People in SF are Nervous, with Valentina Escudero and Luke Igle

I caught up with @baelentina_ and @lukeigel to get a vibe check on SF so far in 2026 and explain why Corgi-posting proliferated across the timeline (i'm sorry).

Also you might have noticed that MOTS looks somewhat polished?? Well Luke's product @trykino kind of changed my life.

Watch on X; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Transcript

Vibe check on SF, everyone is nervous

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're listening to another episode of Members of Technical Staff. We are in a quite a familiar setting, I must say. But I wouldn't be caught dead actually saying where that is or where anything is, because everything that happens on mods, well, there needs to be some sort of plausible deniability. Speaking of which, uh I'm here with Valentina again. So it's actually been a while since Valentina has been here. I mean, it's been like two months.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

I know, right? Is what it is. I was feeling like it's been a while too. I missed you guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Don't say shit like that, please. It's kind of weird. And we've got Luke. Holy shit. So uh so Luke, of course, you know, you might have seen him from J Mail. You will see him quite a bit when it comes to his startup keynote, actually. Um, I would argue that's actually more important than this is my house. I hope you guys all have enjoyed my house. There goes the plausible deniability. Don't mean to fucking say. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

I'm here all the time.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Aren't we all? Aren't we all? We'll just we're just talking about how um there are all of these things happening at this particular house over the last few days.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I know. Everyone wants to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

I mean, what I wouldn't give. Get me in here more. Um basically, speaking of house, uh, this house is in SF and uh it is like a little bit more than halfway through the year. So I just kind of wanted to get basically a vibe check on San Francisco of from people who are in San Francisco doing sort of the technology thing in the scene, whatever people want to call it, uh that's what Luke and Val are doing, that's what I'm doing, right? Doing San Francisco or some shit. And so I think to start, what are the current vibes in SF? You know, this time in 2026 as opposed to this time 2025, perhaps, if there is any sort of anchoring point that we want to start with.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I think exactly one year ago, uh it felt like people had less to do and people had uh were less busy. Uh right now everyone just uh there's a feeling of stress, there's a feeling of uh there is so much that I am now responsible for. Yeah. Maybe this just comes with age. Yes. And all my peers are just doing this because we're all getting older.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Just getting just getting onk.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

But I I think that there was, I think it's because of the technology, I think that there's a real thing where because of how good the models have gotten at the end of last year, that this whole year has felt a lot different for me. Everything everyone's media diet, obviously, but uh everyone's jobs have completely changed and sleep schedules and waking schedules. It it feels new.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Totally, totally. Do you echo this in some way, shape, or form?

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Yeah. Even lifting schedules. People are just like becoming morning gym persons.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

That's fucked up. Yeah, I know it's I've I wouldn't be I wouldn't be caught dead. I wouldn't be caught dead going to the gym in the morning. Is what it is, cope, but but whatever. It also is like slightly more optimal time to actually train later in the day, by the way. Did you guys know this?

SPEAKER_04 2:42

I believe that. I believe anything you say. Look at your arms. Look at my arms. Whatever you say.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

That's like the only part that I have any some any sort of credibility. That and jazz music. Yeah. So, you know, uh, you can you can listen to what I say when it comes to those sorts of things. Anything else, uh, take it with the grandest.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

I mean, you're also a member of the technical staff.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

The technical staff. The the inventor of member of technical staff. Move over Bell Labs, you fucking creatine cycle.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Yeah, I feel like maybe it just took me, maybe you know what it is.

The different SF personas

SPEAKER_04 3:13

I feel like everything has become so much more extreme lately. I think with the there's more pressure, there's just more pressure in general, more pressure to be like hotter, more pressure to perform whatever, more pressure to like escape the permanent underclass, etc. etc. More pressure to like find a role in like everything that's kind of like happening right now. So I I started thinking about different personas that kind of like come out of that.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

And I I have a rubric.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Go wait, we're gonna get into Valentina's rubric.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

I mean, yeah, I feel like basically, you know, we're all in this like subculture of like the same 200 people that we're constantly seeing like at similar parties, we're all on Twitter, we're all very online, and it's a very different niche, I think, than everyone in the rest of the country experiences. Um, like my subculture is like different. Like I grew up in Miami, everyone's Hispanic, it's like 99% Hispanic, different like sociographic profiles, the aesthetics, the loudness, like what people value, how confrontational people are, which we've talked about before.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Um like the uh uh the the four-year-old nephew's birthday parties. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

They didn't really confront him in the video, they just kind of let him do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

The joke that I'm getting at is like, what is it, like the Instagram reels where it's like, you know, like uh uh like Latinos at the four-year-old nephew's birthday and it's like 4 a.m. and there's like Mindellos everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

And like that's what I grew up with. But like everyone's much more open, and like if they're gonna say something, they're gonna say it to your face. Whereas like here, like as we've covered before, it's kind of like there's such extremely different personalities in like this very tight-knit circle, similar to maybe in other specific niches around the country. But I think what makes San Francisco particularly different is that we have like this tolerance for like some of the worst kinds of behaviors. You know, maybe I won't name drop one, but like worst boyfriend ever, I really do hate that vlog. I think it's yeah, terrible. I mean it's pretty indefensible. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I'm not gonna say it to each of their own, I genuinely think it's indefensible. Yeah, and I just don't like it at all. And I think that this is a place in the world where like people can really push the boundaries on that that kind of line of behavior and like tolerate it to an extent, but at the same time, everyone is extremely judgmental. Like, we're gonna go to the parties and like maybe not drink too much, and like we always know what's going on in each other's lives. Everyone's like extremely clued in, um, and we're judging each other like a lot more, it feels like here. Um, but there's also this like extreme tolerance, which I think is really interesting. So the rubric is like kind of like you know, we have like haters, we have people who want SF to be kind of something that is different. We have like the clout chasers, yes, yeah, which is pretty much like the subgroup that I've kind of clocked that's like performing an ambition online, and they love to like name drop and be like proxim in proximity of success, like being close to people that do or are doing things, but they're not really doing anything. Like their success is just like being close to people who are successful builders and like they're the clout chasers. Then there's the cosplayers who are like they talk about being smart, they talk about like sounding smart, but they're not doing anything smart. They're just on Twitter and at parties, not actually getting shit done. They're just like networking and then not doing anything with it.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Oh, it's like me. It's basically what I do.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

We're doing right now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what do you what do you think this is when you can fake fucking job, half employed, whatever?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

