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What does he say? Got a post here from Hammont over at Lightspeed. Wait. Oh, really? Okay, let's see if your. If your new app works. Tyler over at light speed. The curse of discipline is that every day looks the same. The curse of indiscipline is that every year does. That's some wisdom. The curse of discipline is that every day looks the same. The curse of indiscipline. This one every year does. Crazy numbers. Whoa. I did not realize not every day you see a VC other than the true putting up numbers like this. True, true. Very, very. He went mainstream. Yeah, very good point. He went mainstream. You're going mainstream. You're going mainstream. With some advice for everyone in the boys group. If you. If you have a boys group chat, take the picture of Adam Silver, Josh Kushner, and Bob Iger and send it to your boys chat and just say us. It's going. It's going to 3K for sure. It's going. It's going. It's going. It's ripping. Well, thank you.

It's good news for the gamers in the audience. If you're a gamer, the US Government wants you to consider becoming an air traffic controller. You've had the practice. Now it's time to go into the real world and become an air traffic controller. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says a federal campaign specifically targeting gamers has helped the FAA hire more than 2,000 people to train as controllers, putting the agency at 94% of its hiring goal with another 200 or another 2,000 plus candidates moving through the pipeline. Duffy launched the effort in April, arguing that the government needed to look beyond its traditional recruiting pool and that gamers already practice some of the skills controllers need, including rapidly processing information, maintaining focus and keeping track of multiple things at once. You don't necessarily need a four year degree either. The FAA accepts candidates with qualifying work experience, education or combination of the two, ideally a Steam account as well. It's also a potentially lucrative career. The median air traffic controller earned $144,580 in 2024 according to the BLS, while the top 10% of air traffic controllers earned more than $210,000. Getting the job, however, is another matter. Applicants generally have to be US citizens under 31 years old, pass medical and security screenings and take the FAA's three and a half hour air Traffic Skills Assessment, which is designed to predict whether they have the cognitive aptitude for the work. Those who make it through then undergo extensive training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City before continuing their training at an air traffic facility. The recruiting push comes as the FAA tries to dig itself out of a long standing staffing shortage. A Government Accounting Accountability Office report published in December found that the controller workforce had shrunk 6% over the past decade even as air traffic increased 10%. So the number of air traffic controllers relative to the amount of flights was decreasing. Really, really in a bad way. At the end of fiscal 2025, the FAA employed 13,000 controllers and shortages at critical facilities were were already contributing to delays and cancellations. We've all seen the reports of those. The problem in the chat says being an controller must be like being a lifeguard for planes. Just MF's doing laps all day. Just shoot me instead. Say you're not. Speak for yourself. Some people like controlling air traffic. Yeah, it's the same thing as playing SimCity. I don't know. You think you could make it? No, not for everyone. Not for everyone but the few, the proud, the air traffic controllers. Do you think there's specific games that they recruited from. I mean, you have to imagine starcraft RTS is better. Yeah. I would go with a starcraft player over FPS. Player. Player all day. Yeah. I don't know. All right.

