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Debt Spiral or NEW Golden Age? Super Bowl Insider Trading, Booming Token Budgets, Ferrari's New EV

February 13, 202601:13:10
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All right, everybody. Welcome back to
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the number one podcast in the world, the
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all-in podcast. With me again, the core
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4, the original quartet, David Sachs,
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David Friedberg, Chimath Polyhapatia.
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I'm Jason Calakanis, and we have a very
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full docket today. All right, topic one,
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gentlemen. AI acceleration. It was a big
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week for AI. New study published on
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Monday, February 9th, in the HBR,
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Harvard Business Review, suggesting that
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AI tools intensify work but do not
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reduce it. Two UC Berkeley researchers
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spent eight months embedded at a 200
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person tech company. So, this is one
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company's experience. What they found,
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employees who use AI worked at a faster
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pace, took a broader scope of tasks, and
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extended work into more hours of the
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day. workers reported feeling more
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productive, but they also felt a little
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more stress and burnout. Saxs, your your
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hot take here, your quick take on this
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study. Obviously, it's just uh one
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company, but it does track, I think,
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some of my experiences.
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>> All right. Well, a few points here.
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Number one, as you may recall on the
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prediction show for this year, my most
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contrarian belief is that AI would
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increase demand for knowledge workers,
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not put them out of business. And I
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think you see in this UC Berkeley study,
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the reason why that might be the case is
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because the employees who use these
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tools, like you said, they worked
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faster. They took on a broader scope of
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task. They actually ended up working
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more hours in the day. So they did more
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work, not less, and even more effort
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rather than less. Not because they were
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required to, but just because they were
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more motivated. And I think they were
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more motivated because their work was
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getting upleveled, right? They're kind
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of able to offload
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uh more menial tasks to AI and it made
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their work more purposeful and
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meaningful. So I think we're kind of
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moving from what some people I think
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maybe Jensen has called um taskbased
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jobs to purpose-based jobs. And I think
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a key skill of employees is going to be
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the ability to structure work for
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themselves and their AI agents. And the
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employees who can do that are going to
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be far more productive than those who
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can't. That kind of brings me to point
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number two, which is that I think
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there's a tremendous opportunity this
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year for employees who are early
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adopters of these tools, who are, you
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know, so-called AI natives, to
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demonstrate their value to their
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employers. They're going to be able to
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get a lot more done. They're going to
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appear to have superpowers. They're
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going to be the people in meetings who
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can take an assignment that would have
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taken days before and get it done in 2
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hours. whether it's a presentation or a
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spreadsheet, people are going to be
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shocked at how quickly they can get
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these things done because they're going
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to be fasile at working with AI. So, I
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think there's a big opportunity there.
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And there was an article that went viral
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this week by Matt Schumer called
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something big is happening where he
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talked about this career opportunity
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that's going to be available to kind of
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AI early adopters. And I think that
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brings me to my third point, which is I
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think that you're going to see massive
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enterprise adoption of AI, not just chat
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bots, but agents this year. But I think
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it's going to be driven by the bottom
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up. It's going to be driven by these
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early adopter employees coming in to
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their workplaces, bringing in these kind
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of consumerized AI tools, start using
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them at work as opposed to top- down
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initiatives. I think there's a lot of
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top- down company transformation
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initiatives that are happening in large
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enterprises where the CEO has tasked a
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team with figuring out how to use AI,
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how to transform their business with AI.
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Those initiatives are going to take
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months. They're going to be studying
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what tools they should use. They're
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going to be doing RFPs. And I think it's
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ultimately going to be very slow. And
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while those things are trudging along, I
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think there's going to be these early
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adopter employees who just make the
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transformation of Feta Comple by again
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bringing these tools into the workplace
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from the bottom up. So, I think in the
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same way that you saw consumerized SAS
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tools spread from the bottom up in
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enterprises, I think you're going to see
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consumerized AI tools spread from the
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bottom up in enterprises. And I think
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it'll ultimately be one of the big
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themes this year.
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>> Couldn't concur or agree more. Nick,
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throw up that tweet I did. I I did a
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tweet and it got 2 million views.
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Basically, I said, listen, if you got
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laid off by Amazon or Microsoft over the
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last two years, just learn OpenClaw and
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automate your previous job. Show you
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know how to use these tools. go back to
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your boss and say, "Hey, I want to come
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back and automate everything or go to
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startups." Every startup I know is
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hiring for this position, which is
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somebody who knows how to build and
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manage agents. There is no job wreck for
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this yet or a title. We should come up
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with what this person does, but it it
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used to be called prompt engineer. It's
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no longer just prompt engineering. It's
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managing and educating and offloading
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work to an agent and then making sure
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they're actually doing it. And right now
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it feels like the people in my
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organization have four of them who are
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focused on this out of 20. I would say
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that their leverage is between 10 and
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20x the other 16. So now I'm going down
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the slope of employees from you know
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most technical you know to least and
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trying to get each one of them to adopt
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and create an agent for them. We'll pro
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it will probably take six months but
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when we do I think our leverage versus a
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competing firm is going to be 10x. As an
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example, in the podcasting space, Sax,
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we now have it going through podcasts
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looking for the best moments or you can
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just give it a moment and it will clip
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the clip for you and put it in the
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Google Drive. So imagine we were all in,
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I don't know, our little group chat and
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you said, "Oh, from the last episode,
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can you get me a clip of minute 3 to
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minute 6?" And then it's just on your
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iPhone. It's just in the group chat.
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Boom. Nobody has to go find it. It just
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clips it. That's the kind of work it's
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doing. And then we have it looking at
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our YouTube stats. We have it looking at
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our Instagram or Tik Tok stats and then
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trying to tell us which clips are going
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the most viral, which ones have the most
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comments and then giving us strategies
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to how to make them go more viral. It's
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really weird because it's coming up with
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really great suggestions and taking
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eliminating all the reporting work that
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knowledge workers do. Chimat, you have a
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take on this? I know you've deployed the
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software factory which is I think um you
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know aligned with obviously this
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revolution happening in real time. Last
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couple of weeks have been pretty big
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with claude opus 4.6 coming out uh chat
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GPT codeex coming out lot of advances
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and obviously the open claw revolution
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that I've now done seven podcasts on in
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a row. What are your thoughts Jamal?
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>> I think there are two open questions
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that I find really interesting right
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now. The first question
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is, I tweeted it this morning, but is on
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prem the new cloud,
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which is weird to think that that could
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even be possible, but we've spent since
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2008
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migrating everything to cloud because
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there were these economies of scale. And
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it created better margin and lower opex
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and lower capex because you could
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essentially share infrastructure with
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other companies. And that's how AWS and
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GCP have built such gargantuan
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businesses.
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The counterpoint to that though is that
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in the AI revolution, companies I
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suspect will be fighting for their
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lives. And I think it's very much
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unclear whether it makes sense for a
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company to allow the natural leakage of
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their edge and their confidential and
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proprietary information out into the
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wild versus the control that they would
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get if they ran on prim. That's a really
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important question. What do I mean by
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all that? Once you use these tools, it
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is very difficult for a company to be
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able to control how their data is used
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subsequently thereafter. Meaning if I
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gave you Jason a PDF of some really
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important strategy document or a
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PowerPoint deck or a really critical
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model and you're interrogating it with
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one of these models.
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If you're just using chat GPT the
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mainline instance of it you're leaking
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all of that prompt and response metadata
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back to Chat GPT back to Gemini back to
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Claude. And there's nothing a company
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can do about that. If you're using a set
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of agents to act on all that
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information, all those agent traces are
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going back to these model builders. That
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may or may not be a problem for some,
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but I suspect it is a deep problem for
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others and they just haven't uncovered
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it yet. When they realize that that is a
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problem, the enterprise will have to
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decide, do I just give up and keep
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running all of this stuff in the cloud
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in a shared experience or do I bear the
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incremental cost of running this stuff
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in a more coordinated manner that I
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control on prem and that would be a
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crazy shift just to completely go back
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to where we were 20 and 30 years ago.
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That's a non so obvious thing that may
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happen. So that's number one. And then
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number two, I also tweeted this. There
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was this really interesting ruling
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around what happens inside these cloud
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environments, which was a judge saying
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there is no attorney client privilege
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and confirming that once you start to
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use those tools, all of that stuff is
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complete public domain material. If you
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put these two things together, it
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creates a very interesting set of
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questions for enterprises. You will need
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AI to survive. But if you use the tools
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as they exist today at a public
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endpoint, you will give up all control,
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all security, all confidentiality that
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you today have and the ability to follow
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through and control what your employees
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do with it. The only solution is to have
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the pendulum swing all the way back and
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have private provision networks, which
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increases cost, but then if you save a
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bunch of money because of AI, maybe it
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all balances out. That is the big
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question that I'm wrestling with right
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now.
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>> Good insights there. And I have some
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thoughts on the um onrem because I'm
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actually doing it right now. Freeberg,
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your thoughts on this moment in time
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when we have people uh saying it's
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happening faster and it's become
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recursive. Recursive obviously fancy
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word for those in the audience who
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haven't heard it before. Just these
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models and these agents can go out and
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improve their own work. So after they do
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some work or a job for you, you can have
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another agent say, "Hey, here's how to
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do it better or go learn these new
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skills. Go use this skill last 30 days
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to go find the last seven days or 30
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days of best practices with this tool
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and make yourself better and do that
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every night at 1:00 a.m. What are your
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thoughts, Freedberg, on the moment in
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time we are in right now?" Well, I think
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the thinking historically was that it
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was going to be about recursive model
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development where we were going to
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continuously improve the actual model
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and we were waiting for a context window
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where you could feed the model back to
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itself. So, you're effectively
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retraining the model continuously and it
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may be the case that the output is
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what's recursive and that turns out is
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having the effect that everyone was
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waiting for. So, it's kind of a
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surprise. I saw a lot of computer
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scientists that have worked in AI for
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some time, I think, be a little bit
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surprised about this moment that we're
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in that we're seeing such incredible
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strides in model performance just by
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making the output recursive. So, let's
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see how far it goes. Are you still
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obsessed with OpenClaw, Jac? I am. We
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have now seen that every week 5 to 10%
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of the work we're doing inside of our
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venture firm is being moved over to
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OpenClaw. We call them replicants. You
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can think of them as personas. So we now
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have three or four of these. Uh we give
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them a notion account, a Slack account,
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and we give them a Google Docs account.
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They have their own email. And I think
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all of this technology was here all
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along. It was really or maybe for the
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last 6 months, let's say, really good
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models out there. But no company would
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give the keys to the kingdom to allow
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these agents to actually act on your
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behalf. Why? because they don't want to
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be responsible if it ships your Bitcoin
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keys or your passwords to somebody else.
