Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, hosts Marcus and Vic break down a packed week of headlines, starting with political shifts following recent elections and how emerging Democratic leaders could reshape the party. They discuss the economy’s resilience despite tariffs, inflated stock valuations, and rising layoffs attributed to AI. The conversation covers major venture capital moves in health tech, policy updates from Trump’s negotiations on weight-loss drugs to FDA scandals, and the ongoing battle between paye...
In this episode, hosts Marcus and Vic break down a packed week of headlines, starting with political shifts following recent elections and how emerging Democratic leaders could reshape the party. They discuss the economy’s resilience despite tariffs, inflated stock valuations, and rising layoffs attributed to AI. The conversation covers major venture capital moves in health tech, policy updates from Trump’s negotiations on weight-loss drugs to FDA scandals, and the ongoing battle between payers and providers in healthcare. They also unpack the surging GLP-1 drug market, Pfizer’s decline, the rise of AI in finance and crypto, OpenAI’s latest controversies, and the ethical dilemmas of voice cloning and AI-generated content. The episode closes on the dangers of deepfakes and why every family needs a code word for protection.
Links
3:09 - How the U.S. Economy Has Defied Doomsday Predictions on Tariffs WSJ
4:08 - This Famous Method of Valuing Stocks Is Pointing Toward Some Rough Years Ahead WSJ
6:15 - Challenger Report: 153,074 Job Cuts on Cost-Cutting & AI Challenger website
8:11 - Tala Health Secures $100M to Scale AI-Native Healthcare Platform HIT
9:30 - Redesign, Mayo Clinic back surgical triage startup Corvus Fierce Healthcare
9:58 - Hippocratic AI lands $126M series C to expand patient-facing AI agents, fuel acquisition deals Fierce Healthcare
11:05 - SteelSky Ventures Leads Investment in myLaurel to Redefine Acute and Transitional Care at Home WV News
12:00 - Boomerang Ventures Leads Oversubscribed $2M Seed Round Investment in SiteLabs to Transform Independent Pharmacies into Frontline Hubs for Preventive Care and Research WRAL
13:13 - CoMind raises $60 million in Series A funding Healthcare Today
13:59 - Sequoia Capital Leader Exits in VC Shake-Up WSJ
14:58 -
Every week, healthcare VCs and Jumpstart Health Investors co-founders Vic Gatto and Marcus Whitney review and unpack the happenings in US Healthcare, finance, technology and policy. With a firm belief that our healthcare system is doomed without entrepreneurship, they work through the mud to find the jewels, highlight headwinds and tailwinds, and bring on the smartest guests to fill in the gaps.
If you enjoy this content, please take a moment to rate and review it.
Your feedback will greatly impact our ability to reach more people.
Thank you.
All right, man.
Happy Thursday.
How's it going?
It's going well.
Crazy political week this week.
Um, yes, yes indeed.
But we got through it, so, yeah.
So, uh, so quickly, uh, 'cause we have a lot of stories and we're not gonna go too deep on this, but, uh, what, what was your read on the results of, uh, of this election day?
You know, it's not, not the midterms, obviously not a presidential, but, um, you know, it's a end of the first quarter, if you will, and, uh, a way for us to kind of check the scoreboard.
See yeah.
Where sentiment is.
What, what was your, what was your read on things?
My read was that, uh, that, I mean, the Dems did very well and I thought it was interesting that, you know, the Democratic Party has for a long time been, uh, sort of a protector of the.
The way things used to be or the, or the proper procedures and mm-hmm.
Um, you know, Manami on the East coast and Gavin used on the West Coast, those sort of broke those playbooks and went pretty aggressively at just getting change for their base no matter what the consequences are.
And both were really successful.
So, I don't know, it seems like the Democrats are at least, at least trying to fight back and I don't know.
It's gonna be an interesting midterms, I think.
I think they'll probably.
Take back the house fairly easily, but we'll see.
Yeah, I, I, I think my big takeaway was, was that, um, maybe even less interesting than what happens between Republicans and Democrats in the midterms is gonna be what happens in the Democratic primaries.
Because to me this feels kind of like the beginning of, of, uh, what happened as, you know, MAGA took over the Republican party.
It's not entirely clear to me yet that mom, Donny is the, is the Trump.
But it's hard to think about anyone who, uh, at the moment is a brighter star for the party.
Um, and is, uh, is is more bold in, in how he communicates.
And, uh, yeah, I think, I think the, the Democratic primaries next year, you know, uh, Nancy Pelosi just announced that she won't, um, seek reelection.
Um, I didn't see that year.
That's, that's good.
And she's.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so to me the, it could be the beginning of a really big turnover inside of the Democratic party, right?
Because I think to your point, the strategies and the types of candidates that we're able to, um, pick up wins this time, I think they're gonna have the leverage going into the primaries.
And I, and I don't think it's the old guard, right?
This doesn't feel like the Schumer, Jeffries guard right at all to me.
So, alright, we got a ton of stories.
So let's go ahead and dig in, starting with a few stories on the, uh, economy.
I think we can move through these quickly, but.
Um, inflation is, is kind of, uh, not, not much ado about nothing at the moment.
And so Wall Street Journal kicks our show off today with a story about how the US economy has basically defied all the doomsday predictions around tariffs.
Now, I think to some degree, the biggest tariffs that everyone was the most worried about didn't really materialize, right?
I mean, obviously we've come to, to a trade agreement with China now after two spats this year.
Neither one, you know, took very long, right?
There's too much to lose for, for both parties and uh, as we discussed last week, China's got a lot of leverage.
And so, you know, to me, yes, tariffs have made a lot of noise this year, but when we really think about like which ones really would impact America for in, in a durable way, none of them have really stuck.
That's just my view on it.
Yeah, I think that's right.
They have generated a decent amount of revenue for the treasury.
Uh, I mean, we'll talk later, unclear if the US Treasury will get to keep that or not.
But we generated revenue and it really didn't impact the economy in a, in a super negative way.
That minor disruptions, but not that bad.
Yeah.
Okay.
Next story.
Famous method of valuing stocks is pointing towards some rough years ahead.
Anyone who has been paying attention to market analysis, the big storyline is, holy cow, we have a lot of value locked into, you know, these, these seven or so companies, they're all surging on the promise of ai.
Their multiples are extremely, extremely high.
And there's just the question, are we in a bubble?
Many are arguing, this is different from the.com boom.
These companies actually have meaningful revenue.
They are being relatively transparent in terms of what their revenue is.
You know, open AI and anthropic in particular are sharing their revenue numbers.
But, you know, what's, what's sort of your, uh, your, your read on this and, and share a little bit more about like what this method of valuing stocks is?
Yeah.
So this is really, it's a way to do, uh, the, uh, price earnings multiple, and it's.
Called the case Schiller multiple, but it's just a judge of how valuable, how pricey or not pricey this stocks are relative to their earnings in, in that year.
And it's, they've, I think it is never been as high as it is right now.
Uh, so that predicts in the past, at least those multiples have come down.
And so it, it usually predicts that there'll be lower returns in the next several years.
As you can see from the chart that's on the screen right now, the question that I think it brings up is, you know, is this time different?
You know, are these tech companies on a different trajectory where they're gonna be consistently able to generate earnings and cash flow with fewer people and therefore it's, it's worth it to, to pay more for those assets.
And that's what.
I think no one can know.
Yeah.
And I guess, you know, the, going to our next story, the, the thing that would lead us to, you know, question is it different might be the change in labor.
So as you pointed out when we were reviewing the stories for today, we don't have good data on employment anymore.
So I, you know, I was like, why do we have this story here from Challenger Gray and Christmas?
Right?
Like, why are we looking at their layoff report?
And the reason is because, I mean, what are we gonna do when the government shut down?
Yeah.
We don't have BLS numbers.
Yeah, we don't have numbers.
