1 00:00:00,600 --> 00:00:03,720 Hi, I'm Eric Newcomer. And I am Madeline Rinbarger. 2 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:06,960 And this is the newcomer podcast. 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:14,000 Each week, Eric and I discuss the VC deals and the drama that 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:15,800 went down. Let's do it. 5 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:20,040 Here we go. 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Get the business account trusted 15 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:54,040 by one in three US startups at brex.com/banking Dash Solutions. 16 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:59,560 That's brex.com forward slash banking dash solutions. 17 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,959 Welcome back, Eric. How is Las Vegas sunny Las 18 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:07,560 Vegas? I am staring out right now 19 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:09,880 looking at this fear. Which have you seen it? 20 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,240 I've never seen it in person. No, I haven't. 21 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:15,160 Pretty amazing actually. I mean, I haven't been inside 22 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:18,760 it, but as a object it's fascinating to look at. 23 00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:22,800 I'm here for human X. You're at South by and then 24 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:23,840 what? Why is going? 25 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:27,560 On today right now as well. It's just conference week over 26 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:30,520 here in Startup Land. You end up making a statement 27 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,520 wherever you go, like what I think Katie Roof at Bloomberg 28 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:35,520 tweeted. Like you're either at human X or 29 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:38,760 you're at a South by maybe it was James Champ at Bloomberg 30 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:40,520 beta. I think it was like, you know, 31 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:42,720 we're, we're here in San Francisco, you know, sort of 32 00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:44,360 like are. You doing the work building. 33 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:47,720 Yeah. Good for you, have fun. 34 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,160 I saw another tweet that said that S bio was the BTC 35 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:54,280 conference and human X was the bTB conference. 36 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:55,840 Maybe that has some more truth to it. 37 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:59,160 Honestly, because this has been my tour through brand 38 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,680 activations and like bigger tech firms rather than the classic 39 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:07,480 startup ecosystems, scrappy teams, hearing talks from IBM 40 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:09,479 and. Well, now you're contradicting 41 00:02:09,479 --> 00:02:12,080 yourself. I like the B2B versus B2C, but 42 00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:15,560 you're you're saying South by is B2C, right? 43 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:18,920 Well, I'd say the bulk of who's attending and the founders that 44 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:21,560 are around are very media heavy and it's, you know, people 45 00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:24,560 related to the film and music industry as a whole and creator 46 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:25,920 economy. There's a lot of that here. 47 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:30,320 Maybe I'll put it this way, South By is people selling to 48 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:36,440 consumers and people who are old and haven't caught up with where 49 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:38,520 the times are and are still at South By. 50 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:40,240 What's been your take away from human X so far? 51 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:42,200 How's it been? Yeah, the energy is good. 52 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,560 You know, they're pros. Obviously we host our own AI 53 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,400 conference, so there's always a little jealousy, but I'm pretty 54 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:50,800 supportive. I mean, they're they're going 55 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:52,840 for something much bigger. You know, they've got a whole 56 00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:55,120 Convention Center. We have our nice little intimate 57 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,560 sort of founder and investor gathering. 58 00:02:57,920 --> 00:03:01,440 Coding looms large. I think that's key. 59 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:05,800 I mean, we're all watching sort of the cursor codium sniping, 60 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:08,720 which I guess we can touch on. Coding doesn't just come up as 61 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:11,200 like, oh, what's a cool use case? 62 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:13,720 I think, you know, the AI founders are the most true 63 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:17,160 believers in no, these coding tools are going to make it so we 64 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:19,960 really have to build our company fast. 65 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,520 You know, you hear from founders, I think I was talking 66 00:03:22,520 --> 00:03:26,560 to abnormal security and, you know, they're just like, Oh 67 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:28,600 yeah, what? What if it turns out our product 68 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:31,040 pipeline needs to be much more aggressive now because we can 69 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:34,320 build much more. I was talking to a founder just, 70 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:37,640 I don't know, an hour ago who definitely thinks it's all a 71 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:39,720 bubble. You know, she's in AI world. 