TBPN Live - Big Tech turns to mining, Thinking Machines loses top executives, NYC Sauna Wars heat up | Diet TBPN

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Diet TBPN delivers the best of today’s TBPN episode in 30 minutes. TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with ea...ch episode posted to podcast platforms right after.Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” the show has recently featured Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella.TBPN.com is made possible by:Ramp - https://Ramp.comAppLovin - https://axon.aiCognition - https://cognition.aiConsole - https://console.comCrowdStrike - https://crowdstrike.comElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.ioFigma - https://figma.comFin - https://fin.aiGemini - https://gemini.google.comGraphite - https://graphite.comGusto - https://gusto.com/tbpnLabelbox - https://labelbox.comLambda - https://lambda.aiLinear - https://linear.appMongoDB - https://mongodb.comNYSE - https://nyse.comOkta - https://www.okta.comPhantom - https://phantom.com/cashPlaid - https://plaid.comPublic - https://public.comRailway - https://railway.comRamp - https://ramp.comRestream - https://restream.ioSentry - https://sentry.ioShopify - https://shopify.comTurbopuffer - https://turbopuffer.comVanta - https://vanta.comVibe - https://vibe.coFollow TBPN:https://TBPN.comhttps://x.com/tbpnhttps://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Tesla is sharing that they made a ton of progress on their lithium refinery, and then simultaneously, AWS did a deal with Rio Tinto to buy a bunch of copper. Not that much copper, we'll get into how much, but they're sort of underwriting a new, a new chemical process for refining copper. And it's also sort of interesting that, you know, Mark Andreessen published the Software Is Eating the World Story back in 2011. And I think even the folks in tech who took that seriously were saying, oh yeah of course well that just means that I didn't take it seriously I took it
Starting point is 00:00:35 literally but the people that took it seriously were thinking okay well you're going past just the the first wave of the internet the newspapers on the on websites that type of stuff and yes we're gonna get the ubers we're gonna get you know more and more tech companies that are consumer facing or business facing and you might see some transformation in legal services financial services, logistics, airlines will be using apps to let you book. But we're now in the era where the tech companies are starting to vertically integrate so deep that they own the mines and they own the refineries. And it's not just that they're actually building software for the
Starting point is 00:01:19 mining. Technology eating the world. Yeah, yeah. And it's a new layer of a vertical integration that sort of just crept up on me because it wasn't an issue until the AI boom really necessitated massive industrial scale buildouts, new industrial policy, which admittedly can't turn on a dime, but we're now two, three years into the chat GPT boom, into the AI boom, the data center buildouts are getting bigger, we're seeing bottlenecks all over the place,
Starting point is 00:01:47 whether it's chip shortages or energy shortages. And so, you know, the companies like Tesla, AWS, a lot of other folks are really looking deep into the supply chain all the way into the ground into literally eating the world. Because I see mining as sort of terraforming. I see it in some ways as literally eating the world, like you said. Amazon's buying the first new copper produced in America in over a decade. It's a very exciting project.
Starting point is 00:02:13 And Tesla now has a Texas facility that can convert raw or directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide. It's a more efficient process. We can get into that. Tesla originally broke ground on this lithium refinery operation in May of 2023. It feels like they were sort of quiet about it, but now they're getting a lot louder. Obviously, the narrative around China controlling 90% of rare earth extraction and rare earth elements has been in the news. And this is sort of their response. Spine is the first spodgamine to lithium hydroxide refinery in North America.
Starting point is 00:02:49 We're deploying a new technology platform. that is inherently much more environmentally friendly and cleaner. It's a simple process. It's not that big of a facility. And this should be able to create enough lithium for 500,000 vehicles a year, EVs a year, maybe a million a year, I've heard. Now, Tesla is shipping 1.65 million, so this won't be 100%, but you copy, paste this two, three times,
Starting point is 00:03:16 and you got enough coverage for the entire Tesla fleet. Take it through a kiln and cooler. From there, we take it through an alkaline leech and additional purification steps, take it into crystallization and produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide. Our process is more sustainable than traditional methods and eliminates hazardous byproducts and instead produces a co-product named Analsime used in concrete mixes. From breaking ground in 2023 to running rock through the kiln in 2024 to start a full integrated plant startup now in 2045.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Yeah, it's been great working for Elon. Ah, hi, I love it. Yeah, it's been relatively relaxed here. Yeah, yeah. The, you know, we sleep in the factory. In this case, it's just dirt, but sleeping in the dirt, surprisingly comfortable. This refinery really enables us to have access to the critical minerals for energy storage, for battery manufacturing. Get texted music.
