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- [00:00]
A
You're watching TVPN. Today is Friday, December 5, 2025. We are live again from the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you for the boat sound, Jordy. It's good to be here. This is the real fortress of finance, the capital of capital, the temple of technology is back in Hollywood. We'll be there on Monday. But we have a great show for you today, folks. We have Keith Raboy joining us in person. We have Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange. We have Emily Sundberg and and we have one more. Adam Faze again had some hot takes.
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B
On the wb, which is the story.
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A
Today, other than of course, Ram Petanya's money save, both easy to use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting and a whole lot more all in one place. Let me give you some facts about Netflix. They're going to be bought by or they're going to buy Warner Brothers and HBO max for an $82.7 billion deal. The acquisition is expected to close following Warner Brothers Discovery spinoff of Discovery Global TV Networks division in Q3 2026. There's a bunch of fun, interesting things hitting the timeline. Obviously there's a tech story because of Netflix. It's also a media story and you know, a public market story as well.
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B
And it is a story that we will be talking about for quite a while because although, although this has gotten announced in the last 24 hours, it's very likely that this is going to be a very long, drawn out process before it actually gets regulatory approval.
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A
Yeah. Well, let me read through Variety that had a great summary of the deal. But first let me tell you about graphite.dev code review for the age of AI. Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. So it's official, in a move that will dramatically reshape the entertainment business, Netflix and Warner Brothers or wb. Don't call it Warner Bros. Although we want to the insiders, they call it Warner Brothers or wb. Warner Brothers Discovery announced an agreement Friday under which Netflix will acquire Warner Brothers, including its film and TV studios HBO Max and HBO. The deal has total enterprise value including debt of 82.7 billion with an equity value of 72 billion. The company said the announcement of Netflix's deal to buy the Warner Brothers streaming and studio business came after a weeks long bidding war that pitted the streaming giant against David Ellison's Paramount, Skydance and Comcast. News broke Thursday evening that Netflix had entered into exclusive negotiations with WBD on a deal for Warner Brothers and HBO Max. Quote from Netflix Co CEO Ted Sarandos, he said, I know some of you are surprised we're making this acquisition. I think people were surprised because didn't Netflix's stock trade down on this news?
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B
People down. People are worried about the. Some people are excited about it. Yeah, some people are. Plenty of people are not excited about it for various reasons. Some people don't think it'll get approved. Other people think this is, you know, it's quite an extension. WB obviously does theatrical releases. They have a movie theater business. It's not. It's definitely will be an. Quite an extension to Netflix's core business today.
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A
Yeah, Netflix, for reference, $425 billion company down 2.6% today. So not falling off a cliff or anything, but certainly people taking note of this. There's also a number of op EDS about this already out on the timeline. We can go through some of those. But first, let me tell you about Vanta Automate compliance and security AI that powers everything from evidence collection and continuous monitoring to security reviews.
- [03:39]
So Netflix expects, it said it expects to, quote, maintain Warner Brothers.
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Said the company has historically been more of a builder than a buyer. And so Netflix is trying to like, sort of reassure both fans, employees, even people who might just see Warner Brothers. Discovery is like a fantastic asset that doesn't need to be, like, stripped for parts. He's trying to push back against a potential narrative that Netflix will. Will be very ruthless in cost cutting and lose some of that. What people think made WB amazing art. So he said Netflix expects to maintain Warner Brothers current operations and build on its strengths, including theatrical releases for films. I know this doesn't matter to you because you never go to the theater.
- [04:28]
B
And you never, hey, we went and saw Dune.
- [04:31]
A
That was like two years ago.
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B
But we got a. We got a. When we did that, it was a lot of fun. We got a bunch of the guys. We got a bunch of the guys together. We said, we're going to make the monthly thing.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah, we were. At the start of the year, we were doing that. We were doing that. We were getting everyone together. Just like guys night out kind of, but to the movie theater. Because we were like, okay, what do you do if you're a guy and you have a bunch of guy friends and you want to, you know, go meet up, but you don't really like drinking, you don't know anything about sports. Like, what can you do on a Tuesday night?
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B
Suit up and head to your local movie theater.
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A
Head to the local movie theater. And fortunately, it feels like Netflix must have heard what we said they probably. This seems like a direct reaction to us.
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B
Potentially. Potentially.
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A
We do need to go back to the theater though, because we have not been supporting them nearly enough recently. But it is a good time and I do think it is important to set this tone. The reality is that theaters are going to change.
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There's a question of fast takeoff in AI, fast takeoff in streaming. It's been 20 years since you've been able to watch things on the Internet. So you've been able to watch home. Box Office was a way to watch a movie at home. In some ways, the ability to put a TV in someone's house was the beginning of the end for the theater because they were immediately substitutes. Although the difference was massive screen versus tiny CRT. And then it was like, okay, a 42 inch TV, flat screen, now that might cost a couple grand. You know, 10 years ago now I was at, I was somewhere, I think I was at Target and I saw a 42 inch TV. I think it advertised for like 75 bucks or something. It's like suspiciously cheap. It was so cheap.
- [06:13]
B
It's like a rotisserie chicken. It's just trying to get you in the door.
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A
I mean, in college for me, like the 42 inch TV was the gold standard. We weren't in the era of the 65, the 75, the 85. Like the big TVs hadn't arrived, but the 42 inch TV was good.
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B
I was like, you're the king of the castle.
- [06:28]
A
Yeah, you were the king of the castle. If you had a 42 inch. And it was like a serious expense. It was a couple of grand. Now they're practically giving them away. And so of course that's going to be a competitive pressure, but also it's not going to destroy the theater immediately, but it's going to have an erosion. Erosion of fact over decades. And that's exactly what's happening. But it's nice that Netflix is not declaring this the end of the theater. They're going to continue to invest in support and, and I think this will, you know, certainly, you know, encourage everyone to continue supporting Warner Brothers and Disney Discovery and Netflix. So Netflix signaled it would keep HBO Max as a discrete service, while it also touted the addition of HBO and HBO Max content to its lineup. And so we're going to add the deep film and TV libraries and HBO to an HBO Max programming. Netflix members will have even more high quality.
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B
Will it be called Netflix Max?
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A
You need to be Netflix maxing. Maybe that's. Is that why they Did HBO Max. Because they wanted it to be like HBO maxing. You get that.
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B
It was. Then it was HBO Max and it was Max and it was back to HBO people.
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A
People give them so much. They talk so much trash about HBO with the rebrand chaos. But Max is a great term as opposed to. Because they could have done HBO Plus.
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B
No, I mean, the critique there was, HBO has built up such an incredible brand. Yes.
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A
They never should have got really Max.
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B
And credit to Scott Galloway. I remember he went so hard on them for dropping hbo. Oh, that was. You've spent like, you, you spent decades building up this incredible brand and you're just like, see ya. We'll just be called Max.
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A
They spent like two years HBO maxing. Well, they spent two decades HBO maxing.
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B
And then they just.
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A
Two years HBO Max maxing. And then they just went Max maxing. And that was the end of the beginning of the end.
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C
But.
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A
The article goes on, this allows Netflix to optimize plans for consumers, enhancing viewing options and expanding access to content. Netflix says it expects to see 2 to 3 billion dollars in cost savings annually by the third year after the Warner Brothers Discovery deal closes. Let's see. The company expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings per share by year two. The cash and stock transaction was valued at $27 per share. And the timeline is going back and forth on this.
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B
Okay, let's get into some takes. So the counter side of this, the information actually had a pretty scathing, scathing kind of analysis.
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A
I'm going to tell you about public.com investing for those that take it seriously. You have multiasset investing. They're trusted by millions.
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B
So I read through this earlier. This is from Martin Pierce. Says Netflix's Warner purchase is an $82.7 billion blunder.
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A
Calling it a blunder.
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B
He says it will likely announce Friday morning will likely prove a stupendous error by a management team that until now has rarely put a wrong foot. Netflix paying a huge price 27 and a half times next year's expected earnings. Well above prevailing multiples for film and TV companies. For businesses, that likely won't help it add many subscribers. Right? Like Netflix has saturation a lot of people today. So from a consumer standpoint, if you subscribe to Netflix and HBO Max, you're going to be like, cool. I can churn off of one of these services and just switch over to here. Question is, well, then Netflix, will they be incentivized to just keep pushing the price of the subscription? They're adding more Content, more ip. And so I would expect them to do that. Martin continues. Moreover, the deal is likely to face severe regulatory obstacles again. So Netflix is not exactly Trump aligned. Right. They Netflix did the deal with the Obamas. And so I think that in a world where Netflix was going to, sorry, WB is going to Paramount, I could see that much more likely to get through. Whereas this, this is going to make make sure the Netflix like team is going to be spending like at least the next year I would assume working on this. And then since we started.
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A
What do you mean regulatory approval?
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B
Yeah, just trying to get this across the line.
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A
Yeah, yeah. I mean it feels like it's so hard to make the case that this creates some sort of monopoly because Disney owns. It's like, yes, okay, now Netflix has and they also have Batman.
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B
But Jason Kalar, who's a former WarnerMedia CEO, says if I were tasked with doing so, I could not think of a more effective way to reduce competition in Hollywood than selling WBD to Netflix.
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A
What about selling it to Disney? You literally have Batman, Superman and all the Marvel characters. You have Spider man and Star Wars. That feels like that would be less competitive than having right now. From my perspective. You have Batman and Superman kind of off on an island. They haven't really been able to get that engine going to the same degree as Marvel, the Avengers, Thanos, Iron Man.
- [11:25]
B
Somebody named Ben Weiss says disagree. Hollywood is competing with Silicon Valley, Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta. Preserving some notion of competition in and between legacy Hollywood risk winning a battle and losing a war. The old media companies need to more of the right type of scale. This does it for wb. Jason says, when I use that phrase, competition in Hollywood, I'm referring to having a sufficient number of vibrant and robust entities that can and will aggressively compete against each other to produce and distribute films. Okay, Series, live events and more for decades to come. I'm not focused on the legacy of it all.
- [11:56]
A
So yeah, I would still, I would still say this is like number two. But I mean it might be high.
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But just in terms of like Hollywood filmmaking, these feel like extremely competitive areas. There are so many different. There are so many different streaming services and bundles that you can piece together. There are folks who are like, yeah, you know, you know what I order from Amazon. So I have Amazon prime. That's where I watch everything. There are still people that just go to Apple, you know, Apple TV and just buy a movie. You know, you can still just do that. You can be off in the Netflix ecosystem. You can be in the Hulu ecosystem, like There. It doesn't feel like there's a crazy lack of competition in media right now. So I don't know. I would be, I would be somewhat surprised if this doesn't, if this doesn't go through. But I mean, you never know.
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B
I don't know. I think Netflix, again, we were, before this, we were having lunch with cable exec and he was kind of bringing up how Netflix had gotten caught up a little bit in kind of some of the woke stuff.
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C
Sure.
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B
And again, I just think in, in, in Trump America, it just feels far more likely that the Allison's could get a deal done. And they're notoriously absolute dogs that they're.
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A
Going to go, that they're going to like, they're going to try it out.
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B
Yeah. So right now, this is what's Chris Gasparine over at Fox says scoop. As reported, Paramount and Skydance is now looking to launch a hostile bid for WBD because it feels its $30 a share all cash offer is actually higher than what Netflix offered in terms of cash stock and the value of the spinoff of the cable business. So this is still developing, but yeah.
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A
Anyways, Trump fan had some interesting backstory. He says wild outcome, especially after these three wild what ifs. Before Netflix IPO'd in 2002. Before Netflix IPO'd in 2002, apparently Bezos offered $12 million to buy it. Can you imagine if Netflix had sold for 12 billion?
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B
Well, they also tried to sell the Blockbuster during the.
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A
So Blockbuster had a chance to buy it for 50 million and they laughed it off. But then it was just a DVD delivery service and they were like, we can build this. We have DVDs, we have all the infrastructure. We can just take it from the stores. Like, we don't need to do this. But what they didn't realize was that actually building technology, actually building a real tech like streaming service and scaling that platform, I mean, Netflix has some of the greatest like just infrastructure and even.
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B
The early recommendation engine. Yeah. Like I remember, I remember my dad being like, yeah, Netflix just recommended. It knows what I like. And it just said, it sent me this. They said, you're going to enjoy this.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Bernard on Arnaud saved it with a $30 million check. You know, this Netflix and Bernard Arnaud over the top. I love, I love it. I was, I, I was thinking about the actual value of putting these things together because like you're, you were making the point that putting Netflix and, and, and Warner Brothers together, it doesn't like everyone's already subscribed to Netflix. I don't know. I don't know if that's true. If, if the trends continue. Like, Netflix has a fair amount of, like, like, they have their squid games, they have some big, they have some big ip. But if you just think about like the drumbeat of HBO come back every season. Oh, you're not watching Game of Thrones. You're out of the loop. Oh, you're not watching Succession. You're out of the loop. Like, the conversation driving shows I feel like are on HBO much more consistently than Netflix. And in fact, I don't even know if I'm logged into Netflix on my phone right now. I know I'm still paying, but I really don't watch it very much. And I think that the reason is because I just haven't had. Oh, you're missing out as somebody.
- [15:54]
B
So you're, you're a true enthusiast. For me, as someone who's not an enthusiast, I'll go to prime because I'm like, I rarely watch movies. If I'm going to watch a movie, I want to just, I'll, I'm happy to just buy.
- [16:04]
A
I'm not going to do the same thing.
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B
Let me get the, let me get the, the, the free option on Netflix. I'm like, I will just buy.
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A
Sure, sure, sure.
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B
The, the thing that I want to fill this 90 minutes with.
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A
Yes.
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B
Anyway, so the deal doesn't include WD, WBDS, cable channels such as CNN, TNT, TBS and Discovery spin that. Which are being spun off.
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C
Okay.
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A
We don't know where that will land yet.
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B
Or people speculate, even if Netflix gets regulatory approval, if we'll have to take on 50 billion in debt to complete the deal and we'll spend a couple of years cutting costs to reduce that debt, Netflix does do around 10, 9 or 10 billion of free cash flow. And so they can certainly service the debt. Yeah, but anyways, in the first nine months of this year, WBD studio and streaming operations generated 2.3 billion in earnings in EBITDA. Next year, Netflix executives said they expected the Warner business to generate 3 billion in EBITDA. That's a price of 27 and a half times EBITDA. After taking into account cost savings of 2 and a half billion they expect to make. Netflix says the deal value represents a multiple of 14.3 times.
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Wbd. Traditional rivals Disney and Paramount Skydance are each trading around 11 times. Anyways, we can kind of skip over this.
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A
Kramer said. So out of the box. Netflix as the world's biggest Content creator by far exciting, but not necessarily in a good way for shareholders. That's so funny. Let me tell you about Fine, the number one agent for customer service Automate, the most complex customer service queries on every channel. Adam Faze is coming out on the show in just an hour or two. He says, I don't think people realize the licensing business Netflix is about to have. If this deal goes through, Warner Brothers animated IP Library alone would bring in billions in new merchandising revenue, coupled with new versions of these iconic shows on the platform. Game over. And he lists some of these out, and one of them I think is hilarious is Foghorn Leghorn. They own Looney Tunes. So they have Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote. These are. Yeah, these are time honored.
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Iconic characters. I just think it's funny because very clearly there are a series of bankers out there that have a spreadsheet and some. Somewhere they have a row, and on that row is Foghorn Leghorn. And attached to Foghorn Leghorn is the value of the intellectual property of Foghorn Leghorn, who's like a large rooster who talks with a funny accent. And I just imagine that they're out there saying like, yeah, Foghorn Leghorn. That's like 30 million. That's a $30 million business. Like, okay, Yosemite Sam. That's a $50 million business. Porky Pig. Porky Pig's 80 million. Let's do a sum of the parts. I really hope that. That someone on Wall street, some. Some investment banker.
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B
Actually, Adam. And is for being really undervalued.
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A
Exactly.
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B
$2 billion property.
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A
Oh, Dick Dastardly. You think Dick dastardly is worth 8 million in intellectual property value? Yeah, right. What about Snaggle Puss?
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B
I don't know. I thought you were making some of these.
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A
No, these are like the Hanna Barbera, Quick Draw McGraw, Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, The Herculoids. Herculoid sounds like some crazy, crazy non meme.
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B
Boo Boo.
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A
Herculoid seems like someone with a. With a Roman statue avatar.
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B
Okay, so, so Polymarket has. Who will acquire WB at 86% today. Paramount is still only sitting at 6%.
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A
6%.
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B
So the company behind Amazon, Amazon is still up there.
- [19:39]
A
Yes. Anyways, okay, well, let me tell you about Adeo. The AI native CRM. Adio. Builds scales and grows your company to the next level. The DC comic books. I feel like there's that, like, I feel like Netflix could do something cool here. I feel like Batman, Joker, Harley Quinn, Superman, Wonder Woman. Aquaman, the Flash, like, these are iconic characters. These are, these are cost. These are Halloween costume characters. They, they are still really known and. But the last round of. Of dc, it just didn't break through in the way the Marvel series did. And Marvel broke through in such a massive way. He didn't have the cachet of the Dark Knight and the Nolan films. But is there any way that they can get Nolan back in the seat to actually do a full arc or something? I don't know. I would just hope that I just grew up with the Nolan era of D.C. and I would have loved him to go on and do more of that with Superman, with the whole crew, everyone coming together, and instead they got just really over the top of the CGI and the slow mo and the Zack Snyder era. And I think a lot of people sort of got tired of it. And I'm looking forward to whatever they, whatever they wind up doing next. Oh, they have Metalocalypse. That's a great one. I like Robot Chicken. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, they got a ton of stuff, so it'd be interesting to keep following it. Anyway, you want to go to Possum? Oh, what's Mike Miraflor saying?
- [21:09]
B
Mike Mirafield. Miraflor says we already have Nana Nano Banana Pro TVC commercials with decent paid media budgets behind them. Everything is moving so, so quickly. Okay, so James Harden is in an ad for my prize. I don't know what my prize is. Said this is the best commercial he's ever been in and he never stepped foot on the set. Let me show you how to crack the code on Celeb Deep fakes for this. My prize ad we did with James Harden. So this is a guy named Billy Woodward.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Who's been.
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A
They're actually putting behind this. This ad on TV because it looks like a TV commercial. But this also could just be a viral marketing campaign on. Wow.
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B
My prize is a premium online casino games. Wow.
- [21:54]
A
James Harden is definitely on the the gambling trade.
- [21:57]
B
They're surprised he doesn't have an official prediction market partner yet. In other news, this almost seems like it could be fake.
- [22:09]
A
You share this news. Let me tell you about Restream 1 livestream 30 plus destinations. If you want to multi stream, go to restream.com.
- [22:18]
So what is it? There's news out of the true social.
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B
I don't know if this is real because not a single. There's a very viral post right now that says breaking President Trump set to announce a new AI platform called Truth AI. There's not A single, not a single legacy media institution has reported on this that I've found. So I would. Given that this is a story that they'd be very excited to cover.
- [22:42]
C
Yep.
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B
I would be wary that it's real yet, but that's not stopping J Bull T A R D from saying and you guys think Google won the AI race? Talking about how Trump is set to unveil new AI platform Trut AI. I wonder if Truth Social pops at all today off of True Social. Now it's down, down 3%. He's splitting his. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
Focus.
