Let's get into the show. What happened

over the weekend? Did anything happen

over the weekend, John?

>> There were a couple things.

The big debate that I was tracking, sort

of outside of tech, but tech adjacent,

was the cancellation of Hank Green, the

YouTube creator. Not quite a

cancellation, more just some backlash.

Hard to always put a

a proper sizing on a mob when a mob

comes after a creator. But, Hank Green,

the YouTuber and really media

entrepreneur, he's grown a huge business

which we can sort of go into. Is getting

pilloried on social media over using

chat GPT for research. Very

controversial these days. Only a billion

people do it.

>> [laughter]

>> But, yeah, it's the number one app in

the app store, but he's getting he's

getting a lot of backlash from certain

members of his audience. I don't want to

characterize the whole audience as being

part of this, but

it's a very silly silly situation.

>> of people.

>> It seems like that.

It's always hard to tell. I mean,

thousands of people that are liking a

post about it. There's like maybe dozens

of posts. I don't really know how to put

how to put a scale on these things. But,

Hank Green is definitely going through

it, having to sort of apologize or

qualify or sort of,

you know, state that he will adjust

things in the future. It's just sort of

interesting to hear how he went through

this process, what he says is going to

change, and where the backlash is coming

from because there's a lot of

misunderstandings about it. And what's

interesting is that he is a science and

education creator, and science and

education are potentially the most

affected by AI right now. And so, it's a

real challenge to simultaneously

say, "I'm going to cover math. I'm going

to cover science, but I'm not going to

touch AI. That AI stuff's bad." Because,

as we also saw over the weekend, AI is

making a bunch of advancements on math.

We've been seeing this for a while, but

the latest version

of the story comes from Noam Brown,

polynomial. Over at OpenAI, he says an

an internal version of Astra, OpenAI's

next major model family, solved 10 major

open problems in mathematics, quantum

complexity, and theoretical computer

science. The achievements are so so

extreme at this point that I don't even

think it's worth us trying to break them

down like we did that with the uh uh the

human distant problem.

>> Tyler is going to run a 5K here in the

Ultra Dome to do a little victory lap

for the research team.

>> But not everyone is impressed

>> Tyler.

>> with it because Gary Marcus says, "Wake

me when Astra solves a significant

open-world problem that doesn't revolve

around formal verification." And uh of

course, Daniel E F Eath says, "The

goalposts are on a completely separate

planet." Uh it is a good point.

Obviously, AI is doing better in

formally verifiable tasks. Uh at the

same time, still impressive because

there's a lot of things that are useful

and verifiable. Like, "Did this drug

cure your cancer or not?" Or "Did this

job get done or not?" Like, we've been

using these recommender systems for lots

of things. They're very valuable all

over. But it is funny. Uh the the debate

over is this AGI, is this ASI, those

terms will always be vague.

>> Going back to Hank.

>> Yes.

>> So, all he did was admit that he used

some sort of AI tool for research.

>> Yes. So, I will take you a little bit

more through it. So, uh Hank Green, he's

an OG YouTuber. He joined YouTube in

2007. I think less than 2 years after

the platform actually launched. Uh and

he grew he got a lot of views, but he

also built a huge audience and uh

created a real media company around it.

So, he has uh Vlogbrothers, a uh like a

vlog channel, then he has Crash Course,

which is a really really huge

educational channel. Uh he runs VidCon,

which is basically the the premier

conference around YouTube and the

creator economy. I've been I think once

or twice. Uh it's a lot of fun. And uh

over the last 20 years, he's become one

of the most trusted educational creators

in the platform. He's also just like he

gets the vibe of YouTube very well cuz

he's been been around it so long. Never

really stepped back fully, but always

been, you know, solid audience there. Um

so last last Wednesday he published an

episode of a show called Ask Hank

Anything. And it's an interesting

concept for a show. So he brings on a

guest

but then instead of just doing the

interview, tell me your life story, ask

the ask the guest a whole bunch of

things, the guest brings questions for

him about science or whatever they they

they have a real long conversation. And

if there's something in the show that he

can't answer on the fly or he's not

prepped for, he will go do the research

and then get the actual answer and then

cut that into the final episode. So

you'll be watching them hang out,

they'll talk about some odd

thing. He was talking about this Have

you heard this Kiki and Booba thing?

There's like two words that

the one is Basically there's two shapes.