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So, in order to use these, you have to
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trust them. And if you trust them and
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then you are monitoring them, the
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results are unbelievable. We uh have
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also to your point Chamath fired up Max
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Studios. We have Kimmy on them. We are
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moving all of the work onto these and
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then they'll use Kimmy for most of their
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easy jobs, which is free. Then they will
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use claude 4.6 opus to orchestrate
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things. We also now that we have four of
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them freedberg we've created openclaw
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ultron which is one meta replicant that
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is managing the other four and it checks
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their work. It talks to them all day
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long about what they're doing and then
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summarizes it. And we're building skills
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into each one of these. So one of the
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skills is like doing deep research. One
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of the skills is being able to go into
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our sales database which is in pipe
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drive. The gains we're getting I was
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able to go through everything my Athena
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assistant was doing and I was able to
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take about and I know Chimath you have
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an Athena assistant too. I was able to
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take maybe 30% of the Athena assistants
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work and give it to the replicant that
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let the Athena assistant work on higher
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level stuff. I would say on the average
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investment team individual, we now have
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probably 20% of their work being done by
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agents in real time. And the best part
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about it is they don't forget to do
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work. They don't make mistakes. So once
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you put this in, you don't need to have
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checklists. They just do it perfectly
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every single time.
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>> Crazy.
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>> And they work.
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>> It's nuts, Jamal. So now I'm building
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and I've been talking to Benny awful a
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lot cuz he's got Slackbot. Claude's got
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co-work, but none of them have the keys
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to the kingdom. So, what I'm doing is
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I'm upgrading to the enterprise version
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of Slack. Shamat, you're I think
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probably your number two investment in
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your career. What an amazing investment
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that was. Um, it's number four.
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>> Number four. Okay. Listen, keep
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grinding. Top five investment for you.
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I'm upgrading to the highest level and
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I'm ingesting every single Slack message
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and then I'm upgrading and giving the
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API key for every single email in our
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organization to Ultron. They will know
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everything going on in the organization.
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It is mind-blowing how fast this is
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going. And then finally, just a plug,
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I'm investing in 10 startups in OpenClaw
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space, 125K each to come to the
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accelerator. If you're doing work on
00:14:31
this openclaw.co,
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email me what you're doing cuz we want
00:14:35
to invest in in at least a 10 or 20 of
00:14:37
these companies right now. Uh this is
00:14:40
the 100% focus of our firm. It is
00:14:42
insane. When do you guys think
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enterprises have a huge freakout
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around all of this and say, "Wow, we're
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leaking all of our most important
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information out into the wild." But
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Sachs, to your point, the industrious
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person trying to get ahead all of a
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sudden is using an open endpoint to like
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make a deck better. and somehow all of
00:15:01
that stuff is out in the wild. They find
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out people are going to have a freakout
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moment here soon.
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>> I think there's a big opportunity to
00:15:09
take something like OpenClaw and make it
00:15:11
enterprisegrade and secure and all that
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kind of stuff. One of my partners at
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Craft actually created a new tool called
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Lobster Tank, which is a version of Open
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Claw that's got some enterprise security
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wrapped around it.
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>> This is what I mean. On prem is back.
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It's going to happen. It's going to
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happen. It's cost savings plus do I want
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to give all of the secrets in our
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organization, every piece of
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intellectual property to Sam Alman who's
00:15:35
got to make a billion dollars a year to
00:15:37
keep up with his spend, right? He's
00:15:38
going to build every application.
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>> Let's not make it about Sam. Do I, if
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I'm GEIGO,
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>> want to have
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all of my actuaries
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using all of our proprietary, private,
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and confidential data on risk pricing in
00:15:54
an open instance of an LLM? The answer
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is no. That's obvious.
00:16:00
>> Yeah.
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>> So now the question is how do you adapt
00:16:02
to that? How do you actually generate
00:16:04
tokens in that kind of a situation? How
00:16:06
do you reason in that kind of a
00:16:08
situation? That is a very expensive
00:16:10
technical problem. It's not necessarily
00:16:12
complicated, but it is technical. That
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will bloat the opex because you're going
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back to a place that you had said didn't
00:16:20
make sense anymore. It felt very
00:16:21
antiquated if you ever heard a company
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was on prem. But AI may be the reason
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where you can't afford to be not on
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prem.
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>> Yeah. And it's it's going to be on your
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desktop, too, because one of the
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solutions to this is just giving each
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employee a really powerful
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desktop that is capable of running a
00:16:41
local large language model, which right
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now takes a Mac studio with 512 gig or
00:16:46
or daisy chaining two of them. And
00:16:50
that's what people are doing.
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>> Remember these vax terminals? I think
00:16:53
that you could actually see a resurgence
00:16:54
of that idea. So you have a centralized
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computer and you have a bunch of dumb
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terminals
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>> y
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>> and you have a CLI and so you can
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interact with it that way
00:17:02
>> but again it keeps everything inside the
00:17:05
>> but you could also you could also fire
00:17:07
up your own instance in the cloud and
00:17:09
just run it
00:17:09
>> too expensive at scale like for example
00:17:11
8090 is a top 20 customer bedrock
00:17:14
>> it's too expensive already as it is
00:17:17
because of all this overhead
00:17:19
>> because of their margin
00:17:20
>> because of all the nonsense that's
00:17:22
inside of AWS that you have to pay for
00:17:24
in order to just get access the bare
00:17:25
metal. So then you go to Cororeweave.
00:17:26
Okay, fine. But what does Cororeweave
00:17:28
tell you? They're an excellent business.
00:17:30
A, it's all training. B, you have the
00:17:32
situation where too much of what you
00:17:35
have has to be guaranteed into the
00:17:37
future because for them, it makes no
00:17:38
sense to price it on spot. And if you
00:17:40
buy on spot, you just get these surges.
00:17:43
You can't deal with it. So there is no
00:17:44
solution today that makes any sense.
00:17:47
>> It's absolutely correct, Jam. I'll just
00:17:48
put some numbers behind it briefly. We
00:17:50
with our agents hit $300 a day per
00:17:53
agent.
00:17:55
using the uh Claude API like instantly
00:17:58
and that was like doing maybe 10 or 20%.
00:18:01
That's a h 100,000 a year per agent.
00:18:03
We're getting to a place where we have
00:18:05
to basically now say what is the token
00:18:07
budget that we're willing to give our
00:18:08
best devs and then if you aggregate it
00:18:10
across all people you can clearly see a
00:18:13
trend where you're like well hold on a
00:18:14
second now they need to be at least 2x
00:18:16
as productive as another employee that
00:18:18
is actively happening inside my business
00:18:20
because otherwise I'll run out of money.
00:18:23
Yeah, this is a very interesting trend
00:18:25
that I you you're not going to hear
00:18:27
anybody else talk about, but when do
00:18:29
tokens outpace the salary of the
00:18:32
employee? Because you're about to hit
00:18:33
it. I'm about to hit it. I think
00:18:35
superstar developers are already there.
00:18:37
>> Yeah, I think the rank and file is
00:18:39
probably 10 20% max. More than likely,
00:18:42
they're spending a few thousand. The
00:18:44
average
00:18:46
non-technical employee is probably in
00:18:47
the hundreds to low thousands. But to
00:18:50
your point, the trend is what matters.
00:18:52
Yeah. So unless we have some gigantic
00:18:54
leap forward in generating output tokens
00:18:57
at onetenth the cost of what they are
00:18:58
today, which I suspect we will have. So
00:19:02
bear with everybody for a while because
00:19:04
I think Nvidia and Grock and Google and
00:19:07
AMD, they're all incentivized to
00:19:09
massively ramp up the energy density and
00:19:11
massively push down the token cost.
00:19:12
That's going to happen, but it doesn't
00:19:15
change the trend and it doesn't change
00:19:17
the incentives on confidentiality. Let's
00:19:20
talk about prediction markets,
00:19:21
gentlemen. They hit critical mass this
00:19:23
past weekend at the Super Bowl. More
00:19:26
than a billion bet on Kshi, 700 million
00:19:28
on poly market, almost two billion
00:19:30
dollars in wagering. The media has been
00:19:34
obsessing a bit about market
00:19:36
manipulation, insider trading, and all
00:19:38
these issues that are totally valid to
00:19:41
discuss around prediction markets, which
00:19:43
are something new in the world, at least
00:19:45
at this scale. two specific examples uh
00:19:48
from the halftime show. A day old
00:19:51
anonymous Poly Market account correctly
00:19:53
predicted 17 out of 20 halftime show
00:19:56
bets, including the special appearances
00:19:58
by Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, but it only
00:20:00
profited 17K, a tiny amount. And then
00:20:03
another account created less than 24
00:20:04
hours before the game correctly bet on
00:20:07
Bad Bunny set list. Wall Street Journal
00:20:09
this morning with an article titled,
00:20:11
"Israeli soldiers accused of using Poly
00:20:13
Market to bet on strikes. Israel
00:20:16
arrested several people, including Army
00:20:18
Reserve, for allegedly using classified
00:20:20
information to place bets on Israeli
00:20:22
military operations." Quote, "The
00:20:25
account in question rad in more than
00:20:27
150,000 in winnings before going dormant
00:20:29
for 6 months. It resumed trading last
00:20:31
month, betting on when Israel would
00:20:32
strike Iran." Poly market data shows the
00:20:36
name of the account Rico Suave 666.
00:20:40
Roave
00:20:41
>> Rico Suave. The name of the account Rico
00:20:43
Suave 666. I think that's also the alias
00:20:45
that you were using in Vegas for a
00:20:47
little while there uh at your hotel.
00:20:49
Rico Suave 666. The platforms are
00:20:52
regulated of course by the CFTC.
00:20:56
But you know, questions here uh about
00:20:59
society getting used to this new
00:21:01
platform. Here's Kali's CEO uh talking
00:21:04
about this on CNBC.
00:21:06
>> Let's say there's a a cameraman happens
00:21:09
to be in the stadium during the
00:21:11
rehearsals. You could argue that would
00:21:13
be like somebody at a at a hotel who
00:21:16
sees a rehearsal of a CEO given a
00:21:19
presentation prior. Those guys would
00:21:22
have normally probably had to sign NDAs
00:21:24
by the company because they would be
00:21:26
worried about these issues. But in the
00:21:28
context of this, they probably wouldn't.
00:21:31
>> It's either one of two cases. Either
00:21:33
this information can be public and
00:21:36
that's okay. Or it's information that
00:21:38
cannot be public beforehand and that's
00:21:40
communicated to the staff, right? The
00:21:42
cameraman or the dancer. The reason why
00:21:44
you don't know what song is going to be
00:21:45
played first that's not public and not
00:21:47
everybody knows beforehand. It's a
00:21:48
little bit of a surprise Super Bowl.
00:21:49
>> Yeah. But but it's not nonmaterial. It's
00:21:52
not im it's not material information
00:21:53
that can't be shared. you're making it
00:21:56
that by putting it on this betting
00:21:57
platform, but they have no obligation to
00:21:59
say we're not going to tell anybody our
00:22:00
opening lineup because there might be
00:22:02
money made on this other place that's
00:22:03
now betting on this. That's not the
00:22:05
responsibility is not on them.
00:22:07
>> Your thoughts just broadly on what I
00:22:10
consider society getting used to these
00:22:11
new platforms and what they represent in
00:22:14
the marketplace of ideas.
