Cursor Acquisition Closes, Bezos x Liverpool, Flying Roadster, Car Week, Gen Z Trends & More

28:09But John Stokes says, by their own terms, they made morals and virtuous behavior the object level in the AI debate. That's literally Anthropik's whole frame. So why are the morals of the people who are giving AI its morals, not fair game? Yeah, if anything, it feels like it disrupts some of the brand positioning around morality, makes that maybe less effective. It is fascinating, in my view that this kind of coverage didn't happen like a long time ago yeah but that's normal for the for the for the mainstream media like anthropic was not an interesting company to write about at the wall street journal or the information even like last year it was like a i mean it was a great yeah but even like the images that are in the wall street journal piece are from February, right, where they're together.

29:04And you would think that somebody would have asked, who's this person that Dario is holding hands with? And then tried to get a little information. And the internet was mostly scrubbed, but you could just look up her name in the Epstein files, public federal database. It actually did hit the timeline. Someone was just digging through the Epstein files in February and posted it, but didn't make the actual connection, which is very, very, very interesting. They were just like, here are all the crazy interactions that I found while digging through the files. And this was one of them, the actual interaction.

29:41But they didn't piece it together fully. Obviously, the context of being in the journal is a very, very different thing. Yeah. Anyway. Anyways, probably overall, mostly just bad for the AI industry overall. Yeah. Yeah, Nick Carter sort of summed it up here. He said, remember, if Anthropic wins and Close Source wins, these are the people that will get to write the morality rules for the entire planet. And so it maybe is worth interrogating the morality, seeing if you agree with this stuff or not. This is the beauty of America. You get to read the information, the freedom of the press, and then decide where you sit on all of this.

30:22In terms of how bad this is for the AI industry, it still feels like it ranks below data centers and below ripping up old books. I don't think this will get that much traction online, but I don't know. There is a whole class of political commentators that are hyper-fixated on the Epstein class. And so this could grow, but it feels like it's arm's distance enough. It's not Dario, it's his wife, and it's not her going to the island. It's her emailing him for fundraising that they didn't actually do a deal together. And so there's like a number of steps removed as opposed to with the other stories.

31:01It's much more like this data center came to town and is dirty and I don't like it. And so you post a video of that, and that's like much more direct. So of the pushback, this feels like it will rank lower, but I don't know. We'll see where this goes. Obviously, it's tearing through tech today, but we'll see if this is something that has long-term impact on the industry or anything like that. Anyway, let's move on to something else. Public.com, investing for those who take it seriously. Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries, and more with great customer service. And there's a story that I didn't even remember to put in the timeline, but it is related to trading stocks publicly.

31:42South Korea is ordering new investors to take classes. Did you see this? Whoa. Okay. So South Korean - It's time to study the blade. Literally. This is a cultural pastime. This is crazy. You're going to learn how to use leverage. Yes, basically. So South Korean retail investors must now complete a week-long course before - Week-long. A week-long course before they can start trading in single stock funds as regulators tighten restrictions on products blamed for exacerbating wild swings in one of the world's most volatile stock markets. So the move follows an extraordinary boom and subsequent correction in South Korean equities.

32:24The KOSPI rose 76 % in 2025 and then doubled again this year, peaking at more than 9 ,300 points in June. Retail investors poured a net$70 billion into the market. And remember, South Korea is not nearly as big as America. And so they were all YOLOing effectively into the AI driven rally like chip makers, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. The rise coincided with government efforts to boost the market. Single stock leveraged ETFs in the two companies were introduced in late May, allowing investors to magnify bets on Korea's semiconductor champions. Then at a press conference on June 8th, President Lee Jae-myung said that the market was still, quote, somewhat undervalued despite having hit about 8000 points.

33:17So you have the president of the country being like, we got room to run. Now is a generational buying opportunity. I wonder if he'll also get into selling early access to his comments on the market. Maybe. Maybe that's just the new meta. A lot of people have been sort of disgusted and disappointed by that kind of behavior over here. But maybe it's just the new normal. So the rally unraveled in July with the COSPI falling 22 % for its worst month since the global financial crisis. The finance ministry announced measures to limit access to leveraged ETFs. Many retail investors have suffered significant losses in single stock leveraged ETF craze.

33:59And their perception of those products has changed. investors bought Samsung and SK Hynix leveraged ETFs in late May and held them until mid-July. They lost about half their money. New investors and single stock leveraged ETFs must now complete at least one hour of simulated trading a day for five days. So it's not a 40-hour course. It's one hour a day of simulated leveraged trading for five days straight. Then you will be allowed to trade on these platforms. They also have mandatory military service. So now they have mandatory day trading. Mandatory everything. At the end, they go, that wasn't a simulation.

34:45You weren't trading the real market? Yeah, it's Ender's Game in Korea. You just secured a generational bag. That was real money you were trading. I wonder, it'll be very interesting to look at the data from what the traders do in simulation versus reality? Like, do they take more risk because they know it's play money? Are they actually learning? When I'm in a racing simulator, I do drive a bit different than when I'm actually on the track. Okay. Okay, we'll see. Presumably this would teach the wrong instincts, right? Because if you sit there five days in a row for an hour. No, obviously they're trying to show people that if you are trading with leverage, you just lose a lot of money often.

35:28You're just going to get wiped out. So you're like, okay, I got wiped out on day three. Now I'm not going to get wiped out when I go into the real market. Wouldn't you want to instill, you should just buy and hold, right? But if you had to sit there an hour every day, you're not just going to press buy and then sit there. It's going to teach you like, oh, you're going to be doing zero day actions for sure. You're going to be going crazy. So a quote from a sole resident in Boston. Yeah, it is funny to think about. If you were, let's say, if as a team we were forced into a week-long day trading course, you know that we would probably have some side bets on who could run it up.

36:07For sure, for sure. As high as possible in simulated trading. And so it probably does. We were really close to actually doing that and having that be like a show segment between the retail corner. The retail corner. The retail corner. He was having some wild swings. But a Seoul resident in South Korea who lost money said this. He said, it does feel a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Though it's better than doing nothing. Saying like, I already lost it all. I don't need a course. Is that a real quote? It's a real quote. That feels very borrowed from the American South.

36:49Yeah, it's great. It does feel like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. I like this. We've got to take a trip to South Korea. However, there are signs that tighter market regulation is cooling the market. Daily turnover in single stock leveraged ETFs on July 30th fell from$12 trillion to just$70 billion. So that's a huge drop off, 90 % down on the actual trading volume. And for Yoon, the South Korean resident who lost money, it has done little to restore faith in policymakers. Investors like us have grown increasingly resentful. Trust in the government has been severely shattered.

37:31He was counting on the government to stop him from going too crazy in the financial markets, and they did not. and he's upset about it. He's not happy. So interesting, interesting development. We'll see where it goes. Let me tell you about console.com. Console builds AI agents that automate 70 % of ITHR and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. John, it's time to talk about Car Week. Okay, let's do Car Week. But first, before we talk about Car Week, we're going to talk about Tesla Nears unveiling of radical new flying Roadster. So if you remember, probably around six months ago, whenever Elon did his last appearance on Joe Rogan, he was alluding to the idea that the Roadster might be able to get a little bit of airtime.

