00:51:35 · Jordi Hays, Mark Pincus, Tyler
[00:51:35] S0: What do you think app how how how would you how do you think Apple should approach vibe coding? It feels like an interesting interesting challenge. They're kind of I don't think they necessarily know. At least they have they don't necessarily know how they wanna approach it or they haven't made it clear yet. They've made it hard for these apps to you know, I think they kind of froze updates on a bunch of apps and said like, you know, we're just basically like saying like your business is like over until we figure something out. So clearly they wanna make money from it and they wanna protect users, which I think are both, you know, developers are gonna be annoyed at at, or at least good developers will be annoyed at at both of those things. But it seems like a tough one where users are clearly gonna want modular software that they can create and multiplayer experiences that they can imagine and then share with friends, but it feels like it's at odds with all of Apple's kind of principles. [00:52:34] S6: Yeah. A 100%. I mean, I don't think that there is a real incentive for Apple to do anything about that, and I don't think it doesn't feel like that's not the energy I get from Apple. It's not the the vibe is vibe coding. [00:52:51] S5: Yeah.
00:52:51 · Tyler, Mark Pincus, John Coogan, Nick Grossman
[00:52:51] S5: Yeah. [00:52:53] S6: Yeah. And and I I don't even see Apple doing anything to help distribution of the apps that, you know, are put out on their platform now. So I don't think I don't I just I have a hard time seeing them motivated to help, you know, people put out tons more apps. I mean, I think it's more likely that that logjam gets broken because somebody makes an app container that somehow Apple allows people to keep changing massive amounts of change of content inside, almost like a Roblox. But it's yeah. It's I it hurts my brain to figure out how that's gonna happen. And and Vibe coding, I I actually I'm I think Claude code, Codex, I think I think automating coding and using co working agents has obviously, you don't need me to tell you that has legs. I think that's going to go somewhere. But vibe coding almost feels like the missed start we had with blogging and Geocities where there was a moment where everyone was gonna make their own website, and they did. And then they just weren't very good. Yeah. And it didn't go anywhere. There was there weren't really websites that blew up Yeah. That I know that were built on top of like a Geocities or maybe I'm Yeah. Dating myself. You guys don't even remember those. [00:54:25] S1: Yeah. We we are like it feels like we're very close to being able to effectively vibe code an iOS app in the cloud, have it deploy it to TestFlight and you get that app back on your phone and close that loop entirely on your phone in an Apple compliant way. Now it couldn't go viral because it's not in the store. [00:54:50] S7: Right.
00:54:50 · Nick Grossman, John Coogan, Mark Pincus
[00:54:50] S7: Right. [00:54:51] S1: You might be able to have your agent go and submit it to the store and wait two weeks and then it gets out there, which might be an acceptable flywheel for some developers. But it is like, the technology is going to get there quicker than the distribution and, like, the ideas, I think. I think you're spot on. [00:55:08] S6: And the ability to test. I'm also surprised this far into this AI cycle that if I would have thought that the first thing we'd see is kind of top of the funnel massive testing of using ads and links and things, and tell your agent to spend all night testing and come back in the morning with the winning variant. And I don't even see a I don't know about you guys. I don't see even one successful company or service offering that, and I don't find any founders doing that. It's more you can build something in three months that would have taken a year or two. So it's more of I can get to my prototype faster, but not I can test a lot of ideas faster. [00:55:54] S1: Yeah. Speaking of ads, do you think hyper casual games should be allowed to advertise with fake CGI versions of a different game to promote the install of their very basic, probably, pick three game. [00:56:11] S6: Wow. Now we're getting to a toss level, should they be allowed? At a morality level? I'd I'd say it's I don't like it. I mean, I think it's misrepresenting. I wouldn't blame Apple for taking somebody down for that Yeah. Because it's misrepresenting things. [00:56:39] S1: Yeah.