One's like a fluffy cloud, the other's

like a spiky

spiky like star essentially. And if you

ask people generally, which one would

you assign the word Kiki to and which

one would you assign the word Booba to,

people always pick Booba is the cloud

and Kiki is the spiky one. And it's like

the sound of the word has a shape to it

even and this is just something in our

language that shows up all over the

place. So he's like telling the story of

this like just somebody ran a science

experiment, they, you know, put a bunch

of people here, they pulled a bunch of

people, they put together this result,

and this is what happened. And so he

needs to compile all of that quickly

because you get off the show, you have

your rest of your job, but then you have

to go answer these questions and have

all the information. And of course he

uses all sorts of research tools. Um

but he was accused specifically of using

ChatGPT to write the script, which is

interesting because

after the episode went up, manager Jojo

posted a clip of him from the episode

and accused him of using ChatGPT to

write the script. The key line is Hank

saying, quote I appreciate the pushback.

That's sort of an AI phrase, but that

wasn't one of the really trigger AI

phrases like you're absolutely right or

it's not this it's that. I appreciate

the pushback is something that the AI

models say occasionally, but you

wouldn't think it would make it into a

script, but that's why people jumped on

it. They were like wow, he was so

careless that he left in a turn of

phrase that was the model talking to him

about I appreciate the pushback. That's

not what happens. He's actually

responding to the guest pushing back on

him and about this concept and then he

answers it. But

um

uh he was just talking to but it's but

it feels out of out of place because

he's talking to the camera at that point

even though in the video he's talking to

the guest after the fact. The way it's

edited is him direct to camera. So him

saying I appreciate the pushback to the

camera. What is this? Beans? I don't

know. Uh

but him him saying that I appreciate the

pushback uh feels a little weird when

you just watch it, but it makes sense in

the context of the longer video. Um so

uh the headlines proliferated over the

weekend to the tune of Hank Green

accidentally reads AI prompt feedback

left in his script. Uh Hank has to not

has to deny this, but he goes on to

admit that he does use ChatGPT for

research. Dun dun dun. Uh this did not

land well. People don't like the idea of

him using ChatGPT for research.

Uh and [snorts] clearly it's just a

small subset of his audience that

actually takes the time to flame online

about AI usage, but uh it is a there's

still dozens of posts, maybe hundreds of

posts about how AI cannot be used for

research because it hallucinates or it

removes some key human element of the

process of learning, something like

that. Uh it's very odd for anyone who's

used modern models because uh there's a

lot that AI can't do well uh yet, but uh

pulling a bunch of links and quotes

together from across the internet is

something that it's pretty good at.

Um, and it's definitely reliable for

that. Uh, and so Hank clarified the

script was not written by AI. He was

just going on ChatGPT and saying like,

"Hey, where where did this original

research come from?" And pull up the

paper. Download the PDF. Crunch it all

together for me. You know, pull some

quotes from it. Change this into a

different format. I want it in this

units instead of that units. The those

types of questions. He still said that

he has not been happy with how he's been

using AI and may wind up publishing less

as a result. He feels like he's a little

on a little bit of a treadmill because

he's more productive with AI, but then

he posts more and then that's a feedback

loop. And of course, like at this point

in time he's like built his career over

20 years. He has a very sustainable

business. He probably doesn't need to be

on on as much of a treadmill as perhaps

an early stage creator might be. It

doesn't feel like it's total audience

capture, but there is this interesting

opportunity here that I was sort of just

identifying.

Uh, like AI is clearly this wedge issue.

Billions of people use AI and get value

from it, but at the same time it's

deeply unpopular and there's lots of

people who like to post angrily online

about how AI is bad for a variety of

reasons. But education and science in

particular are going to be intertwined

with AI for the foreseeable future. Like

every advancement in science is going to

be AI enabled. And so if you're a

science educator and you constantly have

to be dancing around AI and be like,

"Oh, yes, like they solved this math

problem, but I don't like it because AI

was used." Well, you're going to wind up

just not being able to talk about math

or science or whatever's happening

because you're you're constantly doing

this dance around AI. Um, and so that's

fine. There's that audience that will

love that. Uh, but there's also an

opportunity for a new audience that's

maybe a little bit more nuanced about

this and maybe just yeah, it's fine that

you use that for doing research. As long

as the script sounds good, I'm fine or

as long as you are clear about your

policy. Which is odd because that's what

he he was always clear. He's just still

got attacked and had to go on this

defensive. I I believe he has like a

published policy around how him and his

employees at his media company can use

AI or do use AI or don't in various

scenarios. But this was the first time

I've seen a like real backlash to just

pulling that up on a chat GPT. A lot of

people in tech I think we're getting

like sort of whiplash from from watching

all of these arguments pile up. Someone

put together a cool chart here of uh the

good arguments and the bad arguments

from the pro AI crowd and the anti AI

crowd. So an example of a good argument

around this from the pro AI crowd would

be AI is a powerful and capable tool.

