1 00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:03,760 Hi, I'm Eric Newcomer. And I am Madeline Rinbarger. 2 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,000 And this is the newcomer podcast. 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:14,040 Each week, Eric and I discuss the VC deals and the drama that 4 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:15,760 went down. Let's do it. 5 00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:18,120 Here we go. Let's dive in. 6 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:22,320 Welcome back to the podcast. Happy new Year, Eric. 7 00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:26,600 It's our first show of 2025. And Silicon Beach is on fire. 8 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:29,400 We're both safe in New York and comfy. 9 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:34,640 But it's pretty dystopian images to start off the new year. 10 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:38,200 Certainly our hearts are with everybody in LA. 11 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:40,520 You know, we make everything a tech story. 12 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:42,760 So we're like, oh, it's an important Tech City. 13 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:46,560 But obviously just a lot of friends in LA and it's, it's 14 00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:49,240 tragic. So excited for these fires to 15 00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:50,720 resolve. Absolutely. 16 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:53,720 Our heart goes out to our friends, you know, both in media 17 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,080 and in the tech community that are being affected even. 18 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:58,920 If you're not in tech, we care about what's happening. 19 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,760 To you, it's terrible. Yes, we we do care. 20 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:03,480 It is. It's really. 21 00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:07,560 Especially our heart goes out to you know, but anyway, it's 22 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:09,800 terrible. But you know, it's also like, Oh 23 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:13,200 my God, what images? Yeah, it'll become a 24 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:14,680 disinformation story. I do. 25 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,600 They're like shouting about arson now, which I'm oh, my 26 00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:19,320 skeptical. Anyway, I don't want it's been. 27 00:01:19,320 --> 00:01:20,680 Going around everywhere. Yeah. 28 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,560 I yeah, don't want to speculate. You think there's Ars? 29 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:24,240 Yeah. I don't know. 30 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:24,800 We'll see. I. 31 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:29,440 We'll find out, but regardless, it's it's really tough and so 32 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,360 our hearts go out to everyone in the LA area affected by this. 33 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,560 Moving on to some different news, Waymo has hit parody with 34 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:37,960 Lyft. I feel like what's so crazy 35 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:40,640 about being in San Francisco is you're like you see these cars 36 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:42,400 and you're like, this is happening and the rest of world 37 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,560 is like, can self driving happen? 38 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,240 Yeah, when you're in San Francisco and at least for a 39 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,000 while when you've been because you got the early invite code. 40 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,920 So you've known it for a while, but it's around, it's happening. 41 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,280 And at this point, it is just the norm at this like it's, it's 42 00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:58,880 surpassed one of the largest rideshare companies in. 43 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,160 Classic human emotional processing of new technology. 44 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:05,920 We have already moved past Oh my God, there's self driving cars 45 00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:09,120 to I don't know, they're going to be a lot of problems and 46 00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:12,080 you've been you've been talking to some of the Uber crew, the 47 00:02:12,640 --> 00:02:15,880 the people who are used to human negative. 48 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:18,080 But I'm just laughing. But well. 49 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:20,200 That's the reporter angle, right? 50 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:22,920 Yeah, that's we always have to see what could go wrong, but. 51 00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:26,240 So what could go wrong? I've been talking to some of the 52 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:29,760 Uber people who have had a little bit of of concerns from 53 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:32,240 their own experience scaling Uber in different cities and 54 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,440 communities that, you know, know this first hand that there's 55 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:37,640 things that come in when you grow like this. 56 00:02:37,640 --> 00:02:40,200 You have, you know, the mass adoption of riderships. 57 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:42,960 You hit that pivotal moment. But but one thing that you need 58 00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:45,800 to look out for always is the human element. 59 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:49,480 I mean, there's been an increase of reports of Waymo's getting 60 00:02:49,480 --> 00:02:51,600 trashed. Obviously there was Waymo's 61 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,240 being set on fire in different parts of San Francisco before, 62 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,520 but just in general cleanliness is an issue if there's not a 63 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:01,240 driver in the car to maintain it, you know, how do you monitor 64 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:02,960 for that, You know, pro social behavior. 