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B
Lack of focusing.
- [23:13]
A
Yeah, you should be focused. You have to.
- [23:16]
B
It's underrated.
- [23:17]
A
One thing if you're a social media entrepreneur, I mean, you know, it's. Mark Zuckerberg is getting dings walking some of the metaverse stuff back. You know, maybe the Truth Social team's getting dinged for heading over to AI land instead of just doing a partnership. You know what, you know what the crazy thing is? I keep laughing about this fact that like it has got to be so hard to justify an in house AI foundation model training run. Now if you're a big platform when the rebuttal has to be okay, so you're saying that you need to do something special, you need to do something creative, you need to do some weird deal with some other people, put something together. But Apple can just work with Google. Yeah, it's enough for Apple to.
- [23:58]
B
Apple gets you.
- [24:00]
A
Apple works to just buy tokens from Gemini from Google. But you, your business is more, more special.
- [24:08]
B
I think Apple is in the position where like they're like, we don't need to prove to like I feel like an analyst can look at Apple and say like they will have leverage in AI.
- [24:17]
A
Yeah.
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B
At least.
- [24:18]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Where there's other businesses that feel like, okay, we need an AI strategy. It's not enough to just announce a partnership with a lab.
- [24:24]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [24:25]
B
We need to like actually own the weights.
- [24:27]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We should, we should actually get into some of the, the Apple departures because we talked about this briefly. But, but the Wall Street Journal is saying that Apple departures point to challenges for iPhones dominance. And I'm, I think it's too early to call the iPhone challenged. I feel like the iPhone's dominance has not been challenged yet. Maybe that is coming. But you know, there have been several top lieutenants who have left in the past 12 months and dozens of others have defected to rival. So there are some facts that are important to consider and walk through here. So The Wall Street Journal is summarizing it this way. They say Apple is facing a wave of executive departures as the company continues a period of transition not only among its leadership, but if rivals have their way for its businesses as well. On Thursday, the company announced that its general counsel and head of policy will both retire next year. On Wednesday, a top designer left for Metta platforms. On Monday, Apple said its head of artificial intelligence strategy would retire. Its chief operating officer announced its retirement in July. And the CFO has transitioned into a new role. So lots of head. Lots of, you know, are the heads rolling or are these retirements? There's a lot of, like, you know, sort of management. It feels like Apple's just, like, not the place to let the drama kind of come to them. They're like, look, if you. Even if you got poached, maybe we.
- [25:56]
B
Just was notable because Apple. Apple came out with an announcement after the guy left for Metta and said, we're basically tried to make it sound like it was. It was like they were positioning it as, like, mutual. Like this was the right time to go on.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I'll let anyone else kind of, like, read into whether or not it was really. DH was getting over 37 signals, which says Apple was overdue for a full executive reset. Just need to add Cook to the list and for a replacement. Forstall is only 56. Time for a comeback.
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C
Ooh.
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A
Oh, that'd be very interesting. Yeah. There's a lot of Forstall fans out there who think that he didn't get it, he didn't get it right, or he didn't get the. The opportunity he deserved.
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B
Cook can't catch a break. He's like, I still think.
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A
I still think Cook's done a lot of good stuff. I'm still. I'm still bullish on Cook.
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But I don't know. Let's see. It says the executive departures underscore a changing of the guard underway at Apple, even as executive Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook himself shows no sign of stepping down, even though everyone is leaking a variety of rumors to the contrary. Cook and his new lieutenants face a critical test preparing Apple for the AI Era and a wave of new competitive devices that result.
- [27:12]
We haven't seen the wave of new competitive devices just yet. I mean, Apple, if you. There's another way to tell the story, which is like, Apple defeated the. The rabbit R1. They defeated the friend attack. They defeated. You know, like, what was the other one?
- [27:25]
C
That. That.
- [27:25]
A
That was the humane pin. Oh, they're Singing Happy birthday Singing happy birthday it's someone's birthday.
- [27:31]
B
It's one of the guys down on the trading floor.
- [27:34]
A
Oh, he's got a whole cake out there. That's great. Good guy.
- [27:38]
B
Well, very sweet. Why don't you tell us about your.
- [27:42]
A
Turbo Copper, serverless vector and full tank start Turbo Puffer. Built from first principles on object storage. Fast 10x cheaper and extremely scalable. We love Turbo.
- [27:54]
B
That was really funny yesterday having Jim Kramer reference the Simon. That was a very puffer team. That was like a crazy crossover. That was very, like.
- [28:03]
D
That was a deep.
- [28:04]
B
That was a deep cut. Kramer.
- [28:05]
A
That was a deep cut.
- [28:06]
B
We have some. Jacob Rintamaki tagged us in a post here. SpaceX tells investors it's aiming for a late 2026 IPO. Katie Roof over at the Information the Scoop has a scoop, apparently. Elon Musk SpaceX has told investors and financial institutions, institutions that it is aiming for an IPO in the second half of next year. The talk comes as Space X considers holding a sale of shares held by investors and employees that would value the company at 800 billion. Quite the markup. Double its valuation in a sale this summer. And what would make it the most valuable private company? He's got to be the most valuable private company. It probably candidly makes him sick that that open air was briefly eclipsed. The company is considering a public listing of the entire company, including Starlink, which, which makes sense. I don't, I think like Starlink is, is a huge part of obviously the value of the business and I just don't think it goes out anywhere near 800 without it. And they're very interlinked. That is a change though from a few years ago when Musk said he expected SpaceX would eventually spin off Starlink and take it public. But executives have shelved the idea of a Starlink spinoff as its rocket business has improved, apparently. The Wall Street Journal reported on the share sale at 800. So anyways, in other news, Marc Benioff is saying that he might rename the company Agent Force Trace. Cohen says just Force. Why not Just Force?
- [29:43]
A
Oh, Force. Well, isn't there a. Isn't there force India? The F1 team from a couple years ago? BYT BWT, Force India. That was like a team.
- [29:53]
B
I think they struggled.
- [29:54]
A
I gotta find that. What was Force India? Was that Force India?
- [29:59]
B
Benioff is on a terror. His. His pinned Tweet right now. LLMs are the new disk drives commodity infrastructure. You hot swap for whoever's cheapest and best. The fantasy that the model is a moat just expired.
- [30:14]
A
People are really going wild.
- [30:15]
B
They're going off down here.
- [30:17]
A
Do you think he does it? Is there, is there a prediction market yet up for renaming of Salesforce? I think Salesforce is such a strong name. Even if they do more than sales at this point, it's, it's transcended the.
- [30:33]
It's like the company has definitely transcended what they do. Like I think people know why not just sales.
- [30:39]
B
I like just sales. Just be Sales Inc.
- [30:43]
A
I don't think you can be. I, I think that's too generic.
- [30:45]
B
I don't know.
- [30:46]
A
Whatever you do.
- [30:47]
B
I mean, he would have to update the, the ticker is the bigger one. Yeah. Because sales, everyone wants to be like CRMs are dead. You're going to just be able to just generate a CRM.
- [30:57]
C
Yeah.
- [30:57]
B
On the fly. Yeah. Buco capital says effort. Nothing else is working. Go for it, brother.
- [31:04]
A
A name change sometimes will fix you. Just let it, let it.
- [31:08]
B
Ethan Ding was coming in with some commentary.
- [31:11]
A
Yes.
- [31:14]
B
He said yesterday it should be extremely, extremely alarming to Salesforce investors that no exec at Salesforce is telling him that's not a lot of tokens. Of course they Talked about generating 3.2 trillion tokens. Sounds like a big number. Ethan says for anyone who doesn't understand, cursor processes more tokens than Salesforce all time figure every six days Salesforce has 20 million users.
- [31:37]
A
Yeah.
- [31:37]
B
I mean credit cursor has similar amount of users. I think.
- [31:42]
A
Sure.
- [31:43]
B
Assuming same average token count per active agent force user count is 40 to 60,000 truly active users aka 0.2 to 0.3% adoption three years after launch.
- [31:54]
A
Yeah. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder. All tokens are not created equal. Like you can generate so many, so many tokens if you're doing these like deep research reports and like if you had agent force going around and basically effectively running a deep research report on every contact in every CRM under like every conversation. Every conversation.
- [32:15]
B
Every time you get a new email from a lead.
- [32:17]
A
Right. The token generation could be incredibly high and also deliver very little value. On the flip side, you could have a really fine tuned model that is, you know, laser focused. More of a scalpel.
- [32:30]
C
Yeah.
- [32:30]
A
And you could be getting a lot of value out of those tokens that you are generating. So I don't, I don't really know.
- [32:35]
B
On the, on the app layer debate, our CRM's cooked. There's a post here from Kalyn. He says just met a company that vibe coded an entire CRM to avoid paying for HubSpot over the last year it's now become a burden to maintain and missing key functionality, third party interoperability as they scale. They're now migrating to HubSpot app layers. Fine. We experienced this. I think it's so easy to make a V1 totally. You can make a V1 in a day and so you assume like, okay, you spend like another few days really building out like more of a feature set. And the reality is like the thing that you generate in one day could take 10 at least for now, hours and hours and hours every week just to like maintain it and make like incremental improvements.
- [33:18]
A
Yeah. Let me tell you about Linear. Linear is a purpose built tool. Meet the system for modern software development. Linear streamlines work across the entire development cycle from roadmap to release. I actually, I didn't vibe code a CRM, but back in college I built a CRM inside of Microsoft Excel and.
- [33:38]
B
So I, yeah, that's like the classic.
- [33:40]
A
Yeah for a startup.
- [33:43]
B
It was like, okay, you could go from sheets or Excel to maybe an airtable, slightly more robust than to add IO or a HubSpot or. And then eventually get over to Salesforce.
- [33:56]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also I mean, yeah, the question about like the value of the platform and the value of the app layer, I mean we were talking about this with Shopify, folks. Like there are so many companies, I've worked at these companies, I've run these companies where we said like no, no, no, no, our use case is special. No one's going to build an E commerce site exactly the way we want to build it. And so we wind up building an entire E commerce stack custom. And then a couple of years later Shopify just catches up and then boom, you're on, you're back on Shopify. And that's just happened time and time again. I lived it at Soylent. It was a wild, wild time.
- [34:33]
B
This is some wild news. Logan, Paul, Jake Paul and Jeff Woo are starting an eight week accelerator. It's a 25k safe followed by $100,000 price round for a total of 7% equity. A lot of people are confused about doing it as a price round for 100k. A founder could easily end up spending like 30 grand, you know, like depending on, depending on who their lawyer is. Like actually so it's like 100k investment and then you have like, let's assume you're like super efficient and it's like 10 grand.
- [35:04]
A
It's like, yeah, it's kind of annoying.
- [35:06]
B
And then yeah, it's it's, it's, it's annoying. That said, I think there's a lot of interesting businesses that could go through this that would really benefit from working with Jake and Logan and Jeff.
- [35:19]
A
So interesting that it's like if you need Safe and then $100,000 price around, like, why not just 125 for 7% like on a, on a, on a safe with a cap that ensures they get 7% no matter what. Like that feel. I would love to talk to them. I think hopefully we're going to be able to get Jeff Woo on the show at some point. We can ask him about how he is, you know, thinking about that particular term. I know a lot of people here are saying like, oh, 7%, 425K, that's low and that's certainly lower than YC. Y see you come in with like I think a $10 million valuation. This is more like a $1 million valuation.
- [35:55]
But you know, if you're an earlier in your career, you're not ready to go to a different, higher valuation. Like this could still be a good.
- [36:02]
B
Or you don't need a lot of capital for your business, but you do need a lot of attention. Like I could see some consumer brands getting started this way.
- [36:09]
A
No, I, I mean I just remember like, like YC was my North Star for like what I wanted to get into with my first business. But like I got denied the first time I applied and I was like, if you gave me $5,000 for 10% of business, like I would take it because I want to work on my thing and I want to keep going. And like, yes, at, so at some point it can be predatory but like with some of the first ideas that I was coming up with, like I definitely didn't deserve 125k for 7% because they were like slop companies that were like very unlikely to succeed. So I don't know. There's something interesting. I do wonder if they will position this as, okay, you're, you're going to be able to accelerate on the go to market side, you're going to be able to accelerate on the creator side, creator partnerships. This will be, there's a whole bunch of different ways it could be something where.
- [36:58]
You'Re going through this accelerator because you get to ask Logan and Jake about their media creation, their creator work and then you're launching your company more likely to go viral because these guys really understand virality. On the other side, it could be you're coming in and you're taking A crack at building something that might wind up being more like an incubation for them because I'm sure that they want to launch a bunch of products. This is a way to just kind of take swings and get close to working with people and then if something lines up they could say, hey, we actually want to do like a 5050 deal. And this is going to be like Logan and Jake as co founders of the next thing that they're working on together and we're going to really, really push this for you. We'll be your marketing arm.
- [37:37]
B
Yeah.
- [37:37]
A
So it'll be interesting to see where these companies go.
- [37:39]
B
Jeff and Jake, I think are coming on the show in the next couple of weeks before the end of the year. So we will be able to ask them more about that before we move on.
- [37:47]
A
Let me tell you about profound. Get your brand mentioned in chat, GPT and more. Reach millions of consumers who use AI to discover new products and brands.
- [37:57]
B
Aaron has a good post here. What is the remaining remaining Apple leadership team? Who is Travis hot? Tim Cook? Mr. Beast.
- [38:06]
C
Mr.
- [38:06]
A
Beast did say that he's going to film on iPhones. I'm not sure what the Travis Scott connection is. Has he done a partnership with Apple and what just.
- [38:16]
C
No.
- [38:16]
A
There are still plenty of folks. Eddie Q is still there. Apple leadership team is still stacked. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. There are still people here and we.
- [38:25]
B
Have our first boy in the the restream waiting room getting geared up physical restream waiting room they put the moon on the sphere. They put cheese on the sphere. We're the sphere. Vegas says we're sending off the last supermoon of 2025 with something special. Using NASA's public domain lunar data, our team built a true to science moon that is that's lighting up this Las Vegas skyline.
- [38:51]
A
This looks really cool.
- [38:52]
B
Absolutely insane.
- [38:55]
A
Building the super. The sphere is like underrated. It's so cool.
- [38:59]
B
We don't know how to build beautiful things anymore.
- [39:01]
A
Make it make sense.
- [39:02]
B
Yeah, we do. We do.
- [39:04]
A
People look at this and they think, you know the New York Stock Exchange, how did they build this? Was this built by humans? There's a lot of debate but the sphere really, really reinstates. Yes, we can build amazing things.
- [39:15]
B
Yeah, humans built that. Yeah, humans built the sphere.
- [39:18]
A
Have you heard about the heating like the level of, of like engineering that went into actually driving the screens on the outside because so at that scale like the each pixel is not like your laptop, it's not like your phone. It's like A bright light. Like, each pixel is like this big. And it's a light.
- [39:37]
C
Yeah.
- [39:38]
A
Then. And so that light, even if it's an led, it still produces heat. And then you have. So you have a whole bunch of them that are all heating right next to each other. And then you put it in the hottest place in the world in the desert. And so there's just been, like, a phenomenal amount of energy. And I'm surprised, you know, people are so ready to dunk on this and be like, oh, it failed. Like, if it. If it shut off, if it showed like, a blue screen of death or like an error message, that would be so viral. That would actually be a good campaign. That would be a great campaign. If you were marketing it. And the video that you put up showed the, like, the windows blue screen of death, like, the fail. Oh, it broke. Because then you'd go viral if someone was like, oh, wow, like, what were they advertising? Oh, they were running an ad for tvpn and the ad was too good and it crashed the whole software or something. Because, you know, the Shopify guys came on, they were like, we're doing this live. We're live. Streaming to the Sphere is very cool. But. But if you. If you cry, if you can figure out how to crash the Sphere, or at least make it look like you crashed the Sphere, I think you have some viral potential. Well, let me tell you about numerl.com compliance, handled numeral worries about sales tax and VAT compliance so you can focus on growth. And we have our first guest of the show. We have Keith Raboy here in New York City coming on down. Oh, look at this sponsor.
- [40:50]
C
Thank you.
- [40:51]
A
Keith, Good to see you. How you doing? Welcome to. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. You are the mayor of New York now. We love our partnership with the New York Stock Exchange. It's a great setup. It looks great and obviously gives us easy access to folks like you.
- [41:05]
C
That's true.
- [41:06]
A
So thanks so much for coming on down. How have you been? What's new in your world?
- [41:10]
C
Great. Pretty busy. You know, her adventure is pretty busy right now. People are doing deals every day, busting left and right, crazy valuations.
- [41:17]
A
Is that a green flag for you or is that a red flag?
- [41:20]
C
It's hard to tell. Like, I think a lot of people are going to lose money. Yeah. Hopefully we're not included. Yeah. But the valuations have an extra zero.
- [41:27]
A
Yes.
- [41:27]
C
You know, too literally, before this recent, recent, like, sort of trend, I had never invested an entry price for, like, any normal company above an 86 million dollar valuation.
- [41:41]
A
Yeah.
- [41:41]
C
And you know, that whole world is completely different. Yeah. So like, everything seems to have.
- [41:46]
B
How many deals a year are you trying to get in? Under. Under 10?
- [41:50]
C
Like, because I would imagine.
- [41:53]
B
But realistically, like in the last years, it may be like one. One a year.
- [41:56]
C
Yeah.
- [41:57]
B
Somebody you knew well, somebody. So you can.
- [41:58]
C
My philosophy is bold, early impactful. Bold, early impactful. That's the KV mantra. I love that. So early means first institutional capital.
- [42:11]
Even today, if you're right, bold and early, that's maybe over $10 million. It used to be 500K. When I invested in Airbnb, it was 500K, 3.5 million post. DoorDash was something like 8 to 10 post. Yeah. So, you know, the world's very, very different now. They're going to be epic companies. Like, what is very clear is some of these companies are absolutely iconic and will be iconic for decades. I doubt there's as many as people think. So the argument goes that, you know, we've changed the physics and there's going to be 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 billion dollar plus companies. I don't believe that stuff. Certainly on the consumer side, I don't believe it on the consumer side. Possibly in enterprise, if you believe AI is going to transform every business everywhere. Possibly. But the consumer side, consumers are Busy. They have 20, there's only 24 hours in a day. Tech doesn't change that yet. And so every time someone adopts a new app, a new product, as a consumer, they have to substitute from their friends, from their family, from church, from basketball. And so the bar just keeps going up. So I don't really believe there's going to be too many breakthrough consumer companies. ChatGPT OpenAI will be one. Not really sure who else.
- [43:23]
A
And it just feels like we're in this era where if you do have a breakthrough, the big tech companies are in an offensive position. They're in wartime mode. Some of them, like Meta, are, are, are their founder led still. They're still in founder mode. And so you're going to have a pretty good copycat on your tail within six months of going viral within a year.
- [43:43]
C
That is an interesting dynamic. Typically, the large companies, we don't make fun of. Yeah, all of us are entrepreneurs and we don't make fun of these old sluggish, you know, large companies with tens of thousands.
- [43:52]
B
Now they're our friends.
