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- [00:02]
John Coogan
We're talking about GPT 5.4. We're talking about the price of oil. Tyler Cowen chimed in. He said, yes, the new models are very, very good. He's satisfied with 5.4. Many people are. Justin says, We've been testing 5.4 for a week. It feels like a great mix of Opus and Codex. Fast conversational, great instruction following. However, it seems to lack a bit of the eagerness of Opus and precision of codecs. So I was in Codex Desktop today. Here's a blurb. Trying to get fun prompts and stuff going. 5.4 is available. You can run it extra high. 5.4, Codex is not available. I still only have 5.3 codecs.
- [00:46]
Tyler Cowen
Well, they just combined. They basically.
- [00:47]
John Coogan
They combined everything. And then Spark is still on 5.3. It finally happened. My personal move 37 or more. I am deeply impressed. The solution is very nice, clean, and feels almost human. While testing new models in the last few weeks.
- [01:01]
Tyler Cowen
What's your personal move 37?
- [01:03]
John Coogan
Smell o vision. I've talked about this. I'm waiting for Smell O vision. No. So Move 37, for those who aren't familiar, is Lisa Doll playing DeepMind in Go. And DeepMind dropped Move 37. It was very uncharacteristic. It had never. That strategy was not something that many Go masters would have recommended. It seemed like a blunder and.
- [01:27]
Tyler Cowen
And it was Groov 37 integrated into the first Technology Brothers launch video.
- [01:34]
John Coogan
Yes, yes. Little Easter egg.
- [01:35]
Jordy
This is when Lisa Doll would go to smoke, right?
- [01:37]
John Coogan
No, no.
- [01:38]
Jordy
Oh, wait, no.
- [01:39]
John Coogan
That happened. He was so stressed out that he couldn't bring himself to go smoke. So basically what happened was, throughout the Go matches, Lee Sedol would get up and go outside and have a smoke break. And in the documentary, it sort of looks like he's. The story gets apocryphally told as he was so stressed out by the craziness of this move. Watching machine intelligence emerge, this incredible move 37 that he couldn't understand, that he had to step up, step away, go smoke a cigarette, reset, and then come back to the game. That's not actually what happened. He was processed. It was confused. It was kind of like, oh, that was weird. And then keeps playing. And then that move 37 winds up being essential to the victory of the computer over the. The Go master, the human Go master. But as we like to tell it, he was so shocked by move 37 that he couldn't even bring himself to smoke cigarettes. That's how, you know, Bartow says, I felt this coming. But it's an eerie feeling to see an algorithm solve a task one has curated for about 20 years. But at least I have gained a tool that understands my idea. On par with the top experts in the field. I am now working on a completely new level. My singularity has just happened and there's life on the other side. Off to infinity. Bartos is a top tier mathematician. He just said his personal move 37 happened. GPT 5.4 just solved a task he has curated for 20 years. When an expert of this caliber says the singularity has just happened, we are officially in a new era of science. What is my personal move 37 I was thinking about the definition of this and sort of the level of abstraction. I feel like a lot of individual contributors are having dramatic moments with, with
- [03:18]
Tyler Cowen
AI Bartos with this sort of mathematics problem. It's very different kind of problem than when you're trying to solve problems in business. It's like, how do I unlock this market? And then you have ideas for how to do that. But then you have to execute a strategy over a long period of time and it just takes time to be like, hey, did this work? It could take a year or six months or two years, you know. Brendan over at Merkor says GPT 5.4 is the best model we've ever tested on Apex agents. That's Merkor's internal benchmark. It's also the first model to pass 50% mean score. A year ago, Frontier models couldn't even edit an Excel sheet and scored less than 5%. Now, in less than three months, GPT5.4 has improved by 15.7%. ChatGPT will imminently be better than the best consulting firm, better than the best investment bank, and better than the best law firm.
- [04:12]
John Coogan
Bold,
- [04:14]
Tyler Cowen
bold, bold, bold. Durya says. I ran the Same prompt on GPT5.4 High Fast and Claude Opus 4.6 for an eight phase coding project for a macOS app. GPT5.4 HiFAST completed the first two phases in nine minutes and finished all eight phases after an hour coding while Claude Code is just starting phase two. This is crazy. My expectation is the regardless if developers are kind of like flip flopping from model to model, I think the overall market is growing so quickly that we're still going to see growth from, we're going to see insane growth from Codex, insane growth from Cloud Code, and still insane growth from, you know, the, the cursors of the world.
