Latest / Core Memory / Body Scanners, Banned Models, and DeepMind's Space Game Obsession - EP 78 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison

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Body Scanners, Banned Models, and DeepMind's Space Game Obsession - EP 78 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison · Core Memory

0:00
SPEAKER_00: All right, Kylie, here we go.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: What did we do last night?
0:03
Last night,
0:04
we uploaded our arms into the Matrix in downtown San Francisco.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: We're going to tell you all about it on this episode of Core Memory.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: This is Ashley Vance.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Kylie Robison.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is Core Memory.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And here we go.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Kylie, here we are.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: We just saw each other hours ago.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: It does feel like hours ago, yes.
0:40
We were at a soiree in downtown San Francisco in the dodgy part
0:48
of San Francisco.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Very dodgy.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Things were hurtled and avoided on our way into the door.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: But David Holtz, the founder and CEO of MidJourney,
0:58
SPEAKER_00: was holding an event.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: We got a semi-exclusive invite.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: How many people were there?
1:03
SPEAKER_00: 250.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: 250.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I think we were not the only, but there were a few reporters.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Very, very few.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And, wow, okay.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:14
SPEAKER_00: most people listening to us probably know what MidJourney is,
1:16
SPEAKER_00: but if you don't,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:18
it was the place that kind of kicked off all the image
1:21
generation stuff when AI
1:22
started getting extra weird and you could just tell your
1:25
computer to manufacture
1:27
SPEAKER_00: whatever you
1:28
wanted and I mean credit to them they were ahead of the game
1:32
really a lot of the
1:33
stuff and David self-funded this company and took no venture
1:39
capital and has been
1:40
printing money ever since and last night at this event we got a
1:46
straight quite like
1:47
SPEAKER_00: you know unexpected glimpse of what he plans to do with his money.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, an MRI machine, which is nuts for an AI startup.
1:57
And you just wrote about,
1:58
you know,
1:59
a rich guy doing fancy things with his money.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's kind of created what... Well, okay, so we're at this event.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: There's hors d'oeuvres.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: It's in some new club.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: They told me, the person at the front desk told me it opened in February.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: It's like a members-only kind of thing.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: We weren't supposed to take any pictures or photos.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I, of course, had my meta glasses on, even though they made us...
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Turn our phone off.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: So we're for a while we're, we're schmoozing, we're having cocktails.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Then David sits down to yes, unveil this thing.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this full body scan, um, to check on your health.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: It does crazy.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: The 3d scan of your, your body.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: And then he said,
2:36
this is one of eight products that mid journey is going to do
2:41
that all seem at
2:42
SPEAKER_00: least a little a field of what the company has been doing.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: He said there would be four hardware products for software.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: The first two were unveiled,
2:50
SPEAKER_00: which was the scanner plus a spa,
2:53
SPEAKER_00: which we're going to tell you all about.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: So these were the first two.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And then he said the others are coming.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: It sounded like over the course of this year.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't give too many hints, although we'll scoop it early.
3:05
from the chatter at the party that one of them is probably some
3:08
kind of brain
3:09
SPEAKER_00: computer interface.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Which I can't imagine mid-journey making a BCI.
3:14
It requires so much attention and like really amazing
3:18
scientists and engineers to pull off.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And we have quite a lot of BCIs now.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: So I was trying to
3:24
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know where you take this because we have,
3:27
SPEAKER_00: we've got Neuralink doing the most extreme end of full-on surgery,
3:30
SPEAKER_00: putting electrodes right against your neurons.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: We've got other people sitting right on top of the brain.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: We have other people doing ultrasound already.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So there's quite a variety of BCIs.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Then Merge Labs we wrote about.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to, I just don't know how many takes.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: There's only so much you can do.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: One of the founders of Merge was there.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Was there, Sumner, Core Memory subscriber.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I just don't know how many takes there are.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we,
3:56
we didn't learn much beyond we just heard they're working on a
3:58
BCI device.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was not familiar with, what is it, Butterfly?
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: So it has a lot of those and- Oh, for this, for the full body skin.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for the full body skin.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there's Butterfly Networks, I think it's called.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It's Jonathan Rothberg, who I run across a little bit.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so they make a portable ultrasound machine.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: You people might have seen it.
4:21
just like a handheld ultrasound and so it has this chip and
4:26
mid-journey well quite
4:28
clearly the CEO of Butterfly was there they've taken these just
4:32
a ton of these
4:32
chips and arranged them to create the scanner yeah and it was
4:35
in the pit this
4:36
device yes I was watching the pit it was so strange there was a
4:40
whole episode if
4:41
anyone watches that show I binged the whole thing yeah there
4:44
was this hilarious
4:45
SPEAKER_00: episode where they're like uh
4:48
like we gotta scan this person how are we gonna do it he's like
4:53
I've got a
4:53
butterfly handheld scanner it felt so much like an ad and then
4:56
throughout the whole
4:57
episode they would just call it out again and again he'd be
5:00
like hey Bill do you
5:02
have the butterfly handheld ultrasound with you and so I assume
5:06
this was an ad we
5:08
ran into the CEO I asked him he said this was not it was not
5:11
like a product
5:12
placement I'm kind of shocked they were just very generous but
5:14
yeah so they the
5:17
SPEAKER_00: That company makes these chips that do the ultrasound scanning.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And then we could see in these images that David Holtz put up,
5:25
SPEAKER_00: they must have dozens or a hundred or so of those chips.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: I think there was 40 and then they're like in one segment.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And then there's just like, I don't know, 12 segments or something.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: There's tons of them.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Because it goes 360 around the body.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And so people will be familiar with an MRI.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: You got to lay down in a big tube,
5:41
SPEAKER_00: you get sucked in,
5:43
SPEAKER_00: it's clanking and you're in there,
5:44
SPEAKER_00: you can't move.
5:46
What David showed in this video,
5:48
I mean,
5:49
it was like a two minute long video.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: You could kind of see what was going on.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so he has a person stand on a platform.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was very Matrix-y.
5:56
You get lowered down into a pool of water and then this imaging
6:03
is supposed to take place.
6:04
He said,
6:04
I don't know if they're doing this right now,
6:06
but in a minute is what he was sort of
6:09
SPEAKER_00: claiming would be on the horizon quickly.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And so that's obviously way quicker than an MRI.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: You're not in a hospital.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: He wants to put you in a spa.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: So you go sauna and cold plunge and then you go get scanned in a minute.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And then the amount of data it was throwing off was insane.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people can go find the numbers, but it was terabytes per scan.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And so they've clearly done
6:34
I take it face value that this works what he showed us because
6:39
it seemed to on some
6:40
level and and so they are they've they've clearly taken like a
6:45
bunch of available
6:46
technology and really done a cool job of stitching this all
6:51
together and so people
6:53
had thought of doing a full body ultrasound before it's just
6:57
nobody had really
6:58
SPEAKER_00: assembled all the tech you would need to do it.
7:00
Yeah,
7:01
and we got to demo it where it was just our hand,
7:03
and you could see sort of your innards.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: You could see where the bone is and your veins, and that was neat.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: It looked really cool.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the sections it takes of your body was really interesting.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I've never had an MRI, actually.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm not rich enough.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Well,
7:18
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: so I mean,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: you can get MRIs when you're in need,
7:21
SPEAKER_00: but then,
7:22
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
7:22
SPEAKER_00: the wealthy people do these regular things.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess that was the pitch.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: He's saying,
7:27
SPEAKER_00: There's debate on all this stuff because some people think,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: oh,
7:29
you shouldn't do these scans all the time because you flag
7:32
things that aren't
7:33
SPEAKER_00: really a problem.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And now you're getting unneeded treatments or you're freaking out.
7:37
But there's obviously a case to be made that you want to check
7:41
on what's going on
7:42
SPEAKER_00: inside you more often.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: So he was, I mean, he's talking about he wants to go in there every day.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and so at that point, it's like an Apple Watch or a Fitbit.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: You're just scanning your whole body every day.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Every day.
7:55
We're sitting next to Brian Johnson and Kate Tolo and Brian's
8:01
been doing the less
8:03
SPEAKER_00: slightly less frequent version of this for years.
8:06
I mean,
8:06
this would be sort of heavenly,
8:07
I guess,
8:08
if you're on the Brian program.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: I can imagine it being in like a fancy upscale gym,
8:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:14
SPEAKER_01: and just being able to take a dip whenever you want.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:17
I think he said 40 billion dollars to like really make this
8:20
dream come true and
8:22
SPEAKER_01: scale it which is a lot of money to do by himself.
8:25
Yeah what did he say he wants 50,000 machines so that everybody
8:29
on earth can get
8:31
one conveniently and so that would require what he said there
8:35
were like 50 per spa
8:36
or something these numbers are close and so yeah you just have
8:39
to build thousands
8:40
SPEAKER_00: of spas
8:42
SPEAKER_00: and that's real estate and it's all very expensive.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: In his one downtown,
8:46
SPEAKER_01: the Mid Journey Spa is going to be open by the end of next year,
8:49
SPEAKER_01: which is insane to me on a hardware timeline.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm skeptical on this.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been to their last, you know, maybe, maybe not.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: The video he showed, it seemed quite big.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And then you'd have to, the video of the device seemed big.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And then the video he showed of the spa, they were very- Four floors.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so they were very elegant and small and-
9:11
SPEAKER_00: fitting in a little room.
9:12
And so I felt like there was quite some distance to go between
9:16
the two renderings.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: But maybe he knows things we don't know.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: I think on these sort of timelines, I'm also skeptical.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: I think that he has a lot of side quests.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: I think he's known for getting really deep on what he wants to build.
9:31
So by the end of next year,
9:33
that's something you have to be singularly focused
9:35
and he has eight things that they're launching and they also
9:39
need to hire that was
9:40
like a big part of their pitch is that we need to hire good
9:42
engineers for this so I
9:44
mean I want to do it I'm down someone asked in the audience if
9:47
we're going to get
9:47
uploaded to the matrix through this which was pretty hilarious
9:51
I think that was
9:51
Dylan Field from Figma yeah so and then right after well we had
9:56
science friends
9:57
there that I've been getting texts all morning so there was
10:00
this guy named David
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Garrett who's a scientist I think who went to Caltech
10:05
and he clearly well so he's published he's published papers on
10:11
full body ultrasound
10:13
and if you go to his LinkedIn page he worked at Midjourney for
10:18
a few months on this
10:20
and so I'm being told was one of the key people responsible for
10:25
developing this
10:25
SPEAKER_00: technology he
10:27
SPEAKER_00: as of either this morning or very recently has started his own research
10:31
SPEAKER_00: organization that I think is being backed maybe by Convergent Research.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: So he seems to be probably going off to go pursue this same thing.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what that means.
10:42
I don't know how essential this guy was,
10:44
but that he's already off doing something else.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I think,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: when you have a founder like David who,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:54
SPEAKER_01: he self-funded this,
10:55
he's very singularly focused on the success of his company and
10:58
what he wants to do
10:59
SPEAKER_01: for this world and what he wants to build.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And I think that can probably be hard if you are working with him.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: I imagine it's like if you were, you know...
