There's just nothing better than time spent in the, in the go- in, on the field as a quarterback.

Yeah, no question about it.

And it, and it's not just, [clears throat] you know, kind of what you process on the field, because you see so many things.

When you're around the league, there are only so many ways to do it, right? There are only so many ways to disguise.

There are only so many adjustments that they're gonna make post-snap.

Uh, and, and you know all the different combinations, the route combinations, and kind of where you need to go at certain times.

But I think it's just the ease that those quarterbacks feel.

Uh, just generally speaking, simply put, what sets him apart? What is it about him that, that, that, that, that he does that is so difficult for a layman like me to understand? What sets him apart from other great receivers?

It's pretty amazing, isn't it, how that position as much as any other, if not more, it... there's just nothing better than time spent in the, in the go- in, on the field as a quarterback.

Yeah, no question about it.

And it, and it's not just, [clears throat] you know, kind of what you process on the field, because you see so many things.

When you're around the league, there are only so many ways to do it, right? There are only so many ways to disguise.

There are only so many adjustments that they're gonna make post-snap.

Uh, and, and you know all the different combinations, the route combinations, and kind of where you need to go at certain times.

But I think it's just the ease that those quarterbacks feel.

Uh, just generally speaking, simply put, what sets him apart? What is it about him that, that, that, that, that he does that is so difficult for a layman like me to understand? The, what sets him apart from other great receivers?

Now let me go to sack some quarterback... uh, some college quarterbacks

... yeah, and yeah, not only be eligible to come back, but to be, you know, in the damn portal.

But here's the thing, season's a week and a half away, right? [laughs] Like you...

and, and, and look, I know you can play with the numbers a little bit.

You still have the 105 man roster rules, so you can cut some, you know, walk-ons or, you know, uh, some lower level guys.

But do you have the money to sign them? And, you know, do you wanna mess with locker room chemistry? There are a lot of issues there, but, you know, depending on which program you are, right? Like, if you're a program...

[laughs] You know, it's funny, the unnamed sources inside of the Big 12, I heard this, like, damn right, we need a, we need a couple more players.

... a collective bargaining agreement.

Now let me go to sack some quarterback... uh, some college quarterbacks

... yeah, and yeah, not only be eligible to come back, but to be, you know, in the damn portal.

But here's the thing, season's a week and a half away, right? [laughs] Like you...

and, and, and look, I know you can play with the numbers a little bit.

You still have the 105-man roster rules, so you can cut some, you know, walk-ons or, you know, uh, some lower level guys.

But do you have the money to sign them? And, you know, do you wanna mess with locker room chemistry? There are a lot of issues there, but, you know, depending on which program you are, right? Like, if you're a program...

[laughs] You know, it's funny, the unnamed sources inside of the Big 12, I heard this like, "Damn right, we need a, we need a couple more players.

... a collective bargaining agreement.

some quarterback, c- uh, some college quarterbacks.

Yeah, and yeah, not only be eligible to come back, but to be, you know, in the damn portal.

But here's the thing, season's a week and a half way, right? [laughs] Like, you...

And, and, uh, look, I know you can play with the numbers a little bit.

You still have the 105-man roster rules, so you can cut some, you know, walk-ons or, you know, uh, some lower level guys.

But do you have the money to sign them? And, you know, do you wanna mess with locker room chemistry? There are a lot of issues there.

But, you know, depending on which program you are, right? Like, if you're a program...

Well, but here's the-

Now let me go sack some quarterback, uh, some college quarterbacks.

Yeah, and yeah.

Not only be eligible to come back, but to be, you know, in the damn portal.

But here's the thing, season's a week and a half away, right? [laughs] Like you...

And, and, and look, I know you can play with the numbers a little bit.

You still have the 105-man roster rules, so you can cut some, you know, walk-ons or, you know, uh, some lower level guys.

But do you have the money to sign them? And, you know, do you wanna mess with locker room chemistry? There are a lot of issues there.

... a collective bargaining agreement?

Robert Smith, please read to us from one representative letter from a DeLorean owner in Chicago, who says he's noticed a number of small problems, and who actually lists them.

Yeah.

Number one, side window sticks in the up position.

Number two, fuel pump is excessively noisy.

Number three, dye from the optional floor mats comes off and stains clothing, shoes, and skin.

[laughs] Number four, interior body fit of the door is not excellent.

Number five, owner's manual does not state the type of light bulbs to use.

Yeah.

What separates the guys who do wind up playing for three years and then balling out and having no money in five years from the guys that leave, that go on into business? What seems to be almost a 50-50 split? What calls that?

