[upbeat music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I am Francis Zehrer. And I'm Daisy Alioto. Daisy, who are we speaking with today? Today we're speaking with Priyanka Desai.
She's the COO at Tribute Labs and a partner at Aiden, the first autonomous venture network. I am excited to learn what an... What the... What that... What it means to be the first autonomous venture network. I- Yeah.
I mean-... have no idea really what that means... I'm technically a scout for Aiden as well. Oh, you are? [laughs] And so maybe I'll learn something. Shows how- [laughs] Shows how much I know. Yeah. Um, okay.
While we wait, I... This... I feel like this is up your alley. I know, I know this is up your alley. I began rewatching seminal network, formerly known as HBO, period drama Mad Men this weekend.
The Mad Men rewatch got you. The Mad Men rewatch got me. I, I... One, one immediate thing I noticed, we're, I don't know, we're like seven episodes in, the writing is so hammy and on the nose. Mm.
Like, everything is really in your... I, I remembered it, I remembered it being a little more subtle, but maybe I was just 15 or however old I was when I started watching it.
Um, I mean, it's really, it's really enjoyable. But yeah, it's really hammed up. Do you think it seems hammy because it's been copied so many times since then? No, I don't think it's that.
I think, like, you know, the, um, the, like- It's the Matthew Weiner of it all...
how, how, how clearly, for example, in the first episode, from the first moment you see him, they're signaling, like, that Salvatore is, like, the gay character- Mm... and you're like, "Oh," like, "this... I, I get it."
Like, immediately the dialogue or, I don't know, how, how horrible of a person most all these men are, right? Your, your Dons, your, your Sterlings, your, your Campbells. Um, yeah, the, the characters are all...
I, I'm sure as I continue to rewatch and it unfolds, like the, the, the subtlety of these characters will build. That's not really the way to say that, but you know what I mean.
They-they'll become more complex versions of themselves. I think the female characters- But right now everybody-... are a lot more subtle, and I don't- Oh, certainly... even think that that was o- even on purpose.
I, like, I'm not even gonna- Mm... give him credit for doing that on purpose. [laughs] But, but yeah, the, the, the male characters at least are so unambiguously...
are so unambiguous in, in everything they, they, they're meant to express. Yeah.
I mean, I think that's why as time goes on, it's like, okay, it's interesting to talk about Don Draper's, like, whole deal, but I've seen, like, more interesting and longer conversations about, like, a Betty or a Trudy- Yeah...
and I think it's because, like, we assume, like, most of their story is happening off screen. Yeah. And it's interesting. Um- And, and there's- It's interesting that you said that...
and because so much of their character too is illustrated by the horribleness of the men in relation to them. Exactly. Well, I also think, like, the '60s was a corny time.
[laughs] I'm currently watching a 10-part docuseries about Hugh Hefner and Playboy. Hm. And, you know, it obviously covers the same time li- Mad Men covers, which I...
if you watch any show about that time period, you have the, like, okay, first JFK died, and then Martin Luther King died, and while we were still reeling from that, boom, Bobby Kennedy died. Mm.
And when you watch, like, shows- Bobby and Edward Kennedy... about that, it's, it's what happened. Mm-hmm.
But, you know, it's like, okay, that's, like, kind of a lot for the writers, and it's like, well, that was reality.
Um, I think the times we're living through right now, people would say that's, that's a lot for the writers to put in.
It's a lot for the writers to put in, uh, and we may have had too much for the writers to put in this intro because Priya's here. Let's go talk to her.
[upbeat music] One thing about working from home, I have had very few slot bowl lunches in my time. I make my own slot bowl lunches, but I've never had Sweetgreen, never had a Just Salad, never had a Chop't.
I've had Chipotle. Last time I worked in the city was six years ago, COVID era, and I would... There was a Chipotle by me, and I would have that. But I've, I've, I'm so... My, my slot bowl palate is, is six years behind.
Are you saying you've- Wow... never been to Sweetgreen? I'm saying precisely that, Daisy. [smacks lips] That's crazy. Wait, you've never been there? You've never been to Sweetgreen?
Never even entered one of their locations. Are we recording? We are. We were recording. Okay, good. I mean, this seems important. I don't even know what this is going to get said. [laughs] Um,
we wanted to come in hot and talk about the Citrini substack. By the way, never heard the name Citrini until yesterday, but I saw the discourse bubbling up very quickly because I follow
some of the most online people that have ever been online. And- You know, Daisy, you are what you eat... I would include myself in that. Um, basically...
Okay, so for the uninitiated listener, um, Citrini is, uh, is it an individual or a group doing research? Do you know, Priya? I think it's an...
I think it's, I think it's a research group, but like you, I had not really... I was, like, not familiar with them, um, before. I don't know if that's weird. I believe it's both a research group and a guy.
Like, I think it's, like, ma- like, one guy authored this piece and then had some other contributors. But it seems to be, it seems to be both. As somebody- The guy's name is not Citrini.
