Health:Further

In this episode, Vic and Marcus unpack a week of major policy and economic shifts, focusing on Trump’s healthcare tech and crypto rollouts. They discuss his revamped cabinet strategy, GDP swings, tariff deals with the EU and Japan, and dissent at the Fed over rate cuts. Topics include nearly $1B in AI scribe funding, a new federal health tech initiative, and a value-based care infrastructure platform. They cover Trump’s pressure on drug pricing, the compounding threat to pharma, and several A...

Show Notes

Links

4:24 U.S. Economy Rebounds in Second Quarter WSJ

7:32 Trump and EU Reach Tariff Deal, Avoiding Trade War WSJ

8:04 - Fed Holds Rates Steady, but Two Officials Back a Cut WSJ

11:02 With Ambience’s new mega-round, AI scribes have announced nearly $1 billion in funding this year Stat

16:56 Arbital Health lands $31M to build out infrastructure layer for value-based risk contracting Fierce Healthcare

17:49 Charta Health picks up $22M to revamp manual chart review with AI Fierce Healthcare

18:29 White House and CMS to launch Health Tech Ecosystem Initiative to expand use of digital health with a focus on consumers Fierce Healthcare

25:32 Trump Administration Weighs Patent System Overhaul to Raise Revenue WSJ

31:50 Medicare Part D Drug Plan Premiums Set to Rise WSJ

35:25 White House Letter to Pfizer X

38:42 Vinay Prasad departs FDA amid conservative criticism, controversy over Sarepta gene therapy Fierce Healthcare

40:40 The Rural Health Transformation Fund: What States and Providers Need to Know (and Do) Now. 80 Million-Substack

43:12 On Eve of Tariff Deadline, Trump’s Trade War Faces Key Court Test NYT

45:45 Humana Raises 2025 Outlook as Revenue Tops Estimates WSJ

46:42 UnitedHealth Continues to Struggle as Rising Medical Costs, Shortfalls Affect Business WSJ

48:59 CVS Health hikes 2025 profit outlook as Aetna insurance business improves Fierce Healthcare

49:35 Cigna affirms outlooks as Evernorth Health Services drives growth Modern Healthcare

50:22 Federal judge blocks Arkansas law barring pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies in state AP

52:09 HCA raises 2025 guidance despite softening volumes Healthcare Dive

52:28 UHS posts softer-than-expected volumes for second consecutive quarter Healthcare Dive

52:52 Teladoc Health Q2 revenue declines 2%, slightly beating Wall Street estimates Fierce Healthcare

53:35 U.S. Opens Antitrust Investigation Into NewYork-Presbyterian NYT

55:06 Novo Nordisk Shares

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What is Health:Further?

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.

Alright man.

Uh, another week.

Yeah.

And President Trump's America.

And Full steam ahead.

Full steam ahead.

Holy.

How A lot has happened this week and I, I feel like, um, when I hear myself say that at the beginning of a show, it's almost like I'm trying to hype up the show, but it's not that I, I'm weary from how much we have to keep up with.

I, I've been trying to cut the number of stories for like, the last six shows.

Right.

And it's difficult to cut back Right.

Because there's so much stuff going on.

Right.

It and, um, was it last week that the AI action plan came out?

Was that last week?

Yeah, that was last week.

Yeah.

So, so this week we're gonna talk about.

A big rollout on health and a big rollout in crypto.

Yeah.

That, that happened.

This, I mean, these are like, they're big rollouts.

Yeah.

There's, um, whether you agree with them or not, the Trump administration is running like full steam ahead, doing a lot, very quickly.

A lot of change very quickly.

Thi this, I, I feel like this confirms, uh, something that, uh, we talked a lot about Mm.

In the first 30 days when all the executive orders were rolling out.

Yeah.

Which is the fact that, you know, one of the distinguishing features of Trump two versus Trump one is he really does have the, a team around him.

Mm-hmm.

This time around.

You know, he's, he's got people like I thumbed through the, um, you know, the crypto plan.

Yeah.

And it's like.

Dude, it's exactly what it's supposed to be.

Yeah.

It's exactly what it's supposed to be.

We'll, we'll talk more about it when we get to the stories, but, uh, he's not writing all these things.

No.

You know what I mean?

What I mean, I, I think that Trump, you know, the four years off, I think he learned a lot about like how to build the cabinet, how to sort of prepare what you can do in the first two years versus when maybe you lose the midterm like you did previously.

So he, you know, in the transition time, I think he mapped out, okay, in two years I'm gonna do all these things.

And yeah, he brought in a bunch of people that can act, you know, without his direction at every step.

And then they come in and say like, what about this?

And yeah, it's, it's, uh.

It's, and the healthcare tech side, we will talk about that too.

It's also good.

I mean, I, yeah.

Now whether they can execute on it, we should.

We'll have to talk about it when we get there, but, but it's, it's put together pretty well.

Well, the difference is like, he's not afraid to go after people.

Right.

So it's like if he brings you to the table and he gets you to agree to something, you, you know, there's a, there's a different level of, you know, your ass is on the line Yeah.

For, for signing that kind of agreement than there would've been under, you know, previous, at least during the next three and a half years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, previously that kind of thing would just be like a PR stunt to sort of satisfy the media.

Mm-hmm.

And like, get everybody, but, but as we know, the healthcare industry would go, like, they'd roll their eyes and be like, okay, whatever.

Like, great, now we can go back to doing everything that we, and it's like, no, it's not like that anymore.

You know?

Now if you sign up for something like that.

You're almost certainly gonna be held accountable to it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, he's not, he's not wasting his time with, uh, press things that he doesn't intend to follow up on.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And he's using the, the power of the pulpit, you know, speaking, convening, yeah.

Pressuring these letters he sends out that are, they seem to be, you know, pretty effective without having to pass a law.

If you just get these companies to agree, um, then you can, it's faster.

Yeah.

Obviously.

Yeah.

So, okay.

Uh, let's enough preamble.

Let's, uh, let's go ahead and dig in.

Starting with the economy, as we always do.

GDP numbers came out and, you know, if you're looking at the chart with us here, uh, it looks crazy when you're comparing Q1 to Q2 of, uh, 2025.

But of course the, you know, the key story here is tariffs, right?

Yeah.

Um, he came outta the gate swinging with the tariffs.

Everyone got scared.

They loaded up on goods that actually had a very negative impact on the way that GDP is calculated.

And so we had this like, negative, was it, was it uh, 0.5% for, uh, for the first quarter?

Uh, yeah, it was, it was negative 0.5 for the first quarter, negative 0.5% for the first quarter.

And then, you know, as things have sort of swung back the other direction, we didn't buy as much stuff 'cause we had a surplus of it.

Right.

In the, in the second quarter we were up 3%.

So, uh, I think your, your read of this is that we actually should be blending the two.

Is that right?

Yeah, I think that's right.

People, um, I mean, Trump was talking about terrorists all through the campaign.

Everyone knew he was gonna come out with tariff.

So I think in Q1, a lot of people kind of front loaded their purchases and then in Q2 they, they didn't buy anything because they, so yeah, I think most economists are blending both quarters together and it ends up at like a 1 9, 1 0.9.

So it's still, still okay growth, but it's, it's not really this tale of a Q1, Q2 being so different.

I think it's just a trade moving trade forward basically.

Yeah.

I, I mean, give given, um, the amount of disruption that Trump has introduced a blended 2% growth over the course of the first half is pretty good actually.

It's actually quite good.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I think that's right.

And we haven't seen any really significant inflation from the tariffs.

No.

And we'll probably talk about it.

Well, they never, never settled anywhere.

It was, it was a lot of threats and there was this 90 day hold, so, you know what I mean?

Like.

I, if anything it slowed business transactions.

It slowed people from doing things.

Yeah.

It, it intermittently rose prices.

But even like a, you know, I've got a portfolio company that only rose prices for one month.

Yeah.

Right.

And then kind of retracted right back once everything sort of settled in.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

We'll see.

I mean, I think, uh, both Japan and Europe, which we have a lot of trade with, are at 15% tariffs now.

So we're gonna be collecting one, we're collecting a decent amount of funds into the treasury, and two, it, it could increase prices over time, but so far it hasn't.

Yeah.

We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see what the actual implementation of this looks like.

I mean, the, the, the default is almost certainly going to be US businesses and US customers are paying in that, that 15%.

Um, yeah, maybe it depends on if, uh, companies can absorb it because their.

The costs are being reduced somewhere else.

They're using technology in some way, and they can, they can reduce expenses in another place.

I, I don't, I don't think we know o over time.

Yes.

Over, over time, years, over time.

There's no question.

Right.

Technology's going to deflate away those type of expenses.

Yeah.

Yes.

Alright, next story.

Wall Street Journal, Trump in the EU reached tariff deal, avoiding a trade war.

So this was expected.

Mm-hmm.

Um, after the successful negotiation with Japan, that, uh, the EU would also land at 15%.

And, uh, now we can put this one behind us as well.

Yeah.

And, and the EU was, I was worried about the eu.

'cause there's, you know, there's the two different levels.

There's each country in the European Union that have very different Right.

Trade interests, and then there's the EU as a whole.

But, but they, they got it done.

Yeah.

And then Jerome Powell, uh, held back on a cut again, but this time there's sort of, um.

A display of unity is missing amongst the, the F omc.

Mm-hmm.

With, uh, two of the members saying that we actually should have done a cut this time.

Yeah.

That, that's right.

And I can't remember the stats in this story.

Um, it's been several years since Chairman Powell has not had a unanimous, unanimous consent.

Right.

Maybe like five years, or se seven years or something.

Long time.

So it doesn't happen.

It's not like a matter of course where they always are fighting over things.

It, it typically is a show of like a consolidated, this is what we're doing, and.

It's fraying right now.

Yeah.

And I mean, if, if two people dissented publicly, you know, there, there was probably even more questions mm-hmm.

Around whether or not this was the right thing to do.

And you probably had people who just were sticking with the tradition backing.

Right.

You know, Powell, because that's, they felt that that was the right thing to do.

But I, I, I said to you as soon as I read this story, uh, that I, I, this, this cut to me feels, uh, or this lack of a cut Yeah.

I should say feels out of touch, you know?

Mm-hmm.

It, it, it feels like, and I'm not talking about the numbers or the data, I'm talking about the sentiment.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, there needed to be a little bit of pressure relieved in the overall situation at this point.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And this just felt like you're digging in your heels.

