in New York into picking this up. I want to go down the slide. When owners Craig and Kristen Neville Manning first toured the apartment in 2006, it looked nothing like it does now. A nearly raw space. It had no interior walls, electrical or plumbing. First order business. Four story slide boom. Measuring 6,400 square feet, the penthouse is built into the copper and terracotta pinnacle of a circa 1895 building. One of New York's earliest steel skeleton frame skyscrapers. The building was converted to condos. Tyler in the early 2000s.
- [76:15]
John Coogan
Do you think it's possible that they built a skyscraper over 110 years before you were born?
- [76:22]
Ben Thompson
That's crazy.
- [76:23]
John Coogan
Like, come on.
- [76:24]
Jordi
I don't think they had.
- [76:25]
John Coogan
Make it make sense.
- [76:26]
Ben Thompson
Make it make sense.
- [76:27]
John Coogan
Make it make sense.
- [76:28]
Ben Thompson
This might be alien technology. It's entirely possible. Craig founded Google's first remote engineering center in New York and was later the chief technology officer of the urban innovation company Sidewalk Labs, which is now part of Google. So he was at Google was like, let's set up shop in New York.
- [76:47]
John Coogan
Kristin is a former Facebook and Google executive.
- [76:49]
Ben Thompson
This is amazing.
- [76:51]
John Coogan
Let's give it up for Big Tech.
- [76:52]
Ben Thompson
Let's give it up for Big Tech. And honestly, very, very, you know, Google has a very wonderful corporate quirky culture and this is a very wonderful quirky house. I love that. A four story slide is something that I bet I could find on the Googleplex campus if I really looked around and found it. They put it in their house so respect to them. After buying the unit, they tapped Hudson and interior designer Ghislaine Vinass to turn what Vinass describes as a sophisticated fun house. They wanted that built. In addition to the slide, there's a rope swing, a a column for rock climbing, and a series of secret ladders and entryways.
- [77:30]
John Coogan
Yeah, a lot of people say you can't put rope swings and a series of secret ladders in your house.
- [77:35]
Ben Thompson
You absolutely can.
- [77:37]
John Coogan
They didn't listen.
- [77:38]
Ben Thompson
While the space looks like it was designed to entertain children, they don't have any children. The design reflects the couple's own joyful stolen valor. Stolen valor.
- [77:47]
John Coogan
Insane stolen valor. Imagine building a four story slide.
- [77:52]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah, you gotta, yeah, you gotta get a bunch of kids in here. But fortunately you can be the change you want to be. Have a bunch of kids buy this house that's on the market.
- [78:04]
John Coogan
Be the change you want to be. John Coogan. Yes, that's a great line.
- [78:09]
Ben Thompson
Yes. They have fluorescent orange chairs. The home has structural glass bridges and walkways, angular entryways and skylights, white walls and ceilings. Juxtapos opposed with vibrant furniture and art. Give it the feel of a modern art museum. A sculpture in the foyer.
- [78:24]
John Coogan
This whole time I'm thinking, okay, they've got this climbing wall Column thing. They certainly have like 25 children. 25 children, for sure. It's like. No, that was for me, actually, after
- [78:36]
Ben Thompson
I got off Child at Heart. After I got done stacking paper at a hyperscaler 2. Hyperscale.
- [78:42]
John Coogan
The swing. The swing.
- [78:44]
Ben Thompson
I don't know. To each their own. Well, it's a beautiful house and it can be yours for $20 million.
- [78:52]
John Coogan
And then you kind of strange. Strange art in this one section.
- [78:58]
Ben Thompson
Quirky. There's all sorts of things.
- [79:00]
John Coogan
Certainly. Quirky.
- [79:02]
Ben Thompson
Anyway, we're going back to Los Angeles next. But first, let me tell you about graphite code review for the age of AI. Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. And let me also tell you about Cognition. They're the makers of Devon, the AI software engineer. Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team. So David Lynch's quirky Los Angeles compound sells for 13 million.
- [79:26]
John Coogan
Okay, explain David Lynch.
- [79:29]
Ben Thompson
Who wants to explain David Lynch? Any of you guys know he's the Goat? He's the Goat. He's the Goat. He created Twin Peaks and the film Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive is fantastic.
- [79:38]
Jordi
Eraserhead. Eraserhead's probably my favorite movie. Yeah.
- [79:41]
Ben Thompson
Really? I haven't seen Eraserhead.
- [79:43]
Jordi
Yeah. Jordy. It's like, he's like. I don't know, very. I actually have no idea how to describe, like, kind of surreal. Yeah, like very artistic.
- [79:49]
John Coogan
Explain him as like a big tech CEO.
- [79:52]
Jordi
He's like all the CEOs favorite CEO.
- [79:55]
Ben Thompson
That's how I would explain it.
- [79:56]
Jordi
All the big directors.
- [79:57]
Ben Thompson
It's his favorite director, their favorite director. Your favorite director's favorite director.
- [80:01]
John Coogan
But what if you have no favorite director?
- [80:04]
Ben Thompson
How many jumps to get from Sacha Baron Cohen to David Lynch? Probably not that many. He probably has respect for him. Anyway. A quirky Los Angeles compound that was the longtime home of the late filmmaker David lynch has sold for $13 million about six months after hitting the market. Lynch died in 2025. He was known for the surreal films and television shows, including the TV series Twin Peaks and the 2001 film Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive is a Tom Cruise movie, I believe. Is that right? Is he in there? Justin Theroux. Did I get that wrong? Am I thinking of a different movie? I think of Magnolia.
- [80:38]
John Coogan
This is such a fascinating home from the outside. From the street, it's like somewhat brutalist.
- [80:43]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [80:44]
John Coogan
And then inside it's like, so he's a Parisian.
- [80:49]
Ben Thompson
And then he has a workshop on the estate designed for some of the Property's metalwork himself. This is a fascinating building. So the compound has seven buildings spanning 11,000 square feet in total with 10 bedrooms. The centerpiece of the estate is a pink 1960s house that was designed by the architect Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. Lynch purchased it for $560,000 in 1987 and they just kept working, working, working on it. He later hired Lloyd Wright's son, the grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright, this is Eric Lloyd Wright, to design a poet and a pool house for the property. In 1989, lynch bought an adjacent two bedroom brutalist house for $542,000 and added a studio to the building for $346,000 in 1995. So he just kept landing and expanding. In a statement, two of Lynch's children said the property was a place of deep meaning in their father's life and the lives of those who lived and worked there. It holds a lot of history for our family and we're grateful to see it pass to someone who's interested in caring for it and preserving what made it special. Lynch viewed his living space as an extension of his creative life. The Lloyd Wright house affects my whole life to live inside it, he said in a 1997 interview. What do you think about this house? Would you live here? Do you like this house? Do you like this style?
- [82:15]
John Coogan
I do like it. I just think, I think that needs about. I don't know, an architectural purist might hate me for this, but it needs a lot of investment.
- [82:27]
Ben Thompson
You have to tear it down.
- [82:29]
John Coogan
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [82:30]
Jordi
This is also.
- [82:31]
John Coogan
I like.
- [82:31]
Jordi
I don't think it's mentioned in the article, but this is the location of Lost highway, which is another of his movies.
- [82:36]
Max Hodak
Wow.
- [82:37]
Ben Thompson
Ball knower over there. I had no idea. I don't know Lost highway at all.
- [82:41]
Jordi
Tyler Schuyler lynch movie.
- [82:43]
Ben Thompson
You really did. It's amazing. Oh, the high end Manhattan building that has the content creation studio actually broke through and hit the timeline. Somebody saw that and screenshotted it. It was as notable to them as it was to us. Sergey Brin is the second billionaire to buy in Miami this week. This has happened a few times. I feel like the Google founders have been on a Miami buying spree, bought multiple properties. We already talked a little bit about that. We should move over to the Financial Times and talk about Vacheron, the watchmaker, because there is an interesting piece in the Financial Times all about that. But first let me tell you about TurboPuffer, Serverless Vector and Fulltek Search built from first principles and object storage. Fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable. Let me also tell you about Restream One Livestream 30 Plus Destinations. If you want to multistream, go to restream.com so there's an interview with the CEO of Vashre, Vacheron Constantin. It says Vacheron Constantin bets on culture and complications instead of volume. In an industry that often equates growth with volume, Laurent Pervey is attempting something more delicate. To expand the oldest continuously operating watchmaker without diluting its own scarcity. Vacheron holds the title of longest in the business continuously. No breaks, no days off. The ultimate Long before we jump in
- [84:09]
John Coogan
there, the team is sharing how many jumps to get me from the host Tyler at TBPN to David Lynch. And so Tyler Cosgrove works with John Coogan at tvpn. Okay. John Coogan has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg and in the film Social Network. Jesse Eisenberg co starred with Laura Dern in Resistance and Laura Dern starred in Wild at Heart, directed by David Lynch.
- [84:38]
Ben Thompson
Five Degrees of Separation. There we go. Let's make some phone calls. Except he has sadly passed away. But what an interesting five jumps to this is a cool use case for LLMs. This is very fun. I like this. Did you just want to hear the sound effect? Tyler texted me a while back like 20 minutes ago saying I should play that. Fifteen months into his tenure as Vacheron's chief executive, Laurent runs a brand that, according to industry analysts, generated more than 1 billion pounds in revenues in 2023. They're around $1 billion revenue company annual production is estimated at over 25,000 watches, up from roughly 3,000 in the 1980s. So pretty significant increase. And that's before the watchmaker was acquired in the 1990s by what is now the Richemont luxury conglomerate. Although revenues have since dipped slightly, the numbers place Vacheron firmly among the upper ranks of Swiss watchmaking. Yet Laurent, in his first interview since taking the reins, is clear that acceleration is not the goal. They're not trying to make more watches that quickly. We must evolve with the market, he says, but without chasing volume for its own sake. The timing is delicate, a very volatile context. Outside and inside the watch industry, secondary prices have softened, hype has receded, and growth across the sector has become less predictable. Laurent describes the brand's position positioning as almost almost as a balance sheet of capabilities. Classic watches, jewelry watches, sport integrated bracelet watches, very high complications. And the revived historiques line. The last, as its name suggests, is a family of retro and shaped watches. You might be familiar with the Vacheron 222, which is very popular right now. That's in the Historiques collection. The objective is to occupy the whole field of high watchmaking, ensuring that when one segment slows, another can carry momentum. He half accepts the analogy when pressed. Vacheron is kind of a horological hedge fund, diversifying risk not across asset classes, but across aesthetics and price tiers. The slowing has been most visible in the steel sports watch watch category. Laurent concedes that the phenomenon of speculation and hype has abated, even if the integrated bracelet segment itself is not going to go away. That's the overseas with the integrated bracelet. But while others worry about the fading of an asset class, he simply says that over the past years he has seen a bit more demand for classic watches, high complications for shaped watches, for smaller dynamics, diameters, prompting, among other things, a 36.5 millimeter traditionnel perpetual calendar. Since taking the top job, he's moved decisively towards culture, leveraging the contents of two of the world's largest and most prestigious museums, the Met and the Louvre. The Tribute to Great Civilizations collection saw the creation of quartet of five piece limited edition watches, each featuring a a miniature enameled version of a Louvre masterpiece, such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Beyond this series lies an even more bespoke partnership with the museums, where a collector can choose any masterpiece painting, sculpture or ornamental item for Vacheron to reproduce on the dial. Each project is unique, so there's no fixed scale of charges, but Lorenz cites the minimum being €150,000. Pre tax. Techniques range from miniature enamel painting, which he says is the most popular, to engraving or powder packed into engraving. Numerically, production is almost riscible. We don't do more than 10 or 12 pieces a year, so these are custom. You walk through the museum, you see something you like, you like, and you're like, I want that on a watch and they'll make it for you. Very, very cool. Maybe I'll get one.
- [88:49]
John Coogan
Do they put logos? Will they put a ramp logo?
- [88:53]
Ben Thompson
If it's in the. See, now you're thinking, so you have to work backwards. So the question is, how do you get a painting of the ramp logo into the Louvre? As long as, you know, people were sneaking stuff out of the Louvre, Maybe we sneak ramp logo painting in. So like, wasn't the Mona Lisa there? Like, not anymore, baby. It's a painting of the ramp. Credit card I love it.
- [89:15]
John Coogan
I like it. The overseas perpetual calendar ultra thin is one of the my. I think one of the most stunning modern watches.
- [89:23]
Ben Thompson
Yes. I like the overseas dual time a little bit more, but they're both great. And I think that the 222 we were sort of hyped on the 222 overseas might be making a comeback.