So this is as good as what I think we're gonna get.
Um, and, and to your point, a DP probably not the most trustworthy at the moment, but what's important about this story, and relative to the, to the last one is they've been doing a tally on job cuts.
And in October, challenger Grain Christmas is reporting that there were 153,000 job cuts that were basically blamed on cost cutting and ai.
Yeah.
And if you, if you scroll down to the chart.
So they're an l placement firm.
Like when you get laid off, oftentimes your employer will give you three months, six months of, of help to find a new job.
That's what, that's what Challenger does.
So they've been tracking this space, and the chart here we're looking at goes back to, uh, mid 2022.
So 3, 3, 3 and a half years.
And it's, it's been a lot of layoffs in the last two months, kind of that combined with, we had all the, all the, um, hyperscale which come out, talk about their cloud business and their earnings reports last week and one week before, and they're not, uh, there's, there's more demand than they have supply of cloud services now because of the AI growth.
And so, right.
Those two things make me think that it may be different this time than the.com bubble because there, there appears to be a lot of demand or people willing to pay money to.
To use these AI tools.
We'll see.
But, but that's, that's on one hand.
On the other hand, this humans being laid off faster than, than we would like.
Yes.
Yes.
And at some point you'd have to think that that ends up having a negative impact on the economy in terms of spending.
Alright.
The VC rundown lots of stories this week, starting with Tala Health, securing a hundred million dollars to scale an AI native healthcare platform.
Um, they raised this a hundred million dollars.
Uh, let's see, did they, did they mention who the, who the lead, uh, investor is?
Oh, uh, so, so this, this is a holding company called Titan Holdings, uh, that, that, I guess they build different platforms and different verticals, so they don't actually mention who else has come in from an investment perspective.
But I guess Titan, uh, holdings gets the credit as the, the holding company behind the, behind telehealth.
Yeah, that's right.
It's not clear where Titan got the money from.
Mm-hmm.
But they have, um, this is their healthcare, uh, solution.
Now it's a direct to patient, uh, 24 7 healthcare in your pocket.
Kind of approach.
And Titan has done an enterprise it sort of agent play.
They've done a finance play, so they're really covering the, the biggest markets out there.
Okay.
And, and everything they do is AI native companies to reimagine critical industries.
So, you know, smart business model.
And we, they're not the, you know, the first or the last company.
We'll see rollout with that kind of business model.
Um, but telehealth is one we'll have to keep an eye on.
'cause a hundred million.
That's a pretty good start.
Uh, switching over to Fierce Healthcare Redesign Health and Mayo Clinic backed surgical triage startup Corvus.
Yeah.
So, um, this is a, a. Spin out really of, uh, may, Mayo built it with redesign.
So pretty interesting motto in that sense.
Yeah, re redesign does, uh, does a lot of, like, they're, they're kinda like a venture studio, um, you know, more than they are a, uh, you know, a venture firm.
So, uh, they, they partner with organizations, find problems, and create companies and launch 'em.
Hippocratic AI lands $126 million series C to expand patient facing AI agents and fuel acquisition deals.
It feels like a little while since we've heard, uh, Hippocratic in the news, but they clearly have been continuing to grow, uh, in order to get this $126 million, uh, series C round, their valuation is now at $3.5 billion.
Uh, so they're, they're pretty big.
Avenir growth led the series C round with backing from new and existing investors, including capital G.
Which is Google's Growth Growth Fund, general Catalyst Injuries, and Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, I mean, on and on and on.
And they, they list major health systems, uh, UHS, uh, Cincinnati Children's, um, and WellSpan Health as um, uh, folks who also came, uh, into the round.
Yeah.
And then further down, they, they list several health systems that have used Hippocratic or use it now.
And they, they're pretty impressive.
They've got, they've got a whole bunch of really strong US systems.
Mm-hmm.
But then it's global too.
They're in six countries.
Definitely very strong participant in, in the healthcare as an agent AI tool.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Alright.
Our friends at Steel Sky Ventures lead an investment in my Laurel to redefine acute and transitional care at home.
So Steel sky joins Deerfield management and Google Ventures, um, accelerating the national rollout of my Laurel, bringing hospital grade care to patient homes.
Yeah, I mean, this is a challenging space to have good results though.
Uh, and they're growing.
So they're in New York and New Orleans right now and have a, you know, good track record of reducing, uh, readmissions for patients, um, and getting a, what they claim is a six to one ROI for their hospital partners.
So, um, wow, that's great.
Difficult space, but, but they seem, my laurel seems to be doing well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and there's, there's definitely acquirers for this if you can, you know, prove it out.
Even I think on a pretty small scale, you know, we, we, we saw that, uh, right in Nashville with, uh, with edis and, uh, in some of their acquisitions they made, okay, boomerang Ventures leads an oversubscribed $2 million seed round investment in site labs to transform independent pharmacies into frontline hubs for preventative care and research.
So, uh, you know, an important space, but a really, really challenging space just with all of the competitive pressures, p and l pressures, PBM pressures.
It's great to see someone investing in trying to support these independent pharmacies, but also, I think you and I have had some experience in this space and it's, it's, it's a pretty tough space.
Yeah.
It's hard to get patients.
And health systems to sort of understand this new way that a pharmacy would interact with the health system.
But it, it makes a lot of sense.
It mean it should work where they're preventing care gaps.
They're sort of bringing in patients, trying to engage them to take better care of their health with chronic disease, it's just been hard to get adoption previously.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I mean, I I, I feel like in so many of these types of deals, um, the, the, the tech is, is truly insufficient to change, um, sort of the, the modus operandi, right?
Like the way that Yeah.
Everyone currently works and that, that, you know, that might, you know, maybe it's 2 million to build the tech and maybe it's 20 million to like change behavior.
Right?
Right.
Okay.
This is a big one.
Coal mine raises 60 million in a series A fundings London-based firm working to build a global platform to measure key brain health indicators simultaneously and non-invasively.
Yeah.
And so it is pretty exciting that you could collect data non-invasively and be able to.
Catch things early, uh, around brain health, but it's also early.
It's not clear exactly how it's gonna work, but pretty exciting.
I think there's a lot of talent in London, so, uh, interesting market to be going into.
Yeah, I mean, it's where, it's where Deep Mind came from.
So, um, definitely a lot of great university talent there too to sort of, uh, you know, feed this kind of deep, deep, deep research in ai.
Okay.
And I guess this is the last story, and it's not particularly like a VC deal, but it is a, it is a big deal and it's Wall Street Journal, Sequoia Capital Leader exits in VC shakeup.
So Rule of Botha, who is, uh, yeah, pretty, pretty legendary for, um, you know, his leadership at Sequoia, uh, has been asked to step aside amid, uh, leadership concerns and a turbulent stretch.
They are replacing him with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, uh, who have been two longtime Sequoia investors.
Both of those names are familiar to me.
Um, but yeah, I mean, you know.
Ru if, uh, invested in Apple, Google, um, you know, he is, he's got a legendary track record.
Uh, but yeah, I think he did his friend, but, but it, yeah.
Yeah.
But the world is changing, isn't it?
Yeah.
I mean, transition in VC firms from one generation to the next is always challenging.
And I think this, yes, it was, I was surprised at the timing of it, but obviously he's out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so we'll, we'll see what the next generation does there.
Uh, okay.
Moving into policy, Trump is negotiating a deal with Ozempic Maker to sell some weight loss drugs for $149.
Novo Nordisk, as well as Eli Lilly would gain Medicare and Medicaid coverage for their blockbuster weight loss drugs.
Obviously, you know, we're talking about at about 15% of what, uh, they, they attempt to get in, in other markets, but these are two very, very big markets.
Um, and so getting access to that, uh, is, is probably very beneficial to them and keeps them on the good side of, uh, president Trump.
Yeah, I mean, getting Medicare to start.