38:23Anybody that is done driving in the backcountry knows that all cars can get airtime. But I don't think that's what he was alluding to. I don't think that's what he's alluding to. I think he was alluding to some set of features that allow it to fly. And I don't know what flying is, right, is flying an inch off the ground. If you're moving it at 100 miles an hour, maybe. So there is a Chinese car that can jump over a pothole. Extremely relevant for Los Angeles. We've got to get this car here to change all the tariff rules. but some sort of, I think it's a BYD, can actually change the suspension so aggressively that it can jump while traveling.

39:10And we said like, okay, the gauntlet has thrown down. Jumping is not enough to go viral. Jumping will not satisfy the criteria of flying. So it has to be able to probably go more than six inches off the ground, maybe a full foot off the ground. It has to be able to stay off the ground for, I don't know, a few seconds, 10 seconds. My speculation was that it would be able to use the thrusters to lift off the ground and parallel park directly in. That was my prediction for something that would satisfy flying without actually being just, oh, you can just fly it from Malibu to L.A. I think that that's probably not in the cards, but I think that it has to have a crazy demo.

39:57It has to look crazy. It has to have crazy stats, but it also has to have a crazy viral video demo where you show it and you're like, wow, no other car can do that. Not even close. But the information has the exclusive. The crazy thing is that even as far back as eight years ago, there were patents that Tesla filed related to using effectively rocket-style thrusters in a vehicle. And people were already kind of chattering around then. Is Tesla going to make some type of car? The collab. The SpaceX collab. They have the rockets. Yeah. If Tesla comes out with a Roadster that has a SpaceX, it's like basically some type of SpaceX engine.

40:41There's probably, I would put it, now that the company is public, there's probably 10 ,000 buyers for that car. Like you can imagine a lot of people. It's 20 times the Audi new Volari. It's pretty wild. Well, the Audi new, the new Volari is like intentionally. Yeah. You know, the other thing that they could do is they could go out to the salt flats and they could set the world speed record, the high speed record. Because a rocket engine on the back of a Tesla going in a straight line would, they could probably break the speed of sound. And that would be amazing. It wouldn't necessarily fit the flying criteria, but it'd be flying across the salt flats, so I'd give it credit.

41:23But it needs a crazy twist, I think. Between Elon's promises, this is Grace Kay in the information this morning. Between Elon's promises of super nimble robots and interstellar colonization, the billionaire has spent plenty of time over the last decade hyping up another ambitious effort, the next version of the Roadster, the sporty electric vehicle that first put Tesla on the map. At first, he said he wanted the vehicle to be the fastest production car in the world. Then he said he wanted it to be crazier than every fictional James Bond car combined. And he wanted the car to be able to fly. Don't the James Bond cars have guns and missiles on them?

41:56Yes, they do. Ejector seats. I mean, I guess you could get a, like, in order to buy the Tesla, you have to have an FFL. You have to have a firearms dealer license. Oh, a dealer license. Dealer license. Okay, so it's basically a gun store on wheels. Exactly. That would be very American. You can't get automatic weapons. You can't get silencers. All these things are heavily restricted. But if you go through the process to become a gun store, you can get a lot more crazy stuff. So maybe that's just the process. So Musk's directive sent Tesla designers down a rabbit hole that lasted years, delaying the cars.

42:33Released the company, first showed a prototype design of the vehicle and began accepting reservations for it in 2017. Since then, it has chucked that design completely and come up with a new one, which hasn't been publicly revealed. that could change soon tesla is currently planning an unveiling of the new design which could happen as early as this month i was trying to figure out is there any world that they do something at car week happening right now feels very very unlikely it feels like much more like elon to do his own event and not compete for attention that event will include an elaborate stunt showing off the flying capabilities of a limited edition version of the roadster the result of a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX.

43:15The demonstration is expected to take place at SpaceX's testing site in McGregor, Texas. As recently as a few months ago, Tesla's plans for the demonstration were like something out of a science fiction movie. They involve showing the vehicle racing onto a magnetized roller coaster-like ramp and driving upside down before writing itself and hovering in the air, three people said. Previously, Musk has said the vehicle's ability to fly would come from cold gas thrusters developed with SpaceX. Still, there's uncertainty about what Tesla will actually show at the event. Did you hear that, John? I'm going to read it back.

43:49Tell me. A magnetized roller coaster-like ramp driving upside down before righting itself and hovering in the air. Sorry. I need you to read that for a third time. They're making a Hot Wheels-style roller coaster loop. And this is what leaked? This is crazy. I love it. No, I absolutely love this. I love it. This is awesome. This is amazing. What? Mag? Okay. Musk told some Tesla staffers in recent weeks that the demonstration will be difficult to pull off and could go awry, but it will be entertaining regardless. It's such a. It couldn't be learned whether Tesla will show the event live or share recorded footage.

44:33All spectators at the event will be stationed several hundred yards away from the vehicle because of potential damage to their eardrums. Cold gas thrusters generate high-pressure gas that can create significant noise and vibrations, according to Jay Kim, a professor of aerodynamics at the University of Southampton. As a result, the car will be remotely operated without anyone inside the vehicle. Okay, this feels like we're getting farther and farther away from a production car. It's just a rocket. It's just a run. Hundreds of yards away, remotely operated, might go terribly. Can you imagine? He's just reinventing rockets.

45:14Honey, would you mind running out and grabbing a gallon of milk? Let me start the cold gas thrusters. Boom, all the windows break in your neighborhood. Let me pull out the car. That would be very, very funny. Is that the end of that story? That's all, folks. Let me tell you about Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows, Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish. Back to the story. Tesla could use some reinvigoration at the moment. Its stock has lost nearly a quarter of its value this year.

45:53Oh, maybe? Maybe you've had this theory for over a year now that if Tesla and SpaceX are going to merge, Elon owns a lot more of SpaceX. So he would want Tesla to be at a lower valuation. This feels like a pump, though. This feels like this. No, but if it's a spectacular explosion, then maybe the stock drops and the next day he goes, okay, time to buy. So wait, do the original reservations still get you to the front of the line of this thing? They better. Because I've been so close to putting down a reservation multiple times being like, I think it's going to be a decade. But when it comes, it's going to be so hilarious and unique.

46:40I mean, like, is it legal to drive in the United States? No. Do I need to contact the FAA before I turn it on? Yes. But is it a one of 10 ,000? So you can still register for a roadster. Okay. You have to put$45 ,000 down. Yeah. It was like$200. Actually, no. It's$50 ,000,$50 ,000,$5 ,000 immediately, and then you've got to send it wired. It's the same amount of money you can come and book a plug for a plug walk, right? Roughly. I think so. That's the number. Well, in other car news, Porsche heard you loud and clear. They're bringing back the manual for the Carrera S. The 911 Carrera S is back with a manual.

47:26It's North America exclusive MT package for 2027. Six gears, 473 horsepower. That's pretty, that's a little bit higher than some of the models. Not bad. And loads of features. All the details are over at MotorOne.com. Jason Freed is very happy to hear this. What do you think, Jordy? I like it. my first sports car, a manual 911. Manual 911. Here it is back. Makes a lot of sense. They're listening. They're listening to their, they're talking to their customers. Coupe is 170K. Yeah, they really are. And it's odd because I feel like the Porsche brand is strong. I feel like they've had some misadventures in the EV market, but in general, like the actual results of the new Cayenne EV Turbo S are insane.

