Ep. 023 - Everyone Leaves Google, Elon Forecasts 1T ARR, Reflecting On GPT-5, Building Personalized Software (Roundtable) | Jon Y, Doug O'Laughlin, Jordan Nanos

**Jordan Nanos** (0:05)
Hello, everyone, welcome back to SemiAnalysis Weekly. We've got our second guest ever on the program today. That's Jon from Agenometry, top one YouTuber in the world, at least my favorite. Doug said it's top two, but we won't hold him to it. This week, we're planning to talk about some big news, and everybody leaving Google, leaving Gemini, hanging out to dry maybe, or just going to work on some of their passion projects now that they've spent their first 35 years in one job and had enough. The Chinese ban on transceivers, Elon pulling in his one trillion revenue forecast from 2031 to 2030, and maybe some DVDs.
Guys, welcome to the show.

**Jon Y** (0:50)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
This is a weird. You're so professional compared to transistor radio.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (0:58)
We've grown up. It's so grown up, Jon.

**Jordan Nanos** (1:02)
I have a burning question for you, Jon. One of the times when many people may have seen you talk is on the DoorCatch podcast where a few years ago, there was this famous clip where you're sitting beside Dylan. You say, wait, we're assuming GPT-5 is going to be good? We've just assumed that?
Do you remember this clip?

**Jon Y** (1:23)
I do remember this clip.

**Jordan Nanos** (1:24)
Okay. That was like a year and a half or two years ago. Now we're sitting in August 2026 Do you feel like GPT-5 was good? Did it surpass your expectations?

**Jon Y** (1:35)
I mean, I think GPT-5 was, I think the concept of GPT-5 was probably right in the sense that like was it good?
GPT-5 itself probably wasn't that great as compared to others. But you know, I was kept going. And then I think when the really, when the Injected Code stuff really hit, then everything hit the, you know, everything hit the pedal to the metal. So I was very impressed by that. So, you know, but what they said, you know, when I went on the, when I went on the pod, when I sat down on the pod, the first thing I thought to myself, I chugged like five cups of coffee. I thought to myself, you know, it doesn't really matter if I'm accurate, as long as I'm entertaining. That's what matters.

**Jordan Nanos** (2:20)
Hopefully we can aim for that today as well. Entertaining and questionable accuracy. Doug, what do you think? So this was October 2nd, 2024 I just looked it up when Dylan and Jon went on Tor Cache's podcast and they talked about this stuff.
I kind of agree GPT-5 was a bit of a dud, but 5.2 and certainly now 5.6 is mind-blowing two years later.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:45)
5.2 is ass, too, I'll be honest. I think 5.2 was not very good.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (2:51)
I think 5.6 is good.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:55)
The new base model is good. 5.6 is good.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (2:57)
And also soon 6 this week.

**Jon Y** (3:01)
Yeah, 6 apparently is good.

**Jordan Nanos** (3:04)
Doug is coming, right?

**Doug O'Laughlin** (3:05)
Yeah, Doug is coming as they say. Doug is, Jon, I don't know if you know this, but Doug is the largest spud in the world.

**Jon Y** (3:12)
Really?

**Doug O'Laughlin** (3:13)
Yeah, that's the name.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:14)
That's how they named it.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (3:15)
So it's like the spud model is the largest spud. It's very, so the Doug pre-train is done.

**Jordan Nanos** (3:23)
There's also rumors that it's going to be really good at writing and I think that's pretty poetic that one of the models that finally really knows how to write some incisive commentary is going to be named Doug.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:37)
That's glazing.

**Jon Y** (3:40)
It's going to teach us a master class in writing.

**Jordan Nanos** (3:45)
I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Hopefully, it knows the history.

**Jon Y** (3:48)
It's not this, but it's that.

**Jordan Nanos** (3:49)
That's where Doug gets his edge. The references to 1940s Taiwanese.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (3:57)
Well, you say that, but the only person who's probably better at it than me is Jon. Jon's here. Jon's like, I'm like, oh yeah, 1955 semiconductor cycle.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:08)
That doesn't exist.

**Doug O'Laughlin** (4:09)
Semiconductors weren't around then. But then Jon's like, yeah, here's what a DVD player is. I was like, what the hell?
The only person in the world who goes deeper and more random, I think, is Jon.

**Jon Y** (4:21)
I've always liked Doug for like, I read this really weird book on Japanese history from the 1700s on the Mitsui family, and I'm talking about it, and then Doug's like, I read that first half. First half was great. Second half was okay.