Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, Marcus and Vic break down the Federal Reserve’s indecision on rate cuts, mass tech layoffs accelerated by AI, and why startups no longer need as much capital. They discuss major VC moves in healthcare, including Tennr, Sword Health, and Nabla, along with General Catalyst’s hospital acquisition. The episode also covers Medicaid cuts, fractures in the Republican party, and the Supreme Court’s decision on gender-affirming care. Plus, stablecoins get a bipartisan boost, AI compan...
In this episode, Marcus and Vic break down the Federal Reserve’s indecision on rate cuts, mass tech layoffs accelerated by AI, and why startups no longer need as much capital. They discuss major VC moves in healthcare, including Tennr, Sword Health, and Nabla, along with General Catalyst’s hospital acquisition. The episode also covers Medicaid cuts, fractures in the Republican party, and the Supreme Court’s decision on gender-affirming care. Plus, stablecoins get a bipartisan boost, AI companions for seniors show promise, and tensions rise between OpenAI and Microsoft over cloud exclusivity and IP rights.
Links
0:51 - The Fed Waits Out the Tariff Economy WSJ
3:50 - The Biggest Companies Across America Are Cutting Their Workforces WSJ
6:01 - Amazon CEO Says AI Will Lead to Smaller Workforce WSJ
12:19 - Microsoft Plans to Cut Thousands More Employees WSJ
13:49 - Tennr clinches $101M to build out AI that automates patient referral process Fierce Healthcare
16:30 - Sword Health lands $40M, launches AI-based mental health solution Fierce Healthcare
18:36 - Nabla banks $70M series C to build out agentic AI for clinical workflows Fierce Healthcare
19:20 - Ohio Greenlights First-Ever Venture-Capital Hospital Acquisition WSJ
20:42 - Senate Bill Would Make Deep Cuts to Medicaid, Setting Up Fight With House NYT
27:46 - AHIP 2025: Insurer coalition vows to fight Trump budget bill to final hour Fierce Healthcare
28:44 - Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on gender affirming care for minors Fierce Healthcare
32:37 - Senate passes GENIUS Act despite crypto corruption concerns Axios
42:30 - Humana’s cautious defense of Medicare Advantage Healthcare Dive
44:59 - Episource ransomware attack leaked patient health data Healthcare IT News
45:18 - Ascension agrees to acquire Amsurg to expand ambulatory surgery reach Healthcare Dive
45:26 - Headspace Launches Insurance-Covered Therapy Direct to Consumers HIT Consultant
46:03 - Eli Lilly to Acquire Verve Therapeutics for Up to $1.3 Billion WSJ
46:25 - A Cutting-Edge Cancer Therapy Offers Hope for Patients With Lupus NYT
47:41 - The Friendly Caller Who’s Helping Seniors Feel Less Lonely WSJ
49:34 - Abridge launches gen AI tool for inpatient clinicians, adds outpatient orders feature Fierce Healthcare
50:16 - UHS partners with Hippocratic AI to launch AI agents Healthcare Dive
50:42 - OpenAI wins $200 million U.S. defense contract CNBC
52:12 - OpenAI and Microsoft Tensions Are Reaching a Boiling Point WSJ
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, we are going to kind of do a flash episode today.
Yeah, it is Juneteenth.
Happy Juneteenth everybody.
Yes.
And uh, I am getting outta town, but mm-hmm.
We wanted to make sure we delivered the news.
Yeah, a lot going on.
A lot going on.
So we wanted to touch base.
Uh, this is one of those shows where Marcus is completely unprepared, but Vic has done all the.
The front end work.
I think you will have lots of opinions about this.
I always do.
Yeah, I always do.
So, uh, without any, uh, more delay, let's dig in starting with, uh, Jay Powell.
Vic, what's going on with Jay Powell?
Yeah, so the Fed had a meeting, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday this week, and.
Uh, pretty frustrating from my point of view.
But he had a press con, Jay Powell had a, uh, press conference yesterday where he basically said, the Fed is not sure what direction the economy's going in, and they're gonna take a wait and see approach, which I guess is fine, but it's sort of their job to figure out where the economy is going.
And I don't know.
I mean, I think it's.
It's pretty clear to me that inflation is not taking off.
Right.
Right.
And the risk is more to the downside than around economy and jobs.
They, they predict the GDP for the year is gonna be 1.3, I think, or 1.2.
Okay.
Which is pretty low.
I mean, it's not a recession, but, but not a lot of growth.
Yeah.
Um, so I don't know.
I mean, it's.
I think everyone agrees that fed rate cuts or or rate hikes w work on a pretty significant lag.
Nine, 12.
Yeah.
Maybe even 18 months.
They take time.
Yeah.
To actually kick in.
So if we wait until there's a bunch of layoffs and we really need it for the economy, it's too late.
So anyway, it was, he basically said he doesn't know what to do and.
I guess that's okay, but kind of frustrating.
Yeah, I mean, look, it's, it's, uh, it's probably fair to say that uh, we are in a time of great uncertainty and that every week delivers more and more, you know, things that add to the uncertainty.
So trying to kind of steal, man, whatever their argument is.
Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty.
Uh, to your point though, I think we've had a pretty solid quarter in terms of inflation management, right?
Yeah.
I mean, 2.5 or below.
Yeah, it is kind of become the standard.
Yeah.
Um, I think pretty much everybody believes, given all the uncertainty, the likelihood of getting to two right now, anytime soon seems kind, seems kind of crazy.
Yeah.
So the question is really like two is not, cannot be the target.
Yeah.
We're not, we're never gonna hit two, I don't think.
Yeah, yeah.
Or, or certainly not given what's on the table right now.
Yeah.
So this, this kind of holding at this level, you know, it's less of a wait and see.
It's more of a. Why, why would you hold at this level, right?
Yes.
What, what's the, what is the justification for holding at this level?
So I think that's kind of the, the new question if you Yeah.
If, if you take politics off the table, right?
Right.
There's no reason to wait.
You should do a quarter point cut just to like, give a little bit of stimulus.
Inflation's not gonna run away.
Um.
But I think, you know, there are some politics in place.
Trump and Powell do not like one another.
Yeah.
But that's frustrating 'cause it's nothing to do with me or the economy or people that need jobs.
Right.
So.
Right.
Anyway, uh, okay.
