Latest / Beat The Odds with Dre, Rodney, & Brylan / Spirit's Final Flight, Amazon's Logistics Land Grab & The OpenAI Deployment Play

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Spirit's Final Flight, Amazon's Logistics Land Grab & The OpenAI Deployment Play · Beat The Odds with Dre, Rodney, & Brylan

• Dre: Yo guys, what's going on? Happy Monday. Welcome back to another Beat the Azz episode. How y'all doing today? Rodney: You're doing good. Brylan: Good man, good man. Literally just got back today from New York, man. It was a good time out there. Shout out Jamie. She just wrapped up her first year of school. Yeah, and then we launched Philly on Friday, man. And so yeah, another city, you know, launched and you know, running, man. So yeah, things are going good, man. How about y'all? Dre: I just got back from a busy travel week as well last week, man. I was in Arizona and Tucson. it's so crazy. It's literally like being in the desert. Like there was no grass anywhere. There was no green. Everything was like the same. It just ⁓ a of brown. Everything was a variation of brown or gray. So it was cool to be there for a couple of days. I'm like, man, I cannot live here. I need to see green. I miss the trees and the grass. But I out there for some client work ⁓ and then down to Austin. as well, so i've been just on the go man. So I just got back home this week sunday so Yeah, it just feels good to be back home and sleeping in my own bed Rodney: Yeah, that's one of the best parts after traveling is coming back home and just getting right back into own routine. I guess me, like, I've been all You know, I'm preparing to travel for next week. I'll be in LA for a week for work. So I pretty much got on my mind. You know how it is a flight, but I guess because I brought up the flight, I feel like maybe that's like the first topic we should start off with. It is, so I don't remember, but did we fly American or Spirit to San Francisco that first time? Not the first time we ever visited, but like when we moved to California in 2016, was it Spirit? Yeah. Dre: I'm pretty sure it Spirit because Spirit always had those west, those west, the best price for the west coast to Michigan, Detroit price flights. I don't know what it is about that route. They just got that route on lock, but they always had the best prices. So yeah, it was most definitely Spirit. I used to take that all the time back and forth for the holidays or just whatever, you know. Rodney: Best price. you Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel like people used to hate on spirit man, like honestly, like for me, spirit, it wasn't as bad as people said it was. Like it's like, at least from my perspective, especially if you are in the main cabin, I feel like the main cabin is the same no matter what airline you're in. Like if you are in Delta, you're in America Airlines, if you're in the main cabin, I felt like if you're talking about spirit, then and don't say you don't like Spirit because they didn't give you a bag of chips. Like the bag of chips on Delta is, every year it's gotten smaller. It's like, big. You have to ask them for two bags of chips. You to ask them. Dre: And the options have reduced. They used to offer you like multiple things, you want this, that, that. And now it's just like, we got this. That's all you got. Yeah. Somebody referred to Spirit as the Nissan Altima of airlines. Like it's just reliable, just durable, reliable, consistent. You know what I'm saying? It's not the most beautiful, not the most flashy brand, but it's just like, it's going to get you from point A to point B. Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Jeez. Yeah. Brylan: That's- Rodney: Yeah. Dre: And everything in between might not be to another airline, but it's going to get you there. I mean, that's what it was for us, at least at that time traveling back from the West Coast, trying to get back to Michigan. Like we was obviously just trying to get there the cheapest, most reliable way possible. And that's it provided. So for some context, they have ceased operations recently. They've been around like 32 years or something, 34 years, I believe. Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. Dre: 17,000 jobs is going to be removed because of this. 14,000 employees. So they must have had some contractors, which is not uncommon. They've had two bankruptcy since 2024. So this has been a constant cash problem that they've been having. They claim that this is due to, which is possible, that this is due to rising fuel costs because of the war in Iran. And then just probably someone other again. Debt service payments that they've had to make because they probably made some investments over the last couple years And there was supposed to be they were intending to do a jet blue merger back in 2023 But it was blocked by the Department of the DOJ. So they blocked it Due to competition, I guess they have some antitrust concerns there You know, considering that they blocked that opportunity and we see the outcome. Now there's a real question about whether or not that was worth it. Right. Because now you have actual jobs that are going to be lost. and now it just leaves the other airlines, the opportunity to have more pricing control because now they do. Right. Cause now they know people have less options. And so now they can take prices up however they want to. And you just have less choices. Right. And so I don't know, I think there's something, a ⁓ real conversation But most recently, they were trying to negotiate a $500 million government bailout the Trump administration. But guess at the last of the hour, those conversations And so they're officially ceased operations. I don't know. My take is I think somebody is going to come in and acquire Spirit, the and probably try to revitalize it. I guess it depends on how bad the debt is. But we'll see. people don't know and I think this is the case with Spirit. They don't own their own airplanes. I a lot of the times they lease these airplanes. you know, these are not assets that they own, but they do have these long-term contracts with these, with the owners these aircraft. And ⁓ I don't know, somebody swoop in and acquire it. I think they probably will, but we don't know. Do you think this is the end of Spirit as we know it? Brylan: I it may be, right? part of reason why, there's like three things that I find interesting about this. The first one is I honestly think the bigger story here might be the debt story, if I'm gonna be honest, because yes, the government did come in and try to buy 90 % of the company for $500 million, but... It was actually shot down by Citadel. So you had a hedge fund who essentially was playing the role of a private creditor here for Spirit because they have senior or already came in and said, that's just not the deal that made the most sense for us. And I think their rationale was by them liquidating and selling a lot of the different assets that Spirit does have, like the brand, they would be able to make more cash than the 500 million, right? And so I think that is probably like the larger story here just because private credit ⁓ is orders magnitude larger than venture capital. It's almost a $4 trillion industry. And, you know, talk a lot about AI on this podcast is deeply embedded in AI, right? So don't want to get off that topic. I would say the other thing too, is like, when I think about the market, you're like spot on because if we think about spirit, spirit was always the floor, right? Like they were always setting the bottom prices to who could participate in the airline market. And I think what is really interesting was, yeah, I was looking at some like historical stats, but it was like the first year Spir ever was in operations, they had 1.5 million passengers. Last year alone, they had 44 million. So it's crazy to just kind of see that growth. But if you think about the people in the communities of people that were purchasing, those low budget tickets, most of them were minority groups. So you just had whatever percentage of 44 million people that are no longer going to be able to travel across this country, not because they're not able to, but because they can't afford to. And I think that's a whole other interesting angle here too. And then I mean, the other thing too is like, we got to keep it a stack, right? Like there is a whole war on, you know, going on and things aren't like the best. And I think, you know, we should be asking like, why would Trump in this instance want to step in? Yes, he has the president of like stepping in, you know, before door and COVID things of that nature. But