48:11I think zero to 60 in like plaid territory, like two seconds. Yeah, if it had self-driving anywhere near Tesla, it would be way more popular. Maybe that's it. Because we've seen that the financials of the company are beaten up, but the brand still is very solid. They haven't had their luche moment where everyone's like, oh, this one looks bad. They haven't had a backlash to the core visual brand, which I think is so important for longevity in this category. And so I think this will be successful. And people have been asking for this. The 911 ST sold very well. I think it's over a million dollars a car now.

48:48And I still don't fully understand how all the different manual options fit together across the portfolio. The ST seems like very exclusive, but I can't off the top of my head. Well, then you have the Sport Classic. You have the R. Yeah. There's a few manual options, which I think is good. But when the ST came out, it was sort of branded as like the only way to get the full-throated Porsche experience in a manual. And so that's why it was a premium. There's also the T, which is manual. So they've been offering a variety of ways to get into a manual. Yeah. Transmission 911. Ferrari is also out with the Ferrari CZ26.

49:30Okay. temporary reinterpretation of the high performance Berlinetta concept through a pure and highly technical formal language. It's a special projects car. Yes. It develops a new stylistic identity starting from the supercar features of the SF90 Stradale defined by a direct distinctly horizontal design and a highly distinctive two box silhouette. It looks a lot more restrained than the standard SF90. Yeah. I think this looks cool. Yeah. More refined version of the SF90. Looks nice. I wonder how many is the overall bodywork of this hashtag Ferrari one-off design. So are they just doing one of these and they're showing off at Car Week?

50:13They're just doing one? One of one feels like. Yeah. So far, I haven't seen anything out of Ferrari. From Car Week? There's a bunch of other things. Outside of this. McLaren is introducing a first concept of its kind. Kind of stealing the show. Mick L6 GT, a contemporary realization of Bruce McLaren's original road car vision. The Mick L6 GT embodies the pioneering spirit that continues to shape McLaren. Let's get some sound here. Oh, yeah. True connection has to be real. Felt in every input. Notice how the ad is shot vertically. Oh. And they dropped it in square form on X. I love the front end.

50:59Looks beautiful. Why did they upload it square on Instagram or on X? No, I think this is just how X handles. Oh, really? Protocol video now. Oh, yeah, it is. Interesting. They blur the background. It kind of blended in. Interesting. An authentic manual gearbox. You see that? That's a little bit of a jab at Ferrari. Oh, yeah. Manual gearbox. Yeah, because they have the manual by wire. Okay. That's a nice shot. Built from the foundation of our founder's legacy, the MCL 6GT. Again, is this? Yeah. Oh, they're saying register your interest. So maybe they make a number of these. Build today. Waitlist, Max.

51:49What else we got? Anyway, if you're designing a car, do it in Figma. Agents meet the canvas. Your AI agents can now create and modify your Figma files with design system context. Aston Martin also launched the Valon. Say that it doesn't need an introduction. It interrupts. It kind of does need an introduction. I've never heard of this before. The most powerful front-engine V12 car in our history, limited to 150 cars worldwide for the purest. And so this is off of the Vanquish platform, presumably, but 150 versions of this. Yeah, it looks, I mean, again, looks, I think, very cool. Yep, no manual.

52:27They specced it in a way that... It's fun to have these at Car Week. I don't necessarily love, but... You don't? It feels very close to the Valor. They also had the Victor at some point. We have a bunch of these. And anyways, I don't know what Aston needs to do to really get back in the game. I think their primary challenge is at the lower end of the market. Shouldn't they make that Codmobile? Yeah, they should actually make that instead of just making it playable in the game. It is weird that no one right now is going after what the Audi R8 was, like a more affordable supercar. All of the luxury car, supercar, hypercar manufacturers seem to be going up market with$500 ,000, million-dollar cars.

53:27And even the new Volari is up at$500 ,000,$600 ,000,$700 ,000, right? Like, if Audi makes a supercar, you would expect it to be cheaper than the 296 from Ferrari, right? Because that's what the R8 strategy was. The R8 was cheaper than the Ferrari of the day. It was cheaper than the Lamborghini of the day or the base model. So it was like if you want a more affordable supercar with the Audi badge. With inflation, you could have seen Audi making a$400 ,000 supercar, right? The new Velari is much more limited, comes in around$700 ,000. You could do a lot cheaper than that. I mean, the ZR1X. Yeah, but that doesn't – every Audi is being priced higher than whatever the Chevy Ford equivalent is.

54:18Exactly. So, yeah, okay, maybe you're right. Like slice in between a ZR1X and a 296. That's where I would put the new Volari or the Audi Halo car. I just think it needs to be priced somewhere around where the Temerario is. Is it more expensive than the Temerario? It's almost double. That's an odd choice, I think. But it looks like a spaceship. I got to see it in person on Monday. It is even better looking in person. It's a very special car. Does it get absolutely mogged by the 2027 Mustang Dark Horse SC convertible? Maybe for you. America's back, baby. Well, you have to wait for the Tesla Roadster.

55:01Ford's got you covered with a 5.2 liter V8 with 795 horsepower, which is probably nothing compared to what the Roadster will have. And 660 pound feet of torque feeding the rear wheels via seven speed dual clutch transmission. The MagneRide suspension has a less aggressive tune than the coupe, and the convertible won't be offered with the coupe's hardcore track package. But fun for the Mustang fans. Mustang's been doing some special editions, too. They've got a bunch of different really high-tier options out there. Cadillac introduced the V1 concept. Ben says, still looks like a vacation rental.

55:42Yeah, people want these other Hertz. Cadillac revealed the V1 concept. It's a limited production model based on the LMDH race car. It's powered by a 5.5 liter DOHC V8, an electric motor. Good for 830 combined horsepower. Looks like a full-on race car. Cadillac's done this before with the CN, their hypercar prototype that they never released. Would be very cool to see them make a road-going version of this like the Valkyrie, but feels like a big stretch for the brand and the company, right? I would be surprised if we see this make the rounds. But people are excited about it. I mean, the ZR1X was a big moment for the American car makers in the supercar market.

56:30And so, you know, there's a chance. There's a chance this comes out. We'll see. In other news, let me tell you about Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds, online, in-store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents. Did you know, Jordy, it's now cheaper to buy a private island than a house in Palo Alto? Finally. This is crazy. We've been waiting for these lines to cross. Yeah. No, it's actually cheaper to buy a private island than a house in Palo Alto. Earlier this week, Chris Backy highlighted a real estate listing for a five-bedroom, five bathroom, 5 ,000 square foot home in Palo Alto asking$16.5 million.

57:11We got to pull a picture of this thing because it doesn't look like a$16 million house. And I think that's why this image from Chris Backey went so viral because it specifically looks just like a normal house that might be a million dollars or$3 million. But in fact - Can you share it in the chat? Where is it? Let me see if I can pull this up. Did we not get this? Let me put this up. Here we go. Boom. Or here. Here it is. There we go. And so, I mean, 5 ,500 square feet, that's a lot. And Palo Alto is obviously on an absolute tear on the back of the AI boom. But$16.5 million is a lot of money. And you can get a private eye.