[laughs] As somebody who personally controls a lot of dirt media, I understand the game. So it's a research studio. It's seven dogs in a trench coat. James Van Gelen. Oh, is it? It's James Van Gelen. He's the primary...
founder and primary author of Citrini Research is James Van Gelen. He started publishing in two thou- in 2023. It is a small independent financial research firm founded in 2023.
I mean, Citrini, this is Ita- this is stolen Italian valor. [laughs] Yeah, Van, Van Gelen. I don't know how, how it translates. Why, why...
I, I need to go inside the mind of somebody who thinks Citrini is more authoritative than having a Van in your name. [laughs][sighs] I don't, I don't think it is. I think it's just, like, a guy with a Substack, right?
I mean, he has, like, a hundred... I just, like, looked ahead as he has, like, 170,000 followers, which is, like, a lot, for sure. That's a lot. Yeah. Guys, hold on. We have to see what the Italians are saying about AI.
Every day [laughs] I log on, I'm like, "What are the Italians saying about AI?" [laughs] Oh, wait, they're not awake yet. Um, all right. I love it. Um, so okay. So the piece is called...
Is it just called June 2028, or is that how we've been referring to it? I think that's probably how you've been referring to it, but they've been calling it, like... Well, I'll, I'll, I'll...
It's the 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. It's economic sci-fi- So it's pretty alarmist... is what it is, right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. So he puts it out as a Substack, and i- he basically maps out
what would be going on in June 2028 as a speculative fiction.
This is actually really funny 'cause Elizabeth Bruenig just got a lot of flack for doing this at The Atlantic [laughs] where she was writing, uh, a speculative piece about somebody whose child gets measles, obviously informed by research.
I think that's kind of the similar format here, and it's, like, talking about what is going on in the markets, what's going on un- with unemployment based on their projections of AI kind of keeps developing at the pace it's developing now, and what does that look like.
And it looks like, what, market down 80%, 10% unemployment. Is that... Yeah. So anyway, um, Pri, well, the reason we're starting with this is 'cause you had a really good [laughs] tweet about it that I'm gonna read.
Um, the markets actually respond to this Substack article, so this is Substack article as a market mover, in a sense. And Pri, I'm reading your tweet.
"It's crazy that you can post a piece of doom slop on Substack and take down every company mentioned in said doom slop article some material about.
Ackman couldn't do this paying and producing a movie shilling Herbalife doom slop for months on end." Um, so funny. So two things to unpack here. Like, A, the power of the written word.
Like, you know, is this the first time that we're aware of that Substack specifically has had an impact on the stock market? And then, B, the Bill Ackman thing is really interesting because that's actually
kind of a plot point on Industry, my favorite show, where it's, it's sort of talking about, like, where is the line between insider trading and producing media and journalism and, like, influencing narratives that ultimately, like, have an impact on the market.
And I do think they name-drop Herbalife [laughs] in one of these Industry episodes where they're discussing that line. Um, so anyway, Pri, defend your tweet. [laughs] Yeah. Um- [laughs]...
totally agree on Industry, by the way. Uh, such a good show, and we should talk about that later. But, um, I thought the article was interesting.
I mean, I think, like, every week now, and I, I read this in an article, uh, earlier today or yesterday. But, like, uh, the a- the nu- the amount of, like, AI...
You know, what's gonna happen to the world as a result of AI content, in my view, has, like, accelerated quite a bit in the last six months. I think it's gonna continue to accelerate. Like, the amount of...
And it's warranted, I think. Like, the amount of doom slop that we're seeing on a weekly basis I think is only gonna kick up.
But I don't know if you guys remember, uh, that article, was it, like, one or two weeks ago, that somehow, like, broke through. Like, a lot of my normie core- Something big is happening. Yeah.
Like, a lot of my normie core non-tech- Mm... very online Twitter friends were, like, sending it to me. I'm like, "Yeah, there's nothing here that's compelling. I don't know why this is going viral."
But, um, I just think more and more of that is gonna start, uh, you know, getting attention, capturing attention.
And the timing of this was interesting, um, especially because we had that, like, big SaaS sell-off that's still manifesting.
Like, people are very concerned about what's gonna happen with SaaS software now that anyone can, you know, software to become less- Who were the companies that were primarily affected by the SaaS sell-off?
I feel like monday.com and, like, Salesforce a little bit. Um, I think there was, like, fi- uh, like, even CrowdStrike at one point because, like, Dario wrote an article about security.
Um, there, there's always, like, some sort of post that then will come and, and, you know, the market will react to.
So Dario from Anthropic wrote a post about, like, COBOL and IBM, I think it was, like, literally yesterday or the day before, and IBM... There was, like, a little bit of an IBM sell-off.
Uh, so we're seeing, to your point, the ri- the power of the written word start affecting it. I don't know if that initial post had anything to do with the SaaS sell-off.
I feel like I saw some people on Twitter speculating maybe it did. But there were a couple companies that did sell off.
I'm not remembering all of the SaaS companies that were a part of that, but there were a bunch, and they continue to kind of get a reaction.