So I think the, the big story that has started to roll out over the last 24 hours, although, I mean, this is not a new story.
Mm-hmm.
We've been covering this for a while now.
Uh, is that.
You know, everyone is cutting.
Right.
And, and, and cutting when they're doing well.
Yeah.
Um, not just cutting because they need to improve p and l because things are tough.
Right.
They're, they're hitting all time record, you know, revenue, and they're still cutting.
Uh, and this is, you know, this started out with cutting jobs.
Cutting jobs, yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
And, and this started out, you know, really with the phenomenon of, of Elon Musk when he bought.
Twitter.
Mm-hmm.
And before he turned it into X, one of the first things he did was he started like cutting all sorts of people, right?
Yeah.
And just getting it into this very, very lean engineering team.
And to be fair, uh, to be fair, before we get into the AI piece, to be fair, um, there was a little bit of time that was sort of him getting oriented to the, to the platform and there was some downtime here and there, but anyone who's seriously watched that platform.
You can't argue how much the product has improved.
How many features?
Yeah, they've rolled out since he's taken over with maybe a third of the staff with like a third of the staff, right?
Yeah.
And so if you're a technology company, I mean, there's a lot to be said for.
Focus, getting your team really lean and, and uh, just knocking down milestones.
Meta kind of followed, uh, from there.
And then we started seeing, you know, the, the bigger ones, Mexican, uh, uh, Microsoft and Amazon, you know, started sort of summarily following.
So that was.
What, what has that been?
That was pre ai.
That was pre ai.
Yeah.
We weren't even there.
Right?
Yeah.
Right.
Um, now we have ai and I would say maybe we're six to nine months of these companies actually employing a digital workforce now.
Yes.
Really leveraging, uh, AI code.
That's right.
We're not, we're not there yet where they really have a bunch of digital.
Entities.
Agents.
Agents.
That's right, that's right.
It was six to nine months, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is is where they, where they've been working on that.
And, uh, you know, Andy Jassy, uh, came out, was it yesterday?
I. Uh, whatever, yesterday or the day before.
Yeah.
Very, very recently.
Yeah.
And, and, and basically said, listen, the a that AI is going to lead to a smaller workforce.
They're, they're cutting significantly at, at corporate.
Right.
Um, you know, I think everybody knows they're bringing people back into the office.
Into the campus.
Yeah.
Um, they're, they're centralizing again.
Uh, and so like Vic, what, what is your take on this?
I mean, I know this is something we've.
I, I think we've known this was going to happened.
We've known it was coming.
I think the difference this week is that big companies are announcing it and not in a, in a apologetic way.
More like, as you're saying, we're having success, we can do more with less, and they're being very transparent, which I think is good.
But it is, um, it's also a little bit, um, anxiety inducing because it.
These are the first companies to, to do that.
Right.
And what, what I think is, um, happening now is not that ag agentic, um, virtual workers are just doing tasks, right.
I think they're, um, kind of connecting the communication between groups.
So middle managers whose job is to.
Gather information and then send it up the chain to the next level.
Uh, not needed anymore.
And I don't mean that in a derogatory way.
There's just like, it's more effective to directly communicate and the communication is sort of augmented with ai.
So the right information gets to the right place and it's summarized and easier to ingest by the upper management so you can cut out entire.
Lines of management mm-hmm.
With and actually gain productivity.
Right.
Um, that's what I think is the general trend, but it's not gonna stop with that.
Then they'll start being projects that are done, you know, with an AI agent in, in the cloud, basically.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean.
And, and the implication for us as, as VC investors, which you know, you and I have been talking about, is, uh, there is absolutely no way that a company launched today should need the same amount of capital.
As a company launched five years ago, and I kind of don't care what the space is.
Yeah, I agree.
There's no question about that.
I kind of don't care what the space is.
You just should not need as much capital.
Yeah.
The only question is do you need half as much?
Yeah, yeah.
Or some other percentage, but you don't need as much.
Right.
So definitely, yeah.
The, the, the.
The actual, uh, degree of the cut Yes.
Is under debate.
Is under debate.
Yeah.
And, but it's not 2% less.
It's a lot less.
No, no, no, no.
It's, it's, I mean this is, this is a shooting from the hip.
Yeah.
Kind of gut call.
It's minimum 10%.
Oh.
At least minimum.
I think, I think it's minimum of 25%.
That, that, uh, today, today, today.
That's, that's.
That's interesting.
Uh, and, and, okay, so can we, can we play that out for a second?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, where specifically, uh, in the team makeup, is that 25% less?
I don't think I, like, I'm thinking about from a v CCC perspective, I don't think it's in leadership.
'cause you really need.
The leaders.
Yeah.
In place, right?
So it's gotta be a layer below the leaders.
So where, where, where is it?
What departments?
I think every department.
And it is, unfortunately, I, I don't love saying this, but it's the junior, but.
Lower cost staff in every department.
So as you get, do seed stage companies have a lot of junior staff?
I mean, mine don't.
Well, I mean, I think once you have, um, revenue Yeah, right.
Yeah.
You typically would hire a one junior accounting person to do a RAP be booking.
Yeah.
Okay.
And.
I mean, but I, but I, I think you'd outsource that.
And then on the dev side, you, you would typically not only have the CTO architect, you would, you would have two or three coders.
Now, 10 years ago you'd have 20.
Right.
But, but, um.
I think you don't need anything below this, what we used to call the C-suite.
It's just that Okay, so I, I think we probably disagree there 'cause I, 'cause I'm just not sure I've seen any teams that have their AI game together enough.
So the reason why I went with 10% is because I think for sure the, you can make cuts in the, in the technology.
By the way, 10 is the, the floor for me, right?
Yeah.
So I'm not saying it can't be more than that, but for sure just depends how many employees.
We're assuming that they Yeah.
Bring in.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Look, I, I have not yet seen, uh, and I, again, I'm talking about seed stage, right?
Yeah.
Uh, I'm not sure how you replace sales.
I'm not entirely sure how you replace marketing.
I see a lot of stuff.
You know, we, you know, we we're, we're friends with Nicole HubSpot, you know, I, I'm not quite yet sure how you fully replace the, the marketing people.
Mm-hmm.
Yet, like it's, it's probably there by the end of the year.
Yeah.
But on the technology, on the programming side, there's no question you're gonna hire one less programmer.