57:57A lot for this shape. Yeah. It just looks like one normal house, please, to me. Right? One starter home, please. Yeah, exactly. Even though it's very clear that there's a lot of stuff going on in the back, obviously, from the front, the silhouette doesn't look like a 5 ,000 square foot house. But clearly, that extends, and there's probably lots of land back there and all sorts of things. But when you're bidding against Mark Zuckerberg, you've got to pay a pretty penny. Bay Area real estate has been expensive for a long time. It's like a quarter acre, too. Wow. Bear real estate has been expensive for a long time but prices at the very top of the market have become especially eye-popping.

58:40One factor is the enormous amount of new wealth being created by the AI boom as employees at companies like OpenAI, Ananthropic, turn startup equity into fortunes and pour some of that money into local real estate. The result is an absurd new benchmark for Silicon Valley housing houses. Ben is on its hair today. He says, wow, there's a patio. No pool. There's no pool? For$16 million, no pool? On a quarter acre? That is, that's crazy. I wonder where this one will land. uh no garage either wait no garage at this at this price it's like like like you could actually be driving like a hyper car for like 10 of the house price you know like if you live in a if you live in a uh if you live in a 1.6 million dollar house and you drove a 50 000 car no one would be like oh wow that's so crazy right but if you live in a 16 million dollar house and you drive a 500 thousand dollar car people be like okay that kind of matches except you pull up to this thing in a in a revuelto or something they're an sf 90 and people are like what you don't even have a garage to park it in anyway uh the result is an absurd new benchmark for silicon valley housing prices there are actual private islands around the world that costs less than a house in palo alto in june a 4.5 acre private island on north carolina's uh lake norman sold for 12.5 million dollars you can pull this one up the agent on the listing says it has unique feature a glass and case staircase okay you don't see that much in a in a modern mcmansion which are you going with the the palo alto home or this private island says chad is saying 16 mil turned it down had to live there for this decade

1:00:31the payments the payment calculator look if you put 20 down you're only spending 105 000 a month that's so much money yikes that's true golden handcuffs uh so uh this so this 4.5 acre private island in north carolina sold for 12.5 million dollars and it includes a roughly 13 000 square foot mansion on it it was originally purchased in the 90s for 1.5 million the financial times also reported in march on a 600 acre private island in fiji listed for 12 million dollars that island comes with a six-bedroom residence built near its highest point with panoramic ocean views along with a library barbecue area and swimming pool there are also five beaches staff quarters and a deep water jetty this uh i'm gonna put all these in there let's see um this one is uh is pretty crazy um there's only one image of this particular island estate but the financial times was on a tear they they really uh reported on a bunch of these uh if 600 acres for your private island is a little excessive there's another option in fiji mansion global reported in march that the founder of a cannabis company his wife were selling vawa a 75 acre private island that is so many acres even 75 acres is so much for 15 million still 1.5 million less than the palo alto house so if if you if you are in palo alto you really got to negotiate for remote work because you could be working for fiji the vawa house includes several olympic sized natural swimming holes and a 5 ,500 square foot main house built around open plan living spaces surrounded by walls of glass.

1:02:14It's bedroom suites have outdoor bathrooms and private outdoor spaces overlooking the ocean and jungle. And it's a fascinating story showing what went in to building this compound. We can scroll through some of these, some of these images because this family really, it seems like it was sort of a labor of love situation. So an eclectic travelogue had always been a top priority for the walkers. The Los Angeles-based family of four are self-styled globetrotters whose wanderlust meant they never vacationed in the same place twice. They never went back. Valois Island is a 75-acre drop in the Pacific Ocean at the northernmost tip of the Yasawa Island archipelago and north of Nadi International Airport.

1:02:55It is so far to get to Fiji, but people love it out there. We saw the island, and even though there was nothing there, we just knew there was something really magical about this place and we had to go back. So we were sitting on a beach and saw this little island in the distance. Sounds familiar. We then got picked up by a local boat and taken there. We went around the island and the locals said it had been deserted for a while after meeting with the local elders of the tribe to discuss the finer points of the purchase. The walkers purchased a leasehold and the project of a lifetime. So a lot of these different countries and island nations, they won't actually sell you the property.

1:03:32What they'll do is they'll sell you a lease for 185 years. So it's within your lifetime, but then it eventually goes back to the government. It was like a boyhood dream, Barry said today, that pristine parcel is home to a luxurious hideaway built with a modern Malibu aesthetic crafted by Danish architect, constructed by an Australian builder and curated by a California family. The project took approximately five years with a pandemic and the distance from home adding complexity. And so... So I've never done a proper trip to Fiji, but I did have a 18 hour layover there once on the way to Bali. Do you count that as visiting Fiji?

1:04:10I count it because I went, I left the airport, I got on a boat, and I took it to a small, relatively deserted island, and I just hung out there for a few hours and then took the boat back and then went to the airport and left. Do I have? I don't think I have very nice on here. Anyway, Tyler, you figured out the optimal route. Yeah, great success. You figured out the optimal route to visit every state. Is that correct? Yeah. So basically the idea, well, the rules we said is if you land in like a grassy area and you step out, that counts as visiting the state. Yes. So basically the optimal strategy if you want to hit every state is you basically land at the intersections of states.

1:04:54Okay. So you only need to land 21 times to hit all 50, right? Whoa. So in the lower 48, it's only 19 times. Okay. But you can hit these kind of like tri-point areas, right? You can think of, there's kind of the quadrant in the southwest. You can hit four states at once. Yeah. And you can do it presumably within an hour, or sorry, within 24 hours. Within 24 hours? Yeah, yeah. But you have to go to Alaska and Hawaii. So this is just lower 48? No, no. This is all 24. You can, but you would need a plane that can fly at the speed of sound, but also land, or like near the speed of sound. Like you can't do it in like a Cessna.

1:05:28you have to do it in a Gulfstream, but then you also have to be able to land in a cornfield, basically? You can use a normal, slightly larger plane than a private plane. Okay. But you don't need the insane... What type of plane are you landing in a cornfield but also making it to Alaska in this? Tyler, Tyler, would you be willing to attempt this route with your current plan? Because right now it just feels like you're... You're still in a lot of confidence, buddy. Yeah, Trey says the Pilatus PC-12 has you covered. Pilatus PC-12 is not probably fast enough to actually break a record, but the PC-24 is sort of the cousin of the PC-12.

1:06:10That is an actual jet. That will let you land on dirt runways. And so I think that the PC-24... Yeah, PC-24 is what I had as well. Pilatus PC-24. But you said it's not even, it's like a relatively modest plane. You can't even cross the Atlantic with it. You were saying it was a bigger plane. Well, you know, relatively.

1:06:36Pure slaw. Let me tell you about CrowdStrike. You've got to work on this plan. Their business is AI. Their business is securing it. CrowdStrike secures AI and stops breaches. You're starting in Maine, and you're ending in Hawaii. Okay. So you go from basically like Washington to... In New Hampshire. You're kind of going... But you're going in the Pacific Northwest last, then Alaska, then down to Hawaii. You're basically starting, you're going directly south. So you're in all the east. Ryan says you need to hire a pilot from Sinaloa. True. True. I think you're going to run into a lot of trouble.