Right.

Um, yeah.

And you're not, you know, it just, I mean, I, I, a, a 25 basis point cut would've helped or hurt nothing.

Right.

But symbolically it would've like.

Yeah.

Taking the pressure off of the situation.

Yeah.

And it, it reminds me of last July.

So last July, the exact same thing happened, not the dissenters.

Mm-hmm.

But there was a lot of pressure from the Biden administration and from me and from everyone that we, we, we needed a cut, even Elizabeth Warren.

Yeah.

Remember that?

Everyone was, and then there were, uh, it was, it was the, uh, Japanese, uh, carry trade.

The carry trade blow up, yeah.

In early August.

Yeah.

And so then we had, you know, a kind of a problem, and the Fed had to do 50 points in September.

Yeah.

And so it feels like, you know, Groundhog Day, like he, he should have done a quarter point cut to relieve the pressure.

It feels much more like he took it personally.

That's, I think, the fight with Trump, what I think and just is not digging his heels just to do it, which is not good in any sense, but.

We'll see what happens in September.

I think he's gonna need to cut them.

Yeah.

I, I, I think he got a signal with two of the other officials mm-hmm.

Not joining him Right.

On this one.

Right.

I think he got a signal that like, uh, his, his, uh, his block is freeing.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

Uh, okay.

Moving into VC deals, stat News ambience has a new mega round AI scribe has announced nearly $1 billion in funding.

Uh, they are a competitor to Abridge.

Um, and this round was 243 million in new funding.

So, uh, Oak, HCFT, Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI, Kleiner Perkins, Optum Ventures.

So really, really strong group here.

Mm-hmm.

Um, AI ascribes basically dominating the healthcare ai, uh, bucket.

Yeah.

I mean, 975 million, almost a billion dollars in capital raised this year on.

Maybe eight different scribes.

They're all raising a ton of money.

Um, I don't know.

I mean, I, I guess it's a good place to be, but, but there's a lot of competition and they all kind of do the same thing.

Yeah.

It feels to me like you're just kind of storming the market that none of them are building frontier models, correct?

No, no.

They're all just like using, that's why OpenAI invested in this one.

Yeah.

They're all using one of the models.

Yeah.

Huh.

Which I think is not that sustainable.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't quite understand the size of these rounds relative to that.

It's like, you know, do do these large se uh, rounds represent a greater ability to sort of sell through or cut sales cycles in healthcare from, from your perspective?

I mean, now, now, now, granted, granted, uh.

We've, we've seen reports over the course of the last two, three weeks where CIOs are saying AI is the most important thing for them to focus on and get in.

And so I, I do believe, uh, there's a universal focus on, um, ambient listening and, you know, taking some of the pressure off of a already very stressed, you know, clinical workforce mm-hmm.

Um, through ambient AI technology.

So I, I, I do think it's kind of like a make hey moment.

I get that part of it.

And maybe because of that you're saying, Hey, there's a lot of capital flowing in you.

And I Did you, we were reading, uh, you know, PitchBook and Carter's results for the, for the mm-hmm.

For the quarter and the first half of the year.

Uh, we don't have the story here, but AI represented about 35% of deal count.

Yeah.

And like 66% of the deal value, largely because.

Open AI's $40 billion round, right.

Was like 57% of all the VC fund, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

But still a third of all the deals, a third of all the deals from account point of view, were ai.

That's right.

So, um, I mean, so I I, I get that part of it, right.

Also, you got these mega funds, they have the capital, they have to deploy it, they need to make plays, they gotta write big checks.

So there, there's some of that too.

Uh, but, but there is a question like, do you need these kind of checks?

Well, to do this, I, I have a take on it.

I don't have the facts on it, but my take is that I believe they're subsidizing the price.

I mean, I think they're bringing ambient scribing to health systems and charging per token less than it costs them per token to do, to do the scribing.

I mean, we definitely saw this in, in the Uber Lyft gig economy time, this is maybe eight, 10 years ago now, but where the gig economy companies raised a bunch of venture capital mm-hmm.

And they subsidized the product, you know, gross margin negative.

Yeah.

In order to change people's behavior.

Yeah.

With the idea that there's gonna be, you know, one, the first, the best known brand will get 60% of market share.

Yeah.

The next one will get 30.

Yeah.

And that's, that's it.

And then you then Uber has successfully navigated this.

Then they would raise prices after they established 60% happened market, which has happened.

I think there's an aspect of, definitely in the frontier models.

So, um, we'll have it later.

But open AI is raising $40 billion.

Anthropic is raising an, I don't know, $10 billion there.

They're all sort of talking about their revenue and their burn and their revenue is tripling this year, like so three X last year.

But their cash burn is also tripling.

Right.

And that says to me that, that they're running that playbook.

They're just trying to get people to use their system, and then they have more data, they have more usage, they have more brand, and they'll figure out how to raise prices later.

And I think the scribe is the place in healthcare where it's, everyone needs a, I mean, as you said, all the health systems need a scribe, so they're trying to get positioned anyway.

That's, that's why you need so much money if you're subsidizing.

I, I, I, I think you're making a good point.

I am.

Uh, and what I'm about to say doesn't negate anything you said.

I'm just thinking about the.

The overall headwinds of the market they're selling into.

Mm-hmm.

And how that's different from Yeah.

You know, an Uber or, or a Lyft.

And so, you know, which I think had tailwinds, but because it's a two-sided marketplace Yeah.

This is not that.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's not two-sided.

It's also not direct to consumer.

No.

So like a big health system.

Yeah.

It's a captive market and it's enterprise will switch if they wanna switch.

Well, not just that, it's, it's a limited and shrinking pie.

Yeah.

Yes.

Right.

Everyone who studies hospitals knows we are going to have less hospitals, not more.

Yes.

So that's the only part that I'm just a little bit, yeah.

I don't think ambient scribe is a standalone product five years from now.

It's not, I mean, it's not even a, a standalone product.

They're gonna have to broaden too.

A more robust set of offerings.

Arbital Health lends 31 million to build out infrastructure layer for value-based risk contracting.

This is fierce healthcare.

Uh, I think this is smart.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, this is, uh, one of the more interesting business models that, that we're covering that I hadn't really thought of before.

But value-based contracting is super complicated.

You have different sides of the contract fighting over every little piece, and so having an independent third party navigating that, you know.

In a agnostic way.

That's fair.

Seems like a pretty good idea.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, with some of the threats around upcoding, you might even need this even in the payvider scenarios.

Yeah.

You might need even more in the payvider situations.

Right.

Yeah.

I hadn't thought about that.

That's that's true too.

Yeah.

So I think this is a, this is a pretty smart business.

Uh, chart of health picks up 22 million to revamp manual chart review with ai.

Um, I mean, you know, smart, but like not unique.

Yeah, that's right.

This, this is, yeah.

This is not the, this is a me too one, but, but you know, if they do it well, it could be, it could be good.

Yeah.

I mean, me medical billing and coding, you know?

Yes.

That there's a lot of work to be done there and Yeah.

All the AI scribes are gonna come into the space.

Yeah.

And, and there's gonna be a lot of buying activity going on there, so, you know.

Good, good luck to charter health.

Uh, okay.

Moving on to policy.

This was a big, big story that rolled out this morning.

I'm trying to track, I think last, it was sort of last night.

Last night?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

July 30th.

Okay.

Uh, the White House and CMS to launch Health Tech Ecosystem initiative to expand the use of digital health with a focus on consumers.

Uh, and so this, uh, there's no actual official policy here, but there was a convening mm-hmm.

Where they brought together everybody from, you know, your favorite payer to your favorite LLM and everything in between.

Um, you know, and Epic, Oracle Yeah, sure.

Mayo Clinic.

Yeah.

They had 'em all at the table on, had all at the table.

Yeah.

They're all there.

Yeah.

And, uh, got them to basically say.

Patient data needs to be with patients, and we're not gonna block the information and we're going to, we're going to actually leverage these existing interoperable standards that have been around forever.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Um, I mean, Vic, as you remember, we, we, we had an industry initiative here in Nashville, the, uh, center for Medical Interoperability.

Yeah.

Uh, and then everyone realized how hard it was to actually get anyone to, to behave.

And so that didn't work.

And it wasn't, it wasn't for lack of trying, it was, you couldn't get anyone to actually do anything.

And I think the difference is like, Trump can motivate people to do things because they know he is like, there are consequences with him.

Um, yeah.

And, and the truth is why didn't anyone do do this stuff before?

There were no consequences, you know?

Yeah.

We had blue button.

We had, we've had, we've had all sorts of standard fired, we've kept tired.

Yeah.

None of that part is new.

What is new is cons, consequences.

It's, it's not technically hard.

No consequences, right.

Are what's new.

Yes.

That that's right.

And.

I mean, I have to give Trump credit.

He uses the power of the Oval Office in a way that is pretty effective and is, is different.

And, and I think more wide ranging than other presidents.

And, uh, so he did the, I listened to the 45 minute, you know, a little press conference.

Trump comes on and does, you know, his five minutes of introduction, as he always does, as he always does.

Um, but then they had Kennedy and Dr.

Oz. And then the real star of the show was a woman named Amy Gleason, who is a member of the Doge, uh, department.

And she's gonna be heading this up.

She really did a good job sort of explaining why the executive branch should be doing this and how it's gonna benefit patients.

She has a daughter with a, a significant, uh, rate's disease.

She talked about that.

And then Dr. Oz got on and sort of gave the doctor's point of view of wanting to give great care, but not having the resources, not having it easy.

And so they did a good job sort of painting the picture of what, what this could be as far as benefits to the voters, to the citizens.

Right.

And then turned to all of the, they had 60, you know, private industry participants there for the 60th birthday of Medicare.

Um, I don't know it, I'm hopeful.

And then they have good taglines, like Kill the Clipboard, ask the facts, or, they're so good at that, things that I can remember.

Right.

They're so good at that.

Right?

Yeah.

I look again, if I'm looking at.

And of course I've, I've got my own, uh, personal gripe with, with the whole like, let's leave climate change out of LLMs.

It's like, you know, meanwhile, right?

Earthquake tsunamis, right?

Flash floods.

You know what I mean?

Like, I, I'm kind of like, okay, fine, whatever.

