¶ Adam likes to know they're balanced
If I turn my headphones down enough to not have you be that loud, I can't hear myself in the mic, and that just bothers me. I like to know, like, our balanced levels or I'm sorry, Chris, though, because now he's got this little, like
He's got extra work.
He's got yeah.
A little
extra work. A little extra worky work. There you go.
I feel like every product goes through this where it's like the inchidification thing. I remember when I first started using Riverside, I didn't really feel like it was bad or like
¶ Is AI going to help us build individual apps?
it
was it was simple or straightforward. Mhmm. But I feel like what happened is they kept having to us edge cases, because how often did something go wrong recording wise? Like, I think there was maybe one case and it seemed like it was kind of our fault. But at their from their perspective, if like 1% of recordings were failing, that's like really bad.
Yeah. Then they started to introduce all these fixes for it. Like, it was opening a new tab and doing stuff in the background for the for a while, and and I'm assuming this I can't switch a mic during recording, that's probably has to do something with just catching all these things. But Yeah. It makes like the average experience worse while making like the worst case experience better. But it just like there it there's can't be no other way, I think.
Yeah. Like, unless you're building just a thing for you to use. In that case, it's like you can make exactly what you want. You don't have to care about the 1%. It's just like, if it works for you, it works. Is that where we're headed with AI? I had to bring up AI. We're two minutes into this podcast. My head's to AI.
I was like, damn it. I gave him an angle.
Like, when we all just have our own like bespoke software that's handwritten for us at on demand lazily.
Okay. So here's my my test for that. Right? So I think every person has an idea for the ideal shopping cart list app or like some kind of to do type thing where there's a 100 of these apps but everyone wants like some specific way of doing it. I know Liz specifically has has this and I don't think I've seen a single person show off, oh, hey, I finally use AI to build this shopping cart app I've always knew.
So if we see if we see a world where like a bunch of people you talk to are all like have their own shopping cart app they built themselves.
Mhmm.
That's probably a good test of whether this whole brain programming to the masses thing is happening or not.
Yeah. So I think there it's possible after this podcast episode, we're gonna get like 14 DMs. People are gonna have built these and Bolt and Lovable and whatever else. Yeah. Here's the reason I bet we haven't seen it yet. None of the people that use those products are living in domestic bliss. They don't have a need for a shopping app. They're like incels that are in their basement just doing what incels do, you know what I mean? They're not thinking
about their shopping doing the shopping.
Yeah, exactly. Mom gets the groceries, they don't just think about it. So I I
mean, yeah. But like that's that's that's why it's a good test because it would have to hit
Yeah. Massive. Mainstream part
of the world where, you know, people are normal and do things like shopping.
So I feel like the tech is there. I mean, I feel like the models are good enough that there you could probably see like Gemini like Google is perfect for that in the next year. I could see Google having helpful stuff that's just built for Google users. Like, you use Gmail, here's a helpful thing. I could see that.
Yeah, exactly. So I yeah, that's why because it's clear that, yeah, you can use an LLM to build your ideal shopping cart app. That's like not don't know. I know there's AI skeptics, but I think reasonably you can say that it can do a good job of that. But given it's possible and given there are tools like Bolt, VZero, whatever that let you do it, the remaining question is, is this actually gonna be a thing that the average person is into doing?
Yeah. I I think there's been waves of stuff like this where something becomes accessible, but that doesn't mean like everyone starts doing it. It's usually like, there's like a couple months where everyone's like, oh, we can now do this and then everyone does it and then it just kind of dies out and it's not like a part of your day to day life at all. This happened with the AI music stuff for me. It was like, I had a burst where I was just like using it a ton and I still use it here and there like for Elizabeth Baby Shower, was playing like really bespoke music for what was literally going on during the baby shower, which was funny.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's not zero, but, you know, I'm not, like, making my all my own music and, like, primarily listening to music I made myself.
The I feel like the people using these tools like Bolt, Lovable, Replit, whatever, they're that guy that everybody knows that has like 14 side hustles. Like, he's he's finds like some deal on like like some old palette of Nike shoes that were defective and he likes buys the palette and then figures out a way to resell them on eBay or whatever. Like, it's that guy. It's those like very like I mean, they're very entrepreneurial, but they're kind of like everything they do is just kind of like sloppy and like just trying to get Just temporary in short term. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like that's the kind of guy like, I I'm thinking of specific people in my head. The kind of person that uses these apps right now because they're gonna build, like, these amazing businesses now that they don't need a coder. I think that's where that market exists right now, and it's, like, a long ways from, like, my wife or your wife or people who are normal.
It's The the thing is like, I feel like engineers love building for that persona for some reason. Because I think that persona I'm trying to think about why. It's like, you need to build a really easy to use product for someone like that because they're not going to spend time with anything difficult. So it's like, it feels like you're doing something valuable because you're making something easier and it's challenging to do that and you generally maybe can build something nice. But these people don't pay you anything, so it's just like everyone builds these like nice products for like just the worst customer on the planet.
Yeah. You know?
Like this weird trap that keeps existing.
Yeah. I started to go into some insights I have into the world of degenerate purchasers, but I'm not gonna go there because Degenerate. I just just like, it's probably like inside information I shouldn't share. But anyway, moving on.
¶ Crunchydata aquirred
So I have some I have some stuff to bring up. So did you see that crunchy I almost said Crunchyroll.
Crunchy data. When you said crunchy, the first thing I thought was Crunchyroll. And I was like, what is Crunchyroll? Is that a sushi place? I can't even remember.
No. It's a, it's like a Netflix for anime.
Oh, how do I know that exists? I don't watch anime or know anything about it. That's funny. Yeah. Well, I do know some things about anime. I mean, I blanking on all the words. Waifu, Hi. What? Haiku. I don't know. I've heard a bunch of the words. Isn't that AI model? On Twitter.
Bringing up AI again.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Every once in while, people, like, throw anime terms at me, and I'm like, okay. I guess that one will stick, but I just forgot them also. Yes. Crunchy not Crunchyroll.
No. Not Crunchyroll. Crunchydata.
Yeah. Sorry. Crunchydata. What is Crunchydata?
So Crunchydata was a Postgres host and
Another Postgres startup. So when when when average database CEO says eight Postgres start ups, there really are eight of them. I don't even know what they are.
Yeah. But this is like this is like the real one. This is like the legit one out of all of because they've been around for a long time. Do you remember Will? Will King, our coach for basketball?
Of course. Do I remember Will?
Me and
Will go way back. He played basketball. Oh, he he works at Crunchy Data.
Oh, do you go way back?
Because you didn't even know where he works. Yeah. We played basketball together in Dallas way back.
I guess that was a while ago. So he yeah, he works there. But they got acquired by because it's I'm I'm gonna mix with the order. I think this was Snowflake that acquired them.
Another database startup, right?
Yes, Crunchy Data. Okay. So the the Crunchy Data is one of the more legit ones. They've been around for a while. Their product is something that can run on AWS, Google Cloud, whatever. It's just very center of Postgres. They have a lot of like the legit Postgres people working there.
Mhmm.
So like, they're really I know there's obviously like a 100 Postgres companies, but to me, they're like the Postgres company. They're very closest to how PlanScale's gonna be MySQL company. Yeah. Okay. So they got acquired for 250,000,000. The reason this is funny to me is because a month ago, Neon announced that they were acquired for 1,000,000,000 by Databricks.
The Wait. What? Neon got acquired for a billion dollars?
Yeah. Which I I knew was always gonna happen.