Online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces. And now with AI agents, let's head over to the timeline. Alfred Wall force over at Listen Labs. Been on the show before. Coming in with one of the hottest takes. Yeah, Got some pushback. Said founders only send investor updates. Yeah, give me the boat horn when you're winning. Listen has sent three in its history, all fundraise announcements. Nobody reads a bad update helps. They just mark you as dying. I think your crazy voice sounds crazier than mine. Let me, let me check. Oh, it sounds about the same. It sounds about the same. But yeah, this is just, I think this is terrible advice, really. Except if you're winning, I think it should be founders. If you're winning, only send investor updates. Yes, I know. It's just like, it's just such bad advice because I've had so many, I mean, I've had instances, like kind of surprise and delight moments where I haven't been getting an update from a company in a year and I just assume the company is like dead and dying and then they pop up with an update. I had this happen where a company that I thought was fully dead, I didn't even want to. I almost felt bad asking. It was a small angel check. I thought they were dead until I got an update that I needed to sign something because they were selling for like, wow, quarter of a billion. So anyways, I just think, like, investors. Yeah. If you have 10 investors and you send a bad update, a lot of people aren't going to be able to help. But if there's a chance that one helps, then that's great. And even if you're not winning, you can show momentum, which is going to like, updates are how you build trust. It's how people start to process. How is this team and this founder performing? Even if they're not winning yet, Are they making progress? Are they iterating quickly? It's how. And if you're not sending any updates and then suddenly you need to raise more money, like you need a bridge round or something like that, the likelihood of getting that round done is much lower because you just don't have the, you don't have the trust. People can't get a good read on. Like, okay, do I believe, do I have more conviction in this team today than when I invested? Even though they haven't figured it out yet. Okay. Right. So I'm taking the other side of this with some reasonableness. Maybe, I don't know, you can debate me on this. So do you think it's important to send investor updates when you're a pre seed company. Like purely in the idea maze, very early stage. The revenue is zero every month. You're just sort of like, you know, know, out figuring out the first product. I mean at that, at that stage, it, it depends. Hopefully you only have like one or two investors. Yeah. And, but, but it's still. So you're maybe just, it's still important to see like it's, it's valuable to see a snapshot. It doesn't have to be the, the if, at that stage, if I get an investor update, that's paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs. I'm like super, super bearish. Yeah, totally. But it's still better to just have like you even quick bullet points. Hey, here's what we're working on. Yeah, we'll come, we'll, we'll, we'll have another update in a month. So. Because listen, Labs is only a three year old company and they raised their Series A in April of 2025. So. And he, and there's a, there's a rumored Series C going on right now. And so if he sent three investor updates, that might be April of 2025, January of 2026 and August of 2026, which is like every six months. Which doesn't feel like that crazy of a cadence. It's like, yeah, it'. It's not monthly, but it's a pretty regular pace because they're raising money regularly. So if it's very different, if it's like, okay, this is like a more like less like hot time in the market. You're not going to be fundraising every three months. You're going to be raising money every 18 months. Realistically, every 24 months. It's a harder industry. And so as an investor with a Series A check, I want to know, okay, how much Runway is actually left. Yeah, because, but that's not the equation here. So a little bit of a, of a unique. This post reveals a little bit more about the level of fundraising activity that you can only send investor updates and still be emailing all your investors every six months. Yeah. So there's a little bit of that. And a lot of this comes down to Alfred. Listen, Labs has been crushing. I remember when they first came on the show, it seemed like the company made a lot of sense. They, they quickly raised, follow on rounds from great investors. Sure they're still doing well. You wouldn't post this if you weren't winning. Still. Sure they're doing well, but like just really really bad. Just really, really bad advice. It's not one size fits all advice. I completely agree. The other. Yeah. And the other. The other thing I would say is, like, how do you know a company that's building in public is struggling? They stop building in public. No, they haven't. Like, I've seen this, like, at least 10 times right now. Yep. You see the company that. That's got all this momentum. Founders, like, I'm sharing our. Here's our best, because they're just proud of it. And they usually will string together, like, six months of that. Yep. And then they go dark. It's like, oh, what, What? You don't want to build in public when you're not growing anymore and revenue is declining? Or. Or you were. You were a thin wrapper, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. The other side of this is this. Nobody reads a bad update and helps. They just mark you as dying. I think that Maybe that's not 100% accurate, but the thing is, like, you're dying unless you're winning. Yeah. I