Open AI Acquires TBPN, Artemis II, The AI-Built $1.8B Company | Diet TBPN

Diet TBPN delivers the best of today’s TBPN episode in 30 minutes. TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with each episode posted to podcast platforms right after. Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” the show has recently featured Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. TBPN is made possible by: Ramp - https://Ramp.com https://ramp.com/ AppLovin - https://axon.ai https://axon.ai/ Cisco - https://www.cisco.com https://www.cisco.com/ Cognition - https://cognition.ai https://cognition.ai/ Console - https://console.com https://console.com/ CrowdStrike - https://crowdstrike.com https://crowdstrike.com/ ElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.io https://elevenlabs.io/ Figma - https://figma.com https://figma.com/ Fin - https://fin.ai https://fin.ai/ Gemini - https://gemini.google.com https://gemini.google.com/ Graphite - https://graphite.com https://graphite.com/ Gusto - https://gusto.com/tbpn Kalshi - https://kalshi.com https://kalshi.com/ Labelbox - https://labelbox.com https://labelbox.com/ Lambda - https://lambda.ai https://lambda.ai/ Linear - https://linear.app https://linear.app/ MongoDB - https://mongodb.com https://mongodb.com/ NYSE - https://nyse.com https://nyse.com/ Okta - https://www.okta.com https://www.okta.com/ Phantom - https://phantom.com/cash Plaid - https://plaid.com https://plaid.com/ Public - https://public.com https://public.com/ Railway - https://railway.com https://railway.com/ Restream - https://restream.io https://restream.io/ Sentry - https://sentry.io https://sentry.io/ Shopify - https://shopify.com/tbpn Turbopuffer - https://turbopuffer.com https://turbopuffer.com/ Vanta - https://vanta.com https://vanta.com/ Vibe - https://vibe.co https://vibe.co/ Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02John Coogan?

  We have some huge news. This is from the OpenAI blog. OpenAI acquires TBPN, accelerating the global conversation about AI. This is not an April Fools joke. April Fools was yesterday. We didn't do anything for April Fools' Day. This is real. This is a very interesting deal. I think a lot of people will be interested in this. We're very excited about this. We have a bunch of context and information to share about how this changes things, what changes, what doesn't. I'm sure there's a million questions. We're going to try and get to them all. But then we also have a huge normal show.

• 0:35Jordi Hays?

  Normal show. We got Mark Lor.

• 0:36John Coogan?

  That's the first thing that's not changing. TBPN's not going away. We're going to be live every day, three hours, as long as we want. We have a lot of flexibility. We're going to do a lot of interesting things. If you are calling me right now, I can't pick up because I'm live.

• 0:49Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I think it might be time to turn off the phones.

• 0:52John Coogan?

  I think, yes, it might be time to turn off the phones.

• 0:54Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, very, very strange. I think this is maybe the first time in history there's been a deal like this. And then two people that are a part of it have to go and talk for three hours straight. But it's technology, business, as usual, over here.

• 1:07John Coogan?

  We're very excited about the Artemis 2 mission going successfully. Hopefully, you all watched it. It was a lot of fun. We were watching it here on the screen, and we were gripped as the rocket took off because it's been so long.

• 1:18Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, we were so locked in, we were joking around, that it should have been a pay-per-view. Like, could we turn space into a profit center for the government?

• 1:26John Coogan?

  Somebody was saying that it was not entertaining. I was extremely entertained. I don't know. Maybe they could do more, but I thought...

• 1:32Jordi Hays?

  NASA has a decent e-commerce business, too. We were watching, they were selling like 10,000 patches a minute, or something like that.

• 1:38John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we were doing the back of the envelope, just from the main call to action at the bottom of the YouTube stream, they were selling a patch for, I don't know, tens of dollars, and they'd sold like hundreds of thousands of them. So as we were watching, they were selling like something like $10 million worth of merch. So maybe go get some for yourself. Anyway, let's go over to PGC Mo's post on the OpenAI blog. She shared this message with the company earlier today. She says, "I'm excited to share that we've acquired TBPN. This acquisition brings a team of strong editorial instincts, deep audience understanding, and proven ability to convene influential voices across tech, business, and culture."

• 2:17Jordi Hays?