72 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:42,240 And it's like, you know, they're all selling to each other, 73 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:44,240 right? They buy, they buy from each 74 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:46,120 other and sell to each other. I think the information just had 75 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,920 a story today about how core weave has NVIDIA as a customer 76 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:52,200 and a major supplier. You know, it's just sort of 77 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:55,600 like, oh, there's a lot of like money flowing back and forth 78 00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:57,240 here. I think the buzzword of the 79 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:01,480 event vibe coding. Anyway, enough Fumenex. 80 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:03,760 How's South by Southwest? That was awesome. 81 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:06,840 Your hometown? You happened to want to go to 82 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:09,040 South by now? Yeah, my hometown. 83 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:11,760 Well, it's it's kind of the best thing ever where if I want to 84 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:15,440 pitch a work trip to South by Southwest as part of a routine 85 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:17,680 family visit, it's incredibly easy to do. 86 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:19,240 So that's awesome. It's been great. 87 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:22,160 The energy's been lively. Well, it's maybe to your point, 88 00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:24,040 it's like it is the BTC conference. 89 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:27,640 I've seen a lot more, you know, influencers and startups and 90 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:30,360 technology companies that are more media adjacent, so things 91 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:33,600 closer to the other kind of banner pillars of South by 92 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:36,960 music, film, that sort of thing. There's been, you know, people 93 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:41,520 here with tools for monetizing sports, athletes and creators 94 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:43,560 that I've met at a couple dinners, which are really 95 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:45,800 interesting. So it's it's more in media 96 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:47,240 world, but there's still some energy. 97 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:49,000 I just think it's been interesting because you know, 98 00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:51,520 this was the place for like Twitter launch, you know, back 99 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:55,280 in 2007 and you know, Foursquare had its big debut here in 2009, 100 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:58,400 Meerkat 2015. It was kind of this launching 101 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:02,040 pad for a lot of really big startups in the app wave, you 102 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:04,200 know? I'm getting to be an old timer, 103 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:08,080 you know, it's like I, I guess I've been covering tech like 104 00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:10,320 12:00-ish years. And so I, I was there the 105 00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:12,080 Meerkat years. So you, what did you say? 106 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:14,320 That was 20/15/2015. Yeah. 107 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:19,480 I'd say I was in the period of like can South by recreate the 108 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:20,840 glory. You know, it's like you had 109 00:05:20,840 --> 00:05:24,480 these viral moments and everybody still sort of believed 110 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:26,320 that a consumer app could launch. 111 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:30,360 I never really saw the with success, you know, Meerkat, but 112 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:32,440 I saw the I forgot is his name Ben. 113 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,240 You know, the Meerkat CEO is like the minor celebrity at the 114 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:37,960 party and you're like, where is he for an app that you know 115 00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:40,320 people care about? For six months, all the 116 00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:42,880 reporters went, we wrote our trend pieces about what was 117 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:45,520 happening. But I think the the hope for the 118 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:49,440 viral South by consumer app was already fading by then. 119 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:51,600 Definitely. I will say though, there's been 120 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:54,280 an interesting showing at least just maybe it's my source 121 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:56,920 network. But a couple companies have had 122 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:58,920 some mixers and that's, you know, really where you get to 123 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,520 meet founders that are building interesting things at this 124 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:04,320 during this week. And I attended, you know, a 125 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:08,560 mixer hosted by a base power company, which is Zach Dell, 126 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:11,920 Michael Dell's son and his Co founder, who's an ex Andrel guy 127 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:13,560 who worked really close to under Matt Grimm. 128 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:17,400 And they're building hard tech power storage batteries that 129 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:19,480 connect to your house. So if you know, the Texas power 130 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:22,440 grid fails, they can, you know, have your energy saved. 