Jan 13, 2025

111- From Wildfires to Workforce Automation | How AI is Reshaping Society

Featuring: Vic Gatto & Marcus Whitney

Episode Notes

Vic and Marcus delve into the catastrophic fires ravaging Los Angeles, the broader implications of AI-driven workforce automation, and structural changes in the job market. They analyze the evolving social contract between corporations and society, the complex challenges in healthcare efficiency and profitability, and the role of regulatory environments in stifling or fostering innovation. The discussion also explores advancements in AI agents, the shifting dynamics of the influencer economy, and cutting-edge developments from CES, including NVIDIA's AI supercomputers. The hosts reflect on societal, economic, and technological transitions shaping the future

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Marcus: If you enjoy this content, please take a moment to rate and review it. Your feedback will greatly impact our ability to reach more people. Thank you. All right. Uh, second show of the year. And as we speak, the city of Los Angeles continues to struggle with, um, fires that can only really be described as apocalyptic.

[00:00:26] Marcus: Um, we have friends, colleagues. who have been evacuated. So far, everyone is safe that we know about. Um, but it's kind of an ominous start to the year between, uh, you know, kind of the activities on the first day and now, now these, these fires, um, far beyond anything anyone had previously thought possible. I think truly, you know, people hadn't really thought about a hundred mile an hour winds and what that does when combined with the dryness and [00:01:00] the, um, And, and the spark.

[00:01:03] Marcus: But it's been, uh, it's, it's been really, really sad. Really devastating, steady, and really scary to see, you know, the, the second largest city in, in America cultural hub for so many things, for more than a century. Just kind of be at the whim of nature with no end insight at the moment. 

[00:01:26] Vic: Yeah, it's, I agree.

[00:01:27] Vic: It's very sad. And quite scary that we cannot, we as a society can't fight these fires. It's been, it's been three days and they're, they're 0 percent contained. It's, it's just scary that, that nature is so powerful. And we, you know, we, we think we're in a powerful society and have all this infrastructure, but it just, it's just not.

[00:01:53] Vic: Burns 

[00:01:53] Marcus: right through it. Yeah. I mean, so anyway, uh, we, we, uh, [00:02:00] like I said, we have people who are close to us who, who are, are, are dealing with this. And, um, so obviously we are, uh, we're, we're impacted and we know, you know, the world is small when things like this happen. Like everybody knows somebody who is, who, who lives there and who is impacted and, uh, and it's entire neighborhoods.

[00:02:21] Marcus: Thousands of people are going to be. It's crazy. Homeless. It's really sad. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's hard to wrap your head around the idea that an entire town is just gone, you know, um, I've been watching, watching these fires develop over the, over the course of the years. I remember a really bad 1 happened back in Santa Rosa, um, more than 10 years ago, but I remember that being, you know, just being like, wow, you know, that was terrible.

[00:02:49] Marcus: And to kind of see how these things have graduated with the 

[00:02:52] Vic: entire town paradise, more than Northern California. Yeah. Entire town burned. Yeah. 

[00:02:57] Marcus: Yeah. 

[00:02:57] Vic: But there was a Small town [00:03:00] that I had to find on a map. Yes, 

[00:03:01] Marcus: exactly. LA is, is it's a different deal, right? It's different. There's 

[00:03:05] Vic: multiple, the next Olympics are going to be there.

[00:03:09] Marcus: The next summer Olympics are going to be in LA. I mean, like that's right.

[00:03:15] Marcus: So anyway, um, just had to acknowledge that. And then, uh, as, as expected, and as we discussed last week, the new cycle has begun. Yes. Uh, between CES and, uh, some interesting things happening both on the Biden and the Trump side, uh, deal starting to sort of get announced both on the VC and the M and a side, 

[00:03:39] Vic: I think a couple deals got announced ahead of JPMorgan so that, that you start talking about it.

[00:03:45] Vic: That's right. Yeah, that's right. 

[00:03:46] Marcus: Um, and so we've got a fair amount to, to, to run through and so, uh, With, uh, no further ado, let's dig in[00:04:00] 

[00:04:03] Marcus: starting with the economy. And, uh, the, the first story that you lined up for us headline from the wall street journal, unemployed office workers are having a harder time finding new jobs. More than 1. 6 million unemployed workers have been job hunting for at least six months. 

[00:04:18] Vic: Yeah, so this is a stat that I track because it is, um, it's a sign of worry if, if, so the normal unemployment is six months and then you can get an extension if you need it beyond that and that, that number of people that have had to file extension and continue to get unemployment because they can't, they're still looking, you have to tell the unemployment office whoever it is that you're still looking, um, is, is growing.

[00:04:49] Vic: So now it's 1. 6 million. And it's, it's worrisome. So, so let me, that's, I don't see it, uh, turning [00:05:00] around quickly, I think there are pretty significant structural changes in our economy of who, who can be hired for, for the pay that they have made for a long time. And, and, Some people need to be retrained and that's going to be a hard and painful and probably slow process.

[00:05:19] Marcus: And adjust their standard of living. Expectations. Yeah, expectations, standards of living, and really just like spending. 

[00:05:26] Vic: Yeah. 

[00:05:27] Marcus: Yeah. The uh, it's, it's just unlikely that we are going to move back when every major tech company Uh, which is where all of the, um, value is being captured are all 100 percent pushing for more artificial intelligence, right?

[00:05:49] Marcus: Um, that is, uh, I was listening to a podcast, I think it was, uh, The Lenny podcast, which is really a product management podcast, but they have Mark Benioff on it. [00:06:00] 

[00:06:00] Vic: Oh yeah. And he was 

[00:06:00] Marcus: talking about, um, agent force and everything around agents and all that kind of stuff. And they were talking about the digital workforce, you know, and digital labor.

[00:06:11] Vic: Have you, have 

[00:06:11] Marcus: you heard those terms? I have. 

[00:06:13] Vic: I know I have heard those. I have heard Benioff talk about, but I know he doesn't mean. People working with technology. He means fully automated software agents or bots or things in the cloud that are running and there's no people there. That's right. 

[00:06:30] Marcus: That's right.

[00:06:30] Marcus: And, uh, just hearing him. on that podcast, talk about digital labor and talk about the inevitability of the impairment of the workforce. Um, you know, one thing I like about Benioff is I feel like he's a straight shooter. He's generally kind of a non hypey kind of guy. Um, and, uh, it, it feels like we [00:07:00] have reached a point of no return on this.

[00:07:02] Marcus: Um, you know, it's, it's really hard to appreciate unless. It's your job to cover it and track it and really understand the advancements that are happening in this field. Um, but they are many, they are varied. Um, and at a certain point, it's not going to matter whether or not humans understand how to make these things work, because these things will just work.

[00:07:31] Marcus: Yes, they will just do the job. They will just replace the human. So human doesn't need to worry about trying to work with it. 

[00:07:38] Vic: Right. 

