Digital Disruption

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that.

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The idea this year and in the past

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18 months has been

I'll just add AI into the tech.

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And it's like,

Why is there AI in my Instagram?

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I, I don't know.

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Where they're going to put them in

Reese's Cups too soon.

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It's going to be peanut butter

chocolate and I I will buy those.

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There'll be

a subscription will be $1,000 a month.

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Hey everyone.

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We are looking ahead today at 2026.

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Still, nobody knows what the hell is

going on or what's going to happen.

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And so I'm here with Jeremy Roberts

to take a lens at eye,

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how it's impacting the economy,

our work, our life.

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And, yeah.

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Jeremy, what should we talk about today?

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Well, I mean, I think you hit it

right there, Jeff.

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It's really, I think, all about the impact

that AI is going to have on the world

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around us, specifically the economy.

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So the big question I've been asking this,

they've been asking this

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is, are we in a bubble,

do you think, fueled by AI.

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So, you know, that's

that's an interesting question to me.

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And it's one that I feel like you have

to tease apart to get a real answer at.

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Do I think that there's too much hype

around AI right now and the capabilities

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that AI has and what it's going to be able

to deliver in 2026?

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100%, I think that,

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no, I disagree.

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I disagree super hard about that.

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But keep going

and I'll tell you why you're wrong.

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And this like, All right. Sounds great.

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Look, I think that we're

in a really unique situation right now

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where we've got a whole ecosystem

of tech companies,

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and the megaphones around them

that are deliberately

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hawking this and want people to believe

that it can do these incredible things.

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And don't get me wrong,

it can do incredible things.

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But the degree to

which we're seeing executives

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banging the drum of AI and degree

to which the market

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and investors are rewarding them for it

and eating it up,

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I just at some point this has to have

a crash course with reality.

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And, you know, I don't exactly know

what's going to happen to the market.

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And to be honest, I think it's a fool's

game to try and time any of this.

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But I think the market, day by day is

struggling to stay aligned with reality.

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Well, I mean, like, I, I wouldn't

give any market advice to anyone.

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I'm still holding Nortel and BlackBerry.

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But when you think about sort of this

compared to maybe other historical

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bubbles, right?

I mean, if we go back in time,

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we could look at, say, the subprime

mortgage crisis.

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That was 2008, 2009, probably

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the most impactful recession

in most people's lives thus far.

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We can look@the.com boom.

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And in both of those cases,

the market was way more overvalued

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from a p e

ratio perspective than it is now.

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Right.

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So this idea that even in the scheme

of things, we're in some sort of a bubble,

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we're approaching that territory.

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I mean, it doesn't

actually stand up to deeper scrutiny.

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And you said earlier

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that, you know, the hype is significant

for a lot of these tools.

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I mean, what if I were to just say that,

you know, we're early,

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you know, copilot

might not be the best thing ever, but

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like, was the PC the best thing ever

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when,

you know, Apple two came out in 1978?

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I think that's broadly right.

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But I want to dig in a little bit

more to the, to the to the price earnings

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ratio piece that you're talking about,

because I think you're right.

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And I think

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that is the single best argument right now

for us not being in a bubble

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is that if you look at these ratios,

even for a lot of the top companies,

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they're they're not astronomical.

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They're pretty sane.

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There are some,

you know, Poland here and Tesla excluded.

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And like I'm not holding money

with them right now for for those reasons.

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But if you hold any ETFs staff,

you probably are.

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fair. Fair enough.

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But to me

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that like the secret sauce behind

that is that

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the earnings that we're seeing right now

are still a result of this gold rush

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that people are dumping investment

into these areas

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with the promise of some nebulous return

at some future point.

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Right.

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So so you've got big tech companies

and and Microsoft is a great example.

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By the way, you mentioned copilot.

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And if people stop

seeing the return on this,

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then I think there's really an opportunity

for panic in the markets.

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And let me let me like

just put a little bit more nuance on that.

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I think the risk of people

not seeing the returns they expect.

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Yeah.

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And a shock downwards is a lot more

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realistic in 2026 than, oh, it's even

better than we thought.

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And this stock shoots up. Right.

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Like I feel like that's

already being priced in right now.

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So so that's my concern.

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So if Nvidia is at like

you know 5 trillion

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I mean who knows what it'll be at

when people are watching this.

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But you know

is it's incredibly valuable company.

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But that's because people

are actually paying money for it.

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So you're their products.

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I mean, so

your argument is essentially that once

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this gold rush mentality fades away,

I'm going to need fewer GPUs.

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And the Nvidia is might retreat

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and that it's really hard to argue

that they're under hyped.

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Maybe it's either

appropriate level of hype or an overhyped.

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Sort of Yeah.

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I mean it's like you'll hear

a lot people compare this like an Nvidia

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infrastructure boom to laying the railroad

infrastructure, you know, 150 years ago.

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And I think that's right.

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Except that like a railroad is a physical

asset that you can drive trains on.

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Yeah.

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And the nature of this is we're building

an awful lot of infrastructure

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with the promise

that we're going to be able

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to do something really useful with it.

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Yeah,

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I think it's likely

that we're going to be able

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to do something really useful with it.

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But a lot of the use

cases are still semi proven at this point.

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I'll say, yeah, you know, certainly LMS,

I'm worried that they're starting

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to plateau in terms of capabilities.

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Yeah.

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And, you know, a

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genetic to me is a great hype word,

but it's still very much unproven.

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so there's just an awful lot

riding on those panning out.

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Right.

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Like it's like building the railroads

before we've invented,

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you know, the steam locomotive.

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So. So how much more railroad

are we going to keep building?

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Yeah.

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No, the railroad metaphor is a good one,

because if you go back in time

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and you look at historical railroad

maps like there were a lot

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more railroads in North America

historically than there are now.

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And we tore them all out

because they were ineffective.

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They were overbuilt.

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Having a bunch of different

private companies

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compete to build railroads, it turned out,

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was actually not the most efficient way

to deliver that service to a population.

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So you might be on to something.

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And the other thing that I'll suggest,

sort of from a bubble perspective, is that

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it's actually quite hard

to be inside a bubble

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and sort of call it out effectively.

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And if everybody inside

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the bubble is saying we're in a bubble,

but a bubble is a speculative thing,

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it's actually kind of hard for it

to turn out to be a bubble

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because nobody is really being misled.

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And so that's the other thing that gets me

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is that everybody's out there being like,

yeah, we might be overvalued.

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I don't know that this has historically

been the same.

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Like people weren't yelling about

the subprime housing crisis in 2006, 2007.

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It was so rare that they made a movie

about it called The Big Short.

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Like the one guy who actually now

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do that, who has called 27

of the last three recessions, by the way.

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So that's sort of where

I'm coming from on that.

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Well, and it's really interesting

because the

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if we were having this conversation

six months ago and I was saying

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there's a bubble, there's a bubble,

people would say, hey, you're crazy.

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Like you're this voice of dissent, right?

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And I feel like somewhere in the last

handful of months, we've turned a corner

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where it's become very in vogue to say

there is a bubble.

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Right?

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And like to say there's no bubble

has actually become counterculture,

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which is interesting

from like a narrative perspective.

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But we're still not seeing people

pull their money out in droves.

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Right.

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And so that's that's fascinating to me.

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But as I said, like that, to me,

this comes down to

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there's a lot more risk

of underperformance than over performance.

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And that's that.

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That's the lens I'm looking at

the market through next year.

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I guess, you know, as a, as an admonition

to all of our viewers, right.

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This idea that the market is inherently

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tethered to reality,

I think we can dispense with that.

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Oh, yeah.

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Now the market, the market,

you know, is crazier than ever.

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And as we see more sort of like,

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I don't know if you want to call them

like retail investors or like Reddit

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and that like the, the meme investors,

the game stoppers of the world.

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It's fundamentally

changed the dynamics of the market in

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a really big way that I think

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untether it more,

if that's even an appropriate metaphor.

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you know, From reality.

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And what's a bit concerning to me

is that a lot of the areas

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where we've seen big gains

this year seem to follow that pattern.

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Right?

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So, whether you're looking at

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some specific like meme stocks

or some of the stocks like

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Tesla and Palantir, whether you're looking

at, you know, is a good example.

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The other thing that gave me pause is

I was reading an investigation

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about gold, okay.

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And it was saying that if you look at

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why gold has increased so much this year

and what's different from before,

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a lot of it is speculative

kind of meme stock investing,

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which is terrifying because it's

meant to be, you know, kind of

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a, a hedge against everything else

going on in the market.

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And yet we've broken it

because it's the same, you know, meme

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investors investing in it.

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So I, I agree with you on that point.

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So I think that

we all got to put our money in

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whatever meme coin is going to come out,

we can call it hedge coin

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or something like that.

We should have our own meme coin.

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Maybe that maybe that's our 2026

digital disruption token.

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And then there's a

there's definitely an option there.

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Okay.

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So let's talk about

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maybe the broader implications of

AI just beyond market pricing.

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Because to me, another big one.

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I know you've talked about this

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on the podcast

a ton in the past year is jobs, right?

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So is I going to take my job?

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Will copilot replace me?

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Will ChatGPT

take the job of every translator

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historian accountant

out there in the world today?

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So at a high level,

what's your take on that?

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Based on all the conversations

you've had? Yeah.

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So I mean, I'm I'm very cynical by nature

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and I think we're seeing a few different

things happen at the same time right now.

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I think there's a lot of talk

of AI taking jobs,

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and I think that's extremely convenient

for the companies out there

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that may have over hired

in kind of the post-pandemic, immediate

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post-pandemic era

where inflation rates were low.

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There was a lot of kind of fast, almost

surprising growth, quantitative easing.

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Yeah.

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And they're looking at okay, well,

how do I, you know, how do I undo

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some of that hiring that, you know,

was a little bit cowboy ish at the time.

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And how do I do it in a way

that still is good for PR, right.

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Or makes me

look ahead of the curve? Right?

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I think there's a lot of self-interest.

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And it's funny.

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And I was talking to editor

on a handful of weeks ago about this, but,

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you know, the idea that if you actually

read a lot of these press releases,

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if you

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dig past the headline, it's not we're,

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you know, downsizing this many people

and replacing them with AI, it's

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we're downsizing this many people,

and we're investigating

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what capabilities a hot AI has

that can help Excited.

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We're very excited

about the prospect of AI. Right.

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And so a bit of a tough pill to swallow.

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And for a lot of people,

I don't know that it matters that much.

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But if you're asking,

I don't know that you should be asking.

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Will I take my job?

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I think you should be asking, Will

I still have a job at the end of 2026?

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Because of where we are

in the economic cycle?

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That's a real concern for a lot of people.

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And, you know, they may be pissed off more

so that it's being

00;11;41;05 - 00;11;45;11

I washed that it really has nothing

to do with AI, and it's

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completely untethered from whether this

AI technology pans out or not.

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Now, the implication there, though,

of course, is

00;11;52;04 - 00;11;55;04

once we get past this part of the cycle,

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do we go back to business as usual

and reach a point where, okay,

00;11;58;21 - 00;12;02;18

we're back on an upswing and crap, we,

you know, over fired,

00;12;02;18 - 00;12;04;29

and now we need to hire a bunch

more people?

00;12;04;29 - 00;12;07;01

Or is there a new market equilibrium?

00;12;07;01 - 00;12;07;10

Yeah.

00;12;07;10 - 00;12;08;07

Because if there's a new market

00;12;08;07 - 00;12;12;08

equilibrium because of AI, then

a lot of these jobs are not coming back.

00;12;12;08 - 00;12;15;19

And that's a really scary proposition.

00;12;15;24 - 00;12;20;01

I think, frankly, as a society,

like whether it's for individuals,

00;12;20;01 - 00;12;23;17

whether it's for, you know,

clusters of people or households,

00;12;23;17 - 00;12;29;15

whether it's for, us as a society,

it's a really real proposition.

00;12;29;15 - 00;12;32;15

And we don't know what all those people

are going to do about it.

00;12;32;15 - 00;12;33;24

Now, a couple of things

00;12;33;24 - 00;12;37;16

I want to say, number one is

you can probably tell by my outlook,

00;12;37;19 - 00;12;42;00

I don't think we're going to see

a cyclical upswing in hiring in 2026.

00;12;42;00 - 00;12;43;25

that would really surprise me.

I think we're going to see

00;12;43;25 - 00;12;46;14

the number continue to go down

and probably stay down.

00;12;46;14 - 00;12;50;07

Probably stabilize at some point

or come rough to stabilizing unless,

00;12;50;13 - 00;12;53;19

you know, the market goes completely

to hell, in which case we may see.

00;12;53;22 - 00;12;57;14

But but to be honest,

that's one of the best defenses

00;12;57;17 - 00;13;00;20

I think we have right now

against a true crash.

00;13;00;27 - 00;13;04;13

Which is to your point against

earnings is companies

00;13;04;13 - 00;13;07;22

seem to be concerned

about the bubble bursting Yes.

00;13;07;22 - 00;13;11;14

and they're preemptively,

you know, kind of leaning out

00;13;11;14 - 00;13;15;09

their operations,

to use a euphemism for firing people.

00;13;15;12 - 00;13;17;20

And so they're somewhat

protected from that.

00;13;17;20 - 00;13;21;07

So if we look beyond that, though,

00;13;21;10 - 00;13;26;10

I think we will start to see, regardless

of whether I, you know,

00;13;26;13 - 00;13;30;08

is completely transformational

or even incrementally

00;13;30;08 - 00;13;33;15

better than it is today,

I think we are going to start

00;13;33;15 - 00;13;37;10

to see a change

in the composition of our workforce.

00;13;37;10 - 00;13;40;18

And a lot of organizations,

I think, you know,

00;13;40;18 - 00;13;43;21

and maybe it's a hot take and maybe

it'll rub some people the wrong way.

00;13;43;21 - 00;13;52;02

I think we have seen a huge explosion

of corporate roles in the last

00;13;52;05 - 00;13;54;08

two years, five years, ten years, 15

00;13;54;08 - 00;13;57;26

years, like functions like it H.R.

00;13;58;02 - 00;14;01;10

Ops. These roles

that are not customer facing

00;14;01;13 - 00;14;07;04

and in many cases are not directly

increasing the capabilities

00;14;07;04 - 00;14;10;27

of the organization and like driving

their competitiveness forward.

00;14;11;00 - 00;14;15;09

We've just seen a huge proliferation

of that.

00;14;15;12 - 00;14;17;18

And it's tough,

00;14;17;18 - 00;14;21;13

I think, for any investor or any business

leader to be really excited about that.

00;14;21;13 - 00;14;25;02

Like, hooray, our company has gotten

so big and cumbersome.

00;14;25;02 - 00;14;26;28

Yeah.

00;14;26;28 - 00;14;30;27

And so if I think about the future

shape of organizations,

00;14;31;00 - 00;14;36;00

I think looking at roles

that are more customer facing,

00;14;36;05 - 00;14;40;02

more looking at capability building

and more just kind of nimble around

00;14;40;02 - 00;14;44;18

what needs to be done

versus I have a job and it's task based,

00;14;44;18 - 00;14;46;26

and I do this

task on Monday, in this task on Tuesday

00;14;46;26 - 00;14;49;20

and this task on Wednesday

and like rinse and repeat.

00;14;49;20 - 00;14;52;13

I think that's the way we're going

to start to see some of this evolve.

00;14;52;13 - 00;14;55;01

So that does sound a lot

like a talking point though, right?

00;14;55;01 - 00;14;57;04

Like, my organization is so bloated,

00;14;57;04 - 00;14;59;02

and there's all these people

who don't do anything but, like,

00;14;59;02 - 00;15;01;16

those people were hired

for a particular reason.

00;15;01;16 - 00;15;03;13

Sometimes it's to go

the thief of their boss.

00;15;03;13 - 00;15;06;03

Fair enough. We've all read the David

Graeber book Bullshit Jobs.

00;15;06;03 - 00;15;06;25

If you haven't, you should.

00;15;06;25 - 00;15;07;28

It's very interesting,

00;15;07;28 - 00;15;10;24

but in a lot of cases,

those people are performing functions

00;15;10;24 - 00;15;14;06

that when they are removed,

they do dramatically reduce the efficiency

00;15;14;09 - 00;15;15;13

of the organization.

00;15;15;13 - 00;15;18;28

So I think it's easy to say

that there's a lot of bloat,

00;15;19;01 - 00;15;22;01

but I do think that those roles are

maybe more complicated than they seem,

00;15;22;01 - 00;15;25;08

which is part of the reason

that I implementations have been so tough.

00;15;25;12 - 00;15;28;21

That said,

I agree in principle with the idea

00;15;28;28 - 00;15;32;23

that artificial intelligence

is likely to impact those back end roles.

00;15;32;26 - 00;15;37;10

But you remember that at MIT and a study

that said that 95% of AI projects

00;15;37;10 - 00;15;39;16

don't produce any real value,

00;15;39;16 - 00;15;42;19

I think that's because they're picking

the wrong things to focus on.

00;15;42;19 - 00;15;46;18

So, like, if I take, you know, a person

who's sort of acting as human middleware

00;15;46;23 - 00;15;49;14

swap them out

for an artificial intelligence solution

00;15;49;14 - 00;15;52;19

that does the same thing

pretty effectively.

00;15;52;22 - 00;15;54;26

I mean, I'm not really moving the needle.

00;15;54;26 - 00;15;58;11

So I think that is broadly in agreement

with the point that you're making.

00;15;58;11 - 00;15;59;22

But my question for you is

00;15;59;22 - 00;16;00;28

if that's not valuable,

00;16;00;28 - 00;16;03;12

why do you think companies are doing it

to the degree that they are?

00;16;03;12 - 00;16;04;26

That seems to be the primary use case.

00;16;04;26 - 00;16;06;12

And like, do you see a way forward

00;16;06;12 - 00;16;10;16

where they can really derive value

from those solutions in a jobs context?

00;16;10;19 - 00;16;11;12

That's sort of you.

00;16;11;12 - 00;16;14;08

You mean the you're referring to the

AI adoption?

00;16;14;08 - 00;16;15;14

Yes. Yeah.

00;16;15;14 - 00;16;18;14

I want to like I want to park

00;16;18;14 - 00;16;25;03

the AI productivity gains

and like the value piece for a second,

00;16;25;03 - 00;16;30;01

because I want to come back to something

you said earlier, about all these jobs

00;16;30;01 - 00;16;31;08

must be increasingly

00;16;31;08 - 00;16;33;12

increasing

the efficiency of the organization

00;16;33;12 - 00;16;36;00

because I just

so strongly disagree with that.