- [04:55]
John Coogan
I mean I'm so excited for, for the DeepMind numbers to potentially break out at some Point because so right now Google has to break out YouTube's revenue numbers because it's an individual reporting line. And like the head of YouTube, there's some sec reg. If the head of the division reports discrete financials to the CEO and there's like a CEO of that unit that reports to the CEO of the entire company, you have to break that out. And this is what happened with the AWS ipo when AWS was like, finally the SEC demands that we publish these numbers. Instead of just like baking them into the rest of the numbers. We had to split them out and tell everyone how profitable that business was. Everyone else woke up. YouTube's in a similar position. But currently AI is a cross functional division. Even though Demis is like the second most known person, I mean he has a book written about him. He's maybe the best known person at Google right now up there with Sundar. Clearly reports to Sundar. And DeepMind has like all of the different financials that you would expect to see from a lab. You know, they have inference training costs. They like if the SEC pushed Google to push out the detailed financial breakdowns earlier, that would give us so much clarity. I mean, Dan Primack came on the show yesterday and was talking about like people will be shocked about and they'll learn a lot about the structure of the financials of the foundation model companies. It'll be very interesting to see Google like what's their benchmark and how fast are they growing? Because we saw these two revenue lines where OpenAI is just absolutely going vertical. So is Anthropic just like one month behind? Like they're both scaling incredibly quickly. What's Gemini doing? It's a really interesting question. It's harder to measure because they're capturing value from Gemini all over the place. Like when you go to YouTube, there's a feature there that lets you talk to Gemini and it doesn't directly monetize by paying for tokens. Like the YouTube team doesn't pay DeepMind for those tokens. But that's clearly driving more engagement on YouTube. Same thing with search overviews. Same thing with all the different places where they vended in Gemini across the, across the different surfaces. But just to see the actual DeepMind financials, how much are they spending, how much are they making, how many subscriptions are there, how much inference demand is there? That would be fascinating.
- [07:18]
Tyler Cowen
GPT 5.4 Pro. Funniest joke in the world.
- [07:23]
John Coogan
Okay, what is it?
- [07:25]
Tyler Cowen
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed over. The other guy whips out his phone and calls emergency services. He gasps, my friend is dead. What should I do? The operator says, calm down. First make sure he's dead. There's a silence, then a loud gunshot. Back on the phone, the guy says, okay, now what?
- [07:48]
John Coogan
I've heard this. I've heard this before. This is good knowledge retrieval. This is not unique thinking. What do you think?
- [07:52]
Jordy
Yeah, also so I just tried this on my own. It gave the same exact answer.
- [07:56]
John Coogan
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
- [07:56]
Jordy
So I think usually when you ask like tell me a joke, it actually gives you like kind of random answers. Right.
- [08:02]
John Coogan
Because. Yeah.
- [08:02]
Jordy
As like the memory and stuff.
- [08:03]
John Coogan
Yep.
- [08:04]
Jordy
But it's interesting that this, it gives the same joke every time.
- [08:06]
John Coogan
That's that exact problem.
- [08:07]
Tyler Cowen
We got a big miss in jobs. US loses 92,000 jobs in February unemployment rises to 4.4%. Economists had expected 55,000 jobs to be added and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.3. Not good at all. If I guess if you look back the economy has just been shedding jobs since April of 2025. If you factor in the revisions down.
- [08:37]
John Coogan
Yeah, apparently there's a strike in the health care industry. So health care employment decreased and then health care in information and federal government continue to trend down. Probably something related to the Trump administration. You know, reducing the size of the government last two months were revised down by 69,000. Not all the data was terrible. U6 fell as the number of people who said they had part time jobs but wanted full time ones actually declined. So stock futures are lower but not a ton of reaction to the number itself. Porto says, I've noticed some of my tech friends have lost jobs. Some jobs are becoming super easy. Some jobs had parts that were a pain and now those parts are super easy. Some people leaned into AI to stay relevant. Still wonder if it will replace them entirely. Well, we will continue to track it. Brent crude oil close to $90. This prediction, the $100 barrel predicted on last Sunday as the Iran war broke out is closer and closer to coming true.
