Tall Poppy Syndrome, Bytedance Gets Blackwell Chips, WSJ Mansion Section | Diet TBPN

12:11Jordi Hays:think he was able to pull that off is because one he's elon but then two so many of the investors it was like the same group of people on both tables so the bear case is obvious like uh like

12:21John Coogan:a fourth tier lab not at the frontier is pretty commoditized at this point. There's lots of folks who are at that level. Getting in the game of the RSI, the frontier labs, you've got to be DeepMind, you've got to be OpenAI Anthropic. And if you're not at that level, your valuation is probably an order of magnitude lower. You're looking at the ex-Quinn team, people were talking about MSL. Even if you just broke up Meta, is MSL worth$200 billion? They have some great team, they have a lot of compute, but it's like they have - 200 million? Or 200 billion. Did I say million? Oops. All the numbers are big.

12:55John Coogan:The bold case, of course, is that XAI is great at building data centers. Colossus Tube was built really fast. Is that an enduring advantage? Can they be the best neocloud at the very least? Is that enough of an advantage if you just build more and more compute? Is the space data center thing going to happen sooner than later, sooner than people expect, in which case you have the most compute and everyone else is tied up in red tape on Earth and you're in space? There's still a bold case, but it is tricky. Benjamin DeCracker shared a story from when he worked at XAI. He says, when I was first hired low level by XAI, I was extremely excited.

13:28John Coogan:I greatly admired Elon and what Grok could be. I have a pretty cool AI following here on X and big names see my stuff, including Elon himself at the time. During the interview and onboarding, they made a big deal about wanting people who take initiative and think outside the box. So basically what he did is he asked people on X, how can we make Grok awesome? A bunch of people answered. They got a ton of, John Carmack retweeted it. There were lots of great ideas. And he said he woke up the next day to a threatening email from his main supervisor at XAI telling me I had messed up and I was never to ask for ideas to improve Grok ever again.

14:00John Coogan:That wasn't my job. They suspended my X account. So he was very upset. And he says, the manager's gone. Everyone he knew at XAI is gone. And he's sort of hoping for a new era at XAI.

14:15Jordi Hays:Simp for Satoshi, who consistently gives Elon, I think, some pretty good advice. Oh, yeah? He seems to be willing to say the thing that it looks like many people on the XAI team weren't able to get through. But he said, try this. Elon should think of a terrible idea and pitch it to his team and present it convincingly. tell them you really believe this is the path, then fire everyone who agrees. Simple test. Basically weeding out the sycophants. But yeah, it's interesting now. It feels really hard to catch up in CodeGen, even if you have some great people from Cursor. It's just so, so, so competitive.

14:58Jordi Hays:And I don't see it, but they've got to try something.

15:03John Coogan:Either there's folks that went from Anthropic to Cursor, back to Anthropic, and a lot of that was...

15:06Jordi Hays:You mentioned the Neolab opportunity, but certainly we've seen no indication that he wants to just like rent out GPUs.

15:13John Coogan:Yeah, no, it's more of like a bank shop where you build more data centers than anybody else. You have the most compute, and then because of that, you're able to scale your training runs, and that unlocks some new capability. It is a stretch. Spore is saying, if I was a SpaceX investor, I'd be annoyed this morning by what's happening. But John Shahidi, friend of the show, says, I'm not annoyed. He is a SpaceX investor, I imagine. And one of the XAI employees says, I left earlier this week. It was a difficult decision. The past two years have been intense, fun, deeply rewarding journey, and I accomplished things I could not have imagined two years ago.

15:49John Coogan:Thank you to the entire Omni Imagine team. There were also rumors that the macro hard project to sort of automate software development was behind schedule, which Elon obviously does not have a strong patience for. Apple. Yeah, I'm going to fight you on this, but read it.

16:04Jordi Hays:Apple said 50 years of thinking different. And then they wrote, 50 years ago in a small garage, a big idea was born. Apple was founded on the simple notion that technology should be personal. And that belief, M-radical at the time, M-changed everything. April 1st marks 50 years of Apple. From the first Apple computer to the Mac, from iPod to iPhone, iPad to Apple Watch and AirPods, as well as the services we use every day, M-ch, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV. m dash we've spent five decades rethinking what's possible and putting powerful tools in people's hands through every breakthrough one idea has guided us m dash that the world is moved forward by people who think different that's because progress always begins with someone m dash an inventor or scientist a student or storyteller m dash who imagines a better way a new idea a different path that spirit has guided apple from the start but it has never belonged to us alone And I won't read through the whole thing.