Uh, but, but when you look at the AI action plan, uh, the, you know, this health tech ecosystem rollout, uh, and then this crypto thing that have all rolled out in the last two weeks, right?

It's like, not only promises made, promises kept, but also it's just hard for me as an innovator to find fault with how forward, you know, thinking this, what this administration is.

It's just like, yeah.

I mean, we, I have complained, we've all complained about.

We spend too much money, we have bad outcomes.

We don't, no, no one likes the clipboard and, but for God's sakes, it's 2025.

Right.

So they are taking action and trying to fix it.

Now they'll may, they're doing things that I wouldn't do.

I would, I don't like every aspect of it, but, but they're definitely working on things.

Look, there, there, there's no question that there will be issues and there will be all sorts of collateral damage.

Yeah.

Largely from the speed with which they roll these things out, right?

Yeah.

Right.

Like there's, so there's no question there will be collateral damage.

I, I guess I'm simply saying that when you compare this to the predecessors, it really is an indictment of, of previous administrations, um, you know, failure to, to include Trump won, right?

Yeah.

You know, failure to meet.

Our country where we are in terms of our capabilities to advance some of these really critical things, right?

Like as long as we've been in healthcare, people have been complaining about the e emr.

As long as, as long as we've been in healthcare, people are complaining about the clipboard and the fact that we, you know, it's like a, it's a bad joke talking about faxes.

It's a bad joke, but yet we still do it because of X, Y, Z.

Right?

You know, and, and we've been talking about fire forever, and I, you know, I, I'm a technologist man.

I came from a world of APIs and all this.

I, I, I just stopped even trying to think about it.

I was like, forget it.

Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand why this industry, you know, why, why the financial services industry can integrate at every single point, right?

Yeah.

Where the, in the airplane industry can integrate at every single point.

I can use this, this app flighty to know every single thing about my plane.

Yeah.

Before it arrives.

I, I can know everything about it, but somehow in healthcare, even with Apple Health on my phone, I still can't actually have my own fricking right.

MR record, right?

Yeah.

And it's because the, the industry was protected.

Yes.

That's, that's the bottom line.

It's called regulatory capture.

Yes.

You know, and, and the, and it's, it's that internal thinking.

This healthcare is different.

You know, there is, there is some ivory tower elitism to it and it's all part of this negative sentiment that's been building up around this industry.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean we were, we were both alive, but not paying attention.

'cause I wasn't paying attention in the eighties to politics.

But there hasn't been a president while I was an adult and voting and paying attention.

That has moved to the speed.

Maybe the reason I went to the eighties, maybe Reagan, people say Reagan did a bunch of cutting bureaucracy, cutting regulations.

I don't know.

I was a kid.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Neither one of us would paying attention then.

Yeah.

Um, but.

Since Clinton, when I started paying attention, no one has moved to the speed.

It's, it's, it's insane.

It's really a lot.

Uh, Trump administration weighs patent system overhaul to raise revenue.

Okay.

Now we move from something that was like exciting to something that's like WTF.

Right.

Really.

Exactly.

And, um, Howard Lutnick is my least favorite of the cabinet.

Same.

Um, I think, actually, I won't even tell you who my least favorite is.

Okay.

Because I don't know if I could name the whole cabinet too, because then I would be getting very political.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not gonna do that.

But I will say certainly in the, in the realm of like, of economics and finance.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, especially when you're comparing him to Besson, it's like, mm. Yeah.

Right.

Um.

Or Kennedy even mean, um, who, who was just, but, but, but I, I, I, I know we're, we're, we're spinning on, on, uh, on Lutnick for a second, but I, but I will say, I, I heard a podcast where they were, uh, comparing, uh, Lutnick and Besson, and they, and they made a very, very good point, which is Besson was not gonna help Trump get elected.

Lutnick was.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

So it's kind of like Lutnick was the guy you needed to get Trump into office.

Yeah.

Besson is the guy you need to keep Trump in office.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

You, you know what I mean?

It's like, it's just, it's just the difference between elections and, and governing.

Yeah.

They're, they're two different things.

Yeah.

I think two, you know, in his defense, I think Trump has tasked him with finding more money.

Yeah.

Fair.

You know?

So fair.

Um, anyway, so Lana came up with this idea to overhaul the patent office.

Which I think needs to be overhauled.

Yeah, I know, but not in the way that, that he's doing it.

So he is talking about something, I'm gonna relate it, but I don't know how it can be functional, which is when you apply for a patent, there is a fixed cost 5K, three to 5K.

But then they will assess how valuable this patent will be, I guess, some way.

And then charge you a percentage of that.

And that sounds like it could generate a lot of revenue until you start asking, well, how are we gonna know what this future patent that, that you're now about to issue you haven't even issued yet is gonna be worth, I mean, that's.

I don't, I mean, I'm a venture capitalist.

I don't know how to do that.

I, I was about to ask you, Vic, how, how do you know how to value things?

Because I know we do at Foundry, we tell everybody, your baby is beautiful enough to be valued at this.

Right?

Exactly.

All of you, you're all this, it's, I think of it as a binary outcome, right?

You either produce a product that people like and buy.

Yeah.

And then you change your net worth materially, or you don't, and, and, and look, I consider patents to effectively be pre-seed.

Like, unless, unless you're taking something that's already been working and you're saying, wow, look at the viability of this, and I hadn't really thought about it, but it is unique and patentable.

Let's go ahead and patent it after the fact.

Well, I think a, as a percentage, I think more than half of the patents issued are issued to Google, Amazon, Microsoft.

Okay.

Forget them.

Because, because that's not who this is gonna impair or impact.

Let's talk about you and I, we come up with an idea.

I I, I have, I have a utility patent.

Yeah.

So, you know, we, we come up with an idea, like we're gonna get a valuation on that, and then we're gonna have to pay against that valuation one to 5% in order.

Not even that the, the patent office is gonna value it.

I, I understand that, but I, I'm, I'm making, I'm making the point, like, and I think, oh, and by systematically they're gonna value it high 'cause they get more money.

Yeah.

And, and hold on, here's another thing you're trying to tell me.

The patent office has experts in every single field of the world to be able to, to, they do not, to effectively value they these things into the future.

This is a good example of a terrible idea that the Trump administration is trying to push through.

And also it's the commerce department.

Like, he probably doesn't even care.

He is like, whatever you can go over there and play.

It's just like, whatever.

Yeah.

So I don't think it's functional.

I wanted to cover it because in healthcare broadly and in startups, patent patent IP protection is, is critical.

Yeah.

Um, and so we need to follow this, but I don't think it's, I don't think it can go through like this.

Yeah.

I mean, we, we already have a decrease in funding going to pharma, biotech and, uh, and devices.

Yeah.

The, the, the only category in healthcare VC that's growing is software technology.

And I think that's largely like a, it's a derivative of the ai, right.

Boom.

Right.

We, we just went through a billion, not in ai, ai scribes.

Right, right.

Like, we didn't talk about revenue cycle.

We didn't talk about coding.

We didn't, you know what I mean?

Right.

Just, just the scribe business got a billion dollars this year.

So, yeah.

I mean, I think, I mean there are other ways that this is not helping an already flailing, you know, you've cut grants.

Pat, like, like the real value of patents is hard tech.

Deep tech, right?

Yeah.

Um, whether it's in a lab or, or in a wet lab or, or it's, you know, dealing with rare earth or whatever.

It's, it's, it's serious.

Serious engineering.

Right.

Serious science.

And, uh, there's already enough issues against that stuff.

Yes.

You, you've, you've made it more tax friendly to do r and d work.

That's fine.

But the core dollars, the actual cash tax is an after mm-hmm.

You know, cash thing.

I'm talking about the, the cash on the, on the weight in and the NIH grants and research grants.

Yeah.

The cash on the way in to do this stuff.

Yeah.

That's decreasing across the board.

Both private and public sources are decreasing and now you're gonna increase expenses at some variable that I can't even predict.

It's gonna be up to whatever the office says.

Right.

So there are ways to get more money into the patent office, but this isn't it like you could charge based on the revenue of the applicant.

Like so, okay, so if Google wants to apply, they have to pay slightly more than a startup doesn't have any revenue.

Or you could take some royalty percentage on every patent issued, but it needs to be a standard that is independent and no one has to use judgment for.

It's just like, this is the way that it, because I think that's the only way it's feasible.

We'll see what happens.

I, I don't, I don't think anything will happen really.

Uh, Medicare Part D drug plan premiums set to rise.

This was something that went, uh, went past me.

Uh, there was so much focus from, a lot from, uh, HR one, one big beautiful bill on Medicaid and the aca.

That was, those were the two big areas of focus from that bill.

And so, um, you know, I, I missed that.

They also cut the subsidies, uh, to the payers.

Part D Yeah.

For, for Medicare Part D. So, you know, it's, it's like when you really take, and, and I'm sure Wall Street didn't miss this because when you look across the sector and how they, you know, it doesn't, like, we're gonna talk about this later, but, uh, this, the number of headwinds being thrown right now, right?

Healthcare is a lot.

It's specifically the payers.

Yeah.

Specifically the payers.

It's a lot.

Uh, but all these things adding up to premiums going up is just gonna, it add to leaving markets and people not buying the, the product.

Yes.

People are just not gonna buy the product.

The healthy people are not gonna buy the product.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, it's just a, it's insurance 1 0 1.

You're gonna get bad signaling with all the people that actually are very expensive.

Yes.

Worse risk pools.

Yes.

Right.

So, by the way, by the way, unfortunately, I believe there is a socioeconomic economic tie between their ability to pay the premiums and the quality of the he of, of their health overall.

When you look at the risk, I, yeah.

It has to be at least correlated.

I'm not saying it's, it's causational, but it has to be at least correlated.

So it, it's just headwind, headwind, headwind, you know, you know what I mean?

It's like, yeah.

It's bad.

It's headwinds for the industry and the, the lower part of the K, it just cannot catch a break.

Everything is headwinds for that population of people that, that need more help than the upper part of the K. Yeah.

But, but they're not get help.

No.

This era.

That we're in right now was having dinner with, um, CEO of a high performing FinTech company on Tuesday.

And, you know, we're talking about a variety of different things.

And, and he was, he was telling me that he, uh, he bought like a bunch of gold, you know, like, you know Yeah.

Stuck in the safe.

And he was, he was, he, I feel so irrational.