I think, you know, yeah, that's another thing like we could unpack. like, those are three different kinds of angles I've just kind of been thinking through. Yeah, just when it comes to like spirit. Rodney: I can see that. can see that. I did hear a lot about the affordability aspect, removing pretty much the lowest company in the lineup could make traveling unaffordable for Americans. And I understand that. I think also what I see though, from the administration they're allowing the market to work. So, for example, Dre how this is an interesting thing because the current players have the ability to understand that, OK, well, customers may not have as much leverage. there's going to be we'll see what they do. Maybe they raise the price up a little bit. I saw some screenshots of them doing that. Who knows? I can't verify whether or it was real or not. So, you know, these days you just never know. But I would that wouldn't surprise But then also to ⁓ if these companies do get greedy and they start to do that, that naturally creates a hole. And we know capitalism likes to come in and fill in those holes and compete. so you have. Which point, which point? Yeah, of course. Which point, though? Brylan: Can I push back? So, yeah, so I do agree with you that like these companies may be pushing prices up, I don't think it's for the sake of just pushing up prices, right? Like I think, like if you think about the supply of seats, like that was just cut by 44 million. And so because of basic supply and demand, I think the price is naturally going to rise because you have more people trying to go for like less seats. I don't think I don't think it's like, yeah, these companies are naturally just wanting to increase prices for the sake of prices. Like, I don't know if I would put that ill intent out there. Rodney: So I don't know if I'd necessarily, I kind of see what you're saying. At the same time, don't see much of a difference. So for example, like, I'm sure that most of those flights were probably already before Spirit went down, unless you're suggesting that these flights weren't already booked. And then now... ⁓ Brylan: Yeah, I'm saying all new ones. Like all new flights after, after, after Spirit. if it, I mean, I even tried to go like purchase a flight recently to freaking Atlanta for this week, bro. And usually I'm able to get a ticket for like 200 or something, bro. Like on American. Bro, it's $600. Like, so I do think it's probably already showing up. Rodney: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. But also, yeah. ⁓ Dre: But I would say though, but still in that case though, Brian, in my opinion, at least the airlines are still choosing to raise prices, right? Because they could keep prices at where they were and just simply sell out, right? Like it's not the wrong with that, right? Like sure you've run into the experience of like wanting to go book a flight with a particular airline on a day and they just unavailable, right? Like that happens all the time, right? So the idea that you have to raise prices because you're getting more demand. Rodney: He don't have to. He don't have to. Dre: Well, while naturally you're right, like that is naturally like sound from an economic standpoint, but they don't have to do that. Right. Because at the end of the day, there is only so much ⁓ that supply is constrained. And so they could simply just sell out everything. And from a business standpoint, that's great for Delta or United or whatever to sell out every flight, right? To sell every route, every flight, every seat. That's good business. Right. But it's also a good business to do that. And ⁓ Rodney: dog Dre: add some more revenue by raising prices where you can, whether that's in seats, whether that's in baggage fees, whether that's in in-drink menu. There's tons of ways airlines have the ability to inflate prices because they do see that demand. So see that but I do it is an intentional business decision to do that and not just purely based on the market response. Brylan: Yeah. think your latter point is probably more, I probably agree a lot more with your latter point, specifically like volume and price increase. I think if we think about May getting ready to go into June, I don't think these airlines are about to have any type of trouble selling out. Like, and part of it is you've got the World Cup coming, right? And so I think you kind of have more of that coming. Like, I don't know if it would make sense for them, like out of the good of their heart to keep flights low. Rodney: doesn't. that's ultimately all I'm getting to was that they're going to keep prices a lower just for the benefit of Americans or just for the benefit of whoever's flying. They're not going to do that. If they can charge more to fill up the plane, they're going to do it and they're going to as far as they can, essentially, until people won't fill up flights. In fact, Dre: for sure. Rodney: some businesses take it to the extreme. They would rather make 600, 700, $800 a ticket then maybe they make more and maybe there's a few seats. They don't have to, I don't know all the legal regulations, if they have to sell every ticket on a plane, but who knows? But I will say something else though. Regardless though, when there is price increase, And then there is a affordability issue or affordability crisis or whatever that's created that creates opportunity. So, what I personally see now, here's the thing, the opportunity that I see, and there's multiple different angles, but the angle that I like, that I would like to see the one that I kind of see unfolding is essentially true innovation happening in the airline industry. Cause based on what I see, Most of the planes are made by Boeing and these other kind of airliners or that have been creating planes for a while. great planes. Don't get me wrong. But they aren't as, they're as energy efficient as for example, this company called Boom. I don't know if I would say they're extremely new, but they have these supersonic planes that you can get from New York to London. in hours. So that's the equivalent of a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles. And can across the world extremely fast. Now, when you look at things like that, and they have a bit higher ⁓ efficiency as well. it's things like where if you could get the cost of a plane down, but you could also get the cost of or you can make them more efficient. But those things that might be a bit far ahead though, those are just things I would like to see. Because again, I do think that there not being a low level option, if that actually sustained for a while, it would create opportunity. Dre: Yeah, see I think on the efficiency side I do agree with you it'd be nice to see more efficiency I'm really excited about what boom Is going to do I've been following them for a while So I'm excited to see how their product continues to evolve. I think is needed I think the problem in the airline industry is that it's a little bit disjointed between like the innovation side and then like the commercial business side, right? Like Spirit is not in the business of manufacturing planes. They're not even a business of owning planes, right? Like a lot of their fleet is leased similarly to other airlines. And so you just have a bit of a disjointment there. nevertheless though, ⁓ do still think though there is innovation to probably make the operations of managing and running an airline more efficient so that, you know, they're profitable, so that they're a lot more profitable. Right. And then I think there's probably, probably more creative finance, financing structures that they need access to that doesn't cripple them as much right now. Right. And also too, like, mean, I think it's fair to acknowledge that the airline industries have had some challenges over the last couple of years. I mean, yes, they've had high demands because people have been wanting to travel, but I mean, COVID and some of these other things have really, you know, really operations because we have to remember during that time. A lot of businesses made a ton of investments CapEx expenditures that now are really, really crippling them. But that time, was like non-obvious thing. was like, why wouldn't you? any executive was that position and you got overwhelming demand, do you do? You try to fill that supply. when you don't look at the forecast 10 years out, and then you don't look at how that the balance sheet, then you run into problems like right now. Right. And again, Spears doesn't, I'm sure their problem doesn't just go back to COVID. I'm sure it started before then, but I'm sure it accelerated