Veteran tech journalist Alex Heath joins Sound Ventures as a partner, launching a podcast and staying bullish on personal agents

Speaker 1: And let me also tell you about Cisco. Critical infrastructure for the AI era. Unlock seamless real time experiences and new value with Cisco. We have two guests with us in the TBPN UltraDome. How you guys doing? We're good. Welcome to the show. Partners. Yes. We're partners.

Speaker 7: Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Welcome. Introduce yourselves. Introduce yourselves.

Speaker 7: My name is Guy Oseary. Yeah. From Maverick and also Sound Ventures.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Welcome. And I'm Alex. Yeah. Now with Sound. Yeah. Also running sources still. Okay. Very excited. Yeah. It's been a big week. No no no no on your head. No hat at all. No hat right now.

Speaker 1: We we were debating. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Every time. For the last year, every time I've seen you have the capital

Speaker 1: capital j journalism hat on.

Speaker 3: It's off. But

Speaker 1: it's off now.

Speaker 3: It's off. Okay. Yeah. But How long were you

Speaker 1: a capital j journalist?

Speaker 3: Ten years?

Speaker 1: Ten years?

Speaker 3: Fifteen. Okay. Yeah. Started around in high school.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So

Speaker 3: yeah. And

Speaker 1: then now, capital v venture capitals.

Speaker 3: Capital v. Great.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Capital I, investor.

Speaker 7: Yeah. It it feels we're we're aligned on the vision. Yeah. And really excited to get started. He's this guy's a force. But also a talent. Yeah. You know, like you guys. I mean, there's you guys you guys understand how to work with people and talk to people and help them tell their story. And I think it's so aligned with what I've been doing my whole life as well, which is helping people tell their story. Yeah. And so when we got together, it was it was just magical.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. What are you interested in investing in? We're spending a lot

Speaker 3: of time on on different things. Personal agent space Okay. Very interested in. Yeah. It's very hot, obviously.

Speaker 1: Are you a daily driver of anything yet?

Speaker 3: I'm using everything.

Speaker 1: Everything? Yeah. What's the last agentic thing you did? Did you book a flight? Did you email the CEO of Walmart for a refund on $5 of raspberries? Did hear about this? No. Oh, yeah. Some of these agents are

Speaker 2: very persistent. There's very persistent personal agents where, you know, a lot of like one one of the seemingly now very obvious use cases of agents is just like, hey, like do a bunch of things that would take me a lot of time Yeah. That could maybe save me some money. And when you're using a free agent, you don't care if it's spinning its wheels for for twenty four hours to get you a $10 refund if the refund if it's not costing you anything. Yeah. So apparently, somebody was trying to get a refund on a $5 pack of blueberries they got at Walmart.

Speaker 1: We use raspberries.

Speaker 2: Raspberries. Raspberries. The agent actually reached out to the EA of the CEO of Walmart. So that was the last place to escalate it. It was like, I gotta take this right to the top.

Speaker 3: So these agents are getting crazy. Yeah. They're getting crazy. They're swarming But

Speaker 2: but I guess like re yeah, rewinding a little bit. Guy, you invested in OpenAI and Anthropic like years ago. Hugging Face. Wow. And Hugging Face. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Nice. And so I in some ways, like, you probably, the last few years have been just sitting back in awe. Just basically just getting to like getting to experience your own conviction and and and watching the space evolve. But I think like everyone has got to the point in the last or at least has consistently been feeling like nothing is like settled yet. We have these new kinds of businesses, labs. Some of the labs, you know, are making products, but there's still tons of room for other players to come in and make things. So are you feeling like renewed excitement around Yeah. Early stage?

Speaker 7: When when we did Anthropic and OpenAI, I think we were the only fund that that went in so deep back then.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 7: And it was confusing to some people, but to to us it felt like this was it. This was the time. These were the companies. These were gonna be long standing foundational platforms. And today it's a lot more confusing. I I you know, there's so much going on. And every single week, every single day, you guys are announcing

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 7: People's raises. They're raising now. They're raising now. They're raising now. It's hard to tell, you know It's not as easy as it was for us to to really decipher these are going to be the things people use in ten years.

Speaker 3: Mhmm.