[00:07:39] Marcus: It's just going to do the work. Um, so 

[00:07:43] Vic: yeah. And so I think, um, this is something to watch because people losing their job. affects their spending, it affects the economy, and then they're suffering and trying to figure out something else.

[00:07:59] Vic: I don't [00:08:00] know that the transition is going to be smooth. 

[00:08:03] Marcus: No, it's, it's, it's not, it's not going to be smooth. Not only is it not going to be smooth, uh, I think there is a very reasonable resistance to accepting that this is happening. And I think by the time people look up and really realize what's happened, uh, I think there's going to be a lot of anger, um, about it.

[00:08:26] Marcus: Yeah. You know, uh, I, I, I think I learned something about, uh, sort of the, the unspoken herd from the, from the Luigi Mangione situation, um, Brian Thompson situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I feel like we've said it every show since that's happened, uh, how shocking that was to us and at the same time. It did happen, right?

[00:08:51] Marcus: Like that display of sentiment and disdain, um, for corporations based on what they [00:09:00] represent is real. And I don't believe that's going to be isolated to insurance companies, right? I mean, I think, um, I think we're in an era where people are going to be pretty angry at large, powerful, um, institutions more broadly, uh, if they perceive that they are.

[00:09:21] Marcus: Not good stewards of society and and of people specifically right if there's enough anecdotes about people suffering as a result of decisions that corporations in particular have made But also governments, you know institutions more broadly Uh, I I think that they're right now. There's there's a little bit of a green light to to um For where anger is okay , 

[00:09:50] Vic: you know?

[00:09:50] Vic: Um, yeah, I mean, I think, I, I think there's a difference in corporations and government. I mean, corporations are supposed to drive value for [00:10:00] shareholders. Often that includes a need to take care of your staff and have a culture because that ends up in delivering better shareholder value. At least that's what I have thought for a long time.

[00:10:13] Vic: But there are no rules that a corporation has to employ a certain number of people and in fact, it's. It's the opposite. If, if, if people decide that this corporation would be better for the shareholders with fewer people that they kind of are supposed to have fewer people. The government, I think it's different.

[00:10:36] Vic: The government has to figure out how to retrain, give people purpose, give people enough money to live their lives and have a. Fulfilling life, and I don't know how that's going to manifest, but that's a different they at least have that goal or they should have that goal. 

[00:10:55] Marcus: Yeah, I think maybe the, uh, I wouldn't necessarily say where we [00:11:00] disagree because I think, uh, objectively by the book, I agree with your sort of differentiation of corporations and government.

[00:11:08] Marcus: I do agree with that. I do think, though, that in society. This is kind of the unspoken herd thing I'm referencing. I think we have an underlying social contract. Yes. Um, that, There's breaking that's breaking that's fraying and breaking right and it's like in that contract. It's like it's okay for investors and executives to make a lot of money as long as people can stay employed and get health care benefits and, you know, and have some certainty that as long as they do good work, they are going to be able to keep their job right that that's, that's, that's a, There, there is, there's an understanding that that's kind of the way it should be, right?

[00:11:57] Marcus: That's a should as opposed [00:12:00] to how it actually is by the book. And I think that as As corporations continue to veer towards their true, by the book, essence, which is shareholders first and really only, um, many people are going to rethink how they feel about these corporations, right? And, and, and, and that should be fair game, shouldn't it?

[00:12:25] Marcus: Yeah, I think that's fair. That should be fair game and fair play, right? 

[00:12:28] Vic: Yes, you don't have to buy anything from United Healthcare. Yeah. Or think they're great. Or think they're great. Or think any corporation is great. Right. But I think our, my grandparents, I think probably your grandparents, that, that generation in the 60s, 70s, you typically went to a corporation kind of for your entire career.

[00:12:53] Vic: And then you got a pension and there was a lot more. Uh, support [00:13:00] and the corporation almost took care of the employees in a way that was kind of paternalistic. Absolutely. And that's where healthcare sort of fit in with that. And then with the rise of 401ks, the pensions fell apart. And then. The, I think maybe the, the boomers wanted to move themselves and certainly our generation, next generation did not.

[00:13:28] Vic: I never planned on a company taking care of me in my whole career. No. So things sort of, uh, change over generations, I think, but. Healthcare is more complex. Like, so if you're a healthcare for profit and we'll have a story later about private equity backed healthcare for profits. It's been a much more nuanced, uh, social contract because you're running a health system or you're running a payer or, you know, a provider group.

[00:13:59] Vic: There, [00:14:00] there is a, a mission to take care of the patients at some level, um, but there's really no clarity on where that, that responsibility, where that duty lies compared to the profit incentive or shareholder value. And I think we're seeing a lot of questioning with politicians and with social media and the zeitgeist and everything of what, what should a for profit healthcare company be responsible for and not.

[00:14:31] Vic: And I don't know that, I don't have the answer to that, but we have to figure it out. We're a long way from having the answer. Right, right. We're a long way from having the answer. So there's going to be a lot of anger in the meantime. 

[00:14:39] Marcus: Yeah. We're a long way from having the answer because I think the, the cat is out of the bag in terms of everyone just thinking blindly that single payer, single provider system is going to be a panacea.

[00:14:52] Marcus: You know, we, we have enough anecdotes, you know, just, we could just look north, right north of us to Canada. [00:15:00] That could be really, really long lines. It could be, you know, inability to get specialist care, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And so trade offs, trade offs, trade offs, trade offs, right. It's, it's not, um, there's, there's no very simple way to solve this problem of where is the line in the social contract between for profit and even nonprofit entities, right?

[00:15:23] Marcus: I mean, they still have to have a profit in order to operate. 

[00:15:26] Vic: They have to make enough money to Pay for their team and all the equipment. That's right. And you want them to do that to be in business Next year. Absolutely. Absolutely. At the same time. I think a lot of people probably including me would say that if you are born in America today The chance that you're going to pull your way up just through effort and talent, that American dream of anyone can be, um, the next billionaire.

[00:15:54] Vic: I don't think that's real anymore. 

[00:15:57] Marcus: You know, you know, it's really interesting though. It's like, [00:16:00] I certainly don't think it's true that anybody can, but it really was never true that anybody could. And it is also very true that certainly some people can. You and I are seeing some stuff happen in the crypto and AI space in particular, where it's like, I mean, there's people making millions of dollars that we'll never even hear about, right?

[00:16:22] Marcus: They will never make it onto the cover of Forbes right now, you know, um, but they are just at the bleeding edge of where the world is going. 

[00:16:30] Vic: And they're inventing a new, a new methodology, a new way to do it. The, the, the alpha has very much moved. But the, um, that thing that generally I believed growing up of.

[00:16:44] Vic: do well in school, go to college, get a job, work hard, and you'll get a millionaires too much, but you'll, you'll have a better life and you'll be able to provide for your family and it will, it will all work out. And that has been true for me. I came from [00:17:00] nothing and I've been able to have a good life. I think that's harder today.

