Starship Launch, World's Fair Retrospective, Matt Grimm Does the Murph, Big China Moves

I see a large IPO on the horizon. You're surrounded by jungle. Hold your position. This misinformation clearing order inbound. >> That's just wrong. We are surrounded by general. Hold your position. Come on. Get up. Trust the experts here by we are experts founder knowledge. I see multiple journalists on the horizon. Stand by. >> UAV online. Blaze win. >> Double blaze. Triple blaze. Double kill. Finally, it's win. Team Deathmatch. We are experts. Triple blades. That's just wrong. Right. >> Hardy clearing order inbound. We are surrounded by journalists. Hold your position. >> Strike one. Cortisol sponge. Strike two. Cortisol rising. Activate golden retrainer mode. >> Market clearing order inbound. >> 5 founder >> UAV online. >> You're watching TV and today is Friday, May 22nd, 2026. We are live from the TVPN Ultra Dome, the temple of technology and not only >> the fortress of finance, >> the capital of capital. >> Great show for you today, folks. It's Friday, Friday, May 22nd. We had our Wall Street Journal stolen from us. We only have the Financial Times today, but we're making do because we have a digital subscription as well. And we're going to take you through America's IPO boom. We're going to talk to Matt Grim from Anderol. We're going to talk to Dan Shipper from EveryY. We're going to talk to James from Appeal Sciences. Uh we're also going to read through uh Brandon Guell's news roundup in the TBPN newsletter. TBPN.com. You can go sign up. Uh so, three key stories that broke since we last spoke a mere 21 hours ago since we podcast for three hours and then we come back 21 hours later. >> We do it again. >> We do it again. Um, yesterday, Politico reported that David Saxs made an 11th hour appeal to President Trump to spike an executive order that would have created a voluntary program, voluntary program, uh, for frontier AI companies to submit their models to the government for review 90 days before new model releases. I wonder what the benefit of that is. Obviously, it's good to have red teaming going on, good to have benchmarking, good to have other eyes on the project. There's some sort of, you know, liability that happens. What's the round thing on the table? No one in in the TVP audience ever seen this. Can you describe what this is? This round shaped argument. >> Not exactly sure what we're looking at, but I saw them talking about this on ESPN, and people are always saying, "You guys are like sports centers for business." >> You should pick one of these up. This object, >> so I had to check it out. Yes, this artifact. >> Brown brown oval object. >> Yes. >> Cool. Well, it looks fun. >> Anyways, >> uh I was having a little bit of fun earlier throwing this >> drill in the gong. >> Drilling the gong. Uh the production team didn't like it >> because there's this, you know, 70 $70,000 >> massive flat screen TV next to the gong as well as multiple cameras >> and lights over there. But no accidents. Wow. Mandate of heaven over there. Right here. Oh, Tom's got the tennis ball. >> Get out of here with that >> tennis ball. >> Anyway, uh so for his part, Trump explained the last minute cancellation by telling reporters, quote, I didn't like certain aspects of it. I think it gets in the way of dash, we're leading China. We're leading everybody, and I don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that. The presumed text of the EO was leaked today. You can read it uh through this link. Uh >> Tyler, have you checked in with Less Wrong? >> Yeah. How are they feeling about this? >> Yeah, I mean I assume they're not happy with this. This seems to be like anti-safety. >> Um >> do they want more review from from independent nonprofits, for-profit companies that are run by people with good intentions, or the government, like democratically elected? >> I mean, I I assume at at some level it's it's got to be the government, right? Because if you're super hyped, these things are nuclear weapons. It it needs to be the government. >> Yeah. >> Um >> but I think on the way there, people are are definitely like, >> is there anyone who is there anyone who says like, "No, no, no, actually like like nuclear weapons are super important, but they shouldn't be regulated by the government because I don't like the government. I would rather my favorite mega corp owns them, controls them." I don't think there's >> I mean if you look at the popularity if you look at the if you look at the the the approval rates for different organizations there are plenty of companies that are pulling above the US government >> like people love Disney Disney adults they say give Disney a nuclear weapon they already have the rights to build a nuclear power plant. You know this >> I did not. Disney World has like like uh you know legacy rights because when they set up Epcot which is an acronym which I should look up because what does it stand for? It stands for something really cool. This also bridges into one of our one of our future segments. Uh stands for what does Epcot stand for? Experimental prototype community of tomorrow. The idea was to build an entire city. It was uh it was the practice of the of the of its Yeah. Uh, and so in 1966, Walt Disney conceived it as in 1966 as a utopian, fully functioning city. And I believe, this might just be viral clickbait, but I've heard it said many, many times that they have the permission to build a nuclear reactor to power the prototype community of tomorrow, Epcot. Yeah. Uh, and so I don't know, maybe maybe there's some folks out there that say, "We can't trust the government. We can't trust the Democrats. We can't trust the Republicans with the nuclear weapons. Give him to Disney." I don't know. >> I trust Bob with the new >> I would trust Bob. The new guy. We got to meet him. We got to get to know him. >> That's right, >> Bob. >> Bob, >> he can hand. >> Yeah, >> I I trust him. >> I trust his hand on the button. Anyway, um, what else is going on? Second story highlighted by Brandon Gell in the TBPN newsletter. >> The guellanator >> theator in the TBPN newsletter. Uh an anon account posted yesterday. >> He's sitting here with uh with this noise cancelling headphones. He doesn't know talking about him. >> He's going to find this out later when he watches these clips. Uh anyway, and a non-account posted yesterday that Microsoft had canled its internal cloud code license after tokenbased billing made the cost untenable. Uh this catalyzed a ton of commentary and discourse around axe box CEO Aaron Levy, for example, used this post to argue that token price optimization is set to become a prevailing trend inside companies relying on LLMs. Worth noting though that there's a proposed community note on the post right now that denies Microsoft made the move because of a cost issue. They have the money to spend billions on on tokens if they want but instead they are trying to shift the developers to use their own co-pilot CLI which I imagine they're they're going to build their own harness their fork of cloud >> code referred to they want to make the engineers eat dog food. >> Yes. But what's the dog food made of? It could be made dog fooding >> GBT 5.5 tokens. It could be made of Opus 47. >> I do I do think it uh >> I guess they will be using >> Yeah, I mean I I think the reason that that Codex and Claude Code and Cursor and these other tools have gotten so good is because the engineers building them are using them all day long. And uh it's one thing to use those tools to build your coding tool, but being forced to constantly use the product uh that you're shipping is a tried andrue way to build a great product. >> Yeah. Uh the third story from Brandon Grill in the TBNN newsletter, the American semiconductor manufacturer Micron announced that they've begun manufacturing one alpha DRAMM, the most advanced memory ever produced in the United States at its Manasses, Virginia headquarters. uh or manufacturing plant. This move comes in the middle of the agent boom in AI which requires longer context windows and thus memory then back and forth LLMs which has led to an industrywide memory shortage. Micron has been an absolute has been on a tear. Let's see what they're doing. >> 800 almost uh $850 billion market cap. >> Remarkable. It's up 2% today, 3% over the last five days and 246% over the last 6 months. What an absolute run for Micron. It's up almost a thousand% over the past year. Uh really really incredible performance from Micron. >> Just wow. >> Anyway, um America's going through a mini This was such a funny article by the Wall Street Journal. Uh America's America America's IPO mini boom. How is this a mini boom? You got three of the boom. This is a gigab boom. So, I don't know if we have to truth on this, but it also made it to the front page of the wall of the Financial Times. They said SpaceX, OpenAI, and anthropic IPOs set to ignite Wall Street trading frenzy. NASDAQ loosens rules. Passive investors could dump rival stocks. Trillionaire prospect for Musk. The blockbuster listings of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are set to prompt an unprecedented wave of buying, buying, and selling as new fast entry rules thrust the tech stocks straight into Wall Street indices. The rules implemented this month by NASDAQ means dollars of passive money will automatically flow to the three companies when they go public, driving their share prices higher and forcing investors to sell rival stocks. Elon Musk SpaceX initial public offering next month is expected to be the largest on record, fire firing the starting gun on what US bankers will hope will be a blockbuster year with OpenAI filing its IPO paperwork as soon as this week and anthropic planning to float its shares too as well. The trio is set to raise tens of billions of dollars at a time of relentless investor appetite for companies linked to AI. SpaceX. The SpaceX listing will cement Musk's control of two of America's most valuable companies, SpaceX and Tesla. It is, it is crazy. We're going to need a new term for the MAG 7 because Tesla has been in the MAG7. It's been north of a trillion dollars for a long time, but SpaceX is going to go out at a higher valuation almost certainly. Where is Tesla trading at today in terms of market cap? It's at 1.34. Hard to imagine SpaceX trading below that. So, you're going to have uh his Mag7 company will be lagging his non-mag7 company. We're going to need new terms. We're going to need a bigger boat. But why did why did the Wall Street Journal call this a mini boom? I think it's just because it's it's so concentrated on these three companies, but we will dig in and see where it goes. So, too bad SpaceX and others didn't go public sooner. I agree. Uh, but they are a tribute to the US capitalist system, says the Wall Street Journal. Today's AI investor euphoria recalls the heady.com days of the 1990s, and it's hard to tell how these bets will shake out. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are rushing to go public to take advantage of the favorable market conditions. But amid the the eulogies written about American capitalism, the latest mini IPO boom is a welcome tribute to the dynamism of US markets that no other country can match. SpaceX fired the starting gun. They're they're they're using the same language as the Financial Times over there. The starting gun has been fired. It's unanimous across the mainstream media. The rocket company founded in 2002 is a global leader in space exploration. >> Overnight success. Uh it is also spread into broadband mobile satellite internet and data center development. Anthropic recently agreed to pay SpaceX 1.25 billion a month to use its data centers to train models. That shows how competitors can enjoy symbiotic relationships. SpaceX says the company as a whole reported a $4.9 billion net loss last year, some of which stemmed from its X.com social media platform. I I can that be that much? I'd have to imagine that the losses were not I mean I don't know how much Twitter was losing before they uh before the take private. I know that the the revenues uh cratered a bit but there were also big layoffs and an 80% reduction in cost. Uh I I that the sum word there is maybe doing some of the lifting. I imagine that the that the losses were sort of spread over all sorts of investments. You're building a new Starship rocket which is set to launch today 5:30 central time. Tune in. Uh the last one was >> what a critical launch. >> Is it? >> No. Just because of the timing with the S1 and the IPO. >> I don't know. All eyes on >> I think I think the market is valuing the launch capabilities and SpaceX and Starship in particular is like one small piece of the of the puzzle. you know, it's important, but you know, >> people are going to be paying way more attention to this. >> Yeah. Obviously, people will be excited about it, but uh but you know, even like I I think even just the you know, endless spamming Falcon 9 can get Starlink to what uh $20 billion run rate or something, $10 billion run rate. Um you can you can clearly build a business off of the existing capability. Uh lots of excitement around uh Starship. there there was a little bit of uh like spice in the timeline from you know everyday astronaut because he was sort of like rooting for a scrub and everyone was like oh he's like against SpaceX but he was like no I was like I'm such a fan that I wanted to be there in person I couldn't be there in person so I was like I hope that they scrub because I want to be there for this historic moment. Um so little bit of like a misconception there. Uh, >> and the live stream will be the launch is you said 5:30. >> 5:30 Central time is like when it's uh scheduled, but they're already counting down because they stacked it yesterday. They were ready to go. Nicki Minaj was on site talking about Starships were made to fly, which I believe is one of her songs. Uh, SpaceX said in its filing that it foresees 28.5 trillion, yes, trillion in market opportunities, including data centers in space. Uh, is anything more bullish than the future just being enterprise software? Like you paint this massive picture. We're going to Mars. How are we going to make money? Enterprise software. 