I would put it into the last bucket. I feel like um, you know, there's like cloud chasers, haters, cosplayers, and then like strivers, which is like I don't think that striving is bad, but like ambition, and that becomes like your whole personality and like it swallows you up. I think that's like the really like it creates a lot of friction and like just it's not pleasant. I would put you more in the bucket of like real ones. Like, I think that there is actually a real way to like maintain friendships and relationships and just make the pie wigger for everyone and kind of like you know, I don't know, even at work, I feel like my job is like to work with startups at Amazon and like connect them to products engineering teams and like actually make shit happen. Yeah, like a lot faster. Um, even though I know I give unemployed vibes, but I've been told you and me both. You're like overemployed.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Oh, well, I mean, yeah, we'll we'll see about that.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

But yeah, I feel like you're really good at like actually having real relationships and not letting it like be a strivery thing, but like, you know, everyone just feels good building something real together. Like Mods is something real. Kino is something real.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

I'm fucking appreciated this. Oh yeah, I didn't realize this episode would just turn into like the fucking gas opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

I'm not even blazing you guys. I'm just saying I genuinely think that there's like these like different categories of people that are have come out extremely harshly, I think, due to the pressure that you were

The striver problem in 2026

SPEAKER_04 8:04

talking about, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I think the striver thing is super common amongst young people who come here upon dropping out, or people who come here uh right after college. And uh I think thankfully most people grow out of it. I have never seen like these sorts of conditions though. Because, you know, the if you're a young person arriving in San Francisco, you grew up kind of on Twitter before you found out what uh life working in tech actually is. Yeah. And I have never seen such a dire and kind of harrowing uh world uh to enter into. Uh the technology that is now available to all of us is amazing, but everything you just said about like people who are well into their career are feeling all sorts of pressures, I cannot imagine what it's like to be an 18-year-old who musters the uh ends up dropping out and coming here. Totally totally. I think particularly young kids are so incentivized to be this to be what you're describing.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

The strivers. I mean, I think um I I mean my take on the strivers is like we're kind of I was gonna I was gonna post something about this this morning, but we're kind of at that point, right, in which the the the the tech companies of the cycle, i.e. the AI labs, they are now printing so much and offering such high salaries and hiring so much that now joining a lab is like joining a Facebook in the early 2010s, right? In which it is considered an alternative career path, right? If you want to just be an individual contributor, you want to come out of college, be an individual contributor, you don't necessarily have to go into finance to get that six figures, you can go in, you could have gone into a Facebook in the 2010s.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Right? Now you can go to an AI lab or a Neo lab or whatever and Chain Street and cause the end of the world.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Or cause the end of labor. Like there's a that lab in particular, they say if you do such a good job that you make your own job unnecessary, we will cover your life for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Like Facebook didn't have this sort of rhetoric when it is a very different, like there's such a spiritual component to it now that is like was not a thing 15 years ago. 15 years ago it was it was like we're connecting the world. Look at this amazing graph of how everyone's connected. Like we helped cause the Arab Spring, that's super fun. But that is so tiny compared to this. Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Do you think do you think there's any like parallels to say being a uh junior finance you know in in O8?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Uh I do I have spoken to a lot of people who for whom uh they were able to become like interns in 2006, 70, and just how wildly uh sought after and prestigious that was. Yes. Huge dip afterwards, yeah. Uh at least where I went to school. Yeah. Uh I had a fight with Valentina about this. Valentina insists that it was always at Penn. No one cared at Penn about 2008. It didn't lose its uh.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

People at Penn are like at least when I graduated in 2021, they were still doing finance consulting. Yeah, it was not a loss of aura.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

They do at every major school, but I I am told 2008, for many years afterwards, uh there was a huge oral loss. It was uh these play people were playing with funny money and everything went poorly.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

How does that tie into like the lab stuff?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

You had asked earlier about whether uh whether the vibes might be the same, say for you know uh somebody who is, you know, looking to come out of college and do IB and 08, right? I mean, thinking about somebody coming out of college wanting to move to SF and become a software engineer.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Right. If it's uh to be a researcher, the fellowship tracks of both of the two bigger labs are just total grinders. In a way that is repre I would say reminiscent of the stories I heard of like PE and IB back in the day. Sure. Where uh it's a different like psychographic of of kid, but it's still uh it's pretty similar.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I guess like where my where my initial thought was going was sort of the parallels the parallels with the early 2010s and striver culture returning to SF, right? It's like SF becoming less weird because of it, right? Those that are moving to SF to join an AI startup, an AI lab because they can make easy, I don't know. Easy 250 to 400k a year. They're just like just full ballpark. Of course, you know, depends on the role and depends on the lab, but obviously these labs are hiring a ton, and so to me it always feels like you know, when you get to this point in the cycle, you get the people they come, they put the rent prices up, and that and it all feels a bit more strivery. That's like my that's like my bear case on SF vibes right now.

SPEAKER_04 12:20

Yeah, exactly. That's my bear case. Drivers, cosplayers, cloud chasers, they're all kind of like contributing to this like weird feeling where like they're like these drivers are like 27, bro.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

They are not even we're not we're not exactly like uh sorry I could I keep doing drive bys on myself.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Well I'm 27, so this driver, you know, yeah, but they're not young anymore.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

These people are yeah, I'm I'm trying to be, I would say, sympathetic towards like the this very distinct thing of Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

I mean if you're young, like yeah, we're everyone you're getting cut a ton of slack if you're young. But like there's a this very distinct group.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And like when you're gonna be like, I would say people who don't grow up out of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

People who don't grow out of it, they're just like still in like their trauma of whatever they're like parent, you know, like my parent only gave me love. If I got good grades, like grow up.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I'm hosting an event with only hot people who posted online.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Yeah, I'd expect it.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Oh yeah. Many such cases, many such cases. And that's that that's a phenomenon that is unique to this year, I've noticed.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

People calling just straight up calling themselves hot online on twitter.com.

unknown 13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

It's like I mean, like, all good, you know? We love a little yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a letter like if I, you know, if I say anything.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Oh, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Nah, it's alright. I won't I went through I went through Luke under the bus. It's actually totally fine. It's actually totally fine.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

A little more.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

I guess um, I guess about

Are the non-technicals as nervous?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

one more one more question for you. This is in regards to your job. Because obviously Luke mentioned the the step change, right? So I guess I I see Claude Claude Opus 4.5 as the step change, what November, October, November last year. Uh do you do you feel that do you feel that that impacted it at your job as much? Because for me it didn't, right? I mean, for me it is it is very much like I I use these models to do very, very particular, very sort of I mean, an example is like basically the thing that I get the models to do the most is just like file conversion. You know? Yeah, let's go. Just like like like plug-in, just be like, oh convert convert mp4 to mp3 using. It'll be five dollars. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, or or or or file compression, actually. Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah, I need you to do a trial. I need you to do hundred different attempts and do it, whatever is like the most compressed. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

