Ep 202: AI & Jobs Anxiety, Guest: Katie Notopoulos (Business Insider) on the Solana Conf, Guest: Marc Boiron (CEO Polygon Labs) on Katana, Pump.fun token launch, Mountainhead and SBF Netflix Show, McD's vs. Popeyes, Kylie Jenner's Boob Job Intel

[00:00] 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. DVH is hosted by myself, Dina 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. DVH is recorded live and best consumed as a video podcast. Here's this week's show. [00:30] you [00:32] We're live here. [00:35] DBH, June 4th. [00:38] 2025. Let's go. Let's go. What time is it in Paris? [00:45] It is 6 PM. [00:47] Okay. [00:48] What's your schedule? Like, are you working in the morning? What are you doing? [00:54] What are you doing over there? [00:57] My schedule is, it's great. I wake up, I'm in Paris for those who don't know. This is my annual schedule. [01:04] pilgrimage to [01:07] Not my motherland, but my heartland, my heartland, um, where I go to Paris for the month of June and I'm here again. Uh, so for those who don't know the lore, I did this last year and I'm here again. [01:21] My schedule is great. I wake up at like 9... [01:25] 15 a.m. and I go walk do a long walk and get a coffee and then I come back to my little uh apartment here and I'm working on a creative project I work on that for two hours and

[01:40] And then I go work out. [01:43] I got my Pilates studios that I love. I found a new studio that I'm really enjoying. Um, and then I either go have a nice little lunch or I do something, um, [01:54] for myself, like get my nails done or I go to a museum or something. Then I come back and work. And I work from like three to 10. And then I go have dinner. [02:04] Wow. A blessed life. A blessed life. And it stays bright. The sun doesn't go down to like 10 PM. And everybody goes out to dinner. [02:14] that late. Like everybody is, it's not like I'm sitting at an empty restaurant. It's like people are just getting to dinner themselves. Right. And when I'm walking to like the coffee shops, you would literally die. The coffee shops don't open to like, [02:25] some of them like 9 a.m that is a crime that's a crime yeah they're not working at all here um so everybody's having just a grand time smoking cigarettes and hanging out um [02:37] So it's great. Can't complain. You can't complain. You actually aren't allowed to complain. I'm not. I'm literally not. I'm literally not. But it's been really nice so far. I've been here only a few days. I got here Friday and I've been solo here. But my first group of [03:00] um, travelers arrives tomorrow. So that'll be fun. So I'm so happy for you. Oh, fun. It's really nice. Yeah. Um, [03:10] so that's what's up how's nashville national's great um i had a moment

[03:15] Last weekend I was at [03:19] a kid's birthday party, you know, you do the rounds of all the kids' birthday parties. And [03:24] I was sitting at... [03:26] having a conversation with [03:28] one of the dads, one of the other Oscars, my kid's friend's dad. And he turns to me and he goes, so [03:38] Well, one thing about me is that I live a very compartmentalized life. Yes. So I like am very compartmentalized with my... [03:46] family life. I'm very compartmentalized with my work life. You're a very private person. Yeah. The two [03:53] shall not meet. They shant meet. And so that's just like some context and background. So anyway, [04:02] Oscar's been playing with his kid and they've been like friends and he's going over to his house and like having conversations and he goes, [04:09] The dad turns to me and he goes, so Oscar's been telling me about your podcast. Oh, no. Oh, no. The worst has happened. Your kid. Your kid did you so dirty. The worst. And I'm like, oh. [04:23] And he's like, yeah, I looked it up. [04:25] No, he didn't. He shouldn't have done that. That's not nice. That's not nice. This is not for public consumption. No, it's not for public consumption. Exactly. Exactly. And he's like, so boys club. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And he was like, so sorry, Dina. I know. And then he's, and then I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, oh my God, the podcast name is dumb bitch hour. And like, I'm here in the context of this guy. Like he doesn't, there's, there's so much background that I would have had to have shaped. Like there's no, it's incorrect. It's an incorrect.

[04:55] it doesn't work it doesn't work and he's like trying to understand it and like [05:00] doesn't like understand the hue, like there's so much missing in that context is not there. Collapsed. Collapsed. Absolutely collapsed. And so now, but now the impact is that I'm like, [05:14] Oh, it's like Oscars going and spreading the word. And now all these parents are like seeing this and listening. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah. It's okay. So you're going to be like the absolute best version of yourself today. Just clammed up. I'm already so clammed up. I can feel it. Well, that was me last week when I was with my family and my dad was like, so do you have [05:44] supportive and I was so glad at the moment that we had a shorthand or dumb bitch hour and I was like [05:52] Yeah, I do. And then you were like, how's family vacation? I was like, we can't talk about that right now because no, they're listening. I know. I already feel myself like I'm withholding. [06:04] Uh-huh. Just let it go. Okay. I'm just going to let it go. You know what? It truly doesn't matter. [06:09] It doesn't. It doesn't matter. It's just I don't like to be caught off guard like that. I like to be in control of the narrative. [06:14] You know what I mean? Like, I like to know what I'm sharing with these people in my neighborhood. And so that I can remember then [06:21] You know, it just, I had, you know, totally. I had a moment the other day where I was like, okay, there's a person,

[06:27] in my orbit that I don't know personally. And that person, [06:33] could know so much about me. They could know so much about me. And I was just like, what have I done? I know. This is a crazy. Anyway, let's jump into the podcast. Hi, everyone who has joined us so far. Please say hello in the comments. We love to see who you are, where you're at. We have a [06:57] show coming up. Let me pull up our deck here. So welcome to DBH. First, before we get started, Natasha, what is Boys Club? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked, Tina. Boys Club is one part media business, one part creative studio. We do podcasts and newsletters and a ton of events, all sort of centered around the idea of emerging technology and how that new tech is, [07:22] engages and affects our everyday lives. So we have a very fun website you could check out, boysclub.vip, that we update every single day. And we have a lot of fun. We don't take ourselves too seriously. So anything you see that you're offended by, just know it's not that serious. You can let it go. You can let it go. Before we get started, just a quick shout out to Polygon. [07:52] 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 crypto payments, betting on Polymarkets, prediction markets, and a bunch more. We're going to have Mark Boran from CEO of Polygon Labs on the show in a few to talk about some fun stuff that they're cooking up, but just generally love Polygon so much. We love them. We love the team, love working