1:07:10I think you'll probably get arrested the first time you land in a cornfield in the intersection of three states. And they wonder what you're doing. I don't think with Tyler's plan... You might need to do some demolition. I don't think there will be enough time to... Some demolition? You've got to take that to the freeze. Yeah. Oh, so that you can actually land on the corner? Yeah. Because a lot of these corner intersections are like tourist traps where they have a sign on the ground. You're currently standing on four states at once. And you can't just lay in there and bulldoze all the tourists who are taking pictures.

1:07:39That doesn't make any sense. Well, I don't think we stated that before. That wasn't allowed. Misaligned. This is misalignment right here. Terrible. Anyway, the good folks over at the Acquired FM, Acquired Podcast, revealed a very interesting fact that we wanted to share here. The highest grossing piece of entertainment ever is an Avatar, Avengers, Titanic. Chad says, stop hazing our Zoomers. Oh, we got more Gen Z hazing articles because there's a whole article in the New York Times about how Gen Z doesn't know how to dress. They're just taking shots at Gen Z for acting like they've never worn clothes before or something is the headline.

1:08:24It's a very funny piece. We was driving around with my lovely wife yesterday, and we passed what looked like a group of high school boys. And she said, why do they all look like they're dressed like criminals? Because they had these big glasses that look like something you might wear if you really didn't want people to know. True unk status. Why is Ben Macklin getting an American flag wrapped around him? Is this just the style now? This is my go-away gift. This is my, yeah, I'm going back. I have to get a flag before it. Okay, there you go. Wearing that on the flight? Yeah. The whole way. I love it.

1:09:05I love it. Well, let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only thing faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just build AI. Own the data platform that powers it. Ryan says, if you can't, Hayes, Gen Z, YB, Unc. Eh, good point. Good point. Okay, anyway. So, the highest grossing piece of entertainment ever. It's not Avatar. It's not Avengers. It's not Titanic. It's not Seinfeld. It's not even Grand Theft Auto. It's the Lion King musical. It's the Lion King musical. The Lion King musical is the highest grossing piece of media entertainment ever. Absolutely insane. Since debuting on Broadway in November of 1997, Disney's stage adaptation has grossed more than$11 billion worldwide, maybe more than$10 billion.

1:09:54It's a ton. It's the highest-grossing stage production ever, and by box office revenue, it's the highest-grossing entertainment title in history. For comparison, Avatar is the highest-grossing movie ever, has made only$3 billion at the global box office. The Lion King passed the previous record holder, The Phantom of the Opera, all the way back in 2014, when its cumulative gross was already$6.2 billion. I had no idea there was so much money in Broadway. So the question everyone's asking, how is this even possible? Like, yeah, The Lion King musical, it's popular, but Avatar was like a cultural moment.

1:10:30Everyone saw it. But it's because The Lion King musical is not just one show. It's much more complicated than that. It's this entertainment machine. So since 1997, there have been... So it's not just a show, it's a machine? Basically. Wow. It's 30 different productions around the world spanning more than 100 cities. And 20 folks slop. And 24 countries. So the show runs on Broadway, but also London's West End, Japan, Germany, Australia, alongside North America, international touring productions. So you can see it in multiple places at the same time. More than 127 million people have actually seen it.

1:11:10And unlike a movie, the same piece of entertainment can keep selling thousands of expensive tickets every night for decades. So the Broadway production alone performs eight times a week. In one week this June, it sold 12 ,670 tickets, grossed$1.94 million from a single theater. And then you scale that model across multiple productions, operating simultaneously. And are all these productions paying royalties back to Disney? Yeah. So are you thinking what I'm thinking? What are you thinking? Thrive Eternal comes in. They spin out the Lion King IP. Bob Iger gets a piece back. Yeah. So 75 bucks a ticket.

1:11:49Then, like Gabe says, then they take it public. Maybe. Maybe. I think this is core to the Disney IP strategy. They have other Broadway productions already in the works, already in production, and will have many more as different pieces of intellectual property take flight and actually find their footing. Of course, not everything's going to be as much of a smash success as The Lion King has been. But it's crazy. It's a 29-year run, selling$75 tickets on average every night across the globe for 30 years almost, which is crazy. And so you can take the same story, perform it eight times a week, duplicate the production around the planet, and keep doing it for an entire generation.

1:12:34Do that successfully for three days, and you can make more money at the box office than any movie ever made. I was always thinking that someone would do this for music, sort of like you'd need to set up the musical act as a multi-stage production. But, you know, Deadmau5 performs with a helmet. Deadmau5, the EDM artist. Oh, you mean Deadmau5? Deadmau5, yes. So when Deadmau5 performs, he is there in person, the actual artist, and he's wearing a helmet. So you don't know that it's him. And of course you, you trust that it's him because he doesn't perform in multiple places at the same time. Same thing with Tiesto, but there are other, other artists that have donned the helmets.

1:13:20I think Marshmallow is one. There's a few others that do this sort of thing. Even going back to Slipknot. Daft Punk, exactly. But if you could start a musical act that by, that embraced the idea that it could be in multiple places at the same time, it could effectively have multiple residencies. So the artist, even though it was multiple people, could be performing in New York and Las Vegas and Miami all at the same time, have residencies everywhere and bring in way more revenue on top of the IP. And then the artist themselves doesn't need to travel. Of course, that's like sort of sacrificing what it means to go to a Deadmau5 show.

1:13:57So you probably don't command as much of a premium. But it would be interesting to see if someone in the musical arts. Dylan says this is just the blue man group strategy. It's not always the same blue men. Mind blown. Yes, the blue man group has changed over. I don't know. Are there any examples of the blue man group performing in two different places at the exact same time with different blue men? I think that they have a single cast that rotates and they don't actually perform in multiple places at the same time. But that's the Blue Man Group V2 is what I'm maybe hoping for. Anyway, what else is going on?

1:14:43The cursor deal closed. That's a big story today, although it's been announced several times that this was happening. But Michael Truel took to the timeline to announce that the deal has, in fact, closed. Gwerk is imminent. Grok Gwerk is coming. They're doing it. um uh is this this is the largest acquisition of a venture-backed like private company yes and it must be probably the the highest rr irr vc investment of all time maybe there's probably something shorter term that was like one month and then an acquisition but uh it certainly it certainly is is close to that previously the record was uh whiz yeah 32 billion google so nearly double.

1:15:32Yeah, Michael Truel said... There is some... It is funny to think about, just given the dynamic between Elon and Sam, OpenAI's startup fund, I believe, was a seed investor in COSA. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Meaning that OpenAI probably... OpenAI shareholders own... Now, yeah. But absolutely incredible outcome, and I think already people are realizing just how much, how necessary it is for SpaceX's hopes at the application. Michael Truel, one of the greatest Zoomers to ever do it. Truly. You got to give him credit. You got to give credit to all of Gen Z for putting up amazing numbers, but you also got to take some shots at Gen Z because apparently snack companies are coating everything in pickle flavor for Gen Z.

