America's Tech Wishlist, Comcast Splits in Two, Tristan Thompson in the Ultradome | Zach Laberge, Gavin Uberti, Eren Bali, Larsen Jensen, Ricky Rosa, Andrew Rea, Michael Anderson, Tristan Thompson, Grant Gregory & Ian Rountree

**John Coogan** (0:00)
You're watching TBPN.

**Jordi Hays** (0:02)
Today is Tuesday, June 30th, end of the quarter, 2026 We're live from the TBPN Ultra, the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital. Let me tell you about ramp.com. Time is money, save both, easy to use, corporate cards, bill pay, accounting and a whole lot more, all in one place.

**John Coogan** (0:18)
Where'd you raise this?

**Jordi Hays** (0:19)
Amazing news out of ramp. Today, our Karazian, one of the greatest economists to ever do it, has canceled the AI job apocalypse. We'll get into it, but it's a very interesting analysis showing that firms that adopt AI are hiring, they're going on the offensive. I've always said that this is the correct stance for a CEO to take, is say, yeah, we're getting so much productivity, we're going to crush our competitors. We're staffing up. This is not doom. We're not some, like, there were all these CEOs that went into this very defensive, they were acting like they got bought for pennies on the dollar by a private equity firm. And they're like, yeah, it's looking pretty bad for us. We're going to have to fire everyone and cut costs because this AI opportunity never made any sense.

**John Coogan** (1:02)
My point, my point was always, you have someone who's like, yeah, we're using AI, we're way more efficient now, we're getting more value per person on our team. And so you're like, OK, great, so you're hiring more people, because you're getting more out of each incremental person. And they're like, well, no, actually.

**Jordi Hays** (1:20)
Actually, yeah, we got to do layoffs. We've known this for a long time. A lot of these CEOs just over-hired. They wanted to lay people off.

**John Coogan** (1:28)
They needed an excuse.

**Jordi Hays** (1:29)
They wanted to get rid of underperformers, people that weren't fit, like the right fit for this particular company. All of those folks will reshuffle, find their place. Not everyone's suited to work at a giant 100,000 person company. Some people might be better off at a 5,000 person company, or 500 person company, or a two person company, or even a one person company. There's also interesting studies showing that entrepreneurship is on the rise, but it's never been better to go it alone. Thank you, Jordi.
What else is in the news? Let's give you a quick overview. People were clamoring for a Rocket Lab story that never came yesterday.
Rocket Lab enters the arena with SpaceX, Brandon Grell fired up the TBPN newsletter, which you can subscribe to at tbpn.com today, because we were on the horn with Prof G. We did his podcast, very excited for that to come out. We're warmed up, because we already got an hour of podcasting under our belts for today. That's a four-hour day for us. We got a three-hour show for you. It's just coming out of stealth. We got Eren Bali from Monogram coming on. We got Tristan Thompson live in the TBPN ultradome. And then Grant Gregory, Ian Rountree from Cantos coming in person as well.

**John Coogan** (2:36)
New fun.

**Jordi Hays** (2:38)
We're going back and forth. Fundraising announcement, venture capital fundraising announcement, startup funding raising announcement, venture capital fundraising announcement. The money's flowing, things are good. Anyway, Rocket Lab, they are duking it out with SpaceX. Let's go through it. Yesterday, the launch services and space systems provider Rocket Lab agreed to purchase satellite manufacturer slash operator Iridium in a cash and stock deal that values the company at $8 billion or 20% more than the share price at Friday's close. Iridium pioneered Leo's, Leo satellites launching its first one some 30 years ago. The Iridium network was the original sat phone, this huge block of a phone. You would take out the antenna out of the back, and the antenna was big enough to kill you instantly if you let it get near your brain. Just kidding, it was very safe. But it would be terrifying to anyone worried about microwave technology or any sort of radiation. But it was wildly successful, the company grew and grew, and now it's part of Rocket Lab. Today, they operate a fleet of 66 satellites. That seems low, that's because these are bigger older satellites, but this partnership is probably going up against Starlink.
So it connects handsets and other devices used by ships, mining sites, US government agencies, enterprise, connectivity play. The move represents yet more vertical integration at Rocket Lab. Over the years, the company has grown from a small niche satellite launch provider to an integrated space powerhouse. It now designs satellites and aerospace components, serves the defense primes, has the second most launched US rocket annually, the Electron rocket, and is currently developing a reusable medium lift launch vehicle. But Jeff Bezos was probably coming for that silver medal any day now.