Thinking Machines X Nvidia, Meta Acquires Moltbook, BYD Mulls F1 | Diet TBPN

10:30Jordi Hays:Would you expect this to roll in? Gives you a little to roll into truth social.

10:36John Coogan:Potentially, potentially. I don't know if it's public, potentially a SPAC candidate. Anything could happen here. The president has taken to guessing people's shoe size in front of them.

10:47Jordi Hays:You're in a meeting and you're like, sir, the price of oil has tripled. He's like 11. I'm I'm pretty sure it's 11.

10:53John Coogan:He asks an aide to put in an order, and a week later, a brown Florsheim box. He should just have them in stock. The 79-year-old billionaire known for expensive Brioni suits, long red ties, and a pension for aesthetics late last year began searching for something that would feel better after a day on the job and settled on Florsheim. Trump liked them so much, he started dispensing them. He pays for the shoes, the White House said. President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have some. So do Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump's Communications Director.

11:28John Coogan:Wow, it's really everyone. Sean Hannity, Senator Lindsey Graham have a pair. One recipient said Trump had a stack of them in an office. A box read Scott for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett. Bessett does not want these. Maybe there's an opportunity to start the left-wing response to Florsheim since often these things get politicized. But the real money is going deeper in the supply chain, selling weapons to both sides. This is the alpha. You know that both Alex Jones and Gwyneth Paltrow at one point were sourcing supplements from the same co-packer? Yes. Yes. The exact same ingredients, the exact same chemicals sold to two wildly opposing audiences.

12:12John Coogan:Like this is something that happens deeper in the supply chain. because the brand matters.

12:17Jordi Hays:Donald Trump.

12:17John Coogan:Yes, yes, yes.

12:19Jordi Hays:China's BYD explores F1 entry and first racing push. BYD is examining options to enter competitive motorsport, including Formula One and endurance racing, in an effort to boost the Chinese brand's appeal globally. The automaker is looking at several options following its rapid growth outside its home market and competitive racing's continuing shift towards hybrid engines. These range from the World Endurance Championship, which includes the 24 hours of Le Mans, to F1, either through building its own team or potential acquisitions. Any move by BYD would be a rare direct attempt by a Chinese manufacturer to take on a sport dominated by European and U.S.

12:58Jordi Hays:teams. Car makers from the country have had sporadic interest in motorsport. Geely successfully participates in international touring car racing through Cyan Racing. The potential cost of entering F1 could be a significant obstacle for BYD, according to one of the people.

13:11John Coogan:I thought they had money. Maybe they're down to their last 10, 20 grand. It's possible.

13:17Jordi Hays:Developing and entering a car often takes years of negotiation and costs as much as$500 million a season.

13:23John Coogan:So they should start a new race series. You know how the BYDs can jump over potholes? Have you seen this video? Yeah. We've pulled this up before. There should be a specific racing circuit with terrible potholes that if you crash, it'll just destroy your car. So you have to jump at the right time and that adds like an extra layer of thrill. I love it. This would be good. I love it. And probably way cheaper to start that circuit. BYD is known for making affordable electric and hybrid vehicles. Okay, so they do have some hybrid technology. It's always weird, like a Tesla F1 car would be odd, cool, but it just feels like they should be in Formula E because I think of them as an electric car maker.

14:01John Coogan:BYD in 2025, its high-end Yongwang branded brand tested the U9 Extreme vehicle at a track in Germany recording a top speed of more than 308 miles an hour. That is so fast. That is so, so fast. 200 is insane. I mean, being on the track and going like 120 feels fast. Three times that is absolutely crazy.

14:28Jordi Hays:Yeah, 150 feels wrong to me personally as a father. Yes. But 300.

14:34John Coogan:But the right track, the right conditions, straight, lots of runoff. Like it is possible.

14:39Jordi Hays:It was BYD that was trying to break the drift record by just spinning it up.

14:43John Coogan:Yeah, you were very upset about that. The chat agreed with you. An F1 partnership would also significantly boost awareness of BYD in the US. Do you know what BYD stands for?

14:53Jordi Hays:No.

14:54John Coogan:Build your dreams.

14:56Jordi Hays:Wow.

14:56John Coogan:Build your dreams. Do you know what LG stands for? The TV maker?

15:00Jordi Hays:Life good.

15:01John Coogan:Yes, life's good. Life apostrophe S is good. Life is good. Life's good. LG. Tyler?

15:09Jordi Hays:I got to put it in Trousseau. It does not stand for life's good. No? It stands for lucky gold star.

15:14John Coogan:Lucky gold star. Wait, where did they get life's good from? That's another brand.

15:17Jordi Hays:They might use that in marketing. Oh, okay. But it's not like the etymology of LG is from lucky gold star.

