1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,760 Are AI stock valuations hitting all time highs and is this never 2 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:06,240 ending cycle of announcements and gains unsustainable? 3 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:09,040 This week we saw another round of significant partnerships 4 00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:12,400 between Open AI and a major chip maker, Open AI making a deal 5 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:16,120 with AMD on data centers. In today's episode, I'm joined 6 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:18,400 by Madeleine Renberger to discuss how this dynamic is 7 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:21,760 evolving and just how much Open AI is propping up public tech 8 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:23,760 stocks with the promise of future demand. 9 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:26,280 Later in the episode, Madeleine shares are dispatched from 10 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:28,000 Anthropic. Clots pop up in New York. 11 00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:31,560 Hot AI labs are taking a note from fashion hype beasts, but is 12 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:33,360 it really going to translate into new business? 13 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:35,920 Finally, we're going to talk about a story I wrote about how 14 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,320 Hollywood's failure to adopt AI video generation products is a 15 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:41,960 sign that companies like Open AI will be shifting away from 16 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:45,240 enterprise solutions. This is the Newcomer podcast. 17 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,400 This podcast is supported. By Google. 18 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,480 Hey folks, Steven Johnson here, Co founder of Notebook LM. 19 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:02,520 As an author, I've always been obsessed with how software could 20 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:06,000 help organize ideas and make connections, so we built 21 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,520 Notebook LM as an. AI first tool. 22 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:12,480 For anyone trying to make sense of complex information, upload 23 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,040 your documents and Notebook LM instantly becomes your personal 24 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,400 expert, uncovering insights and helping you brainstorm. 25 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:22,520 Try it at Notebook lm.google.com. 26 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:25,240 All right, so last week, Madeline, we had Alex Heath on 27 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:27,320 and there was this thing kind of stuck in my head from that 28 00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:31,400 conversation, which was that at a dinner that he went to that I 29 00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:36,200 was not invited to he. Tom was not invited to the 30 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:37,760 dinner. I was not invited to the Sam 31 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:40,560 Altman off the record, no on the record dinner because. 32 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:44,000 You got Tom not invited. Yes, if I brought it up multiple 33 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,880 times on the show now you know, Sam, I guess was bragging after 34 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:52,720 a question or or hinting at teasing your question. 35 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:54,600 I think Alex had asked him, which was that, like, how are 36 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:58,160 you going to pay for all of these, all of these deals that 37 00:01:58,160 --> 00:01:59,880 you guys keep announcing? Like, where's the money going to 38 00:01:59,880 --> 00:02:01,920 come from? And it sounded like Sam kind of 39 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:05,320 had like a panicked but excited glow in his eyes as he 40 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:06,880 responded. Like, I think I figured out a 41 00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:09,720 new instrument, a new way to fund all of these deals. 42 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,040 And we sort of laughed at the time. 43 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,360 We were like, oh, maybe it'll just there's not that many ways 44 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:16,800 to fund these things. There's raising debt, there's 45 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:19,240 selling equity, and then there's vendor financing and I guess 46 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:19,880 rate. Yeah, it's. 47 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:23,360 Yeah, selling equity. It appears that he may have 48 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,240 actually figured out a version of kind of sounds like vendor 49 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,840 financing, but we may be witnessing what the instrument 50 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:33,240 is. And that's this AMD deal that 51 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:38,200 came out on Monday. And basically what this deal was 52 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,800 about is that AMD is agreeing to give 6 gigawatts worth of chips 53 00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:49,120 to to open AI worth 10s of billions of dollars. 54 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:53,760 And in response, in return, Open AI is like given warrants. 55 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:58,880 So they could purchase up to 10% of the equity of AMD if certain 56 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:01,720 performance targets have met. That to just to for clarify that 57 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:03,920 adds up. It's a, it's an, a stock option. 58 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:07,440 Basically, they get the option to buy up to 160 million shares 59 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:09,360 of AMD. Right, right, which ends up 60 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:13,800 equaling out to 10% of the company and that's based on 61 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:15,400 performance targets that are met and whatever. 62 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,920 But after this deal was announced, AMD stock shoots up, 63 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:23,560 as has been the case for almost all of these open AI deals in 64 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:27,480 the last, you know, couple of weeks, Sam and ACEO of a chip 65 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:29,880 company make an announcement, the stock shoots up and the the 66 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:34,760 deal kind of pays for itself in terms of increase equity value. 67 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:37,920 Man, I don't know what to make about these things anymore. 68 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:42,040 It's really gotten to a point now where, like we talked about 69 00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:44,800 last week in the story that I did, that like Sam has 70 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:49,360 infiltrated and like integrated himself into like the core 71 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:52,200 structure of all of these publicly traded companies 72 00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:54,240 because of all the deals that they keep announcing. 73 00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:57,600 How much higher can it get? How much longer can this 74 00:03:57,600 --> 00:03:59,160 particular strategy keep going on? 75 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:03,320 That is just I think that's the multi trillion dollar question, 76 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,040 Tom, right? Like I these deals as they 77 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:10,640 function now, they seemingly juice the stock market and 78 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:14,240 everyone's happy and the the announcement from open AI 79 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,760 partnering with your company is enough to then fund said 80 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:19,560 partnership. So it's great and everyone's 81 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:23,160 happy, but it just seems to be adding a lot and lot more risk. 82 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:24,600 And that doesn't mean that there's going to be an 83 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:28,040 inevitable crash if some of this doesn't workout, but it does 84 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:32,760 just seem like all of the public tech company stocks that have 85 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:37,120 the ability to partner with open AI that are doing so that's that 86 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:39,440 is basically keeping us afloat right now. 87 00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:41,640 Those partnerships are what are landing. 