Speaker 7: And and now, it feels like there's so much going on, but I'm also as excited. I'm also as inspired. I I don't I wanna be part of of these exciting companies. We just have to pick right. Yeah. I'm I'm meeting with some really incredible founders and visionaries. It feels really exciting. And so it's like when I'm starting in the music business.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 7: It's like the early days where I got going and you're just getting demos everywhere, you know. You're walking out of a club and you're like, hey, yeah, you're the guy at the here's the demo. Here's my demo. Here's my demo. Here's my demo.

Speaker 2: You're like,

Speaker 7: how can I tell which one of these artists? But if you just if you put enough work in, enough time in and you're diligent, they it starts to, like they start to become a little more obvious. Yeah. And and there wasn't. And initially, had a 100 demos. I literally was, like, 17 years old with a 100 demos. But as you listen to a 100 my first three demos?

Speaker 2: At 17, they were you were People

Speaker 1: I would people that I would

Speaker 7: go out and go, seven let me hear your music. Me hear your music. And, you know, the first three demos I had, I had my favorite one, my favorite two, my favorite, like, in order. But a 100 in, those three are not even in the top 20. Right? Yeah. So you have to just you have to, you know, pattern recognition, you have to do a lot of work, you have to listen, you have to meet a lot of people. And then, through this crazy time, there's it's it's pretty freaking crazy. I think the right things appear. And then Yeah. And then you just have to be there to be part of that. And so I'm still as excited. Yeah. I have we have been able to sit back a little bit and watch our our you know, we we've also not we didn't just invest in those companies, we also invested on the way up. Yeah. So that also keeps you busy. We put a lot of money into Anthropic on the way up. We put a lot of money into OpenAI on the way up. And I think we have close to $1,000,000,000 worth of of money invested into those two companies. Oh. And so so we're not just like laying back, you know?

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 7: But but it is a lot harder today to decipher between what is real, When what is not

Speaker 2: when you make, you know, when you have like two effectively recent investments that are now two of the most important companies in the world. I do feel like the bar goes up on other on other investments because it's like, it suddenly is like, is it is it as thrilling to invest in a company that that can only be a $10,000,000,000 company. Right? When when in when a lot of VCs were very excited to underwrite a company to 10,000,000,000 Yeah. You know, six years ago, even Yeah. Even even during the period that that you were making those two investments.

Speaker 7: Yeah. I I think about it differently. I mean, I have heard some people say, hey, zero to a 100, that's like, it's not a big deal anymore. Yeah. You know? I just like I I I've always been attracted to talent and and visionaries. So I don't start with, okay, this you know, we're we're fortunate to be in these two incredible companies. But there's a lot in between and there's a lot that's to come. And I I just love sitting with a founder and problem solving and figuring out how we're gonna get from a to b. And sometimes it's sometimes it's where you get in. I saw a lot of people, you know, John from, you know, BetaWorks did really well on Hugging Face. Know, came in. We did well. But he came in where, you know, at seed. Yeah. So he did really well. And but sometimes it depends where you get in Yeah. As as well. But for me, what excites me is the same thing. It's been constant my whole life, which is surround yourself with really really incredible brilliant people who are trying to change the world.

Speaker 2: How does identifying creative or musical talent differ from start up entrepreneurial talent? Because I'm sure there's some some common threads, but whereas in music, you might back a musician that's that that has like a you maybe know they have a drug problem and and and that's part of part of the music. But in in in startups, you know, if if founder that's like has like some crazy crazy crazy stuff going on in their personal life, maybe it's like, hey, you should figure that out before you build a, you know, massive team and you're managing people and stuff like that. But there has to be like a bunch of common common ground between the two.

Speaker 7: Well, was able to transition seamlessly because of music. My job was to identify artists before anyone had heard of them and to sign them very quickly and to then help them reach an audience. So when I meet a founder, I I I it actually feels the same. I I always say founders are the rock are the rock stars too. Because when they walk in and they also have their music that they want to share with the world. So I have to identify that founder, same way I used to identify music artists.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 7: And then go, this guy has or she or whoever have music that is so good. Oh, I love that chorus. That's a great idea. You mean a car shows up and it picks you up and it takes you or you mean an apartment people could share and you're like, oh, wow. That's a hit song.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 7: So I I I always listen to every pitch like it's like it's a song or or an album or a music artist. And I just go, that guy's got the talent. He's a rock star. We just need to make sure the world knows it. We need to make sure that people are aware of what he's building. Let's go get a base. Let's go let's go create find that audience first and tell the story. So for me, it's I I feel like I've been doing the same job since I was a teenager, which is, you know, identifying talent and helping them helping them reach an audience. But music is the constant. I'm always listening for the chorus. Yeah. You know?

