100 Billion Bezos, SMCI Fully Sends GPUs (To China), Reddit CEO Joins | R.F. Kenmore, Mitch Lee, Bucky Moore, Steve Huffman, Quaid Walker, Ankur Jain, Michael Kratsios

Sign up for TBPN’s daily newsletter at TBPN.com (01:13) - 100 Billion Bezos (21:29) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions (26:13) - SMCI Fully Sends GPUs (To China) (52:57) - WSJ Mansion Section (01:04:09) - RF, a menswear industry veteran with over a decade of experience, discusses the resurgence of the Upper East Side in New York City, noting its renewed popularity among residents. He emphasizes the importance of community in the success of modern menswear brands and highlights Buck Mason's expansion as a prime example. Additionally, RF shares his appreciation for hotel bars, describing them as offering a more curated and elevated experience compared to regular bars. (01:19:42) - Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boat Company, discusses the company's mission to electrify the marine industry by developing high-performance electric boats that offer enhanced user experiences, such as reduced noise and instant torque. He highlights the advantages of electric boats, including lower operating costs, minimal maintenance, and environmental benefits, while noting that existing marina infrastructure is well-suited for charging these vessels. Additionally, Lee shares Arc's expansion into commercial and defense sectors, mentioning a $160 million deal to produce hybrid-electric tugboats, and emphasizes the company's commitment to modernizing maritime technology through electrification. (01:30:10) - Bucky Moore, a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, discusses the firm's recent $9 billion fund closure and its focus on AI investments, particularly in infrastructure and application layers. He highlights the challenges for new AI labs in reaching the frontier due to increased competition and resource requirements, emphasizing the importance of deep technical risk-taking and high-conviction bets. Moore also addresses the evolving dynamics between AI model providers and application developers, noting the necessity for application companies to establish defensible positions through unique user data and specialized solutions. (02:01:16) - Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, discusses the company's 2026 focus on enhancing the experience for new users by simplifying the platform's interface and leveraging machine learning to deliver personalized content. He emphasizes the importance of users discovering communities that resonate with them to ensure long-term engagement. Additionally, Huffman addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by AI, highlighting its role in content moderation and the ongoing societal calibration regarding AI-generated content. (02:29:56) - Quaid Walker, a guest from Basel, discusses the watch industry's current trends, including the rising interest in independent brands like F. P. Journe, and the impact of tariffs on watch prices and authenticity. He also offers recommendations for tech professionals entering the watch world, suggesting models like the Tudor Black Bay and vintage Rolex Submariners. Additionally, Walker touches on the challenges of detecting counterfeit watches and the role of AI in the authentication process. (02:50:48) - Ankur Jain, founder and CEO of Bilt Rewards, discusses the company's expansion into hospitality for restaurants, enabling seamless guest experiences and allowing patrons to charge meals directly to their apartments. He explains Bilt's evolution from a consumer-focused credit card offering to a primarily B2B platform, providing hospitality software to property managers and connecting residents with local merchants. Jain also addresses the challenges of integrating into the housing market, emphasizing the importance of building momentum through consumer engagement before partnering with property managers. (03:01:29) - Michael Kratsios, the 13th Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, discusses the recent unveiling of a national AI legislation framework aimed at establishing a unified standard to replace the existing patchwork of state regulations, thereby easing compliance for startups. The framework also addresses child safety, energy consumption concerns related to data centers, and the need for parental control over children's online experiences. Kratsios emphasizes the importance of bipartisan support to codify these initiatives into law within the current calendar year. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jordi Hays?

  You're watching TVP.

• 0:02John Coogan?

  Today's Friday, March 20th, 2026. We are live from the TVP in UltraDome, the Temple of Technology, the Fortress of Finance, the Capital of Capital. Let me tell you about ramp.com. Time is money. Save both. Easy to use corporate cards, built K, accounting and a whole lot more all in one place. We have a massive show, two in-person guests today. Let's pull up the linear lineup. Linear, of course, is a system for modern software development enterprise. 70% of enterprise workspaces on linear are using agents. We have RF Ken Moore from the menswear industry insider.

• 0:33Jordi Hays?

  No, he just is a menswear.

• 0:35John Coogan?

  He's an insider of the menswear industry. Mitch Lee from Arc Boats is coming on. Bucky Moore's coming in person from Lightspeed. Steve Huffman, the co-founder and CEO of Reddit, coming on. Then Quaid from Bezel, who you know and love. He's been on the show many times. Ankur Jane from Built's coming on to talk about credit cards, consumer cards, all the fintech stuff he's working on. And then Michael Kratsios from the White House. He's the science and technology advisor is coming on to talk about the new policy proposals that the White House has put forward around artificial intelligence. But first, I wanted to chat more about the breaking news from yesterday. Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise $100 billion for an AI manufacturing fund.

• 1:18John Coogan?

  There was a funny post that was like, he has $200 billion. Why does he need to raise more money?

• 1:24Jordi Hays?

  No conviction? No conviction?

• 1:26John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27Jordi Hays?

  No, it was funny. It was like, it definitely this broke containment and got into kind of the anti-capitalist part of X. And they were like, wait, why are you asking people for money? You have all the money.

• 1:39John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40Jordi Hays?

  But of course.

• 1:42John Coogan?

  But of course, he.

• 1:44Jordi Hays?

  He wants to let other people in on the action.

• 1:46John Coogan?

  Well, I do wonder what his like GP commit will be.

• 1:49Jordi Hays?

  That's what I was saying yesterday. I was like, I would expect him to be like, yeah, I'm good for 20.

• 1:53John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 1:54John Coogan?

  20 or 30 or something like that. I don't know. Maybe he'll go even longer. But in general, I think the, I think the idea of going around the globe, because he's an international person at this point, hoovering up money from all over different sovereign wealth funds and then deploying that to help rebuild the American manufacturing base is a good thing. I wrote about it today in the newsletter, tbpn.com, and I also tried to, you know, do some searching and think about like, what do you actually buy for $100 billion? What does a portfolio look like if it's a private equity style roll up? If you're just taking out the market caps and you're sort of assuming the debt and continue to operate the business, but then bring more efficiency to bear?

• 2:35Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:36John Coogan?

  What are some of the top options?

• 2:38Jordi Hays?

  I saw-

• 2:39John Coogan?

  What do some of the options look like?

• 2:40Jordi Hays?

  The other thing is I saw a very viral post about someone that seemingly read the headline and thought, like, don't you have enough money already?

• 2:50John Coogan?

  Oh, it's for him.

• 2:51Jordi Hays?

  Why do you have to buy all these companies and fire?

• 2:53John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:54Jordi Hays?

  Like, they saw automation and they just assumed, like, job loss?

• 2:56John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:57Jordi Hays?

  And when I look at this, I'm like, okay, if he's successful, we will, you know, create, we will actually start adding-

• 3:04John Coogan?

  Jobs.

• 3:05Jordi Hays?

  -a bunch of new manufacturing jobs, which we've been shedding-

• 3:07John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 3:08Jordi Hays?

  -over the last year.

• 3:09John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So headline number's funny. If he had done 99 billion or 101 billion, I don't think people would be making as many SoftBank comparisons, but of course, as soon as you hear $100 billion for a mega fund, you instantly-

• 3:25Jordi Hays?

  You think this guy's got vision.

• 3:26John Coogan?

  He's got vision. It's a vision fund for America. I like the idea of an American SoftBank, of an American vision fund, so I'm generally pro. And, but of course, people are gonna make comparisons to SoftBank, which has had some huge winners and a few black eyes. Moss is a high vol guy. He's been the world's richest man briefly during the dot-com boom. It was reported that he was worth more than Bill Gates. It was pretty temporary, unclear exactly how much, and of course, there was no liquidity at the time. But he's also held the crown for the man who lost the most money in human history after losing $76 billion in two years. You're supposed to see the wah-wah for that, but he made it all back.

• 4:05Jordi Hays?

  I was preemptively hitting it.

• 4:07John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, he did make, he did make it all back. He's made almost $100 billion twice. I think maybe there was a moment when he had, he had the title of making $100 billion twice, one on Alibaba and then the second one on ARM. He's made money on Nvidia and lots of other things.

• 4:23John Coogan?

  But the idea of an American soft bank, especially one focused on revitalizing American manufacturing, I like that idea. There are a million reasons why this is important project, job creation, economic independence, national security, et cetera. And you might just get more cool stuff. Like as manufacturing gets cheaper, like the tools that you use, the cars that you drive, the washing machine in your home, the tires on your cars, all these different things get better, not just cheaper, but actually unlock new capabilities and new things that people enjoy. And so I'm in favor of more manufacturing, more, more economic development, basically. I don't think the project is done by any means. And so the question about like, you know, Jeff Bezos' role, like, he's a great operator, and I

• 5:08John Coogan?

  think he's the right person to take the reins and actually deliver here. So like Masa, Jeff Bezos has been through the ups and downs of the dot com boom and bust. At one point, Jeff Bezos lost 85% of his net worth in like, two years.

• 5:22Jordi Hays?

  But he made it back.

• 5:23John Coogan?

  He did make it back, and more. He was worth like, eight or nine billion, and got down to his last one billion, basically, because of the stock drop in Amazon. But he built it. But he not only kept Amazon alive, which I think everyone knows that, you know, Amazon went up during the dot com bubble, and then crashed, and then built back up. But he also kept Blue Origin alive during that time. Because he's founded Blue Origin in 2000.

• 5:47Jordi Hays?

  Wow.

• 5:47John Coogan?

  Before the crash.

• 5:48Jordi Hays?

  I didn't know that.

• 5:48John Coogan?

  Yeah, before the crash. So he was...

• 5:51Jordi Hays?

  Was it before SpaceX?

• 5:52John Coogan?

  Yeah, before SpaceX.

• 5:54Jordi Hays?

  Whoa.

• 5:54John Coogan?

  Yeah. So...

• 5:55Jordi Hays?

  Because I, I, for some reason, I assume, I assume that Blue Origin was just memetic with Elon.

• 6:01John Coogan?

  No, no, no. He did it earlier.

• 6:03Jordi Hays?

  Wow.

• 6:03John Coogan?

  And so he, so he kept Blue Origin alive. And can you imagine how stressful it is? You're like, okay, I'm worth 10 billion. Certainly, I can have a little side project as a treat. And you're like, okay, I just lost 85% of my money.

• 6:16Jordi Hays?

  I deserve, I deserve a, I deserve a side project that loses

• 6:20John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 6:21Jordi Hays?

  20 million a month.

• 6:22John Coogan?

  Exactly, yeah. I don't know how much they really, but like, but that doesn't seem unreasonable. But he was able to keep it going. Uh, of course, Blue Origin was a slow story all the way up until like last year when they landed New Glenn. Um, and, uh, and so, uh, he kept both alive and he's never given up on the project, Blue Origin, that always has felt behind SpaceX for to the two decades that it's been operating, but is now sort of unlocking new capabilities and is

• 6:47Jordi Hays?

  They were going turtle mode.

• 6:49John Coogan?

  Yeah, turtle mode for sure, but it's working. Uh, and so, like regardless of the fact that, uh, you know, SpaceX is still ahead of Blue Origin, you have to give him credit for like operating that company efficiently and actually delivering a product that we all saw go up and come back. And so like the rockets did go up and land and come back and he's delivered people to space and back. Uh, and so he's, he's, he's like achieved the goal and not lost all the money and not put the company in jeopardy. And so like clearly there's some operational That's a narrative violation. It is a narrative violation. What makes Bezos uniquely equipped to take on this type of project is the nature of his business over the last few decades.

• 7:31John Coogan?

  So he's never really had the zero marginal cost luxuries afforded to other pure play internet founders. You think about Mark Zuckerberg, it's always been

• 7:40Jordi Hays?

  Except with his ads business.

• 7:42John Coogan?

  Yeah, he has that now, but that's very new. Um,

• 7:45Jordi Hays?

  New, but a very real contributor.

• 7:48John Coogan?

  Yeah, a very real contributor now, but even, even then, uh, it is much thinner margin than a Google or a Meta. And it always has been because they've always operated in the real world and they've been competing with Walmart and Barnes and Noble and, and Romans and all the other

• 8:03Jordi Hays?

  You always said the big gross margins scare me.

• 8:06John Coogan?

  Yeah, he's always had thin, thin margins until AWS really. AWS was the first like, okay, this is like a monster cash cow. And even AWS doesn't have 80% gross margins, you know, it is, it is, uh, it is a cash cow, but, uh, it's a different shape. And of course you go back to the Jeff Bezos lore and he had the Door Desk and the whole business was very scrappy for a long time. Uh, and um, Amazon's just always interfaced with the physical world. So it's been, even though it's a software company and a tech company, it's always interfaced with the physical world. Uh, and they've had to focus on operational efficiencies to scale. So in 2012, Amazon bought Kiva Systems, which turned into Amazon Robotics. And that's a big risk to buying a big company.

• 8:48John Coogan?

  And we think that, you know, if this turns into, if this hundred billion dollar fund turns into sort of a private equity roll up, you're going to ask the question, can Bezos buy a company for one billion, five billion, 10 billion, 50 billion? Who knows? Um, and operate it and scale it and actually continue to deliver value. And he certainly did that with Kiva Robotics, which turned into Amazon Robotics, which delivered over a million robots that are deployed across the operations network. So from fulfillment centers, warehouse automation, inventory flow, last mile delivery, all of these require tight integration between hardware and software to run smoothly. Bezos clearly loves this stuff and you can actually see it. When you look at his face, whenever he gives a tour of an Amazon warehouse or an or Blue Origin facility, he's just beaming.

• 9:32John Coogan?

  And uh, he's absolutely obsessed with, with this technology and, and the physical world. And so the question I had was like, what should he buy?

• 9:42Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. The other, the other thing is like, you know, seeing all the different volume across Amazon and being like, wow, it'd be pretty convenient if that was made here or this was made here, or at least the, some of the components were made here. And it wasn't, you know, you didn't just have assembly here.

• 9:57John Coogan?

  Yeah. I mean, yeah, there, there is an, I, I hadn't considered that narrative, but there is a different flow where uh, you're.

• 10:03Jordi Hays?

  He's not sitting there being like, great. I love that so much of our volume is having to be shipped or flown across the ocean.

• 10:09John Coogan?

  Ton of that. Yeah. And then also he's seen attacks from Timu and Shein and Alibaba and AliExpress. And a whole bunch of direct from manufacturing plant to customer. And how do you respond to that? Maybe getting into the deeper in the supply chain makes sense. Although I'm not entirely sure that there, there's so little reporting at this point. It's, it's, it's the only line is that. He'll be buying manufacturing companies. So there's a lot in the supply chain. So I wanted to dig through some stuff that could potentially be in the crosshairs for Bezos. The first is Lear. They manufacture seats and electronic systems for the automotive industry. And a lot of these companies have huge revenues and small market cap.

• 10:53John Coogan?

  So Lear did 23 billion in 2025 revenue. The market cap is around 5 billion. And so the business is operationally complex. I mean, on a P E ratio, it trades at like, I think, 13 price earnings. And so like you have these high revenues because you're in the manufacturing business, but you're low margin.

• 11:14Jordi Hays?

  But yeah, and this has been some of the concern around VCs, investing in manufacturing businesses.

• 11:19John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 11:19Jordi Hays?

  And and just a general concern that, you know, they might today be getting valued on a revenue multiple.

• 11:25John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 11:26Jordi Hays?

  But as they get to the public markets, people will expect them to be valued on on earnings.

• 11:31John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Jordi Hays?

  And that is very different story.

• 11:33John Coogan?

  Yeah. Lear, interestingly, not the maker of the Lear Jet, which sold to the Gates company, which is not affiliated with Bill Gates. I was like, is there a link here? But there's not. But Lear Jet and Lear are two different companies, although they both make physical things. But there's a there's an opportunity here for the Bezos thesis that we are sort of, you know, gesturing towards. The business is operationally complex and AI can be applied across plants, scheduling, supplier forecasting, visual inspections and more. This whole thesis of like the colors get less blue. There's upskilling that happens in the facility and you're able to produce more at scale. Borg Warner is another example.

• 12:15John Coogan?

  They're a scaled auto supplier, 14 billion in 2025 revenue. Market cap is 9.5 billion. They're more focused on propulsion and power related systems. They literally make. Turbo chargers for internal combustion engines, although they've they have shifted their business a lot to be focused on electronic components, both in terms of making battery packs, motors, but they're actually already getting into selling turbine generator systems for data centers. They're part of the AI boom already. And there's more opportunities to grow into different industrial power applications. Hexcel is another company. They're a leading producer of carbon fiber reinforcements and resin systems for aerospace. They're

• 12:59John Coogan?

  guiding to 2 billion in revenue, but the market cap is 5 billion. So a little pricier on a price to sales ratio. Here's a fun one. Goodyear. Not only do you get blimps, which has got to be important if you're trying to go blimp for blimp with Sergey Brin, you just just jump to the front of the line. It's only a 1.8 billion dollar company.

• 13:20Jordi Hays?

  This revenue multiple is criminal.

• 13:21John Coogan?

  Yeah. So the market cap for Goodyear is 1.8 billion and revenue was 18 billion. So they're they're trading at a point.

• 13:30Jordi Hays?

  Somewhere out there, there's like a VC funded tire company.

• 13:34John Coogan?

  It's like 100x revenue. And they're like, we're going to go through 1,000x multiple compression over the next decade. Yes, you will. But Goodyear is sort of the classic AI for manufacturing case.

• 13:47Jordi Hays?

  They got to focus. They got to get investors thinking about their advertising blimp monopoly.

• 13:52John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 13:52Jordi Hays?

  And scaling that business.

• 13:53John Coogan?

  Yep. So quality control is really critical. There's opportunities for downtime optimization. So if you can have better systems that limit downtime, you can produce more tires. The tire market is extremely competitive. You see Chinese tires on cars more and more. And so these are thin, thin, thin margin companies. And that's why the multiple is so low. But getting Goodyear.

• 14:17Jordi Hays?

  Scariest scariest moment of my life in a car.

• 14:19John Coogan?

  Yeah, Chinese tires, old Chinese tires.

• 14:21Jordi Hays?

  Old Chinese tires.

• 14:22John Coogan?

  But but, you know, a lot of people go in, they say, I need new tires. Just give me whatever's cheapest. And so if you're competing on price and you're a low cost supplier, every dollar counts. On the bigger side, you have Rockwell Automation. I don't know if you've ever seen those videos for the Rockwell Turbo Encabulator. Have you ever seen these? We should pull this up. Let me let me find.

• 14:40Jordi Hays?

  The disc obulator?

• 14:41John Coogan?

  It's it's one of the best, like, like, you know, marketing videos. Turbo Encabulator. Let me find this. The Rockwell Retro Encabulator, I got it here. We'll, we'll, we'll watch this, it's a two-minute video. And we'll see if you can, yeah, yeah, any of these. Uh, yeah, we got these. Uh, if we can pull this up and, uh, let's, let's play.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Here at Chrysler Motors Automotive Operations, research has been proceeding to develop a line of heavy-duty transmissions that establishes new standards for reliability, durability, and quality. With customer needs as our primary focus, work is proceeding on the crudely conceived idea of an instrument that would not only supply inverse reactive current

• 15:28John Coogan?

  Oh, I think this is, I think this is, yeah, I think this is Chrysler's, like, joke. Let's play the one that I, that I shared from Rockwell. Uh, this is, this is the, the good folks at Rockwell Automation who...

• 15:38Jordi Hays?

  That was a cool video.

• 15:40John Coogan?

  Look at this.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Research has been proceeding to develop a line of automation products that establishes new standards for quality, technological leadership, and operating excellence. With customer success as our primary focus, work has been proceeding on the crudely conceived idea of an instrument that would not only provide inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal gram meters. Such an instrument comprised of dodged gears and bearings, reliance electric motors, Allen Bradley controls, and all monitored by Rockwell Software, is Rockwell Automation's Retro Encabulator.

• 16:20John Coogan?

  Retro Encabulator.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Now, basically, the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it's produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance.

• 16:35John Coogan?

  Passive interaction.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated electrolyte, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with a panametric fan.

• 16:47John Coogan?

  Panametric fan.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  The lineup consisted simply of six hydro...

• 16:49John Coogan?

  It's just like such a funny joke for electrical engineers because it's just a whole bunch of, like, slop, basically. Like, all, none of those terms mean anything. Uh, but, uh, it really, uh, I don't know.

• 17:00Jordi Hays?

  Startup, good startup launch video concept.

• 17:02John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really, I mean, it, it, it helps you, like, detect, like, are you in-group, out-group, basically? Uh, very, very fun. But, uh, they are... What? Well, were you able to clock it? Or were you like, oh, that sounds good? Yeah.

• 17:15Jordi Hays?

  I mean, it sounded silly.

• 17:16John Coogan?

  It sounds silly. So Rockwell Automation is on the bigger side, but they sit right at the intersection of factory automation, software and control. So although that video is a joke, Rockwell does, does work on, on factory automation already. So the thesis with this one is that the business is already, already dedicated to industrial automation. And so it's less of a turnaround, but it's a control point for pushing AI to thousands of other factories. So you're deeper in the supply chain. It's expensive at 40 billion, but potentially in the budget.

• 17:49Jordi Hays?

  Do you think there's a world where he just buys a Ford Motor Company?

• 17:53John Coogan?

  That would be crazy.

• 17:54Jordi Hays?

  Obviously, I mean, you wouldn't, he would have to lever up.

• 17:58John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Jordi Hays?

  But.

• 18:00John Coogan?

  What is Ford now?

• 18:00Jordi Hays?

  It's 45, but I, but I'm not, but he's not going to just drop like raise a hundred billion and then, and then buy a company for entirely with equity.

• 18:10John Coogan?

  I, I, I feel like it will be deeper in the supply chain than a brand, but I don't know. It's possible. It's possible.

• 18:17Jordi Hays?

  But he might say.

• 18:18John Coogan?

  Isn't he already a big investor in Rivian?

• 18:21Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, sure.

• 18:23John Coogan?

  So like looking deeper into that supply chain, and there's a few other car companies that have been, been involved in. I just don't know that there's, that like that's where the big opportunity is. It might be deeper in, in the supply chain, like bending the metal that goes into the bumper, that this and that, and like, you know, it's 12 steps deep. It's more boring, but it's even thinner margins, less, you know, brand risk and brand value, but really focused on, you know, applying that actual like commercial excellence. But, but I mean, truly like you're good, your guess is as good as mine. There's very little, there's very little to go off of. Also, there's a link to Project Prometheus, which is the AI project. And so there's a chance that like this whole

• 19:06John Coogan?

  project is more aligned with the software singularity, software only singularity. And you wind up with, you know, buying a lot of things, but everything's in line with like more data centers. And this is more of like, let's put the hundred billion dollars to work towards building, you know, compute capacity for Project Prometheus. That feels like not what we're hearing, but it is, it is one possible path.

• 19:29Jordi Hays?

  Do anything on like the solar side, right?

• 19:33John Coogan?

  Yeah, that'd be interesting. And then there's also the option that we get some sort of Elon style mega corp with Blue Origin involved at some point, like, you know, XAI and SpaceX merged, it's possible that Blue Origin and this vehicle come together with Project Prometheus in some way, and then that goes public as a new entity. A lot of these, he's actually mentioned the whole space data center thing before, I think a while ago, wasn't it like more than a year ago?

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think they also just filed something with the FCC.

• 20:02John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah, for the new cloud.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like 50,000 satellites.

• 20:06John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, so he wants like a direct Starlink competitor. And so when you think about the full AI stack, if he's really, you know, off, off planet, you know, pilled, and thinks he can get, thinks he can get there, even if it's like a year or two behind, or I guess, what's the timeline for his Starlink competitor? That would be like three years behind, four years?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, for, for, for the moon, he's supposed to be ahead, right?

• 20:30John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  So.

• 20:32John Coogan?

  Maybe this will all go on the moon. Well, either way, it's a big move from an experienced operator with lots of opportunity ahead, and it'll be fun to follow along.

• 20:38Jordi Hays?

  And I'm glad he's back in the game in a big way.

• 20:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Jordi Hays?

  Not just doing random, you know, side projects.

• 20:46John Coogan?

  Bottle service.

• 20:47Jordi Hays?

  Or bottle service.

• 20:48John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 20:48Jordi Hays?

  He's got to be spending more time and energy securing America's future.

• 20:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Jordi Hays?

  Securing bottle service.

• 20:55John Coogan?

  Well, you know, I mean, the guy can take a weekend off, but one photo from his weekend flies a lot further than, you know, he could be completely locked in and just grinding 80 hours, and then he goes gets bottle service just one time. He was just there for 30 minutes.

• 21:09Jordi Hays?

  Grinding on the yacht.

• 21:10John Coogan?

  Not, maybe, you never know. Anyway, let's, let's, let's first tell you about Gusto, the unified platform for payroll benefits and HR, built to evolve with modern small and medium sized businesses. And let's also tell you about Figma. No matter where your idea starts, Figma may clog code, codex, or a sketch, the Figma canvas is where ideas connect and products take shape. Build in the right direction with Figma. And let's go over to Jensen on the All In Podcast.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Engineer at the end of the year, I'm going to ask him, how many tokens, how much did you spend in tokens? And that person said $5,000. I will go ape something else. Yeah. Right. If that, if that $500,000 engineer did not consume at least $250,000 worth of tokens, I am going to be deeply alarmed.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Okay, and this is no different than one of our chip designers who says, "Guess what? I'm just gonna use paper and pencil. I don't think I'm gonna need any CAD tools." Right, right.

• 22:06Speaker 05

  This is a real paradigm shift to start thinking about these all-star employees. It almost reminds me of what we learned in the NBA when LeBron James started spending a million dollars a year just on his health of his body, like maintaining it.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Here he is at age 41, still playing. It really is, hey, if these are incredible knowledge workers, why wouldn't we give them superhuman abilities?

• 22:28Speaker 04

  That's exactly right.

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Where does that go? If we extrapolate out two or three years from now, what is the efficiency of that all-star at Nvidia and what they're able to accomplish? What do they look like?