I was like, no, that is your brain processing your nervous system, picking up on the fact that this era, the message is you're on your own.

Mm-hmm.

And that's why you went and you bought gold bricks.

'cause you know, you're on your own.

Yeah.

You're on your own, you know, and, and God bless you for being able to buy those Goldbergs.

Right.

Yeah.

But like, think about the, the, think about the people who have been dependent on this system for like survival.

Survival.

Yeah.

That's right.

I mean they, they're also getting the, you're on your own message, right?

That that's right.

And the other aspect of that is that.

No longer will smarts, effort, hard work, education, make a difference.

I, unfortunately, I don't believe it's possible to pull yourself up through intelligence, hard work, studying effort.

Intelligence was the last, the last one that was okay.

One, and, and it's ding, it's gone.

Yeah, it's gone now.

Right?

So anyway, wall Street Journal's covering this because of the next story, which Trump is, um, trying to soften the effect on this by really aggressively pushing the, um, pharmaceutical companies to provide better pricing to Americans.

Larry Levitt reposted on x, this letter from, uh, Donald Trump to the CEO of Pfizer, and basically telling him, you know, you, you need to give us most, most favored nation pricing.

Uh, I mean, this feels like the next wave that we're gonna be dealing with over the next 18 months.

It's, it, you can't do it immediately, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because like, too many Americans are too dependent on their pharmaceutical drugs, and like, we need, you know, you just can't create shocks in that part of the, the, in that part of the world.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, we have an FDA story we'll talk about later where it's like, don't screw people's drugs.

You know what I mean?

Because that's their, their sense of security in the world for, for for good reason, you know?

Um, but he's starting, you know, he's starting the process of, of, uh, forcing these pharmaceutical companies to, uh, price in accordance with the way that they price globally.

Yeah.

And, and the, um, I mean, this is just.

Trump strategy I think, which is he makes a bunch of demands reduce your prices so that Americans pay the same or less mo most favored nation status compared to other countries and make binding commitments by September 29th.

There's like a hanging or else I'll do something that you won't like, but he doesn't actually commit to anything.

But like he doesn't have to.

Right?

He doesn't have to because I mean, Biden had the, the well-intentioned idea of bringing in the pharmaceutical companies.

He picked very expensive, I think 10 or 15 or something and pushed on that.

It was just very process driven and how leaders have done government policy forever.

I. Trump doesn't worry about that.

He just like runs over, writes the CEOA letter demanding to be treated the same as other countries and puts a very short timeline on it.

And I mean, it, it might work.

It doesn't work.

It's gonna, I mean, something will happen.

It matches the America first meme.

Yes.

Right.

It matches the America first meme.

And that is one thing he, he manages to be, uh, whether stylistically or even tactically you disagree with what he's doing.

When you put it all in a, you know, you, you have to apply intelligence and logic to it, to, to, to identify areas where that narrative falls apart.

But on the surface, it all matches the meme of America first.

If you are coming to a Trump rally or whatever.

Listening to talk radio.

The, the meme hangs perfectly together.

Yes.

Yeah.

Trump's fighting from us or whatever.

The details don't matter.

They don't go through the details.

Right, exactly.

That's, that's the main point.

Like, like if you, if you sift through it and you go through the details and you, you know, you run game theory or you run the, the health economics out, or you, you run all these things over time, you see, but you know, when you're doing all these things very, very quickly.

And all we can read is headlines anyway, like, you know Yeah.

We're the TikTok generation.

We can't, we can't, we have no attention span.

Yeah.

It all matches the meme.

Yeah.

It all matches the meme.

That's right.

Right.

Uh, this is from Fierce Pharma.

Vinne Prasad departs the FDA amid conservative criticism, controversy over sarepta gene therapy.

So this is, uh, the, the drug that, uh, has been a little bit controversial for Duchenne, uh, muscular dystrophy, um, and has, has resulted in some deaths.

Uh, and apparently, you know, Dr.

Prasad tried to halt the, the drug and, you know, the Trump administration is very, very big into Right.

To try.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, Duchenne is a very nasty disease, and so mm-hmm.

You know, there's a different, um, sense of sort of what's allowable when it comes to the risk reward profile for these types of drugs and these really, really ugly diseases.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, this is not diabetes.

Right.

You know, and, uh, and.

Dr. Psad did not make it, he did not make it to the other side of that decision.

You know?

Uh, yeah.

The drug is back on the street and he is out.

Yeah, that's right.

And at some level, three people died.

And so for the FDA to, to say, we're gonna stop usage and study this for, I mean, pick the time limit 30 days or some amount of time, yes.

That seems like sort of the job of the fda.

A Yep.

Um, but yes, the, um, the flaw was not allowing the patient to raise their hand and say, I understand and I want to try it anyway.

I think that's the lesson.

But, but yeah.

When public sentiment goes against someone, um.

I, I think you're out quickly.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and they're just not gonna even play.

Right.

I mean, and the other thing is like, he's, you know, he's like embedded in the FDA, he's not a name.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

You gotta be in the space to know who he is and, and look the way that RFK is cleaned in house with, with folks in the HHS anywhere, like, it doesn't, it just doesn't.

It doesn't matter.

No, they'll reload someone else in.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Uh, alright, moving to the 80 million.

This is the Manat publication on all things Medicaid.

They do a deep dive into the Rural Health Transformation Fund.

This is the $50 billion I think Murkowski probably gets the, the credit for, for putting into, uh, HR one.

Um, and they just sort of analyze it and make points, make the point that like it's no GA, it does not make up for the $70 billion loss that mm-hmm.

That the rural, you know, um, hospitals are going to face.

Right.

It's 20 billion short of that.

Um, it's temporary anyway.

It's so, you know, it's a bandaid on something that's much more persistent.

Uh, and finally, like you don't even know if the $50 billion is actually going to the hospitals.

Right.

I mean, like you and I know a couple of very, very large influential funds that like to develop, you know, all sorts of VBC models for the rural population specifically.

And if I had to guess, I would imagine they're looking at that $50 billion, like.

Let's go Right like that?

Yeah.

That looks like, uh, you know, great transitional money for us to prove that we can outperform those hospitals in those markets.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's both ends.

Like, I think it is, it's positive, right?

Like 50 billion does not make up for the $70 billion in cuts, but, but it is better than not having that it got added in, in the last 12 hours of the bill.

I, I find your characterization of it as positive to be generous, given the other things that the bill caused.

Right?

Like, so to, to me that's a little bit like, you know, I punch you in the face, but then I give you, you know, some rubbing alcohol and a bandaid and I'm like, that's, it was positive.

Look what I just did.

Yeah.

I gave you a, you know what I mean?

Like, so I think we, we just, I, I just don't wanna get sucked into to that kind of narrative.

I feel like that's, that's kinda the point of this piece.

I think that's, I think that's, I think that's right and the talking points.

Part of the reason I'm saying that is that I just listened to this healthcare tech, you know, 45 minute speech.

Mm-hmm.

And Kennedy talked directly about this and spun it as a positive for rural patients.

Well, okay.

Because, because he had the microphone and he can spin it as a positive.

Yeah.

And it exists.

It's, it's, it's talking point for him now.

Right.

Exactly.

It's a talking point for him now, so that That's right.

It's going to be.

It's the bandaid and solve after I punch you in the face.

I think that's a good way to think about it.

Yeah.

So anyway, I I, I'm glad you selected it.

I mean, it was important to sort of know the basic math, which is that Yeah.

This is 20 billion short and also one time not as persistent as the projected losses.

Uh, New York Times Appeals Court hears legal challenge to Trump tariffs is trade war widens.

So you gotta educate me on this one.

Uh, so Trump is using, I'm not gonna be able to get it right.

A certain statute related to, um, national security.

Yeah, it's around national emergencies, right?

It, it has a acronym.

Okay.

But yeah, you have to make the case that there's a national security risk to enforce Yes.

This tariff, that's how he's enforcing the tariffs without Congress approving.

Right.

The president can do tariffs.

If Congress agrees.

Sure.

But he didn't want to go through that process?

No, he wanted to do it unilaterally.

Right.

So he, he just, he just asserted that we were in an emergency, A EPA is what it's called.

Okay.

At a epa.

Yeah.

International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so, um, various people that were harmed by the tariffs, which of which there are a lot, companies or whoever Sure.

Yeah.

Have sued saying that these tariffs are not legal and therefore need to be reversed and you have to return the money, importantly.

Yep.

And so Trump won the first, um, trial, which was at the, like the district level maybe.

And now they're at the, the next level.

Um, and it's gonna go to the Supreme Court.

I think the legal people I've been listening to.

I think it's probably 70% likely that he loses.

That he loses JJ just on the, on the letter of the law?

Yeah, just on the letter of the law.

And he, it's gonna go to the Supreme Court, they'll rush it through.

So there's, there's a, whatever the next level is the, the appellate court.

Maybe.

Um, there are 11 judges on a panel at this appellate court talk, you know, hearing the arguments today, they'll decide one way or the other, whichever they decide is gonna, then the other side will appeal.

Right.

And it'll go to Supreme Court, but by the end of the year, there's a 70% chance that the tariffs, all this stuff gets unwound.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so I think part of the reason Trump is driving to get like trade deals is that he understands that.

Yeah.

And if he can sign a deal with Europe, then there, it's fine.

Then, then Yeah.

Then now he has a trade deal.

Yeah.

Um, so I don't know.

It's, it's gonna be a mess.

If they have to unwind the tariffs and send all the money back, but it looks like there's 70% chance of that.

Hmm.

Alright, moving into the payer sector, uh, it's Wall Street Journal, Humana races 2025 Outlook as revenue tops estimates.

That's a, that's a good headline for Humana.

Uh, they, they previously expected it to be 126 billion, now it's gonna be 128 billion.

So, looks like they, they took their medicine before and kind of reset the guidance, uh, to a, a pretty low place.

And now they're able to, to beat that.

That's good.

And yet, um, they did not get rewarded, uh, with any type of stock bump or even neutral.

They, they were down on the day from the news.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I think the market just does not like payers.

I mean, not right now.

They couldn't, they couldn't have done anything different.

They, they beat, they raised guidance to, they, they had everything that you would expect to mean and the stock would do well.

Right.

And it didn't matter.

Yeah.

It was still down 5%, four point a half percent.

Yeah.