65 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:06,160 So that's just one factor. Waymo is becoming the ultimate 66 00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:08,760 teenage hookup spot and drug drug. 67 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:10,560 I was completely private chauffeur. 68 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:12,960 That's like, Oh my gosh. People dreamed about it. 69 00:03:12,960 --> 00:03:15,800 It's like, oh, you can have an office, you know, going when 70 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:17,680 you're on a long drive, you have your own private car. 71 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,160 But of course there are lots of other things people might want 72 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:22,960 sort of on demand private space for. 73 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:25,480 I mean, I think one thing that's interesting about the Uber 74 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,120 people's observations is just, you know, Uber obviously has 75 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,840 important technology, but in some ways the company succeeded 76 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:36,280 with operational excellence. That meant dealing with 77 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,520 regulators, but it also meant figuring out where the cars 78 00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:43,200 could park and what what zones people could go into and how 79 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:46,840 they should handle sports, you know, like the baseball game 80 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:48,960 ending and everything, everything in between. 81 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:53,320 And so I think the message here is, OK, you figured out San 82 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:57,120 Francisco in sort of neat little zones when you're only letting 83 00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:01,400 the elites on who are very studious about and very, you 84 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:05,000 know, it's on Team Waymo. Yeah, exactly. 85 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:07,440 You let the family on. Your team and so now the next 86 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:10,320 step is when you when you open it up even wider. 87 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,960 There's lots of new factors that you have to you know, control 88 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:15,600 for or not control for and figure out a way to deal with in 89 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:19,040 conversations with some people adjacent to the Uber world. 90 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,720 One thing I found interesting was is how the Waymo fleets that 91 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:24,920 are you know, launching in Austin and Atlanta later this 92 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:26,840 year are really partnering with Uber. 93 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:29,400 Uber is maintaining who's pretty much controlling the 94 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:31,840 infrastructure for that. And so I wonder if we'll see, 95 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:34,520 you know, more of these partnerships out of necessity 96 00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:36,680 crop up at least in the near future is self driving. 97 00:04:37,280 --> 00:04:39,040 That's clear. That's clearly a story Uber 98 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:40,520 wants. I mean, you know, they, they 99 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:43,120 want Waymo to be like, Oh my God, this is going to be such a 100 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:45,480 headache. Let's let's hand this over. 101 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:48,200 I think, you know, Waymo is in the power position. 102 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:50,840 They've got the technology. So they can say, all right, and 103 00:04:50,840 --> 00:04:52,680 this city will do it. And this city, you do it and 104 00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:55,160 let's see if you're really so much better. 105 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,480 So I think that will be an interesting experiment to, to 106 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:00,480 run. I mean, my question for you is 107 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:03,440 how much do you think this is all going to slow down the 108 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:04,920 deployment? Because I think the real 109 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:08,920 question is how much of the work that Waymo did in San Francisco 110 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,760 is specific to understanding the streets of San Francisco versus 111 00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:16,040 they now have a playbook to roll out in other cities. 112 00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:17,360 I mean, do you have a point of view on that? 113 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,320 That's a. Good point San Francisco has a 114 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,640 pretty unique setup, right? It's it's dense, it's narrow, 115 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:27,360 there's not as many, you know, factors of constant jaywalking 116 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:29,880 and the degree that you experience in a mega city like 117 00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:33,320 New York, you know, and I think that they'll need to maybe take 118 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:37,120 a play by play city by city approach as they go forward. 119 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:40,000 Obviously western cities involve a lot more highway driving. 