then. But nevertheless, I do think there's opportunity on the operation side to make it more efficient, whether it's automation, robots at the gates, you know what I'm saying? Like thinking about like how to cut things where you can or be more efficient. But damn, it seemed like running an airline is a hard business because it seemed like all of them are like one event, catastrophic event from like going under, going under. So. I don't know. Rodney: I think so. then I think in regards to the operations, one, so ⁓ you a couple of points. One, it is very interesting how the airlines are separate from the innovation of the technology. So they often buy the planes and or lease the planes as opposed to being the ones that, you know, ⁓ build planes and then, know, I guess manage the whole business of flying or and so that's the point But then also. Spirit should have just rose the prices. Now, I don't know how much, like how badly, maybe they felt as though that their situation was such a bad situation that even if they raised the prices the tickets, it wouldn't change the scenario. But of course, if you have to choose between your company dying or raising the prices, you should probably try to raise the prices as high as you possibly can. Because if you're the I mean, I mean, did they even test if people would pay the same price for an American airline? Because if you don't have a choice, at the end of the day, there's only so many tickets. There's only so many tickets. So if you raise the price of your spirit and you raise the price to match American Airlines, OK, people might not like that. But if Delta is booked, American Airlines is booked, JetBlue is booked, Southwest is booked, then they wouldn't have a choice anyway. So I guess I'm just wondering, did they... Why didn't they just match the prices of the competition? don't, maybe they didn't think it was worth it or. Dre: I don't I don't know this to be true for sure But based on what Brian said related to Citadel and maybe he knows better than I do I would assume the problem that they ran into is that they had debt service payments They were due that they just couldn't make payments on and so even even if they had to raise pricing Raising price was raising plus the raising the rising price of operations like jet fuel like labor Rodney: Yeah. would be enough. Dre: Right. Because we also know labor prices have gone up over the last couple of years, not in the way that most people would want, but they have gone up. Right. Just the cost of running a business have gone up. So I think they ran into, and I don't, again, I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming based on what they've done and based on what Brian said, they probably have run into a cash issue with the debt service payments. And they just, they, they just weren't able to keep up the, the, the reason of the pricing, though, that you're talking about probably should have been a decision they made years ago. Rodney: Yeah. Dre: Right. That probably was it should have been a strategic decision they made similarly, similarly to what we've seen recently with Southwest, Southwest airlines changing a lot of their policies and moving moving on, moving away from ⁓ kind being a different airline and that kind of becoming more of a standard airline like American United, how they kind of operate. ⁓ and I believe I'm assuming they're making those decisions now because they kind of see the future, what that looks like as well. So they probably should have made this decision five years ago, but I think in a short term. Rodney: For sure. Brylan: So. Rodney: Yeah. Dre: those debt service payments probably just weren't just astronomical. I can only imagine with the rise in jet fuel costs. Rodney: Yeah. ⁓ Brylan: Yeah, actually like spot on because what really impacted them, and I think is what's showing up today, is when got that essentially bailed out in bankruptcy in 2004, yeah, their new debt came in at higher prices. so going back to what were saying about like increased operating expense, they already were operating at $2 billion like operating loss. Yet they just, yeah, they didn't have the money. They didn't have the money. Rodney: It's just a bad business. It's just a bad business. They're not a good business. Like, have to. Can't keep bailing them out. Like, there's not a good business. Dre: Look at that. Brylan: I do want to add something because it's like, I mean, when you're talking about like, why doesn't innovation kind of happen in like this market? I think, yeah, Dre brings up a really good point, just around like, it is one of those fragmented, I would even say like, very similar to what we're seeing in semiconductors, like, there's monopolistic behavior, really, right? But I think the thing that I that was very interesting is I think it all comes back to capital and regulations. Right. So just to get model of a plane, like a new model of a plane certified, it takes 10 years and it you $15 billion per plane. Right. So that's just to get the model. So the 747 model certified by the U S government. Right. and then from there, you have to consider that like, okay, if I'm building an airline, right. that for a model of a plane that has now been certified, the average plane cost $110 million like just build it. Right? And then what was saying was like, okay, so now if you have, if you're someone like Spirit and you have 200 planes, that's 10 $20 billion you have to have upfront to now be able to buy that. So not only did you have to have the 15 billion to get the model certified, You got to have the 20 billion in just capital upfront to even be able to the asset or license the asset to even make the business works. And so that's where they were saying like, in this industry, it's very hard. That's why you don't see many new players rising just because the capital and the regulation requirements. You're on mute. Mute, right? Rodney: Will these be investments of the future? Here's I mean by that. At some in American history, we discovered planes. At some point, we got good enough with the technology that there was companies that really good at making planes. And then there were other people that were more focused on the business of selling tickets, the management, the customer support, everything else, the flight attendants, whole culture, I guess. It's been a long time. It's been a long time since we've seen a huge innovation in that. It's like we built it and when we build airports, they're pretty much, don't get me wrong, ⁓ it's building a new mall. It's nice. Fundamentally, it's much the same thing. And so I wonder if the future, and these things are kind of difficult to imagine now because of the factors that you mentioned, Brian, where it requires so much capital. There's so much red tape, there's so much regulation. And then also, if you could get the money and you could innovate, it's like, where do you put these new types of airports and all these different things would have to be, it's just huge infrastructure project. However, I have a feeling that we're going to see... $50 billion, $100 billion projects in the future. And I think one of the early signs of that is seeing how much money is going into AI. ⁓ These $10 billion investments, $20 billion investments, $50 billion, $100 billion investments into basically future infrastructure are massive. money seems to mostly come from the super giants that are in the Dre: Mm. Mm-hmm. Rodney: the trillion dollar market cap ranges. it would not surprise me if at some point even SpaceX created some form of space flight that was maybe an alternative to commercial airplanes. ⁓ And even what Bezos doing and potentially some other players, could see a very, very, Dre: Hmm. Rodney: I can see a very, very much needed overdue of the airline industry, but I don't know if it's necessarily today. ⁓ And I know if Spirit is big enough create enough changes or wake up enough minds to the idea of the innovation needed. But could see... Basically there's an overdoing infrastructure from my standpoint. There should be likely planes either that are so electric and ⁓ using or gas, but then also potentially using rocket fuel, like how like a SpaceX rocket would use. So I could see some innovation there, but we'll see. I don't know how long that is. I'm hoping that we can get that going maybe before 10 years. Kicking that off in the next five, kicking it off in five years and getting it done in maybe five or 10, five or six more after that. Dre: Yeah. So good point I guess speaking of infrastructure and network. Let's talk about Amazon because I Mean you bring up a good point right Amazon's