An ex-Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning comes at a very interesting time

0:00This episode of Equity is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric, your energy technology partner.

0:05Anthony Ha: An Anthropic researcher publicly quit this week over concerns that AI companies racing to superintelligence are gambling with our lives. And one of Anthropic's own alignment leads had the numbers to back them up. Also this week, Apple unveiled its foldable iPhone and leaned hard into its always-on listening AI features. Plus, we're keeping an eye on a couple of deals this week, including a rocket startup that raised a billion dollars to take on SpaceX. So stick around.

0:42Anthony Ha: Hello and welcome back to Equity TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups. Today is Friday, September 11th. I'm Kirsten Korosek, Transportation Editor here at TechCrunch. And I'm joined by our weekend editor, Anthony Haw. and senior reporter special projects, Sean O 'Kane. The band is back together. Welcome back, Anthony. From vacation, I hope it was a good one. And I know you've just been back a couple of days, but I have to ask, I know that Sean has absolutely seen this, but Anthony, have you watched the trailer to the new Elizabeth Holmes documentary, which seems to have captured everyone's attention.

1:22Anthony Ha: Everyone's talking about it right now. That is correct, yes. Well, I can't speak for Sean, but but i've watched it and i found it excruciating fascinating i mean it's it's this very weird just one clip from the documentary but it's it's hypnotic and unforgettable take a million chances and i don't think you could land on a better person to put out something more interesting at this point than nathan fielder uh especially after there's been a book a podcast uh you know multiple like sort of tv and film projects all about theranos like it's been told again and again But this is something that I'm sure will stand on its own, to say the least.

2:00Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, like you said, Sean, there's been so much about Theranos. It's also this fall that it feels like we're just going to get so much kind of tech misbehavior content. There's going to be a Facebook movie, an open AI movie, a documentary about Elon Musk. And this feels like it broke through in a way that none of those, at least in the promo, have. And I think it's because of this just very weird combination of like Nathan Fielder, who's such a unpredictable kind of unique filmmaker and and Elizabeth Holmes and people are just like, what is this going to be?

2:33Anthony Ha: And I'm excited and terrified to find out some of my favorite, you know, other media outlets. It's one of them called The Autotopia and very like car geeky. But they just like already made hilarious memes based on it all on the premise of, you know, in that trailer. It's like he knows she's lying. She knows she's lying. He knows she knows she's like, I mean, it's like it's this weird cringe moment in which, you know, it's it's very memeable. And I predict that we will enjoy memes based on that one clip alone, let alone like reminding the our listeners, it's three hour long documentary, apparently like packed full of surprises, which to Sean's point, I'm not really sure how you pack any more surprises in a story that's been covered to death.

3:17Anthony Ha: But here we are. I want to jump right in, though, to something completely different, which is talking about AI and the Doomer mentality that has sort of been popping up in the last week in specifically this anthropic researcher. Yeah, a researcher at Anthropic named Jacob Coxon sort of abruptly resigned and warned that he thinks that everything is, you know, what they're developing there is going to end humanity if something isn't done. You know, something that we have heard many times before in different ways, in different forms and I think we should probably talk a little bit about you know why this might be different and why it isn't different but you know it's just one of those things that blew up in a way that I don't I mean other than like the Elizabeth Holmes documentary I can't I'm hard-pressed to think of something that blew up so fast this this I think even transcends that by a mile because in large part not only did this warning shot come out from this researcher this young researcher who has also worked at OpenAI, but also was sort of immediately shared on X by the alignment lead at Anthropic, who, you know, in what might go down as one of the, I don't know about misplaced, but best misplaced exclamation marks ever, shared, you know, Coxon's post and thread and said, we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans, exclamation mark.

4:48Like, just so what a weird vibe that I think that was just a ton of accelerant on an already fraught, you know, sort of post or series of posts. And yeah, I mean, I think this coming after the hugging face hack from OpenAI's internal model and all of that. And plus, I think just the increased capabilities we've seen with the latest models released by Anthropic and now OpenAI with Astra a few weeks ago, it was just, I think this was just perfectly timed to be a powder keg type of thing for you know this young researcher to say just to disagree with you on or or to riff on one point that you made Sean I do think that if you believe that uh AI could destroy all humanity that does deserve an exclamation point and I I would argue that that is a perfectly well used exclamation point I think that my yeah my issue with that tweet maybe was more the sort of like oh we the we which is also you're like who is the we here how, you know, to what extent can we talk about sort of the AI community or AI research community as a monolith and like the greater than 10 % chance where at that point you're like, okay, now you're just, that's just a made up number.