So, uh, that's a, that's a pretty consistent story.

Uh, here's a story from Wall Street Journal about United Health continues to struggles.

Rising medical costs, short fails affect the business.

Um, it seems that, uh, Stephen Hemsley, um, who was the chairman has stepped in as the CEO, um, is as part of his, you know, work to turn this thing around, is just going ahead and, and saying, we we're, we're just gonna take all the medicine right now.

Right.

So we're cooperating on the DOJ investigation.

There's some serious things we need to, to work to clean up in the business.

And he is just like, let's take the hit right now.

We're, we're, we're already down 50%, you know?

Yeah.

From, from the high this year.

Uh, I think this is smart.

Like, do as much as you can to, to try to like Right.

St get, get the market to give, get all the, give you a new everything.

Yeah.

Right.

Get a new floor that you can work from because, you know.

The, the Humana experience of going out with a, with a beat.

Mm-hmm.

$2 billion better than, yeah.

Than guidance and then getting knocked down 5%.

It's like if this, if you're already in a window where the sector is gonna get knocked down mm-hmm.

This is the time, go ahead and take all the bad right now.

Establish a new floor.

It probably runs at least for the rest of this year.

Um, yeah.

And, and, and do the hard work to turn this thing around so that next year, hopefully you can tell a different story.

Right.

So, um, yeah, I mean, they've taken their earnings down from $30 a share estimate in January to 16.

That's, I mean, so it's half as, as profitable.

Um, yeah.

So I, I think you're right.

I hope you're right that he's throwing the kitchen sink and everything else in to sort of over kind of overcorrect and then they can start performing.

But yeah, I, I mean, he, he is, uh, he certainly comes across as like a trusted.

You know, um, person with the, with the hands on the wheel.

Mm-hmm.

Just being, just around Ford a very, very long time.

I mean, in a lot of ways he built the company.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Being around for a very, very long time.

And so, y you know, I, I think I've said this a couple times, I think they have the right guy in the seat to sort of deal with all of these, these different challenges.

And, uh, the only way out is through, you know, when when, when you're kind of in a, in a place where, where they are the only way out is through, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Um, so, alright, what else?

We got, uh, CVS, uh, health hikes 2025 Profit Outlook as Aetna insurance business improves.

So, I mean, look, some, some, some good results here, uh, from many of the, the large healthcare companies.

Yeah.

We've got some, we've got some good results on the, on the provider side as well.

Yeah.

That, that's right.

I mean, there definitely are, this week there's been several good earnings report from payers and, and.

We're talk about HCA too.

Um, but on the payer side, it didn't really matter.

Right.

CVS was down.

We'll just go to the next one.

Cigna also had a real, I thought a great report this morning.

They're ever, they were down as well.

Yeah, they're down too.

So Yeah.

And they outlook.

They ever, uh, yeah, they're commercial.

Which, which is commercial.

Pretty protective.

They got rid, they got rid of the Medicare Advantage business.

Sold to, uh, yeah.

What was it?

HSBC or hc, I forget.

Uh, HCH, is that the name of that company?

HSI can't now that you, hss, BC is the bank.

Yeah.

It's, uh, whatever.

It's one of the blues plans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, so, so they, they have a very predictable business.

Mean a commercial book of business is, is gonna be fine.

Um, but it didn't matter.

They so were down.

Right.

Uh, HCSC, by the way.

Yes.

Is who they, who they sold that to.

Uh, okay.

A federal judge blocks an Arkansas law, barring pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies and state, this is the ap.

Um, so in Arkansas, uh, they were dealing with what they believed to be, uh, the PBMs crushing the, uh, the small independent pharmacies.

Um, and so, and, and, and a small pharmacy called Walmart.

Yeah.

And, and Walmart, uh, and of course, Arkansas.

Right.

That's why, that's why I, yeah.

Yeah.

Arkansas.

Uh, and so Sarah Huckabee Sanders and, uh, signed this restriction into law CVS and Express Scripts sued the state.

Uh, and that has now been, uh, reversed.

Yeah, that's right.

And so, um, for right now, the, the law can't go into effect.

Maybe there's some way to appeal, I don't know.

But, um, CVS.

Owns, um, A PBM and they are allowed to stay open.

Yeah.

So, uh, I mean, it, it do, it certainly feels like a, like a tough, um, a tough thing to get across the line.

Uh, you're gonna just block CVS from operating in the state of Arkansas where their competitor Walmart also happens to be headquartered.

You know what I mean?

Like, it, it just, yeah.

Well, Walmart doesn't own a pbm.

A pbm, right, right.

Yeah.

So that, it, it just, I I mean it's like, I think it's like these, all these political things, they, they show off the independent pharmacies, which are struggling Sure.

Due to PBMs.

So That's right.

But I don't know that, um, I mean, if you get rid of all the cvs, I.

I think it would be a transition period at least.

Yeah.

Uh, okay.

Moving on to the providers.

HCA raised this 2025 guidance despite softening volumes and their stock was up.

Yeah.

They, they, they came out on Friday, what were saved right after our, our, uh, show.

Uh, but they, they performed well.

They, you know, they're good executors there.

They have a good set of assets and their stock has done well.

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh, UHS posted software than inspected volumes for the second consecutive quarter, but they were also up.

Yeah.

So they didn't perf, they didn't deliver a great earnings, and I don't think their set of assets is as good as HCAs, but, but they sort of got a lift.

From maybe the overall sentiment.

Yeah.

Uh, and then Teladoc Q2 revenue declines 2% slightly beating Wall Street estimates.

And so they actually have an integrated care business, uh, that that performed well and was up 4% compared to last year.

Um, but the thing I sort of put an eye on was that better help, which was, you know, sort of a big play for them.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, was down 9% year over year.

So that's just, you know, that's not a good trend.

Yeah.

For, for the virtual behavioral care business for them.

And Better Help is kind of the big brand that you see out here in terms of all the marketing and, and brand building that they're doing.

So for, lemme just spending all that money on brand building and be 9% down year over year.

That's tough.

Yeah.

Teladoc iss a hard platform.

It's not that differentiated from a whole bunch of other places now.

Yeah.

Uh, the US opens antitrust investigation into New York Presbyterian.

So, uh, the idea here is that New York Press, um, has, uh, colluded with, with health insurance companies to, to basically, uh, set pricing in a way that is disadvantageous to their competitors and, you know, unknowingly locks in their customers.

Yeah.

That, that's right.

And I think it is the, by the way, this is the alleged, that's the, that's the allegation.

That's allegation, right?

Yes.

Um, and I don't know the facts, but I, I do know many hospitals that try to create a avenue to have something that they can offer a, a payer that other people don't have.

Maybe it's a burn unit or a children's hospital or some something, and then they use that as a negotiating.

Um, tool.

And that is a fine line between appropriately using your features in a way that's fair in the market and collusion.

And I think for a long time health systems have been, people have sort of looked the other way and not worried about it.

Um, but I think that's changing now.

Mm-hmm.

But if this court case goes through and this a change, there's a lot of, there's a lot of other health systems that need to.

Think about what they're doing.

I think moving into Pharma, Nova Nordisk shares plummet as competition weighs on sales guidance.

Cut, send stock 30% lower.

Good night, uh, as the company named the new CEO.

So new CEO will have a good year to be able to point to the old CEO and blame him for all this stuff, but 30% drop.

Goodness gracious.

Yeah.

They, they, that is brutal.

They really are in trouble with the, um, compounding him really himss, but all the compounders are still.

How has that happening?

I mean, we, you and I have been tracking this the whole time.

It seems fairly clear this is not allowable Well, the, um, you had like, like it has to be an emergency designation, that there's a shortage of it, right?

Like, well, that's gone now.

Yeah.

Well, I, I guess that's, that's my point.

I don't understand why they're allowed to compound.

Why is that allowable?

HIMS has a team of lawyers and they, they have decided that the next loophole to pursue is that they can compound a particular, um, combination of things for each patient.

And it's more effective that, that they are giving you a, um, the right dosage and the right set of things.

So, oh, wow.

They're claiming that the customization is important for all of these millions of patients.

And that is true if you are like allergic to eggs and they use the egg thing in the, in the medicine, and so you can't have that medicine, but they, they're applying it at a much, much broader use than anyone has applied it before.

And then they have this, I think, strategy now, now I'm putting my own, I know that's factual, that my strategy overlay is that they're trying to use public opinion.

Sure, sure, sure.

To not be pursued around that.

Yeah.

I, I'm, I'm just shocked they've been able to get away with this for this long, you know?

Um, because it feels, look 30% impairment if it is truly based on competition, that's a significant impairment to this company.

And, uh, you know, I, I, I don't know.

I mean, it seems like a fundamental, it's not fair.

I don't think it's fair.

Yeah.

It's as, at least in terms of how we understand the rules of the game to, to be laid out.

Right.

This does not seem correct.

That's right.

They HIMSS is charting a new course that I think is, um, not fair to patent holders.

Now, now Novo came out with a high price compared to the cost to make the drug.

Right.

They were, but that, but that's not illegal.

I, I, I get all that.

Those are fundamental issues that I think are exactly what Donald Trump is going after right now.

Right.

And, and, and have been longstanding issues that we have with the pharma industry, like for a very, very long time.

Yes.

Right.

Those are more systemic industry issues.

Yeah.

Right.

That need to be addressed.

I don't think that, that doesn't give you the right to then just, you know, yeah.

I, I cavalierly violate their patent.

That's, that's kind of what I'm getting at.

I, I just, I just think 30% impairment seems, uh, seems pretty serious to be allowed for something that, that you can't explain to me, and you're, you're, you're basically saying it's like a loophole.

I'm like, well, that sounds like something that should be shut down.

Yes.

That's what I think.

And I'm talking, I'm not invested in Novo.

I don't, I'm, you know, I just think that that sounds crazy, but patent protection.

The market don't work.

It's the broader thing.

They don't work that don unless there is IP protection.

That's the point.

Yeah, that's the point.

Uh, Merck is laying off workers and narrows guidance as their earnings fall.

Yeah.

Me Merck is not as like no.

Or they just don't have great assets right now they the sort of, you know, their cupboard's thin as far as what they have as far as new growing products.

AstraZeneca books record quarterly revenue as US and oncology boost their growth cost.

Earnings per share rose from two 2017 cents from a dollar 98.