88 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:44,360 It's basically, I won't even say this is a new point. 89 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:46,920 This is just like we're hitting our point from last week again 90 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:49,440 on the head with this new AMD deal announcement. 91 00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:52,160 It's like just when we thought it couldn't get any deeper, we 92 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:55,440 get another deal and Sam sparks this other point. 93 00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:58,280 And obviously Nvidia's wrapped up in a lot of these deals too, 94 00:04:58,280 --> 00:05:01,160 especially with Oracle, you know, their Oracle spends, you 95 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:04,120 know, billions, 10s of billions on NVIDIA chips to run it's 96 00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,520 Centers for all this compute. So it's not solely open AI. 97 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:09,840 NVIDIA is very tied into this as well. 98 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,240 But I think it's it's, it's, it's really these two. 99 00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:15,880 Yeah, well, it's interesting. Well, and, and Broadcom and the 100 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:17,640 chips that they're going to be building on their own that 101 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,480 supposedly will fit somehow into their, you know, infrastructure 102 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:24,680 play as well. But you know, the, the the 103 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,360 NVIDIA deal was really this example of Sam and and Jensen 104 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,160 getting super close and them basically intertwining their 105 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:35,680 fates even more so. And we refer to it as some sort 106 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:38,160 of like, well, I didn't use the term, but, you know, it's kind 107 00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:41,880 of like a mutual destruction pack across the tech industry, 108 00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:45,400 but certainly between those two. But then the AMD deal was 109 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:48,640 interesting because, you know, it is a competitor. 110 00:05:48,840 --> 00:05:50,960 They are going to be developing chips that they would be using 111 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:56,920 in lieu of Nvidia's GPU's. And NVIDIA stock fell a bit when 112 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,960 the news was announced. And so, you know, as close as 113 00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:03,840 these guys are and as important as, you know, each company is to 114 00:06:03,840 --> 00:06:06,960 the other is future, you are seeing at least some 115 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:11,760 diversification on on and open a eyes part that makes sense. 116 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:15,040 You know, from one perspective, like, like it'd be kind of silly 117 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:18,440 to place all your bets on just your one this one supplier of 118 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:22,360 this critical component. But you know, like, I don't know 119 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:24,280 if you read the articles or saw the interview, didn't have a 120 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:28,480 chance to like Jensen was on CNBC and he was like, yeah, that 121 00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:30,960 was interesting. I didn't I didn't know they were 122 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:33,560 going to do that. Well, it's a very creative 123 00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:35,440 financing deal that they put together. 124 00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,520 Like that John Mulaney bit that's like, I didn't know, knew 125 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:42,600 how to do that. You know, like the horse in the 126 00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:44,880 hospital. Look, we're all like making this 127 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:48,640 stuff up in real time, how to finance things at this scale. 128 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:51,800 And you know, it's funny that Jensen, I, I didn't see the 129 00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:54,000 video, so I couldn't detect, you know, if there was any sort of 130 00:06:54,000 --> 00:07:00,680 derision in his, you know, demeanor on the AMD open AI 131 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:03,680 deal. But like, let's not throw stones 132 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:06,040 here from the glass house, Jensen. 133 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:10,040 Like you have constructed an extremely circular deal with 134 00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:13,760 open AI in which you are giving them, you know, effectively or 135 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:17,520 there's a letter of intent to give them $100 billion in 136 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:20,080 exchange for them using $100 billion on your chips. 137 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:23,080 I mean, the circularity of every single deal that has been 138 00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:25,720 announced here is on a different level. 139 00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:30,400 Like this is a whole economy that is being propped up by 140 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:32,000 circular deals. I mean, like there's some 141 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:33,600 interesting charts that have come out. 142 00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:36,480 Maybe we can flash it on the screen for those watching the 143 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,040 YouTube video. But you know, the the 144 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:41,880 relationship between Microsoft this this goes back to the 145 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:45,520 beginnings of open AI, right? Like Microsoft gives open AI 146 00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:48,040 billions of dollars that that ends up being used as an Azure 147 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:51,080 credits, which which props up Microsoft stock for a while. 148 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:54,000 There's obviously NVIDIA stuff, there's the AMD stuff. 149 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:56,640 The Oracle thing isn't quite circular. 150 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:01,320 That's a pretty standard client, you know, provider relationship. 151 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:03,200 Right. It's 300, it's a, it's a massive 152 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,240 deal, but it's for cloud services which they provide, so 153 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:07,960 you know. As Alex mentioned on the show 154 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:10,880 last week, like they are providing, you know, basically 155 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:14,480 Sam put the ball into Larry Ellison and Oracle's court and 156 00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:17,000 said, like you guys figure out how to raise the money that 157 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,360 it'll take to to build the things that you're asking for. 158 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:21,640 So I mean, I don't know, I guess we're back at the question that 159 00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:23,920 we were at last week, which we don't have any more of an answer 160 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:27,680 to, which is like, how much longer can this go on? 161 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,880 How many more of these deals can open AI keep striking and the 162 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:34,919 markets, you know, keep responding in kind and saying 163 00:08:34,919 --> 00:08:37,520 like, great, let's keep pushing up the value of these stocks 164 00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:39,440 that you make the deals with. I mean, is, is that literally 165 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:42,080 all it is? Like, is it just like deals for 166 00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:44,680 the sake of announcements that can prop up a stock and then 167 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:47,320 like kind of keep the machine like running? 168 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:50,120 I mean, we'll have to wait and see, honestly. 169 00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:52,600 Yeah, I don't. I, I wish I had more info for 170 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:54,040 you. I'll dig around for a scoop if I 171 00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:57,160 can. But yeah, it's it's kind of like 172 00:08:57,160 --> 00:08:59,040 we're all in this waiting game together. 