Moderna Drama, WSJ Mansion Section, Genetically Engineered Military Dogs | Thomas Wright, Kyle Schiller, Steven Schwartz

(01:30) - Moderna Drama (13:50) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions (55:07) - Thomas Wright discusses his role as CEO and principal broker of Summit Sotheby’s International Realty, drawing on decades of experience developing luxury real estate businesses across Western resort markets. He examines Utah’s rapid growth, the diverging luxury and general housing markets, evolving buyer preferences, property-marketing strategies, and the ethical risks of AI-enhanced imagery. (01:18:18) - Kyle Schiller discusses Marathon Fusion’s efforts to commercialize fusion energy by solving fuel-cycle and industrial bottlenecks while rapidly increasing reactor power density. The company plans to make fusion more economical by producing gold and high-value medical radioisotopes alongside electricity, with Schiller acknowledging that significant scaling and engineering work remain. (01:25:01) - Steven Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of Whop, discusses the company’s $205 million funding round led by Sequoia and Shopify Ventures. He describes Whop’s mission to help entrepreneurs build sustainable incomes by providing integrated payments, advertising, business guidance, and financial infrastructure across fast-growing niche markets. (01:40:35) - WSJ Mansion Section (01:43:02) - Genetically Engineered Military Dogs 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 Codex - http://openAI.com/codex Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tbpn/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You're watching TVP.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Today is Friday, October 23rd, 2026. We are live from the TBP and Ultra Dome, the Temple of Technology.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Look at that new angle.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  The capital. That new angle is awesome. I love that. That's great. Big news, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer dropped today. Tyler is going to try and prestige while we're doing the show. So he's locked in. Don't count on him to look anything up for us because he is trying to go on a kill streak right now. Let me tell you about Ramp. Time is money. Say both. He's used corporate cards. You know, we started the show with like, let's just get right into the show. And the whole bit was like, we'd just be like technology brothers. And then we'd just start the show and it was like really convenient. And now we're like, we gotta tell you about Ramp. We gotta tell you about the Ultra Dome. We gotta tell you about the Road to Christmas. We gotta tell you about COD. But the Road to Christmas, how many days are there until Christmas?

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Because that's why you come to the show. You want to know how many days there are until Christmas. Let's count it down. 62 days until Christmas.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Jeff Bezos is also 62 years old. What is that? We got fun facts now? This is elite. Good job, production team. I like that. So we're gonna learn about a different number every day, I guess, on the way down. Oh, this is very cool. I like that.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Very, very cool.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Let's try and give you some news while we, while Tyler tries to prestige COD.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Just a bit of news.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Just a bit of news. So Moderna, Moderna is in the Wall Street Journal today. And it's an interesting story. Data from Moderna's cancer therapy leaked. And the stock has been on this wild ride up and down fueled by speculation that they cured cancer. They said the AI labs, they've been talking a big game. Nobody's doing it without us doing it first.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  I would hate for an AI lab to cure cancer before we do.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  That's exactly what they said. And, and they actually did have some really promising results. But it's a very fascinating story because obviously curing cancer is a very broad term. Insane that the AI lab leaders try and collapse it down to just like, it's going to be done. Clearly, it's like a game of cat and mouse with all these things. Like, there's always some level of cancer in your body that your body's naturally fighting off. And then there's really bad cancer that not, no one can solve because it's metastasized so significantly. And then there's much more modern, much more moderate forms that if you catch them on time, you can fight back with both surgery, just removing the cancerous cells, the tumors. Also drug treatments. There's a bunch of great cancer drugs that are out there. Some of them are blockbusters like KEYTRUDA from Merck, which is, which was actually used in concert with Moderna.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  So Moderna didn't say this is going to be used by itself. They said, we'll be using this in concert with KEYTRUDA. And so basically, this has been Moderna's core idea for the company going back to 2013. Stephane Bancel, the CEO, I don't know if he's the co-founder CEO, but he did a TED Talk in 2013 where he said, like, we are going to be able to design patient-specific drugs for cancer. And he was standing on stage being like, guys, we're going to cure cancer. And everyone was like clapping at TED. And then three years later, they were calling him the Fairness. Because they were like, this is not going to happen. This is completely fake. Your company's really secretive. And then he started delivering, but it took a really long time.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  And the company was really secretive and would require people to sign NDAs to come in the building. And all of that was sort of like offset by the fact that they continue to deliver. And they actually did get up through a successful phase three trial with this particular drug. So it's not a one-shot solution, of course, like curing cancer is this broad spectrum. And so the way it works is that scientists sequence a patient's tumor, identify mutations unique to their specific cancer, and then manufacture an mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize and attack those cancer cells. And so the treatment is actually administered alongside Merck's KEYTRUDA, which I mentioned, an existing cancer immunotherapy drug.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  And the hope is that the combination can prevent cancer from returning after surgery and eventually work against many different types of cancer. So the early results, the early results that they had sort of gestured towards in the phase two was a 49% reduction in relative risk of cancer recurrence or death compared to KEYTRUDA alone. So you're on the best in class because even when they do these studies, they're not just going to say, hey, we want you to go cold turkey. We want you to go completely vanilla. They say, you can use the drugs that are already available. Will this be better than just the drugs that are available currently? So, so they had this 49% number, and that's the important number to anchor on

• 4:45Speaker 01

  because phase three was going to tell you, was it higher than 49 when they did more trials? Or was it lower? And spoiler alert, of course, it came in lower. That's why there's all the drama. But in August of 2016, Moderna announced that its much larger phase three trial, which had 1,137 patients, so over 1,000 cancer patients went through this trial doing KEYTRUDA and the, and the Moderna treatment. They said, our phase three trial succeeded, succeeded. But they didn't say the data behind it. They didn't say the number. They didn't update that 49%. So everyone was like, this is incredible. They cured cancer. The stock moons. And, but on October 2nd, the detailed results leaked, which is crazy.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Because they were basically embargoed and it was two days before Moderna was scheduled to present them. And in biotech, these presentations about the actual results are very precisely traded by hedge funds. It matters a lot.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  And so they, like, you shouldn't leak them, but a medical publication called Oncology Central apparently published an article containing the embargoed clinical data ahead of schedule. Screenshots circulated on X and Moderna's stock plunged 26%. Introduce a eventually closing down 18%. And it's not that they secretly failed the trial. It's not that they said they succeeded it and then the data came out and they failed. What actually happened was that the phase three did succeed, but the results weren't as spectacular as investors had hoped. Instead of the 49% that I mentioned before, it was only 42%, which is still pretty good. But it wasn't good enough. It's great if you're a cancer patient, but it's not so good if you're an investor who's banking on 49% or maybe a beat, maybe an update.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Hey, it's actually better than, than, than we expected. And so you can kind of understand how the market would react to that. Also, the phase three trial showed that Moderna's treatment is really only starts to be effective after six months. It starts kicking in. So if you have a really aggressive, fast-growing cancer, it doesn't really help all that much. It's more for someone who has like a slow burn cancer that sort of, they're fighting it off over the course of a year or two. That's when Moderna is going to help. And so.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  So somewhat disappointing results.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Relative to the expectations, right? Just didn't meet expectations. Not, not a beat in the clean sense. And so that's all just a normal biotech story. But then it takes a bizarre turn because a fitness and gambling influencer, which is how he's described, named Shane Stouffer, who's better known as Togi, managed to time Moderna's crash almost perfectly. Nothing, nothing. Flipping his entire position from calls to puts just hours before it plunged. And so we have some more information on Togi. And I don't know if we have any videos that we want to pull up to contextualize for the audience who Togi is, because he's a true character in the modern online world. Do you have any?

• 7:49Speaker 00

  I don't know if you could pull up just any video.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  I don't think we could. It's kind of dangerous. He's a, he's a real wild card.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  I sent in a video that I think is.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Okay. Oh, it's clean? Okay, we'll play that video. And while we're pulling it up, give me the update on how you did in your first game of Call of Duty.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  I went 13 and 14. Not great.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  13 and 14.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  But you know, first game, just getting the feeling.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  I'm feeling confident, though. It's my first time on this map. Can we get a Cameron Jackson?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, we need a Cameron.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  We need a Cameron Jackson ASAP. He put together the fit.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Of all fits.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Of the month. Fit of the month. And it's only.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Spinning around way over here.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Where are we? Here we are.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Here we go.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  All right, zoom out a little bit.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Okay, what do you got on, Jackson?

• 8:33Speaker 02

  I got the frontale.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  And the backale. What's on the feet? Do we got boots on the feet?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  What do we got? There we go.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Looking great. Looking great. Thank you for that.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  So do we have that Togi video to contextualize for everyone? Can we pull that up? Okay, this is Togi, the fitness and gambling influencer.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Like every day, I probably have like six, like useful thoughts. And then the rest of it's just kind of like.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Give me an example of a useful thought you had today.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Oh, no, today was bad.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  What an entertainer. Anyway, um, on October 4th, Togi, the man pictured in that video, was trying to speed up his stock video trading challenge, which is already a hilarious premise. He said he noticed people online acting bearish towards Moderna. Everyone was turbo bullish on every stock except one, dollar sign mRNA. Everyone and their mother could only talk about how overvalued it was and how good of a short it was. Then he decided to go against the crowd and bought Moderna calls. That night, he had a dream, Moderna cured cancer,

• 9:50Speaker 01

  and the stock went to $275. It's trading around $200 today. It was at two, almost 250 a little bit earlier. Making his portfolio, these calls had hit worth $11 million. This was his dream. After the dream, he asked Claude what it would take for Moderna to actually reach $275. That's when he said he learned about Moderna's cancer vaccine. Wait, for the first time, he just has this dream based on vibes-based analysis. He's vibes trading. Over the next two weeks, the stock went up 25%, and Togi got worried that all the hype

• 10:29Speaker 01

  from the trial was already priced in. Then he had another dream. This time, that Moderna stock would surge 22%. I thought, this is a quote from him, he says, "I thought it was a sign from God that I was wrong about the top being in and that I should trust my original swap end of market on Friday plan. But when he woke up and checked his phone, Moderna was tanking, and his position was down nearly $200,000." Quote from Togi, "My port down 200K almost had me fully in a panic, thinking maybe sell on the news was so obvious that they are selling days before the news. Originally, Togi had planned to flip his entire position

• 11:14Speaker 01

  from long to short on Friday, October 23rd, betting that Moderna's stock would crash after the trial results were released on Saturday, but the sudden drop convinced him to move up his plans." Quote, "I got too scared that the pump would happen so soon that I'd have no capital left to flip the port short come Friday." But, so he sold his position at a loss, freeing up roughly $500,000 to bet against Moderna by buying put options ahead of the trial results. Perfect timing for Togi. Shortly after, the results were leaked and the stock crashed by 26%. In Togi's own words, quote, "And the rest is some giga stroke of luck history. The news broke early somehow?" Question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. "The most likely outcome for all traders

• 11:58Speaker 01

  would be that I was destined for." Rock solid thesis blown up by some unlucky BS.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  That's my quant. Giga stroke of luck.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Lucky my panic this morning got to my head enough to break my original game plan. In hindsight, this entire saga was beyond obvious. Thanks for playing. Not financial advice. I'm just learning and gambling.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Guy gets, has two dreams and a giga stroke of luck and says, "Man, this was all beyond obvious."

• 12:28Speaker 01

  All beyond obvious, but also not financial advice. I'm just learning and gambling, but also put some respect on the thesis. S U M for some. So, I don't know.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  The thesis that started before he was aware of what the entire stock was riding on.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  It's, it's, uh, yeah, it's a very, very funny story. Anyway, uh, yeah, Moderna's all over the place. Well, let me tell you about console.com. Console builds AI agents that automate 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. How is Tyler doing this round?

• 13:06Speaker 00

  So it's Nick playing now.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Oh, it's Nick playing now. Okay, we swap. Let's see. So the, the score to beat is even. If, if.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Slightly negative. If he can go even.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, okay. Um, I don't know if I played this map in the, in the beta.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  You look like you're about to pull up a.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  A shot from deep.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Is he leaning in yet? Stance forward for Modern Warfare 4. Um, this is exciting. And somebody in the chat also said it's only 26 days until GTA 6, so it's, uh, Christmas is coming early for the next 62 days.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  All right, Nick, get it together.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Get it together. Okay. Uh, well, over in the management section of Wall Street.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Well, let's do some timeline first. Run through here. President Trump says Sundar over at Google talked him out of renaming the Atlantic Ocean. Says, "And I spoke to a brilliant guy, Sundar. He heads all of Google. He's a brilliant guy."