And then uh like a bad argument from the

anti AI crowd would be AI is useless in

re in research {slash} in general. Um

but there were bad arguments that were

put forth by pro AI people. Uh something

like you use you use data centers. Like

Hank uses data centers. And it's like

yes,

YouTube is hosted on a data center in

>> Yes, so are you to write this comment.

>> Yes, but that's not that the the actual

like data center that's required to host

an online comment is wildly different

than a massive gen AI system like

cooking tons of tokens and actually uh

setting the GPUs on fire, right? Uh and

then a good argument, the best argument

from the anti AI crowd was said that AI

usage in science communication reduces

trust at least a little, which is which

is interesting. I mean uh yeah, you do

have to check these things. And we do

see tons of examples of people actually

leaking uh you know, AI phrases and and

weird AI like hallucinations into

scientific research. There was that

example of There was some PDF that was

scanned and there was a word on in one

column and a word in another column that

got bled together when the document was

imported and then a whole bunch of

a whole bunch of scientific research

started referencing this phrase that

doesn't exist and just came from

basically a hallucination or like a a

quirk of the optical character

recognition. So, anyway, uh they

canceled my goat for using LLMs to

search papers that he would need to read

to make his videos. They want him to use

Google search like a caveman in big

2026. That about sums it up.

>> is I don't Can you Can you even turn off

AI mode in Google now? Maybe

>> think you can. I think you can. You

could use DuckDuckGo.

>> I don't think that has AI yet. We'll

see.

>> Brian Loevern on X is sharing a

heartbreaking essay by a mathematician

last week for this most recent news

drop. So, this was before Noam Brown

>> Yeah.

>> uh showed uh the recent breakthroughs by

Astra. Said, "There is nothing I can do.

There may be nothing you can do. I have

no prescriptions, policy

recommendations, or coherent call to

action. I just want to be honest and

open about my emotional and spiritual

response. I want to feel seen. I want

folks like me to feel seen. I need the

architects of our new mathematical

paradigm to look me in the eyes and

acknowledge our shared humanity and soul

before they deliver the coup de grâce. I

need most of all for us to understand

what we are really doing."

>> The dark night of mathematics, Kerwin

Hampshire, mathematician researcher from

the University of Auckland, who recently

authored the viral essay. Studied in

mathematics. Interesting. I I It feels

like um I would be surprised if if

mathematical education goes away. It

feels like a lot of these problems

should be interesting to apply, but I

understand that's a different That's

That's a completely different

discipline. It will be interesting to

see what happens next because there are

more advanced problems, the the the the

Millennium Prize problems, P versus NP,

Navier-Stokes, right? Uh there there are

a number of problems that are still

unsolved. What happens when they're all

solved? Do we create new problems? Where

do we go from there? Do we start

applying them in different ways? What do

you think, Tyler?

>> Yeah, I mean obviously like

>> Got have advice for mathematicians?

>> I think it's so so in this article

article he says like mathematicians are

paid to like

>> 21 year old podcaster has advice for

>> [laughter]

>> Exactly. Like so he [clears throat] says

like mathematicians are are paid to

solve theorems which like obviously I'm

not in academia but like it seems like

that it's like kind of their job but

also it's like You're in a university

right? It's like to teach it.

>> Yeah, I mean there's plenty of there's

plenty of math professors that they sort

of try and solve theorems but also

mostly teach and you know don't solve

that many theorems or

>> Yeah, and also like presumably if you

can solve all these conjectures like

there's going to be new questions that

open up. This is like the entire history

of all science right?

>> Yeah, it will be interesting to see the

application of this stuff because it's

so abstract at this point and and and

it's it feels like it's very everyone's

saying like okay based on this like this

is going to like flood through material

science and flood through chemistry and

biology and that would be awesome.

Everyone would love you know oh all of a

sudden like the electric cars have twice

as much range because we solved some

fundamental thing.

