TBPN Live - Oil Market Turbulence, Sundar's New Comp Package, TBPN Weather Report | Diet TBPN

Episode Date: March 9, 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 is made possible by:Ramp - https://Ramp.comAppLovin - https://axon.aiCisco - https://www.cisco.comCognition - 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/tbpnKalshi - https://kalshi.comLabelbox - 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.comRestream - https://restream.ioSentry - https://sentry.ioShopify - https://shopify.com/tbpnTurbopuffer - 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

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Of course, oil is it's gushing all over the timeline, all over the financial times, all over the Wall Street Journal. Let's go through the timeline and see how people are processing the news of the Strait of Hormuz and the oil price spikes. We have-Fox News this morning. Yes. They were saying just basically their advice to the to the captains to man up and just send it. Yeah, send it. That seems crazy. If you are on a shipping vessel, please stay safe.
Starting point is 00:00:28 I'll read the actual quote. A guy Brian said, if you want to diminish the Iranian threat, if you want to make sure this ends with complete capitulation, show some guts and go through that straight. That seems very, very risky right now. Stay safe out there if you are on a shipping vessel. There are some crazy twists happening. So apparently ships in the Gulf are declaring themselves as Chinese vessels to dodge attack. At least 10 vessels have changed transponder messages in an apparent. attempt to avoid becoming targets. Clutch of vessels trapped in the Gulf under enemy fire are adopting a tried and tested ruse to avoid attacks. They're changing flags. Using transponders to declare
Starting point is 00:01:09 themselves to be Chinese. There's always been a very odd tug of war between how ships identify themselves because often for tax reasons they're bought in one country operated by individuals from another company but they fly a different flag to be able to go from one place to another and it's It's all based on like the port systems. I don't fully understand it, but it is very interesting. At least 10 ships over the past week have altered their destination signal to read Chinese owner, all Chinese crew,
Starting point is 00:01:35 or Chinese crew on board. About 1,000 ships are currently shut inside the Gulf and its immediate surroundings with a cumulative value of $25 billion. And I don't know if you've seen some of the maps that show the straight where it looks like nothing is actually moving through. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:51 I think in actuality, a number of the ships are actually turning off their transponders. Oh. You can't see the movement because they're basically moving a little bit, going through the straight, and then turning back on it. I wrote about what oil prices mean for the AI buildout and data centers. It's just sort of interesting to dig into the deeper supply chain of artificial intelligence. But there are some posts that we should go through around the oil story. So crude oil is five standard deviations above its 50-day moving average.
Starting point is 00:02:23 statistically speaking, this occurs every 9,500 years. So the last time would have been about 6,000 years before Moses parted the Red Sea. Imagine what that did to shipping in the area. Fanciful. Pull up this clip from Landman. I haven't seen Landman. Have you watched it? Is it good?
Starting point is 00:02:40 Let's, uh, wow. You want oil to live above 60, but below 90. And don't get me wrong, we're still printing money at 90, but gas gets up over 350 a gallon. it starts to pinch. It hits 100. Every product in America has to readjust its price. $78 a barrel. That's about perfect. It brings enough profit to keep exploring, but it don't sting as budget to pump. Unless, of course, here in California, I mean, they tax the shit out of it out there. It could be $45 a barrel, and it's still $4 a pump. I don't know how those sunbitches do it out there. It's movie down.
Starting point is 00:03:17 2020. A barrel of oil was worthless. This place became a ghost town. And nobody's immune. Kids have to quit college. Trucks get sold or repoed. How old were you when you discovered that gas is really expensive in California? Not just because there's a lot of demand for it. I mean, I discovered it when I was filling up in Montana, and it was like $2 a gallon, and it's like $5 a gallon here.
Starting point is 00:03:41 That was pretty wild. The first major gas price shock that I noticed was Hurricane Katrina in my life. I think it was in high school because I was too young. I was talking about just... I was talking about just the fact realizing that it's so expensive because of the taxes that California puts on it. Yeah, because it's nice to drive around here. Put the top down. The weather's good.