Like that's, that's kind of my, my math, uh, on a team of how many, let's say the team was three.
The team is two.
Like if the team was three, the team is two, and those are expensive hires.
Yeah.
So that's where I got to kind of 10%, like I feel like on a seed stage team, probably one of the programmers is about 10% of your, your head count.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, for, you know, cost wise, salary wise.
And that person is gone.
Yeah.
That person.
But that's minimum.
Yeah.
Like every quarter that's gonna tick up.
Yes, that's right.
Every quarter that's gonna tick up.
Uh, and then, and then Microsoft also larger companies.
Maybe it's still 10%, but it's a lot more people.
Yeah.
And, and Microsoft, uh, also continues to announce plans, uh, to cut thousands more employees.
Um, and they're gonna have the, the next round start in July.
Yeah.
The last round was in May.
Yeah.
So I mean, it's, it's every quarter.
Yeah.
They just did it.
So they're doing another one, uh, in July and.
It will be sales and other departments for them.
Yeah.
Right now, now that's the thing.
Like I, I feel like with these big companies, they're giving us the roadmap.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, like we can look at where they are replacing people and know that tools are gonna be coming down to the SMB that eventually end of next year to middle of, uh, end of this year to middle of next year.
There will be tools that will filter down to the SMBs that will allow us to do the same kind of things that, that the big tech players are doing today.
Yes.
That's right.
And whether it's 10% or 20% or 25%, I don't think that matters for our listeners.
The the question is how can you get your culture and your kind of ethos oriented around maybe it's customer value or patient care or, or shareholder value so that you are, you're not the, it's not the culture to protect jobs.
'cause I think that is not one, it's not.
Sustainable.
And two, I'm not sure that's gonna really work.
Right.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I we're, we're, we're definitely into the, the next phase of all of this.
Alright.
Let's go down and, uh, check out all the VC deals that happened this week.
So tenor, clinches, 101 million to build out AI that automates patient referral process.
Uh, so this deal was led by IVP, um, new and existing investors, Andreesen Horowitz, Lightspeed, gv, gv, iconic Foundation Capital.
So they got, you know, all the, the big folks around the table for this one.
Yeah.
And, and they haven't.
Use the series B. It says in here, I, I haven't validated, they haven't used the series B capital yet.
They are raising it sort of just as additional firepower to, to be ready to grow quickly.
Um, and I think it's a great space.
I mean the, the control of patient referrals.
One, it, it's the, um, where you go, the second opinion, where should I go next is a big question for patients, right?
But it also is a really powerful, like, part of the value chain.
Like where do you refer the patients to?
Which health system, um, under what circumstances is it is a really key kind of inflection point that makes sense for them to control.
Yeah.
So I mean, this is a little, uh, scary to me.
You know, the amount of capital that's been raised here and the players, um, because.
It does feel like a little bit the speed with which some of these AI companies are going to develop.
It's, you know, it's, it's funny how it's different now than it was, um, even in 2020.
Like, I remember when Olive raised all that money, but we didn't have gen AI yet.
Right.
Yeah.
It was just sort of, you know, RPM and, and, and.
It didn't machine learning, it didn't work.
It didn't work, it didn't work.
All that money was not gonna actually meaningfully give them an edge.
Whereas now this is a lot of money.
And I think as VCs, you gotta kinda look at the patient, refer referral space and be like, Hmm, yeah.
Is that category gonna be closed out?
Well, you know what I mean?
And if it does, do you have confidence that your patient referral systems are gonna hold up?
Yeah.
Right.
Because it, that's where I'm, that's where it makes me nervous is that.
I'm, I have companies, and there's a lot of companies in Nashville that they understand their patient referral systems, but their soft power.
Right.
It's like an influence Yes.
Campaign.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
And if the patients are using another tool to help them, in quotes, help them, they could easily get funneled to another place.
It doesn't matter what your soft power says.
Yeah.
You know, my.
AI's telling me to go here.
Yeah, that's right.
Alright.
Sword Healthland 40 million launches, AI based mental health solution.
This is the one that made me the most nervous.
Soar.
I think a sword of as an MSK, you know, um, art orthopedics and pt.
And they are expanding into, into behavioral health, mental health.
Um.
Which is interesting, right?
What I think what it means is they're, they're using their distribution and their scale to, to expand to different specialties.
You know, I, I think it's funny.
Uh.
Patient referrals scare me more than behavioral health, not because of ai, but more because of how fragmented behavioral health is versus health systems.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, I just, and I'm just sort of looking at what Epic was able to do in the health system world.
Which is where, really, where I think patient referral.
Yeah.
Like that's where the market is, right?
Yeah.
Um, whereas in behavioral health, it's just so fragmented.
There's still room for multiple players to kind of come in there.
So I, I'm with you.
I mean, yeah, the fact that they have distribution and now they're entering this space and, you know, really strong VCs, coastal Ventures, Comcast, uh, round was led by General Catalyst.
Right.
So it's, it's, you know, it's no joke in terms of the lineup, but at least the market is.
A little more fragmented and there's room for, you know, multiple players, I think to win.
Yeah.
But we haven't seen, I haven't seen at least a really strong digital health platform be good in one specialty.
Yeah.
And then jump to another and then jump and rebrand it.
Yeah.
Like you, like a media company would where they have mind as their brand for behavioral health.
That works in, in media.
There's lots of media companies that have Yeah, that's fair.
Dedicated channels.
Channels.
But then they use their back office and their data and all their power.
Um, it's smart.
It's smart.
It's smart.
Yeah.
We'll see how it plays out.
But, but, uh, it is a competitive space and it also is, you know, makes me worried as a small VC doing, you know, point systems.
We're gonna have to be better than, than mine for sure.
For sure.
Uh, Nala Banks 70 million Series C to build out ag agentic AI for clinical workflows.
So Nala is an artificial intelligence assistant company.
They've raised 70 million in the Series C funding led by HV Capital.
Yeah.
So we're now starting to see AI move into.
The actual patient care clinical workflows.
How, how are physicians, nurses working with patients?
Not the back office administrative work, but actually like in the practice of medicine, which is not surprising, but, but a new, maybe not new, but, but new-ish sort of trend.
Yep.
All right.
And the big story, which is Ohio Greenlight's, the first ever venture capital hospital acquisition.