- [89:37]
John Coogan
The ultra thin.
- [89:38]
Ben Thompson
Yes, yes.
- [89:40]
John Coogan
It's just insane.
- [89:41]
Ben Thompson
There are some really cool historiques out there. There's a square Vacheron that's pretty popular. I'm not exactly sure what the model number is, but they are doing fantastically well. And most importantly, I think have just carved out a very interesting brand positioning by choosing to partner with the Louvre the Met. It maintains this very high aura inaccessibility. Very old and stuffy and stodgy. It's not. Cause it's not. That's not a bunch of like younger.
- [90:14]
Doug DeMuro
More.
- [90:16]
John Coogan
Yeah. When you look at what ap. When you look at what AP is doing like very much, you know, on the hype train and partnering with DJs and Travis Scott caws and doing all this stuff and Vacheron is like, okay, yeah.
- [90:29]
Ben Thompson
And you just have to wonder like what is the more long term strategy? You know, the AP strategy, it certainly
- [90:37]
John Coogan
is not helping the resale market right
- [90:39]
Ben Thompson
now very quickly, but then it probably crashes, I would assume and the true horology heads head back to Vacheron. We'll see. Well, let me tell you about Gusto, the unified platform for payroll, benefits and HR built to evolve with modern small and medium sized businesses. And let me also tell you about Phantom cash. Cha Ching again. Fund your wallet without exchanges her middlemen and spend with the Phantom card. Moving on. People are having fun with Leopold Aschenbrenner and his wife to be. I believe they're engaged. Jira Ticket says when you ask some high elves at Rivendell if they want to join you in your quest to Erebor, they hit you with the light of Valinor Stare 2.8 thousand likes people like the photo. Very silly.
- [91:31]
John Coogan
Zeke says mildly surprised to learn that director level staff at anthropic have human EAs.
- [91:38]
Ben Thompson
How did they learn that? How did he learn that? Was that in like the most recent Dario news? This is from March 6th today.
- [91:44]
John Coogan
I mean he runs AI Finance Tool.
- [91:47]
Ben Thompson
Oh, so maybe he's interacting with them.
- [91:48]
John Coogan
He's interacting with them.
- [91:50]
Ben Thompson
That's a good thing.
- [91:51]
John Coogan
All right, we got a new Xbox. What's going on here?
- [91:54]
Ben Thompson
We have breaking news. As of three days ago, we didn't really get to it. Project Helix is the next generation of the Xbox console. What do we know about it?
- [92:04]
John Coogan
Nothing, Nothing.
- [92:06]
Ben Thompson
Za nada. We see a logo reveal. Is this just a working title? I don't know. Will this be delayed? The PS6 is supposedly delayed. The Switch 2 is maybe going up in price. Very unclear what Microsoft strategy is with Xbox. The new head of Xbox does not seem to be super focused on the traditional path of like box software own titles. Sony really went on a tear and acquired a lot of the great ip, bought a bunch of game studios, brought them in house, created sort of like this IP roll up that they could get exclusives. There was always a fear that when Microsoft bought Activision that they would do the same thing with Call of Duty. Call of Duty would become a Microsoft exclusive and Xbox exclusive. That never made financial sense. It never made sense from a regulation perspective. It would be seen as anti competitive. Hasn't played out. So even though Activision is now under and they own Blizzard, World of Warcraft, all that ip, even though that is now within Microsoft, it hasn't seemed to be like the cornerstone of like revitalizing the Xbox as like the number one killer console that everyone has to have. And they've always been doing this dance between Windows PC sales, Windows gaming and then Xbox gaming and then now cloud streaming where you can stream Xbox on anything, even on an iPhone, iPad. There's that company backbone that that sort of clicks a gaming controller onto your phone and so you can stream both PlayStation games from a PlayStation that you have in your house or you can stream from Xbox cloud. Tyler, when you played the Oculus, you used Xbox game streaming, correct? That was how the game was.
- [93:55]
Jordi
Yes. Yeah. The Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition, I think that's the full title.
- [93:59]
Ben Thompson
Was there anything that was Xbox specific about that or was it just the packaging and then it just like sort of recommended that you, you use that software.
- [94:07]
Jordi
I mean it came with an Xbox controller.
- [94:09]
Ben Thompson
Oh yeah.
- [94:10]
John Coogan
Okay.
- [94:11]
Jordi
But yeah, I don't know exactly what the deal was. I don't think there was no.
- [94:14]
Ben Thompson
Like, did it feel like when you fired it up any Xbox apps were like preloaded?
- [94:23]
Jordi
I don't think so. But it's not like you have to download them. Right. So it doesn't matter that much that they're already installed.
- [94:29]
Ben Thompson
Well, I'm thinking more about it just from like the user retention and activation funnel. I feel like that's where the Oculus is falling flat the most for me. That's why I framed the challenge the way I did where I was like, you need to beat one level of Halo that takes you 10 minutes in 45 minutes. This is a ridiculous challenge. Why is it so easy? It should be so easy. But it took you 25 minutes to get set up, right? Something like that. Because you had to go update the software, create accounts, download stuff and and it would be interesting to see more of a deeper partnership there. But we'll see. I mean it's entirely possible that Meta is just like pulling back on VR entirely, which would be very disappointing for me. But we shall see. Let me tell you about Cisco Critical infrastructure for the AI era Unlock seamless real time experiences and new value with
- [95:17]
John Coogan
Cisco Tech layoff tracker what's going on? Hearing from multiple sources inside Oracle that the company is planning thousands of jobs cuts, potentially 20 to 30,000 roles across the board. This was surprising to me because I didn't realize that Oracle had a headcount around 170,000 people.
- [95:38]
Ben Thompson
There's a lot going on at Oracle. It's a very like old company, a lot of sales reps. I had a friend who worked as an Oracle sales rep. Loved the job, great lifestyle, going around selling software, selling data centers, selling all sorts of stuff.
- [95:53]
John Coogan
This is to free up 8 to 10 billion in cash flow. All to fund massive AI data center expansion. US banks are pulling back from financing. Borrowing costs are rising fast.
- [96:01]
Ben Thompson
CDS spreads.
- [96:01]
John Coogan
The cuts would be the largest in years, bigger than the 10,000 they did in late 2025. They are also eyeing asset sales like the Cerner healthcare unit. Insiders say non core units and data center link staff are most at risk. Risk it's tied to AI commitments anyways so still rumors at this point but wouldn't be wouldn't be super surprising they
- [96:31]
Ben Thompson
I just like the comfortably smug is watching the show and publicly tweeting Badminton S tier outstanding take Squash is a tier then we're starting conversation. Well speaking of watches, Paul Graham clearly got into watches recently, which I love to see because he posted a lengthy essay called the brand age paulgraham.com brandage HTML and he tells a very detailed story of the Swiss watch industry, the Quartz crisis and he goes into the strategy of every single house. It's an amazing telling of what Omega did, what Vacheron did, what Patek did and it's very very long. There was an interesting segment in here. The next move was made by AP who in 1970 commissioned the renowned designer Gerald to design their own iconic watch, this one daringly in steel. The result, launched in 1972 was
- [97:45]
John Coogan
Nautilus
- [97:47]
Ben Thompson
no, this is AP.
- [97:48]
John Coogan
Oh. Oh. The Royal Oak.
- [97:49]
Ben Thompson
The Royal Oak, of course. And AP's ads for they too, now started doing brand advertising, emphasized its high cost. Even more dramatically, introducing steel at the price of gold was one of the ads. Like, we're going to charge you gold prices for something that's steel, and they're just flexing on it. I love it. You're looking at the costliest stainless steel watch in the world, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. What makes it even more precious than gold is the time that went into building it by a vanishing breed of master watchmakers. At the bottom of the ad, they turn the traditional formula on its head and describe their watches as being priced from $35,000 and down instead of up, because they want to let you know that what the high end is, what's the top of the range? Because price has become part of their brand. The Royal Oak was also a step forward in surface area devoted to brand. The Golden Ellipse had turned the watch face into an expression of brand, but it used ordinary straps and bracelets. In the Royal Oak, the watch face was integrated with a metal bracelet that continued its design all the way around the wrist. When it said, you're looking at the costliest stainless steel watch in the world, it said, with every square millimeter of surface area. It said it with every square millimeter of surface area. Would customers buy this new approach? The initial results were moderately encouraging. The Holy Trinity sales didn't take off, but they didn't go down to zero either. There were at least some people out there responding to the new message. Perhaps if they kept it at the number, perhaps if they kept at it, the number would grow. So they did. Encouraged by the success of the Royal Oak, Patek Philippe commissioned gerald Genta in 1974 to design a similar one watch for them. The design of the Royal Oak had been inspired by a ship's porthole. So the design of this new watch would be inspired by a ship's porthole. It was called the Nautilus, and it launched at the Basel watch fair in 1976. In the Nautilus, we see the incompatibility of branding and design. And this is where it gets a little controversial. Some people don't like the way PG is talking about the difference between branding and design here. He says it was huge. The most expensive men's watches at the peak of the golden age were typically 32 or 33 millimeters in diameter. The nautilus was 42 millimeters as well as it being huge, it had gratuitous knobs on either side of the face, like a pair of ears. But you could recognize one from across the room in the Nautilus. Of all the watches Patek makes now, the Nautilus is the most sought after. After. It's perfectly aligned with what present day buyers want. Basically the loudest possible expression of brand. But in 1976, it was ahead of its time. And in 1976, it was still a little too much. And this is something that happens all the time in luxury goods. Somebody comes out, they take a bold stance, they F40, they make an aggressive move, and then over time, it is revealed to be underrated. Anyway, we have our next guest.
- [101:10]
John Coogan
We do.
- [101:11]
Ben Thompson
Is it Doug demero?
- [101:12]
John Coogan
No, Vincenzo.
- [101:14]
Ben Thompson
Oh, Vincenzo's hopping on. Fantastic. Amazing. Good to see you, Vincenzo. How you doing?
- [101:20]
John Coogan
What's happening?
- [101:21]
Vincenzo Landino
Sorry to disappoint you.
- [101:22]
Max Hodak
I'm not Doug.
- [101:23]
Ben Thompson
Doug's coming on a little bit, but I'm glad we had some guests step out. What's. God. Did you press it twice?
- [101:30]
John Coogan
They made it.
- [101:30]
Ben Thompson
Oh, they made it play again and again and again. Okay, well, we're just going. We're going to keep going on this. Can you fade this down? Okay, there we go.
- [101:38]
Vincenzo Landino
It goes on and on and on and on.
- [101:40]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [101:40]
Vincenzo Landino
And.
- [101:40]
Ben Thompson
And typically, if you push the button again, you turn it off, but we changed it so that if you push the button twice, it actually plays it twice. So you can do, like. But it gets to be a little much. So overkill. Right, Overkill. Anyway, take us through your. I'd love to start with, like, the Preview of the F1 season, but also just Apple's strategy, because I think you unpacked it way at a way deeper level than what I'd seen folks understanding about Apple's F1 strategy before.
- [102:14]
Vincenzo Landino
Yeah, I'll start with the Apple stuff then. Really? I think, you know, what Apple's done is they've said, we may not have the distribution that ESPN others have traditionally, but we're going to use our might, which is
- [102:34]
Doug DeMuro
these.
- [102:36]
Vincenzo Landino
They've got these devices in everybody's hands. We're all using MacBooks. We've all got iPads, and we've got AirPods and Apple watches. And so.
- [102:44]
John Coogan
And John's got his Vision Pro.
- [102:46]
Ben Thompson
I do have his Vision Pros.
- [102:49]
Vincenzo Landino
There you go. I wish.
- [102:50]
Ben Thompson
Last man standing, I think.
- [102:52]
Vincenzo Landino
I think something will be coming with that. I do. Yeah, they are. They're rolling all this stuff out and now we're seeing, like. When did you ever think that Apple And Netflix would ever find a way to work together on a streaming cross collab? I don't know if you guys saw that news, but yeah, you're gonna, we're gonna get to see, actually drive to Survivors already streaming on Apple tv. And in return, Netflix is going to be streaming one of the races.
- [103:19]
Ben Thompson
Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
- [103:21]
Vincenzo Landino
What did you. Ironically, it is the Canadian Grand Prix. Why the Canadian Grand Prix, you might ask? Well, the Canadian Grand Prix takes place the same weekend that the Indy 500 takes place, which is the most watched motorsport event in America.
- [103:35]
Ben Thompson
Okay.
- [103:36]
Vincenzo Landino
Maybe even, well, not the world, but in America, it will have the best, best numbers of the year.