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Well, first of all, things that, "Wow, this is too hard." That thought is gone. "This is gonna take a long time." That thought is gone. "We're gonna need a lot of people." That thought is gone. This is no different than in the last industrial revolution, somebody goes, "Boy, that building really looks heavy." Nobody says that. "Wow, that mountain looks too big." Nobody says that.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  Right.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Everything that's too big, too heavy, takes too long, those ideas are all gone.

• 23:09Speaker 05

  You're reduced to creativity.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 23:11Speaker 05

  What can you come up with?

• 23:12Speaker 04

  Exactly. Which means, now, the question is, how do you work with these agents? Well, it's just a new way of doing computer programming. In the past, we code. In the future, we're gonna write ideas, architectures, specifications. We're gonna organize teams. We're gonna help them define how to evaluate the definition of good versus bad. What does it look like when something is a great outcome? How to iterate with you? How to brainstorm? That's really what you're looking for.

• 23:41Jordi Hays?

  All right, we're good. The internet is having a lot of fun with this. Nuno says, "Guy that sells shovels says you should spend 50% of your salary on shovels."

• 23:52Jordi Hays?

  But of course, Jensen's point is generally correct, which is that you should give your best people a lot of leverage.

• 24:01John Coogan?

  Yeah, I do wonder what the like leverage ratio is in other industries. Like if you're a crane operator and you're making, I don't know.

• 24:13Jordi Hays?

  If you should give him the best possible crane.

• 24:16John Coogan?

  Yeah, like is it possible that that if you're operating a $10 million crane or something, I don't know how much a crane costs. Or like a cargo ship, cargo ship that's that's ferrying oil across the world. How much does that crew cost? And then how much does the ship cost? And then what's the depreciation on that ship? Because it might be like $100 million ship that will last 20 years. So you're looking at $5 million a year. And if the crew, total cost of the crew is like 1 million, well, then you're actually spending more on the capital asset than the underlying talent and you're getting like leverage on top of that. And for a long time, software engineering has not been that.

• 24:57John Coogan?

  It's been, you know, $100 worth of internet and a couple thousand dollars on a MacBook and a lot of open source software because you're using Python and Linux and these things. And I mean, I guess you could maybe burden like your cloud budget once you actually deploy the app. Like if you think about if you're a Facebook engineer, Instagram engineer, you could push a feature that consumes a ton of compute. But this is also going back to like the AI talent war where you get back into if you're if you're a, you know, elite software engineer and you're like, look, I'm going to be I'm going to be in charge. I'm going to be managing half a million dollars worth of token budget over the next year. Well, I want comp that's higher than that or something like that.

• 25:42John Coogan?

  It'll be very interesting to see how the the value works there. A reasonable ballpark for the annual cost of a fully loaded cargo ship is around $4 to $18 million. So including the cash operating cost plus the depreciation. So I don't know.

• 26:03John Coogan?

  Yeah, the uh, this certainly isn't like the first industry to be hit with something like that, but it'll be interesting to see how it changes.

• 26:11Jordi Hays?

  Uh, in other news, the US Department of Justice announced yesterday three charged with conspiring to unlawfully divert cutting-edge US AI technology to China. Indictment unsealed today details alleged effort to evade US export laws through false documents staged dummy servers to mislead inspectors and convoluted transshipment schemes in order to obfuscate the true destination of restricted AI technology. China, uh, said John Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. These chips are the product of American ingenuity and NSD will continue to enforce our export control laws to protect that advantage.

• 26:52Jordi Hays?

  Uh, so the company, uh, SMIC, Super Micro Computer, Inc.

• 26:58John Coogan?

  They got a co-founder.

• 27:00Jordi Hays?

  They caught him, they caught him red handed.

• 27:02John Coogan?

  Vince Wally, he's arrested today or yesterday. He personally holds half a billion dollars of Super Micro stock, still risked it all, and now he's facing 30 years in federal prison. That is crazy. Uh, he was charged with smuggling billions in Nvidia servers to China, used Southeast Asian Shell company to funnel two and a half billion in servers to Chinese buyers. 500 million worth shipped in just three weeks in spring of 2025. That's a lot. Two and a half billion in servers feels like enough for like a frontier training run. Like, that's a big, big, uh, that's a big push. Built thousands of fake dummy servers to fool US compliance auditors, caught on surveillance

• 27:47John Coogan?

  camera, using a hairdryer to swap serial number stickers. And so, uh, OX, uh, Yigui says, "This man is a billionaire and was removing labels with a hairdryer personally. You're simply not grinding hard enough."

• 28:02Jordi Hays?

  There's always, there's always a grindset lesson in any story like this.

• 28:06John Coogan?

  Let's take this over to LinkedIn.

• 28:07Jordi Hays?

  It's also notable because, because the, there's the export tax or tip that, you know, that you're trying to bring chips out of the country, that the, the, the, the US government kind of flips over the square terminal and they say, "Tip, please."

• 28:19John Coogan?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 28:20Jordi Hays?

  25%, so you're looking at, at hundreds of millions of dollars if these were, even if these were chips that were able to be exported.

• 28:28John Coogan?

  We were debating the, the flipping the iPad around, asking for a tip earlier today. And I think our, our joint stance was if the iPad is turned around, you got a tip.

• 28:41Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 28:41John Coogan?

  It's just the etiquette is that you got a tip. But is there any, is there anywhere where that line crosses and you say, "I can't, I can't possibly push something."

• 28:51Jordi Hays?

  Funny thing is, Air One asks for tips.

• 28:53John Coogan?

  Really?

• 28:54Jordi Hays?

  On online orders.

• 28:55John Coogan?

  Online orders? Wait, but there will be a human delivering it or?

• 28:58Jordi Hays?

  No, there's two separate tips.

• 29:00John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 29:01Jordi Hays?

  There's, there's the, the person in the store who puts the things in the bag and then there's the delivery person.

• 29:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Jordi Hays?

  And they're at, they, they, they flip it over twice.

• 29:11John Coogan?

  Yeah. The game theory of this stuff is always hard because I feel like, I don't know, there's regulations on like taxes on tips, but it's very unclear if companies actually funnel, how they distribute the tips, like are you tipping the person or the tips grouped together? Were your tips pooled when you were a valet?

• 29:30Jordi Hays?

  Uh, yeah, yeah.

• 29:31John Coogan?

  They were pooled? So even if you did a great job?

• 29:33Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I had two jobs at the hotel, the valets, they pool.

• 29:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Jordi Hays?

  Bell staff, the people that like take you down to your room do not, do not pool.

• 29:42John Coogan?

  Interesting.

• 29:43Jordi Hays?

  And that was just the rules.

• 29:44John Coogan?

  Oh, it's because I might be the one who parks the car, you might be the one who gets.

• 29:48Jordi Hays?

  Well, in a, in a dynamic, in a dynamic where you have a bunch of valets that are waiting for cars.

• 29:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Jordi Hays?

  It would be a bad experience for the guest if the valets are like, they see a nice car pull in and they're like fighting over themselves.

• 30:00John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 30:01Jordi Hays?

  To deliver a service, right? It should just be like whoever's available should deliver the best possible service. Whereas Bell work is much more one-on-one.

• 30:10John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 30:11Jordi Hays?

  It's like, I'm kind of your guide on the property. I'm gonna like, you know, you, you might have the person's cellphone, they might be texting you, et cetera.

• 30:17John Coogan?

  Interesting.

• 30:18Jordi Hays?

  And so it makes more sense to not pool.

• 30:21John Coogan?

  Well, tip your export control, tip your federal.

• 30:24Jordi Hays?

  I did, there, there, I did have a funny story where there was a guy. A beaner who used to come to the property and everyone knew that every every single thing.

• 30:34John Coogan?

  No word.

• 30:37Jordi Hays?

  We still have, we haven't successfully kind of welded into existence.

• 30:42John Coogan?

  Not at all.

• 30:42Jordi Hays?

  I think we're the only, I think we're the only people.

• 30:44John Coogan?

  It wasn't, we didn't come up with this term. It was delivered to us. And then we appropriated it.

• 30:52Jordi Hays?

  There was a guy who would come to the property, any single thing he got help with on the property.

• 30:57John Coogan?

  He would tip?

• 30:58Jordi Hays?

  He would just tip a hundred. And so what, it did cause chaos.

• 31:01John Coogan?

  Okay, because then people are like, oh, I'd love to refill your Diet Coke.

• 31:04Jordi Hays?

  It'd be like waiting around, like trying to be in the right spot to open a door. Cause they knew it was, it was a bit, it got a bit out of hand.

• 31:12John Coogan?

  I saw, I saw a piece of alpha Instagram reels that suggested that you tip the front desk person when you're checking in, before you check in.

• 31:20Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, that always feels like a bribe, but it is the right move.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  This is a big thing in Vegas, right? You're supposed to put it in between when you give them the card.

• 31:26John Coogan?

  Oh, I saw this. Yeah, you stack the credit card and the ID and you put the hundred dollar bill in there.

• 31:32Jordi Hays?

  That's even more like a bribe.

• 31:34John Coogan?

  Then, then they have plausible deniability and they can be like, oh, like here you go. Or they can be like, okay, thank you and I'm upgrading you. And I think if, at least this person on Instagram was making the case that if you, if you uh, average out, you're tipping a hundred dollars for every room and you're buying like a four hundred dollar room, but you get a thousand dollar room upgrade every five times.

• 31:54Jordi Hays?

  The only durable alpha is like you, you want to tip before the service occurs.

• 31:59John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 31:59Jordi Hays?

  If you tip the valet when they, they bring you your car.

• 32:03John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 32:04Jordi Hays?

  You're, how do they know what kind of service?

• 32:06John Coogan?

  So if you're ordering at Starbucks and you want to make sure that they're going to enter your order correctly and get your name right, you gotta tip upfront and then say what your order is.

• 32:15Jordi Hays?

  Walk up to the counter, say flip it over.

• 32:18John Coogan?

  Flip it over. I'm tipping you first. Now let's start the transaction. Anyway, when a broker who had bought Nvidia-powered servers from the Southeast Asian company-

• 32:29Jordi Hays?

  Walk up to the, walk up to the counter and say, "What's your tempo address?"

• 32:35John Coogan?

  Oh, yes, yes.

• 32:36Jordi Hays?

  Send him a machine payment.

• 32:37John Coogan?

  Yes, automatically. When a, when a broker who had bought Nvidia-powered servers from the Southeast Asian company sent Sunny a text message containing a link to an announcement about Chinese nationals being arrested for smuggling AI chips into China, Sunny allegedly responded with sobbing emotions.

• 32:59Jordi Hays?

  Scroll up, scroll up so people can see.

• 33:01John Coogan?

  Morning Brew says, "Hey, man, you're probably going to jail." Super Micro co-founder crying emoji. And scroll down and you'll see Nick Carter, literally this, "Your son has passed away." It's the Warthog explosion. Oh, okay. I guess we can't find it. It's weird.

• 33:17Jordi Hays?

  My ex is different. Jordan Schneider apparently was all over this back in August of last year. He said a Super Micro ad in the middle of a Reuters piece talking about how tracking devices and AI servers just priceless.

• 33:31John Coogan?

  Whoa.

• 33:32Jordi Hays?

  What did Jordan know? What did Jordan know?

• 33:34John Coogan?

  Steve Alpha in China Talk, head, head over to China Talk and subscribe. He's got some amazing content, some amazing interviews, and is a good friend of the show. And so, there's, there's clearly secrets to be unveiled through the China Talk archive. Let me tell you about CrowdStrike. Your business is AI, their business is securing it. CrowdStrike secures AI and stops breaches. And let me also talk it, talk to you about Cisco. Critical infrastructure for the AI era. Unlock seamless, real-time experiences and new value with Cisco.

• 34:07Jordi Hays?

  Thank you to the Cisco team for sending us these mini McLaren helmets. They're a sponsor of McLaren.

• 34:13John Coogan?

  Very cool.

• 34:14Jordi Hays?

  And we are honored.

• 34:15John Coogan?

  Yeah, we love F1. Uh, I'm sorry, but the Super Micro thing is awful, but parts of it are genuinely hilarious. They literally used a hairdryer to move serial numbers from real servers to dummy servers to throw in a warehouse and got caught on camera. And the pictures have actually leaked.

• 34:31Jordi Hays?

  Literally caught red handed.

• 34:33John Coogan?

  Yes, it's a red, it's a red hairdryer. That is, that is remarkable. Uh, Trung fans says, do things that don't scale. Classic founder energy. Uh, yeah, definitely, definitely that. Uh, what else is going on?

• 34:46Jordi Hays?

  Let's pull up this video. I, I don't know if, uh, if, if Bone.

• 34:50John Coogan?

  Six minutes long.

• 34:51Jordi Hays?

  The legend Bone.

• 34:52John Coogan?

  But Chinese entrepreneur boasts receipt of 200 Nvidia H200 GPUs in Beijing despite the US export ban and then explains how he circumvents the export ban. Wow.

• 35:04Speaker 06

  A recent video posted by Beijing-based entrepreneur Su Di on the Chinese social media platform Douyin has sparked significant discussion.

• 35:11Jordi Hays?

  Wait, it's literally, you can see, watch this, watch this. Look at that. Rewind for a second. You can see a Super Micro logo.

• 35:17John Coogan?

  No way.

• 35:18Speaker 06

  Su Di on the Chinese social media platform Douyin has sparked significant discussion. In the video, Su boasts a.

• 35:25John Coogan?

  Oh my God. That's like the biggest logo for Super Micro ever.

• 35:33Jordi Hays?

  Well, Bone, Bone is, Bone is absolutely correct.

• 35:36John Coogan?

  And this is from January. No, I, I'm telling you, like a lot of, I, I mean, I'm, I'm sure the, the Justice Department were working on this, like, earlier than this, but a lot of times, like, legal action will happen, like downstream of, like, YouTube drama videos. Like, there will be some, like, you know, fake guru who's out there, like, running a Ponzi scheme and people will be dunking on it on social media and then it will get, uh, picked up by the.

• 36:01Jordi Hays?

  So almost a year and a quarter ago, somebody responded to Bone and says, it's SMIC packaged. And Bone says, do you think SMIC is smuggling chips?

• 36:11John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 36:12Jordi Hays?

  And, uh, the, the.

• 36:14John Coogan?

  Innocent until proven guilty, but they are.

• 36:16Jordi Hays?

  Family, family owned business in Taiwan. I won't be surprised if there are some family members who want to make this money by setting up fake shell entities and smuggling chips for business partners in China.

• 36:24John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 36:25Jordi Hays?

  It's good money.

• 36:26John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 36:27Jordi Hays?

  Wild.

• 36:28John Coogan?

  This is crazy.

• 36:29Jordi Hays?

  Wild.

• 36:31John Coogan?

  Kevin Kwak has a good meme that everyone enjoyed. They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother. And it's not Jensen. The Bain meme. It's very, very funny.

• 36:42Jordi Hays?

  And yeah, the SMIC founder, I believe, was at GTC just a few days ago.

• 36:47John Coogan?

  Oh, really?

• 36:48Jordi Hays?

  Hanging out.

• 36:48John Coogan?

  No way.

• 36:49Jordi Hays?

  He was. I saw a picture of him with Jensen.

• 36:51John Coogan?

  Yeah, until the music stops playing, I suppose. Let me tell you about Labelbox. RL Environments, Voice Robotics, Evals, and Expert Human Data. Labelbox is the data factory behind the world's leading AI teams. And let me also tell you about Public. Investing for those who take it to stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries, and more with great customer service. Speaking of going insanely hard, says Joe Whiteenthal, "I'm obsessed with the name of the rocket that will take the first Chinese astronauts to the moon. It's called the Long March 10, the next generation crude launch vehicle." Long March is a great, great name for just locking in. The lock-in rocket. Lock-in rocket.

• 37:27Jordi Hays?

  And it's time.

• 37:28John Coogan?

  What are we talking about?

• 37:29Jordi Hays?

  For Kimmy Gate.

• 37:30John Coogan?

  Kimmy Gate. What's going on here?

• 37:31Jordi Hays?

  Finn was.

• 37:33John Coogan?

  So Cursor yesterday announced Composer 2, which apparently was composed of other models. Did very well on Cursor Bench. A little bit odd with the charts on the higher cost, lower cost, but seemed like it did well for Cursor's use case. Cursor fans were satisfied, I suppose. Finn says that he was messing around with the OpenAI base URL in Cursor and caught this. Account/anysphere/maudles/ Kimmy K2 P5 RL, and then some other numbers. So Composer 2 is just Kimmy K2 with RL. At least rename the model ID. Well, the co-founder, I believe, or someone from Cursor chimed in and said, it is, in fact,

• 38:18John Coogan?

  RL'd Kimmy K2, and this is why Openweight rules. We, the consumers, get new improved models with minimal cost. And it's Lee Robinson who is teaching developers at Cursor. Lee Robinson says, "Yep, Composer 2 started from an open source base. We will do full pre-training in the future." That's an interesting. Claim, I'm wondering if they even need to. I don't know that there's any problem with using an open source model here. He says only one quarter of the compute spent on the final model came from the base. The rest is from our training. So they took whatever compute went into K2, and then they 4X that, or 3X'd it, and dropped that into RL. This is why evals

• 39:01John Coogan?

  are very different. And yes, we are following the license through our inference partner terms. So, I don't know. They're staking out their claim, they're making their strategy known. Jack Morris says, "People are taking this the wrong way. Look at it like this. Composer 1, DeepSeek probably. Composer 2, Kimmy, certainly. Composer 3, likely will be the first frontier base model pre-trained from scratch for a single domain. Coding, it's a scary thought, isn't it?" And so, people are taking both sides. Tyler, do you have a take on this?

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's like very reasonable to do RL on like some open source pre-training. Like, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because like, you can kind of imagine that there's this dynamic where, there's a post about this we can talk about, but I'm like, so there's all this stuff about how, okay, Claude anthropic trains a model, and then Chinese Open Source Labs kind of is still on it. You know, the actual implementation of how they distill it, maybe it doesn't matter that much, but you're kind of getting some form of like, Claude a little bit, that's open source. And then you take that, and then you can do RL to do like a specific hill climb on some task, like just coding. And that's like a very good way to make a good model, right? So, Prime Intellect, their most recent release was, I think it was GLM, like 4.5. And then, so they take that base

• 40:17Speaker 03

  model, and then you do RL on that, and you get this really great model, because like, RL is like where you can get a lot of these like small

• 40:23John Coogan?

  Small gains.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  Small gains on specific tasks, which can build up over time. So I think it like makes a lot of sense. It's not like a big dunk to be like, "Oh my gosh, they were just doing RL on this open source model."

• 40:32John Coogan?

  It's a very logical strategy.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that like makes a lot of sense.

• 40:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I think the criticism of, I think...

• 40:41Jordi Hays?

  I think they probably should have come out and said they did it and not tried to position it as like we did a they said, what, this was our first continual

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, continual pre-trained.

• 40:51Jordi Hays?

  So they kind of like using that, using that word, like it would have been easy to be like, we took, we took world-class open source models and improved them

• 41:00John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 41:00Jordi Hays?

  in order to create

• 41:01John Coogan?

  For our specific problem.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think people would have been like totally fine with that, right?

• 41:05John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  It's prime, it's like, I mean, a lot of, you know, American labs have done this and said it, and everyone's like, wow, this is great, this is a great model.

• 41:10John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  You know, I'm happy to use it.

• 41:12John Coogan?

  Yeah, didn't, didn't perplexity at one point create like DeepSeek 1776 or something like that, where they were like, we specifically made it more American?

• 41:19Speaker 03

  After, I will say after I actually

• 41:21John Coogan?

  Oh, after you did that? Yeah. It's so funny that you did that.

• 41:27Jordi Hays?

  Zephyr says Curse of the Cross are treating Kimi like Voldemort. The, I don't want to say the name, he did in fact put it in a post.

• 41:35John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Accelerate Harder says, "The funny bit is training from scratch impresses investors and Twitter, but it makes little sense for most teams while still, while strong open source options exist. So Curse actually did the smart thing, but pretended they did the dumb thing and it nearly worked. So more of maybe a comms issue than a business strategy issue, but, you know, we'll

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there are some concerns maybe about the actual license of the model, because, you know, technically, like you are supposed to say that it is like Kimi.

• 42:04John Coogan?

  Yeah, usually you have to pass through these things, like Android is built on Linux and that's in the, you know, release.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Likely to be some deal behind the scenes that actually means it's fine.

• 42:14John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  We really

• 42:14John Coogan?

  Also, I would not be surprised if people have just not read the, like, the Composer 2 license doc yet or something and like, it's actually just fully disclosed there and the people are like, I found in the URL, it's like, it was also in the terms of service. Like, it was just in plain text somewhere that you just didn't find. Who knows? Let's see. So 3X Ellie is giving some, some comps on this. So 3X the training compute gets you a 1% improvement on SUI Bench multilingual and 21% on Terminal Bench 2.0. But K 2.5 is in non-thinking mode. If those benchmarks are useless, it's weird that they're the ones reported in the Cursor blog, then something is wrong. So people are going back and forth. But ultimately, I think this, you know, where the rubber meets the road is ARR.

• 42:58John Coogan?

  Like Cursor has been growing, Cursor continues to grow, even while they've, you know, been like steamrolled and the vibes have shifted. If people love this and people are using the product and it's a growing business and the market is growing so fast that they have a great business, that seems like, you know, business continues as usual. Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Let me also tell you about vibe.co, where DTC brands, B2B startups, AI companies advertise on streaming TV. Pick channels, target audiences, and measure sales just like on Meta. So.

• 43:34Jordi Hays?

  Delve Gate.

• 43:36John Coogan?

  Delve Gate, another gate, another gate, Delve Gate. So what happened here? Where should we start?

• 43:41Jordi Hays?

  Anonymous Substack pops up.

• 43:44John Coogan?

  Yeah, these anonymous Substacks are interesting. Deep Delver, clearly created just to share this particular story. No idea who's behind it.

• 43:52Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, incredible, incredibly professional.

• 43:56John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 43:56Jordi Hays?

  In their presentation, right? They're putting backups of the article.

• 44:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Jordi Hays?

  They're saying reporters who want to get in touch.

• 44:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Jordi Hays?

  They're sharing a proton. And so, yeah, they make an argument that Delve has had a bunch of kind of nefarious activity, kind of duplicating reports. Not, basically, just like a lot of their value prop, I think, was on the fact that they were using AI and speed.

• 44:28Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it doesn't look good at all.

• 44:32John Coogan?

  I don't believe we've had Delve on the show, but I searched the calendar and I got one hit for Delve and it's in, it's in a summary, it's in a, a summary of, of Bill Gurley's book that says, "It's a page turner that delves deep into the surprising, often zigzagging career paths of exceptional performers. There's something inspiring on every page," is a quote from the New York Times bestselling author that he gave to Bill Gurley's book and just sort of wound up in our notes. Anyway, so, so what actually happened? What is Delve? Let's, let's start there.

• 45:05Jordi Hays?

  Delve does SOC 2 compliance and HIPAA compliance. They've worked for a number of companies like Lovable, Clulee, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, you can kind of, I mean, the article is like very, very, very long.

• 45:23John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 45:24Jordi Hays?

  And detailed, but it just goes into...

• 45:26John Coogan?

  Erin Griffith shares like the key claim. Erin Griffith, of course, is over at the New York Times. And she quotes this, "Delve built a machine, a machine designed to make clients complicit without their knowledge to manufacture plausible deniability while producing exactly the opposite." And a lot of people are having fun with the fact that the Delve founders were in the 30 under 30, which of course has surfaced a lot of people. I think there's, are there really 1,830 under 30?

• 45:57Jordi Hays?

  Yes.

• 45:57John Coogan?

  Every year? That's true?

• 45:58Jordi Hays?

  Oh.

• 45:59John Coogan?

  Or is that like, is that like Doc, DocuSign?

• 46:01Jordi Hays?

  I thought you were saying, I thought you were saying all in.

• 46:04John Coogan?

  Oh, maybe, maybe overall. I know that there's multiple categories. So there's more than 30.

• 46:07Jordi Hays?

  I think it used to be, I think it used to be that there was just, there was actually 30.

• 46:10John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 46:11Jordi Hays?

  And then Forbes realized like, what if we scaled this?

• 46:14John Coogan?

  Yeah. This is the plan. Scale the Midas list. Hundred Midas lists. So you get 10,000 VCs paying you top dollar to rank. It should be an auction. So Austin Peters Smith says, "Not gonna lie, as we've been going through a grueling SOC 2 process with Vanta, one of our sponsors, I have felt a lot of FOMO reading about Delve customers getting it done in three weeks. If all this is true, then no mo FOMO." So, he's...

• 46:41Jordi Hays?

  Milo.

• 46:42John Coogan?

  There are some things that you just can't short.

• 46:44Jordi Hays?

  Milo pulled up a post from the CEO from April of last year. That says, the CEO says, when you step into the office and you're founding AI engineers on his third all-nighter, his team never shop, stops shipping, my list says, third all-nighter of what, compliance? I don't want my security company shipping 3 a.m. code. So, very unfortunate situation, not going to make any, any real assumptions, but this story's definitely not over.

• 47:19John Coogan?

  Well, let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only thing faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just build AI, own the data platform that powers it. And let me also tell you about Lambda. Lambda is the super intelligence cloud, building AI supercomputers for training and inference at scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands.

• 47:37Jordi Hays?

  Okay, so this next post.

• 47:38John Coogan?

  We're not, we're not doing the snake post. We're skipping, no, I hate snakes. We're not, we're not doing it. I refuse to pull up a snake post. We're skipping straight to Bruce Lee. We're skipping way down.

• 47:50Jordi Hays?

  Okay, no, I'm not gonna make John watch a snake video, even though if you want to close your eyes.

• 47:54John Coogan?

  I saw it, I saw it.

• 47:55Jordi Hays?

  This video is definitely like terrible to watch.

• 47:58John Coogan?

  It's also fake. It doesn't exist. I'm Irish. No snakes in Ireland. No snakes on TVN. Snakes are banned.

• 48:05Jordi Hays?

  We gotta do that bit where somebody attaches like a rubber snake.

• 48:08John Coogan?

  No, no, you will not do that to me. Under no circumstances will you do this. We will be watching Bruce Lee fight Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon, because this is the way that we pay our respects to Chuck Norris, who of course passed away at the age of, I think, 86.