173 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:01,000 Yeah. And like, I don't know, credit 174 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,800 to Sam throughout throughout all this stuff like as as absurd as 175 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:08,000 as it is as a reporter and you know, like anyone with I think a 176 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,760 grounding and common sense that you can kind of continue to fund 177 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:14,360 stuff based essentially on like future returns. 178 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,880 That seems to be the only way to operate at the scale that he 179 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:23,360 wants to operate, right? Like this is a this is AAI don't 180 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:27,280 know legitimate, but it's like a way that you can you can, you 181 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:29,760 know, get to the hundreds of billions of dollars that he's 182 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,480 talking about to to build. I guess it's just AGI. 183 00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:34,760 That's just basically the play. Well. 184 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:36,280 That's the that's the pitch, right? 185 00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:39,120 Like we'll hit AGI and then all of this will be solved. 186 00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,840 And it kind of feels, you know, like we're we're floating and 187 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:46,960 waiting for this milestone of AGI to, you know, fix, you know, 188 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:50,160 all of this from unraveling or changing, you know, that's and 189 00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:52,480 that's, and also once we hit AGI, everything will be great 190 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:54,760 and it won't really matter as much. 191 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:56,560 Right, right. We're talking about, you know, 192 00:09:56,760 --> 00:10:00,160 we have the skeleton key to unlock trillions of dollars in 193 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:01,960 transformations across the economy. 194 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,000 So this is all a bargain and and you're getting in on the ground 195 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:10,360 floor by, you know, investing at a stock that is suddenly got a 196 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:17,040 wildly inflated PE ratio anyway. I mean, you want to move on to 197 00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:18,800 kind of the the other side of it. 198 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:24,040 So we have like hype in terms of stock market appreciation and 199 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:27,760 deals based on future returns. And then we have the hype based 200 00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:33,120 on like brand and the, I don't know, emotional attachment that 201 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:36,040 certain people have to companies and, and, and large language 202 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:38,040 models. Like I'll be honest, I've been 203 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:39,720 very buried in a bunch of other stuff. 204 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:42,200 Like what is going on with the Claude pop up? 205 00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:45,480 First of all, for a little context, all of the major AI 206 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:49,080 labs and coding assistant companies have discovered 207 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,840 basically brand activations that that was a marketing tactic that 208 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:55,600 was foreign to them until last week. 209 00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:58,440 And then all of them kind of descended and realized that the 210 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:02,000 New York influencer ecosystem is actually a great place to get 211 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:04,520 your products up and running in the tech sphere outside of San 212 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:09,040 Francisco. So last week, Anthropic hosted a 213 00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:14,720 limited pop up for Claude at a coffee shop owned by the former 214 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:17,280 Vanity Fair editor. It's kind of a sceney place, 215 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:22,680 shop place in Soho. And people were waiting in line 216 00:11:22,680 --> 00:11:26,240 around the block to pick up Anthropic branded hats and 217 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:31,000 notebooks and get their be seen and be seen at their their brand 218 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:32,440 activated pop up. It was definitely a huge 219 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:35,240 success. But I actually, if you'll, if 220 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:36,920 you'll excuse me, I'll go grab the hat. 221 00:11:37,040 --> 00:11:39,480 I'll have to run this for a SEC. So you actually went off and did 222 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:39,760 this? I did. 223 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,560 I did manage to wait in the line and secure a hat. 224 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:48,400 While you're doing that, I can regale the audience with another 225 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:52,400 tale from the Snapchat reporting past that maybe only I will care 226 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:54,400 about. But this is all very reminiscent 227 00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:59,160 to me of Snapchat Spectacles that came out, I think in like 228 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:02,400 2017 or so. This was Evan Spiegel's big play 229 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:05,640 to create camera glasses. And they were very cool. 230 00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:07,080 And it was from a vending machine. 231 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:09,040 And they, I think, had one and they had one. 232 00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:09,960 And there it is. There's the hat. 233 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,520 Oh yes, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the hat 234 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,320 here. It is a it is a thinking cap, 235 00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:18,480 which I thought was actually pretty clever and it's part of 236 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:20,800 anthropic. Sorry to cut you off Tom, but. 237 00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:23,320 Yeah, no, people got the point. Basically, this has been tried 238 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:26,640 in the past by tech companies in New York playing into like the 239 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:29,400 desperate, hypey nature of people that hang around the New 240 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:33,520 York scene and love St. wear. Tell me about getting this hat, 241 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:36,400 Madeline. People, I have to to say people 242 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:39,120 are very excited to get the hat. I think it's quite clever 243 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,320 thinking cap. It's part of their broader 244 00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:44,760 thinking campaign because Anthropic is sort of positioning 245 00:12:44,760 --> 00:12:50,360 itself right now as the Apple think different almost, you 246 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:54,680 know, fun, sleek, branded, you know, they have all the clawed 247 00:12:54,680 --> 00:12:58,160 merch with it's nice design. The logos on the different 248 00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:02,200 pieces were clearly done by some thoughtful designer then rather 249 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,880 than, you know, just standard corporate logo on something. 250 00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:07,480 And it has more of an illustrated touch, I have to 251 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:09,360 say. The hats to plug our own 252 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:13,960 conferences, they look quite similar to our Deus Ex Medicina 253 00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:15,800 hats. So they got the memo that 254 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:18,760 lowercase font Simple is really in right now. 255 00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:23,400 Lowercase fonts, yeah. We were ahead of the curve on 256 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:25,280 that one. So let the record show. 257 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:29,280 But I will say they are positioning themselves in this 258 00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:34,840 way that I think in some ways, given, you know, opening eyes 259 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:37,880 deeper partnership with Microsoft, it almost seems like 260 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:41,880 there's this kind of foil of like the Mac versus PC campaign 261 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:47,520 that's like we're the fun creative model that's actually 262 00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:52,800 making you think and avoid slop and not building a social media 263 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:57,640 platform yet. And I think those associations 264 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,480 are getting placed in with Anthropic's brand and the, the 265 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:05,360 actual pop up structure. I know Cursor is hosting one 266 00:14:05,560 --> 00:14:08,640 later in October in New York as well for the Cursor Cafe. 267 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:11,920 So you can pop up and get merchant coffee as well and code 268 00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:13,680 live with all your friends using Cursor. 