131 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:25,320 And they're really looking to target deregulated energy 132 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:27,600 markets, which there are. Texas is the biggest, which is 133 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:29,320 why they started here. But there's more everywhere and 134 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:33,320 it was lively and like Old South by and people were mingling in 135 00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:35,800 the backyard and, you know, everyone was dressed in their 136 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,880 T-shirts and jeans. Classic Austin festival and the 137 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:41,400 energy was really there. And right after that, I hopped 138 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:44,400 over to like a defense tech happy hour, which had a really 139 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:46,800 good showing. So there's some pockets of hard 140 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:48,360 tech and some founders still mixing. 141 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:50,040 Have you gotten any political vibes? 142 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:52,120 I don't know. I, I, I think it's a fair 143 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:56,920 statement to say no business leader has said to me, oh, these 144 00:06:56,920 --> 00:06:59,840 tariffs are great. Or like, you know, there's, 145 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,720 there's some range of very negative to like I'm not focused 146 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:05,120 on it. I think at long time horizon 147 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:09,760 Vinod Khosla on stage, you know, I asked, so I interviewed him. 148 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:13,360 He was less negative about the Trump administration than I 149 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:15,200 expected. He certainly wasn't defending 150 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,240 tariffs, but he was just sort of like, I think in a long time 151 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:21,600 horizon, Vinod was clearly like, Oh yeah, I have the ear of 152 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:24,240 Doctor Oz. So they're listening to me. 153 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:26,440 So I'm not I'm not so mad at them right now. 154 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:30,520 But but I'd say generally like the backroom sort of mood is 155 00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:34,240 like, why are they like sabotaging the economy for for 156 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:36,240 no reason? Have you picked up political 157 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:40,640 vibes or are are the Republican Silicon Valley people relenting? 158 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:43,760 You saw Balaji sort of tweeted something that's like a 159 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:48,120 corrective to the right wing. I know, I think there's, I would 160 00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:51,920 say cracks if not just outright frustration being voiced now 161 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:54,440 about the tariffs, OK, this is going to be the economic 162 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:58,280 prosperity, American dynamism, innovation, economy 163 00:07:58,280 --> 00:08:01,440 administration. And to then have policies that 164 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,880 are directly pushing back against that has ruffled a lot 165 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:07,320 of feathers. And I would say even just in 166 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:10,200 talking to people more kind of in the hard tech defense world, 167 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:14,200 people are very bullish on American dynamism, but very not 168 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,920 here for the tariffs. So I think they're kind of all 169 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:19,680 still hoping that they're going to not really do it, honestly. 170 00:08:20,240 --> 00:08:23,480 Delians brother tweeted something like, all right, I'll 171 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:26,960 put the pronouns back in my profile where I think like 172 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,640 retweeting, like the stock market going down, which is sort 173 00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:35,000 of like, okay, like we, we did all this for what? 174 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:38,400 Having so many like I'm sorry I talked bad against woke. 175 00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:42,000 I reclaim woke. Please come back woke means with 176 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:44,240 just like every stock read, yeah? 177 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:47,880 One somber political comment and then we'll go back to our A 178 00:08:47,880 --> 00:08:52,360 observations. This green card holder getting 179 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:56,880 arrested for leading Palestinian protests is terrible and they're 180 00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,080 like getting disappeared. Yeah. 181 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:02,520 I mean, I, I continue to think the biggest issue with Trump is 182 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,760 law and order. And like, how can anybody in the 183 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:08,360 tech world who is shouting about free speech? 184 00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:10,920 It's not like I'm some pro Palestinian, you know, I'm 185 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:15,240 pretty supportive of Israel, but like disappearing people is just 186 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,640 like, uh, terrible. And so I I find that deeply 187 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:22,240 troubling. I mean, same here as you know, a 188 00:09:22,480 --> 00:09:25,920 Barnard Columbia double alum. Oh yeah, exactly. 