00:22:16
>> I think the question is, is it really
00:22:19
insider trading? If you and I were
00:22:23
making a side bet and I knew something
00:22:25
about you and I had some edge or some
00:22:27
advantage and I made a bet with you, is
00:22:30
that fair? Should the government have a
00:22:32
role in regulating that? This kind of
00:22:34
goes back to securities regulation that
00:22:35
everything needs to be registered and
00:22:38
then there's this concept of insider
00:22:40
information. It's a real challenge and a
00:22:41
real question on keeping the open
00:22:45
platform
00:22:46
of opportunity for trading on anything
00:22:49
while also trying to mitigate the risk
00:22:51
of what people call insider information
00:22:53
in these trades. There's a good chart
00:22:55
that I think we talked about in our
00:22:57
group chat that shows the distribution
00:23:01
of accounts. There's a few accounts that
00:23:03
have a huge amount of money and make
00:23:05
almost all the profits and then a lot of
00:23:06
accounts that have very little amount of
00:23:08
money and they get burnt through very
00:23:10
quickly. They actually don't have an
00:23:11
edge. So the the accounts that have a
00:23:13
lot of money, they generally only trade
00:23:15
in things where they have an edge where
00:23:16
they make markets. They actually have an
00:23:18
arbitrage or yeah sharps and they eat up
00:23:21
all of the the capital. So if you're a
00:23:24
marketplace like this, you probably also
00:23:27
want to be thoughtful about the fact
00:23:28
that over time you could burn and churn
00:23:31
through all of your customers, all of
00:23:32
the users on the platform if they're
00:23:34
constantly going to be making uh trades
00:23:36
where they simply don't have an edge and
00:23:39
all the capital, all the liquidity is
00:23:40
coming from the accounts that do have an
00:23:42
edge and effectively trade off of inside
00:23:44
information. So just be that these
00:23:47
things end up eating themselves up. I
00:23:49
don't
00:23:49
>> Shabbath man, we had in trade. I'm sure
00:23:52
you remember that in I don't know if
00:23:53
that was in the early 2000s. This idea
00:23:56
has been out there but it has clicked
00:23:58
right now for some reason. What are your
00:24:00
thoughts broadly speaking on the value
00:24:03
of these platforms to society?
00:24:05
>> Let's define some terms first. So in
00:24:07
betting
00:24:08
>> there are two kinds of people. There are
00:24:10
the sharps who know what's actually
00:24:12
going to happen with a better edge and
00:24:15
then there are the squares which is
00:24:17
everybody else and they are grist for
00:24:20
the mill. And in a traditional market
00:24:23
like a sports betting market
00:24:26
there have been edge cases where you try
00:24:29
to throw a game or throw a fight or
00:24:32
shave points and the sharps are involved
00:24:35
in that. But it's increasingly harder
00:24:38
and harder to do because the sports
00:24:39
leagues
00:24:41
analytically are studying these things
00:24:44
so closely to make sure that that never
00:24:46
happens. But what you get are people
00:24:48
with a smarter sense of what's going to
00:24:50
happen and people with less of a smart
00:24:52
sense of what's going to happen. The
00:24:53
thing with prediction markets is it's
00:24:55
not just that. There will be those
00:24:58
things. But then there are going to be
00:25:00
these fundamental markets that are
00:25:02
purely about inside information.
00:25:06
And the question is what can a
00:25:09
regulatory body or a society do about
00:25:11
that? And I think the answer is not
00:25:13
much. And the reason is is that if you
00:25:16
try to regulate this, it looks like a
00:25:18
securities market. And I think the
00:25:20
problem there is that these things are
00:25:22
too fluid and too dynamic and too
00:25:25
ephemeral for them to be legislated like
00:25:28
a security. And so why are these things
00:25:32
happening? It's because there's too many
00:25:34
of these prediction markets that can be
00:25:36
manipulated this way. Somebody knows
00:25:38
something that somebody else doesn't
00:25:39
know. And there's no way to arbitrate
00:25:40
that. This used to exist in the
00:25:43
securities market, too. And this is
00:25:44
where now I'm going to get a lot of
00:25:45
people really upset with me.
00:25:48
In 2000, we introduced the law called
00:25:51
REGGG FD. And what was the point of REGG
00:25:54
FD? It was basically that if you're a
00:25:57
CFO, you cannot talk to an individual
00:26:01
stock manager and tell him something
00:26:03
that you then don't tell everybody else.
00:26:05
Essentially, inside information
00:26:08
that used to be not illegal. I won't say
00:26:10
that it was legal. I would just say that
00:26:12
used to be not illegal. You call your
00:26:14
buddy, he says, "Hey, how you doing?" He
00:26:16
goes, "Man, Quarter was a blockbuster.
00:26:18
You would go and buy the stock." And
00:26:21
starting in the 2000s, it became
00:26:23
illegal. And there used to be these
00:26:24
networks of information arbitrage that
00:26:26
that took advantage of this. Now, this
00:26:28
is an example of Warren Buffett's
00:26:29
returns pre and postreg. Now, what do
00:26:32
you see?
00:26:34
His returns were double the market
00:26:37
returns
00:26:39
when this kind of information sharing
00:26:41
was legal.
00:26:43
And the minute that it became illegal
00:26:45
and you had to basically act on the same
00:26:48
edge as everybody else,
00:26:50
his returns went to the market return.
00:26:53
He generated zero alpha. In fact, he
00:26:55
probably on the margins lost a little
00:26:57
bit. So this is the single best investor
00:26:59
in the world. This is what happens when
00:27:01
you have information symmetry.
00:27:05
So it's just meant to explain that
00:27:07
markets thrive when there's asymmetry.
00:27:11
billions and billions of dollars will be
00:27:12
made in asymmetry. The prediction
00:27:14
markets today unless they are regulated
00:27:17
out of existence or shut down will look
00:27:20
like the stock market free and there's
00:27:23
nothing we can do except choose not to
00:27:26
bet it because otherwise what you're
00:27:28
going to have are a ton of sharps taking
00:27:31
advantage of a ton of squares and I
00:27:33
think that's the end state.
00:27:34
>> Jim, why is it good or bad for society
00:27:36
that these exist? You have a take on
00:27:37
that? There are a certain percentage of
00:27:39
these prediction markets that are about
00:27:42
the well functioning of society and
00:27:46
the use of inside information gets to
00:27:48
the truth faster
00:27:51
and I think that has value especially if
00:27:54
it uncovers corruption or misdeeds
00:27:57
and so if people make money along the
00:27:59
way and that's the incentive that it
00:28:01
takes for folks to work around what
00:28:04
would otherwise be whistleblower laws or
00:28:06
something else to get to the truth and
00:28:08
get it out there faster. That probably
00:28:11
benefits society.
00:28:13
Now, there's a bunch of other things
00:28:14
where some people will just set up a
00:28:16
market that they know about and that
00:28:18
they can control that other people
00:28:19
aren't unaware. That's not good. But
00:28:23
unfortunately, there's no way to discern
00:28:24
when a prediction market gets created
00:28:26
whether it's A or B. And so, you have to
00:28:29
decide whether it's more important that
00:28:31
you can understand these current events
00:28:33
faster with more accuracy or not. And I
00:28:36
think that's where this decision has to
00:28:37
come to and that's what politicians need
00:28:39
to decide and society needs to decide.
00:28:41
>> All right. We're really excited that
00:28:43
we're doing another event. Yes. A new
00:28:45
event from your friends at Allin. The
00:28:47
besties are hosting a new conference uh
00:28:50
a retreat, a summit in uh wine country
00:28:55
May 31st through June 3rd. It's called
00:28:56
liquidity. This is for capital
00:28:58
allocators and LPs and GPS. Chamatop,
00:29:01
maybe you could talk a little bit about
00:29:03
the vision we have here for the event.
00:29:06
>> There are a handful of conferences that
00:29:09
happen every year where money is made.
00:29:11
I'll give you a couple of examples. All
00:29:13
the top
00:29:16
market traders have been invited to this
00:29:18
thing called Iris every year where you
00:29:22
go in front of a large audience, present
00:29:25
your best long or short idea and you can
00:29:28
be a debt trader, a credit trader, you
00:29:31
can be an equities trader. I've done it
00:29:34
several times. Aman has done it. David
00:29:36
Einhorn has done it. Cliff Robbins has
00:29:38
done it. These are incredible places and
00:29:40
you pay like $10,000 a ticket and if you
00:29:42
take those portfolios, they tend to do
00:29:44
really well. Separately, there are
00:29:45
conferences that investment banks
00:29:47
organize that are off the record, not
00:29:49
publicly accessible where they ask their
00:29:52
biggest traders to come to a room, and
00:29:56
they'll give them each a few minutes to
00:29:58
present their best long and short ideas
00:29:59
of public stocks. Then there are these
00:30:01
equivalent conferences that investment
00:30:04
banks do for private companies where the
00:30:06
best fast growing private companies show
00:30:08
up and the CEOs get on stage and they
00:30:10
give presentations.
00:30:12
All of these things have been closed. I
00:30:15
would like to blow that wide open. So
00:30:17
what will we do? We will convene
00:30:22
the best investors in public markets,
00:30:26
the best hedge fund managers, the best
00:30:28
private market investors, the best
00:30:30
growth investors, the best credit
00:30:31
investors, and the largest cohort of LPs
00:30:35
representing trillions of dollars of
00:30:37
capital, and the CEOs of the fastest
00:30:40
growing and most important companies in
00:30:42
technology.
00:30:44
And what we will do over the course of a
00:30:46
few days is we'll have some
00:30:47
presentations. We'll have best ideas.
00:30:49
We'll build relationships.
00:30:52
There may be some investments that may
00:30:53
happen as a result of that. We're going
00:30:55
to shut down all of Yianville. We're
00:30:58
going to shut down the French Laundry.
00:30:59
We're going to shut down all of it. And
00:31:01
it'll be ours for a two-day playground
00:31:03
where we will build relationships,
00:31:05
allocate capital, and maybe make some
00:31:08
money as a result. So, you need to
00:31:11
apply. We will make some allocations to
00:31:14
some folks that may not otherwise get
00:31:16
in. We'll make some allocations to
00:31:18
emerging managers who may need to raise
00:31:21
capital and scale up but can show us
00:31:23
good returns.
00:31:26
And over time, we'll find a way to
00:31:28
increase a lot of this and make it more
00:31:29
and more publicly accessible. We But we
00:31:32
are going to essentially take all of
00:31:33
these things that I've been a part of
00:31:34
that have been in closed rooms and we're
00:31:37
going to put them together and open it
00:31:38
up.
00:31:39
>> Yeah. Well said. Well said. It's going
00:31:40
to be a wonderful event. Freeberg, uh,
00:31:43
anything you're excited about in terms
00:31:45
of the event?
00:31:47
>> No, I love Yfville. We're going to
00:31:49
Yanfell, so I'm looking forward to that.
00:31:50
It's going to be great.
00:31:51
>> I mean, beautiful location and I think
00:31:53
there's going to be ample time for
00:31:54
meetings, networking.