So this is from Wall Street Journal Private Equity, and yes, general Catalyst has acquired Summa Health in Akron, Ohio.
Yeah, and I, I think it's great.
I mean, this is one that I'm more excited than scared about to see.
You know, I think it's pretty.
Widely known that General Harris was frustrated with the pace of adoption of new technology by health systems.
And that's why they wanted to own, own their own.
Yep.
It has, it's the Payvider model, you know, you know, a reasonable market, but, but a manageable small-ish market.
Akron, Ohio is a, is a great market, but it's not, it's not New York City, it's not la Um, and I think they're gonna use it as a really interesting test.
Test market to try all kinds of stuff, which will be fun to watch.
Yeah.
No, look, I'm, I'm, I'm glad we're to the other side of this and now we get to actually see what happens, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Right.
You know, we've got, we've got, uh, Summa Health and the whole Health Assurance, you know, company here and, and you know, Mark Harrison leading this.
Yeah.
We've got Rise in Health, so we've got some interesting things now starting to pop up in the health system space that we get to watch over the course of the next five years.
Right, right.
You know, so that's, that, that is really cool.
I agree.
I agree.
Uh, alright.
Moving into policy.
So there's a lot of anger Yes.
About this.
Uh, this bill I think is really the only way to put it, you know?
Yeah.
Um, I mean Medicaid, which has been the sacred cow forever, uh, is finally on the table.
It's finally on the table.
And, uh, these.
These potential cuts.
I mean, look, I some, some of the, the, some of the, the rumors are already driving proactive action by states to sort of change rates that are, that's causing havoc, um, in different markets, right?
You know, you can look at New York and the a BA market and what's happening there with, you know, the proposed cuts.
Um.
That's at the state level.
State level, yeah.
Yeah.
But that, but it, but it's all, it's all a reflection of federal funds being cut to, to blue states.
Yeah.
And also anticipating the cuts that are be coming from this mm-hmm.
From this bill.
Right.
Yeah.
The blue, maybe none of the states, but the blue states definitely can't afford, can't afford, they gotta find money somewhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and so we're close to the time here.
It's, it's supposed to be early July when we're supposed to kind of get to the other side of, of this, this budget.
And I mean, it's gonna be terribly controversial and I think really hard for Trump to get to the other side of this without some political damage somewhere.
Right?
I mean, we can see the.
It's very obvious who's going to be opposed to this from a healthcare industry perspective.
Right?
I mean, if you're taking away money from the industry, the industry is going to, you know, yeah.
Have issues with it.
So we're gonna talk everyone, industries, blah, blah, blah.
Everyone in the industry's mad because it's taken away.
Top line revenue.
Yeah.
Right.
From the whole industry.
Yes.
So that, that we understand.
Um, but to me, what has been I think, more interesting over the course of the last week, and it's not necessarily directly in this article, but like.
The combination of the fracture around the bill and also the foreign policy in Israel.
Um, I don't, I don't wanna go down a foreign policy rabbit hole, but I'm, I simply wanna talk about the fracture that appears to be happening in the Republican party around, you know, MAGA versus old school Republicans versus, you know.
I don't know, the neocons versus, uh, tech Bros. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of camps inside of the GOP and they all came together to win the election, but we're now seeing all the different camps and, you know, we got Tucker Carlson fighting with Ted Cruz and on and on and on.
I mean, it's a, it's a pretty interesting time.
Uh, and that's an understatement.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a ton of, um, yeah.
Chaos, I'd say in the Republican party.
It's chaos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It really is.
And so I guess, um, where I want to start is this Bill.
The, you know, the BBB bill.
People have called it all kinds of different B words.
Um, people are frustrated on all sides.
Yes.
With it, they're frustrated that there's too many cuts, there's frustrated, not enough cuts.
They're frustrated how the cuts are coming.
They want different things.
Um, I think it's likely that somewhere.
Yeah.
In between the health version and the Senate version, somehow Trump has enough power influence to get something that is sort of in the middle of the two bills Yeah.
That no one is happy with.
Right.
Totally.
But it is.
They pass it.
Yeah.
Um, that's going to, if that happens, the health bill would be the.
The least bad for the industry.
Okay.
But, but pretty still dramatically less revenue flowing through.
Yep.
It might be worse than that.
So I, I think our, listen, I'm certainly preparing for significant, uh, pressure on top line Medicaid, similar to the health bill.
Maybe slightly worse.
Um, I, I, I don't think we can avoid it at this point.
Yeah.
But the, but the, the.
That's, I think that is the best case scenario.
There is another case that we talked about a couple weeks ago where if they don't pass anything, we have a debt ceiling issue in.
August or September, do you believe?
So they have to get something done.
So, you know what's really funny is, is you and I have been recording this enough that I remember in the past where you weren't worried about, like, you were like, ah, you know, whatever.
Theater.
Theater.
And they'll, they'll get it done, you know?
Now this was, this was under Biden.
Yeah.
Right.
It's not under Trump.
So, so it seems like you are more worried in this situation, which is crazy because the Republicans run the table.
The problem.
They've got the Senate, they've got the White House, and it seems like you are more worried about them actually getting the budget done now than you were last year.
Yeah, there's no, I, I definitely more worried.
Isn't that crazy?
I'm definitely more worried and it's, I'll tell you exactly why.
I think that when, when we were having to figure out how are Republicans and Democrats gonna come together to, uh, finance the, the government, I did not believe that.
Either side would get to the end and not come to some settlement.
Yeah.
I don't have the same confidence that the Republican coalition will do the right thing in the end for the, for the country to finance, finance operations.
I think there are certain groups that have a very hard line mm-hmm.
About their position.
Mm-hmm.
And they.
They either are correct in their assumption that the, you know, not being able to fund things will not be a big problem for three weeks, four weeks, a month, two months, or they're not correct.
But we haven't tested that before and I don't have confidence that in the end the Republicans will get their act together.
I, I hope, I mean, I said the best case is Trump.
Pushes everyone to find some middle ground.
It's not at all clear if you take the salt fight, um, or the Medicaid fight.
It's not at all clear how that would get done today, but, but I'm hopeful.
I'm not as confident as I was before that.
This is theater.
I think there's several sides of the debate that they've at least convinced me that there.
They're willing to take near term pain to fight for their thing, which is not what I want my representatives in DC to be doing, but.
But I, that's why I'm scared about it.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So let's, let's, let's keep moving through the stories here.
