The Exchanges

Q Do you mind what time people come in in the morning? If you're sleeping till 1130, you're gonna be in the office at 1231. Do you mind if people are the same?

A Actually, I don't mind. I don't mind, but most people don't like that schedule, right? So most people will not agree with that and be volunteering for that. I think that it also created another thing which I like is that when you're a smaller company, people want the CEO to solve their problems, you know, like how do we mitigate between arguments and, but by the time I would arrive, most of the things would be solved by themselves. Okay. So the thing that will left, uh, for me to handle would be the more, uh, the more, well, the harder things to solve and between people, communication skills and other things. So I, I mean, that actually helps the organization be more mature.

AI assessment note: “Actually, I don't mind. I don't mind, but most people don't like”

Q about like base forty-four's margin profile, a lot of the providers, you know, we've had Lovable, we've had Rappler, we've had Mayor on the show. Um, and you know, their margin is, is one that's hidden in a lot of cases, and it leads to negativity and skepticism around whether they're actually good businesses. How does the margin profile of a base-forty-four compare to the margin profile of a Wix?

A Well, Wix is way, way, way, way, way more profitable, right? The cost of a Wix, generating Wix website, uh, is pretty much zero in comparison, and hosting pretty much zero in comparison. So, way more profitable on Wix than on Base-Four, and the margins are much better. The retention is also better, because you start building something, you need to put a lot of effort to finish it. And, and, and so, it, it's way more challenging, but we did get the cost to go, we're continuously seeing a decline in the cost, uh, in base 44. There's a brilliant team always leading that. Then, uh, and we just released our own AI model. Right? So we, we, we, we fine tune a few models and then combine them, and we're using that, and then we're actually achieving a equivalent to the top of the top tier models, uh, with that. So the cost of that is dramatically less. And, uh, so I, I think that in, in, in two years or maybe less, uh, this is not gonna be an important question.

AI assessment note: “Well, Wix is way, way, way, way, way more profitable, right?”

Q Are you able to detach your happiness from the market cap or the stock price?

A Yes. I really don't care. I wake up in the morning. I have one thing that I need to do. I have to focus on my business. Okay. And I can control, uh, some of it, no of it. Right. And, and, and, and I focus on that today. We're trading on others. Companies news. We're not trading on Wix news. We're trading mostly on what OpenAI or Antropic are saying, or Google is saying, right? And the reality is that I cannot influence that. I cannot influence what people are thinking. And so, and I, to be honest, I care less about it. I really don't look, wake up in the morning and say, oh my God, went 20% up or 20% down. Even when we went up, I was more concerned about the issues that we still have to solve, which is the same thing I do today.

AI assessment note: “Yes. I really don't care. I wake up in the morning.”

Q in terms of it's a hundred and sixty million give or take. Wild. Talk to me about, like, bringing that into a board meeting, or bringing that into an exec meeting, and being like, hey guys, I found this one guy male, he's great, it's a one person company, um, we should buy it for eighty million. What did that decision making look like, and how did the discussion go?

A To be fair, very easy. You know, actually, I never thought about it in the way that you describe it, so you're right. Maybe it was surprising that it was that easy. We have a really good board, really smart people, and we explain the logic behind it. And they were like, yeah, it makes sense. You know, they would kind of ask us a lot of really smart questions, but none of them was that, why are we willing to pay so much for one person? That was not part of the questions. They actually focused on the business, the business logic, what we're going to do in telemarketing, how we're going to build a team around it. So we got a lot of questions in regards to that also about why we think it's better than replete or lovable, right? And, uh, and, uh, as we explained it and, and, uh, So no, nobody ever told us anything. Until now, I never thought about it like that.

AI assessment note: “To be fair, very easy... They actually focused on the business, the business logic”

Q Which competitor do you most respect, and why them?

A So it's not direct. I think that the one company that I really, really appreciate, Figma. I think they have brilliant product understanding of their market. And, and when I look at it, I'm just like, I really admire some of the things, the quality they can bring into that. So I really like them. Like, really, in terms of not just respect, it's almost admiration of some of the things you can do. People are almost religious about Figma. I know very little products that are like that. My designers, they love it. They go crazy about it. They'll do their gross series list on Figma, ok? They'll do everything they can on Figma just because they love using it so much. And that takes massive skill from, from, from Figma to do it.

AI assessment note: “the one company that I really, really appreciate, Figma.”