think there is something where in investor updates, a good investor update can be a pitch for the company a little bit, and it can be an opportunity for the founder to sort of rehearse their next rounds, pitch with their current investors, and say, okay, let me restate the vision, the mission, the progress, what we're doing. And instead of. Instead of framing things as, like, I need all these different things, it's more just like, I'm going, I'm working. And then also there's the dynamic of sometimes companies stop sending investor updates because there's a tier one, like, partner on the board who's, like, shepherding the company. And all of the activity really happens at the board meeting. And maybe one of those early angels has a bigger stake in a competitor. And so you don't actually want to share the update broadly. But the board meeting is still happening. There's still, like, oversight and infrastructure around the business. And so, in fact, you're getting something that's bigger and more important than an investor update, which is a board deck and a board meeting. It's just not being shared to all the investors. Yeah. The other thing about updates is they just keep companies top of mind. Like, I have a friend, I have a friend. He has a bootstrap company. He effectively sends a monthly update, and it gets him so many customers. Just at the top of the inbox, he's like, hey, I'm trying to connect to this company. And people just loop them in all the time. So it's amazing way to just stay top of mind. Yeah, that's happened a few times. Like companies that I'm not even invested in, I get on the investor update list and I'll just be together. The other thing is, like, if you're not updating somebody, like, I had one of the 70 odd angel investments that I've made, like, hadn't heard from them in a year and then they texted and said, hey, are you free to catch up? And the ask was basically like, will you do a bridge round? And it's like, yeah, I can ask all the questions to try to understand what has happened between now and when the investment was made. But it's so much different to be getting like those updates in real time, seeing how they're dealing with adversity, seeing how, how they're building moment momentum as a company and yeah. So anyways, don't do this. Just don't do it. Don't do it in every case. Don't listen to Alfred, the founder. I'm sure it applies to some companies. I'm sure it applies to some companies. I'm fully, I can fully get behind not sharing up. If you have a ton of. What if you raise money every month, if you have a ton of money, you're only sending fundraising announcements. Does that. If you have a ton of. If you have like a really kind of crazy cap table, I think it can be. I think it can be fair to. And you're in a competitive category. I think it can be fair to say like, we're keeping these numbers closely held. Yeah, we're going to specific numbers. Or, or even just say like, hey, we're basically sending updates to people that have invested like more than a million dollars. Right? Yeah. Or like leads threshold. But anyways, very, very funny, very funny post. But the timeline in turmoil. We definitely got the people going and we should have Alfred back on the show to get an update on the company. They must be crushing. This is the only thing you post when you're just on fire. Yeah. He must be ready to send another update. What's Churn, Walk us through the funnel. Pull up the slides. I want to see them.

Trust in these AI outputs and that's what is bringing all the growth to our doorsteps. Yeah, unpack a little bit about. I was just reading on hacker news, the death of the mid tier engineer. You either need a vibe coder who can just hammer prompts or you need a real experienced expert architect to make any headway. And the messy middle is getting much messier with endless code. Huge PRs, huge code reviewing steps that are unmanageable without AI. What is the correct balancing act that company should be pulling off to actually move quickly, not run up the budget, but still be able to understand their system and get a good result? Yeah, it's pure chaos right now. I mean especially like the recent inflection point we have seen with these agents becoming more and more capable. Like in the last, I would say three to six months have been amazing with of these models like Opus 4.5 being so capable and being able to run for longer periods of time. And what that means is that the inner loop of coding is now fully automated. Like you can just go from idea to code without even going through planning process of Linear and Jira tickets anymore. Even Linear famously did a blog post that issue systems are dead, which is a truth. Like now your ideas are just being translated to code directly. Yeah, and it's not just the developers writing code now you are seeing, as you said, like product managers, even designers who are non technical in terms of coding capabilities are now actually opening pull requests. And on top of that we are now seeing every company wants to be a coding company. Like now we are seeing Spotify release a coding app. I mean Linear is writing code, Notion is writing code, datadog wants to write code or Sentry, everyone's writing code. Right. So what that is leading to is like a massive backlog of the code changes. You now have to validate and understand those massive outputs and then shift to production. So the role of human has become more of a reviewer now. So you're every day you're waking up, you're deciding which AI task I take to completion, where do I add my taste. And it's a taste thing, it's a judgment thing now which is scarce now. So that's what we are helping scale. So what Code Rabbit does.