Allowing all the recipients to receive GLP ones simply for weight loss, not for some other diabetes or kidney disease, something else.
Mm-hmm.
I think it would be a huge win.
And at the same time, Trump's getting the significant price compression.
So it seems like a pretty interesting deal from both sides.
So that's a good story for President Trump.
Maybe in a not so good story, the Wall Street Journal has been keeping up with the question of whether or not, uh, Trump's tariffs are in fact legal, um, based on his, uh, his insistence that we are in an emergency and therefore he's leveraging emergency powers, um, to impose these unilateral, uh, tariffs.
It sounds like the Supreme Court, uh, in, in their questions, raised questions about whether or not the president had alternatives and, and whether or not this was in fact the emergency, um, that he, that he presented it as.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
I mean, we won't know the ruling for.
A month or two, hopefully by year end we'll hear, we'll see.
But from the question, the, OR arguments and the questions they asked, it seemed like everyone came away.
I didn't watch it live, but everyone came away with the opinion that it was trending to where the Supreme Court would not allow the IE Patris to continue.
The question is really not that.
It's more like how are they going to, or are they gonna make the government return the money?
Unwind them.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And so it would be, it's a challenge to know how to go forward with that.
'cause you've collected a little over, I think it's a little over a hundred billion and some of those are pretty clear where an importer paid it.
But other times, you know, it came in, uh, through one group and then there was a sort of a distributor and then an end customer, and they all shared a little bit of the.
Tariff burden, but not in a way that's easy to track.
Mm-hmm.
And so there's some talk about stopping it on a go forward basis, but allowing the government to keep the money that's been collected so far.
That's not great for the existing people that have been harmed, but I don't know, they did figure out some work, some way to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that will, that will be interesting and, and will also, I think, you know, if, if it does end up being a negative outcome for Trump, we'll.
Well, because this is such a, um, you know, geopolitical issue, uh, I don't think we will reflect well, uh, on, on sort of Trump's show of strength internationally.
Right.
Um, if the United States Supreme Court basically says that, that this, this move that he very aggressively did within the first 120 days of his, um, you know, tenure, uh, was in fact illegal, more shakeups at the FDA, uh, George Tid Marsh, um, who was an FDA official steps down, um, as he's being sued by a drug maker, uh, who, who accused him of seeking a bribe and defaming a drug.
So, you know, Marty McCray's having, uh, all sorts of, you know, in and out, you know, transitions in, in FDA, um, Dr. Tid Marsh was hired in July to lead the agency's drug division and.
You know, now he's out.
So this is, uh, probably the, the third pretty high profile, um, you know, person that's, that's, uh, you know, was a McCarry uh, uh, appointee that has had problems and, and now Ted Marsh is out.
So just not a, not a great start in the, in the first year for, uh, for Marty MCC Carey's appointments.
Yeah, no question.
And it's hard to know what's true and what's not.
But supposedly he tried to get a payment and went in, he went on LinkedIn and started saying how the drug was not very good.
So.
That's not i's true or not true, but he, he did resign under pressure.
So it's, uh, yeah, that's not great.
That's not great.
Uh, okay.
I think we have to cover this one because we talked so much about her, uh, during the, the, the, uh, the Biden administration.
Um, but, uh, Ani has tapped antitrust crusader, Lena Kahn, to help lead his transition.
Um, and so, you know, if you were trying to, if you were wondering whether or not Mayor elect Ani was going to, um, maybe switch his tone in terms of being maybe more friendly to the business community, I would say the, uh, the appointment of Lena Kahn, uh, will do very, very little to, to make business leaders in New York City feel comfortable.
Um, you know, you and I. We, we chronicled her, her less than successful, uh, term as the chair of, of the FDA.
You know, I, I would say part of the reason why she was maybe less successful was that she was maybe more ideological than she was practical, uh, in terms of what she, she, uh, she focused on strategically in terms of notching wins.
Um, but now I think she's, she's leading the transition for a mayor whose entire platform is probably a little bit more ideological than it is practical.
At least we haven't seen the practical workout for how it all happens given the game theory of, uh, the potential of, uh, you know, high earners in the tax base of New York, potentially fleeing to places in the southeast or, or Texas, which I think a lot of people are, are predicting will, will happen.
So, uh, you know, look.
Mom, Donny continues with the bold moves that I think, that feel to me like they're gonna define the future of the Democratic party.
Lena Kahn finds a new home.
Yeah, I mean, I, I agree.
I don't, it would be hard for me to think of someone who would be more, uh, more controversial, more of a sign to big business in New York, the big banks that they were gonna be under attack, um, than her.
So, yes, I agree.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then big foods fight against RFK.
Junior is heating up.
A new industry group wants to set aside the piecemeal state by state approach, imposing food die, and labeling laws in favor of federal control.
And the opposition has roiled, the Maha Coalition.
So, I mean, the idea that, that this was ever going to be, uh, less than a fight, um, against RFK Junior is, you know, again, we're, we're just in this era where people, you know, they mean what they say and they're not sitting, they're not sitting in the middle.
They're, they're taking strong positions because that's what, what wins elections.
And that's what, um, the base demands.
And, uh, the Maha Coalition is, you know, a very, very strong co, very strong NA national coalition That is, is not a hundred percent the MAGA coalition.
It's a, it's, it's its own thing, you know?
Um, and, uh, I, I think, and, and, and I think there are aspects of of the Maha Coalition sort of mandate that I think most Americans would agree with.
You know, like the idea that we allow, um, food products to be, you know, sold to, uh, American citizens that have far more, um, you know, preservatives and chemicals in them than would be allowed to be sold, you know, across Europe and even parts of Latin America.
I mean, I think the average citizen probably thinks that's, that's something we ought to do something about.
Yeah.
But these changes pretty radically change.
Um, the delivery mechanism for big food and change the economics and at a time where, you know, maybe tariffs haven't hit everybody, but we know it's impacted farmers.
We know that it's impacted the price of groceries.
Um, it, it does seem like we are, we were always gonna be heading for this fight.
Yeah, I think that's right and I also think it's, it's sort of a long-term shift in the culture.
I mean, even if they've survived this this year and keep selling fruit loops with all kinds of, you know, vivid colors, I think that's gonna change over time.
So, alright, uh, KFF Health News.
The White House calls this nine 11 era fund, wasteful red and blue states rely on it.
Uh, what are we referring to?
The hospital preparedness program, uh, that has provided nearly 2.2 billion to states, territories, major cities and other entities over the past 17 years to ready healthcare systems for the next pandemic cyber attack or mass casualty event.
And right now, um, this program is, uh, squarely in the crosshairs of, uh, Russ Voy.
And so it is, uh, the next thing that is potentially on the chopping block, uh, that is part of the overall infrastructure of federal support for the healthcare system.
Uh, Vic, what are your thoughts on this?
It is just another, another source of funding taken away from health systems.
When they can't afford to lose funding.
Yeah.
So preparing for bird flu or the next pandemic or cyber attack, all those things we need them to do.
Um, and there's no money to do it.
So I think it's bad, but, but I also can see how the Republicans are gonna cut it.
Just, I think it's gonna happen.
Yeah.
I mean, it, it, it really is amazing how, um, how fast and, and I think this is something that.
It's taking everyone a little while in the industry to wrap their head around, um, how fast the, the sacred cow of healthcare, um, has become, you know, dinner.
Uh, it's, it's, uh, it's no longer sacred.
It, it is, you know, uh, it's, it's up for grabs, it's up for cuts.
And, uh, the Republicans seem very, very grounded in, in this principle.
And yes, they, they wrap all sorts of narratives around fraud, waste, and abuse or, you know, delivering healthcare to, to, um, you know, non-citizens.
Sure.
But, but at the end of the day.
No one looks at these things and says, oh, they don't impact American citizens.
