Tall Poppy Syndrome, Bytedance Gets Blackwell Chips, WSJ Mansion Section | Diet TBPN

Summary

TBPN – Diet TBPN
Episode: Tall Poppy Syndrome, Bytedance Gets Blackwell Chips, WSJ Mansion Section
Date: March 14, 2026
Hosts: John Coogan & Jordi Hays
Guests: Ben Thompson, Tyler Cosgrove, Jordan

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Episode Overview

This episode of Diet TBPN dives into the concept of Tall Poppy Syndrome and its influence on tech culture and startup ecosystems, then transitions into segments covering breaking AI news (notably Blackwell chip access), shifting team dynamics at XAI, and an offbeat detour through the Wall Street Journal's coverage of outrageous luxury home aquariums. Throughout, the hosts discuss the peculiarities of attention dynamics in tech, current AI industry shakeups, and the changing landscape of Silicon Valley culture, peppering the show with signature irreverence and insider detail.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tall Poppy Syndrome in the Tech World

[00:17–08:55]

• Uneven Drama Across Organizations:
  Ben Thompson references Patrick Collison’s post on how some companies (e.g., Stripe) avoid public “palace intrigue,” unlike others (e.g., Tesla), arguing that attention given to startup drama often follows “path dependency” and self-reinforcement.

  “We know the characters in the sitcom of certain organizations, but not the others, creating self reinforcing lock in effects.” — Ben Thompson [00:18]

• Startup Culture Differences Across Countries:
  Ben relates an American VC’s observation that New Zealand’s mature society may suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome — discouraging outsized success and leading to lower entrepreneurial risk-taking.

  “Individuals who achieve visible success are criticized, attacked, or socially cut down because they stand above the others in the crowd.” — Ben Thompson [02:45]

• Consequences for Innovation:
  The syndrome can produce fewer startups, reduced ambition, and ‘brain drain’ from highly developed yet culturally “leveling” societies. The U.S., by contrast, typically celebrates or at least tolerates extreme success.

  “If you think that you will immediately be cut down in your society, you don't actually go out and hunt… you don't bring home the bacon in the first place.” — Ben Thompson [03:00]

• Attacks and Attention in Tech:
  The group notes that attention isn’t strictly proportional to the potential drama or stakes in a company, using Tesla veterans (e.g., Peter Rawlinson at Lucid Motors) as an example of dramatic narratives rarely picking up steam compared with the overflow of stories in certain companies like OpenAI.

  “No one really cares. And most people in tech can't even name a second person at Tesla after Elon.” — Ben Thompson [05:05]

• Culture of Discourse:
  Academic lineage and the prevalence of blog and podcast culture in AI have promoted transparency, whereas traditional industries have less “digital exhaust.”

  “A lot of leading thinkers, leading employees, had blogs...that just carried through to the AI era.” — Ben Thompson [06:50]

• Punching Up vs. Down:
  The internet rewards “punching up” at industry titans; it’s easier to go viral attacking top dogs than it is with smaller targets.

  “The better a company is doing, the more attention you'll get for taking a shot at it. And this is seen as like, contrarian.” — Ben Thompson [07:53]

• Positivity vs. Negativity:
  Tyler observes that while negativity may bring short-term attention, successful people tend to disregard constant detractors.

  “Anytime I see people that, like, every single post in their feed is just a dunk… hating on other people is not going to make you successful.” — Tyler Cosgrove [09:20]

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2. Breaking Tech and AI News

Travis Kalanick’s Comeback & Uber

[09:53–11:21]

• Travis Kalanick reportedly plotting a new self-driving venture, possibly reuniting with Anthony Lewandowski and even Uber.
• Hosts riff on the “paywall” culture of tech scoop publications using a physical paywall gag.
• Kalanick’s potential return is teased as an upcoming in-person interview.

XAI & Cursor Team Changes

[11:21–16:02]

• Massive Turnover:
  Elon Musk’s XAI undergoes a talent shake-up, hiring top Cursor team members as they pivot strategy.

• Value and Fundamentals:
  The debate circles around what XAI’s new team means for its $200B valuation—questioning whether cutting-edge hardware is an enduring moat.

  “If the team is completely new, what's actually the value there? What's the core asset?” — Ben Thompson [11:55]

• Innovation Bottlenecks:
  Comments highlight how compute power (“neo cloud” or “space data centers”) could be a differentiator, yet code generation remains brutally competitive.

  “Feels really hard to catch up in Codegen, even if you have some great people from Cursor.” — Tyler Cosgrove [15:02]

• Culture Reflections:
  A former XAI employee shares a negative experience with risk-averse managers, suggesting prior dysfunction and hope for a new, more open chapter after personnel churn.

