The Jamie Dimon Apple Card, Greenland Ideas, WB-Paramount, TBPN x Vanity Fair | Diet TBPN

Diet TBPN delivers the best of today’s TBPN episode in under 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.com is made possible by: Ramp - https://Ramp.com https://ramp.com/ AppLovin - https://axon.ai https://axon.ai/ Cognition - https://cognition.ai https://cognition.ai/ Console -https://console.com https://console.com/ CrowdStrike - https://crowdstrike.com https://crowdstrike.com/ ElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.io https://elevenlabs.io/ Figma - https://figma.com https://figma.com/ Fin - https://fin.ai https://fin.ai/ Gemini - https://gemini.google.com https://gemini.google.com/ Graphite - https://graphite.com https://graphite.com/ Gusto - https://gusto.com/tbpn https://graphite.com/ Labelbox - https://labelbox.com https://labelbox.com/ Lambda - https://lambda.ai https://lambda.ai/ Linear - https://linear.app https://linear.app/ MongoDB - https://mongodb.com https://mongodb.com/ NYSE - https://nyse.com https://nyse.com/ Okta - https://www.okta.com https://www.okta.com/ Phantom - https://phantom.com/cash Plaid -https://plaid.com https://plaid.com/ Public - https://public.com https://public.com/ Railway - https://railway.com https://railway.com/ Ramp -https://ramp.com https://ramp.com/ Restream - https://restream.io https://restream.io/ Shopify - https://shopify.com https://shopify.com/ Turbopuffer - https://turbopuffer.com https://turbopuffer.com/ Vanta - https://vanta.com https://vanta.com/ Vibe - https://vibe.co https://vibe.co/ Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://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.

• 0:01John Coogan?

  I wrote about Chiching, the Apple Card. Minor news yesterday.

• 0:06Jordi Hays?

  Wait, first, we have to ask, somebody sent us a bunch of weights.

• 0:09John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:09Jordi Hays?

  And this one is a 10. There's quite a few of these. Are you trying to say something? Is this, you think, you think the upper limit? But either way, whoever sent these, please let us know. There was no card. Big sign of respect in our culture.

• 0:23John Coogan?

  It is. Anyway, there was a minor headline, breaking news, actually, learned about it from the chat. The Apple Card program is moving from Goldman Sachs to JP Morgan. Nothing's really changing about the Apple Card yet. It's merely the bank backend that's always been sort of behind the scenes, behind the fold. Even though it's a minor headline, I think it's an interesting story of just how Apple got to the point where they have a credit card, what that means, what the decisions with the trade offs were. And I wanted to go back all the way to the Steve Jobs era and think about, would, how would he be down with credit cards? You're giving leverage to your customers, you're giving credit, you're in the debt business. It's a different business. How did he think about it and how did we get here? The Apple Card program has millions of cards issued. There's $20 billion of debt that's accumulated across all the cards.

• 1:07John Coogan?

  And the portfolio is not doing well. So normally, if you are to, if you have a co-branded credit card, like a JCPenney or Macy's credit card, and it's aligned with a brand, typically those get paid off pretty well. They have strict underwriting rules. And so when those trade hands, companies will, other banks will typically say, I'm buying a $10 billion portfolio and I'll give you 8% on top because most likely, I'm going to be able to recoup all of that from the creditors. And also, you know, they're going to pay interest. So they're going to pay 15% interest, 25% interest. Now, there will be some defaults, but in general, you typically make money off of owning a portfolio of consumer credit card loans. Not in this case. Goldman is like, we gotta get this off our balance sheet.

• 1:52John Coogan?

  They've already lost $1 billion. Their consumer bank overall, which includes Marcus, has lost $3 billion. Like, they're not doing well over the last couple of years.

• 1:59Jordi Hays?

  So is this a repayment issue or just an operational issue?

• 2:03John Coogan?

  There's a little bit of both. The $20 billion card balances, that's trading JP Morgan's acquiring that at a $1 billion discount. Instead of an 8% premium, you would expect that they would pay 21.6. They're actually paying 19 for this. It's not, you know, by any means a disaster, and Goldman's a large company.

• 2:19Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, sorry, I said Morgan Stanley.

• 2:21John Coogan?