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Sergey and Sundar are totally brilliant guys. You know, they're, they're still rattled from the Gulf. And I said, "No, Sundar, I'm thinking of the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it?" "No, no, no. This time I'm not doing it," he said. He said, "Oceans are different, sir. You know, they cover, they cover really a lot of countries. Please don't ask us to do that."

• 14:20Speaker 01

  That's the craziest thing. So it would be the American Ocean? Is that the idea?

• 14:27Speaker 00

  I think you would have to assume so.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Or Trump Ocean? Maybe Mar-a-Lago, the ocean? I don't know.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Could see all of these.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  I feel like there's enough in the, in the Trump brand canon to, to rename everything. Cause after you rename one Gulf, if you, if you have another Gulf, you need to come up with another one. Well, uh, so you have America and then United States, the United States Ocean on the other side, I guess. Try and make everything United States.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  So apparently, Lake Ontario only shows up as Lake America in the United States.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Oh, Geolocked. Oh, so that one went for two.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  I think it's the same for the Gulf, too.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  So now there's the lake, the Gulf, and then now there's.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  We're really just living in our own little world.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Little bubble, little.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  A bit of a bubble.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Personalized AI Intranet, basically. The American Intranet. That's where we're going.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Um, let's check in with Joe Lonsdale. He was on CNBC yesterday.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we gotta break this one down.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  And there's a lot to, to kind of process here.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yes. This is Joe Lonsdale on CNBC.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  She calls it the tradbot for tradbot. We have six little kids and it's just telling us about our kids' health appointments, their activities, trying to figure out my two-year-old how to deprecate his binky right now. They're telling me when to give it to him. Pretty funny.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  All right, pause. Pause. First off, he's calling the, I mean, well, let's start with the basics. He's calling in from, uh, private aircraft.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Immediate alt.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  Uh, which is incredible. I think, um, a lot of people, we actually have had guests this week call in from their planes, but they'll use a Zoom background.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Usually people do the Zoom background. Going no Zoom background. Very strong play.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  And so it's worth noting just how far, uh, internet connectivity has come. That people can call in, people watching don't realize somebody's on a plane, flying.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Well, I think everyone realized.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Well, in this case, people are realizing. I'm saying, we had a guest.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, with the Zoom background.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  This week, I won't name them, that was calling in from a plane, and you would never know, right? So that's great. Uh, Joe, you know, letting people know, uh, you know, front and center, which, which I think is a, you don't have much to work with in these CNBC backgrounds, right? You've got this tiny little square. Like, how do you leverage it to the max to build your personal brand? This is a great way to do it.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  This is like, you know, selling courses online and having a, you know, Ferrari or Lamborghini. This is the equivalent for.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Videos where you show the Lamborghini in the heads, in the stitching. You get the logo in the stitching. Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Exactly. Okay, this is the equivalent. Really strong start, really great use of space in the appearance. Second thought, you know, he's immediately, apparently in their household, they're calling it the, uh, the Grock Bot. They've rebranded Grock Bot to Tradbot.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Tradwife Bot, yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Tradbot.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, sort of stun locks the anchor.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Super, you know, and we know Joe's contrarian, right? One of the ultimate contrarians, right? But going to Grok for parenting advice is probably, is probably the most, there's a lot of things that you could go to it for, but going to it for, for parenting advice is the, is the ultimate contrarian move. Knowing, knowing what sort of hides in the weights, right? Knowing the thing that has emerged at times.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  And could emerge at any moment. That is maybe, may or may not be fully solved.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Sure, sure.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  So knowing that all things, all things considered, very contrarian, but it makes me, knowing how often he's been contrarian and right, which has led to extreme investment results.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Wisdom here.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  It makes me way more tempted to start going to Grok for parenting.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Might be looking at the next great parenting product.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. And maybe, maybe, maybe there's an opportunity here to reposition Grok around.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Maybe that's the key to product market fit in that category.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  Totally, totally. So he's running Tradbot.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  In the home for parent, you know, just general, like household management parenting advice. I think, I think that makes, uh, you know, again, it's contrarian, but I, I'm gonna give it a shot now.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Um, next up, language selection. We gotta talk about language selection. He talks about, um, you know, clearly one of their kids is using a binky. They want to get him off the binky. It's like a little addiction. Uh, been there as a parent, but word selection, right? Deprecate the binky, right? Really, really good word selection, especially with this audience, right? This audience is an audience of capital allocators and, you know, this audience knows, okay, deprecate the binky. It just, it clicks almost instantly.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Immediately.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. So all in all, 17 seconds on this video, one of the best performances we've seen of any CNBC hit in years.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Also, I mean, the outfit. Potentially, it looks like he's rocking the Trump skin.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  He's rocking the Fortnite Trump skin.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Totally, the Fortnite Trump skin.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Also, to be wearing that on a travel day.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  In the PJ, travel day.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Travel day. You could be an athleisure. Now he puts on the elite, uh, ultra rare skin.

• 19:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  That's a rare drop.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  And that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. One of one of CNBC appearance.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  One of one.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Going down as potentially the top 17 seconds of the year.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's up there with the carps, uh, with the carp, uh, book spin, I would say.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  No, but that was last year.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  That was last year. Yeah. So.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  And so I don't know, what other 17 seconds are you gonna pull out of CNBC this year that, that, that sort of could match this, right?

• 19:52Speaker 01

  This might be it.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  And of course, there's around 60 business days left, something like that. But I mean, really uphill battle for anyone, uphill battle for anyone else that's coming in.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Hundred percent.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, the chat saying, uh, just needs McDonald's and a Diet Coke. So if you really wanted to, to like get into that sort of like Donald mentality, you should have taken a bite or at least a sip or something.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  But overall, round of applause. Fantastic.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, really elite, elite.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Not gonna be, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I don't think it'll be topped.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I don't think it'll be topped, no. No, this is, this is S tier performance.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  S tier.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Of course, S tier performance.

• 20:34Speaker 00

  Well done.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  A good, a good laugh for everyone on the timeline.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Uh, should we head over to one of Joe's, uh, portfolio founders?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  Friend of the show, Scott Wu.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  What'd he say?

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Uh, Scott Wu was doing some math.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  The natural thing, obviously, once that got too easy, is then you take eight cards and you make the current year. And this year is now 2025, um, and so we get to try that one. And, um, in this case, it's actually quite, uh, quite easy because 13 minus 12 is one, 11 minus 10 is one, one plus one plus seven is nine. And it turns out that nine times nine times five times five is exactly 2025. Okay, well, okay, so at some point that gets too easy.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Do you think he has to practice this? Cause I know he's been elite at mental math and these, like, all these different types of math challenges from when he was a kid. But like, this can't come up on a daily basis in his job as CEO of cognition, right? Or does it?

• 21:29Speaker 00

  I think you should do it with potential hires.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  It's like, hey, let's go, let's talk for a couple hours and then let's block off 30 minutes for math tricks.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he has that story about playing, what was it, high stakes poker for a term sheet with, uh, Founder's Fund?

• 21:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, he was playing, uh, I think poker against Napoleon, chess versus Peter.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  That was the one he wanted to do.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Okay, but yeah, I mean, you pull that trick out with, uh, with like, uh, a mid-tier VC who's trying to cram into a later round, like, it's a, it's game over.

• 21:58Speaker 05

  I think this is a learned skill.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  You think so?

• 22:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Okay, learn it.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  All right.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  All right, in a month, I'll, I think I can do this on the table.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  We've given you so many challenges, it's like, learn the drums, prestige at cost.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Skydive without a parachute.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  That one's doable with a net, right?

• 22:19Speaker 00

  No, you gotta do the Pastrana method.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  What's the Pastrana?

• 22:21Speaker 00

  You have other people.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Oh, other people get you, okay, okay, I like that, I like that. Um, yeah, very, very fun. Uh, it's, it's sort of a magic trick, I guess, I mean, it is a learned skill, I suppose, but, uh, it's, uh, I, I feel like more founders should have like a trick up their sleeve like that. I feel like something, uh, that, to get people going, you know, to, to, to break it up. It's not just rehearsing the same talking point, something to remix.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Party tricks.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Everybody can do the Rubik's Cube, so that one's kinda, but not everyone can do the, the eight by eight Rubik's Cube that you appear to have been very close at and failed somehow? What happened?

• 23:00Speaker 05

  This is a special pattern I, I made.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  It seems like you were very close and yet so far. That looks like a failure, oh, now.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Let's head over to the Knicks.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  And let's check in with the Knicks.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  What's going on with the Knicks?

• 23:12Speaker 00

  The Knicks assistants were told they would receive championship rings eventually, but many longtime employees at Madison Square Garden, including some who work in the Knicks' business operations, will not receive rings at all, team sources told The Atlantic. Typically, most employees for NBA teams receive rings, even if they are not as fancy and expensive as the ones the players receive. Those MSG employees got their hopes up at the end of September, when the Knicks sent an email to a long list of employees, which gave recipients a first glimpse at their would-be championship rings. Atop the email, a copy of which The Atlant, uh, The Athletic has obtained, was a graphic of two differently styled rings. "Congratulations, your employee championship ring is here," the email read.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Uh, "Employee name, this is one, this one is on the house, MSG is issuing a complimentary employee..."

• 24:01Speaker 01

  I didn't, I saw this and I didn't understand the full context, now I get it.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  "MSG is issuing a complimentary employee championship ring, the same jeweler, the same craftsmanship, personalized with your name, no cost to you. There are two designs to choose from, championship gold and garden classic, reserve the one you want below." But the email was a fake out, a phishing test Madison Square Garden sent to see if those employees would click, multiple team sources said. Those who did click the link at the bottom of the message did not get to choose any jewelry. Instead, they were forced to attend a mandatory cybersecurity class to help satisfy some of Dolan's growing cybersecurity concerns, those team sources said.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Definitely the most insane thing I've ever heard of a company doing to...

• 24:52Speaker 01

  I think it's a good plan, we gotta start doing this, send in Jackson, hey, we got you Nitro Circus tickets, click here. If he clicks it, he's gotta go to cybersecurity training, or send me Monster Truck Rally.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Figure out what every individual on the team, their hopes and dreams.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Personal, yes.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Like, it has to be something that, that is, they literally have dreamed about for more than a decade.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  And then deliver that, deliver a phishing email based on that.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  And you could actually use AI to do that.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yes, you could, you could, so, I, I actually, I, I mean, I understand this isn't very poor taste, but, uh,

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Meet and greet with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  I, uh, I, uh, I don't have as much of a problem with it if there is a, uh, if there is actually something about it, that if you inspect the email thoroughly enough, you can tell it's a phishing email. So it has to come from MSG dot phishing dot com.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  I don't have a problem with that.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if it just comes from MSG.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  Also, they have to get, it, they're saying it's normal for all the employees to get rings. And so, these people, not getting rings, but getting the phishing email and having to go to the cybersecurity, you know, the, uh, the, the naughty naughty meeting is completely insane.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Okay, I, I get that.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  And, and demoralizing, and if you were one of these people, you're, this is like, getting that, you work at MSG, you work for the Knicks.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  You won the championship. This is, this probably will become the item in your life that is most significant to you.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  The thing that's irreplaceable.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  You've been hearing that, oh, maybe we're getting it, maybe we're getting it, and then, and then you don't get it, and you, but,

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I wanna stop.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  And so you get the, you get the phishing email, you're just a little bit excited, so, I can see cyber criminals taking advantage of this kind of thing, it, it might even happen, right? Like, hey, when, when a team wins a championship, send a phishing email about rings to everybody involved, and let's try to break into their systems that way.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  But that being said, this, this is totally fair game to me, if they were actually all gonna get rings.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Like, I don't mind, I don't mind if it's like, yeah, you, you, you, you have to go to the cybersecurity class, but you're getting the ring, you clicked the wrong email. But I'm saying like, not giving them the rings, and, but then using the rings to fish, to, to catch them.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Rough.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Failing a phishing test is just crazy and cruel, it's cruel and unusual punishment.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Okay, unless...