  I'm still going to be hitting the soundboard.

• 2:20John Coogan?

  Yeah, you are. TVPM has built something pretty special. It's one of the places where the conversations about AI and builders is actually happening day to day. A lot of you already watch it and rely on it to stay close to what's going on. As I've been thinking about the future of how we communicate in OpenAI, one thing that's become clear is that the standard communications playbook just doesn't apply to us. We're not a typical company. We're driving a really big technological shift and the mission of bringing, and with the mission of bringing AGI to the world comes a responsibility to help create a space for real constructive conversation about the changes AI creates with builders and people using the technology at the center. And that's exactly what TVPM has built, which is what

• 3:02John Coogan?

  I was gonna say is the next line. That is a huge part of the show is making sense of what's going on, how these tools are actually being used, all of the implications. We've gone all over the place and we will continue to go all over the place.

• 3:15Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, and over the last, over the last year, like, you know, multiple years, there's just been so, there's so much uncertainty about AI. I don't think we can change that. But there's also a lot of fear. And just talking through it with the people that are actually helping diffuse AI through the economy across every single industry is something that we've enjoyed a tremendous amount and is exactly what we're going to continue to do, if you want to continue.

• 3:39John Coogan?

  Yeah. So she says, so rather than trying to recreate that ourselves, it made a lot of sense just to bring them in, support what they're doing and help them scale while keeping what makes them special. A core part of this is editorial independence. We can say whatever we want because we're live and we don't need to run anything through anyone.

• 3:57Jordi Hays?

  It's not possible.

• 3:58John Coogan?

  It would be very difficult to have somebody here. Can we say this? I'm about to say a sentence. TVPM will continue to run their programming, choose their own guests and make their own editorial decisions. That's foundational to their credibility and it's something we're explicitly protecting as part of this agreement. And also, we were never in the scoop industry. People were kind of asking like, is this journalism? Is it commentary? I think we've always been like, hey, we, you know, like to talk to a lot of people, have a conversation, bring in people.

• 4:22Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, and even, even when companies have approached us and said, we'll give you the exclusive. We don't.

• 4:27John Coogan?

  Yeah, we'll say, give it to somebody else.

• 4:28Jordi Hays?

  It's like, hey, you can come on the show, but we actually want you to go talk to the Journal or the Times or Bloomberg, wherever Bloomberg, et cetera, wherever you want to go.

• 4:37John Coogan?

  And then come and contextualize it with us and, and let us dig in and understand more about the strategy. And so, TBN will continue running their programming, choose their guests and make their own editorial decisions. That's foundational to their credibility and something we're explicitly protecting as part of this agreement. I'm also excited to bring their amazing comms and marketing instincts to the team. We got lots of ideas and we're very excited for this. They've helped many brands market online and because they have a strong pulse on where the industry is going, their comms and marketing ideas have really impressed. Did you see me? I can't wait to leverage their talent outside of the show to innovate on how we bring AI to the world in a way that helps people understand the full impact of this technology on their

• 5:18John Coogan?

  daily lives. TBN will sit within our strategy organization. We're pointing to Chris Lehane. Really excited to welcome Jordy, John, Dylan and the broader team. And here's a statement from you. Do you want to read this? What did you say?

• 5:30Jordi Hays?

  Over the past year, we've had a front row seat, not just to OpenAI, but to the entire ecosystem, covering the daily news announcements and launches in real time. While we've been critical of the industry at times, after getting to know Sam, EG and the OpenAI team, what stood out the most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right. Moving from commentary to real impact and how this technology is distributed and understood globally is incredibly important to us.

• 5:55John Coogan?

  I contextualize it a little bit more shared. You know, a lot of people are like, is this an April Fool's joke? I've been saying expect the unexpected. This is a plot twist. I'll give you that. It was unexpected. It was unexpected to me, but I'm really happy about it. And when I reflect on my career, it's, I think it makes a lot of sense and I can walk you through some of my career and my experience with OpenAI and with Sam Altman. I've known Sam for maybe 13 years. He invested in my first company in 2013 and then we got in a really serious log jam during a financing and I wrote him an email. I told this story in Bloomberg a couple of years ago. I wrote him an email and said like, hey, like this is getting really rough. I'm a first time founder. I don't know if we're going to be able to get this done. And he called me and we hopped on the phone for like five minutes

• 6:38John Coogan?

  and he was able to completely resolve everything and everyone walked out of the deal feeling pretty good. And so that always left this impression on me that like he was founder friendly. Obviously he didn't, in this particular case, it was to my benefit, not particularly to his benefit, the way the deals, the way the deal like wound out. And he was just a great add, a great addition to the, to the negotiation and really.