11:09
I was writing a book and you were like breathing down my neck
11:11
and you're like,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: I know how to do this.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's how I imagine working for David is.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: So I mean,
11:16
SPEAKER_01: not to speculate too much why that person left,
11:18
SPEAKER_01: but they're going to need a lot of good people to pull this off.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: I want to do it.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I want to get scanned.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid what my body is going to tell me.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I would like to see them pull this off.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And just to be clear, there were a lot of notes.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so this is ultrasound.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: MRI is different.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: David kind of was like pitching it as an MRI replacement.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: and then immediately X was freaking out.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: People were like, it's not an MRI.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: MRI can see things.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: CT scans can see things that this couldn't see.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: You still need to get like a colonoscopy, which like I get.
11:53
I actually thought David was not,
11:56
I didn't feel like he was overpromising.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: He was just kind of like, we got this new tool.
12:00
I think it's helpful for a bunch of things you could definitely
12:03
track your body in
12:04
a new way so I thought he was like okay on that part and but
12:09
yeah just to set
12:10
people's expectations I mean you there's you're still gonna go
12:14
to the hospital for
12:14
various things but this just seems like a new way to to see
12:18
inside your body I
12:21
SPEAKER_00: thought he I wrote about this in the in theSubstack that yeah it's it's
12:29
I remember I was interviewing Larry Page when I was doing the
12:32
Elon book and he's
12:33
like oh I wish I could do what Elon does and I always found it
12:37
so strange because
12:39
at that time Larry had billions and billions of dollars and
12:43
Elon was but a like
12:44
SPEAKER_00: barely a billionaire
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Barely.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you can't do that.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: You have more money than God.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: But there was a thing.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: He was CEO of Google at the time.
12:58
And that comes with this pressure where you run off and do some
13:01
side projects.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: It's like, are you paying attention to the business?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Or if it fails, it looks bad for you and for Google.
13:08
So I could kind of see that there were some constraints,
13:10
whereas Elon would just run off.
13:13
doing things but I've always been surprised when the
13:16
billionaires you know we've
13:18
SPEAKER_00: got things like the Collisons put money in the ARC Institute or you know
13:23
billionaires will they'll fund their passions off to the side
13:27
Justin Moskovitz with
13:29
just sort of EA AI safety staff and open philanthropy and all
13:32
that they're but
13:34
I am surprised because so many of these dudes are sci-fi nerds
13:39
that they don't
13:42
SPEAKER_00: create these labs in their image and really dig in.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
13:47
Larry did end up doing things like he was trying to get flying
13:50
cars going for a
13:51
SPEAKER_00: while and then Sergey Brin's got his airship and so they do dabble.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Bezos has some things, but it's like
14:01
If you wanted to create almost like a Bell Labs or a Xerox PARC
14:05
of your own,
14:06
SPEAKER_00: these guys have the resources to do it,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: but then you have to be...
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I always felt like Larry and Sergey dip in and dip out.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: It's like all the projects go for a while and then they kind of fizzle.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: That's that singular focus.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: You have to like really, really want to do it.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And Elon is,
14:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:22
SPEAKER_01: singularly focused,
14:23
SPEAKER_01: even though he has all these things,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Tesla,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: SpaceX,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Twitter,
14:27
but he seems like sort of laser focused on how do I create this
14:30
sci-fi future?
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the other people,
14:32
SPEAKER_01: maybe the yachts and women in the Mediterranean are just too tantalizing.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Tantalizing.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we'll have to see where David ends up on that spectrum.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: My sense was like he...
14:45
wants to I mean he clearly knew all the engineering I don't
14:50
know my sense was like
14:51
this he's into this and this is what he wants to do with his
14:54
money and maybe and
14:56
then he's in this unusual it is funny like Elon even when he he
15:02
sort of had to
15:02
raise money for Tesla and SpaceX but then he was really rich
15:06
and he would still
15:07
raise money for the boring company or Neuralink I never fully
15:11
understood why he
15:12
SPEAKER_00: doesn't just
15:13
Pay for it himself maybe it's just because he could access
15:16
capital so easily it's
15:17
like whatever just let other people pay for this but David
15:21
seems to be dead set on
15:23
funding this himself and I don't know I mean if you really want
15:28
to make something
15:29
that's not a compromise that's totally true to your taste and
15:34
your dreams I guess
15:35
SPEAKER_00: this is the way to do it and like maybe we'll find out if he
15:40
SPEAKER_00: if he's kind of unique in this way.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: It could be like another great founder story in the making or not.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Another quick bit on Brian Johnson.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: So that was my first time meeting him.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: I was so excited because, you know, you see him.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm extremely online.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: I've seen his tweets for years now,
15:58
SPEAKER_01: and I thought he was quite scary looking,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: and the whole project was nuts.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: So meeting him in person, nicest guy in the world.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my gosh.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: He's so sweet.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: The first thing I asked him,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: was about his skincare routine.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Because something my mom asked me before I started potting was like,
16:17
SPEAKER_01: what does his skin look like in real life?
16:20
SPEAKER_01: It's very, very perfect.
16:22
And so I was pleased to find out we have some of the same
16:25
skincare regimes.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And then he was talking about Kate and how much he loves Kate.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: And he was just so happy to talk about how in love he is.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's fucking awesome, man.
16:36
So that was the highlight of my evening was gossiping with
16:39
Brian Johnson.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you have skincare top tips?
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Tretinoin.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: So I was staring at him and I was like, you use tretinoin, don't you?
16:46
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, I do.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And he told me how he uses it.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to him about salmon sperm.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: That's a big thing in the beauty community, especially in Korea.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: PDRN.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: He uses that.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to get it in the United States because it's illegal here.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Just awesome, man.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I want his whole breakdown.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: I do not use salmon sperm or tretinoin.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Clearly.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm too far gone.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Tretinoin now.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Do you use sunscreen?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: No.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Men.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: My god.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: I've just played tennis for thousands upon thousands of hours.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: This all ended like 25 years ago.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: There's still hope for some of us, Ashlee.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who else was there?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Dylan Field was there, Shulta Douglas from Anthropic, Brian and Kate.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Dylan was cool to talk to.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't met him before,
17:41
but I talked about mafia because he was just a mafia person and
17:47
he kind of failed
17:47
SPEAKER_01: miserably.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but everyone has been telling me he's the best mafia player.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Really?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: You've been hearing that?
17:53
SPEAKER_00: A lot.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Everyone said he's the absolute best.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Did you watch the second episode?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I haven't yet.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean, he's not so good in there.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: But it's the big leagues in there.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And Luke Nosek was there,
18:06
who was one of the first real big backers of SpaceX and has
18:09
been on the board for a
18:10
SPEAKER_00: long time.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: So he was very rich, richer than he already was.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, anyway, it was an okay event.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: They were very restrictive.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Very restrictive.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: They made us turn our phones off.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to order my Waymo by the front door and some woman was like,
18:25
SPEAKER_01: you can't have your phone.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I got to get out of here.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: She's like, you can wait in the lobby.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: They tried to usher me out of the lobby.
18:30
And I was like,
18:30
man,
18:30
I'm not on these streets at this time in the evening.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm staying right here.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: They're very restrictive.
18:36
I fired up my meta glasses nonetheless we'll see how much
18:39
trouble I get into now
18:40
that I posted these videos I felt like an embarrassed kid I was
18:43
like god Ashley
18:45
we're gonna get in trouble but he he was right and he got some
18:48
really good clips I
18:49
think my favorite was the interview with Brian that was
18:52
hilarious you just gotta do
18:54
it man people need the content it's true committed um okay I
18:58
think that's is that
18:59
SPEAKER_01: it for the event yeah are you gonna get are you gonna get scanned
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I would do that.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why not?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: It looks largely pleasant.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: We're probably in some warm little bath for a minute.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, why not?
19:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's not wrong.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I get kind of claustrophobic when I've had MRIs.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like I would not do that unless it was dire circumstances.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: So definitely not in like a preventative fashion.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Have you had a CT scan?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I think I did a long time ago.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I remember I fractured my pelvis playing tennis.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember if it was, I can't remember like what I had.
19:35
I haven't had that many like big injuries,
19:38
so I can't remember if it was like a CT or an MRI.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: CT scans, fine.
19:41
The CT one is where they inject you with liquid that makes you
19:43
feel like you peed yourself.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:46
I may have done that back in the day,
19:47
but definitely not any time recently that I remember.
19:51
I have a hard time believing it's claustrophobic but I mean
19:54
yeah I do the scan man
19:56
I was as I was watching it I was already thinking like okay
19:59
what swimsuit would I
20:00
wear and where would David stand and oh for shooting it yes yes
20:05
well absolutely we
20:06
would do a video on this if we could yeah we're trying to try
20:09
to talk David Holtz
20:10
into some video action all right what do we do at Core Memory
20:15
we cover innovative
20:16
SPEAKER_00: fast-moving forward-thinking companies which is why
20:21
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20:27
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20:28
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20:29
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21:04
you know,
21:04
get with the program.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's get going.
21:06
Let's get out of this archaic finance software and move toward
21:10
the future.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Core Memory and Brex.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: So Anthropic, Fable.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Need I explain for our audience?
21:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Fable was banned.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: It's,
21:20
SPEAKER_01: as far as I can understand,
21:23
SPEAKER_01: the first AI model that's ever been banned by the U.S.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: government.
21:27
And it was banned for any,
21:29
like,
21:29
foreign nationals,
21:30
which a lot of people at Anthropic are.
21:33
Amanda Askell,
21:34
for example,
21:35
leads behavior there and is a foreign national.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: So they just took it all offline for everybody.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And it was a big
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Big kerfuffle with the government.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And you had some takes on Twitter as you do.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I kind of got in trouble.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to tread carefully here.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: I was actually at Anthropic while this was happening,
21:55
SPEAKER_00: but I'm under some constraints on what I can talk about.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: So I'll have to try to remember that in real time as it's going on.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, usually when we do export controls, Amanda is Scottish.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: We don't usually ban the Scots from accessing
22:11
SPEAKER_00: American technology.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: So it went pretty heavy.
22:15
So yeah,
22:15
I mean,
22:16
I assume people have,
22:17
well,
22:17
people listening to this probably are aware.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: So the government, Anthropic came out with a new model.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: The government decided it was to,
22:26
the people were finding these jailbreaks where they could get
22:29
in and do things the
22:30
SPEAKER_00: model's not supposed to do.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And so the government
22:33
Bandit it happened all very quickly yeah so I was there on this
22:36
Friday and like I
22:37
walked in and Anthropic was at full alert because they'd like
22:41
just received this
22:42
notice from someone in the government I forget who and and you
22:48
know it's just like
22:49
really unclear how they're supposed to deal with this in some
22:51
ways because they
22:52
SPEAKER_00: wanted them to like fix these
22:54
holes which the researchers in the security world quickly said
22:57
like every model
22:58
SPEAKER_00: suffers from these holes and like they're really not very severe.
23:02
And so you're essentially banning every model and definitely
23:05
all the more powerful
23:06
SPEAKER_00: models coming.
23:08
after this and so that seemed rather dramatic and they didn't
23:12
give Anthropik very
23:13
much time to fix this and they were immediately leaking all of
23:18
this to Axios and
23:20
Politico who were in my estimation the government was leaking
23:25
all this and in my
23:26
estimation you know those first sort of like normal when this
23:29
happens on a juicy
23:31
story like that that's being leaked is the first stories that
23:34
come out are usually
23:35
SPEAKER_00: tilted to whoever's doing the leaking and so
23:38
SPEAKER_00: These first ones were very pro-government, I thought.