So, you know, their willingness to do this may really end up long-term impairing their results in, in elections over the course of the next three years.
But this is the mandate that they, uh, they're committed to.
Yeah, shifting the payers, uh, Humana cuts earnings outlook as medical costs surge.
So we've had all the payers sort of come out and, you know, MLR is is, you know, obscenely high across, uh, the, the managed care organizations.
I think UHG was really the only one to come out lower than 90.
Um, Humana here rises to 91.1, uh, from 89.9.
89.9 is not great.
Um, and, and anything over the nineties is, is really pretty ugly.
And so, you know, the costs are just going up across the board, uh, especially in, in the government pay models.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it is not sustainable over 90.
I mean, that, that's their gross margin.
They're, they're losing money in the bottom line in that sense too.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Clover Health sees revenues grow 50% year over year in Q3.
So Clover is a Medicare Advantage, uh, InsureTech company.
They've had a lot of ups and downs.
You know, they speced during, uh, you know, the great SPAC era during COVID, OVID.
Um, it was scar as to whether or not they were gonna make it, but they did end up pulling it out, I think over the last two years.
Um, as, as they and Oscar and some of the other, you know, pretty well-funded, um, new, uh, payers, you know, found their footing, especially on revenue growth.
But again, you know, this is a story where yes, they're picking up more market share.
Um, I think especially as some of the larger, you know, national insurers are thinking about, you know, packing up their Medicare Advantage books in different states.
So yes, Clover is picking up more and more, um, but it recorded a medical loss ratio.
Of 93.5 in the third quarter, in the third quarter of this year, up from 82.8% in the third quarter of last year.
So it's like, yes, they have grown their revenue 50%, um, year over year.
That's certainly great.
We just talked about Humana at a 91%, uh, MLR and 93.5% is just, you're, you, you're, you're just, you're just growing at all costs it feels like to me.
Yeah, that's right.
They're grabbing new members wherever they can find them to, to increase revenue.
But many of those members, you know, not great members 'cause they're very expensive, they use a lot of healthcare.
So yes, I think clover is growing quickly, but probably, you know, reduce getting less profitable and burning more money.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And no, and, and, and in fact they did, they did, uh, cut down their EBITDA expectations in this article here with Fierce Healthcare shares.
The prior outlook estimated between 50 and 70 million in ebitda, and now they estimate between 15 and 30 million.
So I, I don't think that that was, uh, received very well, uh, even with the great revenue growth year over year, Oscar Health.
Share surge 8% after beating their third quarter earnings expectations.
So they're in slightly better markets, I think.
Um, they are focused on a CA as well as, uh, they have a consumer employer product that's mostly, uh, sort of designed around IR you know, they're, they're specializing in those two markets.
Uh, you know, the a CA individual market and then the, um, employer icra market, you know, basically kind of the same kind of product.
Oscar, I think has always, uh, been a leader amongst these new health insurance companies and their shares actually jumped, uh, eight, 8%, uh, on, on the news.
And so, you know, I, I think good for them and, and they, they're in, you know, reasonably decent lines of business.
But I think, uh, a lot will play out over the course of the next Q2 quarters now that, uh, the new prices have rolled out on, on the, uh, on the marketplace.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
Uh, alignment Healthcare grows Q3 revenue to 994 million and Boosts 2025 Outlook.
Vic, tell, tell me a little bit about, uh, alignment Healthcare.
Yeah, so they, they sell technology, their software provider to Medicare Advantage plans and other insurers.
So unlike the rest of companies in this category, they're, they're not directly covering members as their primary business.
They do have, uh, some members as well where they insure directly.
So it's kind of a hybrid of software and insurance.
Um, and they're, they're, I think, a little bit healthier 'cause of that.
Hmm.
Okay.
Moving on to health systems.
Community health systems selling a majority interest in Tennessee joint ventures to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for $600 million.
This is the Clarksville, um, uh, Tennova Healthcare, uh, uh, subsystem.
And, uh, you know, VUMC is looking to, to grow their, their footprint, grow their top line.
And, uh, CHS is continuing to divest in, in assets.
And so, uh, it seems like a good fit here.
Yeah, this is a good, this is a good transaction, I think for both sides.
They already were in partnership.
In these hospitals where Vanderbilt owned 20% CHS to 80%.
So they're selling their 80% at stake.
And Vanderbilt knows the, knows these systems well and will operate 'em well.
Nonprofit health systems unveil a CA plans amid ongoing Florida blue contract dispute.
Uh, so you know, more and more and more disputes between the blues and the health systems.
Um, but two public health systems in Broward County in Florida, they have launched an expansion into the a CA marketplace, uh, themselves, Memorial Healthcare System and, uh, Broward Health, uh, which are 11 hospitals in, in southern Florida.
Yeah, so this is interesting in the sense that there's a fight over, uh, these health systems are not in network for Florida Blue anymore.
They could not agree on, uh, rates maybe six, eight months ago.
And so, uh, they now are creating sort of an extension to an existing.
Health system that they had to go into a CA and and compete directly against Florida Blue.
So obviously this Plan 22 Health is what it's called.
These health systems will be in network for that plan.
'cause it's the health systems themselves that are putting it up.
Mm-hmm.
And so it's just a sort of another chapter in this ongoing fight between payers and providers.
In this case it's gotten, uh, bad enough that the, the systems are creating their own plan or build, you know, extending the plan.
They already have.
Yeah, Amwell malls, divestitures.
The company's considering selling assets that could be more easily separated from the rest of the business without creating challenges for customers.
Executives set on a third quarter earnings call, so seems to be more of the end of the uh, uh, sort of the GE model.
Everyone wants to see a very streamlined business, especially if you're not performing that well.
Amwell is, uh, very old school telehealth, uh, platform and, you know, the big telehealth platforms really have never truly taken off, uh, on, on the public markets and, uh, I think have been pretty embattled.
Um, and so some divestitures seem to make, uh, seem to make good sense just to get the company really focused.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a slowly kind of melting ice cube, amwell.
I mean, it is a generalist telehealth that is not a good combination.
We'll see in a few.
They're vertical, like, uh, focused telehealth providers are doing really well, but Amwell is more of a maybe urgent care, primary care.
General, and it's hard to, hard to make money in that space.
Yeah.
Their, their revenue is falling year over year 8%.
They reported, uh, 56.3 million in revenue, uh, in the third quarter.
So, yeah, I mean, if that's, if that's kind of your trend, uh, then you probably should be looking at the assets that are not performing very well and, and, uh, getting those off your books.
Yeah.
But I mean, I don't know where they're gonna end with that.
They just, they sell things until there's nothing left.
Yes.
Perhaps, uh, moving in the other direction, hinge Health Q3 revenue jumps 53% as the company Eyes m and a, new services beyond Physical Therapy.
So it's been a good year for Hinch Health.
They, IPO that IPO went well really, really strong.
Um, sort of exclusive partnership with Amazon, uh, around everything they do in, uh, in, in muscular, uh.
In, in the musculoskeletal space.
Uh, and now that they're public and, you know, their stock is growing well and also revenue is growing well, they're, they're thinking about m and a and services beyond physical therapy.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think that's what, that's a strategy that seems to be working better is a, a very focused approach, in this case, physical therapy.
And then from that strength, then you can expand to adjacent, adjacent areas.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, a name that I certainly didn't know, uh, before you shared this article, uh, Carrum Health Extends Substance Use Disorder Treatment as Employers tackle Costly Workplace Challenge.
This is from Fierce Healthcare.
Um, the, I, I hadn't heard of this company, but it sounds like they're, they're fairly large.
Um, and they have, they work with many of the Fortune, you know, 500 companies, so, and they've been around for 11 years.
So like, why have we missed this company?
Just 'cause they focus on like drug testing and stuff.