- [103:41]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [103:42]
Vincenzo Landino
So Apple knows this. What do they do? They go and partner with Netflix. Everybody has Netflix, right? The IMAX theaters, they're trying to change the experience. How do you watch a race? Five races are going to be shown in IMAX theaters. Yeah, that's pretty cool.
- [103:58]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [104:00]
Vincenzo Landino
They also partnered up with Event Pass, so bars, restaurants, it'll. It's. That's where they buy a lot of their, their sports packages from. Through Event Pass, they're rolled into there. They've also, They've also unleashed MLS on that. They finally are realizing that the MLS thing wasn't working right. So, yes, now they're doing that with Formula One. So now Formula One is going to be able to be in bars and restaurants. You're going to see Formula 1 in IMAX theaters again, only 5, 7am
- [104:33]
Dario Amodei
I mean, that's.
- [104:34]
Vincenzo Landino
That. That might be the issue with some of the races. So we'll see what happens there. But I think the fact that they're open to these different types of distribution channels and platforms is. It's exciting. It really is exciting. Have you guys had a chance to play around with.
- [104:49]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah. React to my thesis that, like the way Apple sees onboarding a fan to an actual live watching sport experience starts with the F1 movie, which, when you watch that movie, you don't need to know anything about F1. And you'll hear the voiceover of the narrator basically explain all the rules to you. And then they show Brad Pitt doing all these, like, tricky moves that illustrate why pit stops matter and why tires matter damage, all these things. And so you can watch the F1 movie just because you like Brad Pitt and it's a fun movie. Then you can go into Drive to survive. It's the reality TV version. You don't really have to follow a full race. You get all the drama and the personality. And it's a travel show too. And it's a lifestyle show. And then once you've gone down that funnel, then you're ready to watch the race. And they have that for you too.
- [105:44]
Vincenzo Landino
And even the way they're laying it out, if you guys haven't had a chance to look through the Apple TV app, they're putting everything there. So now you have their local, their guides, like their city guides. They've put together guides for the cities that you're in. So you can explore Melbourne. Now that's where they are.
- [106:01]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [106:01]
Vincenzo Landino
In Apple Maps, you can explore the track turn by turn. You can. Which again, some people might not care about that, but it's a way to pull you in. If you are there in Melbourne and you're using Apple.
- [106:13]
Ben Thompson
No, I think, I think I actually noticed that that map feature. I use Apple maps like a psycho, apparently. But I was in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Grand Prix and I just happened to open Apple Maps just to get out of the stadium and figure out where we were going. And I was like, wow, this is a really detailed rendering of the track. This is amazing. This would actually be useful for a bunch of other things. And if you're just driving by and then you just see this really high fidelity 3D rendering of the map, it's just another touch point. It's basically just an ad.
- [106:43]
John Coogan
What do you think they'll do with Vision Pro? Like, what are your theories? You think you'll be able to ride along with Verstappen and like actually get to experience. Because if you could experience a full race, like in the cameras, I think
- [106:54]
Ben Thompson
too heavy for that. But I want to hear it. Vincenzo.
- [106:56]
John Coogan
I know, but not if you have into every single car and everybody.
- [107:00]
Ben Thompson
Lap times go away.
- [107:01]
Vincenzo Landino
I don't know if, I don't know if Ben can pull it up or if one of the guys can pull this up. But I posted something recently about an app called Laps La P Z. Now they got kind of. They were in test flight, they ended up getting pulled. Like they can't keep pushing out. And it has to do with licensing rights from F1. But this is what I think can happen and what they can do with Apple Vision Pro. In fact, I really think Apple. I should, I thought they should have bought Laps, the company that built it, the developer that built it. But if they didn't, I could foresee them just kind of building this on their own. I mean, you've got, you can have all the cameras up, you have a three dimensional track with like live timing. Because all we have all the Data, Right. All the data is there. So being able to put your Vision Pro on and be in camera with any of the drivers that you want, plus seeing a live circuit map. And then I believe they were also able to change the, like, the angle from where you were watching it from. So you were able to understand, really, like, if I'm sitting in, I don't know, turn one, I'm watching it from that angle right through the Vision Pro as opposed to when you kind of put it on the tv. You may not know if you're not familiar with the track. You don't know which angle you're really watching it from. The app was really, really cool. And I know one of the developers that was working on it, to me, that showed the true power of it. Every time I post it, people are like, I would buy Vision Pro if I could get that app.
- [108:34]
Ben Thompson
We had a sort of motion designer on the show at figma conference named John Lepore. He works at Black Box.
- [108:43]
Vincenzo Landino
That's him. John's the guy who built Laps. That's exactly.
- [108:46]
Ben Thompson
Okay, it's Laps now because I remember seeing the demo I pulled. I put the demo in the. In the chat. Hopefully the team can pull it up. But they did this. They did this case study back in 2024, and I was like, oh, this is like a killer app. I wonder when Apple will, like, actually adopt this. Here it goes. And so this just makes so much sense that you could, like, put this on. And now that Apple actually has all the rights to this stuff, it seems like such an interesting experience. I wonder if this is one of those situations where you. It looks really good in a teaser trailer, but then actually sitting there is maybe a little bit much.
- [109:22]
Vincenzo Landino
But everyone that actually used Laps said it was fantastic. Yeah, Everyone I've talked to that used it said this was, like, incredible. And again, I don't have a Vision Pro, so I never really. I didn't test it. I saw some demo stuff. John has sent me some things.
- [109:38]
John Coogan
You got to try it this weekend, John.
- [109:41]
Ben Thompson
Oh, yeah.
- [109:42]
Vincenzo Landino
If you can get. If you can somehow get a hold of it. Yeah, if you have it, I would.
- [109:46]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I have a Vision Pro. I think I have Apple TV plus and all the. All the tiers there. I probably just have to download the laptop.
- [109:54]
John Coogan
All right, let's get into the season. Overall, what's happening with the new regulations, how who's cooked, who's chopped, who's goaded?
- [110:02]
Vincenzo Landino
Well, so I think on the last time I was on the show and I was thinking about this too. I was like, oh, man, I'm gonna really eat a lot of crow now. I said Aston Martin was to look out to, was someone to pay attention to, and it was for all the wrong reasons. They seem to have completely botched the project. I don't even know what's going on with Honda. I mean, it seems like one of those things that I thought was unfathomable in 2026. Like, this was not something that was supposed to really be possible. The engineers have figured out reliability. We have cars that are so reliable, everyone's finishing races now. This wasn't the case 30, 40 years ago.
- [110:37]
Jordi
Right.
- [110:37]
Vincenzo Landino
You'd have a lot of reliability issues. And now they've literally built a car that is quite literally crap. I mean, it is not good. Fernando Alonso still hasn't run any practice laps, although maybe in practice, too. He ended up getting out there, I think. But they're not turning any laps. They are actually talking about, like, potential nerve damage. These guys in the Aston Martin, because of whatever's going on with the battery.
- [111:00]
Ben Thompson
It's.
- [111:01]
Vincenzo Landino
It's wild.
- [111:01]
John Coogan
So what do you mean, going on with the bat? Going on with the battery? Are they.
- [111:06]
Vincenzo Landino
So because of the new. The new chassis, like the new regulations, the car is smaller, it's narrower. And because of the way Adrian Newey designs his cars, it requires. There's a lot of aerodynamics. So he kind of almost built a smaller. There's less room in his car to build, you know, for power unit and battery and all that stuff. Well, now with this, like, 50, 50 split, you have 50, 50, or 50% battery power and essentially 50% from the internal combustion engine. All of that power or all of that takes up a lot of room. And apparently there's not enough room in the. In the Honda for all of that to properly. Like, they're not even running the battery or they're not running everything at full bore right now. It's like they couldn't even turn the battery up.
- [111:54]
Dario Amodei
It's.
- [111:55]
Vincenzo Landino
It's pretty wild. Like, I'm reading all this stuff, all of this information is coming at me, and I'm like, how does this even happen? The greatest designer of probably our generation, if not ever. And then there was other talk that, like, Aston Martin hadn't even really ever audited the Honda engineers, so they signed the deal back in 22 or 23 that they were going to switch from Mercedes to Honda, but never audited the actual engineering. And come to find out, most of the good engineers ended up at Red Bull, which a lot of People speculated was the case because Red Bull was with Honda. So it's a whole mess right there with that Aston Martin project right now. And of course Aston Martin just signed over a naming deal for, I forgot how much money it was. 60 plus million dollars for the F1 team. So I'm like, oh, that's not a good, that's not great. But aside from that, you've got Mercedes looking really.
- [112:50]
John Coogan
So what's your, what's your prediction for Sunday? Do you, do you think they, do you think they actually finish the race or is it looking so bad that
- [112:59]
Vincenzo Landino
they, I don't know that they start the race. I mean they may start the race turn a couple laps just to do it, but I don't, I can't foresee them in qualifying tonight. Like, I, I, I can't even see them getting anywhere near like remotely close to the times we're going to see on the board. I think they were something like 12 seconds back at one point during practice, which it's only practice, but I, I don't even think, I don't think they will finish the race. If they do start it, it'll be like a couple laps and then they're, they're going to purposely pull it, you know, pit it and pull it from the race.
- [113:33]
John Coogan
What is Mr. Stroll doing about it?
- [113:37]
Vincenzo Landino
I have no clue. I really don't. There, it's a lot, there's a lot of PR notices, there's a lot of PR that they're, you know, pulling right now and they're apologizing like which again, I don't know what apologies are going to do at this point but I, if I'm sponsors, I'm really pissed, to be quite frank with you. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what Lawrence is doing,
- [114:00]
John Coogan
who, who is benefiting from the new regulations or is kind of figured it out the best so far.
- [114:07]
Vincenzo Landino
It's so it seems, it seems like Ferrari is doing again. I can't jinx them so I have to like, I got a little jinx thing going here. But the Ferrari looks really good, the Mercedes as well. So they both have come out looking solid. Ferrari has been really reliable. They haven't seemed to have had any of the issues that others have had with the turbo spool, which was something they were concerned about as early as last season or maybe even two seasons ago. They had talked about the turbo lag and they don't seem to have that problem. They've gone with a smaller turbocharger. Which spools up faster. So they seem to be good with that. The Mercedes looks really, really quick fast on the straights. I don't think that they were detuned after their. Everyone was complaining about their engines. That was. Those seem to be good. So anyone with a Mercedes power unit seems to be in good shape. But the Mercedes Petronas AMG F1 team, they also just look great. George Russell, personally I think George Russell, this might be his year and the package looks really, really good. The car looks great. They're not having any issues. McLaren, they're McLaren. So they, they, you know, they won the championship last year. They also have Mercedes power unit. They seem to be okay in an okay spot. We'll see what happens when they start. They ended up, I think in the second practice they ended up topping the time but again it's practice so we'll see what happens when they turn up the engines for qualifying. I think pretty much. And then Red Bull.
- [115:48]
Doug DeMuro
Red Bull.
- [115:48]
Vincenzo Landino
Let's talk about Red Bull with the Ford power. The Red Bull, Ford power unit. Those are impressive. We, a lot of people thought like they may not be that good. Especially during the testing in, in Bahrain. They were like eh, they don't look or sound that great now. They came to Melbourne, seem to be working pretty well. Max looks hooked up. They have a second driver now, Hajar Young kid, his second season. Formula one just brought him up from the junior team racing Bulls. He's looking really good. So I would say we're going to. For me it's a Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull trio at the top and McLaren. I think they're going to be maybe looking out of the top three. But yeah, to me it's a George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen. Those are the three guys that I am putting my, maybe not money into, but those are the guys I'm putting, I'm putting my bets on if I'm anyone else out there.
- [116:46]
Ben Thompson
Are there any brands that you're tracking that could make a major move into sort of a premier sponsorship position of an F1 team? We were sort of joking about the idea of like an all white F1 car sponsored by Apple, obviously. Apple.
- [117:04]
John Coogan
The Apple Formula One team.
- [117:05]
Ben Thompson
The Apple Formula One team would be very cool.
- [117:07]
Vincenzo Landino
That would be so cool.
- [117:08]
Ben Thompson
But they sort of are broadcasting the whole league. They're indexing it. It doesn't really, really make sense. But a lot of tech companies have moved in. Oracle, Google with Chrome and Gemini. There's all sorts of deals that are happening. There's A lot of money flowing around. I'm wondering if there's anyone that you think might really go all in.
- [117:26]
Max Hodak
Really?
- [117:27]
Vincenzo Landino
It's not something I've been thinking about. Fintech seems to be pretty popular right now.