• 48:25John Coogan?

  Norris.

• 48:31John Coogan?

  He was 86, and this is one of the most iconic fight scenes in movie history. Have you seen The Way of the Dragon?

• 48:39Jordi Hays?

  Of course not.

• 48:40John Coogan?

  Of course not.

• 48:45John Coogan?

  This scene was unique.

• 48:49John Coogan?

  It was set inside Rome's Colosseum. And it was often cited as a turning point for how martial arts were portrayed on screen. Particularly because they didn't use actors. So both Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were legitimately high-level fighters. Norris was world karate champion at the time. They cast him in part because of that. And it has a much more like grounded, credible feel, as opposed to like previously more stylized kung fu films. And you can see this with the, Bruce Lee actually directed and choreographed this himself. So Lee had full control. So the director didn't say anything. And they do these cool like punch-in shots. Look at this. So you're seeing nice wide. You can see exactly where he is.

• 49:30John Coogan?

  There's no body double. And then we're gonna zoom in. And then what are we gonna do again? We're gonna zoom in again. And so we see his face and he's just sitting there waiting. Brilliant shot. So, so much time to breathe and understand and feel what he's feeling.

• 49:47John Coogan?

  The music, footsteps, breathing, clothing movement, the cat, of course.

• 49:52Jordi Hays?

  Any snakes?

• 49:53John Coogan?

  Yeah. No snakes, I don't think. I haven't watched it, I think. The camera often stays wide. This is, this stands in contrast to something like Born Identity. Very like fast cuts, close-ups. Much easier to get something that feels intense when you're cutting and chopping. It's much harder to make something like this where you see the full body. You see, now we're in slow-mo. They're, they're, they're shotting back and forth. The empty arena gives a gladiatorial vibe, a sense of ritual combat. Visually frames the fight as mythic, not just physical.

• 50:28John Coogan?

  Bruce Lee is learning mid-fight. Norris has the edge with his rigid karate form. But Lee adapts. He loosens his stance, increases his mobility, switches his rhythm. We gotta talk over it or else we get demonetized and banned. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta figure it out. Uh, anyway, uh, we're very, we're, we're, we're very sad that, uh, that he is no longer with us, but, uh, he leaves a behind a massive legacy and a portfolio of films, including the, you know, TV shows as well, Walker, Texas Ranger, which was constantly on TV when I was a kid.

• 51:02Jordi Hays?

  Well, rest in peace to a legend.

• 51:04John Coogan?

  Let me tell you about Apple and profitable advertising made it easy with Exxon data. Get access to over one billion daily active users and grow your business today. And let me also tell you about Sentry. Sentry shows developers what's broken and helps them fix it fast. That's why 150,000 organizations use it to keep their apps working. So.

• 51:19Jordi Hays?

  Bernie Sanders.

• 51:21John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 51:21Jordi Hays?

  Had a conversation with Claude.

• 51:23John Coogan?

  He did.

• 51:23Jordi Hays?

  Video was posted yesterday.

• 51:24John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 51:25Jordi Hays?

  Justine Morris says he did the meme.

• 51:27John Coogan?

  He did the meme.

• 51:28Jordi Hays?

  Bernie says, pretend to be a scary robot. I'm a scary robot.

• 51:32John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah. Taylor Loren's time, time to this too. So this reminds me of that tweet was, uh, that was like typing I'm evil into a Google Doc and getting scared. Uh, yeah, there's a little bit of that. Will Manitas had another take. He said a trillion dollars was spent on AI risk teams and no one thought to hard code into the model to not tell Bernie Sanders that you do crimes. Very funny. Uh, but this is the correct way to disclose that you're talking to an AI model.

• 51:57Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Do you think he was inspired by the Vanity Fair piece and then immediately shipped this?

• 52:01John Coogan?

  The Vanity Fair piece like buried the lead and like it was, it was surfaced in a bunch of screenshots later that made it look like the entire article was AI generated, which it wasn't like the Vanity Fair article did have access to a bunch of people and there are some interesting vignettes in there, but this is very clear from day one, what's happening. Like he's talking to Claude and he's investigating and, and, you know, sharing his fears. And I, I think this is a great way to actually share what you're doing and make it very clear. Uh, and so, uh, people are mixed on this. Uh, Miles Brundage.

• 52:34Jordi Hays?

  Says worst part of the Bernie video is using Sonnet. Not sure why folks are so mad about the other.

• 52:41John Coogan?

  That's very funny. And then delicious tacos, delicious tacos. I also smoked a grog. It's burning like this and then, no, no, don't, don't click that. But you can imagine what happens there. And then, uh, yeah.

• 52:54Jordi Hays?

  Hope's revenge. Did, made the card for us.

• 52:56John Coogan?

  Thank you.

• 52:57Jordi Hays?

  Signed.

• 52:58John Coogan?

  Signed.

• 53:00John Coogan?

  It's great. Anyway, let's move over to Montana. One and only Moonlight Basin. There's a property that made it into the timeline. Ooh, indoor pool.

• 53:08Jordi Hays?

  New.

• 53:09John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 53:09Jordi Hays?

  Uh, this is a new hotel.

• 53:11John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 53:12Jordi Hays?

  Uh, got to visit the property a few weekends ago with.

• 53:15John Coogan?

  I saw some promotional material for this.

• 53:16Jordi Hays?

  Uh, it is, it is, uh, absolutely stunning.

• 53:20John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 53:20Jordi Hays?

  I, I wanna have, uh, Sam, the founder of Cross Harbor.

• 53:24John Coogan?

  That'd be great.

• 53:25Jordi Hays?

  Who's the developer being on the show because he is, uh, he's basically, in my view, it felt like he was the mayor of Big Sky. He's developed and all these incredible properties. Donated a hospital.

• 53:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Jordi Hays?

  To Big Sky too. Just said, here's the hospital.

• 53:40John Coogan?

  That's cool.

• 53:40Jordi Hays?

  For the local community, which is amazing.

• 53:42John Coogan?

  Does it have zebras?

• 53:44Jordi Hays?

  Not, no zebras.

• 53:45John Coogan?

  Does it have tortoises?

• 53:47Jordi Hays?

  For 5.1 million, this safari-like estate comes with zebras.

• 53:50John Coogan?

  Oh, you got a solution to my problem. I need zebras.

• 53:53Jordi Hays?

  Animals roam free at California's 137 Oak Hill Preserve, which has a five-bedroom lodge and a helipad. I'm loving.

• 54:01John Coogan?

  This is, this is crazy. Okay, wait, I, I can't believe, uh, the, the value here. Uh, I feel like anything that has zebras and tortoises should be up in the double digits.

• 54:12Jordi Hays?

  Each zebra, I don't know how much it costs to get a zebra, but you should get like a 10x multiplier on it.

• 54:16John Coogan?

  Yeah, for sure. So.

• 54:18Jordi Hays?

  It's like having, it's like having an AI researcher.

• 54:21John Coogan?

  Visited Africa for the first time in the eighties, he said, but his heart never left. He, he proposed to his now-wife, Bernadette Kraft, in a hot air, in a hot air balloon. That's elite. Uh, above the Serengeti National Park. The couple got married in Nairobi, Kenya in 1990, in 1988. And two decades after, uh, to get, two decades ago, after taking their three sons to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Brian started wondering how he could bring some of the African experience closer to home. Can I recreate a mini Africa that's a short distance away from our house? Thus began a years-long process of developing roughly 137-acre safari-like sanctuaries in Ione, California. Is that Ione or Ione? I don't know.

• 55:02John Coogan?

  With a helipad and a collection of animals, including tortoises, alpacas, East African plains, zebras, and cattle.

• 55:09Jordi Hays?

  I think it's a- oni.

• 55:10John Coogan?

  A oni, okay. So now approaching the age of 70, Kraft, who is a commercial real estate broker, entrepreneur, and aspiring screenwriter, is listing the vacation property for $5.1 million. Approximately 15 animals are included in the offering. That's only, uh, less than a 10x multiple, per animal. Known as Oak Hill Preserve, the estate is about 40 miles from Sacramento, where the crafts live. The animals roam freely on the property with access to plenty of water and grass. Kraft likes to drive around the estate in an old pickup truck he outfitted with benches in the back and lights in the front and rear. The idea is to go looking for animals like you would on safari. Kraft assembled the property by buying three separate parcels over a five-year stretch.

• 55:52John Coogan?

  Starting in 2007, it had the right amount of open space, like a savanna, and the right amount of trees, like you're in a thicket. Kraft improved the land, a former cattle ranch, bit by bit, starting with no climb fences, roads, and underground power lines. Throughout the property, Kraft said he tried to evoke Africa with curved roads and buildings with rounded edges. One of the first structures he built was a bunkhouse for a group of friends. "I've got a group of knuckleheads," he said. "I did it with them in mind. It was a guy thing. The wives put it, put up, put up with all of us."

• 56:21Jordi Hays?

  If someone says "knuckleheads,"

• 56:23John Coogan?

  Knuckleheads.

• 56:24Jordi Hays?

  And you don't immediately think of a specific group.

• 56:27John Coogan?

  This is amazing that it's in California.

• 56:28Jordi Hays?

  That it's time to elevate your circle.

• 56:29John Coogan?

  Just driving around this California state and just seeing zebras roaming is amazing.

• 56:35Jordi Hays?

  Incredible.

• 56:36John Coogan?

  Ostriches. This is, this is a treat. This is a treat. A few years ago, Kraft said his friends chipped in to buy him a Jeep with animal print paint. We were all having breakfast. All of a sudden, I hear the theme of "Out of Africa." He recalled, "Then one of the guys pulled up in the Jeep. It was quite a surprise." He completed the main lodge on the property around 2018, spanning around 4,200 square feet. It has five bedrooms. There's a café for dining near a creek in the property, as well as an entertaining space that Kraft calls "The Cigar Bar."

• 57:06Jordi Hays?

  John, you have to get this.

• 57:08John Coogan?

  This is extremely me.

• 57:10Jordi Hays?

  This is so you.

• 57:10John Coogan?

  This is extremely me. Kraft said that he is at the estate every week. It's basically just a family getaway. His children and their friends spend their, spend time there too. And his oldest son got married there. Wow.

• 57:23Jordi Hays?

  Why, why is he selling?

• 57:25John Coogan?

  Why is he selling? What's wrong? This is, this has gotta be some Jurassic Park style thing where like he's been doing some rare zebra crossbreeds that are about to take over. He's like, yeah, the electric fence works well. It's no climb. You're like, but they've learned to fly. I'm not, I'm not exactly sure. The property has as many outdoor amenities, including a basketball court. That's gonna be big. Basketball's making a comeback.

• 57:48Jordi Hays?

  Kraft said selling is bittersweet, but he promised his wife to list a property when he turns 70.

• 57:53John Coogan?

  Oh, okay.

• 57:54Jordi Hays?

  That's when, that's when you should be selling your primary home and moving to the, to your, to your ranch.

• 58:01John Coogan?

  Okay, I'm, I'm, how far is it? Ione?

• 58:04Jordi Hays?

  Ione in Amador County is home to wineries and equestrian properties and it has become a second home market for people from the Sacramento area. The local luxury market is strong. Yeah, it's really far, but it has a helipad.

• 58:15John Coogan?

  Yeah, six hour, six and a half hours straight shot, maybe seven hours straight shot in a car. But if my plan to ban speed limits happens and you can drive there 200 miles an hour instead of 65, you'll get there in two hours.

• 58:29Jordi Hays?

  It's a flat two hours right now from San Francisco, but get this, by train, it'll only take you six hours.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Wait, did you guys miss this line? It says one of his friends discovered what he believes to be a century old gold mine.

• 58:45John Coogan?

  Wait, really?

• 58:46Jordi Hays?

  Okay, he's just prank, he's pranking everyone right now.

• 58:49John Coogan?

  This is crazy.

• 58:50Jordi Hays?

  He just, I think he wanted to just show off his, I think he just wanted to show off his ranch. So he's like, yeah, I'm selling.

• 58:55John Coogan?

  I'm selling, he's not selling this thing. Zero, zero.

• 58:58Jordi Hays?

  He just wanted the, he just wanted the journal feature.

• 59:00John Coogan?

  We do, we do need to get this guy on the show though. He seems like he's just had a great life and a great time. Seems like a good. Good person to learn the ins and outs of commercial real estate from. Quickly, let me tell you about Plaid. Plaid powers the apps you use to spend, save, borrow, and invest. Securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and improve lending. Now with AI. And somebody who is selling is Orlando Bloom. He put his longtime Malibu home on the market for $12 million. He spent millions redoing the four-bedroom house. Now it's for sale. It can be you. It is above El Matador State Beach. You're gonna have to tell me if that's a good beach. Is this a good location?

• 59:37Jordi Hays?

  It is a fantastic beach.

• 59:38John Coogan?

  Okay. It was the actor's primary home for a full decade.

• 59:41Jordi Hays?

  Lot of tourists there.

• 59:42John Coogan?

  Lot of tourists, okay.

• 59:43Jordi Hays?

  Which is somewhat of a downside.

• 59:45John Coogan?

  Somewhat of a downside, okay. So it's in a gated community.

• 59:48Jordi Hays?

  Stunning.

• 59:49John Coogan?

  It's in a gated community. Only Jordy can tell us if it's a gated community, though. The Malibu house has interiors by the artist and furniture designer Roy McMackin. Bloom did an extensive renovation that cost more than twice what he paid for the house. He bought the house in, where, he bought it in, sold, he sold it, separate Malibu house in 2024 for 4.1 million. How much did he actually buy the house for? I forget, but.

• 1:00:16Jordi Hays?

  2.5.

• 1:00:17John Coogan?

  2.5, and then I guess he spent more than five renovating it, and now he's looking for 12. So, he said he's reluctant to let go of the Malibu house, but he rented it out last year and realized that he likely was not going back there. It felt like it might be the right time to let it go, he said. And he's somebody that picks up the phone when the journals call, which we love to hear.

• 1:00:38Jordi Hays?

  Listing agent is Chris Cortez.

• 1:00:42John Coogan?

  No way. Again, Cortez.

• 1:00:45Jordi Hays?

  Basically, Chris has almost half of all the high-end listings in Malibu.

• 1:00:50John Coogan?

  Do you know how he described the ground floor when Orlando Bloom bought this house? He described the ground floor as "a bit higgledy-piggledy."

• 1:01:02John Coogan?

  Which is a great line. It was a bit higgledy biggledy, but

• 1:01:06Jordi Hays?

  But I need it for my knuckleheads.

• 1:01:07John Coogan?

  For my knuckleheads. He said, he's got the most amazing drives through the Malibu canyons. He's very

• 1:01:13Jordi Hays?

  That is true.

• 1:01:14John Coogan?

  It has a pool, a jacuzzi and a sauna, I believe. And so you can go check that out. There are, there are some other amazing properties in the mansion section, but we will have to get to those later. First, let me tell you about Vanta. Automated compliance and security. Vanta is the leading AI trust management platform. And let me also tell you about Graphite. Code review for the age of AI. Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster. And without further ado, let's bring in our first guest of the show, R F Ken Moore, is in the rooster waiting room.

• 1:01:44John Coogan?

  To the T B E N Alfred Dunn, he's a menswear insider. And we can give him a couple of minutes because there is a tequila billionaire who is selling a Balinese style Hawaii home for $32.5 million. It's designed to look like a temple. The house on Kiholo Bay was built in Indonesia, disassembled and then rebuilt in Hawaii. That is crazy. Billionaire John Paul DeJoria's Hawaii home has traveled

• 1:02:10Jordi Hays?

  I like this home. I like this home.

• 1:02:12John Coogan?

  Just take the home.

• 1:02:13Jordi Hays?

  Bring it to another

• 1:02:14John Coogan?

  That's pretty remarkable.

• 1:02:15Jordi Hays?

  Island.

• 1:02:16John Coogan?

  So in the eighties, he had the Balinese style Bali, from Bali. That home designed and constructed by artisans in Indonesia, then disassembled and shipped to Hawaii's big island where it was rebuilt on a waterfront lot. The process cost a couple million dollars. He's a co-founder of the tequila brand Patron and the hair care products company John Paul Mitchell Systems. Now the property with a shingled roof designed to resemble dragon skin is coming on the market for $32.5 million. What a remarkable property.

• 1:02:50Jordi Hays?

  You really haven't lived until you've gotten food poisoning in Bali.

• 1:02:54John Coogan?

  I've never been. Have you been to Bali?

• 1:02:55Jordi Hays?

  Couple of times.

• 1:02:56John Coogan?

  Surfing?

• 1:02:57Jordi Hays?

  Yes.

• 1:02:57John Coogan?

  A couple of times. Isn't it a really, really long flight?

• 1:03:00Jordi Hays?

  It's a terrible flight.

• 1:03:01John Coogan?

  It's a terrible flight, right? It's very inconvenient.

• 1:03:02Jordi Hays?

  It's especially when you're a college kid and you're broke and you're just like, I used to, with surf trips, I'd go and I would just search the rough dates that I'd want. And then I would just buy the cheapest possible flight, which would usually involve like a 17 hour layover and like the worst place on earth.

• 1:03:21John Coogan?

  Amazing.

• 1:03:21Jordi Hays?

  But I would do it because my time was basically worth nothing. And it was worth it.

• 1:03:27John Coogan?

  But shouldn't you have just gone to an island that's has similar like features closer? Like we have the Caribbean. Is there not good surfing in the Caribbean?

• 1:03:37Jordi Hays?

  No.

• 1:03:37John Coogan?

  No.

• 1:03:38Jordi Hays?

  It's actually, yeah.

• 1:03:38John Coogan?

  You can't surf in the Caribbean.

• 1:03:39Jordi Hays?

  Good question.

• 1:03:40John Coogan?

  Great.

• 1:03:40Jordi Hays?

  No, it's not to say there isn't good surfing in the Caribbean.

• 1:03:44John Coogan?

  It's not like Bali.

• 1:03:45Jordi Hays?

  But the Caribbean, all areas are seasonal, right? So different times of year, it's going to be better conditions. But the Caribbean, you have situations where like it's really good for six hours.

• 1:03:58John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:58Jordi Hays?

  And then it's flat.

• 1:03:59John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:59Jordi Hays?

  Whereas Bali, you're going to have like more consistent surf and it's an island. So you can like go around it depending on the conditions and whatever swells.

• 1:04:08John Coogan?

  Okay. Well, I believe we have our next guest in the Rish room, wedding room. So let's bring in R F Kenmore into the TV panel show. How are you doing? Good to meet you. Thank you for taking the time. How are you?

• 1:04:19Jordi Hays?

  What's going on?

• 1:04:20Speaker 07

  Boys, how's it going?

• 1:04:22John Coogan?

  It's fantastic.

• 1:04:23Jordi Hays?

  You're looking sharp.

• 1:04:24John Coogan?

  Of the weekend, you are looking sharp. We love having anonymous commentators on the show. What can you tell us by way of an introduction? What is your focus? How would you introduce yourself without doxing yourself?

• 1:04:42Speaker 07

  Yeah. Big, big fan of menswear, big fan of the clothing industry, brands, apparel, products. Worked in, worked in men's brands in the industry for over 10 years now.

• 1:04:54John Coogan?

  It also says here, you're a hotel bar evangelist. Explain that.

• 1:04:58Speaker 07

  That's right. Yeah.

• 1:04:59John Coogan?

  What's so special about a hotel bar versus just a normal bar?

• 1:05:03Speaker 07

  I, uh.

• 1:05:04Jordi Hays?

  It's an elevated experience.

• 1:05:05John Coogan?

  Why? It doesn't necessarily need to be an elevated experience.

• 1:05:08Jordi Hays?

  The riffraff out.

• 1:05:09John Coogan?

  Why?

• 1:05:09Jordi Hays?

  You can get more into a hotel bar. Doesn't know about.

• 1:05:11John Coogan?

  They don't know about it?

• 1:05:12Jordi Hays?

  They don't follow R F Kenmore yet.

• 1:05:13John Coogan?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:05:15Speaker 07

  It's a, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a filter, you know? You don't always have, uh, you don't always have people wandering in off the street. Sometimes the bar, you have to go through the lobby to a room, to a room and just kind of filters people out, you know?

• 1:05:29Jordi Hays?

  Uh, I wanted to get the update on the menswear industry broadly. Where the, like, what's happening in clothing?

• 1:05:38John Coogan?

  Who's the biggest winner right now?

• 1:05:39Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Who's the, yeah. Who's, who's the biggest winner?

• 1:05:41John Coogan?

  Yeah. Who's on an absolute, uh, like generational run?

• 1:05:49Speaker 07

  I mean.

• 1:05:52Speaker 07

  On the, on the, the largest level, uh, I don't really, I don't really know in terms of luxury or, or those like major players, but on, on the more like specialty sort of scale, probably Buck Mason, you know, kind of big in the conversation. They're, uh, opening tons of stores. I think they're up to like 50 or 60 stores now and um, men's, from what I last heard, men's still drives, uh, pretty sizable portion of the business, which you don't really see usually women's overtakes as soon as you introduce it.

• 1:06:27Jordi Hays?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:06:29Speaker 07

  Probably them.

• 1:06:30Jordi Hays?

  So, so would you expect at some point, women's to overtake men's at Buck Mason? Or is it just the name is like so, it's just incredibly masculine? But maybe there's still an opportunity there.

• 1:06:43Speaker 07

  I would probably, I would probably expect it to, from what I hear, it's doing really well. They have sort of a good like foundational business going with t-shirts and sweats and sort of like coastal, you know, linen and good fabrications.

• 1:06:58Jordi Hays?

  Well, I would say a large part of their success is that they put a vintage Porsche in their stores, right?

• 1:07:04Speaker 07

  Yeah. Have you guys ever seen their Porsches they have in the stores?

• 1:07:06John Coogan?

  Do they actually?

• 1:07:07Jordi Hays?

  We went to that suit fitting with, uh,

• 1:07:09John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:10Jordi Hays?

  Dave Muser, it was at a Buck Mason.

• 1:07:12John Coogan?

  Oh, that was?

• 1:07:12Jordi Hays?

  That's a Buck Mason.

• 1:07:13John Coogan?

  And they did have a vintage Porsche in the?

• 1:07:15Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:16John Coogan?

  Yeah. Where, where did that trend come from? Is there like a clear lineage? Or is it just like a broad trend?

• 1:07:22Speaker 07

  We need, we need, you know, guys know know your meme?

• 1:07:24John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Speaker 07

  Where it like traces the origins of every meme. We need to know your Porsche.

• 1:07:28John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Speaker 07

  Um, I don't know. I, I, I know that ALD had the, the Porsche in their little Soho pop-up that they did for their Porsche collaboration. And that might've predated any, any Buck Mason, uh,

• 1:07:43Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I think it makes total, I mean, it's funny because I've always appreciated, I really love your posts when you're just kind of joking around and be like, no, they couldn't possibly put a car in their retail store because it is so cliche now, but I think it's a way for, it's just a way for a brand to signal like who they are because cars are extremely personal.

• 1:08:05John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Jordi Hays?

  It says, if you're a car person and you choose to invest your money in cars, your car does say something about you, whether you like it.

• 1:08:13John Coogan?

  Yeah, I would love to walk into a menswear store that had like a Dodge Viper sitting there, like SRT, or yeah, maybe like a Dodge Durango SRT.

• 1:08:25Jordi Hays?

  I'm sure.

• 1:08:27John Coogan?

  What?

• 1:08:28Speaker 07

  The three wheeler? What's that one that they always play the loud music out of?

• 1:08:30John Coogan?

  Oh, is that the Ariel Adam? No, I, the slingshot or something. I forget.

• 1:08:35Speaker 07

  Slingshot, yeah. Who's gonna be the first? Who's gonna stand up and be the first?

• 1:08:38John Coogan?

  That would be good.

• 1:08:38Jordi Hays?

  I like it.

• 1:08:39John Coogan?

  I would shop.

• 1:08:40Jordi Hays?

  What is, what is actually going into, how does a brand thrive today? Everyone knows that apparel brands, you know, you're having to spend so much money on inventory. You don't necessarily know what's going to be hot. But what is, what are the brands that are doing the best in menswear doing from a supply chain standpoint? Are they, you know, leaning into US manufacturing? Are they, are they, are getting, are they still like dependent on, on Asia or Latin America? What's the approach that's working?

• 1:09:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, there's no one, in terms of supply chain or sort of like the operational side of the business, I don't think that there's one model that, that you have to adhere to. I know that COVID really scared a lot of brands into diversifying their supply chains. There were some brands that were just super, super heavily concentrated in China, even with just one vendor base. And so that's really forced people to look into Latin America, India, different areas like that. But as far as like what drives success, I think community is more important than it's ever been. You know, you look at the.

• 1:09:55Jordi Hays?

  What does that actually, what does that actually mean though?

• 1:09:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Jordi Hays?

  Usually when people like. For example, like I've bought a bunch of stuff from Buck Mason over the years, but I've never been like identifying as like I'm in the Buck Mason community.

• 1:10:09John Coogan?

  Community to me would mean like you walk in and there's, you know, you got your your Dodge Viper there and then they they hand you a white monster and there's like a mosh pit that you can like go and like thrash to like limb biscuit in and like you're gonna be fighting guys in the mosh pit, but you're gonna be building community through that.

• 1:10:27Jordi Hays?

  Got it.

• 1:10:28John Coogan?

  That's what it means to me.

• 1:10:29Jordi Hays?

  Okay.

• 1:10:29John Coogan?

  But

• 1:10:30Jordi Hays?

  Maybe you have a future in menswear.

• 1:10:31John Coogan?

  I think so. It's possible.

• 1:10:33Speaker 07

  You look like it. You're looking, you're looking dialed. You're kinda mog and Jordy right now.

• 1:10:37Jordi Hays?

  I know.

• 1:10:38John Coogan?

  Yeah, casual Friday over here has crept in to every day.

• 1:10:41Jordi Hays?

  Well, you almost wore jeans.

• 1:10:43John Coogan?

  I was very close to wearing jeans, but I did throw on the dress pants. Uh, walk me through the guide to visiting New York. We we head to New York every once in a while. We're usually at the New York Stock Exchange downtown. I believe it's in downtown Wall Street. Uh, where's the best place to live? Where's the best place to hang out? What's the guide for the the the West Coast fellow who's visiting or or planning to move to New York?