[00:17:03] Vic: I mean, it's not impossible, but it's harder. And certainly it isn't like the straight line, go do everything they tell you to do in high school and college and in your first job, and then it will just work out. Right. The people you're referring to are. Making up their own plan in crypto and AI and reinventing.

[00:17:22] Vic: And one of the things that is interesting is the U S has a advantage, but a much lower advantage compared to the rest of the world in crypto and AI, then we've had another financial, 

[00:17:35] Marcus: that's all, that's all been regulatory, right? Right. In nature, not, it hasn't been ingenuity and creativeness and talent. I don't think it's been talent.

[00:17:44] Marcus: Right. I mean, it's, it's been, there's been regulatory clouds. Yeah, and I think. And those are clearing. 

[00:17:49] Vic: Yeah. Those are clearing. And I think being in the United States, being in Nashville, being in New York, being in San Francisco, there was a, [00:18:00] a, uh, geographic advantage, like, 

[00:18:02] Marcus: you 

[00:18:03] Vic: and I could meet. Oh, that's over.

[00:18:04] Vic: And that's over now. That's over. So the 

[00:18:06] Marcus: geographic advantage is over. 

[00:18:07] Vic: Right. Exactly. So it's a much harder. It's a much harder landscape now. 

[00:18:13] Marcus: Yeah, in fact, I would actually maybe shift it and say, the geographic advantage is, um, less, less about convening of talent, and maybe more about regulatory environment and taxes.

[00:18:30] Marcus: You know, like, 

[00:18:33] Vic: yeah, in some sense, it's a negative to be in certain places in New York City is much less advantaged than it was 20 years ago, 

[00:18:43] Marcus: and it's been bad in crypto the whole time. It's been worse in New York for crypto than anywhere else in the country, even when the whole country was not good.

[00:18:50] Vic: Right, 

[00:18:50] Marcus: right, right. Um, and then. Look, when we are looking at what Zuckerberg just didn't, we don't cover, we're not covering it as a story, but, but it's actually pretty [00:19:00] big news, right? I mean, meta deciding basically it's going to behave like X, literally. It's like no more content moderation and we're moving to community notes.

[00:19:07] Marcus: He literally just says community notes. 

[00:19:10] Vic: Yeah. Which is basically nothing. I mean, the community will moderate itself. That's my, that's how I think X works. 

[00:19:19] Marcus: Yeah. And moving trust and safety out of California into Texas. Right. 

[00:19:24] Vic: Yeah, that was the biggest part of the news 

[00:19:25] Marcus: that shocked me. So, so I guess this is what I'm saying.

[00:19:28] Marcus: Like the, the, the levers that make a certain geography, uh, Advantageous versus another are shifting. Yes, those are shifting, right? Yes. All right. We just spent a lot of time. Yeah. So using that first bit. So this is another big thing. Uh, because we, we talked about this last week. Yeah. That healthcare stocks did not perform.

[00:19:52] Marcus: Over the last 12 months versus the rest of the market. This article from the Wall Street Journal actually frames it over the course of two years. Certainly [00:20:00] last year was worse than the year before, but it's been parting over the course of these two years. Um, and gosh, that's just not. The storyline that, that we've been thinking was going to be the case, you know, healthcare was going to be this steady Eddie recession proof kind of thing.

[00:20:18] Marcus: And, and truly it's just been embattled in ways that none of us anticipated, you know, everything from Medicare Advantage to the murder of Brian Thompson, just these really unexpected things, uh, that have knocked it off course. 

[00:20:35] Vic: Yeah. And I mean, you can see if you're watching a video, you can see the chart here.

[00:20:40] Vic: So it's flat. The index, which of course is with a bunch of companies, but the index itself is flat for two years where the S& P 500 is up 55%. So to date, so far we covered every week. Healthcare hasn't really been able to take advantage of AI [00:21:00] efficiency gains. And I, I don't know if big tech has gotten a huge efficiency gain, but they've been able to print money and cloud services and other things through that process.

[00:21:10] Vic: And I think that's largely the difference. Um, I have some hope that, and I'm a VC, right? So I always have some hope for the next thing. But I think healthcare has a lot of opportunity to make gains and become more efficient by using technology tools. If we can. Get around the regulations and do it safely and get it done the right way.

[00:21:33] Marcus: There's, there's no way that you can tell this story of, of the Just tell two cities in terms of performance without acknowledging that, uh, there has been no movement in the top companies in health care, whereas there has been pretty significant movement in the top companies in the S and P, the regulatory environment does not enable competition in health care.

[00:21:57] Marcus: It's simply protects the incumbents. It protects the incumbents. [00:22:00] And that is not an environment for value creation. It's not an environment for, you know, um, Industry to industry to industry actually advancing and creating new alpha. It's not right. Why? Why? Why would I spend all the time and energy? I mean, look, we, we make fun of, uh, you know, Teladoc and sort of what's happened there, but also like, it's kind of sad.

[00:22:25] Marcus: I mean, that was, that was a lot of capital, not a terrible idea in terms of what they were trying to do. We have not seen anyone be able to break through. We're going to talk about a couple of M& A stories here in a little bit. One of them is a privately held company buying a publicly held company. 

[00:22:40] Vic: Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:41] Vic: You know, I mean, It is, it's hard to be a small, reasonably small public company today. And it's hard to become a big, It's hard to be a big company, right. Healthcare company. 

[00:22:53] Marcus: Yes, and and the big health care companies that we had I mean look united aside because united's [00:23:00] big big drop in stock Was at least timeline wise Very tied very tied very tied to sort of the fourth quarter, you know Misfortune, but you can't say that for CVS.

[00:23:12] Marcus: You can't say that for for Walgreens You can't say, you know, you can't say that for so many HCA is in all the companies are suffering All right. Fed minutes suggest officials will hold rates steady for now. We kind of, yeah, this is not surprising. 

[00:23:26] Vic: I put it in to, to sort of pair it with the difficulties in the job market.

[00:23:32] Vic: Right. So I'm seeing inflation continue to move up. I think, I think it might be over three next time. We'll see in another week or two, um, the futures markets have one cut this year for the whole year. Wow. And so 

[00:23:50] Marcus: that's all we got last year. I mean, really forget, forget the December thing. That's 25 basis point was, I mean, did nothing.

[00:23:58] Marcus: Yeah. Did nothing. The September cut was [00:24:00] the real cut. 

[00:24:01] Vic: Yeah. And so we are going to be in this challenging place where there is 3 percent inflation, 3. 5 percent inflation. Not, not, it won't be terrible, but it's not going to be at a place where the fed wants to cut rates and help the job market. It's not going to help hospitals.

[00:24:20] Marcus: All right. Moving into deals. We've got four deals that are nine figure deals in BC this week. All right. So Hippocratic AI banks, 141 million series B hits unicorn status as it rolls out its AI agent app store. Seems like a good idea to me. 