Um, what was interesting about this one is, like, every company mentioned in that article, which was, like, Visa, Mastercard, Apollo, DoorDash, ServiceNow, Blackstone, all kind of fell as a result of this viral Substack post.
Um, I guess, you know, there's nothing new here.
I mean, we're seeing a lot happen as a reaction of, like, online perception, but it is wild to me that, like, this speculation of what will happen in 2028 that was, like, entirely fictional and speculative, like, created this reaction.
Usually, you hear something, and it feels like at least rooted... news that's, like, rooted in reality.
For example, like, the SaaS sell-off, or even, like, Dario's blog post about IBM, like, that's at least rooted in something that's real and happening. This was purely just, like, speculative fiction on the impact of AI.
In fact, it was like sci- like, sci-fi and people kind of- Nick Susie would love it if we compared this to the War of the Worlds.
[laughs] Can you imagine what effect that would have on the Wall Street today if we just got- This is reminding me of a conversation, Daisy, that we had on the pod maybe well over a year ago at this point, and we were talking about science fiction and how in the 20th century, there was all this 21st century science fiction, but in the 21st century, there has not really been any 22nd century science fiction, right?
Oh, that was Lauren from Gob. From Gob, yeah. Do you know... Pri, do you know Gob? It's the, um- Lauren and I are-Lauren Minard, she, uh, their earplugs- Mycelium... made out of mycelium Earplugs. Oh, cool.
So she was making that point. Yeah, and also, like, we have decided that our tagline for Dirt Books is 22nd century publishing house. Oh, I like that. I like that.
Well, so but wait, the, so what I want to say here, though, is, like, this, this is, like, proving that point. That still we can't come up with 22nd century science fiction.
What we can come up with is, like, four years from now, or two years from now, rather. Mm. Two years from now science fiction.
Like, this, like, AI question is such this blocker in, in the imagination of, like, what the future is that it's so hard to imagine what life might be like in 100 years because we can't really grok, if you will, what it will be like in, uh, in two years.
No, it's true. We are kind of in the middle of, like, this really unique transitory period where part of the reason that the world feels so odd and uncomfortable, and it's not just technology.
I feel like it's, like, politics, it's the economy, uh, is untethering from reality.
Um, I think, well, the economy has been untethering from reality, but, like, the, the death of neoliberalism, post-postmodernism, like, we're feeling this weird transition period.
Like, boomers are starting to transition their, like, wealth, um, over the next 10 years, and then on top of that you layer on, like, eh, you know, the impact of AI and crypto and all of these new technologies.
We have no idea what the world's gonna look like on the other side of that. Like, we are really very much, if not in the early innings, like, I think 10, 20 years from now, we, you know, we're gonna just have to be...
Y- there's no... I have no sense of what really the world could look like. It's really interesting to speculate, especially when you're thinking about, like, funding companies and stuff.
But with the impact of, like, robotics and what happens when we start onshoring more because of robotics, uh, job loss, UBI. That's on the tech side, but then what happens to the new world order? Where does capital go?
You know, I'm kind of rambling now, but I think part of the reason why everyone feels so uncomfortable is 'cause we are, like, in this transition state. Um, yeah.
And it's also the pace of information about that transition. Like, I was telling Francis in the intro, I'm watching this 10-part docuseries about Hugh Hefner and Playboy, 'cause periodically I'll be like, "You know what?
The fundamentals of media haven't changed. Like, let me go study the texts." Um, and I mean, it's incredible. They were selling, like- The Playboy bunny...
5 million copies a month of Playboy in print, um, in the '60s, which is just... It's amazing to imagine a magazine having that circulation today.
Um, but you know, you go through this period and, um, there's a certain period where, like, the Vietnam War is happening, um, you know, so many people are dying.
Like, the wars that we've had in our lifetime in Iraq and Afghanistan, the death toll on the American side is just...
We kind of take for granted it was not Vietnam numbers, and it still had a huge impact on the public discourse. So it's like, okay, imagine, like, so much higher, and also injuries, and also people coming back with PTSD.
So that's happening, and then they have that, like, triple whammy of JFK dying, Martin Luther King dying, and Bobby Kennedy. And I can...
When you see, like, the photos of people in the newspaper, like, crying and looking at the news and looking at newspapers, they're totally overwhelmed, um, I'm sure, like, a lot of people felt like the world order was ending, but they also weren't dealing with the pace of information we have now, which is, like, not only are you processing these world events, like, you get incremental updates on se- every single aspect of it, um, every single theory, every...
You have access to other people's thinking about it in, like, an unprecedented way. You're not just talking to your close friends and family and coworkers and processing it with people that, like, share your values.
And so it's like has the world changed, or is this sense that we feel, and it's something we've definitely covered in Dirt, um, like Heather McChaldon's essay about the old world fading away I think tries to get at this.
Is it the world that has changed, or, like, have we, and have we changed because human beings are different and what we want are different and our basic needs?
Or is it the way that we relate to technology and information that has fundamentally shifted our emotional state when it comes to understanding our place in the world? It's a really good point.