23:40
And they're talking about Dario's on some wellness retreat and
23:44
was unavailable.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: He was not on a wellness retreat.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: And so it struck me, yeah.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had a couple scotches when I was tweeting.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: It was probably a little more active than I would normally be.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: It struck me as...
24:03
A little bit petty and retribution for Anthropic not letting
24:09
the Department of War
24:10
SPEAKER_00: use its models the way the Department of War would like to.
24:14
So there's clearly this confrontation where Dario,
24:18
the CEO of Anthropic,
24:20
is very opinionated.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: He has decided.
24:27
How he thinks this technology should be rolled out and he's
24:30
gonna like stick to his
24:31
guns and it's not really exactly how the feds would like it to
24:35
be and I think they
24:36
would like to control this stuff and so I thought they were
24:40
making an example of
24:42
SPEAKER_01: anthropic really yeah and when you told me this take I think
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Before you tweeted it, I was like, nah, man.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, Anthropics sort of asked for this.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: They said, for so, so long, people are going to build powerful models.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: The government should intervene.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: We should have some controls.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: And then they said that this is our biggest and most dangerous model.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And then they released a version of it, and then it got banned.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: So I thought, well, sort of just desserts.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: And,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: if there's a security vulnerability,
25:11
SPEAKER_01: it makes sense for the government to step in.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: And then...
25:15
I saw your tweets and someone was like why is your boss so mean
25:21
and then you
25:21
explained your position I was like oh that does make sense
25:24
because there's nothing
25:25
I hate more than like sort of the press release spinned as a
25:30
scoop like that's just
25:31
not real journalism sorry it's you have some sort of scrutiny
25:35
over your information
25:36
because you're really if you're such a big publication that
25:40
everyone's reading it's
25:41
really important that you're leading the narrative and so
25:43
you're leading the
25:43
SPEAKER_01: narrative for who?
25:45
SPEAKER_01: So once I saw your perspective, I was like, okay, I get it.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And ever since then,
25:51
SPEAKER_01: seeing the amount of fealty required from Anthropic,
25:54
SPEAKER_01: one of the leading AI labs,
25:57
SPEAKER_01: bow to us.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, we're going to punish you in a major way.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: That's just fundamentally very gross.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I have lots of thoughts on that.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the precedent setting is bad.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe Anthropic will be the only sort of
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Person on this current administration's shit list.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: But if we're at some situation where the government,
26:19
SPEAKER_00: whenever they change their whims and they're just,
26:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:22
SPEAKER_00: like right now,
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Anthropic really has clearly taken the lead.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: You can argue they're pushing US technology forward as a whole.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Is this really who we want?
26:32
Do you want the government to just because they're cranky or
26:35
don't like the way you
26:36
SPEAKER_00: do your business to be able to shut that down?
26:38
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
26:40
SPEAKER_00: for everybody else, even someone like Elon.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: look,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
26:42
Elon's been at Trump's side and then they've been screaming at
26:47
each other on
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Twitter and then they've come,
26:49
you just don't know which way the winds are gonna blow and
26:53
who's gonna be the
26:53
SPEAKER_00: favored nation.
26:55
I just think it's a horrible way to,
26:57
first,
26:57
technology is so important and that
27:00
Like there will be a model where something like this is like an
27:04
actual concern and
27:05
you don't really want to do this play acting I cried wolf thing
27:09
on the way to that
27:10
SPEAKER_01: moment I think but Well Anthropic kind of did that did they not?
27:14
No I mean they're not I don't think their hands are like
27:16
totally clean on this
27:18
first but you know it's because people give them a ton of grief
27:22
for being doomers
27:24
SPEAKER_00: and maybe being
27:26
SPEAKER_00: People will say, oh, you say that mythos is so dangerous.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: This is like a PR tactic.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: That's what Sam said on our pod.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: To make your models seem really cool.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: I tend, just having spent time with them, I could be naive.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I tend to think they genuinely believe that
27:42
SPEAKER_00: You could,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: I think rational people could be divided on,
27:45
SPEAKER_00: are they going about this the right way?
27:46
I think they fully believe they are making a good faith effort
27:51
to go about this in
27:52
SPEAKER_00: the right way.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: What they've determined to be the right way.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't really think this is a PR thing.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: I think they...
27:59
I agree with you and I think people's sort of like criticism of
28:03
it is like okay
28:04
your way is the only way I sort of experienced this this is
28:08
dumb but I experienced
28:09
this with my first effective altruist the first time meeting
28:12
somebody who had just
28:14
decided you know in this issue a group was facing like this is
28:18
the only morally
28:19
SPEAKER_01: correct way and I will not deviate from it and it was
28:22
I disagreed greatly with it but there was no swaying them off
28:25
that track and I was
28:26
like is this is this the sort of rationale to approach these
28:29
problems with I don't
28:31
like the like lack of flexibility and stubbornness however I do
28:35
think Anthropic has
28:35
really shown some flexibility in this issue and I think it was
28:39
David Sachs I did
28:40
not read that full tweet essay from him but he I'm not reading
28:45
all that but he said
28:47
something along the lines of like they had the chance to fix it
28:49
when we asked and
28:50
SPEAKER_01: they didn't
28:51
SPEAKER_01: But my understanding is from your experience, they found out that day.
28:55
How are you supposed to fix a major model and fix what in just
28:59
like hours?
29:00
I think it was in like 90 minutes and then,
29:02
which is my read on this as a reporter,
29:07
which I think is pretty spot on because I've like gone through
29:09
these things many
29:10
times you can tell the government wanted to leak this to the
29:13
press and have this
29:13
play out in the press which is not really how I would think you
29:16
would go about this
29:17
if they have some hole in that you want to fix you would try to
29:22
keep those like
29:23
under wraps for as long as possible give all the various
29:25
parties time to try to
29:26
like adjust and fix things it seemed like they leaked it
29:31
immediately and then you
29:32
SPEAKER_00: could tell what's going on because first they come out and they say
29:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, this has jailbreaks, we're concerned.
29:39
And then it was like 12 hours later,
29:41
they're like,
29:41
oh,
29:41
also China has had access to this.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And that was actually the inciting incident that led to this.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: It was like, if that's true, they would have leaked the China thing
29:52
SPEAKER_00: from the get-go because their original position was pretty weak.
29:56
It's like Dumb,
29:56
Dumb and Dumber in the mafia kneecapping you,
30:00
just with rubber chickens.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: What is happening?
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And then Pete Hegsath is issuing tweets where he's spiking the football.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: He's just like, Anthropics sucks.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad we're doing this.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, dude, we need the... We're all on the same team, man.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's at that point where you can tell this is like a...
30:19
SPEAKER_00: This is a game.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: And then subsequently,
30:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell you this,
30:22
but I talked to a couple people who were way more savvy on the
30:27
government than I
30:28
SPEAKER_00: am.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, their contention was that there's factions within Washington now.
30:33
They said that Besant is actually quite sympathetic to
30:38
Anthropic and was trying to
30:39
SPEAKER_00: handle this in a pretty pragmatic way.
30:43
Way and then there's people like Hegseth who are who are not at
30:47
all you know
30:47
they're so upset about Anthropics past decisions and behavior
30:52
that that this is
30:53
sort of the problem is that Anthropics kind of like caught
30:56
between these two worlds
30:58
and the other whole thing was that there seemed to be this
31:00
technical debate and
31:01
SPEAKER_00: there was nobody like actually inside the government that
31:05
could understand or be explained to the technical merits in a
31:09
way that you would
31:10
SPEAKER_00: know about solving this problem.
31:12
And then there's the whole thing that like Amazon seems to be
31:14
the one that ratted Anthropic out.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's not the right way to put it, but the flag is.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
31:19
SPEAKER_01: really they did,
31:20
SPEAKER_01: but that makes,
31:21
SPEAKER_01: that narrative has not really made a ton of sense to me.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we discussed it,
31:25
SPEAKER_01: but you know,
31:25
some people said that makes sense because Anthropic is gaining
31:29
too much power and
31:29
SPEAKER_01: it's a power play,
31:31
SPEAKER_01: but
31:32
Amazon was like the first and maybe largest investment when
31:35
Anthropic first got
31:36
started so that makes like zero sense to me Super uncool guys I
31:41
think there's one
31:42
there's probably one scenario where Amazon because they run
31:45
these massive data
31:46
centers and has to like keep track of top like flag to the
31:51
government like oh hey
31:53
We've Seen This Issue And Then This Just Spiraled Into This
31:56
This Thing You Know
31:57
What I Mean They Might Not Have Been Like Hey You Need To Shut
32:00
Anthropic Down Just
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Sort Of Like Hey You Should Be Aware Of This I Had One This Is Way On The
32:06
Conspiracy Theory And Somebody Was Suggesting To Me Amazon Is
32:09
Trying To Make It
32:11
Where They Almost Have To Acquire Anthropic Oh My God To And
32:15
This Is This Was Them
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Sort Of Putting
32:18
SPEAKER_00: pieces in play to force this hand.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: That's a crazy conspiracy theory.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: I think Dario would commit step of you before letting that happen.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
32:28
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And then in the big picture, this is something that I always harp on.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
32:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:37
the government has found itself in this position because
32:42
companies now do things
32:44
SPEAKER_00: that the government used to do and that the government cannot
32:48
to itself you know there's a world where obviously like the
32:50
Manhattan Project was
32:52
government run and and we could control the government could
32:55
control what happened
32:56
to these weapons what happened to this type of technology in
32:59
this particular case
33:00
the government cannot match what these venture backed and and
33:04
public companies can
33:06
do in terms of the size of their data centers the the abilities
33:09
of their AI
33:10
SPEAKER_00: technology and so they are in this position where um
33:15
SPEAKER_00: is probably uncomfortable.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of SpaceX when all the Ukraine...
33:20
There was this moment where Elon was going to turn off Starlink
33:23
in Ukraine,
33:25
SPEAKER_00: and so the government was really upset about that,
33:27
but you were totally beholden to Elon's whims on this issue
33:31
because the government
33:31
SPEAKER_00: didn't have their own space internet,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: which they could have built if they...
33:37
Part of this is this interesting moment where the companies
33:40
have more money and
33:43
I also think we reached this point where the government is so
33:46
ineffective like I
33:48
don't think it could actually build some of the stuff even if
33:52
it put billions of
33:52
dollars and energy behind it and so it's kind of like by being
33:56
pathetic that you're
33:58
now at the mercy of how this plays out yeah I don't know it's
34:02
gonna be weird
34:03
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be weird.
34:04
I don't think the government should have such control over
34:09
models in a petty debate.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: We have had so much time,
34:14
SPEAKER_01: it feels like,
34:16
to set guardrails and actual productive laws and regulations
34:21
for AI companies.
34:22
And it feels like 2023,
34:24
people were saying,
34:24
we're running out of time to do this.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And now it's 2026.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: And our answer is to just
34:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, like flat out banned somebody who's not bending the knee.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: And then all the AI people went to a summit with Trump.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm not super caught up in what they discussed.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: But oh, and then also an executive for Anthropic.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you saw this in Korea.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: They're doing some sort of panel or talk,
34:48
SPEAKER_01: and they said that they're optimistic that in the coming days,
34:51
SPEAKER_01: Fable will come back.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: So maybe by the time we publish this, Fable will be back.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: But I sort of doubt it.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very strange.