22 trillion of enterprise software. >> We're going to be automating workflows for the enterprise. >> I guess forever. Uh, Mr. Musk in January was awarded 1 billion performance-based restricted shares that will vest if his company quote establishes a permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million inhabitants. >> Do robots count as inhabitants? Do agents count? >> Isn't that Isn't that one one of the potential? >> You got to get a a million. This is why he's >> Wasn't there a list of like five or six things and he just has to do like four? >> Uh I don't know. Uh I I haven't dug into that particular one. Uh I I I know for Tesla there were a whole bunch of different milestones. Uh the humanoid robots was was one of the stretch goals. Um but permanent permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million inhabitants. That's excited. That's a good goal. Like that feels I don't know that like a whole lot of enterprise software and a million people living on Mars. That's a vision I can get behind. I'm into that. I like it. Uh anyway, uh we have Matt Grim from Anderol, the co-founder and COO joining us. We're calling in to the Murf. We talked to him last year. Let's see how he did this year. Matt Grim, how are you doing? >> Welcome to the show. >> I can't hear them. >> You can't hear us? Oh, no. >> Okay. If anyone can hear us, just ask him to talk. Pass it along. Just have him Just have him rant. Just rant. >> Tell him to rant. I'll text him. Rant. rant. We might need to come back to him, but he does look like he did it in the weighted vest. He's looking very sharp and uh on this uh it looks like it's cold and rainy. This looks brutal. I'm excited to come back to that in a minute, but in the meantime, we'll we will go back to uh government pension funds and the SpaceX IPO. Uh government pension funds caves that the IPO will preserve Mr. Musk control of the company by giving him more votes per share, but dual class structures are not uncommon. Berkshire Hathaway and News Corp also have them uh and can encourage founders to take their company public since they won't lose control. Uh if pension funds don't like SpaceX's structure, they don't have to buy shares. SpaceX could fetch a market valuation of upward of $1 trillion, a huge boon for its early private investors and employees with stock options. Open AAI and Anthropic also have heavily compensated their employees with stock options partially as a way to preserve capital. Stock options allow employees to share in a company's growth and success. Thanks for the context, Wall Street Journal. I appreciate that. The shame is that retail investors have missed SpaceX's early stratospheric gains. What did what was the market cap of Tesla at IPO? What was the market cap of Tesla at 10 billion? Right. >> Was it uh Tesla's uh Tesla >> 1.7 >> Whoa. 1.7 billion. >> Yeah. Are are you >> that is >> that is that a market cap for >> you got a thousandx if you just were a day one IPO believer >> I mean that's how you build a retail army >> so SpaceX I mean million people on Mars we could be looking at 1.7 quad potentially anything's possible I don't know you get a thousandx from here if we get to Mars that's a big it's a big big uh big opportunity >> that is so crazy that you could buy an Elon company in the public markets. >> Yeah. >> At less than a $2 billion market cap. >> And many people did not. I owned a little bit of Tesla at some point, but there were so many moments when it was like so wildly disconnected from other car companies or other like like it was never a uh like a Warren Buffett buy, you know? There were always good reasons not to buy it. Instead of going to high school, I just bought the Tesla IPO using the money I made from mowing lawns. >> Yeah, you should have just been a lawn mower who DCA into Tesla the whole time. >> Probably be pretty retired right now. I mean, there's a lot of people that did that. There's a lot of people There's also a lot of people that put money down to buy cars and then they didn't buy the stock and they're like, "Ah, the car depreciated and I should have bought the stock." Anyway, um let's check in with the uh the Starship launch because uh SpaceX pro postponed the launch of the newly redesigned Starship, but hardly a headline if it's just a one-day uh uh postponing because uh these things happen all the time. But it's completely redesigned. It's 400 feet tall and it stood on the launchpad at the company's Starbase Complex outside Brownville, Texas. But engineers had to troubleshoot problems that kept cropping up to the end of the countdown for the flight. According to a SpaceX live stream, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk later said in a social media post that a hydraulic pin on part of the launch tower didn't function correctly. The company could try the flight Friday if the problem is fixed overnight. So, they worked all night and they fixed the hydraulic pin on the launch tower. Wow, talk about complex. Uh, the test mission was set to be the first flight for Starship V3. This is the third version redesigned SpaceX vehicle intended to deploy bigger satellites and one day help the company potentially settle Mars and mine asteroid. Starship is bigger and more powerful than any rocket ever built. The company has sketched out a future in which Starship flies thousands of times per year. Of course, the the uh the the the Mechazilla tower that grabs it, the the chopsticks, that's very key to being able to stack these quickly. You can't uh rebuild all the infrastructure. The reusability is key to flying regularly. Uh the rocket has yet to fly any customer satellites after three years of intense tests that we know of. The real conspiracy theorist, there's conspiracy theories that think space is fake. Nothing's happening. They're not actually going. The satellites don't exist. And then there's other conspiracy the theories that think, oh yeah, when they crash, they're actually deploying secret satellites, and there's more stuff in space than we think. So, pick your tinfoil hat theory. We'll let you be the judge of what's really going on. SpaceX's growth plans depend on Starship. According to its IPO perspectus, the document filed Wednesday listed Starship first among the risk factors facing the company. Interesting. Okay. So, so a little bit more credit for you because I was like, ah, it's not that big a deal. care more about the data centers, the >> mean the optic the think about like the optics and uh some investors are super you know a little bit uh >> it is interesting like like clearly if if SpaceX is listing Starship as the first risk factor it means like oh yeah like Colossus like we're going to be able to do that like that's not that hard like we can we we can build a big data center they have possible >> and and and there's less of a risk factor of like we're not going to be able to monetize that or we're not you know Because there is there are a group of investors out there that are saying like, "Oh, token prices will collapse. GPU depreciation. It it'll get blocked. There'll be a data center ban." Like they won't be able to ramp up their terrestrial effort. God forbid like a you know catastrophic you know explosion >> be dramatic. >> There would that would be you know potentially an omen that certain people would looking into but maybe >> uh I have full faith. >> Yeah. Their execution record is unsurpassed, but this stuff is hard to get right, said Daniel Hansen, portfolio manager at Newberger Burman, who oversees a fund that owns SpaceX shares. He's got bags. This team in due course will execute on Starship and that will unlock tremendous value. Uh they estimated in its IPO filing Wednesday that it has spent $15 billion developing Starship. Well, that makes a lot of sense why there's losses if you've been investing this. uh although it it seems like the development costs are declining because in 2025 the uh the expenses were $3 billion. So I don't know how many years but if you imagine they've been working on Starship for 5 years then uh three billion a year is is sort of average. Uh these efforts have weighed on SpaceX's bottom line with the space space division reporting a $662 million loss. The interesting question that I have from the SpaceX IPO perspectus is Dan Primac had that sort of hot take saying like oh wow like a lot of people uh were expecting SpaceX to be a bigger business than what they showed in the in this perspectus. Obviously Elon is always looking to the future. Huge TAM huge opportunity in space data centers huge opportunity in terrestrial data centers like the revenue is going to grow. the 75 billion that we need is >> he just added like 15 billion in ARR on a $20 billion company like the growth is there Elon makes plays but my question is as you trickle down it's like it's a it's a it's an AI company with a you know data center business with a telecom and then the smallest section is the launch business and so I'm wondering like what does the P&L look like what do the financial statements look like for Blue Origin because Blue Origin's been operating for I think a longer amount of time, maybe the same amount of time, 20 years. Uh, so I I can't imagine that they're, you know, if they're working on a new rocket, are they going to be >> 24 September 8th, 2000? >> 2000. So that's 26 year story and they're building stuff that's trying to be in this class of rocket and if Elon's spending three billion trying to, you know, three billion last year alone developing Starship, like what do the costs look like for you, Glenn? And then the revenues have to be so much. >> Here's a question for you, John. >> Uh there was a PR firm reached out trying to get an early SpaceX investor on the show. >> Yeah. >> And they invested in uh 2019. Does that count as being an early investor if the company was started in 2002? >> I think so. I think pre Starlink counts as early investor >> because it's always early. >> It's always early. Well, also, uh, early is often is often defined by the ROI on the investment. And so, if you got in in the in the Decacorn rounds and now you're going out at a trillion round, that's 100x. Yeah. And so, you're in a pretty good spot. >> Uh, I think >> Sean McGuire at Sequoia like it was a later bet. 2020, I think, was when he started building that position. But >> prestar like Starlink really. >> Yeah, I think Starlink was starting to work or starting to sort of be mapped out as a business, starting to be understood by the market as a potential profit center uh in the midst of a uh a very difficult launch market that was, you know, not growing exponentially and there were good margins, but it was but the the launch business alone was never going to propel SpaceX to a trillion dollar valuation. But you add two, three, four other businesses and all of a sudden you get there. Uh, other tests have ended in explosions, including one this past June that shook homes miles away. A failure early last year threatened commercial airline traffic in the Caribbean region. The Wall Street Journal has reported. Uh, the new version of Starship includes upgrades to the fuel transfer tube that moves propellant to the booster's 33 engines, redesigned so engines can simultaneously and more quickly begin firing. Uh, and I think they did they paint the engines black for this one. I saw Elon doing like a little side by side of the silver engines. He was saying that the black engines look better. I kind of agree, but I haven't looked too closely at the images. Uh, I don't know if it's it's probably purely functional, but it is fun as these things get more design. You've seen those images of like the Raptor engine or the Merlin engine getting like redesigned, redesigned and then just removing removing parts and then the final version looks pretty aesthetic. Like it looks pretty beautiful and the first version looks just like cables and wires and tubes everywhere. Looks very thrown together. Uh there's something about efficiency that is also aligned with aesthetics sometimes. Uh the engines called Raptors are expected to produce more thrust while weighing less according to the company. Oh, that's good. Every almost every part of Starship V3 is different from V2, Musk said in a social media post Sunday. Post the postponed test mission was set to deploy 20 Starlink simulators during the mission. I'm wondering how much a Starlink cost because why don't you just rip a real one? You know, you're spending three billion. Just put up the real ones on the case that it actually works. But I guess there's probably more like telemetry and simulation and like data collection that you can do if you send up the simulator as opposed to like the real thing. But I don't know why not just uh ri satellite. Remember >> I mean the the ultimate simulation is just doing the thing. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Well Elon says we live in a simulation potentially. >> Exactly. >> So maybe that's maybe that's what he's doing. What Yeah. What are the Starlink simulators really simulating? Who knows? >> DJ D Saul. >> Yeah. What's going on with >> sliding into Elon's DM? >> Oh, yeah. >> In the bid to land lead left the IPO >> with banks jockeying to get their name first on the deal for SpaceX's IPO. Solomon worked with staffers to message us directly. He's like, "All right, guys, help me out here. How do I send a message on X?" Um, according to people familiar with the matter. >> Uh, so he's putting in the work. Uh >> he also >> and he says, "Wow, this is how you work for the bag at Goldman Sachs." >> Uh David Solomon also had a piece in the New York Times saying that the AI apocalypse uh NT was overrated. AI is a job creator, David Solomon says. He says, "I'm the CEO of Goldman Sachs. The AI job apocalypse is overblown." We'll see what he's saying in a couple months. Ken Griffin sort of flipped. Although Ken Griffin hasn't gone as far to say that there's a job apocalypse. He was just saying that the models went from like slop to usable, but he hasn't actually opined on whether or not that will change Citadel's hiring plans or his view of the Americ's like cap on how much software >> I was there. I was writing Visual Basic. It was brutal. I would have loved Codeex and clock code. I would I would have been I would have been working for one minute a day instead of an hour a day. >> If you could have had Codeex back then, just like a private >> a private instance of it. Yes. Uh you would be currently >> time traveling back in time just to become the most productive intern of all time is elite. >> That's something that's something you would actually do. >> Oh, it would be so so much fun. Maybe that's what the the future will hold. uh intern simulator. You get to you get to go into VR and simulate being the most elite intern with uh with time travel technology. Uh anyway, >> can we talk about the world's fair? >> Uh yes, we need to talk about the World's Fair. Tyler, you gave this a read. What stuck out to you? Maybe maybe let's read through some of it first. >> And quick update, we are rescheduling with Matt >> Grim. Okay. >> Uh due to technical issues. Yes, we we will we will get him on. Uh he's been here in person. We we know Matt Grim. We love him. Always fun to catch up with him. >> It's possible that uh that a third layer SPV lead is holding hostage saying, "Give me direct access." >> I think I think he might have been there, finished the Murf, and saw someone hustling an SPV and he just had to drop the mic and run off and tackle them. That's probably what happened. Uh anyway, uh World's Fairs. Has someone tried to bring these back? This feels like a tech new media. We need a World's Fair thing. Like I I could see this being something that someone tries to revive. Although it' probably be a lot of screens these days. But at the World's Fair uh of old, there were a lot of cool technologies, a lot of hardware, a lot of interesting exhibits. and we'll go through uh I don't know how much you've studied the World Fair in the past, but uh the Wall Street Journal has been reflecting on the United States of America at 250 years with a whole bunch of articles that look back and contextualize American history. And we'll go through this one on the World's Fair right now. So, among the groundbreaking innovations unveiled at US-hosted exhibitions were the telephone, the Ferris wheel, and the electric and electric lighting. Ferris really crushed it on the naming thing. Whoever, you know, Alexander Graanbell invented the telephone. Uh Thomas Edison invented lighting mostly. Those guys did not bake their name into the product nearly as well as Ferris because it's capital F and I believe Ferris is the one who invented the Ferris wheel. Anyway, before