Snap Launches SPECS, Paramount Eyes Nashville Offices, OpenAI Explores $1.2T Valuation | Diet TBPN

John Coogan (0:02)

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. I 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.

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, 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?

Tyler (1:22)

Yeah, have a drink, go in.

John Coogan (1:25)

What are they serving? Screaming Eagle or Seltzer water?

Tyler (1:30)

Some cocktail.

John Coogan (1:31)

Did they have the original Four Loco? Were they serving the original Four Loco?

Tyler (1:36)

I wish, yeah.

John Coogan (1:37)

Multiple pints of Guinness. Did they have natural light available?

Jordi Hays (1:40)

You could totally see Evan cracking out, cracking open the secret supply of original Four Locos. You know that guy.

John Coogan (1:46)

You know he has a bunkey with the original Four Locos. Yeah. So everyone's having some drinks, then you sit down at the amphitheater.

Tyler (1:53)

Then you go into the amphitheater.

John Coogan (1:55)

And it's sort of like Steve Jobs' iPhone launch vibes, right?

Tyler (1:58)

Yeah. You know, he's standing in front of this big screen. There's like beautiful images behind him, walks out, black shirt, jeans. Okay. Yeah. Then he starts doing live demos.

John Coogan (2:06)

He did lean into the memes, right? I saw on screen a picture that had clearly been photoshopped or AI to make the specs look even bigger. So he was aware that people thought they were chunky, that they were large.

Tyler (2:17)

Yeah.

John Coogan (2:17)

So he gives his demo. What's his pitch?

Tyler (2:20)

Yeah. So there's a number of ways to... He kind of talked about it. One is position against being on your phone a lot. You want to stay very present. You don't be looking down at the screens all the time.

John Coogan (2:30)

You want to be looking up at the world. You want to be looking through the screen.

Yes. Yes. Okay.

Tyler (2:34)

Close to your face.

John Coogan (2:35)

Yeah. I've heard that pitched a few times. Do you believe that? Do you think that if you go no phone, but constant visual overlay in your visual field, you will actually be like, yeah, I'm more in touch with the reality. It worked.

Jordi Hays (2:50)

Yeah. I've never understood that part of the pitch.

John Coogan (2:52)

I've actually been-

Jordi Hays (2:53)

Hey, we know you're addicted to your phone, so here's another product that will actually always be attached to your face.

John Coogan (3:00)

Yeah.

Jordi Hays (3:00)

Where they're going to spin as helping you reconnect with reality.

John Coogan (3:05)

It's an odd pitch. It really doesn't work on me because I like the barbell strategy of brain rot and stimulation where I am actually fine to be like, give me the fully virtual world. I want to be locked in. I want the screen as big as possible. I want to be in World War II. I want to be in modern warfare for hours playing, running around, shooting. I want it to be all the audio. I don't want to hear anything else. I want noise cancellation. I want to be in that world, and then I want to be able to unplug and then just go into the actual world and sit down and have a chat with you and have a coffee and not be checking your headphones and actually be fully present when I'm fully present in the real world, and then I want to be fully in the virtual world. So I want the VR, the fully immersive thing, and then zero immersion. I'm actually not looking for more things that are in the middle, and I'm wondering if that will resonate with people.