been secretly investing tens of billions of dollars a year into infrastructure and into building this incredible logistics platform and now They're opening it up. So Amazon today Just announced or launched their supply chain services Amazon supply chain services Rodney: ⁓ yeah. Dre: Um, which is basically opening up their entire logistic network. have 80,000 plus, uh, truck trailers, right? So these are trailers that you can haul goods in, which every good do we order online? Every good do we see in a store has moved through a trailer. So that's they're, they're, they're building a boat there. Uh, 24,000 plus, uh, plus intermodal containers, a hundred plus aircraft. to any business that wants to use these resources. They also have access to their warehouse network, of course, as well. So you'll be able to store raw materials, finished goods, the entire pipeline, and last mile all through Amazon Logistic Networks. Some of the notable companies that have signed up for this already, Procter & Gamble, 3M, Lans in, and American Eagle have already signed up. Those are big massive corporations that are already using Amazon Supply Chain Services. Their executive, runs, their network kind of pitched it as AWS for supply chain, right? They're essentially, and this is the playbook that Amazon has consistently run, which is turning an internal capability into a platform for others to be able to use. It's the thing they did to build a hundred plus billion dollar cloud platform. And they're just running that same playbook again. What do you all about that? Rodney: I think these internet companies are going to get much larger than anybody ever anticipated. think Amazon seems like it's just a website. It just seems like it's a website where you go buy something and you press the button and the package comes to you. But I think that just that alone has created changes that we're not even done seeing as we can clearly see. Dre: 100%. Rodney: This reminds me of, like, this is them saying that the postal service is not good enough. Like, this is like one of the clearest signs of them saying the postal service, like, just let us do this. Just us do this. We are at another level with this, likely coming from their own bottlenecks. And also maybe even likely coming from the fact that my understanding, the postal service is still losing money. So that could be risky for the business. Dre: I think this is more of a direct attack at UPS and FedEx over the postal service directly. the postal service is in the business mostly of mail. I'm a business, I want to send you a letter. It's more efficient. Yes, you can do it next day FedEx, but it's more efficient and probably cheaper to just do it through the US postal service. Rodney: ⁓ okay. Dre: That's a different business. Amazon certainly could go after that business. There's nothing stopping them from doing it. They could definitely do it. But I think that's different than the package delivery business, right? Where if you're an e-commerce company, right? And you want to ship your vitamins or whatever to your customers, you're probably not going to use the post office to do that. You're probably going to hit a FedEx right? To do that. Build a contract with to manage all your logistics behind that, right? Because today when they announced this UPS and FedEx stock dropped by like almost nine and 10%. I saw like a nine, 10 % drop today. I mean, it was, was pretty big. I mean, it's a clear, I think it's a clear going after their business. Now ⁓ business ended up itself. I'm simplifying it by calling it packages, but there's different tiers within that business. Amazon has not gone after all of that. There are higher end margin delivery businesses, like for example, hospitals that are delivering like organs UPS is really big in this business. So it's FedEx, right? If you want to get a heart from one country to another. That's a huge high margin business. Amazon, I don't think they're probably going to be in that business right now, at least. Right. But again, going back to my first example, if you're an e-commerce company, right, if you Procter and Gamble, you know, like those types of companies, Amazon is coming. So I think, again, it could be a attack at USPS, but I think it's more so for, if I was an executive at UPS and FedEx, would be, I'll be concerned because they built this quick. I mean, these are companies that have been around for what, 60 years? Rodney: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. you could tell that nobody at USPS is concerned about anything. Like, walk into a UPA, walk into one of those post offices, you can tell that literally nobody's concerned about anything. ⁓ yes. it's just, it's sad. It's sad, it's sad. Brylan: Mm-hmm. Dre: They're dirty, no lights. Brylan: Come. Yeah, what I would say is, if I'm being honest, I wasn't super hip to this story, but just kind of was reading up on it. mean, it really is super, super impressive. think two things that are very interesting is like Amazon does around 25 million packages globally per day that they're already kind of moving through this network and, you know, magically having that show up at your door. For them now to open this up to any other business in the world or individual brand, et cetera, that wants to be able to sell something. I think says a lot about one, preparedness for that capacity to operationally, right? Like say for example, if that capacity just goes from 25 to, you know, it doubles to 50 mil, right? Like today, I think they announced it a few months ago that they have like over a million robots, right? And we know that they're investing heavily in that space too. Like, what does that say about like how they believe robotics may end up impacting, you know, this whole operation, right? Cause I'm sure there's, not just looking to add this type of volume and, you know, become inefficient over time. Like they're probably going to be looking to, you know, double down on that. So I think that's something I'll probably be paying attention to and think is interesting. and then the other thing too, that I thought was interesting was their point around forecasting the demand. and I think, you know, once again, like going back to this idea of like, you know, all you have to do is make it and we'll get it from point A to point B. I they're saying we know who B is, right? Like it's their version targeting, you that we see with ads with, you know, on Facebook and Instagram, right? Like, and, and I think, yeah, they were saying that like, Yeah. Based off of, you know, all the data they have from Amazon Prime, et cetera, they're able to know for this type of category of product or whatever, what distribution center it needs to be in across the country. So now you don't even need to worry about where or what market across the U S you need to be like doubling down on. Right. Like, yeah, I think two things are like very fascinating to me around like, yeah, what, what, what, where do they. ⁓ Where are they anticipating robotic gains and how is that going to show up in like the capacity expansion and efficiency? And then, I'm really interested to see like, man, does that volume increase because they're helping these businesses close that cell faster? Dre: Do you think there's a, you think there's a privacy concern here from a data standpoint, from the perspective Amazon logistics, handling, shipping data information for a company that essentially competes with on this marketplace? Because think about that, that supply chain line between the logistics and like you mentioned, Brian, you touched on ads. They've been building a fortress around ads for a minute. Right. And so now they got into the point where if you're a brand, won't be able to afford to not use ads on Amazon. Like you just literally won't be able to afford to like your competitors will literally kill you out of business due to ads, unless you got something super proprietary, right? Like from a product standpoint, but they're going back to the data, the data privacy question. Do you, think there's a data concern there. Brylan: I, if I'm being honest, I think... Yeah, well, actually a follow up question. What do you mean by privacy here? Rodney: ⁓ for... Dre: Meaning like Amazon taking the logistics information that they have for of that business and using that data to inform another business segment that they have. For example, it could be their ad unit business. could be their private label business, right? It could be their, team that the algorithm around listings, right? Like whatever other business they want, but essentially using that data. from that logistic network to inform decisions in other segments of the business. Brylan: Nah, man. Rodney: I if they get the customer, the package quicker, you know, that's, I feel like if we get the customer, the package quicker, that's what I want as a customer. Maybe there's like a concern from the business standpoint, like if their customer data is benefiting, I guess, Amazon in a way, or I love Amazon basics. Brylan: You remember the Amazon basics? Dre: Yeah. Brylan: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I remember they were saying that that was, I think an example of what you were just describing, know, uh, Dre, where like they basically were just taking the data and learning what people liked and then just turned it into like Amazon basis. Dre: Yeah Yeah, exactly So i'm like, okay, I think I mean, I don't know I think amazon is going to continue to vertically integrate I think you're going to see them probably buying manufacturing facilities at some point. They're gonna start manufacturing products They're gonna start buying the raw Yeah, they're just gonna get all that information just continue to vertically integrate so I think amazon is is clearly Well well positioned here to our revenue Brylan: 100 % They're about to know who all your manufacturers are. Rodney: These are super companies. These are super companies. are like, these are not, like these, these, these kind of, I'm willing to bet that Apple, we've underestimated Apple. We've underestimated Netflix. We've underestimated Amazon. We have underestimated even because, probably because they keep hitting these record, these record breaking levels that we, we think, ⁓ there's no way they can go any further. At some point there must be. but Amazon has shown that it's built in such a way where it's going to forever grow like it's It have I mean that you I Honestly don't see a way you can I all I see is that you can join Amazon you can ⁓ partner Amazon ⁓ like Dre: It'd be hard to take a while. It'd be hard. Yeah, they're there. think they're the most for formidable company. We've probably seen a long time. I will say probably more than more than Apple probably. Right. ⁓ speaking of, mean, you mentioned like at beginning, you kind of mentioned as a customer, I would, just want my package to get there faster. They also just announced today one hour delivery, I think in two or 300 us cities. So now they're expanding that network even more. So now imagine you a brand. Rodney: I think so. I think so. Yeah. Dre: You you run an ad, customer sees it, they order and they get it in one hour, right? Like instead of, you know, having to wait two days, right? So, you know, they're, they're clear. Again, that just goes to further show like the capabilities that Amazon have. And to your point, I mean, it's, it's impossible to compete against them. How do you, where do you even start? Rodney: They're going to push the boundaries of how fast pressing a button and you getting something. I honestly think that they would be, if there would be anybody that discovers teleportation, it would be Amazon. it's just that, because I've been on Amazon since 2011. I think that's the first, actually no, 2009. I was young and I had some extra cash to spend. was always on Amazon. Dre: You Rodney: And remember it was blowing me. I it was just, it was just shocking how quickly you could get something. As compared everything else in my life, everything else in my life was just slow. But Amazon was prime, two day. And it was, was, I couldn't believe it back then. But now ⁓ you have every ⁓ few it's and faster. And it just begs the question, how fast, how much faster? How much faster can you get? mean, our is ours fast. So, OK, 30 minutes. All right. Like. What do we go from there? 30. OK, it can get you in 30 minutes, right? That got to be next. But then after that, what else after that? How much faster? How fast can we get? Dre: That's fast. I guess, I guess as fast as they can get the drone from the, from the fulfillment center to your house, whatever, whatever, whatever the speed limits are on that. Rodney: As fast as... Brylan: surprised they haven't went and bought Zipline. Rodney: is probably coming. literally trying to get you something as fast as possibly, as fast as technically possible. Dre: Maybe. Have they partnered with them yet? Do you know they have a partnership? Brylan: know Walmart does. Walmart has a huge one with them. Dre: Okay. Man, I don't know. Zip-Line has like a, Zip-Line is an interesting company, man. They have like a little moat that nobody kind of see in that space, in that ⁓ drone delivery space. Brylan: bro, you supercharged that with Amazon, bro. Overnight, the sky, gonna... Man. Because you're talking about a company that knows how to operate in the physical world. Dre: Yeah. Rodney: All Dre: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Rodney: That's crazy. Dre: Well, if Walmart were smart, then maybe they would do the acquisition. Right? I think Walmart, I think Walmart is well positioned, bro. I think, I think everybody be sleeping on Walmart. Like they about to die, but I'm like, every Walmart I ever go into is nothing but mayhem and pandemonium. Like, so clearly there's an audience for Walmart that you just can't, you can't remove it, bro. Like it's just, it's pandemonium at every single Walmart, you know? And that's just the brand of Walmart. Brylan: Shit, Walmart better catch up. Yeah. Rodney: They ain't gonna die. Yeah Brylan: you Dre: You know, like that's what they like. That's the customer they go after and they just like it and they got stores everywhere. So I mean, there's, mean, again, we started the conversation while talking about infrastructure that Amazon has been investing billions of dollars into a year to build to this point. I mean, so has Walmart. and so, you know, maybe Walmart has been slower to kind of utilize that infrastructure in the best way, but I think over the past couple of years, they've changed that. Like they've launched some cool shit where they, again, I wouldn't necessarily use it, but like, I think Walmart launched something where they would deliver your groceries and put it in your refrigerator for you, which is kind of crazy. So you could be out of town on a business trip, come back, you got a whole fridge stock with groceries already. So there is some stuff that I think they're doing that's interesting, but nevertheless, Amazon is making them dance, man. Amazon is making everybody dance. Rodney: Damn. Brylan: Yeah. Rodney: These super, I'm telling you, the future is gonna be even crazier than I think people imagine. mean, there's gonna be supersonic flights getting from London to New York in a few hours, getting from LA to New York in an hour. Like there's gonna be new airlines, there's gonna be space flight, there's gonna be, I mean, Amazon is gonna, I mean, it's just... It's gonna, I think it was hard to imagine because it's gonna be so big. Another prediction that I'm just gonna randomly call out before our next topic is I think Netflix is going to buy up theaters and, or their own movie theaters in person. And I think may also use things like the Pro or whatever, similar, or similar. or similar to revamp the movie experience. I think these internet companies, I think what they've done is they competed in only arena they could, which was the internet. They couldn't, like you couldn't come out and compete with Walmart. was never, you weren't gonna be able to come out and compete with Walmart as Amazon in the physical world. So they skirted around and they did it in the digital. then the digital gave them so much capital and allowed them innovate so much better that now they have cash that they can deploy in the real world on a high level that it's just like, it's weird, it's strange, but we're gonna see some crazy stuff. Dre: Hmm sure. right, where we want to take it next open AI or we want to go Rodney: Open the eye. Brylan: Yeah, how do we how do we open AI? There's it's interesting right now because don't they they have the court case going on. They had the revenue story. Rodney: Did you? Dre: They do. They do they do the headline today that I saw though was about the deployment company. But we can talk about all of them. We could talk touch on all of them. Rodney: I saw that. Brylan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's- Let's start there. Dre: Okay. So what I saw today, I don't know if y'all saw the same thing I saw on Twitter, but essentially formed a $10 billion joint venture with some private equity firms. And so they've raised some capital, I think around $4 billion, some TPG, Brookfield, and Bain for a new entity called