Starting point is 00:04:14 And it enables us to accelerate Tesla's mission by regionalizing supply chains for battery minerals and materials, by providing jobs, by cutting emissions from the transportation network that's required for those supply chains. It really allows us to usher in energy independence for North America. Who would have thought that Texas would be the home of EV domination? I know. Narrative violation. California really dropped the ball. Tesla shipping, $1.65 million. That was a little lower than the previous year.
Starting point is 00:04:42 I think they were up at $1.7 million. But you get a couple of those facilities, and it should be enough to cover everything that they need. There's been a whole bunch of news around rare earth minerals generally. Last year, a company called iconic or ionic mineral technologies made a large discovery of 16 different types of minerals in Utah late last year. This is in December. As we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has been funny.
Starting point is 00:05:06 There have been rumors about this, but they found a huge deposit of all these different minerals. Amazon's partnership with Rio Tinto is a little bit different. They're not fully vertically integrated like Tesla is. But they are partnering with Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto had been working on a new method of refining low-grade copper deposits. So basically, like, there's a fair amount of copper in the ground, but there's a lot of dirt, a lot of other stuff that you have to process out. That can be very expensive.
Starting point is 00:05:34 But because of the data center expansion exploding, the price of copper has, I think, nearly doubled in the past two years. Copper is not the main ingredient to an AI data center, a token factory, but it is important because, The biggest data centers use tens of thousands of metric tons of copper to move electricity around. So you need wires. There's copper in circuit boards. There's copper in the transformers that move electricity around.
Starting point is 00:05:59 And there's tons of miscellaneous electrical components all over a data center that need copper. So this particular AWS Rio Tinto deal is only 1,400 metric tons over four years. I don't even think that's enough for a single AWS data center, but it's allowing Rio Tinto to underwrite this sort of risky, new process methodology that if it works and they get the price down on this new process then they can apply that to tons more copper reserves that's locked up in you know messy or that otherwise would be uneconomical to refine 70% of the global supply of copper is currently locked away in ore that's not economical to refine into actual coffee
Starting point is 00:06:48 right now. So if this new process technology works, you effectively triple the amount of copper. You triple the supply. And so price should fall. It's doubled. You triple the supply. Maybe price comes down. Good news for anyone who's in the copper market. Rio Tinto, some quick backstories, one of the world largest and oldest mining corporations with a history that spans over 150 years. Name is inspired by the Rio Tinto in southwestern Spain. But the fast, again goes back to the mid-19th century Spanish government was facing financial crisis and they started selling off their older mines and so crazy story of just like a very old company you know continuing to be a key player in an entirely new tech trend yeah also for lithium ion they do some stuff there they had one investment that I think they wrote down then they spun another one up they've been back and forth X-free's broke the Texas lithium ion
Starting point is 00:07:45 lithium refinery down a little bit more it's the first in North America to convert the raw ore into battery-grade lithium hydroxide, skipping intermediate steps in the long-term, probably more economical. It went from groundbreaking to first production in just 19 months, an unheard-of timeline at this scale. The process is cleaner, no hazardous waste, a useful byproduct that can be turned into concrete. The single refinery can supply lithium for over 500,000 EVs per year and directly challenges China's 60% grip on global lithium refining, Elon chimed in and said it sounded like,
Starting point is 00:08:20 I saw another number that was maybe closer to a million, but either way, you do two or three of these and you're good. As we predicted in our annual predictions episode at the start of the year, unless someone shows up with superconductivity or carbon nanotubes, copper is the only game in town, and AI is a huge demand driver for a very under-resourced material. So he's taken a victory lap with his thesis on copper.