Yeah. Well, that's all database companies do is get acquired except for PlanetScale. Just gonna, like, be huge. But it feels like I I can think of so many stories of database companies or data companies, I guess, getting acquired. Like, if you do something in the analytics or database space sorry.
Anything like data even data engineering related tends to get acquired like WarpStream. Mhmm. So Databricks and Snowflake are like mortal enemies. They are like in most intense competition you could think of. I looked at their market caps, I'm like, oh, is one like clearly better than the other?
Their market caps are like basically the same. They're both public companies. They're like, you know, they're roughly the exact same market cap. So clear both of the announcements, which I think are is is kind of a fake announcement, We're like, oh, we're acquiring these Postgres companies because these are gonna be the back ends for all these AI agents in the future, whatever. We need like
Mhmm.
An old TP database that, you know, does fax and stuff. Again, I think that's just framing around AI hype whatever to make it make sense.
Yeah.
But clearly something went on behind the scenes because so Nikita, the founder of Neon, I knew that he was eventually gonna get bored of it and sell it for like a really big number because he's just in that world and I know he can maneuver a good exit. I I mean, again, I don't know if it was good because they did raise I'm sure they were valued at 500,000,000 their last round or something like that. So maybe it's it's like not that crazy of an outcome. Ignoring that, clearly, Databricks and Snowflake got played against each other for this Neon acquisition. Because like, that's the reason they they like ratcheted the price up to a billion.
And then to announce a Crunchy Data acquisition like right after that, it must have been, you know, Databricks won that won out that battle then Snowflake went to Crunchy.
But Mhmm.
It's so funny to me because if you really want to acquire like a talented team that's good at databases, like that's clearly the Crunchy team. They built like they have like real customers, like it's like a much more tested thing. But they got them for one fourth the price. Yeah. Amazing. So they Like losing this battle. But they weren't Yeah. I I mean, the the I was like I was saying, I was like, maybe Snowflake is actually really, really clever and they tricked
They did it up. Yeah. Love assigning, like, cleverness to situations.
It's never the case,
but it's probably not the case, but it's just fun to think about, like, oh, they Galaxy brained it hard. I love it.
So it's like, how in what world do you pay four times as much for Neon as you do for it just it just makes no sense to me but Yeah. It's just the times we live in, you know, when there's a churny, frothy environment like Mhmm. Like theirs with AI stuff. Also, like, I don't really get why they're so aggressive about like, is it really the AI thing? Like, I get them wanting to have an OLTP database in their in their product offering. That makes total sense. But like, what is this AI angle?
But our OLTD Yeah. Our OLTP database is really aligned with AI. I feel like just text files is the AI move.
Yeah. I don't I mean, it's just like, it's just a useful database that can be used for a lot of things. So like, yeah. You build AI apps on it just like you build literally anything on Postgres
Maybe it's maybe it's a bet again, Galaxy branding. Maybe it's just a bet on the proliferation pull
Proliferation.
Proliferation of software in general. AI is gonna just bring out a boom in software.
Yeah. That makes sense and I think that that's probably the more more reasonable thing. But like the the Databricks one kept focusing around so Neon's architecture is good for spinning up a bunch of databases that never get used.
Free tier.
Yeah. So it's like very optimized. But again, we're talking about earlier, it's like a really great DX experience for the customers that never use you, that never have any usage, I mean. So that I see how it's primed a little bit more for some of this stuff because, yeah, if Bolt and Beezer and all these companies are letting people spin up like a million apps a week, It's good to have a Postgres database that doesn't cost anything Sure. To run.
Because I I know Supabase is like integrated with some of these tools and they're not like that. So I'm pretty sure they're like spinning up an EC two instance or like packing an EC two instance for every single one and it's just not optimized for that. So it's probably very expensive for them to support these like zero revenue users. Yeah. So the Neon one, I see why the serverless angle makes makes sense, but I think all these companies will probably just build a purpose built like completely integrated database that makes sense for this type of thing.
Mhmm. Because like shoehorning Postgres into being serverless is like, you can do it like Neon did but it's like something like Dynamo like fits a lot more like that model. If you just like build a custom database and attach to one of these tools, I think that's probably the end state, if these tools even make any sense.
Yeah. The the free tier thing just reminded me of The US spending bill. What is what is this human urge to just like forget the future? Let's just like you know what I mean? Like this the the free tier thing is the same urge to just like go into crazy debt and like, doesn't need to be sustainable. Like planet scale, I wish the US government ran like planet scale. I feel like that's that's the approach of like we're gonna be sustainable.
Well, it's not fundamentally wrong because it makes sense. Like debt, I think most people have such a negative relationship with the word debt. But technically it makes total sense if it's productive. Like, if you need to build a farm that produces apples, you need some upfront capital to do that.
So you go
into debt. Yeah. You got to borrow it from someone that isn't using it, right? Yeah. But eventually there's a clear path to that debt being productive.
Mhmm.
And sometimes it doesn't work out. But yeah, like there's obviously, there's other kinds of debt where it's just like, you just take it out to spend it on something that isn't productive at all, like, doesn't increase revenue in the future or anything. It's like an expense with luxury. I mean, that's that's the next topic I was gonna bring up. Did you see all the Twitter stuff yesterday?
Yes. Elon and okay. Yeah. I wanna get into that. The one last footnote on the the PlanetScale thing reminded me, the average database CEO Twitter account, that's like the worst kept secret in the world that that's Sam. Right? That has
to Sam.
Somebody else. To be Sam. No. No. There's no way that's not Sam.
We know who it's actually not a secret. So, I asked Sam being like, who is this? And he linked me to someone and he was like, it's him and I don't think it's a secret either.
Oh. I just was so sure I read it in Sam's voice, like, all of his insights are so Sam like. Okay. Interesting.
It's I mean, I'm sure he gets accused of that all the time. I think he mentioned that before. Yeah. Not Sam. Interesting. Okay.
Well
It's it's a great it's a great account, though.
It's great. I love all the things that that account says. Fantastic.
It's Okay. So Wait, one more thing. Until that account came out, it's one of those great I think they say like comedy is about like comedy is like observations, like you observe stuff that has always been there but no one's looked at or like put into certain words. That's a perfect example of it because I'm like, oh, yeah, like a database CEO is like a thing. Like, never realized that was a category of of person and we've all had like a lot of experience with it.
Yeah. Uh-huh. It's so good. Okay. So Elon versus Donald Trump.
¶ Elon vs Trump
Yes.
This is quite a timeline. It is so interesting. I mean, just so entertaining. If nothing else, I don't know what it all means, but like, definitely most entertaining outcome, gotta say.
Yeah. I was so a few meta things. So one, I didn't because remember how I, like, read I changed my relationship with Twitter?
Mhmm. That plug in? Mhmm.
So I didn't see it at all. Someone like Jay posted it in our in our team Discord. That's how I saw it. Then I was like, oh, this is a case where I actually wanna, like, see all this like, all the memes and all the stuff around it. So I flipped to the For You tab, it, like, wasn't showing me anything. I, like, successfully fixed my Twitter experience. Wow. It's showing me any of this stuff even
though wanted it. Because that's Yeah. All that's on the timeline. Interesting. I could
I saw like nothing. Yeah. And then the other thing I was like because I think when when Jay posted it, it was like ten minutes after Elon posted it and I already had like 200,000 likes or some crazy number.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I was like, is this gonna be the most liked tweet of all time?
I saw this morning, it was a million. I've never seen one that's a million That's what I saw.