Starting point is 00:04:02 So they're like, yeah, you're going to pay. You're going to pay more for the joys of driving an internal combustion engine car. Now, the price in California is aggressive. I don't know the structure of the prices, though. Is it percentage-based or fixed? because that affects how much the price will move based on oil price shocks. Because if the price per barrel doubles, but the tax is flat, you don't feel it as much here as you do other places. I'm pulling it up, but you can run through this.
Starting point is 00:04:32 It's the largest supply shock by a factor of four. So the Hormuz blockade, which is current, 20 million barrels were lost in supply. The Iranian Revolution in 1978 was 5.6 million. The Yom Kippur War embargoes in 73 was 4.4. The Iraq-Kuwait war was 4.30 in 1990. The Iran-Iraq War in 1980 was 4.0. And the Ukraine-Russia invasion in 2022, which is the last time that oil spiked over $100 a barrel, was one to three.
Starting point is 00:05:04 So an absolutely huge supply shock. And I'm sure it will have a lot of implications all over the economy. With triple-digit prices, here's what's going to happen now, says policy tensor. markets will scream when they open tomorrow. VIX will surge to levels beyond what we saw in April. The sell-off will continue for some time as intermediaries shed risk, and the markets are red. They have been screaming today. The VIX futures curve already has inverted, bid up by dealers looking for insurance. This predicts a massive sell-off. The pressure on this captured White House now beings in earnest. That's kind of oddly written.
Starting point is 00:05:45 Anyone can tell them that if this persists for very long, it will destroy the Trump presidency and gut the GOP for a generation. The controlling factor here, as I have told you over and over again, is that the United States does not have the military means to reopen Hormuz. There's no military solution in sight. This means that not only does Iran have the strategic upper hand now, it means that Iran enjoys the unambiguous strategic advantage. All they need to do is keep the thing closed until he capitulates. I put my neck out far to call this in advance. And someone told him yesterday I was in the minority, perhaps even a minority of one, no longer. I was correct.
Starting point is 00:06:22 Just calling a shot. The blob heads and scribes were incorrect in their assessment of the strategic situation and now markets will price to reflect reality. We briefly touched on Scott Sumner's blog post on Substack at the end of Thursday show, maybe Friday show. We didn't get a chance to read it. I actually read through it earlier today. It's pretty interesting. It basically makes the case, you know, it has a very controversial tendency to freak out.
Starting point is 00:06:48 And the thought is that like he's doom posting, maybe it's about AI, maybe it's about this particular conflict. He is more just reflecting on this dynamic between when the market freaks out, it acts as a moderating effect to policy. And so he gives a number of examples around like tariffs. Or more specifically the admin. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Like the tariffs caused this massive circuit breaker, 5% sell off in the market and then that was internalized and very quickly adjusted and there were a whole bunch of different carve outs to sort of like create soft landings and so he's actually what he's getting at is that after the fact a lot of people say look you didn't need to freak out because the taco happened Trump always chickens out the the actual proposed policy effect didn't go into effect and his point is that well it's precisely because people freaked out that it didn't go into effect. So freaking out is good in Scott Subner's mind at least. Anyway, I love this. Yeah, we have a solution. We have a solution. If you're feeling the pain at the pump,
Starting point is 00:07:50 pivot and get a horse at oil at 110, the urban horse is the only option. Pulling up to the gas station on a horse is truly elite. I do want to know what's the TCO on a horse with the food and the stables versus, you know, just keeping a, what is that, a Ford Taurus in your, I don't know, that's something else, you know, in your garage. The horse really mocks at the gas station in particular, right? Because it's just making everyone feel so stupid. Yeah, we got to go back. One horsepower is all you need. Nick Carter says, seeing a lot of non-processed trusting panikins on the TL. And then he followed up by saying that's what I thought because the oil prices spiked up and then they fell down and we did not get a hundred and twenty dollar a barrel oil we got exactly 100 which was still
Starting point is 00:08:43 not like it's way way way too early to celebrate her yeah yeah exactly unreal numbers about germany's nuclear power generation so if you scroll down look at this curve this is truly the the the bell curve meme or something like that jp morgan estimates that had jrador not phased out nuclear power, the country would have generated 50% less electricity from fossil fuels and 84% less electricity from natural gas in 2024. Electricity prices in Germany would have been around 25% lower and the country would have imported half as much electricity. And just complete rise and fall of nuclear power generation in Germany. One of the craziest graphs, you don't see graphs like that very often in new technologies. Typically, you see S-curves or you see exponentials.