Um, and then, you know, just how... I, I think the, like, it's, i- it's like how quickly do we rela- react? I think you do see a crop of people who...
And I think we're, I, I, the three of us are more, like, on the chronically online side.
If you talk to people who are normal and not necessarily, um, as, uh, in tune, they are probably closer to something that you would prob- Their reactions to the world are probably closer to something that you would find in the 1970s, I think.
Yeah. Where they, you know, take in the news. They are, their information diet is a little bit more pars, uh, you know, sparse. Uh, I think that they're probably...
We are, like, a unique crop of people that are taking this in and are deeply affected by it and making friends through the internet sharing these, like, Twitter shared experiences. It definitely is making...
I mean, there are studies on this, but it's definitely making people, like, y- you know, short term minded. For example, even, like, the Epstein files, that blew up. I don't even see much about that on my feed anymore.
I, it's, it's created, like, this frenetic energy. Um, part of it, and we were talking about this internally [lips smack] too, is I can't tell if it's...
This is gonna sound a little bit tin, tin can, uh, tin hat, um, but I can't tell if part of this information overload, like, "Let's release the Epstein files.
Let's release, like, the UAP alien stuff," is by design as a psyop to confuse, to distract, to manipulate the public, um-From any sort of real news.
And, like, the more you confuse, the more, like, disinformation, misinformation, there's, like, no sense of reality anymore.
And honestly, like, you could even think about this blog post as, like, a reaction to that, is where we've...
I- it's kind of like, um, I don't know if you read that book, like, or at least skimmed the thesis of it, but, like, Society of Spectacle, where, uh- Mm-hmm... we become so close to the spectacle of it versus reality.
And so the difference, I think, from what I think your point is interesting, is people were taking that information.
There was quite a bit going on, but the difference now is I don't think people are as tuned in with reality, and I kind of think that's been by design, if that makes sense.
Well, to me that is quite literally by design of, like, feed-based, uh, social media platforms, right? Where, like, the, the design is to keep you on as long as possible to, to generate ad revenue.
So, like, it's definitely by design on that layer, and then, you know, despite what Adam Mosseri says, you can be addicted to Instagram if you're using it 16 hours a day.
Um, so I think it's inarguably by design on that layer.
And so then a big difference between maybe that, like, person in the '60s that, uh, Daisy, you're describing in, in the Playboy documentary, like, that, like, that person still exists if they're not addicted to social media.
But if you are addicted to social media and these, like, spectacle, spectacular feeds, then you are this, um, person who...
Then, then you have trouble, more trouble keeping up with, like, the actual reality 'cause you're, the pace is moving too fast. And there's just more incentive- 100%...
to also then, like, create more of these, um, extreme headlines in order to cut through the noise. So, like, even the Epstein stuff, for example, just, like, picking on that, like, the salacious...
Like, there's a lot there that's interesting, but it's, like, the salacious stuff that gets surfaced up, and then people are kind of, like, connecting these dots that don't actually exist.
But I think, again, that's by design to, like, take away from, like, the more actual real compelling aspects of it. Um, but yeah, I, I think it's...
We're living in a really weird era where that is only, I think, going to increase, and people's desire to become an influencer for product distribution, information distribution is only gonna increase.
So I have a feeling we're only really at the start of that. Like, I think it's gonna get much more frenetic.
Um, and I even feel like in the last year, the number of, like, the amount of, like, disinformation and misinformation has only, like, increased tremendously. Mm-hmm.
I just pulled up my notes from Society of the Spectacle, and,
uh, like, the first thing that I pulled out of the book was, "In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles.
Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation," which I feel like is... It's just underscored now by the primacy of what's happening digital, digitally over what's happening in the physical world.
I mean, you could argue whether the markets, as represented, like, by the stock market on Wall Street, are part of the real world, [chuckles] like the physical world or the digital world. Mm-hmm.
But for something that starts on Substack to then impact those markets, it's kind of reversing the primacy of, like s- like, stuff that was lived versus stuff that's a spectacle, and most of the spectacle is happening online.
At the same time, like, even though we're probably not, quote, "normal" or, like, the median in the information that we consume, we're being governed by people that are extremely online.
So if you are extremely online, you're closer to, like, the people who are in power making decisions. It's more consensus reality than, like- I agree... top-down reality. Yeah. I agree.
Actually, being online is probably closer to what will happen in reality than anything else.
Like, reading, like, the Times or, like, even New York Mag, which is basically regurgitated, digested, and Chugified the Twitter timeline, is... You're like, you're like a laggard when it comes to this information.
Um, so we are online, a- and it feels a little fake, but, like, there, most, most of what happens there is real. Like, even, for example, like, let's pick on, like, Donald Trump's presidency, for example.
Like, it, it was kind of a little more clear if you were, like, hyper online that that was actually gonna happen on, like, on, uh- The second... compared to the person- The second term... who...
The second term, um, than if you were someone who was, like, reading whatever, the Times. Um, so I just, I think that, in general, you kind of, kind of can see that.
I mean, MomDonnell is also sort of like a product of that too. Like, kind of felt that on the internet.
