Blake Anderson launches 10X, an AI learning app, after 33 days locked in his apartment

subscriber list while at the hustle and it's certainly not easy. Uh, we got Blake Anderson coming in from the cage live from New York City where he's been uh in an apartment for 33 days straight. How you doing, Blake? Can you guys hear me? We can. Yes. Welcome to the show. They can hear me, but I cannot hear them.

Okay, try it again. Check. Y'all say something? Check. Check. Check. Go to public. com. Investing for those who take it seriously. Multiasset investing industed by millions. Yeah. Like can you play music and do you hear it in your earpods? We got stocks, bonds, treasuries, options. Can you hear that? Yeah. 10 speaker.

What about eight sleep? I know you guys are sleeping on eights out there. Nights that fuel your best days. How do I sound bed? The ultimate sleeping experience. Go to eightleep. com/tbpn. Can you hear that, Blake? Yes, I can. Okay, cool. What about getbbezzle. com? Can you hear Can you hear that? I can hear that.

Blake's a watch. Blake's a watch guy. ramp. com. I was about to ask about ramp. Could you tell me about them? Yeah, ramp. I mean, time is money, so save both. As you can hear that Okay, good. What about Are we good? I think I think we're in a good spotake happy place. Okay.

Uh uh Blake, it's great to have you on the show. Uh it's a big day today. Thank you for taking the time. Uh you haven't been I think everybody here is very familiar with you just from from PMF or die and everything. you haven't left uh the cage for 33 days.

Today you're launching the app and uh maybe you start to, you know, get a sense that freedom might be on the horizon. Freedom might be on the horizon. But yeah, talk to us. How are you feeling? You know, I'm uh I'm feeling very stressed out.

I'm um I feel like I have this pit in my stomach that is not going away for anything. And I think that the only way that I can release that is achieving PMF. Um, and if I do not achieve PMF, I think I'll be in a very dire spot, you know.

Um, yeah, we're going to have we're going to have the the audience will get to to vote on the sort of fantasy football style punishment, like you might have to get pink pink hair or something like that. No, but we we're we're believers. Um, why don't you break down 10X in your words?

Maybe just start with kind of the the manifesto. It feels like that the app is, you know, extremely timely with everybody sort of realizing that one of the biggest opportunities with of AI today is giving everybody, you know, a tutor. But, um, yeah, tell us about 10X in your words.

Yeah, I think that the power of AI education cannot be understated. Everything that I've built has been on the backbone of AI.

And yet at the same time, I have so many friends that constantly ask me how they can use AI to learn more efficiently, to learn how to code, to learn how to market, to learn how to do anything, any digital skill. Um, and I don't think that there exists a platform that's kind of synonymous with AI based learning.

And this was the general background thesis on building 10x. And next came uh the medium, right? What is the form factor?

Um and so the original form factor with how we are launching and uh the version that's going on the app store this evening uh is a Dolingo style learning path where you can select your skill and progress through the foundational knowledge needed to learn how to code with AI, market with AI, um you know build a business with AI.

Um and so that is one key function of the application. Additionally, we have the ability to custom generate lessons. So you can generate a 15-minute podcast on anything that you want to learn about. I find myself going down these like interesting podcast rabbit holes on Spotify.

And what I found is that uh once you get past the very base layer of any sort of uh any sort of domain, it could be machine learning, it could be complex systems, it could be American history, uh it's very difficult to find the sort of customtailored information to to progressing to that next step.

And TEDx provides that for people. Additionally, you can track your skill progression over time as well as chat with a chat GPT gro like um uh basic chatbot within the application. Very cool. Uh I saw a post earlier today from this guy Chris Pike uh who's over at Pace.

He says, "When elite universities uploaded all of their courses online for public consumption, we collectively realize that the limiting uh factor for global intelligence is not access to information, it's motivation.

" What's your read on on how motivated is the sort of next generation of builders who the the 10 the initial 10x app is like how do you make somebody how do you turn somebody into a developer right who right now maybe knows nothing.