Starting point is 00:09:31 you see exponentials, no one considers the models get better and then they get dumber. That's certainly the funniest outcome. Goldman Sachs sent a note to investors saying if oil prices increase by $10 and remain elevated for three months, U.S. year-over-year headline CPI inflation would likely rise from 2.4% in January to 3% in May. Those are small numbers, but we're looking at a oil price increase of maybe $30, $40 over the baseline, potentially higher. We don't know where oil's going to land. And so you have this weird tug of war right now with the Fed where if oil prices go up, inflation goes up, the Fed has a mandate to curb inflation. That means higher interest rates. At a time when the labor market is shedding jobs, you would
Starting point is 00:10:17 expect a Fed rate cut, or a lot of people are optimistic about a rate cut. Trump certainly wants rate cuts. But if inflation is climbing, there's really no solution other than keeping rates high or even raising them further. So a real jam in terms of federal monetary policy, Fed monetary policy. Here's Art Cashin at the opening bell. This is a historical video. When was this?
Starting point is 00:10:43 This was a long time ago. Let's play this club. This may be it. First, let me start out. Moratorite Salu Thomas S.A. And you know that's the gladiator salute. We who are about to die salute you. So it's going to be a tough morning.
Starting point is 00:10:57 This may be it. We were about to die. I salute you. Insane, insane aura for, you know, CNBC really doesn't get enough credit for being so innovative in terms of broadcasting and entertainment. Really, some of the greatest clips. I love one of the top comments. This is an old clip. Yeah, obviously.
Starting point is 00:11:18 It's 40p. It's probably from the 90s. So Zero Hedge says, you know, with oil at 111 total panic and Mimetic Sisyphus shares a clip, Half of this site for the last week has sounded like this. Let's see. Producers are telling me there is breaking news. The Asian financial markets have just opened to a huge sell-off. And we're going to switch to that story right now.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Good. I'm glad I'm here. Your thoughts, Tracy Jordan, on how this is going to impact Wall Street. Larry, I'm not an expert, but I do have a strong opinion. New York, as we know it, will no longer exist tomorrow. Producers are telling me there is... Is this from 30 Rock? That's so good. That's so funny.
Starting point is 00:12:04 Oil came way in from its overnight highs, says Joe Wisenthall. And the quote post is Chris Paul. It's a huge three to cut down the lead to 42. Absolutely. Absolutely brutal. My essay this morning was titled, Why is no one talking about oil? Of course, everyone is talking about oil. Oil discourse gushed onto the timeline this weekend. And crude prices spiked to nearly $120 a barrel as a broadening war in Iran threatens both
Starting point is 00:12:35 transportation routes and production. The geopolitical and economic analyses are flowing, but what does this mean for AGI timelines? And a lot of people in the AI world are sort of tuning all of this out because they see recursive self-improvement, AGI, ASI, the buildout as more important. And I just wanted to sort of reality check the AI supply chain to understand how does oil actually affect data center construction, AI production, token pricing? Like, is there any effect? My conclusion was that it's very moderate, but there are some interesting effects in the financial markets that are probably the bigger takeaway. But it's still interesting to hear about, like,
Starting point is 00:13:12 yes, oil actually is used in the production of AI, at least a little bit. Power has been at the forefront of the AI pushback. Like everyone's worried about these local energy prices, these electricity prices increasing near the data centers. But pain of the pump, might become a bigger story as gasoline prices spike. And that has been pain at the pump. Oh, it's been the most tangible sign of inflation and moves so quickly. You know, one jitter in the economy.