Yeah. Okay. So I was looking at so when I Googled, like, what are the top most, like, tweets of all time? The number one, it's like it's it's kind of random to me. It's do you guys do you remember when the actor that played Black Panther died? Chadwick Boseman, I think his name
is? Mhmm.
That's the number one most liked tweet, like, announcing his death. Really? Yeah. And then Elon is like he has like three tweets in the top 10. Obviously, I think his account was great, but I think the third one is next I'm buying Coca Cola to put the cocaine back in. That was like the third
That was the third most liked tweet? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just I'm scrolling here to make sure what is that?
You're fact checking me?
No. I'm fact checking
that was number two. Number two is Elon, the Coca Cola one.
Oh, that's number two? I was just trying to find that tweet from yesterday, the one that we're actually talking where he said the Epstein file thing. Right?
Yeah. So so this one okay. So here's the thing. As much as I love this this feud and it's funny how predictable this was because this happens with Trump and literally everyone, like Yeah. People enter his administration, they leave and they're, like, start talking, like, they they hate Mhmm.
Took huge fallout. But Elon also had, for the past year, has been just lying about everything left and right and kinda exaggerating everything. So I think we've known that Donald Trump is technically in the Epstein files, like, think that's been public knowledge that he's on the flight records and whatever. So he might just be saying that
implying I've seen pictures way before of of him. Yeah.
Yeah. So he might just be, like, referring to that and implying there's more without knowing anything, unfortunately.
Like, you're saying he didn't know anything more than we do?
Yeah. Exactly. Like, he doesn't know anything more than we do or, like, there is nothing to know more than we do.
Yeah. I guess that's a good point for it to get like so much praise on Twitter or just like all the likes and attention and for him to position as such a like big bomb drop. It is a good point that I've seen all the videos that have been surfacing now of like Trump at parties with Epstein. Like, I've seen all that before. This isn't like Yeah. New information.
Just might be the perfect like like populist angle of just being
like Yeah.
This will do really well and people won't won't care. So it's possible that, you know, there maybe is something more but that could also just be all it is.
So I haven't actually followed this very closely. I've just mostly seen the Elon tweets. Has Donald Trump gone nuclear on his side, like, Elon back? I'm sure. I just know he's a very
vindictive He was posting about yeah. Yeah. He was like Donald Trump was like, here's a great way to save money. Let's just cancel all the contracts with Elon's companies. That'll save us billions of dollars. And then Elon was like, well, I'm gonna disassemble the crew dragon, which I don't know.
I saw that tweet. What what is that context? Yeah. What is that rocket that he's gonna disassemble? Why would that Is
it the crew dragon? I I I think I I mean, I don't think Trump cares about that because I don't think Trump cares about anything. Dragon? What are you
talking about? Yeah. What are you talking about? I don't care. But I think
I think all manned missions for NASA go through that rocket from SpaceX, so it like messes up Wait. What?
Oh, SpaceX does all the like astronaut missions now?
Because they have that crew dragon thing. I think Boeing does some of them too, but obviously there was that big problem with astronauts got stuck in space with the Boeing one.
Oh, jeez. Oh, so they're like manufactured by SpaceX, but like the NASA is the one doing the launches? Sorry.
No. Go ahead. It's like NASA astronauts building SpaceX's launches. SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.
Dragon spacecraft. Yeah. Trump probably if I don't know, Trump probably doesn't know.
I I think pretty much all like, pretty much this US space program is built on top of the Dragon spacecraft.
¶ Space and sci fi fiction
Gotcha. Yeah. I forget we have a space program. Like, what do we do? We go to the we go to the space station sometimes?
We go up and we're like,
is there anything out here yet?
Nope. There's nothing out here.
And then we come
back It's
so funny to, like, get into sci fi and realize, like, I I listen to all these books, and it's like, we haven't even been to Mars. When you listen to these books and it's like, we're going to other star systems. We're doing Yeah. It's like no big deal to go drop something off at Pluto. Like, that's just, like, commonplace. Then it's like, look at real life and it's like, oh, yeah. We don't even, like, go anywhere. We can't even, like, hardly get out of, like, the Earth's orbit.
I mean, the the other thing that I think sci fi I think even hard sci fi and some hard sci fi has like explanations to this. It's such a plot breaking fact that communication is extremely slow the further away you are. Like, if you go to Mars at the latency, I don't what it is, but you know, the latency for sending light back is it takes a while. The further out you are, the slower. Right.
And like, in most of these stories, like characters and different planets are like communicating in real time and stuff.
I guess the ones I've listened to, maybe I'm just listening to more accurate ones. I don't feel like that's been a common thing. Like, if anything, I feel like they've talked in the books I've listened to or read about the delay to like Mhmm. Talk back to Earth. Yeah. I mean, I've just lived I've I'm on like my fourth sci fi book, so like what do I know?
I mean, it also can be like a useful plot point where you can like make interesting stuff happen because there there is a delay. Yeah. But I think that was a factor in The Martian, if I remember correctly.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, The Martian.
Yeah. But like even in three body problem, I remember maybe they explained this. I was kind of confused at how they were like talking to the aliens. Oh.
How the subphones were like Entanglement. Entanglement. Like how can't I
I like this Entanglement?
Entanglement. Yes.
Yeah. But like how do you send messages in real time if there's also time dilation? Like, it's like something about that doesn't work. So I feel like you're basically sending messages from the future before they've actually happened if it's in real time.
Well, the SoFon thing is like just so different from normal. Like, it's like, it's the entanglement thing. So I don't I don't think it applies If
you can get information to somewhere further away basically instantly
Uh-huh. And
you know when you travel close to the speed of light or like anytime you move anywhere, there's a time dilation concept where time travel like time moves at different speeds? Mhmm. If if you can communicate instantly, it's like that information is not impacted by that. So that leads to really weird situations where I think you can get information. It's like you're kind of time traveling.
Oh, interesting.
Sending that information.
So yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I need to think about this more. I I thought about this a while ago when I understood this better and I made and I concluded something, but I think there is a problem with that.
The trisolarans are moving spoiler alert, by the way. They're moving close to the speed of light and you're saying if they can receive information from Earth through the SOFANS through quantum entanglement, if they're receiving real time information based on a time reference on Earth, but they're moving in a very different time reference going close to the speed of light
Right.
That information could be like from the future or the past or something.
Yeah, exactly. There's like some there's something that breaks there. I don't remember exactly which way it goes but
Yeah. That's a very big brain thought.
The real life equivalent of all this stuff is like so primitive, like we can't even Yeah.
We went to the moon once and like haven't tried again.
Have you thought of this concept where if Earth was a little bit bigger, chemical rockets are just not viable.
Oh, well, discovered this exoplanet that I that I only thought about this recently when I learned that there's that planet, it's like eight times the size of Earth. Mhmm. But they discovered it because it has like one of those biosignatures we talked about on this very Oh, yeah. The like biological whatever signature we could observe. It had one.
It has some chemical in the atmosphere that's like apparently tied to life and it's eight times bigger than Earth. And the point was or some of the things that came out and you saw stuff on Twitter was that, like, they're bound to that planet. There's no way to escape the gravity of that planet. And I don't know what no way means. Like, if you had, like, the whole galaxy's energy, could you not get off?
I don't know. Yeah. But they said they made it sound like it's physically impossible for them to leave the planet. So not Yeah. Just chemical rockets, theoretically, I guess they can't get off the planet at all, which is interesting. Yeah.
It's like there's like think that people describe it as a there's like a debt, like we have like a gravity debt and every time we want to escape we have to pay that debt. And we're it's crazy we have such perfect conditions here where, like, we can At our level of technology, the gravity is such that we can actually escape it. Yeah. Like, if it was a little bit bigger
Like the chances are Yeah.
