Ep 201: Crypto Treasury Companies (GameStop, Trump Media etc.), e.l.f. Cosmetics acquires Rhode, Special Guest: TED from Farcaster on Farcaster Pro, Anthropic + Rick Rubin, AI Kangaroo Video, Harry Potter Series

[00:01] Dumb Shower is a weekly live chat on all things tech, crypto and pop culture news brought to you by Boys Club, a New York based media and creative studio. DBH is hosted by myself, Deena Burke and Natasha Hoskins. Hi. Co-founders, marketers and entrepreneurs that have built our careers in new tech and startups. We're also proudly the dumbest in the room and we love to learn in public. DBH is recorded live and best consumed as a video podcast. Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:33] How are you, Dina? [00:35] Okay. [00:39] Okay. My mom is in town. Oh. [00:43] Thank you. [00:43] Fun, fun. Come to Brazil, but come to Nashville. It's so fun to have my mom here. It really is. It's so nice to have her here. And also, [00:54] Thank you. [00:54] all of my buttons [00:57] She knows exactly [00:58] how to push each and every one of them precisely. [01:01] and instantly. [01:03] She hasn't even gotten into the car from the airport. She's opening the car door when I'm at the airport. [01:10] picking her up? Uh-huh. [01:12] And I'm already irritated. Is it where you haven't unlocked it and the person is like pulling on the handle? It wasn't even that. No, it wasn't even that. I can tell you. No, that would be irritating. No, it was... [01:26] She... [01:28] She was doing just something that was just so annoying. We were waiting at the curb, you know, at the airport. And at the Nashville airport, they're very...

[01:38] mean about cars idling. Yeah, yeah. They have the whistles. There's people that are there constantly being like, move it along, move it along, move it along. They're really mean people. Yesterday when I picked her up, they weren't being quite so mean, but I was anticipating it. I was like, any second this guy's going to come over and going to yell at me. And I'm a rules follower. I [01:59] I don't like to get yelled at by people. I'm like, so I'm just really stressed out. And she is... [02:07] waiting for her bag, which is like, fine, fair. Like that's out of her control, but she keeps coming out to the car to say hi. Wait, how many times did she do this? Twice, twice. She came out once and she was like, I'm waiting for my bag. And I'm like, okay. And then she goes back inside and then she comes out again and she's like, I still might care. And I'm like, well, wait inside. This is my mom. I'm like, wait inside for the bag. And she's like, well, I just want to see that. I'm like, you got to get the bag [02:37] It was incredible how, how irritated and aggravated I could be without even having her in the car yet. So Natasha, you've been with your mom for, I'm on family vacation. Yeah. How are you doing? [02:51] we're day four at family vacation and uh and they watch this live stream sometimes so okay i was watching your stories and it looked so fun i was just like smashing the like button on all the things you're doing with your fam [03:06] Yeah, it's been a, it's, it's an unbelievable resort here in the Scottish Highlands. If my Wi-Fi

[03:15] gets bad that you will know why I'm with the sheep out here. Um, and I did some, um, clay pigeon shooting. I was like, Oh, I'm going to do some pigeon shooting while I'm here. Like it's where we're at is very like, [03:28] old money UK. Like the vibe is like families have been going here for years. [03:34] generations. It looked like that episode of succession. [03:38] where they do that exact thing the wild boar or on the floor yes it's really yes that or like i i talked to some of the people who live here and work here and they were like oh yeah we're like 45 minutes from um [03:53] Balmoro, like where they, the queen... [03:56] The queen. That one. Balmoral. Anyway, it's crazy. It's a crazy situation. And I'm here and I was like, it feels appropriate to go do some clay shooting. And my mom was like, I'll come with you. [04:08] And I was like, are you, are you, oh, [04:11] really what's the catch i'm like are you gonna shoot me but we had a lot of fun and uh we yeah i'm um a pretty good shot so that was a fun to learn about myself love that anyway beautiful resort my dad is super happy he turned 60 and that's great that's [04:32] So we've been having a time and I'm, um, [04:37] going to Paris tomorrow so that will be I saw for folks who don't know Natasha and I share an inbox and also a calendar and I saw uh on your calendar yesterday morning shooting and I was like she's really in her her like Princess Diana era I'm gonna go find it I'm gonna screenshot it um I was like uh we we walked out

[05:02] just to this shooting school with this man who perfectly played the part and I had a video of like him walking out with the guns to the and my mom was like it's it's it's like [05:15] It's clay pigeons, right? And I was like, yeah, mom, we're not going out to shoot actual animals. Like the two of us who have never once operated a gun. We're not going real hunting with this man right now. Um, anyway, it's been, my mom's been fun and funny and, uh, we're, we're having a good time here. Uh, we have one last thing and then we'll jump into it. Um, [05:37] My mom turned 60 two years ago. My dad turned 60 this year. Age gap relationship. And they... [05:46] the air there's now a um [05:49] what's it called where you like do something every all the time every year tradition tradition annual tradition we were in austria two years ago and we're in scotland now and to to buy garb of from [06:04] The region. [06:05] And then for us all to dress up in the garb. [06:09] In family photo. [06:10] And do a family photo. So immediately after this live stream, I will be putting on a Scottish dress. [06:18] And you will be circulating that photo for us to all see. Yes, please. [06:23] my mom gave me a little like pashmina because my shoulders would be okay [06:29] which I love. So, uh, anyway, that's, that's what's going on here. A modesty, a modesty cover, a modesty cover, which, you know, Kate,

[06:38] And Dina both love, honestly. I'm wearing one now. [06:43] I was wearing one on our actual DVH this morning. [06:48] Okay, let's get into it. [06:50] Hey Kate, what's Voice Club before we get started? I'm so glad you asked Dina. I've been taking notes when Natasha asked this question. So Voice Club is one part media company, one part studio collective. We do newsletters, parties, podcasts such as this, live streams where we talk about emerging tech and how that affects our lives. [07:14] Great, Kate. Great job. I learned from the best. [07:21] Okay. Agenda here today. We had a lot of fun this morning putting together this agenda. There's a lot going on right now. We're going to talk about crypto treasury companies, which is what I wrote the newsletter on yesterday. But for those who can't read, we're going to talk about it as well today. We're going to talk about the road acquisition. So Haley Bieber herself had a big [07:43] of anthropic news on the timeline so the rick rubin stuff the jobs headline which came out this morning which is terrifying and then um some blackmailing uh claude code which we're gonna hastings too also added to the board [07:57] Yeah. Anyway. Then we have Ted. [08:01] We loved Head. Couldn't love her more. [08:04] Literally could not love her more. So she's going to come and join us to talk about the Farcaster D brand and the 120. All I have in my notes is $120 thing.