It's not molesting my files.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

It always takes like 15 minutes. It's like, man, I want to pull. I want to post this right now. But but basically, I mean, you know, granted, um, you know, your claw cloud clo cloak code codex that that's easy to do now. But aside from that, you know, I'm like not automating like I don't have like a I don't have like an AI EA. Uh I don't use any of those like iMessage things. Like I use Zocomputer every now and then, but like, but like I I'm not I'm not like fully reliant on these sort of like AI living in my iMessage. Um I I feel the need to actually read all of my messages and sort of internalize them to an extent. Yeah. Um I wonder if that's similar to you.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

That's such a good question. Damn. Oh yeah. The quality of this podcast is might be getting too good.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

It's fucking fucking gone up in the last three months since the last couple months.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Ever ask me a question.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

Now that I have a job.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Can we talk about what my favorite tweet was? Yeah, you oh, we're gonna get to that. Don't don't don't.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Don't you worry. That's a good question. Okay, so basically, my role is something that I invented here because the team that I work with just does partnerships with like Meta, Google, you know, Anthropic, Microsoft, um, the hyperscalers. Whereas I specifically came in and I said, okay, I think we should do partnerships with startups, like direct from product and engineering groups in our business units to startups and just do licensing deals with them, co-develop things together, go to market together. So I I came up with this idea for the program, and I think that it took some like a lot of AI working in the sense of like helping me. I would just write down all of my thoughts, like a big brain dump, and then like helping me like organize it and structure it and then iterate. Amazon has like a big doc culture when it's writing documents all the time. So I think it doesn't actually help me write the docs a ton, but it does help me maybe like make some of my points like shorter. I feel like shortening the writing is a big part of it, helping with that, helping mark like make like market landscapes. I'm essentially the kind of like the only like person scouting here, or like you know, I'll like leverage some other peers across the org, but I'm doing a lot of like the sourcing and scouting myself, so just like helping me keep a lay of the land on that, like makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, and I guess I guess to tie it back around, do you then feel sort of what Luke said in the beginning? Do you then feel like you almost have more work to do?

SPEAKER_04 17:02

Yeah, I was gonna say I've been working now more than I've ever worked. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

So this this makes sense. This checks out.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

It checks out, just checks out.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

It's the same across all the roles then, except for podcasting, apparently. Maybe with Kino that'll change it actually. Well, you know. That's what it wouldn't give.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

You're gonna be editing more videos than ever.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Don't ask me to plug now. This is this is good. Not exactly. I'll be plugging for you just like at will. This is this is how it works. You come on come on mods, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:29

Honestly, dude. I feel like Luke does crazy shit with AI, though. Like, no one's taught me the value of AI more than like hanging out with Luke.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Oh yeah, how do uh how to actually get access to a file on some website the way they don't want you to.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Shopping, shopping, he made my shopping like a hundred times more fun. Not even more efficient, but way more interesting, way more fun. Just way more.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah, one side. One would say that you gamified it.

SPEAKER_04 17:58

He m he found like the best I like to find the biggest delta between like the retail like MSRP and then the actual yeah. So he found like he just finds like the biggest.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, you just find the SKUs of like every location of like a given brand.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Something that would be like really difficult to do without these the past year of models that have happened. And then you can see in like Ohio that there's like a watch that's $300 the same watch, that'd be $3,000.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

See, the little the little strivers just need to be more like book, and they'll feel absolutely okay about the state of the world and the world that they're actually going into. That's how you pay rents.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. These whimsical side projects for you.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

How do you come up with these?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Well, that one was you. You were like, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Oh yeah. Wouldn't it be great to find Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

We went to the Nordstrom rack, showed her the Mall of America in Minnesota. It's like the most important thing that we have. It's the biggest mall in America.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

I mean, if it's got a Nordstrom rack, I mean that's how you know it's a it's a mall mall.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, found these Lubutons for like a couple hundred dollars, even though they would be like thousands.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Yeah, like $500 pair of Louboutons, originally $1,500. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

And then I'm sure they would, I'm sure there are other deals like this, right? And don't mind if I do. I think Opus like 4.6 that come out that week or something.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

We found all of them.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Might have to get on that shit. Get on that shit. Okay, so um before before I get on to the next thing, right, that is that is on topic. Um, speaking of shilling, I do need to uh shill and actually do my fucking job. Uh and that is basically threaten my audience if they don't use my sponsor's products. Uh the first one, black box AI. If you're not, if you haven't used it, you're a fucking idiot. Um that's the ad. Oh yeah. No, we've also got people walking in the background. Henry, do you want to say hello?

SPEAKER_03 19:40

I've used it.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Oh yeah. He's one of the 30 million plus developers worldwide that is using black box AI. Yeah, it's actually a fair bit. Yeah, of course, they're um they're they're growing at a rate of knots. Uh and you know, the the cool thing about them is that you can use their little commands. Like they have like this slash auto command in which you can uh say slash auto and it will basically it will use the best model for the given task at the given time. Maybe for whatever reason, uh at any given point in time, uh like I'm not sure if as of time of recording this is true, but maybe uh Claude is actually the best at coding. Well, it will simply assign Claude for the coding, and then I don't know, maybe maybe Codex is then better at reviewing, and then it'll just automatically do it for you. Shit like that is what you can actually do in it, and so take that as you wish, um, and the founders do push-ups and stuff. How's that for an ad?

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Incredible. And they do push-ups.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you gotta just gotta gas the boys. Anyway, uh, what I wanted to move into next is, you know, best

The best event in SF so far in 2026

SPEAKER_02 20:45

event. Do we have a best event so far in San Francisco in 2026? I mean, I have one off the top of my head and it's one that I didn't even fucking go to.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Um, but I'll let you guys go first.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Uh my favorite was the Valentine's Day party.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Oh, actually that one's pretty good. Yeah, anything Valentina's hosted, I that's my favorite. But also, we got to see Soldier Boy. I have uh true, true, true. Yeah, my cousin uh came in from uh from the Midwest. Uh he's a pilot, and he happened to come in the exact day that uh they were bringing Soldier Boy on a boat.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Shout out bland. Shout out bland.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

And it was amazing. Yeah, you could imagine what happened next.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Long time fan of Soldier Boy. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

This is on and this was only like two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

Yeah. Well that's great.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

A month ago? Two weeks, three weeks?