[08:16] and [08:18] Thank you for your support. [08:20] Okay. We have a bunch going on today. Big agenda. We might not get to all of it, but we're going to talk about AI and jobs. We're going to have Katie Natapolos. Is that how you say it? Natopolis, I think. Natopolis. She's coming on. I'm obsessed with her. She's an incredible follow on Twitter. And she recently wrote a debrief on Solana's Accelerate conference. [08:50] the CEO of Polygon Labs on to talk about a big update that they pushed last week. He is a self-proclaimed degen. So very excited to talk with him and ask him some questions that he's going to be generous enough to answer. We're going to do a quick drive by of the PumpFun token, potential token sale. There's a Hollywood beat that Hollywood and tech collab across [09:20] We're going to talk about Popeyes and McDonald's, AI Bible, vlogs, and Kylie Jenner's boob job, which is breaking news. I posted about this today that my interests have ranged and it was like the Circle IPO and Kylie's boob job. And Bunny responded and said something along the lines of like both huge like market movers. And I was like, absolutely right. So that's that's the show today. [09:46] Great. Let's jump in. Okay. So the first story here, AI and jobs.

[09:51] I just sent out a newsletter about this. I'm really spiraling. [09:55] Like truly. You are? I am. Yeah. I'm really like, I'm thinking about it. [10:02] all the time. [10:03] Okay. Same one. So like the story here is really like nothing's really happened. Like there's nothing that – [10:10] There's a couple headlines that have come out. There's this one that came out yesterday that said Sam Allman said that AI would replace 95% of ad agency work. And then there's this headline that came out last week, which was a book. [10:23] Axios calling what's happening or the pending jobs apocalypse, a white collar bloodbath. Few are paying attention. Lawmakers don't get it or don't believe it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it. [10:37] Yeah. Risks posed by possible job apocalypse until after it hits. That's like the general vibe. And it's so, yeah, nothing, nothing like has actually happened. I'm just like, we need to be talking about it more. Like we need to be talking about what's happening. And I think why it's come up for me is. [10:59] Thank you. [10:59] I'm starting to like [11:01] do some planning for next year. And I'm thinking about like where, like just personally in my personal life, like where kind of, I want my family to be. And like, we're thinking about traveling and doing some things like where we're spending some time overseas. And I'm really genuinely starting to think like, [11:17] Where is it? [11:18] going to be like, [11:19] safe for us to be when...

[11:23] this unemployment stuff starts to hit because I do think it's who knows what the timeline is going to be six months, 12 months, 18 months, maybe two years or more. But at some point, [11:34] I believe that there is going to be some... [11:38] bloodshed with [11:40] email jobs especially to start okay and then how does that so you're saying what's going to happen is a ton of people are going to lose their jobs and then [11:49] It's unprecedented. That's unprecedented. And so it's like, what are those people going to be doing with their time? Like, is it going to be like riots in the street? Like, what do you mean about safety? That's the jump that I'm not. [12:03] Yeah, seeing a high unemployment spike, I think it's not necessarily like what are those people going to be doing with their time, though, maybe it's what's the impact on. [12:15] on the economy, when people start to feel like, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, when, like, fundamental needs aren't being met, then stuff starts to, yeah, get weird. And, like, I'm not, like, I don't think that, like, my safety or my family's safety is at risk right now, obviously, but I... [12:35] if the economy starts to move in ways that are unprecedented, like you say, like, I don't know, weird stuff starts to happen. And so I think that, [12:45] um, [12:47] I think, yeah, I don't know like what types it, of course, I don't have crystal ball, like who's to say what's going to happen, but, um,

[12:56] entry-level white collar jobs. The CEO of Anthropic has said that AI could wipe out half of those. [13:04] in the next one to five years. And so, you know, it just starts to be like, okay, [13:10] Technology, finance, law, consulting, marketing, [13:13] Yeah. All of nothing feels safe. Yeah. So I have started to be like, okay, [13:21] Am I going to... [13:23] reach either retrain to be a welder like I'm like what are what's safe here Dean is a mechanic I'm like I I'm like yeah literally and then but then I'm starting to be like well maybe there's no like if people don't have money there's no cars maybe whoa oh full spiral full spiral oh my god and then the other thing that I've been doing has been like okay well maybe I'm [13:46] But maybe I'm going to like, [13:47] get a small business loan and buy [13:51] like an hvac business you love it [13:54] You are talking about this all the time. I have, I have this literally open on my, um, [14:01] on my... [14:03] desktop right now and it's like [14:05] Here's all the cash-federating businesses. [14:08] that I could buy in Nashville. You need to log off. You need to log off. But do I, or am I actually preparing for your prepper? You're a 2025 prepper. And that means buying an H back business. Some of these, I would never buy a bubble tea shop. And I, but I don't know, a booming painting business.

[14:26] Like those that are in the real world. I get that. I get that. [14:31] I do. I understand that a lot. I'm, I am tracking with you. This is what I think. I think that we are in a [redacted address] to break through the noise is to say things that are hyperbolic and over the top and fear mongering and rage bait. And every single one of these things. [14:53] CEOs needs to be at the top of the timeline. [14:56] and they need their company to be at the front of innovation and, [15:02] The only way to do that constantly is to say things that make people feel scared. [15:08] Well, it's worked. It's worked. It's worked. I'm taking out a loan to buy a custom cabinet. This is what I was talking about last night. I was like an established custom cabinetry company. Like, I also think I have to tell you, I think part of this is coming from like a deep desire to [15:26] like spend less time on the internet. Yeah. It's a combination of things that are coming together for you. [15:31] I think so. I think a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. And I think the idea of an email job is, one, hilarious. And I saw an incredible tweet the other day that I put it in the deck, but it seems to have gotten axed. But it was – [15:45] a text back and forth between what seemed to be a man and a woman and, [15:52] The... [15:53] tweet in front of the text with something like men everywhere are losing their jobs. And