Do you feel like there's like like just a ridiculous amount of sort of motivation that doesn't necessarily have like a a pathway yet? Do you see that 10x is like hey here's how you go from zero to builder? Yeah. So, one of the most popular questions that I get on social media is, "How can I learn to use AI?

How can I learn to code nowadays? " And there doesn't seem to be any resources that are really constantly up to date with the newest and best techniques. In addition, if we look at what Duolingo has done for language learning, the big thing that they've done is they've they've gamified it. They've made it fun.

Um, and I think that that's in line with your point uh regarding motivation. And so right now with 10X, it is significantly more enjoyable to learn through 10X than through a basic uh standard chatbot. Though obviously we have the chatbot embedded within.

But going forward, one of my primary northstar metrics is how much dopamine do you feel rushing into your brain when you hear those little sounds and get that XP and see yourself level up? Do you have do you have haptics yet? Are you got you got the phones vibrating or is that rolling out soon?

Yeah, we we've got we've got haptics.

Um but you know I don't you know hap haptics are are are just just a small step um in a very big mountain uh in competing with uh Instagram and Tik Tok because you know my view for the 10x mobile application is that it might not be the platform that you sit down on and use for three hours straight but it certainly can fill the latent space in your day instead of Instagram and actually put it towards something productive.

Yeah. talk about talk about the concept of like character building and and sort of leveling up your character because a big part of 10X is like, okay, I'm a character. I'm Jordy. I can go on 10X and like level up my character to learn how to code. That's awesome.

Uh was there a specific video game or anything that inspired you as a kid that you were super into like that you got maybe way too into? Was it I think World of Warcraft was probably before way before your time, but uh yeah. Was there any specific Absolutely. So, I would say Skyrim was a big one.

So, uh not to be confused with World of Warcraft. I think a big difference in terms of the type of person that play games. No, that that said, no. Um I I I think that uh games where you can uh see your skill and and level progression over time are just inherently so much more addicting.

Skyrim, Madden, FIFA, um uh even Minecraft in a bunch of these different mods that I would use when I played as a kid.

Um, and that was essentially the thesis behind UMAX and what made it go so viral is the ability to scan your face and get this sort of like six factor rating system about like your skin quality and your jawline and like your overall attractiveness and potential. And so in its current form, it's just XP based.

But moving forward, I think that uh really interesting thing that we can implement is the ability to uh take these sort of preliminary challenges and quizzes to assess your current skill position and then make this into more than just a system to come and learn statically and linearly, but something that can dynamically update based on where you're at, where you're progressing, and then become somewhat of a status symbol.

Right? Right now, we all know the term 10x engineer. You know, uh I want I want a n level 99 in 10x to be to be a hallmark of of somebody who who has agency in this post AI world. Love it. Uh talk about your go to market.

Uh I know you this is historically how you've grown your apps is sort of leveraging these sort of short form video platforms. Uh you're taking all that learning and and uh you know channeling it into 10X's GTM.

Are you doing anything different this time or is it the same playbook that you've sort of happily shared with the world because it's it's easy to talk about. It's hard to actually do. Yeah. So, you know, I think that 10X is inherently less viral than the previous products that I've built.

Now, that said, has so much more long-term upside. And so, if I were launching a RZ GPT right now, it'd be like done wraps. I'd be I'd have completed it. I'd be at a million AR. But, um, I'm trying to build a big business here, and I really believe in the long-term mission.

Now, that said, I I think that I'm taking a lot of the learnings that I've had from my previous applications and figuring out how to how to make something that isn't inherently as viral or maybe like uh you know, scandalous into something that that people really resonate with and still can go viral on organic platforms.

And so, you know, I think that uh one of the big marketing messages that we have is you won't be replaced by AI, you'll be replaced by somebody using AI. Learn to use AI. Now, that's inherently a little bit scary and like digs into insecurity.

And I think that that'll be uh that'll be conducive to to to uh you know, engagement on on these social platforms. Uh we're split testing a ton of different niches. We're working with self-improvement creators, with AI and tech creators. We're working with Only Fans creators.

And so, we've got the we've got the whole roster. This is what you were saying before that somebody logs on to Only Fans for whatever reason. Uh and then it's like, "Hey, why don't you learn how to code? Go ahead. Go. Uh, when are you when are you uh I know you're you're launching today.

