Why did OpenAI buy you? [music]

>> We had a very interesting history with

OpenAI in that we were sort of

contrarian supporters when [music]

it was initially rumored that OpenAI was

going to put ads in ChatGpt. The general

response was this [music] is bad. We

don't like ads. But we are the guys who

love ads and we think ads are a really

powerful business model and we think ads

can make things free. If you want to be

open AI, you're going to need an [music]

adup supported version of your product.

All right, let's first right into it. Uh

we're joined today by John Kugan and

Jordi Hayes, who are the creators of

TBPN, a popular daily show covering the

biggest stories in tech and business.

[snorts] Uh so you both host TBPN, the

daily live show that became OpenAI's

first ever acquisition this spring.

You've hosted names from Zuckerberg to

Alman to Nadella. Before we get to the

OpenAI deal, take us back to the

beginning. Give us go all the way back

17 months and give us your backstory.

[laughter]

>> Long time ago.

>> We met through a mutual friend who

connected us because we were in a

similar stage of life. I guess we'd both

started companies uh in Silicon Valley,

raised money from actually two of the

same venture capital firms. uh never

met, but we both were living in Los

Angeles, had kids, and were sort of

looking for what was next.

>> And LA is a terrible place to live if

you work in tech outside of hard tech.

Uh and we didn't see ourselves building

a hard tech business. We both had some

media background. I built a influencer

marketing company in college. John had a

big YouTube channel.

>> Yeah.

>> And we did what what had never really

been done before. Two guys in tech

decided to start a podcast. It was

revolutionary.

>> Um, no. So, uh, we met, we we just loved

talking. Uh, we would call each other,

even though we didn't even know each

other that well, and just talk about

different ideas and

>> what was happening. Uh, and eventually

decided to record one of the

conversations. We sent it to uh, a guy

named David Senra, who has David Senra

by David Senra, popular podcast, and

also the founders podcast. if you've uh

>> uh listened to that.

>> And he's one of the strongest believers

in the power of podcasting that like

we're still early, that it's not too

late to start a podcast if you have a

good idea, something fresh to offer. And

so he was extremely encouraging, told us

that we should uh take it deadly

seriously.

>> Yeah, we hadn't published an episode,

but we sent him a a Google Drive file.

He listened to it. I was shocked that he

listened to it

>> because who has time for another

podcast? And uh but he did and he yeah

he said like you know take this 10 times

>> as seriously. He saw something in us and

you know we kept going from there.

>> And so he sort of encouraged us to treat

it like a business like a startup not

like a side project. And that's

something that we quickly uh identified

as one of our key differentiators was

that we had lots of friends and we'd

been in these situations before. My

YouTube channel I was running it on the

side while I was also doing a business.

And there's a lot of people that have

investment firms that also have podcasts

or they have a company and then they

start a podcast to promote that company.

And there weren't that many people

outside of uh the the traditional media.

Uh there weren't that many insiders that

had transitioned and become full-time

creators. uh Dark Cesh Patel obviously

in that group, David Senra, there's a

few others, but it was a smaller group

than I think the podcast charts let on.

When you scrolled through and you saw

hundreds of hundreds of podcasts, most

of those folks were not spending 40

hours a week.

>> It was and and still is low status to

some degree. Like there's there uh I

remember when we would tell our friends

in the early days cuz we told people

with like a handful of episodes we were

like we're going full-time on a podcast

and like we have supportive friends

thankfully. They were like yeah like

that excited for you. That's awesome.

But you know in their head they were

just thinking

>> like wow they're down on their

>> completely lost.

>> Couldn't come up with a single sass

idea. What are they thinking? Um and so

we started taking it really seriously

and that unlocked a lot of things that

unlocked uh interviews with bigger

>> Well, yeah. Before we get there, we

should talk about like why we initially

got any traction at all is because we

weren't doing interviews. We did

>> like 150 hours with just the two of us

talking before we had done

>> a single guest. And instead of having

there were shows that we love like

acquired is is you know uh an amazing

product but it's like one topic and we

would have uh you know we would talk for

90 minutes but we'd cover 50 topics.

>> Yes. 30 50.

>> So we'd read the whole Wall Street

Journal, the Financial Times. We'd pull

from random headlines. We'd pull up uh

tweets and posts on different social

media sites. We'd print out the posts.

So, we'd typically have a stack of posts

and we would uh pull them up and and

through them. Uh, and Jordy has one

there. Uh, we would discuss it.

Sometimes we'd just be laughing about

it. Sometimes we it would take us on a

tangent. We'd talk for 10 minutes, but

then we would clip that reaction to that

post and then quote tweet the original

post. And so, that was sort of a do

things that don't scale moment. It was a

a love letter to whoever uh posted that

original idea or that take or whatever

they posted. And uh as you know from

posting oftent times the numbers get

really big. You get a thousand likes on

something and it all kind of just melts

into the background and it becomes just

noise and you see the number go up. But

if someone quotes your post with a

thoughtful commentary that's filmed in

4K with cinema cameras and the hosts are

wearing suits and they print it. They

took the time to print out your post.

It's just wow. These people went a lot

further to say something. I'm at least

going to see what they had to say about

the thing that I fired off in the

shower. Right. And so that just told

individual people, maybe 50 people a

day, got a little message from us. Hey,

we exist. We liked what you said and

here's our commentary. And then they

followed us. They reposted it. They

quote tweeted and said, I can't believe

this happened. What is this? This is

weird. This is interesting. And so that

was interesting like 0ero to1 moment.

>> Yeah. Early lessons in going to zero to

one was, you know, need some element of

format innovation. Like podcasts are

incredibly noisy, incredibly powerful,

but we came in with something that was a

truly unique product because one, there

was no one else that had us talking

about crazy ideas for 90 minutes. We had

a monopoly on that.