[15:59] someone texted and said, can you explain shorting to me? [16:03] And then quick fast follow, never mind. And then the man texted and said, wait, no, wait, no, I can't. And she said, no, no, we're good. We asked ChatGPT. [16:15] Which I thought was very funny. So I do think that that's something that we're seeing as well. [16:22] You have no fear about like your own livelihood and AI? I'm just like, there's nothing I can do about it. Like- [16:29] But what if there is? Like, what if you could start doing something now that would put you in a better position for when that happens? Buying an HBAC business? I don't know. Or like becoming like a... [16:43] chick-fil-a franchise owner you make really good money actually but you do have to work all the positions uh-huh um [16:51] Uh... [16:53] I don't know. I'm sort of like in this headspace of... [16:57] Maybe I'll just like... [16:59] Thank you. [17:00] go paint and like live off the land. Okay. I'm just like, if, if everybody's losing their jobs, like if we're in like full, like 50% of the population doesn't have a job anymore. Like what am I, what am I doing trying to be an entrepreneur still? Right, right, right, right. I'm kind of done with that. So I don't know, that's where I'm at with it. And I think all I can do is [17:23] do good work that's in front of me currently. And so that's it. That's how I feel about it. I also think another thing is, I think just for like the AI industry,

[17:35] One thing I've been thinking a lot about also is like, [17:39] Right now, all we're seeing [17:41] Like, like, [17:42] There was this quote that I think the Anthropic CEO said that was like, we're going to cure cancer and we're going to like have... [17:50] all these incredible things are possible possibly with ai and and he's like vision casting this incredible future that i think [17:59] could be possible where [18:01] AI can make all these advancements and can meaningfully improve people's lives and save lives. And I think that that I can definitely see that vision and I can. [18:10] I can get really excited about that. I think that that vision is definitely at risk if [18:15] the short-term [18:17] impact of AI is content slop and [18:22] a job's bloodbath. I think people will start to [18:26] I mean, we've felt it in crypto where if the narrative turns on an industry, on a technology, and it's really hard to course correct that without like some wins on the board. And so I feel like to your point where it's like they're just trying to get in the headlines and they're just trying to like make sure that they're relevant and they're in the news all the time. Like I'd like to start seeing some in the news for some stuff that feels really good. [18:50] And I feel like we're kind of missing that right now. Yeah, totally. The other thing that I will say just to build off that is that I think we have no idea what the future, I think actually where it comes from and where my belief comes from is that we have, or where the lack of anxiety is, is that we have no idea what the future is going to look like. So to worry, there's going to be all these new things that are created, new industries, new jobs, new technologies that like are going to provide a bunch of different jobs that don't exist today.

[19:20] So to spend time thinking about what's going to be lost without having some hope for what the future would be is – [19:28] Short-sided, I guess. [19:29] Heard. Okay. Katie's here. [19:32] I'm going to bring her up on stage here. Hi. [19:36] How's it going? Good. Hi. Thanks for having me on this. I'm excited. I'm jealous here in Paris, but... [19:44] I am so excited to be chatting with you. Come on down. You're welcome anytime. Katie, we're so excited to have you. Welcome to the show. So just some context for folks who are watching. Katie is a correspondent at Business Insider. You were at BuzzFeed for many years, written for Fast Company, GQ, a very extremely online person. And I think I was going through... Game recognizing game in this situation. [20:14] I was going through some of your past work to reacquaint myself and I just want to, um, [20:21] I want to pull out some highlights that I think some folks would be familiar with. So the first one is your story. Google AI said to put glue in pizza. So I made a pizza with glue and ate it. Incredible. This let the boys put slack on fire. We were like just all dying over it. It was so good. I'm glad I could poison myself for your amusement. [20:44] And then the other one that I want to highlight was, I think it was back in 2017 or 2019,

[20:51] Google Maps feature that basically was like, you know, where it's like you could take a car, you could walk. And it was like, if you walk, this is how many calories you're going to burn. Oh, yeah. Such a stupid and idiotic thing to do of Google. And you wrote a piece about it, and then they pulled the feature. And so I was like, yeah. They killed it. I think it was kind of one of those things where [21:13] I think in hindsight, they probably were like, maybe just testing. You might have not rolled out to everyone, but it was like, [21:20] Like an obviously bad idea. Obviously bad. Obviously bad. Guys, I hate to be a contrarian, but I love it. I would take that feature. I would be like, any day, please. I'm not into the Oura Ring or the Whoop. So I'm like, this is the only way that I could get that information. Yeah, I mean, I think that they did something really weird. Like they measured it in cupcakes, which is frankly- [21:41] Yeah, like that's the thing, is that they were like, you, this would be two cupcakes if you walked. It was like fat shaming and like a little play. Yeah, like it was like, it wasn't just like calories, exercise. It was explicitly like cupcakes. Oh man, okay, okay. Which is a little... [21:55] Not quite right. Totally. Okay. So Katie, let's jump into it. You wrote a piece recently for Business Insider that was about your experience going to the Solana conference. Now I do want to say for everyone that's watching, you're not a crypto person. You're not going to these conferences. Your experience was very much as like a newbie person coming in. Yeah. I mean, I would say that like, I know as much about crypto as,

[22:22] as some i know the most possible amount you can know without actually working in crypto okay like i i know about crypto i'm not a crypto expert i don't work i'm not explicitly a crypto reporter i've reported on crypto a lot but like [22:36] You know, frankly, like in this [22:39] context, a lot of the sort of nitty gritty that people were talking about was like, not what I'm thinking about or knowing about. It wasn't like, this is my first time on earth ever experiencing anything crypto. Okay, got it, got it, got it. I appreciate that clarification. Okay, so what was your, say more about your experience? So the reason that I decided to go to this particular conference, and this was not, I mean, I'm trying to think, I actually, I mean, well, I've been to an NFT conference before. So this was not even my first crypto conference in [23:09] but yeah [23:12] It. [23:14] it it's not even like it's not like the big it's not like the bitcoin con like conference that they like this is sort of a smaller one right like but the reason i wanted to go to this is it was in new york and um there was i think it was back in march they they had this ad for the conference and the ad that ran online was like this sort of highly produced you know scripted video and the concept [23:44] America and he's going... [23:47] I've lately I've been having these intrusive thoughts about an urge to build and innovate. And the therapist, who's this sort of woke woman goes, hmm, maybe you should, you know, channel that energy into discovering a new gender or something. And it very much had this very explicit sort of culture war, anti-woke messaging to it. And the video was.

