Lemonade Stand - The News But We Change Personalities | Ep. 073 Lemonade Stand 🍋

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

On this week's show... Atrioc moves to Sweden, DougDoug starts golfing, and Aiden says his name. We launched a Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/lemonadestand for bonus episodes, discord access, a book club, and many more ways to interact with the show! Episode: 073 Recorded on: July 18th, 2026 Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCurXaZAZPKtl8EgH1ymuZgg Follow us TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thelemonadecast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelemonadecast/ Twitter - https://x.com/LemonadeCast The C-suite Aiden - https://x.com/aidencalvin Atrioc - https://x.com/Atrioc DougDoug - https://x.com/DougDougFood Edited by Aedish - https://x.com/aedishedits Thumbnail by Cheyenne DeWolf - https://x.com/cheyedewolf Produced by Perry - https://x.com/perry_jh Segments 0:00 Intro 1:45 UAE Nuclear Deal 13:20 Netflix Sued by Former Exec 21:06 London's Autonomous Vehicle Battle 31:08 Ukraine Strike Iranian Ship 41:29 EBay Security Fined and given Jail Time 49:25 EU Fines Google $1Billion 1:00:45 SpaceX Loses $1Trillion in Value 1:11:42 Mitch McConnell Update 1:18:16 YouTube's AI Policy 1:35:54 Outro New takes on Business, Tech, and Politics. Squeezed fresh every Wednesday. #lemonadestand #dougdoug #atrioc #aiden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Lemonade Stand, everybody. I've been thinking a lot about a question. Okay. Do you guys think you would have done a better job if you were the Shah? Like, I'm Iran? Yeah. Like around what, specifically, the Koshoggi thing? No, no, no, that's different.

Hold on. That's a different guy. Okay. Yeah, I know I would have done it. I wouldn't have killed him. If I was the, if I was the Crown Princess Saudi Arabia, I wouldn't have killed. You wouldn't have done it. I think that's, I'm, I'm not.

wouldn't it killed. I'm revealing my ignorance here. I thought the Shah is Iran. Is this how you're right? He just said something that. Oh, wow. I think I'd be a better podcaster than a Shah because I'm still alive. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's a new Shaw. props. I still think I don't think he's he's not a Shah. I don't think he's called he's not the shot. Hasn't dropped an episode of weeks. He's the I atollah. He's the I atola. Okay. What is the Shaw? What is the Shaw then? The Shah in like the guy that like, the guy that like Britain in the U.S. instated to rule over Iran after...

Oh, you're saying like Reza Polavi from back in the 70s. You would be doing better than him. You think you would have done a better job. I couldn't have been more clear. Is that going to be the name in the... Okay, you should explain how this is related to our hat. I'm sorry.

We've got a wacky bit for today's episodes. Imagine the way... Just think about what it's like to engage with issues in somebody else's shoes for once in your life. For instance, the Shas. what it must have been like to read the New York Times way back then on his

on his iPhone. What are you talking about? What is this detail specific thing about the Shaw? I'm explaining what we're doing this week. This is leading up to, okay, got it. Okay. So, okay. Well, Aiden, I've never really thought

about putting myself in the shoes of the Shaw. What an interesting intellectual experience that could be. And how would that relate to today's show? We've decided in an effort, in empathy, we have compiled a list of people and personalities that have been placed into this hat that we will draw before every story

or topic we discussed this week. And we will have to engage and present that story as if we were that person. See the world through their eyes. I do think there's some truth to this. We are three L.A. white podcasters, okay? all we give is through our news through our point of view. Now we're going to expand our horizons to this magical hat.

If there's a white podcaster in that hat. And we change nothing. We changed nothing. So here's how it's going to work. There are a bunch of things that we have all individually written. We don't know what each other wrote, different characters and point of views. And we're going to draw them before every story.

You will be able to see magically on screen what we are, but no one else will. And then we'll see at the end of each story. If we can guess what the other two people, This is like Crossfire, you know, from CNN. We're going to finally get to hear. It's like, you know, Nick Fuentes and Hunter Biden did interview. Quite possibly in there, both of those people.

We don't know. So we'll do our best to give you the type of varied perspectives as seen through our poor improvisational skills. Exactly. Because we don't have the budget or time to get real guests with different point of views. We haven't had a guest in a while. We're just converting to names from a hat. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay.

It's good. I like it. All right. So our first story is a knee slapper. Saudi Arabia is getting nukes. Aidan's going to be introducing this story. But first, let's see our characters. Wait, do we?

We each pull one. We each pull one. Oh, but if you have your own, throw it back. Aidan, what's going on? What is going on with nukes in Saudi Arabia? Nuclear power is very important, I think. There's a lot of potential. I agree.

The future modern world, so... I agree. I'm going to give you guys the story and then I'll give you my opinion about it after. I'm happy with that. Nuclear has a lot of potential that we're going to get into. Okay, so the U.S. announced a new nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia this past week.

And I want you to travel back in time with me for a second. We're going to go all the way back to 2009. And the Obama administration is in charge and they negotiate a nuclear deal with the UAE at the time. The UAE wants access to U.S. companies, uranium, and process knowledge to create nuclear power

in the UAE. Okay. But what comes with that when you make nuclear power is you need to enrich uranium to like a 2% or 3%, I think 2% to like 5% point in order to have nuclear power. You,

because of this, because you can continue to enrich uranium to make it maybe a bomb. There's concerns from the international community naturally. So in those deals the US requires certain like international or independent inspections and they had the most strict requirements for those inspections when they made that deal at the time. UAE has a lot of rich people. I've met some of them. These are wealthy, smart men. Do they speak Arabic in the UAE? Yeah.

I'm not really a fan. Statistically, I'm not really a fan. Okay, I'm not checking that. Yon-you-off the list. Statistically, I just... The process of uranium enrichment is really... It's really difficult. Basically, you're taking a bunch of uranium

that's like uranium 238 and 235, and you're figuring out a way to separate the 235 out from the 238, and the 235 is the radioactive stuff that you can actually use for, like, nuclear power, nuclear weapons. And that's a really, really

watered down explanation of how enrichment works. And basically, you want to make sure that the enrichment doesn't go to a high enough percentage that it can become a nuclear weapon. And that's what the oversight is. You made some amazing stuff. That's... Is he?

Iron man, I just have a lot of respect for somebody like that. So, as more and more, there's other countries in the world that have wanted access to these similar resources and access to nuclear power, including Saudi Arabia. And during the Biden administration, we were well along into a deal where we were trying to negotiate a deal with a similar safety parameters that also required... When you say we? The U.S. government.

Okay. Okay. The... I care a little less about the government, more like individuals that I can trust. Right. Like the Saudi princes, these are good people. They've got a real sharp mind for the future. I like what they're doing in terms of spending it. But sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I would have, okay. They're just a little off-putting to me. I just don't put me in. Don't let me in with America. And, and, uh, Saudi Arabia wants access to, Saudi-a-saddy, I'm so curious. There's a simple thing, simple request. Saudi Arabia wants access to nuclear power. And part of the deal at the time was not only

these restrictions. I just, I just like it. But you don't like Arabic and you don't like America, maybe? I'm just not American. And I don't like appreciate, I don't have called we. Right. So just please. Okay. Continue the story. I'm sorry. You're saying.

So what I am saying is... I'm very polite. There's another thing you should know about me. You keep interrupting me. I'm sorry. We're close to a nuclear deal with them at the time that has the same safety restrictions that we had required in deals with like the UAE. And also required Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel as a state. That was part of the deal.

It was part of the deal at the time. And we were getting close to closing that deal, the U.S. was. And then October 7th happens, which totally derails that this was going to happen. And then Trump last week announces a new deal that no longer had the same degree of oversight into the enrichment process. So basically, we're giving you, you know, all these like resources, process knowledge, access to U.S. companies, like access to uranium. and then we're not really that concern with like how much you enrichment. We're taking you more at your word that you're not going to turn this into a weapon. And we're giving you access to nuclear power, supposedly.

Wait, I think I know, I think I know who you are. I don't like Trump. I don't like them. Okay. The reason this deal came under a lot of scrutiny is one, a lot of people, a lot of people are concerned about the safety not being followed through with, like Saudi Arabia, can potentially develop a nuclear weapon. This is a country in the region that has been historically opposed to Iran.

So Iran doesn't want them to have access to this. This is also something that Israel doesn't want them to have access to. Israel wasn't happy with this. And then a few days later, Trump walks back the announcement of this deal and says that in order for it to move forward, Saudi Arabia has to sign the Abraham Accords.

Abraham Accords which also acknowledges the existence of the state of Israel and that has put a total stop to this all of a sudden even though it was supposedly like negotiated and finished so that's where we're at right now is like there's a bunch of criticism with how this went through for people who are critical of this deal

they're now relieved because it's no longer proceeding because of this reason and I'm gonna say I'm a huge fan of nuclear power historically. I have it, I mean, you know, we got to be careful. We wouldn't want to get turned into crazy weapons. Crazy weapons. But I, but I would trust. Can we raise taxes somehow just to help this out? No, no, no, no, no. People like Saudi Arabia or Trump or others

are the most efficient capital allocators. I think we can agree that sort of the people who have been the most successful in business should be the ones deciding these things. And ultimately, what we're going to need for the best technology for the future is a lot of power. You think the Saudi wouties are the most efficient at allocate and gather. Some of the ideas I have in mind for my Ness Biggsness Venture are going to need a lot of power. A lot of power. Who the fuck are you? And I love.

What are you? Super high taxes. But boy am I happy. I'm the happiest dude you ever imagine. Who are you? You don't like Arabic. I hate Italians. I don't care about your opinion.