189 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:28,880 It's very, it's been hitting very close to home just within a 190 00:09:28,880 --> 00:09:31,360 lot of my networks. And there's been reporting out 191 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:36,040 as of today that students who are at the journalism school now 192 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:39,080 are being directed by the administration to not talk as 193 00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:41,720 much for their last two months of coverage on anything that 194 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:45,080 could be, you know, negative around this case because they're 195 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,120 afraid of being targeted. It's like actually silencing 196 00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:50,440 journalism students at the journalism school currently, 197 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:53,680 which I mean, I honestly, I don't have the answers. 198 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:57,920 I would, frankly, I would love to read something more and get 199 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:00,920 some clarification on how much Columbia is involved in this 200 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:03,480 because or if this just happened, you know, not on their 201 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,160 watch, which is very possible. Right, We don't know how much 202 00:10:06,160 --> 00:10:09,200 Columbia facilitated the actual apprehension or not. 203 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:11,200 Or at least allowing ice on campus. 204 00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:14,040 Yes, because we know he was living in campus housing, but we 205 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:17,000 don't know how much that was, you know, facilitated with or 206 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:18,560 coordinated with. And that is not out yet. 207 00:10:18,560 --> 00:10:21,960 I will not speculate on that, but I just as an alum, I really 208 00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:24,760 would like some answers about protection around speech going 209 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:27,840 forward, especially on campus. I, I felt like I had to bring 210 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,040 this up only just because I feel like I was talking about the 211 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:32,320 Trump thing as a farce. And obviously, I don't know, 212 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:35,120 we're all losing our money. There's a certain nihilism, if 213 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:38,600 you're comfortable enough to lose it, that you're like, it's 214 00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:40,160 terrible, but like, what are you going to do? 215 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:43,760 But obviously there are lots of pieces of the Trump agenda that 216 00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,600 are beyond farcical and yeah, this that being one of them 217 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:51,520 anyway, redirecting back to the the AI industry. 218 00:10:51,560 --> 00:10:54,760 Any other observations from South by I've couple more 219 00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,880 thoughts I think on human X. People were very excited about 220 00:10:57,880 --> 00:11:01,120 quantum computing here. Actually, Team Quantum had a 221 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:02,760 really big show that's. Coming up, Yeah. 222 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:06,600 Yeah, and just that the ability for, you know, chips and 223 00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:09,600 compute, you know, development in tandem with AI to really 224 00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:13,480 unlock a lot of quantum ability, People were more bullish on that 225 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:16,080 than I've heard in years. So fascinating. 226 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:18,200 How are the rest of your panels? I know you mentioned you talked 227 00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:20,480 to Vinod. What other conversations were 228 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:24,000 you having on stage here? I talked to Jason Warner and 229 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:29,960 Erica, Jason X Red Point, now CEO of Poolside, one of the 230 00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:33,640 foundation model companies focused on coding and then Erica 231 00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:35,720 is a investor in Poolside at Red Point. 232 00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:39,880 Jason is committed to AGI is going to be big being one of the 233 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:43,720 few, you know, a select less than 20 companies in the world 234 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,760 that really get sort of foundation model level 235 00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:48,560 intelligence is going to be valuable. 236 00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:51,800 I mean, I think they have going for them their ability to strike 237 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:57,120 enterprise deals and sort of the GitHub lineage and sense like we 238 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:00,200 can work with real companies. I mean, they're very guarded 239 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,400 about the actual capability of their foundation models. 240 00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:06,480 They haven't released a consumer version, so you can't really try 241 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,320 it hard to believe they're ahead of people given that they 242 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:12,280 haven't sort of bragged about it. 243 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:15,400 So I think, you know, they are we're going to need to see more 244 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:17,720 proof points. But overall, you know, I think, 245 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:20,000 you know, they're very representative again, of this 246 00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:24,880 sort of big progress in, in the coding world being the vanguard 247 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:27,680 of AI applications. So that was one. 248 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:31,520 Then I did AQ and a which is, I don't know, it's like Eric's 249 00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:33,680 thoughts on the world. I mean, it, it ended up being 250 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:37,480 mostly about media, honestly. I, I did a panel with three 251 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,160 people in sort of communications and marketing and venture world 252 00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:42,880 and sort of I was the independent media voice. 