>> And then a real focus on marketing the

show, treating the show like a product

that we make every day, but we were

incredibly fixated on on marketing that

product. And I think that and that that

that happened through clips and and and

um you know the love letters concept,

things like that.

>> So also I think you guys recognized a

real gap in the market and that is two

white guys hosting a podcast.

[laughter]

>> Exactly.

>> I've heard nothing you said the last

five minutes. I was so excited about

that joke. Um

[laughter]

>> what did you guys do? What did you guys

do before this?

Uh, I grew up in LA, studied economics

in college, moved out to Silicon Valley

as soon as I graduated, joined.

>> Where you Where did you grow up? I'm

from LA. Where did you grow up in LA?

>> I grew up in Pasadena. I live there now,

actually.

>> And where'd you go to college?

>> I went to Nor Eastern in Boston and then

I went out to Silicon Valley. Was was

sort of on a finance track post uh great

financial crisis. was very interested in

that but then uh got uh bitten by the Y

cominator bug reading Paul Graham's blog

uh reading hacker news wanted to move

out to Silicon Valley maybe join a tech

company realized that a lot of the big

tech companies I wouldn't be fit for the

corporate ladder wanted to start a

company uh started one company teamed up

with a Y combinator company uh the first

business I started was called Soilent it

was a meal replacement shake

>> you probably had a couple soilents over

the years Yeah. You heard about that? It

was like a decade ago.

>> That was one of my favorite viral Soil

and Green.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure name for a food

product, but

>> that was the point. The point was like

it was it was rage bait. It was rage

bait. Like everyone had

>> liquid death, that kind of thing.

>> Yeah, liquid death. Same thing. Um and

so and so, uh yeah, I was like I was

interested in technology and working on

software startups, but then we got

pulled into uh this consumer package

goods direct to consumer boom and grew

that company a bunch, raised a bunch of

money, eventually sold that company,

started another company with basically

the same team. uh but then got that

company to scale and um had the

opportunity during COVID to sort of

think about what was next. Started a

YouTube channel and then eventually went

over to Founders Fund to become an

entrepreneur in residence and that gave

me a lot of free time to explore what

was next and that sort of set me up to

be ready to go full-time on something uh

completely new when the right when the

right pitch came my way. We're not very

good at uh being concise as you can

tell. We talk we do this for three hours

a day. We'll we'll have we'll have hit

the 4 hour mark uh by by the end of the

day of of podcasting. We really love

this. But uh I grew up in the Bay in the

Bay Area. Was always obsessed with uh

the idea of building companies, building

startups. I I built a first ever company

was a skateboard company when I was 12

because I figured out that the boards

that I was buying in California for $35

would be a blank Canadian maple board, I

could get them made with my logo for

$17.50 in the Midwest. And so I I went

and raised like $500 to do my first run.

Uh and so started selling skateboards.

That was kind of when I caught the bug.

took me about a decade from there to

build like a real business that could

support my life. But I started uh I

actually met a number of podcasts while

in college. And this was at a time where

you'd have like a podcast with an

incredibly loyal fan base, tons and tons

of downloads. Uh and they'd be in the

top 10 of, you know, whatever category

they were in. And they'd be running like

zero ads, which sounds uh which sounds

insane, but they would just be doing it

for the love of the game. and maybe they

had another bid business. And so I went

to them and I was like, if I can bring

you advertisers, can I take a cut? And

so I started doing that. And that uh

over time turned into a company called

Branded Native, which is still running

today, but uh does like YouTube, you

know, creator advertising for uh a bunch

of different brands. And so I didn't

raise money for that business. It got

profitable uh quite quickly. And I

started taking the profits and investing

those in other startups. So then over

the last however many years I guess

eight years invested in like 70ome

startups eventually started a fintech

company uh I started maybe the most 2021

zerp company ever company called party

round which was Venmo for fundraising

and investing because I would get

invited to invest in a startup and then

I remember the first time somebody said

like well I'll I'll send you the docs

and then you can just wire after that

and I was like wire transfer I'd never

actually done [laughter] a wire. I had

never actually done a wire transfer at

the time myself, like a like an outbound

um

>> push. And so I was like, why is this not

like Venmo? Uh a lot of VCs thought that

was a great idea in 2021. As you can

imagine, everyone in their, you know,

mom was was investing in startups. Um

and uh had built like a fairly viral

brand on on X for that business. Ended

up evolving it into a banking product

over time. uh that was building a

stablecoin basically a stablecoin bank.

Uh the month that we launched FTX

collapsed which uh killed a lot of

excitement that people had around crypto

as as you as you can uh imagine and then

a few months after that SVB collapsed

and people started really caring about

how much FDIC coverage they had. Uh we

at the time had standard like 250k of

coverage and uh our average customer

balance was like a million dollars

something like that. And so people are

like I was telling our customers like

yeah this there's a bank run that's

happening like you need to be practical

with your business. We ended up um

getting Aqua hired by a company called

Row in New York City uh and then work

there. And that's like when uh when I

met John um

>> ready for this. We we we had been like

both both of us had gone through

the sort of like Silicon Valley factory

had had some wins, had some some losses,

had been like I would say very humbled

by

>> Yeah.

>> by like work and life, right? Like I

went I went from being like, you know,

running a hot startup

>> Yeah. and uh to basically like having my

business blown up by like you know the

the the market dynamics and then I'm

sitting there I've got like a

one-year-old son at the time I've got

another on the way like that's like

deeply humbling and so I think that um

based on like what we do and what we

talk about they expect us to be like you

know maybe cocky or something like that

but I think we came at TBPN uh from a

very we had been humbled by Silicon

Valley been humbled by startups and I

think that has informed our coverage.

