The Exchanges

Q Um, and today, you can't, it's hard for me to even conceptualize that that would get funding, because a VC might just say, why wouldn't I just do this and chat to my team?

A We've seen a lot. We've seen nutritionists, we've seen a bunch of different things that have come out, you know, so I would say there's buckets of, do you need a discreet application or you don't need a discreet application? Certain things, for a bunch of different reasons, including regulatory and compliance in, in areas like health tech, you need a discreet application. But certain things, including general things like, you know, I'm eating this piece of salmon. How many calories does it have? Could you count it in your calories? Is something ChatGPT is great for. So we've found, um, sadly, that, you know, we haven't seen this wave of startups that we believe are sustainable. So there's actually been a handful of startups that are Wrappers on ChatGPT that are maybe a little bit better at travel. They might be a little bit better at being your math tutor, but they're not that step function different. Um, and even if you go back to, you know, the areas of search. If you remember, there was search, and then people said, oh, there could be vertical search where we get really good at something. So, obviously, Indeed is a very large company that was vertical search for jobs. Kayak was a very big multi-billion dollar outcome. That was vertical search for travel. And, you know, you're able to break down that landscape and then think about where, where that goes, because with a more n…

AI assessment note: “we haven't seen this wave of startups that we believe are sustainable”

Q or how to improve the relationship. Uh, if they came to you and said, we have a natural language fitness coach. If they came to you and said, we have, uh, you upload, uh, photos or videos of your, of your soccer practice, and we'll talk to you about positioning and, and form. Each one of those ideas, to me, sounds like they would be, like, billion dollar ideas, right?

A Yeah, very financeable. Very, if, if, maybe not billion dollar ideas, we'll see where that goes, but very financeable. If you think about life coaches, fitness coaches, Sports coaches. Anything where you have a tremendous amount of knowledge, and you could take that knowledge and make it very specific to somebody, which, you know, again, going back to Harvey's, is not that different, right? Law is a huge, huge, ah, pool of knowledge that you have put certain rules around it. You know, historically, they just thought that was a thought exercise in rules. Today, we could call it LLM. And then that produces Better, faster, cheaper results of how to, how to be more efficient in your life or job.

AI assessment note: “maybe not billion dollar ideas, we'll see where that goes, but very financeable.”

Q In order to justify this valuation. So let's just start broad, uh, as we begin the second half here. Um, are we marching towards technology companies like OpenAI, uh, like Anthropic, uh, basically trying to automate all work, all white collar work, and if they're successful, what happens?

A Well, I mean, I would say automating all work, right? Because if you think about some of the robotics things that are happening now, Some factory automation things that are happening now. It's both blue collar and white collar. I think maybe differently than any kind of automation going back to, you know, farming where, you know, there's bulldozers and there's, um, steam engines that are automating blue collar work. You know, this has been very different. Uh, and so I, I do think in talking to the bankers and the lawyers who usually hire a whole lot of folks or, you know, entry level consulting firms, BPO firms, they are Pausing or taking a slower approach or a more thoughtful and cautious approach to how they fill in the bottom of the pyramid. Uh, and that makes them, you know, rethink their, their business. Um, you know, I do believe that they're going to rethink their business. I think you're going to lose some people, but those people are going to be repurposed, right? So if you go back to, uh, the beginning of the 20th century, so beginning of the 20th century, about 93 people, 93% of Americans were in the agrarian economy. Farmers, basically. Uh, at the end of the 20th century, it was about three percent of the American workforce as farmers. And if you looked at just those two stats, you'd be like, oh my god, something horrible must have happened. All these people must ha…

AI assessment note: “I think you're going to lose some people, but those people are going to be repurposed”

Q And as an investor, is that something that you want to touch or you're?

A No, we're looking. We're spending a lot of time. I think, you know, AI companionship, uh, is an incredible thing. Um, and it's a broad based companionship. It could be your medical buddy. If you're an elderly person, it could be your math buddy. If you're a student, it could be, uh, your friend who, and it could be, it could be your surf buddy. If you're trying to figure out where to go on vacation. So all of these buddies, some of which are going to be chat GPT, um, You know, are going to be out there. Uh, and then I think you have to think about, you know, how much is that self-directed? So how much is it understanding your personality and what you're inputting? And are they sycophantic? Are, you know, do you have a drill sergeant type nutritionist? And is that what you want or what you need? You'll be able to tune it yourself.

AI assessment note: “No, we're looking. We're spending a lot of time.”

Q Was New York City's decision to ban Airbnb one of the greatest disasters in municipal government history?

A Yeah, I mean, it's definitely an own goal, if we want to go and use that format, that, you know, you want to have a great vibrant ecosystem that allows free trade, allows people to stay in places, but, and you want very little regulatory capture if you want a fervent place For, you want, uh, New York to be open for traveling business people, for tourism, for everything that happens, uh, and you don't want the regulatory capture from the hospitality and hotel industry. So I think that's, it was, it was silly. Uh, I think a lot of the large municipalities have played with it, but, uh, I think in, in the, you hope in the long run, uh, cooler heads prevail and everybody winds up doing the right thing.

AI assessment note: “it's definitely an own goal, if we want to go and use that format”

Q What do, what do you have to, to get if you invest a hundred billion in a company? Do you need to get, do you need to get a trillion dollars at least back in return?

A Well, it depends on who you are, and that kind of goes to the recycling or the circularness of some of these things. Obviously, the OpenAI, Microsoft, or OpenAI Oracle, goes back to the OpenAI Oracle deal. And, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you money that you're gonna invest in our infrastructure, or how, how does this cycle of capital work, which tends to be towards the end of these cycles, right, where you can't generate enough money yourself, you might have exhausted the capital pools externally, so now we're gonna all give each other revenue and, and cash flow to keep them, keep the train going. So that is actually a little bit of a canary in the coal mine of how this is working. But, ah, and then also, you know, Uh, NVIDIA's worth so much money that, you know, Jensen can almost say, a hundred billion dollars is, is not that big of a deal if we believe this is a generational company and have somewhat of a leg to stand on.

AI assessment note: “Well, it depends on who you are, and that kind of goes to the recycling”