The drug maker said, yeah.

So they have the oncology portfolio that's really doing well compared to Merck.

That doesn't.

Mm-hmm.

Alright.

Uh, and GSK is upbeat on guidance after specialty medicines boost their sales.

Yeah, same.

So, all right.

Good little formal rundown.

Uh, okay.

Two stories, uh, about health and us.

So the first one, the new implant offers hope for easing rheumatoid arthritis.

Uh, that headline didn't do it for me, but the, but the subtext here, uh, the device stimulates the vagus nerve signaling the body to tamp down the inflation, the inflammation that contributes to the disease.

Now, that's a big deal.

I mean, that, that, that feels like very broad applicability.

Yes.

Way beyond.

I mean, it's every chronic disease Yes.

Every chronic disease.

Yeah.

I mean, especially, uh, especially, you know, sort of the, the, the rise in things like, like lupus and I, I mean all the autoimmune, every autoimmune disease.

Yeah.

Everything autoimmune feels like, it's like, I mean, I, I think diabetes and heart disease also are related to heart, heart disease, inflammation for sure.

Heart disease, for sure.

The vagus nerve is, I think it's the biggest nerve in your body.

It controls a ton of things and.

Uh, this is like a, it's about the size of a typical sort of a capsule.

Mm-hmm.

Like a pill, and they insert it at the back of your neck and somehow wrap the vagus nerve around it.

And then it uses, uh, electrical stimulation to change the way the nerve is sending signals.

Which sounds like, first of all, it sounds like science fiction.

Second of all, it sounds like an incredible, not fiction anymore.

It's going on.

Yeah, it's, yeah.

I mean, you know, right.

Yeah.

Um, I, I, I, I think this is, well, I'm, I'm seeing more and more Neuralink stuff like, like every week.

Mm-hmm.

I see something about Neuralink and, uh, it just, uh, in fact, I, I even saw something that, that was saying that, you know, Neuralink or some similar type of implantable might actually be, um, the offset to us losing out to ai.

Right.

Um, because there's all sorts of brain unlocking Yeah.

And, and, and things that, that, that they're starting to theorize that that could happen there.

And, uh, you know, the, the implantable world, it still seems really, really strange, but it's getting less strange and more and more normalized like every day.

Yeah.

Uh, okay.

And then the second story is about organ donation.

And, uh, that little box that we get asked to check when we mm-hmm.

Uh, get our driver's license about do we wanna be an organ donor.

Um, a great nuance out of this story, this is with the New York, uh, New York Times is the guest essay, and it, it really peels back the layer on what actually happens when you die as it pertains to that whole organ donor checkbox.

Right?

Right.

Which is to say that if you're brain dead, your organs are still in pretty good shape because there's blood still pumping through your body.

And so the organs are, are, you know, alive and can be harvested.

And, and they're very useful.

But for, for most people, they die.

Uh.

They die when the circulation is no longer flowing through their body and the organs, you know, rapidly, uh, you know, lose their, their usability, you know, when that happens.

And so there's this new procedure, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna find it and read it here, but there's this new procedure that's being used in Europe and also, uh, in, in America, um, and basically like, it's kind of like a life support, uh, that that mm-hmm.

That is just there to keep your body, you know, circulating blood such that the organs can be harvested, right?

And, and the problem with our definition of, of death is this, this process can get your heart pumping again, right?

And if, and if that happens, are you dead or are you back to life?

Right?

I mean, we, we all know sorts of people who, who have died multiple times and then they come back to life.

Uh, and so this designation of what, what is death?

At the point where we decide we're trying to harvest, uh, the organs is it's a bioethical quandary that's leading to us not having enough organs.

Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

The way I understand it, the way that they test to make sure you're dead has a negative effect on many of the organs.

And if they use this other procedure, it protects the organs, but it really, it's not clear that the person has got it.

It has died.

Yeah.

Right.

Exactly.

So, so this is, this is, you know, around our, kind of the, the clinician's perspective, the voice of the clinician that two physicians wrote this, uh, op-ed in the New York Times about, we just need to have a more clear definition of, or maybe a broader definition of, of what, when death occurs.

Well, I, I, I think that what they're also saying here is that we don't have enough.

Um, we, we don't have enough organs.

Well, that's definitely true.

Yeah.

You know, so, so, so, I, I think they're more saying we don't have enough organs.

We're not doing anything to even discuss what we could do to get more organs.

People are dying every day.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

A ton of people are dying.

I I don't mean the people who are dying because they don't, they, they can't get a, a match.

I mean, just people are dying.

Yeah.

That, that are saying their organ donors, they would, they would like to have their organs harvested to help another person live, you know, more years.

Uh, but they have no idea about this.

Right.

And, and so I think there's an interesting question, like, could you allow people to opt in to this additional procedure on top of, you know, your, there's like the baseline check.

Yes.

I wanna be an organ donor.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, great.

You know, would you want to sign up for this, this, this process, uh, normal norm Themic, regional perfusion.

Like, would you like to sign up for this process?

Which.

Could result in your heart coming back for some short period of time while we harvest your organs or something like that, right?

Like, if that's gonna mean a five or 10% bump in, in the organs that get harvested over time, that's, that's pretty meaningful.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I, I think that's gonna be a lot of education to get people to sign up for.

But, but yes, I think that's what they're saying.

Okay.

Uh, into Web3.

Donald Trump is strengthening American leadership in digital financial technology.

Talked about it earlier in the show, uh, but the rollout of, uh, of this report, this digital assets report called Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, kind of the blueprint of, you know, where they are taking this across their regulatory apparatus.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so there's, you know, the sections of this document, the digital asset ecosystem, digital asset market structure.

So this, that's a big one.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Because that's like the tokenization of everything.

And as you and I were passing, you know, different links back and forth today, I mean, Coinbase is just riding this news like it's done, it's done deal.

Right?

Like, we're gonna be the, the, the exchange for everything.

Everything's gonna be tokenized, all assets.

And look, the truth is they should be.

Yeah, they should be, everything should be tokenized, uh, banking and digital assets.

So this is starting to clear the path for banks to actually work with crypto, um, stable coins and payments, countering illicit finance, taxation, I mean, all the core things.

And like I, I look at this report and I just go, it took him six months to get stable coins in place and produce this report.

Yeah.

And we're gonna talk about the SEC right after this.

And it's just like the Democrats will never get the crypto community back.

Never.

Yeah, that's right.

Mean, like, I mean, you know, and, and, and by the way, that's devastating and it's sad because it should, should've been a democratic talk ideal.

And and it's devastating because the crypto world is only going to get richer.

Yes, that's right.

That's right.

Richer and more powerful.

Yes.

And unfortunately in America, money buys elections.

Yeah.

And so this was one of those deep, deep, deep strategic errors.

Yes.

Deep strategic errors.

Yeah.

There's no question about that.

And there's a lot in this document, but, but it's pretty, pretty well put together.

I mean, there's not, I mean, there's little ticky tack things that I would comment on, but it, but it's pretty good.

I mean, well done.

Yeah.

'cause David Sachs wrote it.

Yes, of course.

It's good.

Yes.

You know?

Yeah.

You get a great technologist and investor, right, who just convened all the right people and it's like, here are all the issues.

You know?

He called Brian Armstrong.

Yeah.

He called, he called all these people.

Yeah.

And just asked them what should it be to unlock this.

He probably called the old CEO of Signature Bank and was like, Hey, sorry, you ran it killed.

Sorry.

Sorry we killed you.

Like, come on and help me.

Like write this.

It's just ridiculous.

That's right.

It's just ridiculous, dude.

Uh, okay.

Secs Atkins, uh, this is Paul Atkins is the new, uh, chairman of the SEC. Most crypto assets are not securities under bold new vision.

I mean, could you be any more different than Gary Gensler?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't think you can.

No, they are, and they refer to the former administration and choke 0.2 0.0, which unfortunately they, they did, but um, yes.

Most crypto assets are toys.

I mean, they're not securities that your, your.

I don't know, buying a tradable thing that maybe it's like a baseball card or whatever.

Um, there are some that are securities and the SEC is going to be clear that that was the main point of this, this poll, he gave a speech, this is a summary of it.

Just they're all about clarity and defining, this is what you can do, this is what you can't do.

This is how you need to pay taxes.

That's all the crypto markets wanted.

Really?

Yeah.

I, I just, I don't think, I don't think I'm ever gonna get over this part because it was such an unforced error.

I don't think I'm ever gonna get over this part.

Right.

Like, this is the part where I go, yeah, this is like a, this is like a 12 to 20 year regime change.

You know?

Because, because the average American still doesn't understand.

Yes, this.

Right.

That's right.

Most like, like we, most Americans don't block coin and Bitcoin?

No.

Blockchain and Bitcoin?

No.

Like, like, like I, I feel like when I'm talking about this that I, uh, that I sound crazy until I see stuff like this come out and I'm like, no, I'm not.

I'm, I'm not crazy.

Like, you know.

No, you're not.

This was really important to get right.

Yes.

And we got it really wrong.

I'm saying we, because, you know, I'm not, I'm not a Republican.

Fine.

So, you know, like we got this really, really wrong and, uh, and nobody was there.

You know, it's funny like that last year, it's like the lights were just out in the Democratic party.

Yeah.

Like, nobody was checking anybody.

Nobody checked Biden.

You had Diane Feinstein like literally vote one day and die two days later.

Mm-hmm.

You had Pelosi with all the, the, you know, the, the trading stuff.

Yeah.

You know, um.

It, it was just, it was just total hubris everywhere.

Everywhere, you know?

And I think the party is going to pay for it for, you know, at least, at least a decade.

At least a decade.

I mean, I, I think there's gonna be a, a populous movement in the Democratic Party.

Uh, the Republicans already went through that, so like the, that's gonna take a minute.

Trump is the Yes, yes.

That's gonna take a minute.

Because, because the, the, they don't have a Trump on their side.

Like Momani and a OC are not that.

Right?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like neither one of them are that.

Um, yeah.

But crypto, the reason I went there is crypto is really a, um, free market, you know, sovereign individual.

It's a populism thing.

So the old guard of the Republican party.

Hates it.

Sure.

And the old guard, the Democratic party hates it, but the Democratic party is still run by the old guard.

Correct.

That's, that's the, that's the problem difference.

That's exactly right.

Uh, okay.