  Steve Jobs actually thought about launching a credit card at Apple at least two times that we know of. There's two key stories about Steve Jobs thinking about getting in the credit card game. The first was in the late 1990s. He met with Capital One to create a joint credit card that would have worked a lot like the Apple card. There's a lot of things where Apple has a particular brand. I want to talk to you about Apple's brand and what it means, like how it fits into the consumer credit card, consumer financial landscape. The North Star that Jobs laid down was always amazing customer service and no rejection. So I tend to think of most high-end brands as beneficiaries of exclusivity. You can't just buy an Hermes Birkin bag. You can't buy a Ferrari SB3 Daytona. You have to be invited. You need a relationship.

• 3:06John Coogan?

  Apple, for some reason, I feel about Apple the same way I feel about Ferrari. And yet it is a wildly different experience.

• 3:13Jordi Hays?

  It's a premium brand.

• 3:14John Coogan?

  It's a premium brand, but because of the design and because of the value of the technology and how innovative they are, I put them in a different category than Equinox. Jobs wanted Apple to be a no-rejection company. So anyone can walk into an Apple store, buy the most expensive iPhone that they make, as long as they have the money for it.

• 3:35Jordi Hays?

  People want to give us money, they can.

• 3:36John Coogan?

  They can, which is, you know, it's a standard business practice, but not always in luxury goods.

• 3:42Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, which is why I said it's premium, not luxury, even though Apple often presents itself as a luxury brand.

• 3:50John Coogan?

  Yes, yes. Because of credit risk and underwriting, every credit card has to have an approval process and not everyone can be accepted. That's just the way it works. You cannot underwrite everyone or else you'll just have massive losses. Apple, when they launched the original card, they actually set the credit score requirement fairly low. And even though it launched in 2019, it felt like a holdover from the Jobs era, that Jobs philosophy. Of even though we're Apple, even though it's, it feels it's going to have the patina of an Amex, it's going to have this premium look. It really was accessible to a lot of people. I think you needed a credit score of around a 600, which is pretty accessible. The second time Apple was really thinking about doing a card was in 2004.

• 4:32John Coogan?

  They actually staffed this guy, Ken Siegel, who is the creative director on the Think Different campaigns, like one of the most iconic marketers in history, in tech history, certainly. Jobs said, if we launch a credit card, it's going to be called the Apple Card. And they actually wound up using that name. But it had a weird twist. So, most credit cards, they'll give you airline miles or cash back. There's diners, club. It's usually, you get points and then you can spend those points on travel.

• 4:56Jordi Hays?

  And you've always been a huge points guy, right?

• 4:58John Coogan?

  I'm not, I'm actually not a points guy at all. I usually meet whoever the most elite management consultant in my friend group is and just ask them, because every management consultant is obsessed with credit card points maxing. And I just ask them, which one should I get? And then I just get that one. And then five years later, 10 years later, I still have it and it's probably a bad deal then. So, instead of airline miles or cash back, this proposed Apple Card from 2004, you, you would get points and you could only spend the points at the iTunes Store to get free songs.

• 5:28Jordi Hays?

  I mean, at that moment in time, that was pretty cool.

• 5:30John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a cool idea.

• 5:32Jordi Hays?

  I mean, I was a child at that time. So 99 cents was somewhat of a considered purchase. I'd be playing, I'd, sometimes I'd just play the preview of the song.

• 5:40John Coogan?

  Yeah, I'm good with the 30 seconds. For sure, this is enough.

• 5:44Jordi Hays?

  Rocking out.

• 5:45John Coogan?

  This is enough.

• 5:46Jordi Hays?

  Play it again.

• 5:47John Coogan?

  But it is somewhat genius because there's sort of zero marginal cost on music, certainly on the distribution of music. Now, they do have to pay royalty fees, but there's already a built-in margin there. So that 99 cents, a lot of that went to Apple. Remember, they take 30%. So they're, so they're giving you psychologically a dollar worth of value. You go and spend $100, you get, you get 100 points. One point is one cent. You buy the 99 cent song, but they are taking home another 30% on top of that. The economics would have been really, really good, but it is sort of gimmicky because people want to spend points on a lot of things.

• 6:20Jordi Hays?

  They're like, I'm happy to get free flights.

• 6:23John Coogan?

  Yeah, and I think there's something psychological about having, you know, a credit card that you spend money on for a couple of years. You get a whole bunch of points and then you're like, wow, I got a free flight to a vacation that I'll remember forever. As opposed to, okay, yeah, I, I, I bought a bunch of my favorite music and then four years later Spotify came out and actually my iTunes library is basically useless, right?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, it's like the same thing, cause it's like, instead of a trip, it's like, oh, I bought this Chief Keef album off my Apple card. I'll always remember that.