Uh, I got the pre-order page pulled up. When do you think when do you think you're when do you think you're going live? Uh, because I know you probably still have some stuff to do there. No, we're going live immediately after this call. Amazing. Okay, everybody listening, Blake really wants to see the sunlight.

He wants to surf. He wants to go hiking. Go download the app. Uh, I just changed my bio real quick to um my my uh X bio, which used to be MJ of AI apps and then everything I built. It's now I haven't left my apartment for 33 days. Please download so I can surf and hike. I love it.

All right, I'm putting it I'm putting it in the chat right now. You're the man, Blake. Good luck today. We will uh we'll talk to you later and excited to see I I see Sam Schffer in the background there. He's collecting all this footage. I can't wait to see the the documentary on it. It's going to be amazing.

and project. Godspeed today. Thanks for having me. Talk to you soon, Blake. Cheers. Bye. What a hilarious project. So chaotic. 33 days without going outside. I mean, they do have the roof deck.

I know you haven't seen the Shaw Shank Redemption, but when he gets out of prison and he's just being like, they do have a little sunlight. It's beautiful. Yeah, I guess he can go outside. Somebody in the chat says if he fails, he has to This is Rusty Pitchfork.

If he fails, he has to buy a Dodge Charger EV and use it as his daily driver. There you go. Brutal. So much fun. Um, well, should we go to one more story because we have Sean McGuire joining in 15 minutes, but I think we got enough time to break down the uh billionaire who just bought the Celtics.

He doesn't have a Wikipedia page. No one knows about this guy. Uh, Sean Puri said the Celtics just sold for $6 billion to a guy with no Wikipedia page. Money talks. Wealth whispers send tweet. I love Sean. And it does crazy numbers.

It does crazy numbers for I love when you I love when you can drop something that's um when you can drop something that's just like very niche like only for your fellow posters. It still does numbers.

It's also great because like Sean's been on the show, you know, obviously we're notorious yappers and uh basically the opposite of whispering, but uh we love wealth. So we'll break it down. William Chisholm was a complete unknown to sports fans and most private equity investors until earlier this week.

He just bought the Boston Celtics for 6. 1 billion. By the time they're ready to spend their billions, most sports owners are already celebrities in their own right. Wall Street Titans, CEOs of prominent companies, heirs of America's richest families.

But when the most prestigious team in the NBA was sold for six billion, a record price for a pro sports franchise, the most shocking part of the deal wasn't how much the buyer paid. It was the person who bought it. This is from the Wall Street Journal.

Uh William Chiselm, the littleknown managing partner of a littlenown private equity firm, will become the new owner of the Boston Celtics after agreeing to purchase the team from Wick Guzck. The parties announced on Thursday. The deal stunned NBA insiders and private equity investors and even Chisolome himself.

You think of me at 8 years old, 10 years old watching the Celtics and never dreaming that this could possibly happen. It's just a pinch me moment. Amazing. Chisome has a far different public profile than other NBA owners, especially those who have splurged on teams in recent years.

He's nowhere to be found on Bloomberg or Forbes billionaires list. Little L for Forbes there. They missed a big one uh before off the list. Uh he's getting on there now. He didn't have a Wikipedia page. So this line from Bill Simmons, we know so little about this guy, I don't even know how to pronounce his name.

Chisum apparently, not Chisolm. Chisum.

Uh, Chisum, whose firm Symphony Technology Group invests in technology groups, intell tech technology companies that handle cloud security software or run job search platforms, has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal exactly once STG bought the construction data unit of McGra Hill.

We look forward to helping the business achieve the next level of success, he said. Amazing line. Goed. No, no private equity bro has ever said something like that before. Yes. Yes. Except every time if they don't actually want to make a comment. Yeah. Yeah.

You could have just said no comment, but he's on record with the Wall Street Journal just once. Now, the man whose firm invested in companies called Enlusive, Reich, and Keltra, has a slightly more recognizable brand to his name, the Celtics.