- [43:53]
C
Well, they may not be your friends, but they are fast. They are paying attention. Yeah. Like they're usually sloppy and slow Yep. Like I remember when we were doing PayPal, eBay was like the most incompetent organization on the planet.
- [44:03]
A
Yes.
- [44:04]
C
Like Google was literally being built underneath them.
- [44:06]
A
Yes.
- [44:06]
C
And ebay hired like management consultants, consultants at Bain and told them don't worry about Google. Like that was the classic like large tech company.
- [44:13]
A
Yes.
- [44:13]
C
And admittedly Mag was worse than most. But still now, you know, all the large tech companies except Apple seem to be paying attention. Okay. You know, Apple is behind the eight ball in AI.
- [44:23]
A
Yeah. Unpack that a little bit because there's a lot of departures. And you know, you're wearing an Apple watch today, like you're not giving it up anytime soon.
- [44:33]
C
I love my hair. Okay, so the hardware still the best.
- [44:35]
A
What's the nature of the risk? Because I don't see us actually going somewhere else. Because we're locked in. Right.
- [44:41]
C
No, I think, you know, building vertically integrated products. So to do hardware well, you need hardware skills, supply chain battery innovation. That's before you get to the software. Yeah, yeah. But does somebody figure out how to do an AI unique. Unique to AI, custom device that is compelling. Possibly. Sure. Depends on what time frame you're talking. Next year. Year unlikely.
- [45:01]
A
Yeah.
- [45:02]
C
10 years I'd be willing to bet, you know, more. More likely than not.
- [45:05]
A
Yeah.
- [45:06]
C
So at some point Apple will be.
- [45:09]
B
Has the best quote here. He's like, and it's something like in 50 years will people be drinking champagne? I think yes. In 50 years will we all be using iPhone? He's like, I'm not sure.
- [45:19]
C
Yeah, I'll take the champagne or at least tequila.
- [45:24]
B
But how is your, how is your kind of view on Google's like competitiveness and I changed over time, if at all.
- [45:32]
C
Well, I think we had a debate several, several years ago. Is it, you know, a sustaining innovation, you know, disruptive innovation after chat, cbt, it's clearly more disruptive potentially. And I do think though they're, they are paying attention, they are taking it seriously. That said is still the fastest growing product, consumer product in the last like 15 years. Yeah. And I think if OpenAI plays its cards well and focuses on ChatGPT first gets distracted as being a pure research lab. So there's probably this tension there. Yeah, research lab, AGI, blah, blah, comes at sacrificing the quality.
- [46:06]
B
It's just that. But it's, it's a. Let's launch a short form video app, let's automate, let's do all the science, let's do the Sam. I mean I think part of sam's answer to Brad, which kicked off like a broader discussion. He was saying we're fine. We're going to do consumer electronics and we're going to do science. And I didn't. I think a lot of people read into that and just say like hey, Google does that. They lose a lot of money on it.
- [46:30]
A
It's not exactly a process and those are their bets.
- [46:33]
C
Google mints money so it should be clear so they can fund it. Yeah, I think there's some things that Sam has to do. Hardware's probably won because the risk that somebody else puts AI together on a consumer device before he does can rip them sort of out of the.
- [46:50]
B
What do you think about what do you. How are you processing Apple with Gemini as a risk to Chat GPT?
- [46:56]
C
I don't, I.
- [46:57]
B
Because, because like to be clear, like Gemini has an amazing model. They're well be behind on a. Just a product. Product experience standpoint. But there are quite a lot of searches that I hit ChatGPT or Gemini with that like a Siri integrated with Gemini. I'd be going there right away if.
- [47:15]
C
It was like yeah, it depends on the kind of query you're doing or prompt you're doing.
- [47:18]
B
Yeah. But right now if I, if I hit like for a fact.
- [47:20]
C
Yes.
- [47:21]
B
That's not that far away. That's not that far away from doing a comp like a. Like sure.
- [47:26]
C
But then there's other kinds of prompts where you didn't used to maybe even use Google. Like for example, I asked ChatGPT to write a book outline for me. A book proposal. I wouldn't have thought of Google collaboration.
- [47:37]
B
You could, you could probably one shot a book with.
- [47:40]
Somebody.
- [47:42]
C
Eli was actually getting.
- [47:46]
Moderately creative. What I expected, and this blew me away, was that there was a spark of ingenuity to the proposal. It wasn't just like right down the middle.
- [47:54]
A
Totally.
- [47:55]
C
I tried it on Gemini.
- [47:56]
B
So you're writing a book?
- [47:57]
C
No, but maybe one day. You see the problem with long form content is apparently because of token ration. Rationing. Rationing, yeah. If you try long form content, they only spend a certain amount of tokens on you.
- [48:09]
A
Sure.
- [48:09]
C
So it degrades. So you'd have to write almost like a paragraph or a page at a time, otherwise the quality will degrade. But the outline, the proposal was actually quite good. I did try it on Gemini, it wasn't as good. So I think 5.1 ChatGPT 5.1 thinking mode actually still has a bit of a human personality and I don't see that when I try the same prompts in Gemini. So I think you could build an excellent cutting edge human personality product if you focus. And then I think you do need to try a device just to make sure, you know, you're kind of not blindsided by somebody else. Some of the other stuff though, may interfere. There's only so much talent, there's only so much bandless. Sam only has so many hours in the day, et cetera. May interfere with success with ChatGPT. ChatGPT should be a $4 trillion business if you maximize it.
- [48:56]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:57]
A
Talk about hardware. It feels like we're in this weird era where everything is getting more capital intensive earlier and earlier. There we are.
- [49:05]
C
So this is a good question. I think there's some companies where that's true. Okay. Some types of markets sometimes on products. I think other people are raising capital for no apparent reason. Like, let's talk Harvey Illegal. I have a competitor investment that doesn't need a lot of capital.
- [49:19]
B
Which one are you in?
- [49:20]
C
It's called spell book. Yeah. They target somewhat different markets, but directionally legal. But there's no real reason to spend that money. Like, like, in other words, their compute costs can't be that high.
- [49:31]
A
Sure. Because they should be able to pass that through as gross margin. Like they should have good gross margins on day one.
- [49:35]
C
So when I invest in AI companies, so two thirds or three quarters, somewhere between. Of all my investments over the last 18 months are AI based.
- [49:41]
A
Yes.
- [49:41]
C
Mostly application layer. But not all.
- [49:43]
A
Yes.
- [49:44]
C
All the application layer ones. I expect them to have positive gross margin margins. Yes. Extremely positive gross margins.
- [49:49]
A
Yes.
- [49:49]
C
I'm like, you have to build a business too.
- [49:51]
A
Yeah.
- [49:51]
C
And I don't believe in these excuses. Now if you're building frontier models and cutting edge or you want to do hardware, you're clearly going to spend money or infrastructure clearly going to lose money intentionally. And that's always been true tech. But if you're building an application layer, I don't buy the margin.
- [50:06]
A
There was this hilarious expose on hacker news about AI startups that aren't actually training their own models. They're just rappers. And they were breaking down the gross margin. I was like, this is a VC's like, like celebration. It looks good.
- [50:19]
B
So good.
- [50:19]
A
Because they were like, the only thing.
- [50:21]
B
That was bad is they were kind of making the claim that they were.
- [50:23]
A
Like they were more of research training models when they're not. But the. My takeaway was that like the wrapper market is extremely healthy in certain, in.
- [50:32]
C
Certain markets because workflow, like if you think about It. You have to productize things.
- [50:35]
A
Yeah.
- [50:35]
C
Like if I'm working as an investment banker.
- [50:38]
A
Yeah.
- [50:38]
C
Or an accountant.
- [50:39]
A
Yeah.
- [50:40]
C
Or lawyer. You. It's not just the performance of the model I care about. It's like how efficient, how improve. How does it improve my life. Yes. And that's a function of how intuitive is the ui, how easy does make the entire job to be done, so to speak, be able to be accomplished. So it's not just a model performance. I think when I'm looking for like a, like an application layer CEO, I want them to really understand what they're building for, why and what the P and L impact should their target customer.
- [51:07]
A
Yeah.
- [51:07]
C
Like in legal. Like, it's actually a complicated question.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah.
- [51:09]
C
Because of the bill of hour. You don't necessarily want to make your lawyers more efficient if you run a law firm.
- [51:14]
B
We've been talking. We've been talking about this so much. We had. I know a lawyer who switched firms because he knew he was with a big, like, probably top 30 law firm. He's like, they are not going to adjust in time. Like, there's no. And they're like, we like that. Our associates are just running up hours on tasks that could be one shotted by.
- [51:31]
C
I built 300. 3600 hours my last month as a lawyer.
- [51:35]
B
And, and, and what?
- [51:36]
C
What is it also the last month? Yeah. Next time someone tells you they're working too hard in tech, I'm like, I literally build three, 3,600 hours. Now, that was not my average month, but still I hit it over 3,000 a few months a year though, usually.
- [51:48]
B
But an associate today will do like a few thousand.
- [51:50]
C
Well, yeah.
- [51:51]
B
A year.
- [51:51]
C
Culture is degraded to like, how do.
- [51:54]
A
You build a 3000?
- [51:54]
C
I wasn't even this year. I wasn't anywhere near the top five percent.
- [52:00]
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,. 3300. I'm sorry, here it is. 360 hours in January 2000. Okay, that makes sense because the top associates in S and C were over 3,000 for the year.
- [52:12]
A
Yeah.
- [52:12]
C
I'd be like 26, 2700. Slacker.
- [52:16]
A
I mean, you're a buyer of legal products as well as an investor in legal AI products. Are you advising your. Your portfolio company is to push harder on their law firms to get.
- [52:27]
C
Well, they are so every founder I know actually uses ChatGPT for legal research. Then they call up their lawyer. Yeah. And the lawyer's giving them advice. They're literally. Sometimes they're actually screenshotting and saying what you're telling me.
- [52:38]
B
Is wrong. Does Chat GBT need some, like, legal. Like, clearly a lot of people are using it, but there was just a judgment today that was requiring ChatGPT to turn over a bunch of stuff.
- [52:47]
C
So it's not technically not privileged.
- [52:49]
A
Sure.
- [52:49]
C
So it's complicated. Complicated to use it. They could. We'll see how the law evolves. But it's probably the right decision as a legal matter. But I do know, I had a conversation with the CEO of a more than $100 billion company and he has a legal team that spends $40 million a year and he authorized all his lawyers to use Chat GPT.
- [53:05]
A
Wow.
- [53:06]
C
He's just like, look, you need to, you need to, you need to adopt this tool.
- [53:10]
A
I mean, more efficient.
- [53:12]
C
Right? Of course, you know, so if a lawyer technically uses Chat gbt, it might be privileged.
- [53:16]
A
Yeah.
- [53:16]
C
But if you, as a consumer, normal person, input stuff like, oh, you know, how do I hide the word? A weapon. That is definitely not privileged.
- [53:24]
B
I wonder, I wonder if there are certain businesses that start and build knowing that they're going to get sued a lot. I wonder if this levels the playing field for businesses like that that are kind of going after markets that don't want innovation. And they could just say like, yeah, we would have needed a team of 20 lawyers back in the day, but actually now we can have like a few, like, really efficient.
- [53:42]
C
Yeah. Well, there are startups in the legal space that basically are a substitute for lawyer. Sure. And then there's the legal AI startups that make lawyers more efficient.
- [53:50]
A
Which is, which is Spellbook.
- [53:52]
C
Spellbook is making lawyers, mostly making lawyers more successful for firms. And now for companies, we have a lot of like actually Fortune thousand companies. Because you think about the incentives of a corporate legal department. They're different than the law firm friends of yours. Yeah. Like corporate legal firms want to spend less and get faster responses, so it makes tons of sense. And then you can customize to the culture of that company.
- [54:13]
A
Yeah.
- [54:13]
C
So like ebay uses Spellbook, for example, and they have their own preferences about how they want to practice law. And we can implement that on software versus, like, Google's not a customer, but Google might have different preferences.
- [54:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been seeing this new trend. I mean, the lineage here in legal is clear spire and then atrium. And now people are trying it again. What do you think about folks who say, I was on a particular track where I'd be at a firm, now I'm going to start an AI powered firm. Should they be raising money or should they just Go do that on their own.
- [54:45]
C
Well usually the way they start though is a human. A ratio of humans and models. Yeah. It's not like just all models.
- [54:51]
A
Yeah.
- [54:51]
C
Right. So you're gonna have to pay lawyers for a while. Like you want to take the ratio from 80% humans to 80% automation and like hopefully quickly. Atrium basically never did that and maybe they didn't have the technology, they got hooked on the drug. I think. Yeah. Of just like I knew some of.
- [55:05]
A
The machine learning folks at Atrium at the time and they were like, we're, we're close to understanding documents with AI and. But close doesn't pay the bills.
- [55:15]
C
Still be a human in the loop technically for most of these products right now that's going to change and the ratio should be like one human for 99 customers or 99 documents or 9,000 documents.
- [55:24]
A
Yeah.
- [55:25]
C
And then the economics could work. But I think you would need to raise venture money up front.
- [55:29]
A
Sure.
- [55:30]
C
Also maybe for credibility. There's some signaling, you know, like people are buying enterprise company enterprise all across the globe. Any vertical are buying AI products. That's what allowed these, you know, vertical application companies to hit, you know, 100 million in revenue quickly is there's top down demand at very large fortune.
- [55:46]
A
How do you, how do you assess quality of revenue if a founder comes to you and says yeah, I am raising at 100 million for my first round but I have a $5 million deal with some Fortune 500 company. And so it's really not that crazy of a revenue multiple. But then you start wondering obviously, is that going to stick or can they just balance?
- [56:05]
C
Well, we asked for the contract actually because the terms may vary often ask to call the customer, like why are you buying this? What do you hope it does, you know, and achieve what are the business goals? How confident are you that you're achieving those business goals?
- [56:17]
A
Sure.
- [56:17]
C
So that's actually a pretty, pretty standard reference.
- [56:19]
A
Just due diligence. Yeah, yeah. Does that mean that like the level of the level of due diligence required on these deals, even if the early stage, like the round numbers, it might still be a seed, but it's a bigger number. You're treating it with the due diligence that you would bring to an A.
- [56:34]
C
I think, I think you do need to look at what's the source of the revenue? What are the terms of that relationship? Are they a pilot, permanent cancellation rights. And then you can look at the underlying metrics like we always use to which is what's the active usage?
- [56:46]
A
Yeah.
- [56:46]
C
Like ultimately and everybody in your organization is using the product. Yeah. Even if you have the contractual right to cancel, you're not canceling it. So like you can look at maus d all those kind of things and actually we do tend to look at that. I tend to personally look at the engagement metrics as much as the revenue metrics. You also look at the margin metrics because ultimately like yeah, if you give away someone pays 5 million that costs you 10.
- [57:07]
A
Yeah, it's a great deal.
- [57:09]
C
That's not a long term business.
- [57:10]
A
I mean if you're, if you're an enterprise, you know, CIO or cto, you're probably getting pitched some stuff where you're like wait, I was going to buy those tokens anyway.
- [57:20]
B
Yeah, they were going to give us.
- [57:21]
C
Going to be and I don't even have the infrastructure to run it. So it's like totally, I don't have to buy it, I don't have to totally.
- [57:26]
A
And then say there was a lot.
- [57:27]
B
Of bearishness around certain vertical specific AI tools and enterprise AI after that MIT report came in that nobody read the source material and just anecdotally it feels incorrect but I think the simplistic way to look at it is like will large companies spend more on AI in 2026 than 2025? And I think like you've lean answer is definitely yes.
- [57:53]
C
I mean I think you could critique. You're right, nobody read the report. They just read, look at the high line, you know, X or something. But I think it comes down to as we notice, talked about the quality of tape. If you have the right people implementing it, you're going to get high quality results. If you just think the software is just going to show up out of the box, it's going to work in transformation. Highly unlikely. Unless the product was designed to be that way. There are a few products that you see that you know are designed for consumer to just like or user like an average employee to just use out of the box. That's pretty rare. Usually you have some implementation hurdle and I suspect a lot of these things are getting trapped in the implementation sort of, you know, box somewhere.
- [58:30]
B
Yeah, you guys have stayed out of the prediction market wars.
- [58:35]
C
We have not invested in a prediction market.
- [58:36]
B
Was that like, was there a moment where you wanted to and the dynamics of the round didn't work out or was that a conscious choice?
- [58:44]
C
It's a, it's a good question and I had that maybe I've been burned because I helped start in like seed invested way back in the day. This thing Called Blue Bat, which is an early prediction market is a really cool product. Kevin Hart's job and I worked with this founder on back in the day like 2005 or 6.
- [59:01]
A
Wasn't he from YouTube or PayPal?
- [59:03]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:03]
D
Right.
- [59:04]
B
There's never any new, there's never any new ideas.
- [59:06]
C
We, we could never get it to work. The hardest part that made it work was it like on the better side or the. The wager side. It was actually getting enough bets and maybe now with AI you can scalably create enough interesting bets. We're going to do it by hand is we just never could get that treadmill working.
- [59:22]
B
Well, you maybe didn't do sports bet.
- [59:24]
A
Sports.
- [59:24]
C
Well, we didn't do sports bet. It was illegal. So yeah, obviously there's a lot on ramp attraction has been sports and then cleverly politics. We did have political bets there and so anyway, maybe I was burned by that. Then there's another question which is I like the political markets. How? You know, I said we're bold, early and impactful. You do have to start thinking about which markets segments are actually positive impact in society. Sure. They just giving average Americans more places to gamble certainly is not something I want to invest. Now there are markets that are illiquid and they the byproduct of the liquidity is a good thing for society. Like politics.
- [60:00]
A
Yep.
- [60:01]
C
But I don't want too many people speculating. Americans don't have a lot of money. They gamble, that's fine. They bet on sports now, which may be fine. They got on crypto, whether they call it that or not.
- [60:12]
A
Yeah.
- [60:12]
C
So adding more speculation to the American consumer I'm not sure is something I want to invest.
- [60:17]
B
How much, how much attention we want.
- [60:18]
A
Both of you, American consumer, how much.
- [60:20]
B
Attention have you paid to just this tension between states clearly want to regulate this stuff. And yet the CFTC has decided like hey, these are event contracts, like where it's under our jurisdiction. How have you kind of like watched that play?
- [60:33]
C
Well, obviously the polymarket guys have played their cards really well. Controversial, you know, at the beginning, probably very high risk. You know, Alfred, I saw Alfred Lynn talking about a little bit. I'm sure he probably opposed it, but the founder was pretty tenacious and worked out or you know, they all played the regulatory cards, you know, in interesting different ways. So it's worked out well for them. Yeah.
- [60:53]
B
But the story is not over.
- [60:55]
C
Well, I think they're in pretty good shape. You know, the biggest issue they had historically was more not more US citizens were using their products before they were supposed to.
- [61:07]
B
Yeah.
- [61:07]
C
But I think the statute of limitations.
- [61:09]
A
Might sort of be hitting on that. Sure. Yeah. It's fascinating. Do you think this will be a political issue in the next cycle?
- [61:16]
In terms of tech stuff that we've been monitoring, it feels like the, the, the AI data center, energy use, water use, like those are the questions that people want to answer in dc. Job displacements.
- [61:27]
C
Job displacements.