Speaker 1: And if

Speaker 7: I don't hear the chorus, I'm like, I'm not sure about the song. This is know, or the performance of the song or don't think we can I don't think this one works? You know, so so it all it always comes from that. The DNA is is Yeah. Is being around music artists.

Speaker 2: Is that in in in tech world, you see entrepreneurs that are truly visionaries and they're seeing opportunities before they're obvious and pursuing those and they have an idea of the way that the world should be and they're trying to sort of mold the world into that state. And then you have actually the majority of entrepreneurs which are just like, they don't know something's an opportunity until they see someone else pursuing it. Right. They're like, that seems Right. Like a good idea. I'm gonna do that. Is the same thing in music where, you know, you have somebody that has like truly a new sound and they have a life experience Yeah. That they're trying to like, they need they feel like they need to create art out of. And then there's the the follow on of like, oh, yeah. Wanna back cover band entrepreneur? Yeah. Cover band entrepreneurs. That might be a

Speaker 7: good When we started the record label you had Jimmy Iving here the other When we started the record label, it was just like four of us.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 7: Small company. Was Madonna's company. Yeah. So that's cool. But we're still there's just no one knew what to make of it.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 7: And Jimmy was on fire. Interscope Records was on fire. And and it I was always thinking, if I don't act quickly, he's just gonna pay them more and get them. Yeah. So and we were competing with big labels. Jimmy was the the guy who I always looked at, like, hey, he's he's he's he he can he can just come in here and just Yeah. Wow them and get them. So not only do I I have to I have to hear your song and decide right then and there, I want to do it. So Yeah. I don't have any background. Yeah. I don't have, oh, they oh, you know, biggest successes were always the things no one else wanted.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Speaker 7: But, you know, Alanis Morissette, I mean, she tells the story where every single label passed. I didn't have any of that history. She came in she was in my office with her producer, Glenn Ballard. They played me one song, which is called Perfect, and within thirty seconds or forty seconds, I think I was like, I'm in. And and and so that Muse, you know, the band from England, came to to LA. Yeah. I flew them in because I like their demo. They flew they they did one after their they they performed a few songs. After the first song, I stopped them. Said, we're ready to go. And they're like, we flew all the way from London. Can we just play out the next few songs? I'm like, of course. But I just want you to know. Mhmm. So I developed that that act quick intuition Yeah. And it really just came from I had to, or else someone else would just Yeah. Figure it out and Yeah. Overpay and then I couldn't do the Well,

Speaker 2: so many of the the market dynamics that you see in music. Friend of mine, Zach Bia was telling me about like some of the process of signing the artists that he works with, where these artists are like, you know, the same thing that happens on on at like with in in tech where like some x account pops up and maybe there's like a team attached to it. There's no launch video yet, but you see a bunch of people following this person and then you hear that they're meeting with this firm and this firm and that firm and and the whispers start going around. Same thing in music where like an artist might one day have no followers on Instagram, be totally totally under the radar, living like in their parents' basement, but they have some little bit of magic.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: And then soon enough, they're like doing a roadshow basically with different labels and then you as a label need to be like, well, how much can we how much can we invest in this person? How big do we want to bet? We need to get to them we need to get to them first, but and then you're also sometimes competing on price, but other times you're just competing on like, well, how how great a partner can I be to this artist? So like, I can see how music translates just so well into venture because the exact same thing. Venture is not a game. Once somebody is talented and they're known, it's like very obvious. Obviously, you want to be

Speaker 7: It's harder to get in then.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 7: And it's the same with I have competed when things are big. I remember when Prodigy, everyone wanted them and I I flew to London like in twice in four days

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 7: To try to get that and I got it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Every VC wanted a story like that where they're like Yeah. I flew to this place. We

Speaker 7: have those. We we we we have all of those. But, you know, you know, you look at when we did Anthropic when we did we did SPPs in Anthropic, we couldn't a lot of people were not you guys to fill? Yeah. Tough to fill. A few times people didn't get it. Of course, now, you know, we're we're begging to get more of

Speaker 1: it. Yeah.