34:59
And I'm sure China,
35:02
there's just times when they don't have to do anything.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: We just do it to ourselves.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: So if we are, people seem pretty convinced.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
35:13
SPEAKER_00: if Mythos and Fable weren't already there,
35:17
SPEAKER_00: that the next turn of these models,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
35:21
SPEAKER_00: it's only gonna get more dramatic.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you have people
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Bernie Sanders and others calling to nationalize.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how this is all going to play out.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: This is wild.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: It's wild.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: When I first saw the news,
35:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
35:34
maybe it's just an overreaction to having covered AI for so
35:37
long and watched this
35:38
SPEAKER_01: play out for so long,
35:39
SPEAKER_01: but my heart sank.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh, they're actually doing it.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: They're banning their first AI model and it's this one?
35:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:47
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36:22
SPEAKER_00: More from AI land.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Can I be a nerd for a minute?
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Please, I would love that.
36:28
We didn't cover this last time we chatted,
36:30
but okay,
36:32
people,
36:33
bear with me for one second.
36:34
So DeepMind and a company formerly known as CCP Games and now
36:39
known as Fenris have
36:41
SPEAKER_00: created this partnership.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Fenris, aka CCP Games, makes EVE Online, which if you are a nerd.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Have you played that?
36:51
SPEAKER_00: I've played it a bit.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a very hard game.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: The barrier to entry is extremely high.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: So it's set in space.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this game's been around for about 20 years.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating for so many reasons.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: So I've been interested in it more as like a reporter than a player.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: But you're set in space.
37:11
It's like just barren emptiness and you have to kind of like
37:14
find a way to
37:16
SPEAKER_00: survive in this wasteland.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: It came out of Iceland.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: It makes a lot of sense.
37:21
Iceland itself is quite like the game,
37:25
this wasteland where you have to eke out a living.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: And the game has always been fascinating to me because,
37:32
so unlike many of these multiplayer type games that are split
37:38
among lots of
37:39
SPEAKER_00: servers,
37:40
SPEAKER_00: so you're not always playing with the same people.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: You're in different worlds.
37:44
you get cordoned off wherever you happen to log on eve has
37:47
always been one universe
37:48
so everybody since the dawn of time of playing this game has
37:51
inhabited the same
37:52
universe and there's only about i think there's like three or
37:55
four hundred thousand
37:56
people that play this like like super often and so it's been
38:02
going on for like 20
38:03
years and there's this incredible um society that's emerged in
38:07
there so you've got
38:08
SPEAKER_00: like part of this is you can
38:11
SPEAKER_00: You can survive in Eve in all sorts of different ways.
38:13
You could choose to be like a general commanding armies and you
38:16
could build a
38:17
SPEAKER_00: spaceship and outfit it.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: There's some people who just never battle.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: They never do the whole fighting spaceship thing.
38:23
They are like traders on a planet and they mine goods and they
38:27
do like arbitrage
38:29
SPEAKER_00: and sell these goods.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: And there's this crazy economy within the game.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And, and then there's
38:36
SPEAKER_00: because it's been in the same universe for 20 years.
38:38
People write like all the myths up in like actual physical
38:41
books of the great
38:42
SPEAKER_00: battles that took place.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it's this really unique sort of phenomenon.
38:48
I've been to Iceland for this like Eve Fest,
38:51
people come from all over the world and the game.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: It sort of has, it doesn't really have like rules.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: It's like sort of set in motion.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And then the players have some influence on
39:02
SPEAKER_00: how that world is pushed in different directions.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: So like at Eve Fest,
39:07
SPEAKER_00: they elect these like space politicians and they meet with CCP Games,
39:11
SPEAKER_00: now Fenris,
39:12
SPEAKER_00: to like sort of discuss what they would like to see happen.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And anyway,
39:16
so the point of this is like it is in some ways the closest
39:19
thing we have to a like
39:20
SPEAKER_00: simulated world.
39:22
And like a very rich one with like they have an economist that
39:26
has to deal with
39:27
SPEAKER_00: inflation and all these things happening in the simulated world.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And so DeepMind
39:33
DeepMind put this huge investment into EVE Online and has
39:38
created this like
39:39
partnership around them to study this world as like a way to
39:44
inform their future AI
39:45
models and what I find fascinating about this is this was like
39:49
always Demis' this
39:50
SPEAKER_00: was like his goal was like he's always dreamed of
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Creating the super rich AI and really building it off of video games.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
40:01
SPEAKER_00: the Go stuff,
40:02
SPEAKER_00: all of that,
40:02
SPEAKER_00: it really started as like,
40:04
we're going to go game by game until we get to the most
40:07
sophisticated games.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And if we can model those with AI, then we've kind of like done it.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And then
40:13
Transformers and LLMs came along and they were way more brute
40:17
force it was just buy
40:19
a ton of computers you just buy more computers more data and it
40:24
was just very crude
40:25
compared to like what Demis' vision of what this technology
40:29
should be so I feel
40:30
like this is like a he's kind of going back to his roots and I
40:35
can't tell how big
40:36
of a deal to make of all this but I feel like they've created
40:39
this partnership and
40:41
SPEAKER_00: have almost this like
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Magical Petri dish now to experiment on.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: And so this happened a couple weeks ago.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: People in gaming world were like paying a lot of attention to this,
40:52
SPEAKER_00: but I think other people were like,
40:53
SPEAKER_00: what the fuck is this weird?
40:55
SPEAKER_01: No, I just read about it.
40:57
I just read about it before podcasting because you said you
41:00
wanted to nerd out on it.
41:03
world models are one of the things that make my eyes sparkle I
41:06
just love hearing
41:07
about it I love the idea behind you know it just makes perfect
41:12
sense to me I'm a
41:13
broken record on this pod and generally it just makes sense
41:16
that if you want to
41:17
teach new intelligence it needs a world to learn from rather
41:22
than just being in a
41:22
SPEAKER_01: black box we don't grow up
41:24
SPEAKER_01: in a black box and learn everything we know just by people telling us.
41:28
So the way that you laid out this world is sick and it seems
41:31
like the perfect
41:32
SPEAKER_01: mechanism to test this theory.
41:34
It's crazy and in your notes you're saying so it's going to be
41:37
on an offline
41:38
version of the game where they're going to run these
41:40
experiments so it doesn't
41:41
impact the regular players and Demis personally was putting out
41:47
tweets about this.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: He was in the press release like I know this is I think this is a thing.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: I think this is
41:54
I think this is like an undercover deep deep thing that he's
41:57
into yeah and um so
42:00
funny like that you these guys there's I was in a van in
42:05
Iceland with the like
42:06
elected body of space politicians this was like 2017 maybe
42:12
something like that and
42:14
and I was hanging out with them so there's I think there was
42:16
like eight of them
42:17
SPEAKER_00: maybe and
42:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm in this van with this dude,
42:21
SPEAKER_00: he was,
42:22
SPEAKER_00: I think he was Russian,
42:23
but he lived in New York and he installed windows on
42:27
skyscrapers in New York.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: That was like his day job.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Sick.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does like for eight hours a day,
42:33
SPEAKER_00: but then he would spend,
42:34
he would spend probably even more time each evening and he
42:37
commanded an army of
42:40
SPEAKER_00: 50,000 people.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean like,
42:42
SPEAKER_00: so like his day job,
42:42
he's like window installer guy and then at night he's like the
42:47
CEO of a huge,
42:50
Company Managing All These People There Was Another Guy He Was
42:54
A Car Mechanic In
42:55
England And He Was Kind Of Doing The Same Thing With Like A
42:57
Smaller Army And
43:01
SPEAKER_00: This world is fascinating.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: And they've had,
43:03
SPEAKER_00: they have had,
43:04
they were the first video game company that I'm aware of that
43:07
did hire an economist
43:09
SPEAKER_00: because you can,
43:10
SPEAKER_00: you sort of sell what amount to,
43:13
SPEAKER_00: obviously you can use real world money to buy credits in the game,
43:18
but then these credits end up taking on like their own economic
43:22
value within the
43:23
SPEAKER_00: game.
43:23
And so you will get things like inflation and certain things
43:26
will become valuable
43:27
SPEAKER_00: and they have to like,
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Control all this stuff and then people would hire,
43:30
they would like hire people to play their characters and it was
43:34
like affecting,
43:36
SPEAKER_00: anyway,
43:36
SPEAKER_00: it's fascinating.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: No, you know, does a pod go by without mentioning my grandpa?
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Growing up,
43:43
my favorite experience was going into my grandpa's office and
43:46
he'd be playing games
43:47
SPEAKER_01: like this.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: I was just trying to remember what it was.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: He put me on AION, A-I-O-N. Did you ever hear about that game?
43:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I was obsessed with it.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: And then Elder Scrolls Online, I used to play with him.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: What is the one with Hell's Angels people?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Diablo.
44:05
Diablo so anyways these games I would watch him play with his
44:08
headset and have his
44:09
little team and he still plays these games to this day I have
44:13
to ask him Starcraft
44:14
I think is something uh he plays I think that was mentioned in
44:17
the announcement but
44:18
anyways um I think it's sick and it's it's funny that they're
44:22
doing it in a way
44:23
that's not going to disturb the players as they should but I
44:25
was just imagining the
44:26
mutiny that would incur from that yeah they would freak out
44:30
this stuff is like
44:31
SPEAKER_01: religious precious yeah yes so no that's
44:34
SPEAKER_01: fucking sick.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Last thought on this, just to dish out all my EVE knowledge in one go.
44:41
I think it was,
44:42
I think the game started,
44:44
okay,
44:45
these guys wanted to make a video game.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I think there were three of them,
44:48
SPEAKER_00: these three Icelanders,
44:51
SPEAKER_00: but they needed to raise money,
44:52
SPEAKER_00: and so they created a board game.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: I think it was called Hedgespiel,
44:56
SPEAKER_00: and it's something like Family Game or something like that,
44:59
SPEAKER_00: and
45:00
SPEAKER_00: and it worked.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: It was like 80% of the Icelandic population bought this game.
45:05
It was like everybody played it in their house and that's how
45:08
they raised money to
45:09
SPEAKER_00: then go develop EVE Online.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
45:12
And then the company was called CCP Games all these years until
45:16
this deal with
45:16
Google and they changed the name of the company to Fenris
45:21
because they were tired
45:22
SPEAKER_00: of the CCP going on.
45:24
I know I was like that's like a really unfortunate acronym I
45:27
was wondering when we
45:28
were going to address that yes yeah I ran into a satellite
45:32
integration company one
45:34
time that was called ISIS like before before ISIS happened oh
45:40
my god yeah I think
45:41
they actually still exist um okay all right that's all I have
45:45
to say I need okay so
45:47
SPEAKER_01: well uh a nice segue is Noam Shazir has gone to open AI um
45:53
SPEAKER_01: the reason I wanted to move this up is because he was a key author on the
45:56
Transformers paper uh he went to character went on to found
46:01
character AI um uh porn
46:04
bots for children sorry um and then Google bought it and well
46:09
sort of aqua hired
46:10
him and executives for like a billion or multiple billions of
46:15
dollars it was a ton
46:16
SPEAKER_01: of money um
46:18
SPEAKER_01: And then he's been tinkering there.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: From what I recall,
46:20
SPEAKER_01: he left to found character AI because Google,
46:23
he wanted to do that at Google and they wouldn't let him do it
46:25
or he was getting,
46:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
46:27
SPEAKER_01: blocked from this big dream.