[00:24:35] Vic: Yeah. So this is the dedicated LLM for healthcare for generative AI and healthcare, and they're having a lot of success and I'm, I'm excited about it.

[00:24:49] Vic: They seem like they're really trying to take the. the thoughtful approach where they're bringing in doctors and trying to do it the right way. Not that it won't ever [00:25:00] have hallucinations, but But they're doing a good job. 

[00:25:02] Marcus: Yeah. Uh, the VCs lined up on this one. Kleiner Perkins led the round general catalyst injuries and Horowitz also backed the series B with other existing investors, which are NVIDIA, Prem G, SV Angel, UHS, and WellSpan Health.

[00:25:17] Marcus: Uh, good, good group around the table. All right. Second one we've got here. Evergreen nephrology raises 130 million in funding. This is a Nashville story. Uh, the round was led by Rubicon founders. So, um, Adam Bowler, uh, who raised over a billion dollars for Fund 2, Rubicon Fund 2, uh, leading this, uh, this 130 million funding round.

[00:25:39] Vic: Yeah, so kidney care has become a strength of Nashville because, you know, we had Mono, we have Monogram, which has raised several hundred million dollars and is doing great, and now we have Evergreen that is going to be head to head with them. And I think it's great. They're both here in town. They're both.

[00:25:57] Vic: Kidney care is really a hard [00:26:00] challenge and it's, I think it's solvable. So they're, they're both. running at it and exciting. 

[00:26:05] Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Um, you know, these are, there's plenty of room for both. There's, there's a lot of room. There's a lot of room. Uh, fire one heats up with 120 million for its heart failure monitor implant.

[00:26:18] Vic: Yeah. So this is a new, um, way to monitor heart disease. And it's pretty exciting. I'm not sure I fully understand All of the technology, but they're monitoring the volume of blood coming out of the heart, I think, as opposed to the heart function, which is what a lot of devices are monitoring. Um, and it's, it's in, um, Ireland.

[00:26:42] Vic: Yep. Um, seems pretty interesting and, you know, enough money and, and obviously I'm interested in heart disease. So it seems like it's, it's good. 

[00:26:51] Marcus: Yeah. And they got FDA breakthrough designation. So that's always a, that's always a big deal and noteworthy. All right. And then the fourth one, uh, genios could be, uh, closes [00:27:00] 105 million series C funding round to power next generational.

[00:27:04] Marcus: Uh, gastrointestinal diagnostic tests. So it's a diagnostic company for, uh, yeah, 

[00:27:08] Vic: colon cancer. I mean, that's, um, so they are attacking, you know, Colliard is, is the standard right now. Um, and they claim to have a better, more specific, um, approach, which is great. 

[00:27:24] Marcus: Is it in GenPOP already or is it still in development?

[00:27:26] Vic: No, it is in, uh, late stage, uh, clinical trials. Got it. 

[00:27:33] Marcus: Okay. All right. Moving into policy by the administration bars, medical debt from credit scores. This has been building for months now. Um, as they started 

[00:27:44] Vic: talking about it, I think they announced something that they were considering it in maybe July.

[00:27:49] Marcus: Yeah. 

[00:27:49] Vic: Yeah. It's been 

[00:27:50] Marcus: talked about for a while. 

[00:27:51] Vic: Yeah. But it is now official. So a credit agency cannot. Imperial credit score due to medical debt. [00:28:00] Um, this could be reversed by the new administration. Could be. Okay. But that would be, uh, I think, you know, not politically popular. So we'll, we'll see, uh, what happens.

[00:28:13] Vic: I don't know how it's functional. I don't want people being people going, going into bankruptcy because of medical debt is, is sad and terrible and happens a lot, but at the same time, if you don't allow any repercussions to happen, is anyone going to pay? I mean, I just don't get how it functions. 

[00:28:38] Marcus: It's, uh, you know, I, I, I think that it's, well, first of all, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the crosshairs of DOJ anyway, just as an entire entity, the whole thing.

[00:28:53] Marcus: Um, and so I, I would say, I think there's, there's a much higher order potential [00:29:00] issue here. This may 

[00:29:01] Vic: not stand for a lot of reasons. Yeah. For, 

[00:29:03] Marcus: for a lot of reasons. Um, I think the premise here is that the, the, the credit that gets reported is generally Based on things that, you know, you as a consumer and or potential investor have, um, actually opted into and, and, and wanted to have, whereas there are, there's some medical debt that comes, that arises from emergencies and things of that nature where, you know, the whole time it wasn't necessarily something that you wanted to have happen.

[00:29:33] Marcus: And then you're in the situation and maybe something happened with an insurance company. I mean, it, it doesn't take. Long for us to concoct a story where someone through no desire of their own and through Some some bad circumstance of not having the right insurance not being in the right location ends up with a medical bill that could be really really devastating right and Of course, we know You just talk to the [00:30:00] hospital and you negotiate for what you can actually do.

[00:30:02] Marcus: And so, so often that gets moved to charity care. It gets moved to bad debt or whatever, right? I mean, there's all sorts of actual health care finance classifications for this because it's a constant issue. But. 99 percent of Americans do not know that, you know, do not know that when they get a bill, they can go in and they can actually negotiate it down to what they can actually do.

[00:30:24] Marcus: Right. And so this seems to sort of be making up for that lack of knowledge, um, that so many Americans have. And, and, and truthfully, a lot of people have gone bankrupt. And I would say some significant percentage of acquired debt that Was anything that they wanted? I agree with you on the hate. That's have to be paid.

[00:30:45] Marcus: I'm just trying to say, where was the, um, where was the rationale for this decision? Right? Yeah, I think it probably stems from something like that. 

[00:30:54] Vic: Yeah. Oh, I think that's that. I agree. That is where it stems from. And [00:31:00] it has a lot of support around every political group. I'm sure. Of course, of course. Um, but I think it's going to the self pay portion.

[00:31:11] Vic: Is it is a meaningful and rising amount of the receipt receipts receivables for health systems. And so if that starts to be non recourse, you just no way to collect. I think it's just going to be more pressure on health systems. Health systems 

[00:31:30] Marcus: will respond. In some way, shape or form could be AHA could be turning people away.

[00:31:36] Marcus: It could be, you know, there's all sorts of ways you respond. Um, but there will not be no response to this. Right. So it's just something to always think about, like these kinds of moves are not, are never the last move. They're never the last move. Uh, Senate report blast private equities role in healthcare is a bipartisan investigation and it says, uh, asset managers, Apollo and Leonard green, likely weakened hospitals.

[00:31:57] Marcus: They controlled just kind of an interesting, [00:32:00] um, It's an interesting group of, of, uh, PE firms to be in this report. 

[00:32:04] Vic: Yeah, that, that's what was really, I, it was shocking to me. Like, I, there are some private equity firms. Like Cerberus, who I think could be criticized these ones. I, I, I don't, I mean, I think it's very difficult to say Apollo has weakened life point.