269 00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:17,480 But it don't think it has quite the same appeal as, you know, 270 00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:20,880 the, the smart brand in addition to the free hat, you know, with, 271 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:23,720 with the thinking and kind of how they're positioning 272 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,920 themselves in the marketplace. So we'll see how it lands in 273 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:30,280 terms of actually acquiring customers, but I think it was 274 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:32,840 smart. What describe to me the type of 275 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:34,840 person that was waiting in line to get a hat? 276 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:37,160 Like what was their scene? Who is their customer? 277 00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:40,320 How would you describe like a tech hype beast? 278 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:42,360 I would say that's who is in line like. 279 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:44,920 So that's a real thing now. I mean, these people have like 280 00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:46,760 taken over San Francisco. Yes. 281 00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:48,400 And now we have them in New York, too. 282 00:14:48,640 --> 00:14:51,520 There were a couple people I know who at least from Twitter, 283 00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:54,960 claimed to have flown from San Francisco to New York to acquire 284 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:56,760 the hats. So that is hype. 285 00:14:57,480 --> 00:14:59,240 It's a bicoastal hype train here. 286 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:03,720 And I would say there were also a lot of people who were, I 287 00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:09,000 would say maybe more in definitely developers, younger 288 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,320 crowds who are familiar with all these tools, but some 289 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:16,480 influencers from just the general creative sphere of New 290 00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:20,040 York coming in to check out what is the lovely brand activation 291 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:23,280 and get the hat. So are they reaching an audience 292 00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:25,880 that they necessarily want? Maybe there's people who maybe 293 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:27,840 wouldn't have used Anthropic otherwise that are showing up at 294 00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:30,760 this. Yeah, I I don't know what to 295 00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:33,520 make of this personality type. This is in one sense something 296 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,160 that's been around for a while. Like it's the hype beast. 297 00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:39,480 It is the person like camping out outside of the store getting 298 00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:41,800 the oh shit. Like what's the shoe drop that 299 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:44,120 they always do? I think that. 300 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:47,000 Is the shoe drop. Not Jordans, maybe not the and 301 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,480 ones. Well Supreme would do all of the 302 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,520 drops like. Supreme would do the drops. 303 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:52,600 Yeah. I mean, look, there's no 304 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:55,080 question that is like a monetizable personality. 305 00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:58,360 I don't know if that is that the clawed audience, like are those 306 00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:00,680 people coders? Like the thing that gets me 307 00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:04,040 about this strategy is like you mentioned the Mac versus PC 308 00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:08,280 analogy, like Macs was like the creative tool. 309 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:11,600 It was the personal tool. It was like the, you know, it's 310 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:12,920 you. Everyone should have a Mac in 311 00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:16,320 their home because it shows how independent of a thinker that 312 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:19,080 they are. And also they're like, you know, 313 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:22,400 standing apart from like, you know, the John Hodgman I'm APC 314 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:26,000 crowd. But open AI is the consumer 315 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:28,360 product. Open AI is, you know, Apache. 316 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:32,840 BT is a consumer product like Anthropic is the API company. 317 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:36,240 They're the API enterprise company with encoding assistant. 318 00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:39,920 I know. So in some ways it's a weird 319 00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:45,560 consumer play, focusing on how good you are at enterprise and 320 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:48,200 thinking and using your brain business. 321 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:51,400 But it's it's with consumer language. 322 00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:54,720 So maybe in some ways it could be to widen a broader audience 323 00:16:54,880 --> 00:16:57,880 and eventually go for this. It certainly earned a lot of 324 00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:00,000 goodwill. I just, I do agree with you. 325 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:04,200 I'm not sure if this is going to translate into like real money 326 00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:08,400 for Anthropic other than just feeding out everyone else out as 327 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:12,800 being the C&E AI lab. Yeah, again, it's just like if 328 00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:16,400 you know, the people like Dario, the CEO, Not to say that Sam 329 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:20,079 Altman is cool by any definition of the word, but Dario was less 330 00:17:20,079 --> 00:17:23,040 cool than Sam. Dario was like the geeky, you 331 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:27,680 know, effective altruist dude who, you know, has like stuffed 332 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:31,040 animals in the office and sort of runs the company in a very 333 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:33,440 sort of warm fuzzy. We need to, well, there's also 334 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:36,480 the kind of we need to make sure we don't enable the destruction 335 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,160 of the world through AI mentality. 336 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,880 But I just don't think of Dario as like a hype beast or a scene 337 00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:44,240 kid. I think they're trying to make 338 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,040 him a hype beast because at this event they were giving away 339 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,800 little booklets of machines of love and grace with this name on 340 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:54,280 them and his writing about the future and his vision. 341 00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:56,120 So they're they're making it a product. 342 00:17:56,120 --> 00:17:57,600 They're trying. They're trying to make fetch 343 00:17:57,600 --> 00:17:59,080 happen. Yeah. 344 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,680 I mean, this is like clearly some marketing persons like, you 345 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,280 know, boardroom or, you know, whiteboard pitch that they were 346 00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:07,600 like, I mean, why not just give it a shot? 347 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:11,760 Let's just see what happens. That's so I mean, like, is this 348 00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:13,160 going to go on down the line here? 349 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,760 Like do do you think like other companies need to respond in 350 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:17,720 kind? Like are there other model mate? 351 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:19,960 Like does does Gemini need to like carve out their thing? 