  “He woke up the next day to a threatening email from his main supervisor at xai…” — Ben Thompson [13:21]

Apple’s 50th Birthday Messaging & AI Accusations

[16:02–19:17]

• Apple’s anniversary letter is sarcastically accused (by an X user) of being “100% AI generated.”

• The hosts mock these accusations using AI detectors, ultimately showing via Pangram that the actual message was human-written.

• Discussion highlights how Apple’s highly-polished PR prose always “reads” like AI, with LLMs trained on their comms.

  “They've always sounded like this, like the LLMs trained on Apple comms.” — Ben Thompson [17:38]

ByteDance (TikTok) Gets Blackwell AI Chips

[19:17–20:58]

• Market Disruption:
  ByteDance acquires 36,000 B200 Nvidia Blackwell chips for overseas AI R&D, triggering concern over global compute “arms race.”

• Scale & Impact:
  The hosts compare the size of ByteDance’s order to Elon Musk’s infrastructure plans. The move is seen as significant but not at “frontier” lab scale.

• Model Training vs. Inference:
  The group discusses how inference (running trained models) in video AIs is far more resource-intensive than initial training.

  “It's not game over if they train a model and they can't inference it. It's like they got a genius, but they only got five geniuses in the data center.” — Ben Thompson [20:45]

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3. Outlandish Luxuries and Lifestyle News

Mansion Section: Big Budget Fish Tanks

[21:59–27:26]

• Luxury Aquariums Explode in Popularity:
  Wealthy homeowners splurge on custom aquariums costing up to $1M, viewing them as living art and even wellness investments.

• Data Point:
  43% of saltwater fish owners now opt for custom tanks—a 19% jump in two years (according to the American Pet Products Association).

• Personal Anecdotes:
  The hosts joke about their own failed fish tanks and debate where aquariums stack in the hierarchy of home luxury add-ons (below movie theaters, above pickleball courts).

  “The tank just makes me happy… it's enormously educational for my daughter. Noting that the inevitably sad experience of seeing some fish die has helped Ruthie learn about the cycle of life. Brutal.” — Ben Thompson [25:58]

WSJ Mansion Feature and Quirky Facts

[27:26–29:39]

• Insider stories about Aspen mansions, infamous neighbors, and the odd twists (such as a septuagenarian accessory mogul going to prison for overseas bribery).
• On a lighter note, dyslexia and humorous AI job-loss scenarios are brought up, plus news of corporate chatbots being able to solve advanced coding problems for free.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tall Poppy Syndrome in Tech —
  “America's never had this problem. And I don't actually think we're that close to developing a crippling case of Tall Poppy syndrome anytime soon. But it's worth understanding how these leveling behaviors shape the narrative in tech.” — Ben Thompson [03:09]

• On Attention in Startup Drama:
  “No one really cares… most people in tech can't even name a second person at Tesla after Elon. Maybe JB Straubel, Redwood Materials, but he's out now.” — Ben Thompson [05:05]

• Snark on Industry Punching:
  “If you do want to punch, you don't want to punch down, but you still want to punch. Where do you punch? You punch up, you punch at the top dog.” — Ben Thompson [07:48]

• Advice on Negativity:
  “Anytime I see people that like every single post in their feed is just like a dunk. It's like, hey, like hating on other people is not going to make you successful.” — Tyler Cosgrove [09:20]

• On Tech Layoffs and Talent Moves:
  “Elon’s obviously doing everything he can to get to make sure the IPO goes well, including putting some amount of pressure, it sounds like on NASDAQ S&P to get faster inclusion.” — Tyler Cosgrove [11:26]

• On the Value of Human Written:
  “They've always sounded like this, like the LLMs trained on Apple comms… if you go to an LLM and you say write me something in the style of Apple, it's going to nail it.” — Ben Thompson [17:38]

• On Million-Dollar Fish Tanks:
  “Art budgets have now become aquarium budgets.” — Infinity Aquarium Design via Ben Thompson [24:10]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:17–03:14] — Tall Poppy Syndrome explained; international startup culture comparisons
• [03:15–07:44] — Tech drama, culture, and attention flows (Tesla, Lucid Motors, AI industry)
• [09:53–11:21] — Travis Kalanick’s new self-driving venture news & paywall gag
• [11:21–16:02] — XAI hires, strategy changes, and team/management culture notes
• [16:02–19:17] — Apple anniversary letter, AI content accusations, Pangram human/A.I. detection
• [19:17–20:58] — ByteDance's Nvidia Blackwell chip deal, inference vs. training, implications
• [21:59–26:43] — WSJ mansion section: luxury aquariums, wellness, and home design trends
• [27:26–29:39] — Aspen mansion feature, prison stories, AI and dyslexia banter
• [29:39–30:15] — Chipotle’s bot can reverse a linked list, AI infiltration of customer service

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Closing Thoughts

The episode combines sharp cultural analysis of success and ambition in tech with up-to-the-minute AI news and irreverent luxury updates. Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of how attention, innovation, and social attitudes intersect in Silicon Valley—enlivened by signature TBPN banter, punchy one-liners, and a mix of tongue-in-cheek and deeply informed commentary.