Starting point is 00:08:42 And speaking of AI, there is turmoil in the trade wars, in the talent wars. Breaking Thinking Machines has terminated its CTO, Barrett Zoff. Due to unethical conduct, according to two sources familiar with the matter, CEO Miramir Marotti announced the news in all hands with employees today. Sumith Chintala will be taking over as CEO, and Mira posted as well, confirming the news, she said. We have parted ways with Barrett. Sumith will be taking the new CTO of Thinking Machines role.
Starting point is 00:09:14 He is a brilliant and seasoned leader who has made important contributions, to the AI field for over a decade, and he's been a major contributor to our team. We could not be more excited to have him take on this new responsibility. And Alex Heath actually has some new news. He broke 30 minutes ago. He says, more thinking machine employees are in the process of joining OpenAI after three of the startup co-founders rejoined yesterday. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:41 Of course, the thinking machine co-founders had previously been at OpenAI. Not great. I think potentially more controversial news was that Thinking Machines has branded squat racks at the office. Ryan Peterson posted a photo. A lot of people took this as somewhat of a red flag, right? People say, you know, the sort of common guidance is don't make merch until you're generating some real revenue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if you take that further, it's like maybe you shouldn't have. What was Ryan doing to get this photo? It seems like he just walked by. He's going journalist mode here. Do you see this? He's like, he's not in.
Starting point is 00:10:19 So if you zoom in, you can see these things look fantastic. Well, Ryan, you're outside. I'm somewhere. You're outside the thinking machines branded Jim. Yeah, I'm somewhat, uh, they're in somewhat envious. Uh, these things look fantastic. I'm kind of mad that, that we didn't get the branded plates, uh, plates. Uh, but this coming out while losing, you know, half of your family.
Starting point is 00:10:43 It has to be weird. I mean, how much of they raised? It was $2 billion at $12 billion, something like that. It's got to be so weird to start a company and on day one have enough money for a custom gym. That's just like unheard of. Like normally you start your company in the garage and maybe there's a weight in the corner. You can lift or kettlebell. One dumbbell bell.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Not even two. One kettlebell or something. But to just come in and say, yes, we're taking Class A office on day one, hiring a massive team, bringing on six or seven co-founders? Atlas was saying, like, the other red flag is, where are the 45? I think, I'm going to assume they're just not in sight, you know, like, you can't see them, right?
Starting point is 00:11:24 They would be mounted, they would be mounted lower, right, on the rack. In case you forgot, Andrew Tulloch left thinking machines in Q4 of last year. Zuck had been trying to poach him and offered increasing amounts of money. The sense is that Andrew, was like, you know, I can't be bought. But he needed the money. He needed, he needed, he needed, he had a shopping cart filled with Chrome Hearts, Supreme. And he was like, wow, like my next outfit's going to run me 500 Mel.
Starting point is 00:11:57 I got to get a new job. I can't afford it. I can't afford my lifestyle. Maybe it was a case of lifestyle inflation. They talk about that. Tyler, do you remember the final amount that Meta paid it was like, because, because I always appreciate, there were a lot of rumors. It was in the billion.
Starting point is 00:12:09 Like in my head it was like Andrew was like yeah like I'm really like honored that you would make such a big offer Zach a billion dollars but like unfortunately like I'm mission driven there's really no price yeah that I would take to leave the company that I started yeah and Zach's like two billion well so I think all the rumors were actually from the summer when there was like the all of the talent wars going on so first there was I think it was just one billion and then just one there were rumors of three and a half And that being turned down. But then later in the year, then he initially went. Okay, so people kind of assume that the rumor is true because he eventually made the move. Yeah, but I mean, it's not necessarily higher
Starting point is 00:12:50 than three and a half, right? Because now we're seeing more people leave. Like, why are they leaving? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at one point, one of my buddies who works at a big lab, he was saying at that time, Thing Machines has, like, the best team, like any of the big labs. There was already immense amount of pressure
Starting point is 00:13:06 and like a really, really, really high expectations. I'm thinking machines around what they put out first. I don't think these people leaving, maybe it makes it harder to deliver, right, on those expectations, but the expectations are still sky high. I did feel like kind of rough messaging, very, very rough messaging, right? You know, pushing this unethical conduct angle.