Uh Chisum, who grew up in north of Boston in Georgetown, Massachusetts, has spent his professional life far from the site spotlight. He attended Dartmouth as an undergrad, received his MBA from UPEN Wharton. He worked at a private equity firm, Bane Capital. I wonder when he worked at Bane.

Probably pretty probably probably in like the 90s or something. Um and then set off to start his own private equity firm. You still have any you were at Bane? I was at Bane but in 2010. Do you have like a Bane alumni chat you're part of? Definitely not. I would not be in that. No way.

Uh but uh you could have made a generational run at the top for the top spot. You've got the height for it. Yep. they would have just said, "Hey, we got to push this guy through. " The height thing is real there. I was uh working out at the like the corporate gym at Bane Capital once when I was interning there.

And one of the big shot MDs comes in is on the the exercise bike and he's just like, "You like me race right now. " And it was just the most like mogging ever. And he's like, "I can put up it was like the fan bike. " He's like, "Go as hard as you can. I can do 21 units of electricity or whatever.

" He had some weird metric that he was benchmarking against.

and he just wanted like the the young guys to see like oh like push me harder you know because he's like 60-y old guy really competitive I love it STG which Chisum co-founded in 2002 invests in companies your average hoops fan have never heard of but it positioned Chisum to strike when the opportunity of a lifetime came calling the capital to put something like this together is frankly the easy partis said based after striking the largest deal in pro sports history uh it's getting the right folks around on the table.

The investors alongside Chisum include current Celtics minority owner Rob Hail, related companies president Bruce A. Beal and investment firm Sixth Street. The Celtics shines a light on the changing financial landscape of professional sports. This was done over a group chat or a round of golf.

Probably uh before the Celtics deal, the last three NBA teams that changed hands were sold for between three and four billion. So the price is soaring. Um, the league recently allowed um uh the the the league recently allowed private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to buy team stakes.

So, they're allowing more capital in the price goes up. It's just supply and demand. Uh it's fascinating because the narrative around the NBA is that they've lost ground to the NFL.

Then there's also this larger narrative that just professional sports are falling off and becoming less relevant and yet prices are have never been higher. Yeah. Um, yeah, these are trophy assets.

Yeah, they've they've, you know, over the last 20 years, they've been fantastic investments, but they don't need to make money. Yeah. To be valuable. Yep. Based in Menllo Park, STG manages just under 12 billion in assets according to Pitchbook.

I wonder how much of that is his because he's putting a lot of money into this deal. Uh, Chisum's backing from Sixth Street drew some shade throwing from current Celtics minority owner Steve Pag Paggluca. I definitely mispronouncing that. Uh, and I bet all the sports fans know exactly how to pronounce his name.

Uh, who would also be leading a group bidding to buy the team from Grusbeck. We had no debt or private equity money that would potentially hamstring our ability to compete in the future. He said in a statement on Thursday. Uh, the former co-chairman of Bane Capital is no stranger to private equity.

Oh, so both of the guys that were building on the deal were Bane alums. It probably was a Bane chat. You're right. Bane chats. He said he he and his group would remain at the ready if the announced transaction does not end up being finalized. We'll see if this Chisum guy actually has the money.

He's throwing down the gauntlet. If you have one false step, I'm hopping in with my deal. Uh Chisum attended Celtics games as a kid, sitting in obstructed view seats in the rickety old Boston Garden.

So when he learned that the team of his dreams was available, he didn't take didn't take long to make up his mind about pursuing it. It was certainly a discussion with my wife and family for about a second. Like, hey honey, hey honey, I I know you're working on dinner, but uh can I spend six billion on the Celtics?

Oh, okay. Cool. Cool. Got it. Yeah. Okay. At least we talked about it. Yeah. Great. Uh Chisum said that every every husband has gone through that at some point. Yes. The GT3 RS or the Adam RP Royal Oak, you know, these are conversations that you have to have as a family. Little family meeting.

Hey, I'm buying a $6 billion sports team. Let's go. Uh, he said a central goal with the Celtics is to maintain its current success. Under the previous leadership, the team won the 2008 championship and added another last summer. This season, it is well positioned to become the first repeat NBA champion since 2018.