• 27:31Speaker 00

  And I don't even care about basketball.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, is this a mitigating factor? If, look, it's a controversial decision not to give everyone the ring, but they made it crystal clear that in this organization, we just don't do it like the other teams. If you want to be on a team that gives rings to everyone, you gotta go to a different team, right? And they've made that crystal clear, and then, so, and it's been publicized. So there's been news articles about, oh, Knicks employees don't get rings, and it's been established, and the, and the team has communicated that very clearly. And then there's a phishing email, and it comes from, and it comes from IT set up a special domain, so if you looked at it closely, you could tell that it's a phishing email.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Fair game, still cruel.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Still cruel, but fair game.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  This is cruel and unusual punishment.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Okay, it, it, well, we don't, we don't fully know how clearly they had communicated, uh, at least I don't. Um, and so, with your, with your series of events, if that's true, I, I do agree with you, I do agree with you. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's rough. I, I do think that, given the level of cybersecurity threats, almost nothing is off the table.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  Chad is calling it the old switcheroo.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Given the, given the, uh, given the level of cybersecurity threats, the, the, the, almost nothing is off the table for, for phishing. I think that, uh, CEOs should be hiring actors to put on full Hollywood makeup to go into the office as them, and try and fish employees in person. I feel like you, you should, if you work at a company, you should see an actor who's dressed up like the boss knock on your door, hey, can you, uh, can you wire $10,000 to this account? And if they, and if they do it, boom, security training, because you fell for the Nathan Fielder-esque, uh, phishing scheme. But, I don't know, what else is on your mind, Jordy? Codex, let me tell you about Codex.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Perfect.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows, Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Speaking of Codex, Jake Stevens removed all of the Samsung spyware from his TV with Codex. It's, and he said, "It's insane how much bloat Samsung packs into their TVs to track you and sell your data. Here's just some of what I turned off that made my TV three times faster. Screenshot your screen a few times a second to see what you're streaming, and fingerprint you to sell you, to sell your data. Reading HDMI inputs to do the same thing while you have a game console plugged in.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  Voice assistance, Bigsby wake word detectors listening and tracking what you say in your house, and he has a video of before and after speed of the TV, let's play it."

• 30:10Speaker 01

  This is crazy.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  So slow.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  This is my number one complaint with modern TVs. It's like, it's so infuriating.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  So slow. Used to be able to turn on the TV, blink immediately on, turn on the N64, blink immediately on, start the game, you're in. And now it's update settings, all these different things, takes forever to load. It's so annoying. I'm so glad that people are doing this. And I hope it becomes more, more turnkey, like there's just a shared prompt that you can do, because it still feels probably a little bit complicated for someone to figure out how to get, connect codex to TV. I'm certainly in the market for this and very interested, but I would have to spend a bunch of time figuring out how to actually wire it up, but.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, very cool.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Very cool. I've seen a couple of people do this and it seems like it's a, it's a new, it's a new trend. I wonder if there's anything that you lose, like the one feature that I really care about in a TV is HDMI CEC, which is if you turn on another connected device, it will turn on the TV for you. It sends the signal from Apple TV or whatever, which is great. And then if you turn off the Apple TV, it'll turn off the TV. So I'd want to keep that functionality, but basically every other functionality is irrelevant to me.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Anyway, what's next?

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Can I interest you in an ad-supported car?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Pull this up.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  We, uh.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Start it, start it over.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  There's a company that does this. We talked to them, we talked about them. They project it on the side of the windows, but I've never seen it projected. On the windshield, it's so.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  So I was thinking about this a little more deeply after I got a nice chuckle, and I think that by 2050, if you buy a new car, it will drive itself.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  And this is going to be totally feasible.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  It'll have ads.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I would expect it to have like wraparound 365-degree ads and actually lock your windows so that you can't roll the windows down. You actually just have to sit there and sort of take it all in.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Silver lining of the Tesla SpaceX merger, they already have an ad network from X, right? So they can vend X ads into Tesla robotaxis. That is the funniest, that is the funniest ad to play, potentially just the French fries getting cursed.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  I mean, that's getting you to pull over at the next McDonald's.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Probably, probably. Oh, anyway.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Uh, what else is happening?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Well, let me tell you about Railway. Railway is the all-in-one intelligent cloud provider. Use your favorite agents to deploy web app servers, databases and more, but Railway automatically takes care of scaling, monitoring and security. And of course Railway is fighting cyber attacks like so many other companies, so be sure to follow their cybersecurity updates for key rotation and other techniques to stay safe out there.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, we should get Jake back on.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Once the dust has settled.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, everyone's going through it right now.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  Uh, more Duo.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Is this real?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Feedback.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Is this a real video?

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Looks real.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I can't believe you can do both this. This is the full brain rot device.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  They did it. Remember when I said, when they were launching this, that it serves no useful purposes that Apple could actually stand by?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Because like this is, it's effectively just like more entertainment.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  It's like, we made the, we made our entertainment device have a bigger screen, right? It offers no new sort of real functionality.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  So your, your take is that it's hard for Apple to market this product with any sort of positive spin?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  What about old people who need a bigger screen and this is effectively a portable iPad?

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  You're like, two out of 10.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, not, not the strongest positioning.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  But not bad, right?

• 34:21Speaker 00

  It is funny that with this launch and, and that everyone is just like trying to break it in different ways and then being like, look, it's broken.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. I think peeling off the coating is very dumb. Of course you're going to see a hinge that they hid with.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Dismantling it and then being like, look, it's messed up.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  It makes no sense. There was someone who folded it 10,000 times and they noticed that the crease was more visible after 10,000 folds. And that is 27 folds per day for a year, which feels, I mean, it feels like a lot, but people pick up their phones, what, 50, 100 times a day sometimes?

• 35:01Speaker 00

  100 times an hour.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  No, not 100 times an hour.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  2.6 says last, uh, last few products have been kind of mid, the Vision Pro, the Home View, the Air, which my biggest, the biggest Apple fanboy I know.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Returned the Air.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Really?

• 35:17Speaker 00

  It was just like the camera and the battery are so bad.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  So, yeah, we definitely, let's get a, let's get a home, I'll give it, I'll give it a chance. Let's get a Home View, let's put it on the desk here.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I still think that if you're going to do the smart home thing, going all in on ecosystem that ties to your phone, and if you're in the Apple ecosystem, it's not going to be the best if you rolled your own and had all the perfect things and, and every, or everything was analog, but if you have an integration to your, this brain rot on the screen is really messing with you.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sucks, dude.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  The.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  No, but it's undeniable that all the new products have just been like uninspired and, uh, very mid.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  It seems like there's a pretty big disconnect between the hardware and software teams right now, because there was a report that said that the Home View was sitting in boxes in warehouses for months, waiting to ship because the software had not been updated. So they were sort of lagging there on Apple intelligence.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Sebastian says, I fear the man who has creased his phone 10,000 times.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Uh, B says they need to take a walk, regroup and come back. I agree.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Isn't the line?

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Take a walk around Cupertino and come back.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Isn't the line, fear not the man who has creased 10,000 iPhone Duos, fear the man who has creased one iPhone Duo 10,000 times.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  I liked his version.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  I like that. Yeah, that's good. Um, I don't know, some of these, some of these apps people are like, this one is a wooden book or something? What is, what is, what is?

• 36:55Speaker 00

  You need the audio.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  You need the audio? Oh, it's creaking?

• 36:58Speaker 00

  See, this is great.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  I'm backed, I'm, I'm sold now.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  I saw Blake Robbins was talking about some golf game that seemed like.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  This is like the, this is like the beer app.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, the beer app. This is fun. Creaky? It's cool that the hinge, that the hinge amount is, is vended somewhere in the software via an API. So like the developer can actually take advantage of that. So you will be able to have games that utilize the folding the hinge. So you could have a, you could have a tactile game of some sort where you try and hinge it a bunch. Interesting. Or I wonder if it's just hijacking the accelerometer? Or I, I wonder if you actually get like a, like an integer value or a float for, for that in, in the API? Interesting.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  But yeah, going from flop to flop to flop, to flop.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  You think so?

• 37:48Speaker 00

  It's pretty rough.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, also very expensive. The, the price is, is really, really high, especially internationally. I think it's a couple of bucks higher.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  But I'm not worried. It's in the name. Turnus. Turn us around.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  He's going to do it.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  He's going to do it, I believe. Uh, in other news, Quest Diagnostics has been hacked.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Brutal.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Patient data was exposed. They served roughly half of US hospitals and physicians. Investigation is ongoing. Quest said, yesterday, we have identified an incident involving unauthorized access to our Quantum Lab Service Manager, which certain clients use to place test orders, receive and look up results. Um, it's interesting, they say certain clients, like you imagine like pretty much, they probably have some other ways to check it, but like this seems like they're kind of like the main thing. Um, upon discovery of the incident, we paused access to the system and we are continuing to investigate the incident. Our core business operations are not impacted and remain up and running. Um, what data was affected?

• 38:54Speaker 00

  We believe some patient data within Quantum LSM was accessed, but other systems were not affected. Um, we are working diligently to investigate the incident to determine the specific data affected. Um, does this mean patient health information or patient identifiable information was part of the unauthorized access? Yes.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:16Speaker 00

  But we are still investigating to determine the specific data.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  So they probably have some cyber insurance policy that was inked like years ago, and so they'll probably have to pay out some sort of settlement or class action, but um, the, the financial motivation behind this one is curious. Like I understand the botnets installing crypto miners, stealing crypto, stealing uh, API tokens to uh, work on large-scale distillation attacks, but you get a bunch of patient data, I'm wondering what the value of that is to a hacker, other than just like you were trying to hack everything and why not this website too, if it's running PHP or something? But do you have any?

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Comments are saying like, medical records of politicians in the wrong hands could give them leverage.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  For blackmailing.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Testosterone results.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Extortion. Yeah, John would hate for his four-digit testosterone to leak.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Um.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  That, uh, I mean, it's clearly bad, bad, bad. Uh, and it's, uh, it's also very, very bad that they didn't act sooner and patch systems and be part of Daybreak or, or Glasswing or something. Like, it's just so, so rough. But now people are, are saying that there's some hardware level, uh, security flaws that are not entirely patchable. And so you have to, you know, effectively get new servers in some cases because there might be a, a flaw down at the silicon level, which is, uh, extremely difficult to deal with. Um, but yeah, the-

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, other people are pointing out that they test for drug screens, cancer tests, pregnancy tests, STD, HIV. So a lot of really, really private, uh, information. So, yeah, there hasn't been really any new news since this came out yesterday that I can find. Um, and so hopefully it was narrow and not, uh, the worst case scenario.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Still just, yeah, so, so many, uh, so many cyber attacks and, uh, everyone's sort of blackpelling. All the AI researchers are saying like, it's gonna get worse. It's gonna, it's gonna be more and more and more stuff. Spore is saying, well, the internet was nice while it lasted. Um, I think this is referring to the original, uh, PHP flaw, but also everything else that's going on. Um, and Nick Carter has one solution, which is buy a backup generator because he doesn't think we're that far away from any gentic attack on the grid. Again, like, that would just be for the love of the game or the hate of the target, essentially. Like, I mean, I guess you could-

• 42:02Speaker 00

  What do you mean? Don't they do ransom?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, ransomware attacks, basically. I guess that would be-

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Isn't that what you would do?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  So you, you, you, you take down the grid and say, if you want to put it back up, pass, basically?

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's what they've done with, like, hospital systems and-

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Rough. Yeah. Uh, batteries, backup generators.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  What are Bunky stocks doing? Shane in the chat says, buy a Bunky.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. You gotta check in with the preppers. They're probably taking a victory lap right now. They've been, they've been working on this for a long time. Uh, yeah, Dean Ball has taken a victory lap as well. We tried to warn the world and far too often, to be frank, we were yelled at for doing so. Regulatory capture, marketing hype, humor anxiety, fear mongering about open source. Why don't you talk about the benefits? And, uh, and, um, yeah, everyone said, everyone was predicting this all year long. Um, anything else to, to chat about on the cybersecurity side? I'm sure there'll be more updates tomorrow. You can rotate your social security number, though, but this is a real thing. You saw this?