- [117:34]
Ben Thompson
Let's get a ramp yellow car out there. That'd be good.
- [117:37]
Vincenzo Landino
They'd be really cool to see that.
- [117:39]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. Ram Cadillac.
- [117:40]
Vincenzo Landino
Cadillac could use it. Cadillac could definitely use.
- [117:43]
John Coogan
Have they filled out their. Have they filled out their sponsorship or they're still putting it together?
- [117:49]
Vincenzo Landino
No, I think they're still putting it together. They may actually be. This might be part of the strategy. I haven't talked to anybody over there. I think TWG has put a lot of money in so they have their name all over it.
- [118:01]
Jordi
They.
- [118:01]
Vincenzo Landino
The TWG AI is their AI partner and TWG is also part of the IS ownership group. So they're on the car in like kind of two different ways. But this is also what TWG does across of all of their motorsport assets. Like their brand is, you know, front and center. I haven't seen them fill out much yet, but I also was speculating that Nike and Apple would partner with them at some point. So those were two that I had thought might. We might see something with and I. I've heard not rumors of those two brands, but I've heard that there is other things coming for Cadillac. I think for them it's going to be a matter of can they perform on track and how is that going to look. You obviously don't want to be absent.
- [118:46]
John Coogan
Cadillac has a Honda power unit.
- [118:49]
Vincenzo Landino
Ferrari.
- [118:49]
Ben Thompson
Oh, are you East Coast? Yes. 11pm Saturday, 11pm11 11pm Pretty convenient for the West coast, folks. 8pm Is like sort of a great time. Hang out.
- [119:03]
Vincenzo Landino
Very convenient for you guys.
- [119:04]
Ben Thompson
Watch the race. Works out for us.
- [119:07]
Vincenzo Landino
I've been doing this since I was a kid though, so it was like. These races have always been weird times. You just kind of get used to it.
- [119:13]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [119:14]
Vincenzo Landino
That's why I want to hear people complain.
- [119:15]
Ben Thompson
I'm like pageantry.
- [119:17]
Vincenzo Landino
It's part of the pageantry.
- [119:18]
Ben Thompson
Exactly. Well, thank you so much.
- [119:20]
Vincenzo Landino
Yeah. I'm going to think about the brands though, John, and maybe I'll come back when I come up with some.
- [119:24]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [119:25]
Vincenzo Landino
Something that could. Could join in.
- [119:27]
Ben Thompson
It's short.
- [119:28]
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
- [119:28]
Vincenzo Landino
I'm focused elsewhere now at the beginning of the year, but.
- [119:30]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, of course. Well, thank you so much for talking.
- [119:32]
John Coogan
Yeah. Excited to see your coverage.
- [119:34]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [119:35]
John Coogan
On the event and. Yeah, we'll talk soon.
- [119:38]
Vincenzo Landino
Thanks for having me again, guys.
- [119:39]
Ben Thompson
Have a good one.
- [119:40]
John Coogan
See you.
- [119:40]
Ben Thompson
Bye. Let me tell you about public.com investing for those who take it seriously. Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries and more with great customer service. And you know who needs an F1 team? The new York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Just do it.
- [120:01]
John Coogan
Nate Silver says honestly, a consumer Report style panel of power users might be better than meter, etc. For measuring AI progress. Much more robust to spikiness. Not meant to sound skeptical. As a power user, I think there's been extremely noticeable progress over the past few months. For what it's worth.
- [120:19]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, this is diffusion max. We were asking semi analysis to put something like this together. It's very tricky. There are so many people that have ties or sponsorships or favorite models or they've worked somewhere or they have a bone to pick with someone or they're politically aligned one way or the other. There's a lot that should maybe disqualify someone from giving sort of a qualitative review. But I love the idea of going to a group of folks that are independent users of these models and putting something together that's Consumer Reports style because we are truly past benchmarks being noticeable to the average user and we're much more into, okay, how does the model feel? What are you actually using it for? Is it actually collaborating with you in a valuable way such that you get a deliverable. We talk to a lot of folks about, okay, agents are here, what are you using them for, what are your customers using them for? And it can be tricky. Sometimes people don't really know what they're using them for. Well, let me tell you about Lambda Lambda is the super intelligence, cloud building, AI, supercomputers, training and inference that scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands. And without further ado, we have Doug demuro in the response. Welcome to the TVPN ultradome. How are you doing, Doug?
- [121:41]
Doug DeMuro
I'm good. How are you guys doing?
- [121:42]
Ben Thompson
We're doing fantastically. Great to see you back here. I'm so glad to have you back here. I absolutely love this car pod. Congratulations on all the progress there. I mean it's the number one car podcast in the world and it deserves to be so because the number one in our hearts. I'm going to be listening to it on my drive home today. It drops every Friday, correct?
- [122:04]
Doug DeMuro
Friday morning.
- [122:05]
John Coogan
That is true, yes.
- [122:06]
Ben Thompson
Go subscribe to that. But we wanted to have you on to discuss so many other things in the car world. I think we should start with the interesting crossover from the tech world to the world of Ferrari. With the Jony I've the Johnny drive the new Luce. The new Luce. So take us through your reactions to the actual design.
- [122:27]
John Coogan
You already ordered five of them, right?
- [122:30]
Ben Thompson
As soon as electric you were like, I'm in.
- [122:33]
Doug DeMuro
I am as skeptical as basically every car enthusiast that I know is. Take you through my thoughts? I mean, well, first off, they haven't shown the vehicle, right. They've shown the interior, which in itself is kind of interesting and makes me a little anxious. Who shows the interior before showing the vehicle, right. Only if you're really kind of nervous about how the vehicle is.
- [122:52]
Ben Thompson
It was such a weird layout too, seeing the floating stuff and it wasn't even in a shape of a car.
- [122:58]
John Coogan
And there's people, there's people in Italy that you know, sit outside the Ferrari factory, take videos on their phones and I've seen some of those, you know, kind of scouting videos and it looks like incredibly rough. It looks like, it looks like a Subaru or a Honda.
- [123:13]
Doug DeMuro
Ferrari more than any other brand, goes to great lengths to disguise their production cars when they're, when they're still doing testing for that exact reason. Yes, there are people who post up at the factory or waiting for them to slip up or whatever. And so Ferrari has historically made some really bizarre pre production cars to try to actually fake out those people. So I'm not entirely convinced that the, the really rough looking look of the, you know, the spy photo car that we've all seen is real. It looks like a station wagon, but obviously I'm skeptical just in general of this like an electric sports car. The ones that have come out have not been well received, they have not sold well. In some cases, automakers who were about release an electric sports car dialed it back and canceled the whole project, you know, sometimes months before they were supposed to be on sale. So we'll see how it goes strategically.
- [124:11]
John Coogan
Talk about the, talk about the interior though, because, because to me, to me it looks like in general I'm a fan of coming in, having some fresh eyes on the interior of a car. There's a bunch of kind of like individual ideas from what we've seen that look cool, like little things you can pull to start the engine or whatever engine. There's a lot of elements that are nice, but at the same time it looks like somewhat like it's like, oh, you did like a resto mod, but it's an ev. Like it just, it feels, it feels, I didn't come away feeling, you know,
- [124:52]
Doug DeMuro
it's an interesting thing though, like it's a totally new world for Ferrari and so I'm willing to give them a lot of latitude here because I think they're probably going after new buyers and different buyers. And I also think they're really trying to, they're not trying to appeal to the people like us who are like into cars and are, and are probably have some experience with Ferrari before. I think this is, this is a big play on China. This is a big play on young people. They're really trying to make this make sense to a kind of a different audience. So I'm actually, I didn't mind the interior for that. From that perspective. It certainly is not very Ferrari like, but I think that was the point. I think they could have kept their in house design team, you know, designing it if they had wanted it to stay like it, like their cars look. And I think this was kind of intentionally a left field kind of thing. And so I'm willing to give them latitude there. What I'm more anxious about is how the car looks, how it performs and especially how it feels. Because I think a lot of the reason people buy Ferraris is because of the way that they feel. And that's where I think this car could have problems.
- [125:53]
John Coogan
Do you think it can actually sell well in China even with this fresh take on design? When every foreign manufacturer has been getting slaughtered?
- [126:04]
Doug DeMuro
Foreign manufacturers are getting slaughtered in China. But you have to assume that even in China, which doesn't have the brand belovedness for some of the western brands that we have. You have to assume though that the Ferrari brand is still nonetheless both popular and, you know, makes people excited even in China. It's not like any Chinese companies have emerged as a replacement for Ferrari. Even though there have been many Chinese companies that have emerged as replacements for Tesla and Mercedes Benz and all that. Ferrari is still this globally known beloved brand. And so I do think that they have, they have possibility that Porsche sells relatively well in China despite how. How hard it has been for other automakers to get in.
- [126:42]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. How far do you think or how deep do you think the Ferrari team is into the development of this electric vehicle? Because didn't Lamborghini just pull out of their EV project? It feels like there's a different world where the electrification of the powertrain is much more like choosing between a V12 and a V8. And it's just like it's just an option almost. And maybe they'd be afraid of doing that because it would reveal 5% of the buyers selecting that but they make all this big, like, oh, it's its own car. Instead of just being like, yeah, the Roman, now you can get it electric if you want that. We'll make 10 of them.
- [127:20]
Doug DeMuro
Well, it's an interesting thing. Other automakers have tried to do that. Maserati has an electric version of the Gran Turismo that has been a horrible failure. I think that I was surprised to see Lamborghini cancel theirs. Yeah. At this stage, kudos to that. They realize their buyers don't want it. And in some ways, you have to wonder if Lamborghini is kind of emerging as more the enthusiast brand and which. Which historically has not been true. Right. Lamborghini is the brand for people who want to show off, and Ferrari is the enthusiast brand. Well, maybe that's changing a little bit. Ferrari, I think, also would make the argument that they have always been the leader. They have always been the one to push to the next step, the design leader. People say their stuff is ugly. They say, you know, the cars are too powerful, etc.
- [128:01]
Vincenzo Landino
But.
- [128:02]
Doug DeMuro
And they have always kind of been the first to take some steps.
- [128:05]
John Coogan
And I think, oh, we're too powerful. We'll put a V6 in our halo car.
- [128:12]
Doug DeMuro
So I think that they're sitting here thinking, you know what, Lambo might cancel it and Pininfarina isn't selling theirs very well and all this stuff. But we are Ferrari, and if anybody's gonna be able to do this, it's gonna be us, and we are gonna lead this thing and we're gonna kill it. I bet that's the mindset in. In Italy. I bet you they're nervous, though. No, no electric sports car has succeeded yet and said many have tried.
- [128:35]
Ben Thompson
Taycan doesn't really count as a sports car. More sedan.
- [128:38]
Doug DeMuro
No. I think because it's a sedan, it is certainly a sporty car, but because it's a. Adding that level of practicality, it's not really the same thing. Especially because Porsche tried to go electric with their sports car and over the last few months has repeatedly been walking back the actual desire to do that to the point where it's now kind of starting to become clear there may not even be an electric version of the next box.
- [129:00]
Ben Thompson
Is the Mission X, mission E, the F80 competitor, the W1 competitor just completely canceled at this point?
- [129:07]
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, that's gone. I don't know if they've officially said that, but yes, that is gone. They're not going to do an electric.
- [129:12]
Ben Thompson
Are they going to do a new Halo car? It feels like we're so far. I had the 918 on a poster as a kid, and I've been waiting for the next version for my entire life.
- [129:23]
Doug DeMuro
I was. I got Carrera GT sitting right up here. They are going to do one. But I think that they had committed significant resources to going electric with Mission X and it didn't happen, and they had to scramble back to the drawing board. And developing a hypercart takes real effort. You got to get a lot of things right because you're only selling a few hundred of them. And so I think it's coming, but it's still yours.
- [129:46]
Ben Thompson
So if Porsche goes back to the drawing board and they say, okay, there's no longer the pressure to go electric with the hypercar, how enthusiast can they go at that tier? Can they do manual? Can they do a V12? Can they learn from the SP3? What do they have the freedom to actually pull off the shelf?
- [130:07]
Doug DeMuro
I think that Porsche is a much more conservative company than I wish they were. I would be very surprised if it has a manual. I would be very surprised. I'm certain that it will be a hybrid in some capacity. I'd be very surprised if it was a larger engine than a V8. The fact that Carrera GT ever existed, analog V10, that was an unbelievable thing. That was a moment in time. Porsche, I think, is still worried. They have never really. In the modern era, hypercars are automatic hybrids. And I think Porsche is afraid of deviating from that because they know that that works and it worked with 918. I actually had a call with some Porsche people yesterday, and I was pleading my case for a manual Carrera GT type successor. And I just think it's just a tough. It's a tough sell. It's a tough sell.