5:55That's like, that doesn't mean anything, which I think, you know, I think is sometimes this habit in both in the tech industry and other places to just sort of throw out these percentages that are just like based, like made up. They're not like based in anything or calculated based on anything. I think that the other, I will say, before I start rolling my eyes at some aspects of this, the one thing I will say about Coxon's statement and decision is that I do think there's this recurring theme on equity, but just also more broadly around AI is when someone like Sam Altman or Dario Amadei is doing the sort of doomer narrative.

6:30There's always this element of like, well, then why are you doing what you're doing? If you actually believe that, you would not continue doing this. And so this is actually somebody putting his, you know, his professional, you know, you know, trajectory where his mouth is. He's actually saying, I believe this is really, really, really bad and I don't want to keep working on it. And so, you know, at least props for having the courage to do that, if nothing else.

6:56Anthony Ha: Yeah, I would say for him, I put him in a separate camp than everyone else saying that and talking about the dangers. And I have I'm going to put my speculative hat on it because I want to ask both of you a question, which is, is it possible that every single time we see the increasing number of blog posts about yet another incident in which one of their, let's say, AI agents breaks through unintentionally, or they talk about how humanity is at risk? Is this a weird way of flexing to show how far advanced their company's AI model is? I mean, that sounds very cynical, but it does achieve that purpose, which is if these AI models weren't advanced and weren't capable and weren't breaking through, we wouldn't have to worry about these things.

7:43Anthony Ha: Right. But here they are. And in a way, it's like a very weird way to to brag about your capabilities of like the models that you've created within your own company. I definitely wondered about this. And again, it's something we have talked about a little bit. I don't think it's completely cynical in the sense that I don't think it's all just a kind of very conscious marketing ploy, you know, across the board. I think that when these, you know, a lot of these people, whether the researchers, CEOs talk about it, they do have real concern. But of course, yeah, it does align with their business interests in a lot of ways to say, wow, we've built the most, you know, deadly software that's ever been made.

8:29And I think it also there is, I mean, I don't want to get too like psychoanalytic here, but others have pointed out that there is this sort of temptation on like a personal level of, well, of course you want to believe that the thing you're working on is the most important and most dangerous thing in the world. Yeah, I think the thing that sticks out in my mind when I think about that question is there's certainly an element of that that makes it seem like, okay, we're doing this thing that's so capable and that's good for us in some way, even if it looks bad in a lot of different lights. I think what's different about some of these most recent examples is like it really gives you the feeling that these companies don't have a handle on this stuff, you know, in certain ways, especially with the open AI stuff.

9:17Like we're keep seeing more and more reporting about other internal agents that have accessed different wikis on the web and are leaving messages for each other. And in a way that doesn't seem like, you know, it's being handled in a competent way from from open AI. I would imagine there would be just a bit more polish on the story being told if it was wholly about getting people to believe that, oh my gosh, they've made something so incredibly capable. the other thing that I think is really fascinating about this you know in particular what Cox was saying about Anthropic and sort of the alignment leads sort of backing them up immediately is you know we're what a few weeks at most out from seeing Anthropic's S1 filing for its IPO and and just a couple more weeks or month or two away from a potential IPO and like the idea that you're going to come out and say these things in this, you know, sort of clear language ahead of an IPO.

10:21Like I'm very interested in what that means for that process. You know, how much of this kind of stuff had they already written into the S1 and the, and the risk factors inside that document? Are there, you know, junior lawyers right now who are going through and having to rewrite that entire section of the S1 filing to say, you know, it's officially anthropics position that there's a more than 10 % chance that, you know, we could develop something that would eradicate all of humanity. And that would be bad, you know, materially bad for our business.