Well, no, th that's the thing they've added right now, that uhhuh, they previously, they have been working with large employers to sort of basically bring them a provider network that they can pay, they can contract with directly.
So that's been their business for 11 years.
They, they sort of contract with, um, the health system that wants to do knees and hips, someone else that's doing heart surgery, someone else doing cancer care, and they bring you this, what they call centers of excellence network that, you know, you get great doctors at a good price and the, they don't, um, underwrite it like a payer word.
They more just sort of enable this kind of direct contracting from the employer to the health system.
So they've done that traditional healthcare contracting, um, and now they're expanding into, uh, substance abuse.
Yep.
Inside row's, GLP push with big name celebs and big pharma.
So, uh, we've talked a lot about HIMSS and hers.
When we talk about the big brands in the Glip one space, um, it's been a while since we've talked about Ro, but the last time we did, we did highlight the fact that they, uh, they focused less on generics and more on high profile, uh, big pharma brand deals, having inked deals with both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, uh, over the course of the last 12 months to bring their products to, to, to market.
And they also are, you know, working with, uh, big celebrity ambassadors like Serena Williams and, uh, and Charles Barkley.
So, you know, it, Roe is still very much in the game and in the space, even though I think him and hers is, has, uh, uh, clogged up the headlines, uh, for these big brand, uh, players.
But like, what's, what's on the horizon for, for Roe against the backdrop of this very, very, very competitive, uh, environment, Vic.
Yeah, I, I think that there, you said it with the celebrity endorsements, that's been the thing that they've changed the last six months.
They added Serena Williams and Charles Barkley, and I think the message is, it's not really necessarily for very obese people, but more it's being targeted at the kinda the regular person that wants to lose 30 pounds, 25 pounds.
They seem to be getting a lot of those customers.
So, so, you know, what's really interesting is, uh, you know, in, in my, uh, sort of library of podcasts and, and YouTube videos that I listen to or watch, it's some, you know, maybe, let's call it 10% of those are dedicated to, um, wellbeing.
But I would say a little bit more from the perspective of an, of being an athlete.
Um, so this is like, you know, uh, rich Roll or Dr. Mike Rael or Andy Galpin, like those kind of folks a little bit.
Humor man.
Although I've, I've kind of moved past him.
I am seeing more and more where these folks are getting comfortable saying that just about everybody should be on Glip ones.
Like it's not just for significant weight loss, um, because of the assistance, uh, with, you know, other addictions and just your ability to, you know, um, more easily maintain your caloric restriction goals.
Um, I, this is not something I'm on.
I'm, I'm just reporting that it, it is something I'm noticing.
Uh, becoming less of, of a focus for people who are struggling with obesity, um, or kidney disease.
And more of like a, uh, at this point, you know, maybe everybody should be on these things.
So I'm not on them.
I don't see a need to be on them personally.
Uh, but I am seeing more and more sort of widespread push for that.
So that aligns with your theory around introducing, you know, a not just big name Celeste, but specifically, um, celebrated athletes.
Yeah, that's right.
It sort of gives you, um, I don't know, ego cover, like, yeah, I need, I need this to help, but so does Serena Williams or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
So does Charles Barkley.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Good point.
And I think that's right.
I'm not on them either, but it seems like it's, it's turning into more of an optimization.
I wanna, I want to use this to really optimize my health as opposed to.
Um, not be obese anymore.
Yeah, that's right.
Pfizer and Novo Nordisk escalate bidding war for weight loss drug startup.
The revised bids are the latest unusual twist in a fight between big drug makers over drug developer met Sarah.
So I, I thought the met Sarah thing was, was just kind of going to Novo Nortis, but it appears that, that Pfizer is also in the hunt.
Uh, they, they need something for sure.
We're gonna talk about them here in a minute here.
Uh, but yeah, like, you know, if, if you, if you are, uh, one of these, uh, you know, up and coming platforms with a really nice pipeline, it looks like you can bid up the, you know, the leaders in the space right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I think, uh, it's just been escalating.
I think Pfizer originally struck the deal, I think it was a signed deal to buy.
Them for seven, a little over 7 billion.
Hmm.
And then Nova came in at nine.
Pfizer came in at eight with different structuring.
Nova 10, they're just, they're bidding it up.
Uh, Pfizer tried to file a lawsuit to force the company to go with the original one, which got rejected.
Mm. Uh, by Delaware Court.
So, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a bidding war.
Uh, this is another GLP one technology.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so it seems like that's the, that's the place where all the, all the activity is right now and pharma.
Yeah.
And I, and you know, while Novo is looking to maybe shore up their ship and, and expand their portfolio, I think for FI, for Pfizer, it's probably a bit more existential, isn't it?
Yes.
Yes.
This is another story here.
Uh, that, that, we'll, we'll skip this one.
I just include it in the show notes, a little bit more detail on Pfizer, um, uh, on there bidding war.
But the story that I do want to cover here is Pfizer's profits are continuing the fall.
So, um, sales fell in the third quarter to 16.65 billion from 17.7 billion.
Um, and it's really because there's lower demand for COVID-19 vaccines, and that I think most people believe that's gonna continue to decline year over year, over year.
Uh, and so they, they for sure have got to find another source of meaningful revenue and growth.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no question.
And they don't have a real play in the GLP ones now, um, which is why they're trying to, trying to land this deal.
Um, yeah, Pfizer's struggling.
I mean, even if they, even if they get this acquisition done, they still have.
Pretty thin r and d kind of up and coming product line?
Yes.
Okay.
Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk lowers their growth outlook.
Um, the drug maker says Buying met would differentiate its portfolio at a time of rising competition.
Obviously this organization just overhauled its leadership, had a huge sort of board dust up, um, where the foundation, uh, effectively won out.
Uh, and they're, you know, I think the new CEO is, uh, go ahead and taking the lumps right now by revising growth down, um, while also being very aggressive in trying to differentiate the books.
And this, this seems like the direction, uh, that the foundation wanted the company to go in.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I mean, they are, um, even though they had both wegovy and Ozempic, they still overall are, are struggling and yes, they made a bunch of changes.
We'll see how the, how they do.
I think they're better positioned than Pfizer.
But, but they're both, yeah.
Struggling.
Alright, so this is a Health in me story for this week.
Uh, and this is a story, uh, about, um, pregnancies and c-sections, articles from the New York Times.
And the headline is, the Worst Test in Medicine is driving America's High C-Section rate.
Round.
The clock fetal monitoring leads to unnecessary C-sections, but it's used in nearly every birth because of business and legal concerns.
The time is found.
Um, you dug into this article way more than I did.
So what's, what's the, what's the story here?
Yeah, so you use this fetal heart monitor to monitor the heart rate of the baby, and it is a kind of a classic healthcare situation where it seems intuitive that if the baby is, you know, they have lower heart rate, they're struggling, you need to quickly do a c-section to get them out.
Um, but the actual science is that the heart rate varies.
Pretty dramatically with babies.
They're pretty little and the, it's it's normal heart rate to go up and down and up and down.
So even though it looks when you're monitored 24 7 in, you know, in the labor and delivery room, it looks scary and it encourages the nurses and doctors to kind of move to a c-section faster than they really should by the evidence.
Um, and there's many studies, the Times listed, several of them that I don't think it's in question.
It seems like every doctor and every study agrees with it.
And yet because of the, uh, threat of lawsuits and just the sort of the attention to baby and mom health in the moment, we keep using these monitors even though they're the stethoscope and checking.
Periodically every 10 minutes, every 15 minutes right, is actually the preferred method.
No one, no one is doing that.
And the US has far higher rates of, of cesarean sections.
And I think everyone would agree that it's not the best way to give birth sometimes necessary, but it should not be done as often if it's done in the us.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, it, the unintended consequences, um, are right.
Are interesting.
Um, okay.
Moving into crypto, I think we got a couple stores on the crypto side this week.