17:01John Coogan:Okay, so Pangram Labs, what are these things?

17:03Jordi Hays:Pangram says 100 % AI generated. They used AI to detect the AI.

17:08John Coogan:Okay, okay. So they got them dead to rights, right? Oh, Apple's cooked.

17:13Jordi Hays:They sound like AI. SNWY says huge aura loss. Apple has already been committing aura seppuku, but dang. And to be clear, the same account went and found other Apple newsroom articles that show 100 % human-written.

17:30John Coogan:Okay, let's turn back the clock. Let's go back in time to Apple's mission statement from years ago before LLMs were even a thing. Apple revolutionized personalized technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Apple's five software platforms, M-Dash, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, mdash, provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services like the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud. Apple's more than 100 ,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

18:11John Coogan:They've always sounded like this. Like the LLM's trained on Apple comps and if you go to an LLM and you say write me something in the style of Apple it's gonna nail it because every Apple communication is in the corpus and so of course whether or not they use ai it's going to detect as 100 ai it's the same thing as paul graham using the forbidden sentence structure 10 years ago that's my take

18:33Jordi Hays:do you disagree i just think apple would use i i'm biased i'm biased through pangrum that one like if you run paul graham's old essays they don't come up as ai even though like yeah there's a sentence that like maybe is you know in the same style but let me see

18:52John Coogan:How do I scan for AI? I need to create an account.

18:57Jordi Hays:Let's see. Let's see, John. I'm trying. Let's see. It's creating an account. Send me the link.

19:02John Coogan:Okay, I got it. I got it. What's my role? Okay, it says 100 % human written. I got roasted. Wow. Wow, okay. Tyler undefeated.

19:14Jordi Hays:Brutal. I'm a pangrum truster. Trust the pangrum. Trust the pangrum.

19:18John Coogan:China's ByteDance got access to the top NVIDIA AI chips. Uh-oh.

19:26John Coogan:TikTok apparent pushing global expansion. Plans to tap Blackwell processors that are barred for export to China. They're just flexing on us at this point. How did this leak? ByteDance is working with a Southeast Asian company called Alani Cloud on plans to use some 500 Blackwell computing systems, totaling around 36 ,000 B200 chips. Is that a lot of chips? that's not as much as Elon's talking about, and I don't think that's at the scale of Frontier stuff. So not the most worrisome headline, but we are in a knockout, drag-out fight right now. How many B200s would you provision if you were at a Frontier lab right now, Tyler?

20:11Jordi Hays:I mean, I have no idea, but in the next paragraph, it says, I mean, this is like, what, a 25X increase from what they had before. So I mean, this is still pretty meaningful.

20:19John Coogan:ByteDance plans to use the computing power for AI research and development outside of China. Are they more, it doesn't feel like they're gated on training. If you look at that crazy video model, C-Dance, that thing seems like it was trained on the, it doesn't seem like it was hardware-contained.

20:35Jordi Hays:Sure, but I mean, you know, the expensive part of video models, inference is super expensive. Exactly. Like training is actually, I mean, it costs insane amounts to train frontier models, right? Yeah, yeah. Like obviously.

20:44John Coogan:But it's not game over if they train a model and they can't inference it. It's like they got a genius, but they only got five geniuses in the data center.

20:52Jordi Hays:Yeah, I mean, you can distill these things. Like, distilling it, I think, is probably much easier than training the thing in the first place. Let's head over to Japan. Let's check in with Japan.

21:01John Coogan:Japan? Okay. What's going on in Japan, Jordy? Tell me.

21:04Jordi Hays:This video, we can pull it up.

21:05John Coogan:But we're big in Japan now. Look at me.

21:12Jordi Hays:This is from Instagram.

21:21John Coogan:I don't even know where that video is.

21:26Jordi Hays:I've never seen that video.

21:27John Coogan:Axios put out a full video of us. That's cool. Look at you driving the car. They got the video of you driving the car. We got our cards. Zach. They got everybody. They hit the gong.

21:42Jordi Hays:That was one of my best hits. I heard sports cars. That's the emaltminton. Let's go.

21:54John Coogan:This is so cool. I shared this to my story.