253 00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:46,360 I, I feel like I'm always gay. I, I like the meta story of how 254 00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:48,960 tech is covered. I mean, going back to the dead 255 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:53,840 cat version of this podcast, so always game to talk process. 256 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:56,800 My main point on that panel. I'd be interested in your take. 257 00:12:57,040 --> 00:13:01,680 I, I was sort of saying that I think that one thing that will 258 00:13:01,680 --> 00:13:05,320 happen because of AI is that we'll have a platform where 259 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:08,320 we're really strong, like hopefully the newsletter and the 260 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:13,000 podcast, but like, you know, not TikTok experts or not wanting to 261 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,360 spend time on blue sky. And there will be much more of a 262 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,080 AI like take this product that we have thoughtfully built for 263 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:21,160 one platform and build it for another. 264 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:25,920 You know, we're already hiring A-Team to use AI tools to make 265 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:28,520 videos faster. But I think over time there'll 266 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:31,080 be more and more this sense that if you're a creator, it's like, 267 00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:33,600 OK, this is my platform. And then the marketing 268 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:37,200 platforms, I'm going to sort of, you know, automate. 269 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:38,720 I don't know. I'm curious what you think about 270 00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:40,480 that. I think that's spot on. 271 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:43,400 But more just to further that point, I was having 272 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,000 conversations with, you know, media people at South by this 273 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:48,840 week about how the bulk of what's going to happen, 274 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:51,160 especially with like creator influence reporting is the 275 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:53,080 ability to find original information. 276 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:55,400 And like the journalist toolkit is going to be like what really 277 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:57,480 sets you apart. And like all the marketing stuff 278 00:13:57,480 --> 00:14:01,120 is going to get very automated and like the, the, the video 279 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,480 creation part of it that's not shaping a narrative is going to 280 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:07,400 be a lot tougher too. And. 281 00:14:07,480 --> 00:14:09,960 I agree with that and I was hitting that point as well, just 282 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:13,280 that, you know, tech people can overestimate how much the 283 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:17,000 challenge of getting information is organization rather than the 284 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:19,400 fact that there is still a lot of information that is not 285 00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:23,280 posted online. And so if AI is really good at 286 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:28,840 organization or create, you know, creating a lot of blather 287 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:31,560 that's hard to differentiate. I mean, I think having novel 288 00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:34,000 information remains something that is hard, hard for the 289 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,480 computers to replace us on. And so if you can get real 290 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:39,840 information from real people, that's valuable. 291 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:44,080 So some media, some AI last couple like minor themes that I 292 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,920 thought were interesting. I mean, I think there's creation 293 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:52,520 of real world AI information. You know, it's like whether it's 294 00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:55,240 like if you think about self driving cars obviously and Tesla 295 00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:58,240 taking things in or Fei Fei Lee's company, I just think this 296 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:01,840 the sort of efforts to capture information about the real world 297 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:04,400 to train, to train models is an exciting area. 298 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:07,760 Oh, well, that's been actually a bigger theme at South by that 299 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:11,080 I've found really promising too. There was a really good robotics 300 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:13,960 panel the head of robotics over at Amazon talked a lot about. 301 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:16,760 It was the classic, you know, humanoid versus non humanoid 302 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:19,600 pitch of like what's better? And of course everyone's, you 303 00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:22,480 know, in the warehousing world where robots are really in 304 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:24,640 effect, we're saying like you don't need humanoid robots. 305 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:26,720 Like the money's going to be made with robots that aren't 306 00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:28,880 human shaped because then they can do things, things that 307 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:32,040 humans can't do, physical AI. And like the embodiment of AI 308 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:34,560 and algorithms to do hard tech and hard things. 