It seems That seems really crazy. And it's like one of those other things where, you know, how the solar eclipse or lunar, whatever it is, like the the moon is at a perfect distance to proper And the size to properly
How old is that? Yeah. That they're basically the same size in the sky because of distance.
There's like pop Like all of the galaxies populated. People would probably travel to Earth being like, there's this crazy thing that happens on Earth. Yeah. It is like
To see a solar eclipse? Yeah. It's like Such a good point.
But like, to us, it doesn't feel that way, doesn't feel that special. Wonder if the people that like lived in Hawaii their whole life probably feel that way. Like, do you mean? Like, yeah, volcano, like a crater, waterfalls, like, that's just all normal.
No big deal. It's like when I was growing up, we had a pool table and we just never used it because it's like we have one. So, like, why would we use it?
I don't care.
And now I'm like, man, I wish I could play some pool. I don't know.
We're talking about, like, nature's grand beauties, and you're like, yeah, we had a pool table. It's like kind of the same thing.
That's always the example I go to in my brain when I think of like, what if we lived on the beach? What if we just lived on like a private beach? It's like, well, we probably just wouldn't go because when you have a pool table, you just don't even use it. You never play pool. It's just reality.
Do you guys have a you guys don't have a pool pool, do you?
No. Neighborhood. We go to the neighborhood.
Oh, right. Right. Guys do that pretty often?
Yeah. In the summer so we go for, like, three weeks every day, and then we get burned out and we never go again. That's basically every single summer. And every summer, the second half of summer, we're like, man, we did it again. We gotta do this better next year, then we don't.
Yeah. But that's actually an example of where there's a break in between, so like, it feels new again. So maybe if had a pool all the time, you just never go into it. I remember my my parents had a pool. We had a pool growing up and, like, my friends came over and we're glad that that was a thing. It was fun, but
Yeah. We used the pool a lot growing up. I mean, when you live in a place where there's seasons, it's like, it's only the summer. So like you said, you lose it. And
on the other hand, like, uses his pool like a bathtub. Literally every single day, he keeps it so hot. It's like
Yeah.
It's like a hot pool, and he just soaks in it, like, every single day. He just goes in and just, like, sits in it. So he gets used out of it. Yeah.
That's amazing. I will say, I would love to have, like, a large hot tub or a pool that was really warm. On vacation, we stayed at a place that had this kind of situation. It was like a called a cocktail pool or something. It was basically like a big hot tub, but it was very warm. I love just getting the boys in it at night. And, like, we've been on the beach, they're all sandy, then we just, like, shower off getting there and it's, like, they're clean.
Yeah.
They've been in, a chlorine pool. They're good. We don't even need bath time now. Like, we just go to bed.
Yeah. It's the best. So I guess before, you know, I maybe I was at maybe into cold plunge even before you because I remember growing up, we'd go in our hot tub and like, it's be at night and it was like Yeah. Become a little bit cold. We crank the hot tub up to like a 100 something degrees.
We get in there, get super hot, then we would jump into the pool and it would be like freezing Freezing cold. And we try to swim as fast as we could to the pool back into the hot tub for a relief. And we do this over and over just because it was funny, I guess, like, I don't know.
You were doing contrast therapy before Huberman was
even Exactly.
Had a podcast.
That's awesome. My my knees are so good or whatever it's supposed to do.
¶ The annoying benefits of physical activity
Whatever it's supposed to do. The thing about cold we've talked about cold exposure on this. The thing I've come to grips with, cold exposure is just for the funsies. It's just for the, like, dopamine hit. You you feel good for a few hours after.
I don't think about anything else. Everything else is like, the data's pretty bad. They don't really know if it helps with anything, longevity or whatever. I think sauna's pretty helpful in a lot of ways for health. But cold punch is literally just like, I feel good after I do it, and that's enough. That's why I do it.
Yeah, man. I've always been a person where I like don't like to how do I explain this? This is gonna sound stupid if I explain it wrong. There's things you can do that put you in a better mood and I've always felt like you shouldn't need that and I just go throughout my day without doing those things. I'm just like, oh yeah, can wake up and work and do and do my work every day and it's it's fine.
But man, like, it's just fundamentally true that when you work out, you just feel amazing for the rest of the day
It eventually catches up. Like, I do the exact same thing where I'm like, I don't need all those things for mental health.
Like, I don't need to, like, balance my life.
I can just go work every day and, like, be fine. And then it always catches up to me. I always end up, like, super moody after, like, a few weeks of doing that and ignoring my all my other needs. And I'm just, like, snippy and just just a terrible person to be around. And it always does come back to, like, oh, if I just work out in the mornings, life is just good indefinitely.
Like, I just do that every day. It's amazing how much it just works. It's just like, it's hard to really feel that it's working in the moment. It's like over long periods of time, you have to see it.
Yeah. I mean, it's just like that feeling you have where you know that feeling you have the rest of the day when you've worked out where like your muscles feel a certain way? Yeah. Something about that just puts your brain in a really positive place.
Mhmm.
And it's wild how effective it is. It's not like you need to do a crazy workout. Even just like a ten minutes intense workout Yeah. Would give you this effect for like the whole day. Yeah. Just like such an easy act.
I did something and I feel, like, kind of exhausted, it's it's just nice. I think that's dopamine. I think it's literally just the dopamine thing. Man, we've been talking about this, Casey and I, with the boys. Like, our I'm so nervous for just like being a parent is just filled with anxiety, as you'll soon I'm just so nervous for that generation that, like, it's very hard to avoid now.
¶ How are we going to adapt to dopamine hits?
At this point, like, society, we're just like all of our dopamine systems are just wrecked. And when I first hear about that, like, the fact that we're all just, like, so with screens and everything else, we're just so, like, messed up. I'm like, what is it really messing up? Like, we're all fine, but we're not. Like, there's so much anxiety, depression, all these different things that, like, I just feel like this generation coming up, they there's no way to really like, you have to work really hard to avoid wrecking your dopamine systems really badly.
Do you have opinions on any of this? Is this just like woo woo, humour and stuff?
No. Because like I am also someone I mean, like I said earlier, like, I tend to lean towards this is this kind of stuff gets overblown, but it's gotten to a point where even me who would like normally lean the other way Yeah. Feels like it's bad. I I think I I was talking to Jay the other day and I was like, I really feel like we've advanced beyond the point of our biology at this point. Feel like Mhmm.
In so many aspects of life, like humans can adapt and we can adapt and we've been adapting for a long time. But the amount of change in these certain dimensions, I feel like it's beyond what's what's adaptable. Like
out in front of our skis, like we've outpaced what our biology can adapt So
like and this has been obvious for a bit with food. Like it's been clearly a thing where we can just like crank infinite calories into our bodies now and like it's so easy. Can adapt to that at all. Mhmm. And then now with the other stuff like the psycho more psychological Intertain
it. Yeah.
It's And I think that the tricky part about this is as soon as you start talking about this, it starts to sound very familiar. Because in throughout all of history there's been moral panics about these things and we probably sound exactly like people in nineteen hundreds being like, are you aware of danger of books? You know, it's just It was like, yeah, that was like a real thing. But, yeah, it's hard to not feel like it's different. Like, the rate of change is is so fast.
I have to put so much intentionality into my life to preserve some of these things or before it was automatic. It was like
It's so much work to like do the thing that used to just be you couldn't you didn't have another option. When we were growing up, like, it was just so different. I feel like if if it just like dropped the word dopamine, which just sounds like research papers and science and If you just think about like having to work for any kind of enjoyment growing up, like, we had to work for enjoyment. Like, we were bored. We had to go to a friend's house. I mean, the time.