Uh, ripple and MasterCard are teaming up to test stablecoin settlements on XRP.
Yeah, so this is an interesting, I mean, we're starting to see several partnerships and combinations like old, traditional, you know, finance stratify now partnering with.
New Defi stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, last week we talked about West, the first ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last week we talked about Western Union, uh, this week, you know, MasterCard and Ripple.
Um, you know, Ripple's not so much a a defi.
They're, they're pretty, it's pretty centralized.
Um, but Ripple was designed to work with banks and to work with Tradify.
And so, um, you know, it has been interesting to see that, that, uh, you know, they haven't been that much in the headlines here recently.
I think, I feel like the last big thing I heard about Ripple was Bank of America, and that was, that's been a while.
So, but MasterCard is, is is massive.
Right?
I mean, if, if, if, uh, if Ripple ends up being the stablecoin settlement, uh, platform for MasterCard, then that's a, that's a significant win for them.
That's a lot of transactions globally.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, ripple was really created.
I mean, it might be the fourth or fifth blockchain ever, uh, for this cross border.
Thing that has evolved into Stablecoin, so it's good to see them, you know, emerge.
Yeah.
Uh, and JP Morgan, uh, we continue to highlight them because, you know, as really the, the leading bank in America, um, as they continue to move in this direction of, uh, blockchain and crypto and tokens, it, it just becomes undeniable that crypto is becoming a first class citizen in the world of, um, finance in America.
Um, JP Morgan is tokenizing their private equity fund on their own blockchain, and this move, uh, marks the bank's first step towards a broad rollout of its funds tokenization platform.
So it puts them, you know, a little behind BlackRock it feels like, in terms of rolling things out.
They're about a year behind BlackRock.
Um, but here they are and, uh, you know, one week we're hearing about them accepting, uh, Bitcoin and e as collateral from their institutional clients, and now they're tokenizing, uh, their own fund.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think they're, they're going to tokenize, they both JP Morgan and BlackRock, they're gonna tokenize everything they can, all kinds of assets because it sort of accelerates the ability to move these assets around and trade them quickly.
Private markets typically are hard to trade, and so JP Morgan putting it on a tokenized blockchain, I think would.
Facilitate that.
Yep, of course.
Because that's, that's the benefit of, of, of tokenization.
Right?
Uh, alright, moving on to Robinhood.
And they are not going to allow this prediction market game to be a two horse race between, uh, poly market and kci.
Uh, they're going to use their broad distribution base, uh, to introduce more and more prediction market capabilities on the Robinhood app.
So, um, they believe that, you know, the betting markets are a meaningful part of, uh, crypto and, and just, and I think they're right.
You know, the, the, um, the psychographic of the average Robinhood user probably pretty well aligned with prediction markets.
And so, uh, they've got the distribution base and they've got that psychographic already, you know, loaded up with, with, um, investment accounts on, on their app and it, and you know, they've already repositioned pretty aggressively around crypto.
So it makes sense that they will also be in the prediction market game.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
The, the one thing that they, they do have a partnership with Calci, uh, so I think several of the actual transactions end up at Calci, but, but not all of them.
Okay.
So that's But not all of 'em, right?
I don't, I think they also did their own Yeah.
They sort of slowly beginning to build their own, but they're, yeah.
Yeah.
And, and that's, that, that's kind of been their, their thing.
I mean, they're, they are, they're doing partnerships with existing platforms, you know, um, they, they rolled out, I think it was, um, arbitrary is, is who they're rolling out their L two with.
And so, you know, it's like, it's not their own L two yet, but the roadmap is to make, um, their own L two, right.
Leveraging arbitrary open source, um, capabilities.
Right now it's just sort of Robinhood running on top of arbitrary.
So these are, you know, the, they're, they're doing this sort of partnership, um, you know, to roll products out and then eventually building out their own, their own stack.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Alright, AI rundown.
Here we go.
Snap shares soar on $400 million.
Perplexity, AI deal.
Snapchat's, parents stock rises as much as 25% in after hours trading on the news.
So this is interesting, you know, it's kind of like, you know, the, the B tier social network and, and I love perplexity and I use it on a very regular basis, but it's, you know, it's not a foundation model.
It's an app that sits on top of the foundation models and so it's, it's B tier compared to the, you know, um, open ais and anthropics of the world.
Uh, so the fact that they're aligned and perplexity is looking for more and more distribution, but the fact that they, you know, are able to sort of fund a deal with snap, uh, to the value of 400 million, uh, is pretty meaningful.
Yeah, that's right.
The, um, a decent amount of money from perplexity.
And as the market showed, it seems like it's really good for Snap.
Snap was sort of in nowhere as far as I could tell.
Uh, so this gives them a different differentiation.
Yeah.
This, this deal.
Um, which, and they'll get that 400 million in, in cash and equity over, over a year.
Um, apparently that is equal to about 7% of snap's, um, 2024 sales.
So that's.
That's a meaningful, meaningful deal.
Amazon sues to stop perplexity from using AI tool to buy stuff.
So, uh, a lot of fits and starts for these AI browsers.
You know, open AI rolled out.
Its one to a pretty lackluster, um, review.
And, uh, perplexity was really, I would say the first mover with Comet, uh, which is their AI browser.
Most people haven't used it because you have to pay perplexity $200 a month, uh, in order to have access to Comet.
Um, but for those who have used it, people think it's, you know, it's pretty incredible what it can do.
Um, part of what it can do is it can buy stuff for you like auto in an automated way.
And Amazon is suing to stop perplexity from, from being able to do that.
So this will be an interesting suit that will have broad implications for AI browsers period.
Right?
I mean, if Amazon can sue, then I think all the different travel broker sites can sue, credit card companies will be able to sue to stop, you know, AI automation on their, uh, travel platforms.
So big, big, big stakes here based on, you know, how this, this, uh, this suit plays out.
Yeah, I think that's right.
And to me it really is gonna be a debate about where does the personal assistant aspect of these agents work?
Where like I have an, uh, bought going on Amazon to buy something that I would, I would buy myself this afternoon, but now I don't have to do it.
I think that is clearly allowed versus um, kind of an agent that is every hour going to look at this product on Amazon and kind of.
Waiting, you know, chronologically, um, recording the price every hour, continuously, forever.
Mm-hmm.
And then sort of, uh, being able to use that information kind of against Amazon on behalf of their customers collecting data.
Um, you a robotic automated way, you know, would not be allowed.
But where that line is, is, yeah, exactly.
I, I mean, where, where that line is is completely unclear and I think it's kind of like an all or nothing thing.
Right.
Um, so yeah, and Amazon is, you know, kind of talking out of both sides of its mouth.
It has its own, of course, agents.
Um, so yes, I think we're gonna need to figure out what is the, what's accepted and what's not.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Uh, and, and I, I think, I think distribution and, and, and control of access to.
You know, um, transactional platforms could end up becoming like a new moat, right?
So, and, and could in fact devalue the browser, right?
You can see a world where Amazon does a deal with Anthropic and then, you know, if you want to do AI enabled Amazon stuff, because Amazon has done this deal with Anthropic, you have to do it through the Anthropic AI agents.
Right.
You know, you're not allowed to do it through other ones.
Yeah.
And you could see how the world could kind of bifurcate in that way.
Not, not that dissimilar to the idea of Snap doing a deal with, uh, with Perplexity or, you know, or Apple doing a deal with open ai.
Right.
I mean, it's, they're not playing with everybody.
They're not allowing everybody into those environments.
So, um, we, we could see similar vertical plays, uh, here as well.
Yeah.
What's interesting is that Amazon is usually the aggressive company, um, and in this case, they cannot stop perplexity.
They have tried to stop and they've put in technical roadblocks that perpetually has, you know, sort of found workarounds to, so that's why they did this lawsuit.