Starting point is 00:13:40 And it's a huge component. You know, people on the coast, people in tech, don't have a good sense for this, right? If gas, gas, for a lot of people, gas could quadruple and it wouldn't really notice it. No, no. But if you actually look into the average American, how gasoline fits into their budget,
Starting point is 00:13:57 it's a meaningful component of their monthly budget, so they feel it super intensely. It's variable costs. There are so many different ways where a lot of Americans go on driving vacations. That obviously is directly impacted by gas prices. And then also just psychologically, there's something about filling up at the gas tank where you see the number ticking up and you're doing that on a every week basis or so, that it's just so visceral. It's this thing that you have to stop and then go experience and watch the number.
Starting point is 00:14:27 the money flow out of your account, like in real time. It's very, it's very visual, it's very interactive. Yeah, I remember, I remember I must have been probably 18 at this point where I would just go and I would, like, for a long time, I just put, I'd like, you know, prepay for a certain amount of gas. I got 20 bucks. I got 20 bucks. I got 20 bucks. And I felt like really, like I felt like the king of the castle once I'd just put my card down and let it run up.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But in AI circles, the discussion's been much more focused on RSI now is that. the new acronym that everyone's focusing on? Not AGI. AGI's here. We know artificial general intelligence. We passed the touring test. But can they recursively self-improve? Are they RSI? Are we in RSI now? Is it a coming? Is this going to be a fast take-off? Is this going to be a slow take-off? Well, something's taken off. Dylan Patel said being in SF is like being in Wuhan right before the pandemic. Something is happening. It's going to hit everywhere, but so few people know it.
Starting point is 00:15:24 So he's sort of echoing that something big is happening. The irony is that George Hatz hitting the timeline to raise money makes me more bullish on acceleration. Yeah. Because if not, he's obviously not historically been a huge fan of venture capital. Well, he's not raising from traditional VCs, he said. So he said, this is from Tiny Corp. If Tiny Corp was raising $20 million at $200 million valuation, who'd be interested? Business model is basically this.
Starting point is 00:15:53 By an $11.5 million building with five megawatts of power, link in our Discord, wait for AMD to launch the RDNA 5 96 gigabyte cards mid-2027, pre-order 3,000 cards. Hopefully we can negotiate for $2,500 each, build $520,000 tiny boxes with six of the cards in each box, run all the Chinese LLMs, make $600,000 per box, month revenue selling tokens on open router. Market depth is there. This is 1% of open router. Improvements to Tiny Grad yield revenue improvements due to how power is priced in Oregon. It's only like $50,000 for the electric bill before the four megawatts, before they price for peak, not usage. We get like 3C kilowatt hour power, three cents per kilowatt hour. We can also make $100,000 per month leasing co-location space to comma. Building and cards paid off in three years max and that investment made back low risk of being
Starting point is 00:16:57 undercut since we're using consumer GPUs and running the cheapest Kolo you can believe if someone chill wants in I do it I'm not gonna fake height I'm not gonna hype fake tech but demand for tokens is gonna skyrocket look at the open claw install numbers with crazy good optimizations we could potentially get three X more from the machines and we have electricity three for three X more machines 5.4 revenue per month then continue to scale from their custom chips, et cetera. He's starting a neocloud, or he's starting, yeah,
Starting point is 00:17:27 he's gonna be serving tokens. There is an immense amount of desire for this binary moment. This is the singular. This is AGI, this is ASI, the RSI is here. This thing is happening right now, and there's before and after, and everything has changed. And he just doesn't see it that way, I think.