00:31:56
>> Jal, if you're an investor, you can go
00:31:58
to the website to
00:32:00
>> allin.com/events
00:32:02
and you can submit your application. We
00:32:03
can't have everybody there and this is
00:32:06
not like a general admission type event.
00:32:08
It is specifically for this group of
00:32:10
people, capital allocators. So apply at
00:32:11
the website allin.com/events.
00:32:13
It's going to be wonderful. And Shimoth
00:32:14
is putting his focus on it. I can tell
00:32:16
you because I brought him my first five
00:32:19
ideas and he was like, "No, no, no. Yes,
00:32:21
but better." Yes. Yes. So he is engaged
00:32:24
and he's going to make it super tight
00:32:26
and tight.
00:32:28
>> I'm being judgy.
00:32:29
>> Good. I like it. I like it. You know,
00:32:30
all great events, all great art is has
00:32:34
some perspective behind it and we're
00:32:36
excited to have your sharp perspective
00:32:38
behind this one. Liquidity May 31st to
00:32:40
June 3rd. allin.com/events. Okay, let's
00:32:43
move on to our next topic. The new CBO
00:32:45
report is out. Freeberg, you said we are
00:32:47
in a debt death spiral. The
00:32:50
Congressional Budget Offer released its
00:32:52
long-term budget forecast on Wednesday,
00:32:54
February 11th. Here are the numbers.
00:32:56
2026 deficit is 1.9 trillion. And that's
00:33:00
nearly 6% of GDP, much higher than the
00:33:03
3% GDP target we heard from Scott Besson
00:33:06
on this podcast. Social Security, I
00:33:08
talked about that before. Freeberg Trust
00:33:10
runs out in 2032,
00:33:12
uh, one year earlier than previously
00:33:14
expected. That's obviously going to
00:33:15
trigger all kinds of discussions around
00:33:17
austerity measures that folks will not
00:33:19
like. The debt will now grow from 31
00:33:22
trillion today to 56 trillion in 2036.
00:33:26
So, it is not stopping, folks. We are
00:33:29
looking at an average of 2.5 trillion
00:33:31
per year from 2026 to 2036.
00:33:35
Also, currently we're at 120% debt to
00:33:38
GDP. House Committee on Budget expects
00:33:41
it to be 135%. So slightly up in 2036.
00:33:45
For comparison, Japan is 237, Singapore
00:33:48
176, Venezuela 164, the Greeks 154, UK
00:33:53
94. 20 years ago, our debt to GDP was
00:33:55
but 60%. Here's a direct quote from the
00:33:59
report. The fiscal trajectory is not
00:34:01
sustainable.
00:34:03
Okay, Dr. Doom,
00:34:07
what do you think? Freeberg, this is
00:34:09
your story, your chance to shine.
00:34:10
>> Well, there's no outlook to 3% deficit
00:34:13
to GDP.
00:34:14
>> There he is.
00:34:16
And if you look at the assumptions, one
00:34:19
of the key assumptions is that the
00:34:21
short-term interest rate, which is
00:34:23
largely how a lot of the debt is getting
00:34:25
refinanced, is modeled to be around
00:34:29
3.1%.
00:34:31
But if rates climb closer to 5%, as I
00:34:34
mentioned in the past, just using the
00:34:35
current debt levels, it adds another
00:34:37
$650 billion a year of interest expense,
00:34:40
which takes interest expense almost up
00:34:42
to$2 trillion a year just paying the
00:34:45
interest on the past debt. And because
00:34:47
we're running a deficit, that new
00:34:49
interest expense increases the debt
00:34:52
every year. So the debt goes up and up
00:34:54
and up just by adding interest on past
00:34:56
debt. And so this becomes the death
00:34:59
spiral that we've kind of highlighted
00:35:02
many times. So there's nothing in this
00:35:03
report that I think changes the outlook.
00:35:06
It's pretty scary. Um, I'll say that the
00:35:09
trigger point that I'm getting more and
00:35:10
more concerned about, if the Democrats
00:35:13
win the midterms and you end up with a
00:35:16
Democrat in the White House in 2028,
00:35:19
I think that there's a bigger problem at
00:35:21
foot, which is all of the state and
00:35:25
local obligations. We've talked about
00:35:27
Social Security looks like it's going to
00:35:28
run out of money in a few years here.
00:35:30
And so, they're going to need to print a
00:35:32
lot more money to fund Social Security
00:35:34
obligations. uh it's very unlikely
00:35:37
they're going to make a massive cut to
00:35:38
social security because no one will get
00:35:39
elected if they did that and no one will
00:35:42
get elected if they promise to do that.
00:35:44
Um and there's a similar problem at the
00:35:46
state and local level which is that
00:35:48
there's pension obligations. We've
00:35:49
talked about this extensively.
00:35:51
California has nearly a trillion dollars
00:35:52
of unfunded pension obligations to its
00:35:55
public retirees or public employees that
00:35:58
are going to retire. If you end up with
00:36:00
a Democratc controlled House and a
00:36:03
Democrat president in 2028, you'll very
00:36:06
likely see a federalization of that
00:36:08
obligation, meaning that the federal
00:36:10
government will step in to bail out or
00:36:13
support those state and local
00:36:14
governments because otherwise there's
00:36:16
going to be a real kind of economic
00:36:18
crisis a foot. So when you add that
00:36:20
liability coming to hit this CBO report,
00:36:24
which doesn't include any of that in the
00:36:26
next 5 to 10 years, I think that could
00:36:28
be not just the straw that breaks the
00:36:30
camel's back, but the concrete that
00:36:32
breaks the camel's back. And that's the
00:36:34
thing I'm most worried about. There is a
00:36:36
deep connection between what's going on
00:36:38
with the socialist movements at a city
00:36:40
level and now increasingly at a state
00:36:42
level and what we should expect to
00:36:45
happen with the US dollar and how it
00:36:48
relates to federal spending and federal
00:36:50
deficits and federal debt and these are
00:36:52
going to be dragging each other into a
00:36:55
bad place in the next couple of years
00:36:56
one way or the other. So, you know,
00:36:58
that's kind of what I'm more worried
00:37:00
about at this point. It seems if it's
00:37:02
very hard to cut spending or get
00:37:04
Congress to approve budget cuts that we
00:37:06
need to save ourselves from this debt
00:37:08
death spiral, imagine how much worse
00:37:10
it's going to be in the next couple of
00:37:13
years if we have to bail out or
00:37:14
federalize state and local uh debt and
00:37:17
state and local pension obligations.
00:37:19
It's going to be really nasty. So,
00:37:20
that's the thing I worry about the most.
00:37:21
Yeah.
00:37:22
>> In my Dr. Doom hat.
00:37:23
>> Yeah. And I think that that's one of the
00:37:24
things that no one talks about at the
00:37:26
federal level and everyone ignores it
00:37:28
because they assume it's a state and
00:37:29
local problem
00:37:30
>> as we've talked about and I'll bring it
00:37:31
up again and I'll ask my colleague who
00:37:33
works in the administration to think
00:37:35
about this idea that you know if we can
00:37:37
find a way to declare bankruptcy to
00:37:40
restructure the the fiscal obligations
00:37:42
or the the pension obligations that sit
00:37:44
at the state and local level we may have
00:37:47
a way out but short of that uh that's
00:37:49
going to pile onto this this federal
00:37:51
problem. Sax, your thoughts on the CBO
00:37:53
report and this uh death spiral, debt
00:37:58
death spiral.
00:37:59
>> Well, we all agree about the problem of
00:38:01
federal spending and the deficit and the
00:38:03
debt and we're all concerned about that.
00:38:05
With respect to the CBO study, however,
00:38:09
I'll just note that one of the key
00:38:10
assumptions here is that CBO projects
00:38:14
that real GDP will only grow by 2.2%
00:38:18
this year in 2026. That's a very low
00:38:22
assumption given that we grew by over 4%
00:38:25
in Q3 last year and the preliminary
00:38:27
number for Q4 was over 5%. And I think
00:38:30
all of our predictions for GDP growth
00:38:32
this year when we did our predictions
00:38:34
episode was 5% plus. So 2.2% is a pretty
00:38:38
low number. And then they predict that
00:38:40
it's going to slow to 1.8%
00:38:44
after 2026. So again, these are very
00:38:48
meager anemic growth assumptions. And if
00:38:50
you believe that all of this capex
00:38:53
that's being invested in AI
00:38:55
infrastructure is going to have a payoff
00:38:57
then the growth rates could be a lot
00:39:00
higher. And that ultimately I think is
00:39:01
the way to get out of the debt spiral is
00:39:04
we need strong growth. Without that
00:39:05
we're not going to get out of this
00:39:07
problem. So look I think that if you
00:39:09
believe in growth then the situation is
00:39:11
not quite as dire. You know what would I
00:39:14
do? Well, I mean, if I could wave a
00:39:15
magic wand, the two key charts you want
00:39:18
to look at are federal net outlays as a
00:39:20
percent of GDP. This is from Fred,
00:39:22
right? And then you want to look at
00:39:24
federal receipts, which is tax receipts
00:39:27
as a percent of GDP. And you just don't
00:39:29
want those lines to be more than call it
00:39:31
3% apart. I think that's what Secretary
00:39:33
Besson said is try to reduce federal
00:39:36
deficits to 3% of GDP. Historically,
00:39:41
tax receipts have bounced around 17%.
00:39:45
And the federal net outlays have bounced
00:39:47
around 20%. So, if you get back to that,
00:39:50
we'd be in pretty good shape. And we
00:39:52
were before CO our federal net outlays,
00:39:56
which means spending as a percent of GDP
00:39:58
was around 20%. But then with CO, it
00:40:01
bounced all the way up to 30% in 2020
00:40:04
because of both a function of all the
00:40:05
stimulus, but then also the fact that
00:40:07
the economy shrank because of CO and
00:40:09
we've never quite gotten back to that
00:40:11
magic 20% number. Right now, it's
00:40:14
trending around 23%. So, we're doing a
00:40:16
lot better than we did under CO, but
00:40:18
it's still just a few percent higher. I
00:40:21
mean, if it was up to me, I would just
00:40:22
freeze federal spending until the
00:40:24
economy grew to the point where federal
00:40:28
spending as a percent of GDP is 20%. And
00:40:30
then you could let federal spending
00:40:32
continue to grow as the economy grows.
00:40:36
And we're not even talking about cuts
00:40:37
here. We're not even talking about
00:40:39
shrinking the size of the government.