All the time. Every single day, wake up and be like, I wanna die because there's no point
in living. There's nothing to And that's, like, literally as simple as that. Like, how much work we had to do to entertain ourselves. Like, we'd have to, like, walk to a friend's house. And then that was like even then, it's not a given that we're gonna be able to entertain entertain each other, like, our friends.
It was nerve racking. I tweeted about this other day. Do you remember, like, knocking on a door and it's like, you're, like, kind of nervous. You have to talk to the parent who answered the door and they open it and you're like, oh, can Jimmy play? And then, like, then the then you're like, oh, is he gonna say yes? Is he
gonna He must have the courage to talk to the adult. Yeah. Yeah.
And then sometimes it's a no and it feels bad. Uh-huh. When you're in a group, it's always like three kids behind and one kid has a bravery to go up Yeah. Ask the question.
But then there's like strength in numbers because I don't want to miss out and like Yeah. Yeah. There's just so many of those things.
There's so much meta good stuff in that situation that's happening.
And it was just pain. It was like difficulty. Discomfort was like normal in life. And now, I feel like you can literally go a week and have nothing discomfortable. Is that a word? Uncomfortable. There's I suck
Then talking uncomfortable. Whatever.
I just need a reel of all the words that I
screwed up on your subject. Gotcha. You're passionate. Keep going. Keep going.
Yeah. Well, just like, I I could go a week and not have a single uncomfortable thing in my life. You know what I mean? Like, we can literally avoid all uncomfort, all pain, all like effort and just literally like have an idea what seems like an ideal life of only pleasure and comfort. That's just like attainable in modern I know like Yeah.
Not everybody and like, I get there's privilege or whatever. I don't know. I'm just saying like, society increasingly points us in this direction where you can just avoid all the bad stuff, like all the pain and all the work and that's the whole problem. Like, we need that stuff or we just start getting depressed.
Yeah. It's it's crazy because like, you wanna deny that you like I was saying earlier, you wanna like kind of deny that you need that stuff and the time spent on that stuff you're using in a better way or or whatever. But
Mhmm.
Yeah, I think we're just past some some threshold where that that makes any sense. It's it's like annoying me how much work it is. Yes. It's like, you know, I think I could've said the food thing has been around for a while where if you want to eat healthy, it's now suddenly work because there's just bullshit and everything. And you gotta like read the packaging on every single thing and like, you have to like learn about all this stuff where, you know, before you just you just ate ate a fucking potato and then
It'd be a very active person to get nutrition right.
Yeah. And then now, it's like, I hate that it's it's happening with attention. There's just all this stuff just trying to hijack you all the time.
Oh, just like this week, the amount of time I've spent trying to configure my phone with the screen time settings to try and get like a thing down that just really stops me from especially like when I'm off work and in the evenings just unplugging and not being so attached to like the notifications and the things going on in the work and whatever. Like, I'm still I haven't gotten it right and I'm still just like pouring you just have to it's so much effort to like fight against the things that are natural today, like with food, with entertainment. That there's just like, you so many ways you can screw it up and not you can pour a lot of effort and not get it right and still Yeah. Just be off the rails.
Yeah. It's it's now like another it's like before the only thing I had think about was like, had to make sure I'm working out enough. Now it's like Yeah. Other dimension that feels exactly the same as trying to work out enough
Mhmm.
In this new place. I'm a little bit more optimistic again because of this Twitter thing because I've I've seen I've been able to reshape it and I've seen like some actual positive change without losing too much. Yeah. So at least I feel a little bit like, oh, this isn't inescapable, like there is some amount of hope if you try.
¶ How much screen time per day do you have?
Okay. I think there yeah. I think there's hope. I think it's like every individual our responsibility to like work really hard to shield yourself from this inevitability of society. I will say I'm not super in a good place or like hopeful right now because of the screen time stuff. Like, I only started setting up screen time stuff because I learned and this is so embarrassing. I learned I spent three hours a day on my phone.
That's I'm probably way higher than you.
It that's insane to me. If I think about how little time I feel like I have in life and how busy things are and to think I spend three hours just on my phone is so depressing and like a 100 pickups a day, like your iPhone will tell you this stuff, like how many pickups and how many hours and minutes or whatever you spend on every app. Yeah. It's depressing. And I just have been spending that time this week and now I'm just like, this all sucks. We gotta throw it all away.
Guess what my daily average is?
Oh god. You're on Twitter a lot. Now I just wanna know what your scenes is. I'm gonna guess four hours, five hours.
Eight hours.
Eight hours?
Yeah.
Well, now I feel super good. Thank you, guys.
It's I mean, it's
No, I'm just playing.
It's it's a it's a little bit I would say maybe we can cut this in half because I use my phone, like, oftentimes when I do, like instead of doing support stuff, like, Discord supports up at my desk Yeah. I'll, like, do it from somewhere else, like, I'll walk around and and stuff. So some of this stuff, I would I would say cut it in half, but still it's probably higher than yours.
Yeah. There so there's two things. One, you don't have kids. Right. I think not having kids That'd probably be I had kids, I probably was on my phone twice as much as I am now. The other thing is, like, it does count some things. The the it makes me feel a little better when I see, like, on days I have a lot of calls, I use my phone, like in Hangouts and stuff. And that's active. It counts that as active time on your phone because the screen never goes black, I guess.
Oh, I see.
So those numbers, like, I have two hours of meetings on Monday and like those numbers get thrown in. So it does make me feel a little better, like I'm maybe not spending as much time as I think. But I if you go through, like, the apps, it's pretty easy to tell, like, oh, I spend too much time on that app.
Like, the apps that don't you don't
have an excuse. It's like, that one just Too high.
Know what's interesting about all this? Yeah. I'm I'm looking at the daily breakdown and this is confusing. Why is Westerm on here? What the heck? Oh, is it because it tracks my oh, is this tracking oh, this is all devices. This is all devices.
Oh, does it on your Mac too?
I mean, I don't use my Mac that Or I guess I use my Mac for half a day or so. Yeah. This is all devices. How do I do just my phone?
I didn't know it did all devices.
Okay. Because I the reason that this is freaking me out because it said ten hours one day and I'm like, how did I spend ten hours on my phone? But but it's not. It's like, there's a bunch of the time in Westerm. You know what's crazy about all this stuff is and I think this is why I I do feel like it's different.
Historically, you would think playing an hour of video games falls under this category. But I would say it doesn't. Because we're at the point where sitting down and playing an hour of video games without like checking your phone every five minutes, like Yeah. That's impressive because I think that's like
Yeah. It takes point of focus.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think doing that stuff is is fine. Like, I think I'm we are we still have this but like me and Liz, like sit down and watch movies all the time. Yeah.
So many people I talk to, I think you mentioned this too, they're like, yeah, like, we just can't do movies anymore. Like, one of us is always on we're not paying attention and like and whatever. So, yeah, like, again, something that's pure entertainment is watching a full movie, that's like now a bar. Like Yeah. Do you frequently do that without interruption? I
really wanna talk about video games and movies. I have to pee real quick and I'm not gonna make it to an hour at all. So
Yes, let's
take a break for ads or something. I'll be
¶ Sponsor: Terminal Coffee
right back.
Terminal.shop. So the the gaming thing is like fresh top of mind as well because both my boys are I mean, addicted is not too strong a word. They are addicted to Minecraft. They get to play Minecraft one hour a week. Maybe I've talked about this on the podcast on Saturday.