46:29
So then he went back to Google and now he's going to open AI to
46:33
work on new model
46:34
SPEAKER_01: architectures,
46:35
which is interesting because we're just laying out like Demis'
46:38
grand plan that we
46:39
SPEAKER_01: think with world models and this game and GNOME has left to do whole new
46:45
SPEAKER_01: architectures for open AI.
46:46
Yeah and it's not like Noam hasn't got attention but there's
46:49
gonna be a ton of
46:50
people listening to this who probably haven't heard his name
46:52
and he's like the
46:53
transformer he's like the dude who sort of kicked off what
46:58
we've seen for the last
46:59
six years in many ways and it was OpenAI that really took some
47:05
of his thoughts and
47:07
innovations and applied all this compute to them that gave rise
47:10
to chat GPT in a
47:11
SPEAKER_00: lot of ways like Google kind of missed their own their own thing and
47:16
and then yeah like you said he left and then they paid so much
47:19
money to get him
47:19
back to kind of like revive their own AI hopes and dreams and
47:24
so it's fascinating
47:25
that he would he would go to their arch rival and like not
47:29
hurting for money so
47:30
must you would think would be going there for love of the work
47:35
or something I mean
47:36
I mean it's not yeah I mean I'm sure Google could pay him they
47:39
already gave him a
47:40
SPEAKER_00: ton of money you could pay him whatever he wants
47:42
Yeah,
47:42
you're just making me realize I don't think I've ever seen him
47:44
on stage at Google I.O.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: just flagging AI products that he's working on.
47:49
He's not been a figure at Google in the way that they just sort
47:53
of parade around
47:54
SPEAKER_01: their experts on stage.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know what opening I offered him.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: I think it's definitely for the love of the game.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: I would love to see what new architectures he's thinking of.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: Will they go the world model route?
48:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how that plays out.
48:09
and we had Jerry Toricon who was trying to do stuff like that
48:13
and he left because
48:14
he couldn't do it within OpenAI and is now at Core Automation
48:21
so he's a fellow
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Core.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Core buddy.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: He's a Core buddy but yeah this is fascinating.
48:26
When I first read the announcement of Gnome's thing on X for
48:31
some reason I saw him
48:32
going to Anthropic in my head which made more sense in my head
48:36
than OpenAI is
48:38
SPEAKER_00: really going to the
48:40
The rival,
48:41
I mean,
48:41
I guess they're all rivals in some ways,
48:42
but yeah,
48:43
I don't know.
48:43
Sometimes Anthropic seems to pick up these people in a sort of
48:47
different way.
48:47
And then OpenAI has had a pretty big exodus of talent over the
48:50
last couple of
48:51
SPEAKER_00: years,
48:51
SPEAKER_00: like very,
48:52
SPEAKER_00: very key people.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, big hire.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: Big hire.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: I sense more OpenAI models are coming soon, breaking.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: They're going to release more models probably this year.
49:03
and I'm interested to see like how GNOME would play a role in
49:07
that and I think you
49:09
know it was was it 2024 around December when we were hearing
49:12
like scaling has hit a
49:14
wall every headline scaling has hit a wall and 5.5 people had
49:19
some oh sorry excuse
49:21
SPEAKER_01: me five when five came out people were
49:23
Concerned that it wasn't you know as good as they thought it
49:26
would be maybe oh
49:27
three should have been five and people are griping about that
49:30
so I think they do
49:32
really need some juice and Noam would be the one to bring that
49:36
I forgot about the
49:37
scaling has it a wall thing that lasted for what like five
49:40
weeks it was it was I
49:42
just I can't forget it was so long that people were making this
49:45
claim it was huge
49:46
SPEAKER_01: and and
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
49:49
SPEAKER_01: in some ways I could see the argument,
49:53
SPEAKER_01: but it was just so sensationalized and drawn out and incorrect,
49:58
SPEAKER_01: honestly.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: Really incorrect.
50:00
And I remember I was in an OpenAI all hands when I think it was
50:05
the information
50:05
SPEAKER_00: drops and scaling is it a wall story.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting in there and Sam's giving a talk and Mira's there like,
50:12
SPEAKER_00: oh,
50:12
SPEAKER_00: we're barging forward doing this and that.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
50:16
SPEAKER_00: Where is reality?
50:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, somebody's wrong.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: It's either,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: and I'm like kind of flagging the reporters on that one,
50:23
SPEAKER_00: but there are people in the AI world who are like scaling.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Is it a wall?
50:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was really where it was coming from.
50:29
Sometimes this stuff is so funny because it's like nobody
50:33
actually knows anything.
50:34
I think it's like you keep hearing we're about to hit the
50:38
moment when the models
50:39
are just improving themselves and humans are about to be out of
50:43
the loop and I like
50:44
SPEAKER_00: fully
50:44
Buy into that some days and then some days I'm like wait we
50:47
seem to like kind of
50:49
get everything wrong on this is such a strange moment to be in
50:55
it is yeah like the
50:57
it feels like the fate of the world is hanging on these things
51:01
and that nobody
51:01
SPEAKER_00: actually really knows how it will play out yeah
51:04
I think we've sort of lost that narrative in the media like I
51:08
think people just
51:09
believe now that AI is going to keep progressing and so we
51:12
don't see that like it's
51:14
it's so over it's not going to get better now we see more of
51:17
the narrative of like
51:18
what do we do now that it's getting better all the time that is
51:20
funny I mean yeah I
51:22
mean as we're playing this through in my head as it is
51:26
hilarious like we were fully
51:29
SPEAKER_00: ChatGPT had taken off,
51:30
SPEAKER_00: everything had changed,
51:31
SPEAKER_00: then it had totally stopped,
51:33
SPEAKER_00: and now we're just in it.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it never stopped.
51:37
A common thing in the AI world is,
51:39
do you believe in a straight line on a graph?
51:43
SPEAKER_01: At a point, I think around 2003, I was like, you're right.
51:47
I'm going to stop being as skeptical that this is all going to
51:50
fail because it's
51:51
SPEAKER_01: clearly just blowing my mind every update.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: There's definitely been a change.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember if we talked about this or not, but yeah, all the...
51:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't do much politics,
51:59
but I listen to a couple political podcasts and all these folks
52:04
I like in D.C.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: were just so anti-A.I.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: It's all like it's just a bubble.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: And then they've all come around.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: You know,
52:11
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
52:13
SPEAKER_00: even if it stopped today,
52:15
SPEAKER_00: the world would be changed in some very fundamental ways.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's going to stop.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, it just stops with the government.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: It's so over again.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: We'll turn it back on.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Do we have thoughts on the Snapchat glasses?
52:32
SPEAKER_00: I only looked at them briefly.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, you would be able to nerd out about this more than anyone.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, my big hot take is that they're so unattractive.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Let's look.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: So I'll riff on this.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: They're so unattractive.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: I like wearing them.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: They're huge.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: The sides.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: They're like, it has so much computing.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, obviously.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, dude.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: and then it's priced at 2200 and... Let me see this on the screen.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, gosh.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that real?
53:10
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: There are some fake ones.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: This is a video of Evan Spiegel.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I saw some fake ones where they were mocking me.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: They actually look like, is that real?
53:21
SPEAKER_00: If that's real, that's insane.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the real one.
53:25
Somebody I saw arguing like,
53:27
yes,
53:28
they're big,
53:28
but you're kind of making a design statement.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: That, if that is real, that is... No, they're crazy.
53:34
This thing going on in the back is totally...
53:37
Talk about a product overhang.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, $2,200?
53:41
SPEAKER_00: Who's supposed to buy these?
53:44
So,
53:44
okay,
53:45
from TechCrunch,
53:47
the company's stock has just took a big hit from this.
53:51
SPEAKER_01: They think because of the price,
53:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:52
SPEAKER_01: the big concern surrounding Snap's new smart glasses is the cost,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: and it's worthy of notes.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: This is real for sure.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: He's on CNBC.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, sorry.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: Go, go, go.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: So this interview is where he talks about,
54:05
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:06
SPEAKER_01: the cost,
54:06
SPEAKER_01: and he says,
54:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:08
SPEAKER_01: they're priced like a high-end computer,
54:09
SPEAKER_01: because that's what they are.
54:10
SPEAKER_01: That is a high-end computer.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
54:14
SPEAKER_00: and so they're AR,
54:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
54:15
SPEAKER_00: I love my metaglasses,
54:17
SPEAKER_00: but I usually use the non-AR ones,
54:19
SPEAKER_00: and then I got my hands on the AR ones,
54:25
SPEAKER_00: which are bigger than the regular metaglass,
54:27
SPEAKER_00: not that fucking big,
54:29
SPEAKER_00: and I don't like the AR ones as much as I like the regular.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: When I was using it,
54:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they'd opened up the API,
54:39
SPEAKER_00: and so there really wasn't that much you could do with it,
54:41
SPEAKER_00: although they subsequently
54:44
SPEAKER_00: Wait,
54:44
SPEAKER_00: okay,
54:44
SPEAKER_00: so sorry,
54:45
SPEAKER_00: who's,
54:45
SPEAKER_00: but like Snapchat,
54:46
SPEAKER_00: people who use Snapchat are still like children,
54:48
SPEAKER_00: right?
54:48
SPEAKER_01: So that's the thing is that,
54:50
so their demographic is children and children don't often have
54:53
$2,200 to drop on
54:56
SPEAKER_01: big glasses that they'll get made fun of for at school.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean...
55:04
I saw the meta AR glasses at IO and I remember thinking those
55:08
are big and I could
55:09
not imagine wearing those but these are like the Snap ones are
55:13
comical like they're
55:14
SPEAKER_01: a gag.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: This Snap unveils new spec smart glasses after previous disasters.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the headline for the BBC.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: That's what you want.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: So Evan's clearly been this is his quest.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean he's been at this
55:33
SPEAKER_00: He wants these glasses.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: Bad.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: Stop at nothing.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm not an expert.
55:38
So here's just my hot take is that Mark Zuckerberg stole the
55:43
stories thing.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: And now Evan Spiegel is on a lifelong hunt to destroy Mark Zuckerberg.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: And this version is a little sad.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: On the glasses.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, obviously, yes, I do like these things.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm people...
56:00
some people tease me about this I don't care but it feels to me
56:05
so there is I do
56:06
think there is gonna be something here I mean I like I like
56:09
taking my so I don't
56:11
like I don't like earbuds and most people I see clearly are
56:17
fine with it I just I
56:18
SPEAKER_00: like hate them for some reason I find it really weird to do
56:21
SPEAKER_00: I like doing phone calls on my glasses.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: No, that is nice.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: The bone conduction is nice.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: It's just like way more,
56:26
it's just very comfortable and you're just kind of like walking
56:29
around doing your
56:29
SPEAKER_00: thing.
56:29
And it's surprisingly like really good at picking you up on the
56:31
other end.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Really good.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's like you can hear really clear.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Then obviously I love it for all like the video stuff we do,
56:37
SPEAKER_00: but I feel like that's a pretty niche use case for most people.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: They're usually used by perverts on the streets,
56:43
SPEAKER_01: which is why I'm afraid to wear them outside of the studio.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: Great.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: It's a thing.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: It's like poor perverts who are going up to women are like,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: hey,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: like,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:54
SPEAKER_01: will you talk to me?
