AGI, Immortality, & Visions of the Future with Adam Becker
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gary O'Reilly, and Chuck Nice talk with physicist and author Adam Becker about how tech billionaires envision the future through ideas like AGI, space colonization, transhumanism, and digital immortality. Becker explains why many of these visions are scientifically dubious or incoherent, how they misread science fiction as literal blueprints rather than cautionary tales, and how extreme wealth concentrates power over humanity's technological trajectory. The episode closes with a reflection on the need for wisdom and ethical guardrails alongside scientific and technological ingenuity.
654. Is the Public Ready for Private Equity?
The episode examines the push to open private equity and other private markets to retail investors, especially through 401(k) plans, following a Trump administration executive order. Law professor Elizabeth DeFontenay and economist Steve Kaplan explain how private equity works, its historical outperformance versus public markets, and why that outperformance has likely diminished as the asset class has matured and become crowded. They warn that high fees, opaque pricing, illiquidity, and second-tier access mean that ordinary investors are unlikely to benefit from this shift, and that expanding retail exposure could change private markets themselves and increase systemic risks.
TIP770: Mastering the Markets w/ Andrew Brenton
Host Clay Fink interviews Andrew Brenton of Turtle Creek Asset Management about why he believes public markets have become less efficient and how that shapes his value-oriented investing approach. They discuss Cliff Asness's "The Less Efficient Market Hypothesis," behavioral biases, bubbles, and the impact of passive flows and short-termism. Brenton then walks through Turtle Creek's investment theses and valuation approach for Floor & Decor and Kinsale Capital, and explains how he thinks about cyclicality, intrinsic value, portfolio optimization, and sticking with a high-active-share strategy through periods of underperformance.
I Ranked the Best & WORST Businesses to Start Before 2026 | Andrew Wilkinson
The host and Andrew Wilkinson play a "tier list" game ranking different business models by their median successful outcome, lifestyle impact, upside, and difficulty, drawing heavily on Andrew's two decades of experience running agencies, buying companies, and managing capital. They discuss models such as MLMs, freelancing, agencies, SaaS, marketplaces, restaurants, content creation, real estate, hedge funds, angel investing, and buying local "sweaty" businesses, while also unpacking how Tiny was built and why its stock chart can be misleading. In the second half, they shift to psychological themes like the courage to be disliked, identity boxes, contrarian thinking, and designing a career around work you enjoy doing thousands of times rather than chasing labels or external approval.
The High School Dropout Who Made $2B & Bought an NBA Team
Ryan Smith describes his journey from a 1.9 GPA high school dropout to building Qualtrics from his family basement into a multi‑billion‑dollar company and later becoming an NBA team owner. He recounts being effectively forced out of school, surviving a precarious stint in Seoul as a teen English teacher, founding Qualtrics with his father during a cancer scare, and eventually turning down a $500 million acquisition offer before raising major venture capital and selling the company. He also reflects on focus, long‑term thinking, buying the Utah Jazz, and his personal frameworks for parenting and career decisions.
Babylist: Natalie Gordon. How a new mom used nap time to build a $500M business.
Software engineer Natalie Gordon describes how her overwhelming experience creating a traditional big-box baby registry while pregnant led her to build BabyList, a universal registry that lets parents combine products from any retailer with practical services like dog walking or diaper subscriptions. She explains how she bootstrapped the company while caring for a newborn, then gradually scaled it through affiliate revenue, an accelerator, seed funding, and later a major shift into holding inventory and operating as an e-commerce retailer. Throughout, she reflects on hiring and management challenges, learning to become a CEO, and keeping BabyList focused on serving expecting and new parents rather than expanding into adjacent categories like weddings.
I asked Cathie Wood the question no one else will
The host interviews investor Cathie Wood about her career trajectory from early service jobs through studying under Art Laffer and breaking into Capital Group, emphasizing how she used technology and hustle to add value. Wood explains ARK's research structure, open-research philosophy, and how her team uses volatility and rebalancing to manage high-conviction positions like Tesla. She addresses performance criticisms, lessons from the COVID boom and subsequent drawdown, discusses incentive structures in finance and venture capital, and lays out her views on AI, Tesla, robo‑taxis, humanoid robots, and the future economics of transportation.
How two straight guys bought Grindr and made $2B
The hosts interview two entrepreneurs and operators who led the acquisition of Grindr from its Chinese owner under a forced divestiture and then took it public for a $2 billion valuation. They explain Grindr's origin, why U.S. regulators forced the sale, how homophobia and perceived risks created a buyer's opportunity, and the operational turnaround they executed across talent, tech, product, trust and safety, and monetization. The conversation broadens into how they approach private equity deals vs. startups, the use of leverage and risk reduction, opportunities and disruption in AI, crypto, and healthcare, and reflections on long careers in tech, investing, and choosing the right partners.
TECH004: Sam Altman & the Rise of OpenAI w/ Seb Bunney
Host Preston Pysh and guest Seb Bunney discuss Karen Howe's book "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares of Sam Altman's OpenAI," using it as a springboard to explore Sam Altman's biography, the founding and evolution of OpenAI, and the opaque 2023 boardroom crisis that briefly ousted Altman. They examine OpenAI's unusual nonprofit/for‑profit hybrid structure, its partnership with Microsoft, tensions between AI safety and competitive speed, and the hidden labor and economic costs of training large AI models. The conversation also touches on AGI definitions, human-AI interaction, other labs like Anthropic and DeepMind, NVIDIA's role in AI, and briefly previews their next book on longevity.
Pressbox and Tide Cleaners: Vijen Patel. The $1.99 Gamble That Built a National Brand
Host Guy Raz interviews entrepreneur Vijan Patel about founding Pressbox, a dry cleaning and laundry startup built around 24/7 locker access in residential buildings. Patel explains how he and co-founder Drew McKenna bootstrapped the company, focused relentlessly on unit economics and quality, and expanded across multiple U.S. cities before being acquired by Procter & Gamble and folded into Tide Cleaners. He also describes the burnout of running a 24/7 service business, the competitive battles with venture-backed rivals and P&G itself, and his current focus on investing in "boring" but essential, asset-heavy businesses through his fund, the 81 Collection.