10:56Anthony Ha: You're assuming that it's not in there already, though. Like it is possible. Is it in there already and being rewarded? Or is this something that's like a true scramble? I'm sure there was some kind of, you know, there has to have been language in there. It's like one of the reasons I'm so eager to read this document in a way that I, you know, goes even further in some ways than the SpaceX one, because I'm sure that there's probably stuff specific to these ideas that that will be interesting to see. Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, here's the thing in a traditional investment environment, one might believe that language like this would hurt the valuation of a company because it's suddenly dangerous.

11:35Anthony Ha: But we don't live in normal times. And so, again, back to my point, it's a weird it could end up being a weird beneficial flex for the company on the valuation side. And, you know, it's not the same as the whole rage baiting trend that we saw, you know, last year, but it's in that same, let's say, universe in which the strength, capability, even elements of danger of something equals a valuation, a high valuation. So I guess we'll see in a few weeks. I mean, the reporting right now is that this IPO is going to be coming sometimes towards the end of the month. My question for both of you, though, is, OK, putting that aside for a minute, what is being done about it?

12:23Anthony Ha: And can we control this? We had recently the U.S. executive director of a nonprofit called Control AI, Connor Leahy. He was on the show this week sort of talking about this. So, I mean, what are you paying attention to in terms of how to control the dangerous aspects of AI? Or are we throwing up our hands and, you know, watching it all unfold? I myself do not necessarily have a great answer to this, but I have been thinking about some aspects of this debate and maybe why I respond the way I do. I mean, first of all, in terms of just why I'm often rolling my eyes a little bit at the Doomer arguments is I do, you know, to echo one of Sean's points, I do think that part of what this speaks to is the extent to which these, you know, major AI companies are feeling like they're not really in control of these models anymore.

13:15And I, you know, believe that that's definitely not great. That is something that we should all be worried about. I do think that part of the reason I'm skeptical of the Doomer narrative or resistant to the Dooper narrative is I think that it can blind it, it because it reaches this sort of a level of hysteria of, wow, we like this could destroy humanity in the next 10 years. It sort of can feel like it is a little bit of a distraction from the more immediate harms that I can have, whether that's labor related, whether that's environment and climate related. And, you know, ideally, I think we should be able to discuss all of these things and, you know, have regulatory and other kinds of safeguards against all of these things.

13:53But because I think once you start using phrases like AGI and superintelligence, it seems like that just kind of sucks up all the oxygen in the room in a way that I think is not very helpful. And then, you know, often, you know, as again, we've discussed here, like there's this discussion about sort of like, should we slow down? Should we sort of put brakes? And I think, you know, I think that's probably a good idea. But I feel like what that also obscures is then, OK, great, you slow down and then what? Like, what's the different direction we're going to take? That is maybe a necessary step, but like, that's just the first, you know, then what?

14:30Anthony Ha: Well, and then also there's this whole other argument happening in the background that, well, we can't slow down, though, because China. And so that is also become this, I guess, excuse maybe to continue to push forward. Not only that, I mean, look at the way these companies are built at the moment, like they are just not built to slow down. They are built on the premise that the numbers are going to go up faster than anything you've ever seen before, in part because that has been true in some capacity about, you know, overall user base and and revenue growth and all that stuff. but you know questionable in some other capacities and it's just you know when you look at the amount of investment that's coming in the amount of investment even as some of these newer models get more efficient and sort of blunt some of that cost they're just not built in a way where you could slow down and they won't collapse i just don't i don't see it you know for as many bills are being proposed and as much conversation is had about okay can we put checks on this within our country?

15:35Can we do a diplomatic solution that crosses the US and China and turns it into like a sort of almost like disarmament or sort of stalemate situation like we have with nuclear weapons? Like, it's just so hard to see any of that happening unless the fundamental way that these companies are built at this moment changes. And I don't see that happening either. What moves our world forward? Energy. History has been shaped by it, revolutions won with it, and progress dependent on it. For 190 years, Schneider Electric has been a leading force in this story, creating the technologies that harness energy and transform the competitive landscape.

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16:59Anthony Ha: lot of the rhetoric that was happening around how AI was going to kill us. But this was an important event and certainly one I think we should talk about, which is this is the handover, the official handover that we've been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks with John Turnus now as CEO, new foldable phone, and importantly, I think AI components. And I'm wondering, you know, I know what stood out to me, but I'm wondering what really got your attention at this Apple event. There were a few different things that I think we can cover, but certainly what they put front and center was the AI element.