00;16;36;00 - 00;16;39;03

And I think that that rests on a belief

00;16;39;10 - 00;16;42;16

that an organization works

as this kind of organism

00;16;42;16 - 00;16;45;22

where everyone understands

what's best for the organization,

00;16;45;26 - 00;16;50;25

and you can transmit with near

perfect efficiency what the goals are.

00;16;50;26 - 00;16;53;26

And there's

some sort of global optimization there.

00;16;53;28 - 00;16;58;22

And I think the bigger the company gets,

the more difficult it is to do that.

00;16;58;27 - 00;17;01;08

And I think there's just like

00;17;01;11 - 00;17;02;02

with with

00;17;02;02 - 00;17;05;10

humans and anything they do, there's

this broken telephone effect

00;17;05;13 - 00;17;09;08

and you end up with a lot of roles

that are opportunistic.

00;17;09;08 - 00;17;12;10

And I mean, you, you, you know, you

kind of glossed over it as like fiefdoms.

00;17;12;10 - 00;17;15;10

But I think there's a lot

of what makes sense

00;17;15;10 - 00;17;18;10

at this price point

or with this level of growth.

00;17;18;13 - 00;17;21;16

And there's a lot of excitement of,

oh, I can finally do this.

00;17;21;19 - 00;17;24;02

But this is all, you know,

you know, to me.

00;17;24;02 - 00;17;26;25

And it's a silly analogy, but

00;17;26;25 - 00;17;29;29

employees are an operating expense,

not a capital expense, right?

00;17;29;29 - 00;17;30;09

It's not.

00;17;30;09 - 00;17;32;03

Oh, I bought myself a new jacket.

00;17;32;03 - 00;17;34;21

It's I signed myself up

for a new streaming service

00;17;34;21 - 00;17;36;09

that I'm paying for every year.

00;17;36;09 - 00;17;40;20

And if it turns out there's not a lot of

content on there, at some point

00;17;40;21 - 00;17;43;20

you know you're going to want to you're

going to want to cut the cord on that.

00;17;43;20 - 00;17;45;19

And like, I like want to address that.

00;17;45;19 - 00;17;48;11

I'm being extremely facetious

about people's livelihoods.

00;17;48;11 - 00;17;53;25

But I think that organizations

do have a responsibility for making sure

00;17;53;25 - 00;17;57;27

that the people in the organization

are working on things

00;17;57;27 - 00;18;01;27

that are actually valuable to the broader

mission of the organization.

00;18;02;00 - 00;18;04;16

And, you know, there's

00;18;04;19 - 00;18;04;28

there's a

00;18;04;28 - 00;18;08;01

philosophical question

that makes me really, really uneasy in

00;18;08;01 - 00;18;12;21

all of this, which is how many employees

should an organization have?

00;18;12;24 - 00;18;16;01

And I don't really know

how to answer that question.

00;18;16;01 - 00;18;19;15

And I'm worried

the answer is as few as humanly possible.

00;18;19;18 - 00;18;23;13

And that is a problem for society,

00;18;23;13 - 00;18;27;10

especially in an age

of increased automation.

00;18;27;13 - 00;18;31;14

But but I'll, you know,

kind of jump back to your, your question,

00;18;31;17 - 00;18;34;29

which is about what's going on with

00;18;35;02 - 00;18;39;17

AI and

I not creating value in organizations.

00;18;39;20 - 00;18;43;19

And I mean, I think the reality is here

twofold.

00;18;43;19 - 00;18;46;24

First of all,

I think organizations have just

00;18;46;27 - 00;18;50;09

broadly done a fairly,

00;18;50;09 - 00;18;56;02

a fairly poor job of implementing AI

in a thoughtful way.

00;18;56;05 - 00;18;58;24

Over the past 18 months, Sure.

00;18;58;24 - 00;19;03;28

I think there's been this belief

at an executive level that AI is easy.

00;19;04;01 - 00;19;04;29

Oh, wow.

00;19;04;29 - 00;19;06;05

It can do all these things now.

00;19;06;05 - 00;19;09;10

So let's just plug it in wherever we can.

00;19;09;13 - 00;19;12;02

You know, I hear AI for everybody.

00;19;12;02 - 00;19;13;28

Right. good. Yosemite Sam. yeah.

Thank you.

00;19;13;28 - 00;19;15;27

I like my cowboy ish finger guns.

00;19;15;27 - 00;19;18;22

And I think that's been

00;19;18;22 - 00;19;21;26

radically disproven

over the last handful of months

00;19;21;26 - 00;19;26;03

because we've seen the rate

at which these initiatives are failing.

00;19;26;06 - 00;19;27;26

And so I think the era

00;19;27;26 - 00;19;31;23

of let's just bought AI on to

everything is coming to an end.

00;19;31;23 - 00;19;34;02

I think that's a really good thing.

00;19;34;02 - 00;19;38;04

And I think it's forcing organizations

to say, oh shit, this is harder

00;19;38;04 - 00;19;39;27

and more expensive than we thought.

00;19;39;27 - 00;19;43;29

And by the way, probably involves

those pesky IT people.

00;19;44;02 - 00;19;47;01

And, you know,

I have to laugh because, like every IT

00;19;47;03 - 00;19;51;12

project in history has gotten late

and over budget and is extremely difficult

00;19;51;12 - 00;19;52;20

and more complex than people think.

00;19;52;20 - 00;19;57;00

And suddenly AI is like easy, like,

oh, who saw who saw that coming?

00;19;57;00 - 00;19;59;06

Like, yeah,

obviously it's harder than people think.

00;19;59;06 - 00;20;03;02

And so I think we're going to see sort of

AI take two

00;20;03;05 - 00;20;06;07

and if I can call it that in 2026,

where people now

00;20;06;07 - 00;20;09;18

need to decide, okay,

what do I want to be serious about here?

00;20;09;18 - 00;20;12;22

And what am I really willing to

properly invest in?

00;20;12;27 - 00;20;16;12

But that's still happening at a time where

00;20;16;15 - 00;20;19;21

AI is at a very overly experimental state,

right?

00;20;19;21 - 00;20;22;05

Like I think we all know the same count.

00;20;22;05 - 00;20;22;29

On one hand

00;20;22;29 - 00;20;27;23

as proven use cases for AI in terms of

oh yeah, it's good for customer service.

00;20;27;23 - 00;20;31;01

Developers can get more

productivity translation, you know,

00;20;31;01 - 00;20;34;09

translation,

you know, you know, things like that.

00;20;34;12 - 00;20;37;22

And for everything

else, it's still sort of question mark.

00;20;37;25 - 00;20;43;16

And, you know, the the reality of question

mark is you have to suss it out.

00;20;43;19 - 00;20;45;21

And that means that you're going to fail.

00;20;45;21 - 00;20;46;12

A lot of the time.

00;20;46;12 - 00;20;49;29

I used to I spent years

running an innovation function.

00;20;50;02 - 00;20;53;11

And reason

you know, one of the things I feel good

00;20;53;11 - 00;20;56;16

about is we failed fairly frequently.

00;20;56;22 - 00;20;59;16

Right? And,

you know, we would try to fail fast.

00;20;59;16 - 00;21;01;15

And we had lots of successes, too.

00;21;01;15 - 00;21;04;16

But that's the nature of innovation is

you can't get it right all the time.

00;21;04;16 - 00;21;05;08

It's like research.

00;21;05;08 - 00;21;08;15

If somebody is telling you

everything they research is 100% known.

00;21;08;15 - 00;21;09;25

That's not research.

00;21;09;25 - 00;21;11;03

And so I think organizations

00;21;11;03 - 00;21;14;03

need to have an appetite for that

if they're moving beyond

00;21;14;03 - 00;21;18;08

any of the bread

and butter use cases of AI.

00;21;18;11 - 00;21;19;00

So those bread and.

00;21;19;00 - 00;21;22;29

Butter use cases, though, usually

run the gamut of, well, I should say

00;21;22;29 - 00;21;27;25

run the gamut, but they sit on a spectrum

somewhere that's usually it's pitiable.

00;21;27;25 - 00;21;28;04

Right?

00;21;28;04 - 00;21;31;07

So the company that's buying sort

of understands the problem to be solved.

00;21;31;07 - 00;21;33;06

So it's not really boundary pushing.

00;21;33;06 - 00;21;37;11

It's possible for the buyer,

usually a chief information officer

00;21;37;11 - 00;21;41;19

or chief technology officer to to

justify it from like a cost perspective.

00;21;41;19 - 00;21;44;01

So, you know,

we're going to reduce the amount of time

00;21;44;01 - 00;21;47;25

it takes to do expense reporting

by introducing efficiency into the expense

00;21;47;25 - 00;21;49;19

reporting process,

because AI is going to read

00;21;49;19 - 00;21;53;10

all the receipts as a real thing,

by the way, and it's very handy.

00;21;53;13 - 00;21;54;21

And once it

00;21;54;21 - 00;21;58;11

goes through that sausage making machine,

so to speak, what comes out

00;21;58;11 - 00;22;02;10

the other end is usually not fundamentally

transformative or innovative.

00;22;02;10 - 00;22;04;25

To use the not real Henry Ford quote.

00;22;04;25 - 00;22;07;25

We're getting a lot of faster horses here,

I think.

00;22;08;02 - 00;22;12;21

So, like, how do we go from the faster

horse to inventing the automobile?

00;22;12;21 - 00;22;16;12

And like, is I part of that story,

or is I just a way to solve the problem

00;22;16;12 - 00;22;19;25

of wages in these jobs that maybe

shouldn't exist in the first place?

00;22;19;25 - 00;22;23;11

Well, I think I think there's one

more element that we need to, you know,

00;22;23;14 - 00;22;26;21

I want to get serious about, which is that

there's an awful lot of vendors.

00;22;26;27 - 00;22;29;22

And, you know, I'll dunk on Microsoft

for a minute

00;22;29;22 - 00;22;33;01

that are using AI as an excuse

to just raise

00;22;33;01 - 00;22;36;18

their prices and collect more revenue

right where they say, hey, Mr.

00;22;36;18 - 00;22;37;01

and Mrs.

00;22;37;01 - 00;22;40;01

Buyer,

we have all this new AI functionality.

00;22;40;08 - 00;22;42;04

And by the way, that's justifying

00;22;42;04 - 00;22;45;00

why we're charging you 20%

more next year, right?

00;22;45;00 - 00;22;45;29

copilot uplift.

00;22;45;29 - 00;22;46;18

Yeah. Yeah.

00;22;46;18 - 00;22;49;04

Which

I mean has been going really well so far.

00;22;49;04 - 00;22;53;19

We'll see how well that like it's

been going really well so far because

00;22;53;22 - 00;22;57;04

buyers don't know any better

or they're still, you know, a little bit

00;22;57;04 - 00;22;59;15

naive about this as been. Going

as well as they want it. To.

00;22;59;15 - 00;23;00;14

No it hasn't.

00;23;00;14 - 00;23;02;09

And I think it's about to go a lot worse

by the way,

00;23;02;09 - 00;23;05;08

because I think people are starting

to look under the hood and saying,

00;23;05;08 - 00;23;08;08

hey, this is actually isn't

doing something I want or it's

00;23;08;08 - 00;23;09;25

not doing what you promised.

00;23;09;25 - 00;23;13;14

So that I think is a huge motivation

for what we're seeing here.

00;23;13;20 - 00;23;18;14

But question you have about where is AI

a faster horse versus where is it

00;23;18;17 - 00;23;23;29

a car in an era of horses

is like the fundamental question

00;23;24;05 - 00;23;28;19

of our time in AI,

because everyone is advertising cars

00;23;28;22 - 00;23;32;05

and everyone is selling,

you know, faster horses

00;23;32;05 - 00;23;34;14

And everyone is buying faster

and everyone is buying faster.

00;23;34;14 - 00;23;36;17

Horse people show up

and you might pitch them in the car

00;23;36;17 - 00;23;39;17

and they'll be like, ooh, I don't know

if I can park that in my stable.

00;23;39;21 - 00;23;42;05

You know, maybe I should get one of them

faster horses like that.

00;23;42;05 - 00;23;44;02

And it's not just the vendors.

00;23;44;02 - 00;23;44;17

No, no.

00;23;44;17 - 00;23;49;02

And it's it's by the way, it's happening

internal to organizations where investors

00;23;49;02 - 00;23;54;14

are demanding cars, and CEOs

and boards are saying, we build cars here.

00;23;54;14 - 00;23;59;15

You should know that value our company

is that we build cars and then go back

00;23;59;15 - 00;24;02;29

to, you know, their IT team and say,

like we're building cars, right?

00;24;02;29 - 00;24;04;29

And they're saying just horses back here

yeah.

00;24;04;29 - 00;24;08;01

and like that, that reality

I think car money.

00;24;08;04 - 00;24;11;11

Yeah. Yeah. So so that's a conflict.

00;24;11;11 - 00;24;13;28

And there's some really,

really perverse incentives at play.

00;24;13;28 - 00;24;14;28

Right now.

00;24;14;28 - 00;24;20;05

And everybody is kind of looking

to everybody else to say like, but

00;24;20;05 - 00;24;25;06

but surely you have a car over there or

like do our, do our competitors have cars?

00;24;25;06 - 00;24;26;29

Do our vendors have cars.

00;24;26;29 - 00;24;31;02

And there's just not a lot of cars

right now.

00;24;31;05 - 00;24;35;01

And we're like to mixed metaphors

from earlier.

00;24;35;01 - 00;24;38;01

We're sure

building a lot of like asphalt roads

00;24;38;03 - 00;24;40;26

right now

as though there's going to be cars.

00;24;40;26 - 00;24;42;26

And so that's going

to be really interesting.

00;24;42;26 - 00;24;46;17

And by the way, I do think, you know,

to come back to something I said earlier,

00;24;46;20 - 00;24;51;01

I really think that LMS

are not going to be the road.

00;24;51;01 - 00;24;54;04

I think our LMS are the faster horse

right now.

00;24;54;05 - 00;24;54;13

Yeah.

00;24;54;13 - 00;24;56;11

And they can do some really cool stuff

00;24;56;11 - 00;25;00;11

and they can augment

individual productivity, but they are not

00;25;00;14 - 00;25;03;23

the sea change

that they're being pitched as.

00;25;03;23 - 00;25;05;09

we may see some cars.

00;25;05;09 - 00;25;07;07

This like metaphor is like totally bust

00;25;07;07 - 00;25;09;05

away from it's

like totally busted at this point.

00;25;09;05 - 00;25;13;12

the. Horse has left

the. Barn. Oh my God. Like, I

00;25;13;15 - 00;25;16;02

don't think I'm allowed to slap you,

but I sure do want to.

00;25;16;02 - 00;25;18;21

get. An AI to do it.

It'll be a digital. Yeah.

00;25;18;21 - 00;25;22;22

So I think we're going to see specific

areas outside of LMS Yeah.

00;25;22;28 - 00;25;24;17

that will make us say, wow.

00;25;24;17 - 00;25;29;11

Yep. In in 2026, like, oh, wow,

I didn't know that I could do that.

00;25;29;14 - 00;25;34;18

But I like we've got to be

honest, is a marketing buzzword, right?

00;25;34;18 - 00;25;36;23

Like like what the hell does I mean?

00;25;36;23 - 00;25;39;29

And by the way, like we're like,

we're complicit in this.

00;25;39;29 - 00;25;42;07

Like, I am part of the problem here.

00;25;42;07 - 00;25;46;00

But but, like, you know,

to get to a bit of meatier conversation.

00;25;46;00 - 00;25;50;19

Yeah, I lms, I, I think we're starting

to see a plateau there.

00;25;50;22 - 00;25;55;28

A gigantic seems to be the wagon

that everyone is hitching their horse to.

00;25;55;28 - 00;25;58;07

Yeah. God, I've broken this analogy.

00;25;58;07 - 00;26;04;02

And I just don't see that panning out

in the next 18 months, to be honest.

00;26;04;02 - 00;26;06;28

It's just too complex

to get beyond the basics.

00;26;06;28 - 00;26;10;06

Will there be more automation

happening in organizations? Yes.

00;26;10;12 - 00;26;13;17

Will we see some exciting new use

cases? Yes.

00;26;13;23 - 00;26;15;15

But the fact that,

00;26;15;15 - 00;26;18;26

you know, I've spent this year

talking to some of the brightest minds

00;26;18;29 - 00;26;23;11

in academia, in journalism, on the front

lines, actually developing this stuff.

00;26;23;16 - 00;26;27;19

And any time you're like, tell me about

the use case you're most excited about.

00;26;27;22 - 00;26;30;26

And they kind of, you know, politic

their way out of the question

00;26;30;26 - 00;26;32;26

is extremely telling to. Yeah.

00;26;32;26 - 00;26;36;20

Well you mentioned earlier

right about sort of AI 2.0.

00;26;36;23 - 00;26;38;24

And that feels a lot

like web 2.0 to me. Right.

00;26;38;24 - 00;26;41;18

So like web 1.0 was very non-interactive.

00;26;41;18 - 00;26;42;10

Like here's a page.

00;26;42;10 - 00;26;46;12

Here's a directory where we used to browse

the internet with an alphabetical list

00;26;46;15 - 00;26;49;14

of everything that was out there, like,

are you interested in aardvarks?

00;26;49;14 - 00;26;51;13

Yeah, that was the top left.

00;26;51;13 - 00;26;54;03

And then web 2.0,

of course, became far more interactive.

00;26;54;03 - 00;26;55;28

There were buttons

and things that you could press.

00;26;55;28 - 00;26;59;11

So if I 1.0 is LMS

00;26;59;11 - 00;27;02;17

that do really gimmicky stuff,

like write a poem for your birthday.

00;27;02;17 - 00;27;05;20

My grandma's cards got much more

interesting after ChatGPT came out.

00;27;05;20 - 00;27;09;19

By the way,

what do you think AI 2.0 actually is?

00;27;09;19 - 00;27;13;12

So is that is that analytics

is that uses in like health care.

00;27;13;12 - 00;27;14;17

You talked about a genetic a lot.

00;27;14;17 - 00;27;16;08

So in the genetic AI is of course an AI

00;27;16;08 - 00;27;19;01

that does something for you

based on things that it knows about you.

