The News But We Change Personalities | Ep. 073 Lemonade Stand 🍋

hear that that's me in tokyo learning to make sushi from a master how did i get here i invested wisely now the only thing i worry about is using too much wasabi get where you're going with spy the world's most traded etf getting there starts here with state street investment management before investing consider the funds investment objectives risks charges and expenses visit statestreet.com slash im for prospectus containing this and other information read it carefully spy is subject to risks similar to those of stocks all etfs are subject to risk including possible loss of principal alps distributors inc distributor support for the show comes from engine running a small business means every dollar has to work hard but if your team is still booking travel the old way it's costing you more than you think engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country built specifically for businesses like yours book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes earn up to 10 back on hotels and in 2025 engine customers save more than 300 million dollars on travel with zero booking fees no contracts and no bs more than a thousand businesses join engine every month join them and get 500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com slash box welcome back to lemonade stand everybody i've been thinking a lot about a question okay what do you guys think you would have done a better job if you were the shaw if like i've been wrong yeah like around what specifically the kashoggi thing no no no that's different hold on that's a different guy okay yeah i know i would have done i wouldn't have killed him if i was the if i was the crown prince of saudi arabia i wouldn't have you would have done it i think i i'm i wouldn't have killed i'm revealing my ignorance here is i thought the shaw is iran is this yes you're he just said something that oh i think i'd be a better podcaster than the shaw because i'm still alive okay well there's a new shaw props i still think i don't think he's he's not a shaw i don't think he's called he's not the shaw hasn't dropped an episode he's the ayatollah okay what is the shaw what is the shaw then the shaw in like the the guy that like britain in the u.s instated to rule over iran oh you're saying like reza pulavi from back in the 70s yeah would you do better than him you think you would have done a better job i couldn't have been more clear is that going to be the name in the okay or you should explain how this works i'm sorry we've got a wacky bit for today's episode imagine imagine the way just think about what it's like to engage with issues in somebody else's shoes for once in your life for instance the shaw's what it must have been like to read the new york times way back then on his on his iphone what are you talking about what what is this detailed specific thing about the shaw i'm explaining what we're doing this week all right this is leading up to okay got it okay so okay well aiden i've never really thought about putting myself in the shoes of the shaw what an interesting intellectual experience that could be this way how would that relate to today's podcast we've decided in an effort in empathy we have compiled a list of people and personalities that are have been placed into this hat that we will draw before every story and we're going to draw before every story and we're going to draw before every story or topic we discuss this week and we will have to engage and present that story as if we were that person see the world through their eyes i do think there's some truth to this we are three la white podcasters okay all we give is to our news through our point of view now we're going to expand our horizons through this magical hat if there's a white podcaster in that hat we change nothing and we change nothing so here's how it's gonna work there are a bunch of things that we have all individually written we will follow what each other wrote uh different characters and point of views and we're going to draw them before every story you will be able to see magically on screen what we are but no one else will and then we'll see at the end of each story if we can guess what the other person was this is like uh crossfire you know from cnn we're gonna finally get to here it's like you know nick fuentes and hunter biden quite possibly in there both of those people we don't know so we'll do our best to give you the type of varied perspectives as we go along with the rest of the show thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one bye bye as seen through our poor improvisational skills exactly because we don't have the budget or time to get real guests with different point of views we haven't had a guest in a while it's good i like it uh all right so our first story is a knee slapper saudi arabia is getting nukes aiden's gonna be introducing this story but first let's see our characters wait do we we each pull one right yeah oh we each pull one oh but if you have your own throwback aiden what's going on what is going on with nukes in saudi arabia nuclear power is very important i think there's a lot of potential i agree to our future modern world so i agree i'm gonna give you guys the story and then i'll give you my opinion about it after i'm happy uh nuclear has a lot of potential that we're gonna get into okay so the u.s announced a new nuclear deal with saudi arabia this past week and i want you to travel back in time with me for a second we're gonna go all the way back to 2009 and uh the obama administration is in charge and they negotiate a nuclear deal with the uae at the time the uae wants access to uh u.s companies uranium and process knowledge to create nuclear power in the uae okay but what comes with that when you you make nuclear power is you need to enrich uranium to like a two or three percent of the world's nuclear power and that's what we're talking about so you need to have like a three percent i think two to like five percent point in order to have nuclear power uh you uh because of this because you can continue to enrich uranium to make it maybe a bomb okay there's concerns from the international community naturally so in those deals the u.s requires certain like international or independent inspections and they had the most strict requirements for those inspections and that's when they made that deal at the time uae has a lot of rich people i've met some of them these are wealthy smart men do they speak arabic in the uae yeah i'm not really a fan statistically i'm not really okay i'm not checking off the list statistically i just the the process of uranium enrichment is really it is really difficult basically you're taking a bunch of uranium that's like two uranium 238 and 235 and you're taking a bunch of uranium that's like two you're figuring out a way to separate the 235 out from the 238 and the 235 is the radioactive stuff that you can actually use for like nuclear power nuclear weapons and that's a really really watered down explanation of how enrichment works and basically you want to make sure that the enrichment doesn't go to a high enough percentage that it can become a nuclear weapon and that's what iron man did he made some amazing stuff that's easy iron man i just have a lot of respect for somebody like that so uh as more and more there's other countries in the world that have wanted access to these similar resources and access to nuclear power including saudi arabia and during the biden administration we were well along into a deal where we were we were trying to uh negotiate a deal with a similar safety parameters that also required when you say we uh the u.s government okay the i care a little less about the government more like individuals that i can trust right like the saudi princes these are good people they've got a real sharp mind for the future i like what they're doing in terms of spending it but sorry go ahead yeah i would okay they're just a little off-putting to me i just don't put me in don't let me in with america and and uh saudi arabia wants access i'm so curious it's a simple thing simple request saudi arabia wants access to nuclear power and part of the deal at the time was not only do you like restricted power just i just like but you don't like arabic and you don't like america maybe i'm just not american and i don't like appreciate i don't like called we right so just please okay continue the story i'm sorry you're saying so so what i am saying i'm very polite there's another thing you should know about me you keep interrupting me i'm sorry i knew we're we're close to a nuclear deal with them at the time uh that has the same safety restrictions that we had required in deals with like the uae and also required saudi arabia to recognize israel as as a part of the way yeah it was part of the deal part of the deal at the time and we were getting close to closing that deal the the u.s was and then october 7th happens which totally derails that this was going to happen and then trump last week announces a new deal that no longer had the same degree of oversight into the enrichment process so basically we're giving you you know all these like resources profit uh process knowledge uh access to u.s companies that you like access to uranium and then uh we're not really that concerned with like how much you enrichment we're taking you uh more at your word that you're not going to turn this into a weapon and we're giving you access to nuclear power supposedly wait i think i think i know i think i know who you are i don't like them okay the reason this deal came under a lot of scrutiny is one, a lot of people people are concerned about the safety not being followed through with, like Saudi Arabia can potentially develop a nuclear weapon. This is a country in the region that has been historically opposed to Iran. So Iran doesn't want them to have access to this. This is also something that Israel doesn't want them to have access to. Israel wasn't happy with this. And then a few days later, Trump walks back the announcement of this deal and says that in order for it to move forward, Saudi Arabia has to sign the Abraham Accords, which also acknowledges the existence of the state of Israel. And that has put a total stop to this all of a sudden, even though it was supposedly like negotiated and finished. So that's where we're at right now. It's like, there's a bunch of criticism with how this went through. For people who are critical of this deal, they're now relieved because it's no longer proceeding because of this reason. And I got to say, I am a huge fan of nuclear power. Historically, I have it. I mean, you know, we got to be careful. We wouldn't want to get turned into crazy weapons, crazy weapons. But I would trust somebody raise taxes somehow just to help this out. No, no, no, no, no. People like Saudi Arabia or Trump or others are the most efficient capital allocators. I think we can agree that sort of the people who have been the most efficient capital allocators are the people who have been the most efficient capital allocators. I think we can agree that sort of the people who have been the most successful in business should be the ones deciding these things. And ultimately what we're going to need for the best technology for the future is a lot of power. You think the Saudi wowdies are the most efficient at allocating capital? Some of the ideas I have in mind for my next business venture are going to need a lot of power. A lot of power. I love