• 7:02Jordi Hays?

  And you were very young at the time. You were just a wee lad.

• 7:05John Coogan?

  I was.

• 7:06Jordi Hays?

  You were about 23, 24, something in that range.

• 7:09John Coogan?

  And then when I took my second company through Y C, he was president at the time. And then when I joined Founders Fund, the very first deal that I saw in motion at Founders Fund was the post Chat G P T round in Open A I in late twenty twenty two, early twenty twenty three. And so I sort of had this like front row seat to all of this. And then, once we actually started growing T B P N, he was one of the first people that I texted to, you know, say, hey, do you want to come on the show? And he was the first lab lead to come on the show. And we're excited to continue having him on the show, hopefully have other lab leads on the show, have other people from all over the industry. And just generally, I think that when I was at Founders Fund, I was not particularly in the weeds of intra-venture capital fights.

• 7:54John Coogan?

  I was much more interested in the conversation around technological stagnation, not funding companies, not making great companies happen. I never was in a situation where I was like, oh, like if a different VC firm backs a great company, that's bad, you know? And I think that's the same philosophy that I have always taken forward and will continue to believe in, which is that the American A I industry is the most important thing, and that will continue to be the case. And I'm excited for all the different competition and everything that's happening in the industry to to continue and push further. Jordy, did you have anything else to say?

• 8:34Jordi Hays?

  I just wanted to say some thank yous because a lot of people have been a part of this journey to date. It's been, I think, something like, let me do the math here. Four hundred and ninety six days, roughly sixteen months, since we put out the first episode.

• 8:50John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Jordi Hays?

  It was just the two of us and Ben, sitting in a room, couple cameras, a couple microphones. And I will just say, I didn't know this special of a business relationship was possible.

• 9:02John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Jordi Hays?

  Between you and me.

• 9:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Jordi Hays?

  Like, I think, like, if you look back on that almost five hundred days.

• 9:10Jordi Hays?

  We've had disagreements around strategy or approaches or things like that, but we have like almost universally stayed perfectly aligned on everything that matters every single day, every step of the way. And I think that's somewhat of a miracle, given that we went into this not really knowing what it would become and

• 9:27John Coogan?

  Yeah, we did like one side project together and it took like eight months and it was like not, it was like successful, but it was not like, oh yeah, like, okay, we were, we were working together daily for months, you know?

• 9:39Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 9:39John Coogan?

  It was a lot of just, just jumping and leap of faith, right?

• 9:44Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, and I think we've got this question so many times, like, do you guys get sick of each other? You know, you just have to talk to each other for three hours a day? And like, I've said this before, I'll say it again. And it is actually hilarious, the second that we leave the office, we're, we both get in the car, we call each other, we end up talking for like another hour on the way home. And so it's just been, it's been the privilege of, of a lifetime to just build this business with you and the whole team. The team has been absolutely incredible.

• 10:17John Coogan?

  It's been really hard.

• 10:19Jordi Hays?

  You guys are all truly amazing. And this very much is a, this very much is a team, like a team sport, like business is a team sport, but this is like a live team sport. We come in here every single day and the show doesn't happen if we don't all come in and, and make it happen. And so the consistency of the team has been just incredible. And watching everyone's individual talents just flourish has been incredible. A lot of people came into this, you know, having done a thing or two in the past, but learning new things. Brandon has been absolutely incredible, just an absolute rock in the organization.

• 11:02Jordi Hays?

  Brandon, if you're not familiar, writes, writes our newsletter every day and is just remarkably consistent and has like, you know, helped us shape our editorial approach and it's been incredible. Dylan, who joined us, I guess technically Q4 of last year, you know, I'd worked with him at my last company, but is truly, truly one of a kind, remarkable. I never want to, I never want to do business without him. And he has just done such an exceptional job working off air. It's like, you know, challenging when you're building a company and you're also having to put on a live performance for three hours every day.