120 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:43,200 Self driving around cities is one of the hardest hurdles to 121 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:45,200 get across. And if you're in other urban 122 00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:48,040 environments, especially in suburban ones with these self 123 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:50,800 driving trucking companies that are popping up for Hwy. driving, 124 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,480 that'll be a host of different problems, but presumably more 125 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:58,240 controllable factors than sort of all of the abnormal edge 126 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:00,400 cases that you have to account for in city driving. 127 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:03,120 As someone who used to be like oh self driving cars are way 128 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,480 overhyped, I think these are small speed bumps relative to 129 00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:10,160 developing the technology. I mean first of all. 130 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:12,480 Oh you're bullish. Okay, you've done a full you've 131 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:14,720 jumped Yeah, I'm. Totally bull. 132 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:16,480 I've been bullish on self driving at this point. 133 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:20,600 I mean, I was bearish, you know, like, I don't know, five years 134 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:24,000 ago, you know, but when Uber was doing it, I was extremely 135 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,120 embarrassed because I saw how many interventions they had. 136 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:29,280 Once I was in way MO without a driver, I became extremely 137 00:06:29,280 --> 00:06:31,320 bullish. But but my point is just that, 138 00:06:31,320 --> 00:06:35,600 like they can restrict who gets on the network, you know, to to 139 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:37,920 worry about the quality. You can penalize people. 140 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:39,440 I mean, they're going to they have cameras looking in the 141 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:40,640 cars. They're going to know exactly 142 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:42,240 what happened. They can use AI. 143 00:06:42,480 --> 00:06:47,440 To me, the most, the pro Uber Lyft case that I believe the 144 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:53,200 most is the sort of liquidity of the network or this issue of 145 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:56,320 when you actually have to pay for what way most cost. 146 00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:57,640 And that's what we don't really know. 147 00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:02,280 Will it make sense to have way MO's at the density that you 148 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:07,520 need so that you're ready for rush hour traffic versus right 149 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:11,680 now way MO can sort of be we're there when we're available and 150 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:13,720 if not, you'll take an Uber, you know what I mean? 151 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:17,560 They're they're sort of not a service that can exist, just 152 00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:20,000 like to, to meet the flexible demand. 153 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,000 You know, Uber and Lyft's innovation was the incentivize 154 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:26,280 drivers to work when there was a lot of work to be done and not 155 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:28,680 when there wasn't. And way MO doesn't have the same 156 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:31,520 mechanism besides just, you know, parking the car. 157 00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:35,160 Yeah, right now way MO is also top down to part of the Uber and 158 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:37,400 Lyft mechanism is that it's the driver's car, right. 159 00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:41,520 And so that's another level of overhead that some people that 160 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,040 I've spoken to have said can be really difficult with scaling 161 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:46,560 going forward that you might need to find a way to handle 162 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:49,600 that that's not fully controlled by the company also 163 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:51,480 manufacturing the self driving software. 164 00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:54,280 Yes. A recurring theme is always if 165 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:58,400 you give something away for less than it costs you to produce, 166 00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:00,400 that will be a very popular product. 167 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:04,520 And then once you have to get the margins right, who knows how 168 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:08,040 things will sort out. And so how much is Waymo heavily 169 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,840 subsidizing this to make it work? 170 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:14,360 And can they find a model where they can deliver it 171 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:16,200 competitively? If they can't, they're going to, 172 00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:17,920 you know, it's going to struggle. 173 00:08:18,280 --> 00:08:21,040 Well, traditional, I mean traditional transportation 174 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,760 companies also typically have, you know, razor thin margins as 175 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:27,720 is like it's, it's a tough, it's a tough model. 176 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:34,480 Waymo is such a superior product to driving like that to me is 177 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:36,200 the case. They also have the leverage. 