56:54
SPEAKER_01: And then they post it on TikTok.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: Like that's their use case right now.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: This got awkward fast.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: Surely you knew this I did not What?
57:03
That's crazy I use mine for like filming fish cutting robots
57:06
and stuff I love like
57:09
your sort of boomer love of Ray-Bans and I don't want that to
57:12
stop but that's the
57:14
reason why I can't wear them in public I did not know this was
57:16
the class of people
57:18
SPEAKER_01: People in the comments are gonna be like how did you not know that?
57:21
I'm naive I'm just stuck in my nerdery I would prefer you to be
57:24
stuck in your nerdery
57:25
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like there is some kind of future with this stuff, I think.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: So maybe, I don't know.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: The vision,
57:34
the capability to see your surroundings and store that data and
57:38
use that data to
57:39
SPEAKER_01: train.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: And God trusting Meadow with all of that is a lot.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I trust Snapchat a bit more.
57:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
57:47
I think that's the queasiness most people feel like if I really
57:50
want something to
57:52
SPEAKER_01: be recording my day to day life,
57:54
SPEAKER_01: that is it gets to a point and neither of us are very what's the word?
57:58
SPEAKER_01: so privacy clean.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't think either of us care a ton on that regard.
58:03
But people in our day-to-day lives,
58:07
like what I'm saying with the creeps,
58:08
it's you go out.
58:10
Now,
58:10
my experience,
58:11
if I wear these,
58:13
people are like,
58:13
are you recording me?
58:14
SPEAKER_01: It gets very antagonistic very, very quickly.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
58:18
SPEAKER_01: The Snapchat version is like, look over there, but be cool about it.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: And then you have these gigantic glasses.
58:27
SPEAKER_00: Who,
58:27
SPEAKER_00: like who you,
58:29
SPEAKER_00: what age do people,
58:31
SPEAKER_00: okay,
58:31
SPEAKER_00: when we're thinking about our social media strategy,
58:34
SPEAKER_00: nobody's ever telling me like we should do stuff on Snapchat,
58:37
SPEAKER_00: like who,
58:37
SPEAKER_00: like is it still a thing or I don't even,
58:41
SPEAKER_00: who and why?
58:41
SPEAKER_01: Do your kids use it?
58:42
SPEAKER_00: No, no, this is why, so I have no, I have no frame of reference.
58:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's,
58:48
SPEAKER_01: Snapchat's never going to sponsor us.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: It's for drug dealers and horny teenagers.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: I stopped using it in college.
58:56
SPEAKER_01: I used to be in all these group chats with friends from college.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: I think my iPhone offloaded it because I haven't used it in so long,
59:03
SPEAKER_01: but it has all my Snapchat memories,
59:05
SPEAKER_01: which they recently pay-gated.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: and I don't care a ton.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: You have to pay to access your own stuff?
59:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
59:10
SPEAKER_01: this is like new of the last like this year,
59:13
but I haven't gone back to go download them all for what is it
59:16
like two bucks.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't care enough.
59:18
But yeah,
59:19
I haven't used Snapchat in so long and it's such a red flag at
59:23
the ripe age of 27.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: If someone's like add me on Snapchat, it's like, oh, you're...
59:26
SPEAKER_00: This is what I was wondering because I...
59:29
SPEAKER_00: I am old now,
59:30
SPEAKER_00: but when I see young people doing things,
59:34
SPEAKER_00: they seem to be like,
59:35
SPEAKER_00: hit me up on Insta.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: So there is some class of people that prefer Snapchat for that.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just like I said.
59:44
SPEAKER_01: And I won't say it again.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: But yes, that is exactly the class that still uses it.
59:48
SPEAKER_01: But I don't have teenagers in my life.
59:50
I mean,
59:51
my closest is my 20-year-old sister,
59:54
and she does not use Snapchat.
59:56
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: If your kids don't use it, then that's the end of my rope.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: They definitely don't.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: My son only just signed up for Instagram, one of my sons.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: That's adorable.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: And he's 17 and barely uses it.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: You have very sweet boys.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: Very sweet.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: I hope they stay that way.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: I was like, please don't get on there.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: I felt like we did really well how far we got.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know me, I'm always firing stuff up on X. I'm like,
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: I want to send it to myself.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, don't, don't send it to him.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: Don't, don't.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: Keep him here.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: X exists.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: Even though I'm being incredibly witty.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: Even though your dad is killing it over there.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're always done.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: What else we got?
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: You hung out with Dan Toomey.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: Let's do our little...
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: I love Dan.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: Dan's like...
1:00:45
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't... Well, he's...
1:00:46
with Morning Brew,
1:00:47
but he does some of the best poking fun at the tech industry.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: He's an amazing comedian and journalist, honestly.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: He was asking me about how to get scoops and I was like,
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: dude,
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: you just sort of,
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: you do it forever.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: But no, he's incredible.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: So I did a video with Dan Toomey.
1:01:04
He was in San Francisco and he had messaged me like a month ago
1:01:07
about like,
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: do you want to do a segment with us on being a woman in San Francisco?
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: Because we heard there's no women.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: And
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: So like, but not like a deep journalistic series.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: Just making fun of it really.
1:01:20
And they came to my apartment,
1:01:21
him and his camera guy,
1:01:23
and we just sat on my couch.
1:01:24
And oh my gosh,
1:01:26
I can't imagine what footage is going to come out of that.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, because I was trying to be funny.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_01: We talk about dating.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: His funniest joke,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: oh,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: I'll sell him out a little bit,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: was when you go on a date in San Francisco,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: who pays?
1:01:39
you or the company you guys are expensing from that was
1:01:42
hilarious um but yeah so I
1:01:45
recorded with Dan Toomey be on the lookout for that or don't
1:01:48
because I don't know
1:01:49
how ridiculous I'm gonna look but um what else has been up well
1:01:53
and he's a stand-up
1:01:54
right yeah he does stand up in New York oh yeah yeah oh no he's
1:01:57
like touring around
1:01:58
his website is up to date um he's fucking hilarious I mean I
1:02:04
don't even think like
1:02:05
I mean he's definitely taking the piss out of the tech industry
1:02:08
but I don't even I
1:02:11
some of the thin-skinned tech people I'm sure would be annoyed
1:02:14
by it but it's like
1:02:15
it's it's pretty good no it's really funny it's really funny
1:02:18
it's not cheap shots
1:02:19
it's like genuinely funny sorry thank that's what I was trying
1:02:22
to get to yes yeah
1:02:24
not cheap shots uh no it was hilarious he just explored San
1:02:26
Francisco I think he
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: went to Alamo Square Park and talked to women about dating um
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: He's exploring effective altruism.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to see it, but he was really nice.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: It was awesome to talk to him.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: We geeked out about tech being super online and all that jazz.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: Other than that, so our life updates, got my COVID vaccine.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: So I am low energy, which Ashlee hates.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I'm low energy, he's like, are you okay?
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: Are you okay?
1:02:54
SPEAKER_00: I was like, let me find one of my friends to inject you.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: I need an IV and a peptide stat, dude.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: That shit killed me.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: I had forgotten what COVID felt like and it killed me.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: And then I went to the Matrix and got uploaded and felt all bad.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: And it had four old fashions and then felt a lot better.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: That's why I was like,
1:03:14
we'll counteract this vaccine with an old fashion and get you
1:03:18
to where you need to
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: get up.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_01: Four old fashions later, I'm not even hungover.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: I feel great.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: I feel amazing.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: So more drinking on the horizon.
1:03:26
We have the World Cup and Ashley's country beat my country
1:03:31
recently,
1:03:32
which is annoying.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:03:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm a mess though,
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: because I can just bandwagon wherever I want between South Africa,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_00: Australia,
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: the United States.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: Lucky you.
1:03:41
although not really a huge winner among any of those three but
1:03:45
but seem to be doing
1:03:46
better so far yeah I just have turkey in the states but a
1:03:50
friend of the pod Jaden
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: Atlas he's very Australian and it's Aussies versus U.S.
1:03:57
on Friday we were supposed to record this on Friday but Ashley
1:04:00
was like hey bud I
1:04:01
was like I'm gonna be need to be drinking during that time and
1:04:04
uh yeah the soccer
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: ruse which is so adorable it's uh sort of pathetic but
1:04:10
but I'm gonna be I'm probably gonna be drinking with Jaden
1:04:11
because I was drinking
1:04:12
with him during the turkey Aussie game and uh yeah that's what
1:04:16
I plan to do on
1:04:17
Friday all right you gotta say Aussie Aussie yeah not Aussie
1:04:20
yeah oh whatever no
1:04:22
I'm gonna have to that one's gonna have to stick let me let me
1:04:27
call Shoto and Jaden
1:04:29
real quick they're gonna back me up on this I promise I promise
1:04:32
yeah no you gotta
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: be it's Aussie Aussie
1:04:35
Ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:38
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:41
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:45
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:47
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:51
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:52
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:54
ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy ozzy
1:05:04
SPEAKER_00: over here at Levi's Stadium right by my house.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how was that?
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: The traffic.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: I haven't gone.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that close.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: Fair.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_00: But it's always a cool time of the year.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_00: The U.S. team looks like they might be legit.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_00: Probably by the time this airs,
1:05:23
the Australians might have handed them their ass and all the
1:05:27
hopes and dreams will
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: be gone.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: Although, okay, while we're on sports.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_00: I must do this.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: Tennis time.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: Tennis time.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_00: So I watched the full four episodes of the Rafa documentary.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: It was really good.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: There's the sports.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: Is Rafa the one that's kind of angry as a person?
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_00: Rafa is a sweet gentleman.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: Are you thinking of Novak Djokovic?
1:05:51
SPEAKER_01: The one that like, yeah, breaks the rack.
1:05:53
Like I watched a tennis documentary where he just loves to
1:05:56
break that racket and
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: just gets so mad.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not Rafa.
1:05:59
No Nick Kyrgios would be like the biggest racket breaker I can
1:06:04
think of or oh did
1:06:05
you watch the you watched the you know that Netflix series
1:06:08
where yeah the they
1:06:10
follow the other but you were watching Daniel Medvedev that's
1:06:14
him yeah he's Russian
1:06:15
he that was like he he's not like notorious for that he goes
1:06:19
through little bouts
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: where he gets upset yeah and Alexander Zverev a little everything
1:06:25
that one was weird I think it was called Breakpoint yeah yeah
1:06:28
and they made Danil
1:06:30
out to be like the bad guy in that series but he's actually
1:06:33
like incredibly loved
1:06:35
and super fun and has a great personality that was a weird
1:06:38
choice no it was Nick it
1:06:39
was this guy Nick Kyrgios yeah yeah yeah so he's an Aussie and
1:06:43
oh I see he's he's
1:06:44
kind of like the bad boy of tennis okay so it's not Rafa what
1:06:47
happened with Rafa no
1:06:48
SPEAKER_00: god Rafa is a saint um
1:06:51
Rafael Nadal you you don't know who Rafael Nadal is no dude I
1:06:54
don't follow tennis
1:06:55
whatsoever like you know who Roger Federer is oh my god oh god
1:07:01
we have a lot of
1:07:01
work to do dude okay Rafael Nadal is Spanish he is considered
1:07:07
in the top three best
1:07:09
tennis players of all time with Roger Federer and Novak
1:07:11
Djokovic he is a he's famed
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: for his work ethic his um
1:07:19
SPEAKER_00: competitive spirit.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_00: I have, I will now brag, I have met Rafa.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_00: I interviewed him at Larry Ellison's.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, so Larry Ellison owns this tournament called Indian Wells and
1:07:35
SPEAKER_00: There used to be a club, a golf club called Porcupine Creek.