• 6:51Jordi Hays?

  And now my life is a movie.

• 6:54John Coogan?

  I hate being sober. Um, the, uh, we gotta watch that. The other key feature that Apple always wanted, and this went back to Steve Jobs, they always wanted with the Apple card, which you don't often think about with credit cards, but is amazing customer service. And so, most people, their credit card just works. Apple did a couple of unique things where it integrate with the wallet and, uh, and, but mostly, they just wanted extremely high levels of customer service. When you have a problem with your iPhone, you go into the Genius Bar, there's someone who's friendly, they are very good about getting you in at the right time.

• 7:27Jordi Hays?

  Imagine one of the people at the Genius Bar breaking your kneecaps.

• 7:33Jordi Hays?

  They have a room where they're just like, okay, we're, you know, we're very customer friendly here, but you haven't paid and we have to break your kneecaps, we're gonna take you back.

• 7:41John Coogan?

  Well, I mean, that was another thing, they wanted to be so customer friendly, they didn't have any late fees, no application fees and, and no, no international fees, no fees at all. That was the whole pitch. Since, I don't know, probably at the eighties, like the Christmas time was when people would gift each other MacBooks or Mac computers and they built up, built up, built up. And so, they have a whole workflow for how do we hire a lot of people around the Christmas time? How do we staff the Genius Bar? How do we educate people? How do we pay them? They're in the tier one cities, so they're, they, they can have great people working there. It's, uh, it's a very high dollar revenue per square foot in those Apple stores.

• 8:17John Coogan?

  Goldman didn't have experience in consumer banking. The default consumer customer service experience is I'm calling my banker, my Goldman banker, and I'm like, I need to sell my company for a billion dollars. Get your M and A team ready, or I need to go public. But seriously, Goldman, it's the highest finance. It's the most premier.

• 8:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah.

• 8:34John Coogan?

  It's the most elite. So when you call them and you're like, yeah, I got billed for $25 and it should have been $23. Can you fix this? Well, they need a new team for that and they need to build up that team. And that's not, that's not rocket science, but Apple also wanted another consumer friendly feature. They wanted all of the bills to drop on the first of the month, every month. And normally credit cards will stagger it out. They'll be like, your bill comes on the 10th. Tyler's comes on the 15th, mine comes on the 20th.

• 9:01Jordi Hays?

  Oh, so they do it intentionally.

• 9:03John Coogan?

  Yeah, they do it intentionally.

• 9:04Jordi Hays?

  Stupidly, it seemed that it was just sloppy and annoying.

• 9:06John Coogan?

  No.

• 9:07Jordi Hays?

  I'm like, oh, you're just.

• 9:08John Coogan?

  Genius. Trust the process.

• 9:10Jordi Hays?

  Trust the process.

• 9:10John Coogan?

  Trust the process. Never lose faith. So Apple insisted, hey, everyone's got to get their statement right on the first. That's the best customer experience. But what that means is that you need like 10,000 people ready at the phones. Apple customer service, that level that Goldman wanted to bring was very high. And so you need a ton of people staffed on the first of the month and then they're not really doing anything in the back half of the month. And while you can maybe do temp work at an Apple store in December and say, hey, we're going to hire you from November 1st to January 15th. You're going to deal with some of the returns. It's a three month gig. People will sign up for that. No one's saying, yeah, I'm good to work at Goldman Sachs on the first of every month and the first week of every month. And then I'll just find something else to do on weeks two, three and four of the month. That doesn't make any sense.

• 9:55John Coogan?

  So they ran into a bunch of problems there, obviously more cost and all of this was just making the, the, the, the actual program less profitable for Goldman. The whole reason why they jumped at the opportunity to, to work with Apple and they kind of bent over backwards because Apple had tried this with, they went to a whole bunch of other banks, remember going back to Capital One. And every bank had said like, no, are you crazy? You can't do this. Like you can't give everyone in the world a no free credit card with great customer service. You're going to lose money, Apple. And Apple.

• 10:26Jordi Hays?

  They're like, no, we want to give everyone a free lunch.

• 10:29John Coogan?

  Exactly.

• 10:30Jordi Hays?