Starting point is 00:13:29 People at OpenAI have, obviously their bias, but they've denied it. Some quick thoughts on Barrett Zoff and Mets and Schoenholz. Going back to Open AI, Barrett. was the vice president post-training at Open AI before he left for thinking machines. He left Open AI in September of 2024. Barrett would have probably initially had options for about 10 to 30% of thinking machines. That's insane. They had six co-founders.
Starting point is 00:13:54 I've got that beat so high. Post-training was one of the more valuable skills that launched, I suppose. The seed round was $2 billion at $12 billion. So this would mean that he would have options now for around 8 to 25% of the current company. This seems all hypothetical here. There were rumors back in November that thinking machines was in talks to raise at 50 to 60 billion, so this puts his equity at 4 billion to 15 billion valuation. Thinking machines could probably exit somewhere at between 30 and 60 today.
Starting point is 00:14:21 Who has that money? I don't know, maybe NVIDIA buys them or something. At least at some point in that over the next two years, I think the most likely acquires would probably be Microsoft, Apple, meta, Amazon, and NVIDIA, okay, large-cap company that wants to build a frontier model there would have been just over his one-year cliff so assuming he was not fired for cause or thinking he doesn't want to litigate he still has about one to three and a half million how does that math work I don't know it's called thinking machine now because there's only one left no there are three left so it's still plural reading into this I
Starting point is 00:14:56 mean the there's got to be some real excitement on open AI has just been outflows outflows outflows outflows getting some of these superstars back on board It's got to be good for Murdo. So is this what the elves and Valenor? Do we know what Roon was posting about? Because we learned that Roon posts, the elves have left for Valinor every two years apparently. Okay, well, he posted it once before, yeah,
Starting point is 00:15:20 in 2024, about in January 22nd. Yes, yes. So now, he posted this on the 12th, so three days ago. I think most people have now taken it to mean, to be about this, right? people leaving things, things, going back to Open AI.
Starting point is 00:15:38 But I think there's a couple ways you can look at it, right? So if you look at it in the context of the last time he said this, it was the exact same quote, that Elves I love for Valnor. Like, OK, what is Valenor in Lord of the Rings, right? Valnor is where elves go so they don't like diminish. Or like they don't like kind of fade away. So it's, OK, what does that mean?
Starting point is 00:15:55 Like maybe it's you're just basically securing like massive wealth. Or the other way to read that is like you go to, you go to like one of these newer labs and you could be a superstar, but your abilities could fade away with time, right? Because you just don't have the scale or the resources. Yes. So I think in the 2024 context,
Starting point is 00:16:16 Valanor actually was the Neo Labs, right? Because you can basically go start a company, be the co-founder, you guys raise at 12 billion. You're just like, let's go. Yeah, they're just secured insane amount, like massive bag. Yeah. But then now, open eyes, Valor. Right?
Starting point is 00:16:32 Got it. They're sending aside 50 billion just for Paypack. Sure, sure, sure. If you go back, I mean, you're doing pretty well. It's another bag. It's pretty safe, right? You don't have this startup, you know, you're not sure if it's going to work or not. Everyone's focused on the AI wars, not enough attention going to the Sonna Wars.
Starting point is 00:16:50 The real heated rivalry is at the bathhouse. Yes. From bathhouse to other ship to alter. A wave of bathhouses in New York City are popping up just blocks apart. Okay. Igniting a war of Zen. This is especially relevant to the TVPN team. because we've been in somewhat of a sauna war ourselves,
Starting point is 00:17:09 which we'll get into at some point in the story. The Flatiron District in Manhattan has been a center of Nouveau wellness for around 15 years with its many boutique fitness classes, gyms, acupuncturous, and stretching and recovery centers now wave of bathhouses that offer dry heat and cold plunges face off in a few blocks. There is bathhouse on West 22nd with other ship two blocks away, an altar set to open this winter. You could walk between all three and three.