- [61:28]
A
Obviously that's a bigger question than then. Okay, yeah. Like my, you know, my uncle, he was always a sports better. Now he uses a different platform. Like it's kind of, I think less.
- [61:38]
C
People start losing a lot of money. So, you know, in sports betting you definitely have this, you have the opposite of whales. People, you know, whales, the company people lose massive amount of money and that becomes a really sad story for them, for their family and becomes a political issue. Then if for some reason you get more, more people betting, betting, wagering, whatever, predicting, but they're not like massively exposed. I think that it won't be a political issue. Yeah.
- [62:03]
A
I mean we've been tracking AI diffusion. We're obviously excited about a lot of the products getting in people's hands. Like, like spellbook, like law, like law firm for like legal AI. At the same time, we're just not seeing that much job displacement. Maybe it's coming, but it feels like there are. If whatever's happening when somebody lays people off, it's probably not because. Because they're just. Oh, now it's just a prompt. But. But do you think tech needs to do a better job of telling that story or understanding?
- [62:30]
C
Absolutely. Not the touch. I mean, you know, I was in a speech that President Trump gave and he says like, I don't like the terms artificial intelligence. You guys need better branding.
- [62:37]
A
Yeah.
- [62:37]
C
And nobody's come up with a better answer. I think someone should like, artificial intelligence. Sounds scary.
- [62:42]
A
It does.
- [62:42]
C
Bad artificial thoughts. When you say like you're having artificial sweeteners, you know, so like I think super rebranded.
- [62:49]
B
Something like that.
- [62:49]
C
Yeah.
- [62:50]
B
Right now it really is like a power up. Like if you're a very creative.
- [62:54]
A
Credit to Satya Nadella and, and the Microsoft folks. Like, like co pilot feels like, okay, I have a helpful assistant that's alongside me. Does a copilot ever put the pilot out of business? Never.
- [63:03]
C
Not yet. Not yet. Maybe. Yeah. You have a long tail, kind of situational planes. That makes it prudent. But I, I don't think there's, there's going to be job elimination. I think there's going to be job substitution. Sure. You know, we're going to, we need more data centers. Well, to build data centers requires a lot of advanced plumbing, a lot of advanced electricians. These people get paid a lot of money like 3 times story.
- [63:27]
B
They're getting 3 times.
- [63:29]
C
Yeah, 3 to 5x. Easily the median income of the United States. So we're going to be building a lot of infrastructure. Building infrastructure creates jobs.
- [63:36]
A
Yeah.
- [63:36]
C
Are the people who you know are doing this now going to have to substitute something else? Maybe, but I don't, I do think there is going to be some substitution for white collar work like accounting, lawyers, maybe primary care doctors.
- [63:50]
A
So what advice would you give to high school student?
- [63:54]
C
I think you still like read, learn, learn reading, writing and math very well.
- [63:58]
A
Even though the computers can read, they can write and they can definitely do.
- [64:01]
C
But you need to know the fundamentals. I mean, there's a research paper I retweeted this week about if you, if you hand write your notes first, type your notes in class on any metric.
- [64:11]
A
You can match and where, if they're in middle school, if they're in high school, should they be fighting to the nail? They get in the Ivy League, where are they going, where are they learning?
- [64:17]
C
That's a good question. Chill fellows. Seem to work out well.
- [64:19]
A
It does.
- [64:19]
C
I'm a fan. I'm a fan. You know, my kids are four. I hope that they better not have to go to college by the time they grow up.
- [64:26]
A
It'd be really sad because you're not saving for it.
- [64:29]
C
I know.
- [64:31]
B
Sorry, no calls.
- [64:32]
C
We're spending it on AI.
- [64:35]
B
We'll get them a little data center.
- [64:37]
A
What about for the next generation of entrepreneurs that are just getting to Silicon Valley right now and they're seeing a trend of what we call like the deal guy Yuga, the deal guy era. This idea that it used to be you get to Silicon Valley and you're writing code, the Ernest Acker and you're in the basement or you're in the garage, you write the code and then you put it on the Internet and everyone shows up and your elegant algorithm just produces Google. And then you create a trillion dollars in value. And it's because you're the PhD scientist, you're the mathematician that you get rewarded. And now it feels like you can maybe make it in Silicon Valley. Maybe not caring so much about the technical aspects, but instead about the deals putting pieces together.
- [65:14]
B
So the funny thing though is like people use Sam as an example of this, but like he was running a research lab for years.
- [65:20]
A
Yeah.
- [65:20]
B
And, and so like Even though.
- [65:22]
A
And also he was like.
- [65:23]
C
He was a CS dropout.
- [65:25]
A
Yeah. He was also C. CS Dramat. And, like, definitely built, like an app.
- [65:27]
C
Yeah, yeah, he built an app. So the reason why it's scary, and this is maybe portraying my age, is back in the late bubble, Internet bubble, 96, 2000, there used to be all these, what we used to call business dev people running around all the companies and all doing all these deals. And then the bubble collapse.
- [65:43]
B
Yeah.
- [65:43]
C
And every. A lot of people ascribed the bubble and collapse to these biz dev people.
- [65:48]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [65:48]
C
So then everybody stopped using the label. Was also. You met a biz dev, first of all. Yeah. Like never, like, for the last 25 years.
- [65:56]
Rebranded. Well, biz dev was like, higher.
- [65:58]
B
As, like, partnerships, I come to you, I say, keith, I'm going to. I'm going to give you $100 million of revenue. And you're like, funny enough, I'm also.
- [66:06]
C
Going to give you $100 million in the company. I'm going to give you $100 million.
- [66:10]
A
That was the classic.
- [66:11]
C
That was the classic example. So that's how I started my career, tech, actually, as a business. That person. And if you look at my LinkedIn profile, it's still there. Okay. But it became like this, you know, sort of negative signal resume those business people running around. And so everybody's doing that now. That is a scary indication that maybe we're hitting, you know.
- [66:29]
A
Yeah. So, I mean, would your advice to new entrepreneurs say ignore the noise, ignore the frothy rounds, retreat to what? Product, market, fit, program?
- [66:41]
C
I think, look, ultimately deliver value. I think it's actually really, really simple building a startup. It's like you create a value proposition.
- [66:47]
A
Yes.
- [66:48]
C
And then you explain the value proposition to people and then you actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's product, there's market. You know, that's basically it. Like, what is my value proposition to who? Like, what do I do for you that's good for you? It could be good for your business, it can be good for your life. And then can I articulate that in a way that causes you to interrupt your life and test it out and verify those clicks and then rinse and repeat? So you can create a value proposition through massive use of technology. Create it through design. You can create it through the intersection of humans, design and technology. It doesn't actually matter, but you have to have a very crisp, succinct, compelling value proposition. In business cases, you want to move the P and L of your customers. Like, I had an enterprise company, maybe the only Enterprise true enterprise company I ever funded and joined the board of where our first customer was Walmart. Everybody's like no, how's it Walmart could be your first customer and they spent $5 billion on this. The reason why was we figured out there was one of the top three priorities for the company we could address. Our second customer was AT&T. Another classic customer.
- [67:49]
B
Yeah.
- [67:49]
C
Spent 10 million. Or it was a telecom. It wasn't ATD. It was different telecom actually Next we could Our technology allowed them to understand their churn better. What's the only issue in the telecom business? Churn subscriber churn. That's the only thing that matters. And like you know, because they all compete on like sure somebody else is.
- [68:06]
B
Going to offer something.
- [68:07]
C
Nobody had a technology that could literally take all their data and actually figure out why people were returning. So if you have a right the correct value proposition all of the rules are changed. So just dial into the value proposition and then figuring out how to articulate it which sometimes can be different per my post. Sometimes you have actually marketing fit and sometimes you actually have your product positioning fit. And so as you actually have value proposal position fit sometimes you start with both but sometimes you're bad at one and it kind of masks and it is not clear that you're actually really good.
- [68:36]
B
Yeah marketing market. Marketing market fit will mask the lack of product market fit for about a year. Yeah the other one starts.
- [68:43]
C
The other one doesn't get masked. It's harder. Sometimes it's hard to fix. Like you may go back to the product and think you don't have a value prop. You actually do. You just can't explain it because you only get a certain amount of attention to explain. You got to distill it. Once you distill it to the right people then it might take off without changing the product. But that's the art. True. CRO is actually good at this art of triangulation.
- [69:03]
B
How do you. There's been some kind of coalitions or not really coalitions but Walmart and Etsy have leaned into LLM Commerce. They've partnered with OpenAI. Amazon and eBay have not yet Shopify has. How do you. Who do you think is going to look so smart in two years for like leaning into these platforms early because.
- [69:25]
C
Leaning in to learn. So there's a question. Are they leaning in or are they leaning into learn? Leaning into learn is a great idea. Like if you're Shopify of course like will people use chat GPT in a way that leads to product Discovery and product purchase.
- [69:37]
B
A friend of ours has a Shopify brand. They do like 200 million of revenue. He says people that land on his site from chat GPT convert it 12%.
- [69:46]
C
That that I agree with. I'm sure that's true because they take it's authoritative at the recommendation. Sure. That the signal it's better than a blue link. However, the question is the volume and what's the increase in that volume?
- [69:57]
B
Yeah.
- [69:57]
C
Like how much of slow today. Yeah. So that's the question is what does that change and what triggers that change? What catalyzes it. But I mean, you know, we invested in a company called Profound.
- [70:09]
A
They'Re a sponsor.
- [70:10]
C
Yeah. So they allow you as a brand to track how various whether it's Gemini, ChatGPT etc are showcasing your products and brands. That's critical to the future. But what consumers ultimately decide to do, do they actually start using Chat GP to recommend the next issue to them or not? I think in some verticals almost surely yes.
- [70:29]
A
I want, I want Christmas data so badly. I feel like this is the first year that we're really going to get an answer. At least the labs will know. I don't know if we'll figure it out but about the agentic shopping, just the propensity.
- [70:42]
C
So let me give you an example of something they can solve. So like think you're a guy and you want to buy a new blazer. Like I need a blazer so I don't look like ridiculous guys looking like.
- [70:52]
B
A nice Christmas sweater.
- [70:53]
C
So I got to figure out what, what blazer is going to fit me off the rack. I don't have time to get a tailor.
- [70:57]
A
Sure.
- [70:59]
C
Almost an impossible task. Like today.
- [71:01]
B
Yeah.
- [71:01]
C
Right. Like literally, like you'd actually. Even if you know your fashion, almost an impossible task. Like you might know your brand. I can imagine though ChatGPT kind of knows, you know, what I buy, how it fits, what things I return, what things I don't over time and just says Keith, go to Hugo Boss 38 or 48 or 42, will it fit you off the rack? Like that is something that doesn't exist online. And there's a lot of latent demand for consumers not to go to retail. Like the reason I go to retail typically is I either need something immediately or I need to try it on.
- [71:34]
A
Yeah, yeah. There's also this interesting thing where ChatGPT and basically every LLM has been only pull in the sense that you have to go and prompt it. It never just sends you a push notification and says they're experimenting with pulse. So they'll say, okay, we know that you like venture capital news and you like learning about data centers. They deprived that, they have deprioritized it. But I still think that there's a glimmer of something valuable there where they could proactively send you results. It's very compute intensive and I don't know if they got the form factor right, but there's clearly, there's clearly a glimmer of something.
- [72:07]
C
There's a glimmer there. The question is going to be the quality. Ultimately if. Yeah, it'd be totally magical, but I'm going to react to the first five they sent me and either love it or hate it. And you're not going to get a second shot.
- [72:18]
A
Totally, totally.
- [72:19]
C
So I think that's hard to do in a B.
- [72:20]
A
No, no, no, no, it's hard. But I think over time the scale, like all the math and like the actual value, we've seen it work with like some of the Instagram ads where you're like, wow, I didn't even know I wanted that. It's really cool. People are satisfied. I think that will come.
- [72:33]
C
People are also more comfortable sharing data with ChatGPT than any other tech product I've ever seen. So I think like my sizing and things like that. So, you know, they allow me, if I put that in memory, it makes it a hell of a lot easier.
- [72:44]
A
So help me square that because I feel like that's true. I feel like people have these incredible, incredibly personal conversations with LLMs. They use them for all these funny things. They're obviously seeing AI search results and yet AI as a whole feels like the most unpopular technology in decades.
- [73:02]
C
And well, I think it may be a 1% issue too. Like there's a lot of people who are motivated for their own reasons, you know, to cause things, create negative feedback on AI.
- [73:13]
People.
- [73:13]
B
For example, five years years ago, there was a lot of interviews that happened where they were talking about job loss and just like total.
- [73:19]
C
Well, even Sam made the mistake talking about ubi. We need ubi, like this is a mistake. We need UBI because there's gonna be job loss. Yeah, well, first of all, there's not gonna be job loss as we were talking about, arguably. But B, like highlighting that a decade before any of that happens makes no sense whatsoever. And ubi by the way, is a terrible solution. Sure. So for all those reasons, it created like more fear. And then the safety hoax people, the people are always creating hoax is about. It's Literally a hoax. Safety is a complete hoax. This is my challenge. Name a single person who believes we have an AI safety issue to write about. Any political issue. For 50 years, every single person who's talking about safety has been wrong on the environment, has been wrong on equality and all that nonsense. So, like, I just don't believe any of this because the people are all always finding excuse for bureaucrats to interfere with Russia. I mean that.
- [74:06]
A
I hear you. That's just like, that's kind of sad for our tech community because, well, as you know, a lot of people, A.
- [74:12]
C
Lot of people in tech though, have very sad views, I suppose.
- [74:14]
A
But what I mean is, like, is like Mark Zuckerberg has dealt. Has dealt with a lot of attacks on like, social media is bad, right? But at least you got five years of people kind of liking posting Instagrams. You know, people kind of liked social media before they started critiquing it.
- [74:28]
C
AI Day 1 meeting in Day 1 immediately, which is critical. Like, you know, there's this old, there's this old, like, line that's stuck in my brain from when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. He said, you know, if the electric light had been invented today, it would absolutely be banned because it would have threatened the candle making industry. You know, the safety. You know, it actually was somewhat unsafe, actually.
- [74:51]
A
Thousands of people died, exploding, but we.
- [74:53]
C
Never would have allowed electricity. You think about society without electricity.
- [74:57]
A
Yeah, we have, we have a new back loop on fear and actually taking action and then monetizing that fear or one way.
- [75:04]
C
Or we saw this with nuclear power, like, to some extent.
- [75:07]
B
If you see an AI like video that was generated and it's bad, you're like, I don't want to lose my job to this thing that I don't like. You know, and so I.
- [75:17]
C
Well, we have to remember people. People. Also, there's a bell curve distribution of people's content. Let's take video.
- [75:22]
A
Yeah.
- [75:23]
C
Of all the humans, this. There's no technology. What fraction of human generated video is great or good? Yeah, it's probably a fairly small fraction. But then you see the AI, you're.
- [75:33]
A
Like, oh, yeah, this is terrible.
- [75:35]
B
It's sloth. The guy that made this said, I'm going to lose my job and then I'm going to need ubi. Why don't we just stop all of this altogether?
- [75:40]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit like Paul Graham had this epic blog post about, you know, if someone unfortunately, like, meets someone, you know, and sexually assaults them at a grocery store. Like Safeway. It's not like a front page news story for the New York Times that. I mean, this happens all across the country, unfortunately. God forbid someone meets someone on Instagram in a DM front page news story, you know, something bad, God awful happens. But it's the grocery, you know, versus the new technology. And so you have to always remember that people are going to critique the new technology differently than what the real risk in the real world is. That's actually probably more material.
- [76:15]
B
We have a couple minutes left and we're here at nice. What's your IPO? Kind of like Outlook. How are you thinking about 2026, you think?
- [76:23]
C
Got some good ones coming up for you.
- [76:25]
A
Hopefully, you know, Whistle Ventures going out. I've heard rumors about some other funds.
- [76:30]
C
We are definitely not, I can assure you, we are not going to be. We have never had the conversation about whether we should be a public company. We're the craft business.
- [76:41]
No, absolutely not. We'll let some. Someone else do that.
- [76:43]
A
Okay, but who else?
- [76:44]
C
But you know, obviously we've been involved in really good companies. Ramp your sponsor obviously is phenomenal. Can be a public company whenever they choose to be. Got Aven Trade Republic in Europe. Not as many people paying attention to great future company. There's a bunch. Like I said, I'm excited about the future.
- [77:00]
B
So there was some news that SpaceX is maybe thinking about going out.
- [77:03]
C
I don't have any inside information there. I mean, I read the. I read the same thing. I think it'd be great, you know, to 22 years or something.
- [77:11]
A
Yeah, a long time. And also just a lot of Elon fans have been riding with Tesla for a long time. Yeah, it's unlocked a lot.
- [77:19]
C
They took X private. They'll take it public probably at some point that you can invest.
- [77:23]
A
What you're advising those portfolio founders without naming names, but on whether or not how they should be thinking about timing an ipo. You've obviously been along for the ride on many. What, what are you counseling them on? Where, when to do it?
- [77:36]
C
Well, I'm always a fan of go public as early as possible. Okay. Yeah. So I wrote a whole chapter in Eli Gill's book High Growth Handbook that explains why.
- [77:43]
B
One of the best books in the future.
- [77:45]
C
It's a great book. I have two chapters. One about hiring and then one about going public. Sure. But my General view is $50 million in revenue plus predictability. You should be a public company. Wow. There's so many benefits of being public. So I'm always counseling. When you're in as soon as you possibly can. Go early, not late.
- [78:02]
A
What about, what about burning money? I feel like there's another bar which says hey, if you're a public company, you shouldn't need to raise money anymore. Has that changed?
- [78:09]
C
Well, it depends on the company. Some businesses are profitable, like Trade Republic. Wouldn't need to raise money for example. Sure. We actually pay taxes already.
- [78:19]
I've actually never had that happen to me. I've never been on the board of a company that's actually paying taxes. To pay corporate taxes, you actually have to offset lower mortgage and profit. So like we're such a great company. Yeah.
- [78:29]
A
You burn through all your carry forwards and you're done.
- [78:31]
C
Exactly.
- [78:31]
A
Wow, that's fantastic. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else we should talk about?
- [78:34]
C
Super, thank you.
- [78:35]
A
We really appreciate you being at the.
- [78:36]
B
Well, why, why New York? Why are you here? The ramp mafia. You want to make sure you pick off all.
- [78:42]
C
So we actually looked at my geographic investments I mentioned is 2/3, 3/4. New York is the number one geo, has been the number one geo for me for five or six years. It's about 60% of all my investments. Application layer stuff, financial services, you know, like imprint, ramp a lot of great companies. Basis accounting, AI Rogo, investment banking. AI Traba is here. You know, ramp a great set of companies here. So. And then it's better for me to be on the east coast for like personal reasons. Yeah, of course.
- [79:11]
A
Well, we appreciate you taking the time to come down. This is fantastic. I'm sure we'll catch up with you soon.
- [79:16]
C
Thanks for the invite.
- [79:17]
A
Have a good rest of your day. I mean to tell you about numeral compliance. Handled. I think I already told you about numeral. So I'm going to tell you about Figma again. Think bigger, build faster. Figma helps design and development teams build great products together. And our next guest is Lynn Martin, the president of the New York.