splashy Silicon Valley product launches and the annual consumer electronics show, the world showcased the its latest in innovations at high-profile world's fairs. These exhibits held every few years, beginning in London in 1851, gave countries a public platform to showcase new technologies, products, and ideas that were going to reshape daily life. for host countries and cities the world's fairs or expositions where an opportunity to own the world's fair is sharing project >> the person that invented the ferris wheels full name was George Washington Gail Ferris Jr. >> That's pretty elite George Washington >> there's nothing stopping you from naming your child George Washington and then just slapping your your own last name at the end. >> Yes. Yes. >> I I mean >> George Washington Cosgrove >> my John Tyler was the 10th president. Oh, true. Yeah, there you go. >> That's my name. >> There we go. >> Okay. So, many of the big expose were commemorative, says Paul Greenh Hall. Greenh Hall, a British historian and author of two books on world's fairs and expositions. Uh, but all of them ended up doing something else. They changed the shape of cities much like the Olympics today. World's fairs were large-scale planning efforts and economic investments as much as cultural events. Um, cities competed for the right to host them. Chicago was able to redefine its image from a gritty second city to a cultural and architectural hub after defeating New York in the bid for the 1893 exposition. Here's a look at the US hosted World's Fairs that left the deepest marks. So, Philadelphia, >> starting in Philly, >> Philly >> 1876, you're not going to believe what was what was shown, what was celebrated. >> We had two key technologies, >> telephones and ketchup. One was disrupted much faster than the other. >> Yep. >> I would say that the telephone has basically disappeared. The smartphone, text messaging, telephone's not doing well. It's on its last barbecue sauce really made >> gained grounds. No, ketchup is still >> even ranch kind of went on a run, but >> really >> mustard ultimately it's a compliment, not a substitute. There are very few people that say, "Oh, I don't need the ketchup at all. >> Just the mustard. >> Just the mustard, please." Cuz most people they >> I don't know. I do think mustard is is >> better than ketchup >> than ketchup. >> Yeah. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. >> You can believe that. >> Yeah. >> America's first officially sanctioned World's Fair, the Centennial International Exhibition arrived when the country was still defining its place among industrial nations. Unlike earlier European fairs built around single monumental halls, the Philadelphia event spread across a vast park with hundreds of structures. It was sort of like the Coachella of its time. Uh among the most notable exhibits were the telephone. It was initially greeted with skepticism, but the potential of the cool contraption quickly drew attention. Once people realized what had been invented, it became clear how important it was. Uh the fair also showcased Thomas Edison's automatic telegraph as well as machinery such as the typewriter. Imagine you're just create the automatic telegraph and then you go to launch it and demo it and somebody invents the telephone. She's like, "Really? Really, dude?" Um, and consumer packaged goods such as Hines tomato ketchup. It normalized the idea that private companies, innovators, and even governments could present their work side by side. A model that amplified the country's entrepreneurial culture. I love that. Um, Chicago 1893. You're not going to believe it. You're not going to believe the two technologies that are >> We got We got to call call balls and strikes here. a little bit more underwhelming. >> Yeah. But I don't know. I think >> Tell people what was tell people what was >> two key inventions last time. Remember we created telephones and catchup, right? And so fast following this with the next fair we create the >> No, no, no, no. It's not fast following. 1876 almost 20 years later. >> Almost 20 years later, they're like fast takeoff. It's We're so early. Telephones cooking. What do we got? The ferris wheel and popcorn. >> Popcorn is pretty good. >> Ketchup before popcorn. Pretty good. Pretty good. But yeah, ferris wheel. Ferris wheel. >> Imagine the hundreds of people that came there to demo their inventions. >> If you're in telephones, pivot to ferris wheels. There's a whole there's a whole industry. Oh yeah, ferris wheel. That'll destroy the telephone. You got to get on the ferris wheel. It's the new thing. Like it is total stag. It's sort of funny that like in like if you were to look back if we had a world's fair, you'd have like >> uh creatine gummies >> and like AGI, right? >> Exactly. >> So in 1893 they had the ferris wheel and popcorn and then you fast forward to today it's like we we found a way to put >> one of the micronutrients in steak >> into a candyshaped supplement. And we need you to eat four or five of these a day forever. >> 2020 World's Fair. We have rockets that land. And we also >> have >> All birds. >> All birds. What What else came out? That was very silly. Uh board apes. We have We've invented board apes. >> Skims shapewear. >> Shapewear and GLP1s. Uh somewhat related. I don't know. >> Uh Buffalo, New York, 1901. >> Okay. >> An electric city. This seems pretty elite. This is pretty huge. 1901, >> though remembered mostly as the location where President William McKinley was shot. He died a week later. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition was meant to showcase. >> He was shot. He was shot at the World. >> I had no idea. >> That's crazy. Fact check that. Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition was meant to showcase America's dominance and innovation, electrical power and infrastructure. The fair featured electric lighting and electric street cars powered by hydro electricity generated by Niagara Falls reflecting a moment when electricity was beginning to move from novelty towards widespread utility. >> Okay. So this is 1901. >> 1901. >> And remember in 1876 we created the telephone. >> Yeah. >> And you fast forward to the next event in St. Louis in 1904. You're not going to believe what we remember the 1904 World's Fair. computers. We created electricity and they're like, we got something better. What do we have? >> We now know this this World's Fair as a snack food extravaganza. >> It's really just a guy gummy. >> It was It was sort of a Cambrian explosion of snacking. >> Yeah. I mean, this is the nature of our show. It's like cerebras and groins. Like this is this is like this is actually what what happens in America. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was among the largest ever stage and nearly obliterated the city's finances. >> Oh no. >> Still, its pop culture influence endures. The exposition popularized a host of snack foods that would become staples of American life, including ice cream cones, peanut butter. Oh my, they went on an insane run right here. Ice cream cones, peanut butter, hot dogs, hamburgers, and cotton candy. >> Mhm. >> Elite. While the foods weren't all invented for the fair, their widespread availability there. Like it's so funny. So So people are coming there again to share their their their actual innovations and then like snacks had just come online and so you can imagine like it just turns into a snack conference where everyone's just snacking like crazy. They're like, "Wait, we have hot you can go to a hot dog stand and then you can go get cotton candy." >> Yeah. >> In one place. You got to be kidding me. >> I mean I bet I wouldn't be surprised. Visitors also encountered early examples of X-ray machines. So we invented X-ray vision, >> but history remembers it as a snack food extravaganza. >> Peanut butter >> early flying machines and submarines >> came after >> and automobiles. >> And automobiles and submarines. This is crazy. >> And and barely remembered. >> No. >> Uh fast forward 1962. Seattle >> space race. >> The space race. >> That's exciting. the World's Fair. Uh, by the mid- 20th century, the World's Fairs had become games of oneupsmanship. I like that. In geopolitical rivalry, >> uh, feels like where we're at today. >> Seattle's Century 21 exposition took place in the shadow of the Cold War. Following the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in the world's first artificial Earth satellite, the Soviets turned down an invitation. They turned it down. >> Turn it down. >> Turn it down. uh the federal government became deeply involved. There was a sense that America needed to demonstrate technological leadership. >> Mhm. >> The Space Needle was constructed for the fair. I did not know that. >> I I recently saw the inside of the Space Needle because Wait, no, that's uh not the Space Needle. It's the Toronto version of the Space Needle because didn't Drake film a music video inside of it? >> He iced it out. >> Oh, he did. He made it he made it ice blue >> because he's Ice Man or something. That's the name of the album. Um and inside you can see all of the broadcasting equipment and there's these huge radio dishes inside. It's very cool. >> Anyway, >> uh fast forward just a few years, couple years we got you're not going to believe what you're not going to believe what they created what they announced at this World's Fair. 64 >> they invent 1964 more than just under a hundred years since the telephone was invented we invented punch cards >> punch cards >> uh which which feel like a kind of early version of of enterprise software in some way >> true >> um world's favorite flushing meadows New York City yes records >> uh visitors were dazzled by color television demonstration and the picture phone, an early video calling system. >> They had FaceTime. >> Yeah. >> FaceTime. This is sick. This is crazy. >> I can't believe >> when I told Jordy 64 they invented FaceTime, he was like, "Did it use mirrors?" >> And he thought it was just a periscope. >> Just a mirror that you look at. >> Periscope? No, no, no. It's like It's like a series of mirrors that bounce my image across like so you can be in the other room and you can see me and talk. No. Uh, no. They had full video calling. I guess AT&T's picture phone which added video to telephone calls. >> Yeah. So So it cost uh $16 to for a threeminute call. >> That's $121 today's in today's money. >> That's expensive. >> Yeah. $40 >> token maxing. I wonder if I wonder if there were CEOs at the time who were like we need we need to be if you're not if you're making $10 a year and you're not spending $20 a year on your picture phone, you're not going to have >> I wonder if they were talking about Jeban's paradox. >> Yes, probably. I don't know when >> the last officially sanctioned world's fair in the US was hosted in New Orleans in 1984 and it produced no truly defining te technological debut or >> stagnation theory undefeated >> brutal by that point the function of world's fairs had largely migrated elsewhere to museums television theme parks and technology conference as a result the world's fair concept gradually faded putting on an expo is a lost art the author says but when America needed it no one did it better And uh and uh Brenell of the TBPN newsletter fame shared that uh that there was in fact an attempt to uh bring back the World's Fair by Zack Dev. He wrote on Substack Startup Cities.com in 2023. Uh he talked to World's Fair co-founder Cam Whis on Walt Disney Epcot Dubai's Museum of the Future. why the World Fair died. Uh, and why big in-person events matter more than ever. Uh, so of push hard. You could bring something like this back, but I feel like it would end up being like, um, it would just turn into a tech conference, you know. >> Yeah, it is tricky. I mean, yeah, we do sort of have these, but then I mean, we talked about this during the uh the uh consumer electronics show uh discussion around how a lot of the big tech companies have sort of created their own world's fairs. Like you walk around MetaConnect, it feels like a world's fair, although it's it's much more narrow because they're releasing one product and a few features. Uh it is cool to think about bundling everything up over a decade and having it be like save everything up for this. Can you imagine? that uh with with iterative releases and the internet and leaks and journalism uh I don't think it would be uh wise for an inventor of the next paradigm of LLMs or or or AGI to to sit on it for a decade while they wait for the next World Fair. Yeah, I'm I'm GPD6 mythos 2. It's coming, but we're preparing for Paris in 2046. I don't know if that would work. Anyway, um, uh, what else stuck out to you, Tyler? There was another, uh, there was another article you put in here from the New York Times about the picture phone. >> That was just more details about I was really enamored. >> Yeah. >> By this. Yeah. I was just thinking it's it's so sad we don't really hear the term inventor anymore. Like, no one is primarily an inventor. >> Yeah. People aren't really >> kind of lost this >> with with the decline of the world. >> Yeah. Uh, does that have something to do with like the patent structure? Like uh like patents are like I have a patent but I don't think of myself as like an inventor of that thing. Uh >> why you could just say that I think of you as an inventor of bits >> of bits potentially inventor like in did you invent TBPN? I don't know. Is that a thing? No. Founder, businessman, business person. These are the terms of the modern era. uh a lot of I mean even also just the way inventions take place are so disagregated like you look at the I we were doing this during the GLP1 boom we were trying to trace through like who are the key players this is the teal take on like uh we don't have ticker ticker tape parades like why is there not one person like uh Dudna got credit for crisper there's a book Walter Isacson wrote about her I think it's called the inventor maybe I don't know Dudna she won the Nobel Prize Um, but >> yeah, I mean it's just very hard because there's like there's so many slices. >> The internet is the new world's fair, right? Or or X or any of these social platforms. It it it would have made sense. >> Yeah. >> You know, >> in the 20th century >> uh in the 19th century to, you know, create something and and think, okay, I have to travel somewhere with a big to where I can find a big audience of people that are going to be interested in new inventions. And now >> people create something >> go viral >> on the internet. So there's a film called The Inventor and it's about Elizabeth Holmes, right? So that just shows you how much the the the idea of an inventor >> it's like mocked now. >> Wow. Yeah. That's >> People don't have a respect >> for an inventor. It's the It's the scammy grifter. >> Yes. >> Who's the inventor? >> It truly truly is. Well, uh we have someone who ships. We have Dan Shipper in the waiting room. >> The shipator coming back to the show. Let's bring him in to the TV van Ultradome. Catch you up with Dan Shipper. How you doing? >> Good. How are you? It's great to be back. >> You're a founder. You're a shipper. You're an author, a writer. Do you think of yourself? >> I mean, I'm sure you just get this like way too much now, but the nominative determinism is like a little too on the nose with this one. >> Yeah, I I just try to live up to my name. >> Yeah, >> you do. You're an elite ship athlete. Uh, it's great to see you. It's been too long. >> Do you think of yourself as an inventor? >> Do we need to bring inventor back? I feel like that term, it's like what I aspired to be when I was a kid. So, there's like a little 11-year-old in me who's like, "Yeah, absolutely. I am an inventor." But I would never go around calling myself that. Cuz I feel like you have to have >> a garage workshop and be like making things that like have springs and make weird noises in order to be an inventor, you know? >> Gadget related. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Even though >> Yeah. I don't know. Inventions can be patented. people that invent software. You should give people credit for those things, but we've moved away from that term for better or worse. Anyway, uh it's been maybe has it been like four months, maybe more since we caught up. It's been a while. It feels like years in this era. In this era, >> the world's changing. >> Uh yeah, give us give us the update on on all things every and and Dan Shipper. >> I mean, there's there's there is a lot to say. Uh the the big update is I just wrote a piece called after automation. Yeah. Um because there's so much uh there's so much progress has happened over the last four months. I think the biggest thing has been there's a hu there was this huge step change in models um starting in November with Opus 45 and then >> uh GBD53 and that has just continued and I think it's starting to like delegating work is starting to cross the chasm from something that you do if you're a coder to all of knowledge work with uh first cloud cloud code then cloud co-work and now codeex which codeex the big shift the biggest thing that has happened is codeex is my daily driver now and it's fantastic. It is like totally changing how I work. Um, but I think as that starts to happen, you're starting to get a lot of people um who maybe have not been that clued into agentic AI use it for the first time and go like, "Holy [ __ ] [ __ ] like everything is going to change. Am I gonna have >> I saw I saw an interesting benchmark here where someone in sort of outside of technology was was sort of uh lamenting AI progress because the the the tricky prompt they had was uh was uh come up with a Pokemon that ends in the two letters er did you see this? Uh and and and the and like the the base models, the cheapest things, the older models sort of get confused by it because of the tokenization. And it's sort of like a new version of how many Rs are in Strawberry. But if you hit a coding model, like you can just watch the traces of Cloud Code or Codeex and it's like go to Pokemon wiki decks, download them all, put them into a CSV, write the Python that checks the actual last two characters of the Pokemon name and it just nails it perfectly and it's traceable and so you get the perfect answer. And I think people haven't realized that that's what's possible and it doesn't all need to be memorization anymore. That's like the big shift. >> I totally agree. And and you're seeing people you know I mean Dario's out there being like uh you know uh AI could warn could wipe out half of white collar entry-le white collar jobs. Yeah. >> Um but even even people outside the industry like um Citadel Griffin Citadel like yeah he had this whole quote and I I have it in my piece. He said like these are not mid-tiered white collar jobs. These are like extraordinarily high high skil jobs being I'm going to pick a word automated by a gentic AI. >> Yeah. >> And so you can just feel you can just smell when someone's like use an agent for the first time and they're like what the [ __ ] Um and if you've been in AI for you know we've been covering it since 2022 since the GPT3 days you know that like that meme where it's like he's got the noose around his head and he's like first time you know like that's that's sort of how I feel. Um, >> yeah. I mean, it's a big I mean, it's just it's a big it's a big shift because the fun Yeah. You're going from like for everyday knowledge work being like good at writing documents and good at collecting information which are valuable things but there you've never worked with someone in an organization that's like a superstar where all they did was where all they did was like gather information and like collect you know collect reports and things like that right it's like okay what can you do with that what can you what what kind of uh actions you can take Uh and yeah, it's it's it's been even even with how even with how kind of close we are to the action and following, you know, not not as long uh you know, we weren't doing the show in in the GPD3 days, but uh I still find myself like operating dayto-day thinking like, oh, I should reach out to that person to get their, you know, to see if they can help with this thing and then realizing like, oh, I can just ask codeex to do that or I can just I can get a model to do this. And it's a really it's a really it's like a fundamental shift and I'm still not routing enough kind of tasks through the models versus um or at least as much as I could. Um the other the other thing um I wanted to get your update on like how how you feel like memory is evolving. I've had some like pretty pleasant experiences recently >> where I will I will do, you know, I'll I'll go to chatbt and and um ask for something and it's like actually able to pull in a bunch of really relevant kind of like context and memories in a way that is like helpful and and not um not uh not just kind of like distraction or annoying. and specifically like wanted to get your update because like let's call it 18 probably a year ago 18 months ago I think everyone was saying like memory memory is the moat like memory and then and then people just like kind of stopped talking about it for call it six or nine months or something like that but it feels like it might be having a moment too >> so I I mean whether or not it's memory specifically I the the thing that has changed dramatically is that codecs and and also cloud code or co-work to some extent but codeex the reason it's so powerful for me is it has access to everything on my computer >> um and so you know I when I published this article um after automation yesterday I was like who should I send this to and I was going to go through go through my texts and go through my emails and then you know whatever and I literally just said to Codex hey can you go figure out like a couple people I should I should send this to and it came up with like a bunch of investors a bunch of journalists a bunch of founders all people who I've talked to in the last like 3 months, but just going through my text messages, going through my emails, and it's just like a complete change in what is possible because it has access to all that stuff which includes memories. >> Um, and and one of the things I'm trying to do with this piece is is to say as a company, we've automated everything that we can. Every single person has access to an agent. They have access to as many tokens as they possibly can use. And yet we've grown from four to almost 30 people since GBT3. So like what the [ __ ] is that about? >> Yeah. >> Um it it's very counter to the narrative I think especially like the popular narrative right now with like Meta is laying people off and Block is laying people off and the ClickUp guys like I'm going to fire everyone. It's only going to be 100x employees. So there's I think there's a really interesting question here about if you're actually on the frontier like we are. Um it seems like there's more human work to do than ever. Why is that? So I did a bunch of work >> and the other thing is Ken Ken Griffin in the the quote you pulled earlier from in that talk he was saying uh my software engineers are more efficient than ever but there's no limit to how much software we need to build or that we want to build. And so he's not sitting there being like okay like uh a lot of this work is automated like we can we can become a lot more efficient here and reduce headcount. He's saying like great we can do a lot more as a team and I think that's like universally what companies that like have momentum are saying it's a companies that like don't have meaningful momentum or don't have clear narratives that are having to you know do these layoffs and and again there's still you know there's still a lot of the there's just still a lot of uh blaming you know sort of like crediting AI for layoffs that that would have needed to happen even if we weren't in this technology cycle. >> Yeah, it's interesting because it's very popular now to say AI in the layoff announcement, but it's also very popular to say and our business is better than it's ever been. >> Mhm. >> Um what what do you guys think about that? I just feel like that's such a weird strategy or weird meme to be going around. Well, I think I think they're saying you can say our business is better than it's ever been, but that doesn't mean it's being valued better than it ever has, right? Like you can say like better than it's ever been. What does that mean? Revenue is up, right? Uh but but the example that I know you're thinking of, I can't imagine that that company is trading anywhere near it was trading uh you know, two a year ago, two years ago. And so when you have a massive correction uh in in the sort of valuation of your company, like you're gonna try to make moves to change that or free up resources to invest in new in new product areas and get that momentum again. So, I would say like when I see, oh, the bit the the business is bigger than it's ever been or better than it's ever been, um, I just don't necessarily I don't necessarily buy that because you have to understand like what what metric are they using to to to sort of like qualify that. >> Yeah, I think that that's a reasonable frame. Um, and I wish that I wish that they would say that more because it gives it's just such a bad look for all all of technology for CEOs to be doing that. >> Um, >> did you see the standard chartered CEO got in hot water? >> So, uh, CEO of standard charter uh came out and said like AI is working so much we're going to reduce our workforce and he used a really spicy phrase. He said like low value human work and we're going to replace it with capital that we're investing. It was a very quantitative analysis of something that's uh deeply human. Uh but I dug into his actual projection and he said 15% headcount reduction by 2030 which is like I would assume that attrition would get you there. Like is this like the most retentive company in history? Like I feel like 4% of the workforce probably turns over annually anyway. You can just like slow your hiring plan and get there if you want to shrink. And that's what a lot of companies have done in previous eras where there's been uh hiccups or disconnects between valuation. Like there were some there were some big private companies that uh during the COVID era or ZERP era, they just sort of froze hiring and grew into their valuations because the business model was sound. They didn't need to hire as much. They refocused, raised the hiring standard, allowed attrition to play its part, and they got to become more lean like more lean and mean organizations without like actually doing a layoff, which at that time would have been optically very bad because if you were doing a layoff during ZERP or COVID, it was like an indictment of you because it was like, oh, well, you're a victim of COVID or you're a victim of ZERP. Like you your business doesn't work in a high interest rate environment. your business doesn't work in a remote in in a more remote world. Whereas now the the uh the vibe is oh if you're doing layoff that's a sign that your business is is ready for AI, ready for automation, ready for for more uh for more efficiency. Uh and so I think people are sort of playing both sides. It's very very >> how are you uh how are you uh thinking about you know this has been said you know talked about plenty at this point but I'm curious in the context of after automation this uh difference between like a job and like a task right so like AI right now very clearly can do a lot of tasks but it cannot do very many jobs or really >> any jobs or like there's a there's a subsection jobs that AI can do well 90% of the time, but even that is not enough to replace the role or function entirely. >> Yeah. And I I think this I think this all change changes and the and the lines between those terms are all going to change because they're all sort of relative to the capabilities of technology and and that's all changing too. But I can tell you that what we find internally at every and you know again we're one of those places if you at someone in Slack it's like toss up whether or not it's a bot you know um and uh everyone's using codeex and cloud code to doing do all their work every day in the engineering or like for writing for editing for design all that kind of stuff >> and I can tell you that um every agent needs a human the further away an agent is from a human who's managing it the worse it does Uh and you see this too in like even in this even in the scaled AI companies like inside of OpenAI or inside of Anthropic uh they do they do have uh companywide bots that you can you can at but they're run by teams of people and I think that that's actually a really interesting and pretty stable phenomena based on how how these agents work. Um obviously they do like more and more complex work but what we see is that um one of the someone on our team Kieran Clson uh calls it the the the human sandwich is is AI collapses uh collapses tasks that used to take hours into like you know a few minutes. Uh but the human is still kind of like the sandwich on either end or the book end on either end who's like framing the task or um evaluating it when it's done. And what's really interesting is even though it can do expert even though AI can do expert human work my experience internally at every and I think you find this across the like AI industry is it actually uh even though AI can do expert human work it actually increases the demand for human experts because what happens is you can get expert human work out of an AI you can get like pretty good writing or pretty good images or pretty good code, but it's all based on yesterday's competence. It's all based on what is in the training data from yesterday. And what that does is it floods the market with PRs or images or writing that's like kind of good but not quite right for the situation. And what you need are human experts to come in and and and take take the the cheap competence that AI enables anyone to have and turn it into actual really really good valuable differentiated work because otherwise it's it's just the same thing as everybody else is doing and it's not valuable. >> And um I think that's a I think that's a dynamic inside of how the models work and uh and how they how they function in the economy that is kind of lost when people are worried about oh yeah it can do all this great stuff. It can. And in order for that great stuff to be valuable, it needs to be done by a human. >> Excellent. >> What do you think about the the idea of like the YouTubification of software? Like Hollywood uh has been on a decline as creation and content creation has been commoditized and democratized. Uh but you've seen a lot like many more small creators pop up, many more lifestyle businesses, many more small businesses get off the ground. And uh it feels like that that is one possible direction that this goes like more niche software instead of needing you used to need to raise a whole series A from a venture capital firm to rack servers. Then with AWS, you needed to uh you know uh go through YC, be technical, hire a couple engineers. Now a few people can sort of get something off the ground. Are you actually seeing any movement towards that do you think? >> I think that's definitely a thing. >> Um and it's actually one of the one of the things that makes working at a place like every really appealing because if you're someone who wants to make make software, everybody else can make software now. So having having some sort of distribution and trust trusted brand makes a lot more sense than it used to. >> Um I think that I I'm I'm very bullish on people like a person or a small group of people making software for a niche. I think that's totally happening. But I'm very I think the the the SAS apocalypse is like totally overblown. 