[24:11] or the ad sort of, you know, got a big reaction online because people were like, what the hell is this? Because it was just very political in a way that, you know, in reality, the conference is like, [24:26] a developers conference right totally um and so people were really sort of like flummoxed by this and the salon foundation right [24:33] Whoever is putting on the conference eventually pulled the ad. They removed it. You can still find it online. Some people saved copies or whatever. But as soon as I saw that ad, I was like, oh, I'm going to this. Like, I'm signing up. Like, what's this all about? [24:49] Because I was sort of curious, you know, we're in an interesting political time. And I wondered... [24:55] you know if this is how the people behind this conference you know and this was a you know a high production ad like it's not like a tweet from the intern it's like they had to you know get some approvals high up to you know film this budget there was a script hired actors you know it was a lighting crew um so [25:18] You know, like, [25:20] is this explicitly the message that's going to be going on in this conference? Because, you know, some of that messaging is not necessarily... [25:29] that far off from what I think a lot of people in crypto think. But it's also not necessarily what you would typically hear, [25:36] It was surprising that the conference itself would be messaging. So I'm sort of curious, you know, what's the vibe they're going to be like? Um,

[25:44] In reality, it was not as advertised, I would say. [25:49] Okay. So tell us what you found, like what were some of the key, um, [25:55] I guess there's like two things. What was sort of the programming and the actual content of the [26:02] um conference and then what was sort of like the climate of the culture and how that might have been different from what you expected so the conference itself was several days i think the first few days are sort of developers only a lot of like workshop kind of stuff i only went to the last day um which was when so most most of the like more famous well-known speakers were speaking um and so uh the the big i would say like the biggest speaker they had there was kirsten gillibrand the new york senator [26:32] Um, [26:33] Richie Torres, who's also a... [26:36] in the House of Representatives from New York. The Bo, is it Heinz or Hintz? He's sort of like, the deputy crypto czar under Dave Sachs, he was speaking. So it's sort of about regulation stuff. So there were these sort of interesting political figures speaking. [26:56] um and so that's sort of what i wanted to see there was also um the there were i mean there were [27:03] couple people that I was interested to see, but then I'll be honest, like, it's a little boring. They weren't, like, when I say boring, it was, like, they weren't dropping huge breaking news bombs, right? Totally, yeah. There was not anything...

[27:17] As a reporter, like, um, the CEO of, uh, Kalishi, I realize I've never said this out loud. Yeah. Kalishi. Um, you know, the, the prediction market site. And I'm, that's really interesting to me. Like there's a fascinating business and company, um, really interested in what he has to say, but like there was, there was no like huge revelations. There's no like news being broken really. Um, and, um, yeah. [27:42] Yeah. So I was sort of interested in like, you know, what some of these speakers were going to be saying, you know, nothing again, like honestly, like nothing like hugely news breaking. [27:54] You know, I think the Gilliband and Tor, Richie Torres, Anthony Scaramucci, who is. He loves to make the rounds. He's at every single one of these. I mean, I kind of feel like you could get him to speak at your barbecue, [28:12] He's gettable. He's gettable. He's gettable. He'll show up. He'll show up. And, you know, he was there. I mean, [28:20] All of them sort of... [28:24] There was one thing that came up several times across the mood was that this was also the day after that Trump meme coin dinner had happened about two weeks ago. And everyone kind of thought that was terrible. Yeah. You know, I think, you know. [28:43] I imagine that even for people who are deeply in the crypto world and, um,

[28:49] Their political sympathies may be in many places. They probably even were like, this is not so good. [28:57] So there was a little bit of chatter about that. But I mean, for the most part, it was like, [29:02] everybody just wanted to talk about stable coins that was like every speaker who came up was like da da da stable coins at one point there was this really awkward moment where like one of they sort of had rotating mcs and one of the mcs like after someone had just talked about their stable coin she was like um great and now for an exit we're like that's really nice like saying to see about a stable coin i hope not everyone makes a stable coin because then it'll get confusing for people anyways our next people coming up and then they talk about [29:32] that's the stable coins were the hot things that everyone was [29:36] talking about that they wanted to be working on. Okay. Yeah. I shout out to the circle IPO happening now. Katie, what's, uh, wish we had more time with you. There's so many other questions I'd love to ask you, but, uh, one just parting question, uh, as a very online person, what, what weird internet things are you tracking right now? Are you looking at, are you excited about or not excited about, but like, [29:59] obsessing over curious um that's a great question i would say that like my personal favorite obsession is i really like instagram reels i think that in a weird way i find it so much more interesting than tiktok because i on tiktok i see like stuff that's [30:16] targeted towards my interests and on instagram reels i see like

[30:21] the most insane, weird stuff. And it's very, like, sensitive to if you start interacting with one thing, you get a lot more of it. So, like, I am constantly getting videos of, like... [30:35] basically like hoarder houses in Russia. Like, it's like the most dark and disgusting thing. And there's just like liquor bottles everywhere. And like some old man lying on like a bare mattress and like just speaking in Russian. And they're like, but I get like tons of them. Like, so I, I love that about Instagram reels. Like, [30:56] You can easily fall down a rabbit hole of like, why on earth am I seeing this? Whereas I feel like you don't quite see that on TikTok. I see stuff that I actually like. That's so funny. One thing about Reels that I have to say that I... [31:09] so they have this feature now where you can see like the old days of instagram you can see other reels that people have liked that you follow yeah and [31:19] I just feel like I need to have a PSA for people to know that because I know that people are out there liking things that they don't realize is then getting fed to all their friends that they have liked. And I'm just like, wow, this is so interesting. And you can see like, wow, this guy is so into running. Like he's just so into running in a way that I'm just like, this is very weird. Anyway, I agree with you. I feel like Reels is like a happy place for me right now.