Speaker 7: So I just again, I always go back to don't listen to anybody. You know, you know, you talked about I think the other day also you talked about blinders. Did you talk about blinders or something on the show?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Jimmy Ivein has that concept.

Speaker 7: Yeah. So that that

Speaker 1: Horse blinders.

Speaker 7: So our I We have a mutual friend and Yeah. He's my mentor. His name is David Geffen. Yeah. And David said to me when I was like 21 Yeah. He told me that story. Yeah. I didn't know this. I he said, you know, Guy, you need to be a racehorse.

Speaker 3: Mhmm.

Speaker 7: And I was like he goes, you know what racehorses do? And I go, yeah, they race. I I I had no idea. Yeah. And he goes, no, no. They wear blinders.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 7: And so, just race your own race. Because if you don't wear your blinders if horses don't wear blinders, they could literally they could kill they could die. They could trip over their they'd look over and they could trip over. They could break their legs. And and so it really stuck with me that you guys talked about it. That really that that concept stuck with me and I I really try to just not pay attention, you know. When we did Anthropic and OpenAI, a lot of people doubted it. And and we we, you know, we we didn't have any doubt. Mhmm. We were we were determined to do it and and I I wanna stick with we're we're we're I'm really trying to continually connect to that of not listening to all the noise. Of course, data is important and we wanna get more details and more information and we're structured.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 7: But that gut that has gotten me here, I need to continually

Speaker 2: respect. Alex, on your side, you've spent how is it fifteen years? Decade? Yeah. Fifteen years ish? Did it take Do you feel like it took a few sort of cycles to hone your your intuition around around companies? Because in in our first conversations, I was always impressed with your ability to just see directly through the marketing on so many different companies. Like, some people like marketing just works on them. Marketing works on all of us. Advertising just works period. But like marketing works marketing and good comms work like too well on us Yeah. There's some people

Speaker 1: that are just like, this is a good story, so I'm chasing it

Speaker 2: from the capital journalism. For you, you'd be like, you would I would I would We would be talking about something and you would be aware of like a dynamic around a company that no other journalist And had talked at times, like you would be like, yeah, the story's not for me. But you were like clued in on a story and you knew exactly what was going on with the company. And then in the example I'm thinking of, won't name the company, only six months later did it did it has it even started percolating up that that that dynamic is going on. Mhmm. Yeah. And so I feel like for me and and at least personally, like I had to see the cycle of like company like starts, gets hot, attracts a bunch of capital, but sometimes you have this intuition around the company where like

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Something doesn't really like feel right Mhmm. About this company even though it has a lot of momentum.

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's it. Yeah. I don't I don't know where that comes from except that I've I've been fortunate to spend time with a lot of like the best founders in the world. Sure. I mean, just had Zuck on the podcast. Sam on them before that. Yep. Incredible lineup coming up. Yeah. And I've gotten to know these people over years and years and years. So when you see like the people at the apex crushing it and who are at high integrity or beasts at the game on the field, you you can quickly see when someone is pretending.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And I just try to stay really close to like what's actually happening Mhmm. And ask around, do my diligence, leave no stone unturned. And that's got me well so far. But like, the thing you said about like six months later you saw it, I have that a lot where I'm like, oh, this seems really interesting. This seems like everyone's gonna be talking about this and then it happens. And it's happened enough in times to where I'm

Speaker 2: like figure out a way to make some money

Speaker 3: on it. Well, And like what Guy was saying about his gut and this is where I think we really hit it off is, yeah, you have to trust your gut. Like if you can get enough pattern matching recognition in, it's just instinctual.

Speaker 1: How do you think the podcast will evolve in this new role?

Speaker 3: It's going full tilt. I mean, first two episodes again were were Sam and and Mark. I can't share the names, but it's it's going.

Speaker 1: It's I just mean like like there's there's interesting ways when you have position in a company. The the the critiques always give me like Yeah. They're only having them on the show because they have a bag or whatever. Yeah. But when I look at like what Dorkash has done with Maddox and Raynor like explaining his expertise Mhmm. It doesn't feel like a sales pitch for that company at all. It's actually just tapping the network at a deeper level. Yeah. And at the same time, if I'm a founder and you're the place that I go to hear Mark Zuckerberg talk about his vision, that adds value and attracts even if it's not a company that you're actively investing in because you're not doing publics. Mhmm. So I'm I'm wondering if there will be more like less like this person's in the funding track or

Speaker 3: Mhmm.