352 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:23,400 Like are they like for, I don't know, like sports fans? 353 00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,800 Like are they like, is Gemini the like, you know, water sports 354 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:28,800 or something? Like I just don't like. 355 00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,480 Does there need to be branding for all these other competitive 356 00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:33,520 models? What is XA is too? 357 00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:35,320 What is grok? I guess that's just like, no, 358 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:37,200 they're. Just anti woke Yeah, theirs is 359 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:41,880 just like the the conservative AII guess if that yeah thing. 360 00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:46,120 Yeah, they have their own. The reactionary AI, yeah, they 361 00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:49,520 have their own meet ups separately, but yeah, I don't 362 00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:51,520 know it is, but we'll see how this plays. 363 00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:54,840 I I found it very fun to attend and very smart. 364 00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:57,480 And as you know, working for a newcomer, a big fan of live 365 00:18:57,480 --> 00:18:59,320 events. I love a live activation. 366 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,720 I'm not sure how it's going to play ultimately other than just 367 00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,160 getting a bigger brand awareness and being known as something fun 368 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:10,000 and cool compared to actually generating a ton of revenue. 369 00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,040 You were mentioning like the New York influencer scene, which I 370 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,160 observe only through TikTok. A lot of those people are paid 371 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,680 to appear. Did you get the sense that they 372 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:24,040 had like kind of shelled out a bit to get certain people to 373 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:27,360 show up? The day I went, no, I think 374 00:19:27,360 --> 00:19:30,080 there was just genuine interest for people coming. 375 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,680 There were people who were paid kind of almost like, you know, 376 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:37,120 like people on the street, like brand people that were handing 377 00:19:37,120 --> 00:19:40,160 out these, these clawed gift giveaways. 378 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:43,920 But mostly it was that rather than, you know, maybe some shiny 379 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:45,640 influencers showing up at this event. 380 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,320 So I do think they did have some organic growth, but they didn't. 381 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,920 I won't say that there were like people with millions of 382 00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:54,880 followers from TikTok clamoring to get into the cloud coffee 383 00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:56,120 shop. It was much more people in the 384 00:19:56,120 --> 00:19:58,280 tech ecosystem. If they had flown out like 385 00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:01,320 Aiella or one of these, you know, net cap girl, Twitter 386 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:02,840 people, then maybe we could talk. 387 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:05,120 But I think the influencer models are a little different. 388 00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:08,440 Or like the New York like food influencer scene, the guys that 389 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:11,000 are all just showing up at like every new like soup dumpling 390 00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:15,160 place in Saint Mark's or the ones here to come with me and 391 00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:18,920 you can try the best pancakes. The Golden Diner like that. 392 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,080 That wasn't that wasn't the model, right? 393 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,400 They weren't getting those. People, they didn't, they didn't 394 00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:26,800 have the VIP list. Like insulting you if you didn't 395 00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:28,200 come down to the clawed coffee shop. 396 00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:29,280 Right. Yeah. 397 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:31,960 There weren't like, people. What's the the influencer 398 00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:34,200 scandal that always happens where, like, all these 399 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,920 influencers start, like, calling out these various restaurants 400 00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:39,600 after making, like, completely unrealistic demands of them. 401 00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:42,280 It's like, I want to bring three of my friends here and I want 402 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:44,560 like, a fully comped dinner and the restaurant's like, no. 403 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,560 And then the influencer, like, done, like puts them on blast. 404 00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:49,640 Yeah, yeah, they didn't do that for Claude. 405 00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:51,760 They did not do that for Quad Quad Cafe. 406 00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,880 You're safe another day and we'll see if they do more 407 00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:56,480 activations. It seems like it was definitely 408 00:20:56,480 --> 00:20:59,760 a big hit for New York people. I also think for, you know, New 409 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:03,240 York second string here, we like when tech events come to us. 410 00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:06,000 So I think there was a lot of demand of the New York tech 411 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,920 people just excited to go for something like this. 412 00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,720 We don't, we don't have like a, you know, a tech activation on 413 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:15,200 every block these days. Yeah, well, we're, you know, 414 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,480 we're a week away from Dreamforce in San Francisco, 415 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:21,720 which is the ultimate tech activation wannabe try hard 416 00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:24,080 crew. It's basically like Santa Con 417 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,960 for people who like don't really understand what their job is. 418 00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:29,520 That's the Dreamforced model you. 419 00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:32,480 Should you should stock outside and get a hat or some merch or 420 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,040 something? Oh, there's all kinds of merch. 421 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:37,720 They're very, they're very like National Park oriented. 422 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,400 It's very like, it's like kind of Ranger Rick type thing with 423 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:42,800 Dreamforce. Yeah. 424 00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:44,480 It'll actually be interesting to see. 425 00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:46,280 Yeah, it is fun. Sure. 426 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:49,720 It'll be interesting to see if like the models, you know, if 427 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,800 any of the LLMS try to like set up similar activation because 428 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,760 like they need, you know, they want play within. 429 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:59,000 I mean, it's a ton of CMOS and and CIOs showing up at 430 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:01,440 Dreamforce. It would be the perfect time for 431 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:06,360 them to to hawk this thing. If you see a a range of AI lab 432 00:22:06,360 --> 00:22:10,320 coffee shops with sweet merch popping up around you, let me 433 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:11,360 know. I will. 434 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:13,040 I'll get the hat. You'll get the hat. 435 00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:14,720 Yeah. What do you think about the 436 00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,680 cursor one too? Because they are, there are like 437 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,600 obviously a, a, a handful of Gen. 438 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:24,400 AI coding tools out there, but it does seem like cursor has the 439 00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:28,080 most brand recognition, like it's the one that in the space 440 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,920 people like maybe have the most association with or like 441 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,560 emotional attachment to. I'd say so, yes. 442 00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,360 From enterprise customers, it's, I would say it's, it's kind of a 443 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:40,720 battle between cloud code and cursor in terms of which ones 444 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:45,520 people favor the most right now. So I think they have an audience 445 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:50,240 of, you know, rabid coding fans that will be excited to play 446 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,040 influencer in New York in a couple weeks for sure. 447 00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,280 But I to your point, I don't know if they're the one that 448 00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:59,920 needs this brand activation. Like where's where's Windsurf? 