You're small in puny. I am looking at big picture things, which is, frankly, I don't care if the nuclear weapons, if it turns into weapons, I'm going to live forever. I know who bolder you are.

Are these yours? I know who bolder you are. Who are we? Wait. Okay, I want to ask you more about. Wait, so what exactly do you think about this nuclear program?

Well, I'm as pumped as I am about nuclear. That's pumped. That's a cool thing to be, by the way. It's a cool thing, even I think that. Because many people are needlessly critical of nuclear power and they're usually wrong, even about the history of their own country, like Germany.

They usually, young Germans are very wrong about the history of like the Green's impact on nuclear power. Are you just atriarch? You are, you are, you are, you are, to live with you. You're a Swedish man. You're a Swedish man. You like Arabic.

And you're, you're, famously they've been very anti-immigrant. Oh, that's true, that's true. Wait, wait, A-Troc, what, can you guess? Because this is... Are you, Elon Musk? Are you... Close. I'm a transhumanist billionaire

who wants to live forever in a machine. Close. Close. Yeah. Okay, quick on the story. I just want to make sure I understand, honestly, for real, because we did do a little bit and it was kind of hard for the first one.

Yeah? Okay, here's what I understand. We were going to give the UAE nuclear enrichment. We were going to give Saudi Arabia. We already did, we made a deal. The UAE is an example of a deal that happened a long time ago. Saudi Arabia wants to follow suits, but the difference is there's way fewer, like,

restrictions and oversight in how the uranium can be enriched in Saudi Arabia in this deal. In the original deal, there was a lot of oversight. Yes. And now in that sort of desperation act, you're saying that Trump is removing the oversight just to get the deal passed, but they have to recognize Israel. Because he likes making deals. It loves making deals. Yeah.

And but this looked like it was going to go through and it was had a bunch of criticism because of the lack of restrictions and oversight. The idea is that, oh, because of this, even obviously Saudi Arabia at their word is saying they're not going to develop a nuclear weapon. When I'm from, the sun goes down at 2 p.m. I just don't think we should raise taxes.

I just think we should raise taxes a lot. We need a few more of those plants. All right. Next story. It's about Netflix. Big, big company going through some tough times in their stock. It's about a corporate retreat gone wrong. This is Kevin Bailey. He makes $1.1 million a year as a Netflix executive. And I want to ask you what, actually, this is a great time to ask you guys what you would do. Okay. So you guys are at a corporate retreat and it's a trust and wellness exercise. Do we have guest speakers or like maybe a presenter? Like, uh, BTS.

No. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. No, BTS is not there. Uh, no. You're out of corporate wellness retreat and they say, we're going to do a trust exercise where everybody can just be honest with each other. So we all become closer as an executive team.

Okay. And they ask you to reveal like, what's your biggest, darkest secret or, or, um, something you're uncomfortable about. Okay. Like, and I don't know what you guys would do in that situation. But, you know, there's a bit of a risk. because it's a corporate environment. So Kevin Byley here.

And I do like corporate environments. Okay. You do. Okay. You do. So this is Cindero Ranch. Sometimes it's corporate environments, friends are like family,

really. You're co-workers. That's what they want. Well, I think they can rejuvenate a stagnating economy. Mm-hmm. But this is just Netflix. You know what I would say that answer?

So it's not only rejuvenating in the economy. This is just Netflix. Okay. Okay. I would say there's a part of me inside that I've been scared to show my friends and family. But maybe one day, I'll learn to accept myself and they'll love me for who I am.

Okay. So you are similar to Kevin in the situation. Cool. So Kevin has a dark secret. He loves BTS. Which is that, no, no, he doesn't love BTS. He has a dark secret, which he uses ketamine to cope with his mother's death, which is really not a problem.

But he says it in the Netflix, they ask him for his dark secret. He says it and they say it's trust and safety. No worries here. And then he finds out that after the retreat, he's charged with, uh, like, drug use by the company. And then they fire him. They fire him because of what he said during the trust exercise at the wellness retreat.

So he is now in a rampage lawsuit against the company. That's the worst to be vulnerable about who you really are. And people don't even respond positively. Sorry, go ahead. A man keeps it close to the vest. He didn't.

He didn't get it. He made a mistake. And which is rare for corporate executives. No, you're right, though, honestly. You're right? It's rare for these fucking corporate executives to do anything of fucking value, to be honest. That's just what I think.

I mean, you say that, but I watched this movie where one of the kind of like managers of, yeah. What, you paid money to a fucking corporate shill so they could keep you sitting in your seats consuming slop? I mean, to be honest, with Netflix. Wake up! Dude. Wake up.

Have you seen K-Bob Demon Hunters? No. So the manager. Have you read? There's a lot of things. It's like a really good guy. I would love you to get on some reading. I could,

some literature. Is there more to this story? No, there's actually no more of this story. The story is that he's currently in an ongoing lawsuit with this corporate machine where he opened up one aspect of his real life and then was shot down by these fucking skin walkers and suits. I just feel like, yeah, I mean, you come down,

but he could be golden. If he's just honest with his friends, and family about his ketamine news. Have you seen K-pop demon hunters? Who? Who is tough? No, have you seen Kvob demon hunters? It's a beautiful reduction.

No! I haven't seen it! Have you woken up and broken your chains? Okay? Unshackle your chains. I like your passion. Okay. I like your passion. I do, I'm wondering here,

because is this a civil suit? Is this a criminal trial? Is the government suit? stepping in here in any way? In no way is the government stepping in here, although they should. The government should step in. The government should step in.

Honestly, Netflix should be nationalized. I would argue that it's terrifying to hear something like the government is here to help. That's not really what it's for. It's not terrifying. It's actually awesome. The government should be stepping in at all points and should nationalize Netflix.

And that would stop crimes like this from happening. starting to sound like gami. You got me. You're just literally communist? Wow, early snipe. Great job. Hardcore communist. Are you just a guy had seen K-pop demon hunters?

Guy who has only seen one movie and relates everything to that. And I feel like if he's just honest with his friends, they'll come together and they'll perform at the concert. I got to see K-pop demon hunters. Oh my God, you've got to see K-pop demon hunters. Everything can basically come back to the messages learned in hip- about demon hunters. Now, I gotta wonder, because this exec seems like he's probably a good guy. He might have made a mistake. What sort of, has there been any trickle-down effects?

Are you Ronald Reagan? I'm, Ronald Reagan, parentheses, loves trickle-down economics. Wait, is there any of this guy got reprimanded for ketamine? He didn't get, he got fired. He got fired? He got fired. Yeah, but is there anything else? I mean, no, not really. Is this related? Okay, this is an actual follow-up to this. Because didn't their, their share price is going through like a historic falloff right now.

Oh, I mean, yeah, I can tell you what's going on with Netflix as a company. Is that anything to do with this? No, no, no, doesn't have anything to do it. No, honestly, their revenue growth is just slow. But, okay, I think this is an interesting story in that the guy opened up in a retreat and they literally fired that. I mean, it's not much more to it. He's prompted and then, wait, dude, is anyone shared what he shared at the retreat? No, he would, the ketamine use.

Oh, it was that he did the ketamine. Yeah, he shared a vulnerable moment that he's been using ketamine since his mom died. And then they fired him when he got back to the office. Brittle. You know, for birth, I'll give, uh, I'll steal man for ketamine here. Yeah, I know. I was so locked into Ronald Reagan that I thought you meant that he answered the question while on cataminer.

No, he wasn't on ketamine the thing. Anyway, his lawyer, I guess I can tell you a couple more. His lawyers found every single instance of his boss, drinking at a work event to show that like this is an insane double standard wait dude this is so okay so for people are not aware ketamine is now like prescribed for people with anxiety depression

all sorts of things. This is like a-discusting. This is like a common thing now. Yeah, a lot of people do it. It is surprising to me. Like if he was like, guys, I'm doing like black tar heroin at work to cope with my mom's dad. I would get it kind of. It's like, ketamine though? Okay, also, here's the real question. Do you think there should...

He should be allowed to say anything in the trust and safety circle. You think so? I mean, I'd say, hey, yes, you should be able to, right? You should be able to tell your friends you're actually half demon, but... Right, okay. But I would never actually believe that at Netflix,

they would keep that secret. That's... And you're right. I mean, you're right. These fucking corporate shells, you can't trust them as far as you can throw. I 100% get it. You think the ketamine,

should be given back the means of production. Yeah. Well, yeah, 100%. Each ketamine of his means. I think everyone should have as much ketamine as they can. As they can eat. Oh, all right. We're usually consumed. All right. Sorry three. Next, we're going to talk about autonomous vehicles in London. Turns out that there's many people in this hat who probably don't have a lot of good opinions about these two stories or relevant opinions. All right. Hey, you know what's cool? There's a battle going on in London right now. All right. It's a tragedy. It's called the battle of, no, what is the, what was the World War II? Real quick. For a joke. What was the name of the bombing of London? Was that it? Was it just called the bombing? Yeah, right. Right. I mean, many people call it many things. Okay, right. I mean, there's a battle going on in London right now between the regular people and the millionaires and the billionaires. That's right. That's right. Really? You're going to drop the accent right away. Wonder who that could be.

You know, Bernie, without the fucking accent. How can I do it without the accent? I'm going to give you guys my pitch. And then, you know, the core details here. And then I'll let you know what I really think. Okay. Mm-hmm. In London, autonomous vehicles, they're finally starting to launch.