Speaker 1: More like three sixty views? Do you want to climb the mountain and do all the max seven CEOs? Is that the goal? Or is it more like go deeper with certain experts, build this community of people with particular philosophy? There's like a whole bunch of different ways I could see it evolving. I'm wondering if you have any particular The max seven, I feel pretty good about.

Speaker 3: Yeah. You're on that

Speaker 1: track for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3: I feel great about it. Yeah. I always love the like I love I love putting the people at the top with the people who are up and comers.

Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Context. I've got to and from base 10 on next week. Amazing.

Speaker 4: Like Legend.

Speaker 3: Legend. Yep. Incredible company. Yep. He's incredible. And, you know, he's he's obviously crushing. He's he's huge.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: But like he's not he's not Zuck yet. Yeah. So but I I wanna bridge that world because like this is all one world we're in. Like, everyone talks like the Zucks wanna know what the Tuans think, vice versa. Yeah. Wanna learn from each other. So I like I like building that cinematic universe. Sure. And it's like my taste. It's like I wanted to have that combo with Tuan which is coming out next week because like inference is just so important right now. Yeah. And it's like, everyone's trying to figure it out. Yeah. And so, you're also getting my POV of what I think is interesting with my guests, and I'm booking everything myself. Sure. And I think that's only gonna get better because, again, like sources is separate. I mean, obviously, I'm with the item with sound. But, you know, we'll have I'll have people on the pod that, you know, aren't we're we're not investors in. I'll have Competitors. I'll have other VCs on.

Speaker 1: Of course.

Speaker 3: It's about the ecosystem. Sure. And I I think the brand is important. Like, I wanna

Speaker 1: invest in the brand. What's the future of the writing newsletter? I imagine that you're not gonna be able to put this pen down forever.

Speaker 3: Like Well, yeah. It's interesting.

Speaker 1: There's I gonna be times when you just want to get something out.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I think, you know, I I wanna use the newsletter which has just an incredible audience Yeah. To to share what I'm seeing. And it's really like you're getting like an even deeper Mhmm. Sense of what I'm seeing because now I'm like in the room in a way that I was kind of in. But I was always like, when you're a journalist and you're in the room, you like get brought into the room and then escorted right back out. And now it's like I get to hang out in the room. That's so you're I'm like, I'm sitting with it and I'm marinating on it. And so when I write like a a piece, like, I'm thinking on something on personal agents actually right now. Yeah. It's informed by a lot of conversations. I'm not Sure. Gonna share all those. Right? Like, obviously, confidentiality is Yeah. Very important. But I think it's gonna make the perspectives I'm sharing a lot better. But look, I you you started this like hanging up the the capital j journalism hat. Right? There is a sense of like journalism in the traditional sense Yeah.

Speaker 1: Breaking screws.

Speaker 3: Of the and we we were talking about this when I was on the show before Yeah. Like the leaks and all the things that I've been going for over the years. Obviously, not gonna do that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: But you know what? Like, I've done that

Speaker 1: for ten years. Yeah. You have like, I'm very excited to read this take on personal agents. Yeah. I think a lot of people have been thinking about the the way this category evolves. Do you have any interest in turning that into a video essay direct to camera, talking to the camera, putting it on the same feeds like what Dwarkash does when he writes an essay. He also has a video version. Yeah. Could just be a good product but also Maybe. Reach more people. People have

Speaker 3: asked me to do that. Yeah. Have I another job.

Speaker 1: I don't know if that makes sense for like other reports where it's like here's the here's some facts. Yeah. It's more of a quick hit. Yeah. But if I'm like getting like a quarterly thesis from you like

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 1: Maybe it's a twenty minute video. I I would watch that.