Right. Right. Like I think we give

people we always would give people the

benefit of the doubt. We we like took a

strategy early on which was called uh

golden retriever mode which is an idea

that you know John John can can uh has

described many times on the show but

like being in a golden retriever mindset

and trying to act show up in the world

and at least that was our role with TVPN

is showing up as like golden retrievers.

You're like happy

friendly and dumb.

>> Yeah. you know,

>> not trying to be, oh, I'm I I I got this

person. I'm smarter than them. I'm the

smartest one in the room, always. Uh

being, yeah, a little humble in some

ways.

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So, I I'm fascinated by and a little bit

jealous because I what I've seen is that

you guys this year are going to you're

tracking towards

and we I'm very open about our business

and transparent about the economics

because I want young people to learn

about money and building businesses. But

11 employees uh five million in ad

revenue in 2025. You're tracking past uh

from what I see here 30 million in 2026

bootstrapped profitable zero outside

capital show was 17 months old at

acquisition.

This is what struck me though around

70,000 viewers per episode across

platforms and 58,000 YouTube

subscribers.

So, here at PropG this year, we'll do I

think about 20 million and we do

substantially more downloads in video

views than that. And yet, you guys have

50% more revenue and my So, now granted,

I'm the idiot reading Zip Recruiter ads

or telling people to drink Ziotics

before they go get [ __ ] up.

>> I introduced them. I introduced the

founders of Ziotics. I love them.

>> I just ordered a bunch. It's a fantastic

product.

>> Yeah. connected the team.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I connected the team.

Stephen, the one of the co-founders went

to high school with me. I absolutely

love that product. We sorted a bunch.

>> I spent a lot of money on it. Is it

because you guys are selling just

sponsorships as opposed to ad

insertions? Like how do I get the same

revenue per viewer that you guys

>> Yeah. So, it's a couple things. So, one,

because I started this company, Branded

Native, and I had done literally done

thousands of like influencer podcast,

YouTube, you know, deals. So, I was

obsessed with the commercial side. Uh,

and early on with that business, if I

would connect an advertiser with a

content creator and the first few ads

went well, I would immediately book out

like an annual deal because I thought it

was in the interest in both companies. I

was like, the advertiser wants to

allocate budget effectively. The content

creator wants predictable revenue. Uh,

and so I would do that when I could. Um,

and it and it worked well. And so for

this business, like you know, we had a

small team uh and the knowing that we

were having to show up and be live for

three hours a day. I knew that we

weren't going to have time to be doing a

lot of ad sales. So I basically wanted

to uh we only sold advertising on an

annual basis, which was good for us and

good for the companies. So for last

year, you know, we had kind of

projections. Since this was 2025, our

first like full year uh in business, we

had projections and we would show those

to advertisers and say like, "Hey, this

is what we think we can do for the

year." Uh they would sign on, but they'd

be on a fixed rate. So, they would be

committing to annual annual spend with

us, but they'd be on a fixed rate. So,

if we grew beyond what we were

projecting, it was just like, you know,

uh you know, free incremental uh

impressions or or reach. And so, that

was super important. uh also because we

wanted the ability to know how much

revenue we were going to have in the

month of March and April and and May and

things like that because we wanted to

hire a team. We wanted to invest in our

space. We have um what I would say one

of the most unique, you know, podcast

studios in in the world. that you know

it's not uh it's certainly like sub a

million dollars but uh you know we

invested a ton of ton of money into

equipment last year and part of that was

like having this predictable revenue

stream and then the other thing that the

other approach that we took was uh you

know I was pitching advertising with us

as like sponsoring a Formula 1 team. So,

you know, it wasn't like we were going

to we we would run ads for every every

company every day, but then we would put

their logo on like, you know, merch that

we would make. We would put their logo

on clips. If we did, you know, anything

IRL, we would show up for them there.

And so, it was like, you know, actually

like, you know, a big tech company

sponsoring a Formula 1 team. They know

they're going to be on the car. They

know they're going to be here. They know

they're going to be everywhere. And so

by having like, you know, basically one

contract and then we were very open and

upfront and it was part of the show that

we were we loved advertising. Like we

truly think it's amazing. I was like, I

love that somebody anywhere in the world

can listen to this content for free that

we put so much uh effort uh into making.

Uh and it doesn't matter who you are,

it's just free. Like it's uh it's truly

it's truly an incredible business model.

It's very aligned. Uh, and so we were

very I would say a lot of podcasts in

tech, not you, I think you're very

commercial. Um, and that's a that's a

compliment, but a lot of podcasts in

tech were like above above ads. They

were like doing ads would be low status

because I have a venture fund and I get

management fees and and things like

that. Um, and then the other thing is

like we had a focus early on and it's

still our focus which is we believe that

there's 200,000 people in the world max

that we make content for and these

people are running businesses. They're

investing in the companies that uh of of

the founders that we talk to. They

invest tens of billions of dollars a

year. They can, you know, run companies

that spend billions of dollars a year on

uh everything from advertising to to

software to cloud etc. And uh we always

believed that that was a big enough

audience for what we were trying to do

because we in this business you we go

live for three hours every day. We don't

we can't afford to talk about things

that we aren't interested in. We can't

afford to be explaining to people like

what AWS is. You know, we can't we don't

we don't have the time nor do we want to

take the time to explain SpaceX's

business in the year 2026 because we

assume that our audience has been

following SpaceX and understanding

SpaceX for a decade plus now.

>> Yeah. The other thing with uh the the

audience we found Yeah. Yeah, we just

found ways to get ad impressions to

people that don't normally don't see

ads. I I think you've talked about this

too uh about how certain powerful people

basically don't experience advertising.