00:56:39 · John Coogan, Mark Pincus, Jordi Hays
[00:56:39] S1: Yeah. [00:56:39] S6: It's a bad user experience. Now, what I would be okay with is what we did in the beginning of Zynga is I would go I'd put up a link for some amazing new game. Do you wanna try? And it would go to four zero four page not found because I was just testing for heat and interest. [00:56:57] S1: Yeah. [00:56:57] S6: So I or eventually, we got more sophisticated and say, you know, well, you'll be the first to know about this game, you know. [00:57:04] S0: I had an experiment. [00:57:06] S1: Record the fake game, have it have an agent vibe code you a real version of the fake game. Because a lot people, when they want to play the fake game, but the fake game doesn't actually have the the flywheel of you will will keep playing it. You'll play it for a couple minutes and then you'll get bored and so they have to funnel you to something else. Jordy? Had a [00:57:23] S0: product in college. I was taking a lot of film photos and there was like a it was a thirty minute drive to the closest place to get film developed reliably. And I was quite frustrated by it, so I wanted to make like effectively a subscription service. They would send you one or two rolls of film a month and you just send it back Mhmm. And they would develop it and upload it for you and whatever. And to test it, I just like ran a bunch of Facebook ads at a landing page and I actually got I think I had like a $15.20 dollar CAC or something at the time. Facebook ads were a lot cheaper back then. [00:57:56] S1: Yeah.
00:57:56 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Mark Pincus
[00:57:56] S1: Yeah. [00:57:56] S0: Ended up not pursuing it. But I just refunded everyone like obviously Oh. Right afterwards because I wasn't offering I wasn't able to offer the service. [00:58:04] S1: Sure. Sure. Sure. [00:58:04] S0: I was just like, hey, sorry, like, you know, we over [00:58:07] S1: That's cool experience. [00:58:08] S0: Oversold or whatever. But Yeah. Best way to test something. [00:58:11] S1: Yeah. Back to the book. Peter Thiel did an a Reddit AMA after Zero to One launched and someone asked him what is the Straussian reading of Zero to One? And he said, Don't become an entrepreneur, which is a very funny response. What is the Stroussian reading of life at the speed of play? [00:58:35] S6: I would, not to be you know, re completely carbon copy, but I would say I'd say don't don't become a product founder. Mhmm. Don't do it if you want to make money. Don't go be a product founder if you think this is the best path to be rich and successful because I end the book by saying, how ambitious are you? And everyone says, I'm an 11 on a 10 scale. But then the question is, well, flip side of that coin is, what are you willing to sacrifice to get to that place? Would you toil in obscurity for 10 in order to have an 80% chance of the greatest home run of your life, or would you take of an 80% chance of a first base hit in one to two years? And most people would take the latter, and that's that's why they stay in their jobs or careers, or that's why even once we go found a company, I think we make all these compromises to derisk it. Yeah.
00:58:35 · Mark Pincus, John Coogan
[00:58:35] S6: I would, not to be you know, re completely carbon copy, but I would say I'd say don't don't become a product founder. Mhmm. Don't do it if you want to make money. Don't go be a product founder if you think this is the best path to be rich and successful because I end the book by saying, how ambitious are you? And everyone says, I'm an 11 on a 10 scale. But then the question is, well, flip side of that coin is, what are you willing to sacrifice to get to that place? Would you toil in obscurity for 10 in order to have an 80% chance of the greatest home run of your life, or would you take of an 80% chance of a first base hit in one to two years? And most people would take the latter, and that's that's why they stay in their jobs or careers, or that's why even once we go found a company, I think we make all these compromises to derisk it. Yeah. [00:59:48] S1: Is that the correct question to ask to assess someone's level of ambition? Should you ask them 80% chance of a home run-in 10 versus 20% chance of base hit or something like that? Or sorry, vice versa. I that. 80% chance. Those are good odds. But, or are there other questions that you can dig into when you're talking to a founder to actually assess their level of ambition?