Starting point is 00:17:35 in mere minutes. Williamsburg has its own cluster, right? Parallels. It's like a super cluster. Welcome to the sauna wars where dedicated bathhouses compete with members clubs like West Village's continuum at which costs $40,000 per year that has a bathhouse setup in the financial district co-working space WSA's wet lounge as well. Co-working space with a wet lounge. Not something you hear about every day. The fitness chain TMPL has a whole subway ad campaign entirely around their bathhouse facilities featuring women in swimsuits reclining in a suggestive way that one doesn't really find
Starting point is 00:18:11 in saunas in real life. And of course, the Russian and Turkish baths in the East Village, which is the sort of place newcomers are brought to see a slice of the real New York City. It's usually teeming with people, some getting whacked by bushels of oak leaves in a treatment called Plazza
Starting point is 00:18:26 and has two owners who rotate weeks of ownership. That's interesting. It's no frills and even a little gritty. For those who are used to conveniences such as booking ahead, there's none of that to be found. They do have a nod to Modernity with an active TikTok account featuring guest endorsements, recently highlighting Uma Thurman wrapped in a Peshmina in calling it one of the greatest best New York institutions. The first time I went to 10th Street Bass was in 2007. I love the authenticity and how it made you feel.
Starting point is 00:18:54 I would find my way back there when I felt depleted, underslept, whatever it might be. I would come out feeling great, says James O'Reilly, who is one of the founders of the the co-working space Noyhaus. His latest project is the new lore bathing club. This is where you go if you want to cultivate lore in your life, I guess. Founded alongside restaurateur, Adam Elzer, lore takes some inspiration from the Russian and Turkish baths, as well as the communal sweat traditions of Europe and Asia,
Starting point is 00:19:22 and drops it into a 6,200 square foot space finished in Travertine and White Oak in Noho. The bath world is quite a scene, one where skin care brands such as Pharrell Williams, and race send out a press release to announce their temporarily supplying lore locker rooms with their signature 7d gel sets what is the 7d gel set tyler i have no idea other chip is hosting comedy nights altar will be selling bathing suits that are custom made in brazil and has hired a lighting designer who has worked with billy isleish it is a sauna boom reminiscent of the glut of boutique fitness studios that flooded the market in the wake of the success of soul cycle it used to be that you would go to a gym and it was outrageous to go to an expensive group class, says Jafari, but now there are 99 boutique fitness concepts
Starting point is 00:20:07 in a four-mile radius. Still, there are not as many as the peak days pre-pandemic. Not every boutique fitness studio survive, let alone thrive like Solid Corps and Tracy Anderson. Competition is always something we are aware of, says Emily Bent, other ship's co-founder and director of marketing. The saturation in North America for bathhouses is not even close to what it is in Europe. We're starting an industry and rising tides and all that. message from founders blist out on 180 degree heat is one of bringing together community and good vibes. The reality can be cutthroat. Consider the case of Bathhouse, probably the most well-known of the businesses in the second wave of New York City sauna culture. Co-founders opened their first location
Starting point is 00:20:48 in Williams Williams in 2019 and a second in Flatiron in 2024, both featuring sauna steamrooms, warm pools, and cold plunges. Goodman and the founders saw the company's more as more approach through the model of working on large event production. You think like an experience designer, so going to Bath House is not a monolithic experience, but more of a choose-your-own-adventure. When it first opened, Bath House was jokingly called the Bitcoin Bath House as they used the heat generated for mining to warm the tubs. We got to talk about Meta because they just laid off 1,500 people in their Metaverse division. Obviously, 1,500 people is a ton. That's a lot of people. But they say,
Starting point is 00:21:28 still have 14,000 people working on reality labs. So there's a question about like, what exactly will they be doing? How much does this represent a shift? The reality labs team work on a bunch of different stuff. And it started as sort of the Oculus acquisition of VR headset, then all of a sudden it was meta ray bands, which is mostly just a camera,
Starting point is 00:21:50 certainly not a VR headset. But it feels like it's sold many more units. I actually don't know the precise numbers. I'm super curious how How many of those 1,500 people will end up working in VR as in their next floor? Somewhere else? Yeah. Oh, interesting.