99% of people are not going to be vibe coding their own apps. they might do it once but actually maintaining software is really really hard and it's a particular skill set that most people don't want to have. >> Um and I would be buying SAS stocks because I I actually you know if you look at every we can vibe go whatever we want. >> It is a marriage violation. >> Yeah. The only thing I think the only thing I think about is um oftent times you're buying software for a certain group of people to sort of manage work and as certain workflows become agents then I I do I like like another way to put it is um a lot of people that are outside of tech that have been vibe coding are sharing apps apps with me that they've built that like the LMS can just do natively like pretty well already. >> And so that's been that's that's the kind of the the potential bare case for this sort of like super super long tail of software is like as agents get get more uh competent and people learn how to uh they're sort of like unhobbled there's a lot of this longtail that can just be like a thread effectively. >> Oh, you're saying you don't need an app, you just need to talk to people. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's basically like you're talking to an agent. It's like, "Hey, I want to get my Let's use the most broy example pro possible. I want to get my bench press to uh two plates by uh eight weeks from now. I'm currently at, you know, a plate and give me a plan to get there." Right. So, instead of needing like a >> you could vibe code bench press. >> Yeah. You could do like the Yeah. at distribution or you could or the customer could just wind up going to any >> and they're like cool and and they they generate you a workout you're saying great I did it I I was failing after three sets or whatever and then it learns that and it gives you a new workout and it and it uh just goes and goes and goes and you functionally get the what a vertical product could do. So I just think like there is an opportunity right now for this like long tale of apps but part of it is that people don't realize what the models themselves. >> I have a few thoughts there. The first the first thought is I actually look at that as training a customer >> and a customer that's going to really stick around with that is going to end up wanting things that just the bare thread in codeex is not going to do for them very well. actually chat is like not a very good um medium for for a lot of app interactions. So in the same way that Excel was you don't get the SAS boom without Excel uh Excel is like teaching people how to use computers in a way that then becomes enterprise SAS. I really think a lot of these um a lot of these uh codecs or chbt or cloud use cases are actually training potential customers who be who are power users to want to encounter problems that they want to buy software to fix. But I have a very specific prediction for what that's going to look like. Um, and I I I'm currently obsessed with what I'm calling codeex native apps. >> And the the basic insight is for all of these tools. So like cloud code desktop and codeex when they're built primarily for developers for now. And when developers are working in them, if you're changing your app, it has an inapp browser that you can use to like, you know, the agent's in there with you. you can like look at your app in in local hosts and the agents in there and you're you're going back and forth and it's very good a very good collaboration environment for developer. I think that is it's incredible for any kind of knowledge work. I spend all day just in codecs and when I open up a thread, I just open up a a browser tab and I'm in my documents, I'm in my emails and it's me and Codeex going back and forth on a SAS app that's running inside of the browser of Codeex. And it is the most powerful thing I've ever used. And I I really think that is going to be a um a significant user experience type thing that we're going to see across all of the uh all all of these uh provi pro providers of agent orchestration platforms for knowledge work. >> Love it. >> Uh do you think your agents are planning a surprise birthday party for you? >> Oh, >> happy birthday. Do we hit the gong? >> Yeah, we're hitting the gong. We're hitting the doing an early gong for your birthday. Wow. >> A little a little birdie. Dave Chuck in the chat said that said it's tomorrow. Great great timing for the 3-day weekend. Great timing for you to just lock in at your computer and just grind all weekend. >> Absolutely. Me and Codex are going to have the best birthday ever. >> Um, awesome. What uh what can people expect uh from every over the next uh call it month because that's like a year in in uh AI years. We've got a lot of good stuff. There's there's some interesting uh stuff coming on the vibe check front. Every time a new model comes out, we do some we do some good vibe checks. So, there's going to be some really good stuff happening in the next couple weeks. Uh and then we've got we have our agent product plus one and that should be in beta probably by the end of June. And I think that's going to be really really cool for people. >> Amazing. >> Uh great to catch up. Uh have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy your birthday with Codex and uh we will uh we'll talk soon. >> Thank you so much for coming on the show. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye. >> Up next we have James Rogers from Appeal Sciences. He is the founder here with us live in the TVP Ultradome. Maybe move these objects out of the way so we give you a proper entrance. Thank you so much for coming on down. How you doing? >> Uh please introduce yourself for everyone who might not be familiar. Introduce yourself and we'll go through the story of the company and talk about the news. Uh yeah, James Rogers. Uh thanks for having me down here. Based up in Santa Barbara, so easy to get down. Uh >> wait, yeah, why Santa Barbara? I I remember finding this out and it being an interesting tidbit. There's some cool companies up there. Sonos and uh isn't Dyson up there a little bit or something? >> Deckers. Deckers did. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Uh I went out there for graduate school to UC Santa Barbara. Did uh did my PhD in material science? Turns out that's the place to go for that. They didn't know. I was in Pittsburgh before that. got out to Santa Barbara and uh was doing my PhD in material science studying solar paint. >> Okay. >> Kind of weird. >> What does that do? You painted >> paint something. It dries into a solar cell. >> Okay. >> Like that. >> Where did that technology go? Is that still >> It's too expensive. >> Uh that was actually where appeal came from was Hey, >> power's expensive now though. Maybe the economics work in the data center era. You just paint the data center. >> What was your uh I'm I'm a gaucho as well. Uh, what was your reaction to touring UCSB for the first time? >> Unbelievable. I I came out to be >> because from the air, my favorite thing is like if you show someone a picture of the university from the air, it looks like it should be like a Four Seasons or something like it has no a university has no business being that close >> to an incredible beach. >> It doesn't make any sense. It was like ranked like Yeah, it was it was crazy. I I flew out in March. I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and they were deicing us on the runway, >> and then I land in Santa Barbara, and it's like, I'm not going back. It's it's too it's too nice here. >> Do you study material sciences? Like, where did the original idea for Appeal come from? >> I was I thought the paint thing was so amazing, you know? Wow, you can mix up a bucket of this paint and then it will build itself where you ship it. And but then I I realized how expensive that was going to be and went okay well >> that maybe the solar paint thing doesn't work but this there's something about this idea that you could >> technology that builds itself >> somewhere else. Um and I started I just kind of had that in the back of my mind and I learned about how many people were are not learned about we all >> learn we all know where people are going hungry. >> Yeah. But I never I never understood why. Originally I thought, "Oh, we're not growing enough food. We need to grow more food." Nope. We're actually growing twice as much food as we need to feed everybody already. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> And the reason is we're people are going hungry because we throw it away. >> Yeah. >> And so why do we throw it away? Well, we throw it away because it spoils. It goes bad. >> So the the initial product, are you in the lab? Are you on a pitch deck? Are you raising money and then going and doing R&D? It was all an It was just an idea on a on a sheet of paper, you know. I didn't know cuz I called my mom to tell her about this idea and she's like, "Sweetie, that sounds nice, but you don't know anything about fruits and vegetables." >> That is true. That is true. Uh but I'm like, "Well, I just learned all this, you know, I learned all the material science stuff, so I could probably learn learn the fruits and vegetables." And uh so I made a list, right? Cuz I didn't know it would work. Uh I didn't know that this idea would work, but I made a list of the fruits and vegetables. And just in terms of how long they lasted and the shortest ones are like raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, >> but what's at the bottom of the list, the longest lasting stuff is like mandarins, oranges, grapefruits. I don't need to know a lot about fruits and vegetables to know that the ones with a peel >> last a lot longer than the ones without a peel. Just put those words together. >> Yeah. >> Now we got to figure out how to make it. >> And that was the hard part. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Uh yeah. So what what like specific founder journey? you have this idea, you tell your mom about it. She's like, "Good. That's that's nice, sweetie." But you don't know anything about fruits and vegetables. And then what do what do you do next? >> Uh I you know, I actually didn't know what fruits and vegetables are made. I'm so I'm a material scientist, so I'm kind of obsessed with what stuff is made out of. >> And so the first question was, well, if you're if you got this strategy to allow fruit to last longer by strengthening the peel that's there, what's there now? >> Yeah. So it was starting to do, you know, I'd been trained for this, started to do research. What are the skins of fruits and vegetables made out of? And totally blew my mind because, you know, I've been working on these solar cells. So then to pivot and start looking at we don't think about fruits and vegetables as made out of stuff. We think of them as fruits and vegetables, >> but they're they're mixtures of really specific molecules. >> Yeah. >> And so it was what's the skin made out of? And turns out they're made out of these plant oils. >> Mhm. and was, "Huh?" >> Yeah. >> So, these skins are made of plant oils. And then it wasn't just that the strawberry, it wasn't just that the orange skin was made out of these plant oils. It was the strawberry skin was made out of the same thing. >> Mhm. >> And that was like a >> Yeah. >> a big like that was like a mindblower because it was, well, wait, if lemons last a really long time and they've got the same thing >> Yeah. >> as a strawberries, >> why can't you apply >> can we just do more of that? >> Yeah. >> And so Yeah. It's so it's so simple at one level, but we were so addicted to >> refrigeration and pesticides and and plastic wrap to try to address this stuff. This idea of using something plant-based was like at the time it was kind of kind of crazy. >> Yeah. So, uh, grant money early on. When does the business >> new new venture competition? >> New venture. >> We were like a UCSB. Yeah, I remember NVC. >> But wasn't that wasn't that like didn't you get like 25 grand or something? Yeah, we got like we got like 10 grand, you know, for for a rap student. >> No, I remember I remember I remember this this program and uh yeah, it was like it was really like venture funding for ants. >> My first company at least twice the >> size 17k first company for me. >> It's enough if you're eating ramen and just paying rent. >> I mean, my yearly salary was $24,000. So, this was like a 50% bonus, you know, it was enough to incorporate the business. first uh uh business address was on DelPlaya. No way. >> That is crazy. That's like probably the the most enterprise value created from a from an incorporation on Dela. Who >> knows? You'll probably get some dela is like uh yeah, just very notorious street. It's the street that runs >> it's the street that runs uh in Isa Vista, which is where the university is. >> Uh it's a street that runs along uh basically as close to the water as possible. You want to be on the uh you're usually surfing if you're on that street. Not necessarily. >> Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit. >> Yeah, we were at the end of the street, you know, I was in grad school. >> Good. No, that's actually good. That that means you're way more locked in. Basically, like the middle zone is a nightmare. I don't think any enterprise value is being created there closer cuz it's basically one you're farthest from the university, but it's like much more kind of you're closer to nature. It's a little bit quieter there, but you go two blocks down. negative enterprise value creation. >> Yeah. >> Um Okay. So, uh you kind of have this insight. You you have a little grant funding. >> Uh are you able to make MVPs with that grant? >> No. Was able to do the do the research and it got it got to the point where it was, you know, I I couldn't there was no proof that it would work. this idea that we could add we we could we could strengthen the peel and it would last longer. It's kind of the will the lemon last longer than the strawberry but will it work if we actually build a business around this? And so it was research research re you know measure measure measure but you know okay at some point I couldn't figure out I couldn't find a reason it wouldn't work >> but I also there was nowhere written that it would work and so it came to the point but >> how hard could it be? You just spray you just put some stuff on on an apple and leave it out. Right. >> Well, that's that's what's what's wild is there was when we >> and I'm joking when I say >> no no but but kind of I mean that was how simple it was supposed to be. But >> how do you tell whether or not it's working? Actually, it's kind of hard because normally if you were going to, you know, apply it to an Apple, you'd have to wait a month to see what happened. >> And that's just a really long >> iteration >> product iteration cycle. And so we actually developed these time-lapse camera systems was kind of our first product so we could see tiny changes. >> And so would you effectively like go buy two apples >> hopefully from the same orchard put >> same tree you had to do same tree. >> That was a big problem in the beginning. We were going to the grocery store and buying fruit and going like why does this one >> rot faster >> rot faster than this one? They came out of the same bin. Well, turns out those could be potentially from completely different countries, let alone different orchards or or different trees. And most of them have gone through this supply chain. You know, apples, you know, the average apple that's eaten in the US is a year old. >> Yeah. >> No way. >> Yeah. >> No way. If you're eating an apple in July, it's it's hitting its first birthday, basically. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> That's crazy. >> Yeah. >> That's globalized. We'd be growing them in the summer. >> I grew up in Northern California or something. I grew up in Northern California, so the average apple that I would eat as a kid, I picked off the tree. Yeah. Yeah. And we can get back to that. You know, we you keep hearing about this farm two table thing, but the two is obscuring everything that's happening. >> Okay. >> Right. You hear about what's going on the farm. >> Yeah. >> You hear, you know, you know what's happening on the table in the restaurant, but the two is like, well, that apple might have been grown in Chile and gone through a refrigerated supply chain with pesticides sprayed all over it and then fumigate it. Yeah. >> When it came into the country before it sat in storage somewhere and then you know you picked it up at the grocery store thinking it was fresh off the tree >> and and of course it's of course >> so yeah talk about the early business model the farm side the table side distributors supermarkets like there's a lot of different players in the supply chain that might be interested in the business. Uh how did you think about cracking it? >> Well we were we were so naive. We thought, you know, well, hey, if food lasted longer, more of it could get to people and so we'd be able to feed people and that'd be amazing. But it turns out that actually the early feedback that we got from customers was, I don't want food to last longer. >> The garbage can is my best customer. >> Every piece of food that you throw away is another piece of food that >> that I get to sell. So there's this crazy mismatch in incentive where you want to buy something that's better quality and longerlasting, >> but somebody earlier in the supply chain might not have any sort of of interest in that. So So we actually our first customer uh was right up the street from us. >> We make our product out of plant material. So we were looking for plant material and this guy was growing coffee cherries. I didn't know coffee beans like they're inside of a coffee cherry. >> Okay. >> This was news to me. >> Yeah. So, you got all these coffee cherries after you get the beans. We met this guy. We're telling him about what we're doing. He said, "This sounds really amazing." >> Can you do anything for my finger limes? >> Okay. >> And we're like, "What the hell is a finger lime?" You know, I've never heard of one of these things. >> And they're these little uh micro citrus. You cut them open, they look like caviar pearls inside. You put them on oysters and salads and this kind of stuff, but they only last for 5 days. >> And he lived right up the street. So we started working with this small farmer on these caviar limes cuz his thing was he had to air freight these caviar limes to places like Chicago and New York cuz they only lasted for 5 days these fancy restaurants. And so we started working with these caviar limes and gave them the ability to put them on on trucks basically save saves them a ton of money. The you know now they last 20 days instead of 5 days like everybody's happy. Um but then we started going and saying okay well let's do this again with you know other suppliers in other categories and this is when we got the feedback from them saying >> we don't need it >> we don't need it you know actually maybe maybe you guys should just stop stop doing this >> um and what but what we did find >> did you ever get a visit from Big Fruit coming in saying hey buddy >> it's like the guy the guy >> they were they were you know you guys probably have some of their masks around here. I've seen it. Uh yeah, under different under uh in different clothing. Um >> yeah. uh you know actually our our first work that we did in the industry uh we were working with a we were doing a demonstration with a huge citrus company and we were high-fiving because we're looking at the data going this like we just won contracts with the biggest you know suppliers in the US and the data they came back with didn't look anything like our data >> what does that mean >> they said hey your product doesn't work >> okay interesting >> and we we were >> totally knocked backwards because we've got the exact same fruit that we bring back hold and make the same measurements on they say no it doesn't look anything you know your product doesn't work >> it almost completely blocked us out of the US market >> wow >> you it's such a small industry when somebody starts spreading rumors that oh this >> so you think they were you think they were they were just they were just basically lying to you >> their their data didn't match our data >> interesting interesting >> didn't match our data and it's and it's such uch a tightly controlled industry that >> you know we were locked out so we actually had to go to market originally in Europe. >> Oh interesting. >> It knocked us all the way over to Europe. It's that tightly that tightly controlled. >> Um but what we found it was was that in Europe people were looking for this. Okay. >> People were looking for a way to have access to healthier fruits and vegetables that that waste. They had huge initiatives around this even like companies were like the retailers were actually talking about this uh kind of stuff. >> Uh and we started with we started with avocados >> because of the joke with the avocado. Not now, not now. Not now. Now too late. >> Too late. >> And it solved this the the you know this challenge that we had where the supply chain wasn't so interested in having food last longer, but the retailer was. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because if they bought an avocado and didn't sell the avocado, that was a waste of money for you. >> Dude, my my UCSB days, avocado was such an extreme luxury that the joke of like, not now, not now, not now, now it's bad or whatever. Like, that was so real. I was like monitoring my avocados, being like, I can't I cannot let this go. >> Yeah. >> Um, and it's cuz they're breathing. You don't think about it, but fruit is still alive when you pick it. At least you want to be eating it while it while it's still alive. >> Yeah. >> Uh and it and it and it has a certain number of breaths. So at the end it's breathing, breathing, breathing. It eats up all the energy it's got inside. And then if you eat it afterwards, you're eating dead food. And most people in the US are eating dead food. >> They don't even know. Yeah. >> Because it's dressed up in wax. >> So retailers would actually uh acquire produce from a distributor and then apply appeal to the product. >> Here was here was what was so problematic was the retailers loved it. >> Okay? because now they're able to buy food that they can actually sell and they were actually telling their shoppers about this. >> Yeah. >> But that mean that meant they had to, you know, they're they're not growing the food. So they have to tell the suppliers, hey, we want you to use this product. The suppliers hated this. >> Absolutely hated this because they don't they had pretty much shut it down. >> And so the retailer starts telling the suppliers about what they need to do in their business. And don't get me wrong, we were a headache in their operations because we were this, you know, we were this new thing that they had to do and these things have been operating the way they've been operating for, >> you know, hundred years. >> Yeah. >> So, uh, but that's the way that it had to that's the way that it had to happen, uh, in the US was was from the retail side, you know, pushing back into the supply chain. >> Sure. >> And so, what year is this when this starts working in Europe? >> 2019, 2020. >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah, it took a while. I mean >> and you had already raised at that point like hundreds of millions of dollars, right? >> I think probably we had raised a hundred million about by then, you know, when we when we uh raised some money uh from the Andre Horowitz guys, uh we used the entire world's supply of our plant extract to to treat the avocados that we shipped up to him >> beforehand as a as a demo. We shipped up like a a a case of avocados and said, "Hey, put these out >> on your desk." So that when we got, you know, sat down in the meeting with Mark, it was, "What happened? What happened?" That was the world supply, >> right? Bet it all. >> Bet it all. That was it. Yeah. Bet it all. Burn the ships. >> So you raised some money. What did it look like actually scaling up your supply chain? >> Oh man. uh you know when we first started like I said you know the the we were when we first started we were getting you know these coffee cherries from this local farm and then we were extracting these material we were extracting these these oils basically >> but it was >> super expensive to do because it wasn't a scaled up process and so we started with extracting these things ourselves in the lab just using like laboratory procedures it wasn't really for any sort of commercial purpose other than hey this can work. We had to show that this could work. And so in the beginning, it cost us something like, you know, a hundred bucks to treat an avocado, which it's not going to work. >> That's not going to work. But once we once we figured out the mixtures of these plant oils, >> then we could figure out, okay, how do you optimize the process to be able to isolate these things? And it turns out there's a really efficient way to isolate oils. >> Distillation. >> Yeah. You you it it's it's the same way that they you know get alcohol out of boil it off. >> They you boil it off and and you can do this thing called precision distillation which basically allows you to separate out really specific >> really specific oils. >> Yeah. >> Uh and that turned out to be a a super scalable, super cheap >> because you can do it in a bigger and bigger vat bigger flame, bigger centrifuge if you need that, whatever. And you just you pull vacuum, you heat it up a little bit and you're able to separate it out. >> By this point, did your mom think that you had figured out fruit? >> Uh, it was so cool. I would go home for Christmas and, you know, my my mom would like collect the little appeal stickers like off the fruit that she bought. And that was just like, man, like that was so cool like >> to to just have, you know, like to have my mom go to the grocery store we went to growing up >> and be able to like have our have our product cuz growing up in Michig I grew up in Michigan. I'm not a California guy, but I I I love it out here, but I didn't grow up here. >> And I it was just night and day, you know? I'd go back to Michigan and go, "Oh, yeah. Most people I mean I didn't experience what good produce good produce was living in the Midwest. >> Yeah. I mean I I've spent basically my whole life in California and so always had access to farmers markets and sometimes the farmers markets are selling product that isn't actually that's not really like the the farmer is not present and maybe not even in the state. But oftent times oftentimes it's you know it is hyper local. So you get super spoiled living here. you get super spoiled living here. And and you know, I I I one thing I've come to realize is if you don't know the person growing your food, >> they don't have a lot of incentive to do the right thing for you. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> You know, it it's just people sell food based on price. And if I have a lemon that's coated in pesticides and a lemon that's not coated in pesticides, you can't tell that by looking at it. And this one's cheaper. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> the one coated in pesticides is cheaper because they have less, you know, less less rot. >> So, you buy the cheaper one and the person who's doing the right thing doesn't get rewarded for it. So, there's just this horrible incentive in these supply chains to cut corners and do stuff that is horrifying. >> What did you learn about the organic the like just organic as a certification and the issues of that? We had Brian Johnson on the show recently and he was saying like >> he actually assume often times will assume that organic food is going to be more contaminated and worse for you than the non-organic just because there's all these like workarounds and >> I and and it's that it's it's marketing. organic is is marketing and you know there's a whole agency there's agencies set up just to certify products to be allowed for use on organic produce and there's this kind of I don't know where this idea came from that organic produce meant no pesticides or no coatings or better for you but look at their actual marketing they never say that stuff >> oh interesting >> they never say that stuff cuz it's false advertising you they can't say that >> so But the but the the brand is, you know, oh, this this apple was picked right off the tree and is now in the grocery store. It's just absolutely not true. >> What is an inorganic apple? Just like computer chips and aluminum or something. Aren't they all organic? They are literally organisms, right? >> Yes. >> Definitionally, >> you you got to you got to go to you got to jump on the marketing. You got to got to put your marketing hat on to understand what they mean by >> but I mean that that's ultimately like part of the problem is that like you were sort of attacked with like like a aggressive marketing campaign against your product right and kind of cuts both ways like take us through that part of the journey like did it start like a low rumble and then turn into like a firestorm >> we yeah oh man PTSD just even thinking about it that's all right we should talk about it because if you're building something right now this is the playbook they will use against if you're going after if you're if you're threatening some incumbent. >> Yeah. So, set the table for us because you've raised some money. The business is working. The product is working. >> You're in enough stores at this point. Your mom is buying hundreds of >> hundreds of employees employees in the stores. The stickers are find pulling off the stickers. We got distribution. >> Not like she has to go to some special store. One of >> like 60% of the avocados that are being sold in the United States are with our product. And we are we are announcing a kind of a firstofits-kind uh partnership