01:53:50 · John Coogan, Carina Hong, Ken Ono, Jordi Hays
[01:53:50] S0: Sure. [01:53:51] S6: Fortunately, you have lean. Yeah. And then two additional layers of taste. One is the code quality of the lean formalization. Yeah. The choices of what to keep conditional. The particular class, how you approach definition of a very central mathematical object. And in our formalization of the two forty six bounded gaps, which was done by polymath a b, we really emphasized on reusability, on producing really good code quality so communities can build upon it. And then the third part is the taste for the mathematics. Yeah. Ken, do you want to add on that? [01:54:26] S4: Well, the taste for mathematics really matters. Okay. You know, honestly, the the percentage of math that has been understood by mankind that out of all the math that probably exists, probably close to like one or 2%. Math is we're just always discovering things. But you can prove theorems that nobody cares about or will have no application to the real world. And what's the good in that? So the human taste and the judgment and the final arbitration for what matters is very much a human thing. [01:54:55] S6: Yeah. I think I when I was a student in Ken's he's REU. I remember Ken giving me the critical feedback of the symbol for elliptic curve conductor must be l. And if you use any other symbol, you will be criticized as not an expert in the field. [01:55:12] S0: Very cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. [01:55:14] S1: Yeah. Fascinating. Congratulations. And super super impressive progress Yeah. From the whole team. [01:55:19] S0: Keep up the good work.
01:55:19 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Ken Ono
[01:55:19] S0: Keep up the good work. [01:55:20] S1: Can't wait to see what you guys ship next. We'll talk to you soon. [01:55:23] S4: Alright. See you. Aloha. [01:55:25] S1: Aloha. Cheers.
01:55:25 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[01:55:25] S1: Aloha. Cheers. [01:55:26] S0: Let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only thing faster than the AI market? Your business on on MongoDB. Don't just build AI, own the data platform that powers it. There is a fascinating deep dive, an investigative report in the Financial Times wealth section. Playing with Fire, the Chinese Cambodian billionaire Chen Zhi. As an investor, Cohiba Sikars became ultra luxury symbols, then things came crashing down for the tycoon. It's a longer read. I don't know if we can go through it all, but there's some fascinating things here. One is that in 1962, JFK, he goes to his press secretary and says, I need 1,000 Cuban cigars Because as soon as they arrived, Kennedy signed the order imposing US embargo on Cuban goods. So he knew that he was going to block Cuban cigar importation, importing. And and he said, I I I need a little stockpile, so get me a thousand Cuban cigars. But this is a yeah. It's a strange business. Chinese born billionaire who moved it to Cambodia in his twenties and became extraordinarily powerful extraordinarily quickly. By 2020, his prince group claimed interests ranging from real estate to banking to supermarkets and an airline. Then he owned a 35 53 meter yacht with its own nightclub on it. He bought a $100,000,000 basically £94,000,000 London office building and a £12,000,000 mansion and cultivated the image of a connected international tycoon but Chinese authorities had already begun I like how [01:57:13] S1: he cultivates that image too. [01:57:15] S0: A little bit. Yeah. And he's got some tycoon.
01:57:15 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:57:15] S0: A little bit. Yeah. And he's got some tycoon. [01:57:16] S1: He's one years old. How is he how is he doing all that he's doing? How does he know who he knows?
01:57:22 · John Coogan
[01:57:22] S0: Yeah. But Chen, his most unusual asset was in Cuba. In 2020, Imperial Tobacco sold its half of Habanos, which is the group that control that markets Cohiba, Trinidad, and the company's other famous brands. They generate roughly $500,000,000 annually in the Cuban cigar market. And there's this weird illegal Cuban cigar market that has created a bunch of pressure where the Cuban cigar companies struggle to even supply the actual the legal market because it's it's so complex. But he he he buys into habanos giving him an indirect stake of nearly one third of the Cuban cigar company. And he explored cigar warehouses in in Singapore, cargo flights between Havana and Cambodia, really starts trying to expand the operation. But his empire imploded on 10/14/2025. The US and The UK froze Chen and the Prince Group, his company's assets, with American prosecutors alleging that Prince Group was actually one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organizations operating compounds where trafficked workers were forced to conduct online scams. He denies the allegations, but in January 2026 Chen was extradited from Cambodia to China and effectively disappeared from public view. Days later liquidators were appointed to dozens of companies connected to him including the vehicle that owned his stake in the Cuban cigar company. His lawyers are fighting the liquidation but potential buyers are already circling cigar investment trying to get a stake. I don't know. Maybe things will change over time. But the bigger problem is that habaneros may have damaged the business. The price has exploded.
01:59:17 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Bridgit Mendler, Carina Hong
[01:59:17] S1: Astra has landed. What happened? Astra seems to have landed Explain. Lot in of prosumer accounts. [01:59:25] S0: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's available. Let's let's refresh. I I was looking at it. It is in my personal pro account, not on the chat tab, but on the work tab. So if I go to chat.com and then I click on work and then I check the model picker, I got GPT six Astra here. And and not to make it too simple, I got light, medium, high, extra high, max, and ultra, which [01:59:52] S1: can see So the limits [01:59:54] S0: take it for a spin. If you have a ChatGPT pro account, this is your weekend. Tell your family you're locking in. You're vibe coding something in Blender taking it to Unreal Engine. That blog post, it's an Unreal Engine video game now. It's multiplayer. It's going to happen. Anyway, we have our next guest here with us in the waiting room. Let's bring in Bridgit Mendler from Northwood. Welcome back to the show, Bridgit. How are doing? Back. [02:00:20] S5: Hey, guys. Doing well. How [02:00:22] S6: are you? [02:00:22] S0: Thank you so much for hopping back on the show. Great to see you again. [02:00:26] S1: So many flags. [02:00:27] S0: So many flags. Where are you calling in from? What is this new This [02:00:31] S5: is this is old space. [02:00:32] S0: Old space. [02:00:32] S5: Okay. This is this is Northwood HQ. Okay. First first Northwood HQ. Yeah. And yeah. We we're starting to call ourselves the United Nations of Northwood. So just more more flags representing really the the countries that we have a presence in.