the Deployment Company. Total valuation around $10 billion. OpenAI putting in, I think, one and a half billion dollars of their own capital, according to Bloomberg. This is interesting. providing, they of have a guarantee of a return to these PE firms. So they're guaranteeing 17 and a half percent annual return over five years for PE investors. And so these PE firms have agreed to make their portfolio companies essentially a customer base, OpenAI's enterprise tools. And so OpenAI will essentially embed engineers directly into these organizations. similar to how Palantir has kind of have the floor deploy engineer where they'll send the engineer on site to a client to build whatever solution. OpenAI is kind of going to be doing the same thing. What think is interesting about this is that literally within minutes of that announcement, I saw another headline that Anthropic announced a very similar type model, much smaller, but they're partnering up with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and a couple other real estate firms. to do the same thing. And so I think what this goes to show, and I think this is really interesting. And I just purchased an agency as I mentioned before on the pod last year. So I've been thinking a lot about what's the next model in the agency space to go after this wide open, just tons of opportunity. And I think this deployment market is super fascinating to me. And I saw this years ago with Salesforce. I had an opportunity at an organization that wanted to use Salesforce, but then we had Salesforce licenses and then we had to go hire a consultation company to actually implement Salesforce throughout the organization because the software was so complex and there's so much flexibility in it that usually organization doesn't have the internal resources to just roll that out. Right. So then you got to go hire somebody to do the same thing. And I thought to myself, it's the same thing with these AI tools, right? If you want to take advantage of open AI as a clause enterprise tools, Where do you start as an enterprise? You know, if you don't have those internal resources, where do you go? Right. And then you get to a point where you start buying a couple of licenses, but then you not seeing the RRI that you want. So then what do you do? You cancel it, right? Or then you restrict it to only a few teams. And so clearly the bottleneck, I think, at least in the short term, maybe it get solved over a way 10 years from now. Maybe, so maybe the opportunity is limited, but I think right now the bottleneck really is on the deployment side. And so both Anthropic and open AI see the opportunity to solve that bottleneck and they're doing that through distribution by partnering with these big PE firms, these big financial institutions and kind of doing a top down approach, right? So going in at the top and then kind of accelerating through the, the portfolio companies. then again, once you get these enterprise tools installed, that switching costs becomes higher. So these are interesting distribution tactics, but I say that to say that I think even at the small level, like myself as an agency owner, I'm thinking about that too. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity and helping companies deploy agents, helping companies deploy these tools, helping companies get their data, get their security right to be able to adopt these platforms so that they can use them. Because I don't think these tools today are as plug and play most people like to think, especially when you get in these larger organizations that are just, they're, big paper everywhere. Like it's pretty chaotic. And so I think that's a, I mean, multi billion. Rodney: Yeah, no, no. Dre: I mean, $100 billion opportunity right there, probably more. I mean, probably as big as the market is selling AI. mean, it could be a trillion dollars. Rodney: That's low key a lot of jobs. That's a lot of jobs, like not in a bad way. Like at when I think about engineers, like might be more of a need for more engineers. Just even based off of like, it is a good point that a lot of these things are not on plug and play. Sometimes I underestimate how many companies. have the internal resources to be able to set up some these workflows, especially when it comes to agents. Agents can be very, very tricky and you need these high level experts to come in ⁓ kind of make sure all that kind of goes a certain way or goes in reliable way. this whole thing, mean, the speed of this whole thing, It kind of just makes me think, they do this, as these programs through and OpenAI get more deployment through these enterprises, they're inevitably going to come across problems. And what excited about is the development in the iteration of that process. Because ultimately the end goal will be nearly plug and play agents at some point. But right now it's all these little, it's like putting together a rocket from random pieces. And, but then over time, or like what I'm thinking of is the, it's the space X rocket where they, you look at the first space X rocket and this looks like they just threw it together. Like it looked like it's just shouldn't have worked. then each time it got a ⁓ more refined than it now, it just feels like it looks like three pieces. I mean, I'm sure it's more, but it just looks like three simple pieces that they put together. And, I'm forward to that process. think agents. are complicated. I went to go look at OpenClaw and I saw Sam tweet about OpenClaw and being able to sign in with Chat TVT. And I think those people who are experimenting are also going to be able to bring stuff to enterprises. I have a friend that works at a large company and he happened to get a budget from the company. to just play around and experiment with OpenClaw because the fact that almost nobody knows how to use agents within the context of the company. like IT and then also security, they have their concerns too. this whole thing is an emerging, there's gonna be emerging opportunities. I think it was $10 billion for OpenAI and then a billion dollars for Entho. Dre: Yep. Yep. And to size the market a little bit more, PE owns about $13 trillion in assets. Right. And there's thousands of portfolio companies. so, I mean, again, that top down distribution channel is quite interesting. And so, I mean, there's this massive opportunity there. Brylan: Which is fucking nuts. Rodney: Hmph. Brylan: That low key might be the great accelerator. Because yeah, like, I mean, there's so many, so many business genius because like when that firm comes in there and says, hey, you need to do this, you do this. ⁓ So. Dre: Could be. Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Dre: 100 % 100 % Yeah, it's top-down is they gonna have instant access to whatever they need They don't have participation from management right participation from the employee base, right? Which is which is you know? I mean genius right because that's usually where you start to get you run into bottlenecks when you try to roll out changes across these these These enterprises right but once you get that buy-in right and it's top-down and you know, the revenue is there is easy, right so Brylan: Mm-hmm. Dre: Yeah, I think that's gonna be huge. Brylan: do, I do, I do, one of the things that is interesting is that you know, with this being a joint venture, the way the risk is like structured. So open AI is really the one taking on like all the risks. So in the best scenario. In the best case scenario, the P companies getting paid that 17 and a half percent, you know, that you had mentioned, which even interesting because once again, that where's that money coming from? It's like, it's essentially coming from their ⁓ portfolio So the money's just being recycled, which is very interesting. But I think the thing that, what I was just reading is they have revenue targets. And so if revenue targets aren't met, to be able to compensate for that 17 and a half or whatever for all those port codes or for that firm, that OpenAI is on the hook for making that happen. There was a really good article that was written that was talking about, so is that going to come from them having to raise more funds ⁓ because they're operating at a loss? Is this going to come from the revenue they're expecting from their... enterprise business. think that's where it's going to be very interesting. It's like, the thing that I don't think no one is talking about is like, everybody is saying like, there's an explosion in tokens. And that true, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's an explosion in adoption. And the reason why there's an explosion