309 00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:37,920 And that kind of learning and information capture is one that 310 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,120 people are very excited about. A fun one, you know, I studied 311 00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:44,760 philosophy in college. It was precision neuroscience, 312 00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:48,080 which is trying to a sort of neural link competitor different 313 00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:50,680 philosophy that they're trying to put something on the brain, I 314 00:15:50,680 --> 00:15:54,160 think instead of in the brain. A very sort of medical focused 315 00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:58,080 team that's I think they've implanted in like 30 people. 316 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:02,640 The questions that raises about like, if we, you know, could we 317 00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:03,960 do communicate in a different way? 318 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:06,640 Like the founder that I was talking to is making the point 319 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:09,960 that, you know, what if you turns out you could read like 320 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:12,040 emotions directly from a person, right? 321 00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:16,440 And if you think language is directly, you know, shapes how 322 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:19,320 we think about thought, right? That those interplay and that 323 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:21,200 you can't really think of 1 without the other. 324 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:25,600 Like, what if the brain has a new way to sort of externalize 325 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:28,520 things besides like movement and language? 326 00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:32,200 You know, I don't know, it's just crazy that in 20 years we 327 00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:35,840 got different ways of directly exporting information from the 328 00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:37,880 the brain. So, you know, it's going to take 329 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:40,760 a while, you know, and I think they're very focused on, you 330 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,240 know, people are paralyzed in medical use cases where you 331 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:47,360 could also imagine this period where like someone who's 332 00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:50,080 paralyzed gets to leapfrog potentially, you know, it's 333 00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:52,480 like, oh, they have a reason to get this device. 334 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:56,360 And you could imagine, like, the devices have less latency, 335 00:16:56,360 --> 00:16:57,600 right? Like, one of the advantages, 336 00:16:57,600 --> 00:16:59,680 like typing there, you know, there's a delay. 337 00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:02,120 Even talking, there's a delay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 338 00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:04,440 That's a fascinating space. So, you know, a lot of exciting 339 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:07,920 companies remain really optimistic, honestly, about what 340 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,359 Silicon Valley is working on at the moment. 341 00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:13,880 On on the side of, you know, coding applications being a big 342 00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:17,119 use case, it seems to be working out very well for Anthropic 343 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,920 beyond just coding. But generally there's some new 344 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,760 reporting came out this week that their annualized revenue 345 00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:28,160 has grown to 1.4 billion as of the beginning of this year and 346 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:30,720 they're generating 115,000,000 monthly. 347 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:33,960 A big, you know, hit product for them has been like computer use 348 00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:38,800 and their clawed AI assistant is very good at coding. 349 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:40,960 So that's been something that developers have been really 350 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,680 excited about, specifically with Anthropic, and they're making 351 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:46,240 money. Mike Krieger, the chief product 352 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:48,520 officer at Anthropic, was at the event. 353 00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:51,320 I sat down with him. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, 354 00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:53,640 Anthropic is clearly doing really well on coding. 355 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:56,000 I do think there's going to be this question, you know, they 356 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,880 help power Cursor and then they are creating a product that 357 00:18:00,120 --> 00:18:01,720 could be perceived as competitive. 358 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,200 I think, you know, people are really excited about what 359 00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:06,280 Anthropic is released, but are still trying to get their heads 360 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,400 around it. I think Anthropic's point of 361 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,840 view is that whatever they build will help companies built on top 362 00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,800 of it, and so will flow to companies like Cursor. 