Rocket Lab Enters SpaceX Arena, Meta’s Prediction Market, America’s Tech Wishlist | Diet TBPN

Diet TBPN delivers the best of today’s TBPN episode in 30 minutes. TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with each episode posted to podcast platforms right after. Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” the show has recently featured Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. TBPN is made possible by: Ramp - https://ramp.com Public - https://public.com Cisco - https://www.cisco.com Console - https://www.console.com CrowdStrike - https://www.crowdstrike.com Figma - https://www.figma.com MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com NYSE - https://www.nyse.com Railway - https://railway.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com/ Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

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

• 0:02John Coogan?

  People were clamoring for a Rocket Lab story that never came yesterday. Rocket Lab enters the arena with SpaceX. Brandon Gurrell fired up the TVPN newsletter, which you can subscribe to at TVPN.com today because we were on the horn with Prof G. We did his podcast. Very excited for that to come out. Anyway, Rocket Lab, they are duking it out with SpaceX. Let's go through it. Yesterday, the launch services and space systems provider Rocket Lab agreed to purchase satellite manufacturer slash operator Iridium in a cash and all and stock deal that values the company at eight billion or 20% more than the share price at Friday's close. Iridium pioneered Leo's Leo satellites, launching its first one some 30 years ago. The Iridium network was the original sat phone, this huge

• 0:46John Coogan?

  block of a phone. You would take out the antenna out of the back and the antenna was big enough to kill you instantly if you let it get near your brain. No, just kidding. It was very safe. But you, it would be terrifying to anyone worried about microwave technology or or any sort of radiation. But it was wildly successful. Company grew and grew and now it's part of Rocket Lab. Today, they operate a fleet of 66 satellites. That seems low. That's because these are bigger, older satellites, but this partnership is probably going up against Starlink. So it connects handsets and other devices used by ships, mining sites, US government agencies, enterprise connectivity play. The move represents yet more vertical integration at Rocket Lab. Over the years, the company has grown from small niche satellite

• 1:30John Coogan?

  launch provider to an integrated space powerhouse. It now designs satellites and aerospace components, serves the defense primes, has the second most launched US rocket annually, the Electron rocket, and is currently developing a reusable medium lift launch vehicle. But Jeff Bezos is probably coming for that silver medal any day now. With the Iridium acquisition, Rocket Lab is positioning itself to compete directly with SpaceX, which already connects, which already operates a 10,000 satellite fleet. Rocket Lab has its work cut out for it, says Brandon Gurrell. On August 25, 2021, Rocket Lab spacked at 4.1 billion, the usual SPAC price, probably $10 a share, four billion valuation. It stayed at or below that price

• 2:14John Coogan?

  in the public markets for three whole years until September 2024, when it started to grow both revenue and get rerated. Now it's acquiring Iridium for eight billion, twice its original IPO price. And Delian says-

• 2:28Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, you could buy it for around $4.80 a share on July 1 in 2024. It is now sitting at $101.

• 2:38John Coogan?

  Yeah, what a run. And yeah, the whole space economy has been booming. Very, very good. It's a $60 billion company, so they're picking up an $8 billion connectivity provider. And we can play a little bit of this from the founder of Rocket Lab, the CEO, Rocket Man himself. Rocket Lab is acquiring Iridium-

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Last time I was wearing this blue jacket-

• 3:01John Coogan?

  Look at this.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  -was announcing Neutron. So I guess that means there's something important to announce-

• 3:07Jordi Hays?

  Do you ever, wait, pause for a second. Do you ever put on a jacket like that?

• 3:12John Coogan?

  Is this really the important-

• 3:14Jordi Hays?

  This seems to be one of the more-

• 3:15John Coogan?

  Over the top.

• 3:17Jordi Hays?

  Look at this. No, wait.

• 3:18John Coogan?

  Wait.

• 3:18Jordi Hays?

  Whoa.

• 3:19John Coogan?

  Whoa.

• 3:21John Coogan?

  I don't know.

• 3:22Jordi Hays?

  I mean, I don't think I have, but now I want to try.

• 3:24John Coogan?

  Let me try.

• 3:27John Coogan?