Starting point is 00:22:05 Can the industry really absorb that many people? A year after the name change in pivot, the journal reported that the company's flagship metaverse product called Horizon Worlds was failing to catch on with users. It had less than 200,000 monthly active users and most so-called worlds were never visited by anyone at all. I still believe meta is a fantastic name. It is good name. Yeah. Do you think Salesforce should rename?
Starting point is 00:22:31 I wanted to ask Benny off that yesterday. If he's ever just going to go force. Metal Force. Just force. Metal Force would be a good name. Meta's been ramping up AI, spending on AI, pushing its capital expenditure to $72 billion last year with plans to accelerate that spending this year. It's also doled out offers worth tens of millions, tens and hundreds of millions of dollars
Starting point is 00:22:51 to AI researchers and engineers and recently acquired a Singapore-based AI startup called Manus for more than $2 billion. The company's Rayban smart glasses equipped with AI have also started to take off. The company sold more than 2 million pairs and has delayed the rollout of its newest glasses in Europe as it struggled to keep up with demand in the U.S. The sort of Ben Thompson takeaway from this was that even though Mark Zuckerberg has effectively complete control over meta and can rename the company and move very aggressively and acquire big companies, at the end of the day, he does respond to shareholders and the shareholders have been watching the reality. labs losses pile up billions every year and at some point if you have a new sort of big you know money pit initiative that's AI and you're gonna spend tens of billions there you have to sort of make a sacrifice or at least like show the shareholders that you're refocusing on the new thing I wanted to go back briefly to the to the son I think I didn't get a chance to give a take
Starting point is 00:23:50 okay yeah I am extremely bullish on Americans starting to sweat because the evidence is like so clear that if you use this on every day, you will probably extend your health span, lifespan. It's heavily, heavily studied because of how popular it's been in the Nordics for like decades and decades. So very bullish on sweating. One of the things that's interesting, though, is that New York is like the center of consumption, right? People have tiny apartments, so they're just constantly consuming, right? food, you know, exercise, shopping, et cetera. But I don't think it's representative of the way
Starting point is 00:24:31 that the Americans will like sweat broadly because you can get a sauna for like a couple grand. And so all these bath houses are like a few hundred dollars. And so I think for some people, they want the social experience. Whereas for me, I don't like the, I'm not really like that into the- You don't like talking in the sauna?
Starting point is 00:24:49 I do like talking in the sauna. We've obviously had our sauna wars, our sauna wars are, I guess we were talking too loudly in the sauna the other day because this guy just absolutely snapped. He was a bit of an angry elf. But anyways, like, most consumers are going to be looking like, I can go and buy a sauna for $2,000.
Starting point is 00:25:13 And I have space for it because I have a two-car garage and a backyard and maybe a pool. And like for the average American, it has a little bit. Last time I lived in an apartment, this was like, six or so years ago. Sure. I had a whole cold plunge that I snuck into my apartment. No, I had a two bedroom. I had a two bedroom. No, no, I had a two bedroom. I had a two bedroom loft. And one of them I just put a it was just like cold plunge on a wooden floor. That's insane. And I had a sauna. Of course, I don't think you're allowed to bring like a mini swimming pool.
Starting point is 00:25:46 If it leaks, you're going to destroy the whole. I actually, I did. They did eventually tell me I had to get rid of it because it was a lot of leak in the building and they went in to look. You have to understand, for other ship in these companies, like you have to go, I think, into dense areas where people don't have a lot of space and have sonnas, because a lot of people are going to look and say, either have one in my gym, or I can, you know, people can go and just, even if they don't have the two grand,
Starting point is 00:26:10 you can use a firm and like, you're effectively paying a couple hundred bucks a month for, like, a private experience. In other news, Beijing has told Chinese firms to stop using CrowdStrike if you didn't If you didn't have a reason to start using CrowdStrike, this is a pretty good one. Is this the TVPN effect? They saw us run a couple of ads over in Beijing, and they were like, yeah, they're too powerful. Too powerful.