1:07:39
And Larry Ellison bought this entire golf club and turned it
1:07:42
into his house.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_00: So he's got an 18-hole golf course.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: He's got his own tennis courts.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_00: He's like moved into like whatever used to be the clubhouse.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: Not solving the matrix.
1:07:53
And when Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer would come into town
1:07:57
for the tournament,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: they would live at Larry Ellison's compound.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_00: And so I did a story for Business Week.
1:08:04
Larry bought this tournament and it was like a really big deal
1:08:07
because the US was
1:08:09
about to lose it to a foreign country and Larry stepped in and
1:08:13
then he subsequently
1:08:13
put so much money into it people say it's like the best
1:08:17
tournament in the world and
1:08:18
it's like basically on par with the Grand Slams and all this
1:08:21
stuff and anyway so I
1:08:22
was doing a story on all this Larry taking over this tournament
1:08:26
and um it was like
1:08:27
SPEAKER_00: one of my brilliant uh um
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: moves to use my large ass as a magazine writer to go hang out in a tennis
1:08:36
SPEAKER_00: tournament for a week.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I was interviewing Rafa for the story at Larry Ellison's house.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_00: And then he's got a, he had a tennis cabana.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: So he's had three courts and then this like,
1:08:48
SPEAKER_00: this cabana was like bigger than my actual house,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_00: literally.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I go in before Rafa got there, I went to use the restroom and
1:08:58
and Larry had like the fanciest Toto toilets I've ever seen in
1:09:01
the restroom and
1:09:02
then I turn and then obviously I'm a tennis nerd and I turn and
1:09:06
there's this
1:09:08
cupboard full of Rafa's rackets like I immediately recognized
1:09:13
them because they're
1:09:14
yellow and they're all very distinctive and I was just like I
1:09:18
mean there were so
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: many I'm like I
1:09:20
can clearly take one of these and no one will notice if I just
1:09:24
borrow one of these.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_01: Just like a tennis racket.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_00: Just hiding it, yes, yes.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_00: No one will notice.
1:09:32
And then I was kind of like hanging out for a minute and then
1:09:34
Rafa came in and he's
1:09:36
SPEAKER_00: like,
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: had no handlers.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, can I make you a coffee?
1:09:41
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what do you mean?
1:09:42
SPEAKER_00: There were literally two butlers.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't need a coffee.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_00: You definitely don't need to make me a coffee.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_00: He really wanted me to drink something.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_00: He's like, how about some of my coconut water?
1:09:54
SPEAKER_00: And he was so polite.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: He was a nice guy.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_00: We chatted for like an hour.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: I actually kind of controlled myself and didn't fangirl out.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: Is he Aussie?
1:10:04
SPEAKER_00: No, he's Spanish, but he's like, he's...
1:10:08
There's these people,
1:10:08
you know,
1:10:09
they always told me you're heroes or whatever.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, he was very nice in our interview.
1:10:12
And then for that whole week,
1:10:14
I had this press pass,
1:10:15
which is awesome at Indian Wells.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_00: I got to just like be where the players eat lunch and like,
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: and I would just watch him.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_00: He would go get sushi from the thing.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_00: He knew all the people's names.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have people fawning over him.
1:10:28
He just went wherever he was doing his thing and was totally
1:10:32
down to earth.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: This comes through in the documentary.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_00: The documentary is really well done.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_00: A lot of these days with professional athletes in particular,
1:10:41
SPEAKER_00: they become the producer on the documentary and it's like you never know.
1:10:47
what store yeah you're getting this this sanitized version of
1:10:50
their story because
1:10:51
they're essentially controlling it whereas like Agassi right
1:10:54
now Apple's doing a
1:10:56
doc on him I think he Apple basically like paid him to do a
1:11:02
documentary and then he
1:11:03
goes and like finds the team to do his own film which is do
1:11:08
what we do it's a bit
1:11:09
weird we try to keep we keep the journalism standards high you
1:11:14
know and like like
1:11:15
SPEAKER_00: when we did the Brian
1:11:16
SPEAKER_00: Documentary is like I can mean and Chris Smith the director we controlled
1:11:20
everything you know what I mean and same thing I can't imagine
1:11:23
doing it like Daily
1:11:24
Mail style where they pay for that's crazy right it is weird so
1:11:28
my understanding is
1:11:29
the Rafa doc was not like that and he actually yeah and he had
1:11:33
this line I saw him
1:11:34
being interviewed by Andy Roddick another tennis player about
1:11:38
the documentary and
1:11:39
he was like look you know at some point he's like either you're
1:11:43
not going to do it
1:11:43
SPEAKER_00: or you're just going to do it right and just
1:11:45
deal with the consequences whether they're good or bad but like
1:11:48
you just kind of go
1:11:50
all in and I recommend this to all subjects of documentaries if
1:11:55
you're gonna do it
1:11:56
just you know trust the process a bit and you might not like
1:12:01
everything about it
1:12:02
but I think I would obviously argue there's an authenticity and
1:12:06
realness that comes
1:12:07
SPEAKER_00: through and it's gonna make a better
1:12:09
that's what I love watching like if I don't I don't understand
1:12:13
the ins and outs of
1:12:14
any of these sports but I love like or documentary or otherwise
1:12:17
love seeing like
1:12:18
sort of peak authenticity and sort of greatness and craft and
1:12:22
you know that's gonna
1:12:24
if either of us were in a like a documentary subject we're not
1:12:28
perfect humans
1:12:29
there's gonna be some angles you don't like but if you're
1:12:32
authentic and yeah if you
1:12:33
do it right and you approach it open with an open mind it's a
1:12:36
it's tricky because
1:12:37
SPEAKER_00: there are
1:12:38
SPEAKER_00: There are arguments against everything we've just been saying,
1:12:41
SPEAKER_00: which is that whole Michael Jordan,
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: what is it,
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: the last dance that came out during COVID on the Chicago Bulls.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_00: Michael Jordan was the producer on that.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_00: And,
1:12:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:12:53
some people would argue it's like one of the best sports
1:12:56
documentaries of all time.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_00: The Beckhams, did you watch the David Beckham?
1:12:59
SPEAKER_01: I did.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_00: So he was a producer on that.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_00: That was pretty good.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, I don't think you saw...
1:13:06
You didn't see what some people might argue is like a dark side
1:13:08
of David or like
1:13:09
SPEAKER_00: his flaw,
1:13:09
SPEAKER_00: but they were open.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that documentary was great because they're both so hot.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't care about anything else.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, Posh Spice and David Beckham.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's where the journalism debate is like, it's a hotness.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: If you're hot enough, we can...
1:13:27
I don't know if I need real journalism about Posh Spice and
1:13:30
David Beckham uh but
1:13:32
okay that is the other question it's like it's like do I need
1:13:35
to know like does any
1:13:39
you know obviously if they were doing some horrendous shit and
1:13:42
it's like really
1:13:43
informing the story but it's like do I need to know when David
1:13:45
Beckham like like
1:13:46
yelled at someone for like a thing I don't know no that's not
1:13:51
why people are
1:13:51
watching that don't care yeah so it is weird there is there are
1:13:54
these like
1:13:57
SPEAKER_00: The whole business has gotten very strange.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: This like used to never happen.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_00: The line was always very clear.
1:14:04
You were the subject of this thing and you had no financial
1:14:07
anything and you had no
1:14:08
final cut and it was just getting made about you and you were
1:14:12
agreeing to it and
1:14:13
SPEAKER_00: then most of these celebrity athlete,
1:14:18
SPEAKER_00: singer,
1:14:19
SPEAKER_00: actor,
1:14:20
SPEAKER_00: all that stuff.
1:14:20
The Michael Jackson movie that came out in theaters was also
1:14:23
like a Jackson estate production.
1:14:26
and we saw like the Prince one is the most famous where they
1:14:29
spent years working on
1:14:31
SPEAKER_00: this documentary.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_00: People who've seen it say it's incredible,
1:14:34
but the Prince estate has blocked it and is like never gonna
1:14:37
see the light of day.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_00: And I just find some of this stuff like tragic, yeah.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: So the Rafa doc was not like sort of him yelling at people?
1:14:48
No,
1:14:48
and I don't think he does that anyway,
1:14:50
but it was,
1:14:51
he was,
1:14:52
well,
1:14:53
so the
1:14:54
Most tension is his uncle was the one who really trained him
1:14:59
and his uncle clearly
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: is a psychopath in a way that some people would argue you have to be to
1:15:09
have someone achieve this sort of success and other people
1:15:11
would argue is way too far.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_01: Tends to be the case.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:15:14
SPEAKER_01: you played tennis your whole life,
1:15:15
SPEAKER_01: but that tends to be the case for the greats of tennis.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_01: Like they have some father figure who's breaking their kneecaps over it.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_00: Like Agassi, Nadal, all these things.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_00: There are people who haven't had that happen and they achieve success.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
1:15:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:15:29
SPEAKER_00: that's the tension in the dark,
1:15:30
SPEAKER_00: like Rafael Nadal and his family,
1:15:32
SPEAKER_00: and they're all sort of like debating.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_00: But,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_00: Rafa comes out,
1:15:36
SPEAKER_00: he's like,
1:15:36
SPEAKER_00: no,
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: this is sort of what I needed,
1:15:38
SPEAKER_00: and maybe,
1:15:39
because he ends up having this just tremendous amount of
1:15:43
injuries over 20 years,
1:15:44
SPEAKER_00: and he's like,
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: maybe all this contributed to that,
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: but like,
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: we'll never know,
1:15:49
SPEAKER_00: or maybe it was just always gonna happen,
1:15:51
SPEAKER_01: and I don't know.
1:15:52
SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
1:15:52
SPEAKER_00: so they're pretty open about all that dysfunction or whatever,
1:15:55
SPEAKER_00: the tension in it,
1:15:57
SPEAKER_00: and yeah,
1:15:57
SPEAKER_00: and it was good.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_00: My wife, who is like not into sports,
1:16:03
watch the whole thing mostly to like keep practicing her
1:16:06
Spanish which is getting
1:16:07
quite good but she was in tears at the end wow yeah okay I'm
1:16:10
gonna watch this yeah
1:16:11
when I'm off Friday it's pretty good I got a signed shirt from
1:16:15
Rafa in my house
1:16:16
SPEAKER_01: whoa I love him uh any other big Ashley updates what have you been up to
1:16:21
I went fishing with a robot from this company called Shinke
1:16:25
Systems just two days ago.
1:16:27
SPEAKER_00: We went out to Morro Bay, which is like central California coast.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_00: And it was pretty cool.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_00: So this this robot does.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to look it up while we're talking.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_01: Ashlee sent nonstop videos of whales and sharks and the like.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_00: We saw so many.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_00: So there's this technique for killing a fish called the Ikejime method.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_00: And basically you catch the fish,
1:16:51
you try to jab it in the brain as quickly as possible and then
1:16:55
slit its gills to
1:16:57
SPEAKER_00: drain the blood.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_00: And so they've been doing this in Japan forever.
1:17:01
SPEAKER_00: And the theory is that you're going to end up with way,
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: that it's like more humane.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: I think when you're being nice to animals, it's still humane.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_00: And then...