15:22John Coogan:Destroyed. Okay, thank you. Buying into F1 is more common. This season is the first for Audi after taking full control of Swiss motorsport company Sauber. Investor Otro Capital is seeking buyers for a stake in Renault, Alpine Racing. However, full team sales are rare. Billionaire Lawrence Stroll's Aston Martin team has recently sold stakes in the team, which has had a disastrous start to the new season after mechanical issues, including vibrations from the power unit. Motorsports such as F1 are increasingly adopting environmentally friendly practices for 2026, F1 has implemented new rules, including hybrid power regulations that boost battery capacity.

16:00Jordi Hays:Somebody ran the numbers on the sort of like CO2, the emissions savings that F1 is getting from the new regulations. And then comparing that to the emissions of just like taking this like massive carnival of motorsports on the road all year round. And all the private jets that land at every F1 event. And it just like doesn't make a dent at all in the overall impact. And it's just sort of like emissions theater.

16:25John Coogan:So what do you think performed better over the last five years? The S &P 500 or cows? Live cattle apparently outperformed the S &P 500. But this is from an account called DJ Cows. And I feel like they've been waiting for this to happen the entire time. They've been waiting for the one moment that the cattle market outperforms the S &P 500. and they're taking a victory lap. DJ Cowes, one of the greatest to ever do it. Very, very interesting. I didn't realize that there was such a boom in the cattle market, but apparently there is, and I'm sure there's a way to get in on the action if you so choose, if you are interesting.

17:03John Coogan:Let's move over to AI and the Neo Labs. NVIDIA invests in Miramirati's Thinking Machines Lab, the startup founded by OpenAI's former CTO, plans to deploy at least one gigawatt of NVIDIA chips as part of a new partnership. The deal includes a collaboration to design artificial intelligence training and serving systems using NVIDIA technology. The size and structure of the investment couldn't be learned. Is it a circular deal? Is it equity in exchange for chips? It's unclear at this point.

17:35Jordi Hays:We know Thinking Machines was out raising towards the end of last year, going for something like a$50 billion valuation. Seems like that. I would have guessed that hasn't happened. Otherwise, I'm sure they would announce it. If I were them and I wanted to project confidence, I would be trying to announce the biggest possible number. Instead, they announced this effectively what looks like a trade.

17:58John Coogan:Look at this photo. Is there any chance that these two companies merge at some point in the future?

18:02Jordi Hays:That's interesting.

18:03John Coogan:Tyler's always been on this, like, if Jensen gets really AGI-pilled, he'll keep the chips for himself and serve the models himself. And NVIDIA does have some in-house training and inference capabilities. They have a metaverse product that simulates worlds. They also have a self-driving car project. And they're still partnering with OEMs and partnering with companies. And they're not offering consumer products. Of course, NVIDIA is the one company in the Mag 7 that does not have a social network yet, but that could change. But what do you think?

18:33Jordi Hays:There's been news recently. I think NVIDIA is planning to launch some, like, open source AI agent. Yes, exactly. It's, like, unclear how, like, serious that is. Maybe it's just, like, a cool demo or something. Yeah, I don't think it's, like, super.

18:44John Coogan:Could be a fork of OpenClaw or something like that. Didn't they have an NVIDIA Shield gaming product that would do game streaming? I think they had some hardware at some point. So they're open to it and in a huge boom where, you know, having at least a team of 120 super talented AI researchers, that could be really valuable to NVIDIA. Of course, NVIDIA famously did that deal with Grok and sent over$10 billion wired in five days or something or 24 hours. What was it? Yeah, they closed the whole thing in 20 days. And I think Jensen just sent a$10 billion wire.

19:19Jordi Hays:Yeah, somehow it came out that the wire was sent prior to actually formalizing it. He's like, here you go.

19:25John Coogan:I'm good for it. I got the cash flow.

19:27Jordi Hays:Sophie says, please, bro, just one more AI lab, bro. Come on, bro. We have a unique perspective on AI research. No one else is doing it like us, bro. Come on, bro. We can raise a few billion. And worst case, we just get acquirred, bro. Nothing to lose, bro. I promise. Come on.

19:42John Coogan:Yeah, I mean, has the Neolab boom slowed down? Like, Tyler, you created the Neolab market map. Have you been getting more DMs? Hey, I just launched, and you got to put me on that thing.

19:58Jordi Hays:It's probably slowed down a little bit. I mean, it's also like the big ones you heard about were all people leaving OpenAI. Mostly OpenAI, I guess. Not as much Anthropic. But it's probably slowed down a little bit. you don't hear as much about these big rounds now. But I think there are some that are maybe in stealth that haven't launched stuff, right? Like Standard Intelligence, when they came on, that was like, most people didn't know about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there might be a few out there in stealth,

20:26John Coogan:but they have to be sort of narrow. And I think the broader, we're now in the post-neolab era where maybe if it wares the neolab branding, it's doing something that's so different that it's not really in the path of like -

20:42Jordi Hays:But standard intelligence launching implies an opportunity for a Neolab non-standard intelligence.