00;27;19;01 - 00;27;21;12

So it actually takes sort of independent

actions. It's your agent.

00;27;21;12 - 00;27;22;17

You're the principal.

00;27;22;17 - 00;27;24;12

What do you see 2.0 is looking like.

00;27;24;12 - 00;27;26;24

So let's let's talk for a minute

about 1.0.

00;27;26;24 - 00;27;29;28

And I like I love the web comparison

for AI by the way.

00;27;30;03 - 00;27;33;13

And I don't know if if you're old enough

to remember, but like when the web

00;27;33;13 - 00;27;37;29

first came out, it was very much like,

just add the web to everything.

00;27;37;29 - 00;27;41;04

Like the example that comes to mind

is that people used to make fun of

00;27;41;05 - 00;27;44;10

is like in the mid 90s, Pizza

Hut had a website

00;27;44;17 - 00;27;47;24

and it was basically just like,

what's your local Pizza Hut?

00;27;47;24 - 00;27;49;25

Okay, here's the phone number

for how to call them.

00;27;49;25 - 00;27;50;21

And you're like, call. Yeah, yeah.

00;27;50;21 - 00;27;52;29

And you're like wow, chef wow.

00;27;52;29 - 00;27;57;02

Like the, you know, the information

superhighway in action.

00;27;57;05 - 00;28;00;19

And I think that's very much

where we're at with AI were it's like,

00;28;00;19 - 00;28;04;02

oh, everybody like

just get your AI up and running.

00;28;04;05 - 00;28;08;03

And by the way, I think one of

the challenges we're seeing right now

00;28;08;06 - 00;28;12;11

is there's a lot of investor excitement

about AI.

00;28;12;18 - 00;28;16;18

And I think there's a lot of consumer

00;28;16;21 - 00;28;19;21

backlash

is maybe slightly too strong a word.

00;28;19;26 - 00;28;21;28

But I think when a lot of consumers

00;28;21;28 - 00;28;24;29

hear the word AI,

they have a neutral to negative reaction.

00;28;25;04 - 00;28;27;15

And it's just like it's

been shocking to me

00;28;27;15 - 00;28;32;10

how much there's been like,

you can have an AI, PC or like Google

00;28;32;10 - 00;28;36;10

Now with AI,

like your phone is full of AI and like,

00;28;36;13 - 00;28;41;02

I don't know if it's nobody gives a shit

or they actively don't like it, but

00;28;41;05 - 00;28;45;25

it's not having the impact on consumers

that it's having on a neutral AI best.

00;28;45;28 - 00;28;47;16

At very best.

00;28;47;16 - 00;28;49;03

I think it's actually negative.

00;28;49;03 - 00;28;52;22

And people are like,

what is the use case here?

00;28;52;26 - 00;28;53;29

How do you how do you.

00;28;53;29 - 00;28;58;03

Square that with the proliferation of LMS

in everyday life?

00;28;58;03 - 00;29;00;06

Like everybody ChatGPT is everything.

00;29;00;06 - 00;29;03;11

Like, yeah, I got an email from somebody

that's very obviously ChatGPT.

00;29;03;14 - 00;29;04;12

Oh yeah. No, no.

00;29;04;12 - 00;29;05;03

Like I get

00;29;05;03 - 00;29;09;05

I get emails that end with like, would you

like me to like change the above.

00;29;09;08 - 00;29;11;02

Like it's just it's just brutal.

00;29;11;02 - 00;29;14;15

Like, seriously, I've had people like,

literally trying to sell me something

00;29;14;15 - 00;29;17;15

with that with like, that text in it.

00;29;17;16 - 00;29;20;26

The way I square

that is the difference between

00;29;21;00 - 00;29;26;14

somebody having a productivity tool

in their back pocket that they can use

00;29;26;18 - 00;29;29;18

as a way to get themselves ahead

00;29;29;21 - 00;29;32;28

versus

having something else pushed on them.

00;29;33;01 - 00;29;36;06

And one of the things that happened

with web

00;29;36;09 - 00;29;41;18

is people

stop talking about web as though like web,

00;29;41;18 - 00;29;45;24

web, web, Came its owner and they said,

I got to be on the internet.

00;29;45;25 - 00;29;48;20

You look at them like, oh, you know,

where have No, no.

00;29;48;20 - 00;29;49;07

Exactly.

00;29;49;07 - 00;29;54;06

And so I think what's going to happen

with AI is people are going to realize,

00;29;54;09 - 00;29;56;26

you know, companies are builders,

are of AI, are going to realize

00;29;56;26 - 00;30;00;20

very quickly

that these words are getting polluted.

00;30;00;23 - 00;30;03;28

And because they have

a negative connotation with consumers,

00;30;04;01 - 00;30;08;29

you can't just be like,

hey everybody, I like, why?

00;30;09;03 - 00;30;10;25

Why should I care about that?

00;30;10;25 - 00;30;13;02

Why should I be excited about that?

00;30;13;02 - 00;30;17;18

And that is the question of

what can I do for you?

00;30;17;21 - 00;30;22;01

And I think we need to get back to that

in a big way.

00;30;22;01 - 00;30;26;02

And like if you can tell me, like,

why should I buy an IPC, why should I have

00;30;26;02 - 00;30;31;15

like your browser is I now like,

why do I want an AI browser like that?

00;30;31;15 - 00;30;35;19

Like, I don't know, like I,

I cringe at just here and like

00;30;35;19 - 00;30;36;15

these are real examples.

00;30;36;15 - 00;30;39;12

By the way, this is not me making that up.

00;30;39;12 - 00;30;42;06

So how do you market this in ways

00;30;42;06 - 00;30;45;06

where there's

actually some value to people?

00;30;45;10 - 00;30;48;27

And I think, you know,

and this is a cop out,

00;30;49;00 - 00;30;51;22

you know, in the predictions game, but,

you know,

00;30;51;22 - 00;30;55;03

to ask somebody in 1997

00;30;55;06 - 00;31;00;10

what to ask them to try to predict

Facebook or, you know, predict Instagram.

00;31;00;13 - 00;31;03;24

I think we're we're a few chess moves

away from that.

00;31;03;27 - 00;31;09;04

But what it's going to look like

is a series of very specific use cases

00;31;09;04 - 00;31;14;08

that people are excited

to use, like ChatGPT LMS,

00;31;14;08 - 00;31;17;28

and in the chat bot capacity

are an absolute killer app, right?

00;31;17;28 - 00;31;22;09

Like you just use it and you're like,

this is awesome.

00;31;22;12 - 00;31;25;01

I can get value out of this right away.

00;31;25;01 - 00;31;27;22

Nothing else in the AI spaces like that.

00;31;27;22 - 00;31;30;27

And it's this weird

extrapolation of like, well,

00;31;31;00 - 00;31;34;16

it works over there,

so why is it not working for my business?

00;31;34;19 - 00;31;36;25

And so that's got a die.

00;31;36;25 - 00;31;39;18

And I think we're going to start to see

00;31;39;18 - 00;31;42;15

people become a lot smarter with that.

00;31;42;15 - 00;31;46;09

And I think a wave of hype is going to get

washed away as part of that.

00;31;46;09 - 00;31;48;04

So now this is incidental to your point.

00;31;48;04 - 00;31;49;15

But I want to I want to jump on it

00;31;49;15 - 00;31;51;07

because you gave me

a couple of openings here.

00;31;51;07 - 00;31;53;19

So you mentioned how the consumer

sentiment around

00;31;53;19 - 00;31;54;25

AI is quite negative, right?

00;31;54;25 - 00;31;57;17

When I think ChatGPT,

if we did a word association game,

00;31;57;17 - 00;32;00;10

my response would be brain rot,

which is a real thing, right?

00;32;00;10 - 00;32;02;13

People

that don't flex their brain muscles,

00;32;02;13 - 00;32;04;12

the brain isn't actually a muscle,

but you know,

00;32;04;12 - 00;32;06;09

they don't flex their brain

when Thank you doctor.

00;32;06;09 - 00;32;08;26

Yeah,

there you go to solve their problems.

00;32;08;26 - 00;32;09;05

Right.

00;32;09;05 - 00;32;10;10

And so they end up being less

00;32;10;10 - 00;32;12;20

effective at problem

solving sort of in the aggregate.

00;32;12;20 - 00;32;14;20

But then you talk about social media.

00;32;14;20 - 00;32;17;25

And if I were to go to people in, say,

social media, positive or negative,

00;32;17;25 - 00;32;20;29

I bet social

media has a more negative connotation

00;32;20;29 - 00;32;26;01

these days than I does,

but it's still tremendously lucrative.

00;32;26;07 - 00;32;30;09

They sell the crap out of ads

on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok

00;32;30;09 - 00;32;31;14

and all of these different sites.

00;32;31;14 - 00;32;36;08

Despite being assailed by regulators

and by moralists, you know, by pundits,

00;32;36;08 - 00;32;41;20

by podcast hosts, it's still a

just a phenomenally profitable business.

00;32;41;20 - 00;32;44;26

Meta is raking in money and

and they're shoveling it

00;32;44;26 - 00;32;48;17

into the metaverse furnace

and the AI furnace and they're burning it.

00;32;48;17 - 00;32;49;28

But like,

00;32;49;28 - 00;32;53;05

do we actually need

to have positive sentiment around AI,

00;32;53;05 - 00;32;55;00

or can it be like a social media thing

where it becomes

00;32;55;00 - 00;32;58;00

so useful that it just breaks through,

even though we all hate it?

00;32;58;02 - 00;33;00;04

So I think that's a

that's a really interesting question.

00;33;00;04 - 00;33;04;11

And I want to like, just sit for a moment

with like social media and the fact

00;33;04;11 - 00;33;06;14

that, like,

everybody hates it, myself included.

00;33;06;14 - 00;33;07;20

I imagine you hate it too.

00;33;07;20 - 00;33;09;10

the way it's video, by the way.

00;33;09;10 - 00;33;12;15

yeah,

like and subscribe like and subscribe.

00;33;12;18 - 00;33;15;25

Social media is

00;33;15;28 - 00;33;19;00

like very, very oligarchical right now.

00;33;19;00 - 00;33;19;25

Right. Like consolidate.

00;33;19;25 - 00;33;22;25

It's consolidated

within a handful of big tech firms.

00;33;22;25 - 00;33;26;03

And it's extremely lucrative

for those firms.

00;33;26;06 - 00;33;29;29

And the the way that they've made it

so lucrative

00;33;30;02 - 00;33;34;09

is that they've built it completely around

engagement and attention capture.

00;33;34;09 - 00;33;34;22

Right. Yeah.

00;33;34;22 - 00;33;37;22

How do I keep you on my platform

as much as possible.

00;33;37;29 - 00;33;41;24

And, you know, there's all sorts

of negative societal outcomes around that.

00;33;41;24 - 00;33;45;00

And we could spend a very long time

talking about that statement of the show.

00;33;45;00 - 00;33;45;08

What?

00;33;45;08 - 00;33;49;10

Well, and I don't think anyone's watching

this is like what

00;33;49;13 - 00;33;53;12

social media having a negative impact

controversy Facebook.

00;33;53;12 - 00;33;54;22

No, no.

00;33;54;22 - 00;33;58;12

And so I think we're seeing

I go down that road

00;33;58;15 - 00;34;00;11

And even with some of the new releases

00;34;00;11 - 00;34;04;01

of ChatGPT and Gemini, you can see

in the way that they're structured,

00;34;04;04 - 00;34;06;28

they're more structured around

engagement, right?

00;34;06;28 - 00;34;10;14

how can I be effusive

in terms of like, Jeremy?

00;34;10;17 - 00;34;12;03

That was a brilliant question.

00;34;12;03 - 00;34;13;26

And good on you for asking that.

00;34;13;26 - 00;34;14;23

Maybe it was a good question.

00;34;14;23 - 00;34;17;23

If. well, if you're as I'm sure

they're always amazing,

00;34;17;29 - 00;34;21;17

but and now that you've asked it like,

can I help you with the next thing?

00;34;21;17 - 00;34;24;07

Right. Here's something that, like else

I can do for you.

00;34;24;07 - 00;34;25;19

How do I keep you locked in?

00;34;25;19 - 00;34;27;20

I mean, to make it a table for you,

you know.

00;34;27;20 - 00;34;29;00

Would you like it in poetry form?

00;34;29;00 - 00;34;30;15

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00;34;30;15 - 00;34;33;13

anything to keep you locked in.

00;34;33;13 - 00;34;38;25

And one of the themes that's been,

you know, depending on exactly the day,

00;34;38;28 - 00;34;42;06

more or less, you know, in the news cycle

00;34;42;13 - 00;34;47;08

is the, the monetization

of these platforms

00;34;47;14 - 00;34;51;03

and like, come on, we all know

that we're going to get to a day

00;34;51;06 - 00;34;54;16

where ChatGPT is going to say, like,

you know, you seem tired,

00;34;54;16 - 00;34;58;14

but like, wouldn't you be revitalized

by drinking a delicious Red bull?

00;34;58;17 - 00;35;02;05

Like, it's just it's I don't drink

Red bull, by the way, but I do.

00;35;02;05 - 00;35;05;04

I drink enough for both of us. that brave,

it's coming.

00;35;05;04 - 00;35;09;17

And it's going to be the social media

ification of,

00;35;09;20 - 00;35;13;07

of AI, of the of these,

you know, these line platforms.

00;35;13;07 - 00;35;16;12

And once again, like, that's

why Big Tech is so invested in this

00;35;16;12 - 00;35;19;20

because they know this

and they want to own the platforms.

00;35;19;25 - 00;35;25;04

Let's talk about everybody else

in the context of social media,

00;35;25;07 - 00;35;26;29

because if you're a business,

00;35;26;29 - 00;35;30;20

you may advertise on Instagram or LinkedIn

or whatever, and you may get revenue

00;35;30;20 - 00;35;34;11

from that,

but you're certainly creating an economy

00;35;34;17 - 00;35;37;17

where you're paying these,

00;35;37;18 - 00;35;41;26

these, these rent seekers and big tech,

big dollars to be able to do that.

00;35;42;02 - 00;35;44;17

And so I think that's exactly

what's happening.

00;35;44;17 - 00;35;48;13

And like if you extrapolate

that these businesses are like

00;35;48;19 - 00;35;52;24

sort of using social media,

but not in a way where they're developing

00;35;52;24 - 00;35;57;08

new functionality, it's marketing, it's

an ad platform for what they're doing.

00;35;57;12 - 00;36;00;10

It's a new way to reach their customers.

00;36;00;10 - 00;36;04;08

But and, you know, new car type

types of content get created.

00;36;04;11 - 00;36;06;23

But when people are

00;36;06;26 - 00;36;08;02

adding

00;36;08;02 - 00;36;11;29

AI into their business right now,

or valuing businesses

00;36;11;29 - 00;36;16;13

based on what I could be added,

it doesn't strike me that they're saying

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;20;10

like and it'll be just like how

this business uses social media, right?

00;36;20;10 - 00;36;22;17

Like that's not the framing device.

00;36;22;17 - 00;36;24;06

And I don't know

if this is where you're going,

00;36;24;06 - 00;36;28;02

but I kind of think maybe it should be

more like that framing device.

00;36;28;08 - 00;36;30;26

Yeah. That's it's

such an interesting concept.

00;36;30;26 - 00;36;32;02

I think you're right, by the way.

00;36;32;02 - 00;36;35;03

You know, for anybody watching at home,

like a social media platform

00;36;35;03 - 00;36;38;25

is just a really,

really sophisticated ad engine.

00;36;38;28 - 00;36;42;14

We take the best,

the brightest, the smartest mathematicians

00;36;42;14 - 00;36;43;28

and computer scientists in the world.

00;36;43;28 - 00;36;45;27

And what problem do we have them solve?

00;36;45;27 - 00;36;49;04

How? You watch a video

for just ten more seconds

00;36;49;04 - 00;36;51;23

so that the advertiser can cram

in some additional content?

00;36;51;23 - 00;36;53;06

It's a huge business.

00;36;53;06 - 00;36;56;17

I it's going to be weird

when we're in that dystopian future when,

00;36;56;17 - 00;36;57;22

you know, ChatGPT is like,

00;36;57;22 - 00;36;58;07

you know,

00;36;58;07 - 00;37;00;07

the delicious taste of Pepsi

will surely get you

00;37;00;07 - 00;37;02;10

through this difficult time

that you're talking to me about.

00;37;02;10 - 00;37;06;03

And there will 100% be stories,

ads, a prediction in the media Oh, yeah.

00;37;06;03 - 00;37;07;16

a total inappropriate

00;37;07;16 - 00;37;10;16

ad that was like deeply

personalized was targeted at somebody.

00;37;10;17 - 00;37;13;14

yeah, I think the social media comparison

definitely.

00;37;13;14 - 00;37;17;08

It's got me thinking,

and I have to wonder, you know,

00;37;17;08 - 00;37;20;13

if consolidation in the AI space

is going to be inevitable, like it was on

00;37;20;13 - 00;37;23;23

the social media side, Facebook

buying Instagram and WhatsApp, right?

00;37;23;23 - 00;37;26;20

You know, TikTok, growing pretty rapidly.

00;37;26;20 - 00;37;28;21

And I agree with you

on the innovation front.

00;37;28;21 - 00;37;30;23

I have to wonder,

though, is the network effect,

00;37;30;23 - 00;37;32;14

which is really what drives

social media, right?

00;37;32;14 - 00;37;34;21

I go there because other people are there.

00;37;34;21 - 00;37;37;13

Like, does

I have a similar moat like lens?

00;37;37;13 - 00;37;38;09

I think certainly don't.

00;37;38;09 - 00;37;39;01

I mean, what's the difference between

00;37;39;01 - 00;37;43;13

Cloud and Gemini and, and ChatGPT

and you know, and any of these options

00;37;43;15 - 00;37;45;12

I could

somebody with enough computing power

00;37;45;12 - 00;37;50;21

just come in and, and dominate the game

or is it a marketing play? And,

00;37;50;24 - 00;37;52;06

Again, I think it's interesting.

00;37;52;06 - 00;37;54;21

But, you know,

the example that comes to mind is Google,

00;37;54;21 - 00;37;57;21

not as an AI player,

but actually as a search player, Sure.