- [130:53]
John Coogan
Is it, though? Is it a tough sell for the people that are actually.
- [130:57]
Ben Thompson
Well, they have a Halo car in the GT3RS. In some ways, that sells the 911S. And also the Boxster looks like the Cayman looks like somewhat similar to the Halo GT3RS. So it's not the RA pulling down to the A4.
- [131:12]
John Coogan
I just. I just. The people. We have a friend that gets every. Orders every Halo car from every brand. And if you. And if you asked him, like, hey, would you rather have, like, a hybrid? Yeah, or something that's like, more. More a successor to the career cgt. Like what he would. He would obviously want the more manual
- [131:39]
Ben Thompson
cgt, the more engaging.
- [131:40]
Doug DeMuro
The automakers, I think, are also really aware of the fact that, like, hybrid is the future. And they really need to make sure that the super, the hypercar, which gets all the press, brings technology to the lineup that then trickles down. Like, I think, in a way, even to this day, the 918 spyder kind of opened the door for the 911 to go hybrid and for the Taycan to exist, because it was like, if the hypercar can do it, then I promise you and your 911 can do it. And I think, going back, doing a full yes, I think it would sell if they did another V10 manual hypercar. Be amazing, but it's kind of an anachronism. I also think Porsche is a little bit anxious about the number of people who have 2 million bucks that are actually willing to buy those cars. My argument is they're doing it right now at auctions. Like, million F50s are selling for 8 million. It's not like you're getting a bunch of cheap used car buyers who are like, I want manuals back and I only buy used cars. Like, these are people with real money who would buy them. But I think it's just easier to find buyers for automatic hybrids that have crazy numbers, horsepower and acceleration.
- [132:43]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [132:44]
John Coogan
Let's talk about the overall auction market and what's going on there. I spent the weekend in Montana with a few guys that have Porsche dealerships, and they were speculating themselves. But I'm curious what your take is.
- [133:01]
Doug DeMuro
It's been a bit of a ride the last few months. I've been shocked at watching some of the cars increase as they have cars that were. There are cars that have gone up 60, 70% in what appears to be three, four months. You look at auction results, and it was one result, and now it's four results, and it's like, wow. So this is where the market is. Are some of these cars one forever? I had to bump my insurance up on my courageous team. I'm going to bump it up again. I'm, like, getting anxious to drive it. Like, you start to think that, like, some of these cars that you lusted after as a child might be gone forever. And it doesn't feel like a bubble either. I just get the sense that we've all been hoping the other shoe would drop in these cars would fall. And that's not what happened after Covid. Right. They went up, they stopped climbing, but nothing ever came back down. F40s never got cheap again. F50s never got cheap again. Courageous. Never got sheep again. And I just don't get the sense that that's going to happen again. I Think that there is a real interest in collectors and enthusiasts in keeping these cars, and it's just going to keep driving values up.
- [134:02]
John Coogan
And isn't some of this, like, generational. Right, because you're seeing maybe some more softness in classics and then some of these more like somebody that grew up with Carrera GT on a poster, like, they're not reaching for classic cars anymore. And so this entire. There was an entire window of cars that were, in hindsight, like, pretty reasonably priced because the people that were kids when they were being released didn't have the money. And then as soon as they had the wealth, then all of them would just immediately go, yeah, absolutely.
- [134:38]
Doug DeMuro
And I think there's a FOMO effect among those people. Once they see values of a car go from 1 to 2 million, they think to themselves, oh, crap, I got to buy it now before it goes to4.4 million. And that helps push values up too. But yes, I mean, you saw that big. That big auction in Florida where they had all those bizarre colored cars came out. You know, you saw David Lee, content creator in Southern California. He bought a for I250 GTO for like 38 million. Meanwhile, it ends with that same auction sold for like 11. The Enzo to 50 GTO spread at 3x is unbelievable considering that it used to be 100x.
- [135:10]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [135:11]
Doug DeMuro
And we're starting to see a 250 GTO is a 60. And Enzo is a poster car for millennials. It was a car that was on our walls. I mean, that car came out when I was 15. And I am. You know, it's literally like a millennial dream. And that's where the money is shifting. I don't have any interest in a 250GTO. I don't have any interest in a split window Corvette or a Hemi Cuda. You know, I'm looking at Enzo's and Carrera GTs. Those are the cars that I want.
- [135:34]
Ben Thompson
What about Gullwing? How did Hoovy wind up with such an eclectic taste?
- [135:39]
Doug DeMuro
You know, there are a few historic cars that I think will always be successful, and that is one of them. That is a car that I think even the next generation and the generation after that will appreciate. And, and I got to admit, if Gull wings came down to a reason, much more reasonable number, even I would be interested. Even though it's a 50s car and it's old and all that, it is just so damn cool. And so I don't think that is that eclectic for a young person.
- [136:03]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I also heard it's like. It's like one of the first cars from that era that actually feels fast, whereas a lot of other cars, it's fancy, but it just feels very slow and modern.
- [136:15]
Doug DeMuro
That's the really crazy thing about the Gullway. I drove one and it wasn't until the moment that I drove one that I realized why you see them on so many vintage rallies and it's because they're unbelievably drivable. They are very comfortable, they are fuel injected, they are easy to drive, they are easy cars to operate. Manual transmission, the steering is all very easy. Feels like a modern car, even though it is approaching 80 years old, 75 years old. And so that's a pretty usable performance car.
- [136:42]
Ben Thompson
Love it.
- [136:42]
John Coogan
Jordan, what other words or advice were you sharing with the Porsche team? What would you be if you were magically the CEO of Porsche? What do you do right now? Because there's certainly some frustration in terms of accessibility for cars that people really like. Enthusiast cars.
- [137:05]
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. And is that real or is that created? You know, like. I think the enthusiast cars, they're doing things generally right. It is a tough business right now, the auto business, they are dealing with changing governmental situations globally that have really affected their strategy. And Porsche, who is relatively small and relies a lot on the same success of a single model, is sitting here saying, we had shifted electric because that's what everybody told us they wanted. Suddenly they're saying that they don't necessarily want that. Meanwhile, European regulations are significantly stricter than now, North American and even Chinese regulations. And is there a possibility that Porsche makes a special car just for the American and Chinese market? That's a hard sell to Germany, which mark. I mean, it's an interesting flux kind of world right now in the auto world. And I don't know, I honestly don't know what, what, what Porsche's future ought to be, but they have put a lot of money into. I have right now at my house, the electric Macan gts. It is a fantastic car. It is not going to sell.
- [138:08]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [138:08]
Doug DeMuro
Under any circumstances.
- [138:10]
Ben Thompson
One last question on Porsche before we move on to China. Why do Targas hold their value so well?
- [138:18]
Doug DeMuro
They're just not made in large numbers and they are really damn cool. The real question is, why don't they make a turbo Targa yet? That is what GT3 target. That is the market to go after. But I think they're probably supply constrained.
- [138:30]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. China, BYD is in the. They're in the Wall Street Journal. Today, BYD launches new fast charging battery Amid slowing demand in China, I was surprised to see that they're losing market share there because it's so competitive. But they have this new tech. They can charge the battery to 97% of capacity from 10% in just nine minutes. What BYD models have you driven? What do you like? What do you think will be cloned or adopted, even if it can't be imported?
- [139:01]
Doug DeMuro
I drove some BYD sedan a long time ago. I don't remember which one it was. Very competent. Yeah, I think it was a Han. This was three, four years ago. And it seems like the cars have gotten more competent since then because. Because I'm sitting here in San Diego and we actually see BYD cars almost every day on the streets coming over from Mexico, where they're pretty popular.
- [139:20]
Ben Thompson
Wait, because you can buy them.
- [139:22]
John Coogan
You can buy them, register them in
- [139:23]
Ben Thompson
Mexico, and you can drive them into the United States. You just can't register them here.
- [139:27]
Doug DeMuro
I don't think it's Americans who are doing this. It's just Mexicans who are coming over to shop or go to SeaWorld or whatever. But we see live in San Diego, you see Mexican cars on the road more than any US state. And a lot of them are electric because they're selling a lot of them there. And they. They look pretty damn compelling. I actually think that one of BYD's big success stories is forgetting the China market for a second. Just their global conquest. I mean, you see them all over Europe now, you see them all over Latin America now. They are really making it. As America gets scared of the Chinese and is trying to make all these rules against them, Boy, the other countries are really embracing it. Ultimately, these countries like cheap, good cars. And a lot of those cars are cheap and good.
- [140:06]
Ben Thompson
And Tata never really had that success coming out of India. Maybe just two.
- [140:12]
Doug DeMuro
I don't know what happened with Tata. They had that crazy, tiny car. I have a suspicion that if Tata had been in different market conditions, things would be different. But I think a lot of the success of BYD and the other Chinese companies is probably fueled by the Chinese government providing really favorable benefits, incentives, et cetera, to them. And in India, you know, when Tata was really trying to blow up 20 years ago, it was pre EVs. And you know, that's a competitive advantage that the Chinese clearly have right now is their EV technology.
- [140:41]
Ben Thompson
Okay, Killer feature. I saw out of China. I want to know whether or not you want this in your next car. If the battery catches on fire, it ejects it concussively out the side. You've seen this video, I'm sure. Is that a good feature or not? Oh, God.
- [140:58]
Doug DeMuro
You can imagine some real liabilities that hasn't gone in front of attorneys in the United States.
- [141:05]
Ben Thompson
I'll say I don't think so, but it is.
- [141:09]
Doug DeMuro
The technology that they are developing is interesting. Charging a battery in nine minutes, that is a huge deal. Right? Because I think that still to this day, the primary reason people don't want to adopt EVs is charge time and the fear of charge time and all that stuff. And I think the more you can, if you could ever really solve that problem, whether it's battery swaps or crazy fast charging, that would probably be the last excuse.
- [141:33]
Ben Thompson
You know, have you seen the show, the HBO show Silicon Valley? Have you seen any of this? So there's this character who's loosely based on Mark Cuban, Russ Hanneman. And in the show he brags about how he has a car with doors that go up. And it's become iconic in Silicon Valley. And I had this thesis, if you want to be the most impressive person in Silicon Valley, the best buy is the. Is the BMW i8. Because the doors go up.
- [142:01]
Doug DeMuro
They do, and it looks cool.
- [142:02]
Ben Thompson
And you can get one for like $40,000. Now, they're cheap.
- [142:06]
John Coogan
You'll be able to get one for 20,000 in just a few years, too.
- [142:11]
Ben Thompson
We have an intern on our team who's looking at a new car. Talk him out of getting one. Why should he not pull the trigger on a BMW i8?
- [142:22]
Doug DeMuro
How old is he?
- [142:22]
Ben Thompson
He's 21.
- [142:23]
Doug DeMuro
And where does he live?
- [142:25]
Ben Thompson
He lives in Los Angeles. And most.
- [142:28]
Doug DeMuro
He should definitely get one.21 and he's in LA. He should obviously get an i8. He's going to go around flexing. He's going to. He's going to put those doors up at every stoplight.
- [142:38]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, every stoplight. Do it. Should he. Should he buy one that's already been wrapped and crashed? In crypto? In crypto, his assumption is that he.
- [142:49]
Doug DeMuro
He will rap and crash it if he doesn't buy one.
- [142:51]
Jordi
That's.
- [142:51]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I just assume. The other broader question is that he often winds up at a valet. And I want to know what is the best bargain car to make sure that you get valet. You know how they park the nice cars in the front? What's the car that's the best bargain to get? The awesome valet spot.
- [143:13]
Doug DeMuro
I mean, that is up there. That's up there right in the 30s. And car enthusiasts laugh at that car and do not have any respect for that car. But LA valets and driving it around LA and like, you know, I remember when those were new, I lived in Philly and I remember seeing them on the streets thinking, this looks like a concept car. And I know it's not that fast. I know it doesn't drive great, it's got a three cylinder engine. But holy crap, this thing looks so cool.
- [143:37]
John Coogan
It looks insane.
- [143:38]
Doug DeMuro
It's been 10 years and it still looks just as good.
- [143:41]
Ben Thompson
Still looks cool. He was asking me, he was like three cylinders, so are they in a V shape? And I was like, no, it's not a V3.
- [143:47]
Doug DeMuro
But also, but also if you're, if you're thinking about an i8, you shouldn't concern yourself with any of that stuff. You're obviously not a car enthusiast, so just don't worry about cylinders.