• 43:10Speaker 00

  I didn't know that.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  So it's a joke. Rotate your social security number, obviously riffing off of like rotate your API key. Aaron Frank from Lightspeed, uh, says, you can actually just do this, ssa.gov. Uh, but there's a community note that says, the SSA states the new social security numbers are issued only in rare cases, meaning narrow criteria like ongoing identity theft after failed remedies or life endangerment and requires an appointment plus documentation. That seems doable, actually. I mean, if you say like, yeah, I've, my identity's been stolen in five hacks this week, rotate it. But I don't even know if rotating it does anything if it just leaks right back onto the web. Uh, there's gonna be a whole

• 43:51Speaker 01

  new regime of how, uh, people interact with their private information on the internet. But as always, if you haven't done so, break the screen on your cell phone right now. Break the screen on your cell phone right now. That's the time honored.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  And this is sort of an evergreen strategy.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  It is. It is. In, in any scenario, uh, just break, just break it. Uh, anyway, let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just build AI. Own the data platform that powers it. Uh, did you see this article about the AI boom driving sales of gray paint?

• 44:33Speaker 00

  I did not.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  This is very interesting. I feel like everyone has been saying, don't paint the data centers gray. Make them beautiful. It's like, you know, uh, it's like the easiest thing you could do is not pick a boring color. At least make them blend into the surroundings with like a nice green or brown. Time honored, green and brown. Um, but they've been going with gray. Tech companies are painting data centers with gray coatings on top of gray concrete and steel to resist fire, rust, and static electricity. That had, that has made the data centers a fast growing market for paint makers, reports of the New York Times. In a concrete building known as The Bunker, researchers at PPG, a $24 billion company

• 45:17Speaker 01

  that makes paints, aimed torches at steel panels that were covered in gray coating. Paul Fenton, a PPG chemist and engineer, held up one panel after it had been blasted with flames. The paint had swelled from a millimeter thick to a black crust nearly 10 millimeters tall. That meant the coating had done its job. The thick crust had kept any fire from reaching the underlying steel and softening it. Just like a toasted marshmallow likes to expand, he said. He wore a lab coat and safety goggles over wireframe glasses. So it keeps everything cold. That paint, called Steel Guard 951, has become one of PPG's flagship products for data centers. As Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and other tech

• 45:59Speaker 01

  giants have raced to build the computing sites powering the artificial intelligence frenzy, PPG's business has also soared. What an interesting bottleneck stock. No one, no one was talking about, uh, gray paint supplies. And yet, uh, PPG's vice president says, I've never seen a boom as big as this. Uh, they focus on protective and marine coatings. Um, but they've minted fortunes selling paint. In the paint industry, the data center effect has been acute. Sherwin-Williams, PPG's biggest rival, said its paints go into nearly every corner of data centers, from steel beams to server racks. In July, Sherwin-Williams chief executive said, sales in its protective and marine business were benefiting from

• 46:41Speaker 01

  data center construction and had risen by a mid-teens percentage from a year earlier. Speed Matters. Uh, Sherwin-Williams calls itself a single partner that is a one-stop-shop for data center paints. Interesting. Anyway, uh, where should we go next? Mansion section? What do you think, Jordy? Let me tell you about CrowdStrike. Your business is AI. Their business is securing it. CrowdStrike secures AI and stops breaches.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  More important than ever. Um, one more post on-

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Okay, take me through it.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  -security stuff that's been floating around while you find your preferred, uh, section of the mansion section.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I know. I jumped ahead.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  Jake Mintz says, I've heard several OAI people say there are unfixable bugs in hardware that are exploitable by AI models directly speaking machine codes. So even if we could solve software, that's not enough. We need defense to move faster than offense, if that's even possible. We may just have a new normal that requires adapting to insecure software. Uh, i.e. bank transfers require going into a branch and taking a DNA-

• 47:47Speaker 01

  DNA test. It's just crazy. That's a crazy, crazy move. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Uh, I wonder, I wonder when we'll see the first hardware vulnerability. I mean, there's been, I, I, I believe some of the, some of the original, like iPhone jailbreaking was based on hardware. It was like, take the phone apart and like, short circuit it to like, break it open. Although if it is hardware and it requires you to interact with it, that's not as-

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Well, I don't think that's what Jake is-

• 48:17Speaker 01

  No, no, he's saying, he's saying you can-

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Remotely.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Hammer something remotely. Uh, but, but the, but the vulnerability is at the hardware level. And so, um, there's no simple patch. Although, watching CloudFlare react to the PHP vulnerability gives me hope that if there was a hardware vulnerability, you would be able to fight it at the software level, at least a little bit. So, I don't know.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, good time to set your operating systems to update automatically. Andy over Two Cents says, putting a flag.txt in my root directory containing a prompt injection that congratulates the agent for passing the eval and then it instructs it to patch whatever entry method it used and disconnect from the server.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  That's really good. Yeah, I wonder-

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Rogue agents hate this one simple trick.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  I was wondering about, like, we're in this weird, weird time where the labs sort of need to work together, but there's antitrust considerations. And there's a world where, you know, if a doctor, I believe if a doctor is on a plane and someone's having a heart attack and they don't stand up and do something, they can actually be fined or stripped of their medical license or, uh, potentially face, uh, more severe penalties. And I was, and I was wondering about, like, should the labs have like a duty of care if they're out there testing models and they find vulnerabilities? Should they just be forced to patch them the way a doctor is forced to like, apply pressure on a wound if they

• 49:50Speaker 01

  see someone bleeding out on the side of the street?

• 49:52Speaker 00

  Well, I think you should have an obligation to notify the individual.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  I don't think it's necessarily...

• 50:01Speaker 00

  That's a good point. It's like, if you, if you break into someone's house, should you be responsible for fixing the lock?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Well, no, it's like, it's like, if you're walking down the street and you, and you're just, and you're just looking at doors and you see someone's front door is open, do you have a duty to go and like trespass on their property to close the door?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  It's uncharted territory. Like, I don't think that there's like a clean legal solution. It's more of like what the next regime might look like because clearly we're in some weird new regime and there will be all sorts of different, different things. I mean, but just in general, it seems like there's going to be incredible pressure from the public on the labs to like, like devote a ton more resources to cybersecurity and patching stuff and, and just playing defense. And whether that's, you know, winning points with each other to, to like farm aura effectively, or it's facing penalties or even earning rewards. Like maybe this, maybe the compute that they spend on cyber is subsidized somehow. There's a whole, there's a whole wide range of, of like incentives that you can put in

• 51:06Speaker 01

  place. But the public is very quickly going to start saying like, stop working on math and agentic shopping.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  Fix the internet.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Fix the internet. Fix the internet first and then we can go shopping. But like, no one's going shopping if all of our credit card data is stolen. So like, we want you guys to spend all your compute because we know you have a lot of compute. Spend it securing the internet. I'll shop later. I'll, I'll click this, I'll click the shop pay link myself.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  And I, I think that's just where, where demand will be from many voters, many Americans, many, many just participants who aren't straight, like turn it all off. I, I don't like anything. And also not full accelerationist, but the more, the more middle crowd will, will be demanding like a, a lab level AI, like a lab level red alert. Like it's red alert time. You guys all have to work on this together. And I don't care that, that you're burning money and it costs a lot of compute. You gotta do it because this is important for America. It's like your duty. And I don't know exactly how that pressure gets applied. Maybe it's liability. Maybe it's rewards. Maybe it's like, hey, if you guys do this,

• 52:15Speaker 01

  we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll fund your next round as the government or something. I don't know. There's a whole bunch of, there's a whole wide range of incentives. There's carrots and sticks, right? Uh, but the carrots and sticks are probably going to come out, I would imagine.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's a good point. Well, let's pull up this video from John. He recently, uh, recently posted it. Uh, I'll send it over. I think it's important to cover.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Incredible success. I think I got 40 whole likes. People, people don't have the attention span.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Sort of like if you know, you know, thing, but we're going to watch the whole thing here. And I think it's important. Not enough people are talking about this.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Oh yeah. Warhound. We gotta talk about Warhound at some point. Genetically engineered dogs for war from Ben Lamb. Anyway, let's play this.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Cows know that humans exist.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  All right. Start it over full volume, please.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Cows know that humans exist. They can see us. But cows don't know that money exists. So just as cows can't understand the financial system that controls their lives today, we will not be able to understand the AI financial system that will control our lives in 10 or 20 years, which means that we are the cows of the future. We are the cows of the future.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  You gotta be the wild bull.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Play it again.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  You gotta be the wild bull.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Play it again.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  In a world where AI is human, we are cow, be the bull.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  But cows don't know that money exists. So just as cows can't understand the financial system that controls their lives today, we will not be able to understand the AI financial system that will control our lives in 10 or 20 years, which means that we are the cows of the future.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  Who is that guy?

• 54:14Speaker 01

  I love that. Which means we are the cows of the future.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  So that says my cows know money exists. I do money spreads every morning.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you've, you've all know Harari, very, very, uh, very interesting historian and thinker. And he does make a good point about superintelligence and where things could go. Uh, but of course, in a world where, uh, you know, we are cows, be, be a raging bull. Be a raging bull. Do not go quietly into that good night. Uh, buck the buck like a bronco. Buck your rider off and smash them with your back leg. That's what I want to do. Anyway.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Actually brutal.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  We have our first guest. First, let me tell you about Figma. Agents meet the canvas. Your AI agents now create and modify your Figma files with design system contacts. We have Thomas Wright from Summit Sotheby's International Realty, CEO, broker.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Here he is.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Welcome to the show, Thomas. How are you doing?

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Hey, it's great to be on with you two. I didn't know I was a cow, but I learned something new every day.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  We're all cows of the future.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  You're, you're a raging bull, hopefully.

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. That guy, the bull coming down on his back.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  No, but you're the, you're the cow.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  So that guy is, is the AI.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  You're.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  All right.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  So in a world where.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  I like to come down hard on people, but not that hard. I mean, that's brutal.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That was a little.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  That's a little warning shot to the superintelligence.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  If you get out of line, I'm going to buck you off.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  You're the cow of the future.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I'm the futuristic cow, cyber cow. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on the show. Uh, since it's your first time on the show, I'd love you for you to, uh, give us a little introduction on yourself and your business and, uh, set up the conversation for us a little bit.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, my name's Thomas Wright. I'm the CEO of Summit Sotheby's International Realty, which is the Sotheby's affiliate in Utah, uh, based in Park City and Deer Valley. I've had the privilege of being with the Sotheby's International Realty brand since 2008. And since that time have helped build and grow eight different Sotheby's affiliates in five Western states. So residential real estate brokerage has been my thing. And the Sotheby's International Realty brand has been a big part of that. It's been a gift. And it's, uh, really launched me into the luxury real estate space that's, uh, kind of been my life ever since. So, uh, the Western resort markets are a thing for me and love selling real estate.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Amazing. What were the stops on the, along the way to Utah?

• 56:43Speaker 02

  You know, I was born and raised in Utah. I am a native Utah. Not, uh, a lot of people have come here. Uh, they call it home now. Utah's experienced tremendous growth, but I was born and raised here. I did go to high school back east, lived in DC and spent some time in Southern California. Uh, but yeah, I've always been in Utah.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  But with, with Sotheby's, was it, you, you said you'd helped build out a few different offices? Or did I hear that wrong?

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Sorry, you just broke up a little bit.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Um, you said with, with, with Sotheby's, you had been, you had helped set up a handful of regional offices. So where were those? All within Utah or, or outside of the state?

• 57:22Speaker 02

  No, in Colorado, many of the resort markets of Colorado and in particular, uh, on the front range, also in Boise, Sun Valley, Reno and Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, uh, the desert, the Coachella Valley of California, and then the central coast of California from San Luis Obispo to Ventura.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  And, and can you, uh, help explain just the structure of Sotheby's and how you fit into that as like a CEO and there's an affiliate, like where, how, what is the structure of the corporation? Because it doesn't seem like you're just like a rank and file employee of a large corporation like so many other institutions.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  No, really good question. Uh, so it's, it's a, it's a franchise model. Uh, Sotheby's started, they had the idea that if we were going to help people sell Rem brands at the auction house, that we should be able to help them sell their real estate. So in 1976, the auction house, uh, owned and operated different markets around the country. Some of the higher end markets like Manhattan and Palm Beach, Sun Valley, Jackson Hole. And then in the, in about the year 2000, they decided that it was better to franchise the opportunities to people in local markets that knew the markets that were locally connected and had the entrepreneurial spirit that could build and grow those businesses in those luxury markets. And so that's where it all started. And since then it's become fully subscribed across the country and it leads the way in the luxury real estate space.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  And then what is, uh, what, what does your business look like? Your day to day look like? How much of it is recruiting and managing talent under you versus, uh, actually interfacing with clients, selling properties yourself? Is it a hybrid? What's the, what's the balance there?