meatballs. Who the fuck are you? And I love super high taxes, but boy, am I happy. I'm the happiest dude you could ever imagine. Are you just an Italian? Who are you? You don't like Arabic? I hate Italians. I don't care about your opinion. You're small and puny. I am looking at big picture things, which is frankly, I don't care if the nuclear weapons, if it turns into weapons, I'm going to live forever. I know who bolder you are. Are these yours? Who are we? Okay. Hold on. I want to ask you more about, wait, so what exactly, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you thinking about this nuclear program? I'm as pumped as I am about nuclear as pumped. That's a cool thing to be, by the way. It's a cool thing. Even I think that because many people are needlessly critical of nuclear power and they're usually wrong. Even about the history of their own country, like Germany, they usually young Germans are very wrong about the history of like the green's impact on nuclear power. Are you just a truck? No. Can't wait to live with you. You're a Swedish man. And you're- Famously, they've been very anti-immigrant. Oh, that's true. That's true. Wait, wait. A-Truck, can you guess? Because this is Indians. Are you Elon Musk? Are you- Close. I'm a transhumanist billionaire who wants to live forever in a machine. Close. Okay. Wait, quick on the story. I just want to make sure I understand honestly for real, because we did do a little bit. So- It was kind of hard for the first one. Yeah. Okay. Here's what I want to understand. We were going to give the UAE nuclear enrichment. We were going to give Saudi Arabia. We already did. We made a deal- The UAE would already happen? The UAE is an example of a deal that happened a long time ago. Saudi Arabia wants to follow suits, but the difference is there's way fewer like restrictions and oversight in how the uranium can be enriched in Saudi Arabia in this deal. And that- In the original deal, there was a lot of oversight. Yes. And now in that sort of desperation, you're saying that Trump is removing the oversight just to get the deal passed, but they have to recognize Israel. Because he likes making deals. He loves making deals. Yeah. And this looked like it was going to go through, and it had a bunch of criticism because of the lack of restrictions and oversight. The idea is that, oh, because of this, even obviously Saudi Arabia at their word is saying they're not going to develop a nuclear weapon. Well, I'm from the sun goes down at 2 p.m. I just don't think we should raise- We should raise taxes. I just think we should raise taxes a lot. We need a few more of those plants. All right, next story. It's about Netflix. Big, big company going through some tough times in their stock. It's about a corporate retreat gone wrong. This is Kevin Bailey. He makes $1.1 million a year as a Netflix executive. And I want to ask you what- Actually, this is a great time to ask you guys what you would do. Okay. So you guys are at a corporate retreat. You're at a corporate retreat. And it's a trust and wellness exercise. Do we have guest speakers or like maybe a presenter like BTS? No. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. No, BTS is not there. No, you're at a corporate wellness retreat. And they say we're gonna do a trust exercise where everybody can just be honest with each other. So we all become closer as an executive team. Okay. And they ask you to reveal like, what's your biggest, darkest secret or something you're uncomfortable about? Okay. Like, and I don't know what you guys would do in that situation. But, you know, there's a bit of a risk because it's a corporate environment. So Kevin Bailey here. And I do like corporate environments. Okay. You do. Okay. You do. So this is Sendero Ranch. Sometimes corporate environments, friends are like family, really. They're co-workers. That's what they want. Well, I think they can rejuvenate a stagnating economy. But this is just Netflix. You know what I would say to that answer? So it's not only rejuvenating any economy. This is just Netflix. Okay. Okay. I would say there's a part of me inside that I've been scared to show my friends and family, but maybe one day I'll learn to accept myself and they'll love me for who I am. Okay. So you are similar to Kevin in this situation. Cool. So Kevin has a dark secret. Which is that, no, no, he doesn't love BTS. He has a dark secret, which he uses ketamine to cope with his mother's death, which is really not a problem. But he says it in the Netflix, they ask him for his dark secret. He says it and they say it's trust and safety. No worries. He's here. And then he finds out that after the retreat, he's charged with, uh, like drug use by the company. And then they fire him. They fire him because of what he said during the trust exercise at the wellness retreat. So he is now in a rampage lawsuit against the company. That's the worst to be vulnerable about who you really are. And people don't even respond positively. Sorry, go ahead. A man, a man keeps it close to the vest. He doesn't. He made a mistake and which is rare for corporate executives. No, you're right though. Honestly, I would, it's rare for these fucking corporate executives to do anything of fucking value. To be honest, that's what, that's just what I think. I mean, you say that, but I watched this movie where one of the kind of like managers of, yeah. What is you paid money to a fucking corporate shill? So they could. They could keep you sitting in your seats, consuming slop. I mean, to be honest with Netflix, wake up, dude, wake up. Have you, have you seen K-pop demon hunters? No. So the manager, have you read? There's a lot of, it's like a really good guy. I would love you to get on some reading. I could some literature. Is there more to this story? No, there's actually no more of this story. The story is that he's in a currently in an ongoing lawsuit with this, uh, corporate machine where he opened up one aspect of his real life and then was shot. Shot down by these fucking skinwalkers and suits. I just feel like, yeah, I mean, you come down, but he could be golden. If he's just honest with his friends and family about his ketamine use, have you seen K-pop demon hunters? Who, who, who is, no. Have you seen gave up demon hunters? It's, it's a beautiful, I haven't seen it. Have you woken up and broken your chains? Okay. Unshackle your chains. I like your passion. Okay. I like your passion. I do. I I'm wondering here because, uh, is this a, is this a civil suit? Is this a, is it, is this a criminal trial? Is the government stepping in here in any way? In no way is the government stepping in here, although they should. The government, the government should step in. The government should step in. Honestly, Netflix should be nationalized. I would argue that it's terrifying to hear something like the. Government. Uh, is here to help. That's not really what it's for. It's not terrifying. It's actually awesome. Uh, the government should be stepping in at all points and should nationalize Netflix. And that would stop crimes like this from happening. You're starting to sound like commie. You got me. You're just literally communist. Wow. Early snipe. Great job. Hardcore communist. Are you just a guy that's seen K-pop demon hunters guy who has only seen one movie and relates everything to that. And I feel like if he's just honest with his friends, they'll come together and they'll perform at the concert. Oh my God, you've got to see K-pop demon hunters. Everything can basically come back to the messages learned in K-pop demon hunters. Now I got to wonder, because this exec seems like he's probably a good guy. He might've made a mistake. What sort of, has there been any trickle down effects? Are you Ronald Reagan? I'm Ronald Reagan, parentheses, loves trickle down. I got to say. economics wait is there any other than this guy got reprimanded for ketamine he didn't get reprimanded he got fired he got fired yeah but is there anything else i mean no not really is this related okay this is an actual follow-up to this because didn't their their share price is going through like a historic fall off right now oh right yeah i could tell you what's going on with netflix as a company does that have anything to do with this no no no honestly their revenue growth is just slow uh but okay i think it's an interesting story in that the guy opened up in a retreat and they literally fired i mean it's not much more he's prompted and then wait did is anyone shared what he shared at the retreat no he would the ketamine use oh it was that he did the ketamine yeah he shared a vulnerable moment that he's been using ketamine since his mom died and then they fired him when he got back to the office you know for birth i'll give uh i'll steel man for ketamine yeah i know i was so locked into ronald raymond that i thought you meant that he answered the question while on ketamine no he wasn't on ketamine the thing anyway his lawyer i guess i can tell you a couple more his lawyers found every single instance of his boss drinking at a work event to show that like this is an insane double standard wait dude this is so okay so for people who are not aware ketamine is now like prescribed for people with anxiety depression all sorts of things this is like disgusting this is like a common thing now uh yeah a lot of people do it it is surprising to me like if he if he was like guys i'm doing heart like black tar heroin at work to cope with my mom's death i would get it kind of it's like ketamine though okay also here's the real question do you think there could he should be allowed to say anything in the trust and safety circle you think so i mean yes you should be able to right you should be able to tell your friends you're actually half demon but okay i would never actually believe that at netflix they would keep that secret that's and you're right i mean you're right these fucking corporate shows you can't trust them as far as you can throw them i 100 get it do you think the ketamine should be given back to the means of production yeah well yeah a hundred percent each ketamine of his means i think everyone should have as much ketamine as they can because they can eat it's like oh all right all right sorry next we're going to talk about autonomous vehicles in london turns out that there's many people in this hat who probably don't have a lot of good opinions about these news stories or relevant opinions all right uh hey you know what's cool there's a battle going on in london right now all right it's a tragedy it's called the battle of no what is the what was the world war ii all right right real quick for a joke what was the name of the bombing in world war ii the blitz of london was that it was it just called the bombing yeah right the blitz of london i know okay i mean many people call it many things okay all right i mean there's a battle going on in london right now between the regular people and the millionaires and the billionaires that's right really you're gonna drop the accent right away wonder who that could be without the fucking accent how can i do without the accent uh no okay i'm gonna give you guys my pitch and then i'm gonna give you guys my pitch and then you know the the core details here and then i'll let you know what i really think okay in london autonomous vehicles they're finally starting to launch and there's a battle going on between three major companies first off waymo talked about a bunch they're the dominant ones in the united states and they