Q Are you able to detach your happiness from the market cap or the stock price?

A Yes. I really don't care. I wake up in the morning. I have one thing that I need to do. I have to focus on my business. Okay. And I can control, uh, some of it, no of it. Right. And, and, and, and I focus on that today. We're trading on others. Companies news. We're not trading on Wix news. We're trading mostly on what OpenAI or Antropic are saying, or Google is saying, right? And the reality is that I cannot influence that. I cannot influence what people are thinking. And so, and I, to be honest, I care less about it. I really don't look, wake up in the morning and say, oh my God, went 20% up or 20% down. Even when we went up, I was more concerned about the issues that we still have to solve, which is the same thing I do today.

AI assessment note: “Yes. I really don't care. I wake up in the morning.”

Q Can you talk to me about the decision to do your own model? It's a big technological decision to choose to do that versus use open source off the shelf or frontier models. Can you talk to me about the decision to do that and why you thought it was strategically right?

A Yeah, of course. I think there are two parts to that. Uh, number one is Uh, quality. All right. We have a huge amount of training data that is happening for, uh, that we're getting on, uh, on base 44, right? And, uh, and, and because we get, you know, when we see what users are trying to do, I see what it fails. We understand better and better what they're trying to say and saying it with the wrong prompt, right? So we learn all those things. And by learning all those things, we, we think we can actually create a model that is Better for base 44 than it is for a, uh, than just, you know, the, the frontier models that are more, way more generic, right? We don't need, alright, the knowledge that a lot of them have on Chinese poetry, right? Because they do, you know, they've been trained on that, ok? But we do need the knowledge that they have to focus and increase the knowledge they have on, on, on, on what is it you mean when you say, I want to create a task manager for my, for me to manage my husband, ok? Oh, to tell my boyfriend where he's wrong, ok? So you have that, right? So you, all of those things, ok, and we have a huge amount of data that we can use to create a model that is better and better. Now, it's not trying to replace the frontier models, but it's trying to make us better at Base-Forty-Forty-Forty. So it's a different target, which is why it's easier than buildin…

AI assessment note: “create a model that is Better for base 44 than it is for”

Q in terms of it's a hundred and sixty million give or take. Wild. Talk to me about, like, bringing that into a board meeting, or bringing that into an exec meeting, and being like, hey guys, I found this one guy male, he's great, it's a one person company, um, we should buy it for eighty million. What did that decision making look like, and how did the discussion go?

A To be fair, very easy. You know, actually, I never thought about it in the way that you describe it, so you're right. Maybe it was surprising that it was that easy. We have a really good board, really smart people, and we explain the logic behind it. And they were like, yeah, it makes sense. You know, they would kind of ask us a lot of really smart questions, but none of them was that, why are we willing to pay so much for one person? That was not part of the questions. They actually focused on the business, the business logic, what we're going to do in telemarketing, how we're going to build a team around it. So we got a lot of questions in regards to that also about why we think it's better than replete or lovable, right? And, uh, and, uh, as we explained it and, and, uh, So no, nobody ever told us anything. Until now, I never thought about it like that.

AI assessment note: “They actually focused on the business, the business logic, what we're going to do”

Q I get that. And actually the guy was thinking of the government contracts that Salesforce has and has won. Again, I would say trust your point, but is that a one of one? If we go to the other providers, the other people who've been hurt by the SaaS apocalypse, They're not in that same gilded trust.

A I mean, it depends which one, by the way, Atlassian for me is actually the one where, again, I'm a shareholder, so I want to be clear. Okay. And a lot of the company, I've been a shareholder for a long time and the And when I look at it at Atlassian, I think that the customers are the ones that are more likely to build things with code code, right? Because with code code, because they are developers, right? So I'm always in, in a bit of a concern there because I'm like, somebody would replace their, really the, the, the management stack of the tickets and workflow. Those will be those guys. Okay. And yet you said, this is the one that recovered. So obviously I'm missing something, right? And, uh, and, and I think for weeks, look, our customers, most of our customers will be the pizza store next to your house, ok? Your hairdresser, or a lot of small businesses, ok? They're not going to use Cloud Code to build, ok? Their business stack, they're not going to do that for all of what they need. It's, it's just not in the realm of possible now. Maybe in a few years, I will be able to do that, but we are very far from it. Right. We tried at Wix. You know, one of the first thing we did with base for the floor is that, okay, should we integrate the business logic of our vertical offering into base for the four? And we make a test and we said, can we build a hairdresser, just a business …

AI assessment note: “I mean, it depends which one, by the way, Atlassian for me is actually”

Q If you say, hey, you know, the hairdresser's not going to do it, the construction worker's not going to do it, I get you. Do you not think they will in tomorrow's model, or the year after's model? You know, I had Sam Altman on the show, and he said, you have to build for the model of tomorrow or next year.