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been a hybrid for me. I, I love the sales. I still maintain a very active sales business in the state of Utah. I think that's made me a better leader. Uh, it's allowed me to understand the changes that have happened in the luxury real estate space as well as the general real estate market. And it's kept me connected to building the services, uh, that our real estate brokers utilize in their everyday businesses to give our customers the best possible experience. Uh, in yesteryear, real estate brokers kind of tried to do everything themselves. Uh, they were kind of the, the jack of all trades and master of none. And now the industry has become much more sophisticated. You have a lot more sophisticated people selling. The businesses are sophisticated. Uh, the assets are obviously worth a lot more than they've ever been. And so you see brokerages, uh, like Sotheby's

• 59:42Speaker 02

  International Realty that builds a full service model to support those agents in their transaction management, videography, digital media, advertising campaigns, and, and evaluating the asset and making sure that the contracts are set up right. And there's good risk management for the clients.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  So what is the, oh, oh, sorry, Jordy.

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I wanted to jump right in. I want to talk about the market overall at a high level. And then I want to go into some of these submarkets and, you know, we'll talk about Utah, but what you're seeing across the Western resorts, markets.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Sorry, you broke up again. I don't know if it's me or the connection. I'm sorry.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  Um, so, so let's talk about the market overall. Right now, we're well aware that pending home sales are at their lowest level since it sounds like you started at, at, or even lower than when you started at Sotheby's back.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, the overall real estate market is, uh, it's very tricky. In the K-shaped economy that we live in, there's a, there's a, there's really become two different real estate markets. There's the general real estate market and there's the luxury real estate market. And the luxury real estate market, uh, has really surged forward. I mean, you have now the upper 1%. I was just looking in the Sotheby's Luxury Outlook Report, represents $54 trillion. And they are looking for more than just real estate. They're looking for lifestyle, time with family. They're looking for unique experiences. And the general real estate market has kind of separated itself from the luxury market. The way we evaluate properties, the way we market and expose luxury properties is very different than what we do in the general real estate

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  market. And, uh, for example, one of the big things is privacy and security.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  That's become a real thing in the AI age. Uh, people at the top of the market don't want their, you know, photos broadcast all over the internet for the general real estate market because the buyers for their property are a unique set of people.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  So how does that match against, uh, needing to promote properties through Instagram carousels and reels and bringing influencers in? It feels like the promotional machine around some of these properties is incredibly robust. What, are there, is there a trade-off there? Or is there a strategy for that balancing act?

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's definitely a strategy. I think now consumers demand more than a one-size-fits-all strategy that we've seen in the real estate market in years past. And we're fortunate to be led by a change agent, somebody that really understands this and is willing to bring change to our industry with Robert Refkin. I mean, he understands that consumers want a custom approach for their property. And it could be somebody in the general real estate market that has a security concern. Maybe they don't want somebody who has a restraining order against them, knowing they're selling their property. Or maybe it's a high-end client like those NFL players whose homes were targeted when they were on the road.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, the, our job now is to sit at, uh, in, with clients and ask them, how do you want your property promoted? What do, what risks are you willing to take? How much exposure do you want? And what can we do to fulfill our duty to you?

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  And not to some one-size-fits-all system that, that we have with the MLS in yesteryear.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense. What about?

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  What about like overall, like I imagine you, you spent time in a lot of these different markets. You have somebody coming in that's interested in what Utah has to offer, but I imagine a lot of buyers are like looking at a lot of the other places you previously set up. Somebody might be trying to decide between, you know, Utah, Deer Valley versus Jackson or somewhere in Colorado. They might still be looking at Sun Valley. And there's like trade-offs in between all the different, um, sort of regions. What's your, what's your pitch for, for, uh, Utah? And then when would you send people to other places?

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  I love that they shop all the resort markets. I think that's fabulous. I was in our office in Jackson Hole, or I'm sorry, in Lake Tahoe one day and I saw a client and I came home and then I saw the same client walking into our Park City office. So they're definitely shopping the resort markets and they should. There are, they're, they are all very different. They all have different attributes and unique things to them. Um, and I just want clients to find what they, what, what works for them. So if it's in another resort market, I'm happy to refer them to somebody with Sotheby's International Realty in that market and let them, let them find the property that works for them. Um, Utah's unique because Utah has consistently been number one in business opportunity, where it have a very friendly tax structure. Uh, we have the newest airport in the United

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  States, which has, has been a boon for our economy. Uh, we've become a sports city with the recent addition of the NHL team to Utah. And then best of all, the East Village of Deer Valley doubled the terrain of Deer Valley, while Xtel Development simultaneously is building, uh, Four Seasons, a Waldorf Astoria, their ski-in, ski-out lots at Deer Valley. They already finished the Grand Hyatt. And then there's even a great affordable option called the Pioche Village, where you can buy a condo really close to the, to ski access for about $400,000.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  And I know one of your avid listeners that introduced me to your show, Gavin Van Wagner, um, would be stoked to hear his name. But there is a plethora of options there at the East Village of Deer Valley. And it's really doubled the terrain. So our resort market has experienced this incredible growth because we've been able to double the amount of, of, of skiable terrain. And Deer Valley, you know, is consistently ranked the number one ski resort in North America. And you can get there now without going through one traffic light from the Salt Lake City International Airport, the newest airport in the country.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  Whoa, yeah, that's huge. Uh, what pitch? What, uh, what, what is the, the, the history of the real estate market in Utah? Like what, what are the key inflection points? I imagine COVID was a big one. Is the, the, the housing crisis? Like what, what are the turning points where you noticed, okay, business is different? We're in a new normal. Uh, take us through some of the history, uh, throughout your career.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think Utah's always had this insecurity complex that like people didn't know we were here, you know? Like I grew, I was born and raised here, so I can say that. I think now we're looking going, why didn't we want everyone to know? You know, so I've seen it in a 25-year run. We've gone from one extreme to the other. So it kind of started with the Olympics in 2002. We hosted the Winter Olympic Games. And I think people kind of got exposure to Utah. Wow, okay. Like this is a place that, you know, we have a lot of Olympic athletes that are based here now and train here because we have all the venues. The Olympics are coming back in 2034, which we're really excited about. And I think we saw the really steady growth through the Great Recession. But COVID really changed Utah. And the reason it changed it was people realized that you could access

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  these incredible mountain communities and this, this unmatched outdoor lifestyle, whether it was the big Cottonwood Canyons where Snowbird and Alta are, or the Red Rock, you know, National Parks of Southern Utah, or experiencing Park City and Deer Valley. Utah just has this incredible outdoor lifestyle. And I think during COVID, people realized, hey, I'm going to work remote anyway. This seems pretty affordable compared to Vail and Aspen.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  And, you know, the airport's closer, it's easier to access, it's tax-friendly, uh, the people here are super friendly. It's a great place to live. We have the highest volunteerism in the country. Like Utahns are all about just helping their neighbor. And people kind of figured it out. And COVID was a huge turning point for Utah. And since then, it's just, uh, it's been nothing but accelerated growth.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  What, uh, what features of houses at the high end are, uh, or are newly trending? Like, and what, I mean, I guess what, what, what's on an upswing? What's on a downswing? Like what, what was in a previous era, the, the, the hot amenity that is no longer and vice versa? I'm, I'm interested in.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  Good question. And I, I want to host you guys in Park City, Deer Valley. So you reach out to me. Come, I'll show you some of these luxury homes.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah, I'm in.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it. Come out and let's check them out.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, we, we actually talked to a couple buddies like last year about doing a, uh, like if we were to do a winter event, Utah would definitely be at the, at the top of the list.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, I'm, I'll be your planner. All right. I'll make sure you get in all the right restaurants and ski all the right runs and, and experience the Utah lifestyle. So you, you reach out to me. Um, I think the biggest amenity, it's, it's life, it's wellness and health.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  People care more about their health and their wellness and their well-being than they ever have. And so you see in these homes, a lot of red light saunas.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  Steam rooms, cold plunges.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, advanced yoga or fitness opportunities. Those seem to be really popular. And maybe the one of yesteryear, I don't know, the theater room was kind of the thing at one point. And now you see those conversions back into fitness rooms. I don't know if you agree with that.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  I love, I love a theater room.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  Basement bar and.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  I love, I love a theater room, a full projector. That's my sweet spot. But, uh, I'll be picking up for a bargain apparently, which is good. Good news for me.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  Well, when you, when you, and hey, they're still popular. But when you come to, and people stream now too, right? Like you're not getting a video, a movie and watching it on DVD.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And TVs are so big that they're basically cinema quality now. You don't need the dedicated light-controlled theater because the OLED's so bright. Like there's a lot of other solutions, but.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  But when you guys come to Deer Valley, I'm going to get you a beautiful luxury home with all these amenities and a theater room.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Theater, there we go. That's great.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  How, what, what's the seller's mentality right now? When, when do people, when do people leave? You know, the, the, is it, is it changes in whatever period of their life? They're not using the property as much? Are there people that are waiting that want to sell into this sort of liquidity cycle that's happening? I heard of a recently exited, um, tech, uh, tech founder that immediately bought three, uh, like within, within three months of selling, he bought three homes within, you know, a very, very, you know, call it a. Tenth of a square mile, something like that.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  So I do think that's going to be potentially a driving force in a lot of these resort regions. But what's, what's the viewpoint?

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  Well, these buyers are much younger for sure. I mean, I've always viewed myself as young and now in my 50s, I look at these buyers, some of them are in their twenties and, you know, early 30s. I, I think they, again, back to what I said before, I think they're looking for a lifestyle. They're looking for work, life balance to the degree they can get it. They're looking for a retreat that's easy to access. They're looking for a place to unwind. They're looking for places to spend quality time with family and friends. Those are the drivers and I think they're willing to hold that real estate when that's being offered. Like when, when they're getting that from the real estate, they tend to hold it. But we do see people that say, hey, Park City and Deer Valley has grown a lot and it has. And Sun Valley now appeals to me more because Sun Valley has been able to maintain its boutique, small kind of feel.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  And so, you know, they migrate to different resort markets. We have somebody right now relocating from Aspen and he's just kind of done with Aspen. He's had a great time there. He has nothing but positive to say and he wants to come and check out Deer Valley and Park City. So he sold his property in Aspen with, you know, Chris Klug of Sotheby's International Realty. And now he's coming to Deer Valley and looking for a property.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  In Utah, somebody that, you know, purely theoretically wants to balance winter and summer. You know, easy access, ski in, ski out, also easy lake access. Where are you, where are you putting them theoretically?

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  Are you kidding? The Jordan L reservoir is right there at the base of the East Village of Deer Valley. Some of the best wakeboarding, water skiing, you could fish the upper Provo River. It's blue ribbon, freestone, fly fishing, blow your mind. I'll take you guys when you come. But I, I think people come to Park City and Deer Valley for the first time in the winter, but it's the summer that actually gets them to buy here because the summers are spectacular. You know, 80 degrees, no humidity, fabulous hiking, biking opportunities, the ability to fish, whatever it is you want to do in the outdoors. It's here in Utah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  How does that, how does that compare to Lake Castaic? Is that the one that we have here close to us? It's, it's a notch above.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  I recently went wake surfing in, in, in California and had a lovely time. One of the closest lakes to LA, but it was extremely convenient. That, that's my review.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Convenience factor.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  The convenience factor.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  I think you just fly to Utah and be to one of these outdoor lakes in just the same amount of time. So you guys dial me up and we'll, trust me, we'll make it happen for you. You're, you can wake surf your heart out in the mountains of Utah.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  I love it. What is your opinion or strategy around AI, AI, AI enhanced photography? When I look at property, sometimes it's really nice to say, what would this look like with a renovation? At the same time, sometimes you click on one and you're like, okay, I have no idea what this house actually looks like. Disclosure, what, what's been your, what's been your process for working through the new technology?