  Anyways, I I texted a buddy who has some context on this whole deal. And so I I he is in a meeting, but he fired off some notes. He asked him like, why, why, like, how did this happen? Basically, he says, GS effed up the plan. DJ D Soul was told to shut down Marcus and consumer or get.

• 10:51John Coogan?

  That's David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman.

• 10:52Jordi Hays?

  Or get out of the job. So he cut all of Marcus except for savings. Then GS had a multi year process to find a bank that Apple would approve. Right? They're not just going to say like, some, some, you know, smaller, not, not systemically important bank, etc. Then they had to figure out price, which includes opportunity cost of selling for a discount compared to running out the contract to 2030. GS effed up because it's a transactional org, not a longitudinal org. And really thought they were, they were smarter, but never focused on the fundamentals of running the business.

• 11:26John Coogan?

  Yeah. So the question is like, what happens next? JB Morgan obviously has way more, way more consistency here.

• 11:33Jordi Hays?

  Did you ever have one?

• 11:34John Coogan?

  Apple Card, no.

• 11:35Jordi Hays?

  And it's so, so interesting because I think that if you were trying to do an analysis on the Apple Card, you were like, every high value credit card customer in America, not every, but the vast, vast, maybe 99% has an iPhone. Apple is going to put this everywhere. This is going to be one of the biggest credit card business lines of all time. And it just, it's been interesting to see, you know, this entire saga because it hasn't really turned out that way. Speaking of deals, Reuters has an exclusive. They say Trump admin moles payments to sway Greenlanders to join the US. Greenland says they're not for sale. European leaders are standing behind Copenhagen. But Greenland talks in the White House have intensified in recent days.

• 12:21Jordi Hays?

  US officials have discussed sending lump sum payments to Greenland. Stimmy time.

• 12:26John Coogan?

  Stimmy time.

• 12:27Jordi Hays?

  To Greenlanders as part of a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and potentially join the United States. While the exact dollar figure and logistics of any payment are unclear, US officials, including White House aides, have discussed figures ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person. Doing the math, even at $100,000 a person, Greenland only has like 57,000 residents. So we're talking about basically a seed round, five, 5.7 billion. It's like three AI researchers.

• 12:56John Coogan?

  Three AI researchers. Greenland, for all Greenland. I mean, I get that they have a ton of, a ton of natural resources and whatnot. I doubt that you can just actually buy the votes. You probably couldn't make the payment contingent on them voting. They would have to like either vote and then they get the payment because we promise, or the payment happens and then whether or not they vote.

• 13:15Jordi Hays?

  I think just start planes with cash.

• 13:18John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Jordi Hays?

  You know, just dropping it out of the air.

• 13:20John Coogan?

  Because then wouldn't they, wouldn't the game theories be just that they hold strong? There's gonna be another plane. We want the second drop.

• 13:26Jordi Hays?

  Here's my thing. Here's my thing. If I'm a citizen of Greenland.

• 13:30John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Jordi Hays?

  A resident, I'm sitting there being like, you're, okay, we know they're willing to, we have an idea that they're willing to spend up to around 6 billion. We think we're worth 60. Let's let them keep, you know, the Paramount Skydance, the Ellison's, they'll just bid and then say, ah, well, it's not our best and final offer. And then what does Warner Brothers do? They, of course, again, they rejected another bid or recommended against it. So.

• 13:55John Coogan?

  Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens Fredrik Nielsen, wrote in a Facebook post.

• 14:00Jordi Hays?

  Facebook. Let's go.

• 14:02John Coogan?

  Okay. They are really a decade behind over there. It says enough is enough. No more fantasies about annexation. He's not a fan. You gotta get on reels, buddy. You gotta do a front-facing video. Use some AI. Get some vibe reel music in there.

• 14:17Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Get the, get this Sigma male.

• 14:20John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Jordi Hays?

  You know, grindset.

• 14:22John Coogan?

  Yeah. It's just his statement. Enough is enough. No more fantasies about annexation. And it just cuts to like the Joker.

• 14:28Jordi Hays?

  Leaders in Copenhagen and throughout Europe have reacted to comments by Trump and other officials asserting their right to Greenland in recent days with disdain, particularly given that the US and Denmark are NATO allies bound by a mutual defense agreement. On Tuesday, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain, and Denmark issued a joint statement saying only Greenland and Denmark can decide matters regarding their relations.

• 14:53John Coogan?