  This thing's tough, too.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Okay, we're going to go back to school for a little bit. I want to introduce you to the space application equation.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  So you've heard me talk a lot in the past about applications. It's where all the value in space truly lies. But in order to exploit that value to the fullest, you need a few other things. The first thing is unfettered access to space. So you need your own launch.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  And then, of course, you need your own ability to build spacecraft at scale. We've got that, too.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  But there's some other really big barriers to building large, successful constellations in orbit. And the first one-

• 4:16John Coogan?

  Romantic companions.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Spectrum. Spectrum is a finite, almost impossible to get. And of course, not all spectrum is created the same. The next thing is, it takes a long time to build and launch your infrastructure, a long time to design and build your satellites, launch them, and even longer time to get your first $1 of revenue. And then finally, it's a long time to a sustained cash flow model, a long time to build your business model, a long time to build your customer base, and it takes just that long extended time until you've got proper reoccurring cash flow. So those of you who know me will know that I'm way too impatient for that. So we found a bit of a shortcut.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Rocket Lab is acquiring Iridium Communications.

• 5:04John Coogan?

  Good music. Very clear video.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  This will be one of the most transformative deals in the space industry. It's the ultimate combination for growth. And if you think back to our little whiteboard session a moment ago, this is a deal where one plus one equals three, not just two. One being Rocket Lab, we have unfettered access to space and-

• 5:22John Coogan?

  Unfettered.

• 5:23Jordi Hays?

  Unfettered and talented.

• 5:24John Coogan?

  Access to space again.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  And then you think of Iridium, they have an already operational constellation, Spectrum, not just any spectrum, extremely valuable spectrum-

• 5:33John Coogan?

  Oh, yeah, the spectrum's really important.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Millions of customers and they're a profitable business.

• 5:36John Coogan?

  SpaceX just bought some spectrum, too.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  The three comes in is the result of these two things is a fully integrated self-launching space superpower, one that will unlock more growth from Iridium's existing network and build new constellations to unlock new services and market opportunities. This is officially our entrance into the space applications market, a thing we've been talking about for a long time now. But to be clear, this is not the finish line. Now, we won't just continue Iridium's network as is. We're going to build upon it to unlock new markets and pioneer new space-based services. Rocket Lab's future in space applications has just been unlocked and accelerated.

• 6:18Jordi Hays?

  I like this guy.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  I'm off to buy a new jacket. This thing is too small.

• 6:24John Coogan?

  See, it goes full circle. The reason that he had to put the jacket on sort of awkwardly was it's too small.

• 6:31Jordi Hays?

  It was a part of the story.

• 6:32John Coogan?

  Yeah, it was good. That's a really good video. I like that. Anyway, Comcast split. In 2011 Comcast, which was primarily a cable TV, internet and phone provider, to something like 30 million Americans bought a 51% stake in NBC Universal from General Electric. I love it. I love an industrial company that owns a media company. It's happened before, folks. It's not that crazy. Just might work. In 2013, it purchased the remaining 49% stake. Since then, Comcast has acquired the European media company Sky, the movie studio DreamWorks Animation, and through NBC Universal, spun up Peacock, among other activity in the entertainment

• 7:13John Coogan?

  space. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Comcast's decade-long into trying to be a content plus distribution company is coming to an end. It's planning to split the businesses into two. The Comcast entity will once again becoming a become a connectivity-only business, and NBC Universal will focus entirely on content. And there's been a number of spinouts that have been happening for a while. And this is the final, like, big one, I guess. There's a recent history of telecom connectivity companies rolling up entertainment businesses and then spinning them out or getting rid of them. Over the past decade, Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo, reorganized the two into a entity

• 7:54John Coogan?

  called Verizon Media, and ultimately sold Verizon Media to Apollo in 2021. Over roughly the same period, AT&T bought DirecTV and Time Warner, but ended up fully exiting its position in DirecTV and spun off Time Warner as Warner Media into its own entity in 2022. So interesting deal to follow along. The other good news in the space world is that after that explosion at Blue Origin launch, that New Glenn launch that was so disheartening, there were rumors that it might be two years until they got that launch pad back online. But there is some updates here. There are some updates. To return to flight this year,

• 8:35John Coogan?

  we're not rebuilding the same pad. We're going straight to a horizontal, vertical, hybrid con ops. We are, we had already been developing for our 9X4 New Glenn launch vehicle using existing infrastructure, skipping a new transporter, erector, and creating a common con ops across two pads. So Dave-

• 8:55Jordi Hays?