It'll be interesting to see where the

new bottlenecks are. There of course

will be always. Math professors hate AI

for one simple trick. Just scale scale

scale I suppose.

>> It's time.

>> What?

>> It's time to talk about the rise of one

person one dollar companies. Wall Street

Journal is saying AI tools make it

easier for founders to get started alone

and many stay that way as they grow. Ben

Broca launched a company last December

that offers AI tools to entrepreneurs.

>> That name's familiar. We had him on the

show.

>> already added 10,000 paying customers

and is on track to bring in 10 million

in revenue this year. One thing he

hasn't added any other employees. The 40

year old is part of a class of

entrepreneurs who are launching and

often running new companies on their

own. Artificial intelligence tools

answer Broca's emails, help write and

debug code, field requests from

customers, sign up new subscribers and

grant refunds when issues arise. Broca

relishes his ability to make whatever

decisions he wants on his own, often

from his sun-drenched Sausalito,

California living room. I think

compromises make lukewarm results, he

said. Once upon a time, running a

business of a certain size required a

team. AI is turning that assumption

upside down, and more aspiring

entrepreneurs are going it alone. An

analysis by the payments company Stripe,

Tyler,

look up Stripe, shows there are

thousands of solo operators on the

company's platform that are generating

over 1 million in revenue, with their

ranks doubling between 2023 and 2025.

>> That's pretty crazy. So, this is on

Pulsea, right?

>> No. No, no, no, no, no.

>> Oh, on Stripe.

>> Definitely not.

>> Okay.

>> This is just Stripe.

>> Okay.

>> Um the number of solo, I'm sure I I

would be curious if Pulsea has any

companies that do more than, you know,

>> a thousand

>> a thousand dollars a month.

>> you're looking at the

>> cuz cuz to be honest, cuz to be honest,

like I actually do think success for

Pulsea is like just making back a dollar

like even a dollar more than you're

spending on on Pulsea, right? Because

>> who's been demoing different AI systems,

Fable and Soul and Kimmi, and saying

like go make me money is the basically

the only prompt, and he lets it cook for

like a week, and

he'll be on like a 200 months $200 a

month subscription, see if it can make 6

cents, see if it can make $10, and he's

getting closer every time, and he of

course has to do some things, set up API

keys, and do little things, but it's an

interesting experiment.

>> Ben Awad, you should go check it out.

>> So, the number of solo operators,

according to Stripe, also crossing the

$10 million threshold nearly tripled in

that same span. In the past, people

without business contract contacts or

particular savvy might not have known

how to get their ideas off the ground.

Now, AI can be a built-in business

partner.

>> Yeah, we How does How does Stripe know

if you're a solo operator? Like, if

you're because if you're a podcaster and

you set up a Stripe account to accept

money from advertisers, you could be

having a million dollars move through

there, but if you hire an editor or not,

that doesn't necessarily show up in

Stripe. So, they must do some sort of

polling and ask

>> Yeah, I think I think in your account at

some point you say how many employees

you have.

>> Okay, and if you say yeah, I just got

one.

>> But, I guess one question I have with

the data one question I have with the

data is like what if you just set up

your Stripe account and it's like how

many employees do you have and you just

>> One, and then you wind up adding people

and you don't go and update. Yeah,

possible.

>> Yeah, because they don't have the the

payroll. I I don't know how I don't know

how they would have visibility into into

payroll, especially like individual

employees.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Um they do have a sense for how many

people obviously are like added to your

account, but sometimes it's like whose

account if you add your CPA, you know.

>> and that's a contractor, not an

employee. Yeah.

>> AI's ability to handle various

administrative tasks makes it

potentially useful for launching solo

businesses in many fields, but the

technology's ability to handle key tasks

in tech like coding make that field a

particular hotspot. Among all

industries, new business applications in

the information sector

>> have seen the biggest percentage

increase nearly 45% over the past year,

yeah. Uh at the same time, the rate of

information sector applicants saying

they plan to hire workers has

experienced the sharpest decline of any

measured industry. This census data set

doesn't track solo operated businesses,

but the numbers broadly show in tech and

beyond that applications are flat among

businesses likely to hire workers, but

generally rising elsewhere. Economists

say that's a strong sign that solo

operators are in the upswing. Wow.

>> Yeah, that chart is really up into the

left. Uh new business formation, this is

in the information sector in particular.

So,

>> Tyler, update.