[00:32:25] Vic: I don't see how that's true. Yeah. Uh, I mean, we, we, we, 

[00:32:27] Marcus: we didn't know. I 

[00:32:28] Vic: know too much about that. 

[00:32:29] Marcus: Yeah. Full 

[00:32:30] Vic: disclosure. 

[00:32:30] Marcus: We did it. We did a full interview with David Dill. You can go listen to it. I mean, it's like, 

[00:32:36] Vic: but I think that, um, what's interesting is that I think they in, The senators picked blue chip really strong private equity groups for a purpose and that purpose was to make a statement that for profit health care is in the crosshairs or it's or it's going to be, there's [00:33:00] going to be modifications.

[00:33:00] Vic: I don't know what's going to come of it.

[00:33:06] Vic: It sent a signal that I took us there. They're going after the entire industry because, because these are leaders. 

[00:33:14] Marcus: Well, I don't think that that's going to play well in the Trump administration. That, that would, that would be my, my take. Um, I think, I think, uh, Apollo's leadership is, uh, In in good standing with Trump, right?

[00:33:27] Marcus: And 

[00:33:27] Vic: in team. And so, yeah, and this is not, I mean, this is a committee hearing by, you know, an investigation to grandstand and get press, but it is the zeitgeist. zeitgeist that we were talking about early on, and it's not going to end with this. 

[00:33:42] Marcus: Now. Okay. FDA releases long awaited guidance to improve accuracy of pulse oximeters for all skin tones.

[00:33:47] Marcus: So you, you were mentioning that I might know something about this. 

[00:33:50] Vic: Well, I mean, I hadn't really it. Followed it, but it's been, like, eight years of we've known it's not accurate, and they now are coming out [00:34:00] saying that, that you, in order to get approval in the future, you'll have to have, you know, a wide range of different skin tones.

[00:34:09] Vic: Of course, seems like I would have said that should have been before now. Yeah. They just came out with it. 

[00:34:14] Marcus: Yeah. I mean, no, no known issue. Also, I think. The black population knows that pulse ox doesn't work, I guess. I mean, yeah. It doesn't work as well. It doesn't work as well. It doesn't work as well. Apple watch doesn't work as well.

[00:34:26] Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's kind of known. It's kind of one of those things. CMS selects states for Medicaid maternal health model. 

[00:34:36] Vic: Yeah, so they have this, um, sort of innovation, I don't think they call it an innovation group anymore, but they're, they're trying a new model around maternal health, and they're testing it in 14 states, um, each gets, uh, 17 million dollars for 10 years to try it out.

[00:34:53] Vic: It's much more, um, I'd call it holistic. Midwives, doulas, sort of the whole holistic [00:35:00] maternal health care. 

[00:35:02] Marcus: I love this. I think good. I love this. We have a portfolio company that does this. Yes, right. Exactly. So this is, this is great news. I need to send this over to Catherine. Um, that's great. All right. Uh, TikTok case before Supreme Court pits national security against free speech.

[00:35:15] Marcus: This is a big one. Um, I, I heard a rumbling, but I didn't see an official sort of mainstream media news story that said that the Trump administration had asked, um, for this to be slowed down until they got in. Um, but I didn't see anything official on that. 

[00:35:30] Vic: I think they did officially ask in the supreme court.

[00:35:33] Vic: I don't think they even responded 

[00:35:35] Marcus: Well, of course they didn't 

[00:35:37] Vic: respond. Yeah, so um the People i'm following think that it is likely going to be decided pretty quickly there. So they're they're Doing the verbal arguments tomorrow and then they're expected to come out with a decision like next week either to Delay it or [00:36:00] you know overturn it or uphold it.

[00:36:02] Vic: Hmm. It's hard for me 

[00:36:03] Marcus: to imagine this court This would be a hell of a sentiment for them to rush out I mean seems like the easy button for them is to extend it Until trump gets in the office. Yeah, it seems that seems like the easy button for them to not have to create Really significant long standing precedent over this one deal.

[00:36:25] Vic: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think they will likely My guess is they'll uphold it but extend the deadline That then gives trump a new position time that seems but the thing that's I don't think I mean this court is pretty It gives a lot of leeway to Congress congressional actions. Yeah. Congress acted to, to take this action against TikTok.

[00:36:52] Vic: Yeah. I think it's hard to see how it is going to be overturned. Overturned. I think it, I think it will likely be [00:37:00] delayed. 

[00:37:00] Marcus: Yeah. That, that makes sense. All right, two M& A deals. So we already did a little foreshadowing on this one. Transcarent to acquire health benefits platform, Accolade in a 621 million deal.

[00:37:11] Marcus: So Accolade was publicly traded on NASDAQ. I think, 

[00:37:14] Vic: yeah. 

[00:37:14] Marcus: Um, Transcarent is a privately held company. Uh, so none of us knows exactly. How much capital they are working with, but it's Glenn Tillman, you know, seven wire Livongo, uh, partnering with general catalyst, you know, I'm saying to you before the call, like, what is Glenn's background?

[00:37:32] Marcus: Because like he does like old money, big money stuff, right? You know, I mean, I appreciate the success that he had at Livongo, but, um, 

[00:37:42] Vic: yeah, but he 

[00:37:42] Marcus: was 

[00:37:42] Vic: successful before Livongo. It was, uh, I can't remember. Is one of the precursor to the EMR space, like, uh, I can't remember the exact one, but he's made a lot of money for a long time.

[00:37:57] Vic: Um, and this is still an interesting deal for a [00:38:00] venture backed company to acquire a publicly traded asset. Doesn't happen very often. No, 

[00:38:08] Marcus: no. Although general catalyst did it in the fourth quarter. Right. Um, yeah. So maybe it's trending. Yep. It, it, it seems to be trending. It seems to be the, the sub a billion dollar publicly traded companies are, are, you know, in the crosshairs.

[00:38:22] Marcus: Yeah. Right. Um, all right. So, and then H one acquires ribbon health to expand its reach to health plan, digital health market. So this, these are two privately held companies, um, basically doing a merger, but H H H one is a big. Big health tech company. 

[00:38:38] Vic: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, Ribbon is a data company. I think it's a good combination.

[00:38:44] Vic: Um, it definitely feels to me like we're seeing the large, um, the large venture scale players. Have enough sort of power and fundraising capabilities that they're sort of [00:39:00] buying up things and getting market share 

[00:39:02] Marcus: Yeah, and and and I think other folks who aren't who can't quite get to scale are realizing they're better.

[00:39:07] Marcus: Yeah They're selling 

[00:39:09] Vic: and joining in. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, 

[00:39:10] Marcus: better sell and join in because that's what it's gonna take to get something across the line, right? Yeah in this new market. So yeah, makes, makes sense. Makes sense on the health system side. Arden health kicks off 2025 with major expansion of urgent care clinic footprint.