I don't know, it seems like it's a, gonna be a difficult thing to, to stop.
Yeah.
I, I mean, you know, one of the, one of the key takeaways here is that, you know, Amazon's accusing perplexity of committing computer fraud by failing to disclose Mac Comet is shopping on a real person's behalf, which is in violation of Amazon's TOS and that seems right to me.
Right.
It seems like perplexity as a, as a value to the user would offer to spoof, you know, um.
The being a real person.
Uh, and that, and that would be in violation, right?
If that's a core value that you're, that you're offering to, to your user that is in violation of Amazon's TOS.
Right?
And, and you know, it, it, it's not that dissimilar from all these sites throwing up caps to stop, to make sure that you're a real human and you're not a robot.
Right?
So, I mean, to me it feels like there is a lot of precedent here around this.
Yeah, yeah.
There's precedent, there's legal precedent.
How to actually prevent it from occurring is not clear to me.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, okay.
OpenAI and Amazon signed a $38 billion cloud deal.
So there, there is no monogamy in this space.
Right.
Uh, the, these, these, uh, frontier models, they need compute.
They need power, and they will be doing deals with everybody.
Um, they'll do deals with Microsoft, they'll do deals with Oracle, they will do deals with Amazon.
Um, and this is the latest one that OpenAI has announced.
Um, huge, huge, huge cloud deal for, for Amazon.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And OpenAI continues to commit to massive compute spending.
And they'll figure out how to pay for it later.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
If you have a, uh, an interesting story here from Gizmoto, um, that is opening up the story between IA Sr. And, uh, uh, Sam Altman, it feels like forever ago.
Um, but.
And, um, and Mira Ti I think, or Ravi, I can't remember her last name.
Um, but she did, she did, uh, uh, she's done a, a pretty large, multi-billion dollar, uh, company called Thinking, thinking Machines.
Thinking Machines, yeah.
Um, basically they, they tried to execute a, a coup.
They had the board aligned.
They, they fired Sam, they called him dishonest, and then the employees revolted.
And Sam was, um, reinstated and everyone else had to go.
The board, IA and Mira all had to go.
Um, and, and this article is, uh, opening up the deposition, uh, where IA is explaining sort of, you know, what he, what he and Mira were, were after.
And, uh, what, what were they after, Vic?
I mean, we have said neither one of us know Sam Altman personally, but my impression, I think your impression is that he is, um, let's say aggressive.
Maybe questionable ethics or he wants to win in all costs.
And I think what Ilya saw and what Meir saw is he was saying different stories to different groups of employees inside OpenAI, sort of pitting them against each other.
And I mean, you and I have been around a lot of high growth startups.
There's, there's often hard feelings and super aggressive people.
Um, but what they saw caused them to begin documenting it.
And they assembled 52 pages of these, you know, infractions and, and inappropriate behaviors over a year.
Mm-hmm.
And then submitted it to the board.
They were talking to the CEO of philanthropic who used to be at open a I two that they all know about.
Combining Okai anda after this transition.
So it's, it's interesting sort of just to see all the back and forth.
I think I came away being more confident that I don't trust Sam Altman.
Um, and at the same time, the employees, uh, I think the answer was they already had seen that the company was transitioning to for-profit employees saw that Sam was going to be the best chance for them personally to make money, and they wanted that chance to continue and so he, he ended up winning out of the fear and greed Debate the time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fear and greed and have both left.
And doing whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean all three of these people will be fine, right?
I mean Yeah, that's right.
Uh, but, but it, it is, it is interesting to get a little bit of a postmortem on what actually happened there.
'cause what it was, when it was happening, it was so crazy.
Like the whole thing happened in, I feel like, about a, like a week's time.
You know, like Sam was out and they like Yeah, it happened in a weekend.
Happened in the weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like Sam was out in the two days back.
Yeah.
They fired him on a Friday.
He was back on Sunday night.
On Sunday night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was, it was a, it was a crazy turn of events.
Alright.
Microsoft's AI efforts in the UAE get a big boost, the tech giant was granted approval by the United States to ship Nvidia AI chips to the Gulf State despite security risks.
Yeah.
So this is, uh, I think, good for all sides.
It's, it's, it is really a part of the American strategy to try to bring the US tech stack to the Mideast, which includes Microsoft and Nvidia.
And I'm in favor of that.
And so this, this is sort of the, the first big deal that's come out out of all those trips that David Sachs and Trump and Bessett and everyone in the Mid East.
And I think, I think that's good.
Maybe a few, uh, will slip over to China.
But in general, I think we can trust the UAE to keep the chips.
A e 'cause they wanna use themselves.
Yeah.
I, I mean, in the reconfiguration of, of sort of, you know, the global, the global order, especially economically, the UAE to me feels like a middle ground.
It, it, you know, I don't, I don't associate security risks with the UAE at this point, you know what I mean?
I just view the UAE as, as one of the, the big future centers of, uh, international commerce.
Um, and, and certainly there's gonna be a lot of tech innovation that comes outta the UAE.
And so having Microsoft have the ability to build out data centers, there actually, it feels like a strategic, um, imperative, um, to, to, to have a foothold there because, you know, China, China will, right?
I mean, it's like, you know, and I think, I think if, if you know people in America, if you haven't like, been to some of these other regions to sort of understand there, there, it's not like China or the us you know, you'll go there and there'll be like a Google building right next to a 10 cent building.
You know, it's just, it's just fair open game for competition.
Uh, it's not like it is in America where you can't buy a Huawei phone or in China where you can't use Google, right?
Like in in, in our respective countries, there is a very, very strong blackout on the other countries sort of commercial products.
But, um, in all these middle ground com countries, they are just taking the best of both.
And if we aren't there competing, uh, we're gonna lose out because that's like the future of the economy, of, of the world.
Yeah.
So that's what I think, I mean, I think American companies can compete pretty well and win, but only if we allow them to, to do so.
Yes.
They have to be allowed and, and, and, and we have to be more realistic about what's actually a security risk versus just, you know, maybe old school thinking about what the Middle East really represents.
Right.
Um, OpenAI wants brands to allow their mascots to appear in Gen AI videos.
Uh, so Sam Altman is suggesting that marketers could eventually charge for the use of their beloved characters in a, in a SOA two text to video app.
This is, and he is just trying anything he can to get people to give them their, their ip.
Um, you know, of course I hadn't even read this, but Ronald McDonald was who I was thinking about immediately, um, you know, being allowed to be used inside o Sora too.
So he's just trying to figure out the business model in real time.
Yeah.
Real time in public with little preparation.
Yes.
Clearly, clearly.
Uh, you know, after he launched it and then realized he had to walk it back after the, you know, the, the family of Martin Luther King was like, Hey, maybe you're not allowed to like, make all these images of, of, of the, you know, the great patriarch of our family.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe Ronald McDonald, there aren't a lot of brand ambassadors.
That the brand owner would feel comfortable just like letting loose in the public internet to see what people make up on soa.
I, I don't, no, I don't know exactly exactly what brand would fit with that, but it's be limited.
It goes way, it goes way against brand 1 0 1, right?
So, you know, maybe, maybe in the future, um, brands won't matter in that way and it will be more important for them to have, uh, distribution through these apps like soa.
But today.
Protecting your brand is still a really, really important thing.
Right, right.
Anthropic lens, cognizant as an enterprise AI customer, the professional services firm becomes one of the AI startups, three largest customers, and will soon roll out Anthropics Claw model to its 350,000 employees.
So Cognizant, uh, a tech forward, uh, uh, consulting firm, uh, global, but very, very strong base in, in, in Europe and in the uk.
Um, and, uh, they've chosen Claude.
So Anthropic continues to make their progress in the enterprise.
Yeah, that's right.
And they, um, that, that is true.
Aro just do well.
And then I think it also, this is just another sign that the AI wave is beginning to filter through corporate America or maybe corporate, global corporate and getting a lot of usage.