  There we go. They just used the explosion as sort of like a demo. They demoed the old setup.

• 9:00John Coogan?

  Demolition?

• 9:01Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 9:03John Coogan?

  But good news from Dave Limb, the CEO of Blue Origin, that they're going to get New Glenn flying again sooner than people thought. I have a pitch for you. I have a business idea. I want to get your feedback. So what's the biggest problem with being a doctor? You make a lot of money as a doctor, right? What's the biggest problem?

• 9:23Jordi Hays?

  Uh, the odd hours.

• 9:24John Coogan?

  No, taxes. You make so much money, you get taxed on on normal income, ordinary income. Even if you're a doctor, you're saving people's lives. You're doing the most important job in our economy.

• 9:35Jordi Hays?

  You have a doctor buddy that also runs a hedge fund, though.

• 9:39John Coogan?

  And and when he runs the hedge fund, he's making capital gains. But when he, when he does an operation, he makes ordinary.

• 9:45Jordi Hays?

  Which to me was personally very concerning. I don't know if I'd want to go to see a doctor that does surgery that that.

• 9:52John Coogan?

  To be fair, he's building a new clinic and he has time off while while he's not up and running it, but.

• 9:56Jordi Hays?

  But when I heard that, you know, a surgeon was also running a hedge fund, I I got a little bit worried just, you know, if I was under, under the knife.

• 10:04John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 10:05Jordi Hays?

  And, uh.

• 10:06John Coogan?

  But.

• 10:06Jordi Hays?

  There were some, and the market was open, I'd be, I'd be a little nervous.

• 10:10John Coogan?

  But the, the doctor makes a ton of money, saves people's lives, does all sorts of good things, gets taxed at ordinary income, not capital gains. So you're taxing doctors who are saving lives at a higher rate. So my business idea is with the power of a Gentic AI, we create thousands and thousands of Delaware C Corps for every doctor. So every time that there's a doctor's appointment and you have to pay the doctor, you acquire one of their Delaware C Corps. And within that C Corp, there is, uh, on the balance sheet of that company, basically, an IOU for the services the doctor must render you.

• 10:52Jordi Hays?

  Sitting on the balance.

• 10:52John Coogan?

  Sitting on the balance.

• 10:53Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it's an asset.

• 10:54John Coogan?

  It's an asset. And so you can, you can then depreciate that asset since, since you've acquired it. The doctor reaps capital gains and then you cash in your.

• 11:06Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, and they can have a sort of a farm of C Corps. So there's, you know, they've had them, the shares for over a year.

• 11:12John Coogan?

  Exactly. Exactly. Long-term capital gains. And then, and then the, the patient on their way out, they sign one form, Agentic AI does its thing, winds down the C Corp and, and cashes in the asset. And then, uh, the doctor can reap capital gains. What do you think? You think we got a business there?

• 11:29Jordi Hays?

  I think you just created vertical AI agents for tax fraud.

• 11:34John Coogan?

  I asked JGBT and it said, uh, this is almost certainly dead on arrival. Not clever tax optimization, more like abusive tax shelter with healthcare law side quests. The core problem is the economic substance is obvious. The patient is paying for medical care. The doctor is being paid for performing medical service. IRC sixty-one includes compensation for services and fees and gross income. And the IR, and the IRS says you generally include everything received in payment for personal services. Wrapping the bill in a newly minted C Corp does not change the income character. Well, I think we'll have to take that one to the Supreme Court.

• 12:12Jordi Hays?

  Take it all the way.

• 12:12John Coogan?

  If we take it to the Supreme Court, there's a chance.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  I, I think you, you can wrap it in a prediction market, right? So every single time you go to the doctor, you say, okay, there's like zero percent chance the doctor's going to do well. And then he bets yes.

• 12:24John Coogan?

  He bets yes.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  And then we'll see what happens. But, you know, if it's a good doctor, then he'll be paid out in full.

• 12:28John Coogan?

  It adds insurance to it as well, because you don't pay if the doctor doesn't do a good job.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like insurance is built in.