explosion in tokens because the architecture has changed. And so now are you like the the amount of tokens is not only increasing because the output. but because these models are thinking. And then if we're saying they're going to implement agents, that's just going to be, you know, whatever number of tokens. And so the thing that I'm very interested in is like, that's what I feel like has been the problem is tokens has been increasing, but adoption has not really been like super strong. Do you get adoption plus the tokens increase in, and then like what potential reality does that, you know, create, you know, for open AI? think that could be interesting. Dre: I mean it's gonna open up tens of billions in revenue. already know what it's gonna do It's be it's gonna be crazy. The revenue up and to the right on both of them I'm both anthropic and on opening Brylan: Yeah. Well, the other thing that I'm interested in is like, and I don't know if you've read up on anything about this, but it's like, are the data policy? Like going back to it, like what are the data policies between these companies when it comes to destroying venture? Because the deployment is going be immediately impactful in terms of revenue. But I think in terms of that innovation cycle and getting these traces, you know, when it comes to completing a variety of tasks across a variety of different industries, cause these port codes fall into them. Like you could see the capabilities of these agents, especially, know, Codex been doing numbers recently, like within the next year just look different because got access to data that was hard to get before. Right. And so I don't know if you've, have you heard anything on like the data piece for this or. Dre: I haven't but that's something I've about Yeah, and maybe there's a monetization opportunity there. I don't know what that looks like. Yeah, I haven't seen anything recently on that Rodney: to speak quickly and this just popped in my brain so this is unscripted I didn't think so hopefully this lands correct but basically I was on Instagram and I think I saw this I think she's an author her name is I think it's Mel Robbins and I think I'm pretty sure she's came with a book called let them let them like the like the let them theory basically and to sum it up real quick is essentially if people do stuff, just let them do it. Stop getting overly stressed about whatever people do. Just let them do it. Basically, it's I don't give a fuck type of attitude, right? Anyways, I see her make a post and on Instagram and the post is telling woman to to put in their financial data she a prompt and the prompt was basically just telling the AI to process the financial stuff. think I'm thinking it's like big statements and stuff like that. And to advice, step-by-step simple advice on how to improve their situation. And the I'm this up is because we're just talking about AI and the scale of it and I just started thinking about this person and how people kind of react to all this stuff. But there was somebody else who replied and was like, no, don't do that. Don't give chat to your financial information. Don't give any of this stuff. Don't give it that. Don't give it this. And there a whole gender component to it too. guess both of the women had different perspectives. Mel looked at it like, you know, based on number she's reading, there's men that are embracing AI and using more than women. So she wanted be someone who was trying to get more interested in it how it can help their lives, et cetera. And then the other woman was like, no, I think it's good that maybe women are not doing this because AI is using your data. It's also something that is aligned with male ideologies and all these other things. And this is a doctor who has almost a million followers on Instagram, a lot of influence in all the different places. I just wanted to bring that up to you guys because thinking about, does that person have a point on the data piece? And then likewise, do companies have a point on the data piece as well, like as far as their data? And then I guess second thing that I'm thinking about is, that will the adoption of AI create these huge gaps? ⁓ Because if what Mel is saying is true, that women are not using AI as much, and then we see this huge infrastructure, and I'm not saying it's a problem, I'm just saying, will these things happen? Or will they not? Or will the force of AI just spread through and you're just, it doesn't matter who you are. I don't know, I I'm asking a few different but there's the data piece, and then there is, whether it be a gap, whether it's gender, race or age or whatever. And then just even the potential resistance and how people view some of this stuff. Cause I viewed it as, wow, somebody's trying to encourage some, you know, a group of people who they think are not using AI a lot. And then you have somebody else with tons of influence. mean, like not like some random person, some high level person saying, no, don't give them your data. Don't use it. that know it's coded in male language that's not good for women. Don't add your finances to it. Don't give it open-eyed this information. Just interesting, right? Brylan: remember that meme where the dude drew the graph and like, fuck around and find out. That's what's going to end up happening here. like, I don't, don't. Yeah. I could probably a little bit more to like the gap, gap piece. ⁓ Cause I was a conversation about this over the weekend. ⁓ Rodney: Mm-hmm. Brylan: I think the first gap that showing is to be across class. Yeah. think, you know, the fact that like these companies are going after, you know, white collar work enterprises, things of that nature, like you're going to see folks in just a different class bracket, probably be like heavily adopters of it and probably be more engaged with it. Right. Because it's naturally just embedded into our digital workflows. We're like, Rodney: Yeah, okay. Mm-hmm. Brylan: You know, there's people that have heard a lot of people that have heard of chat GPT, but maybe only use it like once a week or something, or maybe kind of like using it just to look. Yeah. I think things do start to get very interesting. and maybe this is when, when, when, when shit is probably to start to matter. But if you think about it a few weeks ago, we were talking about like Waymo, right? And the scale, the scale that they've, you know, been able to, ⁓ you hit. Rodney: Yeah, once a month. Brylan: literally in the last few years is freaking absurd, right? And then obviously you have Tesla or whatever. If we think about what they're coming after, they're coming after logistical, we move people or we move things and are the groups of people that mostly do that? It is minorities, right? And so I think, I think, I think you're going to see it in waves. think first you're going to see it happen at the class level. Once it impacting a lot of minorities fall into like that lower class, then ⁓ Rodney: Yeah, ⁓ Brylan: I think you're see the gaps even deepen across probably racial lines or things of that nature as well. But I think at first it's gonna be class. Rodney: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's always an interesting line there. it's, cause there are things that seem more race-based that are more class-based, if that makes sense. So there are things that seem like, we're target, or there are things that seem more gender-based, but they're not, they're class-based. And, just interest-based. So for example, my woman is telling people go on AI and she's giving them a use case and else is telling them, who's a woman as well, saying, hey, don't use it, don't trust them. There's misogyny it and this and that, et cetera. And this person has tons of influence. And then you start to think that, well, okay, well, we already saw kind of ⁓ a bit crypto where most people who made wealth off crypto Brylan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rodney: were not women. we expect, would expect some of that because, because maybe that's not the, the primary interest of a lot of women. If you were to tell, there are more, they're just typically from what I see more male nerds out there who, who are into that type of stuff and who would discover that type of stuff. But I'm not, I'm not saying it's a problem or anything like that. I'm just pointing out how the distribution of this stuff does not seem as equal. it's not because it's not accessible. I see narratives controlling people. And actually Dre and I have a friend that we grew up with where he was not going to, like I told him about AI maybe when it first came out, him about ChatTPT and wasn't