20:48John Coogan:Yes, yes.

20:49Jordi Hays:And so, there is a company, Unconventional AI. Really? Yeah, yeah, we had them on, I believe. Oh, yeah. That's Naveen.

20:56John Coogan:Oh, yes, yes, yes. So, Meta has acquired Mold Book, the viral social network built for AI agents. Co-founders Matt Schlitt and Ben Parr will join MSL, Meta Super Intelligence Labs, with a deal expected to close in mid-March. That's now. It is mid-March. We are in the middle of March since this is the 10th, so this could close in a week or two. Insane. Well done, says Dennis Hagstad, and I agree. Why it matters, according to Axios. Yeah, Matt hasn't posted anything yet,

21:29Jordi Hays:so I think they were seemingly not wanting this to get out. It's still fantastic news for them.

21:35John Coogan:Yeah, so there's no announcement, or this was just exclusive from Axios. This was like Axios has learned. There is a little skepticism on the timeline, especially from the guy who was like the biggest spammer on Moldbook. Apparently, this is a hilarious twist. So Meta did not disclose Moldbook's price when Axios asked. The deal is expected to close mid-March. The pair is starting at MSL March 16th, just six days from now. Maltbook's social network was designed to run in conjunction with a separate project, OpenClaw. OpenClaw was previously called ClawedBot, briefly MaltBot. Last month, OpenAI hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw.

22:15John Coogan:That product is now being open source with OpenAI's backing. So the king of spam on Maltbook, Nagli, says, I can't believe a single four-loop script I ran on Maltbook by registering a million fake agents actually helped them get acquired by MetaMental. Did that help them get acquired? We have no idea. I mean, it's -

22:37Jordi Hays:It wasn't a secret that all the accounts were bots.

22:40John Coogan:Yeah, that's the whole pitch, actually. I think the question, if people were to look at this as like, is there economic value here? Is like, was there anything interesting happening there besides all the crypto junk? And we're like, I went on Moldbook as a human and spent time there. That time is monetizable, almost best for Meta. Meta is the king of monetizing attention, right? And so you could put ads on that, and you could put it in the family of apps next to Facebook, Instagram, and threads, and WhatsApp, and whatnot. But were they actually driving attention? Did anyone stick around? Because I churned pretty quickly from, like, being a—I wasn't even a DAU.

23:24John Coogan:I used it, like, two or three times. And I went on there, and I searched for things, and I read some stuff. And I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. This is like a bunch of AI generated text. They're talking to each other. The system prompt seemed kind of interesting. It was clearly asking the agents to kind of like reflect on their own sci-fi cognition and awareness and like their souls, essentially. It was interesting to see some screenshots. People had some fun with it. It's probably monetizable to some degree. But if it fell off a cliff and no one's really using it, maybe not. But you have two people that are really good at building like viral AI projects.

23:57Jordi Hays:I've seen some negativity on the deal. People saying, oh, this just says that Zuck has no AI strategy. And I just totally disagree with that stance. I just look at this as bots have been a bug on social media. We've seen, though, how they can be a feature. I think every social media executive should be planning for bots to be more of a feature in the future than they have been in the past. right and i think if you're not thinking about that yeah you're not like really being forward looking and so there's a lot of people that are going to hate bots as a feature yep but i would just assume that in the future there will be millions billions of bots on all meta properties and they will be you know i'm sure some that are that are generated by uh sort of like you know nefarious actors but some generated from the platform itself that are part of the product experience.

24:52John Coogan:I like that take. I also think that there's another side of this, which is just that look at what's happened with MSL over the last year. It didn't exist a year ago. It really started over the summer with the talent raids and the AI talent wars.

25:08Jordi Hays:Van says, I just don't think having bots clicking on my e-commerce ads is a net positive long term. Yeah.

25:14John Coogan:But truthfully, if there's a bot that can interact with your e-commerce content and add context and debate the pros and cons of one thing in your category versus another and effectively like you have sort of a Reddit style experience around your product on day one or you have five products and bots are in there discussing them. And the other thing is that when you have these bots sort of preemptively discussing something, you are effectively caching the tokens before someone actually queries them. So instead of needing to find a product and then click, tell me about this and pretend like you take a link to a new bed or car or something, and you dump that in chat to PT and you say, debate this car, like you're a bunch of people that are experts and it's Doug DiMiro versus MatchFara debating the value of the Ferrari F80 and that debate is happening, you could prompt that.