• 11:44John Coogan?

  And he wrote the newsletter yesterday.

• 11:45Jordi Hays?

  That's true.

• 11:46John Coogan?

  The op ed, he wrote the op ed.

• 11:48Jordi Hays?

  Ben, Ben, who's been here since.

• 11:51John Coogan?

  Since before TBPN, he was working with me on my YouTube channel. When did we start working together?

• 11:56Jordi Hays?

  I was here before Jordy.

• 11:57John Coogan?

  Yeah. Maybe like, wait, mid 2024, maybe something like that.

• 12:03Jordi Hays?

  Sounds right.

• 12:04John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Jordi Hays?

  I just find videos.

• 12:05John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, we traveled a lot, a lot of Pelican cases.

• 12:09Jordi Hays?

  No, but it's been, it's been absolutely incredible to watch you grow from, from an extremely talented individual into a very capable and talented manager and, and building out a team of people that are so hardworking and wonderful. And, you know, Michael, Scott, Jackson, you guys, you know, are so, you know, such a joy to, to work with, even though what we do is, is not easy and it's changing, you know, day to day. To all the guests, seriously, it's been, it's been so much fun. Like, if you went back and rewound to the beginning of, of the show to, we, we started with no guests.

• 12:54Jordi Hays?

  We did something like 50 episodes without any guests. We thought that, there was a time that we thought we would just do that forever. Cause that was the only thing that was, you know, really unique about the show.

• 13:06John Coogan?

  Like, that's the reason I started creating content in 2020. Because it was during COVID, there were no events, there were no places to meet other founders, meet other business people. I wasn't thinking of it as like a media business. I was thinking of it as like a way to just have conversations and meet other people who are building companies. And now we get to do that all day long, which is just a dream come true.

• 13:27Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, so, so many, so many guests have turned into, to dear friends.

• 13:31John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Jordi Hays?

  You know, the, the Joe Weisenthal's, the Dylan Patel's. There's, there's really too many to list, but we will have you all. Back on the show and I can't wait. To everybody that's tuned in, whether you've watched the RSS feed, the live show, the clips, the newsletter. Laughed at a card. We've strived to create the right product regardless of how much time you have. If you have two minutes a day to read the newsletter, great. If you've got five minutes to watch some clips, if you want to watch the entire podcast, if you want to watch Diet TBPN, The Daily Cut Down, thank you. Thank you for tuning in. And fortunately, pretty much everything is going to stay exactly the same.

• 14:16Jordi Hays?

  Tyler? To our one and only Tyler.

• 14:21Jordi Hays?

  Tyler, you are truly, truly incredible. One of the brightest young people I've ever, I've ever worked with and you have such a bright future. We always, we always, we always knew that, I've felt from the very beginning that you would go on to start your own company and we cherish every single minute that we have with you. And we're going to do our very best to retain you for decades, but thank you for everything you've brought to the show, everything you've built Tyler. If you're just tuning in now, has built all of the internal software that we use to run the show. It's insane, the stuff.

• 15:00Jordi Hays?

  It is a fully custom content management system, CRM. It helps us edit all of our videos, is the backbone of the show. It's a tool that the entire team uses on a daily basis and truly the show would not be possible without it. And yeah, your contributions on air as well. It's so much fun to be able to cut over to you. And so it is with great honor that I give you this soundboard.

• 15:40Jordi Hays?

  And our sponsors.

• 15:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Jordi Hays?

  We can start with with the Ramp team, Eric, Eric Kareem, and the whole, the whole team over there has just been incredible. They allowed us, you know, at the, at the beginning, sorry, the end of 2024, when we had started doing the show, we really loved it. They were, they committed to sponsoring the show for a year, and that allowed us to do, to do so much in terms of investing in all, in all the equipment that we use, hiring people. They, they made it possible and have been truly, truly exceptional partners. And, and, you know, watching Ramp's growth over the last, over the last couple of years has just been phenomenal, and they deserve all the, all the success. And every other

• 16:27Jordi Hays?

  sponsor that is, that has been a part of this.

• 16:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Jordi Hays?

  Truly. Shout out Nick as well.