using it because of a narrative it using too much water. And you just think about how you just think about like the fact that something can be there everybody can use it as successful and ⁓ no, like that can use it. But depending on the narrative that you're exposed to can seemingly set people back two, three, four, five years on something is going to change everything around them. I mean, I just find that strange to see. play out in real life. We don't gotta dive too deep into it, because I know we were on our last but just seeing that happen in real time, I think is interesting to see. Because I feel like we are embracing AI at a level that is at high pace and competitive pace, and we're growing the industry. And that's carrying over other parts of our life. Brylan: I'm gonna be honest. So I two convos this week, where it actually ⁓ me in a headspace where it was like, man, I may not be embracing this the way I thought I was embracing this. A hundred percent, bro. Like it was two of my, two of my friends in New York, but they were talking about like their companies and specifically their Claude budgets right now. One was spending a a million dollars a month on Claude. Rodney: Mm-hmm. You think so? A month? Brylan: Yes. The other, the other's company was spending two and a half million a month on cloth. it was actually very fascinating because once again, like I think most of my relationship with like clock code, things of that nature is personal projects, side quests, things of that nature, not necessarily within like a company. but even how they talked about like, how they've built their own harness systems and like incorporated knowledge graphs and things of that nature. And like was like, yeah, like on average the company probably has a thousand agents like going at any one time. I was like, yeah, bro, I don't know if I'm really using this the way I thought I was really using this, bro. ⁓ I do think it comes back to is like, are we chasing? Are we chasing? Rodney: Yeah. Brylan: the spend the number of agents ⁓ can spend up as like the goal or are we really chasing, you know, actual outcome? Yeah, because one of like, ⁓ won't say the company, but the guy, one of the friends said, he was like, yeah, we got four months of runway left. I'm like, bro, you spending. Rodney: Results, results. And he's spending that much? Dre: Hmm. Brylan: And they raised, they raised like, I think they ended up raising like eight or something last year a pre-seed or something. And I'm like, in a year, you four months of runway left and y'all been spending a half a million. Rodney: They need to raise immediately. Dre: I was wrong. thought you were talking about like a spinning that that is a real business. You're talking a startup. They're just, ⁓ you're not burning their own money. They're burning somebody else's So they just based on that, they're not even, the calculus is wrong. if it was coming off of their, if it was their brand, they were generating, they wouldn't be spending them. Rodney: Right. That's insane. They're... Right. They're just wasting money. wasting money. Brylan: Yeah! you ⁓ Rodney: They're wasting money, They're like just handing the money to Anthropic. Brylan: Mmm. Dre: But I do agree with you. I do agree with you, which is maybe, you know, maybe this is a separate conversation we should have, right? Cause there has been this thing about, was it token maxing, right? I'm sure I've heard that before. Right. So Brian, you asked the question of, we the spend? I think, ⁓ I think now in the short term, yes. And I think there's probably, I mean, I don't have, I mean, I do have investors, but I mean, I don't have like capital raised conversations with them. I do. I would imagine though, if you are a company raising capital today, you are probably Brylan: Yeah! Rodney: Yes, yeah, I've that. Dre: being pushed to spend more money on AI and AI related spin, just as years ago, you were being pushed to spend that money on growth and marketing. Right. And so do think there is probably, I would imagine that's what's happening. But again, we've seen that term token matching. So we know what's happening at least at the big institutional level. This is, this is happening at the corporate level as well. ⁓ but I would assume it's happening at the startup level. So I'm not surprised to see that. feel bad for those founders. They're raised spending all that money and not getting no results. mean, That's the way the game is, right? You just burn money on fire. That's just early stage startup game. Rodney: And they probably think they're getting results. Four months is crazy. Four months is crazy. You gotta... Brylan: Bro, in four, four, if she, bro. Dre: Claude didn't tell them that shit? They didn't ask Claude like hey examine the balance sheet, examine the mega count and tell her should we continue this shit? I'm sure Claude would have said no, stop immediately. Rodney: They should ask loud. Brylan: you Rodney: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I wish we were given a few million dollars right now with the AI models that you have right now. ⁓ don't see how do you run out of money when you have AI? How you run out of money? guess I don't see it. ⁓ I with people. Dre: When you don't, they probably don't have no vision on what they want to do. They just switch in. Honestly, I'd be scared to raise money now if I was a founder, if I'm going be honest with you, especially a software founder, because what do you build? I mean, what, what really, what, can you actually build this actually useful? I heard Shumoff say this, like useful, uh, and valuable, meaning like, how can you, what would you build that is actually useful and actually generates a sustainable value? I think that has become a lot harder to answer. Rodney: think so. Competitive, too competitive. Dre: So if I raise capital today from investors, be scared of shit too. I wouldn't know what I would do. I'd probably be spending money recklessly on tokens as well, trying to figure out what to do. Because it's like, honestly, what you gonna build? You gonna go in with your next calendar app, right? You gonna go in with your souped up ⁓ system? Like, I mean, really, what are you gonna build that's actually, again, useful and valuable? Brylan: Bro. Rodney: Yeah. So some of the best founders are probably going to focus on the real life businesses. Because as you mentioned, there's just going to be tons of failures left and right in the software world. It's just, there's no real way. It's outside gathering network of individuals, but there's no way that you can use software as your competitive advantage. Like having great engineers and stuff like that are not necessarily like going to, yeah, it's just everybody, all software is under a lot more scrutiny from investors. All software, even if the software was not able to be made by AI, everybody would assume that it would be. So that would even make it hard for you as well. Like you would be hard pressed to get somebody to believe. Brylan: Right here. Rodney: I can't make what I'm what I'm making. Nobody would know what nobody would believe that. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, look. Oh, this is a long one. We have this is like it's not that bad. Hour and 20 minutes. Brylan: Thanks. Dre: Yeah, is that what you're think we were efficient though. think this is gonna end up being a good episode. We were efficient in the topics. Talked about a lot of good stuff too, which I think is this is a good precursor to some of the other stuff that we will go into in some of the future episodes. Rodney: Yeah. Yeah, we got to tap into a few things. We definitely got to tap into a few things. And I definitely want to speak more on this gap. the gap is widening in real time. Like I think before when internet, like when people had dial-up, you weren't like zooming past everybody. Like dial-up wasn't taking you to like zero to a hundred. You may have from like zero to like five. Brylan: 100%. Dre: Thanks Brylan: Good. Dre: Yeah. Brylan: it Dre: Mm-hmm. Rodney: And then five years later, you went from zero to 10. And then two years later, you went from 10 to 15, 20. But AI takes somebody from like being dumb to they can sound smart. That's not like, a big step. That's, and I think the kids know it though. So will say the kids know it. The kids know it, I believe. And the... Corporate guys and women know it, but there's a whole class of people that don't, that they just, and also they don't necessarily need it in their job on a day to day. So they're not gonna be as fluent. So. Dre: We shall see. All right, guys, let's wrap it up. Brylan: Hiya.