[08:17] That's so perfect. I'm all purple today for it. Wow. Oh, and the purple mic. [08:25] - Pain. [08:27] I've been off mine. [08:29] What is the thing that they all wear? Kate, I've been offline this week mostly, but I did see you were going to Berlin. [08:42] Yeah. Come to Berlin. Come to Berlin. [08:44] I'm so happy for you. Thank you, Bass. Shout out. [08:47] Shout out. That's great news. I'm so happy for you. We had chatted about that while we were in London. So I'm really happy to see it come together. [08:55] Same. Ditto. [08:57] uh if you speak it into the world sometimes it that's so shall it be thank you to miranda because miranda really made it happen she's like closed mouths don't get fed and i'm like amen sister [09:10] she took my she just peeled it open and you need to like yeah oh man dreams come true uh okay then we have a bunch of quick hits uh we're gonna talk about kangaroo court ai we have some harry potter [09:27] we get to it, the SEO to GEO transition that we're in, and then ChatGPT makeovers. Actually, maybe we'll bump that up and do ChatGPT makeovers first. And that's today's agenda. Really excited about it. Before we get started, love to... [09:44] Polygon, our sponsor of this live stream, we love them so much. Thank you so much for your support. If you've touched crypto in any way, chances are you've already used Polygon. It's the chain quietly powering a bunch of stuff that actually works, that people actually use, like Stripe's

[10:00] Crypto payments, betting on poly markets, prediction markets, and a bunch more. They had a big announcement yesterday, this Katana chain. It is not another general purpose chain. It's a DeFi chain with deep liquidity and high yield. It's launching in June. Next week, we're going to have Mark Boron, the CEO of Polygon Labs, on this show to talk about what this means. Mark, what is... [10:28] What's Katana? Where does the yield come from? He's going to answer all those questions for us. Can't wait. I truly can't wait. I'm excited to talk to him about it and love Polygon so much for being such great partners. Totally. Also next week, just a little sneak peek. We are going to have Katie Notopoulos, which if you're a person who is online all the time, you have definitely run across her or her reporting. She is a business insider correspondent. [10:58] reporter and incredible follow on Twitter too. So funny. So, so funny. And she, she, [11:06] uh she's she went to the solana conference and we want to have her on this show and excited to chat with her because she doesn't work in crypto she doesn't like she doesn't care she's totally pure exactly and um she went to the solana conference last week in new york and wrote a piece about it and so excited to just get her can't wait i'm very much looking forward to next week's episode

[11:36] One quick thing before we get into it. I read your newsletter this morning, loved it, or last night sometime in... [11:44] uh, [11:45] jet lag state I was like oh I'm gonna read the newsletter read through it again been offline this week we doubled up on a funny tweet so it's you know you know that it's a good tweet when we both what was it what was it what was it was fun it was something about like um [12:02] Yeah, you have to have a password. The one about password and two rules and not talking about a man. Really great. Anyway, great newsletter. If you don't subscribe, you should do so. [12:14] Yeah, hit that subscribe button. [12:16] The link is in our website. [12:18] The link is somewhere. BoysClub.VIP. Find it. Okay. So there has been a lot of news... [12:27] lately about [12:28] Basically, [12:30] big companies, [12:32] announcing that they're starting a crypto treasury. We saw GameStop yesterday announced that they're going to [12:39] purchase Bitcoin and add Bitcoin to their treasury, a $4,700.00. [12:44] and 10 Bitcoin. It's a lot of money. Trump [12:49] media announced that they are raising or they're raised 2.5 billion dollars uh for trump media which is the parent company of truth social to start a crypto [13:00] treasury um and then there was a another [13:04] piece that came out last week that was Sharplink Gaming.

[13:08] It just. [13:09] No one knows what that is, but it doesn't matter. Not us, but... It doesn't matter what that is, because all that matters now is that they are basically a wrapper for... It was essentially like a shell company for this crypto treasury play, which for them, they did Ethereum and put the consensus founder, Joe Lubin, on the board. So we're going to talk about that. So basically, just broad strokes, what's happening? [13:36] Is that... [13:38] for whatever reason, [13:41] The stock market is willing to pay basically double, like a multiple on... [13:47] the stock price of a company that has [13:51] a crypto treasury. Like if you put $1 worth of [13:56] crypto into your treasury there's like a 2x 3x whatever 5 6x that hits on the stock price so it's like this weird alchemy that's happening right now where [14:08] you add crypto to your treasury and your stock price is [14:12] has [14:13] Beautiful things happen to it. Okay. What I don't understand is... [14:19] like why isn't whatever it doesn't matter i guess why i don't understand it but it's just it doesn't make sense like it doesn't make sense it doesn't feel logical unless unless i've never understood that these companies have treasuries that i was never so like acutely aware of what's going in and out of them and where the store of value is for these company treasuries like i guess i never really thought about where gamestop is

[14:45] holding its value like its liquid value i've never thought about a treasury of gamestop and now everybody's talking about it so that's one thing the second thing that doesn't make sense to me is [14:56] Thank you. [14:56] how it's not affecting the price of the actual assets that much. I guess like the market is kind of pumping right now, but it seems disconnected from actual [15:05] the price of like Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever is actually being held in these treasuries. Does that feel true or no? I think so. I mean, I think that I think it's hard to point to exactly why a price is rising. I don't think it hurts to have $2.5 billion announcement of a crypto treasury by Trump media. I don't think it hurts the price, but we haven't seen like a crazy rally. Although I did get a notification that ETH was up 5%. I saw that too, but it's still only at like $2,800. [15:35] Yeah. I had a moment last night where at family dinner we were talking about Trump. Of course. If. And so we're talking about Trump at family dinner and I made a joke about something and my dad goes, well, he's great for your business. [15:56] And I said, [15:58] yeah incredible content always coming from that guy and i was like what i was like oh crypto oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [16:09] But I was literally like, oh, yeah, there's always something. You're like, I'm just farming them for clips.