00;37;57;22 - 00;38;01;16

because again, and, you know,

you may recall from your youth

00;38;01;16 - 00;38;06;17

the days of like Lycos and AltaVista

and Yahoo and all of those,

00;38;06;17 - 00;38;12;16

and Google came in and it was better

and it had a reputation for being better,

00;38;12;19 - 00;38;16;27

and it just consolidated the market

under it because it was the winner.

00;38;16;27 - 00;38;18;26

And so I think It was really effective

00;38;18;26 - 00;38;21;00

because they actually did things

differently.

00;38;21;00 - 00;38;21;07

Right.

00;38;21;07 - 00;38;23;06

Like not to get belabor the point

00;38;23;06 - 00;38;26;28

too much, but like AltaVista and Yahoo

especially, I was a portal right

00;38;27;01 - 00;38;28;17

where you saw

everything laid out in front of you.

00;38;28;17 - 00;38;29;18

Google was a search engine.

00;38;29;18 - 00;38;32;02

They had

they had abstracted all of that away.

00;38;32;02 - 00;38;34;01

Then Yahoo eventually had a search engine

and everything.

00;38;34;01 - 00;38;36;16

But yeah,

sorry to to to cut you off there.

00;38;36;16 - 00;38;41;05

Carry on.

Well so you know my point is that

00;38;41;08 - 00;38;43;04

even like

00;38;43;04 - 00;38;47;20

to me that it's still an incremental mode

in that story because they all had

00;38;47;20 - 00;38;51;29

search engines in some capacities by like,

you know, call it the year 2000.

00;38;52;02 - 00;38;56;13

But Google was still able to run away

with a victory there.

00;38;56;16 - 00;39;01;01

And, you know, I think we've already seen

you can look at graphs of,

00;39;01;04 - 00;39;07;05

you know, the the usage across the Bain

LMS now, and it's extremely consolidated.

00;39;07;12 - 00;39;09;14

And I think it'll stay

extremely consolidated.

00;39;09;14 - 00;39;13;00

And I talked to a lot of people

who are huge advocates

00;39;13;00 - 00;39;17;14

for decentralization of of AI and LMS.

00;39;17;14 - 00;39;20;14

And we're seeing, you know, deep

SQL is a big story this year

00;39;20;14 - 00;39;24;21

about how you can use substantially less

computing power and kind of get ahead.

00;39;24;24 - 00;39;28;07

But people still tend to gravitate

00;39;28;07 - 00;39;31;10

toward the no names, right?

00;39;31;10 - 00;39;34;17

Like AI and and being an incumbent,

00;39;34;17 - 00;39;37;23

I think is extremely powerful there.

00;39;37;26 - 00;39;39;27

that's one of the big narratives

that a lot of these

00;39;39;27 - 00;39;43;23

players have right now,

which is it's winner take all.

00;39;43;23 - 00;39;46;22

And so, you know,

whether it's our LMS or technology

00;39;46;22 - 00;39;50;27

beyond that, you've got to invest in us

and we're going to get it

00;39;50;27 - 00;39;56;03

like it's a it's a it's an arms race

functionally for, you know, AI tech.

00;39;56;03 - 00;39;57;23

And we're going to take it all.

00;39;57;23 - 00;40;02;25

And I'm, I'm very skeptical of that as

well, which I'm sure you'll find shocking.

00;40;02;25 - 00;40;06;10

Like to me,

that is, a tactic for raising capital.

00;40;06;10 - 00;40;08;01

And it's extremely effective.

00;40;08;01 - 00;40;11;15

But I think it's

I think we're going to see a space similar

00;40;11;15 - 00;40;13;09

to what we see in social media

with big tech, where

00;40;13;09 - 00;40;16;01

there's a few different niches

that are kind of carved out,

00;40;16;01 - 00;40;19;00

and people will stick

mostly with, with the big players there.

00;40;19;00 - 00;40;21;23

And, And there's two,

two points on that. Right.

00;40;21;23 - 00;40;24;16

So the first is that ChatGPT was an open

AI product.

00;40;24;16 - 00;40;27;05

And before 2022,

nobody had heard of open AI.

00;40;27;05 - 00;40;28;19

So like they actually became

00;40;28;19 - 00;40;33;01

the first mover in this giant,

valuable market out of almost nowhere.

00;40;33;04 - 00;40;35;14

And I say almost

because they did have some big investment.

00;40;35;14 - 00;40;39;13

And, you know, Sam Altman used to run Y

Combinator, which was a startup incubator

00;40;39;13 - 00;40;41;25

in Southern California

and in the Bay area.

00;40;41;25 - 00;40;45;00

So they did actually sort of leapfrog

a lot of their competitors.

00;40;45;00 - 00;40;46;05

And it caused a panic at Google.

00;40;46;05 - 00;40;48;06

And now it's

sort of become a resource competition.

00;40;48;06 - 00;40;52;07

So the winners of the AI race so far

are the people who can burn the most money

00;40;52;07 - 00;40;54;02

in pursuit of the goal. Right.

00;40;54;02 - 00;40;54;26

It's very hard.

00;40;54;26 - 00;40;56;14

You know,

if we wanted to make an AI startup,

00;40;56;14 - 00;40;59;27

we would have to raise a lot of money

to to add to the capacity.

00;41;00;02 - 00;41;01;03

So that's one. Thing.

00;41;01;03 - 00;41;06;00

But but on that thing, this is,

you know, one of my predictions for 2026

00;41;06;03 - 00;41;09;17

that I may be proven wrong on,

which is that there's so much talk about,

00;41;09;17 - 00;41;12;19

you know, compute

and just building more capacity

00;41;12;19 - 00;41;17;10

because all if we can only train

these models better, they'll,

00;41;17;13 - 00;41;19;22

you know, we're going to hit

some sort of inflection point

00;41;19;22 - 00;41;22;19

and we're going to race ahead

and it's going to just,

00;41;22;19 - 00;41;25;18

you know, take our stock to the moon

singularity.

00;41;25;19 - 00;41;27;23

I just think it's just total bullshit.

00;41;27;23 - 00;41;31;21

I think we're reaching a point

where, as I said, with LMS, we're

00;41;31;21 - 00;41;37;24

reaching a plateau where it costs

exponentially more to get marginal gains,

00;41;37;27 - 00;41;42;04

which is the financial equivalent

of just shoveling money into a furnace.

00;41;42;07 - 00;41;47;23

And so I think the floor for entry level

participants is getting to a point where,

00;41;47;26 - 00;41;52;16

despite all the talk about that,

like you're not going to build

00;41;52;18 - 00;41;57;12

a super intelligence just by shoveling

more money into training data.

00;41;57;12 - 00;41;57;22

Right?

00;41;57;22 - 00;42;02;16

I think we're we're going back to an era

where creativity

00;42;02;16 - 00;42;06;22

and asking the right questions

and, and structuring,

00;42;06;25 - 00;42;09;25

you know, having new ideas

like backpropagation and,

00;42;10;00 - 00;42;13;10

you know, with Hinton

a handful of years ago, those new ideas

00;42;13;10 - 00;42;17;21

for how we come up with these things

is going to lead to the next innovation.

00;42;17;21 - 00;42;24;06

It's not just a raw horsepower race,

which is a very inconvenient message.

00;42;24;13 - 00;42;29;00

If you're funding is contingent on

just building more and more horsepower.

00;42;29;03 - 00;42;31;03

A lot of horses

in this conversation, horse.

00;42;31;03 - 00;42;35;01

Turns out to be a wonderful metaphor, a

wonderful way to structure a conversation.

00;42;35;04 - 00;42;37;26

The other point that I wanted to make,

I just before we jump ahead

00;42;37;26 - 00;42;39;12

was around consolidation.

00;42;39;12 - 00;42;41;09

There's a regulatory angle to this, right?

00;42;41;09 - 00;42;43;22

Everybody wants to be big,

but they don't want to be so big

00;42;43;22 - 00;42;45;23

that they attract scrutiny. Right.

00;42;45;23 - 00;42;46;26

And that's something that,

00;42;46;26 - 00;42;50;18

you know, Apple has faced,

with the Epic Games lawsuit.

00;42;50;18 - 00;42;54;04

That's something that Google faced as a,

you know, a monopoly in search.

00;42;54;04 - 00;42;57;01

And I believe they actually

lost that case, if I'm not mistaken.

00;42;57;01 - 00;42;58;00

And there was a concern

00;42;58;00 - 00;43;01;04

that they were going to have to sell

Chrome and Perplexity wanted to buy it

00;43;01;04 - 00;43;04;11

and make an AI browser, which from what

I understand is your favorite thing.

00;43;04;14 - 00;43;06;18

And so that didn't go through,

thankfully.

00;43;06;18 - 00;43;08;03

But Chrome

will probably be coming in my browser.

00;43;08;03 - 00;43;08;23

So I think that

00;43;08;23 - 00;43;11;29

if you are a big tech company,

if you're watching this Sundar Pichai,

00;43;11;29 - 00;43;14;29

if you're watching this Satya Nadella,

you know,

00;43;15;05 - 00;43;17;28

be mindful of the regulators

because we don't typically like

00;43;17;28 - 00;43;20;28

one company sort of dominating the space

so significantly.

00;43;21;02 - 00;43;21;20

I do think.

00;43;21;20 - 00;43;23;06

So maybe a prediction on my lion for

00;43;23;06 - 00;43;27;12

the future is I think you're right

about diminishing returns on models.

00;43;27;12 - 00;43;29;10

I think the deep seek

example is a really good one.

00;43;29;10 - 00;43;32;10

Facebook meta had

it had a product called llama,

00;43;32;12 - 00;43;35;02

which is a local runnable

00;43;35;02 - 00;43;38;25

site, a correct way of phrasing that

a model that you can run locally has that,

00;43;38;28 - 00;43;41;28

and for most people it's

00;43;42;05 - 00;43;45;10

very effective for most cases. Right?

00;43;45;10 - 00;43;48;16

So the, you know,

you get 70% of the effectiveness

00;43;48;16 - 00;43;52;02

at 0.5% of the necessary compute.

00;43;52;02 - 00;43;55;07

Right.

And I'm speculating on those numbers.

00;43;55;10 - 00;43;58;23

So I think that there's a scenario where

we have these smaller specialized models

00;43;58;23 - 00;44;01;25

that don't reinvent the wheel

every time somebody asks them a question.

00;44;01;26 - 00;44;05;05

I could definitely see a world

where that type of ello and becomes cost

00;44;05;05 - 00;44;05;29

effective is

00;44;05;29 - 00;44;10;23

the barrier to entry is relatively low,

and the value is real and relatively high.

00;44;10;26 - 00;44;13;03

So definitely something

I want to talk about.

00;44;13;03 - 00;44;16;03

But speaking of things that you think are

bullshit.

00;44;16;05 - 00;44;20;04

We've talked a lot about AI,

but that wasn't like the biggest bet

00;44;20;04 - 00;44;22;13

for some of these companies

over the past couple of years.

00;44;22;13 - 00;44;26;19

And the thing that really comes to mind

for me is the metaverse.

00;44;26;21 - 00;44;28;23

And that's such a big bet.

00;44;28;23 - 00;44;31;28

You know Facebook didn't rename itself

I book okay.

00;44;32;01 - 00;44;33;19

They renamed themselves meta.

00;44;33;19 - 00;44;37;17

And they were going to inaugurate

this new world of spatial computing.

00;44;37;20 - 00;44;40;19

And this was pre 2022

when ChatGPT dropped.

00;44;40;19 - 00;44;44;18

And we just don't hear a lot

about that anymore.

00;44;44;21 - 00;44;46;06

So let's talk about the metaverse.

00;44;46;06 - 00;44;50;00

I know you had a podcast episode

this year on the metaverse.

00;44;50;03 - 00;44;52;07

How do you feel

about the metaverse in 2026?

00;44;52;07 - 00;44;53;03

I think I know the answer.

00;44;53;03 - 00;44;55;07

I'm legally obligated to ask the question.

00;44;55;07 - 00;44;55;16

Yeah.

00;44;55;16 - 00;44;58;22

So I mean, one of the things we've found

is that and I talked about this

00;44;58;22 - 00;45;02;12

with like a backlash against AI,

a consumer backlash is

00;45;02;12 - 00;45;06;11

metaverse has had such a strong backlash

that people won't even say it anymore.

00;45;06;11 - 00;45;08;13

They'll say like XR, right?

00;45;08;13 - 00;45;10;12

Which is like augmented reality

00;45;10;12 - 00;45;15;13

and virtual reality because metaverse

is just like so tarnished.

00;45;15;16 - 00;45;15;24

I've had

00;45;15;24 - 00;45;18;24

a few conversations with a few kind

of leading thinkers,

00;45;18;24 - 00;45;22;09

in mixed reality this year.

00;45;22;12 - 00;45;25;17

And, you know, a couple of things

I should say.

00;45;25;17 - 00;45;26;05

One of them

00;45;26;05 - 00;45;29;27

is that those episodes don't perform

very well on social media,

00;45;30;00 - 00;45;33;05

which tells me that people don't give

a shit about mixed reality right now.

00;45;33;07 - 00;45;37;04

maybe meta wants you to talk about

AI and is prioritizing.

00;45;37;05 - 00;45;38;10

maybe. Yeah.

00;45;38;10 - 00;45;43;01

I mean, I certainly has taken

a lot of the air out of the room

00;45;43;04 - 00;45;46;03

for like every other emerging technology

out there,

00;45;46;03 - 00;45;48;25

which no air in the room,

how will the horse survive?

00;45;48;25 - 00;45;50;20

Sorry,

I think I have lost the plot on this one.

00;45;50;20 - 00;45;52;01

Yeah. Which which horse is that?

00;45;52;01 - 00;45;55;22

And so there's a very,

you know, good chance that a horse comes

00;45;55;22 - 00;45;57;01

from behind in this race.

00;45;57;01 - 00;45;58;20

Dark horse. Yeah. Dark horse.

00;45;58;20 - 00;45;58;27

Okay.

00;45;58;27 - 00;46;01;05

That's, that's a different emerging

technology and captures

00;46;01;05 - 00;46;03;14

the popular imagination

because nobody's paying attention,

00;46;03;14 - 00;46;07;16

because they're all focused on, AI,

which is the name of the winning horse

00;46;07;16 - 00;46;08;11

of course.

00;46;08;11 - 00;46;11;18

but I don't think that dark horse

is going to be next reality.

00;46;11;24 - 00;46;13;24

I don't think it's going to be

the metaverse.

00;46;13;24 - 00;46;16;20

And coming back to a point

I've made a few times already.

00;46;16;20 - 00;46;19;17

Look, I don't think anybody has answered

00;46;19;17 - 00;46;23;29

the question of why

the hell should I use mixed reality?

00;46;24;02 - 00;46;26;04

Certainly not virtual reality.

00;46;26;04 - 00;46;26;14

Yeah.

00;46;26;14 - 00;46;28;15

Getting people to strap on a headset No.

00;46;28;15 - 00;46;30;06

is like, it's just a no go.

00;46;30;06 - 00;46;33;11

And there's like,

I don't know, there's this weird narrative

00;46;33;11 - 00;46;36;26

of, well, you know, the problem is

the headsets are just too heavy.

00;46;36;29 - 00;46;38;00

Is that ugly or.

00;46;38;00 - 00;46;41;26

If only they were less expensive

and less heavy, people would use them.

00;46;41;28 - 00;46;43;13

Bullshit.

00;46;43;13 - 00;46;44;28

Use them for what?

00;46;44;28 - 00;46;47;07

they Use them for what?

00;46;47;07 - 00;46;49;25

Like there's just nothing to do in there.

00;46;49;25 - 00;46;52;13

That's not better on the outside. Like.

00;46;52;13 - 00;46;55;09

Oh, it's like being inside your phone.

00;46;55;09 - 00;46;57;25

Who wants to be inside their phone

like you want?

00;46;57;25 - 00;47;01;14

I want to be farther from my phone,

not deeper into it.

00;47;01;21 - 00;47;02;07

And so.

00;47;02;07 - 00;47;05;23

And yeah, again, you know,

I talked to somebody this year,

00;47;05;26 - 00;47;09;05

you know, who was talking about the,

like, wearables,

00;47;09;05 - 00;47;13;24

like the augmented reality glasses

and that my notifications are right in my.

00;47;13;24 - 00;47;15;09

Glasses eyes. Right there.

00;47;15;09 - 00;47;19;05

You know, where I don't want

my notifications any closer to me.

00;47;19;06 - 00;47;19;13

Yeah.

00;47;19;13 - 00;47;22;24

You know, I think and by the way,

like I'm, I'm a sample of one,

00;47;23;01 - 00;47;24;07

but I think

00;47;24;07 - 00;47;28;10

certainly there's all sorts of research

right now that saying that Gen-Z younger

00;47;28;10 - 00;47;30;11

people have recognized

that we've come a become

00;47;30;11 - 00;47;33;02

a bit too dependent on our phones

and on social media,

00;47;33;02 - 00;47;34;25

and they're trying

to create some distance.

00;47;34;25 - 00;47;37;11

I don't know how they're succeeding,

but they're certainly trying.

00;47;37;11 - 00;47;41;02

And I think we're going to start to see

that spread upward through generations.

00;47;41;05 - 00;47;43;26

And I don't think I don't think you see

00;47;43;26 - 00;47;48;02

anyone clamoring for

I wish I was more plugged in. now.

00;47;48;02 - 00;47;51;23

And that is the entire value proposition

00;47;51;26 - 00;47;56;21

of mixed reality of like,

imagine you're more plugged in.

00;47;56;24 - 00;47;59;17

Nobody wants that. So. So what's left?

00;47;59;17 - 00;48;00;03

I don't know.

00;48;00;03 - 00;48;03;28

That's that's my take, Well,

I bet phones with e-ink displays

00;48;03;28 - 00;48;07;14

to deliberately make them more difficult

to use will probably outsell,

00;48;07;14 - 00;48;10;17

like the new Apple

Well and they've started right.

00;48;10;17 - 00;48;13;19

Like the deliberate dumb phones

or your phones in black and white.

00;48;13;19 - 00;48;17;03

Whether it's an app for that or people

just getting dumber phones.

00;48;17;06 - 00;48;18;22

of physical hardware that you can append.

00;48;18;22 - 00;48;20;05

They've been advertised. oh, there's.

00;48;20;05 - 00;48;24;24

There's tons of those because people

don't want more of that right now.

00;48;25;01 - 00;48;25;18

And it's interesting.

00;48;25;18 - 00;48;28;03

I think it speaks to the development cycle

on a lot of these things.