Onto ai, Sam Altman out of PC Mag, anything you say to chat, GPT can and will be used against you in court?

I don't understand.

The people who don't understand this, they're just having these relationship conversations with this thing.

It's not real people.

It's a a, it's a machine.

B, it's a, for all intents and purposes, it's a database.

You have no access to it.

You can't like purge it.

Uh, and yes, like they're gonna use the information, well, they're gonna use it for their own purposes to sell you ads or sell you whatever.

But what he's saying here is that it is discoverable.

Like if you duh, duh into a lawsuit.

They can pull your files from chat, GPT, so you're learning how to, whatever, cover up something, it's in there and they must retain all the chats and then they have to give it over to authority.

So, um, I don't know why anyone thinks this is not the case.

First of all, uh, if OpenAI wants to do business with this federal government, this is the buy-in.

This is the trade off, right?

This is the trade off.

I, I'm, I'm constantly surprised by the really, really smart people that I know that are just like having relationships with chat.

GPT.

Yeah.

Chat, GPT in particular, right?

Like, like, I, I think I can't, well, because they have the memory.

Well, I, I, yeah.

So, oh my God, the memory is this killer feature that is so evil.

Dude, listen.

And yet it works.

Listen, I, I don't use it anymore because of that.

That is such a low bar.

I mean, I, I, I understand what is a low bar?

That because it's got memory.

I want the benefit of the feature so I can get the, the day-to-day experience, not understanding what I am selling off of myself.

That's rights that, that's what I mean.

That's what I mean, yes.

That it's just, it's just a really crazy trade to make, you know, uh, I can't remember if I talked about this on, on the show.

I know you and I talked about it and I've talked about it with friends maybe more than any other technology ever.

Uh, the conscientiousness of the leader of the company producing the LLM.

Should be really important to you in the way that you decide to use the LOM.

Yes.

Right.

We have talked about that on the, on the show.

Okay.

And I totally agree.

Okay.

So, and, and this example is the bad example, right?

I mean, yes.

Like, like Sam Altman.

Yeah.

I mean, the reason Jen, I, I don't have any issue with the guy.

I'm just saying if you look at the track record right, of his time at OpenAI, it's just not stellar.

I mean, the reason the Gemini from Google has not introduced memory is not because they can't figure it out.

Right.

That, that, it's not a hard thing to figure out.

It's because you don't want to offer it to people.

'cause you shouldn't have all of this personal stuff in a file.

That's not, I mean, that's the Google thing.

Don't be evil.

They, even though it would be beneficial, they don't release it.

And I think it is, you know, moderately positive that.

Sam is saying on a podcast, you know, do not say things that you don't want to come out in a lawsuit or, because that's true.

Right.

But no one's gonna listen.

Yeah.

So look, I I, I appreciate him coming out and saying this.

I think that, that, that's a, that's a good mark for him.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Coming out and saying it, but it's, to me, I'm more just shocked by the people who are doing it.

Yeah.

And people are doing it every day.

So many people.

Yeah.

If you wanna use a thing like a search engine, that's fine.

It's the same thing as Google.

Like, 'cause you know, that's fine.

But it's the conversations and the divulging of your personal life and Yeah.

And these deep things and like that part, no, no, no.

Uh, wall Street Journal, Tesla and Samsung sign a $16.5 billion deal to make AI chips.

Yeah.

This is pretty interesting because, uh, it's sort of like the.

Third or fourth place in both fields getting together to, to, um, to improve themselves.

I was like wondering where you were going with that, but, but it's actually a good partnership.

They, they kind of need each other, I think is Tesla third place in, in, in, uh, EVs.

I mean, I know by B-Y-D-I-I got that.

Who, who besides BYD is better than Tesla Globally.

Okay.

Maybe they're second.

Okay.

But I mean, I, I think that, uh, I sort of have Musk as just one.

One large tsu.

So I I I think, uh, like X AI is, is probably third or fourth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, like just kind of across, I mean, there's, there's certain things he's number one in, right?

I mean, you know, SpaceX and Star are number one in their categories.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

Um, okay.

Walmart is overhauling its approach to AI agents.

This shows you how long they've been in the game.

Yeah.

They've been in the game so long that they, they, their first attempt was like a whole bunch of disparate AI agents and now they're scaling those back to just like three or four core AI agents because they couldn't keep track of all the AI agents they had before.

Yeah, that, that's right.

So it's pretty interesting.

They let their employees or whoever just like play around and try things and so they had hundreds of agents doing all kinds of stuff and it became overwhelming for everyone'cause you have too many agents doing stuff and so they're simplifying to what they're calling super agents.

And they have four.

One for customer topics, one for employees, one for engineers, and one for sellers or suppliers.

And then those agents have like a, I don't know, a course of other agents that like report to it or are in their portfolio of capacities.

Um, it's almost like a, I think we're gonna have a new type of org chart that is like, here's your agent resources or whatever.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's not the story I was expecting to hear.

Right?

Yeah.

Not outta Walmart.

Uh, I mean, not only the Walmart is doing AI agents, but they're on like their second iteration of how they're gonna do it.

Yeah, that's right.

Right.

Uh, I think that that's, that's pretty interesting.

Uh, meta crushed it.

They just keep crushing it.

Yeah.

And they keep crushing it.

And their stock grew.

I mean, the revenue grew at 22% and it's a big number.

I know.

I mean, so I, I don't.

Uh, it's just incredible growth.

I mean, the only way you stop this business is you gotta, you gotta carve out Instagram from 'em, you know?

'cause they're, they're just gonna keep, they're gonna keep growing.

Yeah.

They're gonna keep growing, you know, uh, it's an incredible business and they, they are, um, you know, they, they paid one guy a billion dollars to come over and they're gonna, they're gonna open source everything, which will be maybe good for me as a little vc, but, but it's gonna be really interesting in the marketplace.

'cause Yeah.

I mean, right now the open source is not that good.

But yeah.

So, so, so the point here is like, why, why are we talking about meta hitting in the AI section?

Because the market rewarded them with an 11% stock bump.

So they went from, you know, $700 to like seven 50 or something like that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so, so that was crazy.

And then the other thing is that all that money just gives them more money to go buy AI talent.

Yeah.

They're spending a hundred billion on data centers next year, and I Probably a hundred billion on talent too.

Yeah.

I don't think it's, I don't think you can't spend a hundred billion, I think they'll spend 10 billion on talent.

I mean, I don't know.

Maybe they'll spend a hundred billion.

I think it's gonna be here.

I, I've already seen things I thought I'd never see.

Yeah.

So I mean, I mean, I was joking, but also like, I don't know, I don't know what the, what the line is.

Uh, Microsoft's cloud cloud unit bolstered by AI demands supercharges earnings.

So Microsoft is now a $4 trillion company.

Quickly joining Nvidia is one of the most valuable companies in the history of, uh, modern capitalism, right?

Yeah.

And so, at least to me, I want to see what you think about this.

There are a few companies that have figured out how to.

Really use AI to their advantage.

The cloud providers certainly yes.

Have, yes.

And then I think Meta is using it for ads.

Yes.

Like to be able to engage people, sell them more ads.

Target bad ads better.

Yes.

Um, those are the places where it's really having a big effect right now.

Uh, I Oh, okay.

Well, but Walmart is kind of an outlier.

Is there?

I am, I am hearing So just since you were talking about the cloud, since you said the cloud.

Yeah.

Uh, I, I also would include workplace software providers, and there's only really two, it's Google and Microsoft.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but I'm just anecdotally hearing more and more and more people just are talking about using AI in the daily course of their day.

Now they're mostly talking about chat GPT, but I have to imagine that parlays pretty well, I think particularly from Microsoft.

I bet Microsoft copilot is getting much better usage than Google Gemini is in terms of its integration with, with the office Suite.

Mm-hmm.

Um, 365 and what people are able to use it to, to advance their day-to-day work and excel and things like that.

You know, it's anecdotal, but I, I think they're getting.

Strong usage in their office suite.

Yeah.

I mean, they, I would expect they would eventually.

I haven't, I don't know if they have yet or not.

M my my guess is it's, it's, it's, uh, it's crossed a threshold now where like, it's, it's meaningful.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it, like it's worth tracking.

Yeah.

You know?

Uh, and, and, and here's another thing.

The coding, I mean, definitely coding has been successful.

Okay.

Here's another one, uh, transcription of video calls.

Yeah.

We know that that's happening.

Yes.

Across Zoom Meet and, and teams.

Yeah.

Big time.

Yeah.

That's right.

Right.

By the way, that, that just gets me back to like these third party businesses.

Right.

You know, there's like Fathom and some of these other mm-hmm.

You know, AI note taking things.

Yeah.

Those are not, those are not long for the world.

Yeah.

But how much money do they take in?

I, I'm just kind of going back to your scribe.

Yeah.

You know, being, being a feature, not a platform thing.

Yeah.

Right.

It's like, isn't Epic just gonna like turn on a scribe thing?

Yeah.

Epic Or Open AI or Anthropic or Gemini.

Yeah.

I, I just, and yeah.

You get, you get my point.

Yeah.

I mean, I just switched, uh, from Calendarly to the Google calendar.

Oh yeah.

It's great.

And it's fine.

There's no, there's no business for Calendarly anymore.

Like No.

It's, I'm sure Microsoft Calendar will have something similar and then you're done.

Right, right.

Yeah.

But these kind of features Yeah.

You know, standalone kind of feature ish products for huge markets Yeah.

That, you know, a Microsoft is gonna go after.

Right, right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's like you're, you're, you're just better off, I hate to say this 'cause this is our, is our playbook, but like you just gotta focus on a smaller market that they don't care about.

Yeah.

You know, that's still like a billion dollars or more.

Yeah.

Still big market, but it's like they just, they can't get to it.

They're too busy fighting each other over like a hundred billion dollar markets.

Right.

Market opportunities.

Right.

Okay.

Uh, Daria Ade is, uh, raising another round for anthropic potential $5 billion round, uh, at a valuation that could be $170 billion.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

I love Claude.

Yeah, I love Claude.

I do too.

I mean, I use Claude and Gemini probably, but maybe more.

Claude.

I love, I love Claude.

It's great.

It's awesome.

Um, and their revenue has tripled this year.

Um, but they're also, their expenses have also gone up dramatically.

Oh yeah.

No, it's, look, it's, it's a raise.