00:40:41
We're just talking about limiting the
00:40:43
rate of growth until the overall size of
00:40:45
the economy can catch up with it. But
00:40:47
look, as we know, it's very hard to get
00:40:49
Washington to go along with that because
00:40:50
there is just a lot of spending pressure
00:40:53
in Washington. One thing I will say
00:40:55
though, I mean, just to give some credit
00:40:57
to the administration here, is that the
00:41:00
level of federal employment is at the
00:41:03
lowest level since 1966. So during uh
00:41:07
President Trump's second term here,
00:41:09
we've gone from roughly 3 million
00:41:11
federal employees to a little bit under
00:41:13
2.7 million. So, you know, over 300,000
00:41:16
federal employees have been cut. I think
00:41:17
that is a good start. I mean, you
00:41:19
>> 10%
00:41:20
>> is a good start for you,
00:41:20
>> by the way. I think that's I think
00:41:22
that's really important to just pause on
00:41:24
just so people understand this isn't
00:41:25
like some hurtful thing about firing
00:41:28
people. They lose their jobs. But when
00:41:30
people move from the government
00:41:31
workforce into the private workforce,
00:41:33
they become productive. They're making
00:41:35
things that grow the economy. And
00:41:37
theoretically, they should also make
00:41:38
more money. So this is positive from an
00:41:41
economic point of view to move the
00:41:43
workforce from public to private. It
00:41:45
also to my point historically I think
00:41:47
it's very important to avoid the
00:41:49
socialist spiral that if you have too
00:41:51
many people employed by the government
00:41:53
it becomes impossible to not employ
00:41:55
people by the government and that
00:41:56
becomes ultimately deacto socialism.
00:41:58
Shimath your thoughts here obviously
00:42:01
great thing that we're shrinking the
00:42:04
size of the government those people
00:42:05
becoming more productive going into the
00:42:07
private sector. That's a big win. We all
00:42:08
agree 10% great job in the first year.
00:42:11
Hey, maybe 5% the next two or three
00:42:12
years would be even better, but the debt
00:42:14
continues to be a problem. Uh, are you
00:42:17
worried? Do you think there's a solution
00:42:18
here? What would you do if you were
00:42:20
running the show?
00:42:23
I think you have to take a broader
00:42:25
historical context to this.
00:42:28
Does debt to GDP matter?
00:42:32
It depends on many things, but mostly I
00:42:35
would say it doesn't matter.
00:42:38
And it's very easy for people to get
00:42:40
agitated about that. Now, there are
00:42:43
things that matter when you print too
00:42:46
much money, which is the value of the
00:42:48
dollar, the value of exports, the cost
00:42:50
of imports, and how to actually protect
00:42:53
your earnings and your wealth. That's a
00:42:55
different question. This is a historical
00:42:58
look back from about 300 years of debt
00:43:01
to GDP of the largest functioning
00:43:03
economies in the world. Now, what do you
00:43:05
see? What you see is the trend where
00:43:08
you, you know, if you smooth it out for
00:43:10
wars, which by the way has this weird
00:43:12
effect of first escalating the debt to
00:43:15
GDP, but then severely impacting it in a
00:43:18
positive way. The Napoleonic War, the
00:43:20
FrancoRussian War, World War II, these
00:43:23
things all had positive effects on
00:43:26
bringing debt to GDP once the war was
00:43:28
over. But the general trend since 1700
00:43:31
to now is up and to the right. And the
00:43:35
key observation is that it moves in
00:43:37
unison that these things are relative
00:43:41
problems. So if the entire world moves
00:43:45
in unison like this there is an argument
00:43:48
to be made which is that you could end
00:43:51
up at 300
00:43:53
250 200% of debt to GDP. But if
00:43:56
everybody is there nothing really
00:43:58
changes that much. The real question is
00:44:01
if one country is able to decouple
00:44:03
itself and its economic output is so
00:44:07
meaningfully different than everybody
00:44:09
else's. So my first take on this whole
00:44:11
debt to GDP thing is I think you have to
00:44:13
look at it together as a group.
00:44:15
Separately,
00:44:17
is it important to contain the debt?
00:44:19
Absolutely. But for these other reasons,
00:44:22
for earnings, for inflation, for all of
00:44:25
those very practical reasons that impact
00:44:27
your daily lived life. And what do we
00:44:29
know there? We know that President Trump
00:44:32
was elected on a massive mandate
00:44:36
to secure the border on one hand, but to
00:44:38
look at waste, fraud, and abuse on the
00:44:39
other. And on that side, what did he do?
00:44:42
He drafted the most important and
00:44:44
prolific private businessman in the
00:44:46
history of the world to be his tip of
00:44:48
the spear.
00:44:50
And what happened? They identified
00:44:52
hundreds of billions of dollars. But
00:44:53
when it came down to it and Congress had
00:44:56
to act to solidify these cuts, they
00:44:59
haven't done much of anything. Which is
00:45:01
a way of saying that if the most
00:45:02
conservative Congress in the history of
00:45:04
the United States has not done much to
00:45:08
solidify these cuts that were identified
00:45:10
by the White House and Doge, then as
00:45:13
Freeberg said, it'll only get worse if
00:45:15
there's ever a Democratic House and
00:45:17
Democratic control. So what do we have
00:45:20
to do? I think we have to just
00:45:21
acknowledge that if debt to GDP
00:45:24
continually moves in unison, the music
00:45:26
isn't up for a very long time. That's
00:45:29
just an observation. I'm not saying it's
00:45:30
right or wrong. It's just the
00:45:31
observation. But you got to find ways of
00:45:33
hedging and owning real durable assets
00:45:36
because the underlying currency that is
00:45:39
used in these economies even on a
00:45:42
relative basis will fluctuate wildly and
00:45:44
just fall off of a cliff which will mean
00:45:46
that it will erode the value that you
00:45:47
have created for yourself and your
00:45:49
family. That I think is the most
00:45:50
important takeaway from all of this,
00:45:52
which is we probably see things like
00:45:57
gold
00:45:59
do much much better over time because
00:46:02
people will be afraid about the
00:46:04
durability of their dollar denominated
00:46:06
resources. But it will also be true for
00:46:08
all these other denominated resources.
00:46:11
But I think debt to GDP quite honestly
00:46:13
if I had to be a betting man will trend
00:46:15
into the 2 3 4 5 600 on a relative basis
00:46:18
for all countries because I just think
00:46:20
the governments of these countries are
00:46:22
addicted to spending and there is no
00:46:25
reason to stop safe of some other
00:46:28
planetary species invading planet earth.
00:46:31
>> Yeah. A black swan event. Yes.
00:46:34
>> Yeah. There's also a question of what
00:46:38
Fed action will do to the capacity for
00:46:42
excess deficit spending. So if Kevin
00:46:45
Worsh
00:46:47
really does want to tighten the Fed's
00:46:49
balance sheet and the Fed is effectively
00:46:52
the first in line buyer of treasuries,
00:46:54
meaning they are printing money to fund
00:46:57
the government spending and they slow
00:46:59
down or actively slow down and stop
00:47:01
doing that, then there is a real um kind
00:47:04
of question on what action will Congress
00:47:06
and the administration need to take
00:47:08
because what will happen as you know if
00:47:10
the Fed stops buying treasuries,
00:47:13
Treasury yields will go up. And if
00:47:15
Treasury yields go up, that means the
00:47:16
interest on the existing debt will start
00:47:18
to go up. And if that lasts for a period
00:47:20
of time and you start going from 3 to 4
00:47:23
to 4 12 to 5% on the short end of the
00:47:26
the yield curve, then it starts to
00:47:28
become way too expensive to fund this
00:47:31
level of deficit spending because the
00:47:34
interest expense will just start to
00:47:35
climb and eat it all up. So I think like
00:47:37
the Kevin Worsh question is if he really
00:47:40
is going to reduce the balance sheet,
00:47:41
what's that going to do to rates? What's
00:47:42
that going to ultimately force Congress,
00:47:44
force the administration to do with
00:47:46
spending?
00:47:46
>> Jason, what do you think?
00:47:48
>> Uh, you know, we are in a
00:47:51
consumer-driven
00:47:52
economy and the employment rate in this
00:47:55
country is absolutely fantastic. So,
00:47:58
just three quick charts here. You know,
00:48:00
this is
00:48:02
the number of job openings. We still
00:48:04
have, even after we burned off uh in
00:48:07
2022 from 12 million to 7 million jobs,
00:48:10
we still have a ton of jobs available.
00:48:12
Then if you look at our unemployment
00:48:14
rate, it's still at historical lows for
00:48:16
our lifetime. If you were born in 1970,
00:48:18
this is as good as it gets. 4.456
00:48:21
is what it's been. It's ticking up
00:48:23
modestly, but still lowest of our
00:48:25
lifetimes. And then finally, the
00:48:26
employment participation rate, number of
00:48:28
people in our society who are working
00:48:30
and able to work. It peaked at 68% or so
00:48:33
during the Clinton years and this is
00:48:36
still low 62%.
00:48:38
We still have people who could be
00:48:40
participating. So all of these problems
00:48:42
will be solved if more people were to
00:48:44
participate and take those jobs. Why
00:48:46
don't they take those jobs? Sometimes
00:48:47
it's a geographic mismatch. Sometimes it
00:48:51
is a skills mismatch and but very often
00:48:54
it is the jobs are not paying enough. So
00:48:58
if you want to give uh Trump his flowers
00:49:00
by closing the border, you've reduced
00:49:03
the number of people taking the jobs uh
00:49:05
off the books and then you have the
00:49:09
businesses are going to have to raise
00:49:10
their minimum wage. They're going to
00:49:12
have to raise their offering wage, which
00:49:14
then might get this 7% or so that are
00:49:17
sitting on the sidelines to take their
00:49:18
jobs. Crazy prediction. I wouldn't be
00:49:21
surprised if we see Trump, who is
00:49:23
obviously a populist, and I tweeted
00:49:24
about this the other day, got almost a
00:49:26
half million views or 400,000 views.
00:49:29
What if um Trump decides he's going to
00:49:31
raise the minimum wage? Not saying I
00:49:33
endorse this or not, but it's incredibly
00:49:35
low at seven bucks an hour. Obviously,
00:49:37
in different cities and states, it's 15
00:49:38
to 20. But what if Trump said we're
00:49:40
going to add a dollar to it or $2 to it
00:49:42
over each year of the next three? this
00:49:45
would be incredibly popular and it would
00:49:48
get some of those people off the
00:49:49
sidelines and maybe take these jobs. So,
00:49:52
just a crazy prediction there, but I
00:49:54
think it's a possibility and I think
00:49:57
they're going to lose the midterms as it
00:49:58
stands right now. It looks like I think
00:50:00
that's the consensus opinion and they
00:50:03
haven't been able to do something with
00:50:05
this affordability. Well, I think most
00:50:09
Americans would say if you raise the
00:50:10
minimum wage uh that that would increase
00:50:13
affordability. You can make the counter
00:50:14
argument it's going to just be
00:50:15
inflationary, but I think most Americans
00:50:17
are going to believe in that. So, I
00:50:19
wouldn't be surprised if you saw Trump
00:50:20
take action there because he does take
00:50:22
populist actions like this from time to
00:50:24
time.
00:50:24
>> You actually the economic literature on
00:50:27
what raising the minimum wage does.