00;48;28;03 - 00;48;31;19

So like the Vision Pro is Apple's entry

into this market.

00;48;31;19 - 00;48;32;28

And Apple's actually usually pretty good.

00;48;32;28 - 00;48;37;05

They created two new wearable categories

very subtly 2015

00;48;37;05 - 00;48;39;05

the Apple Watch

and then the AirPods a year later.

00;48;39;05 - 00;48;40;15

I mean, those two things are ubiquitous.

00;48;40;15 - 00;48;43;27

I think the Apple Watch might be the best

selling watch in the world, AirPods.

00;48;43;27 - 00;48;46;09

People laughed at them.

Oh, they got stocks coming out of them.

00;48;46;09 - 00;48;47;22

Best selling headphones in the world.

00;48;47;22 - 00;48;51;07

If AirPods were an independent business,

they'd be a fortune 500 business

00;48;51;07 - 00;48;52;09

and not a small one, right?

00;48;52;09 - 00;48;54;03

Like they're massively popular,

00;48;54;03 - 00;48;56;28

but they couldn't get it to work

with virtual or mixed reality.

00;48;56;28 - 00;48;58;04

Well, but but but hold on.

00;48;58;04 - 00;49;02;07

The question is,

why did those both become so popular?

00;49;02;10 - 00;49;05;17

And I have a very simple answer,

which is they're status symbols.

00;49;05;20 - 00;49;08;26

They're they're luxury goods

that demonstrate status.

00;49;08;26 - 00;49;09;28

Yeah. That's what they do.

00;49;09;28 - 00;49;12;15

Like, yes, I have,

and that's why they bought beats

00;49;12;15 - 00;49;16;07

because beats is just a

it's a status symbol.

00;49;16;08 - 00;49;18;11

Look at my big headphones.

They're expensive.

00;49;18;11 - 00;49;20;12

Everybody can see them because I wear them

everywhere.

00;49;20;12 - 00;49;21;15

base is turned up.

00;49;21;15 - 00;49;24;00

And the basses turned up in the sound

as shit.

00;49;24;00 - 00;49;27;00

And, like,

I'm not going to go on my my strong.

00;49;27;02 - 00;49;27;29

opinions on beats.

00;49;27;29 - 00;49;29;00

I did not anticipate this.

00;49;29;00 - 00;49;31;14

I have I have strong

I look I have a music background,

00;49;31;14 - 00;49;33;17

I have it,

I have strong opinions on beats.

00;49;33;17 - 00;49;35;13

That's what Apple does. Apple isn't.

00;49;35;13 - 00;49;37;22

It's not a tech company.

It's a luxury good company.

00;49;37;22 - 00;49;39;26

And that's why

they keep hiring people from other luxury

00;49;39;26 - 00;49;41;24

good companies into their,

00;49;41;24 - 00;49;43;22

you know, kind of marketing

and product functions,

00;49;43;22 - 00;49;46;02

because that's the code

that they've cracked.

00;49;46;02 - 00;49;50;17

You cannot

just apply that logic to a headset.

00;49;50;20 - 00;49;52;03

Right. What's the luxury good there.

00;49;52;03 - 00;49;55;12

It doesn't signal

any status to be putting this on.

00;49;55;15 - 00;49;59;04

And the worst thing they're facing

and meta is dealing with this.

00;49;59;04 - 00;50;00;26

And everybody who's thrown

their hat in the ring is dealing with

00;50;00;26 - 00;50;05;25

this is the concern that if you put on

these glasses it's creepy, right?

00;50;05;28 - 00;50;08;18

This is someone who could be filming me

right now.

00;50;08;18 - 00;50;09;07

Got a camera?

00;50;09;07 - 00;50;13;09

How in the world does that

signal status, right?

00;50;13;09 - 00;50;16;11

Like, that's that's anti-social behavior.

00;50;16;17 - 00;50;19;17

And so this this is the moat

that's unprofitable.

00;50;19;18 - 00;50;25;00

And this, by the way,

is like a microcosm of this entire force

00;50;25;00 - 00;50;29;02

that's at play in tech right now,

which is on the one hand,

00;50;29;02 - 00;50;31;15

you have listening

for what people actually want.

00;50;31;15 - 00;50;35;01

And on the other hand,

you have the question, how do I make more,

00;50;35;04 - 00;50;37;16

more money and push more stuff?

00;50;37;16 - 00;50;42;14

And the pushing more stuff

is not going super well right now.

00;50;42;18 - 00;50;45;22

It's going well overall in the sense of

we just keep charging more money

00;50;45;22 - 00;50;47;07

for the same thing.

00;50;47;07 - 00;50;50;06

And trying to juice engagement.

00;50;50;06 - 00;50;54;01

But a lot of them are kind of starved

for new ideas and like that.

00;50;54;05 - 00;50;55;07

The idea this year

00;50;55;07 - 00;50;59;18

and in the past 18 months has been

I'll just add AI into the tech.

00;50;59;18 - 00;51;02;20

And it's like,

Why is there AI in my Instagram?

00;51;02;23 - 00;51;04;21

I, I don't know.

00;51;04;21 - 00;51;06;17

Where they're going to put them in

Reese's Cups too soon.

00;51;06;17 - 00;51;10;11

It's going to be peanut butter chocolate

and I and I will I will buy those.

00;51;10;18 - 00;51;12;27

There'll be

a subscription will be $1,000 a month.

00;51;12;27 - 00;51;13;05

Yeah.

00;51;13;05 - 00;51;18;15

I love this Apple example because we can

come back to AI and talk about that.

00;51;18;15 - 00;51;21;21

Like Apple has one of the most widely

used artificial intelligence

00;51;21;21 - 00;51;24;23

tools in the world from like 2010 or 2011,

Siri.

00;51;24;26 - 00;51;25;07

Yeah.

00;51;25;07 - 00;51;27;11

And I believe

you had the Siri founder on Yeah.

00;51;27;11 - 00;51;32;13

If I'm not mistaken, Siri does not have

a great reputation, generally speaking.

00;51;32;19 - 00;51;32;29

Right.

00;51;32;29 - 00;51;37;10

And so you would think that the emergence

of LMS would be a great opportunity

00;51;37;10 - 00;51;41;00

for Apple to say, hey, this product

that we have that, you know, has maybe

00;51;41;03 - 00;51;44;20

had some issues, you know, they'll even

say a keynotes, we fix Siri this year.

00;51;44;23 - 00;51;46;07

It's sort of acknowledging

that it was broken,

00;51;46;07 - 00;51;48;12

which is a very unnatural thing to do,

00;51;48;12 - 00;51;51;04

by the way, because you're right,

they're very focused on their image.

00;51;51;04 - 00;51;53;05

Why hasn't this been a big win for them?

00;51;53;05 - 00;51;53;17

Like, is it

00;51;53;17 - 00;51;58;09

because the LM, in your opinion, isn't,

sort of at that high quality level?

00;51;58;09 - 00;51;59;23

Is it because the voice of the customer

00;51;59;23 - 00;52;03;29

is not wanting more LMS in products,

or is it an Apple related problem?

00;52;03;29 - 00;52;07;25

I know this is kind of a wide

ranging question, but like, surely

00;52;07;28 - 00;52;10;18

a good use case for an Lem

would be a functional assistant.

00;52;10;18 - 00;52;11;11

Surely.

00;52;11;11 - 00;52;14;25

just to make sure I understand

the question you're you're asking like,

00;52;14;25 - 00;52;15;23

why is it C?

00;52;15;23 - 00;52;18;18

Does it seem like

Apple is falling behind in the AI race?

00;52;18;18 - 00;52;23;07

Yeah, yeah, it's it's really simple

because they're a luxury good company

00;52;23;07 - 00;52;26;24

and AI is not critical

to what they're doing.

00;52;26;24 - 00;52;29;01

And it shouldn't be critical

to what they're doing.

00;52;29;01 - 00;52;32;06

And I honestly think that like

we've talked about this before.

00;52;32;06 - 00;52;32;15

Right.

00;52;32;15 - 00;52;37;19

Like the fact that there's this like

investor bonanza of like, oh, you have AI

00;52;37;19 - 00;52;43;20

in your, in your, you know, prospectus

like, like let's skyrocket the stock.

00;52;43;24 - 00;52;46;21

uncommon 99. It's it's stupid.

00;52;46;21 - 00;52;49;10

And I think that we're going to see

00;52;49;10 - 00;52;52;25

a bit of reckoning

is probably too aggressive a word.

00;52;52;28 - 00;52;56;08

But I think people are going to say,

oh yeah, actually Apple

00;52;56;08 - 00;52;58;10

doesn't need to be an AI company.

00;52;58;10 - 00;53;00;22

Not every company needs to be

an AI company,

00;53;00;22 - 00;53;02;28

and there isn't that much of a premium

on it.

00;53;02;28 - 00;53;03;28

And all of this, I think, by

00;53;03;28 - 00;53;08;10

the way, is like pretty bullish for

companies like Google because actually,

00;53;08;13 - 00;53;11;24

truly being an AI company is very,

very helpful.

00;53;12;00 - 00;53;15;00

But for everybody else,

I don't think it's going to see the gains

00;53;15;00 - 00;53;16;23

that investors are expecting.

00;53;16;23 - 00;53;17;25

And if the average company

00;53;17;25 - 00;53;20;28

is going to get these gains, most of them,

I think are going to get it by

00;53;20;28 - 00;53;24;28

bringing in a Microsoft or a Google

into their shop anyway and get it through.

00;53;25;01 - 00;53;26;23

You know, we talked about this earlier,

00;53;26;23 - 00;53;30;16

a technology vendor, probably, frankly,

one that they're already using.

00;53;30;16 - 00;53;33;19

so I think that that's going to happen,

it's going to happen a lot of industries

00;53;33;19 - 00;53;37;28

where people are saying, oh, like,

do we still need consultants?

00;53;37;28 - 00;53;40;14

Do we still need

any professional services?

00;53;40;14 - 00;53;42;02

You know, AI is here.

00;53;42;02 - 00;53;44;24

I think that's a huge misrepresentation

of why people buy

00;53;44;24 - 00;53;46;16

these services to begin with.

00;53;46;16 - 00;53;49;21

I don't think it's just, oh, what's

what's the answer to this question.

00;53;49;21 - 00;53;54;16

Better bring in McKinsey to answer it

for me, I think it's how organizations

00;53;54;16 - 00;53;57;25

get things done is, you know,

working with some of these functions.

00;53;57;25 - 00;54;01;29

So we'll see the stock in some of these

rise that's been beat up a little bit.

00;54;02;05 - 00;54;05;10

But I mean, the Apple piece

I want to come back to because

00;54;05;13 - 00;54;09;00

there's a different concern at Apple,

which is you've got Tim Cook now,

00;54;09;04 - 00;54;12;14

you know, functionally announcing

that he's an outgoing CEO.

00;54;12;18 - 00;54;15;14

We've got some suggestions

about who may be up next.

00;54;15;14 - 00;54;18;29

But the real valuable question

is what's next for Apple.

00;54;18;29 - 00;54;19;15

Yeah.

00;54;19;15 - 00;54;24;11

And investors have decided

the answer's is I.

00;54;24;14 - 00;54;26;12

And I think that's dumb.

00;54;26;12 - 00;54;29;00

And I think maybe Apple thinks

that's dumb.

00;54;29;00 - 00;54;33;06

But without being able to tell them what

the real answer is, they're in trouble.

00;54;33;06 - 00;54;35;09

And that's

what we've seen depressing the stock.

00;54;35;09 - 00;54;37;02

So if they think the problem

they're solving is

00;54;37;02 - 00;54;38;27

how do we get AI into our products?

00;54;38;27 - 00;54;40;28

They're barking up the wrong tree.

00;54;40;28 - 00;54;44;14

The problem that they're trying to solve

is what's next for Apple that's going to,

00;54;44;17 - 00;54;45;22

you know, make us a pile of money.

00;54;45;22 - 00;54;47;23

And they've been really good

at being like a platform. Right.

00;54;47;23 - 00;54;48;19

Like the App Store.

00;54;48;19 - 00;54;50;00

One of the most innovative things,

00;54;50;00 - 00;54;53;27

I would argue, of the 21st century

so far certainly changed all of our lives.

00;54;53;27 - 00;54;56;28

Many of you are probably watching

this on an iPhone in an app

00;54;56;28 - 00;55;00;24

that was made by a third party that Apple,

you know, is collecting a vegan, right?

00;55;00;24 - 00;55;02;02

Like that's sort of their whole thing.

00;55;02;02 - 00;55;03;15

Search engine.

They could have built their own.

00;55;03;15 - 00;55;03;28

They didn't.

00;55;03;28 - 00;55;07;11

Google paid them a lot of money for

it was the center of an antitrust lawsuit.

00;55;07;11 - 00;55;07;28

Right.

00;55;07;28 - 00;55;11;07

So the reason I asked about Apple

is because there's

00;55;11;10 - 00;55;13;21

I think they're one of the most

compelling companies in this space.

00;55;13;21 - 00;55;16;01

So the 800 pound gorilla

that really has not stepped

00;55;16;01 - 00;55;18;24

into the ring and succession

is going to be very interesting.

00;55;18;24 - 00;55;21;28

Like if you look at Amazon

who succeeded at Amazon Andy Jassy,

00;55;21;28 - 00;55;25;07

what was his job Amazon Web Services

not a retail guy.

00;55;25;09 - 00;55;26;11

Yeah. Cloud guy.

00;55;26;11 - 00;55;29;27

Microsoft who took over from Steve

Ballmer of Nobody will want an iPhone

00;55;29;27 - 00;55;33;05

because it doesn't have a keyboard fame

it was Satya Nadella

00;55;33;08 - 00;55;35;06

Cloud business that division. Right.

00;55;35;06 - 00;55;39;09

So where Apple goes by the way,

both those companies massive,

00;55;39;09 - 00;55;41;14

massive success in their cloud businesses

00;55;41;14 - 00;55;45;02

after those folks took over,

in in Jesse's case before he took over.

00;55;45;07 - 00;55;45;25

So with Apple

00;55;45;25 - 00;55;50;02

is going to be very compelling to see who

they pick, as a successor to Tim Cook,

00;55;50;02 - 00;55;53;02

who is a supply chain guy

and really sorted out their supply chain.

00;55;53;05 - 00;55;56;02

So, yeah, I think that has so much to do

with the ultimate

00;55;56;02 - 00;55;59;02

success of Apple Intelligence or whatever

the final iteration it looks like.

00;55;59;04 - 00;56;04;12

So the way I'm seeing it, Jeff, right now

is so web 1.0, then web 2.0.

00;56;04;12 - 00;56;05;27

There was a big shaking out.

00;56;05;27 - 00;56;08;29

All the Pets.com just went bankrupt,

but we got a bunch of really

00;56;08;29 - 00;56;12;15

solid, web 2.0 companies like Google and.

00;56;12;15 - 00;56;15;26

Net and Amazon who are able to sort of

ride through that storm

00;56;15;26 - 00;56;20;01

in the case of Google and Amazon

and emerge from it in the case of,

00;56;20;04 - 00;56;23;18

meta on the AI side, you're predicting

00;56;23;21 - 00;56;26;12

sort of an AI 1.02.0 Yes.

00;56;26;12 - 00;56;29;00

right? What about web 3.0?

00;56;29;00 - 00;56;31;09

You may recall a couple of years ago

00;56;31;09 - 00;56;33;20

everything was going to be

on the blockchain,

00;56;33;20 - 00;56;36;12

and sometimes the blockchain

was going to be mixed with other stuff.

00;56;36;12 - 00;56;38;01

So I'm going to ask you a loaded question.

00;56;38;01 - 00;56;41;06

And that is

can we finally close the book on this?

00;56;41;09 - 00;56;44;24

Can we finally just say that blockchain

isn't a real enterprise technology and

00;56;44;24 - 00;56;46;16

just move along?

00;56;46;19 - 00;56;49;26

I, I certainly agree with that.

00;56;49;26 - 00;56;51;05

At the broadest scale,

00;56;51;05 - 00;56;53;09

there are industries,

and there are specific functions

00;56;53;09 - 00;56;56;20

where you can use a decentralized ledger

and there's some value to it.

00;56;56;23 - 00;56;58;13

But I think it's you, can.

00;56;58;13 - 00;57;00;12

You name one?

00;57;00;12 - 00;57;03;19

I've heard examples

in sort of finance and insurance

00;57;03;19 - 00;57;07;04

internally

where they keep records like this.

00;57;07;07 - 00;57;10;04

I'm always skeptical

when I hear that story, and I am,

00;57;10;04 - 00;57;14;25

I am too, and should it be

uttered in the same breath as I.

00;57;14;25 - 00;57;16;03

No, I don't think it should.

00;57;16;03 - 00;57;17;07

And, you know, we can decide

00;57;17;07 - 00;57;20;24

how much we want to talk about crypto,

but I think we've seen.

00;57;20;27 - 00;57;22;00

Crypto as a whole different thing.

00;57;22;00 - 00;57;24;13

Crypto is a speculative.

I think it is two.

00;57;24;13 - 00;57;27;23

And I think we're

sort of seeing peak crypto now as well,

00;57;27;24 - 00;57;30;00

because this is another thing.

Well, we're over the hump.

00;57;30;00 - 00;57;32;26

I mean, again, the price may be different

depending on when you're watching this.

00;57;32;26 - 00;57;36;06

But in late 2025 crypto

crashed a fair amount.

00;57;36;11 - 00;57;36;21

Yeah.

00;57;36;21 - 00;57;40;05

and this is after by the way

all this regulation came off.

00;57;40;05 - 00;57;43;06

You've got a very pro crypto

administration in the US.

00;57;43;07 - 00;57;47;01

And to me like I've been a big crypto

skeptic for a long time.

00;57;47;01 - 00;57;49;23

And it's funny

because like some of the smartest people

00;57;49;23 - 00;57;52;18

and some of the dumbest people I know

are all in on crypto,

00;57;52;18 - 00;57;54;20

which is like fascinating.

Like there's no middle ground.

00;57;54;20 - 00;57;57;06

It's just like. I'm going to find out

which bucket Yeah, exactly.

00;57;57;06 - 00;58;02;10

So it's like, you know, geniuses

and people who have never known

00;58;02;10 - 00;58;05;27

anything about finance or technology or

like putting their life savings in this.