Uh, and I think even at this point, like, Polymarket, for example, I have heard of a lot of people just effectively, like, scraping algorithms and information there to bet on Polymarket because that sentiment is, like, so clear- There was...
This reminds me-...
and so is the reality There was this, uh, at the Super Bowl, there was this kid, I don't know how much money he made, but there was this kid who made some money on, like, the length, a Polymarket line on the length of the national anthem.
And there was... He had posted a selfie of, he was at, he was outside Levi's Stadium when they were practicing the national anthem, and he was, like, timing it, right?
And the, it sparked some, you know, whatever, small discourse about whether or not that was in- insider trading and whether or not Polymarket is insider trading, uh, which I think maybe we're, I don't know if we're all in, in agreement or not, but to me it's like, yes, Polymarket obviously, um, encourages that, that form of insider trading.
It's not regulated. That's sort of what it's, what it's built for. That's how you can make a lot of money on it.
Uh, it's also a bit ironic, I don't know if it's ironic, but that we're talking about, like, this Substack that is moving markets, but there was [chuckles] you know, it was only a week ago that Substack did the integration with Polymarket, and they're hoping that, like, that, integrating that can increase the importance and value, the weight of writing on Substack, um, to, you know, probably to move markets.
But you don't necessarily need that, which [chuckles] I feel like I'm starting to, st- starting to talk in a, in a, in a loop here. So please save me. But, uh, yeah.
Well, yeah, and, like, this is back with the industry thing. Like, where does the media fit into this? Like, not just independent media like Substack.
Like, there's that company Hunter Brooke, and they do investigations, and part of their business model is that they actuallyMake stock market bets on companies based on what they've investigated, which is like essentially a research studio like Citrini, but that they are, um, open sourcing more of like what they found.
And so, like if I find out that,
uh, in advance New York Magazine's about to publish an exclusive, uh, or New York Times, Wall Street Journal, like it's totally conceivable for me to hear about these articles in the works in advance, um- Mm...
because I'm friends with journalists. So if I find out, I'm not the journalist, I don't work there. Maybe I'm on the subway. I've literally heard journalists talking about stuff on the subway. I overhear something.
I start a market on it. The article comes out. The stock moves. Is that insider trading?
You know, is it insider trading for Yasmin to come feed the suggestion of a piece to Harper on industry, and Harper to then go to somebody who works for the media, and for them to frame the article as a question to avoid libel, and then for a tabloid to pick that up?
Like, it's the type of trading that's only available in this specific information environment, and I do not think regulation has kept up with it. This is the point.
Like, whether or not that is insider trading, it's the goal of, of, um, prediction markets to make it not insider trading, to, to redefine insider trading.
So like that is categorically, legally rather, not insider trading. Well, I think, uh, the...
What I will say for prediction markets, and this is not me saying that they're a net good, but they are one of the more democratized tools that we have right now to create a direct, direct relationship between attention and capital.
And so if people have attention in abundance, but they don't have capital in abundance, or they have more control over their attention than their capital, of course they're gonna go where they feel like they can make money off of it.
Um, especially if they're underserved by other aspects of the eco-economy because like most people are not accredited investors or accredited traders. I could have a great idea about what's going to happen with, uh,
a certain company's stock, and we saw that with like the initial like GameStop, WallStreetBets push.
Like, you could come together with a bunch of people to have a great idea about where a company's going, but you literally might not have access to trade like an institutional investor would trade.
And if you're trading on Robinhood, you're at a disadvantage because those markets, I mean, they weren't twenty-four/seven. There's lags. Like you can't trade as quickly as a day trader can trade like in real time.
Um, so you're not getting the best pricing. And it gives you the illusion that everyone can be an investor, but I actually think Polymarket probably offers better real-time capital access than Robinhood. Hot take. Yeah.
And I, I, um... No, I mean, I actually don't disagree with, with your point here. And, um, in a way it kind of democratizes the access for people to actually share their perspective or maybe information they do have.
You know, some... I'll like have a funny anecdote. So I was in law school, and I was kind of potentially interested in like PR comms. And so there was this, they were, there was this PR comms shop that was only
really hiring lawyers because obviously lawyers are, are, you know, at the end of the day wordsmiths, very similar to, to journalists as well. And, um, they, it was a PR firm for businesses and, and, and hedge funds.
And so they would basically have a client. They had a... Similar to Herbalife, you know, creating... And, and I don't know if that Citrini place is also trading on the side.
Um, I feel like there was like Hindenburg Group or whatever that group was called. Mm-hmm. They went under, but they did that. They published a lot on like Roblox and, and, and media to, to support their position.
Uh, basically this was a PR firm that would, would, uh, do this. And they were going over their case studies, and like one of their case studies
was a large, uh, I'm not gonna say the name, but it was a large food group that managed, you know, big food chains.
They ended up like finding dirt on the CEO basically, uh, through their own research and internal PR investigation that the CEO fabricated information on where they went to college or something.
They leaked that to, uh, press outlets. Press outlet, maybe the Journal or something, picked it up. That caused this stock to go under, very similar to like the industry analogy.
