Dec 31, 2024 · 1h 16m · tbpn
Year of Tech in Review (ep25)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this 2024 retrospective episode of Technology Brothers, co-hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hayes analyze the year's defining milestones across artificial intelligence, defense technology, semiconductor hardware, and Silicon Valley political realignment. Alongside comprehensive industry commentary, the hosts celebrate their platform's growth and announce an expansion to daily broadcasts for 2025.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 39.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.6 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 1.3 The hosts pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 29:00 Hayes slamming Figma billing practices
Hayes passionately attacks Figma's post-acquisition billing revamp as a toxic barrier to multiplayer file sharing.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 27:41 Coogan countering SpaceX IPO speculationCoogan immediately shuts down Hayes's suggestion that SpaceX will go public soon, citing Musk's grueling history with Tesla's public markets.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 32:43 Hayes on defense vendor diversityHayes provides detailed context on DoD procurement dynamics, correcting simplistic winner-take-all power law assumptions by explaining the state's structural mandate for vendor diversity.
The host holds their own ▶ 12:56 Coogan citing SemiAnalysis on AMD's software flawsCoogan showcases sharp industry expertise by breaking down SemiAnalysis reporting regarding AMD's critical software bugs despite meeting raw FLOP benchmarks.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celebrating Podcast Growth and John's Extreme Workout Challenge | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Coogan and Hayes open the Christmas Eve episode with casual banter about celebrating audience growth and Coogan's intense workout challenge against a decacorn founder. The tone is lighthearted and fully collaborative. | |
| Podcast Announcements and Corporate Sponsorship Philosophy | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | The hosts explain their corporate sponsorship philosophy, daily release plans for 2025, and their non-partisan pro-America tech stance. Coogan pushes his personal hot take that every US president has an incredible story worth studying. | |
| OpenAI's Relentless Product Velocity and Show Workflow | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Coogan details OpenAI's evolution from an academic research lab with unreliable login systems to a high-velocity product engine. Both hosts reflect on how LLMs streamline their own podcast workflow. | |
| Nvidia's Dominance, Chip Rivals, and Domestic Manufacturing | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Coogan displays sharp industry expertise citing SemiAnalysis reporting by Dylan Patel regarding AMD's software tooling bugs compared to Nvidia's CUDA moat. Hayes contributes insight on TSMC manufacturing chips on US soil. | |
| Analyzing Apple Vision Pro Realities and the VR Landscape | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Coogan and Hayes discuss the Vision Pro's hardware strengths and software limitations after daily testing. Coogan outlines the design changes required (lighter materials, removing external screens) and the market opportunity for seated, lean-back VR. | |
| The Breakthrough Year for Polymarket and Prediction Markets | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Hayes highlights Polymarket's breakthrough year during the 2024 US election and discusses how insider trading dynamics function in niche markets. Coogan points out the operational vulnerabilities with bot manipulation when public follower milestones are priced. | |
| SpaceX Starship Catch and Private Market Trajectory | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Hayes wonders whether SpaceX might pursue an IPO via the Texas stock exchange, but Coogan immediately counters that Elon's painful experience with Tesla under public scrutiny makes keeping SpaceX private far more likely. | |
| The Figma-Adobe Deal Collapse and Pricing Changes | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Hayes vents about Figma's post-breakup billing changes that disrupted collaborative file sharing. Coogan reframes the change as a standard requirement of mature scaling companies needing to capture value. | |
| Rise of Defense Tech and American Dynamism | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Hayes provides nuanced investor insight into defense procurement, explaining why government buyers demand vendor diversity rather than a single monopoly. Coogan notes how successful startups like Flock Safety tackle adjacent non-DoD defense niches. | |
| Founder Mode, Going Direct, and Foundation Model Wars | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The hosts discuss Paul Graham's 'founder mode' concept and how founders going direct on social media creates an asymmetric narrative advantage. They also track the shifting sentiment between foundation models and application layer wrappers. | |
| Crypto Milestones, TikTok Ban Legislation, and Truth Social | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Hayes highlights the significance of Bridge's acquisition by Stripe as a massive non-token outcome in regulated crypto rails. Coogan reflects on TikTok ban legislation and Truth Social's public market performance. | |
| Community Mailbag, Reply Guy Awards, and X Discourse | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The hosts review listener feedback, award their weekly reply guy honors, and discuss formatting improvements like browser-tab review workflows inspired by Twitch creators. | |
| Examining the Future of Software Engineering and AI Adoption | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Coogan and Hayes debate how AI coding agents will impact software engineering. Coogan argues that programming has always shifted up layers of abstraction, predicting engineers will orchestrate agentic workflows rather than be displaced. | |
| Ocean's Talent Promotion and Remote Hiring Insights | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Hayes highlights Ocean's Talent and remote hiring before moving into technical discussions of OpenAI's o3 model performance on ARC-AGI benchmarks. Coogan details the differences between test-time compute fine-tuning and generalized human reasoning. | |
| Dawn Analytics Backend Engineering Hiring Bounty | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Hayes mentions a hiring bounty for Dawn Analytics and discusses viral robotics hardware. Coogan and Hayes laugh over Bezos debunking sensational tabloid reporting regarding his wedding catering budget via direct posts. | |
| Hermès Saddle Recommendation for Tech Journalists | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | The hosts humorously correct their previous recommendation of YSL saddles to Hermès for gifting tech journalists, before discussing Dwarkesh Patel's take on LLM onboarding and prompt engineering. |
Statements from this episode (29)
Hayes: 'VCs for Kamala' Website Listed Around 100 Major Silicon Valley VCs
“Based Baron posted yesterday screenshots of all the VCs that were VCs for Kamala as a website, the website since been scrubbed, but there were probably a hundred names up there from many of the biggest firms in the Valley, people that were backing it.”