started testing in april of this year so they got like 100 cars it's in a small area in london still have drivers so they're in the testing phase and it's their first international market alongside tokyo this is waymo trying to expand outside the u.s okay that's player number one player number two uber and wave in june uber said they're going to enter soon wave is a uk company that makes the software for self-driving cars kind of like applied intuition where they're not making the car but they're making the software uber's invested in them so those two are going to pair up it's actually wave makes the software uber makes the you know taxi app and then ford is making the car they don't have an official date but again a month ago they're like hey we're going to launch in the coming months we're just waiting on the regulatory approval and then they're like hey we're just waiting on the regulatory approval you'll be able to use the uber app and now as of today the third contender has begun testing it is lyft and baidu who teamed up which i was not aware of baidu is the biggest chinese autonomous vehicle player so they have essentially uber of you know waymo in china they're about the same size of china they're in 20 cities uh they're huge and baidu makes all of their own stuff they're the only company in this list that is making the car and the software and the app so i guess a year ago lyft and baidu partnered up and they're like hey lyft you will manage baidu's robo taxi hubs uh in certain spots in europe so they're starting to test right now with drivers and they're also pending on regulations so now you have three drivers or three players all in london right now kicking off testing waiting for the london government to give the okay this is basically the kickoff for europe and you know whoever can dominate probably dictate a lot of their success around europe up until march a couple months ago uh the uk government was doing a call for evidence that ended and now in may they said applications are open you can go see these on the uk government um but right now it was supposed to kind of be like all cleared up and they were going to give companies the okay and instead they uh are still waiting and doing doing their thing they're taking a long time i mean i imagine the london cappies like would be upset about this transition that is potentially automating away their jobs but at the same time the the pros and cons of the different companies launching at the same time competing against one another there's a lot to consider here i just think the working class needs a voice they need a voice of the regular people and i think that these big companies are trying to take away jobs from the regular average worker i think that's a good point and i just think the sort of sniping and name calling that's been going on ultimately it needs to stop now check out this drive and 9 11 was bad wait like god it exploded what do you think bernie dude this is if you're an audio listener i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm so sorry uh i have to i feel like you really you have a strong message and i appreciate that about you because you go back to it a lot but i think you are quick to criticize technologies that could have long-term advantages and disadvantages and it's really hard to say what could be good or bad about them ah well so if i were to tell you that i really think that the millionaires and the billionaires are the problem and i think there's problems with them okay so you agree but i think there's a lot to consider but do you agree i agree but also disagree what about these major tech companies coming in maybe about taxi drivers losing jobs which is obviously a huge part of this you have to feel for the taxi drivers that are losing their jobs okay but you also have to be sympathetic to the to the advantages that this technology could present to the city the efficiency at which people would move around the alternatives what do you think what do you think what do you think fence sitter what do you think is that yours i think that we need to consider all of the possibilities because it is nuanced okay all right no let me okay let me get let me do a couple fun points here because ours was easy so let me give you a couple fun bullet points and then you keep giving feedback right okay first off why don't you you read a bullet point and then ask me if i think it's good or bad okay okay uber right they're fighting against the three players uber baidu waymo and what's crazy is that uber is also partnered with their rival baidu yeah baidu runs their own app in 2025 partnered with uber to operate robo taxi services in the middle east and asia plus the other big three chinese av companies uber has partnered with all of them and has agreed that they're going to run some of the app section of these cars what do you think about that it's hard to say oh my god why is it hard to say well you just introduced so much nuance that i wasn't familiar with he's nuanced everything's nuanced everything hold on let me give you let me get two more fun bits okay uber is also partnered with their rival waymo uber and waymo are also partnered together waymo's cars you can order them in phoenix arizona and then also like in austin in atlanta waymo got added in some place uber through uber there must be advantages and disadvantages i love asking the funny question wait wait wait characters decide i want to understand the story oh i i need to understand are you just telling me that every self-driving car company is becoming incestuous in all the major cities of the globe or what what particularly uber but yes this big competition is heating up in london while simultaneously they're all partnering with each other in other markets around the world so they're fighting in the ones they could compete in and the ones where uber i guess they're like picking battlegrounds i mean that's uber's thing right now like they are not making any cars neither is lyft uh but i think the the real thing to consider here is Aiden's opinion on Baidu's strategy, the Chinese maker. Yeah, what do you think about what Baidu's doing? It's so beautifully complicated. So it's really hard to say. Could we wait for it to play out? Do you have hobbies? Hobbies? Do you have things you like? Well, I think I have trouble. I do enjoy things, but then I think about the things I don't like about them. And so it's really hard to come to anything clear. Yeah, that makes sense. I am a professional fence sitter. I have no idea. I am a guy who refuses to give hard opinion on anything because it's nuanced. See, if we didn't have that on this show, people wouldn't get a balanced perspective. I appreciate you being here, Mr. Nuance. You were George Bush? Yeah. Okay, I was just making sure. You said 9-11 was bad. Yeah. Check out this drive. But you also planned it, so it's tough to figure out what that is. Autonomous vehicles are wild, though. This is a weird little, as you said, incestuous thing. Yeah, it's a weird story. I don't know who's going to win, honestly. The Chinese ones being thrown in is kind of weird. It's really weird that Baidu, who is doing everything, is also partnering with Lyft and Uber to have them run the platform when they have a platform app that is working in China. So it's really strange to see how they're kind of fighting, but arguably, whoever kind of kicks off in London successfully will have a major foothold and advantage across Europe. But maybe they'll keep partnering with each other. Isn't taxis like a massive industry in London? They have a big. I wonder what they're doing to fight. Yeah, I guess I don't know specifically. I mean, something that we said in our Applied Intuition episode is I think what's more exciting about autonomous vehicles is consumer autonomous vehicles, both because that's where you get the biggest safety benefits and you're not taking, you know, you're not like attacking what is a huge industry for many, many people. So, I mean, it'll probably get pushback from the public as well once it starts running. But again, all these companies right now are testing. All this automation taking jobs and putting money in the hands of the millionaires and of course. Now check out this drive. Of course, the billionaires. All right, the new one. Support for the show comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than $300 million on travel, with zero booking fees, no contracts and no BS. More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com slash box. 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Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Next story. Oh, we got a fun one. Ukraine strikes Iranian ship. I don't know how I'm going to do this. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Aiden, what the heck's going on over there? Okay. So I'm just going to tell it like it is first. Yeah. From what I know. So an interesting development in, you know, one of two wars in a way or maybe an update in two wars at once. I mean, they're not Ukraine struck an Iranian cargo ship killing one person, one Iranian on board of the cargo ship and one ship. It was one one ship in the Caspian Sea. It was transporting strikes way more ships. Anyway, go ahead. We'd be we'd be sure they know. I mean, I mean, I don't care, but yeah, I mean, sometimes we have to do some things to protect the country. I just don't think it's like one ship is a big thing to brag about, but it's sorry. Go ahead. So so Ukraine strikes this one Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, and it was transporting military equipment to Russia. Now, the the brief fallout since it's happened is Iranian officials have threatened retaliation, basically saying like this is a break of the UN charter for this to happen. And Ukraine in kind of response is like you have no standing to be a victim given that you're supporting Russia in a war with us. I think while this seems small scale, you might be wondering why does this matter? Russia, since the invasion of Ukraine, has been using a lot of cheap and effective drones, a lot of which come from Iran. And Ukraine has also recently now been assisting the Gulf states defend themselves from Iranian drones because of the experience that they have gained. Through the war offering their services and knowledge in combating drones to the Gulf states that are now. Do you think like we had to go to war, though? I which one of the two Ukraine Russia? We can't let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's like I don't like the guy, but like we had to do that, right? We this it this boat didn't have nuclear weapons on it. Well, it's part of the larger war part of the whole thing. I mean, it's I don't even care, but I'm just saying like we had to this war had to happen. Well, you might find you might find this interesting. Then Ukraine today, Zelensky is meeting with Trump. It might actually be happening while we're recording with this. And it's because of this attack. It's seen as Zelensky's like opportune time to potentially tie Trump back into the Ukraine and Russia war to give Ukraine more support from the American side because of this supposed alignment in the conflicts. And this is like an example like Iran is supplying Russia with like drones and military Trump is Trump is tying in more with Zelensky. No, Zelensky wants to convince Trump of the relevant ties between these two wars in order to gain back American support for the Ukrainian side. And what is Trump thing? And the argument it's they they are