A Well, we are. That's base 44. That's why we invest so much into base 44. Because if that will be something happening that way, ok, that's why we have base 44. Essentially, the way I look at it today is that there are three different options. One, the guy that built the pizza place, he said he want to build the website and the management tools for that, ok? He's going to be staying with each customer because he doesn't want to put the effort into that. His business in life is making pizza, right? So, that's option number one, right? So, a lot of them will stay here. Option number three, and I'm going to say, is that they're going to say, well, I'm actually really interested in that. Base 44 made it so easy for me to vibe code everything I need. It's custom made for me. So I'm going to use base 44 for that. Okay. And there is, of course, the middle ground, which is like some people will be here, some people will be there. Okay. Which is, I'm guessing the more likely scenario to happen in the next five, six years, right? Not everybody will be in this side or in that side.

AI assessment note: “Well, we are. That's base 44. That's why we invest so much into base 44.”

Q Slightly. Yeah. He's got great surfer hair. I have to admit, um, where it does become an actual tangible challenge is in M&A. One of the joys of being public is you have a tradable currency that you can buy companies with. And when you are priced lower, that currency is less valuable to buy other assets, like a next base. With the price today, does it make M&A impossible?

A Well, we still have cash, and we can get more cash if we need. I think our issue today is that We've, ah, the M&A of Base-Forty-Four, right? Well, we bought a company with one person. I want to be clear, right? And, and, and then we put a lot of people from Wix into that, right? So that's actually complicated M&A, because you have to build a company around it, ok? We didn't get a company. Luckily, Maog is a brilliant person, amazing leader, but, ah, ah, ah, so essentially, I don't know how to do another one of those, all right, at the same time, and have the same quality that we can merge the operations together, so it's very hard. So, and we are about to launch another product next month, right, so that's a different product from, that we're built, and so I think that our challenge today is actually execution on, on, not finance, so if you want to Do an M&A, it will fall on the execution challenge and not on the finance.

AI assessment note: “our challenge today is actually execution on, on, not finance”

Q about like base forty-four's margin profile, a lot of the providers, you know, we've had Lovable, we've had Rappler, we've had Mayor on the show. Um, and you know, their margin is, is one that's hidden in a lot of cases, and it leads to negativity and skepticism around whether they're actually good businesses. How does the margin profile of a base-forty-four compare to the margin profile of a Wix?

A Well, Wix is way, way, way, way, way more profitable, right? The cost of a Wix, generating Wix website, uh, is pretty much zero in comparison, and hosting pretty much zero in comparison. So, way more profitable on Wix than on Base-Four, and the margins are much better. The retention is also better, because you start building something, you need to put a lot of effort to finish it. And, and, and so, it, it's way more challenging, but we did get the cost to go, we're continuously seeing a decline in the cost, uh, in base 44. There's a brilliant team always leading that. Then, uh, and we just released our own AI model. Right? So we, we, we, we fine tune a few models and then combine them, and we're using that, and then we're actually achieving a equivalent to the top of the top tier models, uh, with that. So the cost of that is dramatically less. And, uh, so I, I think that in, in, in two years or maybe less, uh, this is not gonna be an important question.

AI assessment note: “Wix is way, way, way, way, way more profitable, right?”

Q Slightly. Yeah. He's got great surfer hair. I have to admit, um, where it does become an actual tangible challenge is in M&A. One of the joys of being public is you have a tradable currency that you can buy companies with. And when you are priced lower, that currency is less valuable to buy other assets, like a next base. With the price today, does it make M&A impossible?

A Well, we still have cash, and we can get more cash if we need. I think our issue today is that We've, ah, the M&A of Base-Forty-Four, right? Well, we bought a company with one person. I want to be clear, right? And, and, and then we put a lot of people from Wix into that, right? So that's actually complicated M&A, because you have to build a company around it, ok? We didn't get a company. Luckily, Maog is a brilliant person, amazing leader, but, ah, ah, ah, so essentially, I don't know how to do another one of those, all right, at the same time, and have the same quality that we can merge the operations together, so it's very hard. So, and we are about to launch another product next month, right, so that's a different product from, that we're built, and so I think that our challenge today is actually execution on, on, not finance, so if you want to Do an M&A, it will fall on the execution challenge and not on the finance.