00;58;05;27 - 00;58;09;05

There's a meme with a bell curve

with people I'm sure there are.

00;58;09;08 - 00;58;12;06

And it's the same concern

we talked about with AI,

00;58;12;06 - 00;58;17;00

which is it's it's really great

as a speculative investment.

00;58;17;00 - 00;58;22;10

And like the future is crypto, but

who uses crypto that isn't a drug dealer?

00;58;22;11 - 00;58;27;12

You know, like it's just it's a technology

that the average person

00;58;27;15 - 00;58;30;06

I don't find has any use for.

00;58;30;06 - 00;58;35;11

And they can't even describe in layman's

terms why they should care about it.

00;58;35;13 - 00;58;38;19

Like if you want to con someone

00;58;38;22 - 00;58;41;24

out of their money,

crypto is incredible for it.

00;58;41;24 - 00;58;42;17

I get those calls.

00;58;42;17 - 00;58;43;26

Yeah, if you want.

00;58;43;26 - 00;58;48;09

Like, yeah, if you're in the illicit goods

or services business, you know,

00;58;48;09 - 00;58;52;10

you want to order a hit like Bitcoin

have at her.

00;58;52;13 - 00;58;55;13

But but you know is that

00;58;55;15 - 00;58;58;05

what the valuation is based on like

come on.

00;58;58;05 - 00;59;01;09

And I'm sure there's like people

were going to be like furiously like this

00;59;01;09 - 00;59;04;04

Jeff guy is an idiot.

He just doesn't understand its potential.

00;59;04;04 - 00;59;06;25

And there's a lot of money

riding on that narrative.

00;59;06;25 - 00;59;10;11

But I don't know, like that's

that's my crypto take.

00;59;10;11 - 00;59;14;27

So crypto I'm completely with you

on the enterprise side though, in terms

00;59;14;27 - 00;59;16;11

of like actual blockchain,

00;59;16;11 - 00;59;19;01

the purpose of which is to solve

some sort of a business problem.

00;59;19;01 - 00;59;21;00

I think I disagree with you

because I actually think

00;59;21;00 - 00;59;22;20

that if you peel back the layers

00;59;22;20 - 00;59;25;28

on any enterprise blockchain use case,

it becomes apparent

00;59;25;28 - 00;59;27;26

that there is a better way

to solve that problem.

00;59;27;26 - 00;59;31;15

I'm not saying that a decentralized ledger

can't be used to do stuff,

00;59;31;15 - 00;59;34;16

I'm just saying that it is very rarely

the highest and best use of your time

00;59;34;16 - 00;59;35;14

to actually build one.

00;59;35;14 - 00;59;37;27

So I'll give some examples

just because, like I came prepared.

00;59;37;27 - 00;59;42;15

Jeff, everybody watching this Google

Australian Securities Exchange blockchain.

00;59;42;22 - 00;59;44;22

This was a slow motion train wreck from X.

00;59;44;22 - 00;59;45;18

I heard that they were

00;59;45;18 - 00;59;48;21

moving their trading platform

and I might get some of the details wrong,

00;59;48;21 - 00;59;49;16

but I heard they were moving

00;59;49;16 - 00;59;53;12

their trading platform

from a traditional system to a blockchain.

00;59;53;15 - 00;59;54;11

And I watch this.

00;59;54;11 - 00;59;56;02

I was like, there's no way

they're actually going to do that.

00;59;56;02 - 00;59;58;03

But they kept releasing announcements.

00;59;58;03 - 00;59;59;27

You know,

it was a big deal for their executives.

00;59;59;27 - 01;00;01;08

I was like,

this just isn't going to happen

01;00;01;08 - 01;00;04;01

because this isn't a real solution

to a real problem.

01;00;04;01 - 01;00;06;01

They kept announcing it, kept announcing

it. Boom.

01;00;06;01 - 01;00;07;24

Actually,

no, we're not doing that. Whoops.

01;00;07;24 - 01;00;09;25

And it's like, yeah,

obviously I wasn't going to happen.

01;00;09;25 - 01;00;12;24

Or a few years back IBM and Maersk, right.

01;00;12;24 - 01;00;16;00

They they partnered to use

some IBM technology

01;00;16;00 - 01;00;19;00

to build a platform called Trade Lens.

01;00;19;06 - 01;00;20;15

Right. And it sounded really good.

01;00;20;15 - 01;00;22;15

It was like shipping containers

sometimes get lost.

01;00;22;15 - 01;00;24;21

You know, it's great to have an immutable

ledger.

01;00;24;21 - 01;00;29;02

And, you know, people can, you know,

scan stuff in or whatever, and track it

01;00;29;05 - 01;00;32;14

around the whole world, you know,

biggest shipping company in the world,

01;00;32;17 - 01;00;36;09

a questionably relevant tech company,

but still quite large.

01;00;36;13 - 01;00;40;00

IBM is not anywhere near the size

of like an Apple or a Facebook or,

01;00;40;00 - 01;00;43;13

I guess, meta now, or a Microsoft,

but they're still a big player.

01;00;43;16 - 01;00;44;14

They shut that down.

01;00;44;14 - 01;00;46;08

It was it wasn't a real thing.

you know. right.

01;00;46;08 - 01;00;49;11

And every time this comes up,

it always comes back

01;00;49;18 - 01;00;52;12

to that would be neat if it worked.

01;00;52;12 - 01;00;54;21

But like it's just never the best way

to solve a problem.

01;00;54;21 - 01;00;55;17

So I agree with you.

01;00;55;17 - 01;00;58;15

Crypto not great enterprise

enterprise blockchain.

01;00;58;15 - 01;01;00;03

I wish we could just

close the door on this.

01;01;00;03 - 01;01;02;09

Like if I never have to hear about it

again.

01;01;02;09 - 01;01;03;10

I know talking about it on

01;01;03;10 - 01;01;06;10

a podcast is not the solution

for never hearing about it again.

01;01;06;11 - 01;01;09;00

But if I never have to hear about it

again, it'll be too soon.

01;01;09;00 - 01;01;12;17

But but there's there's an implication

here that really concerns me.

01;01;12;18 - 01;01;12;26

Okay.

01;01;12;26 - 01;01;16;21

Which is that in all these use cases

where you're like,

01;01;16;25 - 01;01;20;26

you're watching it from a safe distance

and being like, why would you do that?

01;01;20;26 - 01;01;23;14

It's obviously not the right call.

01;01;23;14 - 01;01;27;16

The answer to that question

is that somebody, somewhere

01;01;27;19 - 01;01;32;04

with a lot of authority said, how

can we get blockchain into our business?

01;01;32;04 - 01;01;32;28

What's the case

01;01;32;28 - 01;01;36;21

for blockchain like this is a company

that should be using blockchain, damn it.

01;01;36;21 - 01;01;39;19

We're backing into it. Yeah. Well.

Well exactly.

01;01;39;19 - 01;01;43;04

And it's like, well,

you know sir, it's always a sir.

01;01;43;07 - 01;01;45;24

You know, we've got our top minds on it.

01;01;45;24 - 01;01;48;24

And, you know, this is the example

we came up with.

01;01;48;25 - 01;01;53;12

And like, if you squint really hard, it's

not that stupid, right?

01;01;53;12 - 01;01;55;02

you squint really hard, it's not.

that. It's not.

01;01;55;02 - 01;01;58;00

That's like, that's kind of the.

Like stamp that on the bitcoins. Yeah.

01;01;58;00 - 01;01;58;22

Yeah.

01;01;58;22 - 01;02;00;24

There's,

there's a lot of enterprise projects

01;02;00;24 - 01;02;04;09

that that could

be the slogan for fairness.

01;02;04;12 - 01;02;07;17

That, that

like is starting to sound familiar to me.

01;02;07;17 - 01;02;07;26

Right.

01;02;07;26 - 01;02;11;02

Because that some of the concerns

we're having right now with AI.

01;02;11;05 - 01;02;16;00

And I think if the tide is going to go out

at all,

01;02;16;06 - 01;02;17;29

we're really going to like,

01;02;17;29 - 01;02;22;12

we're really going to see how many of

these projects have merit versus

01;02;22;15 - 01;02;27;21

how many is like the AI ification of,

you know, what's effectively blockchain.

01;02;27;21 - 01;02;29;21

That's

I will say, and I'm a little biased here.

01;02;29;21 - 01;02;32;24

I do personally use

AI for things, a fair sure.

01;02;32;26 - 01;02;33;17

One of my favorite things

01;02;33;17 - 01;02;36;19

to do is asking if certain subway stations

have bathrooms, for example.

01;02;36;19 - 01;02;37;12

It actually does.

01;02;37;12 - 01;02;39;24

Now it's

very smart, faster than googling it.

01;02;39;24 - 01;02;41;27

The bathrooms at subway stations

around here any.

01;02;41;27 - 01;02;43;07

And And then some of them.

01;02;43;07 - 01;02;47;09

Really I'd be like very concerned at the

like the cleanliness

01;02;47;09 - 01;02;51;03

level based on based on some of the things

I've seen in the subway station.

01;02;51;03 - 01;02;53;03

Definitely

the direction that I wanted to take.

01;02;53;03 - 01;02;56;28

This, this conversation,

I have yet to find a valid use case

01;02;56;28 - 01;02;57;27

personally for blockchain.

01;02;57;27 - 01;03;02;01

And then I'm also going to give AI the its

early excuse because it sort of is.

01;03;02;01 - 01;03;02;27

I mean, I have been

01;03;02;27 - 01;03;06;24

around in various forms since the 1950s,

Marvin Minsky's lab or whatever,

01;03;06;24 - 01;03;10;13

but like the modern iteration of it,

we're in an AI summer.

01;03;10;13 - 01;03;12;09

You know, we are mentor for a long time.

01;03;12;09 - 01;03;17;02

And so the past three years has been sort

of AI 6.0 or whatever we're on right now.

01;03;17;08 - 01;03;19;04

And that's been going quite well.

01;03;19;04 - 01;03;21;20

But blockchain, I mean, 16 years.

01;03;21;20 - 01;03;22;09

Oh, yeah.

01;03;22;09 - 01;03;27;05

And we've and we have yet to actually

come up with a viable use case for it.

01;03;27;05 - 01;03;31;00

And so I was hoping in this podcast

we could just collectively shout it down.

01;03;31;00 - 01;03;32;00

Oh yeah. Like if you're.

01;03;32;00 - 01;03;36;23

Yeah like there is nothing between me

and shutting the book on blockchain.

01;03;36;23 - 01;03;40;08

Like like

I don't think I mean, I'm curious.

01;03;40;08 - 01;03;42;22

I've read a handful of like 20,

26 tech trends.

01;03;42;22 - 01;03;44;28

I don't think any of them

are like blockchain.

01;03;44;28 - 01;03;48;09

Like this year

we're going all in on blockchain, like.

01;03;48;10 - 01;03;50;25

NFTs are back, baby. Oh my god.

01;03;50;25 - 01;03;52;29

Yeah it's hot. Speaking of scams.

01;03;52;29 - 01;03;53;12

so what.

01;03;53;12 - 01;03;56;10

Do you do with your

massive portfolio of NFTs?

01;03;56;13 - 01;03;58;08

con them off on another sucker

back in the day.

01;03;58;08 - 01;03;59;04

greater fool theory.

01;03;59;04 - 01;04;01;03

That's, that's so obviously so.

01;04;01;03 - 01;04;02;13

Yeah. Shut the book. Yeah. right.

01;04;02;13 - 01;04;03;16

The book Book is closed.

01;04;03;16 - 01;04;06;15

Our editors will put a book on the screen,

and we'll close it.

01;04;06;15 - 01;04;09;15

I love that, I wanted to talk about

a couple of other things that are sort of

01;04;09;15 - 01;04;13;08

like blockchain in the sense

that they've been, much hyped

01;04;13;08 - 01;04;19;16

and are maybe related to or, adjacent

in some way to artificial intelligence.

01;04;19;17 - 01;04;22;17

so one is, self-driving cars,

which is a gigantic

01;04;22;17 - 01;04;26;14

I use case right now, the

AI is an agent who's acting as a driver.

01;04;26;14 - 01;04;29;02

On behalf of you,

the passenger, you're the principal.

01;04;29;02 - 01;04;31;02

They've been around for a long time.

01;04;31;02 - 01;04;34;21

You know, self-driving in various forms,

depending on, you know,

01;04;34;23 - 01;04;37;23

what level you would

you would describe that.

01;04;37;27 - 01;04;40;09

It's been around

maybe in its modern iteration for,

01;04;40;09 - 01;04;43;13

let's say, a decade, Uber was involved

and they got sued.

01;04;43;13 - 01;04;44;29

Google's got Waymo.

01;04;44;29 - 01;04;48;21

Teslas have this thing called full

self-driving, which comes with a warning

01;04;48;21 - 01;04;51;23

that says this is not actually

a fully autonomous driving system.

01;04;51;24 - 01;04;54;03

Yeah, you must be present

and we'll shake the wheel

01;04;54;03 - 01;04;55;26

so that, you know, we know you're

you're still there.

01;04;55;26 - 01;04;58;09

What are your take takes on that for 2026?

01;04;58;09 - 01;05;03;03

Are we going to just ditch

the car and have robotaxis?

01;05;03;06 - 01;05;05;01

That's a that's a really interesting one.

01;05;05;01 - 01;05;09;14

I was a self-driving car skeptic

for a very long time.

01;05;09;14 - 01;05;11;20

Like, to me,

I put it in, like, the cold fusion bucket,

01;05;11;20 - 01;05;13;22

where it's like, it's just two years away.

01;05;13;22 - 01;05;15;12

Like, like, whatever, five years away.

01;05;15;12 - 01;05;18;24

No matter when you asked people and like,

Elon was like the ultimate.

01;05;18;24 - 01;05;21;06

Cheerleader slide

where I just clicked for every year.

01;05;21;06 - 01;05;24;03

He said it was one year Now I if you can.

01;05;24;03 - 01;05;26;11

It was it was a running joke

for a really long time.

01;05;26;11 - 01;05;28;19

And I've come around on that in 2025.

01;05;28;19 - 01;05;28;29

Okay.

01;05;28;29 - 01;05;34;03

I, I'm more bullish and like,

I'll go as far as to say

01;05;34;03 - 01;05;37;27

like self-driving

cars are an inevitability at this point.

01;05;37;27 - 01;05;38;06

Okay.

01;05;38;06 - 01;05;41;07

Like the proliferation of them

is inevitable.

01;05;41;14 - 01;05;45;09

And I think Waymo

is probably the first, company

01;05;45;09 - 01;05;47;14

that's really proven that out at scale.

01;05;47;14 - 01;05;50;24

And you're starting

to just hear more stories of people,

01;05;50;27 - 01;05;53;09

you know, on the West Coast

or visiting the West Coast or now,

01;05;53;09 - 01;05;55;06

you know,

now they're in a few more cities system.

01;05;55;06 - 01;05;58;24

Yeah. Austin, I think they're

they're in or coming to Phoenix.

01;05;58;27 - 01;06;00;27

Arizona's got good weather for it

though, right.

01;06;00;27 - 01;06;04;18

Well, while it does and that's to me

that's a surmountable problem, though.

01;06;04;18 - 01;06;06;01

It's like, you know,

01;06;06;01 - 01;06;10;05

road conditions, weather, topography,

like all of that will come with time.

01;06;10;05 - 01;06;13;05

I don't think there's anything

inherently insurmountable about it.

01;06;13;07 - 01;06;17;01

But what's interesting

and what changed my mind

01;06;17;07 - 01;06;20;13

is the virality of the experience.

01;06;20;17 - 01;06;24;14

And what I mean by that is anytime I know

someone who's in a self-driving car,

01;06;24;20 - 01;06;27;20

I know they're in a self-driving car

because they send me a picture of it

01;06;27;23 - 01;06;30;18

right in there, like,

I'm in a there's no driver look in this.

01;06;30;18 - 01;06;34;04

Like, people love to talk about it

and they're doing it.

01;06;34;07 - 01;06;36;29

And if you ask them,

would you do it again?

01;06;36;29 - 01;06;38;12

The answer is yes. Right.

01;06;38;12 - 01;06;43;04

Like those are signals

that this is not going away.

01;06;43;08 - 01;06;46;15

And so we've already started to hear about

01;06;46;15 - 01;06;49;21

organizations like Waymo talking about

bringing this to more and more cities.

01;06;49;21 - 01;06;53;00

Yeah, there's there's concerns

like weather, like topography.

01;06;53;03 - 01;06;55;13

There's this like no shortage of concerns.

01;06;55;13 - 01;06;58;22

But to me, those are like hurdles

that we will get over.

01;06;58;29 - 01;07;02;12

I don't know that we're going

to get over all of them in 2026,

01;07;02;18 - 01;07;06;08

but we're going to continue

to see a steady march forward here.

01;07;06;12 - 01;07;08;17

And as you can imagine, I wasn't around,

01;07;08;17 - 01;07;11;23

you know, when that first like,

model T rolled off the line.

01;07;11;28 - 01;07;14;25

But to get from that to, you know,

01;07;14;25 - 01;07;18;21

the modern age of highways and,

you know, cars

01;07;18;22 - 01;07;21;25

being a part of everyday life

every day, you know, life in America

01;07;21;25 - 01;07;25;28

and around the world, you know,

that didn't happen in in 18 months.

01;07;25;28 - 01;07;27;19

You know, it took decades.

01;07;27;19 - 01;07;30;00

And this,

I think will be faster than that.

01;07;30;00 - 01;07;34;14

But it's going to be years and years

and it's going to it's

01;07;34;14 - 01;07;38;11

going to be transformative for our society

01;07;38;11 - 01;07;41;11

and for I think in a lot of ways,

our physical infrastructure,

01;07;41;14 - 01;07;45;01

in ways that are really tough to predict

right now.

01;07;45;04 - 01;07;49;02

One of the pieces, though,

that I've been thinking about lately is

01;07;49;09 - 01;07;52;04

this is especially true

in the Western world,

01;07;52;04 - 01;07;55;27

is with a lot of new immigrants

01;07;56;00 - 01;07;59;00

to the US, Canada, Western Europe,

01;07;59;07 - 01;08;03;05

one of the lowest barriers to entry ways

you can start earning

01;08;03;05 - 01;08;09;12

an income is as an Uber driver

or as some sort of, you know, basically,

01;08;09;15 - 01;08;10;23

you know, just tap

01;08;10;23 - 01;08;15;17

food delivery taxiing people or stuff

around and parcels is the same, right?