- [79:32]
B
While we wait, Dan Soroker's company Limitless has been acquired by Meta.
- [79:37]
A
Ooh, congratulations Dan.
- [79:39]
B
There's a video here that we cannot play, but Meta acquires AI wearable startup Limitless.
- [79:44]
A
We were talking about. I feel like there's a lot of opportunity in the AI wearable space. There's a lot of cool stuff happening and like it just feels like fertile playground. I feel like it'd be a fun time to be a hardware hacker. We talked about that transcription hard piece of hardware that's making $250 million out of nowhere. Very interesting companies. There's obviously cool things to Do a lot of the, a lot of the, you know.
- [80:07]
A lot of the attention goes to the rabbit R1, the, the friend pin, the humane AI pin. But there's cool stuff happening all over the industry.
- [80:16]
B
And so yeah, again, voice recorder. They had a hardware device.
- [80:20]
A
Amazing.
- [80:21]
B
Notable that yeah, again Limitless I don't think was able to crack like real growth with the hardware. But that company Plod has very. So but again, this is a great outcome for, for them. I'm sure the whole Limitless team is.
- [80:34]
A
And let me tell you about Privy. Privy makes it easy to build on craft crypto rails, securely spin up white label wallets, assign transactions and integrate on chain infrastructure all through one simple API.
- [80:46]
What else is going on in the timeline, Jordy?
- [80:49]
B
Let's see here.
- [80:52]
Yeah, I mentioned this briefly in the conversation with Keith, but apparently OpenAI must turn over 20 million chat logs to plaintiff. Judge Ona Wang has ruled.
- [81:03]
A
Yeah.
- [81:05]
You have to send an email to a, to a server that adds a chat GPT response in with your lawyer cc'd. That's how you maintain confidentiality.
- [81:16]
B
Harvey, who Keith also also mentioned, raised 160 million at a $8 billion valuation.
- [81:22]
A
This is why Keith was talking about.
- [81:23]
B
2% dilution round from A16Z A3X revenue this year to 250 million. They raised 300 million from Sequoia at 3 billion in January, 300 million at 5 billion from CO2 and KP in June, and then 160 at 8 from A16Z. Shout out to law firms. Spencer, the boys at, at CO2, a little markup there.
- [81:47]
A
I feel like, I feel like law firms got to be pretty discerning on making this purchase decision at this point. Like it's not, it's not entirely exploratory budget anymore and it's not viral. Like something that's like, oh, it's like a flash in the pan and then all of a sudden like they're not going to be able to.
- [82:01]
B
Yeah. My question is like, do you like, if anybody that wants to say like, oh, this is like out of control. It's like, do you think they'll be able to get to like a billion dollars of revenue?
- [82:11]
A
Legal industry is pretty big and it's been traditionally pretty hard and they actually, they actually.
- [82:16]
B
So the labor displacement thing does feel real here because I do think a law firm would say, say, hey, currently we have 100 associates. We can condense that down to about 20 and do the same amount of work by working with something like Harvey. And again, the vibe had at Least with a lawyer. Buddy of mine had shifted drastically with Harvey. A year ago he was saying we're using it a little bit. Now he's like, it's one shotting stuff that I didn't think it would.
- [82:44]
A
I'm one shotted actually by.
- [82:47]
B
I'm one.
- [82:49]
C
Well, one shot.
- [82:49]
A
Your data. Your data analysis with Julius AI, the AI data analyst that works for you. This join millions who use Julius to connect their data, ask questions.
- [83:00]
B
We should have gone through a hole here.
- [83:02]
A
You should have.
- [83:02]
B
We should have told them to come here and be in the capital with us.
- [83:06]
A
We'll do that soon.
- [83:07]
B
YC has a new company called the Hog.
- [83:10]
A
Oh, wait, really?
- [83:11]
B
It's called the Palantir for go to market. We were just talking. We were just talking about.
- [83:15]
A
Yeah, we were talking about swine themed startup names. You have pig.
- [83:19]
B
You have apparently carried no interest. Watch their launch video twice. I evaluate software businesses for a living. Still no idea what Hog does. Good to see what's happening.
- [83:29]
A
Welcome.
- [83:32]
B
Great to see you.
- [83:32]
A
Good to see you. I like how your green. Oh, yes.
- [83:37]
B
Green sandwich.
- [83:38]
A
But it is. I mean, yesterday we were greeted by a number of folks in your team. Everyone was dressed to the nines. What is absolutely festive and fantastic. It was the tree lighting, right?
- [83:47]
E
Yes, it was.
- [83:47]
A
So this is every year. Walk us through exactly what happened. There were mascots, there are celebrities, everything.
- [83:52]
B
They were singing.
- [83:53]
A
Oh, you've seen the tree outside. It's massive.
- [83:54]
E
CFOs, celebrities, mascots, charitable organizations, all celebrating the holiday season. We had about 10,000 people.
- [84:04]
D
10,000.
- [84:05]
A
No, we heard.
- [84:06]
B
No, it was crazy because we walked in. We walked in yesterday. It felt like there was an ipo.
- [84:10]
A
It felt like an ipo.
- [84:11]
C
Yeah.
- [84:11]
B
It felt like Sienna was ipoing.
- [84:13]
A
And then.
- [84:13]
B
And then today.
- [84:16]
A
We were like, oh, okay. Actually, this is a huge event.
- [84:19]
E
Hank Azaria actually made a joke that he was ipoing yesterday. He was probably celebrity. He did a spot that was great. But I mean, it's a great opportunity for our list of companies to get some visibility, particularly the consumer.
- [84:31]
C
Sure.
- [84:31]
E
Focus Brands. There were about 30 different tents outlining Wall Street. It celebrates the downtown community. It's a great opportunity to generate business and give.
- [84:40]
A
Give a bit back. What other big events like tree lighting that are kind of off of like. Like things that you can count on happening every year. What's on the calendar regularly at the New York Stock Exchange?
- [84:50]
E
You know, we do a lot around the.
- [84:53]
A
Is there like a Fourth of July?
- [84:55]
E
We do a lot of Fourth of July, Memorial Day. Like those types of holidays to celebrate Veterans Day, to celebrate our military. Anytime they're going to celebrate our military.
- [85:06]
A
Sure, sure, sure.
- [85:06]
E
Who have served this great country.
- [85:08]
A
Yeah.
- [85:09]
E
It's all about giving back and highlighting what makes this country great. Obviously, one of the things that makes this company, this country great is our phenomenal capital market.
- [85:20]
B
Yes, yes.
- [85:21]
E
And, and it's really a unique differentiator. There you go. Love that. But then also like our military people who selflessly protect us every single day. And then the not for profit, the charitable organizations who so many of our listed companies support. As part of the tree lighting, we highlight the charitable organizations that are listed companies support. And this year we have 400 of our listed companies that have contributed to that program. So all throughout the season, we like to, to highlight that people who have done good things but also are paying it forward.
- [86:02]
A
Yeah. And we, we heard that in, in 10 years, there has never been an IPO that landed exactly on the tree lighting. Now that does.
- [86:11]
E
Some of, Some of it's close.
- [86:12]
A
Some of it's close. Okay, have come.
- [86:15]
B
What's the latest, what's the latest in December that, that, that you remember and an actual like IPO happening the week.
- [86:23]
E
Before Christmas, I think. New bank.
- [86:27]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [86:29]
E
New Bank 2021 was a pretty late IPO. I don't remember if it was the 19th or the 20th of December.
- [86:38]
B
Oh, that's late. That's basically that.
- [86:40]
A
A ton of that.
- [86:41]
B
Well, and that's, that's, that's, that's basically the last day that I think the E Commerce brands can like, you can place an order and still get the product. That's kind of like the last day of business.
- [86:50]
C
Exactly.
- [86:50]
E
The rush.
- [86:52]
A
Yeah. What, what is the holiday season? When is the stock exchange dark? How much time?
- [86:58]
E
You know, we're not really ever dark. If I look at the calendar for the next couple of weeks, for example, we have a ton of ETFs going out, which is actually not received as much coverage as the IPOs of operating companies. Yeah.
- [87:13]
B
What is that, what is the, what does that process look like from, from even like roadshow stage all the way to like listing?
- [87:21]
E
I mean, that one's a little bit different because you can just launch the ETF and then accumulate a. Um.
- [87:27]
B
I know, but is there any like, I mean, but I'm assuming like you're building. Well, I'm assuming you're trying to build like a attention going into.
- [87:34]
E
Yeah.
- [87:35]
B
Going into the process.
- [87:36]
E
A lot of times you're also spending the time looking at the index. You're benchmarking against and back, testing the results and then going out to okay and continually people who are going to contribute the AOM and show them the performance of the ETF and how it would have performed under stress periods and different macroeconomic events.
- [87:56]
B
What, what trends are you seeing in some of these net new ETFs?
- [88:00]
E
You know, crypto ETFs have been a big, a big unlock for that industry. You're seeing just a continuation of the various types of ETFs. Equities. Fixed income as well. Fixed income. It's also been a big unlock. ETFs have been probably one of the greatest financial innovations of our lifetimes. My lifetime.
- [88:22]
C
Yeah.
- [88:23]
E
In particular. Particular where it allows someone to invest in an incredibly liquid vehicle that has incredibly illiquid constituent baskets. So if I think of like the fixed income market where I came from, like the Muni ETFs. Yeah, they've been able to accumulate a good amount of assets. Crypto has been another.
- [88:45]
A
Some folks have been on our show talking about the future of, you know, putting graphics cards in an ETF or getting AI compute or data centers and giving folks more access to that. I know some of the private credit funds. We had John Zito on the show yesterday from Apollo. But some of the other funds have taken different funds and IPO them separately so that they get more direct access. And I would expect to see more of that. But I don't know.
- [89:10]
E
I mean, there's been a fair amount of folks have talked about private. Private instruments and putting them in an ETF wrapper. I know Vlad's talked about that from Rob.
- [89:19]
A
Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [89:21]
E
That he's looking at that as an opportunity.
- [89:24]
C
Yeah.
- [89:24]
A
I mean, there's been insatiable demand for private company stock all in Silicon Valley, but it's usually done through angel investing, never really through an etf. But it seems.
- [89:37]
The structure and how you disclose information and whatnot and make sure you're absolutely. Basket of assets and how.
- [89:43]
E
And do you actually have a voting share in the ass in the underlying basket? There's a lot more logistics to work out in that. But in general, ETFs are going to add a layer of transparency that a lot of these illiquid assets don't have because they're marked to market every day. They have nav. At the end of the day, the fund.
- [90:03]
B
The fund has been some other experiments with trying to bring private shares into the public markets that aren't that. That end up trading like, you know, three, four times. NAV and then end up being like, the underlying assets can be high quality, but if you're buying them at 4x or something like that, the actual valuation is like you're just lighting money on fire. 2026, everybody. Everybody's super excited. We just talked to Keith. He made a big year. To be a big year.
- [90:29]
E
Going to be a big year.
- [90:31]
A
I think so.
- [90:31]
E
You know, the year was going really, really well. And then you had various events, such as Liberation Day in the beginning of the year, that sort of shut the window, the IPO window, but obviously it reopens how we met you guys.
- [90:45]
B
Here we are.
- [90:46]
E
And then the government shutdown temporarily closed the market as well. So a variety of our deals have now pushed into January, but January, it's going to be a busy January, really busy. Q1. And now it feels like momentum because that narrative is out there and the. These deals are going to go early in the new year. Momentum's truly building for, for the rest of 2026. But you got to remember, you got midterms at the end of 26.
- [91:17]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [91:18]
B
How have midterms historically impacted just like whether or not it's kind of the windows open or close probably for a.
- [91:27]
E
Couple of weeks before the window will be shut for a bit of time. Because people are going to. They're going to be. They're not going to want to go when there's potential volatility in the market. And anytime you have a large group of elections or a monumental election like the election for a president, you're not going to want to go just before because you just don't know what's going to happen around that election period.
- [91:53]
A
Yep. Let me see. Sense.
- [91:56]
B
Well, we just want to say thank you for welcoming.
- [92:00]
I mean, look at this. It's still being here. It's still surreal. And thank you for letting us. This be our home on the East Coast. It's no better.
- [92:09]
A
Literally could not have picked a better place.
- [92:11]
E
Your interview yesterday with Kramer, it was so much fun. Oh, my gosh.
- [92:18]
B
He tweeted in the morning. He was like, it could be fun. It could be wild.
- [92:24]
It was all the. All the above. All the above.
- [92:26]
A
But we talked about the market, but we also just talked about interviewing, building relationship with CEOs over decades. And it just laid the groundwork. I remember we watched his interview with Tim Cook 15 years ago, a decade ago. And watch how he, how he built that relationship. Really remarkable work. And a lot of it happened in this building. A lot of it happened right down there.
- [92:48]
B
Well, we're, we're looking forward to eventually joining, joining him on, on his show and we'll. I just hope we can bring the same level of energy that he has.
- [92:56]
E
You can bring your gong and your panel alongside his panel. I can't wait to see who's louder.
- [93:04]
B
We gotta hit.
- [93:05]
A
Yeah, we gotta hit the dong for the part. For the partnership. For the partnership. I will hold. This is, this is for you now officially gong hitting. Go.
- [93:18]
There we go. That's a gong.
- [93:21]
B
We're going to leave, we're going to leave these here for you. So if you're ever, you need a boost of energy.
- [93:27]
A
Coffee.
- [93:28]
B
Thank you so much.
- [93:31]
A
We appreciate you.
- [93:32]
B
We will be back soon.
- [93:33]
A
We are going Cognition, the team behind the AI software engineer.
- [93:39]
C
Devin.
- [93:39]
A
Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team. And I'm also going to tell you about Gemini 3 Pro, Google's most intelligent model yet. State of the art reasoning, next level vibe coding and deep multimodal integrations.
- [93:54]
What else is in the timeline? We of course have Emily Sundberg from Feed Me joining in just a second. We're very excited to have her on the show, but is there anything else in the time timeline that we should run through before we bring in Emily?
- [94:09]
B
Chrome Hearts.
- [94:10]
A
Chrome Hearts.
- [94:11]
B
Acquired.
- [94:14]
Acquired one of my favorite hotels.
- [94:16]
A
Wait, the Surf Rider.
- [94:17]
B
Surf Rider.
- [94:18]
A
Oh, they did.
- [94:19]
B
So I think it was the family, the Starks, the owners. Yeah, we've been there. Dylan will stay there sometimes when he's in la. They acquired, yeah, one of my favorite hotels. I used to stay there a lot and then I moved like right near it and so now I don't have any reason to stay there, unfortunately. But interesting pickup. It's an iconic hotel. They paid more than 1.8 million per room, which puts it among Southern California's priciest hotel deals in years. It's just 20 rooms. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't, I was, it had been owned by, I know the guy who created the hotel. It was basically an impossible task to like redevelop this. Like basically it was an old motel that was kind of crumbling. He redeveloped it, made it beautiful. Many people said it couldn't be done just because of the Coastal Commission and just how hard it is to like do any type of like development work in Malibu. He did it, sold it to private equity. I think this is it in trading hands again. But I'm excited to see what they do with it. They've been, they have, they've just been in Malibu for so long and have a great presence there.
- [95:23]
A
So That's a beautiful hotel.
- [95:24]
C
I love it.
- [95:25]
A
And it's fun that it's krill hearts.
- [95:27]
B
Now shout out.
- [95:29]
A
Let me tell you about Fall, the Gener media app platform for developers. Develop and fine tune models with serverless GPUs and on demand clusters.
- [95:37]
B
Shout out to Jim O'. Shaughnessy. He says, when I say I love Bach, I really mean it. He listened to 64,000 minutes of Bach last year, which puts him in the.001% of global fan.
- [95:52]
A
He's just on repeat. The repeat is like no Mozart. I don't even drift away. I'm riding with Bach 24 7. How many minutes are in a year? Can you actually look that up? 60 times 24 times 365.
- [96:09]
Times 24 times 365. He was listing. Okay, okay, so there's 525,000 minutes in a year. I think if I got that right, Y. And so he was listening for 60,000 minutes. 60,000 minutes. So more than 10% of his time. So that's. That's more than two hours every day this guy's listening to just Bach.
- [96:32]
B
He's an absolute dog.
- [96:33]
A
This is the craziest thing. What happened?
- [96:36]
B
I mean, I feel I. I didn't even. I think I was like top 2% fan on my most played artist or something like that.
- [96:43]
Top 1%. He's the 0.001.
- [96:46]
A
This is hilarious. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Well, let's bring in Emily Sundberg and let's also tell you about getbezel.com shop over 26,500 luxury, fully authenticated. Hello. Welcome to. Nice to see you.
- [96:57]
B
I'm not saying welcome to New York.
- [96:59]
A
Yeah. Good to have you here.
- [97:00]
F
How's it going?
- [97:01]
A
It's going great. Last night we were at a. An event and. And the interviewer was. Was asking us a bunch of questions about the business and stuff. But one of the questions that. It didn't phase me at the time, but then I talked about it with someone later and I'll give you the question and I want to see how you interpret it. It was, if you are on a desert island, you're stranded on a desert island. What are three Twitter accounts that you would follow?
- [97:26]
B
Oh, maybe do that for substack.
- [97:29]
F
Yeah, three substack accounts.
- [97:30]
A
You could do anything. I wound up listing a substack as well.
- [97:34]
B
It was just technology analysts. John's just on a desert island. Just like reading Ben Thompson, New York Times for Twitter.
- [97:43]
F
Need. Need Joe Weisenthal.
- [97:47]
A
You definitely need Joe Wiesenthal. Yes.
- [97:50]
F
And then a third, probably like a, like a Frank o' Hara bot or something that just like automatically gives me some poetry.
- [97:57]
A
You answered the question exactly how I answered the, the question. And then someone came up to me after and was like, no, like if you're stranded, you need to be high. You need to be following like alert services or like the Coast Guard or.
- [98:07]
F
Like, oh, right, you know, like a.
- [98:10]
A
Pilot, like someone with a plane. But also, don't stop analyzing technology.
- [98:15]
B
You're just waving. You're waving the Joe Weisenthal post.
- [98:18]
A
What is Joe Eisenthal going to do to get you off that?
- [98:21]
B
Joe would figure out.
- [98:21]
A
He's not going to help, you know.
- [98:24]
F
That I was missing though, and have like task force.
- [98:26]
C
Okay, okay.
- [98:27]
F
You know.
- [98:27]
A
And you want to know that he's coming for you.
- [98:28]
F
Yeah, yeah. He would give me the update.
- [98:30]
A
Okay. Speaking of Joe Weisenthal, he recently made an appearance on your new podcast. He did expense account.
- [98:37]
F
Right.
- [98:38]
A
And he had a take that I thought crossed journalistic lines. I thought he.
- [98:43]
F
Let's hear it.
- [98:43]
A
He said that Malaysia has the best food in the world.
- [98:46]
F
Have you been?
- [98:47]
C
No.
- [98:47]
F
So how would you know?
- [98:48]
A
Cuz I'm from America and I know America has the best food in the world.
- [98:51]
F
I went to a, a birthday party at a Malaysian bar last night.
- [98:54]
D
Okay.
- [98:55]
A
Was it the best food?
- [98:55]
F
It was great.