[31:49] know about it enough. It's called blends. And the idea is you do it within the DMS on Instagram, that you like start a blend with someone. And that means that you can see their feed, like their suggested algorithm. And so, and so, and then they see yours. And so what you're seeing is a blended mix of like, like sometimes you think to yourself, I wish my friends could see this insane shit that I'm seeing. Right. They made that, they made that. [32:17] Oh my gosh, Katie, I'm going to friend you and damn you and get into a blinded Russian. Exactly. Oh my gosh. It's like a really fun feature. Like, cause you do see, cause it's not just the stuff they like, it's the stuff that's being suggested to them. So it's the stuff they don't like too. So revealing. So revealing. Really fun. I feel like people have not figured this out enough, but it's a new feature and it's, I think it's really cool. [32:42] I love it. Katie, thank you so much for coming on. I hope that this will be the first of many. And so great to finally meet you. I've been such a big fan of yours. Oh, thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for having me on. This was so much fun. Okay. Bye, Katie. See you later. [32:59] Okay. We have Mark here. Should I bring him on up? Let's jump in. [33:04] Hi. Hello. How are you both doing? Good. How's it going? Great to see you. Good to see you too. Mark, where, well, I guess maybe you don't want to say, where roughly, geographically, are you calling in from? Arizona. Okay.

[33:22] Nice. Okay. So Mark Boran, CEO of Polygon Labs, you guys had, first of all, we love Polygon. Love, obsessed. Your team is so great. Every single person I have met and worked with at Polygon is just like good people, smart, kind. You've done an amazing job building a team of people that like you actually want to work with and hang out with. So great job. [33:52] that are fun to work with. Like, that's pretty much perfect that way. [33:56] I love that. Okay, so you guys have had a big week and a half. You shipped, launched Katana. Give us the TLDR. What's going on? What's going on there? [34:09] Yeah, yeah. So, Katana is a new DeFi focused chain. And [34:15] We, for various reasons, tied into like the ag layer, they basically decided that we really wanted to chain that like super deep liquidity built into it. And really, when you look at like the landscape. [34:27] there's really nothing that's actually built well for that purpose. And so we decided to go build out a chain that specifically achieves that goal. [34:34] Can I ask a dumb question? [34:38] Yeah. Okay. How is the liquidity built into it? [34:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, think of your typical chain, like you've got like, [34:46] literally 30 different DEXs on a chain or like 15 different lending protocols. And what happens is that like all of that liquidity, let's say you've got like, I don't know, a hundred million dollars of liquidity. Then you've got like 50 million dollars in one and like.

[35:00] $30 million in another. And then like, you know, you just keep going down like the longer tail of DEXs and the same thing for other like funding protocols and perp DEXs and spot DEXs. The problem with that is like, it's nice that you have a hundred million dollars on the chain, but it's somewhat irrelevant because the thing that matters is that like, you can only tap in like the deepest liquidity you could tap into is that DEX that has $50 million of liquidity. Okay. And then like any one pool has even like less liquidity there than that. So the nice thing [35:30] way, kind of like enshrine. [35:32] like one spot decks, one perp decks, one lending protocol. So, [35:36] whatever TBL comes into the chain, [35:38] it all comes into that one dex. [35:42] And so what you would assume on Katana is that you would actually have less TVL. Maybe you don't get a hundred million dollars TVL because there you have [35:48] 30 different decks is bringing in that TVL. [35:50] maybe you actually only get $70 million of TVL, but that $70 million of TVL is actually substantially more valuable than the $100 million of TVL because it's all concentrated in just one protocol. [36:05] Okay, I think I'm tracking. So it being in essentially the same pool makes it more valuable for people to be able to use because they have access to more of it as opposed to it being sort of [36:16] like siloed into these different various, uh, [36:20] DEXs or protocols or whatever it may be on other chains. [36:24] Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's basically like saying like, if you were using Binance, [36:30] The fact that Coinbase has a bunch of liquidity and the fact that Kraken has a bunch of liquidity and OK, it's like irrelevant.

[36:38] Like all you care about is how much liquidity is actually in Binance. But if you really think about like how most, but every chain other than Katana is really built, it's like, no, you do have all of those other things that are like literally irrelevant to you. [36:51] Okay, I'm checking. Okay, great. I'd love to sort of zoom out a little bit and... [36:57] Have you explain how... [36:59] the economy of blockchains work. I think we all know that there's a lot of money involved, but I've never really understood how. And so I'd love to have that as context as well, thinking about why Katana is so special, but having sort of like the foundational understanding of the economics of blockchains more generally. [37:18] Yeah, like, ultimately, like, [37:20] It all comes down to like the value of a token. [37:23] Right. That's the thing that ultimately matters. And it matters for different reasons and different blockchains. Some of them, it's like mostly purely economical. Some of it plays a role from a security perspective in terms of like how much security is contributed to the network. And so that that matters like. [37:41] a lot in terms of like the actual architecture of the chain, but we don't need to get into that. I think the thing that like really matters is like what ends up driving value into that token. And I think there's like a, there's probably like three ways that we could break this up. There's one way that is like purely like, I don't know, I'll call it like, just like crypto native, i.e. there's no freaking reason for it whatsoever. It's just because this is crypto and people want

[38:11] whatever tribal reasons, most likely they want to hold a token. Um, that's like one category. And like, that's why you can look at a lot of tokens and you're like, I have no idea why this is, has this value. Like I literally can't attribute it to anything. Um, I think like a second reason would be one that is, um, I'd say still not like super core to, um, what you really would want, but it's like, um, there, there is value that is being created. [38:41] like actually coming from users. So examples of this is like inflation in tokens, right? A lot of networks have like inflation. If you stake your tokens, you're gonna get a portion of that. The thing is, if you actually look at a lot of networks, those with like the highest inflation, [38:55] actually do pretty well because what it does is incentivizes people to lock their tokens. [39:00] and never sell them because they're like, hey, I'm getting an 8% return on this. Like, hey, I'm going to keep locking my tokens and more and more people lock. But like, [39:08] there's no real value created there in any way whatsoever. It's literally just new tokens being created. If anything, it's actually harmful. [39:15] But nobody views it that way because they're like, well, all these people who are not staking, they're the ones who are actually getting delivered. I don't care because I'm staking. And so they're just like, I'll go stick. And then the third one is what I'd say is like the important thing. [39:26] fundamental part of it, which is really like fees that are actually being generated on the network, which is people who actually like want to use the chain. And in Katana's case, really what this comes [39:37] is we have this concept that we talked about as like productive TVL. So like most changes focus on like how much money do I have on this chain? And that's the only thing they care about.