Uh, to that end, Chisum agreed to an unconventional arrangement. Gruzbach is to remain the team's governor, leading its team operations through the 2027 to 2028 season. Chisum referred to that decision as an intelligence test. Why would you want to me mess with that? Chisum said that is working at every level.

When Chisum does take the reigns of every part of the Celtics organization, though he is confident that what put him in the position to buy the team will let him hold on to its winning ways. In our little way at STG, we've done that, too. They've done it in so many good lines in here.

They've done it in higher job platforms apparently and now he's doing it in sports. Very fun story. Anyway, one day you'll be able to trade shares in these in these teams. Hopefully, you'll be able to do it on public. com. Investing for those who take it seriously. Go to public. com.

But we got to move on to uh we talked a little bit about Whiz. I don't know if you want to do some timeline. We got seven minutes. But Sean Magcguire's hopping on. We can talk to him about Whiz as well. I just was curious what are the publicly traded sports teams? I don't know. There is the Atlanta Braves, the MLB.

Really? You can just go buy shares. That's Major League Baseball. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Good clarifying. Just our audience follows business like sports. So, you got to clarify these things. Manchester United. It's got some shares on the New York. Um, I'm looking it up because I wonder how these things.

So, Manu is trading at at 2. 3 billion. Okay. On the the NASDAQ, you can go buy that on public Madison Square Garden. Oh, yeah. I guess the MSG group. Um, but that's the garden.

That's the actual like holding company for all the different media assets founded by James Dolan who also or I guess his dad founded it, but then he runs it and James Dolan created the sphere. Oh, interesting. So, the Green Bay Packers have done sort of these public offerings, but they're not doing it anymore.

But I have a special announcement. It is Jeremy Gon's birthday. Happy birthday. I figured we could sing him happy birthday. Ready? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jeremy. I hope you find a special situation today. We love you, Jeremy. Fantastic.

Uh you deserve all the success in the world. You're still a young whippers snapper. Yes. And you have such a bright future. Yes. May all your deals go through and 10x. 10x. That's right. Much like this whiz deal, uh which did more than 10x. uh it turned into a $4 billion windfall for index ventures.

They're set to earn a 250fold return on seed money in a startup Google has agreed to buy. And the partner on the deal is Sedur Shaw. Uh and Shawl got Ashawa got the call he had been waiting for on his 37th birthday in January of 2020.

A promising Israeli cyber security founder that he had been asking for years to launch a company was in need of funding. It's It's time," said the voice on the other end of the line. Shaw kicked in 3. 5 million on behalf of Index Ventures.

Flash forward five years, and that original seed money earned a $250fold return this week, turning into an $875 million stake when Alphabet agreed to buy goo uh Whiz for $32 billion. And index didn't stop at its first check, folks. It went turbo long. It had put more money in Whiz during every subsequent funding round.

Let's hear it for the folks at Index. Uh they built up a 13% stake. In total, Index has turned its $240 million investment into 4. 3 billion. You love to see it, folks. So, Bryce um over at Indie, Bryce Roberts, friend of the show, uh taller than you, I believe. I don't think so. Really? I don't think so.

Sit up next to him. But nice try. Nice try. And yeah, he broke down. Um the challenge here is how many they need. They just need so many this is this is the biggest software M&A transaction in history. That's that's crazy. And and we've been on a dry spell since the WhatsApp acquisition for a decade.

That was like 25 billion. I think it was like 16. But yeah. Oh wow. Okay. Which is crazy. So, Figma would have been the next biggest would have been the next um and the crazy thing is is index or insight needs like 10 of these to have a a 5x fund. Yeah.

Because it's a it's an $8 billion fund that they're investing out of. Although, was that the case for this particular seed fund? Because their seed fund it might be a different vehicle. Who knows? But either way, huge win. They made a lot of money. But, yeah, we talked about this with Harry.

It's possible that like they still got to do more work. Can't retire to the slopes just yet. Index, keep it grinding. Find five to six more whizzes. Come on, do your job. Yeah, I'm excited to ask Sean about um Yeah, because uh Sequoia was also big in whiz. Yeah. Yep.