178 00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:39,440 They can decide, do we work with automakers or do we do it 179 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:41,200 ourselves? Do we work with Uber or do we do 180 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:44,000 it ourselves? Like I would much rather be in 181 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,160 the way MO position. And I just think fundamentally 182 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:50,320 the the other piece of it is that they, if it's a network, 183 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:52,920 they get to coordinate all their cars together and sort of learn 184 00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:55,720 things from each other versus of all the, you know, the car 185 00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:58,040 companies are doing their own technology anyway. 186 00:08:58,040 --> 00:09:01,560 I I think way MO remains in a super strong position. 187 00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:05,920 People counted Google out forever and this thing in a 188 00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:08,600 decade is going to be like transformative. 189 00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:13,360 And I think I it's a question of when the first city says we only 190 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:17,160 want self driving cars, no more of these crazy human drivers. 191 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:20,080 Do you agree disagree. I mean, that's very, you're from 192 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:22,600 Texas, aren't you? You know, you don't have a 193 00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:25,760 little bit of real American like we're never going to let get rid 194 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:27,280 of cars. It's like guns, you know? 195 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:31,600 No, I mean, I feel like it's it's the, you know, there I have 196 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:34,920 to speak to my Texan roots. There's some individual myth of, 197 00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:37,560 you know, being the man behind the wheel, if you will, that I 198 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:40,520 think is going to be hard to give up in my in my counterpoint 199 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,960 to you, nothing rational entirely vibes, but. 200 00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:47,520 That's what Texas is for, you know, the guns and cars can be 201 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:51,800 in Texas and the dense metropolitan areas will have no, 202 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:54,320 no human drivers and hopefully no guns. 203 00:09:54,320 --> 00:09:55,560 But. What do you do when there's a 204 00:09:55,560 --> 00:09:57,400 city in Texas where the whammers are? 205 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:03,440 What's the American experiment? But anyway, very exciting. 206 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:06,960 It's exciting news I think as someone who's really excited 207 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,000 about self driving like to see them hit this critical mass in 208 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:13,600 San Francisco and it they're expanding into more cities. 209 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:16,960 So we'll have this experiment play out again and again. 210 00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:20,960 Moving on to the deal of the week, the live shopping platform 211 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:26,240 what not just announced in up round 265,000,000 Series E 212 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:30,080 fundraise Co led by Graycroft, DST Global and Avra Capital 213 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:34,480 which brought its valuation up to around 5 billion which is up 214 00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:36,880 from it's last funding round in 2022. 215 00:10:37,360 --> 00:10:40,920 Eric, you have been mixed signals on the live shopping 216 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:43,480 market, but. You know, I, I've read them off, 217 00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:46,880 I think I mean pop shop, you know, is a disaster. 218 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:52,760 TikTok is ubiquitous. I did pull up the Google trends 219 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:56,600 and whatnot, you know, held strong and then recently had a 220 00:10:56,600 --> 00:10:59,920 strong uptick, though strong upticks around funding rounds 221 00:10:59,960 --> 00:11:04,760 are always extremely suspicious, but it it still feels resilient. 222 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:07,160 It's not a company that's sort of like falling away from at 223 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:10,160 least my quick Google trend search. 224 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:12,720 I mean, you were making the what I thought was the most 225 00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:16,720 interesting point about what happens if TikTok gets banned. 226 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:17,640 Right. Well, TikTok. 227 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,960 So as a avid TikTok user, Full disclosure both. 228 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:26,600 Of us are obsessives, I think. Regret, regretful obsessives, if 229 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:29,760 you will, the shopping feature on TikTok. 230 00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:33,120 The TikTok Shop offers some live shopping features and live 231 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:35,920 shopping is something that obviously has taken has some 232 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:38,480 audience in the United States if Whatnot is raising this great 233 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:41,600 round, but it's not. It's much more popular in Asia 234 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:44,240 and other countries. TikTok Shop does offer some live 235 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,880 shopping, so Whatnot does compete with them in some way. 236 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:49,520 Right. TikTok was subsidizing their 237 00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:53,120 shopping like a ton I think like over Christmas. 238 00:11:53,560 --> 00:11:56,000 Absolutely. The deals on there were 239 00:11:56,480 --> 00:11:59,280 unethically low. Yeah, well, they just want you 240 00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:01,480 to do 1. And then, you know, maybe I mean 241 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,400 that it makes you wonder, right? Like why? 242 00:12:04,560 --> 00:12:07,680 Why does Whatnot need this much money? 