Um, that information was always kind of... That information pipeline of like, you know, PR firm, you know, hedge fund to a, a PR firm to then outlet was always pretty privatized and operated in silence.
At the end of the day, they did, you know, uncover fraud, so maybe that's not a bad thing.
Um, but what's interesting about prediction markets, it's, it, it kind of opens access to people to, to kind of do something similar. So I in a way
empathize with the point that you're making, Daisy, where w-things that were happening maybe, uh, that were not visible to the public are actually just more available now. Um, and even for me, like when I go on...
I check Polymarket or Kalshi at least a few times a day more as a news source. So it's unsurprising to me, uh, that Substack is gonna move into that.
Substack moving into TV and Polymarket together makes total sense to me as well. Um, so yeah, that's, that's all to say I, I, I empathize with that view that maybe we are actually just making,
you know, giving people edge, uh, that others maybe had, uh, accredited investors or people with access to capital. That's the optimistic case, I guess I would say. Well, I feel like there's something interesting.
I mean, it's also interesting to look at stories where there seems like there is a lack of information. So
thinking about like true crime and the sort of rise of the independent investigator in true crime, especially the companies that go and dive bodies of water in areas where people have disappeared in cars and likeThe way that they've been able to kind of like redirect private resources towards solving some of these cold cases, um, you would think that like in real time cases like the Nancy Guthrie case, some of those theories in Alpha would be like trickling out because of these new incentives where like something that gets posted on Reddit or some sort of tip becomes legitimized through people picking it up, maybe placing bets on it, and then eventually becomes like a consensus theory.
But you do have to have a certain amount of information for that to be possible, and what's interesting about this case is despite how high prifle-- high-profile it is and the fact that we have this infrastructure n-right now of like all these people independently investigating, it's actually shocking how little information there is for people to theorize or trade off of relative to like how high-profile the case is.
Which like is kind of like why I, I'm interested in following the case because I'm like, I think it's pretty clear like the FBI messed up because how often do you have something like this where there's no information?
Um- Can you... wait, uh, so I have not been following this at all. Mm-hmm. I've just seen some of the headl- Like, can you like quickly sum up what this, [laughs] what's going on? Are you following it, like- Yeah, same.
I like- Okay. No. I like have like headlines, but I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna tap out of this one because I'm on too many- Same... too many other things right now. Yeah.
Well, so, okay, so she's been gone like a month now, Nancy Guthrie. Um, Savannah Guthrie's mother disappears from her home in Arizona. She did- Oh, wait. I als-to be clear, I also don't know who Savannah Guthrie is.
Okay. Francis, Savannah Guthrie is a CBS anchor, and she was meant to be covering the Olympics. But she's also had, at certain points, like her own talk show.
I don't know if she has her own talk show now on the network, um, but she's a news personality. She's been around for a while. I kind of put her... I associate her with like The View.
I actually don't know if she was ever on The View. So she-- So yes, her mother, her mother disappears from her home, um, in Arizona and is, you know, has... She's eighty-four, I think. She has medical needs.
She has, uh, she had a camera, like system, but it wasn't like storing what it was recording and so it takes them about like at least a week, maybe a couple weeks to actually go to the source of who-- the people that make the camera and, and pull that stored information.
It wasn't being stored on the device because she didn't pay for a subscription to the device for it to store that. So that was a little bit of a brouhaha because people are like, "Oh, they have all of our information.
They recorded. Like, we thought they weren't saving it." And it's like, of course, they're saving it. So that was weird, but like took kind of a long time for
what you would expect, and then they finally were able to, through that, release videos or photos. But there's no, like consensus suspects that I've seen.
Like, usually when there's videos or photos, people will sort of align around, "Oh, it's like this guy," you know? Um, it's not a highly populated area. And yeah, there's like no leads, basically.
It's not just that there's like no public leads. It's that like people who are following the case much closer than me because they're like true crime freaks don't really have a consensus theory or lead.
And what that makes me think is like I-- it makes me think that the FBI missed something really obvious or that information doesn't exist, um, because usually if the information does exist, it trickles out even if it's like not supposed to, um, because of this information environment, because somebody has a friend of a friend who will go to Reddit, because somebody's in a group chat with somebody working the investigation and it eventually gets out.
And so- But, okay, so, but wait, the thing I want...
I'm trying to understand here, the way, the way we got here on like the prediction market case is that you're saying that prediction markets would, could, or should incentivize people, basically provide bounties for information on a given case.
Like that's- Yeah, like if that information exists, exists, you expect somebody to post it on Reddit. Now, if the information exists, it ends up on Reddit, or somebody ends up trading it on Polymarket.
And the fact that there really isn't any consensus information like that around this case makes me believe the information doesn't exist or it was missed. This, so,
uh, uh, related, this is making me think of something I learned from following, from reading, uh, The Athletic, right? There's, there was this...
Anytime, anytime there's like a, a football player, soccer player who is accused of some crime, um, in the case I'm thinking about, it was sexual assault, there'll be an article about it, or every article there is about it, comments are restricted.