Starting point is 00:17:45 I think he sees it much more like the internet, the mobile phone, like other technologies that have been rolled out, and electricity. Yes, there is like a, before and after, but you can only really define the period by maybe a decade, and you need a few decades to understand that moment. It's very hard to go back and, you know, there is like the iPhone moment and there is like, you know, the first launch of, I don't know, AOL. Like I don't even know, I don't even know what the iPhone moment of the internet was, just because it was sort of a
Starting point is 00:18:12 slow rollout. It's clear that the AI industry continues to grow and continues to need more and more power and compute, as we've seen from George Hoth's new project. That means large data center campuses, but if they're not in random office buildings that George is picking up on the cheap, they're probably going to be built with construction equipment. So what does this mean? They don't just drop from the heavens. They require building, which requires oil, but how much oil? And is oil a serious, is a serious oil shock enough to impact the AI buildout in a meaningful way?
Starting point is 00:18:45 Spoiler alert, basically now. Live GPU clusters in the United States do not use much oil directly. Only 0.6% of U.S. electricity in 2024 came from petroleum. We're much, much more dependent on natural gas, something like 42% of U.S. electricity is natural gas. And so America ramped up natural gas production significantly over the past two decades. A lot of that was in reaction to the wars in the Middle East. Hey, we need to be less dependent on foreign oil. We need to be energy independent.
Starting point is 00:19:18 And so you have the fracking boom, the natural gas boom, and that's where a lot of our fossil fuels come from today, I believe. Data centers only consume a single digit percent of U.S. electricity. So you're looking at 0.6 percent of a few percent is like the actual impact. So the short-term impact of high oil prices should be very limited on AI. When you're talking about building new capacity, building new data centers, oil is a little bit more involved. So diesel, powers, trucks, trains, boats, barges, generators, pumps, compressors, excavators, and tons more construction equipment. Petroleum is also broadly used for plastics, polyurethane, and solvents that all worked their
Starting point is 00:19:59 way into the data center supply chain. The biggest problem is delaying already tight schedules because of narrowly available components going out of stock. The price of oil goes up. There's one marginal factory that can't produce one ingredient that goes into the rack and that slows things down. You have to wait a week while you find another supplier. that stuff can add up to just a little bit of a delay.
Starting point is 00:20:20 This happened during COVID and the AI industry was already experiencing something similar with transformers. And so you don't want products getting stuck in transit or going out of stock. But the bigger problem and the one that people should be talking about, and I think you were debating with Dan Premack at Axios about this, is macroeconomic. So higher prices, higher oil prices lead to higher inflation.
Starting point is 00:20:38 If the Fed has to raise rates to control inflation, capital formation for mega projects gets a lot harder. So JOL has this estimate. the next 100 gigawatts of data center capacity could require about $870 billion of new debt financing. And so using this rough number, every extra 50 basis points of borrowing cost on $870 billion is $4.35 billion in annual interest expense. The question right now is the hundreds of billions of dollars of sovereign AI projects in the Middle East, right? I think a lot of those people are going to be like, do we want to send, you know, billions of dollars of GPUs?
Starting point is 00:21:19 Over there, and then also the money coming here is a new thing where you might want to spend it elsewhere. Have you been noticing that it's been hotter in Los Angeles? I have. Downtown Los Angeles is forecasted to approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday and Friday. Which is why we're going to do the weather. We have a new segment for you today.
Starting point is 00:21:38 We're doing the weather on TBPN. We have our very own bed. We have Ben. Hello guys, how are you? We're doing great. Tell us about the weather. What's happening? Well, I want to start off by saying, as you can see, the weather today for the low, low
Starting point is 00:21:52 today is going to be 75 degrees Fahrenheit up there, high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit down there. But there's something I actually wanted to point out that I saw it and I thought that was quite interesting. As you can see up here, there's a localized low pressure area up there and a localized high pressure area right down there, if you can see that right there. Does that mean? That's not normally an issue and not a cause for concern, and it's not very common for this time of the year. However, today, later in the afternoon, these two areas are going to collide, and they're going to hit each other.