• 12:34John Coogan?

  Built in.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  So I think this is actually.

• 12:36John Coogan?

  But are winnings on, on prediction markets capital gains?

• 12:40Speaker 03

  I think it's still mostly unclear. So for, for the next few years, I think this would definitely be a good strategy.

• 12:44John Coogan?

  Okay, I like it. I like it. I, you have to imagine, because they say, they, they don't use the word bet. They use the word trade.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Trade. Yeah.

• 12:52Jordi Hays?

  Predict.

• 12:52John Coogan?

  So capital gains. Trading, capital gains treatment, maybe?

• 12:56Jordi Hays?

  I think that the post, uh, last year where someone was saying like, prediction markets will replace everything. If I want blueberries delivered to my house, I go to the market for blueberries being delivered to my house and I bet fifteen dollars and I bet no. Someone else, they bet yes. They deliver me blueberries. They get the fifteen dollars.

• 13:16John Coogan?

  Works every time. Works every, every single time. We, we, we keep debating this, uh, this meta question of will they launch a financially incentivized prediction market? Or will it purely be for social cloud? You're still in the camp of there's going to be real dollars. It just feels like the first time that it will ever have.

• 13:37Jordi Hays?

  The, the reason I, I, I believe that is because I believe they had Meta,

• 13:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Jordi Hays?

  like was reaching out to the various prediction market providers to try to be potential like partners and or vendors.

• 13:51John Coogan?

  But I mean, partnership could mean so many different things, right? Partnership with, with prediction market can mean we'll give you ad reads or discounted ads or we'll vend your data so that if someone is on Instagram and hits the search box acting for something and Lama Five or Muse Spark wants to answer it and surface data from a prediction market, you, we have the rights to do that without infringing on your copyright or something like that. Like, it could be a data licensing partnership. It could be an acquisition funnel. It could be something where Meta's funneling people to the prediction markets or back. Like, that, that whole, I, I, I read the same article that you read, and it doesn't make any sense to say,

• 14:36John Coogan?

  oh, yeah, I want to create a competitor, so I'm going to reach out to my direct competitors and see if I, if they want to give me their customers. Like, why would they ever do that? That makes no sense. You see what I'm saying?

• 14:45Jordi Hays?

  The only thing is like, the prediction markets have a history of partnering with, with other applications and basically being the infrastructure providers.

• 14:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Jordi Hays?

  To actually place real.

• 14:56John Coogan?

  But if you go to any, any partner, whether it's, um, you know, there, there was that whole suite of like.

• 15:02Jordi Hays?

  No, I, I, I, I agree with you.

• 15:05John Coogan?

  Like.

• 15:05Jordi Hays?

  I, I, I generally agree that there is a possibility that there's no dollars and it's just.

• 15:09John Coogan?

  CNN, CNBC.

• 15:11Jordi Hays?

  But I just don't, I.

• 15:12John Coogan?

  New York Stock Exchange, they all have partnerships with, uh, prediction markets. None of them have like, oh, go in the CNBC app and, and upload your credit card information. Like Meta's been on this path of like, maybe we'd like a financial relationship with our customers for decades. And like, it's never really matured. There was always this idea that you would be able to like, save your payment infrastructure, in, information. And then when you see a T-shirt, you could just click and one-click checkout in the Instagram app or in the Facebook app. And that never really took off for a variety of reasons.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  So John, in this case, it'd be like, you, you see an ad and then it's like, I place a bet that there won't be a T-shirt delivered to my house.

• 15:51John Coogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  And then it'll get fulfilled.

• 15:52John Coogan?

  This is the final boss.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Hopefully.

• 15:54John Coogan?

  Hopefully. The answer to your question on can doctors reap capital gains by, uh, using prediction markets instead? Prediction market profits are taxable, but the character is unsettled at the moment. CFDC regulated event contracts like Kalshi-style contracts. There is a decent argument that they are financial derivatives, uh, rather than gambling. The CFTC describes event contracts as derivative contracts whose payoff depends on the specified event. Uh, it also granted Kalshi status as a designated contract market. So best case, some contracts might be treated as twelve fifty-six contracts. That means marked to market annually and gains and losses split across sixty percent long-term capital,

• 16:39John Coogan?

  forty percent short-term capital, regardless of holding period. So there's a chance that that's the, that that's the solution. I think we might, we might have solved it, but we'll have to use every tool in the modern financialization and technology box. The Wall Street Journal asked their readers what innovations they want to see in the next twenty years? And the answers are sort of all over the place and sort of hilarious.