17:35And that was both surprising and not. I mean, not surprising because there's just been all this reporting about Apple trying to kind of play catch up in AI and all these issues trying to do an upgraded version of Siri and kind of trying to reposition itself. But there was this sort of cognitive dissonance in seeing all this sort of negative stuff around AI. And then, you know, you just have this incredibly brightly colored marketing video from Apple just being like, great, we're going to build AI. The iPhone is the AI device of the future and sort of just kind of like really trying to pitch that future.

18:12And I think in some ways they are trying to kind of implicitly address some of these concerns, like within, you know, I don't know, like two or three minutes of the beginning of the event. They're already starting to talk about privacy and things like that. So it's not as if they're, you know, not acknowledging potential downsides, but it was a little bit of there was there was some whiplash. Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I mean, we were talking about this just last week about like. How this felt like a pretty good first step for Ternus as far as like what we thought was lined up for him to introduce on the hardware side, being product guy, all that stuff.

18:49But I also thought it was interesting. And I think a lot of that was true, right? We could talk about some of the specifics if we want. But I thought it was interesting that he started the whole thing by really stepping back in a way that, you know, I think echoed Apple's earlier messaging when it was really on the come up, you know, 25, 30 years ago and becoming a force in kind of everyone's lives. And and and almost to a certain extent, like kind of the way that Jobs introduced the I the original iPhone, where he was saying, like, OK, you know, for this moment in time with this access to this incredible technology, you know, if you were to build a device that would give you access to it, what would you want that device to be?

19:30It would have all of these characteristics. Right. I mean, it was pretty clear where he was going with it. He was going to just, you know, oh, look, it would be the iPhone. Like, sure. But I just thought it was an interesting thing. You know instead of he could have come right out and just tried to like make a big splash immediately and show off the folding phone Instead of saving it for the end of the event like they did You know there were all these different ways he could have taken it and I just thought that was an interesting strategy for an otherwise You know event that was typically It was very much the script that we've seen from them since the pandemic right like it was it You could have pulled turnus out of this event and put Tim Cook into it and it was the same flow, the same sort of stage direction, you know, not even on an actual stage, all recorded.

20:14And it was just, all of that felt very familiar, but I did think that that moment, that beat at the beginning was interesting. We had a little bit written about it on the site too. I know Sarah Perez called it out in the story, and Tim Deschamps also did. I just thought that was, you know, it's a way for Apple to sort of position themselves while also not being a leader in the actual development of, you know, large language models or other frontier AI.

20:39Anthony Ha: Well, and it also, I think a little bit to Anthony's point earlier, sort of addresses some underlying concerns, which is like, what's the next device going to be? Is it what's the next iPhone going to be for Apple? And, you know, they addressed it in a couple of ways. First of all, foldables, I think, is an acknowledgement from them, even as cool as it is, and I'm sure it will sell well, it is not likely going to be the ubiquitous product, hardware product that we see everyone using with, let's say, the iPhone or the iPod before, in part because not everyone wants something that large and also it's just very expensive.

21:17Anthony Ha: But it does show and display their prowess for both hardware and software. To me, though, what they really were addressing here is there's been these questions around what AI wearable they're going to have. And they answered it with, you know, maybe I'll be wrong and we can all talk about how I'm wrong a year from now if they come up with some actual wearable. But I think what they really talk about is, hey, we've got a watch and you got a phone and we're going to embed our AI in it. You don't need another AI wearable like what OpenAI is reportedly working on. And you saw that with some of the AI features rolling out with the watch, which to me was far more interesting than the foldable, especially because there's a couple of audio intelligence features that really allow you to record all the time from your watch and create these AI summaries that will be generated automatically.

22:14Anthony Ha: which by the way hilarious because you know apple also at the same time talks a lot about privacy and we now are having to get used to this moment where not only are you going to be potentially videoed everywhere but um recorded everywhere as well um but to me they don't need a hardware like wearable they have them already they do and they don't like i don't think i'll go out and say it like I don't think this watch feature gets used all that much and I also don't think it'll be very good not only because there's already sort of a backlash to it from people who you know think about the idea of their watch always listening to them and you know there is a I think there is a palpable difference between your phone already always being ready to answer if you ask for the digital assistant and something that's actually like literally strapped to you and I think you know, we will see if Apple's able to get over that that hump.