>> Okay, so so they basically calculate the

number of like solopreneurs based on how

many people have like there's like

special plugins or platforms that are

directly for like the solopreneur.

So, they basically use that to like get

a proxy of the general like percentage

of solo people on Stripe.

>> On Stripe. Oh, they They like a special

flow for solopreneur. Interesting.

>> Yes. Oh,

cool. So, they say that they are almost

certainly underestimating number.

>> Hey, Julian Weisser, I know him.

Says the bar is getting the bar for

getting started has never been lower,

said Julian Weisser, who runs a San

Francisco-based accelerator for solo

founders working in tech. The

accelerator, which offers founders seed

money in mentorship in exchange for an

equity stake, attracted 4,500 applicants

for 10 slots made available in its most

recent cycle. Nearly five times the

number it drew when it launched last

May. Now, he's been growing this a lot,

but that that is staggering. A lot of

people want to do be uh solopreneurs. Uh

going it alone with AI can still be

surprisingly expensive. Brokus said he

was losing money on many customers'

accounts while paying to access

Anthropic's cloud to run his clients'

requests. That AI company, as well as

others, charge based on usage. He has

since switched to free open-source

models from China.

Uh Brokus says he has raised $30 million

from investors and at the same time has

saved millions in salary since he hasn't

needed a team of software engineers.

Another risk, if it's easy for one

entrepreneur to launch an AI-assisted

business, copying them can be easy, too.

This creates anxiety for founders like

Troy Johnston, who runs an AI-assisted

business alone in Orlando, Florida.

Everybody has the sword, and we all have

the ability to unsheathe Excalibur now.

Johnston, what a [laughter] great quote

for the journal.

I love it.

Uh he's 40. He used an AI He used AI to

code an app that helps people get the

most out of credit benefits. Huh, it's

interesting. Pick pick which card you

want to use cuz you might have multiple

cards, one that's good for dining, and

you build an app for that. There's been

a few apps that do that. The Points Guy

had a whole blog around it, a whole

media company around it, still does, but

um

uh

interesting to sort of like, yeah, go

and go and actually write code that. A

lot of these things it's like you could

probably just use the models themselves

for this. Uh just have a thread that

says, "Hey, these are the cards I have.

Go pull all of the data. When I'm about

to buy something, let me know." But, at

the same time, there might be some value

for something new uh with a deeper

integration somewhere. Uh the company

makes around $3,000 a month in profit

with no employees and continuing to

grow. What a run for John Troy Johnston.

>> Great story.

>> Who loves King Arthur-related metaphors

for business. What one-person businesses

will mean for the labor market remains

to be seen. Polling has shown that

Americans are worried that AI will

replace jobs, and top economists are

wrestling with that possibility, too.

But, AI is also creating lots of new

jobs, and the Go to Alone entrepreneurs

show the technology can both open doors

and limit unemployment opportunities.

"If everyone's hiring less, but you get

four four times more firms, what does

that do to head count?" said Rembrand

Koning, an associate professor at

Harvard Business School who studies

entrepreneurship. He co-authored his

recent study that found that among

50,000 startups the researchers

examined, those focused on AI tended to

operate with 25% fewer employees.

>> It's interesting, because haven't we

seen that that that that the ramp data

that said that AI AI-adopting companies

were hiring faster? But, maybe they

still operate lower operational head

count, but hiring faster because of

higher and growth. There's like three

different factors that are going on

here, sort of mixing all together. Uh

Koning, the professor, also believes in

a soft believes a soft hiring

environment that has left some people

mired in long job searches has

encouraged more to try their hand at

launching businesses. That makes sense.

>> Some founders say different motives.

It's a perfect storm of post-pandemic

burnout and a reevaluation of one's

priorities, and also booming AI and a

sense of what's possible, said Samir

Madhavan, 39, who lives in

Breinigsville, PA. Two years ago,

Madhavan decided to leave the corporate

job he'd worked at at Verizon for almost

two decades to start a solo coaching and

consulting business. He had been seeing

social media posts touting the ease and

virtues of AI, which he liked to chart

uh which he used to chart a business

plan and help with marketing. It was

like my chief of staff, second in

command. The business ultimately petered

out within months though, and Amode is

back to full-time corporate role at with

a utility company. For Claire Vo,

uh 41, AI helped turn her passing

impulse into a business. She was working

full-time as a tech executive when she

tapped AI in late 2023 to help code an

app that would help manage documentation

and design for new products with

customers ranging from financial

services to healthcare firms. "I was

copying and pasting from ChatGPT," said

Vo, who lives in San Francisco. Uh she

put her app online for $1 a month. Wow,

that is cheap. Uh and within weeks

people

>> I thought we didn't know how to make

apps that cheap anymore.