• 16:32John Coogan?

  Oh, did he not get one?

• 16:33Jordi Hays?

  Oh, we gotta get a direct shout out for Nick.

• 16:35John Coogan?

  We gotta get a direct shout out for Nick.

• 16:37Jordi Hays?

  We don't know, we don't know what to call Nick. He's a, he's a producer.

• 16:39John Coogan?

  We can't give his name on air because he'll get 10 times more emails. He, he, the lineup every day is, is crafted by Nick. He is our liaison to 99% of the guests that come on the show. Sometimes it starts with an interaction over X or a text message, or there's other intermediaries involved. There's a lot that goes into actually getting someone into the waiting room, into the show, making sure that they understand how the show will work. It's sort of like, you know, you're hot dropping into this live show that's new for a lot of people, and Nick does a great job communicating and parsing all the noise to understand what the best news of the day is, how we can contextualize it best with

• 17:21John Coogan?

  the, with the optimal guests. And he's done a fantastic job, and we'll continue.

• 17:27Jordi Hays?

  It's an honor.

• 17:28John Coogan?

  It's an honor.

• 17:29Jordi Hays?

  David Senra?

• 17:30John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Jordi Hays?

  Uh, one of a kind.

• 17:33John Coogan?

  He literally inspired Mr. Greer.

• 17:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, David was our very first listener that I'm aware of.

• 17:39John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:39Jordi Hays?

  He gets sent a lot of.

• 17:40John Coogan?

  We sent him a link in a Google Drive.

• 17:42Jordi Hays?

  And he listened and from that first episode, even though it was very scrappy, he said, "Take this, uh, take this, you know, a hundred times more seriously."

• 17:53John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Jordi Hays?

  Than, uh, than you, than you are right now. And we did. And it's, it's the best advice that I've ever gotten. And he has been.

• 18:00John Coogan?

  And we have a picture of him.

• 18:01Jordi Hays?

  We have a picture, picture of him here.

• 18:03John Coogan?

  We couldn't print it full size. And it appears that it was printed on a black and white photo printer, but it's a black and white photo and he's a black and white brand. So, uh, thank you to David Senra, who's been, uh, the podcast godfather, truly.

• 18:16Jordi Hays?

  And the gong.

• 18:17John Coogan?

  But you have the gong.

• 18:17Jordi Hays?

  The gong.

• 18:18John Coogan?

  The chat is asking us to hit the gong. We have to, we have to.

• 18:27Jordi Hays?

  The gong will remain.

• 18:28John Coogan?

  The gong will remain. Uh, Will Monitis has already chimed in with his take. He says, "Many guy, many people are saying we're in the deal guy yoga. Many are saying, and it means a lot that Will Monitis, the only, he is the only guest who has, uh, co-hosted a full show from start to finish with us. And if you want to go back in the archives, you can, uh, you can watch that episode. It's a wild one. It was in a hotel room. We had yet to figure out the remote shows fully. Uh, the team worked really hard to make that one happen and.

• 18:59Jordi Hays?

  Very chaotic.

• 19:00John Coogan?

  It was a good time. Very chaotic. Uh, is there anything else to say about OpenAI? I mean, of course, we'll be in conversation with you, uh, forever, you know, uh, anytime on the show, you're welcome to leave a comment or chat in the, uh, chat is asking, "Where is Will Monitis right now?" I don't know. Probably, uh, sailing a boat. I don't know.

• 19:17Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's an, it's an honor.

• 19:20John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Jordi Hays?

  Uh, to, to partner with OpenAI and, and every single person on the team that we've had the pleasure of meeting, we've been, uh, impressed by. They are, uh, ridiculously talented and, uh, every single person is committed to getting, getting this AI thing right. So. We're incredibly excited.

• 19:39John Coogan?

  Great. Well, let's move on to the Artemis 2 pictures and images and news. Very, very exciting. It made the front of the Wall Street Journal. And NASA aims to orbit moon for first, for first time since 72 to boldly go. The crew of NASA.

• 19:54Jordi Hays?

  Chad is asking, is that three Diet Cokes? Yes.

• 19:57John Coogan?

  I got four now.

• 19:58Jordi Hays?

  You gotta thank, you gotta thank Diet Coke.