- [09:43]
Tyler Cowen
Crude is up 11.5% today. Not good.
- [09:48]
John Coogan
It's very interesting how how it affects the economy or the various markets. So the interesting question is how will the American oil drillers react? They were at least in the Journal earlier this week sort of reflecting on the fact that if this is a short lived engagement then they might not want to spin up a bunch of new capacity. But if it's ongoing and price of oil is continuing to rise Then obviously that creates an economic incentive, incentive to drill more. And so we will see where like the outputs go, where the reserves get tapped, all of that. Will the Iran war affect investment from Gulf state, neighboring Gulf state investment groups into American venture capital funds? We've seen as venture capital has boomed and the fundraisers have gotten into the tens of billions, the high billions. For many firms, the Middle east has been a source of strong LP demand for venture capital stakes. And so with instability in Iran, you might just see folks change focus. With new demands for defense investing, military buildup investing, you might see less dollars flow out of the Gulf into American venture capital firms. This should mostly be unaffected because the folks who actually work at the Gulf state investment funds who write the checks into American venture capital firms, they don't live in the Middle east, they live in New York and they meet with other venture capital investor relations folks in New York and they say, hey, how's your fund performance? Okay, we're allocating this. A big part of why they're investing in American technology and venture capital in frontier technology in America specifically, is because they want to diversify away from the Gulf. They want to diversify away from the geopolitical risk and they want to oil. Exactly.
- [11:39]
Tyler Cowen
Think about if you have a job, let's say you have a big tech job, you're doing quite well, you're doing some angel investing and then you lose your job and then you have to get a much worse job. Are you going to keep angel investing at the same pace? You might be like, hey, I'm kind of have this kind of disconnect, less cash flow. I don't want to be outlaying as much cash now. And I think that that's like ultimately, you know, if the source of the cash flow gets disrupted, in this case being oil production.
- [12:07]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [12:07]
Tyler Cowen
Then you're much less likely to continue to allocate at the same pace. So the Financial Times has a story this late yesterday, Gulf states could review overseas investments to ease financial strains caused by Iran war. Three leading Middle east economies consider options as US Israeli campaign against Tehran continues. Pressure on the Gulf states budget could cause them to review their overseas investments and future commitments as they consider options to ease the financial strain caused by the war. A Gulf official said it could impact could have an impact on anything from investment pledges to foreign states or companies, sports sponsorships, contracts with businesses and investors, or sales of holdings. The officials said three of the four big Gulf economies, Saudi Arabia, the uae, Kuwait and Qatar, had jointly discussed the strains being put on their budget. A number of Gulf countries have begun an internal review to determine whether force majeure clauses can be invoked in current contracts, while also reviewing current and future investment commitments in order to alleviate some of the anticipated economic strain from the current war, especially if the war and related expenses continue at the same pace. They added that the move was a precautionary measure that was the result of the budget strains these countries are facing due to reduced income from energy, due to the slowdown in output or the inability to ship and from the tourism and aviation sectors in addition to the increase in defense spending. So a bunch of different factors combining. An advisor to a Gulf government said the prospect of an investment review by the wealthy states had caught the White House's attention. They manage some of the world's largest and most active sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Last year pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US After President Donald Trump visited the region. They are also big backers of sporting events around the world and have all been investing heav domestically to develop their nations and diversify their economies. Any move that affects investments in the US or other Western states may raise the pressure on Trump to seek a diplomatic strategy to bring the war to an end. In other news, Joe Wiesenthal is studying Texas man camps with everything from catered food to golf simulators that are springing up in order to lure workers out to construct data centers, they're building man camps. It is a bull market in man camps. AI man camps offer golf free stakes to lure workers in Texas. This Tyler could get on board with.
- [14:32]
Jordy
We should build a man camp here.
- [14:34]
John Coogan
We should.
- [14:35]
Tyler Cowen
We kind of do. I mean, we talked about, we talked about getting racing simulators and then we ultimately backed off just because when you're at the office you should probably be working.
- [14:44]
John Coogan
I've tried it before and like games in the office, it's always just weird because like, there's all these little interactions where I'm like, I'm sort of waiting on you to do something. You're waiting on me to do something. If you just see me like be racing there, you're going to be like, can't you like, you know, fix this? Or there's always something else to do. And so it's much better just to do like proper off sites.