And there's a battle going on between three major companies. First off, Waymo, talked about a bunch. They're the dominant ones. in the United States, and they started testing in April of this year. So they got like 100 cars. It's in a small area in London, still have drivers, so they're in the testing phase. And it's their first international market alongside Tokyo. This is Waymo trying to expand outside the U.S. Okay. That's player number one. Player number two, Uber and Wave. In June, Uber said they're going to enter soon. Wave is a UK company that makes the software for self-driving cars,

kind of like applied intuition, where they're not making the car, but they're making the software. Uber's invested in them. So those two are going to pair up. It's actually Wave makes the software. Uber makes the taxi app and then Ford is making the car. They don't have an official date. But again, a month ago, they're like, hey, we're going to launch in the coming months. We're just waiting on the regulatory approval.

You'll be able to use the Uber app. And now, as of today, the third contender has begun testing. It is Lyft and Baidu who teamed up, which I was not aware of. Baidu is the biggest Chinese autonomous vehicle player. So they have essentially Uber, you know, Waymo in China. They're about the same size of China. They're in 20 cities. They're huge.

And Baidu makes all of their own stuff. They're the only company in this list that is making the car and the software and the app. So I guess a year ago, Lyft and Baidu partnered up and they're like, hey, Lyft, you will manage Baidu's robo taxi hubs in certain spots in Europe. So they're starting to test right now with drivers and they're also pending on regulations. So now you have three drivers or three players all in London right now kicking off testing, waiting for the London government to give the okay. This is basically the kickoff for Europe. And whoever can dominate, probably dictate a lot of their success around Europe. Up until March a couple months ago, the UK government was doing a call for evidence.

That ended. And now in May they said applications are open. You can go see these on the UK government. But right now it was supposed to kind of be like all cleared up and they were going to give companies the okay. And instead they are still waiting and doing their thing. They're taking a long time. I mean, I imagine the London cabbies like would be upset about this transition that is potentially automating away their jobs. But at the same time, the pros and cons of the different companies launching at the same time competing against one another.

there's a lot to consider here. I just think the working class needs a voice. They need a voice of the regular people and I think that these big companies are trying to take away jobs from the regular average worker. I think that's a good point

and I just think the sort of sniping and name calling that's been going on ultimately it needs to stop. Now check out this drive. And 9-11 was bad. Wait, like God, it exploded. What do you think, Bernie? Dude, this is, if you're an audio listener, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to, I feel like you really, you have a strong message and I appreciate that about you because you go back to it a lot. But I think you are quick to criticize technologies that could have long-term advantages and disadvantages. And it's really hard to say what could be good. bad about them.

What are the fuck are you? Ah. So if I were to tell you that I really think that the millionaires and the billionaires are the problem. I think there's problems with them. Okay. So you agree? But I think there's a lot to consider. What do you agree?

I agree but also disagree. What about these major tech companies coming in? Maybe about taxi drivers losing jobs? Obviously, a huge part of it. You have to feel. for the taxi drivers that are losing their jobs. Okay. But you also have to be sympathetic to the advantages

that this technology could present to the city, the efficiency at which people would move around, the alternatives to the aging money in some way. Yeah, what do you think? What do you think? Is that yours? It's fensitter? I think that we need to consider all of the possibility.

Because it is nuanced. Okay, right. No, let me get, let me give a couple fun bullet points here. Because ours was easy, so, yeah. Let me give me a couple fun bullet points. and then you keep giving feedback. Right. Okay.

First off, Uber. You read a bullet point and then ask me if I think it's good or bad. Okay, okay. Uber, right, they're fighting against the three players. Uber, Baidu, Weimo. And what's crazy is that Uber is also partnered with their rival, Baidu. Yeah. Baidu runs their own app in 2025, partnered with Uber to operate robotaxy services in the Middle East and Asia, plus the other big three Chinese AV companies.

Uber has partnered with all. of them and has agreed that they're going to run some of the app section of these cars. What do you think about that? It's hard to say. Oh my god. Why is it hard to say? Well, you just introduced so much nuance that I wasn't familiar with before. He's nuanced.

He's nuanced. Everything is nuanced. Wait, hold on. Let me give you two more fun bits, okay. Uber is also partnered with their rival Waymo. Uber and Waymo are also. partner together. Waymo's cars, you can order them in Phoenix, Arizona, and then also like in Austin and Atlanta, Waymo got added in some place. Through Uber. There must be advantages and

disadvantages. I love asking the funny question. Wait, wait, wait, wait, right. Cargicide. I want to understand the story. I do you understand. Are you just telling me that every self-driving car company is becoming incestuous in all the major cities of the globe or what, what? Particularly Uber, But yes, this big competition is heating up in London, while simultaneously they're all partnering with each other in other markets around the world. So they're fighting in the ones they could compete in and the ones where Uber... I guess they're like picking battlegrounds. I mean, that's Uber's thing right now. Like they are not making any cars. Neither is Lyft. But I think the real thing to consider here is Aiden's opinion on Baidu's strategy, the Chinese maker.

think about what Bidey's doing. It's so beautifully complicated. So it's really hard to say, could we wait for it to play out? Do you have hobbies? Hobbies? Do you have, do you like?

Well, I think I have trouble. I do enjoy things, but then I think about the things I don't like about them. And so it's really hard to come to, Anything clear. Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah, I am. Professional fenced sitter. I have no idea. I am guy who refuses to give hard opinion on anything because it's nuanced. See, if we didn't have that on this show, people wouldn't get a balanced perspective. Yeah. I appreciate you being here. Mr.

Nuisance. You were George Bush? Yeah. Okay. I was making sure. No. You said 9-11 was bad. Yeah, check out of this drive.

But you also planned it, so it's like tough to figure out what that is. Do autonomous vehicles? wild though. This is this is a weird little, as you said, incestuous thing. Yeah, it's a weird story. I, uh, I don't know who's going to win, honestly. The Chinese ones being thrown in is kind of weird. It's, it's really weird that Baidu, who is doing everything is also partnering with like Lyft and Uber to have them run the platform when they have a platform app that is working in China. So it's really strange to see how they're kind of fighting, but, you know, arguably whoever kind of kicks off in London successfully will have a major foothold an advantage across Europe.

But maybe they'll keep partnering with each other. I don't know. Isn't taxis like a massive industry in London? Like they have a big, uh, I wonder what they're doing to fight. Yeah, I guess I, I guess I don't know specifically. I mean,

something that we said in our applied intuition episode is I think what's more exciting about autonomous vehicles is consumer autonomous vehicles, both because that's where you get the biggest safety benefits and you're not taking, you know, you're not like attacking what is a huge industry for, many, many people. So, I mean, it'll probably get pushback from the public as well once it starts running. But again, all these companies right now are testing. All this automation, taking jobs and putting money in the hands of the millionaires. And of course, now check out this drive.

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That's ODO.O.com slash Vox. Next story. Ooh, we got a fun one. Ukraine strikes Iranian ship. Dude. I don't know. I'm going to do this. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Aiden, what the heck's going on over there? Okay. So I'm just going to tell it like it is first. Yeah. From what I know. So an interesting development in, you know, one of two wars in a way. Or maybe an update in two wars at once.

Ukraine struck an Iranian cargo ship killing one person, one Iranian. on board of the cargo ship. And one ship? It was one ship in the Caspian Sea. America strikes way more ships than, anyway, go ahead. We'd be striking. No, I mean, I don't care about it. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we have to do some things to protect the country.

I just don't think it's like one ship is a big thing to brag about, but sorry, go ahead. So, so Ukraine strikes this one Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, and it was transporting military equipment to Russia. Now, the brief fallout since it's happened is Iranian officials have threatened retaliation, basically saying, like, this is a break of the UN charter for this to happen. And Ukraine, in kind of response, is like, you have no standing to be a victim, given that you're supporting Russia in a war with us. And the...

I think while this seems small scale, you might be able to... wondering, you know, why does this matter? Russia, since the invasion of Ukraine, has been using a lot of cheap and effective drones, a lot of which come from Iran. And Ukraine has also recently now been assisting the Gulf States defend themselves from Iranian drones because of the experience that they have gained through the war, offering their services and knowledge in combating drones to the Gulf states that are now... Do you think, like, we had to go to war, though?

I, which one? Of the two, Ukraine, Russia? We can't let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's like, I don't like the guy, but like, we had to do that. Right. This, this boat didn't have nuclear weapons on it. Well, it's part of the larger war effort. Part of the whole thing.

I mean, I don't even care, but I'm just saying, like, we had to, this war had to happen. Well, you might find, you might find this interesting then. Ukraine, uh, today. Today, Zelensky is meeting with Trump. It might actually be happening while we're recording with this. And it's because of this attack, it's seen as Zelensky's like opportune time to potentially tie Trump back into the Ukraine and Russia war,

to give Ukraine more support from the American side because of this supposed alignment in the conflicts. And this is like an example. Like Iran is supplying Russia, with like drones and military equipment. Trump is, Trump is tying in more with Zelensky? No, Zelensky wants to convince Trump of the relevant ties between these two wars

in order to gain back American support for the Ukrainian side. And what is Trump thing? And the argument, they are having a meeting today. I think it's literally happening while we're filming this episode. And it hasn't happened yet. But the argument from a Zelensky position

is that like, look, Russia is giving Iran intelligence on like American targets in the war that's unfolding for, you guys. Iran is supplying military aid to Russia in the war that we have. We are relevant allies to each other still, especially now since the Iran war started. Please, you know, provide us with the support. Did he, did he? I could convince Trump better than that. You fucking give him like a gold drone and he'll, and he'll be like, oh wow, yeah, no, you're right. We should definitely support him a gold nuke. I don't know. Can I be real with you? I mean, regardless

of the situation, I don't think these three dumbasses know whether talking about. Which three dumbasses? But I will. I stay tuned in to let them know that. How stayed, how tuned in are you? I'm tuned in every week.