So, uh, AHIP has said that they vowed to fight the Trump budget bill to the final hour.
So I think that that is not immaterial.
Um, but also, you know, AHIP is a little bit down right now in terms of influence.
I mean, given what's happening, uh, in terms of the scrutiny to insurers, right?
Yeah.
Broadly, no, no question.
Not one company.
Broadly, the entire industry is, doesn't have the influence over the political process.
Meaning like, if, if insurance companies are mad at any politician, I'm not sure that's gonna lose a lot of votes for them.
That, that, that was kind of my point.
Yeah.
And then it's also just nonsensical.
I mean, they're gonna fight this bill, but what are they proposing for an alternative?
We, we have to pass some bill.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then, uh, moving away from the bill, uh, a little bit closer to home, but, but I think maybe with broader implications.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, the Supreme Court upholds Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for minors.
This is a hard issue on both sides, I think so.
I, I can see both sides of it.
I don't, I don't know that, um.
I, I don't know how I feel about this.
I mean, a minor, the, the thing is the minor, like if you're, if you can't get your parents to consent, I think it's hard.
But, but at the same time, you have to make these changes before you go through puberty.
Yeah.
So the whole thing is, is very difficult.
Yeah.
I, I, uh, I, I have a couple of friends who are parents of, uh.
Children who are transgender.
Yeah.
One of my close fraternity brothers, his child went through this, but, but he and his wife were supportive of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, all, all, all the friends who Yeah.
I have who Right.
Have these children are support and it was hard enough in that process.
Support.
Support, correct.
Correct.
Are supportive.
So, I mean, my view is that, uh, while in certain cases, uh.
Young people make these decisions and there is, uh, regret on the other side.
I think that's documented.
So I don't, bel I don't, I mean I don't think that that's, yeah.
You know, an opinion.
There are documented cases of this.
Yeah.
Uh, I think the non allowance is all is, is guaranteed to cause harm, um, to, to individuals and families.
And I think that, um, those parents who can, will move.
State, um, you know, and have to, and have to vote with their feet because they're not able to get the healthcare that their family needs.
Um, I think that that's, that's what, that's, that's what I would expect.
Uh, and for those who, for those for whom that is not an option.
Um, and really the only reason for that would be socioeconomic reasons.
Uh, so you're saying that the parents, if the parents are consenting.
Tennessee still won't do it.
That's not my understanding.
I, I, well, well, what, what, what, what I, what I am hearing, I could be wrong hearing.
What, what I'm hearing is that this is having a chilling effect on providers actually even delivering the care.
Yeah.
So it's, it's, it's not the, it's not the, the letter to the law.
It's the pragmatic reality of how this impacts the ability to access this kind of care in this market.
Yeah.
That's, that's what, that's what I'm hearing.
Yeah.
Um, and, uh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I think it's hard.
I mean, we trust parents to make decisions for their minor children on, on almost everything.
And so I, I think it, to me it makes sense that you'd have to trust the parents to know their child best.
Um, I don't know that we can.
Say, well, a a 12-year-old can decide about this, but then they can't decide about something else Yeah.
That they're not allowed to decide about.
Yeah.
But, so I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, look, it, it's, uh, but it shouldn't cut off care.
I mean, I think it will be not good if it cuts off care for patients where their parents are supportive and they believe, I think that's where it's headed.
Yeah.
I, I, you know what I mean?
But that's, I, I kind of have a negative view on where.
Yeah.
Kinda a lot of things are happening Yeah.
Right now, so you, you know what I mean?
But that's, that's, that's where I think it's headed, you know?
And, and I'm not willing to argue with anyone who's trying to tell me I'm.
Being extreme, so we'll just have to leave it where it is.
Yeah.
You, I'm not saying that's you.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't know.
I don't want it to head in that direction.
I'm saying, I'm saying for any listener who thinks they're gonna email me and say, you know, I'm being extreme.
Like, I really don't give a shit.
Right.
Uh, okay.
So Axios, uh, moving on to more fun topics.
Yeah.
Uh, Senate passes the Genius Act despite crypto corruption concerns.
So this I think is great.
Um, first of all, uh, we didn't.
We didn't reference it before because it's not a pure kind of a healthcare story, but circle successfully iPod.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, was it two weeks ago or a week ago?
I think it was two.
Okay.
Might would be three, but be not, not too far.
I think it was three.
Not very far away.
It, yeah, it was, it was two a week ago or two weeks ago.
Um, anyway, uh, very successful.
IPO you know, this was a company that people thought Coinbase might acquire for listeners who, uh, are not initiated.
You know, circle is kind of like the, the.
The, the Coinbase of stable coins, meaning like they are to the letter US based, um, you know, all of their, their, uh, their, all of the, the capital they use to back their stable coins is actual US dollars.
Very transparent, very audited.
Yeah.
Um, and uh, yeah, they've tried to do all the right things even when the right things weren't totally clear.
That's right.
Um, I think they.
Were spun out of, or Coinbase has a significant investment in them.
Yeah.
Um, and they're very aligned as far as trying to Yeah.
I don't think I'm like, spun out is correct.
Because, 'cause Jeremy, a layer is like a, he's a solid entrepreneur on his own, so he wasn't like inside of Coinbase or anything like that.
But, but they obviously had a very, very strong partnership.
Yes.
Coinbase was very invested in making sure that Circle did very well.
And I think Coinbase probably did that because of the la the amount of uncertainty in the regulatory environment that sort of made attaching to Tether too risky for them.
Right.
That's right.
They were trying be, they needed a stable coin.
They needed a US regulated stable coin.
That's right.
That's right.
Everyone, all, everyone in the US needs a US regulated stable coin.
That's right.
So, so the Senate passed the Genius Act that now needs to kind of circle back to the house before it can be fully ratified.
Um, why is this a big deal?
Okay, so because I think a lot of people don't understand stable coins.
Yeah.
Right.
Don't understand.
So, so basically, um.
All of our transactions kind of run on two types of networks.
One is the Swift network, the other one is Visa and MasterCard networks.
Mm-hmm.
That's, that's basically it.
Right.
And, uh, one is highly regulated, controlled, and as you might remember when Russia started attacking Ukraine, uh, yeah.
Joe Biden, Russia off with Swift Network.
And then on the Visa MasterCard side.