- [15:07]
Jordy
Proper.
- [15:08]
Tyler Cowen
Extremely disappointed right now. Companies are competing for workers to build data centers and are finding that a motel room with sluggish wi fi isn't much of a draw. Try free stakes and golf simulators as data center development has exploded with the rise of AI, Competition for water and power supplies is pushing construction further into rural areas that often lack the housing and infrastructure to support the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build hulking warehouses of computer servers. That's forcing developers to increasingly lean on a stopgap solution that was popularized during the shale oil boom of the 2010s. Sprawling temporary villages known as man camps. These temporary housing villages can vary from wood frame 2 story apartment buildings to containerized modular homes or trailer parks supplied with electricity and water. But to lure in demand electricians, welders, and pipe fitters, developers are going the extra mile and offering game rooms, rib eyes, and shuttle rides to work. It's effectively a backdoor play for a share of what Bloomberg intelligence estimates is 700 billion of projects in the planning stage and another 160 billion already underway throughout the U.S. it's the largest, most actionable pipeline I've seen. It's an additional lure for tradespeople already enjoying significant pay hikes, with some data center electricians making more than 150. Not bad at all.
- [16:30]
John Coogan
Anyway, let's move on.
- [16:33]
Tyler Cowen
Is it that time?
- [16:34]
John Coogan
I think it's time for the mansion section. An ex Marvel CEO lists his home in a secretive California community. I know you got a soft spot for these secretive communities, Jordy. We're gonna pull this one up. So homes in this enclave, the Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs, they usually trade between family and friends. But Eric Ellen Bogan is testing the open market. At Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs, homes usually trade quietly between family members and friends. But for former Marvel Enterprises CEO Eric Ellenbogen, and I got to know, is Marvel Enterprises, is that Marvel Entertainment or is that a different company? It seems like it's Marvel Entertainment. Anyway, Eric Ellenbogen clearly has done very well. He purchased the oldest home.
- [17:24]
Tyler Cowen
It's now called Marvel Entertainment. It used to be called Marvel Enterprises.
- [17:27]
John Coogan
Amazing. So he purchased this house at smoke tree in 2021 for 3.95 million. Now it's hitting the market.
- [17:34]
Tyler Cowen
They were giving it away.
- [17:35]
John Coogan
Million is bucking the trend by listing the house publicly. Quote, we felt strongly that offering the property on the open market would provide the greatest opportunity to identify the right architectural style. Stewart I love, I love when people, like, go to sell their houses and then they have a bunch of strings attached. You know, we talked to the. The guy or we read the story about the. The singer from Kiss the Rock Band, and he was like, I don't want to sell to anyone who drinks alcohol.
- [18:03]
Tyler Cowen
He's like, which is crazy. Wasn't the house like the most like
- [18:06]
John Coogan
it was the most like crazy. Over the top. Bachelor. Bachelor.
- [18:10]
Tyler Cowen
Yeah.
- [18:10]
John Coogan
Yeah, it was total party house in the Hollywood Hills. And KISS is a rock band. Like they definitely had the wildest times. Or I mean, at least that was like the aesthetic. I don't know if they were. Maybe they were straight edged the whole time, but. This house at Smoke Tree Ranch sits at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains. It has a near mythical status in Palm Springs. Dating to the early 1900s. The ranch has long drawn some of America's wealthiest families, including Walt Disney and the Ford family of the Ford Motor Company. In case you weren't sure what The Ford family was known for its wild west feel. The community has dirt roads and unassuming homes, many of which still belong to the families that built them. Ellen Bogan's home, built in the 1930s, has been owned by the Gilmore pharmaceutical family for more than 90 years. Before he bought it after.
- [18:55]
Tyler Cowen
Let's give it up.
- [18:56]
John Coogan
Ellen Bogan worked to have the home successfully designated as a historical landmark. It sits on 1.8 acres. It's roughly 5,500 square feet. Surrounds a central courtyard with a large pool.
- [19:08]
Tyler Cowen
Are you liking this house, John?
- [19:11]
John Coogan
I'm not a desert guy. I'm a forest guy. I know you're a beach guy. I like the forest.
- [19:16]
Tyler Cowen
I consider myself a bit of a desert guy. You like the desert, but I'm not feeling this house at all.
- [19:21]
John Coogan
You're not feeling this house?