I do, I watch plenty of news. It usually comes from just this show, actually. And, uh, and I have, and I got to say you just, you guys,

all time watching all news channels. You were talking about, uh, Trump and saying some shit about gifts. What'd you say? Yeah, I'm saying I could do a better deal than Zelensky. Convincing Trump is not that hard.

To be clear. I mean, like, I don't like the guy. I'm not gonna stand here and defend him. I don't like him even more. He's pretty good at deals. Like, he's, he's done a lot of good deals for this country. Dude, I actually have no idea who you are. Are you just like, are you like Jared Kushner?

I have no idea who anybody is. That's tough. And they're all balding. Did Dillinsky wear a suit? I've got no air. You've got no air. You've got no hair. You have the least hair.

And you're fat. Could be two people. Could be Aiden or a commenter. And to be honest with you, I cannot, I don't think I actually listen to any of the news that was presented to me in the previous 30 minutes. I've never listened to any news. I weigh 800 pounds. I have no fucking idea who Doug is. I don't know.

I didn't even read the paper. I've got no idea. I just, I just think people need to give our president more of, like some respect, honestly. It's an important office. I think we should make love to him. Okay.

I'm actually on board of that a little bit. I'm more on board. I'm actually on board with that a little bit. My username on Reddit is lazy dash dictionary. And I don't think the show knows what it is. But I do like talking about it. You're a commenter. You're a commenter.

You're a commenter. I don't know who Doug is. Let me, okay. I have even less of an idea than you do. Who did you vote for? Because I'll be honest with you. I'll say it.

I voted for Trump in the last election. I voted for him twice. I'm a guy who has to one up everything. That's really funny. I never would have to guess that. Wait, are you I'm not political. You guys come saying different things?

I'm not political. I'm not, to me, politics is a waste of fucking time. It's interesting because a lot of your answers are, do feel political. Yeah, you're talking about Trump.

You're, I, yeah, I voted for him. I think he's doing a good job. But like, it's not, I don't care.

It's like, it's not a big deal. Politics is not something I care about. Are you a, Gen Z male? I'm a, I'm a guy who's not political, who's extremely maga. Who's extremely maga.

Yeah, the, I'm not political. guy who's extremely... Got a tough one. Got a tough one. Right. Oh, that's crazy. Do we understand the story?

Yeah. Recap. Actually, wait, wait, wait. This story's kind of fucking crazy on a real level, because it literally is like soft beginnings of World War III. It's crazier than that. No, it's chill. No, sorry. Ukraine, but Ukraine just sunk.

I didn't realize they had the capability to sink boats right now. That's crazy. No. thinking all sorts of both. I think in my brain, I've been stuck in the like, Ukraine is mired in this war with Russia, not like they have naval capabilities or naval striking capabilities. It's probably your own, right?

I don't know if you know, but. I don't know. But, I mean, the point is that Ukraine is striking Iranian ships and now those war has, it's like if Iran has Russia and China as proxies, and America is proxy with Israel and I guess Ukraine, I mean, we're getting back into it. I heard the deal went well.

I heard the talk I was doing the character earlier, but I heard that the meeting has happened and Zelensky said good things about it. Yeah. I mean, my, so I don't know what was in the talk at all yet. But the supposed line is that Zelensky is positioning himself to get USAID back and capitalize on this time in the Ukrainian war

where it's going well. basically like here are the reasons that we should be supporting one another because you're involved in this other conflict that has a bunch of crossover give resources back and at this time when we have seemingly have Russia on a bit of the back foot better chemistry yeah I mean I gotta read this thing right after I heard I heard I mean I heard kind of the angle on it is that the US is Ukraine has been doing a lot better and so US is kind of jumping more back on the ship now that It's like...

I mean, Trump would love like a wartime good news. Yeah, like something that's a win. I mean, imagine if he gets to, if he, I'm not saying that it's definitive of whether or not they could get through this like with or without the U.S.

I'm not gonna, I'm not like a fortune teller. But if he's hopping on this train where things are looking good already and then he gets to be the guy that says the U.S. like ended the Ukraine-Russia war during this time period.

I just feel like no one will give him credit for it. I feel like he'll do all that great work. And then, you know, I don't want to say, And the left, and the left doesn't give him credit. And it's just weird. Like, I, I don't give a shit. Like, it's not whatever. Everyone's got their own opinion. You seem like you give a shit. You come on, you come on the show every week and you say you don't give a shit. And I, it's like, I don't care. And this is why the show sucks. I just, I, I just think he should, no one gives him an ounce of credit. Everyone wants to jump on his throat for every little thing. And maybe he's making some real progress to save this fucking country. I think we have- Joe Biden threw in the fucking dirt four years ago.

We have one more story. Okay. We have one more story where we all get to pull one more thing. Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. We're running out of characters and we still have a lot more stories to get to, but we'll do it for this one. I want to talk about what's going on with eBay. This is a long running story. To be clear, I've heard about this story for years and years now and it finally has a resolution. So I want to talk about it.

This is Ina and David Steiner. Seen here in their old age. Good traditional Americans. They are actually, I think, a nice couple. This is them back in 2002 when this all started. They ran a little blog in the early days of the internet called e-commerce bytes where they talked about selling things online. And they would write little blogs talking about the challenges and tribulations of selling things online. And again, you can't see it here, but I'll scroll it up. They had like 43 comments on

these things. It's not like insanely popular, but it was a decent blog. Separate story. eBay around this time is founded and eBay has this on their website called their five core values. We believe people are basically good. We believe everybody has somebody to contribute. We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated. These are core values of the eBay company that are on the website at the time. Now, you look at the website now, this is gone. This is gone.

Take down during this lawsuit. Anyway, go back to these guys, I9 David Steiner. They start writing blogs during the formative years of eBay about problems and challenges with eBay and certain sellers. Like just certain bad things eBay does. How their algorithm doesn't work certain time. Their search is bad. They change certain things,

how they've screwed certain sellers. They're just putting these messages out that are true to people in the world. eBay has an internal security team designed to protect their executives at functions. But this security team begins to warp. Over the years, it starts to get more and more militant.

And they start deciding that it is their core mission to take down enemies of eBay within without. This is a real story. And so a stalking scandal begins where they decide it is their mission to shut down Ina and David Steiner from publishing their blog.

And so they begin a multi-year harassment campaign where they mail-threatening deliveries to them like live cockroaches, a bloody pig's head math, and a few migshead mask, and a funeral wreath. They're just trying to get unwelcome. people out. Okay. And I'm loving the background color of that page. That's an interesting, okay, that's a really interesting take on it. I would probably disagree with you, but I'll find out a second. I, uh, so I'm sorry. So anyway, this goes on for years and years and years and years and they

sue and they are just being punished by eBay until finally the resolution is that happened today that they were awarded a massive, massive win, a 54 million dollar settlement that not only makes eBay pay for all the harassment, but send some. eBay people to jail for, because what they did is literally illegal in multiple years of harassment. So I want to know what you guys think. But first, wow. I think there's nothing wrong with the executives of that company promoting eBay first. No, totally.

What were you talking about? I might have to go here in a second. Could you, I mean, read one more story to me. I'm sorry, continue. I just. That was your story. Yeah Sorry, what were you saying?

What did you think about this? Bigga Pagadu Brandon on a strong one guys I'm realizing we got three of mine I think Pikachu's the wrong color

Are you so racist? I'm Nick Fuentes I'm you're Pikachu How'd you know? I'm Bush right after hearing about 9-11. How do you

how do I present the story? This was tough. This was tough, bro. You wrote that one, Doug? Yeah, these are all mine. I like that bush's. in there twice. You guys have any real thoughts

in the story? It's kind of fucking crazy. It's kind of insane. Yeah, eBay first, bro. All right, now I'll get to care. I read a lot of the story. I can tell you more about it, but you can tell me if you have any questions.

$53 million and people who worked at eBay go to jail. I actually feel pretty cool about that. It's an honest point. I took a long time, though. Was this like security guards? Who are the fucking lunatics who are doing this? That part of the story is crazy.

They got this security guard who's like ex-CIA. And he's just super into it. And over time, he slowly fired every member of the security staff and hired them with young blonde women who were like on contract work so they were afraid to be fired. And he would like, he called them,

I think his name was Bill, Bill's Angels. Okay? And yeah. That's an interesting point, Pikachu. Finally getting some different viewpoints on this show. I know. Well, he'd never thought about what Pikachu would tell about some of these things.

And that's honestly a good point. friendship was the power inside that we needed the whole time. No, but he runs this and everyone that works for him is afraid because he fires women constantly to hire new ones. And so they end up just doing whatever he says. And he ends up asking them to like send horses heads and harass people. And he thinks he's part. He's like an insane person. You ask Adish to do stuff like that.

Has literally gotten those packages yet? I've been telling Edish to say. They go to a forwarding address. Some guy has been getting So anyway, I guess good for them Because they literally have been dealing with like 18 years of harassment And they finally got the lifelong payout That I don't think e-commerce bites is going to give them

Yeah, I don't know So that that guy went to jail presumably then No, I don't think so I think the honestly The woman that's guaranteed It's still, I think the jail time's still being muted out The payment has been The only woman who's guaranteed going to jail

Is the woman who worked for him who was like 24 years old and admitted to everything. She like, she like confessed. So that kind of fucking sucks. I mean, uh, that continues to go up. Yeah,

I think it goes out. I think she's, she's admitting on what he did. And so it should be go up. But yes. Insane story. They were litigating for 10, like over 10 years.