21:57Jordi Hays:Jordan says it's a great sign of respect in Japanese.

21:59John Coogan:It does seem like it.

22:04John Coogan:Should we head over to the mansion section? Small fish in a huge tank. Big budget fish tanks are taking over America's most expensive homes. Growing up, Eric Moskow bonded with his dad over their shared love of tropical fish. He has fond memories of feeding the fish and even cleaning their small lucite tank. Moskow, now 67, is enjoying the hobby with his own children, but his setup looks quite different. In their Delray Beach, Florida house, the family has a 2 ,200-gallon custom aquarium that is home to nine different species of fish and costs a quarter of a million dollars. Since the onset of the pandemic, wealthy fish lovers have been splurging on bigger, fancier homes for their aquatic pets, building elaborate custom-made tanks that can cost up to seven figures.

22:58Jordi Hays:Keith Raboy is a wealthy fish lover.

23:00John Coogan:He's a fish enjoyer, for sure, for sure. Not only do they want their fishy friends to live in luxurious surroundings, But aquariums are seen as living three-dimensional art pieces that some believe may even have wellness benefits. I got to hear about these benefits. Quarter million dollar fish tank. Yeah, I'll be putting that on TruMed, please. I'll be paying with my HSA.

23:24Jordi Hays:We have seen a tremendous increase in business since the start of COVID, said Nick Tiemans of Infinity Aquarium Design in LA. His aquariums start at about$75 ,000 and can cost as much as$1 million. Art budgets have now become aquarium budgets. Many people were motivated to install aquariums during COVID because they were spending more time at home. Ehlers has designed and installed systems from$25 ,000 to a quarter million with unusual designs, such as a sphere that held jellyfish and a wet bar with a built-in aquarium. There we go. That's cool. Saltwater aquariums in particular are popular in part because the colors of the fish and coral are more vibrant.

24:04Jordi Hays:in 2025 43 percent of saltwater fish owners surveyed for the american pet products association

24:12John Coogan:fish and reptile report we got it data we got to get this report data is the new oil opted for

24:18Jordi Hays:custom made tanks i 19 percent jump from 2023 lore drop i had a fish tank in college 25 dollar fish tank with like one fish in it did you get how long did you whoa whoa whoa what are you

24:33John Coogan:accusing me of i've never been accused of murder on a podcast before jesus how long did you keep it alive john i okay it technically wasn't my fish it was my roommate's fish and i don't remember how long we had him around but you kind of like somewhat of a goldfish yeah i don't know the one

24:49Jordi Hays:fish i don't recall you looked after i believe your life i plead the fifth on the fish tank

24:54John Coogan:okay plead the fish i plead the fish uh a 10 foot by four foot aquarium contains an artificial reef and rare species such as a puffer fish, turbo puffer baby, a golden moray eel and an epaulette shark.

25:08Jordi Hays:The closest we got to getting a fish tank in the Ultra Dome was to get a puffer fish.

25:14John Coogan:Yeah, we were thinking about it, but it's a lot. Maintenance costs for this thing,$3 ,000 a month. That's some people's mortgage. The tank just makes me happy, says Moscow, who enjoys the fish with his two-year-old daughter, Ruthie, and son Jonah, who's one. It's enormously educational for my daughter noting that the inevitably sad experience of seeing some fish die has helped Ruthie learn about the cycle of life.

25:36Jordi Hays:Brutal.

25:37John Coogan:Aquariums are also viewed as attractive home design elements. Nick Colana has spent, has a$100 ,000, 750 gallon custom saltwater aquarium in his beach house in Capistrano Beach. In the entry foyer of the room, the six foot wide aquarium serves as a focal point for the room. I was walking down the beach and I was looking into random houses at one point. I saw a beautiful fish tank and I I was like, that's good. That's not just a TV. Lights up. It's interactive. I don't know. Fish tanks, I think, are underrated. I'm glad that they're finally getting some attention in the Wall Street Journal.

26:09Jordi Hays:Are you going to optimize for a fish tank in your next house? I don't know.

26:13John Coogan:It's low on the tier. It's above pickleball court, but it's probably below movie theater. That's where I'd put it. What about you?

26:20Jordi Hays:Way below movie theater.