>> I mean, it is a subscription at least,

not one-time, but uh she put it online

for $1 a month and within weeks people

downloaded thousands of times. Nearly 3

years later, Vo's company, which she ran

solo for 9 months before hiring an

engineer, now has 100,000 users and is

on track to make seven figures in profit

this year. Wow. That's remarkable at a

dollar a month. That's crazy. AI handles

the company's marketing, sales, and

customer support. "While AI is a

shortcut," Vo said her network and

credibility in the industry were key. "I

think people over-index how on how easy

AI is and under-index on how much I did

to get to this point," she said. She's

still

>> Yeah, I I just want to see I want

[snorts] to see five companies that

make more money from their business than

they give Pulsia every month.

>> Yes. Uh so So, Pulsia has has some

public dashboards for how much people

are spending or something like that.

>> Yeah, so right now you can see all the

different things that the companies on

Pulsia are doing or at least some of

them.

Right now, so far today, companies on

Pulsia Pulsia have spent $373.

>> Is that today?

>> On ads.

>> Today?

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, well, it's still morning.

>> It's still morning, so we're we're

pacing. We're only about I don't know

what time zone this is in. But yeah, the

the the big question is like is any of

this stuff actually working or is it

more like kind of a video game

effectively?

>> Yeah.

>> That

people just enjoy like watching the

machine hum, but there's not really much

happening.

>> I mean that was the thing for Midjourney

and Suno I think in in many ways. Like

Midjourney

when it launched people were like

>> Totally. I mean

No.

>> Okay. Hear me out.

>> Okay, I'll hear you out.

>> Okay, when Midjourney launched

>> Get the steal man.

>> When when Midjourney launched people

were like this is going to take artists'

jobs. And it was like, okay, so if that

plays out then I'm going to go to the

MoMA and there's going to be a show for

someone that just prompted Midjourney

and the highest auction at Christie's is

going to be some Midjourney artist and

that's not really what happened. Like

people aren't using Midjourney to make

fine art, but people love Midjourney.

Like they love the activity of going on

Midjourney and generating and prompting

and getting an image back and then and

then maybe they send it to their

friends, maybe they use it a little bit,

but it's not exactly the same of like

the process of becoming a fine artist.

It's more like they're enjoying the

process of just making. It's more like

just having a guitar that you just like

to practice and noodle on versus like

actually being a touring artist. And so

like that's certainly my experience with

the Suno is it's fun to try and make a

song and then listen to it and then be

like wrestling with the thing and and

And it's possible that I could be the

same activity for like, okay, I'm going

to go build an online business, see if I

can get something out, but it's not

really like a job. It's more of like an

entertainment product. I don't know.

>> What do you think?

>> Yeah, I mean you could easily see it

turning into like Ender's Game scenario

where it's like game and then it's like,

oh, that was actually a real business

you were starting and they're you know

>> You offshored the last job.

>> [laughter]

>> You sent all you sent all the labor

overseas.

You rolled up the entire HVAC industry.

That wasn't a simulation.

>> Mark Zuckerberg was answering questions

about his AI strategy on the latest Meta

earnings call and Ben Thompson wrote

about what Meta's position is in AI, how

they're grappling with a few things.

There was a bunch of interesting points

in this Stratechery update. One I wanted

to call out was what Ben Thompson

thought the best moment on the call was

when an analyst asked him why the

company can't just use other models.

Like, why can't you just do the Apple

thing? Do nothing, win. Like, partner

with one of the labs, do some license

agreement. If you need an image model,

you get an image model. If you need a

text model, you get a text model. If you

need to speed up your programmers or

your your your engineers,

hire the best coding agent and negotiate

with them, right? Um And here's how Mark

Zuckerberg answered it. He said,

"I can take the open-source question.

Let's see. So, basically, the question

is, do we think that because there are

some open weight models that we can just

rely on those? I mean, right now, the

open-source models are not as strong as

the frontier models, good point. So, no

is the basic answer. Meta needs to be on

the frontier with their intelligence

that they use, so they have to be there.

