00:16:57 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Tyler
[00:16:57] S0: He gets bound to a rock, and an eagle, which is the emblem of Zeus, is sent to eat his liver, every day. And then it would grow back [00:17:06] S1: Baylor in the chat says, everybody wanna steal fire from the gods? Don't nobody wanna have their liver eaten by an eagle for eternity? That is true, Tyler. [00:17:17] S0: So his liver grows back overnight only to be eaten again the next day in an ongoing cycle. And I was thinking about, like like like, what is what is the metaphor here? Let's continue to extend the metaphor. Like, what is the liver in this metaphor of, like, building big AI projects? And then what is the eagle? Is it possible that the eagle is, like, Blue Owl It's more of an owl. [00:17:37] S1: Credit credit. [00:17:37] S0: Private credit. Maybe Blue Owl is coming and eating your liver. And the liver is the free cash flow that you had on your balance sheet. Because if you're one of these hyperscalers, you have a lot of free cash flow, but less and less as you sign these big debt deals. Yep. And and the and the blue owl comes and eats your free cash flow every day for all of eternity. And eventually eventually, there is a little bit of a of a reprieve because Hercules comes and breaks the chains of Prometheus. And Prometheus is freed, and his liver regrows and Hercules slays the eagle. And so I think obviously in this analogy what did you say? Who would be Hercules in this analogy? [00:18:23] S2: Jerome Powell.
00:18:23 · Tyler, John Coogan, Jordi Hays, John Tennant
[00:18:23] S2: Jerome Powell. [00:18:24] S0: Jerome Powell, who comes in and slays the debt dealers with low interest rates. Right? And so and so clearly, can see where this metaphor is going. They're all they're all winking. Both both Zuck and Bezos are winking and saying, hey. Hey. Come lower interest rates. Save us because we're about to get our livers eaten because with our Promethean startups. Anyway, let's actually dig into what he's doing because it's not just a found it feels late to get into AI. It feels late to get into foundation modeling and training runs. [00:18:57] S1: Big Euro summer. He's back. He's back. Back in the driver's seat. [00:19:02] S0: Went to Coachella. He went to he went to a few different big events. It's possible he got back from those events, started opening up the newspaper, realized [00:19:12] S1: what's on. [00:19:13] S0: AI is AI is big. I gotta get in on this. I gotta get in on You [00:19:17] S1: ran a deep research report? What did I miss? [00:19:18] S4: What did [00:19:19] S0: I miss? [00:19:19] S1: What did I miss? Well Anyways, in The New York Times, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence startup that he will help manage as its co chief executive. I feel like co CEO this is more popular than ever. [00:19:35] S0: It is. Sequoia Capital has co [00:19:38] S1: Co stewards. [00:19:38] S0: Global stewards. They're global stewards. Right? Or is it something else? [00:19:42] S1: I think just co stewards dropped the global.
00:19:42 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[00:19:42] S1: I think just co stewards dropped the global. [00:19:45] S0: I thought there was something else. Senior steward. That's what it is. Senior steward. So is there a junior steward? Sequoia. [00:19:52] S1: It also implies there's a steward steward. Wait. Why? Like, presume Wait. They're co stewards. [00:20:01] S0: Oh, wait. So Roloff stepped down as senior steward. Now Pat Grady and Alfred Lin are co stewards. So they're actually at a lower level. So one of them will have to emerge as the senior stewards. [00:20:13] S1: That's right. [00:20:13] S0: The other will become the junior steward, I would imagine. [00:20:17] S1: Managing But the stewards look after the firm. But it's possible there's a steward that looks after the co stewards. [00:20:24] S0: That is possible. [00:20:26] S1: Maybe it's Andrew Reed. Anyways, the company Project Prometheus is coming out of the gates with $6,200,000,000 in funding, partly from Mr. Bezos, making it one of the most well financed early stage with authority. That is a massive round. Strong [00:20:42] S0: 6,000,000,000 out the gate. Let's go. Congratulations.
00:20:42 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Healey Cypher
[00:20:42] S0: 6,000,000,000 out the gate. Let's go. Congratulations. [00:20:46] S1: This is the first time mister Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is deeply involved in Blue Origin, his official title at the space company as founder, since leaving Amazon, Mr. Bezos has received as much attention for his personal life as his businesses, including an extravagant celebrity filled wedding in Venice this year. He has also become more closely involved in Blue Origin and has shown increasing interest in the race to build artificial intelligence. His new company now firmly plants him in the middle of that competition. Project Prometheus is entering an increasingly crowded AI market with smaller companies trying to carve out niches in a race with industry giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and pioneering companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new company has until now kept a low profile. And when it was started, it is not even clear. Project Prometheus is focusing on technology that dovetails with Mr. Bezos' interest in taking people to outer space. The company is focused on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles. [00:21:53] S0: Is this his next? Do you think this is his next? Do you think he's doing what Steve Jobs did with Next, where Steve Jobs was fired from Apple? Obviously, Bezos was not fired from Amazon, he did retire. And it'd [00:22:04] S3: be weird for him to jump straight
00:22:04 · Healey Cypher, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[00:22:04] S3: be weird for him to jump straight [00:22:05] S0: back in to the to the CEO seat at Amazon. But Steve Jobs founded Next and then was acquired into Apple, and it kinda made for a more smooth transition back into the driver's seat. Could that be what Bezos is doing? [00:22:19] S1: I could see it. He's 61. [00:22:21] S0: He's he's young. He's got the whole third he's got the whole, like, third triple the third thirty year period that is so so such a positive omen in many people's careers. Like, Warren Buffett. Where was Warren Buffett [00:22:36] S1: at And he's gotta have more energy than ever. He's been galavanting [00:22:39] S0: around He's the in peak physical condition. [00:22:41] S1: That's right. [00:22:42] S0: He's having stacking up win win after win all over the globe. [00:22:46] S1: I think he here's a here's a a tinfoil hat. Set it up as co CEOs because Amazon will buy Project Prometheus. His co CEO becomes the, you know, the internal CEO or lead on that project at Amazon. He takes the throne again. [00:23:03] S0: I wouldn't I wouldn't [00:23:04] S1: be A boy can dream. [00:23:05] S0: So so what is he actually building? Let's get into this. [00:23:08] S1: The company is focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles. Mhmm. Uh-huh. Unclear where the company will be based. Bezos' cofounder and co chief executive is Vik Bazaraj, a physicist.
00:23:08 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Luca Ferrari
[00:23:08] S1: The company is focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles. Mhmm. Uh-huh. Unclear where the company will be based. Bezos' cofounder and co chief executive is Vik Bazaraj, a physicist. [00:23:25] S0: AI that helps in manufacturing of computers, aerospace, and automobiles. So computers, he manufactures racks at AWS. Aerospace, he manufactures rockets at Blue Origin. Automobiles, he's a big backer of Rivian. He manufactures cars there. And so he wants to do some sort of automated, like, supply chain. Is it ERP? [00:23:52] S1: I mean, this is clearly not PR that they wanted to do. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of guessing going on. [00:23:57] S5: Okay. Well. [00:23:59] S1: But Mr. Bezos' co founder and co chief executive is Vic Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who work closely with Google's co founder Sergey Brin. Sergey Brin at Google's X, a research effort often called the Moonshot Factory. Google X produced a wide range of ambitious projects, including Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self driving car that became Waymo.