[39:46] When we talk about Kizana, we literally don't even think about [39:49] TVL. We only think about this concept of productive TVL. So it's TVL that's actually being used in applications. This actually matters because when you use them, you actually drive fees to the chain, which is technically what should actually drive value to a token in the long run. It also has a very important byproduct, which is it also drives value to the apps. And you want the apps on your network to make a boatload of money. And so if people are incentivized to actually use a network, [40:19] then what you end up having is people who applications who make more money and then applications see that and they're like, well, I want to go over there as well. So I can make more money over there. And then you get more applications. [40:30] They attract more users that drives more fees. The chain makes more money. [40:34] token value benefits from that. [40:36] We got a flywheel going. [40:38] Exactly. Okay. And so the apps that you're speaking to on, I really like that distinction of productive TVL. And I think that's really useful one. The apps that would fall within that would be DeFi apps primarily. It's like a for purpose chain that's for DeFi apps. Is that correct? [40:58] Yeah, yeah. Like it's this belief that I like strongly hold that I think the space is going to realize more and more. Actually, I was on a BD call this morning and the team was like, [41:07] Yeah, this is very obviously playing out, which is like every discussion that we're having now is like nobody's going to go build another general purpose chain. [41:15] because like ultimately like why do you need more block space that looks exactly like the block space that you already have.

[41:21] Totally. [41:22] Now the variations have become so small. It made sense like five years ago, right? Like there was very big differentiates, like differentiations and blockchains. I don't think that really exists today. And so I always say like, either you can build a chain for a specific purpose, or you will be forced to focus on a specific purpose. Because I think if we fast forward three to five years from now, what's going to happen is all these chains are going to be built for a specific purpose, and they will be better for that purpose than a general purpose chain. And people are going to do it for every time. They're going to do it for DeFi. They're going to do it for Deepin. They're going to do it for payments and RWAs. And they're going to go [41:51] I didn't do that for really like gaming. Gaming actually was ahead of everyone else on this. And all the general purpose chains are just going to be left with the thing that they happen to be best at. And so yeah, Katana is like very much built as like a DeFi centric chain intentionally because [42:10] There's things that are built there that, like, honestly, you wouldn't want for payments, for example, or for giving. [42:16] But they're things that DeFi people are like, yes, I very much want that. And so it's desirable for them. [42:21] Mm-hmm. [42:22] That's really interesting. Okay, let's talk about the yield a little bit. So, [42:27] Where's the yield coming from? Is it coming from the productive TVL fees that are coming off of the productive TVL? [42:36] with that also, how does it compare to [42:40] like the four percent or 3.8 or whatever that i'm getting on like a high interest savings account [42:45] Yeah, yeah. Okay, I love this question, because a lot of what I get is, hey, Katana is just like, [42:50] Like, why do we need another chain or even another DeFi chain, right? Like, now you have, like...

[42:54] Barachain and Unichain and Mantle and Sonic and [42:58] Okay, so I kind of break it down into like five sources of yield and you could split that as like [43:04] what's called like real yield, real sustainable yield, and then like token emissions, right? And historically, what you see is just like pure token emissions, right? Like, which is in our case, it's all these core applications. So like Morpho, Sushi, Vertex have a certain percentage of their tokens. [43:21] that are going as incentives as you commonly see. The chain itself has a token called CAT. [43:27] which goes towards emissions. Those end up driving kind of like initial stages of incentives. But then there's like three other sources of like what I'll call like real yield that is not like magical. It's all magic internet money, but less magic. [43:41] And so the first of all, one is, is what we refer to as like bridge yields coming through a protocol that we call Valbridge. So basically like anyone who deposits USDC, USDT, ETH, or BTC, [43:51] onto Katana are actually depositing it into a smart contract on Ethereum, which is a Morpho vault where those assets are lumped out. [44:00] that earns a certain amount of yield. [44:02] to take all of that yield and put those right back into the chain and go through to the users. Right. And so if you really think about it, like not the full amount of the yield for various reasons, we want like people to be able to exit easily enough. So we don't put all of it in there, but like somewhere around like 70% of the yield you would earn on L1, you're now earning that on L2. In addition to, of course, the yield that you can earn on L2 when you use your token. So that's the first source of like real yield. The second one is sequencer fees, right? So this is a single sequencer that like we control.

[44:32] So we receive all the fees. So we take all of those fees and we push them right back out to the users. And so if you fast forward, like BASE had $100 million of fees last year on their sequencer. You just take 10% of that in the first year, that's $10 million in fees, go right back out. And then lastly, when you hear that first thing that I mentioned around the bridge yields, you can envision a set of people saying, [44:55] And that's not really something I want to like mess around with. I think honestly, those DeFi people are totally comfortable with it. But like if we start talking about like institutions and things like that, they're probably not comfortable with it. And so we have a stable coin that is like native to the chain. So it's like minted directly on the chain, doesn't come through the bridge. That is a like revenue sharing stable coin from Agora, a USD. And so we get a very big portion of that yield. [45:19] and that yield goes right back to the users. So when you really think of that, what really ends up happening is that as the chain gets used more, those sequencer fees increase, [45:28] that ends up being yield that can go right back to the users as more activity happens. And then same thing as you get more deposits, whether it's those bridge assets or like a USD, that's just more yield being generated. So like, as you get more size, as you get more activity, you ultimately are just driving like more yield that is actually sustainable and grows as you grow. [45:48] Okay. [45:49] Maybe instead of starting an HVAC business, I'll become a yield farmer. We've changed the yields already. Thank you so much for spending some time with us and for walking us through that. One final question though. If I'm just like a normal average user, like me,

[46:09] you know, just with my wallet. [46:11] poking around the blockchains how [46:14] How can I engage with Katana? What's an entry point for me? [46:18] Yeah, so right now, Katana is like a private mainnet, right? So nobody can actually access the chain. We have like these pre-deposit vaults available that anyone can go deposit. [46:27] pretty juicy yields around 50% right now. If you go to, you know, Turtle Club, Turtle.club, you can see them there. That allows you to start burning some yield early on. [46:38] Eventually what will happen is we'll have like a app.katana.network where we're going to, and I think your point's actually, whether you're making it intentionally or not, I don't know. Um, about like just the average user it's intentionally built to be like incredibly easy to use. So like we'll be like embedded wallets. [46:56] so that people who want to come from different chains, we will actually like subsidize all the solver fees so that like you can onboard from another chain for free and just like come in and start using it. The idea is like actually have like a really simple experience that like DGens can still go and go to the apps where they want to do like the crazy DGEN stuff, which is great. I'm all for it and excited about it. But then like your everyday user can just go and like in a couple clicks just deposit like super easily. So yeah, that's the experience that we're hoping for when [47:26] the public mainnet at the end of June. [47:30] Cool. [47:31] Great. Super excited. Well, thank you so much, Mark. It's so nice to have you on and so great to hear about what you guys are building. [47:39] Cool. I appreciate you all having me. So thank you.