Starting point is 00:26:34 They're too powerful. Apparently, this is already a very tiny business for CrowdStrike, so not super impactful. Yeah. But in other news, OpenAI's number one hater in the entire world. Nick is back on the timeline. He was the Hater, Open AI Hater of the Year. last year. Yeah. He's probably he's really gunning for it again this year. His camera roll is all just pictures of Sam Malman's double-clacks. His camera rolls just all Sam Malman photos for sure. Opening
Starting point is 00:27:04 I and Sam Altman backing a new bold take on fusing humans and machines. It's called Merge Labs. We've heard about this before. We talked to Rob Taves. They now have a bit 252 million dollars in the bank and an all-style all-star crew. Sam Altman wrote in 2017 a piece called the merge. I'll read in a short, a few paragraphs from it. He said, more important than that, unless we destroy ourselves first, superhuman AI is going to happen. Genetic enhancement is going to happen. Brain machine interfaces are going to happen. It is a failure of human imagination and human arrogance to assume that we will never build things smarter than ourselves. The merge can take a lot of forms. We could plug electrodes into our brains, where we could all just become really
Starting point is 00:27:47 close friends with a chat bot. But I think a merge is probably our best case scenario of two different species both want the same thing and only one can have it. In this case, to be the dominant species on the planet and beyond, they're going to have a conflict. Imagine if Dolphins, imagine if Benioff has been working with the Dolphins to secretly help them merge, and they're like in a crazy dolphin human race to see who can merge first because it sent dolphins basically created sales force. We need neural links in the Dolphins so that we can just like generate B2B SaaS product ideas constantly. billionaire Rams owner Stan Cronkey becomes America's biggest private landowner. Let's stand. Let's stand.
Starting point is 00:28:27 I guess he's listening. He's listening to the show. I'm a Stan Stan Stan and Stan Stan. Buying nearly 1 million acres of New Mexico ranch land. Farmland investing becomes increasingly popular, especially now that maybe somebody comes in and wants to build the data center on your farm and pay, you know, 10 times what you paid for it. At 2.7 million acres, Kronkies holdings are larger than Yellowstone National Park or the equivalent roughly 2 million football fields.
Starting point is 00:28:56 According to the trade publication, Singleton Ranch's transaction is the largest land purchased in the U.S. and more than a decade. Land is back. Back on the menu. Let's go. Speaking of land, Greenland is in the news, of course. Dylan says this is the equivalent of affordability in Greenlandic politics.
Starting point is 00:29:16 And he shares a screenshot. It's a quote from a Greenlander who says, I hunt whales and seals. In the United States, they think whales and seals are cute and shouldn't be hunted. That's what I'm afraid of. Don't bring your fear of hunting. Don't bring, oh, whales are cute. I like this.
Starting point is 00:29:35 He's looking for a carve-out. He's looking for a carve-out. Let me keep hunting my whales. Let me keep hunting my seals. What if he's selling the blubber out the back door to power data centers? We got flashbangs. We'll throw a flashbang in the ocean. All the whales will be doing this.
Starting point is 00:29:51 I think I'm against whale hunting. They're just so majestic. Magestic. That's a synonym for cute. But seals. You're the problem. Oh, you don't like seals. I have deep beef with seals.
Starting point is 00:30:02 Growing up surfing in the cold waters in Northern California, seals will like mess, would mess with me. I'd be out alone surfing. In Northern California, water is very sharky. Yeah. And these things are the dogs of the sea. So they'll run up and they would just slam into me. And all of a sudden, I think I'm getting attacked by a shark.
Starting point is 00:30:22 And then I'd just be in the water by myself beefing with a seal. This is an incredible skill issue for you. Oh, seals annoying me. Oh, I need seals to be hunted. It's fine. Hang out with the seals. Let the seals mess with you. They're the dogs of the sea.
Starting point is 00:30:36 Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a great rest of your day. We'll see you very soon. Goodbye.

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