Speaker 3: Okay. Well

Speaker 1: And it just gives me more optionality to, like, I can browse it in the email. I can Yeah. So like with Dorkhesh, I get his emails. I also see him on YouTube, and then I get in the podcast And sometimes I'll be in the video mood. Sometimes and I'm I'm I'm multi platform with a lot of these creators and

Speaker 3: so I need AI to help me with this, guys. I'm gonna be honest.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't

Speaker 3: But but you want the rawness of the person, which of course, but like, I think the pod is conversations for now. Yeah. Branch it out. Maybe it's more

Speaker 1: things a lot of the platforms are very receptive to multi product feeds. Yeah. Like having multiple media products within a feed. I've thought a

Speaker 3: lot about this.

Speaker 1: I've surprised that we've been able to do it with a twenty minute version of the show and a three hour version of the show dropping in the same feed every single day. Yeah. And it hasn't been

Speaker 3: You don't care.

Speaker 1: Bad. No. People just pick whatever they want. Yeah. And then if there's a hero interview, we get Yeah. You know, big interview with someone, that goes out as another one. Yeah. And that's its own thing. This is maybe

Speaker 3: a phase two thing. I mean, I have Yeah. More work. Eight eight incredible guests lined up

Speaker 1: Yeah. Over the next

Speaker 3: few weeks. Yeah. So it's

Speaker 1: like I gotta

Speaker 3: get those out.

Speaker 1: That's great.

Speaker 3: I'm gonna mess up with Guy next week doing some. I'm doing Yeah. Four next week. Yeah. I wanna get all those out. Yeah. And then, yeah, maybe like the personal agents Yeah.

Speaker 1: That's like a has the lens changed when if you think about a mag seven CEO, there's the the getting the scoop in the interview, the capital j journalist interview in that conversation. Mhmm. And I think that you can there's a bunch of different ways to do that. But then there's also the, you know, what is it what what will the next generation of great founders get out of this particular conversation with this Mag seven CEO? Are you starting to put on that hat of like I don't really think of

Speaker 3: it that way. I think about like what do I wanna know. Mhmm. And Yeah. And I really care about strategy. I really care about connecting the dots. Like Mhmm. Getting them to say something they've never said, which you saw with, you know, the last two pods. Yeah. Yeah. And that's still gonna be the thing. Sure. And that's that is journalism. Yeah. Like that that I mean, you're getting interesting and facts Yeah. Just a little

Speaker 1: bit of content. You can shake some

Speaker 3: off the top points Yeah. Get some And like, you know, these people are are doing a lot. And so it's like they're they're out there, but like, I I don't know. I think I get a lot out of my conversations with them. Yeah. No, they're great. I don't I don't think I'm gonna change much. Cool. I mean, I think the only thing is like, yeah, I'm not gonna be like leaking memos anymore. I used to do leaks about one. Companies worrying about leaks. Yeah. And that was one of my favorite don't kinds of stories. Think you're gonna have that anymore. I'm not gonna do do that anymore.

Speaker 1: More leak in 2027, No. You get a good

Speaker 3: A decade of that and I'm I'm good.

Speaker 1: You're hanging it up.

Speaker 2: Is the Is now a good time to become the next Alex Heath? Somebody's like twenty twenty twenty two.

Speaker 3: I think that's great. Yeah. I mean, think it's really hard right now if you're early because it's just that the media the traditional media environment is so challenged structurally and I feel like places aren't feel

Speaker 1: like the ads product, the sponsorship product He's saying traditional.

Speaker 3: No. I'm saying traditional.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, like Oh, okay. So like, he would start in the newsroom. Would you

Speaker 3: how would you how would you, you know I've been fortunate people care because Yeah. I've broken a lot of big stories. Yeah. I've gotten a lot

Speaker 1: of big interviews. You left And

Speaker 3: I would came up in an environment where like Yeah. I was in a newsroom learning from incredible people. Gone on to do incredible things and run now in many these newsrooms. So I don't know how you do that now. Like, a lot of places aren't hiring. Mhmm. Their traffic's declining. They haven't made the pivot to like what we're doing, this direct thing, like Yeah. Subscriptions, like streaming. I it's really tough. I've thought about it. I don't know how you would break out right now unless you just kind of are

Speaker 1: You like a

Speaker 3: start? You maniacally focus on one thing and become the best in the world at that, which is how I started. Yeah. Which is like, I'm gonna be the best in the world at social media, covering Snap back in the day during And the then I was breaking a ton of news on Snap. Yeah. And then I got noticed and then I was like, I can shift this into other companies and keep shifting it and shifting it. Yeah. So I would still say that's it. You have to maniacally focus on one thing.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Mean, definitely It niche and beat reporting.