Uh we figured out how to get ads to

them. One of the ways uh during our

inter before our interview with Mark

Zuckerberg, I read him a ramp ad

directly because our ads are integrated.

put the headphones on and John started

>> cuz I have to do an ad read before the

interview starts and with with what

we're doing right now. I'm sure the ads

will be sliced in later. Uh although

shout out Ziotics, they did get a

freebie in here. But uh our ads are

integrated. So uh there might be a

Fortune 500 CEO is coming on and right

as they're coming on they hear an ad

right uh throughout the interview

they're looking at our screen which has

all the corporate logos including the

RAM sponsorship right there. Uh, so

there's ad integrations and logo

placement there. And then after they hop

off, they might still hear us read the

next ad. And then every time we share

one of their clips, um, a lot of a lot

of, uh, media companies and shows and

podcasts have a clipping strategy, but

they don't monetize the clips very well.

So all of our clips have brands on them,

logos, and then at the end of every one

minute clip is a full ad read. And so,

you know, of course, some people scroll

to the next video by then, but a lot of

people do stick around and they do see

that ad impression. And so the actual ad

impressions goes much further. and these

clips if it's if it's some you know AI

for legal company that's on that's going

to get sent to the competitor company

even if it's a very small audience it's

going to get sent around that small

community and so that clip might only

get a few thousand views but it's going

to be with the right people because it's

essentially trade trade media.

>> Yeah. The other thing that we did, we

realized early on that if we were going

to be doing live podcast style ads, we

weren't going to be able to do a 90-cond

ad. Like people would just immediately

bail.

>> Uh and so we we pitched advertisers on

instead of giving you a smaller number

of 90-cond ads, we'll give you, you

know, 250

20 second ads. And uh really selling

that like repetition and frequency. So,

I've memorized all the ad reads. We have

buttons that we can pull up and and they

take over the screen to show you the

graphic really quickly, but it's not

long enough that you want to pull out

your phone and tap tap tap tap tap.

>> And just to give you an idea of how the

how how the advertisers get like sort of

like strange incremental reach, we made

a bunch of merch early on that people

were really excited about. And we never

sold merch because it's not our core

business. and and it wouldn't really

move the needle from a revenue

standpoint. Uh but we would there were

websites that were making fake TVPN

merch. They're still out there and

putting our advertisers all over the

merch in the way that we did. So they

were building a business selling our

advertisers

>> uh you know basically like impressions

for our advertisers. And so

>> um

>> so yeah and I think I think it was you

know I I think like the TBPN story is as

much around like marketing innovation

and business model innovation and format

innovation

>> as it is timing right the timing of of

launching a show like this during

>> one of you know the most historic

technology cycle of our lifetimes

certainly plays a part as well. Yeah, I

think that's really interesting

construct or model. Think of it as a

Formula 1 team because I find that our

most lucrative deals and it sounds like

you figured this out sooner than us or

we'll just say to um you know an AI

company uh you're we're going to use

your data. We're going to talk about you

all the time. We'll disclose that you're

an advertiser, but we want X dollars and

we're not going to get into this whole

impression CPM game. We kind of managed

to bust out of that.

>> No. and and you're you're instantly

losing when you do that because if

you're advertising enterprise products,

one customer can pay for the entire

>> Yeah.

>> ad like placement, the entire deal,

right? And so that was something we

recognized early on with RAMP. I was

like, yeah, we're going to get you or at

least help you close a public company

and if that is the only customer that we

get you for the entire year,

>> job's finished.

>> The everything else is free. Everything

else is free. And so, yeah, we we had a

couple of consumer partners early on,

but we realized that like like the

people in our audience can actually go

and buy $5 million a year of this SAS

company or or they can spend $20 million

on cloud or they can spend

>> $50 million on on inference, but they

can only buy like one aid sleep, right?

Or maybe two.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so we realize like the best

use of our ad inventory is should be

entirely and so our friends with

consumer companies we'll just support

them like John's drinking Andrew

Huberman's you know yerba mate company

and we don't even charge money for that

because

>> yeah we just we just like them. Let's

talk a little bit about I I hadn't heard

of you guys and then I heard about you

all the time because you're my

understanding is your first acquisition

or media acquisition of OpenAI

and the rumor is you guys got sold for

the low hundreds of millions which is I

don't think any company any podcast at

least less than two years old has ever

gotten sold for nine figures much less

what sounds like more than that call it

a 20x plus revenue multiple which media

businesses never trade at. So my first

question is why did OpenAI buy you?

>> I think they saw what we were doing

online and wanted to partner with us in

the way that our brands had. So we we

had a very interesting history with

OpenAI in that we were sort of

contrarian supporters. So going back to

the fact that the show is very pro-

advertising when

it was initially rumored that OpenAI was

going to put ads in ChatGpt.

The general response was this is bad. We

don't like ads. But we're the guys who

love ads and we think ads are a really

powerful business model and we think ads

can make things free. And it was like if

you want to be open AI, you're going to

need an adup supported version of your

product. Otherwise, like that like

Silicon Valley, we were like looking

around being like you guys think that

everyone in the world can spend $20 a

month on on software. And you don't

realize that like there most American

households will like cancel a $10 a

month streaming product if they don't

have a show that they love in that very

very moment. We were we were very pro-

ad and so we were celebrating milestones

along that path in a very sort it was

like half ironic sort of funny but also

we did believe it was a real model and

we had done a number of stunts on the

internet. Uh we ran a Super Bowl ad uh

that that did shoutouts for everyone in

our community. We had launched a product

called clawed with ads that was sort of

making fun of the anthropic ad that was

targeted at it was punching at open AAI

and OpenAI couldn't really punch back

and so we were laughing about that and

so we' done a couple of these like viral

marketing campaigns and to be able to

work with us this was the deal that made

the most sense to to help on the

marketing side and that and that

includes things from billboards to the

next Super Bowl ad. I hope we can have a

really strong voice in.