• 17:02Jordi Hays?

  Will shock you.

• 17:03John Coogan?

  Number five might shock you. Um, what innovation do you want to see in the next twenty years? Tyler, think of something. Jordy, think of something. I'll read some of what the Wall Street Journal readers wrote in. Mark, uh, Mary Gillespie from Irving, Texas said solar on wheels. She wants, she says, why can't cars be manufactured with solar panels integrated into the top of the vehicle? Then it could recharge the car's battery as you travel and when you park. So this is not actually a new idea. There are cars that have solar panels on the roof. But solar panels are extremely weak and so you'd have to leave the car outside for like five months to charge, a full electric car. Now, there have been DARPA Grand Challenge cars and specific, uh, almost science experiments vehicles

• 17:48John Coogan?

  where they have a huge surface area and it's this massive wing of solar panels. And, uh, I think there's a plane that's also potentially be able to ply indefinitely by having solar panels that recharge a motor and it spins. But for a normal car, a single solar panel on the roof doesn't get you much in the way of charging. She's basically asking for a stronger solar density, stronger, stronger energy density. And I'm in, I'm in. In twenty years, totally feasible. Mary from Irving, Texas, I think it's going to happen. I think it's possible in twenty years. Anyway, traffic jam plan. I would love to see an autopilot feature. I would, I would love to see autopilot features on cars talk to each other.

• 18:30Jordi Hays?

  Saying, uh, the chat wants nuclear cars. Just get a nuclear car.

• 18:34John Coogan?

  That's very, uh, very fallout. I, I, I like the, what is that? Nuclear punk or something? What was that? What was that? There's like this alternate history of like the nineteen sixties if it was powered by nuclear, uh, not solar punk, atom punk? Atom punk is the term. Uh, and it has all these really cool things that could be powered by nuclear. Maybe we'll get there. Fusion, uh, is sort of promising that. We've talked to a couple of companies that do smaller fusion reactors. And they, uh, tend avalanches one up in, uh, Seattle or maybe Washington, where, uh, it's basically the, the nuclear, nuclear reactor, but it's, uh, it's fusion, not fission.

• 19:13John Coogan?

  And it's about the size of, you know, a large battery. And so you could potentially put it in a car, put it in a drone, put it in a space vehicle, uh, keep it up there for a long time. Uh, accordion traffic jams would be a thing of the past. What is an accordion traffic jam?

• 19:27Jordi Hays?

  I think that's when the traffic's like.

• 19:29John Coogan?

  Oh, going in and out.

• 19:31Jordi Hays?

  In and out. It's like people are stopping and going and there's that slight delay when theoretically, if everyone was like moving at the perfect.

• 19:37John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Jordi Hays?

  You know?

• 19:38John Coogan?

  So Morgan Clayton from Birmingham, Alabama, wants autopilot features on all the cars to talk to each other so they never do that. So they know, okay, I gotta speed up, I gotta slow down. And then they're all perfectly in sync. Probably doable. You'd need some standard or something. What are you thinking? Musical vision. This is a good one. These people are thinking outside the box. This is not like, oh, I want inference at one tenth of the cost. Silicon Valley is unimaginative by comparison, but Mary Schickner Gifford from Alpine, Utah, says she wants musical vision. I'd like to see the invention of a device to help musicians with eyesight limitations read music. There are many ways to help the sight impaired read

• 20:23John Coogan?

  the printed word, but pianists and others need to read music at the piano. My father's sight was so bad that he had to look at the music about two inches away, memorize one or two phrases, then practice what he memorized. He gave his last recital from memory at age 94. What a legend. Let's give it up for Mary Schickner Gifford's father, grandfather.

• 20:46Jordi Hays?

  Powerful.

• 20:47John Coogan?

  Crazy idea. Can't you just print it bigger if you're having trouble seeing it?

• 20:54Jordi Hays?

  You just invented the semi-truck sized printer.