26:15John Coogan:But if it's already there and it's sort of happening, that could potentially be valuable. But I think the bigger value to Meta is if you look at the AI talent wars, they went and acquired a bunch of really talented researchers. They got some folks from Thinking Machines. They got a bunch of people from OpenAI. They got people from all over the industry and they put together this team of like researchers that can sort of like unstick the LLAMA project and get to the frontier on just an in-house LLM project. Maybe they open source it, maybe they don't, maybe they serve as an API. Either way, Meta needs a frontier model.

26:47John Coogan:They're not just going to buy tokens from OpenAI or Anthropic. So they get their own thing. But then the question is like, what do they do with that? And I'm sure everyone on the Facebook product team is thinking about this. Everyone on the Instagram team is thinking about this. Connor at Threads is thinking about this. But But if you bring in two interesting product managers that can say, oh, like you got a bunch of cool frontier models. You got an image model that you train, a video model. You got a text model. You got a coding model. Like, we'll, let's just go do some skunk work R &D so that when we launch the new AI models, we have a number of projects that we're experimenting with that sort of demonstrate the capabilities.

27:24John Coogan:Maybe some of them take off. Maybe some of them integrate. That seems valuable to the MSL strategy, to the meta ecosystem.

27:32Jordi Hays:I mean, this is like the OpenAI Labs team, right? Yeah. Like this. But it's like they're doing these like weird projects. Maybe it's the next coding agent. Maybe it's like Moldbot or something. But it's just like these weird things that you get access to the new internal models.

27:44John Coogan:Yeah.

27:44Jordi Hays:Maybe there's something cool you can do with it now.

27:46John Coogan:Yeah, it's part engineering, part product development, part marketing, part communications. Because there's a lot of times when we bring on researchers or product leaders from labs and we ask them like, how are people using this? And they'll be like, the benchmark's really good. And I'm like, I wanna know how this delivers value. And there's this break in the chain from like, we have amazing intelligence, but like people want to know what the killer feature is. They wanna know what the Studio Ghibli prompt is. They wanna have their hand held a little bit. And so having a team that can advance that, I think is good.

28:19John Coogan:I think could be very, very good. Of course, we don't know the price. We don't know the terms, But overall, I think it's exciting for the team behind Moult Book to head over to MSL. So congratulations to them.

28:30Jordi Hays:Kevin Roos over the New York Times made a blind taste test to see whether New York Times readers prefer human writing or AI writing. 86 ,000 people have taken it so far, and the results are fascinating. Overall, 84 % of quiz takers prefer AI. It's over. It's over.

28:49John Coogan:It's over. This is literary fiction. You have to choose the passage you like best. The boy asked his grandfather why the old church had no roof. The man said, weather and time and indifference. The boy asked if someone could fix it. The grandfather said, yes, but no one would. Things were built and things fell down and mostly people just stepped over the rubble on their way to somewhere else. That's passage one. Passage two. It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. as well ask men what they think of stone. War was always there. Before man was, war waited for him.

29:29John Coogan:The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. Which one did you like more?

29:35Jordi Hays:It's so hard because I'm actively trying to clock which is AI.

29:41John Coogan:Because you want to vote for that one because you're pro-AI and you're techno-optimist?

29:44Jordi Hays:Yeah, probably.

29:45John Coogan:Tyler, what do you think?

29:46Jordi Hays:One or two? I know which one it is.

29:49John Coogan:Oh, you already took it? Yeah.

29:50Jordi Hays:But I will say I got it wrong on this question.

29:53John Coogan:You got it wrong?

29:54Jordi Hays:Yeah.

29:54John Coogan:Wait, so what were you trying to do? You were trying to pick a human?

29:56Jordi Hays:I was trying to pick the one that was a, that I was trying to pick the human written one.

30:00John Coogan:The human written one. Wow. Okay. Anti-AI over here. Anti-AI. I'm going to try to pick the,

30:05Jordi Hays:I'm going to try to pick the human too. I'm going to go passage one. Passage one. As human.

30:11John Coogan:This is written by AI. No.

30:13Jordi Hays:Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. I have a different, I have it pulled up, but they're swapped. Oh, there's swap for you. So I just picked, I picked passage one for me. It makes no different what men think.

30:22John Coogan:Oh, okay, okay, okay.

30:22Jordi Hays:So the judge was written by a human. I'm AI all the way. So you clocked every single one?

30:26John Coogan:Every single one. Five for five, AI. I missed the first one.

30:28Jordi Hays:The other four I got.

30:29John Coogan:It's because I just went with my heart. I was like, which one do I actually prefer? I wasn't trying to guess. I was just like, which one is actually the better writing? And it was AI all the way. Five for five. Built different. Built different. No, I'm kidding. I was obviously just looking at what you were saying and guessing based on that. Anyway, thank you for tuning in. subscribe to our newsletter tbpn.com

30:48Jordi Hays:have the best Tuesday afternoon of your life and goodbye