So.
I think it's not so much a bubble.
No, I, it's, I I mean, I've told you I don't think it's a bumble now, I'm, I'm not analyzing the, the, you know, the valuations very much.
Yeah.
But, but to me, I, I, I think the real thing is like, I think for people who have used it, gotten over the emotional identity attachment and have actually realized just how much it's gonna help them get done, um, and, and how much more it's going to enable them to do.
If you're, if you're, if you've done that, if's hard to look at this wave knowing right now the technology is the worst it will ever be.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And say it's it's value relative to the value of Old World economic.
Engines is not appropriate.
Right.
Because it, because, you know, it's going to continue to, to disrupt and change all of them, and it's gonna be what's embedded inside of robots and, and automated things in the world of bits once that takes, takes over.
Right.
And so, yes, I, I, uh, to, to me I'm like, this is, it's so different from the.com era, right?
This is, there's nothing pets.com about this.
Right.
Yeah, I agree.
Alright, uh, pen, ultimate story.
Uh, for podcasters, a voice clone is a double-edged sword.
Are AI replicas a boon for productivity or a betrayal of the bond with listeners?
So I just got done saying like how much they help you get done.
And yet Vic, we have not had a single conversation about whether or not we would, um, replace ourselves with an AI clone.
We do, you know, we're well over 160 episodes of the show at this point, so I think we probably have, and these are like not short shows.
They're, they're hour long shows.
So we probably have sufficient data to create our own ai, um, version of the show and just feed it a bunch of news stories and have it, um, generate the, but like we've never even talked about that.
So I guess maybe a question just for you, like, why has that never been something you've brought up to me?
Uh, well the reason we.
The reason I think we do the show is to process the news as it's coming in with each other.
And then the, from my view, the audience gets to listen to that.
Hmm.
And they also get educated, but, but it's, it's valuable for me personally in being able to do my job tomorrow.
And I, there's no question that we could clone our voices.
I mean, you need 10 to 12 minutes and we have 160 times 60 to move.
So we have way more than enough.
And it's interesting in this, in this article, various broadcasters are concerned that the audience has grown to be loyal to them and.
They believe they're, and I think it's true, the curation of news and the interpretation is what people are looking for when they come.
It's not just like reading the newspaper.
Um, there's interpretation and putting it in context for the audience.
And there's a trust that builds up over time that's associated with the voice and the accent and all of that.
The podcasters in, in this article are talking about how it is a hassle to have to rerecord a segment because something happens in the background.
I mean, we know that, that there's, yeah, we've done that.
We mostly just don't worry about the quality and because I don't wanna record the same segment again.
That's right.
But if it's all you do, you end up recording an, an entire 15 minute segment again.
Yeah.
Or you're traveling and you're not in a place where you can really easily do it.
So for that ad hoc thing, they're interested, but, but not just to sort of fully, um, just let it go.
Because they have their identity in like, this podcast is me and I'm the podcast and my listeners want me.
I think you and I should consider it not necessarily to do as a replacement for the live podcast, but in adjunct ways.
Like how are we communicating this technology in other ways or mm-hmm.
You know, I, I teach an entire fundraising class to the portfolio and it's a lot of value, but it's also a ton of time.
Yeah.
And you know, what I was thinking is maybe I could take that content and be able to offer it, you know, instead of once a year for six weeks and everyone has to be raising money at that exact time that they could opt in and take my class from a voice that sounded like me talking about the same content whenever they wanted to.
They could do it 10 at night if they wanted to.
There's use cases like that that I think are interesting.
But I don't know that it was right for our purposes.
Mm-hmm.
I dunno, that's how I think about it.
What's, what's your perspective?
Um, I, I, I, I think, well, first of all, I think all your thoughts are really good on it.
Uh, I think for me, um, the, there's some, I, I totally agree.
I do this for my own thought process because it helps me from an investing perspective, it helps me from an, the ability to advise the portfolio companies, all those types of things.
Um, and I do think that there is some sense of trust that I'm looking to build with our user, with our listeners, that every week you and I are doing the work to actually understand this and know this as opposed to just produce something for them.
Right.
Um, because like, weirdly, I, I, I feel like.
We don't do this show in order to have like a big audience, we do this show in order to have a very deep audience, right?
Meaning if we have a listener, I, I want them to have a respect for me and you, and be able to reach out to us and be like, Hey, that thing you said on this show about this, you know, X, Y, Z, right?
And we are not gonna be able to guarantee that if we outsource the show just, and we just sort of assume people like listening to your voice and my voice, right?
Um, and so yeah, it's, it's really never come up.
You know, I, I think about using AI in a million different ways, uh, but this is just not, it's just not one of 'em.
So, you know, some, something I'm sure that we will revisit over time is more and more AI content, AI podcasts are generated that quality gets better and better.
And maybe consumers just want more of that.
But at the moment it's not, it's not a priority.
Yeah.
I mean, we're, we're I where I have, um.
Experienced it with some success as a user.
There's a lot of podcasts that are, you know, whether it's notebook creating a podcast or it's kind of homegrown and then pushed out there as a podcast where it is to, it's typically a male and a female voice.
Yeah.
Talking about a topic.
Yeah.
And it's pretty helpful.
And, and I can learn about something on the drive home in a way that's much more effective than trying to read it.
I don't have the time to read through something.
Right.
And I, I get the conversational piece.
I maybe I, I ingested a little bit better.
Um, but it's not pretending that they're real people.
Right.
And to me that's a difference, like building trust with the audience and, uh, some level of maybe not authority, but credibility in the market.
Um, and then tricking the audience or pretending like it's me when it's really not me.
Uh, I, I think that is counter counter to what we're trying to do.
So, uh, it doesn't really fit with that.
Agree, agree.
All right.
Final story.
Um, wall Street Journal, why Every family needs a Code Word Authenticating.
The voice on the other end of the line is critical in an age of DeepFakes.
And so this is kind of the other side of the coin, um, but the same underlying power of this technology, right?
We've talked about SOA, leveraging, uh, you know, big brands.
We talked about podcasters outsourcing the actual work of producing the podcast themselves.
Um, but then, you know, of course we have to talk about the malicious aspects of this, which is, uh, things are now getting good enough that, um, someone could call, you know, uh, our loved ones and have somebody that looks just like us.
Uh, that ends up sharing critical information, right?
Yeah.
I mean, what they, the, the most common scan is.
You know, your grandson calls you on the phone and says, I'm in trouble.
My car broke down and I need you to send some money so I can get my car fixed.
Or it's even worse that they're, they're taking hostage or whatever, like they're, you know, in some kind of dangerous situation and it will sound just like them.
It does sound just like them.
You cannot tell from the voice inflection.
And typically they have grabbed all the social media stuff so they know where they are traveling or that they go to college at this place or whatever.
And so what you need is some kind of code word that's not on their social media post or that only the family members know so that you can tell if it's really your grandson or granddaughter.
Or not.
Yep.
And unfortunately, I think it's important to tell people about this 'cause it's, everyone needs to have something.
Yeah.
And also teach what you need to learn.
You know?
I like, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't have one with my family.
I've, I've, I've got it on my, I've been trying to get them to do it and they will not listen to me.
I know.
I, I, I, that's the biggest issue, right.
Is just like getting everybody else to, to buy in that like, it's, it's actually Right.
Really important to do, you know, do it before you need it.
No one thinks you're gonna actually need it.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Uh, yes.
Uh, okay.
Awesome.
Thanks man.
Great show.
And, uh, I think next week we're back in the studio together.
Is that right?
I'm, um, yeah, I'm in Nashville next week, so I can't you track your schedule, but I, I'm here, I'm, I'm in Nashville next week.
Okay, good.
Yes.
Alright.
Awesome man.
Well, I look forward to seeing them.