- [19:23]
Tyler Cowen
Not one bit.
- [19:24]
John Coogan
Not one bit. How much would you pay for it? What's the fair price? What price are you like?
- [19:31]
Tyler Cowen
I don't think it's fair for me to price it because I really don't. I really don't like it.
- [19:35]
John Coogan
You really don't like it?
- [19:36]
Tyler Cowen
I don't think I'm the kind of steward they're looking for.
- [19:38]
John Coogan
Oh, you would change this into a 20 story apartment complex immediately.
- [19:44]
Tyler Cowen
In general, I like ranch style houses, single story. I like this layout around the pool, this courtyard. I like homes that kind of face in towards kind of like a shared communal space. But I'm not loving it.
- [20:02]
Jordy
Unpack it.
- [20:03]
John Coogan
Like, what don't you like about it?
- [20:04]
Tyler Cowen
I mean, the textures.
- [20:05]
John Coogan
Okay.
- [20:06]
Tyler Cowen
The colors.
- [20:07]
Jordy
Okay.
- [20:08]
Tyler Cowen
It doesn't appear to be. I like a classic. The classic kind of. I like a home that is classic structurally. But this looks like nothing has been. Like this feels like living in kind of like a. Like a Hollywood set. Right. Not like a home that's been.
- [20:29]
John Coogan
I feel like the materials are a little mixed in some of these cases. Like the hardwood cabinets combined with like sort of the furry chairs. Like the, the materials aren't, aren't feeling.
- [20:39]
Tyler Cowen
Yeah. Like what's going on in this kitchen? This kitchen? Pull up this kitchen. This kitchen. What's going on here? Look at these, look at these.
- [20:45]
John Coogan
Like it's coming up, it's coming up. So, so that's not too bad. The overstuffed chairs, those are comfortable.
- [20:50]
Tyler Cowen
Okay, this, this is absolutely brutal.
- [20:52]
John Coogan
This, this, this is the hardwood with the, with the wooden stuff.
- [20:56]
Tyler Cowen
Those chairs, those chairs with the wood on wood on wood on wood on wood is absolutely.
- [21:01]
John Coogan
Dan Ratliff says it looks like a grandparents house.
- [21:04]
Tyler Cowen
Yeah.
- [21:05]
John Coogan
The pictures make it look mid.
- [21:06]
Tyler Cowen
They're like, oh, we gotta find the right person to steward this house. It's like, okay, grandpa, let's put you to bed.
- [21:14]
John Coogan
That tile is criminal. Yeah. The chat is not.
- [21:17]
Tyler Cowen
Ryan says full gut at minimum.
- [21:20]
John Coogan
Yeah, yeah. They full gut.
- [21:23]
Tyler Cowen
I agree, I agree.
- [21:24]
John Coogan
Brutal. Okay, well, why don't we leave Palm Springs, we'll head over to Manhattan.
- [21:29]
Tyler Cowen
I just gotta say these, the audacity to be like, yeah, we need to put this on the open market to find the right steward. And it's like, oh, I don't know how, I don't know if you've been stewarding that well.
- [21:39]
John Coogan
Yeah. Yeah. So is your read on it that like everyone from the community was like, yeah, we'll love to take this off your hands and like completely renovate it. And they're like, we got to find a crazy person that likes this particular style. And so they got to spread their, they got to spread the aperture.
- [21:52]
Jordy
I think you guys are being too hard. I think if you just add like two or three more floors.
- [21:56]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [21:56]
Jordy
You go vertically.
- [21:57]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [21:57]
Jordy
I think it could be pretty sick.
- [21:58]
John Coogan
Yeah. I would also dig down, build basement man cave, racing simulators. Okay, well, let's head over to New York because Katherine Clark at the Wall Street Journal got a coveted invitation to see New York's most secretive condo project. This is 80 Clarkson the sales, they're over $1 billion now with minimal marketing, little press until now, little coverage until we discuss it on TVPN in a sun filled room.
- [22:32]
Tyler Cowen
This is breaking news. This is breaking news, folks.