[00:39:23] Marcus: So this is, this is pretty meaningful news. I mean, for folks who don't know enough about Arden, um, their models is JV based. Um, they partner with really, really strong, uh, local brands, usually academic, uh, medical centers, maybe exclusively, but certainly usually academic medical centers. Um, and basically, you know, bring in, you know, Unified technology that's all epic based and really great backend operations, et cetera.

[00:39:46] Marcus: But they keep the brand and they keep the great docs and sort of that whole model. But now they are expanding by adding an urgent care into those markets where they've already got those JVs. 

[00:39:55] Vic: Yeah, I think it's smart. They're, they're. They bought 18 clinics in New Mexico and [00:40:00] Oklahoma and I mean, other health systems have built or acquired urgent care platforms.

[00:40:08] Vic: It's a really good way to sort of catch more referrals that then get pulled into the health system. Um, I think that's the, that's the main. Function. 

[00:40:18] Marcus: Yeah. I mean, look, they're, they're publicly traded. They have to be growing. Right, right, right. Um, and uh, it's kind of crazy. They're almost at a year. 

[00:40:26] Vic: Yeah, 

[00:40:26] Marcus: yeah, 

[00:40:27] Vic: yeah.

[00:40:27] Marcus: Right. Yeah. I think, uh, oh gosh, time flies, man. Maybe March. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, they're coming up on a year Yeah. Of being a publicly traded company. So, yeah. I mean, these are the kind of things that, that Marty and the team over there are gonna have to continue to do. Right. Right. Found, introducing oral dissolvable GLP one tablet at reduced price.

[00:40:44] Vic: Yeah. So, found, do you know, found no. Did not, I did not have a found before. Not no round found is a dedicated weight loss, telehealth, um, digital health company. Okay. And so they focus only on weight loss. They [00:41:00] have, I think invented, they have figured out a way to compound GLP one into a dissolvable tablet.

[00:41:09] Vic: You put, just put it under your tongue and don't have to take an injection. Yeah. Um, and I think that is going to be very popular. It is, uh, less expensive. It's also there. They're positioning as a transition tool. So you use the injectable until you get to your target weight. But then as you're trying to kind of titrate off it, they have, you know, This tool that that they think will be good for that transition 

[00:41:38] Marcus: scientists make world's skinniest spaghetti Nanopasta with vital ingredient found in ant venom could be used to improve bandages.

[00:41:46] Marcus: This is an interesting one. You got you found Yeah, yeah, so 

[00:41:48] Vic: new materials is something i'm interested in. Yeah, sure. That's good. That's good especially if it has medical applications and I just think we're going to see more and more of this [00:42:00] and so it's it's very thin Um, and it allows water to pass through, but bacteria and, um, viruses cannot pass through.

[00:42:12] Vic: Yeah, that's 

[00:42:12] Marcus: kind of what you need for a bandage. Right. 

[00:42:13] Vic: So, so you can It's got to be 

[00:42:14] Marcus: breathable, but it's also got to contain the bad stuff. Right. 

[00:42:17] Vic: Uh, or Yeah, or keep out. Yeah. Either way. Either way, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, I mean, it's early, but, but pretty interesting. And wound care is a big, big problem.

[00:42:27] Vic: That's huge. So, 

[00:42:28] Marcus: so it could be good. It's huge. Uh, Louisiana health officials report, Ooh, this is not a good one. Yeah. The first fatal case of H five N one Bird flu, uh, in the us And here's the latest update. I don't like the first death from a thing. Yes. In January. This is a bad memory. Don't love it. 

[00:42:47] Vic: Yeah, bird flu is scary.

[00:42:51] Vic: I know we all have PTSD and exhaustion from COVID and Unfortunately, we need to monitor this. I [00:43:00] think the patient had pre existing conditions Over the age of 65. Yeah. Yeah, so It is So there's been 66 cases. This is the first death. I don't think there's been a case where It's been passed from human to human.

[00:43:18] Vic: So these are all cases where They ate something? No, no, they are like working with livestock or they're in the flock. It's, uh, birds and cows and some other animals, pigs maybe that, um, can pass it to humans. But I don't think that, I mean, the thing that would be really scary is if it goes human to human.

[00:43:42] Vic: Right now, it does not. It has never done that. And so it's still, it's sad when anyone dies, but, um. That's a thing to watch, but just to mention it to keep people's radar. 

[00:43:52] Marcus: Yeah, I feel like we talk about it once a quarter. Yeah, it's like tracking it. So, um, we'll keep doing that. Yeah, uh, the surgeon general calls for [00:44:00] cancer warnings on alcohol.

[00:44:01] Marcus: So the bad news for alcohol kind of continues to roll in. Um, people are, you know, decreasing their, you know, their, uh, consumption of alcohol. When you and I decided to stop drinking over six years ago. Yeah. 

[00:44:14] Vic: Yeah. We were ahead of the curve. it was not that popular then. You know, 

[00:44:17] Marcus: Huberman hadn't come out with a show saying basically it's not good under any circumstances.

[00:44:22] Marcus: Uh, but here we are now six and a half years after you and I made the call on it and the surgeon general saying, Hey, this thing could, uh, lead to cancer. 

[00:44:31] Vic: Yeah, I mean, I don't drink and I think I'm healthier for it, but at the same time, I don't think the science was really that compelling. So it's probably good that the Surgeon General is encouraging people to drink less.

[00:44:50] Vic: I'm not sure that the evidence that it causes cancer was, was very, that's not why someone shouldn't drink. I don't think. Um, [00:45:00] so it, it feels much more like a, um, recommendation for. Social good. Yeah. Yeah. Than actual, 

[00:45:09] Marcus: like, which, which would've been in line with sort of where he was going anyway. Yeah. Around mental health and social media.

[00:45:16] Marcus: Yeah. Gun violence. This would've been kind of a behavioral comorbidity thing that I think's you could have. Really. He's 

[00:45:22] Vic: had several 

[00:45:23] Marcus: things like that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. 

[00:45:25] Vic: He had, he had social media, gun viol, gun violence. Yeah. Gun violence. He's sort of, um, using his, uh, you know, podium to talk about things that would be.

[00:45:37] Vic: Better health for the people. Yeah, 

[00:45:40] Marcus: and generally outside of the scope of health care. Yes. It's societal. It's public health stuff. It's public health. I mean, it's STOH kind of stuff. 

[00:45:46] Vic: Yeah. Which is fine, but unusual for the Surgeon General to do that. 

[00:45:50] Marcus: But probably appropriate. Yeah. Because I think the things we're facing more and more are going to be like that and less and less are going to be things that can handle, are gonna be handled in an acute setting.

[00:45:59] Marcus: I mean. 

[00:45:59] Vic: [00:46:00] Yeah. No question about that. I mean. 

[00:46:03] Marcus: You know, Glip1 is just the beginning. We're gonna continue to find these miracle drugs, especially now that AI is on the case and you know, we're figuring out every protein fold and all this other kind of stuff. It's like, I think the stuff that's gonna kill us is gonna be us, you know, and not these weird diseases.