• 20:57John Coogan?

  Yeah. I mean, you could just print like a poster board and then you could see it at the piano. Also glasses?

• 21:04Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I wonder, I mean, it might be a small, might be a small market of people whose vision is so impaired that even with glasses, it needs to be.

• 21:13John Coogan?

  Up close?

• 21:13Jordi Hays?

  Up close.

• 21:14John Coogan?

  I'm just confused by why this, the invention of a device to help musicians with eyesight limitations read music. Why are we focused on reading music? Wouldn't this be, wouldn't any technology that allows you to read music with your heart of sight allow you to read anything?

• 21:33Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, you could also.

• 21:34John Coogan?

  General technology?

• 21:35Jordi Hays?

  I mean, couldn't you have, couldn't you learn individual notes and then learn the order of them, have it spoken to you?

• 21:43John Coogan?

  Yeah. I do think maybe iPad app, iPads often sit at the, at the piano and you could have an iPad app that shows sort of like one note or two notes.

• 21:54Jordi Hays?

  What about a humanoid robot that grabs your hand and bends?

• 21:57John Coogan?

  Papa tears you like a marionette.

• 21:59Jordi Hays?

  And, you know, slams your hands.

• 22:01John Coogan?

  Yeah, totally possible.

• 22:03Jordi Hays?

  Paul Blanco wants something else. He wants a smart spatula.

• 22:06John Coogan?

  This is so much more attainable.

• 22:08Jordi Hays?

  I'd love a cooking spatula.

• 22:09John Coogan?

  Human teleportation or spatula?

• 22:10Jordi Hays?

  That could tell without penetration what temperature or how thoroughly cooked a hamburger or steak is, such as rare. Do we not have, we literally have things you just.

• 22:20John Coogan?

  No, no, no. He wants without penetration. It has to, you just rest the spatula on top of the steak and it tells you inside the steak what temperature it is, which is very difficult because if you're searing or doing a reverse sear or something, the outside could be a wildly different temperature than what's going on inside. So how do you detect the temperature without penetrating the steak with a thermometer?

• 22:42Jordi Hays?

  A powerful X-ray.

• 22:43John Coogan?

  Imagine it's as big as that brain scanner thing. It's just like, yeah, here's your smart spatula loaded up. It's like MRI-ing the entire steak. That'd be a good time. Robot chef. So this is related. I want a robot that can work as an executive chef in my own kitchen, says Ray Lor from Lacey, Washington. It could call a grocer, order ingredients, insist on, insisting on it all being upscale and have those ingredients delivered, unpack, load the fridge and then use my appliances to make dinner. 20 years? I think it's possible. I like that. That, that's right on the right, like, you know, level of sci-fi. Seems doable.

• 23:22Jordi Hays?

  For what it's worth, some of these ideas.

• 23:24John Coogan?

  But also not something we can whip up in a weekend with an Arduino like the smart spatula.

• 23:26Jordi Hays?

  Some of these ideas are silly, but I'm viewing it as a very literal request for startups.

• 23:31John Coogan?

  Yes. Yeah, no, I like it. Quiet Inside, Cheryl Franklin from West Grove, Pennsylvania, says, given the negative effects of excessive noise such as elevated blood pressure, cardiac stress and lower real estate values, I'd love to see improvements in building materials. For example, drywall with built-in soundproofing capabilities. Love that. Perhaps a lightweight sound blocking film.

• 23:55Jordi Hays?

  It's called lead paint, Cheryl. Bring it back.

• 23:57John Coogan?

  It's not lead paint. That doesn't do anything to sound. Perhaps a lightweight sound blocking film could also be developed for use in existing buildings and homes. I had a startup idea a while back. So you know, when you have a young baby, a child and they, every time you go to change the diaper, very noisy. One of my friends put up sound panels like a podcast studio, full slat wall in the, in the nursery.

• 24:20Jordi Hays?

  Dual use technology.

• 24:21John Coogan?

  Dual use technology for sure. And it, and it dampens the cries. So you can, so you're not so echoey because sometimes if a kid's crying in a very echoey room, it really reverberates and it can be kind of crazy.

• 24:33Jordi Hays?

  And lead paint is dense. So in theory, any added mass can reduce sound transmission. So maybe add a little bit of lead paint to your nursery.