[16:16] Clip farming Trump. I'm clip farming Trump. I was like, whoa, I need to like seek God, like turn in, like things are off, things are not right. Anyway, okay, we can return back to this. Okay, so just one thing here that I think would be useful context for you for both of you if you don't already have it. [16:39] is called MicroStrategy. They have now de-branded to strategy, just strategy. I saw that. They're de-branding. Farcaster set the stage for- Everyone is de-branding right now. So now they're just strategy. Michael Saylor, right? Michael Saylor. So I wanted to cast Kate's mind back to a semi-viral post that we did a couple weeks ago around the Italian kitchen. Do you remember the Italian kitchen? That's how I know the man. Okay. That's Michael Saylor. Yes. I love that that is Kate's entry point for Michael Saylor. [17:09] If you ever meet in person and you want like something tech, be like, what's your entry point for this thing? [17:18] oh that's a actually that's a great question for like a tiny mic yeah [17:22] What was your entry point for [17:23] X. [17:24] Sam Altman. Remember my Sam Altman one? [17:27] No. On Rogan? [17:30] Oh, perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So Michael, Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, they really set the stage here for how to do this. And he is basically buying up all the Bitcoin in the world. MicroStrategy also like runs a

[17:50] consultancy. I think they do provide some services, but no one [17:55] Absolutely not a single person in the world is buying MicroStrategy stock because of the performance of their whatever services division. That's absolutely not what's happening. People are buying MicroStrategy stock because Michael Saylor is buying all this Bitcoin and Bitcoin. [18:09] they're hoping that everything rises in tandem basically together and the company becomes this like crazy [18:15] multiple billion dollar company because of the Bitcoin that has it a treasury. And then as a result, the stock will be worth [18:21] a billion dollars as well so that's so are people just like oh this is a this is a uh like an easier access a cheaper access point to get exposure to [18:31] Bitcoin. [18:32] uh cheaper maybe maybe more upside return possible and um also for people who and institutions that like can't buy bitcoin can't hold bitcoin although i don't know are they seeing it as like an index like how you would buy sort of like an index and you get exposure to all these things maybe oh okay maybe um so that's what's happening here the uh [18:54] uh, Sharplink, which is the one that announced last week that they're the, they're the basically like micro strategy for Ethereum is what people are calling it. They just bought a bunch of ETH and put Joe Lubin on their board. And so you can see what's happening to the stock. It's crazy. Like that's, that's insane. This is a six month chart. Like it's crazy what's happening now. I [19:18] you can make a very bullish case for eth based on this move by them and this is kind of a long read what this person writes but he's basically saying that like

[19:28] for for ETH bowls like they didn't just buy ETH they like [19:34] They are helping to transition ETH as like a reserve asset. Okay. So it's crazy good because if ETH starts to be seen as like a legitimate reserve asset, then... [19:47] the price of ETH will surge. More people will do this and the price of ETH will go up. So that's right now. That's only like Bitcoin. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. [19:56] Got it. Exactly. So that's what's happening there. And basically the game is like if you have some, if you have a publicly traded company sitting around that's not doing anything, this is the move that you should be doing right now. And you should get, raise some money, buy some crypto, and you're put out a press release and your stock price will go. [20:17] go through the roof. Double. Or triple in some cases. I wish this was the case for [20:23] I have a, I have a desk, my own old LLC that could be used or something, but I don't think that's quite the same. [20:32] thing there. I don't think that is. Cool. Great. Thank you for your briefing. That was extremely helpful. Okay. I'm going to talk about Elf, Beauty, and Road. Really, really excited for my girl here. Everybody that knows me knows how much I stand for [20:53] this woman and her brand and second week in a row but like when she's making headlines you just gotta support um also i feel personally like

[21:04] like i contributed i'm a what does it say i wish i was a shareholder um okay so basically elf beauty is buying uh hayley bieber's [21:17] company rode for a one billion dollar deal that was announced yesterday [21:23] What? Oh, okay. We're showing off for the podcast listener. We're doing a little show and tell of all of us having our road lip gloss, which is an incredible product IMO. Okay. So the deal terms of this was $800 million that was, or $800 million upfront. That was in a combination of cash and stock. So $600 million in cash, $200 million in shares. And then there's an additional earnings [21:52] payout of an additional $200 million based on the future growth of the brand over the next three years. A part of this announcement is that Haley will continue on in her role as the founder and the chief creative officer and head of innovation. She'll be overseeing creative and product and marketing. And many people speculated that that will continue over the course of that three-year payout for her. [22:18] How many meetings do you think she's showing up to? [22:21] A week. Um... [22:22] One. One a week. A week? A week? Yeah. One. Max. Maximum. [22:30] i think maybe people are sending i think she's probably doing product testing i would imagine that she's like going in she's trying on the lip glosses she's saying like this i like this i don't i think maybe she's talking about like i'd love to see a concealer i'd love to see a mascara like yeah this would be great in like a cherry red like those sort of and then i think she's probably doing a lot of work around the like she's in all the photo shoots she's like a lot of