- [98:56]
A
Is Malaysian food actually that good?
- [98:57]
B
What is Malaysian food?
- [98:58]
A
It's name.
- [98:59]
B
Every name, every meal.
- [99:01]
C
Green.
- [99:02]
F
It's. Do you like spice?
- [99:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, I like spice. I'm just saying that like, like Malaysia has one type.
- [99:08]
F
It's delicious.
- [99:09]
B
You should go beef saute.
- [99:11]
A
A lot of beef satay. I love beef. I love beef.
- [99:13]
F
And then like sauces.
- [99:15]
A
We have pizza, we have McDonald's, we have, have the Doritos Locos Taco.
- [99:18]
F
Do you have pizza in la?
- [99:21]
A
No, but in New York, which is again, in America, he, he would say on a country by country basis, we have Las Vegas, we have San Francisco, we have French, we have French Laundry, we have all sorts of restaurants.
- [99:31]
F
Have you guys had any great dinners while you've been here?
- [99:33]
A
We had a pretty good dinner last.
- [99:34]
B
Night where we go to the.
- [99:35]
A
We went to a steakhouse. It was delicious.
- [99:37]
F
Which one?
- [99:37]
C
I don't know.
- [99:38]
B
Hawks something.
- [99:39]
F
Oh yeah, yeah.
- [99:41]
A
But I just think that the variety that you get, like I, I will give Joe Weisenthal, I've never been, but let's give him Malaysia is an A. It's an A. It's like, well then America has got to be B in steak and B in French and B in sushi and B in, you know, Italian and all the different. All the different genres.
- [100:00]
D
Cuisines.
- [100:01]
C
Awesome.
- [100:01]
A
And you add all that. Okay, okay. You're defending, but I think you're really.
- [100:05]
F
Probably saying was like a great.
- [100:06]
E
This. Like.
- [100:07]
F
Like, probably one or two specific great Malaysian places in New York, because he has his spots.
- [100:12]
A
No, no, he was talking about going to Malaysia physically and saying that. That being in Malaysia, that's the best food north.
- [100:17]
B
Yeah, we went to Hawks Hawksmoor. It was. It was good.
- [100:22]
A
It was good.
- [100:22]
B
You're not. You're not.
- [100:23]
F
I mean, I haven't been yet, but I'll make. I'll make a trip.
- [100:26]
A
Okay.
- [100:26]
E
Yeah.
- [100:26]
A
Well, how is Expense Account going as a new podcast? Are you excited about it?
- [100:31]
F
It's great. It's a blast. You know, it's started. Jason, my restaurant columnist, he started writing a column for me a little bit over a year ago called Expense Account, and it's sort of about, like, business guy restaurants. Like places where somebody slams the car down.
- [100:46]
A
Yes.
- [100:47]
F
And it was a great column. And I was reading one of them. He joked about having a podcast, and I called him and I was like, are you making a show with someone else? And he said he. He wasn't.
- [100:58]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [100:58]
F
But then I said, do you want to show? And we made it. And Substack and Silver Oak Wines. Sponsored. Season one.
- [101:06]
A
That's a great sponsor.
- [101:07]
F
They're great.
- [101:08]
A
That's amazing.
- [101:09]
F
To Substack Silver.
- [101:11]
B
I like Substack. Sponsored.
- [101:13]
F
They are the presenting sponsor of season one.
- [101:15]
B
Very cool.
- [101:15]
F
Yeah. Love sub stack.
- [101:17]
A
Yeah. What I liked about it was the fact that I am not really a foodie, as you can tell from my.
- [101:24]
F
Say that you've been having more culinary conversation.
- [101:27]
A
Yes. But my example of good food was the Doritos Locos Taco.
- [101:31]
E
Great.
- [101:31]
B
That's my Baja Blast.
- [101:33]
A
I like. I like a Baja Blast. I like a Diet Coke. I like a Red.
- [101:37]
E
Same.
- [101:37]
F
We're on the same page.
- [101:38]
A
So. But. But. So. So I was worried that I was going to open up the RSS feed and see a bunch of names that I didn't recognize. And when I saw Joe Weisenthal, I was like, I'm in.
- [101:45]
F
And he has great takes on food.
- [101:46]
A
Yes. And it was great because one of.
- [101:48]
F
New York's best food reporters, I'm used.
- [101:49]
A
To him in one context, talking about the markets, about what's happening with the latest news in the Fed, talking to founders, talking to entrepreneurs, CEOs. It was really cool to see just a different side of him. So I think if you can keep doing that, like, I'm hooked.
- [102:06]
F
That's the idea.
- [102:07]
A
Yes. Yes. And I think a lot of people will jump. And honestly, a lot of people should be trying to get on the show because it shows them a different side of them. And I don't know, it just seems like it's a recipe for success.
- [102:16]
F
Yeah.
- [102:17]
A
I love it.
- [102:18]
B
What about the west coast expansion?
- [102:20]
F
I need your advice.
- [102:21]
C
Yeah.
- [102:22]
F
So I found that subsect is very limited analytics. They're great for other reasons, but in terms of, like, the demographics of my readers, sure, it's limited, but I do know that about 20% of my readers live in California.
- [102:34]
C
Yeah.
- [102:36]
F
It feels like a loss to not. It feels like a miss to not do some sort of our California product. When I was there on my last trip, everybody was saying, like, we want something. Like, we read Feed Me religiously, but we want something in California. So I decided next year I'm just gonna go out there more like there as a state.
- [102:56]
D
Sure.
- [102:57]
F
And I. I think it will probably start as, like, a monthly letter, but all of these readers of mine, they, like, have tips for me. They have stories they want to tell. I'm not sure exactly how I'm gonna focus on it, but I really. I was. I was putting together, like, a small newsroom or thinking about people to help me with it, and then I realized I can just go and do it. I think that's what people want.
- [103:18]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [103:19]
F
So I'm going to San Francisco at the end of January.
- [103:21]
C
Great.
- [103:22]
F
I asked my wonder.
- [103:24]
C
We need a.
- [103:25]
B
We need a prediction market on how long you're gonna actually stay in that set.
- [103:28]
F
Right now it's three nights.
- [103:30]
B
Okay. You were making it sound like it was gonna be like, three weeks.
- [103:34]
C
I could.
- [103:35]
F
I mean, maybe. I'll never leave.
- [103:36]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going in January. Not for January.
- [103:39]
F
In January. My husband would not want me to.
- [103:41]
B
Go for that long.
- [103:43]
F
Miss me?
- [103:43]
C
Yeah.
- [103:44]
F
And my readers would miss me in New York.
- [103:47]
C
But.
- [103:48]
F
Yeah. I'm not sure where to start. But my. My Twitter community of my, like, reply. People in SF have been very welcoming and generous and have invited me to a few people dinner party and bars.
- [104:03]
A
Yeah.
- [104:03]
B
You'll probably leave with a scout fund.
- [104:05]
F
I'm looking for, like, some hidden doors.
- [104:07]
A
Sure, sure.
- [104:08]
F
Yeah.
- [104:09]
A
So, I mean, that sounds like sort of restaurant focus, but other cultural touch points.
- [104:13]
F
All kinds of establishments have doors.
- [104:15]
A
Okay.
- [104:16]
B
Go to Sand Hill Road and just start trying doors, like, against the side.
- [104:20]
A
Of some of the buildings. I think the Feed Me report on the sand, the Rosewood Bar on a Thursday night would really go.
- [104:27]
F
That would go great.
- [104:28]
A
I think it'd be a great piece.
- [104:29]
B
Definitely go. Definitely go.
- [104:32]
F
I'll do that on a Thursday night.
- [104:35]
But there's a lot that I don't understand. I mean, the only other time I went to SF was for wwdc. Thank you, Apple, for bringing me earlier that this year. Got a selfie with Tim Cook.
- [104:46]
C
Yeah.
- [104:47]
A
But Cupertino is a very different environment than San Francisco. I know you probably spent some time neighborhood called. Yeah.
- [104:54]
F
What's the neighborhood that you don't. That not everyone always likes?
- [104:57]
A
The Tenderloin.
- [104:57]
F
Yeah.
- [104:58]
E
Oh, yeah.
- [104:58]
C
I live there.
- [104:59]
A
That's rough.
- [104:59]
E
Really?
- [104:59]
A
Yeah.
- [105:00]
B
We walked. We walked through there at night after dinner.
- [105:05]
C
The.
- [105:05]
A
The Twitter headquarters for a while were there.
- [105:07]
B
It wasn't fine when we were walking through.
- [105:08]
C
Yeah.
- [105:09]
B
I had John as kind of plans to.
- [105:12]
A
To take a trip to the, The Hamptons of San Francisco, which is Mercury, Otaho. I would say Tahoe. Right. Or maybe Martha. Wait, no, not Martha's Vineyard.
- [105:21]
C
That's.
- [105:22]
A
What's the Martha's Vineyard of San Francisco?
- [105:23]
C
I don't know.
- [105:24]
F
I said Marin.
- [105:24]
A
Marin, yeah. Wine country. But I think Tahoe is more of the Hampton because I. When I think of like the Hamptons of. I think like two hours, three hours, four hours skiing.
- [105:35]
C
Yeah.
- [105:35]
A
You can ski, you can boat, you.
- [105:36]
B
Can do a bunch of different things.
- [105:37]
F
Do you guys ski?
- [105:38]
A
Occasionally. I'm not super into it.
- [105:40]
C
It's fine.
- [105:42]
A
And we're into the track right now. Now we're in very much in a, in a race car phase. Less of the skiing phase. I, I. The most recent experience of being on the track just completely reset my expectations for what's possible with recreational sports. Yeah, I'm. I'm. Find me in thermal.
- [105:57]
C
Not.
- [105:58]
A
You know what?
- [106:01]
F
You're getting ad deal ideas also from F1.
- [106:04]
A
Oh, yes.
- [106:05]
C
Always.
- [106:05]
B
Love F1. Always.
- [106:07]
A
It's the best. Back to Substack.
- [106:09]
F
Yeah.
- [106:10]
A
Jack Conte at Patreon is trying to poach substack writers. What do you think he's thinking? What do you think he needs to do? How do you think about the positioning of Substack versus Patreon? Just like, from a vibe and cultural perspective. Maybe first, like, how do you interpret like a substack creator versus. Hi, I'm a Patreon creator.
- [106:29]
F
Yeah. I think the medium is like, you think Patreon, you think news or you think Patreon? Anything Podcast.
- [106:36]
A
I think one and one model. The Red Sphere model. Right?
- [106:39]
F
Yeah. Yeah. Otherworld. You know, my favorite podcast Otherworld.
- [106:42]
A
Jack.
- [106:43]
C
Jack, yeah.
- [106:44]
A
From. Yeah.
- [106:45]
F
He was originally Tamagotchi, Versace, Whatever. Yeah. He rocks. I think if they keep him.
- [106:51]
A
That's with Vander Wardell.
- [106:53]
F
Yeah.
- [106:54]
A
And that show. Yeah, Yeah.
- [106:55]
F
I love Otherworlds.
- [106:56]
A
Amazing.
- [106:57]
F
I listen to.
- [106:57]
B
I've never listened to a podcast on paranormal.
- [107:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [107:01]
B
Like.
- [107:03]
I've never watched a full horror movie.
- [107:06]
A
Yeah.
- [107:07]
F
You're not into that.
- [107:08]
A
He just turns into a ghost too.
- [107:10]
F
Afraid you're missing out. It's a world of wonder and scaredy.
- [107:15]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [107:15]
B
I'm a scary guy.
- [107:16]
A
A scaredy guy.
- [107:18]
F
Okay. I think if they keep them, you know, they keep some of the big hitters like Red Scare or whatever.
- [107:22]
C
Yeah.
- [107:22]
F
But I don't think. I think what both of these platforms are doing wrong is when they try to do like the sports team trade thing, like.
- [107:30]
C
Yeah.
- [107:30]
F
And I was feeling a bit of fomo.
- [107:32]
A
Why not go try get new people on your platform?
- [107:34]
F
Yeah, yeah. Incubate.
- [107:36]
A
Don't try. And if you're patriotic, if you're Patreon, don't go poach from. From substack. Go find someone who's working in legacy media, way under way, underpaid relative to the value they create, have them come over and do their new thing. And that was the lineage of some of the early substack deals was, well, we'll help you get set up.
- [107:55]
C
We'll.
- [107:56]
A
We'll give you enough money that you can pay for health care, pay for the first thing, and then get your business up and running.
- [108:00]
F
Right. I was feeling a lot of FOMO that I wasn't getting the email from the Patreon team saying, come over here. We'll see a big check. And then I got one the other day and it had the. It had the term. I haven't responded yet.
- [108:16]
A
Poached me a trading card, attempted poaching happening.
- [108:20]
B
You're way too. You're way too loyal. I genuinely think you're. I feel like your audience would have a mutiny. There would be like, it wouldn't work.
- [108:27]
A
I think you're substack coded. That's the thing. I think you're a substack writer.
- [108:29]
F
But also when you see certain terms like we're rolling out new features that we want to tell you that roll is like a slow thing. It's not like we're launching this and that. The email kind of just fuzzed out after that. And then he followed up. Or they. I won't. I won't out. I won't out who emailed me.
- [108:48]
A
But this is amazing.
- [108:50]
F
Yeah, I love it. But I think, I think, like, it's okay for Substack to be a newsletter platform. It's okay for Patreon to be. Yeah, Podcast platform. And I. I would. I'm very curious to see what an email CMS on Patreon looks like.
- [109:05]
A
Do you have Netflix?
- [109:06]
F
Do I have Netflix? Sure do.
- [109:08]
A
Are you like. Because I pay for it, but I'm not logging dinner. My phone. Like, I'm not like a regular watcher. Oh, yeah.
- [109:13]
F
If you ever watch, like, watching on the planes.
- [109:15]
C
Yeah.
- [109:15]
A
On the plane. No, I won't do that. I don't do that.
- [109:18]
F
Apple tv, baby.
- [109:19]
A
Okay, there you go. So, but do you think you'd ever watch a podcast on Netflix? You've seen that they're doing this. Yeah, they're starting to buy podcasts and put them on Netflix.
- [109:28]
B
More like distribute them.
- [109:29]
A
Distribute them. They got the ringer.
- [109:31]
F
I would not. But these kids are really watching a lot of podcasts.
- [109:35]
A
They're into podcasts on TVs on. On the wall, throw it off for a couple hours.
- [109:42]
B
Wall podcasts.
- [109:43]
F
Yeah, I. They're all watching podcasts. Like, people are watching expense account as much as listening to it.
- [109:49]
C
And.
- [109:50]
A
And do you think they're also watching it on, like, smart TVs? Basically. Like, they throw it on on the TV the way they might throw on, you know, reality TV show or a movie or with all the, like, working.
- [110:00]
F
From home right now.
- [110:01]
A
Okay, it's the close.
- [110:06]
Another people home here. They're closing the stock exchange. Who is it? It's Wells Fargo wealth, man.
- [110:12]
B
We got one tower still up here. We got one tower to Wells Fargo.
- [110:18]
A
John, we're holding on. We're holding on to one column.
- [110:20]
C
Yeah, we got one.
- [110:21]
A
We got one cube left over there. That one. Yeah, there we go. Welen, you got some Mary. And they cut to the close.
- [110:29]
C
We're here.
- [110:29]
A
Lars at the New York Savage Trade.
- [110:32]
B
Let's give it up for Wells Fargo.
- [110:33]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [110:34]
B
Wow, she is going for it.
- [110:35]
F
That was great.
- [110:36]
A
Maybe future Feed Me sponsor there. Who knows?
- [110:39]
F
Who knows?
- [110:41]
A
Anyway, you were saying people watching Netflix shows at.
- [110:45]
F
I think more and more people are sort of using their TVs as like that always on thing in the office, but in their house. So it's like a, you know, like the Harry Potter moving picture frame almost. It's just like the TV is on, the podcast is on while they're doing whatever else are doing.
- [110:59]
A
Yeah.
- [110:59]
B
That makes holiday gifting.
- [111:02]
A
Yes.
- [111:03]
B
Our gift.
- [111:04]
C
Our.
- [111:05]
B
Do gift guides matter in a world where you can tell the LLM Describe the person and say, generate a gift guide at, you know, every possible price point all the way.
- [111:14]
F
You guys see the gift guide that I wrote about that Evercore sent out to. To everyone. It's like, what to buy the. I think last year the sub.
- [111:22]
A
You wrote it for Evercore.
- [111:24]
F
Somebody at Evercore sends it because I feel like every.
- [111:26]
A
That's a. That's a premier product.
- [111:28]
F
Great. I'll forward it to you guys. I looked up the person who makes it. They've been doing it for many years. Last year it was like what to buy the women in your life. And this year they changed the subject to what to buy the people in your life. But it's like luxury.
- [111:40]
C
Yeah.
- [111:40]
F
Items clueless. Men love it. Yeah. So I. I like the idea of sort of like this word of mouth kind of gift guide. If it becomes a little bit more secret.
- [111:50]
C
Sure.
- [111:52]
F
It substack has become a storm of gift guides.
- [111:55]
A
Yes.
- [111:56]
F
This time of year. And it's a lot of clothes. I didn't realize that that's what people want so much. What do you do? Are you guys going to make a gift guide?
- [112:03]
A
Yeah, but we're going to strict. No clothes, more hardware, more like what track cards.
- [112:07]
F
Are you going to get some affiliate?
- [112:08]
A
What plane to buy?
- [112:09]
B
No, no, no, we don't.
- [112:11]
A
Yeah. Love of the game.
- [112:13]
C
Love of the game. Oh, yeah.
- [112:14]
B
Shop my. We got to have the shop on sh. Yeah, we should get there.
- [112:18]
F
They have a lot on there now.
- [112:20]
A
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
- [112:21]
C
If they.
- [112:21]
A
If they get Ferrari challenge cars on there.
- [112:24]
F
Shot my.
- [112:25]
B
That will be our word of the year.
- [112:28]
F
Word of the year.
- [112:29]
A
Phoebe needs a word of the year. Every publication has a word of the year. The Economist has a word of the year. The economists.
- [112:35]
C
We do.
- [112:35]
B
We haven't disclosed the it yet.
- [112:36]
A
The Economist word of the year is slop.
- [112:39]
F
Right. I saw that.
- [112:40]
A
And that feels like appropriate, but also potentially could have been last year's word of the year. We were talking about slop as a term that was sort of, you know, I think you called the top on slop in February.
- [112:52]
C
Yeah.
- [112:53]
A
So it really was became.
- [112:54]
B
It became the word of the year.
- [112:56]
A
The economists did a good job and that.
- [112:57]
B
And then Oxford had rage bait.
- [113:00]
A
Oh, yeah, they did. Rage bait.
- [113:01]
F
That's two words.
- [113:02]
C
I know. Yeah.
- [113:04]
B
One.
- [113:05]
A
One word put together.
- [113:06]
B
I guess I want to say our word so much, but we need to introduce it in the right way. You can. You can.
- [113:11]
F
Have you been hearing everybody saying flow state? Now that's like very hot over the flow state.
- [113:17]
B
That's like such an old I feel like that's like a 2018 era.
- [113:21]
A
Yeah, but slop is negative. Rage bait's negative. Flow state's positive.