Uh success stories such as these were once dime a dozen during the go-go years of Silicon Valley when massive startup exits dominated the headlines and made being a venture capitalist one of the hottest jobs in finance. These days, the IPO market is dreary.

Prized startups such as Stripe and SpaceX have chosen to stay private for over a decade, putting their investors in a perpetual holding patter pattern as they await a chance to cash out. Doesn't really matter from a fund performance perspective.

For most LPs, they're happy to hold on to Stripe and SpaceX shares at a high at a high mark. Uh they don't really mind that, but still it's an important factor in terms of getting cash out of these things. That's right. Regulators, meanwhile, have become more cautious about blessing acquisitions.

Google's whiz deal still needs regulatory approval from the Trump administration. We talked to Joe Weisenthal about the new head of the FTC, the new Lena Khan and uh it seems like they will probably be more friendly to steal gets blocked ventures. You imagine? Yeah, it would be very very it's all over.

It's so over if that gets blocked. But but this is a weird one because it's not uh it'd be very hard to make a an argument about a monopoly in the cyber security cloud market. Obviously, we've talked about how Google is third in cloud. They're not even first.

When you look at Adobe and Figma, Adobe is the number one creative suite of apps. And so, it's not like Whiz is going to be competing with Google's core business. Yeah, exactly. It's not really consolidating the search market. I'm sure Amazon and Azure both have cyber security products that compete directly with Wiz.

And so, it's it would be harder to make the argument, at least I think it would be. We'll see what happens. Uh the refu process itself could take years to conclude. So don't buy those vacation homes just yet. Uh if the whiz deal proceeds, investors hope it will pay pave the way for similar startup exits in the future.

Getting the call. When Shaw received Assaf Raport's call, the entrepreneur and his three co-founders hadn't yet saddle settled on a name or a specific plan for the startup beyond wanting to go big in the fast growing world of cyber security. The how and what Shaw said was still waiting to be discovered.

In his head, Shaw called the startup Assafco, a testament to his conviction in Rapaort, the founder. It was completely unexpected. It was it was completely expected and unexpected at the same time because I had been waiting, Shaw said of the 2020 call.

Shaw's hunch about Raport, a dog lover and veteran, which we talked about. They have dogs at the office and I believe their dog is the chief dog officer or something like that. and a veteran of the Israel's Israeli army's elite cyber security unit dated back to 2014 when Sha backed Rapaort's first startup called Adalom.

Uh it was later sold to Microsoft for a disappointing 320 million. But but I love the Wall Street Journal. Uh but Sha felt he had spotted an entrepreneur of rare talent after the call. And yeah, I mean when somebody sold 320, they're in a position where they've gotten tons of experience.

They've known how to run the full playbook, probably hired a great team, can build a team very quickly, and they probably want to go bigger. Uh maybe two orders of magnitude bigger, which is exactly what they did, and they exited for uh 320 million the first one, 32 billion the next one. It's exactly 100 times as big.

Awesome. You love to see ambition like that. Love to see it. Should we talk briefly about the 1x and Nvidia? Sure. Yeah. They're doing a research collaboration. Did you see the the you pulled a picture? All I saw was the picture of the robot holding a jacket, but I thought it was cool. I mean, insane aesthetics.

Very cool. It almost feels like out of sort of Yeezy Yeezy inspired to some degree. Yeah, we're getting somewhere with this where it doesn't look uncanny valley creepily human. It looks more friendly. It doesn't look terrifying. It's not as scary as some of the purely Terminator.

Still be weird to have this thing walking around your house at night while you're sleeping. But I could get used to it. This is this is the friendliest looking humanoid I've seen so far, I think. Y but I like it.

So anyway, developing AI for humanoid robots involves tackling many open research challenges in safety, dexterity, visual understanding, and much more.

It helps to compare notes with other labs tackling similar challenges in order to accelerate progress towards a future of Neo's doing all the tasks needed to keep your human home in order autonomously. To that end, I like 1X's focus on the home. It's It's obviously going to matter a lot to just like pick it.

Focusing on the home is just critical. I I I like 1X's focus on the home. I like Wanderers's focus on the home. I could