[22:55] Instagram work, you know, she's, she's doing that part of the work. She's a boss. So here's, here's some things that are really interesting about this business. Uh, it has doubled its customer, uh, consumer base over the past year. [23:10] It has driven a total of $212 million in net sales over the past year, which is pretty absolutely insane for a company that launched three years ago and is entirely direct to consumer. So they're not in any, they're not in Ulta, they're not in Sephora. It's all just online sales. The purchase price was representative of a $3.8. [23:32] acts of those sales over the past three years. I'm sorry, over the past year, [23:38] So this number is not pulled out of nowhere and is market rate for this type of business. [23:46] other things that are remarkable about road as a business is that there is only 10 products so it's an extremely efficient business in terms of what they're selling to their customers and the product market fit that they found with a very very small set of skews for reference fenty beauty has over 91 skews so [24:05] really limited in terms of what they're actually offering and how much revenue they're making from a very small product line. Two other deals that [24:12] are reference points for how much of a success this business is ASAP soap. [24:19] was around for 33 years. [24:21] and then was acquired by L'Oreal in 2023 for $2.5 billion.

[24:27] 33 years. So this business was around 30 years less and sold for one and a half billion less. But [24:34] Not bad, Haley. And then I saw a great thread by a guy named Drew Fallon 12 is his handle. And he talked about sort of like celebrity led product development and marketing. [24:50] Instagram influencer led brands and things like that compared it to a few other brands. But one of the things he said is the most similar deal I can think of is Kylie cosmetics back in 2019. Cotty acquired the brand for 1.2 billion on a 6.6x sales multiple. Celebrity driven cosmetics seems to produce at least one winner every five years. So [25:11] interesting stuff uh if we go to the next slide here [25:15] . [25:17] is rare beauty acquired or is it still selena's where beauties is still selena's okay but i do think it raised at over a billion dollar valuation [25:26] So I do think it's in a similar camp, uh, as these two, um, [25:30] This guy also... [25:33] Here on Twitter, George Heaton talked about the SKU efficiency. I love the boys talking about the skincare brands and the makeup. The boys love to talk about it. They do love to talk about it. One thing that was really compelling in this one was about how it was USA shipping only. So huge global geography to grow, which is like... [25:53] crazy oh part of this uh uh part of the announcement last week for or not part of the announcement but leading up to this announcement is that they will be in sephora this year which is huge and so that will like uh the brand will just exponentially blow up with that type of distribution the numbers the margins are less efficient but you know

[26:14] distribution will be [26:16] global and much easier than direct to consumer. One other thing that is really interesting is one of the most successful product, the third most successful product was the case. [26:27] That's what I was going to bring up. Are you for real? I'm for real. It was sold out every single time. And they didn't even make it in every iPhone. They only made it in the newest one because that's why I couldn't get it. I was like, well, I'm not going to buy a new phone just to get this case. That is crazy. I know. So I saw someone being like Steve Jobs level design mind. And I was like, whoa, I love Hailey Bieber, but let's let's cool it off a little bit. Let's bring it back down [26:57] One of my favorite tweets that I saw was the... [27:01] quote tweet of her elf beauty has acquired Haley B. Bush skincare road for $1 billion deal. And the quote tweet is divorce papers loading, which if anybody's been following, it's, [27:12] Things seem rough in the household over there. I don't know anything about anything. She's quitting her job to focus on her relationship. But I love that this person went to quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. Really happy for her. I'm dying to know how much equity she has. Dying. Like, if anybody, I did quite a bit of digging, and that's nowhere to be found. No surprise there. But I also love that all of these friends have competitive relationships. [27:38] skin, like skincare or product lines. Like that's something that I've actually never understood about the Kardashian ecosystem is it's pretty incredible how much overlap there is. And I'm just going to give a quick story to tell you, please. Big brain move I had around there. Okay. I was gifted a Kai. People know I love Kai too. Kai swimsuit from a friend.

[28:01] The top looked amazing. The bottoms were way too small. Bottoms sold out. [28:05] No bottoms to be found. And I was like, Oh, this is so upsetting. It was like a real, it's like a hot pink bikini. [28:11] Oh, okay. I think, you know what I'm going to do? [28:14] What? I'm going to go to Skims. I'm going to see if Skims has any hot pink bottoms. Yep. I'm certain they're producing from the same factory. Absolutely. Got them. Looks amazing. Wow. Is it the same color to the color? It's the same color. It was the same. It's the same product. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's like, right, right, right. There, there's actually some sort of Kris Jenner, like, like efficiency. I only want one red to the factory. Exactly. She, she has a [28:44] And then it's good American, it's Kai, it's Skims. We're all in the same house here. And it's actually smarter. Yeah, the supply chain is clear. Anyway, okay. Ted is here. Ted is here. Let's get her on stage. We're going to maybe come back to vibe coding, but we'll jump ahead. Hi, Ted. Hi. Hello. Big week for you. [29:09] Big week for Farcaster team. Wow. Two weeks. [29:14] So let's just say hi first and then we can talk about the forecast of things. How are you doing? [29:19] I'm good. I love that you guys are covering Haley Bieber Road Acquisition because I'm like... [29:26] Damn girl just got off with what was it? The, [29:30] Did you say it was like the largest acquisition in CPG for celebrity brands? I don't know. Was it? She's crushing it. I think it might have been the quickest in terms of timeline and like the combination of three years and one billion. She wins. She wins. Yeah. Anyway, she wins. She wins.