00:50:30
>> Yes. It can increase inflation and it
00:50:32
can lower the it can raise inflation and
00:50:34
it can lower the profitability of
00:50:36
businesses. Yeah. And move stuff
00:50:37
offshore. No, what it does is it makes
00:50:40
it illegal to hire someone whose labor
00:50:44
is worth less than the minimum wage and
00:50:47
so it is shown to create higher
00:50:49
unemployment in those segments of the
00:50:51
economy. It's like one of those core
00:50:55
findings of economists. So yeah, it's
00:50:57
true that some people will be a
00:50:59
beneficiary of getting a higher minimum
00:51:02
wage, but then there'll be other people
00:51:04
who just lose their jobs and it creates
00:51:06
an incentive for those employers to
00:51:08
shift more labor towards automation. So
00:51:11
if you're already worried about those
00:51:12
people losing their jobs to automation,
00:51:14
that's a downside. So anyway, if the
00:51:17
minimum wage were a panacea and it just
00:51:20
increased everyone's living standards
00:51:22
without having downsides, why wouldn't
00:51:24
you make the minimum wage $100 an hour?
00:51:26
You know, why would you know, everyone
00:51:27
would just keep raising it infinitely?
00:51:29
Obviously, it doesn't work because if
00:51:31
you raise the minimum wage too much,
00:51:33
which is to say more than the value of
00:51:35
someone's labor, then they just get
00:51:36
unemployed. looking at what happened in
00:51:39
the different cities or in Australia or
00:51:42
other countries, they have a much higher
00:51:44
minimum wage and they have much more
00:51:45
happiness. Businesses and prices go up
00:51:48
about 20% 10 to 20%. So in Australia, if
00:51:51
you go to a restaurant or if you go to a
00:51:53
Scandinavian country, things might cost
00:51:55
10% 20% more, but you have a happier
00:51:58
population. Uh and yes, it could lead to
00:52:01
more, you know, automation. We got rid
00:52:03
of cashiers because it became too
00:52:05
expensive in New York to pay 15 to 20
00:52:06
bucks for a cashier. Sure. But we have
00:52:09
really low minimum. We have very low
00:52:12
unemployment now. And the businesses can
00:52:14
clearly afford to pay an extra buck an
00:52:15
hour or two bucks an hour. So there's
00:52:17
the theoretical academic argument which
00:52:20
you are correct on and I understand it
00:52:21
fully well. And then there's the reality
00:52:23
on the field which is Seattle, San
00:52:26
Francisco, New York, Los Angeles,
00:52:28
Australia, other places have a much
00:52:30
higher minimum wage. they have higher
00:52:31
happiness in the population. I don't
00:52:33
actually think it will have any impact
00:52:34
because I think it's artificially low,
00:52:37
but that's just one man's opinion. I
00:52:38
think it would change the game here in
00:52:40
America and I think it would actually do
00:52:42
something to your uh concern Freeberg
00:52:44
about socialism. I think that if people
00:52:46
felt that there was a, you know, kind of
00:52:48
a backs stop against this low low cost
00:52:52
of labor, it might actually make people
00:52:54
pretty stoked, you know, that they could
00:52:56
get a higher paying hourly job and it
00:52:58
might take some of that edge off in the
00:52:59
same way universal healthcare might do
00:53:00
that. But again, just one man's opinion.
00:53:03
>> I got to say on all this economic data,
00:53:05
I I think we're kind of missing the lead
00:53:07
here, which is we are at the beginning
00:53:10
of an economic boom. Again, we saw it in
00:53:13
the GDP growth rates in Q3 and Q4 last
00:53:15
year. Over 4% Q3, over 5% Q4. We just
00:53:19
had a January job report where the
00:53:21
economy added 172,000 new private sector
00:53:24
jobs. This blew away the expectation
00:53:27
which was around 70,000. At the same
00:53:29
time, the government shed 42,000 jobs.
00:53:33
The net of this was to bring the
00:53:35
unemployment rate down to 4.3%. So, I
00:53:38
remember a few months ago, JCL, you were
00:53:40
ringing your hands about the fact that
00:53:41
the unemployment rate had ticked up.
00:53:43
Well, now it's back down and you're
00:53:45
seeing a lot of jobs being created in
00:53:48
construction, especially non-residential
00:53:50
construction. Has to do with the data
00:53:52
centers, the AI boom that's going on.
00:53:54
33,000 new construction jobs in January.
00:53:59
We've seen in President Trump's second
00:54:00
term, you've had 615,000
00:54:03
new private sector jobs been created.
00:54:05
While again like we talked about over
00:54:07
300,000 government jobs have been cut
00:54:10
which increases the productivity of the
00:54:12
economy and it does what Secretary
00:54:14
Besson says which is rep privatize the
00:54:16
economy. So I just think that the
00:54:19
overall economic news is really good.
00:54:21
Again we have this AI boom going on.
00:54:23
There's a new chart showing that the
00:54:27
capex for this year that's expected just
00:54:31
from the four leading hyperscalers is
00:54:34
$600 billion just from four companies.
00:54:37
That's a roughly 2% tailwind to GDP
00:54:40
growth right there. That is just the
00:54:42
capex. That doesn't include all the ROI
00:54:45
that you might get from that
00:54:47
infrastructure on the software side, on
00:54:49
the application side, the productivity
00:54:51
side. So, we have a boom going on and I
00:54:53
feel like everyone's kind of
00:54:54
blackpilling about this. Uh, you know,
00:54:57
they're focusing on this
00:54:58
>> I agree
00:54:58
>> CBO report that has unrealistically low
00:55:02
growth rates.
00:55:03
>> We're going to print 6%.
00:55:05
>> Or they're doom scrolling about Epstein
00:55:06
or what have you.
00:55:08
>> And I just think when we look back on
00:55:09
this period, it could end up being a
00:55:11
little bit like the late 90s. Remember
00:55:12
when we had, you know, we look back on
00:55:14
the late 90s, we're like, "Wow, we had
00:55:15
like phenomenal economic growth.
00:55:17
>> Golden age.
00:55:18
>> Golden age. Economic labor
00:55:19
participation.
00:55:21
the internet,
00:55:23
>> right? But if you remember what politics
00:55:25
were like at that time period, all
00:55:26
anyone talked about was whether Bill
00:55:28
Clinton got a from Lewinsky.
00:55:30
>> So my point is just again, I'm not sure
00:55:33
we're focused on the right things. I
00:55:35
suspect we'll look back on this time
00:55:37
period as the beginning of a new golden
00:55:38
age.
00:55:39
>> I agree.
00:55:40
>> I think you're correct. And just in
00:55:42
terms of the hand ringing comment,
00:55:43
anytime a statistic is 10 15%, I
00:55:46
highlight it. I wouldn't use hand
00:55:48
ringing. I would just say we generally
00:55:50
look at that when we went from 4.1%
00:55:52
which is where Trump inherited it went
00:55:54
up to 4.5 it's about a 10% increase in
00:55:57
one year if that trend were to continue
00:55:59
that would be notable but to your point
00:56:01
it's gone down and that is because the
00:56:04
border I believe the southern border is
00:56:06
closed and as you're pointing out we've
00:56:08
got a lot of good news in the economy so
00:56:10
people are hiring still and uh so we are
00:56:13
in really good economic shape I would
00:56:15
say it's hard to deny that yeah
00:56:18
>> all The job creation has been enjoyed by
00:56:20
native born Americans as well. All the
00:56:22
job loss has been on non-nativeborn
00:56:25
Americans which is pretty remarkable. So
00:56:27
that I think is also going to acrude to
00:56:30
the benefit of of more Americans. By the
00:56:32
way, just on the unemployment thing,
00:56:34
there was a slight tick up in October
00:56:37
because of the October one buyouts.
00:56:39
Remember Doge created the the buyout
00:56:41
program
00:56:42
>> and September or October? When did they
00:56:44
hit?
00:56:44
>> It was October 1st was the deadline for
00:56:46
that. And so we had a tick up in
00:56:48
unemployment related to that. But
00:56:50
remember, all of those were voluntary
00:56:51
buyouts. They all chose the Doge option.
00:56:54
That's what created the tick up in
00:56:56
unemployment, but again, it was all, I
00:56:58
think, a good and voluntary tick up. And
00:57:00
now the unemployment rate has ticked
00:57:02
down. So again, the job creation right
00:57:04
now is strong.
00:57:05
>> And to just put a finer point on it, the
00:57:08
top two areas where illegal aliens are
00:57:10
working in the United States, most
00:57:11
people don't know this, construction,
00:57:13
number one, and the second one is
00:57:14
leisure and hospitality. So you got two
00:57:17
and a half million people working in
00:57:18
those two categories. Which is why I
00:57:19
said if you want to see more Americans
00:57:22
take jobs and you want to see wages go
00:57:24
up. If you went to those businesses and
00:57:26
you find those businesses for hiring
00:57:28
illegal aliens, which is the easiest
00:57:29
thing in the world to do, you just show
00:57:31
up at a construction site, you take
00:57:34
pictures of everybody who is working
00:57:36
illegally, which is what they used to do
00:57:37
in the ICE agency. They would then do um
00:57:40
you know surveillance of construction
00:57:42
sites and then they would go and find
00:57:43
the construction person and then they
00:57:45
had to hire Americans or that
00:57:46
construction company would get in
00:57:48
serious trouble. There's been
00:57:49
multi-million dollar fines done over the
00:57:51
last 20 years specifically on
00:57:53
construction sites and that would drive
00:57:55
more people to raise the wages of
00:57:57
construction workers which would even
00:57:59
lower unemployment more and increase
00:58:01
labor participation. That's where the
00:58:03
big win is. Go to construction sites.
00:58:05
>> You want you want ICE to randomly raid
00:58:09
employers, construction sites.
00:58:10
>> I would use the term raid. Raid is no. I
00:58:12
survey
00:58:13
>> and just check everyone's papers. You
00:58:14
want I showing up everywhere. You want
00:58:18
number one, they're doing this already,
00:58:20
gentlemen. This is well within their
00:58:21
purview. Look up the legal. They have
00:58:23
been doing this for 30 years. This is
00:58:25
actually the technique they used before
00:58:28
raiding cities in a chaotic way. They
00:58:30
went, they surveiled, which is their
00:58:32
right to do. They have the right to do
00:58:35
that. I didn't say raid. I said surveil.
00:58:37
That is a peaceful, quiet thing to do.
00:58:39
And then they find business owners. The
00:58:41
business owners are the people who are
00:58:42
causing this problem. The if there was
00:58:45
not a job available in construction for
00:58:47
20, 30, 40 bucks an hour off the books
00:58:49
and not paying taxes, those immigrants
00:58:52
who are crossing illegally would not be
00:58:55
here. If they couldn't get a $30 an hour
00:58:57
off the book job, working at a hotel or
00:58:59
as a dishwasher, they would not come.
00:59:01
And the blame need to stop hiring them.
00:59:04
What do you mean?
00:59:06
>> Surveil surveile. So what is how do they
00:59:08
how do they with a camera figure out if
00:59:10
someone's illegal? What's the camera
00:59:12
figuring out?
00:59:12
>> Okay. So you guys, it's very simple. And
00:59:14
I
00:59:14
>> Oh, you have to scan first and so then
00:59:17
you'll know who you guys are.