243 00:12:07,680 --> 00:12:10,040 And like, maybe one of the answers is they need to be able 244 00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:13,760 to discount at the level of TikTok to get people to try it. 245 00:12:13,760 --> 00:12:17,520 I assume there's some social media spend, but it is, it is 246 00:12:17,520 --> 00:12:22,120 crazy in a moment where we're sort of in a downturn outside of 247 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:24,840 AI where and. Particular. 248 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:25,920 Has been so hard, yeah. Yeah. 249 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:28,880 And people are saying, oh, you can run your company with, you 250 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:33,400 know, just you and, you know, Chachi BT that that, you know, a 251 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:36,960 marketplace would raise this much money is amazing to me. 252 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:40,080 Well, Whatnot does compete with TikTok, particularly on the 253 00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:43,480 TikTok Shop feature. If TikTok does end up getting 254 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:46,800 banned at the Supreme Court, then Whatnot would be in a 255 00:12:46,800 --> 00:12:48,680 position to take up some of that market share. 256 00:12:48,680 --> 00:12:51,880 So a degree of this funding round feels almost advantageous 257 00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:53,920 that it's coming at this moment. I think the management's like, 258 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:57,760 hey, you know, there's what, 20% chance TikTok gets banned. 259 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:00,640 You get to get great investment if that if that happens. 260 00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:02,840 It's trending. It seems a little more uncertain 261 00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:04,960 than maybe it did a couple months ago that the ban is 262 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:06,520 actually going to go through, but. 263 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,360 Obviously, you know, one of the largest Trump donors this cycle 264 00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:13,440 was also one of the biggest shareholders in TikTok. 265 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:16,480 And I think everybody thinks that's going to have a big 266 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:19,880 influence on it. It would be funny if you know 267 00:13:19,880 --> 00:13:22,640 Marc Andreessen, who's Andreessen Horowitz is an 268 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:25,800 investor in this round and an investor earlier and whatnot 269 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:28,720 tried to pull strings to the opposite. 270 00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:34,240 But I I doubt it happens and I I bet TikTok stays stays and 271 00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:38,280 whatnot has to fight a fair fight to win over video 272 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:40,640 shoppers. Eric, you bet TikTok lives 273 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:43,080 another day. Is that your 2025 prediction? 274 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:49,280 Yeah, I mean, just like, man, I, I, I, my position, which I stand 275 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:53,400 by, is that the US should enforce reciprocity with China. 276 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:56,960 And it's not about being Chinese particularly manipulating the 277 00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:59,840 US, but it's just like, if they have companies here, we should 278 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:00,960 have social media companies there. 279 00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:03,160 If they can manipulate us, we'll manipulate you. 280 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:06,240 And it's the lack of reciprocity that is my issue. 281 00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:09,560 So at the current moment, I support a TikTok ban. 282 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:11,880 That said, it would be a political disaster. 283 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,600 I feel like politicians understand this, and they're not 284 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:18,520 even quite in touch with the demographic that would go insane 285 00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:21,680 if TikTok were banned. We're yeah, we're, I mean, we're 286 00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:24,280 excited for the new year. I think it's gonna be a busy 287 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:27,240 year for us. We're planning our event 288 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:30,920 schedule. This is like the, you know, I 289 00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:33,520 feel like this is the first year where just like as a business, 290 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:36,840 I'm like, Oh my God, every passing day is like a day less 291 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:40,160 to get everything done. We want to this year, which is 292 00:14:40,160 --> 00:14:42,400 sort of a different feeling than I guess that's a good. 293 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:44,120 Problem to have, Eric. That's great. 294 00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:48,360 It's a good problem, but it is also like I was complaining on 295 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:50,000 Twitter. I'm, I'm, I'm going to become 296 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,680 like one of these grind people or grind mindset people. 297 00:14:53,680 --> 00:14:57,320 I'm like, I can't believe like the first full week of the year 298 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:01,040 is like January 6th because that means nobody was answering my 299 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:06,120 emails on like January 2nd and 3rd, you know, So all right, 300 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:09,240 good luck now everybody in LA and yeah, we'll see you next 301 00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:09,960 week. Thanks so much.