1:17:12
SPEAKER_00: And then you end up with better meat because otherwise...
1:17:16
SPEAKER_00: Shocked or what?
1:17:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, the fish just, they...
1:17:20
SPEAKER_00: This is a pretty brutal bulk business.
1:17:22
So they usually just catch tons of fish and more or less like
1:17:24
they're like
1:17:25
suffocating on the boat for hours until they get dealt with and
1:17:29
put into ice.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_00: And so we all hear the same stories.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_00: Your body fills with all these stress hormones and chemicals and...
1:17:36
SPEAKER_00: Well,
1:17:36
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
1:17:36
SPEAKER_00: it's like unpleasant and then fills with all the...
1:17:40
SPEAKER_01: Then you become less yummy.
1:17:41
SPEAKER_00: Right, like way less yummy.
1:17:43
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is like Japan will,
1:17:48
SPEAKER_00: okay,
1:17:49
even California restaurants will not use California fish for
1:17:52
the highest grade
1:17:53
SPEAKER_00: sushi because they're not killed in this method.
1:17:57
SPEAKER_00: So like we have,
1:17:58
SPEAKER_00: California does most,
1:17:59
SPEAKER_00: there's tons of the fishing for the U.S.
1:18:02
SPEAKER_00: or even up to Alaska and
1:18:05
in America even American restaurants will not use that because
1:18:08
it's it's yeah the
1:18:10
quality is not supposed to be as good and then we um so they
1:18:13
created a robot that
1:18:14
does this I mean you can do it by hand there's like a lot of
1:18:17
fish yeah pretty
1:18:18
dangerous doesn't scale you have to like hold it in your hand
1:18:21
and like stab it and
1:18:22
like you're on a boat that's rolling around yeah and so they
1:18:25
put it in this machine
1:18:26
SPEAKER_00: it does computer vision and
1:18:28
um they've like trained it on tons of fish they've put always
1:18:31
comes back to AI yeah
1:18:33
and it jabs at the brain that cuts its gills and it bleeds out
1:18:37
and then I um we
1:18:38
have a video coming on this people can see for themselves you
1:18:41
can see like because
1:18:42
you can go buy the company's called Shinkai Systems and they
1:18:45
they actually end up
1:18:46
selling their own fish you could go to like Whole Foods and we
1:18:50
did this you just go
1:18:51
SPEAKER_00: to the store and you buy it and then you compare it
1:18:53
to the other fish and it's just it's like looks and tastes way
1:18:58
fresher yeah it's
1:18:59
interesting so anyway yeah saw lots of whales got to do that
1:19:02
and uh it was very I
1:19:04
love whale you really do we got so many videos of these whales
1:19:09
we saw like 50 or 60
1:19:11
I was in heaven I was kind of like had sort of checked out on
1:19:14
the robot right
1:19:16
SPEAKER_00: It's just humpback time.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_01: It was just a vacation for you and David.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_00: People were mocking me, but I enjoyed myself.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_01: Well?
1:19:26
is that all your updates so I got soccer sorry football so I
1:19:31
got these um my last
1:19:33
update is that I realized that I was re-watching 30 Rock and I
1:19:37
realized that I'm
1:19:38
Liz Lemon and Ashley is Jack Donahue is it's actually abysmal
1:19:43
the more I watch I'm
1:19:43
like that is that is exactly our relationship is you being like
1:19:48
um are you are you
1:19:49
SPEAKER_01: poor or are you
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: As I get older, I start getting more and more conservative too.
1:19:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that too.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_00: We count those.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh man, okay.
1:20:03
SPEAKER_00: It sort of makes me want to, I do like the Jack character.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_00: This might backfire on you.
1:20:08
SPEAKER_00: It's making me want to embrace it more, I think.
1:20:11
SPEAKER_01: No, you are just veering more Republican.
1:20:14
I mean,
1:20:15
okay,
1:20:15
that doesn't really matter to the argument,
1:20:17
which is just like,
1:20:19
Jack.
1:20:20
That was my favorite part about my anthropic tweets is like
1:20:23
people were so confused
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: because they're like,
1:20:25
SPEAKER_00: wait,
1:20:25
SPEAKER_00: he's not like a liberal
1:20:29
I like to confuse people I think I'm like I go back I'm not
1:20:32
you're a contrarian man
1:20:33
you you like to take the other side of the argument which and
1:20:37
you like to like poke
1:20:38
fun in like a serious manner like you're not this is what I
1:20:42
said during our sun cut
1:20:44
sun sponsorship and during our samopod I was like what you have
1:20:48
to understand about
1:20:48
my boss ashley vance is that he is a prankster a jokester he is
1:20:53
he is not to be
1:20:53
SPEAKER_01: trusted
1:20:54
People think I'm like all super gung-ho serious on my tweets,
1:20:57
but I'm kind of sport fishing.
1:21:00
SPEAKER_01: No, you're being a menace to society.
1:21:03
SPEAKER_01: That's your political spectrum is you just like being a menace.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_00: It is true.
1:21:08
SPEAKER_00: It is true.
1:21:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I enjoyed that.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_00: Watching people who,
1:21:12
because sometimes I'll go on my military manufacturing things
1:21:17
and my hatred for
1:21:18
SPEAKER_00: Gavin Newsom and people think I'm just like hardcore
1:21:22
SPEAKER_00: Trump Lover, but I'm not.
1:21:24
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm out there.
1:21:25
SPEAKER_01: You always keep them guessing.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_00: Supported anthropic.
1:21:28
SPEAKER_00: They're like, what?
1:21:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand.
1:21:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:21:31
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:21:31
SPEAKER_01: something I want to eventually sort of explore is,
1:21:36
SPEAKER_01: so there's the Reindustrialized Conference in Detroit recently.
1:21:41
SPEAKER_01: And I saw that there was protesters against it.
1:21:44
SPEAKER_01: And these two worlds are just like,
1:21:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to square it because I grew up in a military family.
1:21:52
I am a California liberal and I want us to like bring back
1:21:56
manufacturing and have
1:21:58
like a robust defense against you know potential war you know
1:22:02
China taking Taiwan I
1:22:02
want us to be prepared for that and then people are saying like
1:22:05
these are you know
1:22:07
SPEAKER_01: weapons to kill you know people in the global south and that is also true
1:22:12
but yeah I remember talking to the Nord Space CEO who does
1:22:16
who's like sort of in
1:22:17
this world and he was like I'm not like an El Segundo taking
1:22:21
zins kind of guy he's
1:22:23
like I grew up in Northern California I just like manufacturing
1:22:26
and that is sort of
1:22:27
where I'm sitting that's usually where I said I went to
1:22:30
re-industrialize last year
1:22:31
I saw the photos of the protesters this year it's the same
1:22:34
group they're like kind
1:22:35
SPEAKER_00: of anti-Israel I think or pro-Palestine and they're kind of
1:22:41
Palantir is a big advertiser sponsor at the conference and
1:22:46
seems to be the heart of
1:22:47
their angst which is all well and good I guess I mean sorry
1:22:54
it's fine for them if
1:22:55
that's how they want to express themselves the conference
1:22:59
itself really is about
1:23:00
making I think that's what it's like sort of hard to pair for
1:23:03
me is that like
1:23:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am.
1:23:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm very liberal.
1:23:07
SPEAKER_01: But that conference, it's like we I covered my actuator guys were there.
1:23:10
They were I'm like,
1:23:11
it's hard for me to pair that sort of reaction to like the
1:23:15
nerds inside.
1:23:16
I was laughing a bit because it's like Detroit's not exactly
1:23:19
the most booming
1:23:20
economy and some huge chunk of that conference is like people
1:23:23
trying to make jobs.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:23:24
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
1:23:25
isn't it nice that you have time to protest this during the day
1:23:29
during the workday.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you know, not everybody has that luxury and would like a job.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:37
Jesus.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
1:23:40
SPEAKER_01: Great place to end, huh?
1:23:42
SPEAKER_00: I think I tried to dodge the Israel-Palestines.
1:23:46
SPEAKER_01: You did a great job.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_00: We both did a great job.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_00: That is it for this week.
1:23:54
If you're listening to this,
1:23:55
I think we have a big sort of like send,
1:23:57
cut,
1:23:57
send thing coming.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, people should, please.
1:24:01
Subscribe to our stuff,
1:24:02
leave us some reviews,
1:24:03
go to the YouTube channel.
1:24:04
SPEAKER_00: We go to our YouTube podcast channel.
1:24:06
We put up this tour of Redwood materials with Jamie Straubel,
1:24:10
the Tesla co-founder.
1:24:11
SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
1:24:12
SPEAKER_00: If you're at all into,
1:24:14
SPEAKER_00: this will not be everybody's thing,
1:24:16
SPEAKER_00: but if you're into recycling,
1:24:19
SPEAKER_00: electric batteries,
1:24:20
SPEAKER_00: what happens to them?
1:24:21
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
1:24:21
SPEAKER_00: We like hung out with them all day and stitched together.
1:24:24
SPEAKER_00: This is like, you get to see how this very complicated, fascinating
1:24:29
SPEAKER_00: Process Works,
1:24:29
SPEAKER_00: where they take an entire battery,
1:24:31
SPEAKER_00: whether it's from your car or your toothbrush,
1:24:33
SPEAKER_00: and they break it back down into lithium and cobalt and nickel.
1:24:37
SPEAKER_00: And it was, I don't know, I think it was well done.
1:24:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that is interesting.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_01: Like, where do our electronics go to die?
1:24:44
SPEAKER_01: Except for, like, in my drawers, because I never throw anything away.
1:24:47
SPEAKER_01: So you guys should all watch that.
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, Jamie's legit, because he, I knew him...
1:24:54
I would say he's the most pure of heart on all of this like he
1:24:58
wanted electric cars
1:24:59
to be a thing because he actually was a greenie and he wanted
1:25:02
to make that happen
1:25:04
and he did and then he was inside of Tesla and he's like what
1:25:06
is actually going to
1:25:07
happen to these batteries as all the greenies were buying them
1:25:10
and they're starting
1:25:11
to feel like oh is this all just for show and so he actually
1:25:15
like did something
1:25:16
about it you know and they recycle so 70% of all the batteries
1:25:21
in North America end
1:25:22
SPEAKER_00: up
1:25:23
at Redwood Materials which is like insane yeah I just recycled
1:25:27
my car batteries so
1:25:29
I hope they have fun with that yeah like if you put anything in
1:25:32
those bins or
1:25:33
whatever they make their way to Redwood sick I'll think about
1:25:37
that every time I
1:25:37
throw away a battery there you go alright people thank you for
1:25:40
listening and we
1:25:42
will see you again soon thank you guys the Core Memory Podcast
1:25:47
is hosted by me
1:25:49
SPEAKER_00: Ashley Vance and or
1:25:51
SPEAKER_00: Kiley Robinson or both of us together.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_00: It is produced by me and David Nicholson.
1:25:57
SPEAKER_00: Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_00: And the show is edited always by the John Sortland.
1:26:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much to Brex and SendCutSend for all your support.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_00: And thank you most of all to everybody for listening or watching.
1:26:16
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
1:26:17
SPEAKER_00: Please leave us a like, a review, a subscribe.
1:26:20
SPEAKER_00: All those tremendous things.
1:26:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you and we'll see you again.