>> Yeah, we had been very loud about, you

know, the need to it it felt like before

AI was like real and before it was

something that we used every single day,

the technology industry and the labs

like needed to use fear-based marketing

to raise the necessary capital to build

a lot of these models. and and it

basically by like the midpoint of last

year we were seeing that like

this sort of like fear-based approach to

selling the product is going to just go

really really really badly and it has

right like you know look at public

opinion around AI people are scared of

it even though they find it very useful

in their in their day-to-day life and so

>> we had been we had been unofficially

giving open AI advice

>> every single day through the show being

like, hey, like, where's our Steve Jobs?

Like,

>> we just going to be like, and I'm not

saying that's just talk about like just

talk about what the product can do for

you. Cuz there'll be a model release and

they'll talk about the stats and the

benchmarks. Instead of just being like,

well, now you can go and ask for a

custom piece of furniture and it will

just give you exactly the image of the

piece of furniture that you want, you

can just go get it made for cheaper than

what you would get somewhere else or

something like that. Like there's all

these different use cases that come up

and they always come with like a blog

post and metrics and it's not just like

hey you can go use this thing for this

particular problem now.

>> Yeah. And the other thing is that we

were always we were sort of ironically

and unironically pro technology

throughout the entire

>> throughout the entire show. We still

are. We think that there's so many

companies that that you know compete

with OpenAI that are that are fantastic.

like SpaceX is one of the greatest

American companies in history.

>> Anthropic is one of the greatest

American companies in history. Uh

Google, you know, all all these players

like we generally

>> just want the American technology sector

to do well. We have friends at at at all

of these companies.

>> Well, thank God you guys are here

because they're they're they could use

the help. It's uh

>> Thank you.

>> It's been pretty rough there. Um

>> yeah, and I'll give you another example.

So like I when there was rumor that that

OpenAI was going to do an adult mode and

and again like uh this was in Q Q3 Q4 of

last year.

>> I thought announced that. No, that was a

rumor.

>> He he you well he announced that that

they were planning on working on it or

rolling it out under a certain umbrella

that would be maybe age gated or

something, but it never launched. But

there was

>> and that's the kind of thing that that's

the kind of thing that like I was very

>> I I was like there's no way to there's

no in my view there was no way to defend

that kind of action in the same way that

I don't think there's a way you can

defend Zuckerberg launching you know

prediction markets you know integrating

gambling into into

it gambling

>> I think the defense is it's good for

shareholder value but I I appreciate

what you're saying um

>> I don't think that's going to get I

would I would bet that both of those

will launch both, but you guys are

closer to it than I am.

>> You think Meta will launch a a a

gambling product that includes

prediction prediction product that

includes cash and money? Because if

because there there was some rumors in

the reporting that it might be all for

like social points and I think that's a

much more nuanced discussion. Like I I I

I'm not pro gambling, but also I've

played role playing games where I've

been like, I want my score to be really

high. And I don't know that trying to

get the highest score on Tetris is the

same thing as being at a Vegas casino

until 4 a.m. with real money.

>> It's fun to from a commentator to talk

to other commentators and feel free to

push back because, you know, as you get

older, you've start kind of figure out

what you you know, you don't know what

you don't know. My sense is the business

story that's unfolding in our world

right now is I think we're going to find

out post World Cup that there was more

money wagered on World Cup games on

calcium poly market than have ever been

wagered on anything before in history.

And I think Zuckerberg who is a

brilliant business person and only has

one concern and one brand association

and that is delivering shareholder

value. It's not protecting youth. It's

not start you know stopping young girls

from cutting themselves. It's not

concern about radicalizing young men.

It's not the polarization of our country

or coursing of our discourse. It's about

shareholder value. And to be blunt,

that's kind of what private companies

are supposed to do, right? Uh and I

think he looks at calcium poly market

and says, I know I'm going to take a two

billion person hose and fire it at this

and potentially take some of that 1050

hundred billion dollars in value that

these guys are creating. So I think

it'll be a direct ripoff. Yeah,

>> I don't know. I don't know. I just look

at it as like if he really cared about

shareholder

value, he would be running what is the

greatest business in the world, which is

Meta Platforms.

>> So stay focused. You think he should

just stay focus?

>> Yeah. Yeah. I think Meta would tra I

personally think Meta is like a a $3

trillion company and is going to

permanently have a discount on it

because of the metaverse, because of AI.

>> Well, the metaverse is basically gone.

He's basically shut that down.

>> No, no, I know. But I'm but I'm just

saying like

>> as a shareholder like at any moment

could disappear.

>> Yeah. The business

>> it's like it's like the the goose eggs

but then the eggs get taken by the goose

and get sent off to a different farm and

you're like ah where am I where's my

golden egg? I I I do always wonder about

the feedback loop of like you identified

a bunch of problems with the with the

platforms. Um and I and I do wonder like

there sometimes there is a there's a

flywheel there where uh you know kids

get addicted to social media, the next

generation doesn't let their kids use

the platforms, they don't get addicted,

then that destroys shareholder value.

And so if you're thinking long term,

you're suggesting that

>> you think

>> he owns 100% of the voting stock or

whatever, you know, he can think long

term. You think he's thinking, "Oh, I'm

I'm I'm not going to publish. I'm going

to be more thoughtful and uh measured

around potential harms to young people,

including evidence internally that show

Hold on. Show depression because their

parents because their parents

>> are going to see that and when these

kids grow up and realize that they had

eating disorders

>> and anxiety that they're not going to

let their kids do it. Do you think

that's actually influencing him right

now?"

>> That's that wasn't my claim. My claim

was that he has a long-term economic

incentive.