1:16:25Is this true? Do you like pickles? I wouldn't say I'm a big pickle guy. Okay. Well, apparently snack companies think you are because there's a deluge of sour, briny snacks that have infiltrated the market. And apparently it's your fault, Tyler. Pickle flavored ramen. Pickle flavored beer. Pickle flavored Sauvignon Blanc. Wine? Pickle zested ice cream. A certain flavor profile is exploding. It's sour. It's briny. It's huge on social media, and it's coding everything in its path, says the Wall Street Journal. We're just in a golden era for pickle flavoring, said the vice president of the fresh food group at Circona.

1:17:09Never in my life would I imagine cotton candy with pickles. When you were a kid, did you ever take a little sip of the brine? Of the juice, the pickle juice? Not really. No, I did. Like just once to experience, or was it like a daily thing? You would enjoy it. You're there. I like a pickle, but I don't know the juice I can pass on. I'm not a big fan of juice. Yeah, anytime I meet people that are seemingly super into pickles, I just assume they don't realize they can put a lot of salt on anything. Oh, you think it's like a vehicle for delivering salt? I think it's like a... Yeah, you're just maybe sodium deficient or craving some sodium, and you want an excuse, and a pickle is just a way to get your salt fix.

1:17:49Yeah, it's a vehicle. Okay. Well, people certainly associate the flavor with saltiness, So it's going all over the place. In the last few years, nearly every snack food giant and retailer has piled on the trend. And for good reason, pickle flavored items are flying off the shelves. According to data from Surkana, pickle flavored snacks grew 30 percent in sales over the past year, compared with 3.8 percent growth in the snack category overall. The same category, the same goes for categories that don't seem traditionally fermentation forward. Pickle-flavored trail mix grew by 10 % as opposed to 4 % for the general category.

1:18:25But some of this growth may come from an influx of new pickle - Off the base of$1. That is a crazy, crazy item. Whole Foods began selling daily crunches dill pickles sprouted almonds in 2024, and within a year and a half, the product saw an 812 % growth. Foundation lab numbers. I guess pickle car in NASCAR. Okay. That is a car to follow. PepsiCo released Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle Cheetos in 2025 and made them a permanent offering this year after the company said it became the fastest-selling limited edition flavor in the brand's history. Retailers say one group is fueling the trend, a cohort they're most eager to capture.

1:19:10It's Gen Z. Last summer, Hormel Foods, the company behind Spam and Skippy Peanut Butter cited Gen Z, the ultimate target market for snack brands, as the inspiration behind the launch of three dill pickle products. Dill pickle corn nuts, dill pickle cashews, and dill pickle flavored Hormel pepperoni. This is too much dill pickle. I can't say pickle anymore. It's really getting on my nerves. It's over. Let's move on to Alex Cooper. Alex Cooper, raising a ton of money. Podcast is doing well. Media company is doing well. Her beverage brand is doing unwell. The brand Unwell ceased operations, announced this winding down a day after Unwell's media business took investment at a$500 million valuation.

1:19:54Should not be a surprise. Clearly new money coming in, new strategy, focus, content. Should have made it pickle. Maybe, maybe. But Andrea took a victory lap two years ago. She posted Unwell by Alex Cooper. Prime, but for the hotties. How much time do we give this brand before it inevitably flops and goes on the chopping block? Two years, it seems, is what wound up happening. Maybe they just didn't get the right team in there. It does seem like it's hard because you only have so much ad inventory. And if you're running the Call Her Daddy podcast and you're getting a lot of impressions, if there is someone, like you could promote your product, but every time you do, you're not promoting another product that might pay you a higher CPM, might be able to monetize those listeners better.

1:20:42and so you have this tension between, okay, well, there might be a VPN company or a credit card company or all sorts of different companies that might want to come in and pay a million dollars for a sponsorship with Call Her Daddy and are you going to be able to move a million dollars, not just a million dollars of product, but a million dollars worth of product to justify the profits? So will the LTV that you generate from running those ads that you're taking off the inventory stack, actually math out, I think a lot of influencers wind up with that. They think they have unlimited distribution, but they don't.

1:21:19Yeah, it's an interesting branding challenge to have Unwell as the brand of the drink, not the best association. Yeah, I think you're right. There's something subliminal, like what I was picking up on with the Obsession remix video where I just come away a little bit unsettled. Seeing a brand name Unwell in my face, it's just going to stick in my brain a little bit. But oh well. We'll see where it goes. It feels like she's doubling down on media, TV shows potentially, movie studio, other podcasts. There's a lot of other things that are going there that clearly can be focused in the line of what the Unwell Network does well.

1:22:04So we'll see where it all goes. Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? raised capital at the new york stock exchange so the new york times put out a hit piece on gen z says gen z is dressed like they've never worn clothes before time was if you wanted to know what people's deal was you read their clothes as a young man working at a then popular street fashion magazine i used to relish taxonomizing people by what they had on i could tell you had I could tell you at a glance what kind of music they listened to, whether they worked, what they'd be like in bed, what sort of beer they would drink, all from the cut of their pant leg or the razor guard number on their haircut.

1:22:49Fleece jacket pullover, white ball cap pulled down way too far over the eyes. That's a jock. Torn up gray hoodie over enormous jeans whose cuffs are soaking up puddle water. That person smokes weed. Same hoodie, but sleeves pushed up past the elbows. Watch out, that's the universal signifier for meth. This person is really judgmental. These days, I'm a middle-aged man who works the door at a bar in Chicago that is reasonably popular with the youths, and I'm routinely flummoxed by the sartorial flotsam that comes packing itself in. The other night, a guy came in. Is this not overall just one of the oldest sort of stories of all time, which is getting old old person says that young kids old man yells at clouds yeah this is old man yells at clouds yeah it's a good point it's a good point but uh i don't know i just wanted to take another shot at gen z i mean i do i do think it's i do think it's funny that tyler dresses um like the like 2016 kind of like frat style yeah like boat shoes sure i mean he looks sharp every day, but yeah, you guys missed.

1:24:05Put the shoes up on the desk. Let's get the shoes up on the desk. Throw them up. It's Friday. Let's get a side profile of the shoes. The Sperry's. I like that. There you go. Sperry, mate. Yeah! All right, that's enough of that. King in the castle. King in the castle. Next intern challenge. Get into Caltech. Because they have a fraud squad. This is the red team. We need to red team their fraud squad. The fraud squad at Caltech will catch you if you lie on your application. They're saying make America preppy again. I think that you could be early to a new prep super cycle. A Sperry super cycle. Super cycle.

1:24:52The funniest thing. College investigators vet every admitted student's applications as schools nationwide battle AI fueled cheating. So now we got to put it to the test. Can you cheat your way through a Ph.D. at Caltech, Tyler? I want to see if you can do it at the California Institute of Technology. Troy from Clue Lee says challenge accepted. Yeah, 100 percent. A little known band of admissions. New benchmark. New benchmark for Clue Lee for sure. is scrutinizing the fonts on science fair certificates, checking addresses on high school transcript, and analyzing signatures on awards. Known as the Fraud Squad, these investigators are in charge of vetting applications to the highly selective STEM-focused school, which admitted less than 4 % of its 11 ,000 applicants for the incoming class.