- [22:34]
John Coogan
This is breaking news. With stone flooring and a plush, creamy white rug. My winter coat is whisked away and a sparkling water is thrust into my hand. For much of the past year, an invitation to come here has been one of the most coveted tickets in New York City. But I'm not at a hot new bar or restaurant. I I'm on the far west side of Manhattan at the tucked away sales gallery for a new condominium. The developers of 80 Clarkson Street, a pair of under construction towers at the edge of the West Village, have kept details about the project secret. The units aren't listed on sites like Zillow or Street. Easy access to the sales office by the Hudson river is by appointment only. And appointments were initially scarce. Many prospective buyers tried to call in favors to get a look. Counterintuitive though it may seem, the secrecy surrounding 80 Clarkson appears to have been an extremely effective sales tool. In less than a year, more than $1 billion worth of condos have been have gone into contract on the project, amounting to more than half of its 112 residences. Buyer recently signed a contract to pay $129 million for a residence at 80 Clarkson. If it closes, the transaction will set a record for downtown Manhattan, shattering the previous high watermark of 60 million. They're going twice as expensive as the previous high watermark. A roughly 7,400 square foot apartment is asking 75 million. And they also found a buyer. So give me a little bit of review on this style. Are you feeling this? Do you think you could settle into an apartment if it looked like this and had 7,000 square feet to walk around and was in New York City? In terms of styling, in terms of aesthetics, in terms of vibes, what you got for us, Jordy? What do you think?
- [24:09]
Tyler Cowen
I think it's not really my style, but in general I think it's. I think in general it's, you could grate your teeth.
- [24:19]
John Coogan
You could grate your teeth.
- [24:22]
Tyler Cowen
Some mixture of gun to your head, you'd live there. Of classic New York. Well, let's get interior styling brought into the modern era.
- [24:32]
John Coogan
The golden ticket.
- [24:33]
Tyler Cowen
I think it's nice.
- [24:34]
John Coogan
At 80 Clarkson, the two under construction towers sit adjacent to the west side highway on the Hudson River. The project's neighbors are Google and Pier 40, the former Marine terminal that now serves as parking and sports facility with a trapeze school.
- [24:46]
Tyler Cowen
You're into trapeze? I'm sold.
- [24:48]
John Coogan
You're sold?
- [24:48]
Tyler Cowen
I'm sold.
- [24:49]
John Coogan
Walking distance to trapeze lessons. Maybe you gotta do trapeze, I don't know. Despite all the cloak and dagger, the gallery itself is subdued and staid. There's no dimming of lights, no ultra dramatic video, no stirring music. Instead, the space is classic and dignified, with the sales team pointing out details such as the motor court, which they say was Inspired by a Roman piazza, it is an experience that channels the Zeckendorf's reputation for a certain brand of Manhattan real estate. Discreet, restrained, and priced at the very top of the market. Scions of one of New York City's real estate's most storied dynasties. David Lynch's quirky Los Angeles compound sells for 13 million.
- [25:29]
Tyler Cowen
Okay, explain David Lynch.
- [25:32]
John Coogan
Who wants to explain David Lynch? Any of you guys know he's a goat? He's the goat. He's the goat. He created Twin Peaks and the film Mulholland Drive. Molehole and Drive is fantastic.
- [25:42]
Jordy
Eraserhead. Eraserhead. Probably my favorite movie. Yeah.
- [25:45]
John Coogan
Really? I haven't seen Eraserhead.
- [25:46]
Jordy
Yeah. Jordy. It's like. He's like. I don't know, very. I actually have no idea how to describe, like, kind of surreal. Yeah, like very archive.
- [25:53]
Tyler Cowen
Explain him as like a big tech CEO.
- [25:55]
John Coogan
He's like all the CEOs favorite CEO. That's how I'd explain it. All the big directors. It's his favorite director, their favorite director, your favorite director's favorite director.
- [26:04]
Tyler Cowen
But what if you have no favorite director?
- [26:07]
John Coogan
How many. How many jumps to get from Sacha Baron Cohen to David Lynch? Probably not that many. He probably has respect for him. A quirky Los Angeles compound that was the longtime home of the late filmmaker David lynch has sold for $13 million about six months after hitting the market. Lynch died in 2025. He was known for the surreal films and television shows, including the TV series Twin Peaks and the 2001 film Mulholland Drive.
- [26:29]
Tyler Cowen
This is such a fascinating home from the outside, from the street, it's like somewhat brutalist.
- [26:34]
John Coogan
Yeah.
- [26:35]
Tyler Cowen
And then inside it's like very mid century.