And Kushner and you know, obviously what he's been doing and always, you know, hey, every day you got to throw in a Trump connection somewhere. Sure. So. So the. What I'm interested in though, and I'm known. But. But you said, you said so. So I haven't been following the. The Vegas team at all or anything in the NBA. The opportunity that there'll be a Vegas team. No, but, but my question was like, is it possible that they always wanted the Lakers and they wanted. And this was going on in the background and they just were using that the Vegas. Not what I was told they wanted a great team. And this happened over the last hundred hours. What is the shape of Las Vegas sports these days? I know teams have relocated there and there's F1 and. But is. Is there like an indigenous fan base that's strong enough? Is the indigenous fan base. They can't believe how big it is. Listen, I was, I was, I was there the day that he announced the Vegas Golden Knights. Obviously, the first year going to the Stanley cup helped. I mean, that crowd is probably in the top five best crowds in hockey. Well, everyone go. You know, people go there for road trips. Like they go when. When teams play, you know, the Raiders, the Raiders stadium, Allegiance Stadium is amazing. Is great. They've won. You know, Vegas is very hard to win at. And people laugh at me when I say this, but, you know, eating has become the next act and it becomes eating versus Cirque du Soleil. It used to be eating and then show. Now eating is actually an activity. And so you're competing with eating over the last five years because of the chef brands and everything else that's out there. And so I think they think, you know, the A's are really going to make a lot of sense. And listen, if you look at the Knights and you look at where the Raiders are, I mean, 10 years ago you were concerned about gambling. Now Kalshee has you gambling on what flights are late. We've gone from, oh, my God. When I asked Gary Bettman that day when they said they were moving to Vegas, he said, oh, no, we're going to have. The odds will be off the board at the two closest casinos to T Mobile Arena. We're concerned. Now you look today and you look at the prediction markets and we're literally betting on toad races. Every two seconds is pretty.

Basketball and he will bring championships back to la. So Magic Johnson is optimistic about this deal. Weirdly, this is making me optimistic on L. A. Overall, I've had a generally bad outlook. I have had extreme confidence that the weather is going to be very nice for a long time, but that's really been the only thing I'm willing to really lean on. Yeah. But this is giving me a slightly more positive outlook. And you've been pitching thrive on your new incubation. The Pothole Company of Los Angeles. The Pothole Filling Company of Los Angeles. Huge opportunity. It's really balance here for potholes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Hiring the best research. No, I want somebody. I want somebody to do this. Figure out how to fix potholes. Yeah. Quickly. I think it starts with its own satellite constellation. You have to put up 10,000 satellites in low earth orbit with cameras pointed with small. Small, effectively missiles fired at potholes. Yes. And then a laser that sort of like melts the, the debris down to fill in the hole. Yeah, it just sort of. You bring the molten asphalt up to space. It comes down, warms up as it travels through the atmosphere, lands directly in the pothole and smushes in, fills it in. But, but you know, people are always saying, oh, why is like you go to la, every other car is a G wagon. Well, you know why? Because the roads are absolutely terrible. You pretty much need something that's four wheel drive. Yeah. Otherwise you're going to have a bad time. I was talking to a. I was talking to a Maybach owner a couple nights ago and he had blown out multiple tires in the last year. I've blown out multiple tires last year. It's a disaster. The Pothole Company of Los Angeles. It's a banger idea, right? It's a banger. It's a banger idea. Yeah. I might become the Batman of potholes. Sneaking out late at night. Yeah, Look, I could go out in the suit. You could, you could. Yeah. Like that guy who was cleaning up the FDNY corner call box. Like same thing. That's right. Potholes in la. They're really, really bad. Every day I drive to work and I have to swerve into the other lane to avoid one on this one particular road that's just been a disaster for the last six months. Anyway, the last quote related to this deal, as lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become the, the stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world. Kushner and Iger said in a statement they said they have immense respect for Jerry and Jenny Buss and intend to build on the family's legacy. I don't know what you're laughing at. Compete at the highest level and serve this extraordinary team, its fans and the city of Los Angeles. If approved, the deal would give the Lakers their third controlling ownership of potholes. I think he got DT and Tyler says he's gonna film the missions. This would just be absolutely riveting content. You're out on the 4:05 2:00am, just you and a nasty pothole and a little bit of traffic and a little bit of asphalt slathering it in there. Right? Is that what you're doing? Well, my big issue is when they. They. When they fill in, they just do a really bad job. And so it basically creates a bunch of mini speed bumps and you get a sinkhole. So then you just start sinkhole company. That's a whole other problem. Yeah, that was crazy. Oh. Whatever happened with that in LA was really bad for a while. I guess they fixed it. I would like to get somebody to throw on a tinfoil hat and figure out why a bunch of pipes started exploding everywhere around the city. Somebody's gotta ask the question. Let me tell you.