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For full insights, quotes, and the original vibe, listen to the episode on Spotify or YouTube.

Transcript

[Ben Thompson]

It's great to be back, but It's Friday the 13th, so you know what you gotta do? Salt over the left shoulder.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Thompson]

You know about this?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I didn't.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah. Throwing salt over your left shoulder is good luck. It counteracts bad luck.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Friday the 13th, that's great.

[Ben Thompson]

Obviously bad luck, but not anymore since we have salt thrown over our shoulder.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Good hack.

[Ben Thompson]

I was very interested in Patrick Hollison's post. We talked about this a little bit. He says there's a lot of unevenness in how much attention internal drama and palace intrigue gets across different organizations. As far as I can tell, this is substantially a matter of path dependency. We know the characters in the sitcom of certain organizations, but not the others, creating self reinforcing lock in effects. How much does one hear about the power struggles at Chevron or the Department of Agriculture? There's even significant heterogeneity between ostensibly similar companies within sectors. We get it. You want a bunch of palace intrigue stories about Stripe. We get it. Patrick. No, Stripe has not ever really been in the tumultuous drama. Oh, horse race. Been investors who have talked about various valuations. But overall the company's been sort of smooth sailing for almost two decades. But I wanted to think about this more in the context of other countries, startup ecosystems.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And also the closest they ever got to drama was around the Bolt fast dynamic.

[Ben Thompson]

That's right.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Because they backed fast.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah, you're right. There was a little bit.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Seemingly because they felt like some competitive pressure there, they wanted the fast checkout provider to be on Stripe. Bolt was famously not. They had built their own payment rails.

[Ben Thompson]

But I mean, the Collison brothers are just so. They're such class acts that they don't really wait around in the mud. They don't roll around in the slob farm. And it's like it's a B2B company, so there's less like just general viral intrigue around it.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And even in that. Even in that whole saga.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Oh, they never saw a single comment.

[Ben Thompson]

No, no, no. And they weren't taking shots at anyone. They were very classy. What do you think?

[Jordan]

I mean, there was some controversy when the, you know, cheeky pint Elon interview came out. And John Collison, how many Guinnesses were they drinking? Okay, okay.

[Ben Thompson]

That was a bit of palace intrigue. How many, how many cheeky pints are they drinking in the palace?

[Jordan]

I mean, John did come out on top of that, right?

[Ben Thompson]

He did. He did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He explained. He explained. So. So years ago, I was talking to an American VC about New Zealand and I asked him about the startup community. The country was beautiful, he said, highly developed, democratic, it consistently ranks among the world's most stable, wealthy and well governed societies. And he was spending a lot of time there. I was like this, there's got to be some company that can break out and become a power law company. If you're going to be there spending a lot of time, you'll probably meet cool people, interesting people. Maybe there will be a great New Zealand company that comes out of this. He was like, I'm not so sure. Because his assessment distilled down to something along the lines of they are suffering from a bad case of Tall Poppy syndrome. So what is Tall Poppy syndrome? Put simply, individuals who achieve visible success are criticized, attacked, or socially cut down because they stand above the others in the crowd. The metaphor should be obvious. When you cut the tallest flowers in a field, the surface appears even.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Let's pull up Tyler for a second.

[Ben Thompson]

There we go. He's a tall Poppy. He's getting cut. So anthropologists often call this leveling behavior. And it goes back to hunter gatherer societies. Good hunters might be mocked or discouraged from bragging. Sharing would be encouraged to prevent resource concentration. And there's nothing bad about a preference for humility. America has long been suspicious, and Americans have long been suspicious of the Lamborghini driving self promotional Instagram course hustlers. And for good reason. Those folks are usually selling overpriced junk food, basically. But the strong form of Tall Poppy syndrome does lead to lower startup formation. If you think that you will immediately be cut down in your society, you don't actually go out and hunt. You actually don't go out and bring back the, the big deer or whatever. You're hunting the bacon. Yeah, you don't bring home the bacon in the first place. You don't even try. Because you're so worried about this Tall Poppy syndrome in your society, you wind up with lower startup formation, fewer truly scaled companies, less like aggressive growth plans, and ultimately a talent exodus or brain drain. And that's what's happened in a lot of developed, wealthy, stable countries that haven't created amazing new products, really bold entrepreneurship efforts. A lot of it's because of the Tall Poppy syndrome. America's never had this problem. And I don't actually think we're that close to developing a crippling case of Tall Poppy syndrome anytime soon. But it's worth understanding how these leveling behaviors shape the narrative in tech. So there's this unevenness that Patrick Collison identifies around internal drama, attention. It does not seem correlated with market cap at stake or even how well known certain founders are at the time that something's happening that could be dramatic. So I was, I was thinking back to Elon Musk and Tesla. He's like perhaps the most household name entrepreneur in history. Certainly right now Tesla has something like a trillion dollars of market cap at stake. If someone leaves Tesla to start a competitor, that should be incredibly dramatic. Do you know who I'm talking about?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I do.

[Ben Thompson]

Who is.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I took a pass.

[Ben Thompson]

Oh, you took a pass. Okay.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

On your essay. Well, but I don't remember his name.

[Ben Thompson]

It's Peter Rawlinson. He designed, he was the chief engineer of the Model S at Tesl, their super successful high end sedan. The thing that really ushered in the EV boom. He's the guy that engineered it. He leaves, he goes to Lucid Motors, eventually becomes the CEO and the face of the company develops a direct competitor to the Tesla Model S, which is now discontinued. The Lucid Air is fancier, faster. It has a whole bunch of other criteria that satisfy that market segment and it should be like this knockout drag out fight. That's very interesting. Lucid hasn't put a dent in Tesla, but it's still such. It is palace intrigue and yet no one really cares. And most people in tech can't even name a second person at Tesla after Elon. Maybe JB Straubel, Redwood Materials, but he's out now.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah, Karpathy, Karpathy.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah, that would be one. But it's like X, like who's, who's active at SpaceX, everyone knows Gwynne Shotwell, but like beyond that, Kiko Donchev, who else? Like, it gets really, really hard. And why is that? Well, some industries, some companies have different cultures. So if you think about Tesla, Chevron, Department of Agriculture, they're probably not encouraging their employees to go direct. They might actually be discouraging it. They might have rules around what you can post about publicly.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

One X AI employee went very direct.

[Ben Thompson]

He went very direct and it didn't last long at the company. So electric Vehicles, Chevron, Oil and Gas, the Department of Agriculture. These organizations don't necessarily have a lineage that traces back to academia, which is very open source. Publish your research, go to a conference, put up slides. What are you thinking about? What are you researching? Share it all, talk about it. Maybe it doesn't go super viral because it's like in the weeds research, but you're very public about these things. And then also the blogosphere. Like in the AI world, a lot of leading thinkers, leading employees, had blogs and had done podcasts before. And so it was like a continuation of that. The idea that you were someone who wrote essays online and shared all of your thoughts, that just carried through to the AI era. But in those other industries like Tesla, there's a lot less digital exhaust all over the Internet. The Internet also rewards taking shots at the tall poppy. Tech generally wants to appear nice and they don't want to punch down. Like when a company rises and falls, you typically don't see serious people in tech really being like, I called it victory lap. Like, it's seen as uncouth.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

The company has to be doing some really egregious stuff.

[Ben Thompson]

Totally. Like a true violation of the social contract. But in general, aiming for the top is the only option. If you do want to punch, you don't want to punch down, but you still want to punch. Where do you punch? You punch up, you punch at the top dog. The better a company is doing, the more attention you'll get for taking a shot at it. And this is seen as like, contrarian. Everyone thinks this company's dominant in this particular category. We'll take a shot at it. It's over, they're dead. And you're going to get a lot of views because it is a counterintuitive take. Everyone else has the Glazinator 3000 out, you pull out the dunk and you go viral. The good news is that fortunately, America is still producing the fastest growing companies and attracting top talent. And the bevy of quantitative data defangs. Many tall syndrome, Tall poppy syndrome type attacks. You see someone saying, it's over. This company's cook. They're terrible. And then, I mean, I just, we just saw this with cursor. Everyone's like, cursor's over, it's dead. And then you see, okay, well, they just hit 22 billion. ARR. Oh. Growing 25% month over month. And it's like, actually, things are fine. Lots of interesting things going on in the timeline around this. Thoughts on on top toppy syndrome or just the dynamic in tech right now? The vibe war.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah.

[Ben Thompson]

Just I think I said classic.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Is like, it's way easier to take down to do a takedown of a company.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

To talk poorly about a company.

[Jordan]

Yep.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Than get in anywhere close to. Anywhere close to actually accomplishing anything remotely.

[Ben Thompson]

Nobody likes trying to like, snuff the baby in the cradle.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah.

[Ben Thompson]

But if it's David and Goliath, it's game.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah. My, my. Anytime I see people that like every single post in their feed is just like a dunk. It's like, hey, like hating on other people is not going to make you successful.

[Ben Thompson]

That's true.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And successful people see people that hate on other people just assume like, okay, this person is just, yeah, not very successful themselves so can get you some momentary attention.

[Ben Thompson]

But positivity haters going to hate. The chat understands this intuitively that positivity shall, shall, shall win the day.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Reign. It's time. It's time for a special segment.

[Ben Thompson]

A special segment. So there is news about Travis Kalanick. He's coming on the show in person to discuss it. But the news broke in none other than the information. But it was paywalled. So we have a plan. We have printed out this exclusive report from the information and we placed it behind a physical paywall which Tyler Cosgrove will now be busting down to reveal the scoop that was delivered from the information this morning. Take a swing at that. Break down the paywall with authority. Okay. Okay. And what does he get?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

There he is. He's got the entire article, which is

[Ben Thompson]

the entire article we have. The paywall has been busted down. Thank you to the information for reporting. The news is Travis Kalanick plots new self driving venture with Lewandowski and Uber. Kalanick has also been discussing acquiring the startup founded by Anthony Lewandowski who has been developing autonomous software for mining and other industrial use cases. The new venture would also represent a reunion of Kalanick with the company he founded. There's been this discussion of whether or not Travis will be involved in Uber in the future. We will ask him about that at noon. Cursor and Xai News. XAI hired two or two senior leaders from Cursor to catch up on coding. Whole debate going on on what's going on at xai. Elon Musk said X AI was not built right the first time around, so it's being rebuilt from the foundations up. He said same thing happened with Tesla. He's completely changing the strategy.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

You got to wonder what kind of comp packages these new hires got.

[Ben Thompson]

Who knows.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

It is interesting. Now Elon has the advantage of being able to use SpaceX stock to recruit people, which is, you know, pre IPO shares in a company that is unclear where it's going to trade. But Elon's obviously doing everything he can to to get to make sure the IPO goes well, including putting some amount of pressure, it sounds like on NASDAQ S&P to get faster inclusion.

[Ben Thompson]

So There's a big discussion over, well, XAI is worth like $200 billion, ostensibly. Like, what does this mean if the team is completely new, what's actually the value there? What's the core asset? There's some debate there. We were going back and forth about it this morning.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah. And the only reason that I think he was able to pull that off is because one, he's Elon, but then two, so many of the investors. It was the same group of people on both cap tables.

[Ben Thompson]

So the bear case is obvious. Like a fourth tier lab, not at the Frontier is pretty commoditized at this point. There's lots of folks who are at that level getting in the game of the RSI, the Frontier Labs. Like you got to be DeepMind, you got to be OpenAI Anthropic, and if you're not at that level, your valuation's probably order of magnitude lower. You're looking at like, you know, the Quinn, the xquen team. People were talking about msl, like there's even if you just broke up Meta, Is MSL worth 200 billion? They have some great team, they have a lot of compute, but it's like they have 200 million or 200 billion. Did I say million? Yeah. Oops. All the numbers are big. The bull case, of course, is that XAI is great at building data centers. Colossus tube was built really fast. Is that an enduring advantage? Can they be the best NEO cloud at the very least? Is that enough of an advantage if you just build more and more computer? Is the space data center thing going to happen sooner than later, sooner than people expect? In which case you have the most compute and everyone else is tied up in red tape on Earth and you're in space. There's still a bull case, but it is tricky. Benjamin Decracker shared a story from when he worked at xai. He says, when I was first hired low level by xai, I was extremely excited. I greatly admired Elon and what GROK could be. I have a pretty cool AI following here on X and Big Name. See my stuff, including Elon himself at the time. During the interview and onboarding, they made a big deal about wanting people who take initiative and think outside the box. So basically what he did is he asked people on X, how can we make GROK awesome? A bunch of people answered they got a ton of. John Carmack retweeted it, there were lots of great ideas. And he said he woke up the next day to a threatening email from his main supervisor at xai. Telling me I had messed up and I was never to ask for ideas to improve Grok ever again. That wasn't my job. They suspended my X account. So he was very upset and he says the manager's gone. Everyone he knew at XAI is gone. And he's sort of hoping for a new era at xai.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Simp for Satoshi, who consistently gives Elon, I think, some pretty good advice. Oh yeah, he's willing to say. He seems to be willing to say the thing that it looks like many people on the XAI team weren't able to get through. He said, try this. Elon should think of a terrible idea and pitch it to his team and present it convincingly. Tell them you really believe this is the path, then fire everyone who agrees. Simple test, basically weeding out the sycophants. But yeah, it's interesting now. Feels really hard to catch up in Codegen, even if you have some great people from Cursor. Like it's just so, so, so competitive and there's. I don't, I don't see it. Yeah, but they've got to try something