having a meeting today. I think it's literally happening while we're filming this episode and it hasn't happened yet. But the argument from a Zelensky position is that like look Russia is giving Iran intelligence on like American targets in the war that's unfolding for you guys right Iran is supplying military aid to Russia in the war that we have. We are relevant allies to each other still especially now since the Iran war started. Please now provide us with the support. Did he did he I could convince Trump better than that. You fucking give him like a gold drone and he'll and he'll be like, oh, wow. Yeah. No, you're right. We should definitely support him a gold nuke. I don't know. Can I be real with you? I mean regardless of the situation. I don't think these three dumbasses know what they're talking about which three dumbasses and I but I will I I stay tuned in to let them know that I'll stay. How tuned in are you? I I'm tuned in every week. I do what I watch plenty of news. It usually comes from just this show actually and I have and I got to say you just you guys all time watching all news talking about Trump and saying some shit about gifts. What did you say? Yeah, I'm saying I could do a better deal than Zelensky convincing Trump is not that hard to be clear. Okay. I mean like I don't like the guy. I'm not going to stand here and defend him. I don't like him even more. He's pretty good at deals like his he's he's done a lot of good deals for this country. I actually have no idea who you are. Are you just like are you like Jared Kushner? I have no idea who anybody is. And they're all balding. Did you wear a suit? I've got no hair. You've got no hair. You've got no hair. You have the least hair and you're fat. Could be two people. Could be Aiden or a commenter. And to be honest with you, I cannot. I don't think I actually listen to any of the news that was presented to me in the previous 30 minutes. I've never listened to any news. I weigh 800 pounds. I have no fucking idea who don't. i don't know i didn't even read the paper i've got no idea i just i just think people need to give our president more of like some respect honestly he's it's an important office i think we should make love to him okay i'm actually on board with that a little bit i'm more on board i'm actually on board with that a little bit my username on reddit is lazy dash dictionary and i don't think the show knows what it is but i do like talking about it you're a commenter you're a commenter you're a commenter i don't know who doug is let me okay uh i have even less of an idea than you do who did you vote for because i'll be honest i don't know who doug is i don't know who doug is i don't know who doug is i'll be honest with you i'll say it i voted for trump in the last election i voted for him twice i'm guy who has to one-up everything that's really funny i never would have guessed that wait are you political you guys come saying you're not political i'm not i'm not to me politics is a waste of fucking time it's interesting because a lot of your answers are do you feel political yeah you're talking about trump you're i yeah i voted for him i think he's doing a good job but like it's not i don't care it's like it's not a big deal politics is not something i care are you a gen z male i'm a i'm guy who's not political who's extremely maga who's extremely maga yeah the i'm not political guy who's extremely a tough one this story's kind of fucking crazy on a real level because it literally is like soft beginnings of world war three it's crazier than that no it's chill no sorry ukraine but ukraine's sunk i didn't realize they had the capability to sink boats right now that's crazy no they've been sinking all sorts of boats i think in my brain i've been stuck in the like ukraine is mired in this war with russia not like they have naval capabilities or naval striking capabilities right i don't know if you know but uh i don't know but i mean the point is that ukraine is striking iranian ships and now this war has it's like if iran has russia and china as proxies and america is uh proxy with israel and i guess ukraine i mean we're getting back into them i heard the deal went well i heard the talk i was doing the character earlier but i heard that the meeting has happened and zielinski said good things about it yeah i mean my involvement so i don't know what was in the talk at all yet uh but the the supposed line is that zielinski is positioning himself to get us aid back and capitalize on this time in the ukrainian war uh where it's going well basically like here are the reasons that we should be supporting one another because you're involved in this other conflict that has a bunch of crossover give resources back and at this time when we have seemingly have russia on a bit of the back foot uh better chemistry yeah i mean i gotta read this i mean i heard kind of the the angle on it is that the u.s is the ukraine ukraine has been doing a lot better and so u.s is kind of jumping more back on the ship now that it's like because they want trump would love like a wartime good news yeah like something that was a win and he's like i mean imagine if he gets to if he i'm not saying that it's definitive of whether or not they could get through this like with or without the u.s i'm not gonna i'm not like a fortune teller but if he's hopping on this train where things are looking good already and then he gets to be the guy that says the u.s like ended the ukraine russia war during this i feel like no one will give him credit for it i feel like he'll do all that great work and then you know i don't want to say like and the left and the left doesn't give him any credit and it's just weird like i i don't give a everyone's got their own opinion you seem like you give a shit you come on you come on the show every week and you say you don't give a shit and i it's like i don't care and this is why i think what they want i just i i just think he should no one gives him an ounce of credit everyone wants to jump on his throat for every little thing and maybe he's making some real progress to save this fucking country i think we have joe biden threw in the fucking dirt four years ago we have one more story okay we have one more story where we all get to pull one more thing okay all right all right all right all right all right all right we're running out of characters and we still have a lot more stories to get to but we'll do it for this one i want to talk about what's going on with ebay uh this is a long running story to be clear i've heard about this story for years and years now and it finally has a resolution so i want to talk about it this is aina and david steiner seen here in their old age good traditional americans they are actually i think a nice couple this is them back in 2002 when this all started they ran a little blog in the early days of the internet called e-commerce bites where they talked about selling things online and they would write little blogs talking about the challenges and tribulations of selling things online and again you can't see it here but i'll scroll it up they had like 43 comments on these it's not like insanely popular but it was a decent blog separate story ebay around this time is founded and ebay has uh this on their website called their five core values we believe people are basically good we believe everybody has something to contribute we encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated these are core values of the ebay company that are on the website at the time now if you look at the website now this is gone this is gone uh take down during this lawsuit anyway go back to these guys i and david steiner they start writing blogs during the uh formative years of ebay about problems and challenges with ebay and certain sellers like just certain bad things ebay does how their algorithm doesn't work certain time their search is bad they change certain things how they've screwed certain sellers and so they're just putting these messages out that are true to people in the world ebay has an internal security team designed to protect their executives at functions but this security team begins to warp over the years it starts to get more and more uh militant and they start deciding that it is their core mission to take down enemies of ebay within without this is a real story and so i do like a stalking scandal begins where they decide to take down it is their mission to shut down aina and david steiner from publishing their blog and so they begin a multi-year harassment campaign where they mail threatening deliveries to them like live cockroaches a bloody pig's head math and a few mgs mask and a funeral wreath they're just trying to get unwelcome people out okay and i'm loving the background color of that page that's an interesting okay that's a really interesting take on it i would probably disagree with you but i'll find out in a second i uh so i'm sorry so anyway this goes on for years and years and years and they sue and they are just being punished by ebay until finally the resolution is that happened today that they were awarded a massive massive win a 54 million dollar settlement that not only uh makes ebay pay for all the harassment but sends some ebay people to jail for because what they did is literally illegal in multiple years of harassment so i want to know what you guys think but first wow i think there's nothing wrong with the executives of that company promoting ebay first no totally what were you talking about that uh i might have to go here in a second could you i mean read one more story to me uh i'm sorry continue i i just that was your story yeah sorry what were you saying what did you say what did you think about this we got he got you we're ending on a strong one guys i'm realizing we got three of mine i think pikachu's the wrong color what are you so racist i'm nick fuentes i'm your pikachu i'm bush right after hearing about 9-11 how do you how do i present the story this was tough this was tough bro when you wrote that one doug yeah these are all mine i like that bush is in there twice um you guys have any real thoughts in the story it's kind of fucking crazy it's kind of insane yeah ebay first bro um all right now i'll read a lot of the story i can tell you more about it but you can tell me if you have any questions 53 million dollars and people who worked at they go to jail i actually feel pretty cool about that it's an honest point i took a long time though was this like security guards who are the fucking yes lunatics who are doing this that part of the story is crazy they got this security guard who's like ex-cia and he's just super into it and over time he slowly fired every member of the security staff and hired them with young blonde women who were like on contract work so they were afraid to be fired and he would like he called them i think his name was bill bill's angels okay and yeah that's an interesting point on this show i know well i never thought about what pikachu would say about some of these things and that's honestly a good point the friendship was the power inside that we needed the whole time um no but he runs this and everyone that works for him is afraid because he fires women constantly to hire new people and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna to hire new ones and so they end up just doing whatever he says and he ends up asking them to kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you like send horses heads and and harass people and he thinks