  If you alone, on your own, decide to come over and hang out with us, we got some cash for you, apparently. Trump has long argued that the US needs to acquire Greenland on several grounds. One, it is rich in minerals needed for advanced military applications. There has been renewed urgency after his government captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a daring snatching grab operation. Not an invasion, apparently.

• 15:15Jordi Hays?

  Their average gross income in Greenland is 40 to 45,000 USD. So people could be looking at that 100K saying. I'm gonna retire a couple of years early.

• 15:25John Coogan?

  Hundred K is big. Yeah, I don't know.

• 15:27Jordi Hays?

  I mean, it's such a, it is a tough sell. As much as I love this great country.

• 15:32John Coogan?

  You mean to live in Greenland or?

• 15:34Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, just, just if you're in Greenland and you're kind of looking over at the US with binoculars.

• 15:38John Coogan?

  I want that crazy stuff over here.

• 15:40Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, just massive, massive infighting. Governors, you know, you know, you know, going to war with, with Washington constantly, right?

• 15:49John Coogan?

  It is interesting. The US is like one of the most entertaining countries. It feels like a lot of people are obsessed with our national politics. People don't really follow our local politics or our state level politics or global politics. They mostly follow American national politics. So, I don't know, maybe they get it, get it on it. So Puerto Rico famously has just a 3% tax rate on income. So a lot of people go there.

• 16:12Jordi Hays?

  And when, and this is why when Jake Paul fights for 90 million dollars, he's actually fighting for basically that number. He has one of the few jobs that you can actually do very well from Puerto Rico, which is just train and boxing.

• 16:26John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 16:26Jordi Hays?

  You know, a team that you build yourself. So, yeah, he, his, his.

• 16:30John Coogan?

  That's insane.

• 16:31Jordi Hays?

  Like Jake Paul will actually be a billionaire probably fairly quickly, simply because he's gonna do a handful more fights, I imagine. Then he needs about a 2X from there and he'll be able to go.

• 16:42John Coogan?

  But Puerto Rico famously, people go there because it has a low tax regime. You'd pay just 3% of your income. Greenland, 97% taxes. That's what they should do? Why would anyone go there? It's cold and now you have high taxes.

• 16:56Jordi Hays?

  Well, but a lot of people want, desperately want to raise taxes.

• 17:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Jordi Hays?

  Basically, I mean, I'm assuming some people actually want to take it to 100%, right? And so if you could create.

• 17:07John Coogan?

  You go there, you zero yourself and then you, and then you grind.

• 17:11Jordi Hays?

  If you're in favor of ultra high taxes, you could go to Greenland.

• 17:14John Coogan?

  That's a good idea.

• 17:15Jordi Hays?

  Get zeroed out immediately.

• 17:17John Coogan?

  I like this idea.

• 17:18Jordi Hays?

  You just land in the country.

• 17:19John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Jordi Hays?

  And then you go and you connect all your accounts with Plaid.

• 17:23John Coogan?

  But everyone knows you're.

• 17:24Jordi Hays?

  Transfer out everything and then you're zeroed out.

• 17:26John Coogan?

  And then Tyler, you had a different proposal. What was it?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Well, so the, the, the bull case for just 97 is, is that like it's a flex, right?

• 17:33John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  I can live in Greenland. I'm so, I make so much money that even.

• 17:36John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I leave 3% left and I'm still balling.

• 17:39John Coogan?

  It is hard.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  I can still afford it.

• 17:40John Coogan?

  Every billionaire has a plane. They all have boats. It's like, who's really got money? Well, if you can go to Greenland, lose 97% of your wealth and still be flexing, it's like, okay, that guy's actually really rich.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then.

• 17:53John Coogan?

  They really made it.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  But then if you're, if you're not.

• 17:55Jordi Hays?

  It's the new Lamborghini Urin.

• 17:56John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  If you're not uber wealthy, it still makes sense if you basically just have the 97% tax rate the first year.

• 18:02John Coogan?

  The first year.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  So then maybe it's, maybe it's, if you look at it in 10 year increments, right? So first year, you're basically zeroed out.

• 18:07John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  But then you got, then you got a super low tax rate, then you, then you just grind.

• 18:11John Coogan?

  For five years. So you lock in.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  It's almost like a, you get dropped on an island and you gotta fight your way out.

• 18:15John Coogan?

  Yeah, sort of Lord of the Fly situation in Greenland.