[47:43] Okay. Anytime. Talk to you soon. Right. [47:46] Okay. What a nice guy. Nice guy. Nice. Great guest today. Really, really solid stuff. Solid stuff. Okay. We're going to pivot quickly into, uh, back to DGEN's as he was talking about. Um, okay. So I'm going to give a quick rundown on, uh, pump fun. [48:05] potential token sale. What we're hearing on the internet waves. Okay. So some rumors are swirling that Pump Fund is preparing for a $1 billion token sale at a $4 billion valuation. This speculation, [48:23] was hit the timeline yesterday from a Blockworks report that had several anonymous sources saying that the launchpad is moving forward with a token sale. [48:36] For those who do not know, Solana is a meme coin. It's a Solana-based meme coin launcher. It went crazy over the past year. Plus, it launched in January of 2024. So it's been around for a little bit. But I would say like winter of this past year was really, it was, it was, it was when we were losing all of our money on Pumped Up. [49:06] And so there's a lot of chatter on the timeline about it. There is speculation that 10% of it will be airdropped.

[49:17] and allocated to community members so users and people who have engaged with the pump.fun site. Since [49:26] it launched it has had a cumulative revenue of almost 700 million dollars so 677 million dollars and nearly i heard i saw 11 [49:39] I saw 11 and 13 million. So around there, tokens launched via their launchpad. So it was crazy. It's a crazy situation. I met a guy at a party around this time when Pumped Up Fund was like just... [49:55] Everybody was on it all day, all the time, losing money, gambling, addicted to it. [50:00] And he was like, yeah, I met the pumped up fund founders, uh, [50:05] a year or so ago and the founders are really young. I think they're like 21 or something like that. Okay. He was like, he told them that they should have launched it on another chain. So he was like, if it had been up to me, it probably wouldn't have worked, which I thought was really funny. And, uh, I was like, why are you telling me that don't tell that story anymore? Um, anyway, so there's sort of two schools of thoughts that are around this, uh, rumor. The first is the haters, [50:35] Um, and here are some of their takes. They're saying they're doing this because the platform is down 66%. So it was, [50:43] In May, it generated about $46 million.

[50:48] And verse what it was doing in January, which was, [50:52] $137 million. So it's down tremendously. I do just want to say a business that does $46 million in revenue in one month is still a verifiable business. Totally. Totally. I will say what comes to mind is that one tweet that I will never forget, which is someone saying a token launches the spiritual death of a product, which is speaking to some of the other stuff that you'll get to. But yeah, I agree. I think that they're making a lot of money still. They're still making [51:22] like top signal for this cycle, like beware. There's a lot of speculation that traders and users won't get an airdrop. I'm not understanding where that's coming from. That was not in, all of this is stemming from a BlockWorks article that had three anonymous sources confirm the $4 billion valuation. Okay. Okay. [51:43] and the $1 billion token sale. [51:46] And so I don't know why people, where that's coming from, that there's not going to be an airdrop. That seems like, to me, it seems like it's come out of Twitter thing. Rage rating. Exactly. Yeah. The other take is that they've already extracted $700 million of liquidity from the market by having people just bet on meme coins and lose all their money. [52:16] But... [52:16] This is going to like continue to suck liquidity out of the Solana chain and the token prices of Solana is going to dump and leave the whole ecosystem like exposed. So that's been a take I've been seeing on the negative side and people are upset. And then on the positive side, it's really what this tweet is saying here where it's saying like this is essentially TLDR. This is what crypto is made for.

[52:46] guy, Peter Pan, the Peter has a three, if you want to follow him. One of the biggest and most successful consumer apps built on the blockchain is deciding to go public via a token sale that provides democratized access to the public. And suddenly everyone is calling it max extract, question mark, question mark, question mark. This is what crypto is built for. So the other side of it is like, what do you want? This is exactly what consumer applications that are built on blockchains are supposed to do. They're supposed to launch a token. They're [53:16] to users and that's the whole fucking point. So why are you upset? Um, so those are the two takes we'll see the speculations that will happen, that it will happen in the next two weeks. Um, and we'll find out. [53:32] I hope we, the royal, we get an airdrop. I will say, I have a question. [53:38] For you. [53:40] *laughs* [53:41] If you no longer have access to a wallet that you were using on that app, [53:48] Uh-huh. Application. Uh-huh. There's no path forward for an airdrop, right? Well, it's not that you don't have access to it anymore. It's that it's a compromised wallet, right? No, different. Well, I do... [53:59] We don't need to get in the details. You actually don't have the keys for it anymore? No, no, I do have the keys for it. I do have the keys for it. [54:06] Okay. So I can just go in. Get your airdrop. Bam, bam, bam, boom, bam, boom. Okay. Okay. We're moving. We're moving fast. Okay. Okay. Let's get Kate up. Let's do our quick hits here. Kate, welcome to the show. I know you've not been feeling well. How are you doing right now? Right now I'm great.