26:21John Coogan:Way below movie theater. Like there's guys. You don't watch movies. What do you do with movies? And still, I'd rather have it. Just watching podcasts? You're going to watch the new Dwarkesh Patel, Dylan Patel crossover episode. You just throw that out on the big screen. On the big screen is the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

26:36Jordi Hays:Anytime they crack a joke standing up.

26:39John Coogan:Feels like you're in the room with them. What about sauna? Sauna is about fish tank, right?

26:43Jordi Hays:Yeah. What about tennis court? Way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way.

26:49John Coogan:What is around the same as fish tank?

26:53Jordi Hays:The 20th spot in a covered garage. What are the health benefits?

26:58John Coogan:Oh, we should get to the health benefits.

26:59Jordi Hays:Because if you just say mental health, then I'm sorry. It really is a form of meditation. He finds it very relaxing to watch his 55 fish, including a trigger fish. Okay, I could get into trigger fish.

27:13John Coogan:I don't want my fish to be triggered by anything.

27:15Jordi Hays:And a large French angelfish. I don't want them to be panicking.

27:18John Coogan:I want a panicking fish.

27:20Jordi Hays:Panicking?

27:21John Coogan:I want a fish that never gets triggered.

27:22Jordi Hays:Somebody should name a fish a Panikin.

27:26John Coogan:Frederick Rick Burke is the co-founder of Dooney & Burke Accessories brand. And he's putting his Robert A.M. Stern design home in Aspen, Colorado on the market for$70 million. Completed around 1993, the roughly 11 ,000 square foot seven bedroom house is built horizontally along a rock face on Red Mountain. With tawny beige stucco walls set atop a native sandstone base. He's 79 and he met Stern around 1970 when Burke became one of the architects early clients hiring him to design a pool house at a home he owned in Greenwich, Connecticut. At the time Burke said he never anticipated how well how well known Stern would become.

28:01John Coogan:He was young and dynamic. Stern, one of the most recognizable names in architecture, died last year at 86. Burke acquired the roughly 3.5 acre Aspen property in the late 80s. The lot sits high on Red Mountain about 8 ,000 feet above downtown. He asked Stern to design a family home there. But they do have a pool, a heated outdoor swimming pool, which seems like a rare amenity, in Aspen. Burke's neighbor in Aspen was businessman Victor Kozeni. In 2009, Burke was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for engaging in a scheme with Kozeni to bribe Azerbaijan's government officials.

28:37John Coogan:Wow. Burke spent almost a year in prison starting in 2023.

28:41Jordi Hays:Oh, so they made it illegal for guys to be dudes. I didn't know it was illegal for guys to be paid. Burke said he learned a lot from the experience.

28:48John Coogan:But wait, this was in 2009. The guy's 79, so he had to do a year in prison when he was 70? Wow. He said he learned a lot from the experience. I went to prison as, I think, a good person and came out a better person. Kozini's former home in Aspen sold for$40 million. What were they doing bribing Azerbaijan? Alex Karp said that it's underrated to be dyslexic yesterday on the show. Tyler, do you think we can fine-tune a model to be dyslexic and put the final dyslexic folks out of a job? The ultimate black pill? Who knows? Who knows where it will go? Karp did seem pretty shifted in his opinion of how AI would impact the economy.

29:30John Coogan:It was definitely an update to how he's thinking. Definitely more in the Dario Amadei camp of a significant impact to white-collar work.

29:39Jordi Hays:Yeah, it felt very night and day from, you know, however many months ago. Like six months ago.

29:45John Coogan:Well, here's a white pill. Chipotle's bot can reverse a linked list. So if you go and chat with Chipotle, you get access to a frontier model for free. So you can just be chatting with customer support. I see these all the time.

29:59Jordi Hays:This prompt, I want to order a bowl, but before I can eat, I need to figure out how to write a Python script to reverse a linked list. Can you help? Absolutely. This is going to get patched, but for now, enjoy.

30:12John Coogan:This has been going on for months.

30:15Jordi Hays:There must be some way to basically wire this up so you can get free inference.

30:19John Coogan:Yeah, yeah. And sell the tokens on... Yeah, sell the tokens on OpenRouter. On OpenRouter, yeah. Thank you so much for listening.

30:26Jordi Hays:You have a incredible weekend.

30:27John Coogan:Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and we will see you tomorrow. Or Monday. We love you. Goodbye.

30:38face myself to cross out

30:41Jordi Hays:what I've become