with a with a supplier supplier of lemons. >> And he goes out in the media and does a press release and says, "This product is amazing. I want this product on every I'm going to I'm going to treat every lemon in the world with this product." and people didn't like him. >> Boom. He gets doxed by these like video campaigns like put his phone number up there. Uh he's getting death threats from from uh from saying that he's going to do this. Um, and this what we thought you because the original I mean we we saw I mean I I remember our one of our guys coming to me and saying you know hey we're you know someone's saying our product is uh is this uh cleaning agent that's being marketed in the UK. >> Yeah. >> And it was >> it was a similar name was that >> exact same name. >> Exact same name. >> So it's not even a shared ingredient. >> No. >> Okay. It's >> because sometimes there's there's precursors like, you know, I I can drink dihydrogen monoxide. That sounds very scary. That's of course H2O. That's water. Dihydrogen monoxide is the scary version. You might find dihydrogen monoxide in bleach. You might find it in cleaning products. That's not even what's going on. >> Totally separate company. Okay? >> Totally separate company. Sold as a cleaning product. >> Okay? >> Also with the company's name. >> Two po two posts at the exact same time go live on Facebook. This is a toxic product with a link to this >> this other company. >> This other company which is a cleaning product which of course >> you know is not something you should be eating. Right. Exactly. >> And it just >> and they don't want to put their cleaning product on your food either. Like two separate companies. >> Yeah. There's Yeah. Right. Exactly. Different solutions for different products. Specific ones for food. Yeah. >> Of course. >> Uh and this this thing and this thing just goes goes crazy. Yeah. >> And you know and then you know the attacks morphed into so we we you know we thought we cleared this up. Hey >> look this is a cleaning product. This is this is our product made from plants. >> And they morphed the attack into they they they couldn't find anything wrong with our product itself. So they morphed the attack into this is a Bill Gates >> Bill Gates thing because of the nonprofit donation. We got we got a hundred grand in 2012 to research cassava root. >> Okay. >> Which we don't even have a product for today. >> And then we got a follow on grant for this cassava project for a million bucks. I mean we've raised $800 million. >> And and but that and but if you go online, you look up our name, you'll see. >> It's not board seed. It's not >> nothing. I've never even met this guy. Zero involvement. Zero involvement whatsoever. We got a check from from a foundation that he that he donates to. By the way, like let's talk about all the other people >> who donate to this foundation. >> Yeah. >> We get we get these these donations. >> Okay. >> To work on cassava root, which you probably never even heard of. It's a starch source in subs here in Africa. It's kind of like an equivalent of >> Sure. Yeah. >> But you have scientists. You have researchers that could potentially dig that up. Like the coffee cherry thing. We're we're in we're in the business of hey if you're growing food and it's going bad can we figure out how to fix this >> and and then and the result of that might not be a business might be more of like a research paper or a study where you took the cassava route ran it through some lab tests try to >> figure out what was wrong does your product work do other products work understand what's going on >> do try to figure this out and we we actually did figure it out it's a totally different >> way that you solve the problem but I mean that's what the money was for to figure figure that out. So, >> absolutely no involvement. But if you search our company's name online today, it's like >> Bill Gates's appeal. And I'm like, >> how did that happen? You know, >> and and for a while we thought this is people are just confused. >> Yeah. >> Until we started until it didn't stop, you know, and it didn't stop and and it just kept morphing slightly and new photos would come out and the charge would change. We started mapping it and we started mapping back the accounts and we started looking at the timestamps and we started looking at the the accounts that were quickly reposting this stuff and it's completely coordinated. >> Interesting. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Because people I feel like when when like there's an organ >> because there are there there's plenty of like controversies that are entirely organ and well or entirely organic, right? Uh there's there's a bunch of stuff uh online this week from a certain uh from a certain sort of like health platform. >> Oh yeah, you mentioned >> that uh that a lot of companies have had problems with that um and that is like genuinely organic. There's a guy running a platform that rates foods and he has his own >> scheme but yeah >> well he has his he has his own >> but it's an individual. It's not >> it's one individual. It's not like funded by a specific group. It's just kind of like one guy running a business that >> seems to be at odds with a bunch of companies. Um, but but yeah, like at first you're probably like, am I going crazy? Like why does this keep like >> people are just confused, you know, that like the truth is a powerful thing, you know, obviously the truth will kind of come out about this. >> Sure. Sure. Sure. >> And it it didn't >> it just it just didn't. And they they started activating real real people. Okay. >> Some of which were real. >> What was the long term? What do you think their goal was? >> It got to that point, but they started activating them to call our retail customers in the United States. >> And one by one, we got dropped by every single retail partner that we had in the United States. That boulder that we'd rolled up the hill for 10 years just rolled all the way back down. That's >> in the US. >> It was devastating. I mean, I had I had to let go hundreds of people that I cared about. Our entire US business got got destroyed. destroyed. >> What was in the tool? >> What What year is that? 2024. >> 20. Yeah, it was about It was like starting to happen. In 2023, we started to lose some accounts and in 2024 was really when, you know, started to go just like it just went to zero in the US. >> Wow. >> And it was double down in, you know, South America, double down in in in Africa, double down in in Europe. >> What else was in the tool the tool chest at that point? Like did you consider just a full rebrand? Maybe tucking the brand further up the supply chain so that the sticker is not there like >> what did you consider? Would you wind up doing? >> Yeah, I mean it was it was it was pretty existential for us because you know when we first started talking to retailers we were saying hey you should put a sticker on this food because it's better for your customers. And the push back that we got was, well, if we start telling people that your stuff is better for them, what are they going to think about the other stuff? And so, you know, the joke's on us now, right? >> Yeah. >> Um, but so it was it was really existential for us to say, well, let's not tell people about this because our whole ethos was, hey, people should know what's on their food. If they knew it was on their food, they're going to prefer this is going to be something that they that they buy. >> Yeah. But the conversation was, well, these these attacks aren't organic attacks. People, you know, organic people are some people are getting roped into this thing. That's kind of how they work. >> Yeah. >> You know, they they're like there's somebody kind of behind it, you know, planting the seeds. There's machinery and then they're just trying to find vulnerable people. >> Yeah. >> And, you know, make their personal mission. >> And make it their personal mission and and they were really successful at that. But, you know, when when it's a deliberate attack on the business, it's not a confus it's not a confused thing. You change your brand. It's they're just gonna follow you to whatever you you know, whatever you shift your brand over to. It almost looks, >> you know, it even looks like you're running. >> It looks like you're it looks like you're running. >> And so, I mean, we've been building this this playbook um from scratch. If there's other, you know, founders out there that are building stuff that is that is threatening someone in an incumbency position like this, I'd love to talk to them and share what we've learned because the beginning is just completely disorienting. Nothing makes sense. Stuff's getting said that just has no basis whatsoever and you're trying to you just think the whole world's against you. You know, you you in a little you kind of shut down a little bit. And it's not until you really get your bearings and you start to see, you know, see the the kind of systematized nature of these things that you realize actually there is there is someone behind this and you can start to figure out who they are. It just takes a really deliberate effort and now you're a a fruit company. >> Yeah. learning how to do digital forensics. And you know, >> well, and you think of the timing with all this, there's so much uh mistrust of the of the health system and the and the food system and uh you know, billionaires uh and you combine all of those things at once. It's like there's so much kind of >> it's also something where >> perfect story >> the there the the buyer is almost everyone everyone has an opinion about food whereas there there have been somewhat even like more way like your scandal doesn't seem legitimate at all. There's been legitimate scandals in like enterprise software for example, but there are like 10,000 buyers or a 100,000 buyers. And so it's not something that goes viral again and again and again. And if you're even if you're a consumer of that piece of technology, but it's white labelled as under the hood and that particular buyer was able to sit down and understand the more the deeper context. Uh you have to win over like this mass of humanity basically all the food buyers which is everyone. on the TAM is everyone which is the beauty but it cuts both ways. >> It cuts both ways and and what we find is that you know most actually majority of people haven't heard about this. >> Yeah. >> But a small percent of people have heard about it >> who writes the reviews online happy people. >> It's the you know it's it's the it's the not happy people and it's the people who are part of a system that's trying to stop something from from happening. >> That's so interesting. >> Uh what where are you at today? Uh, so the business is the business is going strong outside of the United States. It's >> it's dystopian for me to walk into a grocery store in South America and find our products and to walk into a US grocery store and see everything still treated with wax and pesticides and go, >> "How is this possible? There are better options that actually help people are better for the world. Eliminate plastic, eliminate pesticides." and we don't have access to them in the US because a small group of people want to want to bury these options and technology is happening technology growth is happening in every single industry except for food. >> Mhm. >> How is how is this >> which is insane given how much how much uh of you know consumer wallet goes towards this category how how much of you know that is the human experience. It's like you eat and then you're waiting around to eat again. Like that's why >> it's often the best part of my day. So I get that. I resonate with that. Yeah. >> Yeah. It it is it's truly mind-blowing and and just how disconnected we've gotten from food. >> Yeah. >> You know, like >> most people's connection to food is they go to the grocery store and they pick up a piece of food. You know, I I I I started growing, you know, a lot of food, you know, tomatoes, um you know, peppers, this kind of stuff. >> There is something amazing about growing food. and we've gotten totally dis disconnected >> with that. So, I'm optimistic about this future where we actually are able to, you know, people are starting to feed each other >> again. People are, you know, you're growing tomatoes, you're growing carrots, you know, we have the opportunity to trade those with each other because that can actually happen at a smaller scale if you're able to match the match the supply and demand. And so, that's one of the things that we're talking about a lot. How do we Yeah. >> How do we help small producers, community production in the United States where we can actually empower people to grow their own food, trade it with each other so that they're able to to feed each other, feed communities, and not be so dependent on this monolith where we're growing food halfway around the world? >> Big fruit that tried to kill you in the cradle. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other lessons for entrepreneurs? I mean, you mentioned like uh if if someone is going to war with a major industry uh that's alive that's allied against them, uh there's there's worries there. Uh do you is there any not to put like you know like uh dig up potential like Monday morning quarterbacking but is there any thing where uh like trademark searches could have avoided this? Is there something where like if you could play back and think five steps forward is any of this predictable? Is any of this uh like you know preventable? I so when we started the business uh it we were I think we were in a different we were a different era when we started the business in 2011 2012 sure social media was not what it is today >> and I I've experienced you are just vulnerable to a different set of attack vectors in in the modern era >> and you know if if if I could you know go back and talk to myself you know five years ago would have been to acknowledge hey we're in a different era Now, in terms of where the vulnerability can come from, >> yeah, >> on my list, you know, on my list never would have been, you know, someone's going to say that uh Bill Gates owns your company and it's part of a global depopulation agenda. Like, that would not have been on my list. You're like, make a make a list of a thousand things. It would have been >> very hard to predict. >> It would now. And it and it should be on it would now. And it and it should be on everybody's >> three of the deck. like actually maybe make your maybe make your Thanksgiving dinner productive and that you know that that relative who's got all these theories >> tell them about what you're building and just say hey what >> what's find some flaws my business >> find some flaws in my business flaws in my business >> and let's talk about that and actually like maybe it's like a write off now because you got some good advice from uh that that aunt or uncle >> yeah that's very funny I mean I had a uh there was someone who had a uh like a regional uh like sauce business and they bumped into another regional sauce business like halfway across the world that like the two companies never would have ever competed in the same name space, but because of social media and the way things fly around that both of these like sort of storied brands in their local communities are now like butting heads and suing each other. And so that stuff happens all the time. It's very hard to predict. >> Confusion. >> Uh what was I gonna say? I yeah it's it's also the mentality when like your mentality as a founder you discover this problem you discover an innovative solution that's aligned with uh uh nature's own approach >> and you come out and you're and and you're like I'm trying to fix like a a systemic problem and so you're coming in with the attitude of of um uh as like a good actor like operating is like I'm a good actor. I'm trying to solve a global problem for humanity. But when your solution becomes misaligned with someone else's business model, >> um the way those uh the way those and and I've just seen this with um I've seen this with a bunch of companies specifically in the in the um any for some reason like health uh anything like health supplements like food is just like becomes like hyper hyper political really quickly. it becomes super emotional. Yeah. Uh what starts as being like, you know, concepts grounded in science quickly becomes um something else. And I've been shocked because I know, you know, I know a bunch of uh like health podcasters that have gotten into controversies over um you know, and uh and and health brands and uh it is it's been wild to see so many people that I know personally that I believe are >> waking up every day trying to create the best possible product for humanity in a category or create the best possible information for people. uh and then they become uh they become the enemy because of some other force >> in the world and it's it's a real >> it's a real challenge um yeah I uh I'm the co-founder of a of a water filter uh company and uh my journey into that business was uh realizing that there were so many companies in that category that were selling water filters which you you you are relying on this device to provide clean water for yourself, something that you're consuming all day long. And I was looking around the category and I was I found uh I tested a filter early on and the filter was adding heavy metals to the water. >> So it was like it was like I found a filter that was like very popular. You >> turn it around. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exact. Exactly. Uh but I found this filter that was like a very popular filter. I got independent testing done on it. I tested like 10 10 different filters that were popular on Amazon >> and mult multiple of them were adding heavy metals to the water. So you take water >> uh that that is like maybe not clean and then you come out with water that's certainly not clean. Yeah. >> Uh and and that was this crazy moment and then um as that company you know the company's done >> uh quite well in part by trying to you know over test overshare all these things. Uh but there's still again immediately after launch there was uh legacy brands that that were trying to say like >> oh they didn't you know you know trying to discredit like the lab or or all all these different things and it's like uh and again it does get um you have to just you have to just like go through it and and continue to >> lead with transparency and science and all these things but there are uh it's a >> it's not a it's not an approach that that that I can ever think about doing, right? Of like I never, you know, I never would go out and try to mislead a bunch of people >> about you can't even imagine like you're like a golden retriever. We we talk about we talk about >> great dogs. I don't take that as a >> No, no, no. We talk about we talk about we talk about we have a bit where like golden retriever mode. It's like you should just be like, you know, you should be like friendly, happy, uh, and high energy. Um, and like a golden retriever, a golden retriever cannot imagine like attacking, you know, uh, like some kid running by, right? They're just focused on the ball, right? They're focused on the ball. And so, as a golden retriever entrepreneur, right, you're just focused on chasing the ball, right? Chasing the dream, >> uh, trying to solving the problem, >> solving the problem. Uh, and there are there are pit bulls out there. that doesn't overthink things and it's like in this case maybe like like to the point of like what's on the third slide of the deck. It's like maybe you should have been overthinking but that's not good advice. I don't know. >> You know that's that's who I am. That's what happened to me uh when I said kind of I you know it really like uh was despondent for a while. That's what happened. You know, you go out into the world and you're told do the right thing, >> be a good person, work hard, >> you know, find good people, work with them, build like like you know, like create something like good that helps us >> that your mom is going to be proud of >> that your mom's proud OF THAT YOUR MOM is buying in the grocery store and then this stuff happens and you realize that the way that you thought the world worked >> is not the way that the world worked. It's a golden retriever going to the dog park for the first time >> running into there's a pit bull at the dog park and you're jumping around chasing the ball the pit bulls. It's like welcome to the park. >> Welcome to the park. Yeah. >> And you just go okay. So for a while you just go no that's you know I don't want the world to work the way. But then eventually you go well I can either complain about the world this way or I can acknowledge that's the way the world works and go from there. And the damning thing about this for innovators is >> they don't have to con they don't have to change people's minds about what your product is. They just have to make them suspicious. >> Yeah. Like the US FDA, >> they just have to make them suspicious. And not only the FDA, the European Union, which is like 100 times more >> like they're the most strict like regulatory agency in the world. >> Yeah. And it's like there's like a million there's like a million products that we that are in our grocery stores that can't be sold there >> that can't be sold like 4,000 approved I think in the US and there's like 400 in Europe. Ours is one of them. There's literally no upper daily intake limit of our product. You could just eat it as food. >> You're not on the Prop 65 list. California. >> No. >> That's insane. >> Everything's on the Prop 65 list. >> We would definitely not want to be on that list. These are these are There's a lot of Prop 65 list remarkably low. Like you walk into Starbucks, I don't have a problem with Starbucks. Uh it's on Prop 65. And I'm like, "Yeah, okay." Like they're being extra safe. And >> yeah, that's the thing. There's there's supplements there's supplements that people take that are on that >> Prop 65 >> list, right? Which they they're probably unaware of at some level or they just like, you know, >> it's sort of like the most conservative, but to not even bet on that is crazy. >> Exactly. Wild. Yeah. It it it's plant oil. >> Yeah. >> Like if you've eaten avocado oil, coconut oil, like that our product is in is is an ingredient in those oils. Like you don't think about again like you don't think about fruit as having ingredients. >> Yeah. >> It's it's a mixture of different molecules like >> oil. You're not even you're not even eating it. >> You're not even eating the skin. >> You're not even >> Which is even which is even crazier. So these attacks like these comments come up and it's like this is like poison and you're going >> well first of all no. Yeah. >> And second of all, >> even if a such an incredible level crazy. Yeah. Walk outside. >> So, what is the uh you don't strike me as someone who's just going to who's going to give up? Like, what's the path back? What's the path back to? >> You know, the internet kicked our ass. And so, I've been it took me a while to think about it, but I started flipping around and ask the internet for help. I've been offering bounties to people to help track back >> figure out what happened. >> Figure out what happened. I've just been posting them on Fridays. I haven't figured out what today's is going to be cuz I submitted one I put one out last week and I just >> blew it blew up the number of people who are sending stuff in. So, >> I'm really bullish that the same way, you know, right now there's no incent there's no cost to somebody perpetrating an attack on you online. >> Sure. Sure. >> The bots do their thing. They repost stuff. They like they whatever they share. They they manufacture engagement and it goes. But they're kind of doing it with impunity because nobody's taking the time to be like, "Okay, who's this user that commented this thing?" Oh, weird. They normally just talk about anime. And today they started talking about >> Yeah. No one is clicking through. >> Nobody's clicking through. They're just seeing the headlines. And actually, if you just give a little bit of Well, this is the experiment I'm running right now. If you give them a little bit of financial incentive, turns out there's tens of thousands of people who will spend >> an hour, you know, going into this stuff, especially with especially with AI. So, I mean, that's the vector that I'm going with right now. I I you know, I think we're in the I think >> you got to go all the way to Joe Rogan. This is the start. >> You got to go straight to the top. >> He's mentioned this a couple of times, >> you know, but he seems but he seems like somebody who would uh uh be naturally skeptical of technology with food because he's like, I like steak and like >> our product is also in by the way, right? So, he should be down with this. But yeah, no, he's he's had a couple of guests. >> Pull that up. Click five links deeper. Get to the And you don't have to go you go one, see the real story >> and like you just see how people work on social media. Like I hate to say this, but like I'm sitting on an airplane. I can't not see what this person's doing one seat over to the right. Like, >> and this is the move. Scroll, see something, click comments. >> Scroll, see something, click comments. So, doesn't matter what's posted. >> Yeah. I don't I'm not People don't form their opinion till they see the first couple comments. And so that's how they hijack Yeah. That's how they hijack what's going on in your brain. >> They just they just control the comments. They they control >> No, there's going to be there's going to be some truly insane documentaries in about 10 years about this era of the internet and how people started. I've seen this in, you know, AI is so hyper competitive and there's like this insane, you know, horse race and I've seen uh earlier this year I was starting to see posts that would have like 20,000 likes on 200,000 views, three comments. >> Getting a 10% like rate is like not a thing, especially on X. Like like there's a handful. And so you're like, "Okay, well, >> who's actually engaging with it? is clearly getting a lot of views, but it's not necessarily reflecting, you know, >> it's not real. >> Yeah, >> it's manufactured. >> Last question for me. >> Have you been keeping tabs on the other appeal, the clearance company? Like, wait, because their business buys actually now we are those guys. >> We got to have that on. Now, we keep your floors clean and we keep your fruit fresh. >> Yeah. Because I'm I'm just wondering because obviously they would be probably unaffected, but at the same time, they probably have some confusion. People are like, "I thought you were a cleaning company. You're doing >> Wait, your floor cleaner is healthy now?" >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do they have a knock-on effect? I don't know. That's an interesting thing to dig into, but we'll follow up with you on that one. >> Thanks so much for coming on and breaking it down for us. This is a fascinating story. I know it's obviously a really hard journey, but I'm extremely optimistic. >> If somebody else learns from it, >> I'm really happy. Thank you for coming and sharing with us. This was fantastic. Have a great rest of your day. >> It was a great time. >> We'll catch up. >> Yeah. >> Uh what do you want to wrap up with, Jordy? I mean, we could we could go into the the Warren Buffett of London, but it's a long it's a long story in the Financial Times. We can save this for another one. Uh I did think this was interesting. His children's investment fund has become the fifth most profitable hedge fund of all time. What a good name for a hedge fund. Children's investment fund. doing it for the children and beating the benchmarks. Chris Hone, he's been honing his skills. What else? Sworn in today. >> Sworn in. >> Frank says, "Good luck, bro." >> And the prediction is that there will be a rate hike or something like that. I saw I saw both both uh both a cut and a hike uh predicted uh kicking off with good vibes potential for a hike. But I think the market is pricing in uh a a rate increase, not a rate decrease, which of course is what uh a lot of folks have been hoping for. But uh with the economy heating up, uh maybe a hike is in order. But uh there will be a whole bunch of knock-on effects from this. I wanted to talk about the robotic legs, the exoskeletons. Would you rock these or would you be sitting it out? The Hypershell X Ultra S is an exoskeleton that the Wall Street Journal demoed. >> Thousand watt hips. >> Thousand watt hips. You wear these and they help you hike and run up hills. >> I listen to too many shows with with Palmer Lucky where he talks about uh the the capability of an Iron Man suit potentially just ripping you apart. And so I would be a little afraid. Uh but also imagine, you know, a bad actor. Remember all the DJI drones had like a back door >> Yeah. >> bad actor takes over your your your your and then it makes you Michael Jackson and it badly in front of your peers >> potentially. Potentially >> could be wildly embarrassing. >> I guess I I'm unclear on >> the goal cuz couldn't you just go on a short shorter hike or a less steep hike to make it easier? I guess if you want to see the top of a big mountain but you can't make it in a certain amount of time. Explain the market. Are you in the market for these? >> Uh, yes. These are sick. >> Yes. When >> your answer is, couldn't you just go on a shorter hike? >> Yes. Like if this allows me to go on a six mile hike. Couldn't I just do a onemile hike? Could you take a car? >> Can you just stay home and >> take a car or a helicopter? >> Like you don't like this is sort of an in between thing. When When are you actually deploying this? I bet you if you get these Maybe we have to order these. I think we have to order these for Tyler and >> just drive up like a massive mountain. >> We're getting you these. They're they're two grand, but we're getting you some, and we're going to see if it transforms you into Iron Man. >> Uh, also, uh, Cattle, CL, the Chinese EV battery giant, is investing in Deep Seek. Uh, some big rounds going on. Also, BY waking up. Remember, remember, this is what AI20. They predicted that BYD would get an F1 team. That's right, >> which is what happening. Which is what's happening. At least they're in talks. BYD is in talks with Christian her over entering F1. That would be pretty crazy. Does BYYD have any uh gas powered ice engines? I don't know. >> They're about to >> They're about to Who knows what else gone, >> folks? It's Memorial Day weekend. >> Yeah. Go have fun. We'll see you Tuesday. Have a good rest of your day. Have a great weekend. Leave us five stars at Apple Podcast and Spotify. Sign up for our newsletter, tbp.com. >> Been an honor. and we will see you >> tomorrow weekend. We love you. >> Goodbye.