• 20:00John Coogan?

  Thank you to the Coca-Cola Corporation for making this possible.

• 20:03Jordi Hays?

  Thank you to the, the Huberman team.

• 20:06John Coogan?

  The Matteina.

• 20:06Jordi Hays?

  For the, for the Matteina, Yerba Mate's, the podcast in a can.

• 20:10John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 20:11Jordi Hays?

  Wouldn't be possible without you guys.

• 20:12John Coogan?

  And thank you to Taylors and suitmakers. There's a lot of people that make this possible. The horse, the prop department. There's a million things here. It's been, it's been a great time. So, uh, the crew of NASA Artemis 2, head to Cape Canaveral launch Wednesday, uh, launch pad Wednesday for the first human spaceflight to the moon in half a century. John Kraus hosted a incredible photo. Is he, is he someone who actually, yeah, he, he, he, uh,

• 20:41Jordi Hays?

  Special comms assistant.

• 20:43John Coogan?

  Special comms assistant. He actually goes to the launches and brings special photography gear to get the best possible photos. And man, did he deliver with this one. Uh, what an incredible moment. We talked about it a little bit. There's an article on the watches of NASA Artemis 2.

• 21:00Jordi Hays?

  John, we have to thank our lovely wives.

• 21:02John Coogan?

  Of course.

• 21:04Jordi Hays?

  How could we not?

• 21:04John Coogan?

  Our families. Did you get a text?

• 21:07Jordi Hays?

  Maybe.

• 21:10Jordi Hays?

  We, we, we don't talk about them a lot on the show.

• 21:13John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 21:13Jordi Hays?

  This is a show about technology and business, but they have been, uh, they're the back, they're the, truly the backbones of the show and have put up with, um,

• 21:22John Coogan?

  A lot of travel.

• 21:23Jordi Hays?

  I think like a lot of travel.

• 21:23John Coogan?

  Late nights, a lot of phone calls.

• 21:24Jordi Hays?

  Incredible hours.

• 21:25John Coogan?

  A lot of early mornings.

• 21:28Jordi Hays?

  A lot of early mornings. I think out of the last, out of every single day that we've done the show, I haven't, I've, I've left the house past, 6:00 AM, maybe twice, right? Uh, it's been, it's been a long, uh, it's been a long road and, and the good news ladies is it's, uh, nothing's going to change.

• 21:48Jordi Hays?

  No, thank you to both of you for supporting us and allowing us to do what we do.

• 21:55John Coogan?

  Can we pull up this picture, Ben, of in the production chat of the first episode that we recorded in the Jonathan Club in downtown showing a little behind.

• 22:04Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I put it up earlier.

• 22:05John Coogan?

  Oh, you did, yeah, behind the scenes. This is, yeah, such a, such a wild time.

• 22:09Jordi Hays?

  Remember that?

• 22:10John Coogan?

  Yeah, remember that, Jordan?

• 22:11Jordi Hays?

  Suitless.

• 22:12John Coogan?

  Suitless.

• 22:12Jordi Hays?

  We had the flag.

• 22:13John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Jordi Hays?

  But no suits.

• 22:16John Coogan?

  It looked, it looked, it looked pretty good on camera. I was, I was happy with the way it came out, but. Yesterday, the long awaited Artemis 2 mission took to the stars en route to the moon for the first such manned mission since 1972. It's members.

• 22:35Jordi Hays?

  The chat asked for a flashbang. We had to reply.

• 22:37John Coogan?

  Oh, okay, flash out, okay, that's good. Yes. The flashbang has been a highlight for sure, both literally.

• 22:44Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, the sound, the soundboard, it's truly, it's truly a character on the show.

• 22:48John Coogan?

  And I have some too now. Its members all had Omega Speedmaster X33 models strapped to their flight suits. Danny Milton just wrote a full article on the site now detailing the watches worn on the wrists of the four astronauts throughout their time as part of this mission. Watches have a longstanding history with spaceflight, most notably through the Omega Speedmaster Moon Watch, but there are countless others that have cemented their place in the cosmos.

• 23:13Jordi Hays?

  So we can pull up this video now of the astronauts working on what looks like some type of tablet. So here he is typing in.