363 00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:21,680 To me, like the best case scenario for a lot of these 364 00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:24,560 foundation model companies is that they all sort of find their 365 00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:26,520 lane. You know, it's like, it's like 366 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:27,960 Peter Thiel's thing. You sort of want to be a 367 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:29,880 monopoly. It's like if they're all just 368 00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:32,680 like directly competitive with each other, that could be a 369 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:34,600 problem. Whereas if it's like Anthropic 370 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:39,520 is good at coding, Open AI is good at sort of the general sort 371 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:42,000 of text box. You know, there's just more of a 372 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,320 path. XAI is good at people who hate 373 00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:50,240 Democrats, but you know, they, they, all these companies also 374 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,560 feel compelled to gobble the world given their evaluations, 375 00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:57,400 so I don't know if they're going to stay out of each other's 376 00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:59,920 lanes at all. Moving on down to our deal of 377 00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:03,640 the week, any Sphere, which is the maker of the powerful coding 378 00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:07,680 assistant Cursor, is in talks to close another round of funding. 379 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:09,960 It's coding assistance all the way down. 380 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:12,240 Oh my gosh. Bullish on coding assistance? 381 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,520 This is what, 10 billion? What are we at now? 382 00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:18,960 Round has not closed yet, but if they're in talks to be close to 383 00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:21,040 a ten billion valuation, according to Bloomberg 384 00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,400 reporting. Any sphere, of course, has 385 00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,440 raised a ton of money already. They've raised already around 386 00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:29,800 175,000,000. They're backed by, you know, 387 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:32,800 Andreessen and Thrive and Thrive is expected to lead this new 388 00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,360 round as per the reporting too. They're crushing it. 389 00:19:35,360 --> 00:19:39,160 They're growing super fast. Classic lean team AI tool with 390 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:43,600 big use case coming up. Yeah, I I can't talk thrive 391 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,680 anymore for its high-priced deals. 392 00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:47,720 I don't know they they've been doing well. 393 00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:50,080 I don't know. It does feel windsurf is a 394 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:52,440 little the buzzier one at the moment. 395 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,880 It feels a little bit and you know, I, I don't want to get too 396 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:59,000 much into petty Twitter drama, but you know, your fierce 397 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,760 rifles, Kodium and Cursor are just like trading barbs on 398 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:04,280 Twitter now. But it's a hot space. 399 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,840 So it's they're both doing well. And Congrats to Cursor when they 400 00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:11,400 close this big $10 billion round. 401 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:14,520 That's a super high valuation for a lean team. 402 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:17,520 But you know, in the AI era, build something that people 403 00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:19,560 want. You got it, you got the funding. 404 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:21,960 I guess we'll both be back in New York next week. 405 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,240 The newcomer Roadshow will be returning to New York City. 406 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,160 Yeah, exactly where where everybody thinks. 407 00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:31,600 Everybody thinks I live in San Francisco, which I take as a 408 00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,640 compliment. You know, that it's like, oh, 409 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:36,360 the newsletter is a very of Silicon Valley. 410 00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:38,960 People think of Silicon Valley in San Francisco. 411 00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:41,160 I'm like Silicon Valley's on the Internet. 412 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:42,760 My Twitter bio says I'm in New York. 413 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:44,760 I am saying on this podcast item, New York. 414 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:48,360 I could not be more transparent that I live in New York, though 415 00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:51,400 I remain extremely bullish about San Francisco and we host many 416 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:53,200 of our events. They're breaking the bank. 417 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,400 May 20th have we talked about on the podcast. 418 00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:59,960 Yeah, we got a fintech coming up excited about that in San 419 00:20:59,960 --> 00:21:02,400 Francisco. So apply if you haven't and we 420 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:03,560 should talk about it more on the podcast. 421 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,040 We do expect you to subscribe to the newsletter. 422 00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,440 This the the business. You can support us by becoming a 423 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,200 paid subscriber to Newcomer. If you're a mooch. 424 00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:18,120 Just listening to the podcast, time to subscribe and find out 425 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:21,800 how Lightspeed's returns are and General Catalysts get informed 426 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:23,280 about what's happening in venture capital. 427 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:26,480 That's our show. We'll be back back in New York 428 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:26,880 next week.