It was a very, very long trial. Yeah. Like they started in, the trial started in 2012 or started in 2002? No, no, no. No. They started the blog in 2002.

Yeah. They harassed them for many, many years. I think the trial started closer to 2019 or right before COVID. But it's been a many years. Not to be Aiden's fence sitter character again. It doesn't feel like you just take seven years to be like, hey, that was wrong. You shouldn't send horse heads to people.

Yeah, I don't know why it took so long time. It's an insane. I think you had a very well-staffed team of lawyers. I'm sure there's nuance here. Some people grow up in families where they send horse heads to each other, and it's considered a sign of respect, and we should be, that we considered. Are you a nuanced guy again? Are you Pikachu?

Yeah, I'm just nuanced. Because Pikachu also talks like this. It's actually the same character. It's actually the same character. Well, if you want to hear a story about long lawsuits, I did have a little update on the European Union fining Google. So recently, for a breach in EU rules over preferential treatment in search results, the EU has fined Google about a billion U.S. dollars, 890 million euros.

Her brother's going to heard Trump said, they're stealing from our companies. The Europe is trying to steal from our companies. Yeah, yeah. He basically said this is like an unfair tax on American companies that are like performing well. But the issue is that Google is supposedly treating shopping, hotel,

transport, and sport results listings, like prioritizing their own versions of those over third party listings on the site and like not giving equivalent operations. for those to like rise in search results. Is there an example? What's something that Google has that? Um, I mean for like, so Google has a built-in hotel surfacing like, like, UI and like price comparison and like price checker, right? If you Google, uh, it or, it's not, give me a

Google. You'll get like Google's version of that. Or if you're into sports, if you Google's version of often get Google's version of sports data over, like embedded into the search result, but you would have to go and like click into ESPNs or like do something else like that, right? So they're prioritizing their own like first party products and, uh, they are getting fine because this does break a US rule. And I thought what was, sorry, an EU rule. And something I thought was interesting about this is in the Reuters article that I was initially looking at about this, it was covering like the history of them being fined. And I just, did recall from like the late 2010s that they were getting hit with huge fines around then and then like

navigating those uh the appeal process of those things and uh i think just within the past like i think since 2017 they have been fined like 10 billion dollars by the european union so they are just trying to and i and i and so i think i think they're unfairly attacking American companies? The thing that is kind of interesting here is that the length of time it takes for these payments to take effect. Now, in the case of these EU fines,

this is a significant amount of money like no matter how you cut it. When you're talking about finding a company for billions of dollars at the end of the day, it does matter to them, and they're going through... It's data center money. You can't be telling you money from Google

when they got to buy data centers. No, no, you can't interrupt that. And it's, it takes years to actually get paid. So just recently for, I think, the, the fine that they got hit with in 2017, and then the one in 2018, they have just gone through the final appeal for those and paid them as of like the last two years. So one got paid last year and then one got paid very recently. And that comes to like just short of like five billion euros.

And then what happens when these cases, hit or these fines hit is it kind of opens up precedent for individual companies to sue Google and then increase the amount of damages they're seeking or shore up precedent in the case they're pursuing. So an example of this is Price Runner, which is owned by Klarna. I actually won, this is my Nordic Fun Fact of the Week. Okay. They won almost $2 billion in U.S. dollars in damages in a Swedish court because instead of like surfacing their product equally on Google search results, this like price tracker and price

comparison tool sued Google in Stockholm and like won this gigantic case. The issue with these like individual lawsuits is like even though these companies like are finding like room to win, Google, they're often like seeking less less money than like the EU is able to like fine for. And then because like this example is like one of the largest cases. And then Google can just like drag out the process for much, much longer. So even like the Klarna spokesperson that was commenting on this win is like, yeah, we're pumped that we want in principle. But the reality is this like amount in damages will not be paid for, you know,

it could be like five to 10 years because Google can just like continue to drag this out. And this is the kind of exchanges like how effective. is fining or suing Google for these, even these large amounts of money when they can extend the appeals process over the course of such long periods of time. Like, basically stretching it across 10 years and making it like this

dispersed cost of business rather than... Yeah, I guess it depends. I mean, losing a billion dollars can't be good. But I can, if it's, you know... A government function just so. fine. We just kept the 35 trillion down the can forever. True. And we just keep sending it mid. I don't know. It seems like it's kind of talking to work for it. I want to Google has a money printer

though in the same way. I mean, Google search is kind of a money printer. Yeah. I mean, what was the total fee they had to pay? Uh, this one for the, so the recent one they got hit with is 900 million, 890 million euros. And that is the most recent EU fine of the total of like almost 10 billion they have been fined by the European Union in the last 10 years. And those fines are more likely to be seen through. Like, the EU laws that are used to find them are usually pretty strong. And even though Google can drag it out, they're relatively likely to win at the end of it. Only one, and it was one of the smaller ones, of these EU fines has gotten overturned in like the last.

I guess the real question is then like... But then the, hold on, the individual company lawsuits, like these companies that see the fine and are like, our company can take individual action against Google. It's our time to sue them. Those are less likely to be successful. And they're more likely to be hurt through the long legal process that Google will drag out. But like the ultimate question is,

does Google make more money by ignoring these things and paying the fine and just stretching it out and keep doing what they're doing? Or are they forced to change? That's the size of the finance to make you want to stop, right? So I don't know.

That's the real question. And the goal of this is to make them be more competitive, right? So they have to have more options and they can't favor themselves. Yeah, I think like in the 2018 case that just got paid out, the EU is like, okay, when Android phones are like preloaded with Chrome and another app, that Google proprietary app, you're not letting people like pick their web browser of choice. You're like letting yours win from the jump.

I got to imagine like owning the web browser of Europe is probably worth more than a billion dollars or whatever, whatever this costs. I mean, that one was for four and a half billion. So it was more. That's a pretty big number. Yeah. Certainly a drag on what? Easiest comparison number is, what, a month ago now, two months ago,

they sold stock to raise $80 billion. So there you go. So they were, you know, they were like, you know, I think this year we'll just get $80 billion in cash so we can buy more data centers. Yeah, but they're spending it all. I mean, I do think, uh, I saw, I just, it just feels like if, if, of that 80, billion, they have to set aside two billion for lawsuits. They'll probably make it through okay.

Like, it does feel like it's still a fairly small amount of money overall. I think it's really relevant, though, because Google, this is Google's free cash flow for the past 25 years of its business. You'll notice it's been gargantuan, and for the first time ever, it has turned negative. This is like actual money left over in their pocket after expenses after the quarter. So, uh, yeah, it's Google for the law. longest time could probably shrug off fines no problem. They had infinite miles of money coming in. I'd say this is the first quarter where it's like, oh, this kind of sucks. Yeah, this is kind of the, oh, this is from the FT article on it, right? I think in the FT article, they're kind of

emphasizing as like, okay, now this cost of doing business approach that they, or mentality they might have been able to have for a long time, is this, is this the tipping point where it changes towards the future? Because you're trying to like outspend all of your AI competitors. This is the first time where like they are actually genuinely short of the cash or there's pressure to spend all of this. So that one, so that one billion USD you're getting hit for it, even if you're not going to pay it until like six years from now, it still means a lot. Yeah, no, that makes sense. They might have to change. I know that like when the EU did the lawsuit on Apple for the USBC, they had to change. They changed. They didn't just pay that fine. And I remember also there's the lawsuit on privacy data,

GDPR, they called it. And I remember being at invidia at the time and everybody had to scramble. It's change a bunch of software and things just because the EU did a fine. Like nobody wanted to ignore it. Yeah. Because it was such a big deal. That was crazy. I remember GDPR.

I was working at SmashG at the time. And like we had to last minute change a bunch of stuff. Yeah, everybody had to like scramble. I forget, is that the one where now every website ever, I have to agree to cookies and I say no. And everybody loves that. Is that that one? I think that was the end game of it.

And I do think the end game of some of these finds is going to be like... Obviously, there's a lot more to GDPR. But they're going to do the most bare bones. Yeah. count as competition, like whatever. It'll pop up. I don't know how they'll do it, but it's weird because a search result still has to pick a winner, right? What if the winner is Chrome? I don't understand. It's weird.

What is it like the oversight of that process to make sure that you're fairly, like, who's judging the fairness of that process? One of the, one of the silly things when people criticize Chrome, I believe Sundar said this of like, we never, this is when they were like in Congress during Joe Biden's administration being accused of political censorship, basically. And, you know, Republicans are saying, you, Google, are making it so conservative viewpoints aren't easy to find, and you're suppressing us

and blah, blah, blah, blah. And Sundar, I believe this was in his congressional hearing, said, we don't do that. We don't have anybody who's, like, there is going to say, yeah, this topic gets boosted. This topic is going to be, like, pushed down. And then the counter argument, I think, from, like, Naval or something,

was that's the entire purpose of Google is to rank things to tell you what to search for. That is that is the product. What do you mean you don't rank it? I mean, even if it's not a person picking topics day to day, there's not like a guy shuffling papers and deciding what appears. Like that is fundamentally what a search engine is. So it's like, of course you're prioritizing things in some way. Yeah, I guess I don't know what the argument is on like whether or not if it's entirely driven by user preferences and data like what they click on the most. Yeah. That's the argument of like we're just giving what people want to see. But then you also you are you are. You are. You are. making the algorithm that determines that. Yeah, it's weird. It's chicken and egg, right? Because once it's big enough, that's how people get their opinion.

And they're right that there's not a guy who's sitting there going, yes, more Joe Rogan today. Like, that's not how it works. But they software engineered an algorithm. Yeah. Weird. Interesting.