AI assessment note: “our challenge today is actually execution on, on, not finance”

Q Can you talk to me about the decision to do your own model? It's a big technological decision to choose to do that versus use open source off the shelf or frontier models. Can you talk to me about the decision to do that and why you thought it was strategically right?

A Yeah, of course. I think there are two parts to that. Uh, number one is Uh, quality. All right. We have a huge amount of training data that is happening for, uh, that we're getting on, uh, on base 44, right? And, uh, and, and because we get, you know, when we see what users are trying to do, I see what it fails. We understand better and better what they're trying to say and saying it with the wrong prompt, right? So we learn all those things. And by learning all those things, we, we think we can actually create a model that is Better for base 44 than it is for a, uh, than just, you know, the, the frontier models that are more, way more generic, right? We don't need, alright, the knowledge that a lot of them have on Chinese poetry, right? Because they do, you know, they've been trained on that, ok? But we do need the knowledge that they have to focus and increase the knowledge they have on, on, on, on what is it you mean when you say, I want to create a task manager for my, for me to manage my husband, ok? Oh, to tell my boyfriend where he's wrong, ok? So you have that, right? So you, all of those things, ok, and we have a huge amount of data that we can use to create a model that is better and better. Now, it's not trying to replace the frontier models, but it's trying to make us better at Base-Forty-Forty-Forty. So it's a different target, which is why it's easier than buildin…

AI assessment note: “we think we can actually create a model that is Better for base 44”

Q Do you mind what time people come in in the morning? If you're sleeping till 1130, you're gonna be in the office at 1231. Do you mind if people are the same?

A Actually, I don't mind. I don't mind, but most people don't like that schedule, right? So most people will not agree with that and be volunteering for that. I think that it also created another thing which I like is that when you're a smaller company, people want the CEO to solve their problems, you know, like how do we mitigate between arguments and, but by the time I would arrive, most of the things would be solved by themselves. Okay. So the thing that will left, uh, for me to handle would be the more, uh, the more, well, the harder things to solve and between people, communication skills and other things. So I, I mean, that actually helps the organization be more mature.

AI assessment note: “Actually, I don't mind. I don't mind, but most people don't like that schedule”

Q What does it take to have a successful marriage? Advise me.

A I'll tell you a story about my wife, which is one of the things that I think this is where I understood it's something different. I, I came home and she looks at me and she was like, listen, I have a terrible mood. I, you did nothing wrong. I'm going to the room to relax. You go play PlayStation. And I was like, wait, what? You have a terrible mood and it's not my fault? And now, and she's like, yeah, you did nothing. It's not you. I need to relax a bit. You go play PlayStation. I was like, oh my God. So I think that is the number one quality that I think that I learned that for me it works, right?

AI assessment note: “that is the number one quality that I think that I learned”

Q Which competitor do you most respect, and why them?

A So it's not direct. I think that the one company that I really, really appreciate, Figma. I think they have brilliant product understanding of their market. And, and when I look at it, I'm just like, I really admire some of the things, the quality they can bring into that. So I really like them. Like, really, in terms of not just respect, it's almost admiration of some of the things you can do. People are almost religious about Figma. I know very little products that are like that. My designers, they love it. They go crazy about it. They'll do their gross series list on Figma, ok? They'll do everything they can on Figma just because they love using it so much. And that takes massive skill from, from, from Figma to do it.

AI assessment note: “the one company that I really, really appreciate, Figma.”

Q And you do that because you think it's the future? Because you have a worse margin profile on that? It would make sense financially to push them to the core business?

A Yeah, I, I think that it's part of the future. I, I want to be clear here. I think that the future is what I said. It's going to be a combination, and I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think that if you ever try to use any vibe coding tools, and you try to build anything very complicated, it's hard. When you're trying to do visual editing, it's really annoying, okay? There is, it's a bit more complicated than that, but, and so I think the future is a combination of both, and we want our agencies to have All the tools they need for the future. And I'm 100% sure that base for the four would be part of the future, but also almost as confident, if not more confident, okay, that things like weeks will also be part of the future. You're not going to vibe code Shopify, no matter how good you are. The business stack is too hard. Okay.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I, I think that it's part of the future.”