Years. 40 years. Yeah. But it's good to be back. Yeah, it's going to be back. Yeah. Looks good. Let me take you through the story so everyone has the facts straight about this incredible deal for the Los Angeles Lakers. The headline is the Los Angeles Lakers are being sold to American businessmen Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for a record breaking price of $12.5 billion. Multiple sources have told this to ESPN. So Kushner and Iger made the offer to Mark Walter, who only last year purchased a controlling interest in the Lakers from the Buss family at a then record valuation of roughly $10 billion. Walter, the CEO and chairman of holding company TWG Global, officially became the Lakers majority owner last October after the NBA unanimously approved the deal. The new sale will likewise require approval from the NBA's board of governors, which is scheduled to meet the next month in New York. But looking at that picture, it seems like they've had this conversation with the relevant people. They're not some random businessmen coming in from out of town. Who and the sellers under federal investigation. Yes, for some very complicated deals where some private credit transactions were put into an insurance firm that they own. Those affiliated transactions, if you originate the deal and then you put it in your insurance company's, on your insurance company's books, you need to, you need to disclose this. Now. You can actually do this. Berkshire Hathaway, about 46% of their insurance assets are related party transactions. So there's a way to do it above board. The allegations are that he disclosed that only 3% of the insurance assets were related party affiliated transactions. But in fact it was much higher when you considered some of the other assets that had made their way through a third party capital allocator. Bit of a bad boy. You in the bad boy thing? Yeah, maybe. But you know, innocent until proven guilty. Obviously these are just allegations. He's just being investigated. And a nice little return. Yeah, and he's denied all wrongdoing. But it does give you a little bit more context on what might be motivating a sale so soon after buying an asset that he was clearly optimistic about. So Kushner is the founder and CEO of venture firm Thrive Capital and co founder and vice chairman of Oscar Health. He also is the brother of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son in law, Kushner. Kushner currently owns minority stake in the Miami Heat, which he will have to sell to complete the Lakers deal and was previously a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. Iger, meanwhile, stepped down as Disney CEO earlier this year and has already made a major investment in Los Angeles sports. He and his wife, Willow Bay, became controlling owners of the National Women's Soccer league's Angel City FC in 2024. The prospective new owners are already getting a warm reception from some of the biggest names associated with the franchise. Luka Doncic said, being a Laker means everything to me and I'm excited to get back to the court and bring a championship to la. I've gotten used to big changes over these last few years, but I know that no matter what, there's no limit to the potential of this iconic franchise. I look forward to meeting Josh and Bob so we can get to work building something special in LA together. You'd love to see it. Magic Johnson chimed in as well. He said Lakers fans couldn't have any. You couldn't have two better owners. Johnson said, I've known Bob personally for over 40 years. He has always loved the Lakers and basketball and he will bring championships back to la. So Magic Johnson is optimistic about this deal. Weirdly, this is making me optimistic on L. A. Overall, I've had a generally bad outlook. I have had extreme confidence that the weather is going to be very nice for a long time, but that's really been the only thing I'm willing to really lean on. Yeah. But this is giving me a slightly more positive outlook. And you've been pitching thrive on your new incubation. The Pothole Company of Los Angeles. The Pothole Filling Company of Los Angeles. Huge opportunity. It's really balance here for potholes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Hiring the best AI research. No, I want somebody. I want somebody to do this, figure out how to fix potholes quickly. I think it starts with its own satellite constellation. You have to put up 10,000 satellites in low earth orbit with cameras pointed with actually a small, small effectively missiles fired at potholes. Yes. And then a laser that sort of like melts the debris