SPEAKER_04 21:32

Two, yeah, two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Thank goodness, I don't know. It's it's uh this month has just felt like uh everything is three decades. Three decades. What about you? What about me? My favorite events, I mean my favorite, I mean my personal favorite event was my fucking surprise birthday party a week ago. Um, thank you, Valentina. I appreciate that. Uh in terms of um, in terms of actual SF events, I I maybe it's a little bit of recency bias. I I really Liked Coin's Black Tie thing. That was fine. I think anything that Coin throws is actually really, really good. What else in terms of the FAI Gallop?

SPEAKER_04 22:07

That was the one party was super fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of. That is the one in which I uh made a severe mistake uh of not rallying to go. Uh because it was the night after uh my surprise birthday and I was just dead.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Too many whippets, too much ketamine.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Too much ketamine in the Courtney Cafe. That's that's correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how we had your birthday. Yeah, yeah, of course. They didn't know it. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Just went there and pissed off service workers. You could have shifted US policy if you'd showed up. I could have changed the way that science gets funded if you'd just gone to this party. It's pretty messed up. It's okay. It kind of fucked up. You wandered.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

That is so fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

The opportunity cost of lying with my then girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Oh, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Yeah, no, it'd be great. It'd be great. No, I'm I'm back to just like having never felt the touch of a woman in this conduction.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Okay, we're back. We're so back.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

So back back to the original bits. Um yeah, the the the F AI thing, in fact, um, what did the FAI thing look like? Well, I had to live vicariously through Twitter posts, which is what I do every single day anyway. Um, and so Maritza,

@yoesbeforebros reaction

SPEAKER_02 23:20

a friend of the show, she uh she helped host. Well, she technically did host, right? Maritza, yeah, she's a host. It was Marita, Marisa and Grace, right?

SPEAKER_04 23:27

And Grace, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

And it looks like they did, and I say it looks like, because again, I wasn't fucking there, uh, which is my fault, but it looks like they did a pretty incredible job. She says, last weekend we refreshed what it means to throw a good event in SF. Thank you, Join FAI and Post Milk for letting us make magic with you from Concept to Build, one of my favorite events I've ever helped to create. FAI created the best room with the best people. It was truly an exceptional evening. Photos from uh Cosmos Raj and Andor Cosmos, another friend of the show, and then there's a bunch of cool photos. Pretty damn cool, pretty damn cool. Have you seen the cake? I I did see the cake. I did see the cake. Um again, I'm just f I'm just I'm just FOMOing. I'm just FOMOing uh at the mouth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Someone who likes ads, it was ads on a cake. Offer I I know, you missed out.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Yeah, yeah. Would have been a great it would have been a great spot for a performative ad read. Like just get in there, black tie, you know, just like like get some political heavies in the background and um shift policy that way. Yeah. Any any thoughts, Val? On the event itself? You had I mean you had thoughts on the after party, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

No, the event itself was it was great because it was exactly like not trying to be something that SF is not. It was like very much like here's people in San Francisco that like talking and thinking and being in technology with so many of our friends, which was so nice. I think there were so many DC people, and thank God David David Ox is there, and he was like helping translate between me and like what I do and like this other guy in DC and what like what he does. And I was like, thank god he was like kind of mediating and helping us comediate. Yeah, yeah. There's like a lot of things like that, just like getting to know different people. We had B devices as like little VIP gifts for some of the people. An Amazon acquisition. Yeah, but B is cool, they're a cool team. Nice. And then yeah, the after party was so fun. Yeah,

is @tszzl fat?

SPEAKER_04 25:18

everyone was there, rune was there.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yeah, almost familiar who's that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:23

So it's this guy.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

It's like some overweight guy, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah, when people, when people uh when people realize like room instead of rune, fat rune.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

No.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Yeah, yeah. Well, he's always he's always grayed out when he comes on here, so nobody ever knows. Nobody ever knows his weight. We'll leave the fat rune bit in.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

The fat rune, big room. Big rune. Big room. Frune is what we ended up. Frune. Not room. Yeah, it he flipped around, he was really upset about it, and then it flipped around towards being something that he's interested in. Oh, okay. He actually likes it now.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, I mean, I was thinking, like, yeah, instead of instead of rune, it'd be room, because he was the size of a room. That's good. Of an entire room.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Bro, Curtis Yarvin was like egging people on to like run for like office. Oh, really? Like, I'll fund you. I'll fund you if you run for office.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

I mean, I can't, so I guess yeah, I didn't miss out on anything. I'm a citizen now.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think they're ready for this.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

You could be um Marco Rubio's chief of staff.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

I would actually love that.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

You communicate via 15-minute uh voice messages on WhatsApp.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

I already do that.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah, exactly. It's that's the only thing in the resume.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

To send WhatsApp voice memo.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Send fucking podcasts to my homies. Don't mind if I do. That's how I communicate with my friends anyway.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

15 minutes of that. I didn't I have to. Fundraising from Marco Mirror. I didn't understand a word that you just said.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Speaking in tongues on monks.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Exactly. Um last post from um the FAI thing. Uh

@beffjezos reaction

SPEAKER_02 27:00

gotta gotta give a shout out to um Bef Jesus because he he posted a picture of Mira Mirati. I'd say Mira is a friend of the show. Yeah. Really? I think so too.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

She's her husband is Australian.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have to cut that. Well, we'll see about that. Um so Bef, he says, Mira Marathi wrapping up her speech at the FII event. The fate of civilization cannot depend on a few thousand people. Wow. And then obviously a picture of it looks like Mira and Grace. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Um, any thoughts on that statement? I I would I'd like to hear someone from outside of San Francisco say something like that. Yeah. Yeah? I don't think like a a thousand people should decide what happens on an app that a billion people use.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

It should be a dozen people. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah, yeah, it should be less. It should be less. It should be less. I actually think there should be one, and you should be wearing like a top hat with a cane. I agree. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's that's who I think should be in charge, like a fat guy.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Maybe big big rune. I know. It should be rune. Big rune decides. He's wear wears like pipe papal gear and everything.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

So you want to hear someone else say that?