¶ Addicted to video games
And it's like it's it's like the biggest holiday of the year every week. It's like Christmas. It's like they are so excited for Saturday. They talk about Minecraft all week. I think my five year old in particular is just way too young to be exposed to games like that at this point. But, like, I think about my childhood, I grew up just nonstop. We played video games, me and my brothers.
Like Yeah.
That was my whole childhood. My friends, like, we grew up on Nintendo 64 and what I was just talking with somebody, a friend the other day just about Golden Eye and Super Mario 64. I'll never forget that first day that we got them into 64 and playing Super Mario 64 as the first, like, three d game. I mean, hours and hours and hours in my childhood. And I think, like, I turned out fine.
But then it's like, oh, did I? I don't know. There's a lot of things that that I think maybe aren't ideal about me and maybe some of that is because I spent most of my time playing video games growing up. I don't know. I do think there's a difference. Some games
Yes. There's difference.
Have a very different effect. Right? It was very social growing up.
I I feel like Minecraft is not I would not categorize it as one of these, like it's not a game that's, like, quick reward, the whole, like, reward cycle thing that some games do. Yeah. Like, you think about something like Call of Duty, they they, like, precision engineer, like, the sound effects of getting a kill. It's like Yeah. It's it's like seared in my brain and even when I think about it, I feel a good feeling.
That's like that's like a different thing. I feel like Minecraft is like less, like, cracked out. It's like like slower pace and, you know, No.
I I agree. It doesn't seem like it would have that, but maybe it's just different for every person or or different for types of people like ages. I don't know. The I know they're addicted because I mean, literally, my 10 year old just like spends hours just on his watch asking Siri questions about Minecraft. It's all he thinks I can see like
really into it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like all that's ever on his mind and I know that feeling from being addicted to video games. So there's like this delicate balance of I want them to get to enjoy video games like I did growing up, and I want the good parts of it. But then there's the, like, that takes over your brain just like anything else. That's it's different from the conversation we're having around dopamine cycles, I think.
It's a
very different thing to be addicted to something than to just be distracted by everything. I don't know.
You know how it the thing that we show in movies where, like, a kid smokes a cigarette, so they make them smoke a whole pack of cigarettes. Are you guys
gonna hear this?
Where you just, like, make them play it for, like, two days
It's crazy that you we're literally going to have my 10 year old take a break for the summer, and he's not gonna play Minecraft. But before we do that, he's gonna get that. He's gonna get, like, a day or two of just, like, eight hours if he wants to just play it nonstop and just get all of it out of his system. I don't know if that's smart, but he just he has so many ideas about things he wants to do, and he gets to play it one hour a week. So, like, the the list of things he wants to do in Minecraft just builds and builds and builds.
We're gonna be like, know what? Get it all out of your system, and then we're not gonna do it. Maybe indefinitely. It's just like we need to get him off of it just since we told him. He was very upset at first that we're gonna take this break from this thing that he's obsessed with, but he's been a different kid. It's amazing. It's almost like he's relieved. He's been reading. He's been doing all these things he used to love doing, building LEGO. He's back to being what seems like himself now.
He's not just so, like, just staring off into space. Like, he just became this, like, this Minecraft child. That's all that was on his brain. So it's almost like he happy now knowing he's not he doesn't have to think about it. And I know from being addicted to video games, there is like a relief when you're finally out of it. And it's like, I don't have to spend my time doing that anymore. That's amazing.
Yeah. I see. That makes sense. I probably yeah. I think I it's not it's an area I can really relate to, so I don't know what it looks like.
It's just such a different yeah. It's such a different thing to play an hour of a video game with friends or just certain types of video games. Like, it's just it's very different from my experiences with certain video games.
Yeah.
It's very different from the phone problem we all have or like
Yeah.
These dopamine interruptions, like these terrible reward cycles that we have now.
Yeah. Yeah.
All very different, all modern things that can kill you. Sorry. Go ahead. I get it's
just it's just so weird what modern society is. Like, going back to this thing about like being able to sit down and play video games is actually a good thing now. I've been out literally trying to do that where Yeah. So I got this is I have a really funny setup now where I got this like controller thing. I posted a picture of it yesterday. It's it's something that says attached to your phone.
It's not it was not a Switch.
No, it's not Switch.
You made a joke about Switch. It looked like a Switch.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a thing that it's really well built and whatever. It's like a dock for your phone and you get a controller on each side.
Mhmm.
And then I use the NVIDIA game streaming stuff, which by the way, this here's a crazy part. I looked for an app in the App Store and there wasn't one. I'm like, oh, this sucks. I can't use NVIDIA game streaming. And I looked it up online and it's a whole thing where Apple wants like a crazy cut and whatever.
So this this is not there. And then I like, okay, let me try using it in Safari. Like, would this work? I go to the Safari site, it literally prompts me with instructions on how to pin it to my home screen. I do that and it works perfectly. But with the controller, it it feel it's like, Emily, this is crazy. We could they can deliver like a like triple a game, perfect Yeah. Quality everything over network through my Safari browser on that phone.
That's insane.
Yeah.
That seems like for so many reasons that should fail, but it works well.
Yeah. And it works really well. A really great setup.
I remember like, I remember Stadia came out, like, Google did the Stadia thing, it was kind of like Yeah. It didn't get a lot of traction.
¶ The economics of entertainment
I
thought it was really because it wasn't Yeah. Was really good.
I mean, I I think I think they killed Stadia, not surprising. That's good. But GeForce now is is very good and their game library is quite good. But yeah, so now
I
have this like I can like sit down away from everything and then just relax for like an hour Yeah. Doing this. It's funny though, I'm having trouble finding games that keep my keep my attention. Whereas in the past, and there's some games I do and I have, but I can it feels like work to some degree. So I'm like doing work on myself by playing video games.
Yeah. It's like
such a weird situation.
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely I know they've said like the younger generation just doesn't do the movie thing, like
Yeah.
That was like our favorite thing to do in high school is go to the movies on Friday night. I mean, was it's just part of our brain like, brains were very suited to that form of entertainment. And then it's crazy to think like that might not be for everybody or whole generations are just like, whatever. No, thanks. I'm not gonna sit still for two hours.
Yeah. It's I would be really upset if the economics from behind all this stuff start to weaken. Like Mhmm. Theaters have been struggling for a long time, we've known that. But probably struggling more than ever now and they're trying to reinvent themselves to some degree.
Then the so but like, okay, but then there's still like streaming services, you can still watch movies at home and people still seem to do that. If people stop doing that, then like, can these studios even afford to make these big budget things? I saw something that Frank told me about that I'm like, I hate this. So and this is specifically like a Chinese thing, but I think there's like probably English versions of this as well. There's this app, it's like Netflix, but they just have like a billion shows where each episode is like ten minutes long and it is just like the most cheesiest plots.
I'm sure most of it well, it must be AI generated now. It's just like
This is Alibaba but for entertainment.
Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, the you work for you're like this girl. Oh, but her dad is a mafia boss and he's pissed at you. And then you're like, it's just like the cheesiest cliche like, you know, plotters back to back to back, these really short episodes. And I'm like, if this is where all the attention minutes go to and people aren't watching movies, like, that would really be a sad thing.
That would be very sad. I I hate to be this guy. Man, it like, to my core makes me kinda wanna throw up. But is it possible that AI will make video creation cheap enough that the big studios can still make movies even if they make less money because AI makes them more efficient. Like, visual effects or something can be like
Yeah. It's possible.