Well, we all know about the fees that get charged there and how merchants are constantly complaining about those, those fees.
Right.
So stable coins allow us to have digital transactions.
That are denominated in US dollars can very easily be redeemed for actual US dollars because the stablecoin issuers are backing every one of these digital dollars with an actual dollar.
Um, so they can easily be redeemed.
And they're also accessible on markets where, you know, there's, there's a market for them, so there's liquidity for, for these digital dollars.
Um, and now we can, you know, you and I can have a transaction.
That is a dollar based transaction, but it's off of those old school networks.
Not only is it off of those old school networks, it can be on a variety of crypto networks.
So we could transact on the Ethereum network.
We could also transact on the Solana network with that same USDC coin.
This is a pretty big deal.
This is a pretty big deal.
It it is the middle where between the fiat.
Ecosystem and the crypto ecosystem, no question.
Yes, it is the middleware between those, but also it's a new option to just do pure USD transactions.
Like if you don't wanna have anything to do with bitcoin, ether, Solana, Tron, all that stuff, you still could find value in USDC.
Right.
Or, or stable coins because they get you off of the Visa, MasterCard, duopoly, right?
Yes.
Or they get you off of the Swift network.
Anyone who has.
Um, offices outside of the US deals with moving currency around and exchanging into the local currency so you can pay rent or pay your employees.
Not everyone in healthcare has that, but, but plenty have that and it's really expensive to do that.
Yes.
And this, that's one use case where you can put money in Nashville.
Into circles, CBDC, and it is, you put in a hundred dollars and you have a hundred of these virtual dollars, and then you can move it effectively for no charges.
Right?
Maybe it's for five basis points.
Yes, but it's, it's, it's insignificant.
It's insignificant to Mexico or to France or wherever you want.
Wherever you want, wherever you want.
And it doesn't matter.
There's no fees.
And then once you get there, your employees can take dollars or they can take euros.
Yes.
Or take whatever.
Yes.
Um, it is a significant improvement over the existing system.
And really what a reserve currency's purpose is, is to be the basis, be the basis where you can.
You can sort of be in any currency.
That's right.
You might be in India and then you need to transact with Argentina and you go through the reserve currency.
The dollar.
Yes.
Um, but it's now using a, a digital dollar.
Yes.
Just much more effective, much more being expensive.
Yeah.
And you know, the Genius Act kind of makes sure that we don't have to worry about.
Specter of the centralized digital currency, right?
The, the CBDC or whatever they, they called those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, which were scary because those were gonna be hyper tracked, right?
Yes.
Right.
This, this is a free market model, um, that is going to allow many, many.
Organizations to create, so, you know, to create their own economies.
Yeah.
So you think about like, Amazon can make their own currency.
Amazon and Walmart are already talking about doing their own currency.
Yes.
For, for that exact purpose.
PayPal already has a stable coin.
Yes.
We're seeing JP Morgan talking about offering Yes.
A, a stable coin.
So it's going to just create far more efficient transaction platforms, um, where.
People can kind of issue their own currency as long as they're properly backed, as long as they're compliant with the Genius Act, right?
Yeah.
I mean, that's gonna be the key.
It be compliant with genius.
The reason its important to me is that it's gonna continue the US dominance of financial markets, period.
Absolutely.
That's what it's gonna do.
No question.
And then the genius of it is that mean?
Is that it?
They are requiring that for every dollar, any stable coin brings in.
They must buy a treasury bill with a duration under 93 days.
And so they have to buy three month treasury bills.
Yeah.
Or, or, or shorter.
And the amount of new demand that that will create for treasury bills is gonna be significant.
Unbelievable.
Yes.
Right now it's a $250 billion market.
So it's smallish, um, still 250 billion, but it's gonna grow.
Multiple multiples.
There's, there's, there's, there's estimates between one and 4 trillion.
Um, but either way, it's gonna create a lot of new net new demand for US treasury bills, which, which helps all of us, it reduces the cost of, of everything.
So, so now I have to say, this to me feels like the most.
Unnecessary self-inflicted wound that the Democrats perpetrated against themselves.
Yes.
Spooking everybody out trying to say that all crypto is all about financing terror and all this stupid shit.
Yes.
And when this rolls out, like, okay, yes.
Like.
2% of the use case will be financing tran terrorism.
Yeah, because guess what?
Cash?
Cash, more, more percent of dollars are used for that.
I was about to say that, right.
Cash and gold already fi, finances, tourism.
Right.
You're not gonna stop that.
Yes.
But the expansion of of market opportunity, the improvement of transaction ability for entrepreneurs and massive corporations alike, this is the, this will make the Democrats look like they were shills for the incumbents.
That they didn't go ahead and move forward on this in advance.
And you know how you can tell, look at how many Democrats signed on with this act?
Yeah, that's, that's how you can tell 68, 30, I mean, it was not that close.
Not close at all.
And it's gonna be more positive in the house.
It's gonna pass the house.
No, no question.
Um, no question.
And it should pass the house and it'll be great for the country.
Period.
The Democrats made a mistake.
But it doesn't matter.
I mean Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
It matters.
It matters to, it matters to them.
And they lost the election partially because of that.
Yeah.
And Elizabeth Warren is still out there running her mouth.
Yeah, but she's an idiot idiot.
So I looks like God bless, man.
Anyway, it's, it's great that it passed and it's gonna, I'm gonna really, I'm mad because I'm mad about the deterioration of Democratic party.
Yes.
Right, right.
Like I, I think that's bad for America.
So that's, that's my, that's my beef.
This Yes.
We need, we need a second party.
Definitely.
We need to say a party.
I mean, I mean, to the point of you being more worried about getting the, the budget passed, right?
When it's all Republicans like, yeah, this is not great.
They have no one counterbalancing them.
No.
So that, and that does not lead to healthy debate, chaos.
Right.
It's chaos.
Exactly.
Anyway, let's, let's keep moving on.
Yeah.
Uh, alright, we're into payers.
So, Humana's cautious defense of Medicare Advantage.
This is from healthcare Dive.
Talk about it, Vic.
Yeah, so they had an investor day, as we talked about a couple minutes ago.
The entire insurance market is under pressure right now.
Not really Humana so much, but all of their peers, um, maybe not with the exception of Cigna, are.
Being investigated or having problems.
And so they had their investor day and they were pretty, um, you know, I guess assertive about they are in the Medicare advantage.