• 1:11:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, um, everyone's got different. That's kind of the cool thing about about Manhattan. There's kind of different flavors depending on which neighborhood you go to. Um, I I think the Upper East Side is coming back. People are rediscovering the Upper East Side, like, kind of like they're the first ones to do it, which is funny, but my favorite neighborhood still is like the Nomad, Flatiron, uh, sort of area. It it's central, but it's it's not uh, it's it's not in the middle of anything, if that makes kind of sense.

• 1:11:43John Coogan?

  Does the city feel of like it's back? Because there was a lot of like doom and gloom over like, Mom Donnie, everyone's gonna move to Florida, everyone's gonna leave and but what's the actual vibe on the ground been?

• 1:11:56Speaker 07

  I, yeah, I think it's the same as it's always been. I think, you know, you you walk around anywhere, anywhere busy. Uh, you know, you go to any of like the shopping areas, whether it's Fifth Avenue on Flatiron, or you go to a nice, a nice restaurant somewhere that's popular, they're they're slammed and they're impossible to get into, so I don't, I don't think.

• 1:12:17John Coogan?

  What is your pitch for tech people who want to dress more?

• 1:12:25John Coogan?

  Want to elevate their wardrobes in New York specifically. I feel like the finance guy has some sort of shape to them that's been established going back. There's lots of great reference points. You can say I'm a Garden Gekko guy or I'm a Patrick Bateman guy. Or there's plenty of like iconic cinematic portrayals of the Wall Street guy. Less so in the New York tech scene.

• 1:12:50Jordi Hays?

  We got some.

• 1:12:50John Coogan?

  The New York tech scene is certainly growing and it feels like it has an opportunity to distinguish itself from the Silicon Valley scene.

• 1:12:59Speaker 07

  I don't know. I think you establish like a tribal council of tech leaders to really hone in on the personal aesthetic. But if you're an individual, I mean, I think a uniform is always a great place to start. Just pick a couple of good things, a top, a bottom. And then buy, buy really good versions of those things that are obviously well made and that fit you really well. You need to take them to a tailor or whatever to make that happen. That's good too. And then just buy multiples. And then from there you can kind of introduce maybe a stylish piece that you found really interesting that, you know, just happened to be kind of like a one and done.

• 1:13:38Jordi Hays?

  What's going on with various lifestyle brands in different kind of subcultures? Whether that's running or golf, are they all going to converge on a long enough time horizon because they need to, to scale? What, what are you seeing there?

• 1:13:55Speaker 07

  Well, I don't know if you saw my tweet about Malvin. I guess they're converging. They're just, they're just grabbing at whatever hype they can find transitioning from golf into, into run clubs. But I, I don't know. I mean, it's hard. Like if you look at the hardcore running brands that are kind of driving the culture right now, Bandit, Satisfy. It's a couple of smaller ones like Uvu or I don't even know how to say it in the UK.

• 1:14:26Speaker 07

  Or sore. Could you imagine a world in which they pivot into golf? Or they expand, I guess, better phrased, into golf? I don't know. I think that would feel kind of disingenuous and you would end up with this disparate feeling, brand, identity and assortment. So, I don't know. I think lifestyle is probably the more natural.

• 1:14:49Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic where it's easier to break out and establish a foothold as a brand by really focusing on like a subculture, like running, but then can you, is running, you know, what are you running from? Right? Is it somewhat of a, is it an Instagram kind of, you know, fad? Right? Are people, can running support 10 different, you know, micro brands over time? Probably. But at the same time, like it feels like very like on trend right now to, and yeah, we'll see, we'll see how durable it is.

• 1:15:27John Coogan?

  So outside of following you, what's a good way for folks to get into menswear? If I'm talking to somebody and they're interested in cars, I might recommend Doug DiMuro. Go down that rabbit hole. There's, you know, there's a whole, you could pick up a copy of Car and Driver. You could start watching Drive to Survivor. Just watch F1. You'll learn about cars broadly. What are the different entry points? What are the great, you know, either creators or publications that you think help people get up to speed on menswear?

• 1:15:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's, that's kind of why I started tweeting, honestly. It's hard. I don't know that there is, that there is one. And I think the, the offering in terms of voices and publications and more of like the institutional side of it, they're, I don't know, I feel like kind of aimed a little high. Like they're looking at temporary brands. They're looking at runway. They're looking at things that may not be super useful to most people. And so I found it really hard time trying to find. Relatable, digestible content or advice.

• 1:16:37Jordi Hays?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:16:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, for for normal people.

• 1:16:41Jordi Hays?

  Jeremy Kirkland, Blammo. Okay. He's a buddy. Cool. But uh, I, he's had a, he's had a great podcast forever that kind of goes through and interviews a lot of the great kind of founders and creative leaders in the industry.

• 1:16:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's cool. There's um, there's that dude, uh, now I'm blanking on his name. I don't know.

• 1:17:02Jordi Hays?

  Um, well, last question, do you think, uh, do you think surf brands can ever make a comeback? Do you think that any people will be like, I gotta get the new Billabong drop. I gotta get the new Quicksilver. Is there a chance? They've, they've fallen off so incredibly hard that I feel like. Yeah, the, the fall off is just insane. I like, people just, like, young teenagers, they wanna wear Chrome Hearts and, and, you know, and, and streetwear. They, that last, they don't wanna be caught dead in Billabong, but everything, all these things come back around eventually. Yeah.

• 1:17:39Speaker 07

  It's kind of funny. I, I was just talking to a buddy in the industry about this, how Billabong, Quicksilver, whatever, kind of, you know, they, they were tapped into culture. They were kind of running things um, for a little bit, but now that, I mean, that vibe is probably running brands or, or golf brands, maybe a little bit. Um, there is the one brand, uh, Florence Marine X, which John Don Florence is the face of.

• 1:18:06Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Speaker 07

  Which is backed by the Hurley family and he's having a go at this sort of like modern uh, take on, on a surf brand. You have Outer Known as well, uh, Kelly Slater's Outer Known brand that he co-founded. It's, it's definitely more of like a lifestyle.

• 1:18:23Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, the, the, the question though is can any of these brands like break back into culture?

• 1:18:29Speaker 07

  Can Billabong or Quicksilver break back? Specifically?

• 1:18:33Jordi Hays?

  No, no, I'm just saying like even Outer known and Florence Marine X like you don't see like Instagram kids in a GT3 RS, you know, rocking like, you know, Outer known. And my question is like, could you ever see one of those people, one of those archetypes, you know, rocking a surf brand? It seems, it seems like a stretch, but.

• 1:18:53Speaker 07

  It's, it's hard, yeah, it's, it's hard to imagine, but I don't know. I mean, crazy things happen.

• 1:18:57Jordi Hays?

  Billabong's got to sign ASAP Rocky as creative director.

• 1:19:03John Coogan?

  Most of the GT3 RS owners seem like the type to put the surfboard on the roof, which is like ridiculous. Obviously no one would ever do that.

• 1:19:10Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, John does.

• 1:19:13John Coogan?

  I mean, this is something I know. Anyway, thank you so much.

• 1:19:17Jordi Hays?

  Great to meet you. Thank you for, thank you for all of your commentary.

• 1:19:22John Coogan?

  And we'll chat with you soon.

• 1:19:24Speaker 07

  Have a good one. Go find a port at your store somewhere.

• 1:19:26Jordi Hays?

  We will. You're the man.

• 1:19:27John Coogan?

  Let me tell you about Turbo Puffer. Serverless vector and full tech search. Built from first principles and object storage. Fast, 10x cheaper and extremely scalable. Before we bring in our, oh, is our next guest available?

• 1:19:37Jordi Hays?

  Yep.

• 1:19:38John Coogan?

  Fantastic. Let's bring in Mitch Lee from Arc Boats. That's the sound of the boat going. You need to play that constant. Let's bring in Mitch Lee from Arc Boats. How you doing Mitch?

• 1:19:49Speaker 08

  What's going on Mitch? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

• 1:19:52John Coogan?

  Thanks for hopping on. I'm, I'm, I'm super familiar with you. We talked on the phone a couple of years ago, but since folks out there might not be, please introduce yourself in the company.

• 1:20:03Speaker 08

  Yeah. My name is Mitch Lee, co-founder, CEO of Arc. Arc is on a mission to electrify the marine industry. Rebuild this very outdated industry around more modern electric power trains. It's similar to what happened in rail many decades ago. Every train today is electrically powered. They're diesel electric, hydrogen electric, battery electric, but they're all electric. We're, marine industry is going to do the same thing and we're out to a big lead there.

• 1:20:33John Coogan?

  Yeah, we were talking to Travis Kalanick about how he, I think he had like a tour of Sironix factory and was like, I want to water ski behind that, but I think you can technically water ski behind an Arc boat.

• 1:20:44Jordi Hays?

  He wants a drone to help him water ski. Cause he's like, I can't get anybody to drive the boat.

• 1:20:49John Coogan?

  Yeah. So, so talk to us about, like, what can you do on an Arc boat? Fish and wa- wakeboard and water skis, everything on the table? And then, and then, yeah, is there an autonomous vision in the future?

• 1:21:01Speaker 08

  Yeah, so briefly on the business where we started was we we had this core thesis. The entire industry is going to go electric over the next decade or so. We started by hardening that technology in the consumer space. So our first boats to market were consumer boats, a speedboat that you could water ski behind. Now we're ramping production of a wake sport boat. So something that you wake board behind.

• 1:21:25Jordi Hays?

  John's a lake guy. I'm more of an ocean guy, but John.

• 1:21:29Speaker 08

  This is it's lake boats, lake boats. That's my, that's what I grew up with.

• 1:21:33John Coogan?

  I love it.

• 1:21:34Speaker 08

  So we're ramping production of that.

• 1:21:36Jordi Hays?

  What's the goal? Are you trying to, is there anything you can do on the electric side to make like the biggest wake ever? Or is it more just kind of like, hey, we want kind of something.

• 1:21:46John Coogan?

  Like the plaid was like for the price, like the fastest zero to 60 this time. Is there an equivalent like, oh, electric unlocks this? Because obviously everyone knows about the environmental benefits, the cost benefits, like maintenance. But the maintenance, but like, is there going to be like a killer feature from electrification?

• 1:22:04Speaker 08

  There is, I mean, there are multiple killer features. One of the biggest ones is actually sound.

• 1:22:08John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:22:09Speaker 08

  The it's quiet when you're on the boat and like operating.

• 1:22:13Jordi Hays?

  So you can just talk. That's amazing.

• 1:22:15John Coogan?

  That's amazing.

• 1:22:16Speaker 08

  You don't smell the fumes of it. The torque on it, so.

• 1:22:19Jordi Hays?

  Well, that's a, that's a downside. That's a downside for John. He loves the smell of, you know, fumes in the morning.

• 1:22:26John Coogan?

  Yeah, seeing the oil pool of, as I jump into the water.

• 1:22:30Speaker 08

  Just the exhausting down into the water and cancer that you're.

• 1:22:33John Coogan?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:22:35Speaker 08

  Um, no, but the the torque at low speeds is very high. So you can, when you punch the throttle, it's immediate acceleration. The way you corner, it handles like a jet boat. So you could whip this, it's electronic steering, electronic, electronic throttle. So you could whip this boat around with a, like, you know, steering with one finger and throw people off the boat because it's so powerful. And then it's software defined. So every part of this is, yeah, powered by software. You've got in-house firmware, in-house software, in-house telemetry system over there updates. You hit one button, the wake is perfectly configured for whether you're wakeboarding or wake surfing on the left or right side of the boat. We can set that all up in software and it's just a punch of a button.

• 1:23:19John Coogan?

  That's amazing. So talk, talk to us about where you're going next, how much money you've raised, what the plan is going forward. Because obviously you, you, you found this beachhead metaphorically and you're expanding.

• 1:23:31Speaker 08

  Yeah, we we just closed a $50 million Series C that brings our total amount to fundraise.

• 1:23:41Speaker 08

  Love the energy of this show.

• 1:23:42John Coogan?

  Play the boat sound. I want to hear the boat sound again.

• 1:23:51Speaker 08

  Guess we fired up in the morning.

• 1:23:52John Coogan?

  I love it. That should be your alarm clock though. So 50 million.

• 1:23:56Speaker 08

  That's my, anytime somebody calls me, that's the sound that it makes.

• 1:23:59John Coogan?

  That's great.

• 1:24:00Speaker 08

  We we just closed that.

• 1:24:07Jordi Hays?

  Sorry, it's Friday. We're having fun. It's hard to keep it together.

• 1:24:10Speaker 08

  Don't worry, I'm hyped up on Celsius. We're good to go.

• 1:24:12Jordi Hays?

  Good, good.

• 1:24:14Speaker 08

  We, so we just closed that round. It brings our total funding up to 160 million. And the, again, we hardened this technology on the consumer side. We're now, we're at a, we'll call it a $40 million run rate on deliveries of those boats. Every month it's going up. Every month our margin is expanding. We are now expanding that core technology, the platform that we built to commercial applications and defense applications. We signed a $160 million deal for ship-assist tugboats. So giant tugboats out on the water that push and pull cargo ships.

• 1:24:49Jordi Hays?

  So that, so that rapid acceleration and that like turning capability that you mentioned, I imagine is is huge for, if you're like, makes a tugboat potentially a lot more like accurate.

• 1:25:03Speaker 08

  You definitely get a lot of torque benefits from it, but a big part of it is they care about profit. They care about, like tugboat operators want to make more money. And the way that you make more money is you cut your OpEx in half by reducing the fuel costs, by reducing the maintenance costs, by keeping that vessel, which is a $20 million vessel, online and running more, like a greater percent of the time. And then you also avoid a bunch of compliance burdens. These things are cancer-spewing machines. So by going electric, you avoid a lot of the compliance burdens for like, hey, how do you

• 1:25:36John Coogan?

  EPA.

• 1:25:37Speaker 08

  more cleanly burn bunker fuel? Instead, it's like, this thing doesn't even have fuel tanks onboard. You can put a diesel generator on the back of it, but it's a, it's a much cleaner.

• 1:25:45Jordi Hays?

  What about, what about autonomy?

• 1:25:48Speaker 08

  The, in the commercial space, that's not as big of a deal today. Uh, on the consumer side, I mean, we, we have a fair amount of autonomy. You can hit a button and the boat will just hold its position in the water.

• 1:26:00Jordi Hays?

  Sure.

• 1:26:00Speaker 08

  Um, we'll.

• 1:26:01Jordi Hays?

  Oh, without, without an anchor, you're saying?

• 1:26:04Speaker 08

  Yeah, yeah, anchorless anchoring.

• 1:26:05Jordi Hays?

  That's awesome.

• 1:26:07Speaker 08

  So if you're out in Lake Tahoe.

• 1:26:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Speaker 08

  Uh, it's, it's pretty deep there. You can't drop an anchor, but you can just hit a button and say, I'm going to jump into the water because my boat's staying still.

• 1:26:14John Coogan?

  And the boat just stays there. That's amazing. That's really cool.

• 1:26:17Speaker 08

  Um, I mean, we, as kind of a little side project on a, on a weekend, took the boat out and made it remote controllable. So you could just kind of remote control it and $300,000 export. Uh, so if you want to, I mean, I don't think this is legal in maybe any state but Texas, but you can like pop out.

• 1:26:35John Coogan?

  That's where Travis lives. I think you gotta give him a call.

• 1:26:39Speaker 08

  Yeah. You can, you can get one of our boats and just remote control it.

• 1:26:42Jordi Hays?

  What about, what about the, what about the elephant in the room? Jet skis. When are we gonna see jet skis?

• 1:26:50Speaker 08

  Where, where are we going with this?

• 1:26:53Speaker 08

  I, I don't, jet skis are a tough problem. It's, it's like, it's kind of like motorcycles. There's, there's a reason that they haven't gone mainstream electric yet. I think we might see that one day, but the cost, I mean, they're low margin.

• 1:27:07John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:27:08Speaker 08

  Uh, vehicles. And so getting the cost down to be competitive and stuff.

• 1:27:11John Coogan?

  What about?

• 1:27:11Jordi Hays?

  Oh, you're saying so it's hard and low margins? You don't care about me having fun?

• 1:27:16John Coogan?

  Love of the game. Uh, what about the charging infrastructure at, at, at different marinas?

• 1:27:23John Coogan?

  You want to jet ski really badly?

• 1:27:25Jordi Hays?

  I mean, the, the SAS.

• 1:27:26John Coogan?

  Well, you just want this because it'll, it'll tow you into the big waves, right?

• 1:27:30Jordi Hays?

  I just, jet skiing is euphoric.

• 1:27:32John Coogan?

  Yeah. If you're at Nazaret, you need an electric jet ski that's autonomous that can tow you into the 80 foot wave.

• 1:27:37Jordi Hays?

  The environmental, you know, it's hard with a jet ski. You're thinking about, you know, you're, the, the dolphins are not having a good time.

• 1:27:44John Coogan?

  Or they don't like them?

• 1:27:45Jordi Hays?

  You need to do it for the dolphins.

• 1:27:46John Coogan?

  Okay, okay. For the love of the game.

• 1:27:47Speaker 08

  For the dolphins. That's, that's our, that's our motto at our, for the dolphins.

• 1:27:51John Coogan?

  He's a huge dolphin fan. Uh, you, talk to me about the charging infrastructure at marinas. Is, is this something that you partner with docks to get up to speed? Is there infrastructure that's pretty easy to just plug into? How, how has that been?

• 1:28:04Speaker 08

  The way I describe this is electric boats make way more sense than electric cars. That's not to say electric cars don't make sense. They just have hard problems to solve. You have to solve for road trips. Gas cars are really good at what they do. Like going electric on the water is a no brainer.

• 1:28:19John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:28:20Speaker 08

  Charging infrastructure is a good example of this. Marinos are already wired for power. Because big boats use shore power to power refrigerators or

• 1:28:30Jordi Hays?

  The entire boat.

• 1:28:31John Coogan?

  Charge up batteries. Because you're going to have batteries for a long time. So you need a lot of charging infrastructure. So.

• 1:28:36Speaker 08

  And if you have a dock, then your dock is usually wired for power for lighting. Or if you have a boat lift, that boat lift already runs 240.

• 1:28:42John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:28:44Speaker 08

  It charging is a pretty tractable problem. It's not perfectly solved, but it's we're out to a huge head start there. When you get into commercial and defense applications, we just designed the vessels so that they don't need charging. We're installing charging, but you don't need it. So everything is hybrid electric. It's diesel electric or hydrogen electric or nuclear electric. Like aircraft carriers today are nuclear electric, for example. They have an electric propulsion system, but then where the power source is coming from is is nuclear energy.

• 1:29:15John Coogan?

  Interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us. Congrats on the round and see.

• 1:29:22Jordi Hays?

  We got to get out on the water.

• 1:29:23John Coogan?

  We got to do it.

• 1:29:24Speaker 08

  There's nothing like experience this boat. Come demo it. Sign up for a demo. I mean, to anyone that's watching this too, come out for a demo. It's a it will shift your perspective on the industry.

• 1:29:35John Coogan?

  Amazing.

• 1:29:35Jordi Hays?

  Amazing.

• 1:29:36John Coogan?

  Have a good rest of your day. Enjoy the weekend and we'll talk to you soon.

• 1:29:39Jordi Hays?

  All right. Cheers.

• 1:29:41John Coogan?

  Our next guest is here in person. We have Bucky Moore from Lightspeed. Let me first tell you about Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business, lets you sell in seconds, online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents. And without further ado, Bucky Moore, how you doing?

• 1:29:55Speaker 09

  Great to be in the temple today, guys. First time in person and yeah, I think the last time we did this, I think we were both kind of just getting started on our journeys, right? It was early last year and so you guys have just ascended more sponsors, bigger studio. Better hair.

• 1:30:10Jordi Hays?

  I didn't know you. I didn't know you were jacked.

• 1:30:13Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a great day today. We had we had leg day today. Beautiful day in in LA.

• 1:30:18John Coogan?

  What's the split? Leg day once a week or twice a week?

• 1:30:21Speaker 09

  Monday, Friday.

• 1:30:21John Coogan?

  Monday, Friday.

• 1:30:22Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:30:23John Coogan?

  Serious business.

• 1:30:24Jordi Hays?

  Are we maybe need to adopt that?

• 1:30:27John Coogan?

  Fifty two leg days a year.

• 1:30:29Jordi Hays?

  We're five days a week in the gym with the team, but we do like, we've been doing a, a, a technology brother split, which is a more traditional.

• 1:30:37John Coogan?

  Upper body.

• 1:30:39Jordi Hays?

  So it's like, you know, leg day would be Wednesday, but then you don't get the second leg day.

• 1:30:43John Coogan?

  It's like, ah, it's Saturday, I just missed it.

• 1:30:45Speaker 09

  Recovery though.

• 1:30:46John Coogan?

  Uh, how has, uh, how has Lightspeed been?

• 1:30:50Speaker 09

  It has been fantastic. I mean, I think we're all just lucky to be in the center of the industry right now, given all the amazing stuff that's happening. I think since we last spoke, we, uh, we closed nine billion in new funds and we have been, uh.

• 1:31:00John Coogan?

  Go, go hit the dong for us. Smash that thing. Congratulations.

• 1:31:07John Coogan?

  Very good. Uh, so nine billion funding and that's across venture and growth?

• 1:31:12Speaker 09

  That is correct. Yeah. So Lightspeed is, is a generalist firm and I think something that's, that's very unique about us is we have produced like really meaningful returns in just about every sector from healthcare and life sciences to enterprise, to consumer.

• 1:31:23Jordi Hays?

  It's a shame that's unique.

• 1:31:24Speaker 09

  And financial services. It actually is though. And I, and I think it took me a while to realize that it's, it's the secret, I think of, of, of the platform is that we, we're willing to take deep, deep technical risk and very high conviction bets early. And, uh, that's, uh, I think that's the secret.

• 1:31:38John Coogan?

  Yeah. So what have you been focused on? More on the venture side?

• 1:31:41Speaker 09

  Absolutely. So I've spent all my time kind of in and around AI on the early stage side. Um, obviously we've been spending a lot of time kind of looking for these like really, really transformative opportunities in the infrastructure layer. So new inference platforms, new model providers. And then in the application layer, I mean, I just feel like I'm seeing the future every day. There are companies that are just bringing this intelligence to bear in unique ways with these industries that I think is, uh, is really going to be the tip of the spear in how the world adopts this technology. So when we talk about the SaaS apocalypse, uh, I think a lot of that is, is, is somewhat overblown in this.

• 1:32:12Speaker 09

  Like I would agree with what Pat and Carl said yesterday in the sense that people do business with people and ultimately I think it is so much harder than a lot of these blog posts make it out to be to actually get this technology into these industries, into these end users' hands in a way that actually makes it actionable. And so we've been very actively investing in both layers. And I, I think there are places where the model providers are going to do a good job of that, but they are still going to have to shoulder the responsibility of that last. Mile and then I think there's going to be places where app providers are going to be really prolific and build very valuable companies.

• 1:32:42John Coogan?

  Yeah, let's let's work through the supply chain a little bit of the or the stack because AI means so many things right now. Starting with like, it feels like the the ship has sailed a little bit on like training new models. For the most part, the big labs are really big now. Huge, maybe going IPO this year.

• 1:32:59Jordi Hays?

  Is that true?

• 1:33:00John Coogan?

  Neo labs are popular.

• 1:33:01Jordi Hays?

  What? I mean, there's so there's so there's enough.

• 1:33:04John Coogan?

  There are a lot of.

• 1:33:05Jordi Hays?

  We get a new Neo lab at least.

• 1:33:07John Coogan?

  Is that interesting to you?

• 1:33:08Speaker 09

  So I would say as a firm, we have, we have been very active in investing in a lot of these Neo labs. So we're an investor in Mistral, SSI, Thinking Machines. I do, I would also concede that I think the bar to reach the frontier today is is higher than it's ever been.

• 1:33:22John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:23Speaker 09

  And so I think for us, it's really just a question of whether.

• 1:33:26Jordi Hays?

  We've now seen like you can have unlimited, effectively unlimited resources and not meet the get to the frontier. And so as an investor, there really you have to see that the team actually has like some.

• 1:33:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Jordi Hays?

  Like capital is not enough.

• 1:33:40Speaker 09

  I think I think there's an argument to be made that there are just no secrets in this industry anymore and scale is all you have. And I think there are, you know, really three, maybe four labs that are that are able to to really play that game.

• 1:33:49John Coogan?

  I'm more, I'm more asking like, yeah, you've made bets on Neo labs. Those make sense. Great teams. Are you expecting to make a whole bunch more Neo lab bets that are like truly, we're not on top of any open source model. We're going to do the full thing in 2026, 2027? Or has that ship sailed more or less?

• 1:34:06Speaker 09

  Yeah, I want to, I want to be careful with what I say here, obviously, to to to remind myself that this is all about exceptions. But I think what we're seeing is the bar is way, way higher.

• 1:34:14John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:14Speaker 09

  Right? And so everyone talking about sample efficiency, everyone talking about continual learning. I mean, these are things that the large labs are very, very focused on as well.

• 1:34:21John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 1:34:22Speaker 09

  But I also think that there's a pretty valid argument to be made that the bureaucracy of these large labs is real, like in the same way that OpenAI was able to exploit Google's bureaucracy by scaling a transformer before they could. I think you can argue that such opportunities will exist in the future for, you know, for OpenAI and Anthropic being distracted by making the products that earn them all this money.

• 1:34:38John Coogan?

  Sure. Sure, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. What about like much deeper in the supply chain? We, there was this article in the information a few days ago about a company called Giga that has raised no venture funding. It's a, it is a small team that got into like building electrical infrastructure and it's, it's in the AI narrative. They were initially selling, you know, transformer equipment, like physical transformers, not the transformer architecture, to Bitcoin miners. Then they pivoted into the AI data center boom. They are seeing a lot of success. Would you ever dip down that deep or is that sort of out of your purview? Obviously, exceptions to everything, but.

• 1:35:14Speaker 09

  Oh, absolutely. I think my, a few of my partners have been spending a lot of time on just the power problem.