00:59:18
>> No, I want to hear I want to hear I want
00:59:20
to hear you want to hear the answer and
00:59:21
how misinformed the three of you are and
00:59:24
biased. I will tell you you're all
00:59:25
misinformed and biased.
00:59:27
>> Surveil someone to figure out they're
00:59:29
illegal.
00:59:29
>> It's super simple. You go to the
00:59:31
construction site. Everybody checks in
00:59:33
their morning. They have a truck. This
00:59:35
has been done for decades, gentlemen.
00:59:37
They take pictures of everybody. Then
00:59:39
they go in at the end of the day after
00:59:41
surveilling for weeks, Chama. And it's
00:59:44
they have done this already. This is all
00:59:46
facts. They've had multiple cases where
00:59:47
they go to the construction site, they
00:59:49
take pictures, they take a video, then
00:59:50
they go to the business owner and say,
00:59:51
"Show us these people's payubs." And the
00:59:54
business owner goes, "I don't have
00:59:56
payubs for these people." And they say,
00:59:58
"Okay, here's a video of them working
01:00:00
for 8 hours a day. Where's their payub?
01:00:02
Show us their taxes. The businesses are
01:00:05
paying people off the books. That is tax
01:00:07
evasion. And then they got multi-million
01:00:11
dollar fines. Here's a very important
01:00:13
case. This is from back in 2017. The
01:00:16
Justice Department and ICE went after a
01:00:19
group which was hiring illegal aliens.
01:00:23
This is the largest payment ever in an
01:00:25
immigration case. 95 million recovered,
01:00:28
80 million criminal forfeite, 15 million
01:00:30
in civil payments. That represented,
01:00:33
according to our Justice Department in
01:00:35
2017, the largest ever levied
01:00:37
immigration case, we can solve almost
01:00:40
all of the immigration issues with the
01:00:42
exception of maybe criminal gangs. just
01:00:46
by doing basic surveillance, basic, you
01:00:49
know, detective work, asking these
01:00:52
businesses to show the payubs of the
01:00:56
people working for them. And ICE has
01:00:58
been doing this. They've already been
01:01:00
doing this.
01:01:00
>> Your suggestion is to do this for every
01:01:02
company in America.
01:01:04
>> Okay. So again, you're being hyperbolic
01:01:06
and you're not negot
01:01:10
>> I said I said this at the top. You pick
01:01:12
the number one employer of illegal
01:01:14
aliens, 2.5 million people working
01:01:16
construction. You start with the largest
01:01:18
construction sites and then you work
01:01:19
backwards. Then you start with the
01:01:20
largest restaurant and hotel chains.
01:01:22
>> If Stephen Miller were doing this, you'd
01:01:24
say he's not compassionate enough. You
01:01:25
call him a fascist.
01:01:26
>> I have Nope. Incorrect. Once again,
01:01:28
incorrect. I have stated publicly here
01:01:29
on the pod and I have stated publicly on
01:01:31
Twitter that this is actually what
01:01:32
Steven Miller should do because this
01:01:34
would go after the people who are
01:01:37
causing the immigration problem. The
01:01:39
people immigration problem are the
01:01:40
people. Let me finish. Let me finish
01:01:42
that. The people causing this problem
01:01:44
are the business owners. They are
01:01:46
providing the incentive to come here.
01:01:48
Steven Miller should stop doing the
01:01:50
crazy raids and he should go and just
01:01:53
>> You don't think it's the government
01:01:54
benefits that are incentivizing people
01:01:55
to come.
01:01:57
>> I think that's like far down the list.
01:01:58
Two, three, four.
01:01:59
>> Far down the list.
01:02:01
>> Yes.
01:02:02
>> Is the free healthcare and the free food
01:02:03
and the free.
01:02:04
>> Actually have statistics. I can give you
01:02:05
a statistic on. According to this LA
01:02:06
Times survey, 75% of immigrants come
01:02:10
here for better job opportunities.
01:02:13
People coming to America illegally are
01:02:16
coming here for economic reasons. They
01:02:18
are not coming here to commit crimes.
01:02:20
They are not coming here to get
01:02:21
benefits. That is way down the list.
01:02:23
That is a small percentage.
01:02:26
>> How is this going to deport all the gang
01:02:28
bangers, the rapists, the murderers, the
01:02:30
ones who aren't working on a farm?
01:02:32
They're not doing
01:02:33
>> That's a totally separate issue. They
01:02:34
should go do that. That's a separate
01:02:35
issue. They should go do those and go
01:02:37
after
01:02:37
>> that is what ICE was doing. They're
01:02:39
trying to round up the known criminals
01:02:42
for whom they get warrants and then they
01:02:44
capture them and deport them. That's a
01:02:46
separate problem.
01:02:47
>> Yeah, those are two separate problems.
01:02:48
I'm not talking about the problem of
01:02:51
gang bangers. You can do gang bangers.
01:02:52
I'm talking about if you actually want
01:02:54
to move big numbers. The gang bangers
01:02:56
are small number. The people working in
01:02:58
construction working at hotels are a big
01:03:00
number. Yeah, they're both equally
01:03:02
important. Saxs, we're in agreement.
01:03:04
Okay.
01:03:05
>> Yeah. The the thing we're not doing at
01:03:07
scale is going after the businesses that
01:03:11
are creating the incentive for the
01:03:12
majority of people who come here.
01:03:14
Ferrari has a new car coming out. It's
01:03:17
going to be their first all electric
01:03:20
vehicle. Very polarizing.
01:03:22
Here's an illustration of the vehicle
01:03:24
from Car and Driver. This is not the
01:03:27
accurate one because it's going to be
01:03:29
revealed in May, but this is what they
01:03:30
think it's going to look like. 1,000
01:03:32
plus horsepower, four electric motors, 0
01:03:35
to 60 in under 2.5 seconds. Uh 330 mi
01:03:38
range. It's the heaviest Ferrari ever,
01:03:41
5100 lb compared to the iconic F40,
01:03:44
which was but 3,000 lb. It's going to
01:03:47
launch in May of 2026. But we got to see
01:03:50
the interior, and this is what
01:03:52
everybody's buzzing about. It's gone
01:03:53
viral on the interwebs. former Apple
01:03:55
design chief Johnny IV uh on his team
01:03:58
with his partner Mark Nuome who also
01:04:00
designed the iconic Ford 021C concept
01:04:03
car were involved in this.
01:04:05
>> Wait, what is that?
01:04:07
>> Uh it's this is like if you're a car
01:04:09
nerd, this was like this incredibly
01:04:11
innovative moment in design that never
01:04:13
happened that Ford did it. It looks very
01:04:15
similar to an Apple product.
01:04:17
>> Here's the key for the new
01:04:20
>> looks like an animated character in cars
01:04:22
or something like that, you know. You
01:04:24
have this beautiful square glass key
01:04:26
like an iPhone. You put it in and the
01:04:28
yellow Ferrari yellow drains out and
01:04:31
goes into the shifter. That was one
01:04:33
nuance that people thought was very
01:04:34
beautiful. The screen looks very Mac
01:04:37
inspired except unlike Tesla which is uh
01:04:40
no buttons and removing buttons. They're
01:04:42
adding buttons here and making the
01:04:44
buttons very tactile. All the sports car
01:04:46
enthusiasts love tactile memory based
01:04:48
buttons that you can just have fun with
01:04:51
and flip and feel like you're a fighter
01:04:52
pilot. Finally,
01:04:54
the uh turning the car on is like
01:04:57
starting up a jet. You have a launch
01:04:59
button you twist and press and it makes
01:05:01
the whole car turn Ferrari orange or
01:05:03
red. And uh yeah, that's the inside
01:05:07
sachs. You buying one or not? You like
01:05:11
it?
01:05:12
>> I saw I saw everyone just, you know, all
01:05:14
over this design and I thought it was a
01:05:17
little bit unfair in the sense that I
01:05:19
actually overall like the interior. I
01:05:22
thought it found a compromise between,
01:05:24
you know, let's call it the all glass
01:05:27
cockpit of a Tesla versus a totally
01:05:30
analog old Ferrari interior. Like you
01:05:34
said, it it had a combination of
01:05:36
screens, but then also buttons. And they
01:05:38
made a point of showing that the buttons
01:05:41
were not only nicely tactile, but they
01:05:43
also made pleasing sounds and that kind
01:05:44
of stuff. It seemed very heavy duty. So,
01:05:47
I thought the interior actually was
01:05:49
pretty good. Again, nice balance between
01:05:52
kind of the interior of a race car, the
01:05:54
simplicity of that iPad screen, but also
01:05:57
having enough sort of buttons that you
01:05:59
develop muscle memory around where all
01:06:00
the controls are. You don't have to go
01:06:02
hunting for them through a menu.
01:06:04
>> I thought the missier wasn't on the
01:06:06
inside. I thought it was on the outside.
01:06:07
I hate the look of the outside of this
01:06:10
car.
01:06:10
>> It looks to me,
01:06:11
>> by the way, just to be clear, that look
01:06:13
is what people are projecting. It's not
01:06:15
the final version.
01:06:16
>> I think this is terrible. This to me
01:06:17
looks like a Corvette maybe or even like
01:06:20
a Franazam. I mean
01:06:21
>> it looks like a Model 3. Yeah.
01:06:24
>> I don't like the What's that like the
01:06:25
black part of the front or even the
01:06:28
>> grill?
01:06:28
>> The grill. It looks terrible and the
01:06:30
things going on on the sides
01:06:31
>> and then the back almost looks like a
01:06:33
hatchback or something. It's just, you
01:06:35
know, uh a Ferrari should look swoopier.
01:06:38
It should look curvier and there should
01:06:40
be fewer different pieces to it.
01:06:42
>> 100%.
01:06:42
>> So, I don't know. Doesn't look right to
01:06:44
me as a Ferrari, but I thought the
01:06:46
inside actually was was fine.
01:06:48
>> I like it.
01:06:49
>> Yeah.
01:06:50
>> Chimop, you buyer. When's the last time
01:06:51
you actually drove yourself, Sax? Have
01:06:54
you actually used a steering wheel in
01:06:56
the last decade? When's the last time
01:06:58
you actually used the steering wheel?
01:06:59
>> Full full self-driving has made me a
01:07:01
driver again because I just set the full
01:07:03
self-driving.
01:07:04
>> Wow. And it's such a game changer. Yeah.
01:07:06
>> Well, with with FSD.
01:07:08
>> Yeah. Okay. So, you're now driving
01:07:10
around Texas. I like it
01:07:11
>> with FSD.
01:07:13
>> Okay.
01:07:14
>> Because the Uber takes forever. So now
01:07:16
I'm just like, you know,
01:07:16
>> you you like uh you've always liked to
01:07:19
drive Jamoth. I think you you drive
01:07:21
yourself these days or you uh
01:07:22
>> I drive myself in a Model Y with FSD or
01:07:25
I take a Whimo. One of the two.
01:07:27
>> Yeah, Whimo's in the valley now. Yeah.
01:07:29
On the piss.
01:07:29
>> I've had a Ferrari.