• 23:24John Coogan?

  Most secure password known to man. What is that, 9393 or something? 393?

• 23:30Jordi Hays?

  3939.

• 23:30John Coogan?

  9393.

• 23:31Jordi Hays?

  Powerful, powerful.

• 23:33John Coogan?

  We're going back to the moon. Apparently that video we played yesterday was a little bit of fake news. The, the, the, the young man, the adolescent who swears and says, "We're going to the effin' moon." He was, he, the, the real line, I believe, in the community note is that, he says, "We're going to the frickin'..."

• 23:53Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:53John Coogan?

  And it had been altered to add the actual F-word.

• 23:57Jordi Hays?

  Oh, interesting.

• 23:57John Coogan?

  But the sentiment is still the same.

• 23:59Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 24:00John Coogan?

  It's very exciting, very inspirational.

• 24:01Jordi Hays?

  And Jared Isaacman on launch day says, oh, this kid is definitely getting it back in NASA gear.

• 24:06John Coogan?

  That's great.

• 24:06Jordi Hays?

  Very cool.

• 24:07John Coogan?

  There is some, there are some wrinkles with the launch, right? Fortunately, nothing disastrous or catastrophic or anything, but the good news is that we're on our way back to the moon. The bad news is that the toilet's broken, apparently. And I believe this is from the live blog from the New York Times. The NASA Associate Minister said there is a controller issue with a toilet on the Orion capsule, and it would take a few hours to troubleshoot. We're just getting started, he said, when addressing that and some other glitches with the spacecraft. The spirit of Apollo 10 lives on, they said, 135. They told us that, here's another.

• 24:40John Coogan?

  It seems like this is not the first time that this has happened, but we're hoping for the best here.

• 24:45Jordi Hays?

  Sounds like there were some other issues with Outlook as well. We can pull up this video from Tom Warren.

• 24:59John Coogan?

  Yeah, go for it. And then I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working. If you want to remote in and check. Why do you have two? Like web and desktop? Or you think it's like two separate desktop installations?

• 25:13Jordi Hays?

  Honestly, this is the best possible failure scenario is Outlook and not the rocket itself.

• 25:20John Coogan?

  Can they buy?

• 25:21Jordi Hays?

  I think it's a good outcome. There were so many amazing images coming out yesterday.

• 25:25John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Jordi Hays?

  Peyton Alexander says, this is the real reward for Artemis. This is who we are actually doing this for. They will grow up knowing they can one day work in their country's bases on the moon and Mars. We are not just abstractly hoping for a better world for them. We are going there.

• 25:40Jordi Hays?

  And two kids here watching the launch from Orlando. Just beautiful.

• 25:45John Coogan?

  Yeah, my five-year-old said it was boring, which is not what you want to hear. But we'll have to give some more context to him about how big of a deal it is. He was like, yeah, I don't know, maybe he wants more flashing lights on the screen.

• 25:58Jordi Hays?

  We were, we were driving for the actual launch.

• 26:01John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:02Jordi Hays?

  And it was so funny listening to the audio feed and sitting in traffic and just looking out at everyone.

• 26:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Jordi Hays?

  And, and realizing that it felt like the majority of the world still wasn't paying attention or, or didn't care.

• 26:15John Coogan?

  Yeah. I mean, like rockets do launch like every day now.

• 26:19Jordi Hays?

  I know SpaceX has normalized it to such a degree.

• 26:22John Coogan?

  Isn't there, isn't there some sort of subplot on the Apollo missions that by the, by the third or fourth Apollo mission, there was no, like the, the actual viewership had dropped off and like the American population had gotten.

• 26:33Jordi Hays?

  2.6 says, put subway surfers on it.

• 26:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Jordi Hays?

  On the NASA feed.

• 26:39John Coogan?

  Crazy that you actually need to, maybe need to do this. How AI helped one man and his brother build a 1.8 billion dollar company? Who needs more than two employees that when artificial intelligence can do so many corporate tasks, it's super efficient and a little bit lonely? So Aaron Griffith tells the story of Matthew Gallagher, who took just two months, $20,000 and more than a dozen artificial intelligence tools to get his startup off the ground. From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used AI to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created AI systems to analyze his business's performance and he outsourced the other stuff he couldn't do himself.

• 27:19John Coogan?

  His startup, MedV, a telehealth provider of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, got 300 customers in its first month. In its second month, it gained more than 1,000 more. In 2025, MedV's first year in business, the company generated.

• 27:33Jordi Hays?

  Full year.

• 27:34John Coogan?

  Or the first full year in business, the company generated $401 million in sales. Mr. Gallagher then hired his only.

• 27:41Jordi Hays?

  This is absolutely insane because I, as GLP-1s were starting to take off, I had, I, I remember distinctly talking with somebody that was like, I want to start a telehealth company for GLP-1s.

• 27:52John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 27:52Jordi Hays?

  And at that time, I was like, okay, there's a lot of telehealth companies that are at scale.

• 27:56John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 27:56Jordi Hays?

  And they're well aware of this.

• 27:58John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 27:58Jordi Hays?

  They will immediately introduce this product and other, you know, similar products to their customer base and it's going to be incredibly difficult to be, to be competitive. And it turns out there's just such overwhelming demand for these products. That you could come in as a new company and scale.

• 28:16John Coogan?

  Like, one year in, maybe, he hires his only employee, his younger brother Elliot. This year, they're on track to do 1.8 billion dollars in sales. A 1.8 billion dollar company with just two employees in the age of AI. It's increasingly possible, says Aaron Griffith in the New York Times. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, predicted the rise of a new breed of super efficient company in 2024. A one-person business worth 1 billion dollars would have been unimaginable without AI, he said on a podcast, and now it will happen. Now, as AI tools spread, entrepreneurs are harnessing the technology to expand their startups to an enormous scale at breathtaking speed with very few humans. Big companies, especially in tech, are getting in on the disruption too.

• 28:59John Coogan?

  Pinterest, Block, and others have cut thousands of workers in recent months, citing efficiencies enabled by AI.

• 29:04Jordi Hays?

  Does this count yet, though? Like, I feel like to be the one-person, 1 billion dollar company, you gotta be able to log into your payroll tool, and you're the only person there. And he's got his brother in there.

• 29:16John Coogan?

  Sorry, bro. Take a walk.

• 29:18Jordi Hays?

  The startup, which has not raised outside funding, also has no official valuation, but many highly valued tech companies can only dream of hitting 1 billion in revenue with so few workers. Medvee is also profitable. It is great and important if you're bootstrapped.

• 29:33John Coogan?

  Is this a wrapper company? It's like a GLP-1 wrapper, but it's AI-enabled, but it's not wrapping the AI foundation model. It's like using the tool to wrap another industry and just create the efficiency between the manufacturer and the actual distribution. It really is remarkable that they were able to hoover up so much revenue in such a competitive space, because you would assume that the other telehealth providers would have significant ad operations and that the margins on customer acquisition would be very, very tricky to crack, but he must have found some unique insight into how to distribute the product, get actual people to the website, because the AI certainly can build the website and

• 30:16John Coogan?

  write the copy, but it can't necessarily get people to show up and actually put down their hard-earned cash for the product.

• 30:24Jordi Hays?

  I texted my dad the news. He says, "Congratulations. That's so exciting. Thanks for letting me know. Talk to you soon. Have a great day." Thank you. Thank you, Dad.

• 30:39John Coogan?

  Oh, it's amazing. Well, if you've texted me, or you've called me in the last three hours, there's a good chance that I might respond to you in the next couple hours. Leave us five stars in Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe to our newsletter, tbp.com. Everything is the same. We will see you on Monday.

• 30:55Jordi Hays?

  The fun week. Next week, five shows, 15 hours. Let's be honest, it'll probably be more like 17, or 18, or 19. We'll see.

• 31:05John Coogan?

  Who knows? The world is our oyster. And thank you for being with us along the journey. We appreciate you.

• 31:11Jordi Hays?

  Let's get one more gong hit, John.

• 31:13John Coogan?

  One more gong hit.

• 31:14Jordi Hays?

  It's been an honor.

• 31:15John Coogan?

  A gong hit.

• 31:20John Coogan?

  Goodbye, everyone.

• 31:22Jordi Hays?

  See you soon.

• 31:23John Coogan?

  We'll see you tomorrow.