• 24:43John Coogan?

  Lead plates, whole lead plates, maybe. Whole Faraday cage. But here was the idea. You don't, no one wants a slat wall in their nursery, in their baby's room.

• 24:53Jordi Hays?

  I don't know.

• 24:54John Coogan?

  Maybe if you're trying to breed the super podcaster, but most people don't want that. They want animals. They want a pastoral nature vibe, some warm pastels, some nice warm tones, something welcoming for the new child who's just been brought into this world. And so the idea was a typical sound panel, square, flat, you know, you might see the egg crate, the black material, but you, you paint on it, an animal, you painted on it childlike, you know, paintings that you would hang on the wall. It looks appropriate. It fits the decor of the room, but it also has the added effect of sound treating the room so that it's less noisy when everyone's yelling. Good business?

• 25:34Jordi Hays?

  Banger.

• 25:34John Coogan?

  Banger. There we go. Banger. Better than C corps on demand for doctors?

• 25:41Jordi Hays?

  For doctors, so they do tax frauds?

• 25:44John Coogan?

  Maybe. Certainly simpler.

• 25:45Jordi Hays?

  Jennifer Smith, we have made so many advancements in so many areas, but what I want most is a way to control outside noise. This is the superpower she wants. It would be so nice to be able to sit on my screened in porch and enjoy listening to the birds without having to hear nearby traffic, which sounds like drag racing these days. Well, that's because it is drag racing, Jennifer. We're drag racing in your neighborhood. If sounds are waves, can't we block some? How have we not invented an open air type of noise cancelling headphones to shield noise waves and give us some quiet spaces outdoors?

• 26:21John Coogan?

  Interesting. I mean, the, the simple solution here is just more electric vehicles. They're quieter. You don't sound like drag racing. Obviously there's a whole bunch of emission standards that also reduce, reduce noise from internal combustion engines, at least until you chop the exhaust and straight pipe that thing. But if you're not doing that.

• 26:42Jordi Hays?

  Or your engine swap, your Model 3.

• 26:44John Coogan?

  Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Is this possible? Could you just put out a big speaker that selectively noise cancels car noise, but not bird noise? That seems possible. Seems possible.

• 26:58Jordi Hays?

  I personally, I would, you know, take my home. I'd get really thick windows, ideally lead paint in the whole home, you know.

• 27:05John Coogan?

  You and the lead paint. Just love the lead paint.

• 27:09Jordi Hays?

  And I'd bring the birds inside.

• 27:10John Coogan?

  Yeah. I got an alternative theory. If you got drag racers racing down your, your, your quiet, bird infested street, you gotta go wily coyote mode. You gotta put out a fake tunnel that out of bricks, paint it with some lead paint, maybe. The fake tunnel, the drag racer smashes into the bricks. They'll never be racing down your street again.

• 27:33Jordi Hays?

  Drop an anvil on their.

• 27:35John Coogan?

  Yeah, dropping an anvil on the car. That works too.

• 27:37Jordi Hays?

  We have to talk about the Rivian team because they sent you this, this demo unit to try and they said, it's a demo unit. So drive it as fast as you want. You can roll it. You can roll it if you want. Like it's no big deal. Just like really enjoy the car to the fullest. I was pretty surprised that they said that.

• 27:54John Coogan?

  That's great. It's actually an amazing car. I like it. The self-driving feature, deeply underrated. My latest hot take is that self-driving technology is commoditizing as fast as LLM, as LLM technology and that companies that take it seriously and actually prioritize it. It is not some insane, insane tech breakthrough that cannot be implemented in other vehicles. It in fact can be implemented in other vehicles, just like we've seen Chipotle get a chatbot. We will see every car be autonomous. It will not be the domain of a single company. Funniest thing about this. You got someone who's asking for just a dishwasher that's a little bit taller. You've got somebody who's asking for a smart spatula.

• 28:36John Coogan?

  And then you have Nolan Williams who says, I would like to see significant developments in cancer and longevity drugs. You're sitting there, you're going around with the Wall Street Journal and, and you're like, oh, like, what did you ask for? Like?

• 28:51Jordi Hays?

  Smart spatula.