There's also just always the perpetual

both policy debate and and question

around other companies' actions and

whether that's a thing a company like

Meta can rely on. So, if you're using

Chinese open source and there's some

regulatory risk, it seems like that's

sort of what he's getting at is these

things might not rely they might not be

available all all the time. And then

also, some of these companies, they

might be open source for a few years and

then go closed source and then start

charging you an arm and a leg. So, you

don't want to be in a place where you

become super dependent and then all of a

sudden get get, you know, hurt once

you're, you know,

super dependent on a particular product.

So, he says,

"And I think that's very tricky. So, on

both fronts, we believe we're going to

be able to do better work, and we think

that there's some risk in that reliance,

I don't believe that's the right thing

to do.

So,

uh that

felt like not a great answer to me uh in

the sense that uh the the Apple approach

seems to be working so well. Uh then he

goes on to explain some of the history

of Meta, and it's very very interesting.

He says, "I think that we're a company

that if you look at Meta from take a

step back on this, a lot of people view

the surface layer uh uh of we build some

social media apps and we have an ad

business. We are really a full-stack

technology company. We we build our own

data centers, our own infrastructure,

our own chips, our own low-level

software. When we get when we got

started, he says, "My background in

engineering, I wrote a lot of the

systems code. A lot of the reason why

Facebook worked was because it actually

it just worked, which is a crazy thing

to say based on the history." But he but

he makes a really good point. He says he

says, "Like it literally worked when

other social networks did not work fast

and efficiently. And I think we just

have the ability to build things that

can be more personalized, more

optimized, more efficient. Some

qualitative experiences are just not

even possible for others to build

because we go all the way down the

stack. And it just seems to me pretty

clear that having kind of sovereignty

over building your own models is going

to be an important part of that stack

going forward, which is why it's

important for Meta." And so, that that

was very interesting that that was a

differentiator in the early days that uh

certain other competitor sites would

just be slower. They wouldn't be able to

launch new features quickly. And by

vertically integrating all up and down

the tech stack, they were able to do

things very aggressively. This is the uh

the Reels uh thing. They built two extra

data centers to be able to do the Reels

algorithm, because if they didn't have

that compute capacity, they could not

have launched a competitor to TikTok on

any normal time frame because it was

actually a compute-intensive project,

not just a design. People see, "Oh, they

just put a new button there and there's

some videos." But it's like behind those

videos is a massive recommender system

that is very computationally intensive

and stores a lot of data, and you can't

just spin that up for 3 billion users or

however many billions of users they have

on a on a dime if you don't have the

infrastructure, if you're not actually

vertically integrated. So, there's a

whole bunch of other things where in

terms of personalization, understanding

the user, delivering a really class

experience, they sort of do need to

bring it in-house, but investors are

very upset about this. They're They're

not very happy because Ben Thompson

called it calls it the financial tail

wagging the dog and says that they have

to sort of double spend right now. He

makes a good point about this. They're

double paying The company right now is

basically double paying for

infrastructure without a clear path to

monetization.

And to make matters worse, it's

improving monetization story lost a bit

of its luster. So, they're both renting

AI compute, paying a bunch of money for

new researchers, and then also spending

all the capex for the next data center.

So, all of that needs to come together

in this in this moment to actually

deliver. And the investors are starting

to ask all these questions about what

the what the strategy is, but Zuck's

sticking with it. He's not He's not

backing down. But we'll see.

>> Yeah, tough position to be in when

capital markets don't have a ton of

faith. And you just see that in in

the stock price,

the the company broadly. Right, there's

a lot of infighting, frustration around

just how MSL is treated versus the rest

of the company, which is paying for MSL.

So, Zuck is uh

is at war with fighting a war with

multiple fronts.

>> It is. It's a big war. Let's go to this

Paul Graham post.

He had such a wild experience. He

bought a book. It was awful. Didn't want

it on my shelves, but I couldn't throw

it away. So, it sat on a table near the

door.

>> I know someone that will rip it apart,

feed it to a machine,

>> [laughter]

>> and burn it.

I know someone. I don't know them

personally, but I know they they would

they would love to to take this off your

hands.

>> Rushing to an appointment this morning,

I grabbed it to read it. First mistake.

Then went to breakfast and had nothing

else. So I spent the morning reading the

worst book I own.

>> [laughter]

>> It's such a funny such a funny like

just like I don't know. But say it feels

like a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode or

something like that. Anyway, thank you

so much for tuning in to TV B N today.

We'll see you tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.

Pacific.

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