Q What does it take to have a successful marriage? Advise me.

A I'll tell you a story about my wife, which is one of the things that I think this is where I understood it's something different. I, I came home and she looks at me and she was like, listen, I have a terrible mood. I, you did nothing wrong. I'm going to the room to relax. You go play PlayStation. And I was like, wait, what? You have a terrible mood and it's not my fault? And now, and she's like, yeah, you did nothing. It's not you. I need to relax a bit. You go play PlayStation. I was like, oh my God. So I think that is the number one quality that I think that I learned that for me it works, right?

AI assessment note: “that is the number one quality that I think that I learned”

Q friends with many of these enterprise SaaS company CEOs. Uh, we've mentioned some of them, and when I chat to them, all of them are like, oh my God, my talent is leaving, and you know, their stocks is not worth what it was, and it's very difficult, morale is down. How do you advise them on how to retain talent when you are in an environment as you are?

A I think it's a huge challenge. First of all, I think it's a magical solution. There's no magic here. I think that Everybody gonna lose talent, and we are losing talent. Everybody lost, everybody will lose talent, ok? And I think a lot of times it's a healthy fit for a company. As long as you don't compromise on who you keep, and you make sure that the people that you allow to stay, ok, are really great people, you're gonna find you have a lot of talent that you never noticed before. Ok, and that's gonna refresh a lot of the organization. So, it's not about how do you prevent people from leaving. Right? And it's more a thing about how you make sure the organization keep being an organization where the vast majority are top talents, right? And, and, and, and the fact that a lot of us get very, well, used to, very spoiled by saying, well, you know, we have people here working for 15 years that are always top talent and nobody ever leaves because our stock is it, whatever, ok? That kind of made us spoiled to the fact that That's not a natural thing, ok? Now, I do highly appreciate, there's a lot of super smart people around me that I would be extremely sad if they leave, ok, and worried. But saying that, it's still, I think that we got a bit spoiled on that, and I think we need to remember that when we got those people, they didn't have 15 years of experience, Right? Working on, on…

AI assessment note: “it's not about how do you prevent people from leaving”

Q At this point though, do you give a shit if the stock market hates you? I'm one of my neighbors is a public company CEO, and he's like, honestly, dude, and he's, he's one of the companies that have been hit. We haven't mentioned them, but he's like, honestly, dude, at this point, Can't do any worse. Can I?

A I'm sure we can, but it's hard. Okay. And, and, uh, and, uh, but, but I, I, again, I, I have a huge amount of respect for everybody who put money in wakes and bought stocks. And I know I do understand that my job is to, uh, do my best to create a wonderful company. I have a bigger, actually bigger obligation, right? To my customers, right? That's another big obligation that I have. I don't think they are one against the other. I think I should balance both. And then for my employees, but I think that, like, there's no stock market you can talk to, right? It's millions of people with different opinions, and, and so I, I don't know how to take that into consideration. I don't know how to even listen to that.

AI assessment note: “there's no stock market you can talk to... I don't know how to even listen”

Q friends with many of these enterprise SaaS company CEOs. Uh, we've mentioned some of them, and when I chat to them, all of them are like, oh my God, my talent is leaving, and you know, their stocks is not worth what it was, and it's very difficult, morale is down. How do you advise them on how to retain talent when you are in an environment as you are?

A I think it's a huge challenge. First of all, I think it's a magical solution. There's no magic here. I think that Everybody gonna lose talent, and we are losing talent. Everybody lost, everybody will lose talent, ok? And I think a lot of times it's a healthy fit for a company. As long as you don't compromise on who you keep, and you make sure that the people that you allow to stay, ok, are really great people, you're gonna find you have a lot of talent that you never noticed before. Ok, and that's gonna refresh a lot of the organization. So, it's not about how do you prevent people from leaving. Right? And it's more a thing about how you make sure the organization keep being an organization where the vast majority are top talents, right? And, and, and, and the fact that a lot of us get very, well, used to, very spoiled by saying, well, you know, we have people here working for 15 years that are always top talent and nobody ever leaves because our stock is it, whatever, ok? That kind of made us spoiled to the fact that That's not a natural thing, ok? Now, I do highly appreciate, there's a lot of super smart people around me that I would be extremely sad if they leave, ok, and worried. But saying that, it's still, I think that we got a bit spoiled on that, and I think we need to remember that when we got those people, they didn't have 15 years of experience, Right? Working on, on…

AI assessment note: “it's not about how do you prevent people from leaving”

Q At this point though, do you give a shit if the stock market hates you? I'm one of my neighbors is a public company CEO, and he's like, honestly, dude, and he's, he's one of the companies that have been hit. We haven't mentioned them, but he's like, honestly, dude, at this point, Can't do any worse. Can I?