Not like whole movies made from AI, but like, can efficiencies of technology drive down the the cost to make big movies such that movies stick around even if people don't watch them as much.
Yeah. I think they have. Right? Like, we've seen movies shot on iPhones and stuff now. Mhmm. So I think that that is, I guess, one mitigating factor, but but I do worry. So speaking of the thing you just brought up, there's this really great show called The Studio. It's an it's weird. I think it's I think all the good shows are just on Apple TV and HBO now and everyone else else just makes garbage. It's called The Studio, it's on Apple TV. Seth Rogen's a main guy.
Seth Rogen. Okay.
Yeah. It's this it's this really great show about a film executive and they're just making movies all the time. If you've seen Veep or any other kind of workplace comedy like that, where it's just everyone's incompetent and just chaos happening all the time, it's like that but set in a in like this movie industry world. Mhmm. And always there's always actors in there that are playing themselves, it's kind of like entourage.
The filmmaking style of the cinematography of this is really, really good. They do a lot of like one take shots where the whole episode is one take and it's got like a really unique nice shots. Well done show. Reason I bring it up is we just watched an episode yesterday where it was this hilarious episode where so they're they're making like a cash out movie. You know how like Barbie was like this big sellout movie that like made them much money?
Trying to do that with Kool Aid. They're like making a Kool Aid movie with a Kool Aid man. And they're super hyped because they announced it and it goes like ultra viral on Twitter, like it's amazing. The next day they're like finalizing the cast and they're looking at the cast and they're like, the cat's ice cube as the Kool Aid Man? Yeah.
This is an awesome cast. So looking at everyone that this is great. And then someone points out, wait, is it like racist to make the Kool Aid man black? Like, is there some, like, connotation with, you know, Kool Aid being enjoyed by certain people? Oh.
And they spiral into this crazy thing where they're like consulting all these people, recasting. At some point, they like they like made the whole they were like, okay, it's fine for the cool way man to be black, but his wife has to be black too and his kid has to be black too. But then they realize like, oh no, all the animated characters are black but then all the live action people are not black. So, like, what are we trying to say here? And they they go this crazy spiral.
It's it's hilarious. And there's a little aside where they're like, because of this, like, there's casting delays and everything. The director who's like, just down to do anything is like, okay, because of these delays, like, we need to save money so we're gonna use AI to like, do some of the CGI, like, just a little bit here and there. So the audience like, yeah, yeah, like, just just flick the eyebrows and stuff, like, you know, don't don't go up reporter. And then so that's like a little aside and then they go to this whole journey, then they're like, you know what, the right the right thing to do is go to Ice Cube and ask him, like, what's the right thing to do here?
And he obviously is like, you guys are being crazy, it's a consultant that you even did this. So they just go with the original thing. Yeah. And they announce it on stage and everyone's happy, everyone's excited, it went well. They're all glad that it didn't, you know, they didn't recast and do this crazy thing.
And someone stands up and asks, hey, what are these reports that you guys are using AI to replace artists? And then they just get like totally wrecked by this thing that they were not paying attention to at all.
This is side panda. Yeah.
Yeah. So because that's a that's a new thing to get upset by. Anyway, really good show. I spoiled that whole episode, but
It's okay. It's it's I want to watch the show now.
Yeah. It
it tickled my brain when you said the studio. I've heard of it before. Think I heard on another podcast somebody talking about how good the show is. And they talked about the one take thing.
Yeah. Yeah. So Apple TV is a weird thing where I never hear about their shows. Like, I there's not market at all. But every time I go to watch one of them, they're that's actually surprisingly, like, really, really good. By the way, going going back to your point, like, yeah, the whole AI in movies thing is probably not not a good topic right now.
Yeah. Oh, I didn't mean like I know there's No.
I I know what you meant, but like, you know how people are gonna take it.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. People will take it ways. I know that people are artists and AI can't be a conscious artist. I know all that stuff. It's their job write code.
It's their jobs. You're taking away their jobs.
Oh, artist jobs? Yeah. Well, we might lose our jobs. So we gotta, like, keep the head on swivel. Everybody should.
Yeah. So
I guess we can't lose our jobs if we hire ourselves.
I don't I don't even think I have a job right now.
Yeah. What is your job?
Do you have a job, Matt? It was kind of floating around and somehow somehow I mean, I'll survive.
¶ Anthropic Cuts Windsurf’s Claude Access Before OpenAI Acquisition
Well, let's let's talk about OpenCode before we get off. Well, I say that. When I said I want to talk about OpenCode, I really just meant like I want to sync up with you about OpenCode. So maybe we should just turn off the recording.
Well, I can talk about one thing that's a little bit interesting. It's somewhat OpenCode related. So Yeah. Some of so the other news from this week was, did you see how Cursor cut off access to Windsurf?
Wait, Cursor? You mean a Clock
Anthropic. Anthropic cut access to Yes.
Very interesting.
Yeah. So just a recap. So Windsurf got acquired by OpenAI and Anthropic gave them five days notice being like, yeah, we're not giving you access to our models anymore. So Windsurf had to like, you know, scramble. So there's some interesting things that come out of this.
Anthropic can cut off access, but Claude is still in Windsurf. How? It's because Anthropic no longer controls their own models because they did deals with Google and AWS and whatever. AWS. And I'm assuming Windsurf got capacity from from one of these other places.
Mhmm. So that brings up this interesting thing where these LM providers it's clear that infrastructure companies are gonna make money from the models. Like, it's Yeah. So LM providers will get a cut, but they're not really in control of this distribution anymore. They now have to deal with these other companies selling their products on their behalf, which is why they're all stepping more into the product category.
So that's why, you know, OpenAI bought Windsurf because they're like trying to actually build end products with this. Even though, you know, they can't be talking about they can't be a platform, whatever.
Mhmm.
If they're in that space, then you get all these weird things where they're like cutting off access to a product because it's like kind of competitive with theirs. I will say the Windsurf OpenAI thing is kind of an extreme test of that because it's now owned by like a direct competitor.
Right.
But it does bring up the question like with OpenCode, are they going to see that as this is we are a platform and it's great that OpenCode exists because it's built on top of our platform and it's bringing people to to our models and that's good. Mhmm. Or are they going to feel really competitive with the fact that they have Cloud Code, which is a product that they're trying to do and OpenCode is is competing with that. It reminds me a little bit of some of the SSC and AWS stuff where AWS should not have seen SD as competitive because we were bringing customers to AWS. But AWS had projects like SSC internally, so they kinda saw it as as competitive.
So like, Cloud the organization maybe won't feel OpenCodes competitive, but it's obviously impossible for the Cloud Code team to be like Sure. Not not feel that. Right?
Is it that is it that simple? Is it just a human thing? It's just like a political human thing within organizations? Like, there are people who get upset about this idea of competing with some other companies. So then it feels like AWS is competing now or trying to, like, compete with SST because there's teams within AWS that are like
screw SST.
We have a better thing. Yeah.
Yeah. I I think so because, like, there's cases where it hasn't felt as much and I'm curious about the internal structure for this, right? So I think this happens when there's people at a company whose identity and future and whatever is built on top of a technically not necessary product from the company's offering. So the equivalent to this is Cloudflare and Wrangler. Right?
So Wrangler is a way you deploy stuff through Cloudflare. Mhmm. They have never given a shit about us building a better way or a different way to do that. They've been really encouraging. It like, I don't know, like, the head of Wrangler.
I don't even think that even exists. Like, I don't know how they're organized, but they definitely do not feel like they're they're, like, trying to protect it at all. They're trying to get more people to use Cloudflare. They're clear on the overall goal. So I believe it can be structured in a way where that's not a problem, but I don't think Cloud Code is. It seems like a flagship product. So yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah.