• 18:18Jordi Hays?

  Uh, do you see, uh, Jensen came out yesterday and said he doesn't care about California's proposed billionaire tax. Jensen Huang said he wasn't worried about a potential tax on billionaires in California breaking from a cadre of ultra wealthy residents who have spoken out against the first of its kind proposal. We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it, I'm gonna say it's kind of a pick me behavior for, for, for, for a beaner.

• 18:43John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Jordi Hays?

  He says, I'm perfectly fine with it. It never crossed my mind once. Let's head into the comment section and put a hazmat suit. It's not really relevant what he thinks, according to Jeff. It's a question of what the policy effect impact is. If all the billionaires want to stay in the state and don't mind giving up 5% of their wealth each year, or whatever nuts that thing the state cooks out, the state government will certainly not invest the money as intelligently as the average billionaire. It will largely go to fraud, waste, lazy government employees, et cetera. So Huang can have whatever opinion he wants. It's a free country, but that doesn't make it a wise policy. I agree. The term carry in venture capital actually comes from video games. You just need to find one good, one founder good enough to carry your entire career.

• 19:23John Coogan?

  That is fantastic.

• 19:24Jordi Hays?

  This is a banger and it's, it's, it's a banger because it's so true. Like when I, when I look at across, you know, 60, 70 different investments at this point. If you take out like two or three of these founders.

• 19:37John Coogan?

  Power law game.

• 19:38Jordi Hays?

  It's just like, okay.

• 19:39John Coogan?

  Much like being on Rust with a, with an absolute killer.

• 19:44Jordi Hays?

  With your absolute boy.

• 19:44John Coogan?

  360 no scope while you're still figuring out how the sticks work. But you're getting carried. You're like, we won. Did I ever tell the story of how I got my Overwatch account carried to like the absolute top? My account was like ranked one of the best in the world for a little bit, but it was very interesting.

• 19:59Jordi Hays?

  Who was?

• 20:00John Coogan?

  So, so I, I played the first season of, I played the first season of Overwatch. Then my password was included in some sort of hack, some sort of leak. And so some hacker figured out how to get into my Overwatch account, which is not important because like, what are you going to do? You're just going to like, my credit card information isn't there. You can't do anything with it. You can just play Overwatch. But Overwatch was like a $60 game or something. And so if you were hacking, you didn't want to buy $60 every time you got banned. So this hacker played on my Overwatch account for like multiple seasons and ranked way up. And was like a sniper. I think he played Hanzo main. And then years later I got back in with my friends and I'm like, oh, let's play some Overwatch. And we queue up.

• 20:41Jordi Hays?

  Like John, what are you even up to?

• 20:43John Coogan?

  And I, and I'm like, oh, I need to do placement matches. And so I do the placement matches and I'm just like losing because I'm playing with all these like incredible, like, you know, the top tier. And, and everyone's like, why are you guys, like, like, we know you're good. Why are you, why are you sandbagging? Like, why are you trying to de-rank your account? And I'm like, I'm not, I'm playing as hard as I can. I'm doing my best. And they're like, no, we can see that you're like one of the greatest Hanzo players ever. Like you're the greatest sniper in Overwatch. We've seen your account history. You're amazing. Why are you playing poorly? And then I finally figured it out that my account had been stolen and then. And rocketed to the top of the rankings. So finally, I had to make up a lie because whenever I'd whenever I'd hop on a game, everyone would be like, you're terrible and you're supposed to be good.

• 21:25John Coogan?

  And I'd have to say, ah, like I broke my hand, so I just, I'm not as good as I used to be. Like, please go easy on me. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm relearning everything.

• 21:35Jordi Hays?

  Over to Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers has rejected Paramount's latest 108.4 billion dollar hostile bid and remain committed.

• 21:43John Coogan?

  I called it.

• 21:44Jordi Hays?

  Loyal.

• 21:45John Coogan?

  I knew nothing about this deal, but I just randomly said that I think Netflix is gonna run away with it, but we'll see. How high can they go? Can they go to 200 billion? It seems like Paramount has.

• 21:58Jordi Hays?

  They're holding out for the 1 trillion.

• 22:00John Coogan?

  Endless, endless coffers.

• 22:03Jordi Hays?

  Paramount continued pushing its 77.9 billion dollar bid for Warner Brothers Thursday, a day after Warner said it plans to stick to its existing deal with Netflix.