A I'm sure we can, but it's hard. Okay. And, and, uh, and, uh, but, but I, I, again, I, I have a huge amount of respect for everybody who put money in wakes and bought stocks. And I know I do understand that my job is to, uh, do my best to create a wonderful company. I have a bigger, actually bigger obligation, right? To my customers, right? That's another big obligation that I have. I don't think they are one against the other. I think I should balance both. And then for my employees, but I think that, like, there's no stock market you can talk to, right? It's millions of people with different opinions, and, and so I, I don't know how to take that into consideration. I don't know how to even listen to that.

AI assessment note: “I don't know how to take that into consideration. I don't know how to even listen”

Q I get that. And actually the guy was thinking of the government contracts that Salesforce has and has won. Again, I would say trust your point, but is that a one of one? If we go to the other providers, the other people who've been hurt by the SaaS apocalypse, They're not in that same gilded trust.

A I mean, it depends which one, by the way, Atlassian for me is actually the one where, again, I'm a shareholder, so I want to be clear. Okay. And a lot of the company, I've been a shareholder for a long time and the And when I look at it at Atlassian, I think that the customers are the ones that are more likely to build things with code code, right? Because with code code, because they are developers, right? So I'm always in, in a bit of a concern there because I'm like, somebody would replace their, really the, the, the management stack of the tickets and workflow. Those will be those guys. Okay. And yet you said, this is the one that recovered. So obviously I'm missing something, right? And, uh, and, and I think for weeks, look, our customers, most of our customers will be the pizza store next to your house, ok? Your hairdresser, or a lot of small businesses, ok? They're not going to use Cloud Code to build, ok? Their business stack, they're not going to do that for all of what they need. It's, it's just not in the realm of possible now. Maybe in a few years, I will be able to do that, but we are very far from it. Right. We tried at Wix. You know, one of the first thing we did with base for the floor is that, okay, should we integrate the business logic of our vertical offering into base for the four? And we make a test and we said, can we build a hairdresser, just a business …

AI assessment note: “I mean, it depends which one, by the way”

Q I mean, if you want real bulls, then you buy back more now. Is that conversation like, is it like, no, no, no. We, we, we, we had that discussion. How do you reflect on future buybacks given what you know now?

A I think that buyback are a fantastic tool for a company and companies should use that. And I think they don't use it enough. I think the concept that companies, you know, always issue more and more, decrease their delusion by issuing more shares to employees and for other things is, is, uh, something that should be balanced with buyback when the company can. So I'm, I'm, I'm really in favor of that. I think that it's another way of giving a dividend. To all of you are stockholders. That, that's my opinion. And again, I'm not a professional, you know, stock market person, you know, that's not my profession. I'm a geek. I'm an engineer. I'm a bit of a marketeer. I'm a product guy.

AI assessment note: “I think that buyback are a fantastic tool for a company and companies should use that.”

Q Totally. If I was sitting with you and we have pubs in the UK, I'm not sure if you have pubs in Israel, you probably have bars. Um, if we were sitting in a pub, I'd say to you, Abishai, dude, let's take this private. Like, what a great business, what a mispriced asset. Would you like to take it private?

A I think it would be pretty much illegal for me to even answer that, right? I, I, I gotta say, my, I'm focusing on the company and building the company. And, uh, and, uh, I think we're doing incredible things. We have super smart talent. It's an exciting journey, so I love that, and, uh, and we're going to continue to do that, and, and, you know, I'm not buying the company, that I can tell you, and, uh, and I think the stock market should be a place where smart people make money, and, you know, if they think like you do that it's a mispriced asset, then that's a great opportunity. If they think that AI is going to kill everything, Then obviously that's a terrible opportunity. And so this is everybody has to do their, their own, you know, uh, decision making and planning.

AI assessment note: “I think it would be pretty much illegal for me to even answer that”

Q I'm worried about the level of stock-based compensation that we're seeing. It seems like we're normalizing insane levels, a la Snapchat, that candidly make it very difficult for me as an investor To see the same attractiveness in terms of returns that I had before. How do you think about SBC being good to employees, but also not screwing investors?