>> Agreed.

>> He might be ignoring that incentive to

>> the terminal but the terminal value 25

years out is pretty is pretty low,

right? I

>> Yeah, maybe.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> I like this. So, let me let me bounce a

thesis off of you guys and then I want

>> one more one more thing guys I wanted to

close the loop on. Uh, I think the

simple the simple explanation is like it

is culturally in Meta's DNA to launch a

version of the hot thing regardless of

what it is. And so it doesn't in in

consumer yeah in consumer it's like it

doesn't matter that it's gambling and

that it is objectively harmful. It's the

new hot thing in consumer, so we're

going to do it. And and uh

>> if it's photos, it's photos. If it's

videos, it's videos. You acquire or you

build internally.

>> They're the they're the largest second

mouse in history, maybe beside Apple. I

think I think Zuckerberg is a genius at

looking at something that's working and

saying reverse engineer it and then

again, let's get our two billion people

on it. A couple just business stories. I

like this game where, you know, we we go

back and forth on something. I'm curious

what you guys think of. So, a tech IPO,

I think it's pricing tomorrow that it

hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but JP

Morgan and Goldman are taking them out.

>> Spoons.

>> Yeah. The the Bergkshire Hathaway of

forgotten but beloved brands, 88%

recurring revenue. You guys are probably

too young for this, but AOL, Vimeo, we

transfer, you know, some some pretty

good businesses. Basically, buy these

things. I don't know if they buy them on

the cheap, but buy them at what they

probably think are reasonable prices.

use AI or whatever it is they do to kind

of quite frankly get efficiency.

>> Italians.

>> There you go. And then lay [laughter]

off.

>> No, that's literally that's that's

that's the view. It's like it salaries

are much cheaper in Italy than in the US

if you buy an American

>> and they hire really young people. They

they claim it's brilliant young people,

but they hire young young inexpensive

people out in Napoli that went to

wherever the Bone or whatever.

>> Anyway, I'm just curious what you guys

think of this IPO. What is your

prediction on it? Do you like the

company? Uh

thoughts bending spoons pricing

tomorrow.

>> So we've had we've had uh Mr. Ferrari on

the show. I think he might be coming on

tomorrow.

>> I have not tracked the price. We don't

give like specific financial advice and

like buy sell ratings. Um I I don't

know. I don't know what's your take on

it. Let me think.

>> Yeah, because so we our origins are in

the private markets, right? Yeah,

>> like John and I don't really do a lot of

public markets investing outside of

index funds. Like we

>> uh the the DNA and the the core of the

show is that we're

>> trying to understand markets and

strategies.

We don't have to talk about valuation. I

think it's a good company.

>> I I have no I have no idea. I I think

that uh you would like let's go let's go

actually line by line with their with

with uh

>> what what's the market cap what's the PE

ratio I think that's the biggest

question

>> Q1 2025 there's a lot of growth there

only 13% organic it's mostly a roll up

but the Q1 2025 was uh about 270 million

and they lost 120 million Q126

they're now at 625 and they pivoted to

profitability like 27 million. So call

it $2.5 billion run rate and the

valuation I think is somewhere between

18 and 20 billion. So

>> about eight times revenues. The bull

case is this is a SAS company at a

decent valuation with great brands,

consumer brands, 88% recurring revenue.

The bare case is that it's highly

levered. It's four it's its debt is four

times which is pretty large leverage.

Um, and I'm trying to figure out I like

the company because I love these brands

and I love the idea of consolidating the

back end.

>> What do you love about what do you love

about the brands though? Is it just like

nostalgic for you?

>> Cuz I look at these brands and I'm like

I've used almost every one of them once

over the years.

>> You have since churned,

>> but I I churned and I don't like I like

going and working with a company where I

know that the founder is spending 14

hours a day obsessing. I think the

problem here is that you're an early

adopter and you move on to the next

thing to early adopt. I look at it and I

say they're making a single dollar from

AOL. That dollar is going to be around a

thousand years from now because if

they're still able to make money from a

company that's so old and like they've

already faced disruption from cloud,

disruption from mobile, disruption from

AI is probably not going to hurt those

companies either because these are very

resilient. if they've made it through so

many transitions, I feel like the the

the risk of like getting eaten by the

big labs or getting slopped by some

competitor that just clones you with

vibe coding, that's much more of a risk

when you're a young company that's

growing and everyone's like, "Oh,

they're making a lot of money. We should

copy that." No one's thinking, "Let's

copy Vimeo. Let's copy AOL or whatever

else they have in the portfolio." And as

we've talked to some of the people that

run those legacy brands, they're built

on relationships at this point and

advertiser partnerships. And it's not

the same go to market motion that you

see in some high growth hot startup in

Silicon Valley in 2026. So I don't know.

>> Let me give you another one. I want to

get through two more before you guys

start your daily three-hour podcast,

which sounds like torture to me.

>> Why don't we just stay Why don't we stay

on and you open the show with us.

here.

>> Polygamy pol wait podcast polygamy. So

>> something

>> the uh curious on your take on Snap and

I this this comment is pregnant with a

or this question is pregnant with a

comment. I think I'm actually thinking

about buying some Snap. I think the

biggest unlock in the tech market right

now would be if Snap spuned Spectacles

Group. Um

>> that yeah that's the big looming

question.

>> Well yeah you have a business they did a

one and a half billion in Q1. So they'll

do somewhere north of six this year

trading at a $7 billion market cap.