- [143:57]
John Coogan
Brutal.
- [143:58]
Ben Thompson
Just to defend him, I was pitching him this. I was pitching him this. But I still think it's a great,
- [144:04]
Doug DeMuro
it's a great flex car, but it is a hell of a flex.
- [144:07]
Ben Thompson
Yes. What else is in that category? If you, if you maybe double the budget, triple the budget, but you still want just ridiculousness for the price.
- [144:17]
Doug DeMuro
I am surprised to see how cheap McLarens are getting. And the early McLarens, the MP412Cs have a reputation for being unreliable. However, the 570s, which was sort of the next generation car, that was the entry model, they are starting to come down. We sold one on cars and vids not that long ago for like 80 some. That's a pretty appealing car because that is like real fast. That is not like, oh, the i8 is pretty fast fast. That is like modern car, three second or less, zero to six type of fast. Those are pretty impressive cars for that money. You're still always worried every day though when you're driving a 40,000 mile McLaren. That was probably on Turo for three and a half years.
- [144:56]
Ben Thompson
It's still always a little bit worried, right on.
- [145:00]
John Coogan
Turo for that long is rough. What are you most excited for release wise this year?
- [145:08]
Doug DeMuro
There's not that much stuff that's coming out this year that I'm really pumped for. I think the Rivian R2 is definitely the car that I'm most excited for. I've already driven it, but I am excited to see how it does. EVs are obviously fallen off, but that car is so damn good and I just hope that like it has the success it deserves because it is just such a great car. I'm excited to see the electric Ferrari for sure. I don't think will be out yet this year. Definitely excited to drive the new hypercars, the F80 and McLaren's, which is called the W1. But it seems like this year is a little bit less of a crazy year of cool stuff that I've been excited for. And I think R2 to me is that especially from a consumer retail car industry perspective, to me, probably the most
- [145:49]
Max Hodak
interesting car coming out.
- [145:50]
John Coogan
What's going on with Scout Motors is that, is that taking some of Rivian's ip? Do I. I'm just kind of speculating here, but VW Group is a big investor in Rivian and I think they got IP rights through that investment to try to bring it over to the rest of the fleet. Then Scout is kind of like expanding off of what Rivian's done. What's the relationship there?
- [146:17]
Doug DeMuro
It'll be an interesting thing to see because, yeah, Volkswagen is an investor in Rivian, but also basically owns Scout. And it's like, wait a minute, these cars are really similar. Like they're both these kind of boxy off road electric vehicles. One interesting distinction is that Scout is going to do a plug in hybrid. So they're going to have gas motors in those cars. And I think that that is one excuse people use for not buying Rivian's. They're worried if they go over landing they're going to run out of charge, which is a legitimate wor worry if you're actually out in the middle of the desert or the mountains or whatever. But Scout, they recently announced they're pushing Scout a year to 28. Now this is one of those things where I'm like a believe it when I see it guy. You know, they showed those cars which were so cool. What has that been? Two years ago? Another thing, it'll be another two years. It's like, let's, let's, let's see what happens. Let's see what the climate is like politically before these cars actually come out. But it is interesting that, yeah, Volkswagen Group is basically pitting these two brands sort of against each other. And I am curious how that will end up shaking down.
- [147:15]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, is there a word for those reverse hybrids where it's mostly an electric car, but it has a gas engine that you can fill up to charge the battery. I saw a demo from a Chinese car, but that feels like something that, for the overlander, for the camper, for somebody who wants to go off grid and not have the range anxiety, but still have all the benefits of the electric power train.
- [147:37]
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, that is, I Think that would almost like a generator.
- [147:40]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, basically.
- [147:41]
Doug DeMuro
I think that would be great. I think, I think people would probably, they would certainly be more willing to adopt that than like a full electric for like the overlanding crowd. However, I would argue that like I walk around my neighborhood and like eight of my neighbors have Rivian R1s's. Like these people are actually overlanding, right? These are, these are cars, the three row SUVs. They're going to take their kids around and I think that you can't, you can't, you can't do too much development for the overlanding crowd, which isn't real. There's not a lot of people in the overlanding world willing to spend 120 grand on a brand new vehicle anyway. Mostly you got to think about who's actually going to buy these, which is, you know, parents.
- [148:14]
Ben Thompson
Do you, do you have expectations around self driving capabilities? Just going to normal consumer cars over the next few years. Like I don't know if you've been in a Waymo, but yeah, I was
- [148:25]
John Coogan
technology is like there Porsche dealers last weekend and I was like how much of a threat do you think the like at what point do consumers say like I love Porsche but I don't want to. I want, I want the best possible autonomous driving.
- [148:42]
Doug DeMuro
Right.
- [148:43]
John Coogan
And so I'm just going to, for my daily. I couldn't possibly go with Porsche because I don't want to drive.
- [148:50]
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I think about that a lot. I have been surprised at autonomous autonomous technology. There was a lot of talk about it for a long time and then the last two years I haven't heard that much. It's almost like they haven't been able to kind of whatever the next hump is, like they're doing well. And the Tesla FSD is great and a lot of other cars have really great systems too but none of these are like Waymo type. Like they're not, you know, that doesn't seem like it's ready to go into cars that you or me would be able to buy. And that doesn't seem like it's changed much over the last years. Few couple of years it seems like the world has moved on to like AI and, and kind of forgotten about like autonomous cars. And I do wonder how long that's going to be. I do think that Porsche will have to develop like there will have to be autonomous Porsches, like other automakers will do it too if they want to sell Panameras. Those are not necessarily being sold to people who like love to drive. And so Those cars also will. They'll have to do that. That's just going to have to be what they do.
- [149:47]
Ben Thompson
I'm comfortable. Yeah. Mercedes seemed really close with Level 3 system, that you could actually watch a YouTube video on the center console.
- [149:55]
Doug DeMuro
And they even said at some point they would be willing to take liability. But, like, where is that?
- [149:59]
Ben Thompson
It just never really shipped or anything. And you would think that it would be like a rat race, arms race, and it would be like, okay, well, now BMW fires back and they're, you know, level three plus. Right. But it just never really played out.
- [150:11]
Doug DeMuro
They all went. They all went all in on EV and spent a lot of money and time developing that. And yeah, it turned out that's kind of been a little bit of a dud, at least here in North America. And it's like, we would rather have a. I think most people would rather have most people.
- [150:22]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, definitely.
- [150:24]
John Coogan
How do I get one of these new Unimogs from Mercedes?
- [150:29]
Doug DeMuro
The story I read was that they're building precisely one. Did you read that? No, they're building one.
- [150:33]
John Coogan
Unimagina. That was what I was afraid of because you look at this thing and it's like, it looks like a concept car. When I first saw it, I was like, okay, this is cool. But it's obviously AI and then Mercedes was posting it from their actual account. I'm like, okay, it's real, but it's a partnership with this other kind of like commercial truck company. I forget the name. So I'm not going to get one, you're saying, and you're not going to review one?
- [150:56]
Vincenzo Landino
No.
- [150:57]
Doug DeMuro
I mean, even if they did make them, the Unimogs, especially modern Unimogs, have almost completely been restricted to not the US there's all sorts of regulations and trucks. Importing trucks to the US Is hard, but it'd be cool as hell. It looks incredibly cool.
- [151:13]
Ben Thompson
What is a G650 land delay?
- [151:15]
John Coogan
What's the most elite big family SUV to buy this year? I'm in the market.
- [151:23]
Doug DeMuro
The answer for me, if I was the answering this question, it would be the Lexus lx, because I think that that is a serious car that is seriously capable. It is the 300 Series Land Cruiser globally, which is a very serious car that Toyota doesn't bring her anymore, is a Toyota. And I think if you know, you know, that car isn't. If you know, you know, car. I think a lot of people would say that it's the Cadillac Escalade iq. But I think that car is certainly there's A group of people who are buying that car, you know, it's not really, I think they think they are elite and I think that it's, it's, it's not really that, but I think I like the, if you know, you know cars better. And the lx, specifically the overtrail lx, like the off road version is like a very, it's a three row but it's like a very capable off roader and it's expensive and not that many people are buying it. Those are special cars.
- [152:13]
Ben Thompson
Last car recommendation. There's a group of folks on our team, all young single individuals. They go on date nights. They were thinking about going in and buying one car that they would share. They were considering a Lamborghini Urus that they would each have a few nights a month with which to go on first.
- [152:32]
John Coogan
And some more backstory, I think it was the two of us were suggesting.
- [152:36]
Ben Thompson
Again, this is our idea, but is there a better car for a group of young men in Los Angeles to share for first dates than a Lamborghini urus?
- [152:48]
Doug DeMuro
Do we have a budget here or is it just.
- [152:51]
John Coogan
Well, I mean we're talking about eight or so guys.
- [152:53]
Ben Thompson
There's eight or so guys. So they're gonna all be paying a normal car payment of a couple hundred dollars. But you add that up, you get into like three grand. You get into like three grand a
- [153:00]
John Coogan
month, potentially lease like, like a Rolls Royce.
- [153:03]
Ben Thompson
Rolls Royce. But that's not maybe the right date car. So yeah, the team's right there if you want to take a look.
- [153:07]
Doug DeMuro
If it was me, I would get a Bentayga for that same money. But it depends on the type of lady that you're. Or man that you're talking. Yeah, there's a certain type of lady or man that is interested in an Urus driver.
- [153:19]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, yeah.
- [153:20]
Doug DeMuro
And there is a certain type of serious. But take it. And you kind of got to just figure out what you're looking for, you
- [153:24]
Ben Thompson
know what I mean? Okay.
- [153:25]
John Coogan
Okay. Your wife is not going to be attracted to the Urus, but she might appreciate.
- [153:31]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, well, that's why Turo exists. We will need a Turo each and run the proper a B test for the.
- [153:37]
Doug DeMuro
That may actually be the easier way to do this.
- [153:40]
Ben Thompson
It truly is because at some point
- [153:42]
Doug DeMuro
in either situation you have to come clean.
- [153:44]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. You have to come clean and be
- [153:46]
Doug DeMuro
like, why don't you the Urus tonight.
- [153:49]
John Coogan
Oh, well, the best thing, a 24 hour Turo rental. You potentially can squeeze in two dinners, a breakfast and a lunch and Then maybe even a late lunch before you got to return the car.
- [153:59]
Doug DeMuro
Many years ago I did ads for Turo and in YouTube videos. And for some reason I agreed to be paid in Turo credit instead of dollars. And it got to a point at one point where I had like $22,000 in Turo credit. And so whenever I would travel anywhere, I would just sort of my most expensive. And I would rent whatever G wagon or Audi R8 or McLaren was available in.
- [154:21]
Ben Thompson
Whatever.
- [154:24]
John Coogan
The brutal thing for me is I was watching, I was watching your videos and I became a Turo client. But I was, you know, in my early 20s, I couldn't get any of the good stuff. I'd just be like, okay, like I can get a boxer.
- [154:39]
Ben Thompson
Oh, well, thank you so much for taking the time to come.
- [154:41]
John Coogan
Check. Yeah, for sure.
- [154:43]
Doug DeMuro
Thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.
- [154:44]
Ben Thompson
Everyone go. Follow cars and bids go to carsandbids.com yeah, sort by most expensive. Buy that car. That's what you want.
- [154:55]
Doug DeMuro
Exactly right. Exactly right.
- [154:58]
Ben Thompson
We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye. Let me tell you about Applovin. Profitable advertising made Easy with Axon AI. Get access to over 1 billion daily active users and grow your business today. And let me tell you about Okta. OKTA helps you assign every AI agent a trusted identity. So you get the power of AI without the risk. Secure every agent. Secure any agent with Okta. Without further ado, Max Hodak is back on the show. Max, good to see you. How are you doing?
- [155:25]
John Coogan
We do not have audio but you look fantastic.
- [155:28]
Ben Thompson
You look fantastic. The video looks great. Max Hodak is of course the founder and CEO of Science Corporation. He's co founder of neuralink. And there are some exciting news developments coming through today.
- [155:42]
John Coogan
I think I heard something.
- [155:43]
Ben Thompson
I think I hear. Max, can you hear us?
- [155:46]
Max Hodak
I can hear you.
- [155:46]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, I can hear a little bit. So give us the, maybe reintroduce the company and then give us the news today.