01;08;15;23 - 01;08;19;08

Amazon has a awful lot of humans

that are serving as the last mile.

01;08;19;15 - 01;08;22;26

If you don't need those people anymore,

01;08;22;29 - 01;08;27;16

what are we doing with these people

who are functionally self-employed?

01;08;27;21 - 01;08;29;00

And this is their skill set?

01;08;29;00 - 01;08;32;26

Oh, and by the way, they're saddled

with this large asset Yeah,

01;08;32;26 - 01;08;35;25

that they had to purchase

to be able to do that. of some sort.

01;08;35;25 - 01;08;37;19

yeah, so that's

01;08;37;19 - 01;08;41;07

that's a big societal question that I

think we're going to have to grapple with.

01;08;41;10 - 01;08;44;15

It's going to be asked more in 2026.

01;08;44;18 - 01;08;48;22

I don't know that there's going to be,

you know, a volcanic moment,

01;08;48;25 - 01;08;51;25

but we're marching

in an inevitable direction.

01;08;51;25 - 01;08;55;09

So the reason I brought this up

was because exactly that point, and I'm

01;08;55;09 - 01;08;59;16

glad you sort of came, came to it because

when I was recently in one of the cities,

01;08;59;16 - 01;09;03;16

Austin, that has a large fleet of Waymo's,

they're it's integrated with Uber

01;09;03;19 - 01;09;07;03

and you order and Uber

and a Waymo might show up or a person

01;09;07;03 - 01;09;09;08

might show up, right, depending on where

you're going. Availability.

01;09;09;08 - 01;09;11;24

I'm assuming there's an algorithmic

aspect to it.

01;09;11;24 - 01;09;13;10

In fact, there obviously is.

01;09;13;10 - 01;09;16;03

And I didn't

actually end up riding in one.

01;09;16;03 - 01;09;20;01

But I did ride in a regular Uber

01;09;20;04 - 01;09;23;24

for an hour for like $38 or something.

01;09;23;27 - 01;09;25;01

And I thought, oh,

01;09;25;01 - 01;09;30;03

I think the price of Uber's in Austin

might have taken a hit because,

01;09;30;06 - 01;09;30;23

you know,

01;09;30;23 - 01;09;33;21

the drivers, you know, want more money,

they're going, no problem.

01;09;33;21 - 01;09;36;27

I've got a fleet of autonomous vehicles

that don't get tired.

01;09;37;00 - 01;09;40;02

And that was why I brought that up.

01;09;40;04 - 01;09;42;07

I think it's in microcosm,

01;09;42;07 - 01;09;45;21

the scenario that we're talking about

with AI sort of writ large.

01;09;45;21 - 01;09;47;24

And this just happens

to be a particularly useful case.

01;09;47;24 - 01;09;49;05

It solves a problem.

01;09;49;05 - 01;09;52;10

It will displace workers

if it's done correctly.

01;09;52;10 - 01;09;55;27

Never listen to an AI CEO who says, oh,

the goal isn't displacement.

01;09;55;27 - 01;09;57;05

No, the problem that they're solving

01;09;57;05 - 01;10;00;29

is salaries,

Yes, wages, it's commissions, whatever.

01;10;01;02 - 01;10;04;10

And I think that self-driving is

is one such case.

01;10;04;13 - 01;10;07;20

I'm less bullish than you, though

I do think it's asymptotic.

01;10;07;20 - 01;10;11;27

I think the reason that we've seen it

in Austin and in Phoenix and in California

01;10;12;00 - 01;10;16;16

is because they can mostly solve

for those conditions.

01;10;16;16 - 01;10;19;14

I say mostly because there are still,

you know, relatively high profile

01;10;19;14 - 01;10;21;27

problems, although as far as I know,

nobody's been killed. Recently.

01;10;21;27 - 01;10;28;02

There was an Uber related death,

in Arizona, about eight years ago.

01;10;28;05 - 01;10;29;02

But as soon as

01;10;29;02 - 01;10;33;25

you complicate, like I think that driving

in Ohio in January is exponentially

01;10;33;25 - 01;10;37;04

more difficult than driving

in Chandler, Arizona, at any time of year.

01;10;37;07 - 01;10;40;27

I know this because we live in a northern

climate, and I had to drive to get

01;10;40;27 - 01;10;44;24

to a train to get here and like, people

don't know how to drive in the snow.

01;10;44;24 - 01;10;47;01

I don't know that a robot

will be able to do it

01;10;47;01 - 01;10;49;20

when it can't read the lines on the road,

and it's got to make a judgment

01;10;49;20 - 01;10;52;26

when it just pull over, throw the hazards

on, and wait for this all to blow over.

01;10;52;29 - 01;10;58;01

So I mean, that's a really interesting

nuance to it because you, you know,

01;10;58;01 - 01;11;02;13

I'm framing it as snow

is incrementally more difficult.

01;11;02;13 - 01;11;05;07

You're saying no,

it's like it's it's more than incremental.

01;11;05;07 - 01;11;07;10

It's a completely what while an end. Yeah.

01;11;07;10 - 01;11;09;05

Somebody probably smarter than us

01;11;09;05 - 01;11;13;03

are more knowledgeable and and not a CEO

because they'll probably just tell us.

01;11;13;03 - 01;11;15;05

Of course it's just around the corner.

01;11;15;05 - 01;11;17;04

Elon water is going to stop me.

01;11;17;04 - 01;11;18;13

Get out of my way, snow.

01;11;18;13 - 01;11;19;18

Put a cow catcher on the front.

01;11;19;18 - 01;11;21;24

Yeah but but but so let me to the mall.

01;11;21;24 - 01;11;24;05

let me frame my position a different way.

01;11;24;05 - 01;11;27;14

it's very hard for me to believe

that the Waymo's and Ubers of the world

01;11;27;14 - 01;11;31;21

and in 2026 or 20, 30 or whatever,

we are going to be like,

01;11;31;28 - 01;11;33;24

you know,

I guess we're just throwing in the towel.

01;11;33;24 - 01;11;35;26

We can't beat snow, snow, winds.

01;11;35;26 - 01;11;37;11

So that market is closed.

01;11;37;11 - 01;11;43;11

Like, I think we're going to just

just bang the hammer at this until

01;11;43;11 - 01;11;47;13

at some point we reach a breakthrough and

I don't know what year that will be in.

01;11;47;13 - 01;11;50;17

My guess is sooner rather than later.

01;11;50;17 - 01;11;53;03

But you know,

if your guess is later than here we are.

01;11;53;03 - 01;11;53;25

Yeah, it is later.

01;11;53;25 - 01;11;56;26

And I want to make one more point on this

before we transition

01;11;56;26 - 01;12;01;00

to our most exciting,

you know, predictions for 2026.

01;12;01;00 - 01;12;02;22

So the things that we're most excited

about going forward.

01;12;02;22 - 01;12;03;15

So think on that.

01;12;03;15 - 01;12;07;28

While I make this point,

Apple looked into building a car right?

01;12;08;00 - 01;12;10;04

The Apple car, they never released

anything publicly about it.

01;12;10;04 - 01;12;11;20

Apple is like notoriously tight lipped.

01;12;11;20 - 01;12;14;03

Like whenever they acquire a company,

they release the same statement.

01;12;14;03 - 01;12;16;02

And they have for like decades.

01;12;16;02 - 01;12;18;24

And it's like 2 or 3 sentences

that basically like leave us alone.

01;12;18;24 - 01;12;19;18

Journalist.

01;12;19;18 - 01;12;21;07

And so they didn't talk about it,

but like,

01;12;21;07 - 01;12;22;22

there's been a bunch of reporting on this.

01;12;22;22 - 01;12;24;03

If you Google the Apple Car,

01;12;24;03 - 01;12;26;10

you'll you'll know exactly

what we're talking about here.

01;12;26;10 - 01;12;27;18

And they just dropped it.

01;12;27;18 - 01;12;31;29

One of the most well-resourced companies

in the world entering a market that exists

01;12;32;05 - 01;12;35;19

that they did not have to reinvent,

literally the wheel.

01;12;35;22 - 01;12;36;08

Right?

01;12;36;08 - 01;12;37;19

Oh, maybe that's part of their problem.

01;12;37;19 - 01;12;39;09

Maybe they didn't know

it's going to be a triangle

01;12;39;09 - 01;12;41;04

and it's going to be revolutionary

and creative.

01;12;41;04 - 01;12;43;16

They just dropped it because they said,

you know what?

01;12;43;16 - 01;12;46;01

We actually can't do this. Billions

and investment.

01;12;46;01 - 01;12;48;25

Thousands of employees were involved

in it, and they just dropped it.

01;12;48;25 - 01;12;51;26

So like Google saying, actually,

this Waymo thing isn't scalable

01;12;51;26 - 01;12;53;07

and we're not making any money doing it.

01;12;53;07 - 01;12;56;06

We're pulling the plug like

I don't think that's likely, but like,

01;12;56;07 - 01;12;58;18

you know, too big to fail

isn't the thing in tech.

01;12;58;18 - 01;13;01;15

Everyone everyone has their moment.

01;13;01;15 - 01;13;04;23

I while and I'm I'm skeptical of that

for a couple of different reasons.

01;13;04;23 - 01;13;08;08

I mean, we're talking about, in

a lot of cases, hardware versus software.

01;13;08;10 - 01;13;08;18

Sure.

01;13;08;18 - 01;13;11;23

And, and the hardware investment for Apple

was very,

01;13;11;23 - 01;13;14;28

very high there versus,

you know, hardware company, I.

01;13;14;28 - 01;13;16;16

Mean, they are a hardware company.

01;13;16;16 - 01;13;19;17

But I think, you know,

and it's funny that you talk about Apple

01;13;19;17 - 01;13;22;16

as being notoriously tight lipped because,

01;13;22;19 - 01;13;26;06

the corollary there is like, well,

why did they shut that down?

01;13;26;09 - 01;13;29;01

And because they're tight lipped,

they haven't been like, well,

01;13;29;01 - 01;13;30;26

because of x, y and Z.

01;13;30;26 - 01;13;35;10

But if I had to guess at some point

somebody did a sober analysis

01;13;35;10 - 01;13;38;16

and said, like,

what's like an optimistic guess

01;13;38;16 - 01;13;42;12

for how many of these cars

we could sell in the next five years?

01;13;42;15 - 01;13;45;12

It's an ROI calculation plan,

and I'm going to make that with Waymo

01;13;45;12 - 01;13;46;01

at some point,

01;13;46;01 - 01;13;47;16

or Alphabet's going to

they're going to look at it

01;13;47;16 - 01;13;48;19

and they're going to say,

we've been throwing

01;13;48;19 - 01;13;51;16

a bunch of money into this

and they're not profitable right now.

01;13;51;16 - 01;13;53;22

I would be shocked

if they were profitable.

01;13;53;22 - 01;13;54;18

So like at some point

01;13;54;18 - 01;13;58;18

some executive is going to say, like,

should we keep throwing money into this,

01;13;58;21 - 01;14;02;01

you know, 55 gallon drum

that's already on fire, right.

01;14;02;04 - 01;14;02;18

Maybe.

01;14;02;18 - 01;14;05;28

But but I think there's a, there's a,

there's a more subtle pivot they can do

01;14;05;28 - 01;14;09;03

which is, which is the most profitable

piece of this.

01;14;09;03 - 01;14;09;12

Yeah.

01;14;09;12 - 01;14;11;17

And at some point,

while it's not buying or designing

01;14;11;17 - 01;14;15;04

cars, it's like a software

component of other cars.

01;14;15;11 - 01;14;17;07

And they're able to pivot into like.

01;14;17;07 - 01;14;18;11

call it car play.

01;14;18;11 - 01;14;19;06

Yeah. Yeah.

01;14;19;06 - 01;14;22;01

Well like exactly right.

01;14;22;01 - 01;14;24;19

And so that's where it can

potentially go.

01;14;24;19 - 01;14;27;08

but the other piece

I don't want to lose sight of is,

01;14;27;08 - 01;14;31;03

you know, if all this comes to pass

and you end up with all these

01;14;31;03 - 01;14;34;03

kind of unemployed, low skill workers,

you know

01;14;34;08 - 01;14;37;02

this to me is broadly

01;14;37;02 - 01;14;40;14

the the risk being created by technology

today.

01;14;40;14 - 01;14;41;27

Right? Because that's one example.

01;14;41;27 - 01;14;42;23

Always been the risk.

01;14;42;23 - 01;14;43;12

Like so when

01;14;43;12 - 01;14;46;27

somebody invented the combine, I needed

fewer people to harvest my field Yeah.

01;14;47;00 - 01;14;48;13

Yeah.

And there are lots of reasons for that.

01;14;48;13 - 01;14;52;04

When somebody invented,

you know, the keyboard, the keyboard

01;14;52;04 - 01;14;55;16

attached to a PC, I didn't need a person

to take a letter anymore.

01;14;55;16 - 01;14;58;13

Right. Like, and this is just the history

of technology, inevitably.

01;14;58;13 - 01;15;02;20

While and but it's also the history of

and I don't I don't want to get like too

01;15;02;20 - 01;15;08;00

much into like political or social theory,

but it's just like it's always

01;15;08;04 - 01;15;12;05

the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder

that gets get chopped first.

01;15;12;05 - 01;15;12;11

Right.

01;15;12;11 - 01;15;16;01

Like the and I don't know this

this was like one of

01;15;16;04 - 01;15;19;03

the many lessons for me

coming through Covid is it's just like,

01;15;19;03 - 01;15;23;01

I don't know, anytime anything happens

the rich get richer, right?

01;15;23;01 - 01;15;26;14

Like it's just like it's it's

become very difficult for me to imagine

01;15;26;14 - 01;15;30;01

a world where like something happens

and that's not the case because.

01;15;30;01 - 01;15;33;14

Really shuts down, the rich get richer,

while booms, rich get It's all.

01;15;33;17 - 01;15;33;23

Well.

01;15;33;23 - 01;15;38;06

Well, exactly like they're just it's so

well insulated right now

01;15;38;10 - 01;15;41;18

in the, you know, political,

economic system that's been created.

01;15;41;22 - 01;15;44;00

And so your point is well taken.

01;15;44;00 - 01;15;46;17

That does not make this moment

in history unique,

01;15;46;17 - 01;15;51;14

but it makes it, flammable,

I guess I could say so.

01;15;51;14 - 01;15;54;23

So my argument on this and I have a chart

I like to show

01;15;54;23 - 01;15;58;21

And it's the adoption

of mechanized agriculture tools over time.

01;15;58;24 - 01;16;01;14

Compared to visa burden,

essentially. Right. Yeah.

01;16;01;14 - 01;16;02;27

I used to have an ox to till my field.

01;16;02;27 - 01;16;04;21

Now I got a mechanical plow.

01;16;04;21 - 01;16;06;28

And like,

that took decades in the United States.

01;16;06;28 - 01;16;09;05

Right. And there's a point

at which the line crosses over.

01;16;09;05 - 01;16;09;28

It's all very exciting.

01;16;09;28 - 01;16;13;03

But like, people coexist and you got it

and you got an ox or a horse.

01;16;13;03 - 01;16;15;17

I've got a tractor

now. Everybody has tractors.

01;16;15;17 - 01;16;17;17

But it took decades. With AI.

01;16;17;17 - 01;16;21;17

It's like they invented that thing

like a year ago, you know, three years ago

01;16;21;17 - 01;16;22;19

in the case of ChatGPT.

01;16;22;19 - 01;16;25;20

And it's like, well,

now it can do the job of a translator.

01;16;25;20 - 01;16;28;09

And now we've got a bunch of unemployed

translators. Right.

01;16;28;09 - 01;16;32;01

And like, the technology can propagate

so quickly in the scheme of things

01;16;32;01 - 01;16;34;10

that I think you are left

in that transition period

01;16;34;10 - 01;16;36;23

with a lot of people

who are impacted all at once.

01;16;36;23 - 01;16;38;21

And, you know, again,

not to get too far into social

01;16;38;21 - 01;16;42;07

and political theory here, but

like when you have a lot of unemployed,

01;16;42;07 - 01;16;45;27

relatively young people,

like it's not good for your society.

01;16;46;00 - 01;16;48;27

They tend to,

you know, move fast and break things.

01;16;48;27 - 01;16;51;27

As far as I, as far as I understand.

01;16;51;27 - 01;16;54;09

And so, I mean, the tech leaders

have been talking about UBI,

01;16;54;09 - 01;16;57;09

but that's very politically unpopular,

the universal basic income.

01;16;57;09 - 01;17;01;26

And so I can't see that happening

for political reasons.

01;17;01;26 - 01;17;05;22

And so like, yeah, you are left

with a disenfranchized, a class

01;17;05;22 - 01;17;10;25

whose work has been essentially subsumed

by artificial intelligence.

01;17;10;25 - 01;17;14;17

And so, yeah, I think that

that is a super compelling point

01;17;14;17 - 01;17;17;22

and not not the note

we want to end the Well,

01;17;17;25 - 01;17;22;21

but but just on the UBI, the UBI point

and I'm, a bit of a UBI skeptic.

01;17;22;21 - 01;17;24;28

Not because I think it's necessarily

a bad idea.

01;17;24;28 - 01;17;27;03

Although, you know,

we'll leave that to the economists.

01;17;27;03 - 01;17;31;22

But because I think

it's extremely difficult to implement,

01;17;31;25 - 01;17;34;00

you know, pragmatically,

and every time we've done

01;17;34;00 - 01;17;36;07

some sort of experiment with it, it's

been shut down.

01;17;36;07 - 01;17;37;23

And, oh, we'll have to figure it out

next time.

01;17;37;23 - 01;17;40;08

Well, that that in and of itself

is extremely telling.

01;17;40;08 - 01;17;43;13

it's political reasons, But there's

but there's something else which is,

01;17;43;16 - 01;17;49;21

I think sort of a soft UBI

which is rise of the public sector

01;17;49;24 - 01;17;54;15

like literally as a device

to employ people to prevent unrest.

01;17;54;20 - 01;17;57;13

And by the way, like we used to have

this really big mechanism

01;17;57;13 - 01;17;59;26

in a lot of countries to do this,

which was called the military.

01;17;59;26 - 01;18;00;24

Yes. Right.

01;18;00;24 - 01;18;03;01

And like, oh, we've got all these troubled

young men.