Again, it has like the ult if if Zuck

has like a, you know, a 30 to 50%

discount on his business because he's

kind of erratic and just does what he

wants. Like, you know, Snap has like,

you know, maybe uh 80% discount on it

because

>> stocks down 93% in five years. Yeah, I'm

saying 80% relative to where maybe maybe

it should trade. Y

>> um

>> still zero marginal cost and network

effect. So even if someone vibe codes a

direct competitor, it's not going to

have the liquidity pool of content. I

agree with you. Um but the question is

people have been asking for the spa the

specs spin out for years. Is it going to

happen or company? We don't know.

>> Yeah, it's hard it's hard to tell. There

is something where I think you get in

that seat and you enjoy the life of

being the CEO of this company and

handsome billionaire model.

>> Yeah.

>> You think it's okay?

>> I think it might be good.

>> It's like being the dictator. It's like

the the dictator of an online nation of

of you know Zoomers.

>> Yeah. It's a pretty good gig.

>> Yeah. And I think if you're a

shareholder, you just have to know that

you're going into that.

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Another thesis I want to test the

independence that's supposedly in your

acquisition. I've never seen a flipping

like what's happened with OpenAI and

Anthropic. I've never seen Hertz or Avis

overtake Hertz the way Anthropic has

overtaken a Open AI. Your thoughts?

>> Didn't happen with Apple and Microsoft a

bunch

>> that it didn't happen in 90 days. I my

sense is this has been the most vicious

number two to number one I've ever seen

in the corporate world. And you may not

even agree that they've superseded them.

Thoughts?

>> I mean I I I think that's clear on the

ARR numbers that have been leaking out.

Um

>> what are those? I haven't seen those.

>> I mean, there was a like a lot of this

comes from like complete anons, but uh I

think

>> yeah, the state the state of the state

of news is like very funny where like

one account with 60 followers on X will

just say something and then that that

suddenly has taken us back. I I agree

with you. It's it's one of the most

remarkable stories in history. It's a

story about

>> the value of focus, right? like that

that to me is the is the um it's it's uh

we had never seen be because I I think

it will be imprinted in like we're in a

situation where like the market for

intelligence is growing so quickly that

there's so many companies that are doing

well like the number seven codegen

startup is like crushing it and raising

it like a billion multi-billion dollar

valuation because because like there's

just so much demand and so that is part

of it and then I think this story will

be imprinted on a bunch of founders

today which is that like don't get

complacent you got to focus like you

have to respect your you have to give

ultimate respect to all of your

competitors and I think there people

couldn't imagine something like this

because it hadn't h like it hadn't

happened before so it wasn't

>> or at least at least in this way like

historically it's like well you had a

few years to see this kind of thing

coming. So like ultimately both

companies are doing incredibly well.

They both have amazing products and I'm

I'm we again we are glad that uh I am

just glad that that uh both these

companies are here in the United States.

Uh and and that we have a third and a

fourth and a fifth and a sixth and a

seventh and an eighth that are here in

the US as well. Um I do have one one for

you. I want to get your take. I don't

know if you saw Masa's slides from last

week. He put out a new deck. Uh and he

had some uh he had some pretty

interesting slide. He says he's talking

about the value of like soft how you

should value Soft Bank. He says what

matters is not the eggs, it is the goose

itself. Because he's saying like

SoftBank is being valued at three eggs,

but the goose is not valued. And he

says, "What matters is not the eggs. It

is the goose itself. The true value

>> is the power to keep

>> the power of memes."

>> Yeah. Do you think because he had

another slide and I'm going to pull this

up. He had a slide in 2019

that just said SPG shareholder value and

it had a bunch of unicorns and an arrow

that said toward further growth. And I

think the stock is up like 5x since

then. Uh he said it was because of AI

traffic that's why it's going to go up.

So, he's actually had some pretty good

calls, but the real question that we've

been debating is like, is he aware of

the power of just like silly goofy

memes? Because it it does pretty

accurately convey like the idea he's

trying to get across, which is like,

you're valuing me based on my eggs, but

why aren't you valuing the goose that's

producing those eggs? [laughter] But

>> ridiculous.

>> I'm curious what you think.

>> Whenever I read his decks, I think,

okay, you know, our uncle's back on

meth. I don't [laughter]

I I don't I just don't get them. And I'm

convinced that he's actually an agent of

the CIA who's been charged with

transferring oil capital back from the

Gulf to America with crazy [ __ ] ideas

that PIFF and Mubalaba fund and then

transfers it to US entrepreneurs. So I

think he's an agent of the CIA charged

with reallocating capital or

repatriating capital back from the Gulf.

>> We have a tinfoil hat in the uh in in

our studio.

>> If you were here if we were here well

>> no that's the problem. goose.

>> I'm [laughter] listening.

>> The goose.

>> He's the goose. He's the golden goose.

He's our He's our golden goose. Uh I

just think I just have to give him I I I

give him credit for for putting together

the silliest slide ever in 2019 that

that you know, years and years, you

know, four years before Chad GBT that he

was like AI traffic is going to cause

our stock to go up a lot. And he called

it perfectly.

>> Yeah. So, last question. You guys have

been very generous. First off, let me

say I'm really happy for you guys. What

are you doing with all this money? And

you can't say nothing. And I never

really thought about the money. Like,

give me

>> Have you heard of a Nissan Morano Cross

Cabriolet? It's a convertible SUV

of them.

>> No. Mo uh we It's a It's a process. I

think next house for most of us.

>> Well, I would say this. When I started

working when I started working

>> when I started working on companies like

all like

>> all I wanted was a was a was a

like a fourbedroom house in a

fourbedroom h I mean I just wanted a

fourbedroom house in California.

>> Yeah. So 10 off.

>> No, no. Yeah. Well, it's crazy, but no,

I think I was lucky to to have built,

you know, built my first company and

done done well with that. And so I think

we're we started the show doing it for

the love of the game. Like John and I,

we get off the show, like we get in the

car to go home, we call each other, we

just keep doing the show. Well, we just

like we we genuinely just love talking

about this stuff and it's uh it's a

blessing to be able to do it every day.