- [155:55]
Max Hodak
Yeah, I mean it's been a crazy, crazy couple months. So we're, I mean we're a medical technology company really focused on the brain. It's just when you engage directly with the brain you get exercises you don't really see elsewhere in medicine. Our, our lead product is the, is a retinal chip. It plants it in the back of the eye that we finished a major clinical trial last year on age related macular degeneration. It's one of the main reasons people go blind. That's uninherited. And in that clinical trial you're able to Take people that have been able to recognize spaces for over a decade to reading. I found out the other week that one of our patients finished a 300 page novel. There's a sketch on the wall of our office of someone who sent us a sketch of the Sydney Opera House that she drew through it.
- [156:35]
Jordi
Wow.
- [156:36]
Ben Thompson
We're still having some audio errors. Let's take a little break. We'll come back to you in a few minutes. Is that okay? Let's sort that out and Jordi and I will go back to a bit of the news and give you an update on ChatGPT is pulling back potentially from the direct direct response advertising. The agentic commerce is going to be a little bit more brand focused potentially. I saw some news.
- [157:02]
John Coogan
Well, agenta commerce, Agentic commerce is different than the ads product.
- [157:08]
Ben Thompson
Yes, yes.
- [157:09]
John Coogan
So like agenta commerce is like you search for a product. A Shopify retailer has opted into this. There was a question about, I think a big part of it is just like focus, right? Like it seems like over the last couple months, like my, my interpretation of OpenAI strategy is like, hey, let's focus on our core business consumer. Let's focus on enterprise code gen and let's just like get back to basics.
- [157:37]
Ben Thompson
My big question is, is I wonder if there will be an opportunity to, to run more targeted ads on those more considered purchases like a car. Like I have hit chat CBT with a number of questions about very expensive purchases like a car. I'm not getting targeted on Instagram with car ads because typically the car brands have sort of just like brand advertising broadly for okay, yeah, here's a brand. You see it at the Super Bowl. But direct response has never really worked on meta for these highly considered purchases like houses and cars. But people go to LLMs asking questions about those. What will it be like to live in this neighborhood? Is this like, here's my budget. What, what should I be, you know, what should I be looking for in a family car? Like the questions that you asked Doug demuro. We're not, we're fortunate that we get to ask him directly about R8s and organic intelligence i8s and all sorts of Bentaygas versus Uruces. But a lot of people will have that question and go to an LLM for a debate. And you can even go to ChatGPT right now and just ask what's the best car? What car do you think I want? And it will just tell you and there's an opportunity there to drive conversion to a very high ticket purchase. But it's unclear how quickly that will roll out. We do have a piece of advice for everyone.
- [158:58]
John Coogan
Sorry, I just asked ChatGPT 5.4 thinking, what car do you think I want? It only had to think for a couple of seconds. Probably a Porsche 992 GT3R with the Y sock package.
- [159:11]
Ben Thompson
So you nailed it. And so the thing is that it could be asking that question in the background. It could go in the background and just say for every single person, ask what's the highest ticket item that you think that they might buy? And then they could go to Porsche and say, hey, we think we got a fish on the line here. Like just pay us a couple bucks. If we get them across the finish line, pay us 1000 bucks or a couple thousand bucks. And that could be a very different shape of advertiser, I think.
- [159:37]
John Coogan
Yeah, it's hard to, hard to handle the attribution, but.
- [159:41]
Ben Thompson
Yes, but I think it's actually easier in an LLM context because if you are actually going to buy that GT3RS with a Y sock package, you'll probably ask ChatGPT about where can you find one. And then when you're in the dealership, when you're reviewing a contract, you might potentially actually have the, the LLM review the contract.
- [160:04]
John Coogan
Right?
- [160:04]
Ben Thompson
Like you might have, you might upload it, upload the sales contract and you might ask it, hey, update my insurance. And it might go do that. So it might actually have a lot more attribution. And then down the line it might actually say, you might be asking a question, hey, my check engine light's on. Or how do I put this in track mode? And then it knows that you actually got the GT3Rs with the Y sock package. So who knows? Anyway, I think we have resolved our issues. We will return to our discussion with Max Hodak. How are you doing, Max? Yes, I think so much better. Let's restart with start over from the beginning.
- [160:45]
John Coogan
I could hardly hear you, but what I was hearing I was quite excited about.
- [160:48]
Ben Thompson
Yes.
- [160:50]
Max Hodak
So we make brain implants. Our main one is a retinal prosthesis. So it's a chip implanted in the back of the eye. Finished a major clinical trial last, last summer in age related macular degeneration, which is one of the leading causes of blindness. And in the trial we were able to take patients that like, there's one patient that hasn't been able to recognize faces in over a decade. I found out that she finished a 300 page novel recently.
- [161:12]
Ben Thompson
Oh, that's insane. Wait, so couldn't Recognize faces. That means that, like, if I'm trying to imagine what that looks like, it's effectively take a picture of what I'm seeing and then just blur, blur, blur, until I can't even recognize face.
- [161:25]
Doug DeMuro
Face.
- [161:25]
Ben Thompson
Is that, Is that what the person's experiencing?
- [161:27]
Max Hodak
So in this disease, yeah, they lose their high resolution central vision. So there's like, like you. When you look online, you might see an image of like a big black splotch in the center of your vision. And the patients don't experience the black splotch. So it's like a little bit weirder than that. They describe it as missing. So it's kind of like like a big extended blind spot. But yeah, I mean, all of your high resolution, high acuity central vision gets destroyed in this disease. Geographic atrophy. And so we have a chip that we implant under where the dead retina is and can stimulate this retina directly, bypassing the dead cells to get the signal back into the brain. So, like, if you. I mean, humanity is empirically not that good at drug discovery, but the brain is a computer and there's a cable that carries the visual signal into the brain. And if we can get the signal into the cable, then you can get vision into the brain.
- [162:16]
Ben Thompson
Wow, that's remarkable. How much is the device that you implant? Like a camera sensor that I would see in an iPhone.
- [162:25]
Max Hodak
So there's a wearable. So the patients wear glasses. On the glasses, there's two parts, but then there's the glasses. And the glasses have a camera that is just like an iPhone. Camera.
- [162:34]
John Coogan
Got it.
- [162:34]
Max Hodak
And there's a laser projector that projects the image onto the implant.
- [162:37]
Ben Thompson
Okay.
- [162:38]
Max Hodak
But the cool trick here is the implant is kind of all these tiny little solar panels. And so it is powered by the image that's projected onto it into the scenes that there's no battery, there's no cable coming out of the eye. It's just a little chip. Because it is like when you project the infrared image onto the implant, that powers it at the same time to stimulate the retina.
- [162:56]
Ben Thompson
Wow, this feels like an invasive process. How invasive is it? Is this an expert surgeon doing the work? Are you thinking about robotics? What's involved in. Actually, obviously the reward is so high that it's worth it. But what does that look like now? What will it look like in a decade?
- [163:16]
Max Hodak
Yeah, I mean, this is done by human surgeons. It's done by vitro retinal surgeon.
- [163:20]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [163:21]
Max Hodak
And it's. But it's a simple operation procedure. So you can do this under local anesthesia. So you make an injection next to the eye. It goes dark enough hours in front of the eye. I mean it looks, I mean like watching a video. It's kind of like, I don't know that you would do this electively, but the, it's, it's really not a big deal. It's an about an hour and a half and the patient goes home and a day later there they can take a bandage off.
- [163:44]
Ben Thompson
That's remarkable. And so walk me through like post implant, post surgery monitoring. Do you have benchmarks? I mean you mentioned like a 300 page book that seems like, okay, it works, but are you giving them the normal like eye test? What's the, what are all the different batteries that, that you use to understand the effect of the device?
- [164:10]
Max Hodak
Yeah, I mean there's a bunch. We were looking at both efficacy, so things like how many letters can they read on the icar and improvement in that. That was one of the main trial endpoints. We wanted at least two lines of improvement. We got on average much better than that. And then you're also looking at measures of safety. So for when is there anything worse off for having this like in there? They have the chip in, but the laser's not on. Is there residual vision? Because many of these patients have residual peripheral vision that they can walk around. It's just that they can't read, they definitely can't drive and you don't want that to get worse. And so there's various ways you can measure that. You can measure the range of the visual field. But yeah, I mean the eye chart is a, we use that as a efficacy endpoint.
- [165:00]
John Coogan
Sorry, what. You've raised a bunch of new money. Like what, what is this going to go towards? Is it, you know, continuing to focus on, on the, the core products like. Walk us through.
- [165:13]
Max Hodak
Yeah, so the, so we, we announced yesterday that we raised $230 million in series, bring the total amount of capital to a little under half a billion. You know, that's like a lot of money.
- [165:24]
John Coogan
A lot of money. A lot of money for an incredible, incredible cause.
- [165:31]
Ben Thompson
Congratulations.
- [165:33]
Max Hodak
We have bought ourselves the privilege of working really hard.
- [165:37]
Ben Thompson
So can you take me back a little bit to how you discovered this particular problem to solve? Because it feels like you've, throughout your career you've taken like a sort of general approach approach, but then there's always a question of like what's the most impactful, quickest way to market most, you know, capital efficient. There's a whole bunch of different trade offs that I imagine you wrestled with before you landed on this particular product.
- [166:05]
Max Hodak
So we have there, we have three programs at science. There's our work in the retina, there's our bio hybrid neural interface technology which is a general purpose kind of what people think of as like a neural interface but a little bit different than what most of the people do. And then we have improvements in critical, critical care, life support technologies, all three. I mean I think one way to conceive of what we're doing is like if Medtronic was started in 2021 what are the projects they would be taking on in the next 20 years? And when you think about from a brain computer interface perspective, I mean I beyond like what is a bci? This has become kind of synonymous for many people with paralyzed people controlling computer. This is what many of companies are doing. But I, we think that cochlear implants are BCIs. Yeah, those have been around for decades and the, and it's. So the retinal prosthesis is really in the tradition of cochlear implants. There's people plus with those out there. It's just until recently the technology hasn't really worked. And so when you think about what is the most valuable BCI product that an unmet need restoring vision to the blind is really up there. And so the need is one of those things that is kind of obvious in restoring vision to the blind is a quest humanity has been on for thousands of years. And then if you were to do that. When I looked at, when me and my co founders looked around at the state of the world in early 2021 we, it was pretty easy for us to build conviction that one way or another by stimulating either the optic nerve directly or the, the layer of cells just before that using either a gene therapy or an electrical stimulator. One way or another you kind of have these like four boxes. It's really like three boxes of those trade offs one of those would work. And we went out and did an exhaustive survey of the state of the art in kind of each of those three options and zeroed in on what we're doing now. And there's I think really like a first principle of engineering approach to how you tackle the problem. And that has so far paid off. We're not on the market yet, but I think we're getting pretty close. And the next step is capital is to. We've submitted for marketing approval in Europe, hope to be commercially approved there in the, in the near future. Not, not quite there yet. And Then start to be able to commercialize it.
- [168:24]
Ben Thompson
Talk about resolution. I imagine that the camera on the glasses is something like 1080p, something along those lines. But I imagine that the actual implant needs to serve something that's maybe lower resolution or translated. You're not like running a. Yeah, you're not running like an image to text pipeline and then piping that into the brain. But what is the input and then what goes actually into the brain?
- [168:54]
Max Hodak
So it's important to understand that only the central couple degrees of your visual field is high acuity color.
- [169:01]
Ben Thompson
Okay.
- [169:02]
Max Hodak
You're constantly looking around to try to reduce the uncertainty of the brain. You don't see the image on the retina directly. What you experience is a world model constructed by the brain. Highly semantic. Like you can look at something kind of note, well, that hard or soft if I touch it, that isn't experiencing this world. And so as the eye is moving around, it's filling in areas of uncertainty. And so the implant. You're right, we're not restoring high resolution color vision today. But it is. What we are getting is this form image that patients can look at. It strings together shapes into letters and letters, words, and the brain can apprehend that intuitively. And that had never really been. And so that is like a really clear statement that we're on the right track. But the next step is to make the implant larger so that this, the device that's now is 2 millimeters by 2 millimeters, which covers through a straw, and the electrodes are 0.1 millimeters, which means that you stimulate a bunch of cells at a time. And so what that means is it's not that it is pixelated. They don't see it as pixelated, they see it as sharp, but they only get a small amount of detail at once. Now, it does better than you would expect for the number of electrodes because as the eye moves around this information and so it really. It's a little bit.
- [170:19]
Ben Thompson
That's fascinating.
- [170:21]
Max Hodak
Yeah, you can't really think of it like camera in that way, but we actually have the next version of the chips already in hand. The electrodes are much smaller. We're going to go from 400 to a couple thousand. And those are. We're working on the clinical study for those over the next year. And hopefully every like two years or so we'll have versions coming out. And we actually think that it could be upgradable, although we'll have to prove that, of course.