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Well, I think uh I think you have to. I think the outside world perceives San Francisco as believing that it should be just a thousand, a few thousand people. Yeah. And I don't think you're gonna convince the outside world. Obviously, what he tweeted was not meant for the entire world to to see. It was it was for us, right? Yes, yeah. Uh but I would imagine that no one believe would believe you if you as a San Francisco person said something like that. Totally. They would be like, you're that's not true.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah. Yeah. It's like I I see I know where you live.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yeah, I know what you guys are up to. Like all these fancy uh companies, they only have a couple thousand people at most.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Totally, totally. Yeah, you know, well, we don't have to go into the whole sort of uh, you know, open source, closed source, whatever, margin compression theory, all of those. Did you sign? You signed, right? Oh, I did sign. And yeah, Mots didn't. It's super good. Yeah, yeah, Mots Mots signed it, and then um, yeah, we got to be a part of all the logos, which was really, really important.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Um It's just nice to see all the logos.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

That's right, that's right. You know, make sure to make my logo bigger than all the rest of it. Your John Hancock. So, yes, I did I did sign, I did sign the uh open weights letter. It's very powerful. Speaking of open weights, um, I need to give a shout out to Langfuse, the number one open source LLM ops product. Thinking of um what do they do again? I mean like model optimization, you can think of uh traceability, all of these sorts of things. Langfuse is a platform to allow you to do all of this sort of thing. Um, you know, I when I first met Clemens, the the founder, he just he invited me to his wedding. What a nice guy. You know?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

I know Clemens from YC.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

No shit. Of course. Yeah, of course. Wait, you you didn't do the same batch, did you guys?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

We did.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

No way, no way.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, they did uh they restarted. That was their second batch of YC where they had a new idea the second time around and it worked up.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely love those guys, absolutely love those guys. Dear friends of the show. I mean, clearly, because they pay me to be friends. That's how that works. Uh, but no, actually, love them. Very, very good product.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

This week, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah, yeah. One time I went on Langfuse.com just to open their little live assistant and I just just to talk to them. And they were like, hello Lucas, how are you doing? Sky on King. Yeah, always AI at home. Whenever you know someone who runs a company, always go on their website and tap the support button so you can just mess with them. Hey, brother. We have AI at home.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Just a founder. Yo, you can just talk to any of them. My last startup used to use uh talk to you. Just talk to G. You know, talk T-A-W-K. I I haven't used that one. It's so funny. I used the expensive one, actually. Oh, I see, I see, I see. No, yeah, yeah, no, we we we did not want to we did not want to pay money.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

B2B Sass though. Okay, uh, moving on here, moving on. Well, there was a couple of things that I wanted to get to. Um, I mean, we kind of already made a mention to Striver and Striver Cultural, sort of like, you know, talking about it in passing, how um I don't know, they're the different the different Striver events, obviously like people people just now feeling the need to call themselves uh hot on the timeline. Yeah. And uh rent prices just going through the absolute roof. And

People are doing crazy things for SF apartments in 2026

SPEAKER_02 31:15

so, I don't know, I guess the the the rent the rent thing is interesting, right? Because this actually has changed so so drastically since well, this time last year.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

I have a crazy one for you.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Yeah, yeah, go on, go on.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

There are girls I know that have to flirt with the landlords in order to get a spot.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Oh yeah, well that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

That's literally what you have to do now.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

We've been more than flirted from what I remember. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

No, but it's be like, oh yeah, by the way, you know, here's my dog. And it's like, by the way, I'm also actually a beautiful woman. Yes. With a dog. So you just have to, it's tough out here. You have to really network. You have to use any advantage that you were given in life to find an apartment in SF right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Yeah, what is it? Um, average price of a one-bedroom apartment uh approaching 4,500, average price of a two-bedroom apartment surpassing 6,000. It was it wasn't even like that in 2019. 2019 was bad. Um, but this is and and I think like what's concerning is like the rate of acceleration. Like like that has been unlike anything I've ever seen. When I I mean I I moved back permanently uh in February last year, and it was, you know, I was the only one that looked at my studio. You guys have seen you guys were in my cave yesterday. Yeah. And like, you know, it's like it's like old, uh, it's dark, but it is 450 square feet in Pacific Heights.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

What if you proved it to the audience by doing like a 4D Gaussian splat of the city? Yeah, she just docs my entire every little note on your illustrative. Yeah, it's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

And then post a picture of the the check that I give my I give my old Chinese landlady every month. She doesn't actually take it.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

I also have an old Chinese landlady that only takes checks.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah, my my landlady has not even moved my rent. I I don't know. Yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean, like, like, I mean, we're part of the problem. I saw a thing today.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Uh SF was 8% more expensive to live in than uh for rent than Oakland in 2020, and now it's 80%. Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

I guess we're moving to Oakland, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Perhaps.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

Unless.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

You know, Piedmont. Go to Piedmont, Rockridge. A few nice few nice areas. Some parts, some parts of fine.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

Go say hi to Hope.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Oh yeah, go say so yeah, Shout out Hope's Revenge. Yeah, yeah, maybe we just all move to Berkeley. You know? We could I mean we could all we could go all get like a mansion in Tiburon.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Yo!

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Ferry ferry ferry to the city.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Invite Jaden to one mansion in Tiburon. That's all he now all he knows about is mansion in Tiburon.

unknown 33:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah, I'm I'm across the water pilled. Um yeah, pretty concerning, pretty concerning. But yeah, I know I I think um, I don't know, it kind of goes back to my to my theory of you know the strivers coming back. Obviously, the like like OpenAI anthropic, the the labs, there is uh there has been liquidity being unlocked. Uh of course they're hiring a ton. Um and the city just looks better. It continues to look better, and but there are you know, kind of what Luke was alluding to in the very very big very beginning. It's like there's almost this feeling whereas if you are not here now, you are you will miss out. But also, uh if you are here, like you're also fucked. It's kind of like this weird sort of dichotomy.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

You're fucked, but it's the only place to be.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

It's like the only place to be.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Because you'll have no like like like at least at least here you have a you have a chance to to get into one of these rocket ships or you know, create a rocket ship yourself or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Senior year of undergrad might be a good analogy, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Oh yeah? Why why so? Explain, explain.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Uh because I do remember the distinct feeling of uh when everyone's timelines for getting into graduate school. At least for your the set of friends you had who were like trying to get into grad school, it all the news for each of them would come out all within like a few weeks. Yeah, yeah. So it's like what is we're all sitting on this lifeboat that is being at a at a good university, right? Yeah. Let's watch all of us get onto the next lifeboat.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Totally. I see, I see.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Let's have a series of awkward conversations with friends about the lifeboat for the next few months before we all graduate, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:17

I guess I guess it was actually similar in music school. I mean, at least other than the classical people always did that. The classical people were like, Yeah, we're going masters. Becomes the primary topic of conversation because people don't know what else to talk about. I mean in in jazz, though they'll just like, yeah, I'm just gonna go to New York and I don't know, whatever the fuck. Jazz is just like, okay, see you guys. See you in New York City at 4 a.m. at Smalls. So I don't know, yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. I I didn't that's why I didn't get the analogy. Because um, you know, I've I've got uh what what some might call an untraditional background.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