23:11I just don't. They certainly didn't demo it in a way that we could understand how good this thing, this feature is going to be able to listen to you in any kind of not quiet environment. Right. And so it's just one of those situations where, you know, I think this becomes a thing that Apple showed off and ultimately fades into the background where I do think it shows up is there's been a lot of reporting about what the company wants to do with the next generation of AirPods Pro, where they may even have cameras on them. It seems like they're going to even have cameras on them, not necessarily to take pictures or anything, but for visual intelligence and being able to understand what you're looking at and be able to ask questions about it.

23:51To me, the feature they're talking about on the watch here is pretty clearly like the first cut at what those AirPods Pro are going to be able to do when we see those probably next year. that is a much different conversation than I think this one, which I ultimately think will be a limited thing that people forget about eventually. I mean, the other kind of reported product that it made me think of is, you know, the, the smart glasses that, that Apple is supposed to be working on. And, you know, there's been importing from Bloomberg that, you know, that, that's been pushed back a bit because Apple is trying to figure out like, given that again, you know, I think metas like Ray-Bans are both popular, but there's also like very, very significant backlash to them.

24:31There's sort of this nickname that they're pervert glasses. And so how can Apple do that in a way while still pitching itself as a privacy centric company? And I think, I mean, again, these products are not identical, but I'm very far from it. But this is in some ways a test case for can they say, hey, we built these devices that are in many ways a surveillance risk, but we're going to build it in a privacy centric way. So it's okay. Are people going to be okay with that? Or are they going to reject it?

24:58Anthony Ha: Well, to Sarah's point, she was trying to normal. I mean, she her headline was even like Apple's trying to normalize the idea of this, which is it can be, you know, we have these privacy protections, but also all these devices you use may be capturing data to deliver some sort of value to you. Sean, your point about the AirPods or your watch, whether or not that feature gets used a lot, we'll see. And your phone, all of a sudden you have all of these other, you know, all these existing hardware devices that are essentially capturing all this data. Yeah, I mean, they were also pretty explicit in sort of calling out other companies.

25:37They didn't name them, but other companies that are making devices that are always listening. There are many startups out there right now and even software companies that are promising technology like this through your browser or your phone or whatever, sort of attacking them in some level of collecting that data and using it nefariously and saying that Apple won't do that and that it's going to keep it on device as much as possible. So it's clear, I think, where they're going to try to draw that line. And it's just a matter of whether people will accept that. I will say really quickly on the fold or the iPhone duo, as it's called, you know, it does seem like an uphill battle because it's a form factor that hasn't been widely adopted here, but it is widely adopted in China.

26:18And I know that Apple is angling towards that. You know, it seems like they they will have a pretty good chance of it being a very successful device there. And the other thing I'll say is one they have made it look very compelling in a way that I think most Android foldables don't look because when you open up an Android foldable you have an Android tablet and Android tablets are pretty bad historically. Apple tablets are better in a lot of different ways. But the other thing is like they're introducing this at a time when they're changing also how you pay for their devices by, you know, getting rid of the more traditional iPhone upgrade program and going to a lease model that goes across all of these devices in a way that, you know, just makes it far more palatable to get into a device that starts at$2 ,000.

27:06if you're only going to be paying$60 a month, quote unquote only, only going to be paying like$60 a month or a little bit more for a year or two to get access to that device. And I think it's the timing of all of those things puts them in a position to have this be more successful than any of the other foldables that we've seen. You know, to Apple's credit, I will say that I started watching this presentation and having had never had any interest in a foldable phone, Like every foldable phone I've seen has just immediately turned me off. And then at the end of the, you know, that segment, I was like, huh, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

27:43And then, you know, you find out the price. You're like, no, absolutely not. But, you know, we'll see how it performs. In the meantime, we do have a few startup deals to talk about. The first is a rocket startup called Stoke Space, which raised$1 billion. Kirsten or Sean, do you want to kind of talk about the basics?

