Robot Bans, Zuck Op-Ed, eBay Settles | Joe Weisenthal, Jameson Detweiler, Stanley Tang, Amjad Masad, Adam Cohen

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

**Jordi Hays** (0:02)
Today is Wednesday, July 29th, 2026 We're live from the TBPN Ultradome, the Temple of Technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital. Let me tell you about rank.com. Time is money, save both, easy to use corporate cards, bill pay, accounting, and a whole lot more. The US government has banned Chinese humanoid robots. The US is banning new imports of foreign made humanoid robots, quadruped robots, robot dogs. You might know them, bye.
Very controversial based on, we got to get General Catalyst to weigh in on this because aren't they anti-robot dog? Wasn't that the whole thing of the video?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:33)
Maybe I'm just remembering it.

**Jordi Hays** (0:35)
So they must be celebrating.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:36)
Some platform VCs are very pro-robot dogs.

**Jordi Hays** (0:40)
Everyone should be pro-robot dog. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with a robot dog unless it's a geopolitical discussion and then there's another layer to the debate. So the Federal Communication Commission's FCC today announced some restrictions and these apply to new versions of those products. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the move is intended to quote secure America's critical supply chains. China, meanwhile, has condemned the decision as protectionism.
Is that because they're protecting the small children from getting smacked in the face by the human eye robots? It is protectionism.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:20)
I know, that video, I think that you're referring to.

**Jordi Hays** (1:24)
Yeah, brutal.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:25)
Absolutely brutal. We should try to pull it up. Try to find the humanoid kicking a child, please.
Sounds wrong, but I just want to get at the truth.

**Jordi Hays** (1:34)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:34)
I just want the truth.

**Jordi Hays** (1:36)
The move comes as Chinese companies have established a commanding lead in humanoid robotics of the roughly 15,000 humanoid robots shipped worldwide in 2025 China's Unitree and AGIBOT, A-G-I-BOT, I'm not sure how you pronounce that, each delivered more than 5,000.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:54)
Okay, we have the video of the robot kicking the child.

**John Coogan** (1:56)
Oh, brutal.

**Jordi Hays** (1:58)
There's another one where he's spinning around and gives him sort of like a spinning back fist, but that is crazy. Seeing that, you're kind of like, yeah, I'm up for some protection.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:07)
Gross negligence.

**Jordi Hays** (2:08)
If it's going to protect children, I think it's maybe in the best interest. No, that's not why this is happening, of course.
So 5,000 units were delivered from each unitary and adjibot. By comparison, US companies, including Tesla and Figure, shipped only a few hundred robots each. If that, China is also estimated to control about 85 percent of the global humanoid robotics market and also a ton of the deep supply chain, obviously. According to the Associated Press, the restrictions are expected to add new tension to U.S.-China relations ahead of a planned September meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US. President Donald Trump. The FCC argues the measures are necessary to reduce potential risks posed by connected foreign-made devices that could become part of critical American infrastructure.
What's interesting here is that we're seeing a ban on a Chinese technology that is so nascent that you don't have a coalition of companies that are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've deployed, my business is built on top of unitary. I know there's geopolitical considerations, but I can't make the cars that I make without them. I can't run my business without them. And so this is going to hurt me. No one's really stepping up in the same way that they are with Chinese LLMs, which a lot of companies are like, no, I'm actually going to cut my inference cost by 80% if I can make it happen.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:35)
I know of the various cloud businesses that are already making money.

**Jordi Hays** (3:40)
Making money from them?

**SPEAKER_4** (3:41)
Exactly. I saw a bunch of people that were sort of saying that they didn't like this, that it was protectionist, and that there must have been some American humanoid or robotics companies that were lobbying for this in DC. Maybe there were, but I personally don't want 100 million humanoid robots in this country running around that are not made by a US company or at least a Western ally.

**Jordi Hays** (4:15)
Yeah. Where, since there's been the DJI ban, there's been various surveillance tools that are banned, but there's still so many different pieces of technology that come from all over the world.
I wonder where people would like to draw the line generally on technology. Like, is it okay if the Wi-Fi router is made internet?

**SPEAKER_4** (4:38)
Oh, he drew the line on Huawei.

**Jordi Hays** (4:40)