A Well, I think you have a choice, right? I think that, uh, I would say that You want to get the best talent, and you want to keep, maintain the best talent, right? And, and, and, and part of it is allowing them to, because they build the company, they should be invested in the dream, right? You should give stocks to employees. That, that's my opinion, right? I think that the fact that it's only in technology companies, and it's not in any, in many other companies, that's a, a different issue, right? I would actually love to see that every fashion company, right, give their core team, Stock options, because I think that's way more fair, right? And maybe if they, if the US government would do that, or the British government would actually have better people running, right, and running the country, and, and somehow getting, finding that their compensation is related to their achievements, right? So I think it's a really good mechanism. I think that when company is starting to, uh, starting making cash, Alright, so you collect cash. You have essentially a few options of what to do with this cash. Number one is acquisition, ok? But you can only do so many acquisitions. And maintain the company. I mean, some people muster that, and I, I look at them and I admire them. I would be able to do that. But the majority of the companies didn't, right, and the majority of acquisitions fail. So…

AI assessment note: “do a buyback... And then you balance Your, your stock based compensation”

Q If you say, hey, you know, the hairdresser's not going to do it, the construction worker's not going to do it, I get you. Do you not think they will in tomorrow's model, or the year after's model? You know, I had Sam Altman on the show, and he said, you have to build for the model of tomorrow or next year.

A Well, we are. That's base 44. That's why we invest so much into base 44. Because if that will be something happening that way, ok, that's why we have base 44. Essentially, the way I look at it today is that there are three different options. One, the guy that built the pizza place, he said he want to build the website and the management tools for that, ok? He's going to be staying with each customer because he doesn't want to put the effort into that. His business in life is making pizza, right? So, that's option number one, right? So, a lot of them will stay here. Option number three, and I'm going to say, is that they're going to say, well, I'm actually really interested in that. Base 44 made it so easy for me to vibe code everything I need. It's custom made for me. So I'm going to use base 44 for that. Okay. And there is, of course, the middle ground, which is like some people will be here, some people will be there. Okay. Which is, I'm guessing the more likely scenario to happen in the next five, six years, right? Not everybody will be in this side or in that side.

AI assessment note: “Which is, I'm guessing the more likely scenario to happen in the next five, six years”

Q Legora, which is an AI law, uh, legal service. Um, and the cool question for me is, do we see the same rate of improvement in adjacent functions to coding that we saw in coding? You know, Andre Kapathi went from doing 20% of his work, coding work with coding tools to 80% in six months. Do we see that same Jump in amount of legal work done by AI.

A It depends on a few things, right? And law might be a very good example for it, but I do believe that in law, when it comes to laws, Uh, because those, a bit like code, are mostly about textual context, right, and there's a tremendous amount, a huge amount, endless amount, way too much amount of, of, of legal written documents, right, and, and, and cases, and, and, and, and, and, and, and so I think that this is one of the perfect places for it to be useful, but every time I see a doctor trying to do research by using LLMs, Ok, I get horrified, because that's the wrong tool. It will probably read, it will answer you, what's up, it read somewhere on Reddit, ok, that somebody wrote, and for the analemic perspective, it's equivalent to the best research done on nature, right? There's no difference. The, it holds them all in this giant thing that it is, I will try to verify it somewhat, most of the time it doesn't read the research, when it actually answers you, even if you use the highest level of, so, For legal stuff, I think that's really good. For a lot of other things, I really think that it's not the right algorithm.

AI assessment note: “law might be a very good example for it... mostly about textual context”

Q And you do that because you think it's the future? Because you have a worse margin profile on that? It would make sense financially to push them to the core business?

A Yeah, I, I think that it's part of the future. I, I want to be clear here. I think that the future is what I said. It's going to be a combination, and I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think that if you ever try to use any vibe coding tools, and you try to build anything very complicated, it's hard. When you're trying to do visual editing, it's really annoying, okay? There is, it's a bit more complicated than that, but, and so I think the future is a combination of both, and we want our agencies to have All the tools they need for the future. And I'm 100% sure that base for the four would be part of the future, but also almost as confident, if not more confident, okay, that things like weeks will also be part of the future. You're not going to vibe code Shopify, no matter how good you are. The business stack is too hard. Okay.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I, I think that it's part of the future.”