Hayes: OpenAI Maintained Insane Product Velocity Despite Co-Founder Departures
“That's why I put it at the top is despite all the drama and the various people, high profile people, co-founders leaving, the product velocity was still insane.”
Coogan: OpenAI will introduce free-tier ads and up to $2,000/mo subscriptions
“Clearly all of that product stuff's getting ironed out and they're going to have ads in the free version all the way up to a 2000 dollar a month tier or 200 dollar a month tier.”
Coogan: Nvidia captures over 100% of total profits in AI
“Well, they have over 100% of the profits in AI right now. Because all the other companies are losing money, and they're the one that's printing money.”
Coogan: AMD's software is too broken to train AI models
“Even though they're hitting the benchmarks on the actual, like, computing power, like, price per flop, the software is so broken, there's so many bugs that you cannot train models on it.”
Hayes: TSMC has begun manufacturing chips in the United States
“The other thing to highlight under here that was seemingly monumental was TSMC actually starting to produce chips here in America.”
Hayes: Canceling Vision Pro would prove Apple is just an iPhone company
“If they discontinue it, it's such a colossal defeat and sort of like verifiable proof that you are an iPhone company.”
Coogan: Apple needs a lighter, cheaper Vision Pro without the external screen
“If they can keep the same screen, get rid of the external screen, switch it to plastic instead of metal, so it's half the weight, like, and half the price, like, they have a winning formula, for sure.”
Coogan: Bullish on Meta releasing a Vision Pro competitor with movie support
“Super bullish for Meta because they're clearly going to release like something that's equivalent. They just need to figure out the media. Like you should be able to just buy any movie on any Meta headset. And I don't know that they have a partnership yet, but …”
Coogan: VR cannot displace consoles until comfortable for eight-hour sessions
“You're not going to displace the PS five until you can give someone an experience that they can go and chill with for eight hours straight.”
Hayes: VR headsets compete with everyday screens, not each other
“VR headsets aren't competing with each other. They're competing with every other screen, everyday life.”
Hayes: Prediction market users and sports bettors form nearly identical demographic
“I would say like the Venn diagram of people that sports bet and people that like use prediction markets is like probably almost a circle, you know”
Hayes: SpaceX is getting priced at $350B valuation
“Last, it was, I guess, getting priced at three hundred and fifty billion most recently.”
Hayes: Figma Rolled Out 'Toxic' and Horrific Billing Practices
“The Figma product they just rolled out these like absolutely horrific billing practices. Figma was always a very multiplayer product. You could make something, share it with somebody easily. They could edit it, comment, whatever. And they immediately rolled ou…”
Coogan: Figma Integration Would Have Been Jankier Under Adobe
“I think it would have been jankier with Adobe, which is probably the worst thing.”
Hayes: Pre-revenue portfolio companies are receiving multi-hundred-million-dollar valuations
“I have portfolio companies that are getting, you know, multi hundred million dollar valuations with no revenue yet. Right. It's like very, it's a little frothy.”
Hayes: Anduril will acquire defense startups that fail at government distribution
“Andrew roll, I think benefits dramatically from a lot of this, cause there's so many smart teams that are building cool tech that just won't figure out distribution and actually getting contracts. Yeah. Anderil will acquire them and they've already proven that…”
Hayes: Snowflake market cap plummeted after Frank Slootman retirement announcement
“When he announced he was retiring from Snowflake they lost 20% of their market cap in a day. They'd been previously been a seventy six billion dollar Company and a month roughly a month after the announcement, they were a fifty billion dollar company.”
Hayes: The winning formula for leadership is founder mode plus going direct
“The winning formula is founder mode and going direct. And that's why if you try to make fun of a founder for posting a lot on X just check yourself, because some of the best ever are doing that.”
Hayes: Bridge acquisition is 2024's tech acquisition of the year
“Acquisition of the year for me had to be bridge.”
Coogan: TikTok ban is happening unless Trump overrides it
“There is a law that's passed that should ban TikTok. It's happening unless Trump overrides it.”
Hayes: Founders should never build in public or share revenue online
“We're firm believers against building in public. Do not show your revenue online. Let people clock it by the car you drive and the watch you wear. But Content you're kind of forced to build in public because you're just sort of iterating live and everything's …”
Hayes: Journalist Julia Black Is Shifting to Cover DOGE Through 2025
“She's going to be, so she's going to be,
Shifting to covering Doge.
starting, you know, basically now through next year.”
Hayes: Founders taking acting classes or doing ayahuasca are huge red flags
“Founder in his portfolio, moved to LA, set up shop, started taking acting classes, and that is just a huge red flag. You'd almost rather a founder you know, it's basically as bad as a founder saying that they're going to go to Peru and have a psychedelic exper…”
Hayes: AI coding startups are still actively hiring engineers
“All of the AI coding startups are still hiring engineers, and so there's clearly plenty of value in what you do.”
Coogan: OpenAI o3 high-compute configuration costs $2,000 per solve
“O-three is a reasoning model. The high version costs 2000 dollars per solve.”
Hayes: Strongest AI products combine traditional software with generative AI
“The end of software was, you know, a meme in many ways. A lot of the best AI products are software meets gen AI.”