down to in the hole. Yeah. It just sort of. You bring the molten asphalt up to space. It comes down, warms up as it travels through the atmosphere, lands directly pothole and smushes in, fills it in. But, but you know, people are always saying, oh, why is like you go to la, every other car is a G wagon. Well, you know why? Because the roads are absolutely terrible. You pretty much need something that's four wheel drive. Yeah. Otherwise you're going to have a bad time. I was talking to, I was talking to, to a, to a Maybach owner a couple nights ago and he had blown out multiple tires in the last year, I've blown out multiple tires. Last year. It's. It's a disaster. Pothole. The Pothole Company of Los Angeles. It's a banger idea, right? I might become the Batman of potholes. Sneaking out late at night. Yeah. Look, I could go out in this suit. You could. You could? Yeah. Like that guy who was cleaning up the FDNY corner call box. Like, same thing. That's right. Potholes in la, they're really, really bad. Every day I drive to work and I have to swerve into the other lane to avoid one. And on this one particular road, that's just been disaster for the last six months. Anyway, the last quote related to this deal. As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become the stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world. Kushner and Iger said in a statement. They said they have immense respect for Jerry and Jenny Buss and intend to build on the family's legacy. I don't know what you're laughing at. Compete at the highest level and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles. If approved, the deal would give the third controlling ownership of potholes. I think he got DT and Tyler says he's going to film the missions. This would just be absolutely riveting content. You're out on the 405, 2am, just you in a nasty pothole and a little bit of traffic and a little bit of asphalt slathering it in there. Right. Is that what you're doing? Well, my big issue is when they fill in, they just do a really bad job. And so it basically creates a bunch of mini speed bumps and you get a sinkhole. So then you just start sinkhole company. That's a whole other problem. Yeah. That was crazy. Oh, whatever happened with that in la, it was really bad for a while. I guess they fixed it. I would like to get somebody to throw on a tinfoil hat and figure out why a bunch of pipes started exploding everywhere around the city. Somebody's got to ask the question. Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Just do it. There's a bunch of reactions hitting the timeline. Sag Harbor Capital says while there are plenty of issues you can point out with sports investing, I think this actually makes a simple yet incredibly compelling case. Longevity sports is a portfolio diversifier. Investment firms and wealthy individuals now view investing in sports properties as a hedge against higher risk. Investments. Very interesting. Everyone has always said sports investing is just, it's a trophy asset. It's just because you like the team but you're locking up a lot of capital. And when you're long AGI the future, the most cutting edge technologies. Also building a portfolio with some things that are going to be around forever, no matter how many robots there are, makes a lot of sense. And so that that balancing effect seems to be a new thing that's driving demand in, in sports investing. Do you agree with that? I do. Fits the strategy, yeah. Spore agrees. If you truly believe in AGI, buying a massive sports franchise is actually one of the best financial decisions you can make right now. And we've seen hints and rumors of this for a while. Anything else on the Lakers? We're going to talk to Darren in just 13 minutes about it. Get him to explain. He's going to walk us through the whole rule set. Yeah, we're very excited about that. Anyway, apparently there's a solar eclipse going on right now. Oh, is that going on right now? I saw a link to a whole bunch of different webcams that you can use to watch it. The last time a couple years ago, there was a full solar eclipse, not a partial one. And everyone who went said it was one of the most insane experiences of their life. So I would highly recommend it. Tyler. Yeah. So it's in Europe right now. Full solar eclipse. Full solar eclipse, Yep. Wow. Should have gone. I missed this one. When's the next one? What does it mean? What's the meaning? Tyler? What does it mean? It's a great omen for high beta AI stocks. That's what I choose to read into it. Lever up. That's what the eclipse is trying to tell you. Anyway, let me tell you about.