[29:48] I'm a stan. Tad, do you use the lip gloss? [29:52] Yes, I do use. Actually, you're the one who introduced me to the lip gloss. I should have gotten a cut of a deal. Boys club. What's it called when we just drop all the things we like? We did. We do that enough. We yap about it enough. [30:07] Um, [30:08] Ted, how are you? How is life over there in the Farcaster ecosystem? Give us some updates. It's good. Vibes are high. I was in New York City last week for Accelerate with Solana because we finally launched Solana support. [30:24] Um, [30:25] I will say, [30:27] The delta between what [30:30] The timeline wants you to think about Solana. [30:32] and how they are in real life. [30:35] It could not be larger. - I agree. - Like they are-- - Like what are the differences? - Online they're like, "Oh, soy boys," like blah, blah, blah, you know, like DGENs kind of like, [30:46] chaotic, totally unhinged. And I'm like, no, in person. And I felt this at Breakpoint last year, too. They're so professional, serious, fun, warm. [30:56] embrace they're just like yes like we just want everyone to win and I don't think you get that oops I might have frozen I don't think you get that unless you are in um unless you go in person [31:09] I agree with that. That was my experience in Singapore too, is a really warm crowd, very [31:15] Um, like [31:17] Very consumer focused, very money focused. Yeah. Well, I'm down for that, but very kind and very excited to bring no food.

[31:27] folks into the fold. So I'm glad that was your experience. [31:31] Ted, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell us what's going on with your dbrand? [31:36] We all got the notification last week or earlier this week that Warpcast is now Farcaster. What happened? How did we get to this point? Where are we at? What's new is old again or what's old is new again or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Full circle of life. [31:53] I mean, you guys know the pain point of trying to be like, oh, join Forecaster. And then someone goes to the App Store and they're like, wait. [32:00] I don't see anything in Farcat. Like, what am I doing? And I'm like, oh, download Warpcast. And then you end up having to explain... [32:08] how Warpcast is an app on the Farcaster protocol and like everybody's eyes glaze over and you lose them. And so [32:16] Initially, the name changed from Farcast or Warpcast originally because kind of like the whole decentralization, we wanted it to be completely distinct and separate of like the app versus protocol. And now that we have large players like Base, Coinbase Wallet, and then Zapper building their own clients, it makes a lot more sense to just drive kind of like... [32:38] Dan always says, like product-led protocol growth by rebranding back to Farcaster because it makes onboarding easier. It makes explaining it easier, just like reduces the cognitive overload of trying to understand what the hell you're signing up for when you join. So I'm super excited about this. I think I always called it Farcaster accidentally. I never really embraced the Warpcast rebrand. So it's like Twitter and X. You never...

[33:04] You never went X with it. You just kept the original. She never went Max. She was always HBO Max. [33:11] I love that. Was it contentious? [33:14] Or were people mostly aligned? [33:16] I think 90% of people were aligned. I think that there are really strong decentralization kind of like proponents who were... [33:25] concerned about like, oh, what does this mean? And thinking more about like, okay, in the future, like, [33:30] all these different pathways. [33:31] what is maybe worst case scenario. And I think overall, the community and people building on the protocol have enough [33:39] kind of faith and trust and respect in Dan and Barun and what they've built over the past five years, that they were like, no, no, no, no. Like, this is actually the best decision for [33:48] the [33:49] protocol at large is to rebrand the app. So there was some, but by and large, everyone who's building an app on top of Farcaster was very supportive. [34:00] not to bring up blue sky, but just to bring up blue sky quickly. Do they, do they have, [34:07] the blue sky is the app and then they have another name for their [34:11] protocol, is that right? Yeah, I think it's the AT protocol. Okay. [34:15] Mm-hmm. [34:16] Interesting. [34:17] They suck anyway. It's all about forecasting. I will say, I think I sent it to Dina. I was like, wow. I think that their messaging, it's like very mission-led messaging and the way that they talk about what they're building is very inspiring and motivating and also validating because I think a lot of times in crypto, we talk about like decentralized social, but we don't necessarily lead with

[34:44] the larger mission part, and to see that resonating with mainstream [34:48] people is actually really, really exciting. I think for all of us, it's like, okay, if people get that part, that's like the hardest part to get people excited about. And then I'm like, oh, we've nailed the crypto rails, which they haven't. So yeah, I will say. Jay Graber is really cool. She seems really, really cool. And that Wired profile on her, I loved it. And I'm also like, I can't wait to read your Wired profile on the Orchester. [35:18] And then something happened yesterday, which everyone was talking about, but I don't understand what happened. So can you give me a TLDR on what happened with Farcaster Pro? [35:28] Yes. So a couple of weeks ago, the team basically put out and said, hey, we're thinking about offering a pro subscription. It could get you longer casts, like 10,000 characters. You could get multiple images instead of just two images uploads. And then a whole bunch of different features like unlimited messaging history instead of like one year retention. [35:58] Like you're a thousand true fans. And then, [36:02] Dan was also like, okay, and these features might not all be ready. We'll also have a commemorative NFT for the first thousand subscribers. And then everyone was like, whoa, you're having an NFT. You're going to get way more than a thousand subscribers because crypto runs on speculation and people haven't done kind of like 10,000 NFT drops. So ultimately we raised $1,000.

[36:23] it from 1000 to hey, let's do 10,000 commemorative NFTs for whoever subscribes first. So [36:29] We launched that. [36:31] two yesterday two days ago now um and it 10 000 we reached 10 000 in six hours so that's great of course incredible i know who knew you could do an nfc and it's 120 right yes and it's 120 for the year so 12 a month um and you had to pay in usdc within the mobile app or with [36:54] kind of like a deprecated thing called warps, which is how you used to pay for invites or mint things in the feed. So, well, we got to change the name of that. Yeah, I know you're right. It can't be called warps anymore. It's gotta be. Um, Ted, that's so incredible. Are you feeling excited about it? Like how's the team, how's sentiment? [37:13] Sentiment's great. I think we're really excited. I think that we were skeptical. [37:18] about a thousand, like a thousand was like, oh, great. And then we were like, oh, let's do ten thousand. And I think a lot of us were like, it'd be amazing if we had ten thousand. And I think this morning we had eleven thousand. So people are still subscribing after. [37:31] like the NFT has been minted out. So I think that's good. I think one thing that was on the timeline last week is, oh, we're trying to think through like, how do you generate revenue? I think a lot of people look at this and it's like, wait, you raised so much money. Like, why are you [37:48] asking people to pay you. And it's like, oh, okay, like we actually need to figure out, can we generate revenue in order to continue growing outside? Like, let's say you end up spending all the VC money, like your options then are like,