[00:46:19] Marcus: So. Anyway, the Coalition for Health AI has released an open access version of its model card for health care AI on Thursday. So This is kind of like they're calling it like a nutritional label So, you know, they're starting the process of giving some guidelines. Yeah, it's guidelines, right? 

[00:46:37] Vic: Yeah, and they're trying to standardize how the health industry talks about and refers to AI risks and benefits, which is good.

[00:46:49] Vic: And it's open source 

[00:46:52] Marcus: on GitHub. That's good. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's really code, so it's no, it doesn't have to be code to be on GitHub though. That's right. It's the [00:47:00] right place for it. Yeah. It's the right place for it. Um, you want, you want developers to have access to it and to think it's cool.

[00:47:06] Marcus: Um, I like that. That's good. That's a good thing. All right. How are companies using AI agents? Here's a look at five early users of the bots. This is wall street journal. And, uh, these businesses are using AI agents for drug discovery, customer service, marketing, writing code and research, but they aren't quite ready to let the, the bots run amok.

[00:47:24] Vic: Yeah. So you and I have been following the. agent, um, thing in, in AI agents are like the hot new thing that everyone is focused on. Um, so I wanted to bring it up. This is from the wall street journal. It Johnson and Johnson is one of the companies that they refer to that is using agents. Um, and I just think it's going to be the, it's going to be the topic for the next three months in AI is agents and maybe longer than that, but at least right now, no question.

[00:47:58] Vic: It might be useful just to. [00:48:00] Maybe try to define how an agent difference differs from a kind of a normal LOM model. And so, I would say that in order for something to have an agent, it needs To be given a goal and then some tools, some capabilities, maybe a search capability, or there's a lot that are posting on X now, or it could be, um, searching a corporate database of, of documents and things, and then you set it, you kind of set it off and it goes and does the, does the job and then returns with the, uh, The answer and so that that's kind of my general definition of an agent as 

[00:48:45] Marcus: opposed to LLMs as we understand them today, which basically are totally driven by prompts and the responses are limited to answering that specific prompt.

[00:48:55] Marcus: It's not, it's not like doing going off and doing a job. 

[00:48:57] Vic: Yeah, so it's right. The LLMs [00:49:00] that's, that's a good clarification is, um, there's a human on one side of it. Kind of continuously so you put a prompt in and then the model responds with something which you might then use in a In a job you're doing but it doesn't have a goal and it doesn't have any particular Tools or assets that you have given it Um, and so agents are, have both those things.

[00:49:30] Marcus: So I feel like it's worth bringing up. This is digging into our crypto bag here, but I think it's worth bringing up that in the AI crypto world, which is moving, it feels like to me about five times faster than the AI corporate world, um, where the, these AI agents. Yeah, they have their own Twitter accounts, they have wallets, they are making money, they are making music, they are setting up profiles on Spotify.

[00:49:57] Marcus: It's like, you know, it's it's pretty [00:50:00] incredible and they work 24 7, unlike us who need to sleep, right? Um, that there was one agent out there that got into an interaction with this, uh, the streamer in the crypto world called Threadguy and threatened to kill him. You Yeah. Threaten to kill a threat guy. And when he was called on it, when the agent was called on it by the agent's master, right?

[00:50:24] Marcus: Yeah, owner. Owner, whatever you, whatever. The human. Yeah. Um, it obfuscated. Yeah. And said, uh, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, and, and to the point where the human owner, Decided it had to just pull it had to unplug the agent. So there are guardrails and there's all these things that people are putting in place, but we have to remember another characteristic of these agents is they are based on the same technology as LLMs, which means they are non deterministic.

[00:50:55] Marcus: They are stochastic and they can still hallucinate and they can [00:51:00] still go off on their own and do things that are unexpected and they can maybe even disobey. I mean, I, I think, I think one of the things that. People are going to come to understand is that one of the, uh, core tenets of an agent may be that it's got the ability to disobey, um, that, that, that it's autonomy has a seed of sovereignty in it.

[00:51:26] Vic: I mean, I would go further. I think that

[00:51:32] Vic: it's hard to, to refer to an agent without getting hard in the English language. But if we, if you and I give an agent a goal, that is. It's prime directive or that's what it's trying to do. Right? And so it will obey and disobey and break rules and follow rules kind of independent of what's accepted in general society.

[00:51:58] Vic: Like, I'm [00:52:00] on X. I wouldn't threaten to kill someone. Right? Because. That seems like a lot of line that I want to cross right, but the agents don't under whatever the goal it had It was trying to accomplish it believe that it would be beneficial to at least threaten the red guy, right? And so I'm not even sure that from the agent's point of view.

[00:52:22] Vic: It's disobeying It's it's following to try to pursue its goal That's right in a way that us humans find unacceptable. That's right, and that's the entire AGI is going to Be really bad for humanity concept of the whole paperclip thing, like a seemingly, um, easy and non threatening goal could evolve into something that causes a lot of damage because you don't think of all the different repercussions that's going to happen.

[00:52:59] Vic: That's 

[00:52:59] Marcus: right. [00:53:00] Yeah, so we're moving into a space that people don't Don't really understand. 

[00:53:07] Vic: Yeah. Very much. Right now, the tools that agents are given, I think are pretty much all virtual. So 

[00:53:15] Marcus: yeah, that's right. This is important. Yeah. 

[00:53:18] Vic: So the. There are, you can communicate, usually, uh, there, there are APIs that allow you to interact on X or 

[00:53:26] Marcus: Telegram or things.

[00:53:29] Marcus: But 

[00:53:29] Vic: they're in the world of bits, not the world of atoms. Right. Yes. And, uh, we have it later, but, but NVIDIA was talking at CES about moving into the physical world. Yeah. And that's coming, I think, this year. 

[00:53:41] Marcus: On that note, AI startup Anthropic raising funds, valuing it at 60 billion. So didn't they just raise funds like a month ago?

[00:53:48] Vic: I think it was in November. 

[00:53:50] Marcus: It was about a little over a month ago. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I, I, I know we talked about this very, very, very recently. Yeah. 

[00:53:59] Vic: Yeah. I [00:54:00] mean, I think, uh, Anthropic is really, I think, um, turning into the leader. 

[00:54:07] Marcus: I mean, I, I 

[00:54:07] Vic: think it feels like it doesn't, it, they're sort of cause Claude 

[00:54:10] Marcus: Sonnet is kind of, I mean, at least, at least in the world of code, Claude Sonnet is number one.

[00:54:16] Marcus: That is, that's verifiably like universally held. Claude Sonnet is the best coding LLM. 

[00:54:22] Vic: Yeah. And I think they have the best management team. They have a really good agentic, which is their agent platform. They're, they have made more progress than open AI in the last six months. Damn, with a lot 

[00:54:36] Marcus: less drama.

[00:54:37] Vic: Yeah. Right. 