27:58Anthony Ha: I think that this company is really interesting. It seems to be very buzzy, you know, word on the street from, you know, our reporting staff here, Tim Frinhels, who's been covering Stoke Space, but also from others I've heard is that everyone wants to jump in on this and on this company. And I think that that really interesting thing and Sean covers space a lot. So I'll let him talk more about or more specifically about it. But it's a fully reusable rocket. But importantly, there's an important key difference between what it's trying to do and what SpaceX has achieved. But, you know, the company has raised two point three billion in total.

28:36Anthony Ha: This round was led by point seventy two ventures, which is important because this is Steve Cohen's fund. and he's well known as, you know, a billionaire hedge fund guy. And I think he owns what? Baseball team, right? So, you know, yeah, the Mets. So he's well known and that's an interesting person to be leading this fund. But Sean, you know, what is it that specifically, you know, my understanding is that it's that the other stage of the both stages of the rockets are reusable and that's where the real value is. And that's what really is driving investor interest. Yeah, well, I think it's twofold.

29:14One is that what you what you just described, SpaceX typically is only recovering the booster stage of its Falcon 9. With Starship, they're looking to make both stages, the booster and the upper stage reusable, but they're not quite there yet. And so, you know, going at that problem to lower the cost of access to space from the from the jump with this is an interesting problem to try to solve. The other thing that I think is really interesting and makes it not terribly surprising to me that they were able to close such a big round is the landscape here for a lot, you know, prospective launch companies is just totally different than it was a year ago where, you know, a year ago it was like, how are these companies, you know, some of which make even smaller rockets then, you know, how are they going to compete with SpaceX?

30:01SpaceX is the dominant launch provider on planet Earth and has all the business and all the relationships and all the government contracts. And the answer at that point was like, OK, they're going down in size to launch smaller satellites, perhaps. Or they're using like really radical different ideas like slingshots to get access into space without using rockets at all. and now as SpaceX has all but come out and said that it's going to retire its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy in the relatively near future and focus completely on Starship Elon Musk has said that pretty explicitly recently on X that just totally changes everything I mean like all of a sudden these companies like to have a rocket that is you know relatively directly competitive with the Falcon 9 all of a sudden there's a ton of demand for that because all these not only are there are people who are trying to get stuff into space you know who exist right now but there are all these other startups that had spent the last decade building prospective businesses on the idea that SpaceX was democratizing access to low earth orbit and all of a sudden that rug just got pulled out from pretty much everybody and not only that Starship is you know the original designs and you know sort of concept drawings of Starship and and things that SpaceX said made it seem like there was going to be a more traditional payload on the upper stage of Starship.

31:21That's not the case anymore. Now Starship's upper stage is pretty much just built to launch Starlink satellites, you know? And so like, if you don't have a payload that can't slide out that little door that they built for those satellites, you're kind of out of luck. And so all of a sudden there's just a ton of demand for companies like Stokespace because there's just going to be a giant gap in that launch market, you know, for the foreseeable future. I also just wanted to quickly mention that I think their CEO is saying, you know, kind of repeatedly that they're going to have their first launch in early 2027.

31:52So for those of us who are not investors in Stokespace, we'll get to see how real a lot of these promises are going to turn out to be very soon.

32:00Anthony Ha: Yeah, I'm sure we'll be covering it. But Sean, you made an interesting point that relates directly to the next deal I want to talk about, which is this idea of, you know, a seemingly much smaller startup breaking into a sector within an industry, in this case, reusable rockets, that seems to be dominated by a large player. And this isn't space related, but it is AI related, which is Cognition. They're the startup developing the code assistant, Devin. they raised two billion dollars at a 48 billion dollar valuation but to me what which is okay let's let that sink in for a second okay and then um you know to me this valuation seems to signal that vcs still see room for multiple major players um in the market of ai coding which you know again goes to this idea of can a new brand new startup in this case cognition relatively new you know break through when it seems like there is already, you know, major, dare say, legacy, which seems weird to say in the AI coding world, but legacy players that, you know, seem untouchable.

33:10Anthony Ha: And it seems like the VC community actually believes that there is room for new players. Yeah, I think that it's not quite that they're brand new, which I think, you know, you did add some sort of nuance there. You know, even though I'm not a programmer myself, it's a company I've heard of before and think of as sort of, you know, one of the leaders in the space while not also being kind of at the very top. And so on the one hand, it can seem kind of like a bet on like, yes, we think there's going to be, you know, a lot of winners in this, in this space, which I think is probably true. And it's also betting on the ones, the one space where AI has made the most headway and been the most transformative so far.