You know what else? Interesting company? SpaceX. Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. Okay. Why an interesting week? Terry, I sent you a video

and this is just some space footage just to get people excited while I say a bunch of numbers. The SpaceX, IP, was a month ago. Look at that rocket. Incredible. Now, just look at that rocket.

Don't think too much about these numbers. I'm about to say, IPO did 135 a share. By day four, the SpaceX IPO shares cost $200. They had a valuation of $2.64 trillion. That is almost as much as AirPods and Nike combined. And Germany.

Yeah, right. Actually, you know, Perry, if you just pull up SpaceX stock. So they had four days that were just cooking. They were cooking. And Elon Musk became a trillionaire and peaked at $1.3 trillion net valuation. But then, as we'll see in a sec, over the last month, it has been plummeting. So 10 days ago, I mean, this was like a month ago that this launched, right?

As of 10 days ago, they had to cancel their most recent like Starship launch. And as soon as they did that, stock drops 5% more. It goes down to 123. Re-Share, so it's now officially below their initial offering. And at this point, the valuation of SpaceX is down to 1.63 trillion. This is as of, I think, about 10 days ago. But you can see, it's gone down basically even more since then, which is just a crazy stat.

In one month, they lost a trillion dollars of valuation. So, you know, short, little update this past Friday a couple days ago. They do another Starship launch. That's the YouTube video that we had up very briefly. And they do successfully launch Starship, which is their, you know, big new rocket. They get it into space. They get it to land. The booster also lands.

They haven't tested reusability yet, you know, the cool stuff where it lands on the matchstick and then it's ready to go. But they dropped it into the ocean. It was all very controlled. It went very well. And so this is the closest they've gotten to this world where they actually have a reusable giant rocket. And so, again, the whole underpinning of the premise of SpaceX's value is, one, they're a rocket company. And this is important to that. Two, they have Starlink, which is a genuinely great business that, you know, in theory,

this will allow them to send up more satellites. But then three, it's space data centers, right? That's why they have supposedly are worth this valuation. And Grok. And Grok. They own Grok. And Grok. A revenue center for the future.

We will be able to run Grok in space if all things go well. So Starship is, SpaceX is like giant literal moonshot project. It's also the one that is supposed to work with NASA to get to the moon, right? like as soon as like next year, or 2028. So this, this went well. They're still like a year behind,

but they're at least getting closer to the idea of we have Starship, a gigantic rocket that is reusable, which is like the thing underpinning any of their supposed valuation. So I think it's pretty interesting. There's some cool, you know, various people saying it seems like we peaked on tech stocks.

This might have been the top. Like SpaceX's IPO is going to sort of precipitate the fall of everything. From Bernstein, suck John. analyst Douglas Arnden. Suck John? Is his name? No, the company is called Bernstein sucken. Okay. Socgen.

Okay. S-O-C-G-E-N. Okay. Probably not suck John. I'd probably had a guess. Bernstein's been sucking John and reiterated quote that he thinks it's an outperform rating on SpaceX, insisting that the $107 stock is worse twice that. He pointed out this is the same ship they're going to

send to the moon. Every single Wall Street analyst is saying this is a $200 stock pump, pump, pump. Hell yeah. It's crazy and it keeps declining. And what's interesting, Douglas, Douglas, is that on August 6th, like really soon, a massive, all this share trading and this decline has happened while there's only a tiny amount of the flow, like 4% of the shares. And that's, that is really conducive to a pump.

And that got it for a few days and it's declining. On August 6th, like another 28%, like a massive amount of the company. I don't know the number. You got it in front of you. Currently, there's 639 million shares up for trading. By the end of this year, there's going to be 5.3 billion. Exactly. It's going to increase.

Yeah, over August and then the next three months, there's like a massive amount of insider shares that suddenly dump on the market. And it's, that is so much selling pressure on top of what already is down below its IPO price. I won't think about this, George Bush, you just heard about 9-11. What about this? Another tower hitting into your mental psyche. We have to invade for 20 years. We have to do it.

We have to invade space. We got to send our ships into space. There's no other solution and then to send our troops into the Middle East for the next 20 years. Get Carl Rove on the phone. I heard the moon's getting WMDs. And do not double check that we're in the inspectors.

Shame on you. Yeah. Hold me twice. Actually, you're more of finance. slut than I am. Would you say, so in theory, if you know that the amount of shares is going to almost 10x over the next couple months, does that sort of force an almost artificial suppression of the price because you know it's going to come out? Yeah, it's happening right now. So all the employees that have millions and millions, 10, 20 million dollars in SpaceX shares, they are very, very concerned

about the short-term movements of the price before their lockup ends. Because if they it drops a lot, they went from having $20 million when they actually sell to having 10 or 5 or what. It's a big difference. And so all of the employees have been doing what Mark Cuban did in the 2000s when he got his big stock payout and couldn't sell it quickly. They're called basically like strangles. It's where you like, you give up all your ears. You're basically selling an option that if the stock goes up, I have to give you the stock and I have to sell it at the price it is right now. So I get none of the upside if it goes up. but I'm buying a bet against SpaceX.

They're buying a put option on SpaceX. This is all complicated option stuff. But basically almost all the employees are using these complicated webs to bet against SpaceX to save themselves from protection if the stock goes down so they can keep their amount. It's like they're covering their upside and their downside.

Just like it strangled. You put in one spot. And when they do that, the market makers who take that bet have to hedge the bet because they're never trying to actually make an actual bet. They're just trying to fuck the middleman.

So they hedge their bet by selling SpaceX stock. So even though they haven't yet sold, they're essentially selling early through this bet. And that is a lot of the reason why there's pressure early. So I don't know if on August 6, it'll rapidly change things because everyone's already betting against, they're making it happen early almost. Everyone knows what's going to happen. In theory, some of the people who would be buying right now, who would be interested

are like, I'm going to wait until this flood of new shares hits the market and then I'll start buying. And the theory could go back up. It's quite possible that like people are worried about what could happen with this and they want everything to settle down. Okay. But it does seem like this was a elaborate scheme to pump things early, and it has run out of steam pretty quickly.

And the real loser of all this is not Elon Musk, who is still making ungodly amounts of money, not like that any ungodly amounts of money. Sorry, I'm going to stroke. It's anthropic and open AI who had other big IPO plans. Yeah. And this not doing well is a huge, I mean, IPOs are very momentum driven.

They happen. They like to cluster together in like a, a frenzy mania wave, if this one's doing badly a month in, it is such a dour effect on their IPOs. And they might even pull them or delay them. There's a real shot that opening I, like, tries to push it for a better moment. Because doing it now, there's a chance it just flops. Like people are afraid because of what happened with SpaceX. So anyway, interesting story. Yeah, I definitely think, yeah, it coincides with what's happening with Tesla, which Tesla had a pretty interesting earnings report where they said, listen,

car revenue is probably the worst it's ever been. Like in terms of like profits, I'm sorry. They're actually selling a lot of cars, but the profits are the worst has ever been. And they reported record profits, but the record profits comes because Tesla owns some shares of SpaceX, and they booked that IPO bump as a one-time thing. But if you take that out,

Tesla actually has one of their worst quarters ever until their stock is also getting cratered. So Elon Musk is only going to have a mere 500 to 600 to 600 bill. I don't know what he's at right now. I can tell you. And this is, it's been a fun episode, and I'm sorry to drop something a little somber. From $1.3 trillion a month ago,

he's now only $792 billionaire. This is tragic. You hate to see it happen. Because I thought he was different. I thought he was different. And now he's the same as all that. No, no, no. This is the hero's journey.

You have to fail and go to rock bottom. so that you can find your way back to the top. That's true. Right? A trillion dollars doesn't feel earned unless you really had to go through the doldrums in the 800 millions. Excuse me.

He's barely richer than he was before SpaceX IPOed. It's a tragedy. Do you put all that work? He did work really hard. It's so fucked up. And I just don't like, I know that for you and I, we could probably feed our families on this amount,

but he has a lot of kids. And really, he thinks of all of us as his children. So it's just like, I don't know if you can afford. You see what grocery prices are lately? I mean, they're hot. They're hot. So I don't know about that.

Yeah, interesting is right. Definitely the big news. But if you just love space, good news is that the people who actually run SpaceX and do rockets, like they're making progress. We're getting closer. And, you know, again, part of us getting to the moon with the NASA program that we talked about with Mark Kelly requires this starship to be not only reusable, but also testing mid-orbit refueling, which they're supposed.

supposed to do with the Apollo capsule next year, although the timelines are sort of shifting. So if you're just stoked about space and moon stuff, this is actually a really good step towards that. Stock price is kind of its own funny thing going on. I think SpaceX is a cool company that is all this stuff around it. That's weird. When Shotwell, who runs it, apparently is like a badass. And I heard nothing but good things from the people I spoke with who worked at SpaceX. So the people doing all the work right now, like are great. Everything I heard. Well, I just, you know, the rocket doesn't make any money right now. It's, it's. It's a lot. It's, It's literally like a, like you said, a moonshot business.

They make their money off Starlink. Yeah. That's basically it. They have a couple contracts for the thing, but, and all this combined for $2 trillion, whatever is insane. Doesn't make any sense. Um, what's the next story? Oh.

Oh, you got it. Tell me. You got a little something. What's been going on with old Mitch? He's playing shy. Oh, Mitch, dude. He's been a little coy. Uh, okay.

So the update on Mitch McConnell. is that he has not been seen in now officially 43 days. He has not shown up, no official communication. There was one photo that is, you know, pretty suspect, but whatever. That's it. That was clean. It could be. I actually don't know.