• 1:35:19John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Speaker 09

  And I think from my perspective, as someone who tends to invest more in the, in the software layer.

• 1:35:23John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:35:24Speaker 09

  What I'm seeing is that a lot of these Neo clouds are actually blocked by their ability to raise the credit they need to actually bring this power online by the quality of the counterparties. And so if your counterparty is OpenAI, for example, the debt providers are going to be very, very aggressive and open to, to flowing you the, the funds that you need to, to bring all this online. But on the other hand, these Neo Labs who aren't generating revenue, may not have a near-term path to revenue, they're looked at very differently as counterparties. And so that's, I think, a big blocker for, for these Neo clouds to bring a lot of the capacity that they have online. And so how do you, how do you unblock that? Obviously, we need new and more efficient means to generate electricity. And so we've been very actively investing in nuclear.

• 1:35:58John Coogan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:35:59Speaker 09

  Uh, we, we're investors in a company called Base Power that's doing some very interesting work, right? Go Zach.

• 1:36:03John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 1:36:04Speaker 09

  And I think we will continue to be very active in that area. And my, my partners on the hard tech side are very busy trying to figure that out.

• 1:36:10John Coogan?

  Then on the other side of the stack, the application layer, what advice do you give to founders? What are the green flags for? Okay, you're building in the, you're building in the application layer. You're never going to compete in training a foundation model. Maybe you do some fine tuning, but there's other secrets in the business. There's other sources of modes and strengths that you will see compounding and you don't think you're going to get steamrolled by an OpenAI or an Anthropic anytime soon.

• 1:36:37Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38John Coogan?

  What's, what's.

• 1:36:38Jordi Hays?

  Right, right. In this moment, I mean, this week, it's been top of mind or the last couple of weeks is like, I expect that the dynamic we're seeing right now between cursor and the labs is what we'll see for pretty much every other vertical, right? I expect to see that in legal, like. You know, Claude has come out with like plugins for legal, but you can imagine them just saying like, yeah, we now have a hundred people working on just the legal application of our technology. And so I think that ever across, that doesn't mean, you know, doesn't mean these companies can't still do well.

• 1:37:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Jordi Hays?

  But it, I, I'm, I'm trying to think through like the timing where, where OpenAI and Anthropic just like, just like basically go all in on, on some of these bigger categories.

• 1:37:20Speaker 09

  Yeah. So I'm glad you brought up cursor and like the software engineering space because it's obviously the most mature. So I think it's very illustrative, as is legal. And interestingly today, you guys, I'm not, I'm not sure if you guys covered this in the beginning of the show, but like the, the model that cursor launched, right? So, so first off, um, you know, it's very obvious now that these companies are going to be training their own models. And it's, it's, it's also the case that they're going to be starting with one of these open weight models, which today are Chinese, which as an American citizen, doesn't sit super well with me. Uh, we are investors in a company called Reflection AI that aims to change that. Um, but on the other hand, uh, I do think what cursor is out to prove is that the user data that they're capturing is going to allow them to set up this reinforcement learning loop that does allow them to, to build something that is like frontier quality. At the same time, it appears as though these companies are still sending a lot of their

• 1:38:04Speaker 09

  most complex queries to Codex, to, uh, or rather GPT into, into Claude. And there's obviously a margin problem there that, that is pretty hard to compete with when you think about the competitive products that OpenAI and Anthropic have. And then when you shift gears to legal, my assumption would be that like Harvey and Lagora will have to do the same thing that cursor is doing. And so I think this is kind of an elephant in the room right now as to whether, whether post-training open models allows you to, combined with like unique user feedback that you get from being an application provider, uh, is, is, is defensible enough. And, and so when I, when I think about like the companies that we're looking to invest in, I would actually say that I think that is just going to be an inevitable challenge for any of these industries that hit a maturation point of AI adoption like legal and software engineering have. But on the other hand, I think there's some industries

• 1:38:47Speaker 09

  where they're, they're very large, they're far enough afield from where the model providers are today and probably will continue to be. And the context engineering to actually get the, the customer data into the model is just so messy. It requires going across different business functions. It requires a lot of like hands-on forward deployed engineering. I think those are the kind of companies that we get really excited about because I think just being really good at that is not only defensible, but it also allows you to start to generate this like feedback loop with your customers where you hear a lot of their secrets and those secrets allow you to feed that back into how you make your product better at the expense of anyone else playing in the space because if you're serving the customer, they're only telling you those secrets, right?

• 1:39:22John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:23Speaker 09

  And I think Palantir is like a good example of this in sort of the pre-AI era and I think we're going to see many companies ascend in that same way. And so the companies that were investing in the application layer, I think have a really clear story around how that is hard and defensible enough that they can make it a core competency.

• 1:39:37John Coogan?

  Let me throw an analogy at you that sort of riffs off of that and you can tell me if it seems like a fit. Like Amazon, obviously the goal is to be the everything store, but there were certain categories, regulated, medical products, HIMSS, Roman, those companies were able to break through because it was out of the core competency. Is that a reasonable thought where it's not just about the flywheel of what's happening with those customer secrets, but it's also just such a sticky, messy problem that the big one-size-fits-all solutions can't necessarily attack them?

• 1:40:09Speaker 09

  I think there's sort of a B to C version of this analogy and then there's like the B to B one. So the B to C one is where you started.

• 1:40:16John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:40:16Speaker 09

  What you've seen with Amazon is they've obviously like kind of done what Costco does, which is when they see a category that's sort of commodity enough, they can create a generic version of it and they can have sort of margin, you know, advantages there that allow them to make a lot more money and compete. But I think the B to B analogy is the one that I think of a little bit more, which is to say like if you look at Amazon Web Services.

• 1:40:33John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:40:34Speaker 09

  They've let companies like Snowflake and Databricks build really, really large businesses on top of them because it's driving consumption of their underlying infrastructure.

• 1:40:40John Coogan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:40:41Speaker 09

  Right?

• 1:40:42John Coogan?

  That's a good one.

• 1:40:43Speaker 09

  And while AWS still has data warehouse and data infrastructure products, they're, you know, they're probably 80% as good.

• 1:40:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Speaker 09

  So if you're in the business of just kind of simplicity and you just want to kind of buy everything from Costco or buy everything from Amazon Web Services in this case, like you're going to go that way and many large enterprises do.

• 1:40:57John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 1:40:57Speaker 09

  But on the other hand, Databricks and Snowflake have built really, really healthy businesses and the health of those businesses accretes to the success of Amazon Web Services. I think you're going to see something very similar with the model providers, which is they're perfectly happy letting You know, 75% of the large industries out there just kind of sit on top of them. And then I think the 25% of those industries that they're going to play in, those are the ones that I think you want to, you know, be very mindful of and avoid. And I think what what the sort of hysteria around the SaaS apocalypse is right now is that we're starting to see the aperture of that 25% like rear its head. Yep. And I think what that what that means is you naturally take a step back and say, wait, like, it's not just going to be software illegal. Yeah. And so I think that's the conversation that we're having every day is like, what's next? And I think Claude Co-Work is sort of an example of where you could also just imagine

• 1:41:40Speaker 09

  that there's sort of this new class of AI app company that essentially connects to something like Claude Co-Work via MCP and actually is in a really interesting position. So like, we're seeing, we're seeing companies emerge where, for example, in the coding paradigm, there may be places where you want to jump out of the code and jump to a design canvas, for example, right? And so there's a company, for example, that's trying to just be called Paper that we think is really interesting, that is trying to provide a canvas that literally is just allows you to go from like the code you generate in Claude. Sure. To the canvas and back, right? And today, that's something that Figma hasn't focused on as much, but I'm sure will. Granola, which is a company in our portfolio, like, they've launched an MCP server and people are using it very aggressively in Claude. Sure. And I think what you're going to start to see happening is that the monetization model of a lot of software companies is going to shift actually monitoring, or sorry,

• 1:42:24Speaker 09

  metering the rate at which the MCP server is consumed. So for example, every time I call Granola's MCP. Yep. Granola should make a little bit of money. Yeah, yeah. Right? And I think that's actually going to be a very healthy business model and one that's probably durable. That makes sense. Jordi? Sorry. Cut you off.

• 1:42:37Jordi Hays?

  Uh, how do you think about opportunities at the super early stage where you, where a lab could do it but wouldn't because it's only in the near term like a $300 million, $500 billion revenue opportunity? Because I think there's like lots of, you know, you look at companies like Open Evidence or Suno that have built like, you know, pretty big businesses. And like, I think like Suno seems to be a beneficiary of like the battle between Anthropic and OpenAI right now, specifically because OpenAI is like, well, we could put a bunch of resources into a. You know, a music product, but like, that's not the most important, like, if we just, even if we knock it out of the park, it's not gonna like necessarily change the dynamic

• 1:43:21Jordi Hays?

  at the frontier. Are you thinking about, are you seeing opportunities at the early stage where you're like, yes, the labs could do this, they would be in a good position to win, but it's just not even a big enough opportunity. And so a small focused team can like get to a five, $10 billion valuation and then have the opportunity to like, you know, scale from there.

• 1:43:40Speaker 09

  Yeah, so I'll start with Suno. So we're also one of the largest investors in Suno. Love Mikey. I was honestly very skeptical of the company as a music aficionado. Like, it was just difficult for me to conceive that music could be generated by AI that I'd actually want to listen to. And I've been proven wrong and really changed my mind on the company. And so I think the sky's the limit for them. And like, what's interesting about Suno and more broadly, audio models is they're just not as big as language models. Meaning like, you don't need as much compute to build really good audio models. And so I think the scale advantage that the labs have is just a little bit less of a thing in that area. Interesting.

• 1:44:11John Coogan?

  More taste driven.

• 1:44:12Speaker 09

  That's right. That's right. But I think coming back to this, like, hey, there's going to be 75% of the industries that they sort of rule out is like just immaterial, given how big they get. And obviously, they're growing so nonlinearly that like, what's material for them changes by the week?

• 1:44:23Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Speaker 09

  And so I think there is going to be a pocket of really, really venture scale industries that the labs just do not service adequately. And I think that's what we spend every day thinking about is like, what are those spaces and how do we find the best teams working on them? And so I think that's, that's again, why I sort of take the other side of this, like, you know, B2B app businesses is sort of overlooked.

• 1:44:44Jordi Hays?

  What's an overlooked category right now?

• 1:44:52Speaker 09

  I mean, I wouldn't say it's underrated, but I think like power is still overlooked. It's just so important, such a bottleneck.

• 1:44:57Jordi Hays?

  So big and such a bottleneck. And the fact that you can name some nuclear companies, you can name, you know, we've had base power on a bunch of times, but you know, you would think there would be a bunch of like base power style. Opportunities.

• 1:45:12Speaker 09

  I think we're probably rate limited by capital going into that industry right now. That's just my intuition. The other area that I think is like more core to where I spend my time that I still think is underrated is inference, right? So like the GPU supply crunch that we're seeing right now is largely in part, as Dylan has said on the show before, like due to the fact that not only these consumer products, but the B two B products like Claude Code and Codex are just really taking off and creating like insane demand for inference. I actually think that in the end inference, if you look at it as a market, will be much, much bigger than cloud computing was pre ChatGPT. And if you think about like, I mean, we're talking like hundreds and hundreds of billions of spend every year. And if that's true, like I think there will be very, very large inference platforms built in each modality. So there will be an inference platform for real time video models.

• 1:45:54Speaker 09

  There will be an inference platform for, you know, open source and custom language models. There will be an inference platform built specifically for long running agents. So I think we're just going to see that industry, which today looks like one industry break up into many because of how big it is and how true for special.

• 1:46:09Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I mean, there was some leaks around like fall this week, right? Who's just been on, you know, an insane trajectory and like kind of, you know, they've, they've done a bunch of rounds back to back, but going that quickly from a zero to a $8 billion valuation while staying like relatively out of the like 10 years ago, there would have been like a bunch of beat reporters just for covering, you know, just covering fall and they've like, are like kind of just like happily being like, yeah, we're just building a huge business over here.

• 1:46:38John Coogan?

  And you can sort of imagine like inference specialization, if that's the thesis that plays out, happens both on like the model level, the data level, the taste level, the harness, but also down to the hardware. Like there's certain configurations, certain chips. I mean, we see this through inference acts from semi analysis, like AMD chips will outperform Nvidia chips with certain models. So if you're in some, some particular inference vertical, you might have a very different semiconductor supply chain.

• 1:47:05Speaker 09

  Yeah. And I think one, one interesting thread to pull on there is if you start to relax the latency constraint when it comes to inference. So for example, like if I'm just telling my software agent to go do work and come back to me in a couple of days when it's done, I probably don't care as much about latency, care about throughput. And if that's true, then you start to look at these chips that Intel and AMD have, and they look really. Really, really good. They're cheaper and really stand up.

• 1:47:24John Coogan?

  Yeah. And you can imagine that for like, if there's, if there's, if I'm doing like blood work or something and I have to physically mail blood and there's like no AI that can short circuit that. So I'm going to be waiting a day or two to get the data back and the, and the model that processes the data or sequences it or something takes an hour instead of a minute. Like that's not going to be mission critical to.

• 1:47:44Speaker 09

  You don't need Blackwells for that.

• 1:47:46John Coogan?

  Exactly, exactly. Whereas if I'm doing a Google search or I'm on my computer like actively doing work, throwing that on Cerebrus or something or Grok is going to speed things up. And specifically in the developer workflow too.

• 1:47:57Speaker 09

  Yeah, I think where this starts to get really interesting is like, if you ask yourself like, will there be more of those types of workloads or less? Like, I think it's quite obviously more for moving to these long horizon, sort of more autonomous agents. And so I think there's a world in which the sort of latency constraint that drives a lot of the hardware purchase and design decisions today starts to be relaxed. And we see a much more heterogeneous ecosystem there.

• 1:48:17John Coogan?

  Makes sense.

• 1:48:19Jordi Hays?

  Fundraising timelines today faster than ever?

• 1:48:23Speaker 09

  For venture or for startups?

• 1:48:24Jordi Hays?

  Early stage. No, no, no. Yeah, I'm talking about startups. Like if you back a company at seed, how long, how long?

• 1:48:31John Coogan?

  I think there are eight companies in the current YC batch that are raising over, at over a hundred million valuation, which is crazy because Demo Day is next week. And so how do we even know that this is happening? Usually you wait until after Demo Day.

• 1:48:42Jordi Hays?

  Not if you have the kind of momentum.

• 1:48:44John Coogan?

  And I think the average, the average price is around 40 and clearly deals are getting done very, very quickly.

• 1:48:49Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. And then like any, any, you know, is, is the, the global conflict that we've entered into, is that, is that slowing things down at all yet? Is there any kind of like pullback that you're seeing?

• 1:49:04Speaker 09

  So I'm not seeing the geopolitical impact, early-stage fundraising in any way, but coming back to kind of the velocity question, look, I think right now. We, so first of all, what I've learned is that you don't really get to decide how much of the best companies you get to own and you don't really get to decide the valuation. They decide it and you have to decide whether you want to be involved with them or not.

• 1:49:23John Coogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:23Speaker 09

  And right now, I think early stage is in this tricky place where like for a seed round, like you're really generally getting around 10% ownership, right? For the most competitive rounds and as a result, if you go back to kind of like what made the early stage model work, it was like owning somewhere between like 15 and 20% of companies that that become really, really valuable. So the way you kind of have to play this now as a multi-stage firm is you get the 10% in the seed and then you effectively have to be in a position to buy up in the next round, the series A. But at the same time, the series As are also ballooning in price and there's really not a lot of de-risking because the valuation or because the velocity is so fast, right? By comparison to even like a couple of years ago. So right now, what you see a lot is like you get 10% in the seed, the series A happens somewhere between like, you know, 150 and in some cases like 300 post.

• 1:50:07Speaker 09

  And then you end up kind of trying to co-lead that or lead that and you end up in like the low to mid teens. And so it's, it's just a different time, but like that's, that's what it takes nowadays. And there are obviously exceptions to that and I'll gladly buy more than 10% of a company at seed if I'm excited about it and the founders are open to it. But that is the reality that we live in and I think what that means is, uh, you're just, you're, you're building a basket of companies that tend to be kind of in that low to mid teens ownership more often than not.

• 1:50:29John Coogan?

  Are ghost ship zombie acquisitions affecting venture economics at all? Or has it been generally good?

• 1:50:37Speaker 09

  So these are like legacy software companies that are slow growers and not quite...

• 1:50:39John Coogan?

  No, more like licensing deals. I'm thinking of super fast growth startup with a bunch of venture capitalists that then a bigger company comes along and says, we want to buy you, but we're public and so we can't just acquire the whole company and go through FTC approval. So instead, we're going to hire the whole team, do a licensing deal, pay a dividend to the cap table, but there's always this moment where you're like, did everyone get comped what they expected? Did the employees get what they deserved? Did the venture investors get what they deserved? Did the founders get what they deserved? And it's sort of this renegotiation moment and there was a fear, at least last summer, that like the, the Silicon Valley social contract might be violated and it felt like

• 1:51:20John Coogan?

  at the moment, maybe that was a, like a fear that didn't come true because in every case, most people seemed like they wound up with jobs at cool companies, at big, bigger companies and they did get paid out. But, but has that, has the fear calmed down or is there still like a low level ambient fear in venture?

• 1:51:36Speaker 09

  So first of all, I would say that the idea that an acquirer will try to structure deals in a way that disproportionately rewards the founders is nothing new. Right. That's been happening. That's a tale as old as time.

• 1:51:46John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:51:46Speaker 09

  And there is sort of this, this term used in the industry called the founder bribe, where to get a deal done.

• 1:51:51John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:51:51Speaker 09

  The acquirer may in fact try to route as much of the proceeds toward the founders and the core team as possible. It's also perfectly rational because like, why, why would they want to give me any money as the investor, right? They'd much rather give money to the people that are actually doing the real work. Yeah, your job is done at that point.

• 1:52:06John Coogan?

  And so it just depends on, you know, is it an asset sale or a talent acquisition or somewhere in between? And everything's sort of a, you know, a blurry line.

• 1:52:14Speaker 09

  Yeah. And so with respect to these like creative structures that you're referring to, right? Like the scale AI, the windsurfs and so on, like without commenting on specifics, what I would say is, uh, this is obviously, uh, an artifact of trying to get around a lot of the, the regulatory environment that makes buying companies difficult for one. Two, the bankers out there today are just pitching these left and right because they're, you know, they're out there trying to transact and they think this is a much more realistic way to transact.

• 1:52:37John Coogan?

  That's, I didn't realize.

• 1:52:38Speaker 09

  And, and three, I think, I think the jury is still out on whether the acquirer really gets like the, the return on these that they're looking for, right? Like a lot of these are still in flight and, and I, you know, I, I just don't know. So, so, but what I can tell you is that like, it's becoming more common. I told you why it's becoming more common and, and the bankers are very, very actively trying to consummate these types of transactions, um, every day.

• 1:53:01John Coogan?

  How introspective should a new founder be as they embark on their entrepreneurial journey?

• 1:53:07Speaker 09

  Yeah, I, uh.

• 1:53:10John Coogan?

  Because there's two sides to it. Like I totally get the, the Travis Kalanick was sitting here telling us that he just runs through walls. Everyone was super pumped up about that. I love that attitude. I think that the chopping wood, putting your head down incredibly valuable. At the same time, I love the, the founder's fund question, the Peter Thiel question. What do you believe that very few people agree with you on? That's introspection. Like you're, you're actually just reflecting on like, where do I disagree with everyone? Maybe there's opportunity there and both, maybe there's a combination, but I'm wondering how you, how you deal with it. Like, how much of the time are you just probing founders, market size, progress, revenue versus where do you want to be in a decade? What are you doing with your life? Is this actually the right job?

• 1:53:53John Coogan?

  Or do you really just want to get back to working at Google and this is just a way to get a promotion?

• 1:54:00Speaker 09

  My experience has been it is very hard to be an effective leader without some form of self-awareness, which requires introspection, right? Let's just get that out of the way. At the same time, I think, you know, this, this sort of, this position that Mark is taking, or the retard maxing, you know, article that has, has, has been going around the internet is, like, there is, there is absolutely merit to just, like, moving forward and

• 1:54:20John Coogan?

  Totally.

• 1:54:20Speaker 09

  putting one foot in front of the other. And so I think

• 1:54:22John Coogan?

  Avoiding analysis paralysis.

• 1:54:24Speaker 09

  Exactly. And so I think it requires a healthy balance of the two, but I, I would disagree with Mark that I just, I have not found it's possible to be an effective leader without some form of self-awareness. But at the same time, in order to inspire people, you also have to demonstrate an ability to move forward through difficult moments. And I think that's where the, you know, the, I won't say it again.

• 1:54:40John Coogan?

  And I think, I, I, I think that's, that's actually closer to his real belief, but in the context of that conversation with David Senra, like, it, it's better to distill the overall thesis, which is that right now, most people would benefit from just having a little bit more forward motion. So let's, let's collapse that into some, somewhat more of an exaggerated, you know, take that, that then can fly and it gets exaggerated in many ways.

• 1:55:06Speaker 09

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:55:06Jordi Hays?

  What advice, if any, have you given portfolio founders that may be on the earlier stage side that see, seem like they're going to need to raise over a hundred million dollars in the next 12 to 24 months? Like, how, how concerned should they be around everything happening in geopolitics right now? Does the conflict in the Middle East kind of like turn off the tap or, or slow down? Any LP dynamics for some of these mega funds?

• 1:55:40John Coogan?

  Should startups keep their corporate treasury in oil right now?

• 1:55:44Speaker 09

  Probably, well, probably not.

• 1:55:47John Coogan?

  No one volatility with bank balance.

• 1:55:49Speaker 09

  You know, what's happening in the Middle East right now is a tragedy and it goes without saying that the, many of the countries that are most, most adversely affected by that have been very, very active players as LPs. And I think the impact that this could have on, on the way they behave in that sense is, is like very unclear, but like, it seems likely that there will be some impact. And so that has a consideration on venture fund.

• 1:56:11Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. My, my, my example was like, if somebody's, you know, doing a lot of angel investing and they're working at Google, making $3 million a year in a cushy job, and then they like, Lose their job. Like, do they keep, do they keep like ripping a bunch of, do they keep ripping a bunch of checks?

• 1:56:26John Coogan?

  About this and he was saying, well, like the LPs that write checks from like Gulf Sovereign Funds, they live in New York and they operate in New York and they take meetings in New York. But there's just a matter of like, you know, the, that sovereign wealth fund is zero sum. And if it's going towards something else, it can't go into a venture capital firm and work its way through the.

• 1:56:44Speaker 09

  And ultimately, you know, the, the Royals get to decide.

• 1:56:47John Coogan?

  Exactly. The priorities and there's a whole bunch of other political considerations.

• 1:56:50Speaker 09

  Priorities could be shifting right now.

• 1:56:51John Coogan?

  Totally, totally.

• 1:56:52Speaker 09

  So, so I do not know what's going to happen. I think those are the considerations and I think when we advise the companies that we're working with that are in a position where they actually can raise that kind of money.

• 1:57:03John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:57:04Speaker 09

  We have not yet seen the market indicate that, that there isn't robust interest for companies that are really scaling rapidly and have earned the right to go out and, and raise money that way.

• 1:57:15John Coogan?

  Yeah, it seems like we're, we're, we're pre like some sort of correction where we're like, oh yeah, like you can't raise the same round. It's just, you, you might raise 80 instead of 100 and your competitors in the same boat. So you're probably going to operate very similarly with just a little more.

• 1:57:29Speaker 09

  Yeah, I would say that I do think the bar for these Neo Labs to raise that second round of funding is much higher, coming back to what we were talking about. And so I think to, to be able to get one of these off the ground, it's possible to do so as someone who has been a part of doing really novel research at one of the big labs and, and is someone who can probably build a really outstanding research team. On the other hand, I think to raise that second round of funding where you get to go really big and build out that frontier cluster, I do think it's going to require some mix of, hey, the work we're doing is unlocking new commercial opportunities and the work we're doing is truly, truly novel at the level of the research. And I think absent those things, what I've seen is that it's, it's a lot harder to pull those second financing rounds together. And I think this is kind of a dead zone for these Neo Labs where if they can't go big with compute,

• 1:58:14Speaker 09

  it's really, really hard for them to, to, to be on the frontier.

• 1:58:17John Coogan?

  Yeah. Did you have a conventional path to venture?

• 1:58:21Speaker 09

  I would say I had a pretty unconventional path. So I grew up down here. I started my career in lower middle market private equity. I moved up to the Bay Area to work at Corp Dev at Cisco. And then I think that's when things started to get a little bit more, yeah, proud sponsor, right? And it turns out that the founding leader of the Corp Dev team at Cisco was actually one of the co-founders of Lightspeed, Barry Eggers.

• 1:58:40John Coogan?

  No way.

• 1:58:41Speaker 09

  And that team has definitely produced a number of VCs that remain in the industry today. And so that's kind of where I sort of got more conventional, but I think where I started was fairly unconventional.

• 1:58:51John Coogan?

  So Corp Dev at Cisco, were you working on a lot of M&A deals? What was the M&A environment like back then?

• 1:58:58Speaker 09

  Yeah, so when I was there in 2011, this was when we were sort of litigating whether there would be cloud computing or on-premise computing and whether cloud computing was something that would be more than like a test and dev environment for the average company.

• 1:59:10John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 1:59:11Speaker 09

  That definitely taught me that it's very, very easy to underestimate the future when you're one of the incumbents. And, you know, the rest is history, obviously, with respect to cloud. So at that time, we were trying to execute on a strategy that would put Cisco in a position to own the right pieces where they could both serve enterprises building their own clouds and the cloud providers themselves.

• 1:59:28John Coogan?

  Got it.

• 1:59:29Speaker 09

  So we were buying storage companies. We were buying, you know, new next-gen networking companies. In fact, like, one of the projects I worked on was, you know, trying to acquire unsuccessfully, that is, Martin Casado's company, Nysira Networks,

• 1:59:39John Coogan?

  No way.

• 1:59:40Speaker 09

  which, you know, ended up going to VMware and, you know, really did transform the industry. So shout out to Martin on that.

• 1:59:44John Coogan?

  That's crazy.