We like that.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

He was doing arrangements of sexy red at a concert hall a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Yeah, of course, of course. Don't don't mind if I do. Don't mind if I do. Literally. Yeah, don't mind if I do. That's why that's why I defend that's why I defend some of the meritocracy talk about San Francisco. I won't get into that though. Um because that is a topic, uh, yeah, it's just too much, it's too controversial. Um Okay, so before I get into the last thing, because the last thing is very, very important and it will end will actually end on a very, very light note. I do want to give a shout out to Circle Back. Circle back since I've even got like all of these different sponsors since the last time you're on here too.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

That's true. We're really circled back.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Yeah, really, really circled back. Don't mind if we do. Making meetings memorable again and your company brain, right? I mean, basically, if you've ever been in meetings, you know, sometimes there's a lot of there's a lot of those like meeting note takers or whatever the fuck. But circle back actually does that and can then integrate to your all your other apps and actually send that information from from your meeting to your Slack, to your linear, to your gym, whatever the hell. They have all of these nice, real, real nice integrations, and that's why I actually use circleback, right? Controversial uh dude that gets sponsored by products um who actually uses the products.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Many have been saying heard of. Yeah, I mean, don't bind if I do. But yeah, really like circle back. Thanks, circleback, and um I don't know, I guess I just ran out of steam at the end of the day. Uh what else should I say? Uh, if you don't use circle back, uh you're dead to me. You're dead to me. No Maslow's hierarchy of needs on Mots. Just threatening the audience instead. Okay,

Why the Corgi Cafe?

SPEAKER_02 37:21

so I think it's a I think it's a good time to actually get into the hottest topic of the last month or so, and that is the Corgi Cafe. There's the Corgi Cafe.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Oh my god, let's fucking go.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Because I do feel like I I personally have some explaining to do. Please. I have some explaining.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Yeah, you better. You are the funniest, you're really funny. You are really funny. I'm not even glazing. He is really funny, but you're hella funny with the corgi cafe one. That was you're on a roll. I would just like look at your Twitter randomly telling that. It was crazy. The pyramid one.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Oh yeah. How do they build this shit without a 24-7 Corgi Cafe?

SPEAKER_04 37:57

They needed at least 10 of them. Yes. You would have thought. Exactly. Okay, explain.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

So the explanation for the court, like why, like, why did Corgi Cafe, why, why did that go off? Why, why, why, why was that even a thing? Um, why did I decide to latch onto it at that particular time? Well, you know, I think the the best way to the best way to explain it without throwing anyone in particular under the bus is that uh when Kimi K3 came out. Your favorite model. You're always using it. Oh yeah, yeah, many have been saying, yeah, yeah. I've got I've got a tendency.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

Proclivities.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Proclivities, yeah, my proclamities.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

Trifling proclivities.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

My proclivities.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Yeah, exactly. Basically, the day that Kimi K3 came out, of course, there was all, you know, that's really what uh what added fuel to the fire when it came to the open source versus closed source stuff, right? And you know, there were a few of those benchmarks that were like, oh, Kimmy is basically frontier intelligence, right? And it's like, oh, well, it's open way and it's also Chinese, whatever the fuck. So I thought it'd be funny to basically not throw the Corgi girls under the bus. Like, I I think of these, I think of this post as a bit of a back-handed compliment, actually, right? The idea that the Corgi girls would actually be worthy of being sent to China as like American spies, right? Because the idea, right, of Chinese spies in the US is that they are, is that they are very, very pretty and very charismatic, and then they're able to go ahead and get information. And so I tweeted out, uh, this was on July 16th, gosh, it feels like it feels like a decade ago.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

No, literally.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

I said, I've received word that the Corgi girls are being sent to Beijing in an attempt to retrieve production secrets. Now, this prompted uh a message from somebody at Corgi, and again I won't say who it is, uh asking that it's who you are. And they did cancel, they did cancellation to you, is what I'm hearing. Oh, they they asked me to take it down. They asked me to take it down. Now, um, you know, if the you know, if I with that sort of thing, with that sort of thing, uh, one thing I should say is that when when it was sent to me, it had about 40 likes. No one had seen it. Now, it still only has 92. And if you've seen my account, that's actually pretty low. It's actually pretty low. So not that many people saw it. Uh, not even 10,000 impressions. Very, very low for my account. Um, but because they messaged me saying that, they m they made a big mistake. They made a big fucking mistake.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

They didn't know what they were doing. You only know what you're doing. You have to grow up outside of the US to like understand like the spirit of like you tell someone to stop little teas, you're cooked.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

As a non-immigrant, I'm always asking people to delete tweets. So this is good to know. Oh, yes, yes, yes. As you know, I need to learn from you two. Never ask them.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Never please delete, I bet.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Especially in Australia, my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Like, like, gosh, they were never deleting tweets in Australia. Yeah, we're never deleting it.

SPEAKER_04 40:50

In Argentina, forget it. Like exactly.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Now, and and before before we actually get into some of some of the posts, because we will actually we will do this. I've got them all lined up and like how it proliferated.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Because I thought it was funny.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

I'm so excited. Yeah. The thing is, you know, like the thing is, and I should preface is like, you know, Corg is rocketing. Korg is rocketing, they're expanding their marketing team fucking clearly. Um, and you know, like, like, like it's good for them. I I hope they win. I hope they win. So it's like, like, like I hope they win, and I hope they do do do it properly, and like um all of these things goes without saying, goes without saying. Like, win and do it properly. Um, and so I I I I wish them the best. And I'm I'm never one to uh to talk shit uh about anyone or any company unless they unless they feel like it's just like a hundred percent deserved. Um but they've they've not done anything to me. They just asked me to delete a tweet, so I was like, aha, you poked the bear. You poked the bear. Yeah. Now we're gonna get funny with it. That's the extent, right? I'm I my my intention is to not uh is to not put anybody down. Um and so hopefully they they did see the funny side with the book.

SPEAKER_04 41:54

There's like this reality that like to be honest, you can be a little mean as long as it's funny. Like if it's funny, then it's all good. Like it's just how it is.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

And so uh I'm just I'm I'm bringing I'm bringing some of the some of some of the posts up. So obviously there are a lot of my posts, but I do want to I do want to uh basically make mentions to various accounts that end up contributing to this.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Yeah, all of our funny friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Friends of the show, some might actually say. Some might actually say. And so it sort of started with like, okay, well, like you mentioned, it's like, oh, how do they build the pyramids without a 24-7 Corgi Cafe? Um, and

@powerbottomdad1 reaction

SPEAKER_02 42:29

there was um, oh, actually Powerbottom Dad, I I didn't I didn't include this, but Powerbottom Dad had a really early one where he was like, you know, it was something along the lines of like I went to the Corgi Cafe and I asked for the I asked for the roast corgi. It was like that. I think they're like, they were like, yeah, they they they they tried to serve me like roast corgi. It was like, how is this allowed in America?