he's part he's like he's an insane person you ask adish to do stuff like that has literally gotten those packages yet i've been telling adish to say go to a forwarding address some guy has been getting um so anyway i guess good for them because they literally been dealing with like 18 years of harassment and they finally got the lifelong payout that I don't think e-commerce bites is going to give them. Yeah, I don't know. So that guy went to jail presumably then? No, I don't think so. I think honestly, the woman that's still, I think the jail time is still being meted out. The payment has been. The only woman who's guaranteed going to jail is the woman who worked for him who's like 24 years old and admitted to everything. She like confessed. So that kind of fucking sucks. I mean, I hope that continues to go up. Yeah, I think it goes up. I think she's admitting on what he did, and so it should go up. But yes, insane story. They were litigating for over 10 years. It was a very, very long trial, yeah. The trial started in 2012 or started in 2002? No, no, no, no. They started the blog in 2002. eBay harassed them for many, many years. I think the trial started closer to 2019, right before COVID, but it's been many years. Not to be Aiden's fence-sitter character again. It doesn't feel like it just takes seven years to be like, hey, that was wrong. You shouldn't send horse heads to people. Yeah, I don't know why it took so long. It's insane. I think you had a very well-staffed team of lawyers. I'm sure there's nuance here. Some people grow up in families where they send horse heads to each other, and it's considered a sign of respect, and we should be, have we considered? Are you a nuance guy again, or are you Pikachu? Yeah, I'm just nuance. Because Pikachu also talks like this. It's actually the same character. Well, if you want to hear a story about long lawsuits, i did have a little update on the european union fining google uh so recently uh for a breach in eu rules over preferential treatment in search results uh the eu has fined google about a billion u.s dollars 890 million euros i heard trump said um they're stealing from our companies the europe is trying to steal from our companies. Yeah, yeah. He basically said this is like an unfair tax on American companies that are like performing well. But the issue is that Google is supposedly treating shopping, hotel, transport, and sport results listings, like prioritizing their own versions of those over third-party listings on the site and like not giving equivalent opportunity for those to like rise in search results. Is there an example? What's something that Google has that? Um, I mean for like, so Google has a built in hotel surfacing, like, like UI and like price comparison and like price checker, right? If you Google, uh, hotels, Vienna or something, it's going to give me a Google, you'll get like Google's version of that. Or if you're into sports, if you Google like sports standards, you'll often get Google's version of sports data over like embedded into the search result, but you would have to go and like click into ESPNs or like do something else like that. Right. So they're prioritizing their own like first party products and, uh, they are getting fined because this does break a U S rule. And I thought what was, sorry, an EU rule. And something I thought was interesting about this is in the Reuters article that I was initially looking at about this, it was covering like the history of them being fined. And I did recall from like the late 2010s that they were getting hit with huge fines around then and then like navigating those uh the appeal process of those things and uh i think just within the past like i think since 2017 they have been fined like and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you and he's like oh my god i'm gonna kill you win from the jump. - Yeah, I got to imagine like owning the web browser of your up is probably worth more than a billion dollars or whatever whatever this costs i mean that one was for four and a half billion so it was more that's a pretty big number yeah certainly a drag for what easiest comparison number is what a month ago now two months ago they sold stock to raise 80 billion dollars so there you go so they were you know they were like you know i think this year we'll just get 80 billion dollars in cash so we can buy more data centers yeah but they're spending it all i mean i i do think uh i saw i just it just feels like if if of that 80 billion they have to set aside 2 billion for lawsuits they'll probably make it through okay like it does feel like it's still a fairly small amount of money overall i think it's really relevant though because google this is google's free cash flow for the past uh 25 years of its business you'll notice it's been gargantuan and for the first time ever it has turned negative this is like actual money left over in their pocket after expenses after the quarter so uh yeah it's google for the longest time could probably shrug off fines no problem they had infinite miles of money coming in i'd say this is the first quarter where it's like oh this kind of sucks yeah this is the kind of the oh this is from the ft article on it right i think the in the ft article they're kind of emphasizing is like okay now this cost of doing business approach that they or mentality they might have been able to have for a long time is this is this the tipping point where it changes towards the future because you're trying to like outspend all of your ai competitors this is the first time we're like they are actually genuinely short of the cash or there's pressure to spend all of this so that one so that one billion usd you're getting hit for it even if you're not going to pay it until like six years from now it still means a lot yeah no that makes sense they might have to change i know that like when the eu did the the lawsuit on apple for the usbc they had to change they changed they didn't just pay that fine and i remember also there's the lawsuit on privacy data gdpr they called it and i remember being at nvidia at the time and everybody had to scramble to change a bunch of software and things just because the eu did a fine like nobody wanted to ignore it yeah because it was such a big deal that was crazy i remember gdpr i was working at smash gg at the time and like we had to last minute change everybody had to like scramble i forget is that the one where now every website ever i have to agree to cookies and i say no and everybody loves this is that that one i think that was the end game of it and i do think the end game of some of these fines is going to be like obviously there's a lot more to gdpr but they're gonna do the most bare bones yeah count as competition like whatever it'll it'll pop up i don't i don't know how they'll do it but it's weird because a search result still has to pick a winner right what if the winner is chrome i don't understand it's weird what is like the oversight of that process to make sure that you're fairly like who's who's judging the fairness of that process one of the one of the silly things when people criticize chrome i believe sundar said this of like we never this is when they were like in congress during joe biden's administration being accused of political censorship basically and you know republicans are saying you google are making it so conservative viewpoints aren't easy to find and you're suppressing us and blah blah blah and sundar i believe this was in his congressional hearing said we don't do that we don't have anybody who's like there is going to say yeah this topic gets boosted this topic is going to be like pushed down and then the counter argument i think from like naval or something was that's the entire purpose of google is to rank things to tell you what to search for that is that is the product what do you mean you don't rank it i mean even if it's not a person picking topics day to day there's not like a guy shuffling papers and deciding what appears like that is fundamentally what a search engine is so it's like of course you're prioritizing things in some way yeah i guess i don't know what the argument is on like whether or not if it's entirely driven by user preferences and data like what they click on the most yeah that's the argument of like we're just giving what people want to see but then you you also you are making the algorithm that determines that um yeah it's weird it's chicken and egg right because once it's big enough that's how people get their opinion and they're right that there's not a guy who's sitting there going yes more joe rogan today like that's not how it works but they software engineered an algorithm yeah it's weird interesting you know what else interesting company yeah spacex yeah oh yeah dude okay quite interesting week perry i sent you a video and this is just some space footage just to get people excited while i say a bunch of numbers the spacex ipo was a month ago uh look at that rocket incredible now just look at that rocket don't think too much about these numbers i'm about to say ipo did 135 a share by day four the spacex ipo shares cost 200 they had a valuation of 2.64 trillion dollars that is almost as much as airpods and nike combined and germany um yeah you're about right actually you know perry if you just pull up spacex stock so they had four days that were just cooking they were cooking and elon musk became a trillionaire and peaked at 1.3 trillion dollar net valuation but then as we'll see in a sec over the last month it has been plummeting so uh 10 days ago i mean this is like a month ago that this launched right as of 10 days ago they had to they had to cancel their most recent like starship launch and as soon as they did that stock drops five percent more it goes down to 123 a share so it's now officially below their initial offering um and at this point the valuation of spacex is down to 1.63 trillion this is as of i think about 10 days ago but you can see it's gone down basically even more since then which is just a crazy stat in one month they lost a trillion dollars of valuation um so you know short middle little update this past friday a couple days ago they do another starship launch that's the youtube video that we had up very briefly and they do successfully launch starship which is their you know big new rocket they get it into space they get it to land the booster also lands they haven't tested reusability yet you know the cool stuff where it lands on the matchstick and then it's ready to go but they dropped it into the ocean it was all very controlled that went very well and so this is the closest they've gotten to this world where they actually have a reusable giant rocket again the whole underpinning of the premise of spacex's value is one they're a rocket company and this is important to that two they have starlink which is a genuinely great business that you know in theory this will allow them to send up more satellites but then three it's space data centers right that's why they have supposedly are worth this valuation grok and croc they own grok and grok a revenue center for the future we will be able to uh run grok in space if all things go well so starship is spacex's like giant literal moonshot project it's also the one that is supposed to work with nasa to get to the moon right like as soon as like next year 2028 um so this this went well they're still like a year behind but they're at least getting closer to the idea of we have starship a gigantic rocket that is