- [170:46]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [170:46]
John Coogan
Based on, based on the kind of early, early patients like how do you expect this market to evolve and how quickly. How quickly people that suffer from blindness will adopt something like this once you continue to prove out the product. My assumption is that there's like an extreme eagerness to find a solution again for something that a solution that has never existed. But what do you think the adoption curve will look like?
- [171:22]
Max Hodak
Yeah, I mean blind patients are pretty motivated for the most part. So age related macular generation as a whole is big. Not that many people have a form that is late stage and serious enough that this makes sense right now for the current. So that AMD globally is 200 million people but that's not really a number for very late stage both eyes, large area of atrophy. The that's the population that's really relevant for the product as it is right now. That's we think that's like 6,500 people a year in the US backlog of a couple of maybe 150200 people across the US and Europe. And with the next version of the device with a larger field of view and a smaller electrode that expands to probably 5 million people. And these are, these are huge. We're not going to, we're if the next several years we're doing a year that would be, those would be numbers and I so right now it like I said it's not high resolution color vision but is the same powerful resistance proof that this technology is on the right track. But I do think that the next couple of device generations will hopefully be able to get color versus we'll be able to at least get red and green. You'll be able to get native acuity. You're not going to go. Sometimes people ask like okay well I get this as an augmentation like you're not going to do better than the photoreceptors. If you have photoreceptors you should use those. But I think that we can get pretty close to what those are for
- [172:48]
Ben Thompson
you Last question for me. Smell O vision. When are we getting it? How will we solve the problem of teaching AI to smell? Do we need to capture the olfactory system from my brain and decode that into tokens? What if I lose my sense of smell? Will you be able to help me restore my sense of smell in the future?
- [173:11]
Max Hodak
I mean this gets to a fairly deep question of just like how do you capture the structure of any phenomenal mode. Like hearing are different, smell is different, somatic is different. So how do you capture like we have, we can write down images and audio files to computer. And so we have a format that captures them, but that doesn't really tell you about like the, like a wav file is different than an image file. And so like what is a small file? Like. And there's actually really interesting research on like you can. There's like. It's a chemical sensor. It expands the space of molecules. You can get this decomposition of the space molecules. But this is. Yeah. Smell been very. There's a lot of companies that over the years have worked on growing up neurons express single factory receptors to try to do like chemical. Because like dog noses. Are there like some of those chemical most sensitive chemical detectors in the universe?
- [174:02]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [174:02]
Max Hodak
And I actually was talking to a company the other day that is training dogs to detect cancer. And I went into the pitch like, I don't believe you. And I came out. Oh, I get like, that actually is like I could see it.
- [174:13]
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
- [174:13]
Max Hodak
And the trick was the really interesting thing just really shortly wasn't. It's not that they're picking up some chemical that is present if you have cancer. It's that there's thousands of chemicals that are constantly just like being emitted, that are like in your blood, that are being leaked out. And if you can train a dog under reinforcement, what it does is it kind of upregulates some receptors, downregulate some other receptors. The brain wires together the brain pick out that part of chemical space. And so it can pick out this exquisite balance of hundreds or thousands of chemicals. To say when these are present in these proportions, you should get.
- [174:46]
Ben Thompson
That's fascinating. So it's not like there's a cancer chemical. It's the irregulation, it's the pattern. I mean, this seems perfectly tailored for artificial intelligence. But yeah, we don't even have a small file yet. So dogs still employed in the singularity for sure.
- [175:02]
Max Hodak
Yeah. So it's like if it's not one chemical, you can't just mass spec it. You want to detect thousands of them, which is why they're used dogs.
- [175:08]
Ben Thompson
I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much and congratulations on the progress. Thank you for everything. You do what?
- [175:13]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [175:14]
Doug DeMuro
How.
- [175:15]
John Coogan
Last question from my side. How like talk about the significance of this milestone. You obviously raised a lot of money out the gates, but is this like, like, hey, we actually like, is like becoming a real company now and moving. Moving beyond. Because everybody talks about big. You know, there's a lot of big numbers that get thrown around in our industry. If you have, you know, some AI database company with 10 million of ARR, you can raise $230 million. But this is a very different kind of type of business where you had to raise a lot of money out the gates, but you maybe wouldn't have gotten a bunch more money if you weren't really onto something.
- [175:54]
Max Hodak
Yeah, I mean our focus, I really believe that there needs to be businesses in this industry and you can spend an infinite amount of money just on our research. I mean it's an infinite well of research. I mean this is like there's so much grantly that goes into neuroscience and neural engineering. But we, I don't know, I mean I, I just like strongly feel that it's like I were suffering from this like cancer that every now and then you kind of goes into remission when you raise your habit and then it comes back and like it. The feeling won't go away until you have a sustainable business where there's revenue coming in. And I think that we're hopefully pretty like we're not, we're close to it. That's like the thing we're focused on is getting to a real business that reaches many patients and improves their lives. And there's things that you can point to that are like clearly valuable to lots of people that allow this to become sustainable. And then it's a question of how fast do you grow rather than like, is UCI going to have a winner?
- [176:49]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, makes sense.
- [176:51]
John Coogan
Very cool. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing and for the work that you're doing.
- [176:54]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon, Max.
- [176:58]
John Coogan
Yeah, I'm sure Max has. Very relaxing.
- [177:01]
Ben Thompson
Yeah, nothing going on at the office now. Good luck with all the hard work ahead of you. Thank you for everything you do.
- [177:08]
John Coogan
Talk to you soon.
- [177:09]
Ben Thompson
Goodbye.
- [177:10]
John Coogan
Cheers.
- [177:11]
Ben Thompson
Let me tell you about Railway. Railway is the all intelligent cloud provider. Use your favorite agent to deploy web apps, servers, databases and more. While Railway automatically takes care of scaling, monitoring and security. And let me tell you about Label Box, RL environments, Voice robotics, evals and expert human data. Label Box is the data factory behind the world's leading AI teams.
- [177:35]
John Coogan
Skook says imagine trying to explain this to a software engineer 18 months ago and it's a Forbes article. On January 5th, employees at Cursor returned from the holiday weekend to an all hands meeting with a slide deck titled Wartime.
- [177:48]
Ben Thompson
Wartime.
- [177:48]
John Coogan
After becoming the hottest, fastest growing AI coding company, Cursor is confronting a new reality. Developers may no longer need a code editor at all.
- [177:57]
Ben Thompson
Yeah. What a wild ride over the last two weeks with Cursor I mean, the company's still growing and ARR is at 2 billion, potentially raising at 50 billion. But at the same time, a lot of, you know, we've seen a lot of viral posts saying, like, I don't need my cursor seats anymore. I've moved on to just coding agents. And so definitely a, you know, maybe there's a shift in the business. Do they go more into training models? Do they go deeper into certain enterprises that are maybe stickier or harder to get to do? They become more forward deployed, helping with transformation, doing actual projects. They can become a consulting firm. Like, where is the next Act 2 for that company will be an interesting question. Well, hopefully they're not reliant on building cursor using Mac Studios with 512 gigs of RAM, because those apparently are no longer available due to the dram shortage. This is from Mac Rumors. The Mac Studio with the maximum amount of RAM that you can use to inference large models locally. Well, it's going to be harder to get in the dram shortage. So pour one out for the good old maxed out Mac studio. It could be. Or they could just be preparing for the next revision. I think there'll be a new Mac Studio out in a couple months and maybe they're ready to start building those because I imagine that the purchase rate of those sort of like falls off slowly towards the end. You know, no one really buys an iPhone right before they release the new iPhone. There's a big surge. And so maybe you want to allocate that dram to the next generation.
- [179:30]
John Coogan
Gabe had shared this on X. He said they're rolling out CEOs for fast food brands you've never heard of.
- [179:35]
Ben Thompson
That's true.
- [179:36]
John Coogan
And we got a post here.
- [179:38]
Ben Thompson
Is there a new one?
- [179:39]
John Coogan
Freddy's. Enter the chat from Freddy's. John, you know about Freddy's.
- [179:44]
Ben Thompson
I've never heard of Freddy's. Has Volta.
- [179:47]
John Coogan
We get some audio here.
- [179:48]
Ben Thompson
Has Volta done one? We need.
- [179:49]
Dario Amodei
We need one.
- [179:50]
Ben Thompson
I eat for lunch on the real.
- [179:52]
Vincenzo Landino
Here we go.
- [179:54]
Ben Thompson
Original double.
- [179:55]
Doug DeMuro
I'd like to make that a triple, please. I'll do fries and a large diet Dr. Pepper.
- [180:00]
Ben Thompson
This guy definitely, because I'm on the go. Eats burgers and the car.
- [180:04]
Doug DeMuro
It is CEO eating his burger like
- [180:07]
Ben Thompson
he does all the time. This is such a funny little Trend for the CEOs of.
- [180:14]
John Coogan
I would like. I would like to see Sass. Sass CEOs do this. Yeah, here I am. I'm using. All right. How do I. How do I poke around here eating Burgers.
- [180:27]
Ben Thompson
Is this a different company?
- [180:29]
Doug DeMuro
No thanks, bud.
- [180:30]
Ben Thompson
There are so many of these tacos.
- [180:33]
John Coogan
Freddy's has tacos too.
- [180:35]
Ben Thompson
You gotta go with the hot honey cheese curd.
- [180:37]
Doug DeMuro
Hot honey, little savory sweet action.
- [180:39]
Ben Thompson
You want to see David Chang chowing down? I want to see Jiro eating his own sushi. Give me that. There's a lot more. There's a chart from Anthropic on the impact of AI labor markets. Blue shows the theoretical capability of AI. Red shows where the observed usage is happening. Computer and math is huge. Office and admin is pretty, pretty big. Sales is actually creeping up too. But if you're in production. Transportation. Protect ICE Service. There's a typo on this for some reason. Protect ICE Service. Protective services probably. Maybe a hallucination there. Personal care, grounds maintenance, completely unaffected. So head over to transportation and ground service. I was confused by the transportation thing because the self driving cars that's happening, that's coming in terms of AI's capability. Yeah, maybe it's not an anthropic model that's driving you around, but certainly automation will come for transportation. Now ground maintenance, that feels much further off with robots. Nat Friedman's working on that one with the other ones. But Kevin Roos has a mnemonic to know about to learn about the the labor market. He says jobs in the red is dead. Jobs in the blue join a construction crew. And someone else was saying that this could have just been a bar chart, but you know, here we are. Anyway, anything else we should talk about? Why don't you find another post and I'll tell everyone about Sentry. Sentry shows developers what's broken and helps them fix it fast. That's why 150,000 organizations use it to keep their apps working. Tyler, you have final post.
- [182:23]
Jordi
I have a post? Yeah. Scott Sumner from gmu. I think he's retired, but Macro Goat, he has a new subset post called Freak Out.
- [182:32]
Ben Thompson
Freak Out?
- [182:33]
Jordi
Yeah.
- [182:33]
Ben Thompson
No way.
- [182:33]
Jordi
So he's black pilling.
- [182:34]
Ben Thompson
Really?
- [182:35]
Jordi
Yep.
- [182:35]
Ben Thompson
Wasn't he just on macro musings pretty recently?
- [182:39]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [182:39]
Jordi
Great episode. Okay, we gotta nominal GDP level targeting.
- [182:42]
Ben Thompson
We gotta read through this. Sumner. Okay.
- [182:46]
Jordi
When is it time to panic?
- [182:48]
Ben Thompson
Apparently he's saying freak out. Isn't his blog called the Pursuit of Happiness? What an odd freak out. When it's time to panic. Okay, he's saying when it's time to panic. He doesn't necessarily say that it's time to panic right now. We should read through this. But we can cover this on Monday since this is a longer post. We need to digest this. Maybe we should get him on the show. I'm a big fan of Scott Sumner and his appearances on Macro Musings from Mercator Institute. Is that Mercatus Institute?
- [183:15]
Jordi
Mercatus Center.
- [183:15]
Ben Thompson
Mercatus Center. Anyway, thank you for tuning in to TBPN on Friday. Thanks for coming. Have a wonderful weekend. Also, early Happy birthday to Trey. He's turning something in. He's having a birthday on Monday, so he's probably having a fun weekend.
- [183:29]
John Coogan
Can't wait.
- [183:29]
Ben Thompson
Anyway, leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe to our newsletter tvpn.com and we will see you on Monday, weekend of your life. And that's all, folks. Good.