Speaker 3: But it's intersection of niche and matters. It can't be Yeah. You gotta catch What do you

Speaker 2: think about the possibility of instinct having a a bigger valuation than Snap?

Speaker 3: I think I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. I it's crazy out there, guys.

Speaker 1: It's also a new category.

Speaker 3: And What do you guys think about Instinct?

Speaker 1: I think that they're in a unique position because they're a startup so they can like, if there's, like, rough edges, like, those can get those can get ironed out and there's there's more forgiveness, I think, as opposed to Yeah. If you're a startup. Yeah. As opposed to, like, the muse agent is gonna be, like, congressional hearing if it something goes poorly. Whereas Instinct is gonna be like, look, it's a start up. You knew you were you were an early adopter. Let's give them the benefit of it out here. Yeah. Other Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. To me, the the most interesting dynamic right now is because of the people's fear around AI, there's like way greater willingness to try new products because you don't wanna be left behind. Mhmm. Right? And so you may somebody may have been trying and being a daily active user of a variety of AI products for years now. And still, they're like, they wanna try the new thing because one, the space is progressing. There's so much room for new products and new categories. But then there's also this fear in the back of your mind of like, if I don't try the new thing, then like, I'll Yeah. You know, the the permanent underclass meme. And that's just consistently created this sort of second mover advantage, third mover advantage. Sure. And then AI brands, once they're big, they accumulate they've been accumulating baggage. Right? And so people are like, you know, maybe they have some maybe they're just like they're excited to share and talk about the new thing in a way that that they wouldn't be even products that they're using day to day. So I think it creates a big opportunity for for startups. But I think that we're I'm very interested to see how the personal agents market ends up comparing to just like the frontier model Mhmm. Inference market because it seems like every company is gonna build a personal agent. Many of them already have, especially if you count LLMs which do have agentic or or just like chat apps which do have agentic capabilities. But it's gonna be an absolute it's gonna be an absolute network

Speaker 1: effect and you get to some sort of take rate on agentic commerce, like you buy your car through it and they make $500. Yeah. Like that's a very, very

Speaker 3: Which Zach told me will be the business for me as a take rate do and

Speaker 1: he has a network effect Yeah. Thing to it.

Speaker 3: So Yeah.

Speaker 1: Instinct certainly challenger.

Speaker 3: Are I'm really interested in the idea of network effects with agents. Yeah. And and since Instinct's doing it, Town is doing it Yep. Meta's gonna do it. Yep. And maybe that is the next

Speaker 1: At the same time Network effect. Tricky it's if you can point an agent and say, like, get me off of this thing. Right.

Speaker 3: Well, they're not people, so it's like, do you care? Yeah.

Speaker 1: Do care if your

Speaker 3: agents are in network if it's

Speaker 1: But if you're like this one is the one that's never had a leak or never had a crash or never had a hack Yeah. Then you do stick around. Yeah. In theory, like, the time to build a new social network would be today because you could say, like, go through open up my Snap account or LinkedIn and scrape out every single person I have. They don't get a say in it and go add them on this new network. Right? Because like that that was like export the contact book was like Yeah. An arbitrage that closed. Yeah. And it's kinda opening back up. You think? I think so.

Speaker 2: I'm I'm waiting for, you know, the the criticism of social media was always like, we created social media to be social and it's made us less social than ever. And with personal agents, it's like It's made us less. It's like less, well, less like personal. Like, we don't have We're not gonna have personal relationships with like service providers and variety of things because it's like even even people with some of these new functionalities which is like, sorry grandma, I don't wanna talk about the road trip that we're going on, just talk to my agent. Yeah. You know. And so the new criticism will be like, we're no we're no one's talking to each other. It's only agents You know, we're communicating through like a Intermediate. Can on a string or whatever.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: We we we gotta hop on with Mitesh from Positron.

Speaker 2: We should This was great. I'm super excited for you guys. Thank you. Big big of both of you.

Speaker 1: We'll let hop on.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Sounds good.

Speaker 2: You guys are gonna absolutely together.

Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Let me tell you about MongoDB. What's the only faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just build AI, own the data platform that powers it.