[54:27] Oh, great. Does my voice sound weird? It doesn't sound 100 PC, but it doesn't sound weird. That's fine. Let's get into it. Okay, Dina, give us the Hollywood beat. What is going on? Okay, so just a quick one here. And really, this is just like a little trend piece. There are three active tech [54:48] Hollywood crossover stories, shows, movies that are happening right now that I just think it's interesting and zeitgeisty and worth noting. So the first one is, of course, the SBF Caroline Ellison, Netflix, [55:02] limited series called. Oh, it's a series. It's a limited series. Yeah. Um, and so that, that news came out last week and, um, [55:12] Everyone had a lot of opinions about it. I don't know that we necessarily need to get into... [55:18] Honestly, like, [55:19] the women hating that's going on around. I have one thing to say about it. I have one thing to say about it. If a mini series or movie is made about my life, [55:29] I would want and would expect that that woman is the most beautiful possible woman in the world. Like I would. That is what I want. Just put it on record. Put it on note. OK, tweet it. Put it into existence. OK. Yeah. I mean, I think just what you're speaking to is like that's a lot of the commentary is just. [55:51] about how this how caroline ellison looks and honestly it's mean and it's it's so tired too it's tired we're past it like we're we've done that and i you guys are all exposing how much

[56:04] losers you hate women um okay so that's the first one and uh i am of course going to be tuning in maybe we should do a uh oh my gosh i love that idea i've been waiting for this moment uh okay so that's the first one okay the second one is um which this news just came out amazon is making a movie about the open ai board drama so this is uh i saw a tweet that said this is [56:34] So the board drama is, of course, when Sam was ousted. This was, I don't know, a year and a half ago now, maybe. And it was this big moment for Silicon Valley. And the casting here, also incredible. Everyone got a great treatment. Oh, I'm so looking forward to it. The interesting thing about this is, is that Andrew Garfield? He was in The Social Network, too. Yes, yes. So he's got a- That's a great cast, in my opinion. Great cast. I will say, Mira Morati, she's- [57:02] she she's so beautiful she could do she could be she could be in it she's busy can you imagine she's like i'm also going to star in this film but um how do you say his name this this italian i love him he did uh call me by your name and oh wow yeah i had to do that okay cool aesthetic the other one he did luca guardiano yes that guy him him um okay and the last one really quickly here because i want to get to some of these other quick hits i watched this movie

[57:32] the all-in guys... [57:33] Oh, like it's like a pastiche about like rich, hyper rich tech billionaires. It's written by the guy who did succession. Okay, nowhere near. [57:47] in any universe as good as succession i'm going to be watching it you should watch it and then we can talk about it when you do but okay the one tweet that i saw that i was like oof that's a bad review is that mountain had proved that there's only one jeremy strong [58:02] Uh, yeah. Yeah. Jeremy strong's not in it, right? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. So I think they were saying like, [58:10] Yes. Nothing compares to nothing compares. Nothing. Um, [58:14] It's not in the same universe as Succession, but it is a pretty informed look at [58:21] that world that is yeah it's sharp so i'm looking forward looking forward yeah uh we can talk about that when you watch it okay what's coming up next here kate on our quick hits popeyes versus mcdonald's take it away i will try and be as quick as i possibly can but this is my nba finals um both popeyes and mcdonald's are bringing in a chicken snack wrap and they look the exact same [58:51] McDonald's just posted this long, very LinkedIn energy post where they're like, you guys are the ones who did this. And it's been a long time coming. And thank you so much. And it's very earnest.

[59:05] Wait, wait, wait. McDonald's made a post about the chicken snack wrap. Okay. Coming back. Very long. If you go to, yes, exactly. If you go to the next slide. Um, yeah. [59:16] you'll see like how long it's a long post and i saw it and i'm the biggest one more slide sorry one more side oh it's just so long i was like i ain't reading all that and it was so funny that i saw popeyes post our favorite meme where it's like so sad or happy for you i'm not reading all that this is a crazy post yeah [59:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [59:42] It's long. [59:43] The TLDR is really, they're just saying like, thank you to our fans. You made this happen. [59:50] and it's very linkedin and so popeyes had a hilarious comeback to it because wow we [59:57] They're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Y'all good? [1:00:00] And so this isn't pointed at Popeye's though. This is just the person saying like, just in their lane. [1:00:06] Doing their thing, bringing back the chicken snack wrap for people, though I do think they should bring back the grilled because that was the better one. Mm-hmm. And this is… [1:00:16] Like which one is which? [1:00:18] So Popeyes is like, [1:00:20] trying to make this stir the pot. They're trying to stir the pot. They read Nick Susie's, um, started a, started a culture war. [1:00:30] Um, I gotta say I'm team Popeye's here just based on the visuals. Uh, [1:00:34] Also, I just like Popeyes is for chicken, in my opinion. Like, if there's a chicken, I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. Miranda said, my wife just walked in and said, is that Kate talking about McDonald's again? She's on her beat. She's on her beat. Oh, my gosh. Great stuff, Kate. I did ask our caster. I was like, which team are you? And some people brought up Raising Cane's, which is. Oh, I went for the first time. Yeah. It's really incredible. Incredible stuff. It's so good. So good.

[1:01:04] It's the addition of bread. [1:01:06] in my opinion like that bread is okay okay they had a superior dipping sauce in my opinion yeah i went to like ground zero i went to uh the raising canes on broadway in nashville and it was like wow we are in oh that's hq the atmosphere it's beautiful um okay next up real quick um is just the ai bible stories which natasha hates the slop and i think it's hilarious [1:01:36] The last thing here, just Kylie Jenner continues to be... [1:01:41] That bitch. I love her. She is so, she's everything to me. Some girl put this TikTok out and was like, please, please give me the details. [1:01:52] on your boob job. Like, please. [1:01:55] Kylie Jenner comments on this girl's TikTok and gives her all of the tea. And I'm just like, this woman is a girl's girl. She's looking out. She's being transparent. 445 CCs is loco, but I love her for it. What I need to know next is if Garth [1:02:14] who is the most famous plastic surgeon in the world, if he did the Kris Jenner facelift. That's what I need to know next. Oh, we're looking at Garth Fischer's IMBD, figuring out what else he's done. I will say that the discourse around this is like, she started with a, hey, I love this. This is beautiful. It's perfect. I want this. Girl, you did your thing. Like, it's complimentary versus anyone else who's just kind of talking about it.

[1:02:44] someone retweeted it and was something like this is this is crazy to say but this is like late stage feminism or something oh which is great okay great note to end on um [1:02:58] What a fun... [1:02:59] dbh we had here today we've covered a lot what are what a range of topics we have discussed here um yeah thanks to everyone who tuned in and who commented we love to see it and thank you so much join us next week we'll be back same time same place see you then [1:03:16] Okay, that was DBH. Join us live on Twitter every Wednesday at noon. Or here, I guess.