I mean they're pure play Medicare Advantage play.
And so they have no choice but to be assertive about it's going to work.
Um.
But they're also talking about improvements and making sure that they don't do upcoding and all the, all those things that are negative.
So, um, they are defending Medicare as a great service, as of course they are.
It's their entire business.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, look, uh, th this is politically smart.
Yes.
Yeah.
They're not waiting to be attacked.
They're sort of out there trying to.
Be positive.
Yeah.
And this is the second story we've now had on them with Yeah, with with good pr.
Right, right.
Just smart, good positioning for them.
Yes.
And also like I, I think as long as they don't get tagged with the upcoding thing, I.
Like Medicare Advantage is a popular plan option.
Yeah.
For seniors in America.
It's not, no question about that.
It's not an unliked program.
Right.
So they just have to sort of say, Hey, we're gonna stick to the rules.
Yeah.
We're gonna do the right thing.
We're all about doing the right thing.
Stick for seniors.
They have choice, but don't throw the baby out with the bad water.
Right.
I mean, and that's a, that's a good positioning for them, I think.
Yes.
You know, uh.
Epi Source ransomware attack, leaked patient health data.
This is healthcare IT news.
Yeah, so this is another in the string of bad news for UnitedHealth Group.
They're owned by UnitedHealth Group.
Oh.
And so unfortunately, the UnitedHealth Group has been the victim of another cyber attack, which again, exposed data.
So, I mean, we don't need to pile on more, but it's worth it just to tell the listeners, you know, that, uh, sharp Healthcare is the one that, um, sort of has come out publicly and sort of may announced it.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but I. You know, when it rains it pours kind of thing.
Yeah.
Uh, moving on to, uh, health systems.
Ascension agrees to acquire AmSurg to expand ambulatory surgical reach.
So, so we, we covered this.
This was rumored, we, it was rumored.
It was rumored.
Right.
We knew it was coming and now it has happened.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Got it.
Alright.
Guess we don't need to cover much more say, just to make sure that people know it just happened.
Got it, got it.
Uh, Headspace launches insurance, covered therapy direct to consumers.
This is HIT consultant.
Yeah.
So this is pretty interesting that they're one of the biggest, um, you know, digital, behavioral health, no question.
Apps or tools.
Yeah, no question.
And now they have, uh, gotten.
Insurance coverage from a whole group.
It was almost every, every payer.
And so pretty much wherever you work, you most likely have coverage from your employer through through Headspace Smart, which is great.
It's pretty smart.
Pretty smart.
So it's hard to find an in-network.
Oh, yeah.
Um, very much old traditional Yes.
Psychiatrist or behavioral health consultant.
Yes.
Agree.
Agree.
Uh, moving on to pharma Eli Lilly to acquire verb therapeutics for up to 1.3 billion.
Again, that sort of one to one and a half billion sweet spot seems to be where all of the acquisitions are happening in pharma right now.
Yeah.
This is a cancer therapeutic, so they're, they're a adding, I don't think of the way as huge in cancer, so they're adding to that.
Okay.
Uh, capacity.
Alright.
Health and US New York Times a cutting edge cancer therapy offers hope for patients with lupus.
Lupus can be debilitating and sometimes deadly for the 3 million people who have it.
A treatment called CAR T appears to stop it in its tracks.
Lots of, uh, noise about sort of the resurgence of CAR T lately.
Yeah, a lot of noise about CAR T lately.
Yeah, car, CAR T is great.
It's been, um, it's been focused on cancer.
I think there are lots of applications.
Anything where the immune system is involved or, um, maybe not functioning right, I think CAR T can be looked at.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and this woman, they don't use the word cured, but she has not had symptoms, uh, for over a year, uh, with one treatment.
Wow.
Single treatment.
Um, and so.
It's great.
Who, I don't know if it's gonna be a permanent cure, but, but lupus is really, there's a lot of negative symptoms of a woman not having symptoms for a year is a great, great, even if it, even if she just has to get a second treatment.
Again, it's, uh, really positive.
Yeah, agree.
Alright, moving into ai, wall Street Journal, the friendly caller who's helping seniors feel less lonely.
An AI companion is just a phone call away for residents of the senior living community and their mental health is improving as a result.
Yeah.
So this is not shocking, but I had not seen it before.
Um, and so this, this, um, older senior community, 23 River Spring, they are doing this trial and, um.
It's had a lot of success and they have a recording here with this guy, Marvin, which we don't, won't play here, but he's a huge Yankees fan and you know, the other seniors in the community don't, they don't always wanna talk about the Yankees.
Yeah.
The ai, and that's the sort of example you can listen.
I listen to it here.
Um, she, it's a, it's a woman voice.
She's, she's very willing to, to listen and chat about the Yankees, but then she pivots and asks him about books and like, how's he, is he keeping up with his reading?
Um, it's a positive story.
Obviously.
There are many ways that it could, it could go to not be so positive, but.
But it seems like it's having great results right now.
Yeah.
But again, we, we've talked about, like, we've thought about trap doors and monitoring and mm-hmm.
You know, and, and having an AI that's monitoring the AI conversation.
Right, right.
You know, there's a lot of solutions for, for that.
In the meantime, how do you address the lack of companionship at scale?
Yeah.
And, and AI is a, it's just gonna be a great answer for that.
Yeah.
That's, that's just the reality and, and whether we have all the concerns addressed or not.
It's, it's coming.
I mean, it's, it's here.
Seniors are using it.
That's right.
Um, and so I think we need to sort of understand what the benefits, like any treatment, there's a lot of benefits and there's also things to, to kind of mitigate against.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agree.
Abridge launches, gen AI tool for inpatient clinicians ads, outpatient orders feature.
Fierce healthcare.
Yeah.
So a abridge, um, has been doing, um, you know, ambient coding and things, but they, they're now adding, uh, integration with Epic for inpatient workflows to sort of, again, it's another place where they're extending their, their capabilities.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and I think gonna be great.
We, we need to have better workflows and, and, you know, help clinicians not do so much of the.
Administrative back office coding documentation work.
Mm-hmm.
But adding workflows, I think makes a big difference.
UHS partners with Hippocratic AI to launch AI agents.
Yeah.
So UHS is a pretty decent sized, skilled for-profit health system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so they're launching agents.