449 00:22:59,960 --> 00:23:01,960 You know, like doing this pop up. 450 00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,600 Where are they going next? Well, Tom, I know you've been 451 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,640 digging a lot into Hollywood and AI, and obviously we've been 452 00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:12,040 playing around with the Sora 2 app quite a bit. 453 00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,400 Is it dead? By the way, before we go into 454 00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:19,000 this next topic, like, you know, really slop maven Katie 455 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,640 Natopolis declared on X that Sora is over. 456 00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,480 What a title to retain slop maven that's I. 457 00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:28,000 Hope it makes it around. I hope she hears this. 458 00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:30,360 She loves this stuff. I mean, she's really one of the 459 00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:33,200 best people that like on a shit posting out there. 460 00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,600 I I have nothing but respect for for Katie Natopolis. 461 00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,000 And so when she declares something and has weight, I, I 462 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,240 care when she has sort of a declaration on the state of a 463 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:47,360 thing that was popular. And she says Sora 2 is over, 464 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,480 that she can't get people to use her sign up codes anymore. 465 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:55,040 And you know that the all the big influencers or whatever that 466 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:59,240 existed have fled the platform. And it's, it's moment, brief as 467 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,560 it was, is, is over. But what do you what do you 468 00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,400 think? She's right in, at least my 469 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,720 understanding. Anecdotally, I can't get any of 470 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:10,560 my friends to use my codes that you gave me with your invite, so 471 00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,120 I've still got 2 left. If anyone wants 1. 472 00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:15,960 I think there's some. We'll see. 473 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,080 I think there's some reach out Novel. 474 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,840 Yeah, if you know Madeline at newcomer.co if you want a code. 475 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:23,840 Prove me wrong. Do you want my code? 476 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:28,000 Sora's still going? No, I think it's kind of 477 00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:32,640 suffering what always like a lot of flashy in a flash, in a pan 478 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:37,040 consumer features do, right? Like once the novelty wears off, 479 00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,040 like how do you retain users to actually stay? 480 00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:41,280 And I thought that they had an edge, as we talked about with 481 00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,800 Alex last week, around, you know, having your friends 482 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:45,760 participate so that it's a bit more social. 483 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,000 But if people aren't really chatting or networking beyond 484 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,480 just posting the videos and the feed, do people want to stick 485 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,440 around? But it did, you know, drive a 486 00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,160 ton of sign ups. So that was an effective play if 487 00:24:58,160 --> 00:24:59,640 you wanted to get a lot of people to sign up. 488 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,720 Man, when Alex was on and and you know, Alex is, is great and, 489 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,800 and we hope to have him on a ton more, but I disagreed with him 490 00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:11,320 at the time that this was, you know, a a long term play for 491 00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,040 open AI on Sora specifically. Like, I think it to me, it had 492 00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,760 all the makings of the Studio Ghibli moment or any of the face 493 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:24,720 filters that had popped up on Snapchat or you know, I'm not 494 00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,520 huge on Tiktok. I mean, my accounts really is 495 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:29,520 not huge on Tiktok, but as a user, I don't spend a ton of 496 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,440 time on there. But they have little memes, 497 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,480 obviously, that that, you know, get big from time to time, 498 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:39,880 little games or filters or whatever on TikTok that sort of 499 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:42,720 like run the hype cycle and then and then disappear. 500 00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:47,440 To me, this Sora AI video thing had all the makings of that. 501 00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,680 And I think that is what it turned out to be like. 502 00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:55,160 It was kind of like a, you know, a, a TikTok feature basically 503 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,680 that got its own app to its own credit, but effectively like, 504 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,920 you know, ran through in a very short period of time the 505 00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,040 excitement and then sort of another toy that you put back on 506 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,720 the shelf. Yeah, I guess it could say if, 507 00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:12,200 if the feed itself was the launch and that was the big 508 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,680 product, maybe it hasn't landed yet or is suffering. 509 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,520 But if the tool itself was to get people to sign up and test 510 00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,360 their video features and get a lot more training data, then 511 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,800 afterwards, after getting all of that, then it was a resounding 512 00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,600 success. So it's it's kind of like it's 513 00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,000 hard to launch a feature as a standalone company, but they can 514 00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,160 punch it within Open AI and still work and get a ton of 515 00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,280 information out of that. Right, right. 516 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,720 It's yeah, it's always movable goal posts with it. 517 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,800 So, and it would be stupid to call Sora a failure by any 518 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,560 extent, but it does seem like the people who had dubbed this 519 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,520 like the like, Oh my God, they just made tick tock wildly 520 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,320 overshot, you know, the attention that this was gonna 521 00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,840 get from people, I think. We all we all ran back to 522 00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:59,360 TikTok. Yeah, well, a lot of these 523 00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:01,280 videos made their way to Tik. T.O.K, yeah, they're also all 524 00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:02,560 getting you. You can save them. 525 00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,160 So they're getting posted on other platforms. 