Your, you, readers are not allowed to comment on the article, um, and it's because of some law in the UK about prejudicing juries. And I'm thinking of this because framing
this Guthrie case in this way where like a prediction market could or should become like a way of finding justice maybe in a case, like that is so... Like to me, that is so legally fraught and such a minefield, right?
Like that just shouldn't, shouldn't be. Yeah, but I don't know. Maybe it gets to truth faster, uh, 'cause there's so much...
I mean, part of the reason-- I mean, I don't know much about this case, so I'm just like totally just saying things now.
But is part of the reason there doesn't feel like there's a consensus view is because there's too much information out, there's too much like conspiracy, too much, you know, uh, misinformation, disinformation that no one can actually parse reality?
Like even, [clears throat] you know, maybe it just feels like people can't do it, and if there was a
prediction market, people would a- they would actually be able to-- a way to parse through that, that misinformation or disinformation or lack of information.
Um, people would be incentivized to like hunt for it more, hunt for reality a little bit more, um, rather than just say things. Uh, I, I think it's an interesting point. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.
That's, yeah.Exactly. I don't think that it's a net good. I think it has a way of unearthing the truth because it creates- Mm-hmm... a financial incentive around- Yeah... like disclosing what you know.
Whether that should be regulated is a whole separate question. I think it probably should be regulated, but like everyone has a friend of a friend, especially in a case like this.
And, um, Pre just chatted that like w- is this the only market that comes up when you search Nancy Guthrie on Polymarket? I literally just searched Guthrie super quickly, so- Yeah...
like maybe there's, there's more, but there is... I mean, it has not horrible volume [chuckles] on it.
Um- So the, the c- yeah, we got, we got $178,000 in volume here for Nancy Guthrie kidnapper arrested by February 28th. It looks like the market started, um, at the beginning of February and peaked at like n- 90% almost.
Uh- Yeah... and then has gone down pretty steadily as the month has gone on and the- It's at 5% probability-... trend's gone... and the comments are kinda dead. Like, usually the comments under the active markets are...
there's a lot of people commenting, and somebody only commented like four days ago and then one day ago. "Classic small town abduction case. Initial media frenzy, big reward, then silence." So
it's like almost like it's like a market that is just displaying a consensus around lack of information. Right. Right. Exactly.
That's what I was just thinking, where it's like people feel like there's either [chuckles] not enough information or too much information, that they're like, "I can't get a read on it." Like, it's not worth it.
Well, Pre, I wanna make sure we leave enough time to talk about Aiden. Um- Oh, yeah. Who is Aiden? Yeah. So okay, fun, I'm excited to talk.
Uh, kind of actually like interesting tangent from what we've been discussing, but, um, Aiden's something we've been working on which kind of, uh, i- in a way, i- in the optimistic view of Polymarket, like try to democratize information.
Um, we want to allow people to, to actually like make money off of their networks, connections, whatever, or just their own interests. Um, and so I'll explain that with Aiden. Um, Aiden is a
piece of tech, a piece of AI tech, that can basically read any company website deck. It digests it. It creates a full diligence report. It also will create like a market map.
It pr- it's also predictive, so it'll predict like the valuation of a company. It will predict the total addressable market. Um, it'll predict potential growth and exit. Um, it's, it's very in-depth.
It takes like 30 minutes to an hour to actually like deliver this, this report to you. We also have seven, uh, to 21 agents that will then evaluate the company, and they all have different investor personas.
They will weigh in and tell you whether or not they would invest in that said company.
And so you get this like really, really rich, um, you know, information and then basically curation from these agents on whether or not they would invest in that company. And then we actually have tied a fund to that.
So we have a scout network right now of about like 825 scouts. They submit deals to this machine. If the machine...
over half of the agents like the deal, uh, and then, you know, myself and my team talks to the company and it all checks out, um, and it ends up getting invested in, that scout who submitted the deal will get 50% of the carry.
So I'm not sure if you're like familiar with like the two and 20 venture capital model, but basically why venture capital- capitalists like have so much money, it's not necessarily like their management fees of 2%.
It's the carry, which is they get some, you know, 20% of upside of whatever deals they invest in. So let's say they invest $1 million. Uh, that turns into $100 million.
They get roughly 20% of that profit, so let's call it $20 million. Um, and so what we're basically trying to do is, uh, give away half of the carry.
So we're giving 50% of the carry, uh, to individuals basically to share their deal flow. And what we've realized is like venture capital, that model hasn't really changed speaking of like the '60s and '70s.
Like we've kind of had the same two and 20 firm model where general partners select deals, and then they invest in them, and then, you know, it's the same old thing.
Because we can use AI to like compress and curate the best deals up, we can actually scale up the people who can submit the deals and then share in the profits, and that's like the core idea is really like allowing people who have deal flow.
Like a lot of people on the internet, like I said, we're all kind of chronically online. We know what's interesting early. We're all kind of trend forecasters in, in a way.