Um, and it's sort of gonna, mostly, I think it's gonna follow up.
After a patient is discharged from the hospital, but, but there's several agents that they're, they're testing and rolling out, okay, OpenAI wants a $200 million US defense contract.
This is CNBC.
This was all their positioning was, you know, get the government contracts.
And, uh, here they are award a one year,$200 million contract for, uh, OpenAI, the use of its artificial intelligence models.
Yeah.
And so it's the first time I've seen any of the.
Significant frontier models sign a, a government contract.
And I think that's right.
It's, it's another sort of signal that OpenAI is, is becoming sort of the accepted.
Brand that's most commonly known out there as a, as a subpoint here, it's worth noting that, uh, in December, OpenAI announced a partnership with Andel.
Mm-hmm.
And I think just recently in the last month, Andel also announced a partnership with Meta also on ai.
So Andel, yeah.
Is is kind of apparently some kind of gateway for these companies to get access to the, to, to these government defense contracts specifically because Andels really got the defense stuff locked up.
Right.
It's like, and Andrew and Palantir are basically like the two big defense.
That's right.
You know, contractors and technology.
And so it's interesting to watch the different AI companies now sort of circle around them.
Yeah.
Uh, for partnership capabilities.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think, I mean, I think.
Def US defense should be using AI tools.
So I think it's good.
No, yeah, of course.
I mean, no question.
Yeah.
And it doesn't surprise me, and I think Open AI is certainly, yeah.
You know, a top shelf Yeah.
Partner for, for, uh, department of Defense.
Uh, okay.
This is the big story.
Uh, open AI and Microsoft tensions are reaching a boiling point.
Uh, when this whole thing started, this whole Open AI thing started.
Mm-hmm.
Microsoft was a first mover.
Yeah.
They made a big bet and they, uh, invested huge in backing OpenAI and Sam Altman.
Um, they supported Sam through all the turmoil when he was ousted and then came back.
Um, they basically dedicated the Azure platform to open AI effectively and, and gave them a lot of market share growth as they were sort of the first real enterprise ready AI cloud platform.
Yeah.
Um.
But I think in exchange for all of that, Microsoft wanted, you know, deep loyalty, uh, and for OpenAI to not be messing around with, you know, some of these other platforms.
And I think they, they got that in contracts.
Yes, yes.
But now OpenAI is seeking to become a platform of their own.
I think they want to be a Microsoft one day, you know, meaning like, yeah.
Most valuable company in the world.
Right.
And we're finding that, you know, some of the moves that they're making are being constricted by Microsoft, for example, the acquisition of Windsurf.
Yes.
Um, and how that conflicts with copilot.
So talk a little bit about, about this story.
Yeah.
I think there's three main, um, fronts to this fight.
Maybe.
Uh, you mentioned the first one, which is, um, Microsoft.
Part of the deal is they have access to.
All of open AI's IP period.
Um, so they can repackage it, they can look at the ip, they can resell it, they can use it themselves internally.
And they have a coding assistant called Copilot.
They also own GitHub.
Mm-hmm.
So, so they have significant reach already in that space and OpenAI is trying to carve out.
Windsurf, which is another coding tool, um, before they do the acquisition.
And Microsoft is not willing to do that.
And so I think it's pretty clear what is stated in the contracts.
But, but OpenNet is trying to change the contracts.
Well, just like they try to change their, their status, right?
Yeah.
Right, right.
So that's the second one, which is they have a current, uh, sort of financial.
Deal with Microsoft and if they become a subsidiary of the nonprofit, which I think they have to do, yep.
Obviously the subsidiary means that they will not own a hundred percent.
Yep.
And so Microsoft is not willing to let them do that unless they recognize that and, and make changes and make positive changes to the financial arrangement.
Right.
And otherwise they're not gonna be able to do it.
Yep.
So, so that, that's another sticking point.
And then the third is that they are not allowed to use any other cloud provider to offer services to the public and.
They would like to use Amazon.
Yeah.
Google, whatever.
Yeah.
And again, Microsoft is saying, well, you signed this contract.
Yeah.
So, um, I don't know.
Um, I know Sam seems Microsoft on the right.
Well, they have the, the legal power certainly.
And, and the moral power.
They were the, they were the first mover.
Yes.
They were the first mover.
Yes.
I mean, I don't wanna get into the details of our deal at Foundry.
It's kind of the same thing.
Yes, yes.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
First mover gets, gets special perks.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
And, and the startup often feels like, well, if I have to worry about that, I'll be, I'll be really successful.
Right.
But then when they get really successful and they're upset about it and tough shit, I mean, so I, yeah.
And so they have been floating the idea of going to the Justice Department or FTC and claiming that.
Microsoft is impairing free competition.
Right.
But they, they signed a contract under free will.
Totally.
I don't think that is a real threat.
No, no.
I, I agree.
It's, it's re-trading the deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's re it's re-trading the deal.
That's right.
Which, which, which by the way seems to be par for the course with Sam Altman.
I mean, to be fair, it feels like he retraded the deal initially with Elon.
Yes.
Like all the way back in the day.
Did that, you created the deal with the alarm.
De definitely did that.
Yeah.
So this just kind of seems to be who this guy is.
Yeah.
He would prefer the world to bend to his will.
Yeah.
And he came out on Monday or somewhat open AI was sort of leaking this to the Wall Street Journal.
And then Microsoft has responded now in the Financial Times basically saying like, wait, we're we're willing to hold them accountable so that they're not.
Um, you know, they're, they're willing to sort of walk away from the renegotiation ation and just say, we'll, just, we'll just, we'll just hold you accountable.
Yeah, yeah.
And, and, and, and sue you for breach of contract if you try to do something outside of that.
Well, and if they don't approve the transition from nonprofit to the subsidiary, they gotta open as to give back all the, all the, all the investor capital.
Oof.
Or they have the, they all the investors have the option to take back like $30 billion.
And so.
I think Microsoft has a lot of the, you know, as our president would say, has a lot of cards.
That's all the time I got.
Yeah.
Well that's, that's plenty to cover one show.
There's a lot going on.
Uh, thanks for pulling this together.
Uh, I feel well informed, uh, as I said, uh, happy Juneteenth and, um, hopefully you are taking some time today.
I'm definitely taking the rest of the day off.
And, uh, we will see you back here next week.
Yeah.
I.