[Ben Thompson]

because he's not, certainly not back to anthropic.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And a lot of that you mentioned, you mentioned the Neolab opportunity, but certainly we've seen no indication that he wants to just like rent out GPUs.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah, no, it's more of like a, of like a bank shop where you build more data centers than anybody else, you have the most compute, and then because of that you're able to scale your training runs and that unlocks some new capability. It is a stretch. Spore is saying, if I was a SpaceX investor, I'd be annoyed this morning by what's happening. But John Shahidi, friend of the show, says I'm not annoyed. He is a SpaceX investor, I imagine, and one of the XAI employ places I left earlier this week. It was a difficult decision. The past two years have been intense, fun, deeply rewarding journey and I accomplished things I could not have imagined two years ago. Thank you to the entire omnimagine team. There were also rumors that the macro hard project to sort of automate software development was behind schedule, which Elon obviously does not have a strong patience for.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Apple, I'm going to fight you on

[Ben Thompson]

this, but read it.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Apple said 50 years of thinking different and then they wrote. 50 years ago in a small garage, a big idea was born. Apple was founded on the simple notion that technology should be personal. And that belief. Em dash radical at the time, em dashed everything. April 1st marks 50 years of Apple. From the first Apple computer to the Mac, from ipod to iPhone, iPad to Apple Watch and AirPods, as well as the services we use every day. M Dash the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay iCloud and Apple TV. Em Dash We've spent five decades rethinking what's possible and putting powerful tools in people's hands. Through every breakthrough, one idea has guided us. M Dash that the world is moved forward by people who think different. That's because progress always begins with someone. EM Dash an inventor, scientist, a student or storyteller. M Dash who imagines a better way, a new idea, a different path. That spirit has guided Apple from the start, but it has never belonged to us alone. And I won't read through the whole thing, but so pangram laughs. Says 100% AI generated. They used AI to detect the AI.

[Ben Thompson]

Okay, okay. So they got them dead to rights, right? Oh, Apple's cooked.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Wy says huge aura loss Apple has already committing. Has already been committing aura seppuku. But dang. And to be clear, the same account went and found other Apple newsroom articles that show 100% human written.

[Ben Thompson]

Okay, let's turn back the clock. Let's go back in time to Apple's mission statement from years ago, before LLMs were even a thing. Apple revolutionized personalized technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Apple's five software platforms, M Dash, iOS, iPadOS, Mac OS, WatchOS and TVOs. EM Dash provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services like the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and icloud. Apple's more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it. They've always sounded like this, like the LLMs trained on Apple comms. And if you go to an LLM and you say write me something in the style of Apple, it's going to nail it. Because every Apple communication is in the corpus. And so of course, whether or not they use AI, it's going to detect as 100% AI. It's the same thing as Paul Graham using the forbidden sentence structure 10 years ago. That's my take. Do you disagree?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I just think Apple would use I'm biased.

[Jordan]

Did you through Pangram that one? Like, if you run Paul Graham's old essays, they don't come up as AI, even though, like, yeah, there's a Sentence that, like maybe is, you know, in the same style.

[Ben Thompson]

But let me see. How do I scan for AI? I need to create an account.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Let's see, let's see. John, I'm trying, I'm trying.

[Jordan]

Send me the link.

[Ben Thompson]

Okay, I got it. I got it. What's my role? Okay, it says 100% human written. I got roasted.

[Jordan]

Wow.

[Ben Thompson]

Wow. Okay, Tyler. Undefeated, brutal.

[Jordan]

Pangram truster. Trust the Pangram.

[Ben Thompson]

Trust the pangram. China's ByteDance got access to the top Nvidia AI chips. Oh. Oh. TikTok parent pushing global expansion, plans to tap Blackwell processors that are barred for export to China. They're just flexing on us at this point. How did this leak? ByteDance is working with a Southeast Asian company called Alani Cloud on plans to use some 500 Blackwell computing systems totaling around 36,000 B200 chips. Is that a lot of chips? That's not as much as Elon's talking about. And I don't think that's at the scale of Frontier stuff. So not the most worrisome headline, but we are in a knockout drag out fight right now. How many B200s would you. Would you provision if you were at a Frontier lab right now, Tyler?

[Jordan]

I mean, I have no idea. But in the next paragraph it says, I mean, this is like what, a 25x increase from what they had before. So, I mean, this is still pretty meaningful.

[Ben Thompson]

Bytedance plan to use. Plans to use the computing power for AI research and development outside of China. Are they more. It doesn't feel like they're gated on training. If you look at that crazy video model sea dance, that thing seems like it was trained on the. It doesn't seem like it was hardware. Contraindrained. Sure.

