Snap Launches Specs, Paramount Eyes Nashville, Japan's Monks Turn to Investing, New Clip from 'The Social Reckoning' | Aaref Hilaly, David Gross, Max Junestrand, Chase Lochmiller, Jesse Zhang, Nilam Ganenthiran & Leonard Tang, Joe Weisenthal

Jordi Hays (0:00)

You're watching TBPN.

John Coogan (0:01)

Today is Thursday, September 17th, 2026 We are live from the TBPN Ultra Dome, the Temple of Technology.

Jordi Hays (0:07)

The fortress of finance.

John Coogan (0:09)

The capital of capital. Let me tell you about ramp.com. Time is money, safe, both. Easiest corporate cards, real pay, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place. Dang, son, where'd you raise this?

That is a wild one.

Jordi Hays (0:23)

That is a wild one. I don't think we've played that one before.

John Coogan (0:25)

Yeah, that's the new one.

Jordi Hays (0:26)

I don't know if that's actually a keeper. It's kind of a little weird.

John Coogan (0:28)

Yeah, I think the start of it is funny. Dang, son, Joe Weisenthal coming to TBPN UltraDome. First time in person. We've done odd lots in person with him, but he's coming on down.

We're doing a Bain Capital deep dive today, talking to partners on the venture side, then David Gross, who's the managing partner, talking about the history of the firm. He was doing special situations in Japan, went to Japan very early on in his career, grew the Asia business, and now has overseen Bain Capital, become this really large asset management firm with a bunch of different strategies. So I think we'll have an interesting economic perspective outlook. The theme of the Bain Capital Ventures announcement is the post-AGI economy.

Jordi Hays (1:12)

Finally.

John Coogan (1:13)

We still got a job for asset managers. That's what you're thinking. You know, everyone was saying, you know what happens.

Jordi Hays (1:17)

But also I'm glad to get kind of past this current moment.

SPEAKER_3 (1:20)

It is.

Jordi Hays (1:20)

A lot of tension.

SPEAKER_3 (1:21)

Yeah.

Jordi Hays (1:21)

And I'm ready for the next chapter.

John Coogan (1:22)

It is.

But it'll be interesting to hear how they're actually thinking about investing, wrestling with what's going on at the foundation model layer, but then still investing both above and below the fold, as I like to put it. So Legora is coming on doing legal AI, basically a wrapper company. They're optimistic about that, but then they're also investing in Crusoe. We have Chase Lochmiller coming back on the show to talk about building infrastructure for the AI buildout. And so they have this sort of sandwich strategy, which is pretty interesting in the way we can see from decagon.com.

Jordi Hays (1:54)

I'll go on the YouTube chat, says, can't believe John, Jordi, and I are all back for another.

John Coogan (2:00)

Thank you for being with us. Theo has been playing along with that meme a lot. And I think, I mean, it was the current thing for a minute there.

But he put out a tier list of all the different controversies surrounding him. And he put this, he put the and I as S tier. It's like the best controversy he's ever been a part of.

It's such a funny thing. And I hope it lives on as a meme. I hope people continue to do it because when applied correctly, it's a chef's kiss. Anyway, Snap officially launched Specs yesterday. Some of the team members here got to go check it out in person. I get there, I'm like, this is perfect. It's 3 p.m. Atlas Creatine Cycle's in town. I want to meet up with him. I'm like, great, you're going to this thing. I have an invite to this thing. I'll see you there. We'll catch up there. Super convenient for both of us.

I got a 30 minute call beforehand. It ends right before the thing starts. That runs to 50 minutes. So I'm 20 minutes late. Get my badge, walk in immediately, get a phone call. Hey, they're calling me. I had another call. You got to hop on early. So I leave and then I have another 90 minute call. So I truly missed the entire thing. But I did get to go inside, have one glass of water, talk to one person, Harper Carroll, former guest of the show. Now out in Austin, reporting on AI.

And that was electric. But then I didn't actually get to see the presentation or do the demos. So it was basically a quick turnaround for me. And I was like, why did I think I could pull this off? I failed. But did the launch fail? We'll see. We'll talk to the folks who actually went. Tyler, Nick, we're not asking for a full review. I just want to take us through the day. I saw you guys pull up and you guys didn't see me. I was on the street on the call. You guys get waved around, you valet, walk me through your journey into the launch. Like you go in, you have cocktails. What happened?