• 1:59:45Speaker 09

  And so, yeah, we were working on a lot of deals like that. We were working on venture investments as well. So sometimes the companies maybe or an industry is not fit to enter via M&A. So you would invest in the right companies and sort of learn, right? Sometimes you would partner. So, yeah, that's the kind of stuff that we were working on. It was an amazing job, amazing way to get into Silicon Valley.

• 2:00:02John Coogan?

  Totally.

• 2:00:03Speaker 09

  It helped me gain deep appreciation for how much impact these infrastructure companies can make across like every industry at a time where everyone was kind of focused on what the next Uber or Snap was on your phone.

• 2:00:12John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:13Speaker 09

  So, yeah.

• 2:00:14John Coogan?

  It actually shows you like the breadth of the industry because every day you're looking at some company that is not a household name, is not getting a puff piece in, you know, whatever legacy, you know, journal is out there. But their business is fantastic. They have incredible team and there's a path to just absolutely massive.

• 2:00:31Jordi Hays?

  Also being able to like level check with founders that might be exploring M&A and just being like, well, I've actually bought a bunch of companies and like... Actually helping them qualify themselves. Yeah. Are you ready for this?

• 2:00:44Speaker 09

  And I, and I carry that with me to this day and I wouldn't have that experience had it not been for the time I spent over there.

• 2:00:49John Coogan?

  Well, Bucky, thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us.

• 2:00:52Speaker 09

  Have a good rest of your show.

• 2:00:53John Coogan?

  Have a good rest of the day.

• 2:00:54Jordi Hays?

  I wish we could hang right now.

• 2:00:55John Coogan?

  I will tell everyone about console.com. Console helps AI agents build, uh, console builds AI agents that automate 70% of IT, HR and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. And I'm also going to tell you about Railway. Railway is the all-in-one intelligent cloud provider. Use your favorite agent to deploy web apps, servers, databases and more. While Railway automatically takes care of scaling, monitoring and security. And without further ado, we have Steve Hoffman, the co-founder and CEO of Reddit. Steve, how are you doing?

• 2:01:25Speaker 10

  What's going on?

• 2:01:25Jordi Hays?

  I'm doing great.

• 2:01:26John Coogan?

  Thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us. Uh, you gave a fantastic speech at my YC batch back in 2018, and I really enjoyed that. Uh, and, uh, yeah, it's just great to, great to catch up with you. I would love for you to sort of, uh, just set the table for us for how 2026 is going over at Reddit. What are the biggest, uh, initiatives that you're working on? How are you spending your day? Just give us, get us up to speed.

• 2:01:54Speaker 10

  Okay, 2026 is going, uh, going fast.

• 2:01:57John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:58Speaker 10

  Actually, man, I can't, it's like, I'm looking at the date now. It's March 20th. It's insane. Um, so right now we have a, I think, single-minded focus on making Reddit more successful for new users. I think that's the part, when I, when I think about the Reddit machine and the Reddit business, that's the part that I think has the most potential, um, or the biggest gap to close.

• 2:02:25John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:25Speaker 10

  So like taking a step back, right? Reddit's got content communities for literally everyone. And I think we've proven that Reddit can work for anyone, you know, men, women, young, old, nerds, normies. And so now our task is can we make it work for literally everyone?

• 2:02:41John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:42Speaker 10

  And, uh, making

• 2:02:46Speaker 10

  Reddit successful for those new users in that first session. That's the thing that I spend almost all my time thinking about right now.

• 2:02:51Jordi Hays?

  What, what, what are the qualities, like, what is the, what is the experience that someone has where, when they join Reddit? That gets them to stick? Like, like, what kind of journey are you trying to take them on?

• 2:03:03Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 2:03:04Jordi Hays?

  It's a great question.

• 2:03:04John Coogan?

  Yeah, the classic like Facebook one was like, if they add five friends, they'll stick around forever or something like that, right?

• 2:03:10Speaker 10

  Yeah, and I'm, I'm not even sure that was true for Facebook, although it's like, it's like a tale that's told in Silicon Valley.

• 2:03:17John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:19Speaker 10

  But I mean, there's probably some to it through it and the, the Reddit equivalent of that would be you find five communities on Reddit that you love.

• 2:03:28John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:29Speaker 10

  But.

• 2:03:30Jordi Hays?

  But do you need, but do you need five? Because like, you know, I don't know, growing up, yeah, just because for me it was like hip hop heads in

• 2:03:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:37Jordi Hays?

  high school, like if I typed in like R in my browser, it would immediately just like generate, you know, like populate R slash hip hop heads and I would just go there.

• 2:03:47Speaker 10

  Actually the answer, you need to find one of those things that is uniquely Reddit. Touches you and provides that experience that you can't get anywhere else online.

• 2:04:00Speaker 10

  And then once you do, you find that.

• 2:04:02John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Speaker 10

  You know, then we've got you. Then we've got you.

• 2:04:04John Coogan?

  Yeah. So, so I remember the first time people were starting to use the TikTok algorithm. Like the feedback was like, it's creepily good, basically within like five swipes. If you, if you stopped and paused over a car video or a watch video for just one millisecond longer, your entire feed would be cars or watches or whatever you were into. And I'm wondering of that, that customer journey that you're trying to, you know, funnel people towards the right content that they'll love. Is it more of a user interface design problem or UX design problem? Or is it actually just a compute problem? And you want to apply more machine learning, more modern AI tools to, to bring that content faster, learn what the user's interacting with or

• 2:04:50John Coogan?

  or observing and then, and then help them along.

• 2:04:53Speaker 10

  I actually think it's both. Uh, we've seen this over the years. One of the things we can do most consistently to grow is make the product easier. So that would be like the UI.

• 2:05:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:04Speaker 10

  You make it a little bit easier, a little bit faster, easier on the eyes, maybe less chaotic or overwhelming. And we just grow because we have people trying out Reddit every day. And it's just for some of them, it just doesn't work. Um, but also, right, the, the, the machine learning, the feeds, those early recommendations and insights have almost unlimited upside as well. But I, I actually Reddit is probably in that, um, era of, of ML. Like, once you're a core user and you're in your feed, uh, if, if you express an interest, yeah, we'll go really heavy on it.

• 2:05:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:42Speaker 10

  Almost too heavy sometimes.

• 2:05:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Speaker 10

  And it's a problem because some, I, I, I don't know if this is like a normal Reddit user experience, certainly mine. Like people send me weird shit all the time. And then, you know, if I, if I, if I view it in Reddit, I'm like, oh, okay.

• 2:05:54John Coogan?

  Oh, no, my whole feed is gonna be this thing.

• 2:05:55Speaker 10

  That's my life.

• 2:05:56John Coogan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:05:59Speaker 10

  There's a lot of finesse required there.

• 2:06:01John Coogan?

  Yeah. Uh, how, what has the shift to mobile been like? Uh, like, what is the story that you tell about, about making Reddit more mobile focused? Obviously, there's a huge shift in user behavior across all internet platforms. But what was your individual experience?

• 2:06:18Speaker 10

  Well, so if, if you look at Reddit's story, like arc.

• 2:06:22John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 10

  The shift to mobile for Reddit was slower. Because Reddit, like, we have so much text.

• 2:06:28John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:29Speaker 10

  And so that was like a key, we were like a keyboard and screen platform for longer than most.

• 2:06:36John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:36Speaker 10

  Uh, now, like desktop, uh, desktop is by far our smallest platform. Um, and so we don't really think about the shift to mobile anymore. Like, the shift happened.

• 2:06:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:48Speaker 10

  Uh, may, maybe for Reddit, it happened despite ourselves in some ways, but it's happened. And so now it's more of the shift to the app. Um, I, I think our. One of our largest platforms, I think our largest single platform is actually probably mobile web.

• 2:07:05Speaker 10

  And then, and then you've got iOS and Android. And so for us, we get so much mobile web traffic because, because of the search referrals from like Google.

• 2:07:16Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:16Speaker 10

  So people are, if you're just using the internet on your phone, you're probably using Google. If you're probably using Google, you're probably using Reddit.

• 2:07:22Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:23Speaker 10

  But so getting, helping people kind of cross that chasm between mobile web into the app and doing so in a way that feels good, right? Where we're not like coercing a user to download the app, right? Which is, which is annoying. You know, finding that balance and doing that in the right way. I think that, again, there's a lot of, there's many ways to do it. And I think there's a good way somewhere in the middle with a lot of finesse, but that's actually where we spend a lot of time thinking.

• 2:07:51Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. How does the average Reddit user feel about AI?

• 2:07:56Speaker 10

  Hmm, well, I think the average Reddit user is basically the average person.

• 2:08:03Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:03Speaker 10

  And I think AI right now is polling less than politicians.

• 2:08:10Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:11Speaker 10

  And, and last I checked, nobody likes politicians. So, but at the same time.

• 2:08:17Jordi Hays?

  But the, but the difference, the difference, but the difference there that I think is funny is like, like people like, you know, may have a negative experience of politicians.

• 2:08:27Jordi Hays?

  But then, but with AI, like people like say they don't like it, but then they have like all these magical experiences in their life and they use it like crazy and it makes their life better and even a bunch of different small ways.

• 2:08:39Speaker 10

  That's exactly.

• 2:08:40Jordi Hays?

  In ways that they're aware of, in ways that they don't, they aren't aware of, right? Like it's happening under the hood. And so I think at some point, I, I think at some point it will actually flip, right? Just because it's like a very valuable magical tool that anybody can benefit from.

• 2:08:55Speaker 10

  We're, we're going through that transition. Yeah, exactly. AI, do, do you like AI? People's overwhelmingly negative. Do you use AI every day? Every, it's like everybody.

• 2:09:05Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:05Speaker 10

  Um, and, and you can see this kind of, you can see this relationship with Reddit as well. AI makes not just Reddit, but the whole internet safer. Right? Things like, like violence, harassment, bullying, we can use LLMs now to find and, and, and just. Filter out to moderate out at platform wide scale in seconds. It's incredibly powerful, right? The worst job in the internet used to be looking at the worst content in the internet. People don't have to do that anymore. So that's really powerful. It also happens kind of behind the scenes. But then AI writing like on Reddit and elsewhere is just kind of annoying. Right?

• 2:09:48Speaker 10

  And we're going to, you see this on Reddit where it's not prohibited behavior. Like a human being with a human account uses ChatGPT to make a post. Like that's allowed, but then you see all the comments just flaming them. Right? Thank you, bot. Thank you, bot is like the new OK boomer. And then, of course, there's this like the maybe spam and other bad behavior, which is definitely not allowed. So, but I think like on Reddit, in emails, in school, we're going through societal like calibration about where AI is helpful and not helpful.

• 2:10:25Jordi Hays?

  How did you process Moltbook?

• 2:10:28Speaker 10

  Oh, I think I clocked that one within five minutes. I said, this will be a meme for about a week and the world will move on. And it was, it was like a total insider AI meme, like fun thing, you know? You know, if the accusation is on the internet, the internet's dead. Everything's turning into bots. It's bots pretending to be humans. On Moltbook, it was a bunch of humans pretending to be bots. And so it's like, to me, it was like AI fanfiction. It was like so goofy, funny, but goofy and otherwise insignificant.

• 2:11:06Jordi Hays?

  What has been, what is, like, walk us through like the history of like bots on Reddit? How you've dealt with the problem? When they've been bugs? When they've been?

• 2:11:19Speaker 10

  Features.

• 2:11:19Jordi Hays?

  Features? Like, that's a big, I mean, even, even, you know, on X right now, it very much feels like a bug. There's certain accounts, if you look in the comments, you can just tell like, you know, every single comment was written by a bot. It doesn't add anything to the conversation.

• 2:11:36John Coogan?

  And yet, and yet five years ago, everyone was tagging those bots, remind me or bookmark this or.

• 2:11:41Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I would say that like, like the Ask Rock is like 50% of the time it's annoying. 50% of the time it like adds relevant context that improves the experience.

• 2:11:54Speaker 10

  Yeah, so I think, I think the solution to this issue was and always has been through transparency and intentionality. Um, we've always had on Reddit helpful bots, right? The remind me bots and the haiku bot and uh, maybe less helpful but accepted, like the grammar correcting bot.

• 2:12:14John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:12:15Speaker 10

  Um, and then we've had bad bots, but bad bots, we just call spammers.

• 2:12:19John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:19Speaker 10

  Right? They're, they're submitting spam or they're otherwise manipulating Reddit. That's always been forbidden and we do our best to remove those. I mean, we do it at an absolutely massive scale. It's like a hundred thousand to a million accounts a day that we ban. Um, and then with AI, it's not a new problem. There's just new technology. Uh, and so again, if you're manipulating Reddit, if you're spamming, if you're pretending to be a human, but you're not, that's not allowed. You get banned.

• 2:12:48Speaker 10

  But we also want to leave room for helpful bots or even agents, but I think they need to be labeled as such. Um, and then there's that gray area, which is what we're talking about before, which is a human being using AI to write. Um, that's not forbidden, but it is kind of annoying, but we'll let that one play out. And right now what we're seeing is people downvote it, they complain about it, communities maybe ban it. Um.

• 2:13:16Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, but at the same time, for every, for every, for every post there, when, when a human with AI was, you know, writing something, posting it and it's getting negative feedback, there has to be like a number of them that used AI that people don't even know they used AI and, and it is just being additive, right?

• 2:13:36Speaker 10

  Like it's not. It's possible. It's possible and in which case, um, it's probably okay. I think the question is, is there a human behind the prompt? Is it a human's idea? Like I'll give you an example of, of AI content that's totally acceptable. Translated content. Like, I'm a non-native speaker. Like, help me, help me write better. Like, that's just the world we live in now.

• 2:13:59John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:00Speaker 10

  And so, for us, like Reddit is for humans. Like, that is our platform, that is our product. It's human connection and community. So, uh, we're gonna start actually talking about this more. So this is a really apt time to have this conversation. This idea of humanness and human verification and what I call ASC. Like, is there actually a human using Reddit right now? Regardless of the tooling that you're using.

• 2:14:24Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. How, how do you, how do you think about delivering on that?

• 2:14:30Speaker 10

  I think, I think the most lightweight, I think there's various technologies. The most lightweight way is with something like Face ID. Face ID or Touch ID broadly, that's, it's in the family of technology called pass keys.

• 2:14:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:43Speaker 10

  Which I actually didn't appreciate about these, like, a year ago. They actually require a human presence. Like, a human has to touch or do or look at something.

• 2:14:51John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:52Speaker 10

  And so, that actually just proves that there's like a person there. Or gets you, gets you pretty far.

• 2:14:57John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:57Speaker 10

  Um, and so I think that's very lightweight and accepted. Um, I think there's heavier versions like, um, you know, the ID checking services, which we have to use, you know, for, for, um, you know, regulations here or there.

• 2:15:10John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:11Speaker 10

  And I think there's in-between technologies, um, like, that the internet really needs. Like, third-party, individual, no ID required, decentralized, like, I, I don't wanna say identity, but like, information providers that, that there's a, there's a need for on the internet. Because not just Reddit, every platform wants to know, is this a person? Now Reddit's version is, is this a person? But we don't want to know which person this is. Right? This part of our promise for our users is we don't know your name. But we do want to know that you're a person. And so, it, it'll be an evolution for us, I think, for a while.

• 2:15:56Speaker 10

  And probably every platform, I think, to find the right, kinda middle of ground here.

• 2:16:02Jordi Hays?

  Seed stage or Series A startup wants to unlock revenue on Reddit. What advice do you give them outside of giving you ad dollars?

• 2:16:13Speaker 10

  Build a great product. Build a great product. I mean, that's my advice for every startup. Build something.

• 2:16:19Jordi Hays?

  They shouldn't, they shouldn't do a hostile takeover of a subreddit.

• 2:16:24Speaker 10

  Uh, look.

• 2:16:25Jordi Hays?

  Cause I know you guys, I mean, I know that's like an on ongoing, ongoing issue.

• 2:16:29Speaker 10

  Look, I think, I think that is a very difficult thing to pull off. You know, there, there's always that startup that they build something really great and the, the founders are super authentic and they can show up on Reddit and say, hey, we built this. What do you think? And, and everybody loves it. And then the other 99% of companies get like chased away for self-promotion.

• 2:16:50Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:51Speaker 10

  Or they're manipulating Reddit in some way.

• 2:16:53Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:53Speaker 10

  And you know, we end up banning them. So, uh, it starts with building a great product. And then from there, you've got a lot of options on Reddit. Right? Yeah, of course you can be an advertiser, but you can also talk to your customers. You can provide customer service. You can do AMAs. There's all sorts of things you can do. But I think the only ones who are successful are ones who, uh, I think have an earnest desire to contribute to a community. And not take advantage of it because people are very sensitive to being taken advantage of.

• 2:17:27Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. What are, what are the unique, uh, dynamics on Reddit when it comes to creating ad products? You know, meta, meta, you know, and, and Instagram seems to be the ultimate, uh, state that a, that a user can be in, just like pure consumption. They get shown cool things and, and, uh, they're kind of, whatever state of mind they're in, they, there, there's an openness to like, you know, immediately just buying something. I would say X is maybe the opposite of that. I think did Ben Thompson describe it as like, you go on Reddit to like, get in a knife fight. You go on X to get, you go on X to get in like a night, you know, you're like, you're there to like.

• 2:18:06John Coogan?

  When you're on Instagram, you're shopping. You're shopping for everything.

• 2:18:09Speaker 10

  I mean, Instagram's products would be better if it was only ads.

• 2:18:14Speaker 10

  So, so, uh, uh.

• 2:18:16Jordi Hays?

  Well, in some way, in some way it is. I mean, for me, for me, I like, uh, my, my explorer page is just cars and watches.

• 2:18:22John Coogan?

  Yeah. Cars, watches, clothes.

• 2:18:23Jordi Hays?

  Not directly, they're not directly ads, but they're like functionally, I'm like being marketed to, but just UGC.

• 2:18:30John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:30Speaker 10

  So, so on Reddit. You know, what's interesting about Reddit, so people talk about their interests and hobbies and passions. What I, what I didn't see coming when we started Reddit is that it turns out in, within people's interests, hobbies and passions. It's a lot of commercial conversation.

• 2:18:48John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:48Speaker 10

  They're basically asking the question of what should I buy?

• 2:18:51John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:52Speaker 10

  But they don't say, what should I buy? They say, what should I wear? What should I watch? What's the best gear? Like, where should I go? And so it, it turns out that Reddit, which has this kind of anti-commercial vibe. Is actually extremely.

• 2:19:09John Coogan?

  It's a hub for commercial activity.

• 2:19:10Speaker 10

  Cause that's what people talk about.

• 2:19:11John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:12Speaker 10

  And so that's why I say for brands, like, you can stick the landing.

• 2:19:15John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:16Speaker 10

  Like, it, it's there, the conversation is happening. But again, transparency and intentionality, that's what, that's what really matters. And so, yeah, ads is the easiest way to do it.

• 2:19:28Speaker 10

  But also you can be helpful to your customers, which are definitely on Reddit, talking about our product.

• 2:19:34John Coogan?

  Yeah, can you help me understand the shape of the advertising business? It's, is it, is it the entire revenue stream? I know that there's, there's deals with other companies and there's other, other pieces of the, of the business throughout history. And then, uh, how power law driven is it? A, a lot of, uh, ad platforms have like a super long tale, tale of small advertisers. We've talked to other folks with ad platforms where they're selling really big ticket packages to Fortune 500 brands. And it's all shaking hands and kissing babies. They're basically a politician on the road all day.

• 2:20:06Speaker 10

  I, I think that the, the story arc of any ad platform is basically the same.

• 2:20:12John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:20:12Speaker 10

  You start with big companies and brand advertising. Cause that, that, those are the companies that will test new platforms. And then you simultaneously move down market into mid and small businesses and more performance oriented.

• 2:20:27John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:28Speaker 10

  What's great about Reddit is we do all of this.

• 2:20:30John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:30Speaker 10

  So our fastest growing segments were mid and small business last year. We have a nice balance between brand and performance. And so we're one of the few platforms that whatever your objective is, and whatever the size of your company is, Reddit can work for you.

• 2:20:48Speaker 10

  Now, almost all of our work in the ads platform, it comes down to, you know, better measurement and better targeting. Right? It's really just a game of inches, just constantly grinding that out and making sure that our ads actually work, actually deliver a return. But Reddit, it's so funny to me because when we started Reddit, I didn't like ads. Now, this was 20 years ago. So, so, you know, the pressures of the real world have made an honest man out of me. But so it's almost surprising to me how good Reddit is for this. And so it's a never-ending journey. But to answer your question before, about 95% of our revenue is ads.

• 2:21:28John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 10

  It's actually a great business model because it just scales.

• 2:21:32John Coogan?

  Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Yeah.

• 2:21:34Jordi Hays?

  If an investor came to you looking for alpha, what subreddit do you think there's a $10, $100 billion business brewing, business opportunity brewing in? I think like Chris Dixon has talked a lot about like,

• 2:21:50John Coogan?

  The BR.

• 2:21:51Jordi Hays?

  You'd find a subreddit that was, you know, a hive of activity.

• 2:21:54John Coogan?

  Yeah, this idea of what people do on the weekend for free will all be doing during the week in a few years.

• 2:22:01Speaker 10

  Oh, that's an interesting question. There's so, we're in this like funny state that like we're in this like vibe coding takeoff. So I look at kind of the arc of my career over the last 20 years. And I was lucky to catch a couple of waves. But the first wave was just the internet. And I think of each of these ways as a lowering of the bar of what it takes to start a business.

• 2:22:31Jordi Hays?

  Yep.

• 2:22:31Speaker 10

  So first is the internet. Then that was the access to capital. So like Y Combinator and the more democratization of investing. And then you got mobile.

• 2:22:45Speaker 10

  And then you got cloud. So now, like to start a successful company, you can build an app and host it in the cloud. But the equivalent version of that 20 years ago or 30 years ago was you had to know enough people to raise $10 million to even get your foot in the door.

• 2:23:00Jordi Hays?

  You had to go to the computer store.

• 2:23:02Speaker 10

  Yeah, but you still had to be technical. And now we're in this era with with vibe coding. Vibe coding is such a small word, I think, for such a big concept, which is like, basically, if you have an idea, you can basically bring it to life. And that's becoming more and more true every day. And so one of the things I've been thinking a lot about is, like, the headlines are all like such and such company, let's go of all of their engineers. Like engineers are being replaced by AI. I think that's missing the next step. Like, these engineers are builders. What do you think? They're going to lose their jobs and just go home and sit on their hands? No, now they will probably start companies of their own.

• 2:23:46Speaker 10

  And and so I think there's this transition, I think it's made very, very fun, where everybody's a builder. And there's likely to be this like Cambrian explosion of creativity and creation.

• 2:24:02Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, when I think about it in the context of Reddit, there's like all these subreddits that might only have like 5,000 active members. And historically, they maybe had an idea for like a little vertical software product or a mobile app. And like, it would never make sense for a team of five brilliant engineers to like raise millions of dollars and then go and build that product because the TAM is like the 5,000 people. But then you actually can do that now because it's just one person that's like, hey, if I can even get it like a few hundred of the people in this subreddit to pay me to use this product, I can like have a real business and I can create a life.

• 2:24:42John Coogan?

  So it's like more like niche podcasting or having a Patreon. It's like,

• 2:24:46Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it's the same same exact thing as what's happened in media, right?

• 2:24:48John Coogan?

  A thousand people paying you five bucks a month?

• 2:24:51Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, this this show wouldn't have been able to exist with cable because like you wouldn't, it would just be like, yeah, it's just, it's too, it's too niche. And so, yeah, I think like every subreddit, like there is a software product to be built. And it's not necessarily like, A venture scale opportunity, but you just do the math. I'm like, can I get a thousand people that pay me 20 bucks a month? I'm like, great. That's that replaces the salary that that you that person may have gotten.

• 2:25:18John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:19Speaker 10

  It's it's the whole story of the internet, which is the transition from centralized, traditional power to decentralized. And so it's it's this, you know, really enabling and uplifting force. Yeah, podcasts are such a great example of the decentralization of media. And so now I think with AI, there's just going to be this a whole new era of creation, which I think is the optimistic side of the story. I'd love to hear more of.

• 2:25:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:51Speaker 10

  Because I think the pessimistic side is the the transition and the change.

• 2:25:56John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:56Speaker 10

  But I don't think the outcome is all bad. I think it's actually could be quite empowering.

• 2:25:59John Coogan?

  I completely agree.

• 2:26:00Jordi Hays?

  What uh what are the give us a guide to watches on Reddit? What are the best sub sub communities?

• 2:26:08John Coogan?

  We're talking about embezzle in five.

• 2:26:11Speaker 10

  I don't know if I can like with a with a clear conscience, recommend anybody get into watches on Reddit. It's like a it's it's like

• 2:26:20Speaker 10

  I I've fallen into that for better or for worse.

• 2:26:23John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:24Speaker 10

  So you can start with watches.

• 2:26:25John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:26:26Speaker 10

  And then maybe you should start with like watch. I forgot it's called like watch hot takes or something. But just to see like people who are coming out on the other side of this.

• 2:26:34John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:26:35Speaker 10

  Um, but uh, yeah, I mean, like

• 2:26:38Jordi Hays?

  In ruins, in shambles.

• 2:26:41Speaker 10

  It's just that, gosh.

• 2:26:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:43Speaker 10

  It's it's a it's it's a

• 2:26:44John Coogan?

  It's a pit.

• 2:26:45Speaker 10

  I don't know where to describe it like valueless consumerism, like just it's like telling somebody it's like, what's the best subreddit about smoking? It's like, I don't know.

• 2:26:58John Coogan?

  Is Vashron underrated by the tech community?

• 2:27:03Speaker 10

  For sure. That's their whole strategy is to be underrated.

• 2:27:06John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:06Speaker 10

  I think, like, high quality and unhyped. I think their CEO just had an interview where he basically said, "That's our strategy."

• 2:27:15John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 2:27:15Jordi Hays?

  I know, but people are gonna figure that out. Be like, "This is, you know, it's..."

• 2:27:19John Coogan?

  It's gonna be properly hyped.

• 2:27:20Jordi Hays?

  They're gonna, they're gonna prop, the internet will do its thing and it will hype it properly.