And I wanna understand like, I wanna understand their motivations with Cloud Code because I don't they're charging for Cloud Code. It's all just tokens. It's all just usage. But do they view it as like a sales thing? Like, they're selling more max subscriptions because of Cloud Code? Like, how do they view the business value of Cloud Code internally?
I think right now it's all territory grabbing. It's not really about anything tied to selling stuff.
So when you say territory grabbing, just getting in developer mind share? Like
yeah. There's a space that's unoccupied right now or, like, becoming occupied right now, which is CLI driven AI tools. They're boxed out from the IDE because cursor's there, when server's there, whatever, so they can't go that direction. So there's this this space. So I think they're trying to claim as much space as possible, which is why, like, letting Cloud Pro subscribers use Cloud Mhmm. That's just burning money. Right? Like, I don't I don't if there's limits to it.
$20 a month?
Yeah. Yeah. So it's it it seems like territory grabbing right now to see like what this evolves into. And obviously they like will reframe it with some really like visionary thing of saying, we're no, we're intentionally not betting on the IDE because I think these agents will be so good that the IDE becomes less relevant. It's not the tool
that Mhmm.
Developers spend their time in. I don't know if we ever go that far, but yeah. So I think that's our motivation.
Okay. So then putting on the OpenCode hat. Should we be excited that Cloud Code is investing or Anthropic is investing heavily in Cloud Code because they'll grow the space of terminals as the place where this stuff should live and they're gonna help like grow that overall pie compared to IDE versions like Cursor and then we just need to compete with them to take more of that pie that they grew or do we just wanna like compete directly with them and say, f you?
Yeah. I think there's this little nuance here where whenever I talk about competition, people will always be like, oh, you know the world's not zero sum, right? It it's like different layers, like, yeah, to the end user, there's a not zero sum. More products in this space is great and you get more stuff. Yeah. For the people competing in this space, it yeah, is zero sum.
Somebody's gonna use your thing or their thing.
Yeah, exactly. So I I think I don't I wish Cloud Code didn't exist. I think I'm fine competing with them. Think it's worth competing on dimensions where we're actually really good at and they're not as good at. Mhmm. But yeah, I think I'm curious
what those dimensions are. Sorry.
It's just all on the product side, right? It's just like Yeah. What makes a good product? How do you bundle this into a good product? Mhmm.
We've thought so hard already about just little details that I don't even think they know to think about, right? Like we had all these discussions about the exact folder structure of where things get placed. We respect like the XDG defaults on which is like, you know, defining where your system folders are. Just little things like that, like that's a really minor example. We'll multiply that, like, times a thousand, like, all of the different places we do
that. Mhmm.
That's what we're competing on, just packaging it in a better package. So, yeah, for me, like, I wanna be the default. I don't want Cloud Code to be the one growing this space. I want OpenCode to be the one growing this space. Yeah.
So when I think of the major advantages we have, it would be the two things. It's open source, Cloud Code is not. So we have that whole community side of it potentially. And we're not tied to Anthropic. So for the three months of the year or six months of the year where some other model is better Yeah. You can use that model theoretically.
Yeah. If you
forgot how to get any other model to call tools and not just be an idiot.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's just funny. Was thinking about this morning, I'm like, sometimes I get these like really clear visuals of abstract concepts. I feel I get this visual of this like dam that's like there and there's like a bunch of stuff piling up behind the dam and it's just like so much stuff piling behind it that you know when the dam breaks, all this stuff is gonna flood out.
I feel that way about Gemini because I'm just like, everyone on the planet is just waiting for Gemini not to be stupid at tool calling. And the moment that happens, like, all there's gonna be a flood of all this stuff. Like, so much is gonna change.
I've said it before. I still think Google is my bet. I mean, I'd I'd worry if I were Anthropic. If they're trying to just be the developer thing, I feel like Google's gonna wipe all the like, all the verticals out. I just feel like Google's gonna win this battle, but
Yeah. We were we were talking about this yesterday where this feels like a repeat of Microsoft where you remember how or not remember, it's still happening. Microsoft just has a foothold in Office. Like they had their Office software, all businesses were using Office. Mhmm.
And with every single new thing that came, they just kept winning because they had this existing customer base. And Google has the same thing with Google Workspace. So they're rolling out Gemini to like all these crazy big customers just because it's integrated with Google Workspace. So I think yeah. It's like another reason like some of those distribution things just end up end up winning in the end. So yeah, I would make that same bet.
Yep. Yeah. It's very clear to see on the coding assistant side, like, the the model is very smart. And you can hand it an entire code base and ask it to, like, come up with a solution to a problem. It's so much better than the other models at coming up with that solution in my experience, and I've tried them all a lot.
If they just knew how to do the hands off tool calling stuff, if it would just call the tools reliably, like Anthropic has gone so hard on that path, man, I wouldn't I wouldn't touch Anthropic models. I don't have a reason to. Sonix still I mean, even Cloud four. I was just I'm so disappointed in Sonix four. Cloud four.
I just built it up in my mind. It's this, like, moment that's gonna just be, like cause they're the best at developer stuff. They're most focused on developer stuff. Cloud four is gonna be this huge shift. And it's just really it's still pretty stupid, if we're being honest.
I mean, like, from, a big brain standpoint, it's okay at doing I mean, it's really good at calling tools, and that's its thing. But if we could get a model that had the intelligence of Gemini and and even like o three, that intelligence with the tool calling ability of an Anthropic model, yeah.
Yeah. It's gonna
be amazing.
Yeah. Exactly. Not tied being tied to that is cool. And going back to this product thing, I was I posted the other day like, man, I was just so many years spent on terminal tools, like like building this new version of OpenCode. I'm like really feeling all that experience because so much of it is like familiar ground.
But there was that post where someone was complaining because Claude code has this like mode where you can just give it a task and just have it run-in CLI mode, so it's not interactive, so it's just outputting stuff.
Mhmm.
And someone was complaining, this is annoying because in this mode I want to see everything it did. It's not this like interactive thing where I want like the more minimal view that it normally shows.
Mhmm.
And yeah, we've been there. We know that with SSD there's like an interactive mode and that needs to look completely different from running it like when it runs in CI, like there needs to be a different mode when it runs there and like the way you'd wire all that up and and reuse things between the two Yeah. Like, it's just so familiar to me, I've done it before. And like we'll have like a better output in CLI mode than than they they do. And I'm sure eventually as the stuff gets copied, but I like the fact that all of these things that people bring up are product things.
They're not so much, It's all packaging stuff and so I I I would like I'm happy competing with Anthropic on on that on that zone.
Yeah. Know every team working in this space because there's a million people working on these types of tools. I know everybody thinks they've got secret sauce. I am very excited and pleased about where we're at and what we can launch maybe next week like compared to Cloud Code specifically. If we just compare Yeah. The tool we're gonna have versus Cloud Code, there's just a whole bunch of advantages to using Open Code that don't either can't be replicated in Cloud Code or haven't been yet.
Yeah.
It's just gonna be very obviously a better product from next week on. I'm excited to get it out there.
Yeah. I think we we we gotta get it out soon ish because, again, going back to this thing was saying earlier, we we got we feel like we can only go so long without launching before we start to lose steam.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So that that that's a good real factor to.
Yeah. And having a moment. Like, it's definitely been on Twitter a lot for what that's worth. Alright. On that note. Alright. Just maybe get to it.
Yeah, Ross.
See you.