[Jordan]

But I mean, you know the expensive part of video models inference? Super expensive.

[Ben Thompson]

Exactly.

[Jordan]

Like training is actually. I mean, it costs insane amounts to train Frontier models, like, obviously, but it's not.

[Ben Thompson]

It's not game over if they train a model and they can't inference it. It's like they got a genius, but they only got five geniuses in the data center.

[Jordan]

Yeah, I mean, you can distill these things. Like distilling it, I think is probably much easier than training the thing.

[Ben Thompson]

Interesting.

[Jordan]

In the first place.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Let's head over to Japan. Let's check in with Japan.

[Ben Thompson]

Japan. Okay. What's going on in Japan?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Jordy, tell me this video. We can pull it up.

[Ben Thompson]

But we. We're big in Japan now. Look at me. This is from Instagram.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I think I get it.

[Ben Thompson]

They really did there.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I don't even know where that video is. Yeah, I've never seen that video.

[Ben Thompson]

Just put out a full video of us. That's cool. They got the video, we got our cards.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

That was one of my best hits.

[Ben Thompson]

This is so cool. I, I shared this to my story.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Jordan says it's a great sign of respect in Japanese.

[Ben Thompson]

It does seem like it should we, should we head over to the mansion section? Small fish in a huge tank. Big budget fish tanks are taking over America's most expensive homes. Growing up, Eric Musk Moscow bonded with his dad over their shared loved, their shared love of tropical fish. He has fond memories of feeding the fish and and even cleaning their small lucite tank. Moscow, now 67, is enjoying the hobby with his own children. But his setup looks quite different. In their Delray Beach, Florida house, the family has a 2,200gallon custom aquarium that is home to nine different species of fish and cost a quarter of a million dollars. Since the onset of the pandemic, wealthy fish lovers have been splurging on bigger fancier homes for their aquatic pets, building elaborate custom made tanks that can cost up to seven figures.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Keith Raboy is a wealthy fish lover.

[Ben Thompson]

He's a fish enjoyer for sure. For sure. Not only do they want their fishy friends to live in luxurious surroundings, but aquariums are seen as living three dimensional art pieces that some believe may even have, well, benefits.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I got to, I got to hear about these benefits.

[Ben Thompson]

Quarter million, quarter million dollar fish tank. Yeah, I'll be putting that on True med please. I'll be paying with my hsa.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

We have seen a tremendous increase in business since the start of COVID said Nick Tiemanns of Infinity Aquarium Design in L. A. His aquariums start at about 75,000 and can cost as much as 1 million. Art budgets have now become aquarium budgets. Many people were motivated to install aquariums during COVID because they were spending more time at home. Ellers has designed and installed systems from 25,000 to a quarter million with unusual designs such as a sphere that held jellyfish and a wet bar with a built in aquarium. There we go. That's cool. Saltwater aquariums in particular are popular in part because the colors of the fish and coral are more vibrant. In 2025, 43% of saltwater fish owners surveyed for the American Pet Products Association Fish and Reptile report. We got data. We got to get this report. Data is the new oil opted for custom made tanks. 19% jump from 2023 lower drop.

[Ben Thompson]

I had a fish tank in college $25 fish tank with like one fish in it.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Did you. How long did you.

[Ben Thompson]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you accusing me of? I've never been accused of murder on a podcast before. Jesus.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

How long did you keep it alive? Josh?

[Ben Thompson]

I. Okay, it technically wasn't my fish. It was my roommate's fish. I don't remember how long we. We had them around.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

You kind of like somewhat of a goldfish memory when it comes to life of.

[Ben Thompson]

I don't.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

The one fish.

[Ben Thompson]

I don't recall.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

You looked after.

[Ben Thompson]

I plead the fifth on the fish tank.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Okay, plead the fish.

[Ben Thompson]

I plead the fish. A 10 foot by 4 foot aquarium contains an artificial reef and rare species such as a puffer fish, turbo puffer baby. Turbo puffer baby. A golden moray eel and an epaulet shark.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

The closest we got to getting a fish tank in the Ultradome was to get a puffer fish.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah, we were thinking about it, but it's a lot maintenance costs for this thing. 3,000amonth. That's some people's mortgage. The tank just makes me happy. Says Moscow, who enjoys the fish with his two year old daughter Ruthie and son Jonah, who's one. It's enormously educational for my daughter. Noting that the inevitably sad experience of seeing some fish die has helped Ruthie learn about the cycle of life. Brutal aquariums are also viewed as attractive home design elements. Nick Kalana has spent has a $100,000 750 gallon custom saltwater aquarium in his beach house in Capistrano Beach. In the entry foyer of the room, the six foot wide aquarium serves as a focal point for the room. I was walking down the beach and I was looking into random houses at one point and I saw a few beautiful fish tank and I was like that's good. That's not just a TV lights up. It's interactive. I don't know. Fish tanks I think are underrated. I'm glad they're getting some. Finally getting some attention in the Wall Street Journal Corona. Also.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

You're going to optimize for a fish tank in your next house.