That's the point is we don't know. Now, let me clear up some communications. Yeah. He doesn't have any job. Like, this is fine, right? So he's actually the senator of Kentucky. And so... Like in America?

In America. American Senator Mitch McConnell is supposed to be voting on things that help our government function. And he has just not shown up nor given any communication to anyone for 44 days. And so now the governor of Kentucky, who is a Democrat, Andy Bashir,

is demanding that he justify his weeks long unexplained as an absence from Congress or he resigns. So he's put out this open letter. It's basically saying, listen, the people of Kentucky are owed an answer. Yes, the rule. say that senators can do this, which is kind of crazy. I think I got the specifics. Senators can, uh, every member of Congress can essentially go on paid medical leave for as long as they

want whenever they want. That's so cool that we have universal justification, universal and unlimited and time off for our senators. Finally, because I'm tired of people coming for this guy's head when he's doing something that is completely above board. He does not have to prove that he can walk, talk, or think coherently and he still gets paid this full time. So theoretically, he could do this for years. There's no, there is a idea is that before, before 2024,

the governor of Kentucky could call a special election to replace him. But because the only Democrat in all of the government of Kentucky is the governor, Andy Bashir, the rest of the state legislature in 2024 passed a law removing his ability to do that, almost anticipating this problem. So he cannot get rid of Mitch McConnell. He cannot call in his special election. And so Mitch could be dead.

I mean, that's really a story if he's dead. I assume maybe he's just incapacitated, but he is not responding to anything. And people are coming out and saying, oh, I had conversation with him. but there is nothing on the record. There is nothing said. There's nothing. That's how I want to go out. Like my friends and family,

not hearing from me for weeks. Yeah. Just a long period of unknown. Just to shell them. Yeah. Just exert control one last time. Because it says you can't. Yeah.

I'm addressing this letter to Senator Mitch McConnell under the assumption that he's capable of reading and responding verbally. And if he's not incapacited by means of consciousness or cognition, if you're unable to respond for either of those conditions, consider this letter a demand for his Senate staff to be honest and transparent with people of Kentucky,

which is funny, that's all he can ask for. He can't even ask him to resign. He just wants them to be honest and transparent, so maybe we can get a public pressure movement. It's crazy. I think that the thing I keep thinking is I don't think he's dead because surely. It would be crazy to a weekend to Bernie's this. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like it's just ridiculous for a senator to die and then presumably be. in a space where some amount of people know that. Surely that leaks. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you that I, but it's funny because nothing has leaked. Yeah. Like even if he's like unwell or he has just completely gone off the grid.

He's a senator that we cannot ascertain or see footage of or talk to or hear about. It's like really odd when you look into the story more. And I do think there is motive for in some ways to just downplay. this or not do anything that would lose him his seat. Because since Lindsey Graham's death, the voting math on what's going on in Congress is very, very razor thin. And so his vote, I believe, matter

or him getting replaced could matter. This thing's like, it's just getting to the point where a Mitch McConnell, absentee, dead vote was going to matter a lot. I thought he was, like, retiring at the end of this year, though, right? Right. So if there was a special election with that person only worked to the end of the year?

I don't know the answer to that question. I do not know. It's a good question. All I know is that there is a motivation to, I mean, the motivation could be just personally, you don't want to appear as degraded mentally or physically. But it is a weird story, especially as Lindsay Graham died during these 44 days,

which is like a reminder of the- Ah, it's so strange. The much younger and healthier relative to Mitch McConnell. It's what a strange. I guess it depends on the state, but basically there isn't just an, you know, an automatic party replacement necessarily from... I'm sorry, yeah.

So in 2024, previously, if there was somebody who's incapacitated, the governor could just appoint a temporary senator until the next election. Now he is not allowed to do that. They must hold a special election, which will likely go to a Republican because it's Kentucky. Kentucky, huh? How old is he?

Mitch McConnell. He's a he's a whopping. Oh, he's 84 years young. Can I say something crazy? He's younger than I thought he was. Pelosi's 86, bro. Man, we got some old fucking people in government. My grandpa's 87.

He's still pretty chipper. Trump's 80? Yeah. There's like, it's crazy that Trump is 80 and he could be the young one in some meetings. It could be literally like, five to six years younger. 80 years old.

That was sick. Schumer 75. Dude, we have a... Yeah, we got some old ones. But you know what? It's that age comes wisdom. Oh. One of the characters was a boomer

with three paid off houses who. Wanted you to pull yourself out of your bootstraves, but we didn't get that. One more story. This is about YouTube's AI content policy. Yes, YouTube is having an AI problem. like many others. Yeah, it is.

It's very annoying. I look on YouTube in the fields that I like to look at, which is like history and economics and politics. And there's a fucking wave of basically repackaged Wikipedia articles with an AI voice that have a pretty interesting title and thumb. And I click them and I realize instantly that I'm watching a faceless AI slop YouTube channel. Tell me what Wikipedia would say. Yeah.

Yep. So what is YouTube doing about this? Well, let's hear from, one of the head of policy creators, if you pull this up, Perry. Here's a little bit from the VP of Trust and Safety on YouTube. The AI can actually allow people to make a lot of videos. Sometimes those videos are great,

and it really enhances creativity, and you can create a higher volume of high-quality content that we want to encourage and have in YPP. But that exact same new tool can allow you to make lots of videos really quickly that are very similar. They're very generic, and don't really have a narrative arc, and don't really show your creativity.

the same technology. What the hell was that? Wait, what happened? That was AI? So while explaining the problems with AI, the editors of this video deep fake them into various fruit costumes. Wait,

that was great. Play it again. Yeah. This is talking about their policy on YouTube and they did a cheeky little. Wow, that is insane. I didn't know it was that. For audio listeners,

we're watching two people. Dude, that means his arm. right there was entirely AI generated. Like his bare arm. Everything below his face would have to be... Oh, look at his... Is his skin there messed up?

Wow. That's actually spooky. Yeah, so they thought it'd be a cheeky thing in their video explaining AI policy to have the two speakers, including the VP of, like, trust in safety, be defaced into fruit costumes. Every couple frames.

It's kind of wild. And so... Insane timing on... Yeah, when he's talking about that problem. Yeah, bizarre. To be... That's really bizarre. time to do a cheeky thing.

Well, you could argue that the video became higher quality. There's nuance is what you're saying. So, look, I would love to sit here and say they're really cracking down on AI content because it's clearly causing some problems. They're clearly not based on his answer there. So here is what the answer is. This is a week or two ago now. I was going to mention this last week.

We didn't have time. So YouTube has come out and basically said, we are not changing our policies, but we're clarifying our policies because people are starting to abuse it. And our key goal is, quote, you have to upload original and authentic content. So here are the policies that already exist, but they made this video specifically to call out to be like, hey, we're going to get stricter on these. One, videos are not supposed to be, quote, generic and repetitive. So videos that are basically just the same, like content farms where it's just a moderately changed thing. And they're just flooding YouTube with endless basically AI videos.

He's kind of bad for Ludwig's Amazon streams. A little bad for Ludwig streams. You don't even, I hate Amazon streams. I just, how is that going to fun mogul moves if he has to upload one of those every month? I mean, the yard, they talk about pee and poo every week. Are we going to filter that out? Is that going to be? No, because we kind of do it different every week.

What's funny, they've only made five episodes and the AI got enough training data. I just trained it. Number two is distressing or off putting. So if you're trying to get views by being emotionally manipulative, and he gives the example of videos that show animals in distress, or like minors in situations of distress. So apparently a new category of videos that are starting to cause problems on YouTube

are people using AI, not even in those like crazy cartoon videos, but just to make up fake, like distressing scenarios to get people to click. Yeah. They put like cat in trouble or something and then someone saves it and then all the boomer comments like,

finally a good American or something. Yeah. Yeah. They just do like high intensity emotional situations. Wait, and they're going to get rid of those? The quality of that's fucking crazy. They are saying this is, again, they're not changing the policy, but they're like, hey, this is our policy.

You need to be aware of this because they're clearly implying they're going to get stricter because this is now being abused. I hope they do, bro. I really hope they do. And the third one, which I didn't even realize was an issue, is AI personas, which is where a human creates an AI persona that talks about sensitive topics like finance, legal, or health care. So it's not just AI voiceovers. It's people like this who, ironically, if you pull this up, I tried to find this.

and the best thing I could find, this is a video about how to make your own AI influencer who is all AI? Dude, we're through the fucking looking glass, bro. You imagine three years ago talking about this? This is like so insane how fast is moving. So there are now AI influencers

that are making channels teaching other people how to make AI influencers. If your character doesn't actually look and feel real, the whole thing falls apart. And so... So I spent the last couple of months

Oh, did you? Did you test it? Exactly how to build AI influencers that not only look real, but stay consistent across hundreds of posts. Okay, so this is the kind of update from YouTube. They are trying to call this stuff out specifically, and people are making these AI influencers,

not just for innocuous things, but now for things like talking about healthcare and politics and stuff, and YouTube is basically saying, like, we are going to be more aggressive. Are they going to, like, go after these people? No, they're just not going to monetize it.

They're saying you're going to be booted out of the YouTube partner program, which to be fair is the same thing. It's the same thing. They're not going to make it if it doesn't get monetized. Right, right. The only incentive to do this. Quo, what he said, we are agnostic to the tools that are used to make the content. So you explicitly not saying you cannot make AI videos. It's you have to follow these things, you know, not generic, repetitive and abusing all this stuff.