That's why I think they're subsidizing it.

Like they're, they are.

Not getting paid for the inference costs.

Right.

Lovable.

I saw this on next.

Mm-hmm.

So glad you brought this up.

Uh, lovable is a unicorn, uh, and they are generating a hundred million dollars.

This is a vibe coding company.

So we now have, uh, windsurf, lovable, uh, cursor, rept, all these companies.

Yeah.

Just they all do the same thing.

Mind blowing revenue.

Yeah.

Numbers, all of them.

Yeah.

And I think I'm get this right, but I think Cursor beat the record for fastest, fastest to hundred million.

And then I think Windsurf did not beat the record, but, but, uh, lovable did.

So now they are the fastest to a hundred, a hundred million dollars in annual recurring revenue.

Eight.

It took eight months to get there.

And that, that just the.

Signing up customers.

Even if you have unlimited customers standing there, getting that many to sign up in eight months is, is hard.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

Uh, okay.

We're almost there.

Amazon to pay the New York Times at least $20 million a year in AI deal.

Yeah, this is an interesting story on a couple fronts.

One that Amazon did it.

Now maybe they've signed a deal with someone else too.

I can't totally remember, but, um, I'm surprised Amazon was the top bidder.

Um, and then we were talking earlier, I think New York Times is one of the few media companies that can really this best run media business.

This, yeah.

Best run media business.

Yeah.

Not, not, not even a question.

Uh, they've navigated, you know, these last 10 years exceptionally well.

Digital strategy Binney, athletic Wordle, um, yeah, just, just a, just a brilliant Yeah.

Brilliantly run media business.

And, uh, and, and they, they got the memo on this early, you know, they, all the newspapers lost to Google in the first round.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So they all knew kind of how to position themselves.

Um, I'm not sure what the long term trade here is on this 20 to $25 million in terms of, of Amazon, but, you know, I, I think the New York Times just thinks about these things as just distribution of their brand ultimately, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And they're, you know, uh, it's all licensing, right?

It's all licensing for them.

So anyway, I just, I just think this is a great deal and it makes sense.

Amazon, they, they need to be a good player, you know, they, they need, they need to be playing by the book.

Alright.

Uh, Texas Highways have a new nighttime creature, autonomous trucks.

Wow.

Aurora Innovation says its driverless system can detect objects further than the length of three football fields in the dark.

So, uh, if you didn't know, if you're driving around two o'clock in the morning in the highway, uh, in, in Dallas, Texas, uh, or in Houston, you may be on the road with an autonomous truck.

You probably are on the road with an autonomous truck.

Yeah.

And the article claims, and it seems like it's probably right, that the lidar they used is far better than human eyesight in driving in the dark, which I guess kind of makes sense.

Um, I'm still struggling with the fact that humans are not gonna be the safest way to drive trucks around the interstate, but apparently we're not.

I mean, I, I feel like we've litigated this a million times and I don't wanna do it at the end of the show.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but I'm just tired of the, I'm just tired of the, the bullshit narratives that like, we're not going to just collapse jobs.

We are, yeah.

We are.

We, we just got, we, like, this to me is maybe the, the one thing most people are not tracking that could end up really being a massive downfall for Trump.

Um, you know, if this, and, and I only say that in terms of like the acceleration, if, if it keeps moving at this speed.

Mm-hmm.

This is moving, it's moving so fast, Vic, I mean, thank God for the show.

I just don't know how I would, how I would Yeah.

Even know what's going on.

You can wrap my head around how fast it's moving, right?

I mean, our final story, right?

Yeah.

That we're about to talk about here in a second.

Um, but man.

This, this is moving so fast.

There's no way, this is not gonna collapse our labor market.

There's just no way.

I think that's right.

I don't think it's gonna happen while Trump's in office.

I think it's the next president, but, but yes.

Five years, three to five years from now you So you think it's that far out?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's gonna take a while.

I mean, right now they're only driving from Houston to Dallas.

Like way Waymo, I think they're driving, they're driving from Houston to Dallas.

Yeah, they're driving.

There's no technical reason they can't drive across the whole country.

But I think it'll take a few years.

Like I, I look at Waymo and I think, okay, lemme, let me, let me, okay.

Totally go to a different topic.

Okay.

Two weeks ago, would you have thought.

E even like in the realm of possibility that we were gonna dig a tunnel in bet underneath Nashville from the airport, no, to downtown.

I didn't know that was even, I was gonna run, Tesla was in discussion.

Tesla we had, and we didn't talk about it.

But, uh, yeah.

So people that didn't see the news, the boring company Yes.

Is now gonna dig a tunnel between downtown Nashville and the airport and run Teslas.

Only Teslas, I think through it.

Yeah.

It's a business model.

Yeah, because, 'cause because they don't charge taxpayers.

It's a private Yeah.

Executed, you know, basically the state will grant them the access to the land, maybe ownership of the land or whatever.

However that, that works.

I, I'm, I'm not smart enough to know the technical aspects of the deal.

Mm-hmm.

But the point is it's not a taxpayer funded thing.

Yeah.

Which is why they really don't have to take it to referendum, right?

Mm-hmm.

They just leverage state owned land.

Yeah.

And, and, but then how does, you know the boring company make money?

Well, it, it, it's part of the musk, you know, ecosystem.

Yeah.

I would've never.

And I would've conceived of it two years ago.

I mean, two, two weeks ago.

Nevermind.

Two years ago, yeah.

Yeah.

Two weeks ago.

So that's my, so the answer to your question is I would never have considered it.

That's my point.

But how long, how long will it take for to dig it and be live?

It'll be live before the end of next year.

Okay.

It'll be live before the end of next year.

I wanna ride at going out to the airports.

A pain in the ass.

I might buy a Tesla just to go.

No, but you get my point, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

It's happening quickly.

It, it's, it's just the speed of this is all just insane.

And we'll punctuate that with interesting engineering.com.

China's tree launches a full size humanoid at just $5,900.

The thing does a cartwheel.

It is five feet, five inches tall.

It can walk, it can dance, it can do cartwheels, it can jog around.

Um, or for sport is their tagline, and it costs less than $6,000.

You can order it personally and they'll ship it to you.

Um, and then it also is open source, so you can hack into it.

You can use open source coding to make it do a new dance or make it work in your factory.

Now the downside is that the battery only lasts an hour.

Okay?

So you have to figure out a battery thing.

But the, you know, Musk has the Optimus and those are not ready yet, but Musk is claiming they'll be 20 K, you know, so it's not that much more, but, but he's claiming that will happen whenever they're ready.

In a few years, this is no, you can buy today.

No.

Yeah.

And so obviously an hour long battery is not sufficient.

But that's a fairly minor.

I mean, okay.

Let, let me buy five batteries and I'll just swap out the batteries as I need to go.

I, I don't know exactly what I would use it for, but it's at a price point where you like, almost like, what the hell it buy one.

I was, I was about to say, yeah.

You don't know what you would buy it for, but you could sell how much of a Bitcoin and get one.

I mean, I mean, not even a 10th.

Not even a 10th, 20th.

Not even a 10th, 20th or something.

Not even a 10th.

Yes.

Every crypto bro's gonna have one.

Yes, yes.

We're gonna see him walking around Nashville.

Yes.

That's, yes.

Before the end of the year.

Yes.

I, I, I, I remember the first time I saw a cyber truck and I was like, WTF, what the hell is that thing?

Yes.

And now, now they're everywhere.

Now they're everywhere.

Yeah.

Dude, we're gonna be walking around with robots before the end of the year.

Yeah.

That's right.

And people will figure out something to do with them.

I mean, at this price point, you don't even have to be that, that effective.

It's cheaper than some breeded dogs.

I'm serious.

Yes, yes.

That's right.

It's ridiculous.

Alright.

And again, China is, I mean, they're, they're playing for, for keeps and they're, they're so far ahead.

They're so far ahead of us.

They're so far ahead.

It's, I mean, I, I think at this point, I don't know if they're ahead, but they have a different strategy right there.

No, no, no, no, no.

They're head, they're head, they're head like, okay.

JD Vance made that point on that speech.

And he was exactly right.

You know, we, we thought we were outsourcing the unimportant parts mm-hmm.

When we gave them manufacturing.

Right.

And it, it was what He's a smart guy.

When he said manufacturing is design.

Dude, that was a profound statement.

Yeah.

That was a profound statement.

Is absolutely right.

Like, because think about it this way, right.

Elon Musk is so impressive because he plays in the world, in the world of Adams on bits.

Yes.

That's why he's so impressive.

Right?

That's what distinguishes him from other, all the other entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

That's, that's, that's the reason.

Right.

And he came from the world of, of bits.

He came from PayPal, right?

Yeah.

Right.

But the reason he stands out is because out of all the brilliant entrepreneurs and engineers in Silicon Valley, he is one of the very few who decided to do that.

We mostly went in the direction of bids.

Yes.

'cause we outsourced all the Adam stuff to China.

That's right.

And now it's like.

They're ahead, they're ahead on cars, they're head on.

Robot robots, they're ahead on working with less.

They're head on power.

They're head on rare earth.

Yeah, they're they are ahead.

They're ahead.

Yeah.

And, and they're comp they're competitive.

Markets are aggressive.

And that with no regulatory barriers.

No.

It just, yeah.

Go ahead and steal whatever you wanna steal.

Yeah.

And, and, and by the way, so we're complaining about Novo losing something people, there's no IP over there.

There's everything.

And, and, and this is exactly this, the narrative that Trump is going to leverage reasonably, I won't go so far as to say rightly, but reasonably so as he does the whole relaunch America thing and he cuts half the re regulations out of the right, you know, out of the books.

Yeah.

He's gonna be like, we cannot compete with China.

And you know what?

He's gonna be right.

Mm-hmm.

He's gonna be right.

Yeah.

So it's a hell of a way to end the show, but I, yeah.

But, but on that note, I will not be here next week.

Yes.

So I'm gonna find a someone else to guest host.

I don't know who right now, but I will figure it out.

Good luck.

He won't get a robotics expert.

Oh my God.

You had to say that.

Like, robotics expert.

It's like one day we're gonna have the, we're gonna buy a robot just to fill in for you and I Yeah.

On this stupid show.

That's right.

Right.

Yeah.

I'll get a Marcus robot in just place.

Oh, it's disgusting.

All right, man.

All.

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