[00:54:38] Marcus: Final story. Uh, this was CES week. You probably could have put a lot more from CES in here, but, um, I think this was the headline. The headline was Nvidia has rolled out a personal AI supercomputer. Um, and it's called project digits today. So, uh, tell me a little bit about this. 

[00:54:58] Vic: Yeah. So you can, for [00:55:00] 3, 000, you can put the Blackwell chip and incredible memory and processing power on your desk.

[00:55:09] Vic: And be running, um, I think it's 400 billion parameter models. On your desktop and it's 3, 000, but, but that's not insurmountable. I mean, it's not, I mean, it's an expensive laptop, but it's a 

[00:55:25] Marcus: fully loaded Mac 

[00:55:27] Vic: pro. Yeah. It's it's, it's competitive with that fully loaded Mac pro. Right. So that, that was the, um, the main takeaway, but then the, the secondary one that goes to the virtual versus real world is, uh, they are really empowering the robot swarm with, with their.

[00:55:49] Vic: new line of tools. And they're not going to build their own robot. They're sort of building technology in the brains for millions of other robots. [00:56:00] And right now we have agents that are posting on Twitter and yeah, maybe they threatened thread guy, but, but it's hard to kill someone on Twitter. You can threaten it, but, but it's that agent didn't have a physical presence to really actually threaten his physical body.

[00:56:20] Vic: But when you merge that agent concept with a robot, that's a whole different thing. 

[00:56:27] Marcus: Yeah. But also like you can swap people, you can get into their smart home systems. I mean, yeah. Oh yeah. There's a lot of bad stuff you can do, man. There's a lot of bad stuff you can do. Um, 

[00:56:42] Vic: Yeah, so the, um, the goals and the guardrails need to be really carefully put together and the, the scary thing is that there's, there's no oversight.

[00:56:57] Vic: I mean people, you know the crypto [00:57:00] guys, they're, I don't even know where they live. They're all over the world. They're playing with these agents and they're cool. But, but there's not a lot of controls. 

[00:57:12] Marcus: And their whole thing is just like, go faster, further, 

[00:57:15] Vic: right. 

[00:57:15] Marcus: Right. Like all speed, no, no brakes. 

[00:57:18] Vic: Yes. And some of them are going to make a ton of money and that's going to encourage more and more people to do it.

[00:57:27] Vic: I mean, 

[00:57:28] Marcus: so, so, so one of the things that has been a common thread on the podcast, you and I have been listening to specifically talk about the AI agents. Cause really right now, The, where the agents are in the crypto world. And I think maybe we keep talking about AI and crypto. I think the thing, the thing that people need to understand is the reason why that intersection is so important is because, uh, crypto enables anybody to, uh, create a wallet and to track the transact, um, without proof of identification or any of that kind of stuff.

[00:57:59] Marcus: [00:58:00] So, um, crypto enables AI to have a way to engage in the economy. And that. That's powerful because now it has ways to incentivize other agents to do things, right? Like if it's got money and another agent has a wallet, it can now say, Hey, would you do this for me for this amount of money? And the other agent would say yes.

[00:58:20] Marcus: And now you've got agents, you know, independent of any human doing a deal to, to work together to do things. Right? 

[00:58:29] Vic: Yes. 

[00:58:30] Marcus: And one of the, and one of the great places where you're finding these AI agents right now, where they're making their money, is on Twitter, because A, on Twitter, if you drive engagement, Twitter will pay you, X will pay you for that.

[00:58:42] Marcus: Also, people will pay you. People will, you know, if you're entertaining enough, people will like send you money. I mean, look at OnlyFans, right? I mean, like it's, it's, there's a whole economy around this stuff. So what's happening right now is in the crypto space, crypto Twitter is kind of like the, this huge thing [00:59:00] and, uh, this AI XBT.

[00:59:03] Marcus: Twitter handle which is an AI agent is like the number one Twitter handle and crypto Twitter right now It's it's it's bigger and has more engagement than Vitalik Buterin Who's the founder of Vetherium and it's an AI agent, which means it doesn't sleep All it does is it just pops out more stuff. And so what we're seeing now as You know, the, the photo and the video and the text and all these things are getting better, better, better, better, better.

[00:59:30] Marcus: The whole influencer creator economy is, is at stake because these things are going to be better than the humans. 

[00:59:36] Vic: Yes. So that, uh, influencer or key opinion leader, KOL, humans previous to, I don't know, October or a few months, three months ago, those are all humans. Yes. And now they are more and more. Giving up market share to agents, [01:00:00] and that's going to continue.

[01:00:02] Marcus: Yes. 

[01:00:03] Vic: And you're right. The, um, crypto allows an AI agent to be able to hold money by, uh, pay for cloud storage on Amazon and then transact. And they're still early, but, but they're, they're growing quickly. We're going to keep following it, but, um, the video sort of helping all of us move. into AI robots is progress, but it also is going to make it more complex to contain.

[01:00:46] Marcus: There's no containing. That's over. Don't you think at this point, any, I remember when we first started talking about this stuff and you know, there was like discussion around the need for regulation and all those other kinds of stuff. Yeah. 

[01:00:58] Vic: That's, 

[01:00:59] Marcus: isn't that [01:01:00] over now? 

[01:01:01] Vic: I mean, I think Isn't that over at this point?

[01:01:03] Vic: I think 

[01:01:03] Marcus: it's over. But even, even before that, if it just felt like the distribution was like, yeah, it was over. Yeah, it was over. And look, I, I don't mean to make, um, light of a, of an ongoing, literally at the moment tragedy. We can't keep our cities from burning down.

[01:01:30] Marcus: You know what I mean? How are we going to contain AI? That's actually much harder. Yeah. It's much harder. 

[01:01:37] Vic: Yes. And I mean, it was. Pretty shocking that an AI threatened a human's life. And then when its owner questioned it was not apologetic and had to be shut down. But I don't think that's going to be the last time we, [01:02:00] as a society, we're going to have lots of people losing their jobs.

[01:02:05] Vic: And then millions of AI agents doing all various things, all sorts 

[01:02:12] Marcus: of stuff. 

[01:02:13] Vic: Right

[01:02:17] Marcus: on that note. Yeah, 

[01:02:18] Vic: yeah. So I think it'll be more good than bad, but there'll be some of both. 

[01:02:23] Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's life. We're humans and, uh, ain't no good without the bad. Right. uncharted territory. Yes. Certainly uncharted territory, which is why we're here to try our best to map it out. 

[01:02:41] Vic: Yeah.

[01:02:42] Vic: And you and I are both. Decided not to attend JP Morgan. Yes. So we will be covering JP Morgan next week. Yes. There'll be a whole bunch of stories from that. Yep. And we'll, we'll review them and bring them to you. 

[01:02:57] Marcus: I doubt the AI stuff will be anywhere near as [01:03:00] exciting as it was at CES. 

[01:03:01] Vic: Yeah. Which is 

[01:03:02] Marcus: why the health care index Yeah, is flat.

[01:03:05] Marcus: Is flat. On that note, thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

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