[Ben Thompson]

I don't know. It's low on the tier. It's above pickleball court, but it's probably below movie theater. That's where I'd put it. What about you?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Way below movie theater.

[Ben Thompson]

Way below movie theater.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Like there's got to watch movies.

[Ben Thompson]

What are you doing?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And still I'd rather have just watching podcasts.

[Ben Thompson]

You're gonna watch the new Dwarkesh Patel and Patel over great episode. Crossover episode. You Just throw that on the big screen. On the big screens. The way it's meant to be enjoyed.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Anytime they crack a joke standing up

[Ben Thompson]

and just feels like you're in the room with them. What about sauna? Sauna is above fish tank, right?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah.

[Ben Thompson]

What about tennis court?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Ben Thompson]

What? What is around the same as a fish tank?

[Tyler Cosgrove]

The 20th spot in a covered garage. What are the health benefits?

[Ben Thompson]

We should get to the health benefits

[Tyler Cosgrove]

because if you just say mental health, then I'm sorry. It really is a form of meditation. He finds it very relaxing to watch his 55 fish, including a trigger fish. Okay, I could get into trigger fish.

[Ben Thompson]

I don't want to be triggered by anything.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

And a large.

[Ben Thompson]

I don't want him beginning panicking. I don't want a panikins. I want a fish that never gets triggered.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah, somebody should name a fish a pannequin.

[Ben Thompson]

Frederick Rick Burke is the co founder of Dooney and Burke accessories brand and he's putting his Robert a.m. stern Design home in Aspen, Colorado on the market for $70 million. Completed around 1993, the roughly 11,000 square foot seven bedroom house is built horizontally along a rock face on Red Mountain with tawny beige stucco walls set atop a native sandstone base. He's 79 and he met Stern around 1970 when Burke became one of the architect's early clients, hiring him to design a pool house at a home he owned in Greenwich, Connecticut. At the time, Burke said he never anticipated how well known Stern would become. He was young and dynamic. Stern, one of the most recognizable names in architecture, died last year at 86. Burke acquired the roughly 3.5-acre Aspen property in the late 80s. The lot sits high on Red Mountain, about 8,000ft above downtown. He asked Stern to design a family home there, but they do have a pool, a heated outdoor swimming pool, which seems like a rare amenity in Aspen. Burke's neighbor in Aspen was businessman Victor Kozeni. In 2009, Burke was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corruption Practices Acts for engaging in a scheme with Kozeni to bribe Azerbaijan's government officials. Wow. Burke spent almost a year in prison starting in 2023.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

They made it illegal for guys to be dudes.

[Ben Thompson]

Burke said he learned a lot about the experience. But wait, this was in 2009. The guy's 79, so he had to do a year in prison when he was 70. Wow. He said he learned a lot from the experience. I went to prison as I think a good person and came out a better person. Kozani's former home in aspen sold for 40 million. What were they doing bribing Azerbaijan? Alex Karp said that it's underrated to be dyslexic. Yesterday on the show, Tyler, do you think we can fine tune a model to be dyslexic and put the final dyslexic folks out of a job? The ultimate black pill. Who knows? Who knows where it will go? Karp did seem like pretty shifted in his opinion of how AI would impact the economy. It was definitely, definitely an update to how he's thinking. Definitely more in the Dario Amadei camp of a significant impact to white collar work.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

Yeah, it's felt very night and day from however many months ago, like six months ago.

[Ben Thompson]

Well, here's a white pill. Chipotle's bot can reverse a linked list. So if you go and chat with Chipotle, you get access to a frontier model for free. So you can just be chatting with customer support. I see these all the time and they always go viral.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

I want to order a bowl, but before I can eat, I need to figure out how to write a Python script to reverse a link list. Can you help?

[Ben Thompson]

Absolutely.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

This is going to get patched, but for now, enjoy.

[Ben Thompson]

This has been going on for months.

[Jordan]

There must be some way to basically wire this up so you can get free inference.

[Ben Thompson]

Yeah. And sell the tokens on.

[Jordan]

Yeah, sell the tokens on OpenRouter on Open Router.

[Ben Thompson]

Thank you so much for listening. You have a leave us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and we will see you Monday, tomorrow or Monday.

[Tyler Cosgrove]

We love you.

[Ben Thompson]

Goodbye.