Starting point is 00:22:16 Really? And what that's going to cause is a barometric pressure inversion. Okay. It might sound a little bit scary, but I guarantee there's no cause for concern. All that means is that hot air rushing in from the west is going to collide with that cold air rushing in from the east, and it's going to cause a bunch of turbulence in the sky,
Starting point is 00:22:32 moving all the airwaves around and oscillations in the sky. However, I want to add one more point. A byproduct of this effect is that all that humidity that dropped after that hot air moved to the bottom, It's going to raise up because the water cycle, you know, evaporation and stuff. It's gonna raise up into the sky into those clouds. It's gonna cause big clouds in the sky.
Starting point is 00:22:50 And eventually all that water is gonna fall down onto the ground. We're gonna have big rain later in the afternoon. Wait, it's actually gonna rain in LA? Yeah, it might sound crazy, but I just want it for all you guys at home. I definitely try to step outside with a jacket today, maybe a hoodie just in case the rain comes.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Don't try to be a big shot. I'm fact checking you right now, and the weather app says it's gonna be sunny all week. Is this just completely? My team, those are the numbers my team gave me. This is complete fake news. No, no, no. This is the fakesest news that ever heard.
Starting point is 00:23:19 Literally, the transatlantic current. John, John, I'm, I don't trust your app. I trust the weather. Apple says it's not gonna rain the entire month. There's zero chance of rain. Did you look at the transatlantic current? No. Percification.
Starting point is 00:23:35 Zero inches today. Zero inches tomorrow. Zero inches on Wednesday. John, you're really gonna, you're really gonna trust. You're really going to trust an application that was probably vibe-coded yesterday over Ben who's doing the weather. How did he get here? What happened here? No, if you look right there, you can see a localized high-pressure area. That's a localized high-perulence.
Starting point is 00:23:59 I think this is an over-eager weatherman who's just looking for drama in the most boring weather market in America, which is Los Angeles. I think this is the most important story in the world. This is ridiculous. You guys can look at the jet streams. They're coming in from the west. I don't want to hear any more mumbo-jumbo about jet streams. Get out of here. You're done.
Starting point is 00:24:16 Great work, Ben. Thank you, Matt. This is the future of the weather. We have a weatherman who gets into a live altercation with one of the other hosts. We need to talk about the wealth of Sundar Pitch I. Pitch AI. So our pay deal worth up to $692 million. Is this like 10 times what Tim Cook's making?
Starting point is 00:24:37 No, it must be over overtime, right? I mean, Cook's making around 70 a year. 70 a year. Combined. So if he works for 10 years, he makes what Sundar makes in three. We've been advocating for this. So this is good. Yeah, no, no.
Starting point is 00:24:49 We're in support. Yeah, Google has increased Sundar's potential pay to $692 million over the next three years. You know that Tim Cook dropped this in the Apple board members group chat as soon as it hit. He was just like, dude, this is a cool article. You should read this. Drops it in. Just drops it in. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:25:06 The bulk of his package comes in performance units. with a target value of $126 million split evenly into two branches. It could pay out as much as twice the target, a quarter billion, if it outperforms significantly or nothing if it lags behind. Got to beat the S&P 100. Pichai will receive Waymo stock with a target, stock in Waymo with a target value of $130 million and $45 million in wing aviation.
Starting point is 00:25:31 That's their drone delivery. Yeah, drone delivery platform. Again, both can pay out up to 200% of the total. target. If he delivers and the company does well, he should be richly rewarded. Stick a fork in it. Turn out the lights. Osta la vista. Say it anyway. You'd like the simple truth is that the mag seven trade is over. Finito. I love Barron's writing. Dead. The collective stock market outperformance of those seven tech icons alpha. Amazon.com. Apple, meta platforms, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Tesla is now a thing of the past.