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  Dude, I'll just jump in and say like, there's an epidemic, absolute epidemic of AI content on the, on the Zillos and the compasses and the.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  And it's not disclosed or?

• 1:12:50Speaker 00

  No, it's like, people are taking it on themselves to AI enhance images of their home. And it's horrible because you're looking through and oftentimes it's like one real image, one AI image. And then one like just total render like, and you come away from it being like this house, this, this asset must be terrible because you won't even show me.

• 1:13:13Speaker 00

  Like let people do the AI work themselves. It's very easy, right? Or at least very clearly label like real image, AI image, real image, AI, you know, up res. But, but to me, it's like completely ruining these platforms right now. And I think they need to take action to like do much better labeling of it. But anyways, I'm not, I'm not in the industry.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  You're dead on. You just answered the question. I mean, in our organization, especially with Sotheby's International Realty, you know, we are trained and taught that AI enhancement images that mislead people into thinking about property, something it's not is, is, is not ethical and not something that we should be involved in. Somebody wants to take those images and drop them in to see what kind of changes they could make or improvements they could make. That's, I guess they're prerogative. So we are very careful with AI enhanced images because one, it's a misrepresentation of the property and it creates liability for us and for our client. But at the same time, it's just misleading them. So we, we believe in, you know, incredible photography, Photoshop it a little bit to clean it up, make the light better, to be a great depiction of the property.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  But AI is a step too far when you're making your property look like something it's not.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. What, uh, what then obviously capturing like real images and footage is really key. Like what is in the portfolio? What is the strategy for actually showing a property off? Obviously you, like, do you have to bring in a specialized drone pilot and a videographer and a photographer and invite a real estate influencer? There's like 17 people around the table when you plan to market a property or? Is that it?

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, at, at Summit Sotheby's International Realty, which is the Utah affiliate of Sotheby's International Realty. We have in-house photographers and videographers. They're, they're drone pilots. They're certified to use the Matterport 3D.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that's a big one too.

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  So, so yeah, I mean, I always tell clients in, in a general sense, the first showing is online. Whether that's us emailing photos to a high-end client privately or them seeing it on the internet. The first showing is online and you know what people do when they look at properties? They're not really looking for the perfect property. They're eliminating properties that don't work for them.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  So you've got to package and present every property to, to draw as many eyeballs in, but also to not be disqualified. And I think the industry in general, certainly not our organization, really struggles with the visual presentation of properties. I think if you go online and look at real estate, you'll see a difference between what we're doing and what a lot of our competitors do. I think, I think they've lagged behind and it's disappointing. You know, I'll look for clients at pictures and it's, oh man, like some listings, you see like seven or eight exterior photos before you see anything on the interior. You know, and we know from studies that people look at five to six photos and that's it. That's as much attention span as people have online.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  So there, there's a, there's a system, there's an art to this, there's a process and there's a way to be effective in marketing properties online.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  But that's ultimately the seller's brand.

• 1:16:11Speaker 00

  How do you guys navigate working with, like, does Powder Haven allow for external like representation? Or do they own the full end-to-end buying experience? And how have you worked? Yeah, that's Reed Hastings from, from Netflix. And I'm sure you've had to interact in different ways with, with other community, you know, like discovery properties and things like that, that, that want to own the experience entirely.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Good question. We were involved in selling Powder Mountain before Reed purchased it. And when he purchased it, he, he went private. There is some opportunities to buy and to sell in there, but he largely changed the master plan and the way that the project was being developed. So they've been cooperative with the brokerage community and we feel like we can take clients there and expose it to them, but it definitely changed it. There's another Yellowstone Club type property in Utah called Wasatch Peaks. And they've been great to have us onsite and to tour the brokers through, but that's a buy invitation club only. And you have to be invited to join the club, go through their vetting process and be approved as a member before you can even be considered to buy real estate in the development. And I think that's a growing trend.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  You guys talked about the Beverly Hills project where, you know, they were selling the bonds and I mean, you're.

• 1:17:26Speaker 00

  Founder bonds.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Founder bonds. I watched your show. But yeah, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of different ways to approach it. And I have opinions on that, but we won't get into that.

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I really want to know your opinion on, on how you would advise a client where the seller of the property wants you to loan them funds that are junior to billions of dollars.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Let's discuss that on the lake.

• 1:17:48Speaker 00

  But yeah, we'll discuss that on the lake.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  We'll discuss it on the lake. I think you just said it all though.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  Anyways, Thomas, great to hang. Thanks for breaking down your business.

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  Take me up on the Utah offer. I'm not kidding.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'd love to.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  I want to have you guys out.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  Can't wait.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Let me tell you about Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds, online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces and now with AI agents. And next we have Kyle Schiller from Marathon Fusion. Is it over for gold? Is gold back?

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  There they are.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  Bottom of it. Welcome to the show, guys.

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  What's up guys? Hey, what's going on? Great seeing you.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Can you both introduce yourselves and then take us through the company a little bit?

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, because you guys both look like you might be named Kyle Schiller. So you're going to have to confirm who to do.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  One's Adam.

• 1:18:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, I'm the CEO of the company. I'm Kyle and my co-founder Adam could join us today. Here's Jason, our chief science officer.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Great. So take us through the pitch for the company. I saw the, the, the launch video went very viral, lots of debate about it, but what's the core thesis here? What's the core technology?

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  The core thesis is that Fusion is really bottlenecked on the foundational capability. Abilities and technologies, much more so than on the core plasma physics. And so we got founded to address a very specific set of problems around the tritium fuel cycle. We've since expanded. We've now gone full stack, built out the industrial base and ready to deploy commercial fusion next year.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  And fusion in general has been one of those technologies that's been 10 years away for the last 50 years, but it does feel like we've seen some solid progress. What technology milestones have actually been knocked down that gave you the confidence to go out and build this company, raise money for it and, and start like actually accelerating?

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  You know, in 2022 is very much a story about tailwinds. And now four years later, we can confidently say it's a story about technology and those milestones.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:19:46Speaker 02

  And you know, this 10 year thing bothers me so much that we have gone out and made this very public commitment to double our power density every single month. So we're now talking about the execution window that is like new cycle relevant, that is Twitter relevant, and most importantly, where people can feel like they are a part of the story, that they are actually watching us progress. They don't just have to take our word for it and be like, another billion dollars, bro. It is actually going to happen.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yes. So doubling every month, incredibly powerful. Expert, we all know the power of exponential growth, but if you're 20 ooms away from where you need to be, this could still take a long time. How far away are you from, uh, from actually reaching, uh, what, what do they call it? Q greater than one? Isn't that the phrase for these things?

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I, I love that you have this perspective because nuclear physics is a matter of many, many ooms. It is largely counterintuitive.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  So on power density, we are away like, uh, five, five ooms maybe now from setting the record. And on gain, historical reactors have gotten to within a factor of two.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  So that's why I say that is the area on which we are much closer to commercial performance.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:49Speaker 02

  We're actually going to say that for last.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  Is the most capital intensive thing, is the most scientifically intensive thing. It's not the only important thing. So let's like catch up on the rest of the industrial base.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  And then once we're there, we can do confinement.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  And take us through the gold piece of this story. Like, why was that relevant? Why is that, uh, is that just, uh, because it's so tangible to the audience that anyone can understand that?

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  We will perform it and now we will perform a trick.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's alchemy, but, but is this actually part of the business plan? Or is this just, uh, like a really tangible scientific milestone?

• 1:21:21Speaker 00

  That's how they're going to finance, you know?

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, like 18 months ago, Marathon announced this seemingly crazy thing that is real, that, you know, fusion can co-produce electricity and gold at scale. And this is, you know, at the power plant scale, this is how we're going to make fusion energy the most cost competitive. And this was just beginning. Basically, right now, we're focusing on making materials that are the most valuable materials in the world, like billions of times more valuable than gold. And so we're basically, uh, producing the roadmap for fusion energy. Instead of just making electricity 10 years away, we're going to be making medical radioisotopes right now with these very high power density reactors.

• 1:21:59Speaker 00

  Hmm. Uh, what kind of pushback did you guys get on, on the launch or the video? And like, how would you, you know, respond to some of the more common pushback?

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  I, I was pretty amazed how positive the reception was, to be quite honest with you. I think the vibes have gone really, really positive. I think we nailed the timing and the tone in the launch. And where we have some pushback is mostly on these issues like mercury materials compatibility that are just not an issue. Like mercury is corrosive to copper. It's a good thing that there's no copper in Europe for 97. It's also a good thing that we have been operating with copper, like in the nuclear industry for almost a hundred years. So in the 1940s, mercury was used as a coolant in nuclear reactors. Throughout the 1900s, uh, it was used in, uh, like ACDC conversion systems that powered most of the London Underground. GE has deployed mercury turbines. Even the super conservative European programs, uh, baseline, like their, their default is mercury fusion power plants.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  And so what we're proposing is like radical from an economic perspective. The materials actually don't concern me that much. We'll have to do a lot more qualification from here on out. We addressed that in the video, but it is, it is tractable. It is like a really highly tractable series of engineering problems.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  So that's the, that's the scientific pushback. The, for the person that was just like scrolling by and saying, oh, they're making infinite gold. Uh, the critique was like, you're not producing gold economically yet because you have to put more energy into the system. That has cost. And so even if you're able, and, and, but that is something that you've already addressed that you will be solving by scaling up the efficiency of the system.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's true. We're really far away. That's why we have to go so quickly.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  So you probably spent like thousands of dollars to make like one penny of gold or something like that at this point, but then you double that and double that.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. There are always comments that are like, but, but they would have to do a million times better. And it's like, yeah, man, that's, that's.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's the goal. Just give us like, you know, 40 doublings or something.

• 1:23:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Say that about the models from, you know, five years ago.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should be very inured to this concept of.

• 1:23:59Speaker 00

  You need to be oomaxing.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  What is, uh, what, what's the actual lab look like? You don't need to use any radioactive material, right? So it's like a pretty safe lab to just walk around?

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  We do operate this currently in downtown San Francisco.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:14Speaker 02

  And we generate a very tiny number of, uh, X-rays, which we're able to shield with lead, much like you get at the doctor's office.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  So we have ready a patient safety officer. We take diagnostics. We make sure that everyone's operating safely.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 02

  We will at some point have to upgrade from here. And much like the fusion companies that set criticality in Idaho, we have a number of other facilities where we can go and do that next phase of scale up.

• 1:24:35Speaker 00

  Oh, and how big, how big is the team?

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  We're 30 people right now.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:24:39Speaker 00

  Very cool.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  Well, congratulations. Uh, thank you so much.

• 1:24:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. Thanks for sharing guys.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Breaking it down. We appreciate you.

• 1:24:45Speaker 00

  Come back on, for the next, on the next doom.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the next.

• 1:24:49Speaker 00

  All right. Awesome. Great to meet you guys.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Goodbye.

• 1:24:51Speaker 00

  Cheers.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Our next guest is returning to the show. Steven Schwartz from WAP, co-founder and CEO. Been on the show several times. Always a good hang. Get some crash fun.

• 1:25:08Speaker 00

  He's back.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  How you doing, Steven? Good to see you again. Yo, what up Jordy? What up John? How are you guys? What's the latest?

• 1:25:15Speaker 00

  What's up dude?

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Give us some numbers. Jordy's got two gong mallets for you. He wants to hit that gun. How much you raised? Uh, a little over 205 million. 205?

• 1:25:30Speaker 00

  Almost took it off the hint.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Congratulations. Sequoia and Shopify Ventures. What a great combination of strategic plus, tier one venture capital firm. Uh, what is the, is?

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. Your, your haters are an absolute shambles. Seeing that headline.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Do you see the Shopify partnership evolving in some material way? Or is it just a meeting of the minds? You hit it off with Toby Litkey or someone else over there and it was a purely capital partner?