There's founders, operators, um, even people who are like early, like there's so many early users on like Hacker News that just find a really compelling, uh, product or company, and they like end up playing with it, and, you know, they jump in the Discord.
They get to know the team. So we just wanna be able to like give those people an opportunity to, to basically, um, contribute deal flow. Uh, and yeah, that's been going well.
We have like four investments, and, and we've been spending a ton of time on the tech. So we just think like the venture model needs an update, and this is our attempt to do so. So we're pretty excited by it.
It's going pretty well, and, um, the scout network is also growing a lot, and as the scout network grows, we wanna build a ton on top of that too.
And we have this great scout call every week where we just like talk about fun things. So like today we talked about, um, longevity and biotech and sloptimism. The week before we talked about peptides, you know.
The week before that we talked about like robots, non-humanoid robots. And so people from the internet just... we have like 50 to 70 people come on and like share their thoughts, um, on these subjects.
So yeah, it's super cool. It's like Cuban plus AI. Sorry about that. So the, uh, s- the, there's like eigh- you said 852 scouts total? About 800 and like 25 scouts. Okay. So- Right now...
eight, okay, I got the two and the five wrong order.
Uh, 825 scouts or so, and so they go out and get the carry, and then like it's four of you who s- sort of sit internally, and then you would take like the, the, the management fee.Yeah, I mean, our management fee, unlike most VCs, which is two percent, is one percent.
Mm-hmm. And that's mostly to pay for the investors', like, tax and all of that. Yeah. We're not really making a ton of money. But we get the other half of the carry, um, for our role in all of that.
Uh, but yeah, that, that's kind of like the structure and setup of it. How long has it been going on? It's been in earnest, like going on since last summer, but we like launched the tech and stuff in spring of last year.
Can you share the companies you've-- the four companies you've invested in so far? Yes. So a couple of them have gone live. One is called Mixie, um, it's an AI music mashup company. Um, it's cool.
I mean, like you-- it, it was like number one in the App Store, and then it ended up joining YC. We kind of backed it before then. Uh, the other company is this company called Diffraction.
Like DARPA kind of led the round. It's this really interesting company. They've recreated the human retina, like using basically photon light vision, but you don't need a battery or electricity to power it.
It uses like light and it can- Wow... similar to a retina see. Um, so you basically have recreated that technology and, and people are putting it up into satellites into space.
Um, speaking of hedge funds, like hedge funds, for example, or obviously the military could buy this, but they could get information and it's low cost because there's no like power electricity that's tied to the camera.
Um, that's an amazing company and like truly novel technology.
Uh, we have, um, another company that's more on like the AI inference side, so trying to make, you know, uh, these LLMs go a bit faster and, and be more cost-effective. That's called Infinity.
Um, and the last company is called Omi, which is like this, uh, kinda open source hardware company. Um, so you can buy it, leverage whatever hardware you want and add AI to it. Uh, one last thing.
You wrote this piece earlier in the month called The Physical Renaissance: AI Makes You Look Up. The thesis- Oh, yeah... is, "AI won't pull people deeper into screens.
It compresses the time you spend there, and I'm hoping that compression is about to trigger the biggest obsession with physical beauty, design, and placemaking we've seen in a century." Uh, expound on that. Yeah.
It's kind of funny. It, it-- I mean, I know you guys have probably talked a lot about this because it's so big right now.
But I do think because AI, even like what we're doing, it like compresses time and, and what we evaluate in. I think similarly, it's gonna compress time, amount of time we spend on sp- social media, spend online.
Um, with the looksmaxing trend in a way, I think as AI starts taking cognitive labor, like people are gonna start looking inward, and maybe longevity and biotech is one avenue that people are expressing that, uh, extra time.
I think looksmaxing is another one because those are really like two distinct things. The other thing that I think I've noticed a little bit like on the timeline, people starting to reflect on our physical spaces.
Um, I think when people were talking about that like private equity-owned, y- you know, that like kind of you see in Denver and Austin, those like private equity-owned apartments that have that same like
brutalist millennial feel to them, kind of similar to like flop houses but like for buildings.
Uh, I think people are kind of tired of seeing that same like visual decay around us, and it all feels very redundant, non-unique. And I think
part of that is just because hopefully, this is like the thesis of the article,
is that like we're looking, you know, as we spend less time on social because AI compresses time, we're gonna start looking at what's around us.
Um, and I'm sort of feel-- like I said, feeling it on the timeline where I'm seeing like these people in San Francisco talk about bringing back like the Sutro Baths, uh, and, you know, maximalism coming back.
I think it's like very expressive and fundamentally human. Um, and, and my feeling is we're gonna...
My hope and feeling and thesis of that article is people are gonna start looking around and wanting to invest more in physical spaces as we spend more time there.
Uh, just like they wanna invest in themselves through, you know, looksmaxing or other ways. That's-- It's like the same thesis applied to physical surroundings. I think that's an optimistic place to end it.
[laughs] Thank you for coming on. Do you think so? [laughs] Okay, great. Thank you for... This is tasteless. Thanks. We'll see you next week.
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