SPEAKER_04 42:50

Are you two blacks are you from the office, also?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I am I my office is right next to the corgi cafe.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Yeah, you're really close.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

I knew about this stuff before anything. Yeah, you know about the corgi cafes.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

You were early?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah, tons of friends were in the same batch as them.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Oh, of course, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

They were doing they were doing like their own corgi cafes before they even had access to a cafe. Totally, totally. Have you been in it before? Have you got one of the one of the things? I have. Yeah. I mean Rosie the dog is walked past me. Oh, sick. And I was the I think Is that a different one compared to Trudy? Trudy's the one that keeps kidding them. Whatever their name is. Trudy's the one that hits on me on the timeline. Rosie and Trudy. Trudy is always messing around. I was like, you guys from Corgi? And they're like, yeah. And they just kept walking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was it. That was it. And that's that's why I have you know a vendetta. No conversation, no, do you want to pet the dog?

SPEAKER_04 43:35

What were she supposed to do? Let you pet the dog.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

The guy was supposed to pause and let me pet the dog. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, snobbed.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Jeez. I know. Might be a tweet about this. Basically, um, so so okay, so so we have some experience in this department. This is good. I I personally have actually not been.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Bro, let him rip. I haven't been either. I want to see I want to see this.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Okay, so the proliferation started. The proliferation started as follows. Basically, You know, some sort of sort of jokes about you know there being like roast corgi on the menu. I think I made a tweet about like, you know, uh looked for a put post-workout meal, ask for the asked for the roast corgi, and then they told me to get the fuck out. Um, but then uh like for whatever reason I just decided to like sort of start like like uh lobbying like drug use allegations, you know, like substance abuse. It's like it's like like so so the corgi cafe and like ketamine became synonymous. Um uh let's just let's just like get into a few of them. It really got off the rails there for a couple of days. And so um Squirtle says was really involved

@squirtle_says reaction

SPEAKER_02 44:35

in this. Um he posted one morning, he was like, good morning, San Francisco, and he like I generated fucking chests.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Squirtle.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

Did you see the generated vest?

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Squirtle, he three years ago, he started a rumor that Ebola is breaking out at Burning Man. And it it worked. Like people, national news thought it was real. Oh, the Kirby Cafe needs to be careful. Yeah. They need to get him on. There's also the one where he was like, like, uh, like like Google is Google Cloud is shutting down. I love that. There was one about Gmail shutting down, and I like I put it on Instagram with like non-tech friends. Way too many people thought that was real.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Yeah, so so that was one of them. So this this is where it really got off the rails, right? Because it, you know, I feel like mine were like pretty friendly quips, like, you know, corky girls possessing nuclear weapons, whatever, like all of these sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Another good one. Another good one.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Um, but then it got real, like it got really far out. It got really far out. So this was one of my personal favorites

@1owroller reaction

SPEAKER_02 45:39

um from um O'Rolla. Yeah. Okay. So he was like, um, on July 24th at 1 a.m., I'm going to herd together a crowd of homeless people and feed each of them one of these 30 milligram meth adderall pills, and we are all going to raid Corgi Cafe together. It's put by paint partnership.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

A lot of people agree with this.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

The paint partnership has unironically been one of the funniest things to like accidentally happen.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

It was like, like, it's like, and we will be occupying the cafe for 24 hours until 1 a.m. the next day. DM if you want in. It's like, I'm a regular customer of Corgi Cafe, so I'm allowed to do this. Okay, so so you know, the drug allegations kept coming. Um, there was

@hopes_revenge reaction

SPEAKER_02 46:25

another one here from Hope's Revenge. Hope's Revenge was like, I I took a pill in San Francisco to show Twitter I was cool, and it was uh Corgi Cafe MDMA tablet.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

That's so authentic. Looks like some of the FBI took a photo.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Would you do a Corgi Cafe MDMA tablet?

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Yeah, I mean I would obviously indulge spend a few weeks testing for fans and then weeks. They come from like a kind of crazy scene.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Take a ticket. Then I would do it.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Yeah, exactly.

unknown 46:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

I think um my one of my last ones, I mean, along these lines, um, I was like, okay, the Corgi marketing girls, uh, they need to be reined in. This is silly. And we uh created a partiful, uh fake partiful uh Corgi Insurance invited you to the boys drop ket at the Corgi Cafe at 2 a.m. So uh yeah, and so I guess like obviously I I intended for all of this to stay on the timeline. The Corgi, the Corgi people, they started to basically like have you know play along and have fun with it, which I think in that scenario is exactly what you do, right? You have all of it should give you money, honestly. They should not give me money.

unknown 47:32

Fucking give me money.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

They should forcibly give you cash when they're no.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

This is like the blue check McDonald books.

unknown 47:40

No.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, I mean, yeah, like like uh as far as as far as that scenario goes, the worst thing that you can do is ask people to delete. The best thing that you can do is just kind of go along with it and, you know, I mean, make memes yourself, perhaps. And I think, you know, they really started to get the hang of this, I would say. Credit, reddit, credit's due. Uh of course, some people probably took it a little bit far. I saw last Thursday there was actually like a um, there was like some meetup outside in in Claude Lane that was actually not not affiliated with You just had like like like all of these shows. It was it was really um it was it was bizarre. It was bizarre. Um I I I don't associate with that. Let's just be clear, I was not there. No, had nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

Um I knew it wasn't real because none of us were there.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

That's right. That's right. It wasn't real. Yeah, that's how you know it wasn't real. But yeah, I I disavow of that sort of thing. Like I'm I'm like, don't like don't go and like annoy the fucking workers. Yeah, yeah. Like don't go annoy the service workers. It's just like the service workers being the founders of Corgi Stuff. Don't go and annoy the corgi girls.

SPEAKER_04 48:41

Or the corgies.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Or the corgies themselves, yeah. So that's it. I just I just wanted to cover that because I think um, you know, like that that bit has sort of come and gone. And I hopefully this sort of wraps it up in a bow. Very, very San Francisco

The Corgi Bus

SPEAKER_02 48:55

though, right? Very San Francisco. I mean like jokes about drunk driving the corgi bus, right? Because they have the they have the fucking.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Oh my god, I took the corgi express one night with a few girlfriends.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Oh you did?