[38:01] Did you raise revenue where you can continue sustaining growth and operations or do you have to go out and raise again? I think as a company, we're trying to figure out, like, how do we end up generating revenue earlier versus later? Yeah, that was I'm all about like free 99. And then when I saw the messaging behind it was like, oh, this is for. [38:22] to continue the creator awards. And as someone who does, [38:26] always hit that creator rewards. I was like, I can stand that for sure. Yeah. 100 percent of revenue from this is going directly into the creator and the developer rewards, which I'm super excited about. Yeah. [38:40] I'm very like pro businesses should chart like you guys need to figure out your revenue. So there's there's absolutely no, um, [38:47] criticism from me on that. But I am curious if you guys are thinking about your revenue for Farcaster being primarily subscription driven, or if advertising is in the cards at any point, when the network gets bigger, what's your or what's your royal your collective thinking on that? [39:06] Thank you. [39:07] I think that we haven't necessarily chatted about it yet. Our team thinks in like, okay, what do we need to do in like the next two weeks or the next month? I don't think it's out of the question. And I think Antonio with Spindle who got acquired by Coinbase probably has a lot of thoughts on that. I think with [39:26] crypto and like with all this on-chain transaction and all of the kind of this permissionless data, you can actually do much

[39:32] better ad targeting and like I think in terms of ads I get pissed when I get a bad ad but if it's like a spot on ad that hits the mark I'm like insanely grateful so I don't know I think it'd be interesting to experiment with that in the future but right now the protocol revenue is storage so like when you sign up but we're basically driving that to zero and then the [39:57] like on the app from like Warpcast or Forecaster the app. There's also like now a built-in wallet. And so wallets often generate revenue from like swaps. And so then you also have kind of that on the product side. Okay, wait, hold on one one. Let me just signups. [40:17] Which you guys won't continue to do? We will continue, but we're basically driving the cost down. So it was, I think, $12. Now it's $3. It will soon be like 20 cents. And then any app that... [40:32] is doing it might sponsor signups. And so there'll be zero cost to the users. Eventually. Yeah. Okay. And then subscriptions and then wallet. [40:41] Well, it's on the product side, but like both [40:45] kind of like sign up storage and then [40:47] PRO is on the protocol side. - Okay, interesting. [40:50] I just feel like you guys are so perfectly positioned to do the thing that so many people have talked about, which is exactly what you're speaking to. And having data around what users like and buy and spend money on in their wallet and then being able to feed them advertising that's much more personalized to them. And I'm in total agreement with you that I think that that's like...

[41:12] one, something I would be very happy to experience in my feed. And then [41:17] to i think it's a beautiful use case for crypto and what people hold in their wallet i think we're far from that in terms of like my wallet is absolutely as [41:26] basically zero reflection of who I am and what I like at this point. But I do think [41:32] I can see a world where that's reality. And it makes all the sense in the world to me that a social application would be the first to crack the code around data operability and users benefiting from that. [41:45] from what advertisements are being fed to them. We were, Kate and I were in [41:49] london we were staying at the hoxton and i can't tell you how annoyed i was that i was staying at the hoxton and non-stop getting ads on instagram for the hoxton and i was just so annoying it's so annoying i'm just like this is a waste of my time and a waste of your money and like i don't know who i need to tell who i need to contact but like i'm here i've done it like we're in have my money like i just was so annoyed anyway so um i hope i hope that you guys are [42:15] you or somebody, you know, cracks the code on that. Yeah. I'm all for the ads as well. I completely aligned. When everyone says, oh, how can you send me links for this? How do I do this? I'm like, Google search it and then sit back and let the engine do its job and feed you the ads. [42:35] Just search it once on all these platforms and then let it do its job. Okay. Say it like one. [42:41] five times in a conversation and then all of a sudden your phone will pick it up and like you'll get it non-stop non-stop um okay i have one last question with you before we go uh unrelated and was not sent to you

[42:54] prior to this what are your thoughts on the technology brothers [42:58] Thank you. [42:58] Okay. I just think that... [43:02] It's so fun. Okay, first off, I think I said this. You guys kind of did it first, but I won't say that. I think, I mean, I will say it. I just said it. I think that it's fun that they're... [43:16] A, it's like their network. They just have this endless stream of people to come on and talk about it. And I think Dan actually cast about this last night. I think it's really smart for anybody to go on because then they just cut you clips from it. And then people are sharing the clips on-- [43:32] whether it's like Twitter or I have actually haven't seen a single one on TikTok, but like all these other places. And it's real time coverage. So as soon as something hits the feed like that day, they aren't they can cover it right away. So I think it's great. I think it got people excited. I think it's really funny seeing everyone like. [43:51] talk. Analyze it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, guys, just, it's a show. Watch the show. Watch it or don't watch it. Like, we don't need to, like, make it into a philosophical argument. But I think it's fun. Like, why not? Like, yeah, it's the future. So. [44:06] Great. Ted, [44:08] Thank you so much. Any other questions from the boys here? Oh my god, congrats to Kate on going to Berlin Blockchain Week. Thank you so much. I will be casting about it nonstop. I can't wait.