1:25:39Caltech created the team two years ago, partly in response to a rising number of anonymous accusations of dishonest applications. The four-person team inspects every submitted, every admitted student's applications, taking nothing for granted. They scour the Internet to confirm obscurities, contact competition officials and high school counselors, and use a video interview program to suss out students' research claims. As elite colleges such as Caltech, at elite colleges such as Caltech, admissions have become more competitive and applications are increasingly complex. Some requests long lists of accolades, research competitions, awards, independent projects that colleges can find harder to verify than grades and test scores.

1:26:27At the same time, technology like AI makes it easier to falsify submissions. And for young people, the stakes often feel higher than ever. I don't think everyone's lying, said Nick Lee, senior assistant director for undergrad admissions and a fraud squad member. but I can't let a small portion of the pool of our admits ruin all the greatness in the other percentage. Can't let one bad apple spoil the bunch, I think is the phrase. Many schools review applications for accuracy but tend to dig deeper only when something seems off, such as if a student's essay mentions an award-winning robotics team, but the recommendation letters don't.

1:27:04So they're looking for needles in haystacks. Interesting. Do you think you could do it? Do you think this is fraud proof, Tyler? Or do you think you could? I mean, there's like a lot of things. Still on the shoes. Still on the shoes. I think there's a lot of things. Like, it seems like the solution here is you just only do the SAT. Banger. Oh, yeah. You can basically get rid of all these like fishy research things. You know, you hear about like some stories where it's like they had their first research paper when they were like 11 years old. It's like clearly very fake. Just like the parents doing it or the AI.

1:27:37Yeah, yeah. Or something. I don't know. Yeah. Tricky. Nothing like the IMO to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well, over at Thrive, there's a big scoop from Natasha over now. Natasha's been on its hair. She's at Bloomberg Technology. Thrive has invested$250 million in Amazon, according to a securities filing, as the firm expands its public market strategy to back some of the world's largest companies benefiting from AI. I didn't realize that Thrive had this significant of a public book. I mean, I guess some of this was probably SpaceX pre-IPO that shifted over to the public book. Well, I think this is part of a new focus.

1:28:20Sure, sure. So Thrive Capital, at the end of Q2, owned$3.2 billion worth of SpaceX,$250 million of Amazon. They still got some Oscar Health,$180 million of that. They own Shopify and Figma. They trimmed Carvana and StubHub, but are still long, lots of stuff in the public markets. Anyway, what else is in the timeline? Another news, Jeff Bezos bets on sports with Liverpool deal billionaire to become a part owner of the Premier League team valued at more than$7 billion. Another one. The billionaire founder of Amazon is among a group of investors that agreed Friday to buy a minority stake in Liverpool football.

1:29:09The consortium is acquiring about a 33 % stake in Liverpool in a deal that values the Premier League team at more than$7 billion. The deal is the latest example of the enduring appeal of top professional sports teams from the world's wealthiest. The consortium buying a stake in Liverpool is led by Amit Bhatia, son-in-law of Indian Steel Tycoon. Let's give it up for tycoons. One of the best words, one of the most underrated words, tycoon. I'm trying to bring that back. Very aspirational. You know you've made it when you're a tycoon. Bezos is participating in the deal through K5 Global, a firm that we have not had.

1:29:50Tycoon has got to be above billionaire. because there's plenty of people that they start a company, they get lucky, they sell it at the top. But I would say that Michael and Brian, GPs over at K5, are emerging tycoons. I think so. I think they're on the path to being tycoons. I think so. Would you rather be a tycoon or a magnate? Probably tycoon. I think magnate's underrated. Magnate is. Tycoon is more aura. Yeah, tycoon feels like you really control the industry. Magnate feels a little bit like could be Scion adjacent, potentially. Might just be important, but one of many. Tycoon is singular, a little more singular in its dominance of the industry.

1:30:32I like a tycoon. Anyway, CRM tycoon Mark Benioff hit the timeline with a question. Should Salesforce rebrand as Salesforce Slack to capture its AI era power in bots, coding, and Slack? Watch this video because this video is sure to fire you up. Okay, let's do it. Salesforce Slack. That's a bit of a mouthful. Let's see. Salesforce. One of the greatest names ever. Salesforce. Forceful. I love Salesforce. They do a lot more than sales, though. And a lot of people use Slack. So which way we're going? Okay. Ooh, good license.

1:31:25Some good brand exploration Wait Put him on the tower Put him on the tower Just do it Is that going to happen? Okay He put him on the tower Oh he did He already did At least an AI Okay I can't tell if it's VFX or not

1:31:46Salesforce Slack. Salesforce Slack. Yeah, so interesting response. Currently, 68 % of the voters say no. Yeah. They're rejecting Salesforce Slack. Yeah. It is a mouthful. I do think Salesforce is iconic. I understand Mark's position, right? He's battling the Sasspocalypse narrative. Yep. Slack is, no one's been sitting there saying, you know, we're going to move off. Slack. No intern has ever tried to vibe code Slack here. It's impossible. Yeah, it is funny. You can one-shot a version of Slack. But adoption was tricky. High churn. We didn't use it. It looked like Slack. We tried to vibe code Slack.

1:32:28And the product looked really good. It even added video calling, which was sort of crazy functionality. It's certainly there. Sebastian says that Jordy does not remembering Metallica songs in front of Mark keep you awake. Yeah. Yeah. Why not Slack Force? Why not just call it Slackforce? Is that bad? Am I on to something or no? Slackforce. It's less wordy than Salesforce Slack, but it hits both Slack and Salesforce. Still forceful? Yes? No? If you had to pick, Salesforce Slack or Slackforce, which one are you going with? Slackforce. Slackforce vote over there. What about just the San Francisco Slackers?

1:33:14What about just force.com? What about s.com? S? Salesforce and Slack. The one-letter domain? I like just going force. Just force. Force would be a great name for a workplace messaging tool. Yeah, force. It's on force. It's on Bebo. Did you check force? I sent you a message on force. How did you get that project done? I forced it. I forced it down the throats of my employees. I was forceful. You're being a little forceful right now. A little bit too many messages on force. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, best estimate of Slack's current revenue is in the$2.5 billion range. Salesforce overall revenue is north of 40, right?

1:34:07It's still not a huge amount of the revenue. But clearly, that video, they've done a lot of exploration. They're thinking about it. They're thinking about it. So between, final answer, between Salesforce, keep it classic, Force, Force.com, Salesforce Slack, and Slackforce. Which one are you going with?

1:34:33Salesforce. Oh, you're staying with Salesforce. What about you, Tyler? I like Slackforce. You like Slackforce? I think Salesforce Slack is the worst of all of those. Okay. Okay. You would rank that the last. I think that Salesforce is an iconic brand that's waiting to be revitalized. I think some of the marketing historically has just been somewhat, I'm not going to say it, boomer-coded. I said it. Like just the random Matthew McConaughey being, you know. Iconic. he's he's iconic but uh i think that there's more that they can do to it does when i see it when i share the sales yeah when i see matthew mcconaughey in a sales force ad i do think i need to buy a lincoln navigator which is maybe like a bad sign oh yeah because he's also yeah he has that amazing lincoln where he's driving giving the talk uh such a good ad and that one was such a good ad that it was parody in snl by jim carrey i believe and so it had a whole like meta story to it it really broke through and so i think what you're getting at is they need to get you know timothy chalamet or jacob alorty to be the new face that'd be great someone someone a zoomer yeah zoomer actor would be good uh fifth option what if he rebrands the whole thing to just benioff and co i like that would that be your top by benioff benioff benioff benioff and software solutions you can depend on.