526 00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,760 I've seen Sora videos everywhere on TikTok and readers, so 527 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,880 obviously that's sure promotion for open AI. 528 00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,080 But people aren't sticking around on the Sora feed. 529 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,640 They're using Sora the app to make the videos and then sharing 530 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,160 them elsewhere. Right. 531 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,720 Which like I guess back to Open AI is why there's such an 532 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:23,520 interesting company because they truly are doing everything. 533 00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:27,280 I mean, the number of products and strategies that they are 534 00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,960 juggling at the same time is incredible. 535 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,400 And like it's like at the same time that they have basically 536 00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,160 attempted maybe to build a TikTok and got to number one in 537 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:39,960 the App Store and got like a huge amount of viral buzz. 538 00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,040 They're also becoming like the next hyper scaler and building, 539 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,720 you know, and they're also going to be like the next big coding 540 00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,960 tool and they're also the next Google with their search tools. 541 00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:54,040 And you know, it's, it's like not even really to Snapchat's 542 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,480 detriment that like sort of may have like peaked and fallen off. 543 00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,600 It's just like another example of like what their ambitions can 544 00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,120 be when they're like really dialed in. 545 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:06,640 Watch out Elon, Open AI is coming to be the everything app. 546 00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:08,880 That's the everything app, I guess. 547 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:11,320 Well, and you saw Elon's response to this, right? 548 00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,480 Like he's he's been pushing like the next Gen. 549 00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,480 Grok AI image tool constantly. He's trying to catch up. 550 00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,360 I mean they're they're out Elonning Elon right now. 551 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:25,160 Yeah, I happen to be in LA at around the time that Sora was 552 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,000 like peaking. And I've been doing this 553 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,040 reporting for this other story that I'm working on about 554 00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,640 Hollywood and AI. And I was at this dinner with a 555 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,720 bunch of people from, you know, kind of traditional Hollywood 556 00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,280 world, like the studios and also tech executives. 557 00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:45,720 And it was kind of fun to ask around about Sora in this moment 558 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,560 that, you know, they had so aggressively wait. 559 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:52,720 Yeah, What did they say when you were there? 560 00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,080 Well, I guess like, first of all, I had earlier that day 561 00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:58,960 talked to Varun Shetty, who is the head of Media Partnerships 562 00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,880 at Open AI. And he laid out to me, which we 563 00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,000 later published in the newsletter, one of their, their, 564 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,000 their thinking around IP and why they decided to allow SORA 565 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:16,640 initially to kind of let people have a lot of looseness with 566 00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,400 their ability to create likenesses of, you know, very 567 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,960 famous characters. Like I made something with Peter 568 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:25,720 Griffin. I did something with Kermit the 569 00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,840 Frog. It wasn't that hard in the first 570 00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:29,960 couple days to basically get these guys to do whatever. 571 00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,200 And Varun's response to me was like 1, like, we want to give 572 00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,240 people the freedom to create what they want. 573 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,880 And, you know, the more guard rails we put in, you know, the, 574 00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:41,440 the more that's kind of hemmed in. 575 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,560 And then the other side was also everyone else is doing it 576 00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,960 basically like you didn't want to be at a competitive 577 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,000 disadvantage. And I think they got a lot of 578 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,920 heat for saying that. And later that day, Sam put out 579 00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:00,800 a blog post saying, like, oh, we're switching our policy and 580 00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,880 we've moved away from, you know, opt out to opt in. 581 00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:07,760 And basically that whole period where, you know, it was the Wild 582 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:12,440 West of IP violation became not that and things, you know, 583 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,280 really got hemmed in. And so that was interesting on 584 00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,000 its own. And maybe that killed a little 585 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,400 bit of the sore engagement too, because people liked the novelty 586 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,040 of making Rick and Morty trail Cam footage. 587 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,720 Yes, 100%. I I think that probably would 588 00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,280 have worn off too, but there's no question that like it 589 00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,120 definitely slowed the momentum of the whole thing. 590 00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:39,240 But at this dinner, you know, I brought up, you know, Varun's 591 00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,240 comments and the response was like, you would only say 592 00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,840 something like that this being Varun or open AI in general, if 593 00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,800 you didn't really care about Hollywood, if you didn't really 594 00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:53,520 view them as a potential client for your technology. 595 00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,480 And you know, it's been interesting to see the evolution 596 00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,440 with open AI and the movie industry or the entertainment 597 00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,680 industry, even just in the last year, because a year ago when 598 00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,640 they were doing Sora V1 Sora, they were taking lots of 599 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,640 meetings with all the studios and basically trying to show 600 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:13,520 them that they didn't bite. And you know, this is a very 601 00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:14,680 useful tool. You should work in your 602 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:16,840 workflow. And we're here to be a friend. 603 00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,960 And almost. Like the runway model, but but 604 00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:21,920 they're a version, right? Yeah, exactly. 605 00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,600 I mean, runway's interesting because they actually have 606 00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,400 signed a major partnership with Lionsgate. 607 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,280 And so they have they have kind of embedded themselves as 608 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,680 closely, well, relatively closely with with the 609 00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:34,800 entertainment industry. Open the eye is still this kind 610 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,000 of foreign body. So, so the perspective was like 611 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,440 from SORA V1 to this one was a pretty stark change in their 612 00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,040 views on the industry. And it's one thing to like go to 613 00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,760 the meetings with people as they were at like a year ago and say, 614 00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,120 oh, we have this tool, you should use it. 615 00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:53,440 It can make your lives all better. 