• 22:13John Coogan?

  Yeah, unless the price gets really crazy and they appeal directly to shareholders and the shareholders go crazy or something. It feels like it's in the back. You can feel the code red here. Google is absolutely crushing it with Gemini 3. Gemini's market share is now at 21.5%. Three months ago, it was at 12.9%. 12 months ago is at 5.7%. And I remember the, a year ago, when it launched, it felt like, it felt like a lot of the numbers that we were hearing out of Google were big, but it was because they were including generative AI snippets in Google search. Or they were sort of bending it into other products that already had big DAU numbers. And it was not people going to Gemini, installing the app, really daily driving it. It was more demo, more testing.

• 22:56John Coogan?

  Well, this similar web data seems to show that Gemini has been growing and taking share.

• 23:01Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, it's also worth noting that this is just like site visits and so. Not every visit is created equally.

• 23:08John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 23:09Jordi Hays?

  Somebody can land quickly.

• 23:10John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 23:10Jordi Hays?

  On a site. That's very different from them.

• 23:12John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 23:12Jordi Hays?

  You know, being in the app.

• 23:14John Coogan?

  Totally.

• 23:14Jordi Hays?

  Multiple times a day. So this is not.

• 23:15John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 23:15Jordi Hays?

  Looking at app traffic.

• 23:17John Coogan?

  The code red is real and it shows that Google's been taking the distribution of Gemini very, very seriously. And they've gotten more traffic, which is good.

• 23:25Jordi Hays?

  This company, Flip, said Flip is hiring. We're hiring posters, engineers, product, growth, ops, designers, interns and roles that do not yet have names. And then 24 hours later, they quoted their own post. They said, "You've just deleted half the applications at random. We do not want unlucky people working for Flip." I'm assuming it has to do with gambling.

• 23:48John Coogan?

  Of course.

• 23:49Jordi Hays?

  I think the product, what they're trying to do is basically you pay more for a product or get it free.

• 23:55John Coogan?

  Oh, it's that, it's that meme. I've seen, I've seen people joke about that. And then I saw, there's this poster.

• 24:01Jordi Hays?

  They're bringing gambling into credit card, bringing gambling into debt.

• 24:05John Coogan?

  On the topic of luck, at one point, very early in my career, I wanted to create a direct to consumer product called Five Hour Luck. And the whole concept would be like, it'd be a five hour energy shot, but the promise, the pitch was that it would make you lucky. It would make, it would increase your luck. Just because people, you know, energy is a stat. Why not increase luck? Was not thinking about the gambling application.

• 24:25Jordi Hays?

  The placebo element. Yeah. I mean, that, that product would crush in Vegas.

• 24:29John Coogan?

  Yeah. Imagine just taking it and being like, okay, I, I, I have the stat boost. I'm lucky. I'm feeling good.

• 24:34Jordi Hays?

  Snake oil in it.

• 24:35John Coogan?

  Asking someone long.

• 24:36Jordi Hays?

  Long memory.

• 24:37John Coogan?

  Oh, who's long memory. If they got any new ideas for 2026. It was already rich. Yes, memory has been on a tear.

• 24:44Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Bubble Boy on, over on X had, had some pretty great calls late last year. I'm gonna try to pull.

• 24:53John Coogan?

  We can also pull up, I want to watch this, this intro from this week in startups. Can we move on to this? Now that you're doing so well financially, what is a purchase that you'd like to make, but can't bring yourself to do so because it feels too extravagant? Answer this honestly. Tell the people what you, even Jason Calacanis, will not break out the checkbook for.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  It's definitely private aviation.

• 25:11John Coogan?

  That's good.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  I've been trying to hold.

• 25:12John Coogan?

  Do it, Jay Cal. You deserve it.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  For a long time.

• 25:15John Coogan?

  He deserves it.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  The great unjustifiable expense of spending, you know, $50,000 going somewhere or a hundred thousand on a round trip. That seemed absurd to spend that. The other one I would say that I sometimes sweat is buying a really expensive sports car.

• 25:30John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Do it.

• 25:32John Coogan?

  He's a Corvette guy.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Buy a ZR1. Which is like a big, open fancy barn. That's kind of like a man cave, but Texas style. Do I buy this ZRX1 for $250,000? Or do I buy?

• 25:45John Coogan?

  Do it.

• 25:46Jordi Hays?

  Do it, Jake Al.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  $50,000 Corvette.