01;18;03;01 - 01;18;05;22

What can we possibly do with them

to keep them away from crime?

01;18;05;22 - 01;18;06;07

Okay, well,

01;18;06;07 - 01;18;09;27

we can give them some discipline

and we can point them at the enemy right.

01;18;10;04 - 01;18;13;00

And I don't know, maybe that's

a controversial thing to say, but.

01;18;13;00 - 01;18;16;17

But it was an extremely

it was an extremely effective mechanism

01;18;16;20 - 01;18;17;18

for doing that.

01;18;17;18 - 01;18;19;12

Many times had a national service.

01;18;19;12 - 01;18;21;22

So you might not be in the military,

but you might be called

01;18;21;22 - 01;18;23;28

upon by the government

to do something like, you know, labor.

01;18;23;28 - 01;18;24;25

Sure.

01;18;24;25 - 01;18;27;22

Well, and we've seen, you know,

we're at an interesting,

01;18;27;22 - 01;18;31;09

you know, point in modern history

where we've seen just kind of the erosion

01;18;31;09 - 01;18;35;27

of military budgets

and, you know, military, you know, staff

01;18;35;27 - 01;18;36;27

size for so long.

01;18;36;27 - 01;18;39;15

And I think that, like, that curve

is starting to bend up again.

01;18;39;15 - 01;18;42;00

Civil service is also shrinking

in a lot of places as well,

01;18;42;00 - 01;18;44;24

because it's not politically popular

to have a large civil service. Right.

01;18;44;24 - 01;18;46;16

Well, and I agree with you.

01;18;46;16 - 01;18;48;27

And so these are going to be like

two forces that are

01;18;48;27 - 01;18;52;03

that are probably colliding

because sure, it's not popular.

01;18;52;03 - 01;18;55;01

But if you have, you know, mass

unemployment, What does that look like.

01;18;55;01 - 01;18;59;10

And it's, you know, it's somewhere

between funny and depressing because

01;18;59;13 - 01;19;02;25

you can talk to the

leaders of the tech of the tech companies

01;19;02;25 - 01;19;06;17

making these products, and they're like,

yeah, it'll probably lead

01;19;06;17 - 01;19;07;29

to a lot of unemployment.

01;19;07;29 - 01;19;10;03

I don't know

what we're going to do about that.

01;19;10;03 - 01;19;11;26

And it's not my problem.

01;19;11;26 - 01;19;14;29

Well, but it's, you know,

it's a tragedy of the commons type problem

01;19;14;29 - 01;19;18;21

because if there's less people with money

01;19;18;22 - 01;19;22;28

for consumption, then, you know,

how does the market stay buoyant?

01;19;23;01 - 01;19;26;01

So so that's a very real concern.

01;19;26;02 - 01;19;26;20

Well.

01;19;26;20 - 01;19;29;20

One point that I'll make on this is.

01;19;29;23 - 01;19;30;29

I think for one of.

01;19;30;29 - 01;19;33;22

The first times in history,

01;19;33;22 - 01;19;37;08

the technology being proposed

has the potential to impact actually

01;19;37;08 - 01;19;41;08

relatively high wage, high salary,

high status occupations.

01;19;41;08 - 01;19;41;15

Right.

01;19;41;15 - 01;19;46;10

Like if I make an AI

that can read an X-ray

01;19;46;13 - 01;19;51;28

with, you know, 99.99999% effectiveness

or whatever, like that, radiologists

01;19;51;28 - 01;19;52;21

who might have been pulling

01;19;52;21 - 01;19;56;18

in half a million or three quarters

of $1 million a year, all of a sudden

01;19;56;20 - 01;19;59;28

their livelihood is impacted,

and those people actually tend

01;19;59;28 - 01;20;01;10

to have a lot more political power.

01;20;01;10 - 01;20;04;10

So we could see a situation

where they're able to leverage that.

01;20;04;10 - 01;20;05;00

I agree with you

01;20;05;00 - 01;20;08;04

that historically, technology Well,

so that the radiology one is interesting.

01;20;08;04 - 01;20;09;28

And I you know,

I was talking to someone last week

01;20;09;28 - 01;20;11;02

who was saying that,

01;20;11;02 - 01;20;15;05

if you look at the studies

in the last handful of years, radiologists

01;20;15;05 - 01;20;18;08

are using AI more than ever to help,

you know, with imaging,

01;20;18;08 - 01;20;21;17

which is a really, really good thing for,

you know, everybody's health.

01;20;21;21 - 01;20;23;20

But it hasn't led to fewer radiologists.

01;20;23;20 - 01;20;28;28

It's actually led to more radiologists

and led to is doing led to is maybe it.

01;20;28;28 - 01;20;32;11

Has not stemmed the flood Right

I don't want it flowing over

01;20;32;11 - 01;20;34;26

I don't want to

I don't want to imply causality there.

01;20;34;26 - 01;20;36;27

But it has not decreased the number.

01;20;36;27 - 01;20;38;17

That explains why when I look left,

I look right.

01;20;38;17 - 01;20;40;24

Radiologist radiology

radiologists everywhere.

01;20;40;24 - 01;20;43;17

Yeah, I moonlight as a radiologist.

I actually need a too.

01;20;43;17 - 01;20;45;02

That's a it's amazing.

01;20;45;02 - 01;20;45;21

Yeah.

01;20;45;21 - 01;20;47;23

So I think that's such

a compelling example.

01;20;47;23 - 01;20;49;26

So it was the same with ATMs, right.

01;20;49;26 - 01;20;51;19

In the 1970s and 1980s.

01;20;51;19 - 01;20;53;29

There are more bank tellers

now than there were back then.

01;20;53;29 - 01;20;55;26

The nature of their role changed again.

01;20;55;26 - 01;20;57;01

It's that speed piece.

01;20;57;01 - 01;21;01;21

But I do think that the political power

that the moneyed classes have

01;21;01;21 - 01;21;03;27

and this podcast got really interesting,

01;21;03;27 - 01;21;06;27

the political power

that these moneyed classes have does

01;21;07;00 - 01;21;11;09

make it likely that there might be a

society wide solution,

01;21;11;09 - 01;21;12;22

or at least a serious discussion

01;21;12;22 - 01;21;15;22

of one, whereas historically,

maybe there wouldn't have been one.

01;21;15;27 - 01;21;16;19

You know, one of the other

01;21;16;19 - 01;21;19;21

interesting kind of corollaries of that is

people have started to talk either

01;21;19;21 - 01;21;24;08

seriously or facetiously about like, well,

are we ready for AI CEOs?

01;21;24;08 - 01;21;26;04

Then? Yes, I'll. Send our pitch.

01;21;26;04 - 01;21;28;01

I came out and said, hey,

I could do my job.

01;21;28;01 - 01;21;30;10

And he was probably

just trying to sell his AI, but what?

01;21;30;10 - 01;21;34;02

Well, and it's really interesting

because I think to answer that question,

01;21;34;02 - 01;21;38;13

you have to like really soberly ask

yourself, like, what is a CEO good for?

01;21;38;16 - 01;21;44;10

And if you look at a lot of the day to day

tasks of a CEO, you're like, yes, I can.

01;21;44;13 - 01;21;45;11

You know, if you think their job

01;21;45;11 - 01;21;48;12

is to come up with a strategy

and communicate it or whatever.

01;21;48;18 - 01;21;51;21

Yeah, there's a lot there

that an LM can do.

01;21;51;21 - 01;21;55;06

It can do a good impression

on the AI similarly.

01;21;55;10 - 01;22;00;08

But if you know, to me what is the core of

a CEO

01;22;00;12 - 01;22;05;10

is inspiring confidence

and raising capital.

01;22;05;16 - 01;22;05;29

Right.

01;22;05;29 - 01;22;07;28

Like fired

when things aren't going and getting fired

01;22;07;28 - 01;22;10;01

when you're you're a throat

to choke there. Right.

01;22;10;01 - 01;22;14;20

It's accountability and

and projecting confidence so that you can,

01;22;14;20 - 01;22;17;21

you know, get more investment

and raise the value of the organization.

01;22;17;21 - 01;22;20;09

It's not just strategic leadership.

01;22;20;09 - 01;22;24;00

And strategic leadership, by the way,

is not just a good idea, right?

01;22;24;03 - 01;22;27;06

There's just a lot more to it than that

in terms of getting it sold

01;22;27;06 - 01;22;28;06

and implemented.

01;22;28;06 - 01;22;30;22

And so I think while people do talk

seriously about it,

01;22;30;22 - 01;22;35;10

I think it's an injustice to the role

to suggest that an AI can do it.

01;22;35;15 - 01;22;38;16

And as we've talked

about before, you know,

01;22;38;19 - 01;22;40;27

the higher

up you are, the more insulated you are.

01;22;40;27 - 01;22;43;26

I think in a lot of ways

I see you smiling nervously.

01;22;43;26 - 01;22;47;22

I was not so much nervous smiling and say,

I think, oh, those poor CEOs.

01;22;47;22 - 01;22;49;24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, poor one out.

01;22;49;24 - 01;22;52;26

For those poor

CEOs, It's an injustice to the role.

01;22;53;01 - 01;22;56;04

Well, CEOs who are watching at home

know that Jeff Nielsen,

01;22;56;04 - 01;22;58;26

host of the Digital Disruption

podcast, has your back.

01;22;58;26 - 01;23;01;29

Yeah you will if there's anyone defending

01;23;01;29 - 01;23;05;21

well it you know, underappreciated

and underpaid CEOs.

01;23;05;28 - 01;23;07;02

It's us here at.

01;23;07;02 - 01;23;09;01

The rebooted for the Tesla pay package.

01;23;09;01 - 01;23;11;25

We thought that oh my guy.

01;23;11;25 - 01;23;15;05

So let's talk about going forward

a couple of things that have us excited

01;23;15;05 - 01;23;17;02

because we've talked about

like a lot of frankly,

01;23;17;02 - 01;23;20;02

pretty depressing things, a lot of very

exciting things, but depressing things.

01;23;20;08 - 01;23;21;12

I'll go first.

01;23;21;12 - 01;23;25;12

The thing that I am most excited about for

2026 is not AI related.

01;23;25;15 - 01;23;26;28

It's not self-driving car related.

01;23;26;28 - 01;23;29;09

I tried Tesla Full Self-Driving one time

and it was cool.

01;23;29;09 - 01;23;30;00

It was kind of scary.

01;23;30;00 - 01;23;33;00

So I think I'm probably not going to I'm

not going to buy that.

01;23;33;03 - 01;23;36;05

It's a full the Apple phone

they're tight lipped notoriously.

01;23;36;05 - 01;23;38;02

They haven't come out and said

we're going to make a folding phone.

01;23;38;02 - 01;23;39;18

But more companies are making these.

01;23;39;18 - 01;23;42;15

Samsung just released

a really thin folding phone. Very cool.

01;23;42;15 - 01;23;43;15

They're expensive.

01;23;43;15 - 01;23;48;13

But like when I can fold my iPhone open

and it's going to be a tablet,

01;23;48;15 - 01;23;50;08

that's the thing

that I'm most excited about.

01;23;50;08 - 01;23;52;16

And sometimes I have dreams about it.

01;23;52;16 - 01;23;55;14

And I come into the office

and I look at my tiny little iPhone mini,

01;23;55;14 - 01;23;57;07

and I think, if only this were bigger.

01;23;57;07 - 01;24;01;01

You know, you can get these right now

from companies that aren't Apple.

01;24;01;04 - 01;24;03;16

And we'll put a pin in. Now

we'll come back to that discussion.

01;24;03;16 - 01;24;07;12

But I'm very excited

about the ecosystem play

01;24;07;15 - 01;24;09;17

that is iMessage.

01;24;09;17 - 01;24;12;09

And I've got all these books in my Apple

Books library.

01;24;12;09 - 01;24;13;21

You can't get that on Android.

01;24;13;21 - 01;24;15;15

the service life is incredible.

01;24;15;15 - 01;24;17;07

And usually they don't

bring something to market

01;24;17;07 - 01;24;18;23

until they worked out a lot of the kinks.

01;24;18;23 - 01;24;20;26

Not exclusively,

but usually they're pretty good.

01;24;20;26 - 01;24;24;09

I actually, I'm not scared

of a first gen Apple product in the way

01;24;24;09 - 01;24;27;06

that I am for other manufacturers,

a lower on like Gen nine.

01;24;27;06 - 01;24;28;25

So that's the thing that I'm most excited

about.

01;24;28;25 - 01;24;32;01

I'm anticipating this sort of prediction

slash excitement.

01;24;32;03 - 01;24;35;27

I'm optimistic that in September of 2026,

01;24;36;00 - 01;24;39;00

Apple will say, you know,

we think you're going to love it.

01;24;39;07 - 01;24;41;10

It's our fullest iPhone yet.

01;24;41;10 - 01;24;44;10

No headphone jack. I can't wait for that.

01;24;44;13 - 01;24;45;16

What are you excited about?

01;24;45;16 - 01;24;48;28

I'm skeptical that you're going to get

your folded your folded phone.

01;24;48;28 - 01;24;49;12

All right.

01;24;49;12 - 01;24;50;27

I'm really skeptical

that you're going to get it,

01;24;50;27 - 01;24;53;16

but I'll, I'll I'll pray for

you thoughts and prayers.

01;24;53;16 - 01;24;54;16

Like just

01;24;54;16 - 01;24;59;15

I hope you get your your full that iPhone

I'm like just Android to the bone.

01;24;59;15 - 01;25;03;18

So like I don't have a horse in your

in your like for the Apple race.

01;25;03;20 - 01;25;05;10

Thrive on the instability.

01;25;05;10 - 01;25;08;02

I thrive on the on the flexibility.

01;25;08;02 - 01;25;09;21

whether folding phone

is going to be very flexible.

01;25;09;21 - 01;25;10;16

While there you go.

01;25;10;16 - 01;25;12;02

It's going to And you can get it now

01;25;12;02 - 01;25;14;18

through a series of Android phone

manufacturer.

01;25;14;18 - 01;25;16;19

how many easy payments of.

01;25;16;19 - 01;25;18;23

Yeah. No it's all it's all easy payments.

01;25;18;23 - 01;25;22;17

I don't know that I have a tech, not

a technology right off the bat that I'm.

01;25;22;20 - 01;25;24;11

Maybe not necessarily a No, no.

01;25;24;11 - 01;25;26;09

Well, and there

something that you're excited about?

01;25;26;09 - 01;25;28;20

Are you excited about AI 2.0, for example?

01;25;28;20 - 01;25;29;08

Yeah.

01;25;29;08 - 01;25;33;07

I'm a guy, as you may know, who,

like, is just like, really?

01;25;33;07 - 01;25;35;13

I really at, like bulshit.

01;25;35;13 - 01;25;38;29

And there's just been so much

the past two years

01;25;38;29 - 01;25;42;11

around AI, and the tide is coming out

Yeah.

01;25;42;11 - 01;25;42;25

when we can

01;25;42;25 - 01;25;46;21

start to have real conversations

and people don't talk about AI like it's

01;25;46;21 - 01;25;50;26

the metaverse or like it's blockchain

when it's what can this actually do?

01;25;51;00 - 01;25;52;17

What can it not do?

01;25;52;17 - 01;25;54;15

What are we going to invest in?

01;25;54;15 - 01;26;00;03

Like when it's a real practical

conversation tied to the capabilities?

01;26;00;10 - 01;26;01;20

I'm really excited for that.

01;26;01;20 - 01;26;04;26

Like the hype machine

I think is running out of gas.

01;26;04;26 - 01;26;05;10

Yeah.

01;26;05;10 - 01;26;08;10

And yeah,

when when like companies are like,

01;26;08;10 - 01;26;12;04

oh, it turns out people don't as consumers

just want to pay

01;26;12;04 - 01;26;16;07

for stuff with AI tacked onto it,

like want an a genetic version of windows.

01;26;16;07 - 01;26;17;26

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

01;26;17;26 - 01;26;20;11

And one of the hate replies on Twitter

when they announced that.

01;26;20;11 - 01;26;22;05

I was all of the hate replies on Twitter.

01;26;22;05 - 01;26;24;11

No, I just, it's like.

01;26;24;11 - 01;26;27;07

again, it comes back to like,

01;26;27;10 - 01;26;29;03

why? Like, what are

01;26;29;03 - 01;26;32;03

you doing for people

that they should be excited about

01;26;32;05 - 01;26;35;08

versus what are you doing for investors

that they should be excited about?

01;26;35;15 - 01;26;38;23

And the investors are going

to run out of steam at some point

01;26;38;26 - 01;26;42;01

if the money from consumers doesn't

follow.

01;26;42;08 - 01;26;46;14

And, I have money in stocks, I don't

I don't want the bottom of the market

01;26;46;14 - 01;26;47;12

to fall out this year.

01;26;47;12 - 01;26;50;12

That's not

that's not good for me and my family.

01;26;50;14 - 01;26;53;14

And It's a discount opportunity.

01;26;53;16 - 01;26;55;11

Like we could unpack a lot of that,

01;26;55;11 - 01;26;59;04

but that's probably not the the road

we want to go down right now.

01;26;59;07 - 01;27;02;05

But being able to start

01;27;02;05 - 01;27;07;00

having real conversations and talking

about what this technology can do,

01;27;07;03 - 01;27;10;13

and I think that's going to be

a really good thing.

01;27;10;20 - 01;27;15;29

And regardless of

exactly how the market performs next year

01;27;16;02 - 01;27;18;26

and, you know, in the next year,

I think we're going

01;27;18;26 - 01;27;22;00

to, I think that's going to be

a very good thing.

01;27;22;04 - 01;27;22;28

Fantastic.

01;27;22;28 - 01;27;24;28

Well, I'm

glad you forced us to end on that note,

01;27;24;28 - 01;27;29;00

which is positive

in a sort of skeptical way versus just,

01;27;29;00 - 01;27;32;29

you know, kind of doom outlook that we've

been talking about for a lot of this.

01;27;33;02 - 01;27;35;13

Thanks for moderating that.

I really appreciate this.

01;27;35;13 - 01;27;38;06

And for everybody else, stick

with digital disruption for all things

01;27;38;06 - 01;27;41;07

future work, future of tech,

what's coming down the pipeline next?

01;27;41;12 - 01;27;44;03

And, what's that other thing

I was just to say?

01;27;44;03 - 01;27;47;25

Oh, yeah. Don't

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