- [113:25]
F
Yeah, we're moving.
- [113:27]
C
I remember.
- [113:27]
B
I remember when I was like in college, when I was in college listening to like, Tim Ferriss who's always trying to get in flow State.
- [113:35]
F
I was like Wiz Khalifa.
- [113:40]
A
Flow state's good.
- [113:41]
E
Yeah.
- [113:42]
A
Yeah. Well, yeah. I would encourage you to drop Feed Me's word of the year.
- [113:46]
E
Okay.
- [113:46]
A
I think you should think about.
- [113:47]
F
I've been thinking of doing some sort of list at the end of the year. Like the. I was going to do a Men of the Year thing after GQ did theirs and left you off.
- [113:56]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [113:57]
B
Crazy.
- [113:57]
A
Well, didn't they give it to Sydney Sweeney instead? Yes, she was at the event. It's funny.
- [114:03]
E
You.
- [114:03]
A
Did you get the invite? There was another.
- [114:05]
B
No, we didn't even get the invite.
- [114:07]
A
No, there was another.
- [114:09]
F
You guys would be a mind man at the air party.
- [114:10]
A
Thank you.
- [114:11]
C
Thank you.
- [114:11]
A
Appreciate it.
- [114:12]
B
But we'd make. Make the list.
- [114:14]
A
What do you have?
- [114:18]
F
Are you having a holiday party?
- [114:19]
A
I mean, I.
- [114:20]
B
No, we. We've really like, dropped the ball on events, like since the event. We did.
- [114:25]
A
Yeah. It's impossible.
- [114:28]
B
You. You knew with our event, we were like, we're doing an event. We picked it like a rough time and then did nothing else until the day of. But you pulled it off.
- [114:34]
F
So did you.
- [114:35]
E
It was.
- [114:35]
F
It was fabulous. Did you guys ever go into any. To any like 2016 awesome SF world holiday parties? Like, I feel like the budgets have come kind of vanished and things have changed.
- [114:48]
C
Vanished? What do you mean?
- [114:50]
F
Holiday parties don't really feel the same.
- [114:52]
A
Wait, how so?
- [114:53]
F
Maybe I'm talking about the media ones.
- [114:55]
A
Oh, okay.
- [114:56]
B
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Cuz I mean, so that does make sense. Like the biggest.
- [115:01]
A
There's big money than ever and.
- [115:02]
B
Yeah.
- [115:02]
C
So.
- [115:02]
B
So like we're like the next two weeks, like basically the. The holiday. Holiday parties have begun.
- [115:08]
F
Yeah.
- [115:09]
B
Tech has obviously like taken the. They saw the media company with their big holiday parties and they said, like, that's actually our money. Like we're going to take that.
- [115:16]
E
Right.
- [115:16]
B
And now. But I was wondering how you would. How you would handle room blocks for as. As, like feed me. If you're going to put on a big event, how would you handle room blocks?
- [115:28]
A
Because there's been a big hotel renovation.
- [115:30]
F
Well, you have a very big team.
- [115:32]
A
Yes.
- [115:33]
F
So you're saying how do we transport the team if something was happening in New York?
- [115:37]
A
Yeah, we travel light. We travel light.
- [115:39]
B
There Was just four of us. There was four of us.
- [115:41]
F
Yeah. I mean, do people do. There's like, two questions here. One, how do you. How does them. Who has to put up that many people, like, in a different city?
- [115:52]
B
Like. Like, if a media company is doing. If they're. If they're doing.
- [115:56]
A
I'm.
- [115:56]
B
I'm somewhat doing a bit.
- [115:57]
F
I think you guys need to open a New York office.
- [115:59]
C
We should.
- [116:00]
A
Well, this is our New York office. We're partnering with the New York Stock Exchange.
- [116:03]
B
But I'm just saying, if you were doing an event in New York and you were inviting people and you're like, I'm gonna pay for your accommodation because you're speaking at my event. What. What. What would. What hotel would you.
- [116:12]
A
High, low strategy.
- [116:12]
B
We need a high, low strategy.
- [116:14]
A
What we need is a sleeping bag on the floor of this booth. When we come to New York, we crash in the booth and we're like, we are grinding harder than anyone in.
- [116:21]
F
Manhattan or like a Vice warehouse strategy. Do you guys know the media company in D.C. punchbowl? Like, they own a Browns.
- [116:29]
A
Oh, yeah, that's cool.
- [116:30]
F
Their office is there, and I'm sure someone has slept there before, but you might need to, you know.
- [116:36]
A
Yeah.
- [116:37]
F
Look, check out, like, the real estate.
- [116:38]
A
Where would Punchbowl go? On my media map, which was. I mentioned 100 accurate.
- [116:43]
F
The map, and I think I got it.
- [116:44]
B
We still. We still are getting. We still are getting notes from people saying, like, you know, we did this.
- [116:49]
A
Axios event last night.
- [116:50]
F
People thought that was like the Magna Carta.
- [116:51]
C
It was like.
- [116:53]
B
It was thrown together. It was so crazy.
- [116:57]
It was so crazy because Tyler put it together. We, like, glanced at it. We're like, oh, it looks pretty funny.
- [117:02]
E
And you.
- [117:02]
A
And then we're like, all right, we'll.
- [117:03]
B
Have Emily basically, to be the heat shield and put this out to the world.
- [117:07]
F
So, yeah, that was great. And then people tried to make their own, and it didn't hit the same, obviously.
- [117:13]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, I. I think that these formats, they. They. When they hit, they hit really well, and they're very shareable. Yeah, I. I would. I. I would say, say that stuff can get overdone, but I would be excited to read the Feed Me holiday gift guide. Also just the recap of the top 10 moments from the year, pieces that I might not have read or snippets that I missed. Things like that, like the. The scoops that you've gotten or interviews, things you learned.
- [117:38]
F
I have a question for you guys.
- [117:39]
A
Predictions for next year. All this Stuff like the formats are they, they, they're played out but they're, they work still.
- [117:45]
C
They work in the.
- [117:46]
A
Just a good way to enjoy information. I like seeing a market on a map.
- [117:50]
E
Yes.
- [117:50]
A
I like seeing a list of top things, whether it's people or companies. Like people like ranking lists.
- [117:55]
E
Yeah.
- [117:56]
F
It's very easy to digest.
- [117:57]
A
Yeah. You need a little bit of heat shield.
- [117:58]
F
But you know, can I ask you.
- [118:00]
C
Guys a question, please? Yeah.
- [118:00]
E
Yeah.
- [118:01]
F
I was at Dealbook this year and Andrew interviewed Mr. Beast.
- [118:04]
A
Yeah.
- [118:05]
F
And he was playing the videos that he made 10 years ago with like camcorders, early stuff, that video that went viral there. See me in 10 years or something.
- [118:14]
C
Yeah.
- [118:14]
F
And I'm curious, are you guys. I, I got like a pang of regret that I'm not capturing more like how I built this style stuff. Are you guys capturing that as well? Like, are you guys getting behind the scenes stuff?
- [118:24]
A
Yeah, we have a little bit of behind the scenes stuff. We, we've seen it.
- [118:29]
B
The thing is we put our entire studio on the stream.
- [118:33]
F
Right.
- [118:33]
B
And so like it's in some ways like you get a behind the scenes look every episode.
- [118:37]
F
More like back of the car on the way home.
- [118:38]
B
Like Ben gets some of that stuff.
- [118:42]
A
Crazy about it because like, like you could tell if you were trying to just make the documentary about. We actually thought it would be hilarious to make a two hour documentary about TPN and, and release it in one year. Like just. Because you could just put a documentary on, on Amazon Prime.
- [118:59]
F
Yeah.
- [118:59]
A
But, but you could, you could tell the story through the show pretty effective, effectively. And we have ISOs for everything and we often have meta conversations like this one about the show on the show. And so right here we're talking about the decision to put, to do behind the scenes. There aren't that many, there aren't that many discussions that we're like, oh, we should have captured that off. Off camera.
- [119:22]
Maybe there's a little bit more where we should be doing stuff. I think that the lower hanging fruit for us is just like, I think.
- [119:29]
B
You should become one of those live streamers that just spends all day long walking around and being like, yo. No, no. All around New York you just have somebody following you with a camera. You're just doing stories, scooping.
- [119:40]
F
I could, I mean that like photo in the New York Times where I'm in the back of the car is kind of that vibe.
- [119:45]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe we should do more behind the scenes shots. But it's just hard to figure out like how would we Productize that because it's a lot of effort.
- [119:54]
F
I think it's more for the time capsule.
- [119:56]
A
Yeah.
- [119:56]
B
But I think for us, like think about the time capsule. In 30 years from now, you'll be able to do a second from every single show forever.
- [120:03]
A
And you'll be able to see those and memory. Yeah. There are a lot of stuff. It's not exactly like Billy building silently. Like it's very much public anyway.
- [120:12]
B
Building very publicly.
- [120:13]
A
Well, very excited. Massive year for you. Congratulations.
- [120:17]
B
Yeah, congratulations.
- [120:18]
A
Thank you so much for coming on.
- [120:20]
F
You're gonna come to New York more.
- [120:21]
B
Yes, yes.
- [120:21]
A
I mean, that's exactly a lot of IPOs next year. This New York Stock Exchange partnership is all about.
- [120:25]
B
We got Adam over here. He's suited up. But thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining, having me.
- [120:30]
F
This is so fun. I'll see you guys soon.
- [120:33]
A
Bye. While she hops off, let me tell you about wander.com book of Wander with inspiring views, hotel great amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning and 247 concierge service. And I'm also going to tell you about 8 sleep.com exceptional sleep without exception. Fall asleep faster, sleep deeper and wake up energized. What are you laughing at? What? What do you got in the timeline?
- [120:56]
B
Can't share that one.
- [120:57]
A
Okay. But Varda is flying its fourth mission home to Earth. That's exciting. Varda has been on an absolute tear. Well, brewery sharing a photo of the seun Cuneba. Go W4. Somebody was joking about how Varda names their. Their Varda names, their missions. W dash the number. They're now. They're now on four. Someone was making the joke that eventually it's going to start sounding like tax forms. Like W9, you know, 1099.
- [121:29]
B
I mean, that would be a funny bit memorable.
- [121:32]
A
Does the WC ever Winnebago? I know that they have this whole like Breaking Bad theme internally that they like to joke about, but I don't know. Where were we?
- [121:41]
B
TJ Parker is quoting Granola. Granola did crunch, which is a great name for their version of rap.
- [121:47]
A
Oh, that is good.
- [121:49]
B
T.J. parker says you're 20, 25 deposed. What did you mean by this?
- [121:54]
A
That actually, I mean a wrapped style product for all of your meeting notes is extremely interesting for the course corporate athlete out there. Really? Really. If you're, if you're a corporate athlete and you put up historic numbers in Panama. I love how Keith is like, Keith.
- [122:12]
B
Is like I did 3200 hours in a month.
- [122:16]
A
It's just like you can't possibly work 3,000 hours in a month. There are 3,000 hours a month. Because I know, I know. A full work year is 2,000 hours, and if you're working 80 hours a week, that's 4,000 hours. But it's. Yeah, it's.
- [122:32]
B
Andrew Reed says when your vendor sends out their forward deployed engineers, they're leaving their flank exposed to a pincer movement by your calvary.
- [122:41]
A
It's ridiculous with the metaphors. Let me tell you about AdQuick.com out of home advertising made easy and measurable plan buy measure out of home with Precision with AD Quick.com to announce a.
- [122:55]
B
$15 million Series A yesterday led by Excel and launched Prism Agentic reporting. That can explain your finances.
- [123:01]
A
Yeah, we got Adam Faze in the New York Stock Exchange.
- [123:06]
C
Wow.
- [123:08]
B
Can we get a suit check real quick?
- [123:10]
A
You look fantastic. And we ended up great. Yes. You look great. Thank you so much.
- [123:15]
B
Are you. Are you like a tailoring guy? You get it off the rack?
- [123:18]
D
No, I am like, you buy a suit, then you get it to Taylor.
- [123:21]
C
Okay.
- [123:21]
B
Yes.
- [123:22]
A
That's great.
- [123:22]
D
I'm not at the level yet. You can get like a costume suit. Yeah, we're getting there.
- [123:27]
A
Getting there. Well, you had some. You were just rattling timeline.
- [123:31]
B
I do, yeah.
- [123:32]
A
About. About the news breakdown, what happened today. How'd you find out about it?
- [123:35]
D
I found out from someone tell I'd been in favor of this merger from the day it was announced. So I think, like, when there was conversations around who might be the new owner of Warner Brothers, Netflix for me was always the best option. And so I was having dinner with a friend two nights ago and I was saying this. And the next day, last night, he texted me. He's like, it happened. Like, wait, what? And I was shocked. I really did not actually think this was possible, but I think I'm one of the few people in Hollywood that actually think this is good for.
- [124:00]
C
Okay, why.
- [124:01]
B
Why you're saying. You say in Hollywood, but you're here in New York.
- [124:04]
D
You know, Hollywood is kind of everywhere.
- [124:06]
A
You are.
- [124:07]
C
State of mind.
- [124:07]
A
The state of mind Hollywood is. Okay.
- [124:09]
C
So. Yeah.
- [124:10]
A
Why is it good?
- [124:10]
C
Why is it good?
- [124:11]
D
I think everyone is still stuck in 2015 and thinks that we are in a battle with Netflix. The reality is like, we're in a battle for attention with Metta, Google, TikTok, the AI companies. And I think whatever is best for this IP is what's best for Hollywood.
- [124:23]
A
And we as content creators, IP owners.
- [124:25]
D
People that love our industry. I think the IP that Warner Brothers own is so rich. At the end of the day, Netflix has the most powerful distribution arm in entertainment. And so when you look at the force of like a K pop, Demon Hunters, Friends, it was like, arguably the biggest movie of the year. You think that Warner Brothers is the second most important animated IP library? Second.
- [124:44]
C
Right.
- [124:44]
D
This is Looney Tunes. We're talking Hanna Barber, we're talking Rick and Morty. Right. These are titles that are gathering dust on platforms, and it would gather dust on Paramount plus as well. And Netflix now has the IP to match the distribution that they already have.
- [124:58]
B
Why do you. Why you don't think Paramount would be able to put it to you, not.
- [125:01]
D
To the power of Netflix? And I think at the end of the day, Netflix. Netflix has wanted a licensing business for a very long time, but I think what they figured out is that IP is really hard to make. I think after 10 years, there's like three titles you can actually say are IP Stranger Things, Squid Game, and I think you can say Demon Hunters. But, like, they spent $15 billion.
- [125:19]
A
It really is remarkable because I feel like Netflix, I feel a very positive association with Netflix. Had a good time with it, boys. Enjoyed it. And then when I actually look, look through, I can name 10 HBO shows that I love and revere as, like, fine art relative to, like, that's a good times on Netflix. But it's not like, oh, you're not watching. You've never seen the Sopranos.
- [125:41]
D
Exactly.
- [125:42]
A
You're not watching Game of Thrones. It's not the FOMO tv.
- [125:45]
D
And I think at the end of the day, we're matching now the most powerful audience in streaming with the greatest library on earth. So I think, like, in revenue, the.
- [125:52]
A
Greatest library on earth.
- [125:53]
D
Hey, I really do think Warner Brothers has the greatest library when you include HBO as well.
- [125:57]
C
Okay, sure.
- [125:58]
A
You know, I mean, there's some good stuff.
- [125:59]
C
Yeah.
- [125:59]
D
And I do think when you think about the licensing revenue they're going to start making for merchandising, I mean, we're talking Netflix now, owning Harry Potter. The merchandising on that alone is the reason why this is the best deal.
- [126:09]
C
Okay.
- [126:10]
A
Yeah. So you're not worried about that.
- [126:11]
B
You're not worried about the debt. You're not worried that everybody that. That subscribes to HBO Max is already probably paying Netflix. And there's. There's just.
- [126:19]
D
That'll mean it'll be cheaper for all of us. Right. I mean, I think you're gonna get to, well, a little bit more expensive.
- [126:23]
B
And a little bit more expensive, but then you can just keep Bringing it up, bringing it up, bringing it up. I mean I've always.
- [126:31]
Yeah, I've always, always been like, Netflix has felt like such a good value proposition for so long. I've always been interested to see how people will churn if there's not like a hot show totally on Netflix at that exact moment that they're engaged with because there's just so much content.
- [126:47]
A
Help me wrestle with this. There was someone on the, on the timeline who was saying like, I cannot imagine another place where Warner Brothers would land that would be more of a, would create more of a monopoly.
- [127:00]
C
Right.
- [127:00]
A
And, and they're saying they're, they're going to face antitrust concerns.
- [127:04]
B
Jason Kar, who is a founding CEO of Hulu. That's right, WarnerMedia CEO. He says if I was tasked with doing so, I could not think of a more effective way to reduce competition in Hollywood.
- [127:14]
A
Reduce selling WB to Net, particularly an antitrust phrase.
- [127:18]
B
Right.
- [127:18]
A
But I was saying like, what about selling it to Disney? Like if it was.
- [127:22]
D
What about at the end of the day there'd be a lot worse consolidation with a Paramount and Warner Brothers combined merger and a lot more lost jobs.
- [127:30]
A
Okay, so, so explain, explain that angle because I was talking about Disney and it just seems crazy to put Superman next to Spider Man.
- [127:37]
C
I think at the end of the.
- [127:38]
D
Day, as much as people use usually like to say that they'd like to keep the teams at both studios, at the end of the day, if Paramount, Warner Brothers were to merge, they'd have the same film studio.
- [127:45]
A
Oh sure, sure.
- [127:46]
D
And so I think what we're really talking about here is the consolidation for the survival of a 100 year old industry that's going to continue to happen.
- [127:54]
A
Sure.
- [127:54]
D
But again, we are in a war for attention with the digital platforms that are free to watch, which is YouTube, which is Instagram, which is TikTok. So I think that at the end of the day, we are trying to keep alive an industry that is not thriving but still is a very powerful industry. I think that this puts it in a much better direction going forward.
- [128:10]
A
Yeah. What about actual physical theaters? It seemed like Netflix was trying to get ahead of some narrative that, you know, movies that you love with the, the next Harry Potter maybe, whatever that is, or the next super.
- [128:23]
D
It is about to be an HBO TV show that's been in, which is really funny.
- [128:27]
A
So it is going out of theater. But, but, but you, you, well, you.
- [128:30]
B
Say that but like it's feels, still feels like this deal has a long way to go.
- [128:34]
D
Has a long Way to go.
- [128:35]
C
Yeah.
- [128:35]
B
And it still feels like there's a number of different scenarios, but most likely.
- [128:40]
D
This is just held up for a few years. So that's probably more likely the option. But I do think we're probably going to look at similar to like an at&t time Warner situation.
- [128:47]
A
Sure. But, but, but on the, on the idea of, you know, Netflix choosing to say, hey, yep, obviously the next great movie we have, we could just put on Netflix, maybe get a couple more subs. We are going to consciously make an effort to put it into theaters.
- [129:01]
C
Yeah.
- [129:02]
A
Do you think that's lip service? Do you like that plan? Do you think, like, how are you feeling about the theater business and what it, where it goes from here?