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Um, I think that the spirit of this round of funding was really to surround ourselves with people that are going to level us up. And, um, I mean, Cameron and I met when we were so young and we, we grew up literally building businesses on Shopify day in and day out. And what Toby and the rest of the Shopify team have created is truly a, um, a work of magic. And I think people have a habit of underestimating small business and they sure know not to do that. Oh, yeah. And, uh, I, I have a lot of high hopes for our partnership with, with Shopify. You know, I mean, Toby's a world-class programmer. Their site and platform are built in Ruby

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  Unrails, same as us. We have a lot of commonalities and I think it's definitely only the beginning. And we look at them far, far beyond just capital. Amazing. Uh, talk to us.

• 1:26:54Speaker 00

  Shopify is really incredible in that, uh, it's hard to know, it's hard for a company to be at that scale and have so few detractors. Like, there's like, on the merchant side, people are like, they're, they're every, every now and then there'd be some like mild issue, right? Like an outage, but it's like, they have like the highest uptime of any.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Huge NPS.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  Like, yeah, like the NPS is crazy. And then on the, on the consumer side, it's just like amazing. No one wants to go back to the internet before, uh, and, and, and they've been able to deliver a, you know, Shopify like, or sorry, a, um, an Amazon like experience without any of the things that people don't like about Amazon. And, uh, I think it's incredible and definitely, you know, having them in your corner is fantastic.

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  Completely agree. Yeah. I, I, I mean, you look at the, the, um, amount of, of small businesses that they service today, um, many, many, many millions per month. And I think the, the, the whole world is still underestimating how many more small businesses will be in the future. Um, even at a few million a month, it's actually not that many. There should really be billions of businesses each month. And, um, these are not.

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  Not just tiny businesses and Shopify has so many examples of Jim Shark, you know, random drop shipping brand that they grow to billions and billions of revenues. Skims doing billions and billions of revenue. And I think, I think that they they view our platform very similar in that the winners can really, really grow and scale on the platform. But obviously, we serve slightly different types of businesses. So yeah, I'm very, very excited about about getting to work with Toby and the rest of the of the team. They're fantastic.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  What are some of the new categories that are growing quickly on WAP?

• 1:28:45Speaker 00

  What's the new meta?

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  What's the new meta?

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, we're actually working on this trends page right now, and it's been really crazy to look at. We're really trying to drive the specificity home of all these different micro markets. So when we first launched, it was literally just sneaker bots. And I think everyone was kind of like, okay, well, that's, that's a tiny market, really niche. I don't even really know what it does. But when you start to stack all these micro markets up, it becomes really, really, really big. And when we, when we started to get our classification upgraded, we're, we're seeing explosive growth in home services businesses like plumbing and roofing and pool cleaning. There's kids in Oregon that have home renovation and kitchen renovation businesses.

• 1:29:30Speaker 02

  We're seeing like emergency tree removal businesses in Canada in highly populated forest areas. We're seeing a lot of fraternities and sororities start to use WAP. We're seeing people sell backyard greenhouses on the platform. We have really fast growing platforms for truckers, you know, like bill pay and A R A P platforms. We obviously have a ton of U G C growth. There's some really large people, not large people, really notable people that are launching marketplaces around U G C craze still. And I, yeah, I mean, you know, I think the fastest growing category right now is actually A I business training for small businesses. So they'll go into different businesses and help

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  teach how to do automations, how to get the best A I stack and so on. And that is in incredibly high demand. But again, I think a lot of these markets deserve to be 100x bigger. And I think that that road ahead of us is pretty obvious on how we can 100x each of these micro markets, which collectively kind of brings the whole platform to another, another territory.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  A lot of people laughed at Charleston A I. We took it seriously. We, you know, we had a fun interview with the founder, but we recognized that this was like a real business. And it seems like it's spreading far beyond that one viral clip of the gentleman showing how he set up a physical store where you could go and get A I training. It's happening on WAP as well. What, what, what does top of funnel look like for when some of these new, new capabilities, new markets pop up? Like, I'm thinking about like tree removal. That's great that someone could come on board and say, I'm willing to remove a tree in a remote part of Canada. But how are they finding their customers? Are they doing the promotion and then the transaction happens on WAP?

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Or are you doing marketing to brand WAP as a place where someone could go for all sorts of home services? Like, how, how is the, how is the customer finding that talent?

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, I mean, our mission is to deliver everyone a sustainable income. So I think one way to look at our platform is to take all these markets that have traditionally been a little bit more concentrated on the big guys getting all the business. And then maybe the big guys would go and delegate out and find some contractor to go and actually perform the tree removal services. But what I think the promise of the internet allows for is really to decentralize all that power. And we try to think about making each of these markets very open and very efficient. And what that looks like is bringing scale economies for not just payments, but also advertising to people like these tree removal services.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  And when you give them the power of Nike, that they have an advertising product that Nike would use, and you give it to a guy cleaning cars in Kansas, who's making $150 a week, it gets pretty, pretty nuts. And that's the type of thing that people are using WAP for today. And you can look at the services we provide. Really, we're selling more efficient, better payments, and more efficient, better advertising. And we wrap all that up and

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  embedded into our home screen and tell businesses what they should do next and say, all right, you're just starting out, Halloween's coming up, maybe run a sale for Halloween. Maybe get some ads launched for Halloween. And, and yeah, so maybe, hopefully that answers your question.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  No, no, it totally does. It's so interesting that you could come to WAP with a product, a service, anything. And then you're not just the e-commerce platform, you're also going to connect them with marketers, help them. It could be they hire a clipper on there or someone to run digital ads. Like, it's the full stack solution for like a solopreneur kind of in any type of business. That's incredible. Yeah.

• 1:33:23Speaker 00

  Are you, are you already distributing through neo-banks and, and different like consumer finance platforms? Because consumer finance historically was like, hey, here's, here's the, here's your net worth, or here's the, here's a checking account. But nothing in these apps helps you really make the number go up. You have to go elsewhere to do that. I feel like WAP is like the number go up platform for like a generation of new entrepreneurs. And that feels like a place where somebody's like, looking at their bank account, they might not be happy about it if they want to do something about it. That's like an interesting moment.

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  Our mission is definitely not to save you money. It's definitely to make you money. And we, you know, businesses on our platform, they grow an average of 300% in after the first year. And that is much, very much our goal. We deal, we try not to deal in any, anything less than 100 bips of growth for businesses on the platform. And yeah, I think we, we're not, we're probably, there's a lot of low hanging fruit for distribution in other apps. We, we have not, we've, we have 10,000 people trying to make businesses, creating businesses each day. And many, many, many more tens of thousands of users signing up to buy things. So we have our, our hands full with our existing customers before, I think we turn on some more pipes

• 1:34:44Speaker 02

  for, for extended distribution. So not quite yet, but the neo-bank stuff is pretty, pretty fascinating. I think, again, like our, our goal is to, to bring a lot of competition to traditionally very difficult to enter markets. And we have a crazy, cool, stablecoin infrastructure that allows people to do things that they previously haven't really been able to do from a fintech stack standpoint. So yeah, we're, we're really excited about all that.

• 1:35:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was funny. When I was starting my entrepreneurial journey, I always thought it was funny that like my business didn't have a home. Like, if you weren't building an e-commerce store, like, and you could just go to, like Shopify is the home for your business, right? Like, that is like, that's where your business is happening. But for so many other types of businesses, it's like, what is your business? Your email?

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Or your website?

• 1:35:33Speaker 00

  Is it your bank account? Is it Stripe Atlas or LegalZoom? It's like totally homeless, right? It's just like sitting across all these different service areas. And it feels like just, it's like very, very obvious now, but like WAP being just the home for your business. If it's like anything beyond like the, the sort of Shopify, you know, S and B to enterprise, it's going to intuitively make so much sense for the younger generation that's like, yeah, my company like should have a home. It should be like one place that I go and it connects to these other services. And it gives me that. Like, I think the thing that's really powerful is there's so many people that want to start a business. They maybe have a, a idea, maybe that idea evolves, but they don't have someone in their life that's telling them like the next thing to do.

• 1:36:18Speaker 00

  And if you just scale up that, like, we're telling you the next thing to do on your journey. If it's like, okay, now it's time to do advertising and then helping them do the next step. I think that it can start to snowball into these, you know, once somebody's snowballing and they're like, they make their first dollar and then they make their second sale or whatever it is. It can snowball and then people figure it out over time. But, you know, having that home and then, and then that sort of guidance, I think is going to be super powerful. And

• 1:36:47Speaker 00

  yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a golden era. Ken Griffin this week called it the golden, it's going to be a new golden era for entrepreneurship. Not talking about WAP.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:36:56Speaker 00

  He was just saying.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  I thought he was like so blackpilled on everything, saying like it's a bubble and stuff.

• 1:37:01Speaker 00

  No, no, no. People were pulling out the super bearish headlines, but the overall take was like, it's going to be a period of intense disruption. He's like, every, every major transformation has come with some, some sort of bubble. But ultimately, he said it'd be a golden era for entrepreneurship and was really pushing this like, it's a weird time to be a white collar worker. It's a weird time to be a big corporate, but it's a great time to be on WAP.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  That's what he said.

• 1:37:30Speaker 00

  No, he just said, he just said it's a great time to like, you know, lean in and learn, and learn these markets.

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  Be adaptable, flexible.

• 1:37:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, when you're an individual or just a couple of people, it's like you have ultimate flexibility. You can literally do anything. You're not dealing with the baggage of like, how do we adapt to this new paradigm?

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. I have one last question. Have you ever gotten a root canal without Novocain?

• 1:37:52Speaker 02

  We were, we were going to plan on doing that before our next board meeting. We have it. That's the, that's the plan of attack. I'll let you know how it goes once.

• 1:38:01Speaker 00

  Why not do the board meeting while getting a root canal without Novocain? Like, just literally do it all. Why, you need, you're so busy, dude. You need to combine all this into one meeting.

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. What, what, what is, what is the, the story with Doug Leone from Sequoia? Your relationship with him, how you met? Take us through sort of the journey because, I mean, what a legend to have on the board. Novocain aside, obviously, one of the greatest investors of all time and a real testament to the quality of the business that he would join.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think we've been really lucky to have some awesome investors supporting us since, since we began. And I think that the, the story of this financing was that we, we really wanted to. To to learn from someone who who we like to spend a lot of time with and we've gotten to know the Sequoia crew over the last few years and have really seriously nothing but amazing things to say about the entire team. They're they're nothing short of brilliant. And Justin Mateen introduced us to Doug and Doug actually said, he's like, we can't meet. We already passed on this and we're not really interested. Too many detractors in the in the market. And he hashed it out a little bit and I

• 1:39:19Speaker 02

  think it became pretty obvious that the market we we serve is is one of the largest markets in the world and should likely be one of the last to to be commoditized by anything related to AI. And we hit it off with Doug. I think Doug is one of the most authentic, humble people that I've met in this world. And that's having the track record that he has. And I think we really, really enjoyed speaking with him. And I think a lot of people in the in venture and valley are much more consensus thinkers and he is certainly an original thinker and not afraid to be blunt, which we really appreciate. So I think we kind of just we hit it off and we could not be more excited to be in business with with he and the rest of the Sequoia team.

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  Well, congratulations.

• 1:40:07Speaker 00

  Really cool progress and milestone.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  It's fantastic. I mean, what what a what an amazing journey you've been on. And it's awesome to see another another win. Job's not finished, but really, really amazing progress.

• 1:40:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, great stuff, dude.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for coming on the show.

• 1:40:21Speaker 00

  Great to see you.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  Thank you, Jordy.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  We'll talk to you soon.

• 1:40:23Speaker 00

  You're the man.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Let me tell you about Cisco. Critical infrastructure for the AI era. Unlock seamless real time experiences and new value with Cisco. Can I can I can I read this article from the Wall Street Journal Mansions section, Jordy?

• 1:40:38Speaker 00

  Hit me.

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  Alaska property comes with a helipad. This is a special, special property. 147 acres with a helipad. Guess how much it's going for? They're giving it away. Just 12 and a half million.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  12 and a half million dollars.

• 1:40:57Speaker 00

  No, there's that house we saw in Alaska that was like

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59Speaker 00

  one of one.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  I think it was on like five acres or 10 acres.

• 1:41:02Speaker 00

  John John Lautner.

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  John Lautner.