[44:28] Hopefully the referral leaderboard. I'm going to check that one out too, because you've been onboarding the masses. I mean, I'm trying, I'm trying. It's your hand to hand out there, Kate. I really am. I'm like all my creative friends. I'm like, y'all. [44:42] We need this energy on this app. Come with me. It's amazing. I'm here for it. I'm actually forever grateful, like in all seriousness. It means the world. Keep going. [44:54] Keep going. Okay, Ted. Ted, we love you. [45:00] Yeah. [45:01] Man. Great energy all the time. Just the best energy. My most used app. [45:07] the last few days was actually a forecaster and i was like oh i took a screenshot i was like whoa [45:14] That's amazing. - That's for me and my screen time. [45:17] Huge. Huge. Okay, we had to skip past Anthropic to have... [45:23] Because we took too long. We always... [45:28] underestimate. [45:29] how [45:30] We overestimate or underestimate how long each time we're over-undering. Masa Menos. But just quickly here before we move into the quick heads, I do want to give you guys a quick briefing here. So Anthropic, a competitor to ChatGPT, they teamed up with legendary producer Rick Rubin to launch The Way of the Code, which is an interactive digital book that... [45:58] was released last week. Everyone was talking about it last week. Now far less people are talking about it. So I don't know really how effective it was as a marketing experiment, but, uh, yesterday or last week, it was all everyone could talk about and, um, anthropic and basically the book, it's like a digital book, whatever it's 80 pages, some, something like that. And it is about, um, it's, it's Rick Rubin marrying, um,

[46:24] like taoist philosophy with [46:27] programming vibe coding basically is he reading it um well it's a it's a it's a book i i don't know if there's a oh it's not an audio something about the screenshot really made oh well okay so it is an audio book no no no so that this is an interview so this happens oh yeah this happens last week listening to the book no i'm not listening to the book no i see i see i was listening to him on a podcast okay talking about the book and i'm saying book in air quotes it's a [46:57] It's a pamphlet. It's a brochure. No, but it's... It's a zine. It's a zine. It's only digital. So it's not like a physical book. But basically, it's like... [47:08] Do you have to pay for it? [47:09] Uh... [47:11] No. Okay. [47:12] Um, he, it's like 81, it's like these meditation style passages, like very sort of lofty, um, Taoist philosophy stuff. And then at the end, uh, it's like live code that people can use with Claude basically. Cool. And five coding prompts, I guess. And yeah. [47:34] So that happened. Who knows how much Rick Rubin was paid for it. But basically the reason it happened is because Rick Rubin, [47:44] He accidentally became like the mascot of vibe coding because of this image that's on the left here. Went viral. And he's not vibe coding in this image, to be clear. It's an image that was like, it's him at like, I don't know, being the producer guy, which he is. And he's like vibe producing. He's in Malibu. Feeling it. He's feeling it. He's vibe producing. And then that this image goes viral when vibe coding starts to pick up. And people are like, he's the patron saint.

[48:14] of vibe coding basically. [48:17] Um, [48:18] And the whole vibe of vibe coding is that it's lowering the barrier to entrance for coding, which it is very convincingly doing. I am coding and I know absolutely zero about coding. And so that is happening. And that also sort of aligns with how Rick Rubin approaches coding. [48:37] the creative act because he's like, you can be a creative, even if you don't know how to play the drums or use pro tools or do any of the stuff. Like you, you don't need to, to, to have, you need no hard skills, no skills. Yeah. And he's like, I don't have any hard skills. I don't know how to play a single instrument, but I'm like the best producer the world has ever seen. And so that kind of like, there's a spiritual alignment between vibe coding and like his [49:02] brand, the Rick Rubin brand. Um, [49:05] However, there's just the one thing that I will say about this. So I listened to a podcast with him where he was on this thing called the AI Daily Brief. It's this very serious podcast where this guy every day is talking about like AI news. And he has Rick Rubin on and they're chatting about it. And within this, within this, [49:21] interview, he reveals that he has not [49:25] He has not... [49:26] used ever he's never used a single vibe coding tool he's never [49:31] When I saw your tweet, I was like, this is a joke. This whole thing's a big joke. Big old joke. It's really funny. Also, just like 10 minutes before the Z goes out, just pull it up. Stick around. Figure it out. Right. And then, like, just say, yeah, not that. A little bit. I haven't done very much, but I've played around with some stuff. But that's his shtick. That's his gimmick. He doesn't want to lose his gimmick. He's a wrestling fan, so he's kayfaving it.

[50:00] Thank you. [50:01] Okay. I don't know what any of those words mean, but I'm sure they track. But I don't know. This is crazy to me. I had to explain who Ruben was last night at family dinner. And it really is cold water to the face when somebody has no concept of him. And you're trying to explain it. And you're like, this is a crazy, I sound crazy. I sound a crazy person. And then to then try to explain how you're trying to explain it. [50:29] the anthropic partnership on top of it all i'm just like wow that's crazy it's it's [50:36] What I like about him is I think people should be doing creative acts. I think it's good for the soul. I think it's good for society. And I think he is a leader in that. [50:47] in encouraging people to do that. I think he should have spent 10 minutes [50:51] Vibe Coding. [50:53] And all would have been well. Totally. And I think that honestly, more than anything else, I'm like, this is a fail for whoever the anthropic comms person is that was dealing with this partnership because, [51:03] to have not stipulated this in the contract. Yes. Also, like, [51:08] I feel like he's really well media trained. I feel like he's really... [51:12] Rick Rubin [51:13] has done the circuit many times yeah yeah and this is actually maybe we're baited maybe we've just been baited [51:20] I do think it's a gimmick. I honestly think he's like sticking to his, nope, haven't done it. And I can still, I still... [51:27] Like I listened to the beginning of the podcast only like the first 10 minutes when he's explaining