- [129:10]
B
Do you see Netflix putting a pop up that's like, hey, this is in movies now, but if you pay $100, you can watch it today?
- [129:16]
D
No, but I will say, I think this year we've seen Netflix kind of go back on things they've said. I mean, they put K Pop Demon Hunters in theaters and they. 19 million in the span of one weekend. So I do think they understand the force.
- [129:26]
A
Yeah.
- [129:27]
D
Is you can make it.
- [129:28]
A
There's something about a musical in the theater too, because everyone see, especially with.
- [129:31]
D
Kids and you sing with a shared.
- [129:32]
A
Audience here, you laugh.
- [129:34]
D
But I do think that at the end of the day, Warner Brothers, you know, has to continue having their releases come out in theaters if they're going to want to still make movies with people like Paul Thomas Anderson. And so I think what you will more likely see is the window being shortened.
- [129:45]
A
Yep.
- [129:46]
D
But I do think that they will have to keep maintaining this sort of theatrical exhibition release.
- [129:50]
A
Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. I wonder, I wonder where it goes. There's been a trend that I've been a fan of where the movie theaters, at least in my town, have been reducing the number of seats, but then increasing the amenities and upsells. And they'll try and sell you a whole dinner and drinks and you get out of there and you spent 200 bucks. But I don't get to go to the movies that much. So it's like a fantastic experience.
- [130:10]
D
So you like the eating in the theater? I like the.
- [130:13]
C
I pick.
- [130:14]
D
I don't like the eating in it. I like the, like, luxury seat for sure.
- [130:17]
A
No, you bring a bottle of wine.
- [130:19]
D
How's the wine? Is it good wine?
- [130:21]
A
I can't tell. But it doesn't join. Yeah, no, no. Sometimes the wine's fine. I don't know. But I think they should go all the way French Laundry. Put a movie theater in.
- [130:30]
B
Yeah.
- [130:30]
D
I mean, look at the end of the day, I think you look at something that the Lincoln center, imax, which is usually sold out for weeks on end. It's almost impossible to get a seat when you have a one battle after another or a DC movie or something premiering there. And so I think the trend is going to. You will only go to the theater.
- [130:46]
B
During the day or just it's sort.
- [130:47]
D
Of like 10:00am I mean, I actually tried to go see. I finally saw one after another, like weeks after it had come out. And I had the shittiest seats on earth because I couldn't find seats at any other given showtime. But I do think the trend is going to be. The only reason you will go to a theater is to have an experience you cannot have at home. So if that's the ultra luxury, sort of beautiful screening room that you have a steak dinner at, sure, great. If that's the biggest screen in North America, then that's also amazing too. And I think a lot of this is sort of repeating what the movie experience was 100 years ago. We used to build like palaces to watch movies and it went to the multiplex in the mall, which really does mirror probably a worse version of what you could watch on Netflix at home. And so I'm in support of kind of going back to that original experience and making it something that's just like spectacular as a way of getting people back in those seats.
- [131:32]
A
Yeah.
- [131:34]
B
What other media stories are you tracking?
- [131:36]
D
I mean, this is the biggest one of the week. This is history. This is like actual history. And I do. I am sensitive to that fact. I think there's a lot of people in Hollywood that are scared about sort of what is next for our industry. You know, we had a very long strike that then came to an industry that was sort of smaller than it was at the beginning of which. But at the end of the day, I do think that this is in excess, exciting story. And I also think that it's going to be. As someone who's a fan of like Looney Tunes, for instance, I would rather a newer version of Looney Tunes be on these platforms and having kids watch, like YouTube.
- [132:07]
A
Kids AI, favorite Looney Tunes character. It's a great question.
- [132:11]
D
Wiley Coyotes.
- [132:13]
B
The influx of just pure AI content now to YouTube is actually crazy. Specifically in the video essay kind of documentary space where they're just like, hey, like I'm going to just generate a deep research report, use 11 labs to like, basically create an audio track and then just put pictures and some videos over it is actually crazy. I've only been. I like some of the history content on there and I'll just, like, search for a topic and if I don't know the channels yet, I don't know until I'm three minutes in the video. And the. And the. And the video says this. This move wasn't just this, it was that.
- [132:49]
C
And I'm like.
- [132:50]
A
I'm like, gotcha.
- [132:51]
D
I will say YouTube Kids is like one of the scarier things I think we have in culture because, like, you might think your kid is safe because they're watching a Ms. Rachel video. Very cute and innocent. But, like, the recommended feed. I don't know if you've ever spent time with YouTube Kids. It's terrifying. I mean, it's like a slop.
- [133:05]
A
It's like, from, like, it's like Rush. They're not going to swear. No, there won't be nudity. But it's all content. But it's weird.
- [133:11]
D
It's weird. And it is, like, weirdly sensual at times. Yeah. And I think that, like, I don't know when we decided that these tech companies could be the babysitter for your child, but I imagine that we're going to sort of reverse those trends.
- [133:21]
A
I completely agree. And I think the meme is already taking hold. Like, the whole iPad kids meme is definitely something where parents are now proud to be. Like, oh, yeah, my kid doesn't have an iPad. And it's like, if it becomes a status symbol, then all of a sudden everyone does it. And hopefully.
- [133:33]
B
What about social media being banned? There's something in Australia I'm in favor of this. Whoa.
- [133:39]
D
I think under. Under 16, they're banning social media in Australia, which I think is a great thing. I really do think we're nearing peak sort of consumption.
- [133:47]
B
So here's the. Here's the issue with that. Like, kids are still going to have devices. They're going to use various services. They'll use new networks that have less control. I think kids are still going to be social on the Internet. And if you ban the platforms that actually invest billions of dollars a year, you're going to get them on these, like, places, like dark corners of the Internet that don't have any scrutiny, that don't have any. Whatever you want to call that, safety teams, whether you're in favor of them or not. I just think this is. You cannot ban humans being social. They will always find a way.
- [134:20]
D
They will always find a way. But I mean, you had a very similar conversation around cigarettes.
- [134:24]
C
Right.
- [134:24]
D
And like we know that the sort of laws we put around cigarettes has saved lives. Accountants. And so I do think that like.
- [134:30]
B
Regardless of what solution, but the comp would be like, it's you ban cigarettes, which is your physical item that you need, that needs a supply chain. You need it. It's hard to like make a cigarette. We're not banning kids cell phones. They're still going to have a device.
- [134:43]
A
Roll with one hand.
- [134:45]
B
John's. John was probably rolling his own type actually back. Whittling. Whittling a pipe. Whittling a pipe. So I just, so I just think like you're going to end up in a situation where kids are probably going to make. They're going to just vibe code a crazy social network and it's going to invite in a lot of.
- [135:02]
C
Sure.
- [135:03]
D
I mean I think, look, regardless, I think we're, we're nearing that point where we need to have a national conversation about this. I don't think anyone out there can say that like kids are better off today as a result of the amount of brain rot and consumption they're doing on these platforms than they were before. And I think like on top of that, these platforms are in the business of getting you more addicted to their slop. There's a reason why Instagram moved the Reels tab to where messages used to be because they know that once you're on the Reels tab you're probably going to watch a few more reels that no. 2 billion dollar.
- [135:30]
A
I was not on the Reels tab at all. I would just check my messages.
- [135:32]
D
You swipe and now it's real.
- [135:33]
A
Now I swipe it down there and I'm like, okay, it is cursed.
- [135:37]
D
So I just think that like this is a conversation that needs to be parent led and we don't really have the data yet to show just how harmful it is.
- [135:45]
A
I always just go back to like my experience with video games. Like, you know, Halo I think was like M for mature. I was not supposed to be able to play it until I was 17. I was probably able to get on my hands on it at 14. I think I turned out okay. I'm not obsessed with like killing aliens and I not doing anything. No, I'm actually completely fine. Same thing with Call of Duty.
- [136:04]
D
I mean, I remember going to GameStop with my mom and trying to buy GTA 5 and they have to give you that whole warning. Like, do you know this game includes every horrible thing you've ever heard in entire life and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [136:14]
B
So.
- [136:14]
A
So having some sort of warning system. I'm a big fan of MPAA ratings coming to tech products. I've been kind of beating that drum for a couple months. But I like, I think the MPAA ratings. I hope that the MPAA figures out a way to work with the tech companies in a way that's like accretive to them, like they get paid or whatever. Because I think that there's just something about if I say, hey, like, like Instagram is R rated, you'll be like, okay, I know what that means for sure. Or like Instagram's PG13 rated or it's G rated. Like, I know intuitively and I'm ready as a parent to decide when. And maybe I want to say, hey, you know PG 13 rated movies like a little bit earlier because parental guidance is recommended. It's okay. It's like we can. Even with video games, I'm a big fan of like cooperative games being a wildly different dynamic than like solo online in like the toxic chat room. Whereas if it's like me and my son playing a co op game together, like troubleshooting and stuff, even if like the screen images are a little bit like adult, it's like we're collaborating. And so it's a wildly different dynamic than being like lonely and then seeing imagery.
- [137:24]
D
I mean, I do think these are just sort of, unfortunately, some of the problems we had to deal with with user generated content. We're talking about games that were made by hundreds, if not thousands of people that had to go through an approval system to get that rating. There are dangers when it is totally left up to the person of just making whatever type of content you want. Of course platforms like YouTube are going to police that content and you're not allowed to have, you know, can murder somebody and have that video exist on, on YouTube. You on X though. So I think it's just a matter of figuring out like, where do we want this conversation to go? And like, what approvals do we want to give the parents?
- [137:54]
A
Yeah.
- [137:55]
B
Want your take on the Marty supreme marketing campaign?
- [138:00]
A
Oh yeah.
- [138:00]
B
Because this feels like to me, I don't, I don't, I don't pay much attention to movies, but I'm seeing a lot of Marty supreme content. That's good.
- [138:08]
A
And Jordy's film of the year already, I'll get.
- [138:11]
D
Have you seen it?
- [138:12]
B
No, no.
- [138:16]
D
I went to the premiere.
- [138:17]
A
I understood it came on Christmas from that.
- [138:19]
D
But it's, I mean, it's amazing. It's the best movie. I will say it is the best movie of the.
- [138:25]
C
Of the year.
- [138:26]
D
Not to put a brotherly race between the two, but Josh Safdie is.
- [138:29]
B
Is the goat.
- [138:30]
D
And he's. He's the one.
- [138:31]
A
He's incredible.
- [138:32]
D
It's the best score. It's the best acting. It's the greatest cast. It's such a phenomenal movie score. Best score.
- [138:37]
A
Really?
- [138:38]
B
Yeah.
- [138:38]
A
Interesting in the ping pong.
- [138:40]
D
No, no, no.
- [138:41]
A
Like the best.
- [138:41]
D
Like the music of the movie. The music.
- [138:44]
B
21 to 0.
- [138:45]
D
I will say. I don't know. I. I think, you know, part is that they're dealing with Timmy has a Timothy. Not that I'm friends with him. Has a very short amount of times. I think he's filming Dune.
- [138:54]
A
Sure.
- [138:55]
D
So I don't think he's that available for press. I think what they're doing is super creative.
- [138:58]
C
Totally.
- [138:58]
D
I worry that it's a little inside baseball, and I think, like, you could be going more mass culture with this. Like he did with the Bob Dylan movie by going on Pat McAfee and all these.
- [139:06]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [139:08]
B
I will just say the blimp. I've been trying to get somebody to use to do a blimp marketing campaign for so long. You want to do a blimp?
- [139:14]
A
Yeah.
- [139:15]
B
No, I was just pushing, like, ramp to do a blimp. I told the Gemini team, do a blimp. Right. Like, blimps are an amazing asset because you can physically put them over the air like you're putting something and they're naturally inspiring.
- [139:26]
A
You look up and it's a blimp, and it's, like, amazing.
- [139:28]
B
They are.
- [139:29]
D
And I think it was fun that it was connected to the instrument.
- [139:31]
A
Of course. Of course.
- [139:32]
B
It is.
- [139:32]
D
It is. It is the movie of the year.
- [139:34]
C
It is.
- [139:35]
A
Okay. Wow.
- [139:36]
B
Best picture.
- [139:36]
E
Wow.
- [139:37]
C
Wow.
- [139:37]
A
What's the show of the year?
- [139:38]
B
The show of the year?
- [139:41]
D
Honestly, I feel like I actually didn't catch up that much with television this year. I feel a little more. I'm re watching Homeland, though, which I. Oh, Homeland.
- [139:49]
B
Wow.
- [139:50]
A
That's a throwback.
- [139:51]
D
It is a throwback in his sort of, like, Obama era.
- [139:54]
A
I remember season one having a great, like, cliffhanger. I was really into it. You're deeper in the season.
- [139:59]
D
No, no, I'm. I'm like episode seven, season one right now. This is like a new.
- [140:03]
A
Oh, and you've never seen.
- [140:04]
D
I was kind of like, in passing when I was a kid, but I don't really think I like, went through it.
- [140:08]
B
No.
- [140:08]
A
I remember being really into it when I watched it. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on. Of course. This is fantastic.
- [140:13]
D
Thank you for having me. Congratulations on your booth.
- [140:16]
A
Look at this.
- [140:17]
D
This is crazy. This is crazy.
- [140:19]
A
We're here, we're doing it.
- [140:20]
B
So great to enjoy.
- [140:21]
A
Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. I'm going to tell you about AdQuick.com out of home advertising at Easy measurable Plan by and measure out of home with Precision.
- [140:30]
B
Did you know the owner of AI.com is Deep Seek?
- [140:35]
A
What?
- [140:35]
B
Apparently it could be fake news. It's according to Google AI Overview. But wait, no, no, no.
- [140:42]
A
This is. This is completely wrong. Completely wrong. Because it says it was owned by tech Hubert youtuber mkbhd who acquired it from Elon Musk. That doesn't make any sense. That's a complete nonsense. No, no, no. That's like completely unreliable. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. Anyway, is there any other news that is worth running through? There was a review in the Wall Street Journal of a book called Maintenance of Everything Part 1 review Making of the Future by Stewart Brand. This is a striped press book. We should try and have him on the show. So it begins with this drama. This is interesting. It's talking about the process of maintenance and says the author recounts the stories of three contestants in the 1968 Golden Globe around the world solo sailboat race. One was a former merchant Marine whose wooden 32 foot catch was barely adequate for a journey through the punishing Southern Ocean. Make do and mend was his motto. Another competitor was a tech whiz who packed his plywood trimarane electronic electronic gizmos. A dreamy optimist, he set sail in a rush, hoping for the best. The third and the most experienced racer sailed in a purpose built steel hulled boat which he maintained with Zen like discipline. He said he spent his days working calmly at the odd jobs that make up my universe. And so while this story will be familiar to sailors and others who have read the many books written about the race, Mr. Brand minds the competitor's harrowing experience. Experiences for deep lessons, maintaining the technology that keeps us alive is more than a necessary. Josh Wolf.
- [142:28]
B
Remember he was talking about his thesis for maintenance.
- [142:32]
I think he was on the show if I remember correctly. I mean the idea is like everybody wants to build things, nobody wants to maintain them. But we have a lot of things in the world that maybe aren't functioning the way that you want them to. You can throw them out or you can like maintain them as bring them, revitalize them. So I'm excited to read the did they give a proper review?
- [142:54]
A
I mean, the New Yorker isn't the Wall Street Journal is not doing exactly like two thumbs up here, but.
- [143:01]
They are reviewing it. And they say Maintenance will engage students of technology, challenge business readers, and inspire home tinkerers who will be happy to learn that that fixing gadgets is also a path to enlightenment. Fittingly, the book was initially published in installments online, visible at Books WorksinProgress Co as a kind of editorial DIY project. Mr. Brand tends to jump from topic to topic as he follows his passions. Some might find his digressions meandering. I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that. And the author of this post on the Wall Street Journal says, I found them delightful, reflecting that quirky organization. The book ends on a tangent rather than a big wrap up, but that only raises expectations for part two. And so I think this is a positive review by Mr. Meigs, the former editor of Popular Mechanics and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. And I think that concludes our show.
- [144:02]
B
I found out AI.com yeah owner is trying to sell it and they're redirecting it to a bunch of different sites to try to generate.
- [144:10]
A
Exactly. And so people are people. So, so they'll they'll send it to MKBHD for a couple of days.
- [144:15]
B
Hope that he and then I'll be.
- [144:15]
A
Like and then, and then if you're in the analytics and you're Elon at XAI or something and you're like oh wow, I'm getting all this traffic from where? Oh someone someone redirected AI.com to me.
- [144:25]
B
I'd be curious.
- [144:25]
A
This valuable? Maybe I should buy it. It is a lot of traffic.
- [144:28]
B
I wonder how much traffic it actually he gets.
- [144:30]
A
I have no idea. I can't imagine that there's that many people that are just going to AI.com are those the best customers? Really? Like people haven't made a decision. I mean OpenAI bought chat.com so maybe these short short domains make a lot of sense. I mean doesn't does Google own AI or something? Because they have AI Studio so I guess they own they own the the TLD studio studio. Google Google doesn't just buy domains.
- [144:58]
B
AI.com only got 93,000 visits in October.
- [145:02]
A
According to similar web which is like that does not seem super valuable. But you could do something fun with it. You could do something interesting with it. I'm sure that there's a. Yeah, there's a way to make it Somewhere, but.
- [145:11]
B
It's not worth $100 million in any situation.
- [145:14]
A
Yeah, well, in other funding news, there's 350 million new funding for Castilian, who's been on the show. Oh, is. And the Wall Street Journal is putting in context. There's alarm over the hypersonic missile gap and it's fueling a startup boom. The Pentagon is getting serious about hypersonic weapons, a technology that have eluded the US Military for decades. It's looking to startups with no experience but billions of dollars backing them to fill an increasingly glaring hole in the national arsenal. China and Russia both have stockpiles of the long range, super fast maneuverable weapons. The US doesn't, even though officials consider them essential to winning future conflicts. As the Defense Department belatedly looks to close that gap, private investment is pouring in and startups, many of which haven't has. Haven't built hypersonic systems at scale and haven't flown at hypersonic speeds, are seeing their valuations soar. The latest is torrent space Torrents based on Castilian, which on Friday said it raised $350 million at a $2.8 billion valuation.
- [146:19]
C
Wow.
- [146:20]
A
Congrats to the team over at Great Progress. That is.
- [146:23]
B
They were, they were around a. I remember they were around like 100 or 200 earlier this year.
- [146:29]
A
Oh, yeah. Big, big jump.
- [146:32]
B
We are in the back of our show, so I will pull up this post from Jason Fried. He's talking about the best back quarter in the last 50 years.
- [146:40]
A
What car is the this?
- [146:41]
B
This is the Aston Martin Zagato.
- [146:43]
A
Oh, the Zagato.
- [146:44]
B
Which is probably an underrated car in general and just a fantastic color. Hopefully the team can pull it up.
- [146:54]
But Jason has incredible taste in all things in life and certainly in cars. But that's our show for today. We'll be back home on the west coast on Monday. I can't wait. And thank you for tuning in with us today and yesterday. From the Nice. Thank you to Lynn, Chloe and the whole team. They're all fantastic and we will be back here soon.
- [147:20]
A
We'll see you on Monday.
- [147:21]
B
Cheers.
- [147:22]
A
Thank you. Goodbye.