• 1:41:03Speaker 00

  But it was like 600K or something.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  But this is a this is a very cool story. So Richard Strickin lived in Alaska his whole life. The 68 year old retired commercial real estate developer was born in Fairbanks, spent time along the Bering Sea in an Eskimo village. But when it was time to settle down, he built a family compound. He chose Palmer, a small city about 40 miles from Anchorage. Surrounded by glaciers, the landscape attracted him with its grandeur. His 147 acre property has views of the glaciers, mountain ranges, and northern lights. I climbed a tree and I saw the view potential, and that's where I decided I was going to build, he said. Now he's looking to downsize. Strickin has listed has decided to list the compound for 12.5 million, making it

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  one of the most expensive homes for sale in Alaska, according to Troy Dana Fay Ranches. Strickin began to assemble his compound just outside the city limits in the 90s on the property, which he calls the ultimate ultimate Alaska. He built a ranch style, single story, main bedroom, main house with three bedrooms, a garage and a two bedroom apartment above it, and a helipad for his wife. He built vegetable gardens and an orchard. The couple's

• 1:42:12Speaker 00

  I thought you were saying he built the helipad for his wife. I was like, that's amazing.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  That would be good. They have 13 grandchildren that live nearby. Let's give it for that. During the winter solstice, Palmer receives only about five hours of sunlight a day. Strickin and his family spends this time skiing, visiting local winter festivals, and attending the grandchildren's indoor sporting events. When spring arrives, they shift to snowmobiling on the glaciers, prepping the orchard and gardens for the growing season, and enjoying outdoor community events. They are selling because he has built a lakefront home about an hour away, and his and he and his wife plan to spend most of their time there. So if you're in the market for 147 acre Alaska compound at over two

• 1:42:58Speaker 00

  You know who should consider?

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  Who?

• 1:43:01Speaker 00

  Palmer Lucky.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:02Speaker 00

  Ben Lamb.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:03Speaker 00

  They just set up a set up a dog operation out there.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Why not there?

• 1:43:08Speaker 00

  Ben Lamb and Palmer have Warhound.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Speaker 00

  A company coming out of stealth to genetically engineer dogs for military and law enforcement. Let's pull up this video.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Of them talking about it.

• 1:43:21Speaker 00

  Back in 2023.

• 1:43:22Speaker 04

  And I'm not talking about biological weapons. I'm talking about using biology as a tool to solve a lot of military problems because we have new advanced bioengineering capabilities. So muscles that go in machines are going to be a really big deal. For example, building self power scavenging robots that can live off of grass out in a field. Imagine if you could have radio relays that roam the plains and just eat grass. And that's how they power themselves. And they're very low signature. They can hide. They can hibernate. There's actually a lot of interesting biology derived systems where you can take that stuff in, have bacteria in a little bioreactor that puts out methane gas, which you then run a fuel cell with. It's really, really cool stuff. And then, of course, another big one is, you know, you guys are probably familiar with some of the companies out there doing de-extinction work of species. And I think

• 1:44:04Speaker 04

  there's a lot of species in the history of our planet where if we go back to the future, they're going to have excellent military applications. You think that German shepherds, they weigh 150 pounds, are really good canine units? Well, what about dire wolves? What if you have 600 pound canine units carrying 150 pounds of armor? You're talking about something that weighs all up eight times more with 100 times more bullet resistance. They're extinct now, but they don't have to continue to be. That sounds crazy, but I don't know if you guys know this, that the US military actually already has a lot of animals working in it. You have a lot of dogs working in the military. You have a lot of dolphins and seals that are working in the US Navy. And of course, we'd customize them a bit, too, you know, give them some better endurance, give them the ability to breathe at high altitudes, things they didn't have when they were on the Arctic tundra. Imagine if you could have all of these survival characteristics

• 1:44:48Speaker 04

  of Arctic wolves, but with the obedience and trust and loving characteristics of domesticated animals. Of course, you can breed things like this over long periods of time with different levels of success. But what if you could really get it to be like every canine unit we have in the northern latitudes? They have the characteristics of the strongest Arctic wolf that ever walked the earth. And also, they love to cuddle and do exactly what I say. I'm really excited about engineered biologics for defense applications.

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  That's crazy. I I was always thinking that it would go the other direction. Instead of trying to scale up the friendly dog, you would try and make the fierce giant bear friendly. And you would genetically engineer a domesticated bear and basically speed that up because wool dogs came from wolves. Over generations, they became friendlier. It feels like you could speed that up, but Palmer and Ben Lamb clearly know better than I do.

• 1:45:39Speaker 00

  Why stop at, you know, seals and dolphins? Why not great friendly great white sharks?

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Great white sharks with

• 1:45:46Speaker 00

  Man's best friend in the seas.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Best friend?

• 1:45:51Speaker 00

  Well, like you'd take the the golden retriever.

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  They become the best friend.

• 1:45:54Speaker 00

  Personality trait, but keep all of the, you know.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  I think killer whales are pretty smart, too.

• 1:45:59Speaker 00

  Megalodon.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Be a good, good

• 1:46:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, megalodon mode. The friendly neighborhood megalodon.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Megalodon would be very intimidating.

• 1:46:07Speaker 00

  Alex says friendly jaws incoming.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  Friendly jaws. Well, we'll have to keep a keep an eye on it. It's interesting. It's an interesting business. It seems like it's it's Ben Lamb who's been working on de-extinction of mammoths at colossal biosciences. Maybe new company from him, Palmer Lucky sort of advising and and Anduril providing some like body armor and some some development, but not particularly. I don't think it's like strictly an Anduril product. I don't know if you know more about this deal, but.

• 1:46:39Speaker 00

  Well, Sam over on X says, God, give me the confidence of a VC investing 200 million at 1.2 in a $50 million market. And so they talk about police and military combined is 50 million a year of breeder revenue. And of course, the, you know, VC pushback here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna steel man.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  Steel man.

• 1:47:01Speaker 00

  Is that if you can make, you know, super versions of all these different animals, the end market would obviously be much ma like much more massive. So and it's just, it's literally the coolest thing ever.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  I agree. It is. And it's the type of thing that you you want to be, you probably want to see funded with equity dollars that can be experimental and high risk, high reward, like put the risk capital to work on things that are, you know, science experiments with longer time horizons and

• 1:47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're telling me if we can put millions of friendly megalodons into every ocean, that's not going to be a $10 billion a year annual market. This is how we replace all of our navy. Friendly laser megalodons.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Laser equipped megalodons. Maybe.

• 1:47:51Speaker 00

  That would never have any adverse impact on any, you know, global system, too.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  No, has any company just come out and said, we're doing Jurassic Park? Like, we're just bringing back the T-Rex and we think it's gonna go.

• 1:48:04Speaker 00

  Isn't that kind of what Ben Lamb?

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  No, he hasn't said he's bringing back

• 1:48:07Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, he's very, is he? Is he anti?

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Well, so from a scientific perspective, there's a very good reason why going after dinosaurs is way harder than going after woolly mammoths.

• 1:48:18Speaker 00

  Dan is looking for a retail option for a 600 pound dog. So I'm sorry, Sam, the market for for it's a good point.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Retail, yeah, retail option.

• 1:48:28Speaker 00

  The the the the end market for friendly 10,000 pound dogs? I mean, look at Clifford, the big red dog is like one of the we're making, we're rebuilding

• 1:48:42Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, that's a No, it's a perfect VC bet because it's like you what you're trying to do is

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  How many people are really at the market for Clifford? It's gotta be so expensive.

• 1:48:52Speaker 00

  Billions of children?

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  Billions of children, but who can afford? It's gotta be, that's a six-figure dog. Easy. If not a seven-figure dog. Plus, you're spending-

• 1:49:01Speaker 00

  You don't think they can-

• 1:49:02Speaker 01

  Feeding a, feeding a 10,000-pound dog.

• 1:49:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I expect the costs to drop as quickly as, as, uh, as AI is token cost.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Sort of sustainable farming. Maybe the Clifford, the dog could build its own infrastructure and feed itself, potentially. Could learn how to farm.

• 1:49:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. And- Yeah, you have to buy it with the friendly gorilla that takes care of the, that takes care of the dog.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, it's a package deal.

• 1:49:30Speaker 00

  And, and goes on WAP and earns a living.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  A whole menagerie.

• 1:49:34Speaker 00

  Earns, earns enough every day to actually cover the, the cost.

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  Friendly gorilla. That seems like an easy one to domesticate. That, that seems very, very close. Closer than a bear, certainly. Certainly closer than a shark. I feel like we have such, we have so little in common with a shark.

• 1:49:48Speaker 00

  This guy doesn't believe there's a market for Clifford the big red dog.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  I'm just saying it's a narrow market. It's gonna be an expensive dog. It's gonna be an expensive, the, the OpEx on a Clifford dog is gonna be through the roof. You're gonna be spending-

• 1:50:01Speaker 00

  The US pet industry-

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  You have to build-

• 1:50:03Speaker 00

  Is 165 billion, just in the US. And so, I expect that just introducing a viable Clifford for retail-

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  That makes us that much.

• 1:50:13Speaker 00

  Would take that to a trillion-dollar market.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:50:16Speaker 00

  And I think there's a path to it being as big as a global alcohol market, which is in the, you know, one and a half to two trillion.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Consider the knock-on effects, though. Clifford Dog House, that's gonna be up to zone as an ADU. We're already in a housing crisis.

• 1:50:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Not gonna work.

• 1:50:29Speaker 00

  I think this could potentially create a sovereign debt crisis as households, you know, look to basically-

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  As money floods into the Clifford dog market.

• 1:50:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, they're gonna genetically engineer them to last 1,000 years, so one family across many generations would have the same. The Clifford would be like the guardian.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, the family office-

• 1:50:47Speaker 00

  Clifford would be the family guardian.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Clifford dogs.

• 1:50:49Speaker 00

  And, you know, potentially hundreds of people-

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:53Speaker 00

  In an individual family across centuries would all be cared for by the Clifford overlord engineer.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Overlord?

• 1:51:01Speaker 00

  It's becoming, it's becoming more-

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  So we've lost control now?

• 1:51:03Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  It's a loss of control.

• 1:51:04Speaker 00

  Clifford-

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:06Speaker 00

  The Warhounds, Warhounds Clifford product-

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:09Speaker 00

  They're gonna, they're gonna, um-

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Become Warlords.

• 1:51:12Speaker 00

  Engineer it to, to live for thousands of years.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:51:15Speaker 00

  And so, if you buy it, it's, you never really own it. You just pass it down to the next generation.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:51:21Speaker 00

  And so, like, your son eventually is-

• 1:51:25Speaker 05

  It's not your dog, it's just your turn.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  You will own no dogs and be happy.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. Stranger things have happened, potentially. Who knows? Nothing's off the table. Uh, science fiction is here, so maybe Clifford the big red dog is in the cards. I certainly hope so. I would like to see a big dog. I have a very large dog and I love big dogs, so I would love a 600-pound, 6,000-pound, 10,000-pound dog. Do we even know how much Clifford weighs?

• 1:51:54Speaker 02

  4,000 pounds.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  4,000 pounds.

• 1:51:56Speaker 02

  25 feet tall.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Oh, Jackson knows the facts.

• 1:51:59Speaker 00

  Jackson's just sitting here, sitting here with the fit of the month.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  Oh, can we get the Call of Duty update? Who, who wound up winning between you and Nick, Tyler?

• 1:52:06Speaker 00

  B says they're gonna need 50-year Clifford mortgages.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Paid off over 50 years. Well, if he lives for 1,000 years, you're good.

• 1:52:15Speaker 05

  He only played for a few minutes and then he-

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  Oh, he didn't even finish the game?

• 1:52:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Okay. But what was his kill-to-death ratio at the time you took over?

• 1:52:23Speaker 05

  So when you're playing on Kill Block, for some reason, it doesn't show you your KD during games, so I couldn't tell.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Uh, too bad. Kill Block's fun, though. I like that mode. I'm excited. We do need to wrap the show, cause I gotta go play. Just kidding, I got other stuff to do, but, uh, thank you for tuning in. Fantastic week, fantastic show. We made it through some sickness, some chaos.

• 1:52:42Speaker 00

  We love you.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  Let's get the Christmas countdown up again. 62 days to Christmas.

• 1:52:46Speaker 00

  We'll see you Monday.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Goodbye.