Starting point is 00:26:08 The group may still do okay, and some of the individual stocks may even kill it, but the slam dunk set it and forget it, run circles around the market era of the Mag 7, is gone with the wind. The actual argument was the growth to value narrative, the loss of cash flow as they increasingly invest in CapEx. The financials will look very different. There'll be a margin compression, that type of thing. It's not an unreasonable take, but it is just funny the way it's written.
Starting point is 00:26:32 Sundar Pachai took over his CEO in August of 2015. He's going on 11 years in the seat. Google's market cap has increased almost seven-fold from half a trillion to 3.6 trillion, briefly topping four trillion in January. This surge has made the Indian-born 53-year-old former McKinsey consultant, a billionaire. He joined in 2004 and made his name developing the Chrome browser
Starting point is 00:26:57 and leading the Android division. He had been criticized for being too slow to adopt AI at the search giant, allowing OpenAI to release the first hit product, GPT in late 2022, but has since bounced back, releasing cutting-edge AI models and integrating the technology into its dominant search engine. Yes, he's done very, very well on that front. Pachai has also navigated a duo of antitrust cases brought against Google's search and app store businesses avoiding the worst-case scenario of forced breakup. A third lawsuit is pending against
Starting point is 00:27:27 the advertising network. Pichai last got a stock award in December of 2022 worth 218 million, which was structured in the same way. His earnings are topped up by his personal security costs, which rose to $8.3 million in 2024. Earlier in the week, he sold 32,500 Class C shares in average price of $303 worth roughly $10 million. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that he has sold about $650 million in stock since becoming CEO. They still own, along with his wife, he owns 1.67 million shares of Google worth half a billion. latest stock price and Google's founders Sergei Bryn and Larry Page still control the company through their ownership of super voting class B stock
Starting point is 00:28:13 which gives them 56% of decision-making power. Interesting. I think you got to give Miami paper hands. Oh he sold 650 million of stock. No no no he's sold that but he's oh and he only owns half a billion so yeah he sold more than that hopefully he put it all in the idea. But he's getting topped up, and he's diamond-handings the new... I know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, looking at the stock chart since 2015 when he became CEO, it would have done pretty well just to not do anything and trust his own process. Hey.
Starting point is 00:28:50 Owner of Forloko is exploring a sale of the storied alcohol brand. Sources say, the parent company of Forloko, the canned alcoholic beverage that became a college campus sensation in the late 2000s before being reformulated under regulatory pressure is exploring, I cannot believe they nerfed For Loco. You can just imagine the trajectory of the United States if it hadn't been nerfed and then straight downward. Really? Yes, it was so bad. It was so the impact. I thought people were having like heart attacks. Yes, it was terrible. So for Loco was a 24 ounce can so twice the size of a normal alcoholic beverage. Trey the birthday boy says it was amazing. It was amazing. Okay. The original formulation was twice as big as a normal can of Bud Light or Miller Light or Coors Light your normal beer,
Starting point is 00:29:39 something that you would grab. And then instead of it being 3.2% alcohol, or 4.5% alcohol, it was like 10% alcohol. It was the strength of like wine almost. And so a single four loco was like four or five beers in one can. And then they also added like 200 milligrams of caffeine. You would become incredibly intoxicated and inebriated, but then also, stimulated from all the caffeine. And that spelled doom for many people. People would be very high functioning, but completely inebriated and discombobulated. And so they would, you know, get into all sorts of trouble. A discombobulator. It was the discombobulator. It was also wildly illegal from an FDA perspective. You can't mix alcohol and caffeine in a single product.
Starting point is 00:30:27 That's just a rule. They're looking to, and potentially will capture somewhere around 400, million on the sale. The brand value. So people, it's hilarious that they're working with J.P. Morgan on this. That's wild. Here's what the CMO had to say. For over a decade, our sales have been the leading, have been leading the flavored, malted beverage market by embracing bold innovation, unconventional marketing, and a risk-taking attitude that delivers results a year after year. I think that's a good place to call it. Thank you. Thank you. Goodbye. Cheers.

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