reusable which is like the the thing underpinning any of their supposed valuation so i think it's pretty interesting there's some cool you know various things to say about this but i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and i think it's pretty cool to see that they're going to have a lot of value in spacex and reiterated quote that he thinks it's an outperform rating on spacex insisting that the $107 stock is worth twice that he pointed out this is the same ship they're gonna they're gonna send to the moon every single wall street analyst is saying this is a $200 stock pump pump pump hell yeah it's crazy and it keeps declining and what's interesting douglas douglas uh-huh is that on august 6th like really soon a massive all this share trading and this decline has happened while there's only a tiny amount of the flow like four percent of the shares and that's that is really conducive to a pump and that got it for a few days and it's declining on august 6th like like another 28 like a massive amount of the company i don't know the number numbers currently there's 639 million shares up for trading by the end of this year there's going to be 5.3 billion yeah exactly okay it's gonna increase yeah over august and then the next three months there's like a massive amount of insider shares that suddenly dump on the market and it's that is so much selling pressure on top of what already is down below its ipo thing about this george bush you just heard about 9-11 what about this another tower hitting into your mental psyche invade for 20 years we have to do it we have to invade space we gotta send our ships into space there's no other solution than to send our troops into the middle east for the next 20 years get carl robo on the phone i heard the moon's getting wmds and and and do not double check the workers shame on you uh yeah i mean twice actually you you're more of a finance slut than i am would you say so in theory if if you know that the amount of shares is going to almost 10x over the next couple months yeah does that sort of force uh an almost like artificial suppression of the price because you know it's going to come out it's happening right now so all the employees that have millions and millions 10 20 million dollars in spacex shares they are very very concerned about the short-term movements of the price before their lockup ends because if it drops a lot they went from having 20 million dollars when they actually sell to having 10 or 5 or what it's a big difference and so all of the employees have been doing what Mark Cuban did in the 2000s when he got his big stock payout and couldn't sell it quickly. They're called basically like strangles. It's where you like, you give up all your, you're basically selling an option that if the stock goes up, I have to give you the stock and I have to sell it at the price it is right now. So I get none of the upside if it goes up. But I'm buying a bet against SpaceX. They're buying a put option on SpaceX. This is all complicated option stuff, but basically almost all the employees are using these complicated webs to bet against SpaceX to save themselves from protection if the stock goes down so they can keep their amount. It's like they're covering the upside and their downside, just like it's strangling, so you put it in one spot. And when they do that, the market makers who take that bet have to hedge the bet because they're never trying to actually make an actual bet. They're just trying to fuck the middleman. So they hedge their bet by selling SpaceX stock. So even though they haven't yet sold, they're essentially selling early through this bet. And that is a lot of the reason why there's pressure early. So I don't know if on August 6th, it'll rapidly change things because everyone's already betting against, they're making it happen early almost. Everyone knows what's going to happen. But in theory, some of the people who would be buying right now, who would be interested are like, I'm going to wait till this flood of new shares hits the market and then I'll start buying. And in theory, it could go back up. It's quite possible that like people are worried about what could happen with this and they want everything to settle down. Okay. But it does seem like this was a elaborate scheme to pump things early and it has run out of steam pretty quickly. And the real loser, of all this is not Elon Musk, who is still making ungodly amounts of money. Sorry, I'm having a stroke. It's Anthropic and OpenAI who had other big IPO plans. Yeah. And this not doing well is a huge, I mean, IPOs are very momentum driven. They happen, they like to cluster together into like a frenzy mania wave. If this one's doing badly a month in, it is such a dour effect on their IPOs and they might even pull them or delay them. There's a real shot that OpenAI like tries to push it for a better moment because doing it now, there's a chance it just flops. Like people are afraid because of what happened with SpaceX. So anyway, interesting story. Yeah, I definitely think it coincides with what's happening with Tesla, which Tesla had a pretty interesting earnings report where they said, listen, car revenue is probably the worst it's ever been. Like in terms of like profits, I'm sorry. They're actually selling a lot of cars, but the profits are the worst it's ever been. And they reported record profits, but the record profits comes because Tesla owns some shares of SpaceX and they booked that IPO bump as it's a one-time thing. But if you take that out, Tesla actually had one of their worst quarters ever. And so their stock is also getting cratered. So Elon Musk is only going to have a mere 500 to 600. I don't know what he's at right now. I can tell you, and this is, it's been a fun episode and I'm sorry to drop something a little somber from $1.3 trillion a month ago. He's now, he's now only 792 billionaire. This is tragic. You hate to see it happen because. Because I thought he was different. Well, what do you mean? I thought he was different and now he's, he's the same as all that. No, no, no. This is the hero's journey. You have to fail and go to rock bottom so that you can find your way back to the top. That's true. Right? A trillion dollars doesn't feel earned unless you really had to go through the doldrums in the 800 millions. Excuse me. He's clearly richer than he was before SpaceX IPO'd. It's a tragedy. Did he put all that work? He did work really hard. It's so fucked up. And I just don't like, I know that for you and I, we could probably feed our families on this amount, but he has a lot of kids. And really he thinks of all of us as his children. So it's just like, I don't know if he can afford, you see how grocery prices are lately. I mean, they're hot. They're hot. They're hot. No, I don't know about that. Yeah. Interesting. You're right. Definitely. Definitely. Big news. But if you just love space, good news is that the people who actually run SpaceX and do rockets, like they're making progress. We're getting closer. And, you know, again, part of us getting to the moon with the NASA program that we talked about with Mark Kelly requires this starship to be not only reusable, but also testing mid-orbit refueling, which they're supposed to do with the Apollo capsule next year, although the timelines are sort of shifting. So if you're just stoked about space and moon stuff, this is actually a really good step towards that. Stock price is kind of its own funny thing going on. I think SpaceX is a cool company that is all this stuff around it. That's weird. When Shotwell who runs it, apparently he's like a badass and heard nothing but good things from the people I spoke with who worked at SpaceX. So the people doing all the work right now, like are great as everything. I just, you know, the rocket doesn't make any money right now. It's literally like a, like you said, a moonshot business that they make their money off Starlink. Yeah. That's basically it. They have a couple of contracts for the thing, but, and all of this combined for $2 trillion, whatever it's insane. It doesn't make any sense. Um, what's the next one? Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically. So your team can spend their time on, what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. As soon as autumn rolls around and you swap your iced lattes for pumpkin spice, that's your signal to start thinking about the holidays, the decor, the gifts, the shopping lists, but more importantly, the holiday treats, cheesecakes, cookies. Is there anything? Anything better? And when the recipe calls for cream cheese, there's only one option. Philadelphia, the original cream cheese made with fresh milk and real cream. This holiday season, whether you're going all out or keeping it simple, make it really Philly good. Find your favorite holiday recipe at creamcheese.com. As soon as autumn rolls around, and you swap your iced lattes for pumpkin spice, that's your signal to start thinking about the holidays, the decor, the gifts, the shopping lists, but more importantly, the holiday treats, cheesecakes, cookies. Is there anything better? Oh, Oh, you got, tell me, you got a little something. What's been going on with old Mitch? He's playing shy. He's been a little coy. Okay. So the update on Mitch McConnell. Yeah. Is that he has not been seen in now officially 43 days. He has not shown up. Not no official communication. There was one photo that is, you know, pretty suspect, but whatever. That's it. That was clean. It could be. I actually don't know. That's the point is we don't know. Now let me clear up some communications. Yeah. He doesn't have any job. Like this is fine, right? So he's actually the Senator of Kentucky. And so, like in America in America, American Senator Mitch McConnell is supposed to be voting on things that help our government function. And he has just not shown up nor given any communication to anyone for 44 days. And so now the governor of Kentucky, who is a Democrat, Andy Beshear is demanding that he justify his weeks long unexplained as it absents from Congress or he resigns. So these he's put out this open letter. It's basically saying, listen, the people of Kentucky owe are owed an answer. Yes. The rules, the rules say that senators can do this, which is kind of crazy. I think I got the specifics. Senators can every member of Congress can essentially go on paid medical leave for as long as they want whenever they want. That's so cool that we have universal justification, universal health care and unlimited and time off for our senators. That's so sick because I'm tired of people coming for this guy's head when he's doing something that is completely above. Bored. He does not have to prove that he can walk, talk or think coherently, and he still gets paid this full time. So theoretically he could do this for years. There's no there is a idea is that before before 2024 the the governor of Kentucky could call a special election to replace him. But because the only Democrat in all of the government of Kentucky is the governor, Andy Beshear, the rest of the state legislature in 2020, he's the only Democrat in all of the government of Kentucky is the governor. Andy Beshear, the rest of the state legislature in 2020, in 2024, passed a law removing his ability to do that, almost anticipating this problem. So he cannot get rid of Mitch McConnell. He cannot call a new special election. And so Mitch could be dead. We don't, I mean, that's really a story if he's dead. I assume maybe he's just incapacitated, but