>> Yeah, that comes through. And you guys

you guys are both dads. How how old are

your kids?

>> I have a 5-year-old and then twin

two-year-olds basically

>> Vietnam.

>> Exactly. Which is why the money is odd

because the things I want money can't

buy. You know, like you want time with

your kids, you want peace and quiet, you

want to end a tantrum gracefully, you

want to educate the 5-year-old properly,

you want to, you know, get better at

chess and not win by too much of a

margin, but win every once in a while.

Right. Exactly. These things are

important and money can help, but it's a

it's a small piece of the puzzle in my

>> Yeah. I think I think we we built the we

built the business around our family

life. We see our kids. We see our kids

every single day. I have a four-year-old

and a 2-year-old and another on the way.

And um

>> but a third on the way.

>> We spend a lot of

>> third on the way.

>> Good for you guys.

>> We're going to have six between us.

>> That's another edge that we have. Like

we have something to work for. Most male

podcasters don't have children if you

look at the top of the charts.

>> I didn't think of that. They don't have

[clears throat] kids. So, uh, what a lot

of young men listen to this podcast,

what advice would you have for for guys

who are just about are kind of thinking

about having kids?

>> I don't know. Early on, we we recorded

in in that test episode that we uh did,

we we we were kind of playing this

exaggerated character and Jordy had this

quote where he was quoting Deval

Ravocant saying, "Work like a lion." And

it was very funny because the way he

delivered that line was was like so

overthe-top pathy and thoughtful and so

like high on his own supply with that

line. But I do think that's a little bit

of the story here.

>> You mean Nval was

>> No, you you were you were playing like

an exaggerated character.

>> Oh, I was in I was in character.

>> You were in character and you were and

you were saying work like a lion like

you had coined it even though it was

clearly a quote. And it was anyway um I

do think that's a little bit of the

story here which is that we there's a

lot of time to explore a lot of time to

build skills in a bunch of different

areas. And like we didn't even really go

into this but I spent like years

learning every single piece of camera

equipment every single piece of

microphone equipment and all the

different tools that we needed lighting.

So that on day one I was able to bring

that and then coach the team and hire

great people that could advance that.

And now they know a lot more than me but

it took a while. I also spend a lot of

time programming. So if we have someone

on who's working on a software company,

which most of people are, I'm a little

bit more fluent there. Jordy had done

all sorts of things in branding and and

you know, marketing strategies and and

actually building fintech company and

he's deep in crypto and there's all

these different areas that came together

through these like little sprints that

finally came together into like the

right.

>> Yeah. I think I think uh credit to

credit to our our spouses like at least

personally like my my wife is an amazing

entrepreneur. She actually she went to

NYU and would would sit in on your

class.

>> Oh yeah.

>> Back in the day. She never she said she

could never like actually get into the

class, but uh she would just go. Um, but

we, you know, we, you know, once we had

kids, we established like one of us,

like we were like, it's time to divide

and conquer because if we're going to

be, if we're going to be great parents

and and uh have a great like it's hard

to it's hard to excel at two things at

once. And so the focus was like you're

going to my wife made, you know,

sacrifices with her career, which was to

just because she could be, you know,

raising venture and she's invested in a

ton of great companies and all that

stuff. She locked in on on the household

and I locked in on on work and we had

very clearly established that at least

for a few years that was going to be how

we were going to operate. And that

allowed me to be the best version of

myself and be, you know, overly obsessed

with the work that we were doing. And it

allowed our kids to to be uh to get all

the love and attention that that they

need that they've needed to thrive. And

that means when I go home over the last

few years, it's like I get to be there

with them. I get to be present. I get to

be as great of a dad as I can. But I

wasn't worried about like, oh, what what

what exact preschool are they going to

or or when is music class? Like we had

fully divided and conquered. And again,

that's like a temporary sacrifice. Um,

but has delivered, you know, great

results for us. And I think you only get

that by like really clearly establishing

that versus just assuming things or or

hoping that that it'll end up that way.

The other the other piece of advice

for young people is probably around like

where to live, where to go. There are

these cities that are complete vortexes.

San Francisco is like this AGI vortex

right now. It's a vortex for venture

capital and startup energy. And I'm

extremely glad that I moved to San

Francisco right after college because I

was exposed to a ton of different

aspects of the industry just naturally.

I don't think I would have done well if

I had stayed there permanently. I think

that by leaving San Francisco, it gave

me a completely different perspective on

the world. That has then allowed me to

succeed even in tech, even though I'm

outside of the vortex and and more than

anything, it's just good for my life

personally and my well-being, I think.

But um I think that as a young person

there's uh there definitely is some a

lot of value to if you want to be in

finance going to New York City is

probably good early on burning the

ships. My first I lived in a I I lived

in a one-bedroom apartment. The

tenderloin with three people. It was

$1,500 a month. We it was complete

squalor, but we were in the mix and we

got exposed to a lot of things and that

was extremely valuable. And I think that

uh just putting yourself in the action

very early on, no matter what the cost,

if you're if you're early in your

career, can have a lot of benefits.

>> John Kugan and Jordy Hayes are the

creators of TBPN, a popular daily show

covering the biggest stories in tech and

business. I'm really I'm h it's it's

your story is such a nice story. You're

impressive young men who did something

you're good at and you had a great exit.

But more than anything, I'm just really

glad that young, [music] talented men

are having a lot of kids. I think it's

wonderful to have kids being raised

[music] in households, loving, secure

households with very present fathers.

So, I I think that's actually the nicest

thing about your story. Very much

appreciate your time today and

congratulations on your success. [music]

>> Thanks for having us, Scott.

>> [music]