[51:32] how he discovered he is the face of it. And it just was like, whoa, whoa, [51:37] This is insufferable. [51:38] Yeah. Okay, let's move on because I don't want to be too much of a hater. Just one quick thing here. This headline hit this morning. So I haven't spent much time with the story. But basically, the Anthropic CEO came out and said that half of all entry level white collar jobs could be extinct within the next five years. [52:08] serious, this could very well spike unemployment rates to [52:12] 10 or 15 or 20% and [52:15] We need more policy about this. We need more conversation about this. And I think he's not wrong. So that was another thing that. [52:22] came out today. Interesting. Oh, and then the last thing, just a quick story, an anthropocent story, was they have this new [52:30] um, model. [52:32] Claude Opus 4. Yeah. And, uh, there was a thing that went viral last week that was basically like the, um, [52:42] there was a made up scenario where it was like an engineer that was working with the new model and it [52:48] threatened to replace the engineer, the made up engineer, like was basically like, I'm going to unplug you. I'm going to, I'm going to replace you as a model. And then he, [52:57] the model [52:59] attempted to blackmail the engineer by like reading its email and exposing it oh my god that it was gonna have that it was that the engineer was having now it was all made up like it was all a scenario there was the the engineer was this was during like testing to your photos don't give it full access

[53:21] flip on us and be like nudes girl yeah that's crazy claude's gonna leak your [53:27] Nudes. Nice. That's the headline. Nudes. Whoa, that's crazy. [53:36] Okay, quick hits. Yeah, we got six minutes here. We got to run through them all because I have to put my Scottish car on and head downstairs. Okay, take it away. This is just an AI video of a kangaroo. A person trying to get a kangaroo on a flight went viral because everyone got duped thinking that it was real. And so now the original... [54:04] tweet because it was posted as an Instagram video first, which we'll watch in a sec. But you see this woman, she's arguing with the airline attendant at the gate and the kangaroo is holding the boarding pass like a good boy. It's honestly so sweet. [54:22] So, so cute. It's a very tiny kangaroo, like Joey size. And now the original tweet that shared the video is... [54:34] It... it... it... [54:36] It's like only the, what's the note? The community note. The community note, because so many people thought it was real. I guess they're like, took it down or something. But the original one said, airline staff is not allowing this cute kangaroo to board the airplane. The way he's holding the boarding pass and waiting to be scanned. And then it's like the little emoji with like the big, you know, eyes.

[54:59] yeah and then in parentheses which was our favorite part at hq was just ai in print lowercase ai in parentheses and so when i shared it in our fyp slack i was just like he could sit with me ai in parentheses and then gina was immediately like ai [55:19] and of course we put on the site like yeah it's just so funny that the original [55:23] I don't know if it was edited later because you only have what had the AI in it, but it had the AI in it. And so. [55:30] I saw a tweet. I saw this. I saw the kangaroo thing. And I thought it was just a... [55:37] Like, [55:38] an acting thing. Like, you know how there's, [55:41] skits skits I thought it was a skit you thought it was an animal acting yeah like you know how people do like oh I got hit on at the gym like and it's all set up it's all yeah I don't know why I cannot think of the words I think it's the infinity sign like as if it was bought at TJ Maxx that's on behind the woman that gave it away for me immediately I was like this is not an airline [56:11] Yeah, please. Let's watch it. One other thing that I'll say about it is that I... [56:15] saw it i thought it was a bit i thought it was a skit of some kind and then after [56:21] i saw a tweet the next day that was like it happened to me i was too for the kangaroo ai video oh then it said like i will be ending my life yeah yeah exactly i'm on a living pretty soon here okay let's watch this clip

[56:37] - Okay. - What's happening? - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. [56:49] - The thing is-- - It's the zoom in and-- - Now that you, knowing it's AI, over a million likes, wow. Knowing it's AI, now you watch it and you're like, of course this is AI. But there's something so disarming about how cute that this kangaroo is. - Right. - Like you can't process, you know, [57:06] what why is this happening this kangaroo is so cute and he's holding the boarding pass so sweet like a service animal vest yes it does it really does um anyway okay let's do one more story oh my gosh that's really funny really funny stuff thanks kate um [57:22] Okay, Harry Potter, tell us what's going on here. My favorite subject to talk about. And so they're making... [57:31] Warner Brothers making a new Harry Potter series. [57:37] If you don't know, Harry Potter is obviously super, I don't know how you don't know, famous book made into famous movies. Okay, Kate's saying that because when we were in London, every 15 minutes, she'd make a reference to Harry Potter and I'd be like, Kate, I've not seen or heard. I don't know what we're talking about. And she's like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So you've never seen any of the movies? I'm like, nope, nothing, nothing. So anyway, famed Harry Potter. [58:05] harry book made into famed movies iconic book iconic cast um

[58:13] Never TV show. Now they are making a TV series. So fans have always asked for, they've always complained, hey, we, we feel like you've took too much out of the books because the books are huge. [58:26] like thick boys and you can only make you know so many three-hour films they split the last movie into two films they did part one to part two you can't make it these fans happy and so they're like okay because there's no more books there's not jk rowling's done she's not writing any more harry potter books that's if anything there there was like a play that was made about like their future children these these characters the original characters future children there's also [58:56] about other characters. Okay, okay. We got it. We're coming down to the wire here. Time-wise. The point is, they're making a series and each season will cover each book. So that way they give them... Oh, okay. Wow, huge for... [59:08] Harry Potter fan huge huge now the thing that pisses uh all the Harry Potter fans off and you know people in general is casting and so April 14th they announced casting for some more like they're they're like more side characters this trio right here that you see the Hermione Harry and Ron they're the most famous in the books they're the main characters everyone else side characters [59:33] So people were very, very upset at some of the casting of the side characters, the main one being a... [59:41] character Professor Snape who is like the main nemesis if you will um

[59:47] was uh is casted as a black person a black man and so people had opinions because his character in the book isn't black [59:55] Well, I got to tell you, that's ridiculous. But just looking at these people right here, the photo on the right and the photo on the left, like it looks like the new kids that are here. [1:00:07] they got great presence. They're going to be great. Oh, I'm looking at this and I'm like, these characters look like AI generated characters. Okay guys, I got to go. I have to leave now. So I'll explain this to you later. Don't worry. All right. Thanks for tuning in everyone. We'll see you next week. I appreciate you always hanging out with us. Bye. Okay. That was DBH. Join us live [1:00:37] you