he is not responding to anything. And people are coming out and saying, oh, I had conversation with him, but there is nothing on the record. There is nothing said. There's nothing. That's how I want to go out. Like my friends and family not hearing from me. me for weeks yeah just a long period of unknown just to show them yeah just exert control one last time because it says you can't yeah i'm addressing this letter to senator mitch mcconnell under the assumption that he's capable of reading and responding verbally and if he's not incapacitated by means of consciousness or cognition if you're unable to respond for either of those conditions consider this letter a demand for his senate staff to be honest and transparent with people of kandaki which is funny because all he can ask for he can't even ask him to resign he just wants them to be honest and transparent so maybe we can get a public pressure movement it's crazy i think that the thing i keep thinking is i don't think he's dead because surely it would be crazy to weaken the birdies this yeah yeah i i feel like it's just ridiculous for a senator to die and then presumably be in a space where some amount of people know that surely that leaks i i yeah i agree with you i i agree with you that i but it's funny because nothing has leaked yeah like even if he's like unwell or he has just completely gone off the grid he's a senator that we cannot ascertain or see footage of or talk to or hear about it's like really odd when you look into the story more and i do think there is motive for in some ways to just downplay this or not do anything that would lose him his seat because uh since uh lindsey graham's death the voting math on what's going on in congress is very very razor thin and so his vote i believe matter or him getting replaced could matter this thing's like it's just getting to the point where a mitch mcconnell uh absentee dead vote was gonna matter a lot i thought he was like retiring at the end of this year though right right so if there was a special election would that person only work to the end of the year i don't know the answer to that question i do not know uh it's all i know is that there is a motivation um to i mean i think the motivation could be just personally you don't want to appear as degraded mentally or physically but yeah um it is a weird story especially as lindsey graham died during these 44 days which is like a reminder of the ah it's so strange uh the much younger and healthier relative to mitch mcconnell it's what a strange uh i guess it depends on depends on the state but basically there isn't just an you know an automatic party replacement necessarily from i'm sorry yeah so in 2024 previously if there was somebody who's incapacitated the governor could just appoint a temporary senator until the next election now he is not allowed to do that they must hold a special election which will likely go to a republican because it's kentucky kentucky yeah how old is he mitch mcconnell he's spry dude he's a he's a whopping oh he's 84 84 years young can i say something crazy he's younger than i thought he was pelosi's 86 bro man we got some old fucking people in government my grandpa's 87 he's still pretty chipper trump's 80 yeah it's like there's like it's crazy that trump is 80 and he could be the young one in some meetings he could be literally like five to six years younger than 80 years old that was sick schumer 75 dude we have our 75 yeah we got some old ones but you know what it's that age comes wisdom oh one of the characters was a boomer with three paid off houses who wants you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but we didn't get that one more story uh this is about youtube i don't know if you know youtube i don't know if you know youtube i don't know if youtube's ai content policy yes uh youtube is having an ai problem like many others yeah it is it's very annoying i i look on youtube in the fields that i like to look at which is like history and economics and politics and there's a fucking wave of um basically repackaged wikipedia articles with an ai voice that have a pretty interesting title and thumb and i click them and i realize instantly that i'm watching a faceless ai slop youtube channel um tell me what would say yep yep so what is a is youtube doing about this well let's hear from one of the head of policy creators you pull this up perry here's a little bit from the vp of trust and safety on youtube i can actually allow people to make a lot of videos sometimes those videos are great and it really enhances creativity and you can create a higher volume of high quality content that we want to encourage and have in ypp but that exact same new tool can allow you to make lots of videos really quickly that are very similar they're very generic and don't really have a narrative arc and don't really show your creativity so the same technology what the hell was that wait what happened that was ai so while explaining the problems with ai the editors of this video deep fake them into various fruit costumes wait that was great we'll play it again yeah no this is talking about their policy on youtube and they did a cheeky little wow that is insane i didn't know it was that for audio listeners we're watching two people dude that means his arm right there was entirely ai generated like his bare arm below his face would have to be oh look at this is his skin there messed up wow that's that's actually his skin yeah so they thought it'd be a cheeky thing in their video explaining ai policy to have the two speakers including the vp of like trust and safety be defaked into fruit costumes every couple frames it's uh it's kind of wild and so insane timing on youtube and yeah when he's talking about that problem yeah bizarre to be like this is the time to do a cheeky thing well you could argue that the video became higher quality there's nuance is what you're saying so look i would love to sit here and say they're really cracking down on ai content because it's clearly causing some problems on his answer there they're so so here here is what the answer is uh this is a week or two ago now i was going to mention this last week we didn't have time so um youtube has come out and basically said we are not changing our policy but we're clarifying our policies because people are starting to abuse it and our key goal is quote you have to upload original and authentic content so here are the policies that already exist but they made this video specifically to call out to be like hey we're going to get stricter on these one videos are not supposed to be quote generic and repetitive so videos that are basically just the same like content farms where it's just a moderately changed thing and they're just flooding youtube with endless basically ai videos a lot of ways amazon streams i don't know how little bad for my big streams you don't even you i hate amazon streams they just how is that actually fun mogul moves if he has to upload one of those i mean the yard they talk about pee and poo every week you know i'm gonna filter that out is that gonna be no because we kind of do it different every week what's funny they've only made five episodes and the ai got enough training data trained it um number two is distressing or off-putting so if you're trying to get views by being emotionally manipulative and he gives the example of videos that show animals in distress or like minors in situations of distress so apparently a new category of videos that are starting to cause problems on youtube are people using ai not even in those like crazy cartoon videos but just to make up fake like distressing scenarios it's all over facebook bro yeah they put like cat in trouble or something and then someone saves it and then all the boomer comments like finally a good american or something yeah yeah yeah they just do like high intensity emotional situations wait and they're gonna get rid of the quality of that's fucking good crazy they are saying this is again they're not changing the policy but they're like hey this is our policy you need to be aware of this because they're clearly implying they're going to get stricter because this is now being abused i hope they do bro i really hope they do and the third one which i didn't even realize was an issue is ai personas which is where a human creates an ai persona that talks about sensitive topics like finance legal or health care so it's not just ai voiceovers it's people like this who ironically if you pull this up i tried to find this and the best thing i could find this is a video about how to make your own ai influencer who is who is all ai dude we're through the fucking looking glass bro you imagine three years ago talking about this this is like so insane how fast it's moving so there are now ai influencers that are making channels teaching other people how to make ai influencers if your character doesn't actually look and feel real the whole thing falls apart and so i spent the last couple of months oh did you different methods to make your own influencers and i'm like oh my god did you test exactly how to build 30 seconds generating this not only look real but stay consistent across hundreds of posts okay so this this is the kind of update from youtube they are trying to call this stuff out specifically and people are making these ai influencers not just for innocuous things but now for things like talking about health care and politics and stuff and youtube is basically saying like we are going to be more aggressive are they gonna like go after these people no they're just not gonna monitor these people they're just not gonna monitor these people they're just not gonna monitor these people they're just not gonna monitor these people they're saying you're gonna be booted out of the youtube partner program which to be fair it's the same thing it's the same thing they're not gonna make it if it doesn't get right right the only incentive to do this um quote what he said we are agnostic to the tools that are used to make the content so you're explicitly not saying you cannot make ai videos it's you have to follow these things you know not generic repetitive and abusing all this stuff so that that i thought was interesting it's weird man because like spotify for example found out that if they create a separate shell company that creates easy listening ai music and then lists it in their own playlists they can avoid having to pay a lot of money out to human creator like they could just yeah because a lot of humans will put that on a playlist and they don't know it's not ai and they it's because the the way spotify revenue works is they pay out artists as a share of listening time so like a set amount of revenue comes in every month and then it's not based on like your quantity of streams it's how your streams stack up against the rest of the site like what little sliver of the pie chart did your streams take up and if they can flood the platform over time with more and more ai music that they own then they get a larger and larger take home of the of the pie chart of revenue and they said they weren't doing this the whole time but it came out that they did and so it does feel like i wonder what youtube would i mean they don't want to do it now because it's not them creating it but i it would be interesting to see what youtube would do if they could have creators that they own that are uploading ai generated stuff and they they could just not to pay them out and then i don't know i think like if i'm a