33:47So, you know, in some ways it's probably like, if you're like, well, this is the area where we know this is going to be and already has been a big deal, we need to have our bet in that, then I think it also makes sense that, you know, a bunch of investors would have piled on here. You know, Silicon Valley people like to talk about how you should never bet against Elon. And, you know, I understand why the guy has made many different companies have very large valuations and has made many rich people along the way. But I think there's an element of this deal that speaks to another aspect of Elon that doesn't get talked about as much, which is that like he tends to grab.

34:22I mean, we just talked about it, right? He tends to grab things and sometimes just hoard them, you know, for his own company's benefit. And that leaves space for other people to come in and make the product that's available in a way that, you know, Musk has changed that availability, right? Like he has absorbed cursor. The cursor branding seems to be going away. It's not that they're not selling those products anymore. They certainly are. But it just leaves room for a company like this to come in and take up some of that space in a way that I don't think we would have seen quite so strongly if cursor was still independent.

34:56Anthony Ha: Yeah, that's a good point. And I'm curious to see, you know, as the Elon universe grows, if the M &A, you know, piece of it continues and they erase these companies as they acquire them. I want to we're almost out of time, but I do want to sneak in one more deal just because I think it's so interesting, which is this nuclear startup called Blue Core Energy. They raised a modest$50 million seed round, which seems so delightfully small compared to some of these mega deals that we've been talking about today. But they're really interesting because they're working on small nuclear reactors on barges, which is, you know, an interesting twist to this.

35:41Anthony Ha: So, you know, I don't know if you either of you have followed what's happening, but But to me, there is a lot of investor interest in any kind of power based startup because of the adjacent power needs in with data centers and AI. So we're, you know, small nuclear reactors. The idea behind that have been around for actually quite a long time. But at least on my end, I keep on seeing a lot of deal activity. And this seems to be reflective of that overall trend. I mean, when I saw this headline, I was like, yeah, this just makes sense for all the reasons that you just said. I do have one dumb question, though, which is why on barges?

36:25Where are the barges going to be? In the water, Anthony. Just like in the ocean, like in, you know, just like in rivers across the United States, like anywhere. Like why? Why?

36:35Anthony Ha: Yeah, just floating around, you know. They will not be apparently on fixed locations. And I guess the idea is that then they can be transported or more portable to go to where they are needed. Obviously, there's certainly a lot of questions around like how portable safety anywhere in the world. I mean, there's a lot of questions there about that. But but yeah, the basic premise is that the power comes to you. Data center needs power spins wheel. We'll use nuclear spins wheel and we'll put them on the barge. Sure. Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons I was curious about it was because obviously sort of the backdrop of this is that there's a lot of opposition to data centers right now.

37:19I think that's also increased the interest in nuclear, but I don't think like that means people are immediately just like, yay, great, like build a nuclear power plant in my backyard. That's totally fine. And I'm curious, like what the reactions will be like if in some ways, like, well, this is like a moving barge will make it less people less freak out. Or does it just mean more people will freak out? Because it's like, well, this nuclear power plant will be in your backyard for like a couple days, but don't worry about it. It's totally fine. So I guess we'll see.

37:43Anthony Ha: I don't think it's going to be just a couple days. And to be clear, like this is a company that just came out of stealth. So it's very early days. They came out of stealth in July. They have two barges in the water already, and they are going through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Coast Guard, Department of Transportation, all of this to get their design certified and they are right now in the port of Long Beach. So my my my educated guess here is that they're going to be here for a while. And, you know, many years down the road, we'll be back on equity to talk about them finally getting approval and launching.

38:21Well, we have covered a lot this week, so we better wrap up. Of course, equity will be back next week. And then in the meantime, you can follow us on X and Threads at Equity Pod.

38:33Anthony Ha: equity is hosted by tech crunch senior reporters and produced by theresa loconsolo with editing by cal subscribe on youtube or wherever you get your podcasts and find out what's next at techcrunch.com slash events thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time