1:36:02He's a singular founder, CEO. He's not a hired gun. He's not going anywhere. It's his one major project. He doesn't have other companies. Another point. They just had Mr. Beast do a commercial though, according to Jay. Yeah. The challenge is like that, that commercial, I don't know any people that unironically watch Mr. Beast that buy enterprise software. And so it just felt like super random. Well, I unironically watch Mr. Beast, but as a student of the craft of YouTube video creation. Yes. And I will be like, wow, okay, how is he using CGI? How is he editing? Yeah, but the majority of the audience are not sitting there saying, oh, Mr.

1:36:46Beast, I got to use Salesforce CRM because Mr. Beast promoted it. Yeah. They're not thinking about CRMs. There's a little bit of like, I guess if you get people really young and they get to work and they're in Slack, they have a positive connotation. They go and start companies and they start with Slack and then they grow from there. But that's a long road. GR says Salesforce by Benioff. Salesforce by Benioff. Yeah. Sales by Benioff. Sales by Benioff is like a high fashion. Mark by Marc Jacobs. Mark by Benioff. Mark by Marc Benioff. Slack by Marc Benioff. You didn't even start the company. Yeah, I would not give up.

1:37:27I don't think Salesforce is a great name. Anyway. Okay, so let's go to Mitchell Hashimoto, founder of HashiCorp. He says, I'm so incredibly tired of seeing low effort AI designed web pages. I basically bounce off any new product immediately when I see it. Never get a chance to judge the product itself. lots of thin lines glowy styles inconsistent fonts lots of mono space you know who you are and jordan singer says this is an instant sign that i won't want to use your product if you can't take the time to craft something that should sell me i can't trust that you took the time for the rest of the product interesting what do you think about slop pages i think the ai design web pages are best when it's part of the point like it's it's it's like it's specifically like a product that would never exist without slop generation and so it's like yeah part of it is you can interactive video game for your friends you can figure out a unique design and still implement it quickly using ai but if you just just try to one shot it yeah then yeah it's low effort It's the same thing with the Suno story of, I'm not really listening to actual heavy metal generated by Suno, but give me a song about John Quinn, the most feared lawyer from Quinn Emanuel, that's heavy metal, I'm in.

1:38:59And I actually am listening to that song, but only because it can only exist in the context of the AI. Petra says, depends on who you're selling to. 99 % of the time, ugly sites perform better. Uh, good point. But I would say that these AI generated websites are trying to look like super beautiful, interactive. I would actually like, um, uh, you know, the, the, the AI website that you generated, uh, Berkshire, uh, you generated like a clone of Berkshire. Um, that probably would perform well. Yeah. If you, it also would have taken like five minutes to hand code because it's such a simple website, but it was fun.

1:39:40And it was my first introduction to like vibe coding, like a front end website based on a style guide. I've since gone on and built other vibe coded websites and I don't try and act like they're not vibe coded. Like they lean into the idea of, of the fact that this is a website that would never exist in reality and only make sense as a vibe-coded product. Speaking of vibe-coded products, if you vibe-coded a product and you're trying to launch it, don't use another AI company's... Phone farm. Phone farm? It's phone farm. Oh, is that what you're... I thought that's... No, I was talking about this post where someone tried to introduce like Claude for marketing and they're clearly using the Claude trademark against Anthropics rules.

1:40:24No, but what I'm saying... Don't do that. No, I mean, part of why I think it was maybe deleted is that the video was deleted now, but this was a video of a company that made basically a robot that you put over a real phone, and it's an undetectable way to drive engagement online using phone farms, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this company is called phonefarm.ai is the website, and they say run unlimited accounts on autopilot, pilot post 10 000 videos a day so if you're a creator out there you're trying to put out a 10 000 videos really trying to um you know get your reps in you could just do that in a day you don't need to spend years honing your craft or anything like that you just do it all at once um but yeah it does seem uh yeah it's so funny the way they sell this viral content manufactured um this has been going on a ton with launch videos where you'll see a launch video that that just has you know thousand like a thousand uh reposts and there's not really any real engagement so i don't think this stuff works and you're not really tricking anyone except other bots uh here's the video let's pull it up let's see it's coming so look at this John okay and is this a device that you can buy or is this a service that you pay them to do you can I sounds like you can get a cloud version of it but you wow it sounds like they'll also sell you the robot this is the dead internet thesis now It's not just dead internet theory.

1:42:17It's how do we make money off of this? Is there any good use of this technology? What is the white pill?

1:42:31It seems extremely adversarial. The best I can come up with would be, as a joke, sending you a thousand positive comments on your last Instagram post or something, and you're just like, why is this going viral? But even that is likely to sort of nuke your account when it's discovered that you're followed by bots. That's internet reality. Yeah. Cooper, no white pillows. We're trying, buddy. We're trying here. We're doing our best. Testing, testing, quality assurance testing. If you are Instagram, you want to run your app, across a bunch of different devices for a very long time, see if there's a memory leak, having a bunch of phones in the cloud makes sense.

1:43:19So testing, testing is the only viable white pill here, maybe? I don't know. Can you come up with that one? No. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, rough. Rough. Anyway, speaking of cell phones. Just do make great things. Always make content that's interesting and you'll get real attention. The funny thing with, like, people are very immune to this stuff right now. So if they see a product launch and it has 5 ,000 likes and 1 ,000 reposts, they're still human. Maybe it makes them, like, engage more for a second with the content because it's in their feed. They're like, what is this? But the thing still has to be great.

1:44:10And if you make something great, you'll just naturally get the attention as a byproduct. Yeah, good point. Well, this is a good post to close on. Cell phone. Self-own. They played us for absolute fools. What did they mean by calling the cell phone so close to self-own? No. Have a great weekend. Have a great rest of your Friday. Have a great two weeks. We're taking a vacation. we will be back in September everyone play the wah wah no we the end of August we are taking a two week break from the show we'll be back in September we have a whole bunch of crazy stuff lined up for the new season we're very excited for that we will be back in September so sign for our newsletter leave us five stars on Apple podcast and Spotify.

1:45:08Say goodbye to Ben Macklin. We'll see you next summer, Ben. And we will be back in the fall for fall. Yeah, I know. Very Euro-coded of us. Yeah, it's we don't enjoy taking time off around here. We rarely do. But we think it's important to give the whole team a proper break. This work is relentless. you cannot rest on any laurels even if you have a bunch of laurels at the office you start resting on them there's no show and so we figured it would be good to let the whole team take some time away and I can't wait to be back already we absolutely love what we do and it's a blessing and counting down the days just like how many more sleeps is it?

1:46:0716, 17. Something like that. Something like that. So we'll be reminding the team every day. Just 16 more sleeps, everybody. Have a good week. Have a good next two weeks. Yeah. Enjoy the last couple weeks of like proper summer. I feel like September comes around. It's over. It's over. It's time to get back in the minds. We will be back. We'll see you soon. We love you guys. Cheers. September 1st.