SPEAKER_04 49:04

It was like, okay, we were at the restoration hardware, we had just had like dinner.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Oh, this is that Monday where it was. Yeah, this is that Monday, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:11

We had all had drinks, and then we were going to a friend of ours' apartment who lives in like Petrero, and she was like, wait, I always see the Corgi bus like coming out of like the apartment that I live in. Like, I think it's like one of their stops. Yes. So we went straight from the RH to her apartment on the Corgi. It was like just us four. It was like a private limo Real Housewives, like Corgi Express. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. That was so funny. The driver rocks. Oh, yeah. That guy's sick.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Is it a Corgi?

SPEAKER_04 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Is he drunk driving?

SPEAKER_04 49:38

No, it's like a guy. Is he drunk driving?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

That's pretty good. We were.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_04 49:47

It was great.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Don't mind if I do.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

He was like, let me he's like, I should like, you know, come on for longer next time, take a longer ride.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:56

Like, let's go to Sasolito, let's go to the mansions in Tiburon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Oh, you know what's crazy? Okay, last last last thing on this. Um, last time I was up north, right? Uh, going, I think I was going to Hellsburg. Uh I we I drove past the Corgi bus. Eat a fucking marin. How'd that feel? I was like, what are they doing? Where is it going? I was like, where the fuck's it going? Was it coming back from like Edge City or something? Like like Shadow Circle Back, sponsor of Edge City as well. Was it coming from Edge City? Maybe did they have did Corgi have a presence at the Edge? They're edging. Yeah, yummy.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

I do like that. Much like Mott's, Corgi embraces, you know, attractive women. I'm not saying that I am, but I am saying that, you know, you have you famously, I think you have a lot of great girls. Madison and Rachel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

That was just gonna get me fucking like cancelled.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

They love you. We all love you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

Thanks. I appreciate that.

unknown 50:54

They do.

SPEAKER_02 50:54

That's why I brought Luke on. I need to balance it out a little bit. So this is why I get Luke and Noah Smith on.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Yeah, exactly.

unknown 51:00

Noah.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

That's good, yeah. Like Noah Smith is one of the one of the Mots girlies. He is. He is.

SPEAKER_04 51:08

Oh, Kylie was on too. Of course. Another baddie.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, God, God forbid I have attractive friends across the board. You know?

SPEAKER_04 51:15

No, I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Justin Spohr was on. He's a handsome dude. Don't mind if we do.

SPEAKER_04 51:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Just gone through the cast of characters. Now Luke's on. Handsome dude. Don't mind if I do. Frune.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Don't mind if I do. Fat Rune might be your Fat Rune. Fruin will be the pinnacle. Important guest. Given how he's in charge of everything that's about to go on. The biggest, the biggest guest. He will be the biggest guest.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

He would be.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

He'll be the Pope of San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

All of my yeah, all all of my guests, all my all my guests, all my all my dear co-hosts. I consider you guys co-hosts, right? This is this is this is the difference between MOT and other rival uh entities. He's a co-host, not guests, right? You talk talk about as much as me, which is what I like. Um and but basically where I was going with this is that uh you know, all my guests they tend to be uh attractive and fit. Go fucking figure.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

It's almost like those are also your friends.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

You are the average of who you podcast with. Yes!

unknown 52:08

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

Okay, just to wrap here, before before we wrap, I need to give a shout out to uh Cappy. You know, um, you know, Cappy, like the the they they showed up to my birthday the other day. You know, they made a uh out of my recital, they they made a custom vinyl.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

Shut up.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Yeah, they made a made a custom vinyl, Cappy branded vinyl. So so people will see that. I I teared up, I don't cry over many things, but I teared up. I was like, holy shit. Um so like, yeah, Harris, Nallon, Bing, Justin, the guys. Um, not only is their product good, is that they're all very, very nice.

SPEAKER_04 52:43

They're cut it's kind of fantastic. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

What does Cappy do? Cappy Agentic IDA. Need I say more? No, the cool thing that they they they actually have is that um uh a lot of them they they like make pull requests. They have this like Slack integration, they just like make pull requests from Slack, just kind of like like coding in Slack. Thank God kind of good of the few jobs that will be left. Exactly. Exactly. But now yes, Slack user. So all their non-technicals can actually make make changes to the code. Yeah, I know. Almost kind of terrifying. But also Cappy V2 coming out. I'm I I'm yet to see what that actually is, but uh people can be on the lookout for that. Anyway, um any closing thoughts? If not, that's that's fine. Oh yeah. Uh follow at TryKino on Twitter. Yes. I mean you can I mean you can you can do a fucking ad read for yourself if you want. Or I can do an ad read for you. Well, Keno Agentic editor.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Kino uh allows you to edit really large amounts or really small amounts of video, uh, whether it's motion graphics, whether it's a mixture of real footage and graphics, like we have with this podcast right here. Uh, and you can just add it inside of the Codex desktop app, Claude, Claude Code CLI, Codex CLI cursor. Uh it is something that thinks and uh is totally represented as code, indexes all your footage, uh, allows you to kind of have that agentic moment with video editing in a way that I'm sure many people have already had a very delightful one with normal coding.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

So it's like it's like final frontier type shit, because I tell you what, like I I I need this badly. Badly. Think of think of all the things you can do. Yeah, like I can do a lot more things. I will never have to, I'll never have to well, I mean, not that I was ever gonna hire anyone, fuck that. Um but like I'll never have to hire anyone again.

SPEAKER_04 54:25

Or even think about it. Yeah, exactly. You'll have so many responsibilities. This is so exciting. I'm excited. I've already seen it. It's really good.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

I mean saying don't mean don't mean a flex, but yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

If you if you see a flood of just incredibly informative, incredibly high quality video, and it's not slop, then you'll know who it's from.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

It's from Kina.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Try Kina. Fucking don't mind if we do. I think that's a pretty good good place to wrap. Unless you got any final thoughts, Val. You can also just say no.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

Well, if you're a startup working on data or AI or anything, hit me up.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

That's I mean, she means that by the way. Yeah. Just don't don't say any weird shit.

SPEAKER_04 55:07

Please don't open with anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Don't say any weird shit. Okay. Well, that's that's sort of like the theme of mods. Don't say don't be weird.

SPEAKER_04 55:14

Yeah, that's kind of one of the big ones.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

But but it is a theme of SF. Don't be weird, but you can actually get a get a fair few places.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

Is it don't be weird or stay weird?

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Stay weird. It's stay weird. Yeah, Austin is yeah, yeah, yeah. Make like, like, I don't know. I actually think like don't be weird, there's there's alpha in that. I think so too. I think there's alpha in that. There's a ton of alpha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. And so on that note, you've been listening to another episode of Members of Technical Stuff. We'll go ahead and see you on the timeline again real soon.