- [26:39]
John Coogan
And then he has a workshop on the estate designed for some of the property's metalwork himself. This is a fascinating building. So the compound has seven buildings spanning 11,000 square feet in total, with 10 bedrooms. The centerpiece of the estate is a pink 1960s house that was designed by the architect Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. In a statement, two of Lynch's children said the property was a place of deep meaning in their father's life and the lives of those who lived and worked there. It holds a lot of history for our family, and we're grateful to see it pass to someone who's interested in caring for it and preserving what made it special. Lynch viewed his living space as an extension of his creative life. The Lloyd Wright house affects my whole life to live inside it, he said in a 1997 interview. What do you think about this house? Would you live here? Do you like this house? Do you like this style?
- [27:31]
Tyler Cowen
I do like it. I just think. I think that needs about. I don't know, an architectural purist might hate me for this, but it needs to be torn down. It needs a lot of investment.
- [27:42]
John Coogan
You have to tear it down.
- [27:43]
Tyler Cowen
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [27:45]
Jordy
This is also.
- [27:45]
Tyler Cowen
I like.
- [27:46]
Jordy
I don't think it's mentioned in the article, but this is the location of Lost highway, which is another of his movies.
- [27:51]
John Coogan
Wow. Ball knower over there. I had no idea. I don't know Lost highway at all.
- [27:55]
Tyler Cowen
Right before we jump in there, the team is sharing how many from the host Tyler at TBPN to David Lynch. And so Tyler Cosgrove works with John Coogan at tvpn.
- [28:07]
John Coogan
Okay.
- [28:08]
Tyler Cowen
John Coogan has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in Social Network. Jesse Eisenberg co starred with Laura Dern in Resistance and Laura Dern starred in Wild at Heart, directed by David Lynch.
- [28:25]
John Coogan
Five Degrees of Separation. There we go. Let's make some phone calls. Jira Ticket says when you ask some high el at Rivendell if they want to join you in your quest to Erebor, they hit you with the light of valinor stare. 2.8 thousand likes. People like the photo. Very silly.
- [28:43]
Tyler Cowen
Sikhi says, mildly surprised to learn that director level staff at anthropic have human EAs.
- [28:50]
John Coogan
How did they learn that? How did he learn that? Was that in like the most recent Dario news? This is from March 6th today.
- [28:56]
Tyler Cowen
I mean, he runs an AI finance tool.
- [28:59]
John Coogan
Oh, so maybe he's interacting with them.
- [29:00]
Tyler Cowen
He's interacting with them. All right, we got a new Xbox. What's going on here?
- [29:04]
John Coogan
We have breaking news. As of three days ago, we didn't really get to it. Project Helix is the next generation of the Xbox console. What do we know about it?
- [29:14]
Tyler Cowen
Nothing.
- [29:15]
John Coogan
Nothing. Za nada. We see a logo reveal. Is this just a working title? I don't know. Will this be delayed? The PS6 is supposedly delayed. The Switch 2 is maybe going up in price.
- [29:32]
Tyler Cowen
Tech layoff tracker. I'm hearing from multiple sources inside Oracle that the company is planning thousands of job cuts. Potentially 20 to 30,000 roles across the board. This was surprising to me because I didn't realize that Oracle had a headcount around 170,000 people.
- [29:51]
John Coogan
There's a lot going on at Oracle. It's a very like old company. A lot of sales reps. I had a friend who worked as an Oracle sales rep. Loved the job. Great lifestyle, you know, going around selling software, selling data centers, selling all sorts of stuff.
- [30:06]
Tyler Cowen
This is to free up 8 to 10 billion in cash flow, all to fund massive AI data center expansion. US banks are pulling back from financing. Borrowing costs are rising.
- [30:14]
John Coogan
Fast spreads.
- [30:15]
Tyler Cowen
The cuts would be the largest in years, bigger than the 10,000 they did in late 2025. They are also eyeing asset sales like the Cerner Healthcare unit. It's tied to AI commitments. Anyways, so still rumors at this point, but wouldn't be super surprising.
- [30:33]
John Coogan
Anyway, leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe to our newsletter tvpn.com and we will see you have the best Monday
- [30:40]
Tyler Cowen
weekend of your life.
- [30:41]
John Coogan
And that's all folks. Good.