• 28:52John Coogan?

  Spatula. I was like, what did you ask for? Like longer.

• 28:56Jordi Hays?

  Life extension.

• 28:56John Coogan?

  Curing cancer. You're like, what? I didn't know. I didn't know it was that type of question. He says, longer lives mean longer runway for brilliant people to bring forth their own innovations and pass on their knowledge. Wow. Nolan Williams, really, really great answer. Derek Thompson has a new newsletter out. He's breaking it down. He says, there's never been a better time to get rich working alone. Locking.

• 29:19Jordi Hays?

  Is he saying the goose is not valued?

• 29:21John Coogan?

  I think he's saying the goose is not valued.

• 29:24Jordi Hays?

  He's saying the goose is not valued?

• 29:26John Coogan?

  He says, the debate about AI and jobs often breaks down into two extreme groups, both of which have an evidence problem. On the one hand are the doomers who say AI will take everyone's job, even though unemployment remains low and the unemployment rate for prime age Americans is still very high. On the other hand, are the, are the deniers who's, who's insistent that, whose insistence that AI is a worthless scam prevents them from seeing the many ways it's changing work and the economy broadly. If you want a strong and evidence-based take about AI and jobs, I have one for you. Quote from Derek Thompson, there's never been a better time for workers to get rich by going independent. This is

• 30:07John Coogan?

  the golden age for tiny startups with big revenue. The evidence, charts one and two, the number of solo entrepreneurs and tiny startups is taking off. Great news. Chart three, there's rising evidence that these small firms are more likely to use AI and sell AI related products, whether it's software consulting or design. Chart four.

• 30:26Jordi Hays?

  Is he saying that the matter's not the eggs, it's the goose itself? Is the true value is the power to keep laying eggs?

• 30:32John Coogan?

  Yes. Yes.

• 30:33Jordi Hays?

  Okay, continue. I just want to make sure I understood.

• 30:36John Coogan?

  Today's micro startups are becoming multimillion dollar firms faster and more frequently than any generation of firms that Stripe has measured. Today's article is about the rise of the solo act in the US labor force and its implications for the future of business, social life, more solo entrepreneurs, even more aloneness and the fiscal, and America's fiscal crisis, more pass through firms, even less tax revenue for a revenue star of government. Interesting. So if you have a bunch of talented people that would be earning money as doctors, but then they go in and they wind up starting a business, then yeah, maybe, maybe that's lower tax. That feels like that's further off. Is this a bull case for co-working spaces? The rise of solo entrepreneurship?

• 31:16Jordi Hays?

  Nothing is bullish for co-working spaces to me.

• 31:21John Coogan?

  It's rough. Why is it bad? Why has no one been able to make a good co-working space?

• 31:27Jordi Hays?

  Because I think it's just nice to have your own space. It's the same, I mean, the same logic would be like, why don't they make an, you know, why don't they make an apartment building where you get a tiny little, I mean, they do do this.

• 31:41John Coogan?

  Why don't they have a pod?

• 31:43Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I mean, it's basically like, imagine if you rented your apartment and it was actually like as big as like one.

• 31:49John Coogan?

  Why don't they make like a smaller version of a house that you can rent? That's like in a building with other, other like of these mini houses.

• 31:57Jordi Hays?

  I'm just saying like a 20, a 10 foot by 10 foot room that you rent and then all the amenities are.

• 32:03John Coogan?

  You were just telling me that you would happily live in the Ubar shed. You were saying that it's the pinnacle of lifestyle.

• 32:10Jordi Hays?

  I, I did think the picture of it in stores looked cool.

• 32:14John Coogan?

  But it needed a slight.

• 32:16Jordi Hays?

  But the difference there, the difference there is like that shed on the right property would be very cool.

• 32:21John Coogan?

  That's true. That's true.

• 32:22Jordi Hays?

  But, but the property is, is a sort of an amenity.

• 32:26John Coogan?

  I don't know. We'll figure it out. Thank you for watching TVPN. We'll be back tomorrow at 11 AM Pacific.

• 32:31Jordi Hays?

  Oh, hang out with us. We'll close it out.

• 32:32John Coogan?

  Hit us five stars on our podcasts and Spotify. Sign up for our newsletter at tbpn.com.