• 25:49John Coogan?

  I like that.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  A lot of these things become cognitive load.

• 25:52John Coogan?

  Let's move on to the real biggest launch, the biggest tech news in years. There's a new monitor out from Dell.

• 26:01Jordi Hays?

  Big.

• 26:01John Coogan?

  And I love this. So, Michael Dell said, "Big news. The world's first 52-inch 6K monitor is here. If you love big displays, this is for you." Let's play the clip from Rob Moore, where he says Dell just released the product that Michael Dell and David Senra alluded to in the David Senra podcast.

• 26:18Jordi Hays?

  I love how, coming out of CES, the thing that we're most excited about is just a bigger screen.

• 26:22John Coogan?

  It's awesome.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  That obsession has not dulled. We were just in your office and you were showing me one of your new unreleased products that we can't film or photograph. But you were like, I was like, this is like a kid on Christmas. Like, you're still so-

• 26:36John Coogan?

  It's a super cool product. Yeah, I'm very excited.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  I told you I'll buy one. I think it's cool too. I'm gonna buy one as soon as it comes out. But I just love this enthusiasm that is just not dulling. That obsession has not dulled.

• 26:47Jordi Hays?

  Major white pill.

• 26:49John Coogan?

  Oh, we do.

• 26:49Jordi Hays?

  Drew Tuma is reporting, "For the first time in 25 years, not a single square mile of California is dry on the US drought monitor. The rain is back. Thank you, Augustus." Have to go back to December 2000 to find a similar situation. If you're 25 or younger, you've always lived in a world where California has been entering or recovering from drought. So, we are incredibly, incredibly back.

• 27:14John Coogan?

  Julia Black's TBPN exposé in Vanity Fair just dropped today. If you go to vanityfair.com, we're right there.

• 27:22Jordi Hays?

  We did have to dress up. It was definitely the most, by far the most intense shoot we've ever been a part of. She said- They're no saints. One of them runs a nicotine company, but they have-

• 27:33John Coogan?

  Not, not just any nicotine.

• 27:35Jordi Hays?

  An addictive, an addictive nicotine company.

• 27:37John Coogan?

  It's addictive nicotine.

• 27:38Jordi Hays?

  That I personally am addicted to.

• 27:40John Coogan?

  I think all nicotine is addictive.

• 27:41Jordi Hays?

  But they have drawn certain lines in the sand. They don't swear on air. They try to avoid vulgarity. And they don't promote alcohol or drug use, mostly because they're not big drinkers themselves. And then Julia says, perhaps most importantly, and then a quote from me, the show is never going to promote Burning Man.

• 27:57John Coogan?

  I can't believe you said that.

• 27:58Jordi Hays?

  Funny moment. So we were, we were getting breakfast with Julia at our usual spot. And she says, while in line for coffee that morning, Hayes dashed off an X post. This was right after the Coldplay saga. I said, startup CEOs can't even hug their chief people officer at a concert in this country anymore.

• 28:15John Coogan?

  She didn't put this in, but you ordered some food and you put so much salt on it. You just kept shaking the salt shaker. And I was like, this is going to go in the piece.

• 28:24Jordi Hays?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:24John Coogan?

  I've never noticed that you-

• 28:25Jordi Hays?

  I love salt. I have this amazing story. My, my grandpa was making my brother and I hot chocolate when we were kids. And like my grandma was away at the time. So it was just us hanging out with grandpa. And he's like, I'm going to make the kids hot chocolate.

• 28:38John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Jordi Hays?

  He makes a hot chocolate, brings it over to us. He's drinking it. He, he gives us a couple of cups. And we're like, oh, grandpa, this, this is really, this is really rough. Are you sure you made it right? And he's like, yeah, I made it right. It's totally fine. Turns out he's, all the sugar that he meant to put in, he meant to put in salt. But his taste buds were so cooked that to him, it just, he was just drinking like salt. Pure salt, hot chocolate.

• 29:03John Coogan?

  Sugar, you notice immediately.

• 29:05Jordi Hays?

  So anyways, I am, I'm like him in that sense.

• 29:08John Coogan?

  Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe to TBPN's newsletter at tbpn.com. And we will see you tomorrow.

• 29:14Jordi Hays?

  Thank you, folks.

• 29:15John Coogan?

  Good night.

• 29:15Jordi Hays?

  Have a great afternoon.