• 2:27:23John Coogan?

  Slowly, though.

• 2:27:24Jordi Hays?

  I think...

• 2:27:25Speaker 10

  Yeah, I know. Look, it's just the life cycle of hipsters, right? I was there before it was cool.

• 2:27:29John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 2:27:32John Coogan?

  Maybe over 10 years ago, 2012, you taught me Python on Udacity. I took that actual course, Introduction to Backend Development. Why did you teach that course?

• 2:27:45Speaker 10

  Oh, okay, so...

• 2:27:48Speaker 10

  The very specific reason is one of my favorite professors at UVA was at the company. And so he invited me, he said, "Steve, do you want to teach a class?" And so, and I did. It was Intro to Web Development.

• 2:28:05John Coogan?

  That's right.

• 2:28:05Speaker 10

  It ended up being, in that era, so it was like 2010, 11, somewhere 12, I guess, ended up being one of the more popular classes.

• 2:28:13John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:14Speaker 10

  It was so fun. It was so fun. You know, it's actually funny, still, still, I get recognized in public.

• 2:28:21John Coogan?

  From that.

• 2:28:22Speaker 10

  From that, much more than Reddit.

• 2:28:24John Coogan?

  That's crazy.

• 2:28:24Speaker 10

  Like, I was on a plane once, this guy behind me pops over my seat, and he's like, "Steve Huffman?"

• 2:28:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:30Speaker 10

  I was like, "Yeah?" I was like, you know, "Ooh." And he's like, "Steve, I heard your voice. I learned a program. I listened to your voice for like 40 hours."

• 2:28:38John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:39Speaker 10

  It's like in my brain.

• 2:28:40John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:42Speaker 10

  And honestly, it's the greatest feeling. I would love to do that again. I should make time for it.

• 2:28:47John Coogan?

  You should.

• 2:28:47Speaker 10

  Because I just meet people for whom... It helped make their life better. It's truly, it was the greatest honor. It was so fun.

• 2:28:57John Coogan?

  It was fascinating because I mean, the content was good, but there was something about the fact that it was coming from you, from someone who'd actually built something. And the story of Reddit was so intertwined with Y Combinator at the time and, and building something sort of without the permission of the big machine that was, you know, traditional, you know, software development or some mega corp. And, and yeah, it was, it was just way easier to pay attention, I think, because it was like, oh yeah, like you could imagine yourself building something similar. And it was, yeah, it was inspiring. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Have a great rest of your day. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you soon.

• 2:29:37Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, great.

• 2:29:38Speaker 10

  Thanks for sharing that story. And guys, thanks so much for having me on. This was a real pleasure.

• 2:29:41John Coogan?

  Yeah, this was fantastic. We'll talk to you soon.

• 2:29:44Jordi Hays?

  Talk soon.

• 2:29:44John Coogan?

  Have a good one.

• 2:29:45Speaker 10

  Take care.

• 2:29:46John Coogan?

  Bye. Let me tell you all about Okta. Okta helps you assign every AI agent a trusted identity. So you get the power of AI without the risk. Secure every agent, secure any agent. And let me also tell you about Restream. One live stream, 30 plus destinations. If you want to multi-stream, go to restream.com. And we have our second in-person guest. We have Quaid Walker from Bezzle. How are you doing, Quaid?

• 2:30:08Quaid Walker?

  Doing great. Thanks for having me.

• 2:30:09John Coogan?

  Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for taking the time.

• 2:30:12Jordi Hays?

  Look at this mogger right here.

• 2:30:17Jordi Hays?

  Look at this mogger.

• 2:30:18John Coogan?

  It's bodybuilding day on TV.

• 2:30:22Jordi Hays?

  Dude, you need a bigger shirt.

• 2:30:27John Coogan?

  It's good. It's good. How's life?

• 2:30:28Quaid Walker?

  It's great. You guys, let me hear Steve talk about watches.

• 2:30:32John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was good.

• 2:30:33Jordi Hays?

  He's like, don't get into watches.

• 2:30:35John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll let you react to everything he has to say. Vashron, underrated, overrated?

• 2:30:40Quaid Walker?

  Underrated.

• 2:30:40John Coogan?

  Underrated. Why? Explain their strategy. Explain how they fit into the landscape of strategies that are run by other brands. How do they differentiate? Why?

• 2:30:48Quaid Walker?

  I mean, from a history perspective, been around for obviously insanely long period of time. I think they have the hype models. They have the overseas, obviously the 222. You're seeing a lot of celebrities wear it. I think like the famous Brad Pitt wearing it in kind of the pre of the F1 movie made it go crazy. But it was the vintage example of it. They released the new one. But I think still. It doesn't feel like it's at the same hype levels as like an Audemars Piguet or Rolex or things like that. So it's in the top three, but I think from a cultural perspective, it's not totally up there yet. So it's super cool to have that mix where it's got the heritage, but not necessarily the hype quite yet, despite being very hot.

• 2:31:28John Coogan?

  He mentioned a Reddit, watch hot takes. I don't know if you've spent time there, but what hot takes do you have about watches?

• 2:31:34Quaid Walker?

  Ooh, that's a good question.

• 2:31:36John Coogan?

  Or what is a, even what is a popular hot take that you see trotted out that maybe you disagree with, something like that?

• 2:31:43Quaid Walker?

  I think like the, the hot take in the watch world right now is like this quest for independent brands. Like I think we have a lot of clients that are diving into the Dijon market, for example, and it's absolutely going crazy. And the Dijon Elegant, for example, like the-

• 2:31:57Jordi Hays?

  Dude, I, I, I added that to my bezel, like, watch list.

• 2:32:01John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:02Jordi Hays?

  And at the time when I was adding it, you could get one for like 90, and now they're like 120.

• 2:32:07Quaid Walker?

  We, I was talking to, talking to two clients yesterday in 2024.

• 2:32:13John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:14Quaid Walker?

  We got each of them an Elegant. One paid 42, one paid 53 for it.

• 2:32:19John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 2:32:19Quaid Walker?

  And now they're like 170,000 dollars at that watch. And so, and that's a quartz example. It's very cool. You, you put it on their wrist and it, it'll, it'll kind of go to the time it is once you put it on. So like it kind of stacks itself.

• 2:32:32John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And tell the story of FP Dijon. Like, why is that company interesting right now?

• 2:32:38Quaid Walker?

  It's just like a scarcity thing right now, in the sense that it's, it's like the, there's a few of the brands, Dijon being one, like a Crivia being one, that there's so much storytelling around the mastery of the watches that they're creating.

• 2:32:49John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:50Quaid Walker?

  But then also, there's so few of them made, and so they get wiped up in this kind of hype cycle.

• 2:32:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:54Quaid Walker?

  And then they end up being so heavily demanded by the same type of collector that would have maybe started their collection buying Rolexes and moved to Pateks. And now this is like- The upper echelon. One thing that Journe does really well is whether you buy a Journe on the secondary market or the primary market, they kind of welcome you into the community.

• 2:33:10John Coogan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:33:11Quaid Walker?

  Which is super awesome.

• 2:33:12John Coogan?

  Yeah, it feels like a black mark when you go into some of these stores.

• 2:33:15Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, and so like they're excited that you have access to it.

• 2:33:19John Coogan?

  You'll just sheepishly admit.

• 2:33:20Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:21John Coogan?

  Is there, should I, can I mentally comp Journe to Konigsegg in the sense that Konigsegg is, you know, this very-

• 2:33:30Quaid Walker?

  Well, the watches work.

• 2:33:31John Coogan?

  Yeah, okay, the watches work. But, but, but a lot of people will say, you know, Konigsegg, they're expensive, maybe there's downsides, but Christian von Konigsegg is alive. You can get on the phone with him, you can see him at an event, and you can't do that with Ferrari, you can't do that with the Lamborghini.

• 2:33:46Quaid Walker?

  Yep.

• 2:33:46John Coogan?

  And you, but you can with a Konigsegg. And similar to Patek, AP, Vacheron, the founders, the real creators are long gone, but not so with FP Journe.

• 2:33:58Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, I think the community aspect of Journe is really vibrant in that sense.

• 2:34:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:03Quaid Walker?

  There's a lot of events that are happening in LA.

• 2:34:04John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:34:05Quaid Walker?

  In Geneva, there's a Michelin-starred Journe restaurant.

• 2:34:08John Coogan?

  Whoa.

• 2:34:08Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, so there's a lot of access to the brand in ways that I think builds that mystique. But ultimately, it comes down to the watches. If you're a Journe collector, you know that there's a period of time in the year where you, everyone gets emails that lets you know if you get an allocation that year or not. It's not as sporadic as collecting other pieces. So, like, everyone knows to check their email around that period of time in the year, and we're in the collector groups, they're talking about it. Like, college acceptance is forever. Exactly, yes.

• 2:34:31John Coogan?

  What, what, I want a recommendation for you, for a tech person getting into watches. In terms of budget, let's assume that they're just like a mid-range AI engineer, they have like a hundred million dollars to spend. What would you do?

• 2:34:43Quaid Walker?

  Oh, I was just gonna be talking about this backstage with very different budgets than a hundred million dollars.

• 2:34:48John Coogan?

  No, no, we, we, we can ladder it up.

• 2:34:51Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:51John Coogan?

  What's a great watch that's just a good, starting mechanical watch to actually get you into the world of horology?

• 2:34:58Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, so that's, that's the most fun part of my job, is, is we sell the vast majority of the kind of whole spectrum. Q4, cheapest watch we sold was $750, most expensive was 1.6 million, so.

• 2:35:08John Coogan?

  Wow, there we go.

• 2:35:10Quaid Walker?

  And we just hit a billion in supply two years ago, so a lot of access. Gong, gong, gong. Hell, yeah.

• 2:35:22Quaid Walker?

  But yeah, it really depends on price point. Obviously, there's a lot of interest there. Like, you know, I for the

• 2:35:27John Coogan?

  Think you threw like 10?

• 2:35:28Quaid Walker?

  Sub $5,000. I always go like Tudors and Omegas, things like that. I love the like kind of Tudor Black Bay offerings.

• 2:35:35John Coogan?

  That's a great one.

• 2:35:36Quaid Walker?

  So fun.

• 2:35:37John Coogan?

  Yeah. It's really grown on me. I wasn't super into the hand design.

• 2:35:41Quaid Walker?

  I think the Black Bay 54 is like one of the best kind of vintage reissues that's happened in kind of modern era.

• 2:35:47John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:47Quaid Walker?

  Love that watch. Uh, sub 10, uh, I think vintage Rolex or like, you know, neo-vintage, like 90's Submariners, like a 16610.

• 2:35:56John Coogan?

  And what's reliability like with a 90's Rolex? Isn't that something you're gonna be able to daily drive?

• 2:36:01Quaid Walker?

  I, so I have a couple of watches.

• 2:36:04John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:36:04Quaid Walker?

  My, my daily is a 16610 90's Submariner.

• 2:36:07John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:36:08Quaid Walker?

  Uh, it's probably the, the most vintage you can go while you're still trusting that it's like pressure tested and everything's working the way it should. I surfed in it this morning.

• 2:36:16John Coogan?

  No way.

• 2:36:17Quaid Walker?

  Uh, I work out in it. I run in it. I, I love it.

• 2:36:20John Coogan?

  That's awesome.

• 2:36:21Quaid Walker?

  I, I think I'm a big fan of using your watches.

• 2:36:22John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:23Quaid Walker?

  As you scale up from 10

• 2:36:24Jordi Hays?

  Working out with a watch on, what hap- like, what are the downsides?

• 2:36:29Quaid Walker?

  I think, I think maybe curling is a little bit inhibited.

• 2:36:31John Coogan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:36:32Quaid Walker?

  Overhead press maybe on the wrist, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I, I think, uh, it's very like James Bondified for watches where you put the watch on in the morning and then you don't, you like go work out in it and then you go have your day in it and then you go to dinner in it and then you throw on a tux and you're wearing it. I think there's something so cool about like Sean Connery era black Submariners.

• 2:36:52John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:53Quaid Walker?

  Um, that, that I think growing up seeing that, I, I wanna recreate that in life.

• 2:36:56John Coogan?

  And, and, uh, James Bond only wore Rolex in the books and maybe one movie and then Omega got the?

• 2:37:02Quaid Walker?

  I think it switched to Omega in the Pierce Brosnan era.

• 2:37:06John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:37:06Quaid Walker?

  Prior to that, it was

• 2:37:07John Coogan?

  Did a deal or something.

• 2:37:08Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, I think the Choir podcast did a whole deal about Omega winning that deal.

• 2:37:11John Coogan?

  That's right. That's right. What are you wearing today?

• 2:37:14Quaid Walker?

  I'm wearing a Rolex Daytona in platinum.

• 2:37:17Jordi Hays?

  Heavy hitter.

• 2:37:18Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:19John Coogan?

  Platinum, it's a heavier material, right?

• 2:37:21Quaid Walker?

  Quite heavy. Yeah, it's actually, you should, we should afterwards, you should, you should try it out, but it's very heavy. It's a good workout.

• 2:37:25John Coogan?

  Oh, watch sales when it comes by. It's like, you can take it off my wrist.

• 2:37:28Jordi Hays?

  Take it for a spin. Take it for a spin.

• 2:37:30John Coogan?

  No, no. Uh, Jordy?

• 2:37:32Jordi Hays?

  Uh, how, how is the watch industry navigating tariffs at this point? There's a lot of confusion. There's new tariffs. What is the approach from the manufacturer side? I know on the secondary side, if you owned a bunch of watches, it was great.

• 2:37:50Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:50Jordi Hays?

  Because they just are going up in value, even though there's not necessarily like more demand.

• 2:37:55Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:55Jordi Hays?

  There's just like kind of a leveling.

• 2:37:57Quaid Walker?

  It's funny to talk about it with you guys because the last time I was here, I think I had just gotten back from Geneva in like April when they announced it.

• 2:38:04Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:05Quaid Walker?

  And so it's been...

• 2:38:06Jordi Hays?

  Oh yeah, that was, what was that, what event were you?

• 2:38:09Quaid Walker?

  Washington, Montana.

• 2:38:10Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:38:11Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, so the initial, I think it was like 10% or 15% of the initial tariff was, was announced while I was in Geneva. And then I came back and chatted with you all about like the overall experience. And then it shot all the way up to like 39, or high 30, 39%. And then came back down to 15. And so throughout that cycle, the first thing that happened is exactly what you're describing, where folks who had watches in the US immediately shot up in value and there was much more demand. Because two things happened. One, the pricing goes up, but also the access goes down. If you're a dealer in the US that gets a portion of your supply from Europe, now it's way more expensive to get the watches in. And so the first order of fact is pricing, like you were mentioning.

• 2:38:52Quaid Walker?

  The second is our authentication reports, like the number of watches that we reject. In H1 of last year, we rejected 27% of the watches. And H2, we rejected 38% of the watches.

• 2:39:03Jordi Hays?

  Wow.

• 2:39:03Quaid Walker?

  And my thesis on that is just, if you were a dealer in the US and you had less access to inventory and all of a sudden it became more expensive, you were incentivized to get creative and try to pass things through the system. So maybe you're swapping dials, maybe your watch that's been pre-owned is polished and you're marking it as unworn. Like you're doing what you can to get the throughput through that you would expect, given the fact that the inventory is limited. And so that's been kind of a second order of fact. Where we are now, I feel like prices are still increasing. There's less tariff talk than there was.

• 2:39:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:34Quaid Walker?

  I think people are starting to accept the reality. Brands increased prices pretty broadly. Some brands then pulled back the price increases.

• 2:39:43Jordi Hays?

  Scared of the shareholders.

• 2:39:45Quaid Walker?

  But like Patek, for example, pulled back the pricing increase. Some brands have not pulled back the pricing increase and so it's kind of a per-brand thing. The reality is a lot of these brands can charge twice as what they charge right now and everyone's going to still buy their watches and so I think brands have different things.

• 2:40:01Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, price increase from Patek doesn't affect that many people.

• 2:40:04Quaid Walker?

  But it'd be surprising, collectors in groups felt slighted if they, you know, they just felt opportunistic if the tariffs went down and so I think a lot of these brands are optimizing for building a relationship for hundreds of years with their clients, not just, you know, doing better in a short.

• 2:40:17John Coogan?

  I want to talk Oscars reactions. Kevin O'Leary was spotted wearing two watches, a Cartier Crash Skeleton and a ruby-set Rolex Daytona.

• 2:40:28Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:28John Coogan?

  Potentially doubling the market size for watches. Are you behind this? Are you pushing this two watches on, one watch on each wrist?

• 2:40:35Jordi Hays?

  You got the whoop on.

• 2:40:36Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, I'm wearing a whoop on my other side, which I think, I even feel like I'm kind of a clown for doing that in some capacity. I'm like, I'm a one-wrist man.

• 2:40:44John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:40:45Quaid Walker?

  But, you know, it's good for our business if everyone wants to wear it on two wrists. And I think if you are passionate about watch collecting, if you're doing it for that reason, then amazing.

• 2:40:55John Coogan?

  I've been seeing a lot of jump hours. Those seem to be popular at the Oscars this year. Is there a broader trend there that you're picking up on?

• 2:41:02Quaid Walker?

  I think as people dive deeper into watches, the symptom of that is that I think people are more interested in like higher horology pieces, more complications. And so it's kind of that initial sweep that I was talking about with folks getting into independent pieces, where it's no longer just like to talk to myself, like I want to wear the platinum Daytona. It's now, you know, I want something that is particularly an independent brand that other collectors will raise their eyebrow and get interested about. And so jump hour being a really fun complication. It's also just a cool thing to look at on the dot.

• 2:41:32John Coogan?

  I saw a guy on Instagram who basically just does 3D renters of ideas that he has for watches. And he had one, the whole thesis was the watches are often photographed at 10:10. So the hour hand this way and the minute hand this way, because that's the most aesthetic presentation.

• 2:41:52Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:52John Coogan?

  And so he designed a set of watches that where the hands would be fixed at 10:10.

• 2:41:57Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:57John Coogan?

  And then you would have a jump hour over here and a minute wheel over here. And there'd be a whole variety. One was like a flyback where you push a button and then it goes to the actual time, but mostly it's a 10:10. A lot of fun ideas.

• 2:42:08Jordi Hays?

  Predictions for AP?

• 2:42:12Jordi Hays?

  Rolex, yeah, I mean, so Rolex came out with the Land Dweller.

• 2:42:19Quaid Walker?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:42:19Jordi Hays?

  A bunch of different watches that people love, AP. You know, I don't, you know, a lot of the watches are, for better or worse, not super desirable outside of the Royal Oak.

• 2:42:31Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:31Jordi Hays?

  I'm assuming they want to change that, like.

• 2:42:34Quaid Walker?

  I think they're doing a lot to make the Code 1159 like as interesting as possible. And so like the Star Wheel is a great example, or it's like a really awesome complication. It's really the most exciting 1159 right now. Okay. I think I'm hoping we get something in not a 41 would excite me, like. Smaller? I, we.

• 2:42:52Jordi Hays?

  But what, but what about an entirely new silhouette?

• 2:42:56Quaid Walker?

  I think it's, it'd be awesome. I just think it's less likely. When did the code come out? I don't know.

• 2:43:02Jordi Hays?

  And is there, do they, do they have a, do they have a reason for that? Like they're just like, we don't need another one.

• 2:43:08Quaid Walker?

  Well, I think it's, it's, it's quite hard to replicate the heritage and the excitement associated with the Royal Oak, right? It's like, you know, it's the Genta Designs 39 millimeter size, you know, the kind of the silhouette of the current 16202.

• 2:43:25Quaid Walker?

  There's only four watches, you know, that kind of feel like they have that degree of a mystique and history around them. And it's probably like, you know, the Nautilus, the Overseas, maybe the Royal Oak. And then like maybe the Daytona, I think are like the steel sports examples that fall into that category of like hype cycle. Universally now. And I think it's very, very hard to recreate that. Bootstrap a new one.

• 2:43:48Jordi Hays?

  And you think Rolex is more like Rolex being like, we're going to create the Land Dweller.

• 2:43:52Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:53Jordi Hays?

  And just like take a risk or.

• 2:43:55Quaid Walker?

  Well, that's if you think about it, it's like Rolex.

• 2:43:57Jordi Hays?

  Like I'm just saying like you have like Land Dweller, you have Cubitus, like why not take the risk?

• 2:44:04Quaid Walker?

  Rolex doing the Cubitus was like a crazy thing.

• 2:44:06Jordi Hays?

  You mean the tech, yeah.

• 2:44:07Quaid Walker?

  I saw, yeah, Rolex doing the Land Dweller is a crazy thing. Like it's they these companies move really slow and intentional. And typically, a new model is like a the same reference, but you know, upgraded by one number, a new caliber, slight, you know, different perspectives on it, but but ultimately the same model. Um, so maybe we're moving into a world where watchmakers are starting to be more ambitious, but I think it would be like a a kind of change. And so I I would expect Rolex to not come out with a new model. I would expect AP to do the same. But we'll maybe get some interesting dial variations, interesting metal variations, things like that. I'm hoping for, as I was saying, like, we both wear the 15 300.

• 2:44:49Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:49Quaid Walker?

  I like the 39 size. I think I if we got more access to that, I think that would be really exciting. Uh, Patek, it's the anniversary for the Nautilus, so there's some conversation around what that's going to be and what's going to come out there. If it's going to be a steel reissue, if it's going to be another precious metal example, certainly we'll get something in the Nautilus side. There's a lot of rumors around the the Rolex Pepsi. Um, and we've had those rumors for a number of years, but, uh, you know, there's some speculation on what's going to happen with that, if it's going to get discontinued and things like that.

• 2:45:19Jordi Hays?

  Are there less leaks in the watch world? Because in the car world, you have to actually like go and road test the car. Like, people are posted up in Maranello, like, you know, like, just it doesn't matter that the car is camouflage, they're going to get a picture and be able to clock it if they pay enough attention, whereas in watchmaking, it's like you might have like a hint, like, only like three people that actually have knowledge and that are working on it.

• 2:45:39Quaid Walker?

  I can't profess to know the car example, but I I I would imagine that logic makes sense. The way the leak cycle typically works is like, everything builds up to Watches and Wonders in April. And we're in the stage right now where you get like all the fake leaks, and AI has just made that even crazier, because anyone now has the ability to like Photoshop whatever they think is, and it looks legitimate.

• 2:45:58Jordi Hays?

  It looks like it might look like a render, but they'll use a render.

• 2:46:01John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:01Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, exactly. But it's like, I could go and cook on, you know, any of these models and build out like what I think is going to be cool.

• 2:46:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:07Quaid Walker?

  And it looks convincing enough, is like, five years ago, that was challenging.

• 2:46:10John Coogan?

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:46:10Quaid Walker?

  Um, but then, as you get closer, you'll get real leaks, and those are typically like They're uploading something on the website for a new banner and they miss something or there's a production video that's made and someone has the wrong file somewhere and they leak it. And so as we get closer, sometimes historically those leaks have been correct. And then Rolex will start teasing it themselves. And so for the Land Dweller, like they teased like a hint of the integrated bracelet. And everyone was like, oh my God, like it's the Oster quartz or what is that? I don't know. And so that's when they like start to soak it. And then Federer was seen wearing the Land Dweller like, you know, a week before they announced it somewhere and everyone was like zooming in his wrist like, is that a Datejust? What is that? And so they they play into it, but that's typically how it goes.

• 2:46:54Jordi Hays?

  You you launched a partnership with Calshi Watch Price Prediction Markets. I saw some funny criticism, people being like, this is dumb, just buy the watch, which I thought was like a really dumb criticism because like, obviously, like not everyone wants to invest like 20, 30, 50, 60, you know, whatever it is. And there's a lot of other dynamics that that make it pretty interesting. How does that product actually work under the hood? Like, what what is the what is the partnership look like? I'm assuming you guys have all of like the real time kind of like pricing data, but but tell us about it.

• 2:47:32Quaid Walker?

  Yeah, so we we built the price engine internally, like, you know, very nerdy, true machine learning model, mathematical consensus. Our thesis was you can scrape public data. So like, we'll go and we'll scrape the entire market. But there's only a few players that are at our scale that have enough actual data. And what I mean by that is like, you know, a watch might be listed for $10,000 publicly and that'll be what everyone scrapes. But then it might actually be offered back and forth and sell for $8,700. And that is data that is only private to like us and other marketplaces that have our scale.

• 2:48:07Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, because that data does need to be. Public.

• 2:48:10Quaid Walker?

  Exactly, 100%. It's certainly not public. And so, our thinking was, you know, we can build what we feel is the most accurate data available, and built out that model, and it's designed to be predictive. So it uses different inputs and values different inputs based on different models, and it's truly predictive. And so, the thought was to use it internally, for us to like badge listings as good price, for us to offer like some price guide rails for retail sellers, whatever it is. And then Saw Kalshi was kind of moving into the collectibles, and so we connected. And we were jamming on building some markets. And so, for us, we're just the data kind of provider there. We have no economics from it. For us, it's like just an exciting thing for the watch world. The watch world loves it, we're gonna double down on it. If the watch world hates it, like, we're gonna learn from that.

• 2:48:54Quaid Walker?

  So far, the response has been largely very positive. And we have two types of markets. We have the qualitative ones, so that's like, is the Rolex Pepsi going to be discontinued? And the source data for that is like really Rolex, if they're gonna roll it out.

• 2:49:06Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:07Quaid Walker?

  And then we have quantitative markets, so we're like, you can bet on the Rolex index. Or it can be model specific, like, you know, will the Starbucks be above this price threshold by the end of March? Or things like that.

• 2:49:18Jordi Hays?

  That's cool. Last question, will AI ever be able to catch fake watches? Like, could you have a process when somebody's trying to list a watch, to just be like, "Yeah, just don't even send this to us, like, we don't, you know, we don't, we don't want it."

• 2:49:33Quaid Walker?

  The blanket large, or like, quick answer is no. We believe in, in every watch getting in the hands of like the artisans on our authentication team. They're smelling the papers, they're feeling the weight, they're looking at all aspects of it, they're opening up all aspects. However, we use AI and like computer vision at the listing process. So if you wanted to list the watches on your wrist, it would need to get approved by our team. It needs to go through our model to make sure that there's no like obvious problems with it. And then, once it gets sold, it ships to us, and then we use AI to optimize their flow. And so, I don't want my team wasting any time doing anything they shouldn't do. I want the product to be really optimized for them. But ultimately, you have a watchmaker and an authentication specialist, it's in their hands, and they're feeling the watches, and...