young man i'm like 15 i got a side hustle i'm making the most emotionally moving ai cat videos where like some guy swoops in and like saves him over by car why can't i fucking monetize why can't i monetize that and upload maybe four five of them a day hundred of them yeah okay so while looking into this i found what i thought was a pretty fun example pair if you pull this up one of the people doing this this is recent this happened in 2025 got in trouble because their name is true crime case files and they uploaded fully ai fake true crime videos which are incredibly popular on youtube and so this one quote or this is the name of the the video was called husband's gay love affair with stepson ends in grisly murder this got so many you have the last part true crime documentary in parentheses yeah yeah true crime documentary from the from the channel true crime case files so this is a fully made up video so cook how many views does this have no it so well it got taken down but at the time it got so popular and got so many millions of views and is about colorado that colorado journalists started looking into this because they were getting complaints from viewers saying why didn't you ever cover this this is a crazy story and so here in denver post they're like this is all fake none of this is real and so npr turns out they did an interview with the creator of this channel and there's some wild things where he justifies this and says like he used to make other other ai videos and then eventually realized that true crime is really really popular and then he said this is to npr at the end of the day true crime no matter how much it's dressed up as we care about the victims or this is finding justice it's a form of entertainment npr yeah but i mean if you're so critical of true crime if it's causing all these problems in the world why are you making it john i'm creating an alt no i'm creating an alternative to it because this way people can have all the luridness they want but it's not hurting people so i see myself as sort of like the vegan alternative what the hell does that mean that makes complete sense do they think other true crime journalists are doing the crimes to create it what that's how it works i i do hold on and i hate to bring out the nuance guy i hate to bring him out you hate to be a good nuance i don't think i think he's doing this for money oh my god i think he's doing this you drew the wrong one he i he's obviously just doing this for money because he even copped to it he's like i tried a bunch of different stuff until i got something that just hit but this is not like i don't know i'm not a fan of true crime i think it's sort of inherently problematic right there's a nuance to it but you're saying you're creating is this not better than like actual true crime content in a sense i would argue the negative effects of true crime which has been shown if you watch a lot of that stuff you think crime is worse than it is even though crime has nationally been going down people who consume a lot of this stuff so it's like not good for your mental psyche the fact that the crime never happened doesn't matter you're still watching stuff that is making you believe that there's this enormous amount of crime happening everywhere in 2025 the channel got shut down and according to youtube which npr reached out to they had deleted his channel not because they were made by ai or that he lied about them being true but because it was violating policies prohibiting child sexual exploitation so some of the made-up stories were too risque not the problem that he was making ai content that was false strange and so the to cap this off i tried to go see is this still a thing and there is now a new channel called unreal true crime where the cases are shocking are so shocking they feel almost unbelievable but they're real and they have the the same names they have the same the exact same things there's literally the same uh you know husband with gay whatever they just flood the platform it's just it's even if one is a flop they just make a hundred million until one of them gets human brains stupid yeah they make two of these a week and they say that it is not ai i looked at it it's like we use ai for our voices but we don't use ai for our voices and we don't use ai for our voices over yeah but all of the story is original from our team and i'm like i don't fucking think it is i don't think you're making two 40 minute true crime documentaries a week that are all fake and have the same titles as these other people it looks like they deleted the gay one they could be real in that they could just feed another true crime documentary into the thing and say generate you know it's that's the problem with this stuff is that it's i don't know it's fucking up youtube for me it's so annoying uh yeah i mean this is i i think i i feel like i stumble either if even if it's not an ai voiceover i feel like i'm encountering that genre of video essay where it's they like weirdly repeat their points over and over and they could just be bad writers yeah and that's a problem in itself yeah but it's a hard time to be a bad writer uh but everybody thinks you're just ai oh true yeah rw someone likes hyphens yeah yeah yeah you're pretty screwed yeah uh i i think this is uh yeah what's frustrating about it is i don't have a clear solution in front of me in any platform where the content is user submitted the tools to defend against this right now feel so limited and it's weird because pretty much everybody agrees that there's something that makes the platforms worse nobody really wants to like consume these things once they find out what they are i feel like maybe i'm in my own bubble maybe i and maybe there is just a bunch of people who are above the age of 50 in florida commenting on ai cat videos on facebook that are like they fucking love it yeah i kept it great and it just but i i feel like this it waters down the quality of the platform and you don't have i've seen my dad scroll reels and he gets some shit there and he just just you just it doesn't it's no different reaction to him he enjoys it all it's all the same but does he know it's ai i do think if people for example with this true crime i do not think this channel would be successful at all and and also that channel i just highlighted it said this is fake this is fake right like so much of this and that's where i think you know youtube is walking a weird line i wish they were a little stricter but they are at least saying very clearly distressing or off-putting content that is created by ai that's meant to be emotionally manipulative is going to be demonetized and the fake true crime should be demonetized and i think that's the way it should fit in that right so in theory it will it will improve but we have to see how strict youtube actually gets with this you know what i've been doing i'm i'm a fucking hypocrite dude i'm a fucking hypocrite because i have been watching ai generated content lately i listen to ai generated swedish conversations in the car to like practice language yeah it's just like a youtube channel like if you look it's a bunch if you look up what did i search the first time i looked up like svenska conversation on youtube and a lot of these videos are like fake like a single ai generated image of like kind of a pixar looking character an anime looking character with like automated audio and subtitles and it's like slow paced conversations and i'm listening to them right now because i'm trying to just work on like language recognition basically and the pace at which these videos deliver language right now is consumable to me like i'm just trying to it's hard for me when i listen to like sometimes i listen to this tv show uh called bonus family and it's really dialogue heavy but people speak quickly and it's it's hard for me to understand right now so i've been listening to these videos because i can understand a lot of them and it's like a whole genre of language content on youtube that i wasn't aware of uh and i've been listening to them in the car because it like i'm practicing and maybe so maybe i'm a big old fat hypocrite i guess you know this isn't i wouldn't call this art though like i have a very utilitarian right this is a person saying look we recognize there's people who want a large amount of generated conversations to practice at a certain and that feels different than hey we are going to abuse people's emotions by making fake stories that are intentionally going to swamp out other things no i think it's the same thing it's generated there is no nuance uh yeah it's interesting this one doesn't like that doesn't annoy me as much because based on the thumbnail like everything about it you know what you're getting into yeah but i find it so frustrating there's so many attempting to pass themselves off but i saw one this one really pissed me off there was a history channel covering like interesting battles in history and they opened everything and they had the description saying this was not made with ai but i am quite positive it was and there's nothing that stops you from saying that yeah there's nothing from stopping you from just going like this is all human created and like for most people that's all they need to hear the guilt is out of their mind and then they it's just annoying and last thing i'll say on this because we're about to close we're a little long uh do you guys remember the recent kentucky primary where thomas massey lost to ed gallery did you know about that story well ed famously ran some ai ads that showed thomas massey in a thruple with uh aoc and ilhan omar and like catching them in like black and white photos like going out to dinner together and like saying he's a secret super woke lib and it turns out i mean everyone criticized those ads when they happened but now that it's like a secret super woke lib it's like a secret super woke lib it's been since time since the primary and he lost there are studies into old people in kentucky who voted and many of them report in surveys they thought it was real they're like oh i thought that was a real right and that's fucking crazy they thought they literally thought that they caught him in a thruple with yeah and that it swayed their vote on which republican to vote for because they're republican voters and i think it's it's just like we we are through the looking glass on some crazy fucking things but oh that's anyway what do you think pikachu would say about that what do you think pikachu would say about that news story as we close out our show be sure to check out our patreon if you're interested in a full hour of this episode where all three of us will just be a pokemon and give no other commentary mostly just it's this is a soft launch of our pokemon after learning about 9-11 but it's pikachu yep and the towers were both pikachu yeah that's sad that's sad to think about doug but osama bin laden's a human but with a pokeball guys thanks for watching our show we'll see you uh next week and a bonus hour on patreon if you want to watch right now thanks for watching bye everybody support for the show comes from engine running a small business means every dollar has to work hard but if your team is still booking travel the old way it's costing you more than you think engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country built specifically for businesses like yours book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes earn up to 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