So that, that I thought was interesting. It's weird, man, because like Spotify, for example, found out that. that if they create a separate shell company that creates easy listening AI music and then lists it in their own playlists, they can avoid having to pay a lot of money out to human creator. They can just live in... Because a lot of humans will put that on a playlist

and they don't know it's not AI. It's because the way Spotify revenue works is they pay out artists as a share of listening time. So like a set amount of revenue comes in every month. And then it's not basically, on like your quantity of streams, it's how your streams stack up against the rest of the site.

Like what little sliver of the pie chart of listening did your streams take up? And if they can flood the platform over time with more and more AI music that they own, then they get a larger and larger take home of the pie chart of revenue every month. And they said they weren't doing this the whole time, but it came out that they did.

And so it does feel like, I wonder what YouTube would, I mean, they don't want to do it now, because it's not them creating it. But it would be interesting to see what YouTube would do if they could have creators that they own that are uploading AI generated stuff. And they could just not have to pay them out. And then promote people.

I think if I'm a young man, I'm like 15, I got a side hustle. I'm making the most emotionally moving AI cat videos where like some guy swoops in. It saves it from getting run over by car. Why can I fucking monetize that? Why can I monetize that and upload maybe four, five of them a day? 400 of them.

Okay, so while looking into this, I found what I thought was a pretty fun example. Perry, if you pull this up, one of the people doing this, this was recent. This happened in 2025, got in trouble because their name is true crime case files. And they uploaded fully AI fake true crime videos, which are incredibly popular on YouTube. And so this one, quote, or this is the name of the video, was called Husband's secret gay love affair with Stepson ends in grisly murder. This got so many. You have the last part. True crime documentary in parentheses.

Yeah, yeah, true crime documentary from the channel True Crime Case Files. So this is a fully made up video. This is so cool. How many views does this have? No, well, it got taken down. But at the time, it got so popular and got so many millions of views and is about caused. Colorado that Colorado journalists started looking into this because they were getting complaints from viewers saying why didn't you ever cover this this is a crazy story And so here in Denver Post they're like this is all fake

None of this is real and so NPR turns out they did an interview with the creator of this channel and there's some wild things where he justifies this and says like he used to make other other AI videos and then eventually realize that true crime is really really popular and And then he said, this is to NPR. At the end of the day, true crime, no matter how much it's dressed up as we care about the victims or this is finding justice, it's a form of entertainment. NPR. Yeah, but I mean, if you're so critical of true crime and if it's causing all these problems in the world, why are you making it? John, I'm creating an alternative to it because this way people can have all the luridness they want, but it's not hurting people. So I see myself as sort of like the vegan alternative to true crime. What the hell does that mean?

That makes complete sense. Do they think other true crime journalists are doing the crime? rhymes to create it? What, that's how it works. I, I do, hold on,

and I hate to bring out the nuance guy. I hate to bring him out. You hate to bring him out. You hate to be a good nuance Pikachu. I don't think, I think he's doing this for money. Oh my God.

I think he's doing this. You drew the wrong one. He's obviously just doing this for money because he even cop to it. He's like, I tried a bunch of different stuff until I got something that just hit. But it's not like,

I don't know. I'm not a fan of true crime. I think it's sort of inherently problematic. Right, there's a nuance to it, but you're saying it. If you're creating, is this not better than like actual true crime content in a sense? I would argue the negative effects of true crime, which has been shown if you watch a lot of that stuff, you think crime is worse than it is, even though crime has nationally been going down. People who consume a lot of this stuff. So it's like not good for your mental psyche.

The fact that the crime never happened doesn't matter. You're still watching stuff that is making you believe that there's this enormous amount of crime happening everywhere. In 2025, the channel got shut down and according to YouTube, which NPR reached out to, they had deleted his channel not because they were made by AI or that he lied about them being true, but because it was violating policies prohibiting child sexual exploitation. So some of the made up stories were too risque, not the problem that he was making AI content that was false. strange. And so to cap this off, I tried to go see, is this still a thing?

And there is now a new channel called Unreal True Crime, where the cases are shocking, are so shocking they feel almost unbelievable, but they're real. And they have the same names. They have the same, the exact same things. There's literally the same

you know, husband with gay, whatever. They just flood the platform. It's just, it's, even if one, One is a flop. They just make a hundred million until one of them gets human brain stupid. Yeah.

They make two of these a week and they say that it is not AI. I looked at it. It's like, we use AI for our voiceover. Yeah. But all of the story is original from our team.

And I'm like, I don't fucking think it is. I don't think you're making two 40 minute true crime documentaries a week that are all fake and have the same titles as these other people.

It looks like they deleted the gay one. they could be real in that, they could just feed another true crime documentary into the thing and say, generate, you know, that's the problem with this stuff is that it's, I don't know, it's fucking up YouTube for me.

It's so annoying. Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, I feel like I stumble. Either, even if it's not an AI voiceover, I feel like I'm encountering that genre of video essay where it's, they like weirdly repeat their points over and over.

And they could just be bad writer. And that's a problem in itself. Yeah. But it's a hard time to be a bad writer. But everybody thinks you're just AI. Oh, true. Yeah. RW.

It's one who likes hyphens. Yeah. Yeah. You're pretty screwed. Yeah. I think this is, yeah. What's frustrating about it is I don't have a clear solution in front of me.

In any platform where the content is user submitted, the tools to defend against this right now feel so limited. And it's weird because pretty much everybody agrees that there's something that makes the platforms worse. Nobody really wants to like consume these things once they find out what they are. I feel like maybe I'm in my own bubble. Maybe I,

maybe there is just a bunch of people who are above the age of 50 in Florida commenting on AI cat videos on Facebook that are like, they fucking love it. Kevin. It's great. And it just, but I feel like this, it waters down the quality

of the platform and you don't have faith in what you're doing. You've not seen my dad scroll reels and he gets some a guy shit there and he just just, you just, it's no different reaction to him. He enjoys it all this thing. It's all the same. But does he know it's AI? I do think if people, for example, with this true crime, I do not think this channel would be successful at all. And, and also

that channel I just highlighted it said, this is fake. This is fake, right? Like, so much of this. And that's where I think, you know, YouTube is walking a weird line. I wish they were a little stricter, but they are at least saying very clearly, distressing or off-putting content that is created by AI that's meant to be emotionally manipulative is going to be demonetized. And the fake true crime should fit in that, right? So in theory, it will, it will improve. But we have to see how strict YouTube actually gets with this. You know what I've been doing? I'm a fucking hypocrite,

dude. I'm a fucking hypocrite because I have been watching AI generated content lately. I listen to AI-generated Swedish conversations in the car to like practice language. Yeah. It's just like a YouTube channel. Like if you look, it's a bunch. If you look up, what did I search the first time?

I looked up like Svenska conversation on YouTube. And a lot of these videos are like fake, like a single AI generated image of like kind of a Pixar looking character and anime looking character with like automated audio, and subtitles, and it's like slow-paced conversations. And I'm listening to them right now

because I'm trying to just work on, like, language recognition, basically. And the pace at which these videos deliver language right now is consumable to me. Like, I'm just trying to... It's hard for me when I listen to... Like, sometimes I listen to this TV show called Bonus Family.

And it's really dialogue-heavy, but people speak quickly, and it's hard for me to understand right now. So I've been listening to these videos because I can understand a lot of them. And it's like a whole genre of language content on YouTube that I wasn't aware of. And I've been listening to them in the car because it like I'm practicing. And maybe so maybe I'm a big old fat hypocrite. I guess, you know.

This isn't, I wouldn't call this art though. Like I have a very utilitarian consumption. Right. This is a person saying, look, we recognize there's people who want a large amount of generated conversations to practice at a certain... And that feels different than, hey, we are going to abuse people's emotions by making fake stories that are intentionally going to swamp out other things.

No, I think it's the same thing as generating. There is no nuance on this one. Yeah, it's interesting. This one doesn't, like, that doesn't annoy me as much because, piss on the thumbnail. Like, everything about it, you know what you're getting into. Yeah. But I find it so frustrating that there's so many

attempting to pass themselves off. I saw one. This one really pissed me off. There was a history channel covering like interesting battles in history. And they opened everything. And they had the description of saying, this was not made with AI. But I am quite positive it was.

And there's nothing that stops you from saying that. Yeah. There's nothing from stopping you from just going like, this is all human created. And like for most people, that's all they need to hear. The guilt is out of their mind. And then it's just annoying.

And last thing I'll say on this, because we're about that close, we're a little long. Do you guys remember the recent Kentucky primary where Thomas Massey lost to Ed Gullery. You know about that story? Well, Ed famously ran some AI ads

that showed Thomas Massey in a thruple with AOC and Ilan Omar and like catching them in like black and white photos like going out to dinner together and like saying he's a secret super woke lib. And it turns out, I mean, everyone criticized those ads when they happened. But now that it's been since the primary

and he lost, there are studies into old people in Kentucky who voted and many of them report in surveys, they thought it was real. They like, oh, I thought that was a real. Right. And that's fucking crazy. They thought, they literally thought that they caught him in a thruple with AOC. Yeah.

And it swayed their vote on which Republican to vote for because they're Republican voters. And I think it's, it's just like we, we are through the looking glass on some crazy fucking things. Oh, that's. Anyway, what do you think Pikachu would say about that? What do you think Pikachu would say about that new story as we close out our show. Be sure to check out our Patreon if you're interested in a full hour of this episode where all three of us will just be a Pokemon and give no other commentary.

It's a soft launch of our Pokemon podcast. George Bush after learning about 9-11, but it's Pikachu. Yep. And the towers were both Pikachu. Yeah. That's sad. That's sad to think about, Doug. But Osama bin Laden's a human. With a polo ball. Guys, thanks for watching our show. We'll see you next week. And a bonus hour on Patreon for watch right now. Thanks for Bye, everybody. Bye. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other.

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