• 2:50:16Quaid Walker?

  I believe that is forever how they will be authenticated, at least for the, you know, medium term.

• 2:50:20John Coogan?

  I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

• 2:50:22Quaid Walker?

  Thanks, guys.

• 2:50:23John Coogan?

  Welcome to TVV Ultra. I'm Quaid.

• 2:50:24Quaid Walker?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:24John Coogan?

  Great to see you. And we will move on to our next guest, but first let me tell you about Cognition. They're the makers of Dev and the AI software engineer. Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team. And I will also tell you about Finn, the number one AI agent for customer service. If you want AI to handle your customer support, go to fin.ai. And our next guest is Ankur Jain, and this is part of our Lambda Lightning Round. Let's kick off the Lambda Lightning Round. Ankur Jain is the founder of Built, and we will let him in to the TVV Ultra in just a minute. Let's bring in Ankur. How are you doing?

• 2:50:58Speaker 12

  What's going on?

• 2:50:59John Coogan?

  Good to see you again.

• 2:50:59Speaker 12

  What's up, man?

• 2:51:00John Coogan?

  It's been like a decade.

• 2:51:01Speaker 12

  I was about to say, I saw your name, and I was, I was just trying to make sure I get to the dot. It has been a long time.

• 2:51:06John Coogan?

  It has been a long time. I think the last time we hung out was maybe in Silicon Valley, maybe in New York. Lots of good times. You've been on an absolute tear. Get me back up to speed. Where's the business? What's life like now? How's your 2026 going?

• 2:51:19Speaker 12

  2026 has been, it's been a crazy year so far. I can't believe it's already the end of March.

• 2:51:23John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:24Speaker 12

  We, well, first of all, we're based in New York now. We got to get you guys out to the city.

• 2:51:28John Coogan?

  Love to.

• 2:51:28Speaker 12

  That's for one.

• 2:51:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:31Speaker 12

  Today, this morning, I don't know if you saw, we just announced Built Hospitality for a restaurant.

• 2:51:37John Coogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:51:39Speaker 12

  And we, look, we spent the last five years taking housing, which is the biggest expense for people in this, in this country.

• 2:51:45John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:46Speaker 12

  And how do we bring hospitality to the housing market? How do you make your $2,000, $3,000 a month rent expense feel the same as when you stay at a luxury hotel? So you get rewarded. Your experience is seamless. They know who you are. When you sign a lease, you're not sending in paperwork, all these types of things. We're now bringing that to neighborhood merchants. So today we announced with Chef Thomas Keller, Daniel Balloud, Major Food Group. Tao Group, Boca Group, you know, a bunch of these major restaurant groups across the country. A way for them to design guest experiences end to end in the same way we did for housing. And allow you to do things like, you know, John, you go out to a restaurant.

• 2:52:29Speaker 12

  And you can say, charge it to my apartment, just like you would at a hotel. And everything now becomes seamless.

• 2:52:34John Coogan?

  Amazing. Um, is the business entirely consumer focused right now? In the sense that, uh, I, I, I think people think of Built as a fintech company, but also a, a credit card company with rewards, uh, component. Is there, is there anything else to the business? And then I want to know, like, why have previous attempts struggled? Because it feels like there's been needed innovation in this space for so long.

• 2:52:58Speaker 12

  No, for sure. So, no, so our business is actually primarily B to B. But we are a consumer brand.

• 2:53:03John Coogan?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:53:04Speaker 12

  We provide the hospitality software for apartment managers across the United States. One in four apartment buildings run on Built.

• 2:53:13John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:53:14Speaker 12

  And that's our primary business. We then have a marketplace with now over 45,000 merchants. Who are looking to connect with people who live in these apartment buildings. And we facilitate that connectivity.

• 2:53:26John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:27Speaker 12

  So that's our core business today. I think people often, uh, often misunderstand this. It's about 11% of the cards linked to your Built wallet. So when you move into an apartment building, you can link your Amex card, Visa card, get a Built co-brand card and use that to pay your rent, get rewards, use it at your local merchants. About 11% of the cards linked to Built members' accounts are our Built co-brand card. But 89% of the business still comes from the broader ecosystem beyond the, the card.

• 2:53:59John Coogan?

  Okay. And, and what's the, what's the difference in the flow? Are people coming in for the Built co-brand card and then expanding out? Or are they, are they, or are you selling customers who are already in the ecosystem through other touchpoints, the co-brand card downstream?

• 2:54:17Speaker 12

  I mean, look, to your, to your, to your last question, it is so hard to break into housing.

• 2:54:21John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:21Speaker 12

  It is this crazy fragmented world.

• 2:54:24John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:24Speaker 12

  That people, like, people have been happy to take paper checks up until six, seven years ago, which is crazy for your biggest expense. And so we started this company trying to pitch property owners, fell flat on our face, and then pivoted to say, what if we went direct to consumers to build some momentum? That's how we launched the credit card.

• 2:54:42John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:43Speaker 12

  The card then got us momentum, which then allowed us to go back to property managers and say, look, we have hundreds of thousands of people at the time that are now using this card to pay their rent.

• 2:54:55John Coogan?

  And they want to pay with the card.

• 2:54:55Speaker 12

  Why aren't you using our software for all of your renters? And then we kind of went back and then grew the business. So today, almost all of our growth comes from our housing partners and people who move into the building that want extra rewards, get the card. So it looked more like a traditional, like Gap or, you know, Sephora or Delta.

• 2:55:16Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, but just, just to be clear, so you could be living in a building that runs on, or with a, with a landlord that runs on Bilt, you don't, you can still get rewards just through Bilt, but then you can add the card. And so you're, it's like B to B to C.

• 2:55:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:29Speaker 12

  That's exactly right. Yeah. And again, most of, most of our revenues come from the housing platform and the merchant platform.

• 2:55:36John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:55:37Speaker 12

  So if you think of it, property managers and merchants, our business model is similar to Shopify, if you're familiar with it.

• 2:55:43John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:55:43Speaker 12

  We provide the infrastructure. They pay us for the software.

• 2:55:48Speaker 12

  Their business partner.

• 2:55:50Jordi Hays?

  No, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

• 2:55:51Speaker 12

  So, so, so these property managers and merchants, we want to connect neighborhoods like a hotel.

• 2:55:57John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:57Speaker 12

  So they run on our experience platform. They pay us for the software. They pay us for the transactions, or the customer pays for the transactions, depending on the model. And then we get paid when we send customers to local businesses. And that's how we're able to fund these rewards across the ecosystem.

• 2:56:14John Coogan?

  Yeah. Well, what were people getting wrong during that era where there was a whole bunch of skepticism around like, is it ever going to be economically rational to give points for something as big as a rent purchase? It felt like there must be some sort of narrative violation there because you have Ken from Amex on the board, or it seemed like you're a close investor. Like, it didn't seem like you went into that like blindly. There was clearly a strategy. So what were people getting wrong?

• 2:56:41Speaker 12

  I think people were just missing what the business was.

• 2:56:44John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:56:45Speaker 12

  The reality is, as you know, it's not sexy and fun to talk about B2B software.

• 2:56:50John Coogan?

  We think it is. We love B2B software. But yes, I completely understand.

• 2:56:54Speaker 12

  People talk about the brand card, which we love.

• 2:56:56John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:56Speaker 12

  Man, sound effects are great. This is like, this is fun. So we, so a lot of people talk about the card and the reality, they're right.

• 2:57:03John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:03Speaker 12

  Having a card in isolation would never make sense in this business.

• 2:57:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:09Speaker 12

  But when the card is part of facilitating an ecosystem, which for us, we believe, you know, every other major commerce platform started with how do you sell car service rides? How do you sell books online? How do you sell restaurants, you know, food delivery? We said, if you start with where you live, which is the home, it's the biggest expense for consumers. So right away, if you can monetize $2 trillion a year of spend on housing by being the go-to platform and the brand for housing, you have Uber for ride share, you have DoorDash for food delivery. There was no brand in housing. That's where we started.

• 2:57:45John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:46Speaker 12

  And then you start to think about every major decision you make when you move in. You pick your new restaurants that are your go-to. You pick your go-to bar. You pick your new pharmacy. You pick your new gym. You pick your school district. All of that starts where you live and we are just piece by piece looking to connect that for customers. So you saw, we just launched our concierge service and our building's now like a hotel. You move into a building, you sign your lease through Bilt, you pay your rent through Bilt, you get rewarded. And then you can ask the concierge, hey, I need a reservation for three tonight or four tonight in our neighborhood. Book me a dinner, schedule me a car and use my rewards to pay for it all. And it's all seamlessly done through the Bilt app experience.

• 2:58:29John Coogan?

  Yeah. Last question for me. How are you thinking about stable coins and the future of transferring money? It feels like that's a very interesting place if you're moving a lot of money that is potentially on top of Visa rails. You're potentially paying a fee. How are you seeing that play out?

• 2:58:46Speaker 12

  So look, we're today, just to give you some sense, we'll do over a hundred billion dollars of housing payments to build platforms.

• 2:58:52John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 2:58:53Speaker 12

  And that's now we just added mortgage, so that's going to grow quite significantly too.

• 2:58:59John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:00Speaker 12

  I would say our general perspective is we're agnostic on how people want to pay.

• 2:59:03John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:59:04Speaker 12

  We just launched a partner with Venmo recently where people can pay with their Venmo.

• 2:59:09John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:59:10Speaker 12

  On their rent payments or at the restaurant.

• 2:59:11John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:12Speaker 12

  We obviously work closely with the big banks, we work with the American Express network, Visa network, Mastercard network. As stable coins develop, we'll do the same with them. If people want to, if merchants want to pay through stable coin, we'll support that. If customers want to pay their rent through stable coin, we'll support that. I think for us, we look at ourselves as a layer above the payments infrastructure.

• 2:59:33John Coogan?

  Sure, sure.

• 2:59:34Speaker 12

  Really focused on orchestrating a seamless experience between where you live and all the places around it.

• 2:59:40John Coogan?

  Yeah, so just picking the right tool for the job.

• 2:59:42Jordi Hays?

  Has a user ever given you a feature request to be able to tip their landlord?

• 2:59:48Speaker 12

  So, so they've never come from the, we haven't gotten it like as a core user request, but what we have gotten is a lot of property owners saying, hey, can we simplify the annual holiday tip process rather than having to track a bunch of envelopes downstairs?

• 3:00:04John Coogan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 3:00:05Speaker 12

  So that's actually something that's coming out this holiday season, you're going to be able to tip your building staff.

• 3:00:09John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 3:00:10Jordi Hays?

  That's very cool.

• 3:00:11John Coogan?

  That is cool.

• 3:00:12Jordi Hays?

  That is very cool.

• 3:00:13John Coogan?

  Thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us.

• 3:00:15Speaker 12

  Great to meet you guys. I'll see you in New York next time.

• 3:00:18John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:19Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, meet us at Nicie.

• 3:00:21John Coogan?

  Yeah, that'd be great. We'll talk to you soon.

• 3:00:23Speaker 12

  Thank you.

• 3:00:24John Coogan?

  Goodbye. Let me tell you about Gemini 3.1 Pro. With a more capable baseline, it's great for super complex tasks like visualizing difficult concepts, synthesizing data into a single view, or bringing creative projects to life. And let me also tell you about 11 Labs. Build intelligent, real-time conversational agents and reimagine human technology interaction with 11 Labs. We have our next guest joining in just a few minutes, Michael Kratsios. He is the White House's Science and Technology Advisor. They launched a new national AI framework for child safety and to standardize regulation and balance innovation with protection. We're very excited that he is joining today to help us understand where the conversation around AI might go on Capitol Hill and within the government.

• 3:01:09Jordi Hays?

  Interesting.

• 3:01:11Jordi Hays?

  Information out of some obesity drug test trial.

• 3:01:15John Coogan?

  This is crazy.

• 3:01:16Jordi Hays?

  Kermius says this is not good. People have learned that GLP-1s are really effective. So if they're not losing weight, they know they're in the placebo group. So these people getting placebos are mad and just leaving.

• 3:01:25John Coogan?

  And they drop out and the effect size is so big that they can tell. So it's getting to be harder to do placebo-controlled trials, which is what we need the most in the peptide conversation.

• 3:01:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:34John Coogan?

  But I'm sure that they will figure it out. Anyway, we have Michael Kratsios in the upstream waiting room. Let's bring him in to the TV panel. It's great to see you again, Michael. How are you doing?

• 3:01:45Speaker 13

  I am great. How are you guys? Happy Friday.

• 3:01:47John Coogan?

  We are fantastic. Congratulations on the progress. I would love for you to take us through what was actually announced today. And then I have a whole bunch of questions about where we go from here.

• 3:01:58Speaker 13

  Absolutely. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. I think today was a big day for the White House. As you know, last July, we've talked about before, we put out a big AI strategy for the country. But a big piece of it and something that we've been working on for some time is, what is the actual national level legislation that we need? What actually needs to be done by Congress to pass sort of the actual law of the land for AI? And we were tasked by the president to do this in December and we unveiled that today. So broadly speaking, the main issue we were trying to tackle was figuring out a way to get past this patchwork of AI regulation. As you guys probably, I think, have talked about on your program pretty often, there's lots of states doing all sorts of stuff. While big companies can find a way to kind of navigate all the legal issues

• 3:02:43Speaker 13

  associated with this patchwork, a lot of small startups have a really hard time doing that. And we wanted to find a way to get past that and create one national standard for the country. And that's what we put out today. And in order to do that, we also included lots of other stuff on what we'd like to see on child safety, on the way that we protect American ratepayers that may be affected by electricity prices, stuff on American workers and also on education. So it's kind of the first comprehensive plan, I think, ever presented to Congress from the White House on what we should do on AI.

• 3:03:14John Coogan?

  Yeah, we've been seeing a lot of polling about how AI is deeply unpopular. Are you looking at polling to understand where the American population wants AI to go? What are your sources of inputs to then make recommendations through?

• 3:03:31Speaker 13

  Absolutely. We look at polling, we talk to industry, we talk to civil society, we talk to, we talked to all sorts of folks about where we should be going. But the numbers are what they are when it comes to the way that Americans think about data centers, for example. And that's something that we tackled a couple of weeks ago. You may have seen the president brought all the executives from the top AI companies around, around the country to the White House and got them to commit something called the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. And this was them committing to build, bring, or buy their own power for any data center that they build. This is a big step forward, essentially a commitment to every American that if you are going to build a data center in their backyard, they will not pay more for, for electricity. I think that's the type of thing that, that Americans want to see. And it was great the president was able to push that.

• 3:04:15John Coogan?

  I, I've been seeing rumblings of that with various hyperscalers sort of putting out small press releases, saying that they were sort of going to do it independently. It was great to see it come together as like a unified, everyone's holding hands and, you know, jumping off the chasm together, working together. Do you think that this would eventually become a law? Or is there some sort of framework that should be carried forward? Or is the ratepayer protection program enough of an effort because the companies are public and they can be held accountable by their shareholders and, and their constituents?

• 3:04:50Speaker 13

  So in the framework that released today, we, we urged Congress to codify the ratepayer protection pledge. And I think one of the key pieces of it that, that would be great to put in law is the ability to legally build behind the meter power. This is something that needs exceptions that the Trump administration has allowed via executive action, but it would be good to get that into law. And I think it unlocks a whole new range of possibilities around how you can actually put power online that can support these data centers. Because now before, actually, an action by the Biden administration was to ban behind the meter power generation. And this is something that makes it, makes it really hard for, for some of these hyperscalers and other data center builders to get the power that they need.

• 3:05:31John Coogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:05:32Jordi Hays?

  Jordy? Timeline with Congress, what is your optimistic outlook in, in actually getting this into law?

• 3:05:42Speaker 13

  Well, look, our hope is that we can do it in this calendar year. I think a lot of the provisions that were in the in the plan, particularly the ones around child safety, are ones that have had sort of bipartisan agreement for some time now. And we hope that, you know, bringing Congress together and back to your polling question, a lot of the issues that are covered in this framework are 80/20 issues. If we think about what are the types of bipartisan things that we potentially could drive forward, we think we'd make progress on on things like child safety and also bring along the the other issues that that we bring in the framework.

• 3:06:12John Coogan?

  How do you envision the child safety processes going out? I mean, when I grew up, you know, movies had R ratings. I couldn't really go to the theater. It makes sense to adopt some of that. People are aware of that stuff. There's also, you know, issues with depression and how the people interact with AI. Like, where do you think the conversation around child safety will go as we move towards more more regulation around keeping children safe in America?

• 3:06:42Speaker 13

  Well, we're trying to take the conversation is putting parents back in control over what their children experience online. And for us, in the in the framework, we urge Congress to move forward with legislation that puts that control back in the parents' hands. They should have the tools and platforms should provide the tools to parents so they have an understanding of what their kids are seeing, what they're experiencing, what they're interacting with, who's interacting with them. And they should also have the right the right features in place to allow parents to make decisions for what their kids will be seeing going forward. And I think those are just common sense, basic solutions that almost all parents around the world would want to have for their children.

• 3:07:21John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, as a parent, I feel like that's something I would definitely want. What's the reaction been like from industry? It feels like there's always the, you know, the fear that, oh, they they want to get them hooked young on whatever social media platform. At the same time, I feel like if everyone, you know, has to, you know, YouTube's had YouTube Kids for a long time, they've segmented off different content there, the movie theaters obviously have G-rated films. It's not like the movie industry is been hurt by the ratings and and the fact that kids can't go to R-rated movies. Has there been positive reception from the from the leaders of technology companies that you've spoken to about that concept?

• 3:08:02Speaker 13

  I think technology companies want to see a viable path forward. I mean, they see the polls, just like anyone else does. And they understand that parents want to have control over what their children experience online. And I mean, to some, to their credit, to some degree, they've put and installed a bunch of features, as you mentioned, some on YouTube. You've seen parental controls on Instagram for a while. There's things growing on Facebook and many other of these platforms. And I think they're already doing that. But I think for real certainty, what parents deserve is an actual national law that enshrines this forever. And I think it's something that, that I think could be a bipartisan push.

• 3:08:35Jordi Hays?

  Jordi? Any, any insights into the pressure that various industries are putting on states to try to get these sort of like state level regulation and bans? I was seeing something out of, out of New York that was trying to make it so that AI couldn't give legal advice, which to me is insane. We live in America. The rule of law, you know, matters. We're a very litigious country. If you can give anybody in the world access to legal superintelligence in an app, in an ad-supported way, totally free.

• 3:09:07John Coogan?

  Everyone should be able to sue each other.

• 3:09:08Jordi Hays?

  No, no, I'm just saying like you should be able to drop a contract into, into an LLM.

• 3:09:12John Coogan?

  To actually understand the law.

• 3:09:13Jordi Hays?

  And understand what you're signing up for, understand, you know, have, have transparency and not need, not, there's a lot of people that aren't in a position to be able to hire a lawyer for

• 3:09:23John Coogan?

  Yeah, totally.

• 3:09:24Jordi Hays?

  $300,000 plus an hour.

• 3:09:27John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:27Jordi Hays?

  Understand contracts.

• 3:09:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:29Jordi Hays?

  And everybody deals with this. So like, that's one example where I'm like, okay, where is this coming from? Maybe coming from some lobbying group for lawyers, which I understand their point of view, but it needs to be like some

• 3:09:42John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 3:09:42Jordi Hays?

  middle ground.

• 3:09:44Speaker 13

  No, you're exactly right. I think laws like that, that, you know, we are very against are the primary reason why we're trying to push forward this framework. There needs to be a national standard that essentially says that, look, this is the law of, of the United States that the federal government has set. And in so states are then can't, can't make laws in those, in those particular areas. And the ones that you mentioned, sort of specific laws banning particular verticals, things like law. I mean, that, that, that's something that we want to make sure doesn't happen. And I think that's the power of, of having one national framework. And, and that's why we're hoping to work with Congress.

• 3:10:17John Coogan?

  What is the conversation like in DC right now around just the craziest Terminator AI Doom scenario, the idea that we need maybe some, you know, big button that we can push to turn it all off? There's been a lot of fear mongering around that.

• 3:10:33Jordi Hays?

  Someone in DC creates a report around the issue, someone else with AI, then someone else summarizes it with AI, and then they create a response with AI, and then it gets summarized with AI, and it just ping pongs back and forth.

• 3:10:45John Coogan?

  Potentially, potentially, but is there, is there anything to address like runaway AGI superintelligence, like the Doom scenario that there are at least a few Americans who do think is a serious issue?

• 3:10:58Speaker 13

  Yeah, in the framework, we talk about that a little bit. I think generally speaking, our view and what we put in the framework is that we want the relevant national security agencies in the US government to have the expertise and the skills to be able to do the evaluations necessary to ensure our own national security in the United States. So, you know, it's great that there are a lot of people out there that have concerns about the future, and everyone has a right to that, and they can, you know, waive their papers or everything that you mentioned there. But the key thing, as governments, we need to have the capacity as an independent arbiter to do our own evaluations and think about it ourselves. And I think that's very, very, very different and distinct from it as a regulatory body. I think in the last administration, where a lot of this type of stuff was being

• 3:11:42Speaker 13

  thought at was at places that were essentially regulatory bodies and saying like, we're going to do these tests, and if we don't like the answer to this test, then, you know, we may ban you or nationalize you or something. I think in our case, we think it purely from a kind of a national security standpoint, where we want our experts that are thinking about the way that these models work to support our warfighters and ensure our own cybersecurity have the tools they need to do the testing, to see where these models are ultimately going. And I think that's probably a very natural and appropriate role for the government to play.

• 3:12:11John Coogan?

  How are you thinking about the governance role in reskilling, upskilling? We here on the show talk a lot about the economic opportunity that we see coming downstream of AI that might be some disruptive innovation. People might have new roles. I talk about how the job that I have now didn't exist when I was a kid because live streaming hadn't been invented.

• 3:12:33Jordi Hays?

  Or the other side of it, when Bezos, there was some news around Bezos's new project, a $100 billion fund focused on AI manufacturing. Our reaction was like, this is probably going to create a lot of jobs.

• 3:12:44John Coogan?

  A lot of jobs.

• 3:12:45Jordi Hays?

  We're going to make more things in America. But a lot of people, maybe outside of tech, responded by being like, oh, this is going to lead to a reduction in jobs.

• 3:12:53John Coogan?

  But how are you thinking about reskilling, upskilling, just helping shape and help the American workforce over the next decade as we go through this amazing transition?

• 3:13:02Speaker 13

  At our most basic level, we have a large set of programs at our Labor Department, at our Education Department, our Small Business Administration, that are all geared towards this reskilling and upskilling category of activity. And what we try to pull it out in the framework, we've been advocating for for over a year, is those programs should be geared towards preparing American workers for an AI economy. We should be creating programs and spending the resources that Congress is appropriating to the executive branch to be able to go out there and actually prepare Americans for the next generation jobs. And we talk about that in the framework, and it's something that we're going to continue to do. We've done a lot of work on how AI is affecting small business.

• 3:13:45Speaker 13

  I don't know if you guys had an opportunity to ever talk with Kelly Loeffler, who's our Small Business Administrator. Something that she talks about all the time, everywhere that she travels, is what the uplift that AI is able to provide to America's small businesses. The vast, vast majority of Americans are employed by small business, not by all these big corporations that are signing all these mega deals with all the hyperscalers. It's about all of these five to 50-person shops, the power of the American economy. And it's really these AI breakthroughs that have happened over the last couple of years that provide a whole new set of toolsets for these guys in a way that we've never seen before. So I think it could be really, really important for them.

• 3:14:23Jordi Hays?

  Still, so.

• 3:14:25Jordi Hays?

  Underappreciated. This is how transformative this is going to be for small business owners. A person that's a one to 10 person company, they're bit, you know, if you're an electrician, you're busy on a job, somebody calls, you don't pick up the phone because you're in the middle of something, well, great, AI can pick it up, qualify the client, schedule it, like that is going to be transformative.

• 3:14:46John Coogan?

  Every extra, every extra challenge used to be a consultant or hiring a new person and you're going to have so many different opportunities to expand your business. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us, Michael. We really appreciate it and congratulations on the progress.

• 3:14:59Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I love, I love how pragmatic it is.

• 3:15:01John Coogan?

  Very pragmatic.

• 3:15:02Jordi Hays?

  It's, it's addressing the concerns that everyday people have and I think moving the conversation forward in a great way.

• 3:15:09John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:10Jordi Hays?

  Thank you.

• 3:15:10John Coogan?

  Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon.

• 3:15:12Jordi Hays?

  Thank you guys for having us.

• 3:15:13John Coogan?

  We appreciate it.

• 3:15:14Jordi Hays?

  Talk soon.

• 3:15:14John Coogan?

  Goodbye. Let me tell you about Phantom Cash. Fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with the Phantom card. Is there any other news, Jordy, that we should go through today? There is a call sheet here. Which companies will officially announce an IPO this year? Jersey Mike's is running away with it at 73%. OpenAI is at 48% and Propex at 42. SpaceX is at 88.

• 3:15:40Jordi Hays?

  Jersey Mike's.

• 3:15:41John Coogan?

  Cerebras is at 91.

• 3:15:42Jordi Hays?

  We gotta do the Jersey Mike's IPO.

• 3:15:45John Coogan?

  Jersey Mike's IPO. If they don't get on the New York Stock Exchange, we're not doing our job. We gotta have the founder on the show. Skims at 31%, Deal at 23%.

• 3:15:54Jordi Hays?

  Skims IPO is interesting.

• 3:15:56John Coogan?

  Databricks 22%, Shein 21%, Beast Industries at 14%, Andorall at 13%. This is an interesting, I'm really into this, this market. Anyway, thank you for watching. I have to get out of here. Big weekend. I will see you all on Monday. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Is there anything we gotta do?

• 3:16:19Jordi Hays?

  We love you.

• 3:16:20John Coogan?

  No.

• 3:16:20Jordi Hays?

  We love you.

• 3:16:21John Coogan?

  Sign up for the newsletter.