01:07:32
What I would tell you is that there's
01:07:34
just something that's very unique.
01:07:35
There's a Ferrari experience that's
01:07:37
different from every other car.
01:07:39
And I think that the new CEO,
01:07:41
Benedtovenia,
01:07:43
is a very talented executive and I think
01:07:46
that he's probably going to land
01:07:47
something beautiful.
01:07:50
The thing is that we are racing against
01:07:52
time. And I've said this before, but FSD
01:07:57
and autonomy is going to shift the
01:07:59
number of people that even know what it
01:08:01
means to drive. It will feel like
01:08:04
when we look at somebody who really
01:08:08
embraces thoroughbed racing, it's just
01:08:11
going to happen in smaller and smaller
01:08:13
places and less and less often. And
01:08:16
that's not because these cars aren't
01:08:18
beautiful, but it's because the risk
01:08:21
will not make any sense for most people
01:08:23
under most conditions. And I think
01:08:26
that's the big thing that's going to
01:08:27
change. Like the car culture in America
01:08:30
was a profound part of the American
01:08:32
culture. You know, driving from A to B
01:08:35
on vacation, the sense of freedom, the
01:08:38
building of the interstate highway
01:08:39
system. These were huge parts of what
01:08:41
made America great and the rails on
01:08:44
which all this productivity sat on top
01:08:46
of. And now I think it's all going to
01:08:49
change. So I don't know. I mean, I think
01:08:50
the car will probably be beautiful. Like
01:08:52
Ferraris are beautiful. There's a
01:08:54
Ferrari dealership in Redwood City. And
01:08:57
whenever I drive by it, I slow down and
01:08:59
I look out.
01:08:59
>> Yum, yum.
01:09:01
>> They make beautiful cars.
01:09:04
>> Piece of art. Yeah.
01:09:05
>> And I think in places like China and
01:09:07
India, they're always going to have a
01:09:09
market. But I think in places like the
01:09:10
United States, it's going to become so
01:09:12
expensive to pay for the insurance if
01:09:13
you are driving yourself
01:09:16
>> that the idea that you would buy any car
01:09:20
is going to feel tougher and tougher
01:09:23
just because I think the math is going
01:09:24
to be tough. But the experience inside
01:09:27
of the Ferrari is second to none. So it
01:09:29
probably is that there's going to be a
01:09:31
bunch of high-end cars like Ferrari
01:09:33
where you pay for the experience, you're
01:09:35
in a position to pay for the car, you'll
01:09:36
pay for the insurance, the luxury,
01:09:39
>> all of it, and then the rest of us will
01:09:42
be using FSD or Whimo
01:09:44
>> 100%.
01:09:46
I we have two Model Y's and we have to
01:09:48
get another car and it's like, well,
01:09:50
what else can we buy? We have no choice.
01:09:52
It's either buy one of the last X's.
01:09:54
>> I'm so mad the X well deprecating the X
01:09:56
really bought I have a real problem now
01:09:58
which is I have five kids so the X is
01:10:01
the only car that can manage seven
01:10:03
people so I need I need a new
01:10:05
>> there is a three row by the way Model Y
01:10:07
but it's a bit tight.
01:10:08
>> It's a bit tight. It's not
01:10:09
>> it's a bit tight. I This is I I wish
01:10:12
Elon would have made the minivan or the
01:10:14
three row SUV and who knows maybe he
01:10:17
does someday. When I was in Abu Dhabi, I
01:10:19
saw my dream car. It is this Lexus
01:10:23
minivan and the doors open and it's like
01:10:27
first class airline seats.
01:10:30
>> Yes.
01:10:31
>> And the front is completely blacked out.
01:10:33
So you have total privacy.
01:10:36
This car. Yes. This car.
01:10:37
>> Yes.
01:10:38
>> I
01:10:39
>> This is not It's not for sale in the US.
01:10:40
>> It's not available in America. Why is
01:10:42
this car or minivan, whatever, not
01:10:44
available in the United States?
01:10:46
>> I think it's the Lexus LM. And then
01:10:47
there's the Alfred in Japan. My favorite
01:10:50
cars.
01:10:51
>> This is the interior.
01:10:53
>> Show the view captain's chairs. It's got
01:10:55
a full screen and divider between the
01:10:58
two with the drivers in the front.
01:11:00
>> Um and then you have this luxurious.
01:11:02
Those aren't the captain's chair. Show
01:11:04
the captain. There's the captain.
01:11:05
>> See those beautiful captain's chairs?
01:11:06
They're gorgeous. Basically like an
01:11:08
executive van.
01:11:09
>> These are like Etihad
01:11:12
first class airline seats. It's
01:11:14
unbelievable. Look at these. Look at
01:11:16
these two seats.
01:11:18
>> Unbelievable. Gorgeous. And you have a
01:11:20
full monitor in front of you, David. You
01:11:22
press a button and the monitor rises and
01:11:23
falls so you can talk to your driver or
01:11:25
have CNBC on.
01:11:26
>> I like getting in and out of SUVs or
01:11:28
minivans. The height is good for me.
01:11:31
>> So easy to get. And the Alfred is the
01:11:33
other one. None of these are available
01:11:35
in the US. These are the number one cars
01:11:36
in China, Singapore, the Middle East for
01:11:39
chauffeer driven cars. They're
01:11:41
incredible.
01:11:42
>> It's called what? An Alfred. What's
01:11:44
that?
01:11:44
>> Alfred is the Toyota version. And then
01:11:46
Lexus is obviously the higher brand of
01:11:48
Toyota and they make I think it's called
01:11:50
the LS is the name for these. Cannot get
01:11:54
them in.
01:11:54
>> All right, boys. I love you very much.
01:11:56
That's another amazing episode of the
01:11:58
Allin podcast. 261 weeks and counting.
01:12:02
Strong.
01:12:03
>> Episode 261.
01:12:05
>> I think it's 261. Yeah.
01:12:06
>> All right. Back at you. Let's go.
01:12:07
>> Love you boys. Love you.
01:12:12
>> Let your winners ride.
01:12:14
Rainman David
01:12:18
>> and it said we open sourced it to the
01:12:20
fans and they've just gone crazy with
01:12:22
it.
01:12:24
>> Queen of
01:12:32
besties are
01:12:34
my dog taking a notice in your driveway.
01:12:39
Oh man, my habitasher will meet up.
01:12:42
>> We should all just get a room and just
01:12:43
have one big huge orgy cuz they're all
01:12:45
just useless. It's like this like sexual
01:12:47
tension that we just need to release
01:12:48
somehow.
01:12:52
>> Your feet.
01:12:55
We need to get Mercury's back.
01:13:05
I'm going all in.

Podspun Insights

In this episode of the All-In Podcast, the core four dive deep into the transformative world of AI and its implications for the workforce. They kick off with a discussion on a recent Harvard Business Review study that reveals how AI tools are intensifying work rather than reducing it. The hosts explore the paradox of increased productivity leading to heightened stress and burnout among employees. David Sachs shares his contrarian belief that AI will actually increase demand for knowledge workers, suggesting that those who can effectively harness AI will gain significant advantages in their roles.

The conversation shifts to the potential for a bottom-up adoption of AI in enterprises, with early adopters becoming the new superstars of the workplace. The hosts passionately debate the future of AI in the workplace, touching on the need for businesses to adapt to this rapidly changing landscape. They also discuss the ethical implications of AI, particularly concerning data privacy and security, as companies grapple with the risks of leaking sensitive information.

As the episode progresses, the focus turns to prediction markets, sparked by the recent Super Bowl betting frenzy. The hosts analyze the implications of insider trading and market manipulation in this new betting landscape, raising questions about the future of these platforms and their societal impact.

Finally, the episode wraps up with an exciting announcement about an upcoming event in wine country, designed to connect capital allocators and entrepreneurs. The hosts emphasize the importance of building relationships and sharing insights in a rapidly evolving economic environment. With a blend of humor, insight, and a dash of chaos, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, economics, and the future of work.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most quotable
  • 90
    Best concept / idea
  • 85
    Most intense
  • 85
    Best overall

Episode Highlights

  • AI Acceleration Insights
    A study reveals that AI tools increase productivity but also stress among workers.
    “AI tools intensify work but do not reduce it.”
    @ 00m 27s
    February 13, 2026
  • Transforming Work with AI
    AI is changing the nature of jobs from task-based to purpose-based, enhancing motivation.
    “They actually ended up working more hours in the day.”
    @ 01m 31s
    February 13, 2026
  • The Rise of AI Natives
    Early adopters of AI tools are set to demonstrate significant value in the workplace.
    “AI natives will appear to have superpowers.”
    @ 02m 29s
    February 13, 2026
  • Prediction Markets Hit Critical Mass
    Over a billion dollars wagered on prediction markets during the Super Bowl, raising questions about market manipulation and insider trading.
    “They hit critical mass this past weekend at the Super Bowl.”
    @ 19m 20s
    February 13, 2026
  • CBO Report: A Debt Death Spiral
    The latest CBO report reveals alarming projections for U.S. debt, with deficits soaring to 1.9 trillion by 2026. 'The fiscal trajectory is not sustainable.'
    “The fiscal trajectory is not sustainable.”
    @ 33m 59s
    February 13, 2026
  • Debt Concerns Looming
    Experts warn of a potential debt death spiral if spending isn't controlled.
    “It's going to be really nasty.”
    @ 37m 19s
    February 13, 2026
  • Economic Growth Predictions
    Despite low growth projections, some believe the economy is on the verge of a boom.
    “If you believe in growth then the situation is not quite as dire.”
    @ 39m 01s
    February 13, 2026
  • Gold's Future Bright
    Amid economic uncertainty, gold is expected to perform well as a durable asset.
    “We probably see things like gold do much better over time.”
    @ 45m 57s
    February 13, 2026
  • Beginning of an Economic Boom
    Experts suggest we may be entering a new golden age of economic growth.
    “I think we’re kind of missing the lead here, which is we are at the beginning of an economic boom.”
    @ 53m 07s
    February 13, 2026
  • Economic Shape
    We're in really good economic shape with strong job creation and hiring.
    “It's hard to deny that we're in really good economic shape.”
    @ 56m 10s
    February 13, 2026
  • Ferrari's New Electric Vehicle
    Ferrari is set to launch its first all-electric vehicle in May 2026, boasting over 1,000 horsepower.
    “It's going to be their first all electric vehicle. Very polarizing.”
    @ 01h 03m 17s
    February 13, 2026
  • Luxury Minivans Unavailable in the US
    Lexus and Toyota make luxurious minivans that are popular abroad but not available in the US.
    “These are the number one cars in China, Singapore, the Middle East for chauffeur-driven cars.”
    @ 01h 11m 36s
    February 13, 2026

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • AI Acceleration00:18
  • Productivity vs. Stress00:53
  • Reliability of AI13:36
  • Prediction Markets19:20
  • CBO Report33:59
  • Debt Spiral Worries37:19
  • Growth Optimism39:01
  • Economic Boom Ahead53:07

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown