▶ 80:19 · Robotics & Physical AI · BlackBerry: Industrial automation/robotics/medical instruments fastest growing pipeline for QNX

episode briefing

Google DeepMind Reorgs, Rainforest Discoveries, Monkey Prices Surge, NYT Stock Drops

2026-08-05 · 13 company · 19 thematic

sentiment

6 bull1 bear6 neu

speakers

harley finkelstein

President of Shopify since 2017; led the company through pandemic e-commerce boom and recent AI/agentic commerce pivot; discussed Q2 results: $116B GMV, 30%+ growth across metrics.

john giamatteo

CEO of BlackBerry since 2023; leading the 42-year-old company's pivot from smartphones to embedded software (QNX OS in 275M+ vehicles) and secure communications for G10 governments; highlighted $950M backlog and industrial robotics growth.

jeremy allaire

Serial entrepreneur on his third company (fourth founding effort) and third IPO; has built Circle over 12+ years into a public company (~$20B market cap) issuing USDC, the largest regulated stablecoin; led the company through a near-bankruptcy moment in 2019 and the passage of the Genius Act establishing federal stablecoin law.

mackenzie burnett

CEO and co-founder of Ambrook, vertical ERP for SMBs in agriculture, trucking, construction; raised $30M Series B from Locky Groom; grew from 200 to 8,000 businesses in ~1 year; building AI CFO agents for 'finance teams of zero'.

john coogan

Co-host of TBPN, a live technology and business show focused on startups, venture capital and Silicon Valley.

now playing · Robotics & Physical AI

AI Infrastructuremixedscore 7/10john coogan

Hyperscalers face tension between selling compute vs hoarding for internal AGI efforts

Google selling TPUs externally while DeepMind needs massive internal compute creates organizational conflict; same dynamic at Nvidia (selling GPUs vs keeping for own AI). Companies seeing p…

AI Regulation & Policyriskscore 7/10john coogan

Frontier AI standards body advocated by Demis Hassabis; AI regulation inevitable per Circle CEO

Demis Hassabis's recent essay argues for frontier AI standards body evaluating models pre-release for superintelligence risks, including open source. Jeremy Allaire argues AI is now foundat…

AI Economics & Business Modelstailwindscore 7/10john coogan

Doomers' put option on humanity became call option on AI — no financial tradeoff for early believers

Joe Weisenthal observes AI doomers who accumulated GPUs or GPU company shares early got rich without sacrificing upside — the feared doom catalyst itself generated unprecedented profits. Un…

AI Drug Discoverytailwindscore 6/10john coogan

Lab monkey prices double in China: preclinical testing bottleneck for biologic medicines surge

Chinese state labs paying ~$26K/monkey (2x YoY) as novel biologic/next-gen therapy pipeline explodes. China now generates 1/3 of global novel medicine pipeline. Monkey shortage could bottle…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce is real and disproportionately benefits long-tail merchants

Shopify data shows AI-referred sessions convert 2x better than organic search, land on product pages 2.5x more often, and 75% of AI-attributed purchases are outside top 100 categories — pro…

AI Agentstailwindscore 9/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce real and accelerating: 3x traffic/orders, 2x conversion, small merchants winning

Shopify data shows agentic commerce is not hype: AI-driven traffic up 3x, orders up 3x, catalog conversion 2x vs general search. Merit-based discovery favors long-tail specialized merchants…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce is merit-based, not ad-based, favoring long-tail merchants

Shopify data shows AI-driven traffic and orders up 3x, catalog conversion 2x vs general AI scraping; 75% of AI-attributed purchases from outside top 100 categories. Agents navigate to speci…

Autonomous Vehiclesmixedscore 6/10john giamatteo

BlackBerry CEO sees full autopilot in all US vehicles >5k units/year only in 2030s

Only 25% of 90M annual cars have advanced tech beyond basic infotainment; safety certification (ISO 26262) and domain integration (digital cockpit, ADAS, body control) make autonomy a multi…

Robotics & Physical AItailwindscore 7/10john giamatteo

Safety-critical RTOS for robotics/industrial automation is BlackBerry's fastest-growing segment

BlackBerry QNX powers 275M+ vehicles; $950M backlog over 5-7 years. But fastest-growing pipeline is industrial automation (AMRs for pick/pack/ship), surgical robots, medical instrumentation…

Robotics & Physical AItailwindscore 7/10john giamatteo

BlackBerry: Industrial automation/robotics/medical instruments fastest growing pipeline for QNX

Beyond auto, QNX seeing strongest growth in safety-critical physical AI: automated mobile robots (pick/pack/ship), surgical robotic arms, medical instrumentation. These require same precisi…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10jeremy allaire

Circle: Agentic economy = labor market for cognitive agents, not just shopping bots

The real agentic opportunity is agents as units of labor — a cross-firm labor market where agents discover, transact, and execute work. Requires identity, reputation, marketplaces. 900+ ser…

Crypto & Digital Assetstailwindscore 8/10jeremy allaire

Stablecoins entering core financial infrastructure via Genius Act and real-world asset tokenization

The Genius Act makes stablecoins officially part of the US financial system; USDC dominates 70% of real-world stablecoin transactions; 75% of Hyperliquid volume is tokenized RWAs; adoption…

Crypto & Digital Assetstailwindscore 9/10jeremy allaire

Stablecoins becoming official financial infrastructure; agentic payments emerging as killer use case

Genius Act makes stablecoins part of US financial system; USDC at 70% of real-world stablecoin transactions (Visa data). Circle building cross-firm agentic labor market with identity, reput…

Cybersecurityriskscore 7/10jeremy allaire

AI-orchestrated attacks raising stakes for crypto infrastructure and smart contract security

Circle CEO reports hardware wallet seed phrases drained via weak encryption ($100M+ losses); social engineering attacks now AI-written with contextual understanding; new blockchain network…

AI Coding Agentstailwindscore 7/10john coogan

RL environment startups and coding agents attracting major acquisition interest and product launches

Google reportedly acquiring Mechanize for $1.5B for RL environments; Meta launching Muse Code terminal agent; Microsoft standardizing on GPT-5.6 for internal use; Ilya Sutskever's SSI rumor…

Enterprise Softwaretailwindscore 7/10mackenzie burnett

Vertical ERP for 'messy middle' SMBs leveraging AI agents as CFO for finance teams of zero

Ambrook targets 25-30% of US small businesses too complex for QuickBooks but resource-constrained for NetSuite; built agent-legible data layer first, then AI CFO agents; 50% of customers mo…

SaaS Business Modelstailwindscore 7/10mackenzie burnett

Ambrook: Vertical go-to-market + horizontal ERP platform unlocks 'messy middle' SMBs with AI CFO

25-30% of US SMBs too complex for QuickBooks, not ready for NetSuite. Ambrook's ERP as agent context layer (human + agent legible) enables AI CFO for finance teams of zero. 50% customers of…

Enterprise Softwaretailwindscore 8/10mackenzie burnett

Vertical go-to-market with horizontal platform wins 'messy middle' SMBs ignored by incumbents

Ambrook targets 25-30% of US small businesses too complex for QuickBooks but lacking resources for NetSuite/Sage. 50% of customers moving off pen-and-paper. AI CFO for 'finance teams of zer…

AI Geopolitics & Export Controlsheadwindscore 6/10john coogan

ByteDance bans employee distillation of US frontier models fearing Washington retaliation

ByteDance founder prohibited distillation of US models (Claude, GPT) due to risk of triggering DC pushback that could endanger TikTok; Anthropic has accused multiple Chinese labs (DeepSeek,…

←

▶ 80:19 · Robotics & Physical AI · BlackBerry: Industrial automation/robotics/medical instruments fastest growing pipeline for QNX

episode briefing

TBPN

Google DeepMind Reorgs, Rainforest Discoveries, Monkey Prices Surge, NYT Stock Drops

2026-08-05 · 13 company · 19 thematic

sentiment

6 bull1 bear6 neu

speakers

harley finkelstein

President of Shopify since 2017; led the company through pandemic e-commerce boom and recent AI/agentic commerce pivot; discussed Q2 results: $116B GMV, 30%+ growth across metrics.

Co-host of TBPN, a live technology and business show focused on startups, venture capital and Silicon Valley.

now playing · Robotics & Physical AI

AI Infrastructuremixedscore 7/10john coogan

Hyperscalers face tension between selling compute vs hoarding for internal AGI efforts

Google selling TPUs externally while DeepMind needs massive internal compute creates organizational conflict; same dynamic at Nvidia (selling GPUs vs keeping for own AI). Companies seeing p…

AI Regulation & Policyriskscore 7/10john coogan

Frontier AI standards body advocated by Demis Hassabis; AI regulation inevitable per Circle CEO

Demis Hassabis's recent essay argues for frontier AI standards body evaluating models pre-release for superintelligence risks, including open source. Jeremy Allaire argues AI is now foundat…

AI Economics & Business Modelstailwindscore 7/10john coogan

Doomers' put option on humanity became call option on AI — no financial tradeoff for early believers

Joe Weisenthal observes AI doomers who accumulated GPUs or GPU company shares early got rich without sacrificing upside — the feared doom catalyst itself generated unprecedented profits. Un…

AI Drug Discoverytailwindscore 6/10john coogan

Lab monkey prices double in China: preclinical testing bottleneck for biologic medicines surge

Chinese state labs paying ~$26K/monkey (2x YoY) as novel biologic/next-gen therapy pipeline explodes. China now generates 1/3 of global novel medicine pipeline. Monkey shortage could bottle…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce is real and disproportionately benefits long-tail merchants

Shopify data shows AI-referred sessions convert 2x better than organic search, land on product pages 2.5x more often, and 75% of AI-attributed purchases are outside top 100 categories — pro…

AI Agentstailwindscore 9/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce real and accelerating: 3x traffic/orders, 2x conversion, small merchants winning

Shopify data shows agentic commerce is not hype: AI-driven traffic up 3x, orders up 3x, catalog conversion 2x vs general search. Merit-based discovery favors long-tail specialized merchants…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10harley finkelstein

Agentic commerce is merit-based, not ad-based, favoring long-tail merchants

Shopify data shows AI-driven traffic and orders up 3x, catalog conversion 2x vs general AI scraping; 75% of AI-attributed purchases from outside top 100 categories. Agents navigate to speci…

Autonomous Vehiclesmixedscore 6/10john giamatteo

BlackBerry CEO sees full autopilot in all US vehicles >5k units/year only in 2030s

Only 25% of 90M annual cars have advanced tech beyond basic infotainment; safety certification (ISO 26262) and domain integration (digital cockpit, ADAS, body control) make autonomy a multi…

Robotics & Physical AItailwindscore 7/10john giamatteo

Safety-critical RTOS for robotics/industrial automation is BlackBerry's fastest-growing segment

BlackBerry QNX powers 275M+ vehicles; $950M backlog over 5-7 years. But fastest-growing pipeline is industrial automation (AMRs for pick/pack/ship), surgical robots, medical instrumentation…

Robotics & Physical AItailwindscore 7/10john giamatteo

BlackBerry: Industrial automation/robotics/medical instruments fastest growing pipeline for QNX

Beyond auto, QNX seeing strongest growth in safety-critical physical AI: automated mobile robots (pick/pack/ship), surgical robotic arms, medical instrumentation. These require same precisi…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10jeremy allaire

Circle: Agentic economy = labor market for cognitive agents, not just shopping bots

The real agentic opportunity is agents as units of labor — a cross-firm labor market where agents discover, transact, and execute work. Requires identity, reputation, marketplaces. 900+ ser…

Crypto & Digital Assetstailwindscore 8/10jeremy allaire

Stablecoins entering core financial infrastructure via Genius Act and real-world asset tokenization

The Genius Act makes stablecoins officially part of the US financial system; USDC dominates 70% of real-world stablecoin transactions; 75% of Hyperliquid volume is tokenized RWAs; adoption…

Crypto & Digital Assetstailwindscore 9/10jeremy allaire

Stablecoins becoming official financial infrastructure; agentic payments emerging as killer use case

Genius Act makes stablecoins part of US financial system; USDC at 70% of real-world stablecoin transactions (Visa data). Circle building cross-firm agentic labor market with identity, reput…

Cybersecurityriskscore 7/10jeremy allaire

AI-orchestrated attacks raising stakes for crypto infrastructure and smart contract security

Circle CEO reports hardware wallet seed phrases drained via weak encryption ($100M+ losses); social engineering attacks now AI-written with contextual understanding; new blockchain network…

AI Coding Agentstailwindscore 7/10john coogan

RL environment startups and coding agents attracting major acquisition interest and product launches

Google reportedly acquiring Mechanize for $1.5B for RL environments; Meta launching Muse Code terminal agent; Microsoft standardizing on GPT-5.6 for internal use; Ilya Sutskever's SSI rumor…

Enterprise Softwaretailwindscore 7/10mackenzie burnett

Vertical ERP for 'messy middle' SMBs leveraging AI agents as CFO for finance teams of zero

Ambrook targets 25-30% of US small businesses too complex for QuickBooks but resource-constrained for NetSuite; built agent-legible data layer first, then AI CFO agents; 50% of customers mo…

SaaS Business Modelstailwindscore 7/10mackenzie burnett

Ambrook: Vertical go-to-market + horizontal ERP platform unlocks 'messy middle' SMBs with AI CFO

25-30% of US SMBs too complex for QuickBooks, not ready for NetSuite. Ambrook's ERP as agent context layer (human + agent legible) enables AI CFO for finance teams of zero. 50% customers of…

Enterprise Softwaretailwindscore 8/10mackenzie burnett

Vertical go-to-market with horizontal platform wins 'messy middle' SMBs ignored by incumbents

Ambrook targets 25-30% of US small businesses too complex for QuickBooks but lacking resources for NetSuite/Sage. 50% of customers moving off pen-and-paper. AI CFO for 'finance teams of zer…

AI Geopolitics & Export Controlsheadwindscore 6/10john coogan

ByteDance bans employee distillation of US frontier models fearing Washington retaliation

ByteDance founder prohibited distillation of US models (Claude, GPT) due to risk of triggering DC pushback that could endanger TikTok; Anthropic has accused multiple Chinese labs (DeepSeek,…