616 00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,840 And, you know, we're here to help, which whereas this one was 617 00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,640 like a fait accompli, we're barreling in. 618 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:00,960 We'll give you the option to opt out. 619 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,680 But otherwise, don't be surprised if you see, you know, 620 00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:11,200 Pikachu on the grill. And it's, you know, it's that 621 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,520 that's just a choice. Like Hollywood is sensitive. 622 00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,560 You know, people really take this stuff very seriously that, 623 00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,600 you know, the town is run by lawyers and when you go about it 624 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,080 in the way that Open AI did, they certainly sacrificed a 625 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,640 relationship with the industry in exchange for virality. 626 00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,520 And I think that was the biggest take away from these people. 627 00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,200 Maybe Open AI was just taking the calculus that they don't 628 00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,320 need the Hollywood industry to do what they're doing. 629 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,480 They exist as the Everything app without it. 630 00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:41,600 Right. Well, there's basically two ways 631 00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,080 into it, right? It's either like they've decided 632 00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,440 that there's way more market share and money and attention to 633 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,880 be given to short form and basically, you know, living in 634 00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,320 the AI slop TikTok. TikTok. 635 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,760 Yeah, TikTok apocalypse or slop apocalypse? 636 00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,680 Slop apocalypse. Yeah, there's more, you know, 637 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,880 more value to being there than in trying to like ingratiate 638 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,040 yourself with Hollywood. Like, that's one choice. 639 00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,280 The other choice is maybe they're like, well, we'll just 640 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,120 get so big that we'll be inevitable that we'll have such 641 00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:17,000 a good tool that it doesn't matter if you hate our posture 642 00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,640 because we're just, you know, unavoidable. 643 00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:22,600 And yeah, I don't know what do you think? 644 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,600 Like like where where does where does opening eye go in terms of 645 00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:28,480 their. I mean, you're, you're, you're a 646 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,520 movie fan like you, you know, you care a lot about, you know, 647 00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,080 the, the, the future of. Madeline Renberger, noted movie 648 00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,400 enthusiast on this podcast. Yeah. 649 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:45,120 I mean, I think if they're choosing to kind of not go the 650 00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:51,160 way of Hollywood as they are, I think these other apps that have 651 00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,760 market share that are sort of tools like a runway or video 652 00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,000 editors or animation tools that appeal more specifically to the 653 00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,480 industrial creative market rather than the social media 654 00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,680 creator market have enough of a market share to fill that gap. 655 00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,199 And they, I kind of think they don't necessarily need it. 656 00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:12,800 They can play in social media world, They don't need to play 657 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,639 in Hollywood world. And it's not. 658 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,960 I mean, I love the movies, but they're not as big of a market 659 00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,800 as what their ambitions are. You know, it's not the industry 660 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:24,280 it once was. So why do they? 661 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:25,719 Totally. They don't need it. 662 00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,040 They don't right. It's that's exactly right. 663 00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:29,960 They don't need it. It's for there is obviously a 664 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,840 market there, but it's, you know, largely for kind of 665 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,480 artistic, ethical, emotional reasons at this point to be 666 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,719 supporting. Recording rather like to be 667 00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,800 known as the friend of the artists and get better, you know 668 00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:44,639 cred with the normies about that. 669 00:34:44,639 --> 00:34:47,080 It doesn't have any like business value. 670 00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:49,440 Right. And it's interesting as an 671 00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:54,000 evolution just within the tech world because 5 to 10 years ago, 672 00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,880 it was extremely important for a lot of up and coming startups to 673 00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,640 announce that they had gotten a famous actor on their cap table. 674 00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:05,240 You know, it's like we all remember, you know, oh, Robert 675 00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:11,160 Downey Junior has backed Maker Studios or Ashton Kutcher. 676 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,120 I mean, he's probably a more legit investor. 677 00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,240 Yeah, he's a more, you know, legitimized investor as much as 678 00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:23,000 any VC is a legit investor. But yeah, but but yeah, like an 679 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,560 actor was, it was just kind of part of the thing. 680 00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:29,920 Like in your A round or B round, you gave some allocation to to 681 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,600 an actor and you don't see that anymore. 682 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,840 And I don't know if that is because the nature of being a 683 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,040 celebrity is just different and, and Hollywood doesn't have the 684 00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:43,320 same control over culture as it did, you know, 5-10 years ago 685 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:47,120 or, I don't know, it just never worked that much in the 1st 686 00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:48,760 place, so people just moved on from it. 687 00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,440 But this feels like a part of that same kind of trajectory of 688 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,960 like Silicon Valley just not needing Hollywood one way or the 689 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:56,000 other. Anyway, I don't know. 690 00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,400 I had a good time in Los Angeles. 691 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,200 More to come on that front, by the way, so. 692 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:01,280 Stay tuned. Subscribe to Newcomer to hear 693 00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:03,320 more of Tom's thoughts on Los Angeles. 694 00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:07,400 Yes, and and Hollywood. Well, anyway to to hype beast 695 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,880 Madeline Renbarger signing off with their thinking cap. 696 00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:15,000 Yes, got to flex the thinking cap once again like and 697 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,240 subscribe. Thanks so much. 698 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:19,680 That's our show. Thank you for tuning into this 699 00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,240 weeks episode of the podcast. If you're new here, please like 700 00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:24,120 and subscribe. It really helps out the channel. 701 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,360 Listen to new episodes every week wherever you get your 702 00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:26,960 podcasts.