And Will, I know that you're a big statistics guy and we know how means and averages, means and medians can get messed up and get people thinking the wrong way.

And when you look at an average career that's three or four years, you have to remember that Guys that actually make it in the league are probably going to play six years in the league.

So that three to four number gets skewed because most people come in for a year and then they're gone.

Or a lot of people come in and they don't play at all.

So that average is really skewed by a lot of people that... you know, are leaving the game early, but some of the guys that stick around a little bit more are going to make it six years.

And, you know, there are a lot of different factors.

Robert, what do you think? What's our biggest problem, America's biggest problem? What's your take?

It's just an organic conversation.

Well, my name is Robert Smith.

I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Grew up there for my entire childhood.

Obviously started, not obviously, but started using around high school age.

I really didn't have... much confidence.

Um, self-esteem was kind of low.

So

What's it look like?

Yeah, look, unbelievable.

It's not as green because obviously we're heading to where all that is.

They tell me up through Mount Dare and along the edge of the Simpson Desert.

We will be there.

I'm not sure exactly when, but we will be going through there.

But I can tell you that they have had some rain here and there was some water and it is fairly green.

You want me to spell it?

I should mention here that the rumors about Robert's nocturnal lifestyle are all true.

And I had to, you know, I had to decline.

I said, I don't even know.

I don't know what lunch is.

I mean, I haven't had lunch since I was about seven years old.

So it's a bit too early in the day.

And also that was another day.

And then he said, while you're here then, can you go and play a guitar riff?

You started off in the sales department, you forged your own career in the um you know four-wheel driving sector these days and uh you're of course hosting the country music countdown but that weekend in june was a big one we had the then premier barry o'farrell uh in june i think was going to go for a walk with daryl the morning after and then there was the unveiling of the ray warren statue which came all the way from china i think i'm right in saying

yeah that's right it was actually part of the 25th anniversary of the continuous call team it was the first real tour we did i think we did about four tours And I was very lucky.

I mean, talk about pinch yourself.

I know you blokes have said it a few times.

I mean, obviously Ray saw something in me and thought, well, this bloke's a bit of a doer.

We'll get him involved.

And Ray was a big supporter of the bush footy and wanted to take the team out.

Remember that, Big Man? So what

Can't really do that with everyone else there.

Mick Jagger singing in the studio, he's like, I'm thinking, "I know what this feels like.

I know exactly what this is like," and you're pushing yourself and you're trying to get the best possible thing, and it's like an intensity there that you have to kind of, like, be very careful with when you're around someone do- doing that kind of thing, particularly someone who's, y- as invested as he is.

That's the voice of The Cure's Robert Smith, a legendary frontman in his own right with his own part to play on Foreign Tongues.

You can just tell he, he knew exactly, exactly what he wanted to get, and he was getting it.

You know, that, that is the astonishing thing.

I mean, I, I don't know re- I mean, I, I, I, I try very hard to get exactly what's inside my head.

Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't, and when you can't, it's very frustrating.

Kind of what is that like for you as the provider being on the other side, realizing I'm not trained for this?

Yeah, yeah, no, it's awful.

And because most doctors will avoid it.

They simply, and this is where you hear doctors will interrupt.

Somebody might say, well, I feel depressed or I'm having funny thoughts.

they'll change this up and say, well, where is the pain in the back? Does it really eat down your leg? They don't want to talk about it.

And again, not again, I haven't said it, but I want to emphasize it.

It's so much easier to continue that than to try to find providers.

So Vector Core Compute, um, and the VC2, I mean, what exactly is it and what problem does it solve?

Sure.

Thanks, and good to see you, and thanks for inviting me on.

I'm on my way back from Taiwan, uh, where we announced with our partners a new company, Vector Core Compute.

I, I think you and I have been talking for some time about how we have been converting enterprise software companies, uh, to agented enterprise solutions.

But when you agentify enterprise software, the agents that are, that have been deployed need inference, uh, which is a, a, a compute quantum, a compute, compute capacity.

And what we've found, and many companies are finding this, is as these agents kind of work 24/7, 365, they start to use a fair amount of inference.

[laughs]

You're actually seeing real revenue gains from the-- from these tools.

Absolutely.

Uh, you know, the dynamic that we're all facing is, okay, what is the impact of AI on enterprise software? Of course, there are two components.

One's expanding value, and the second is, you know, increasing efficiency.

The efficiency point, of course, is the cost dynamic.

Um, we have some real proof points there which are interesting.

You know, the last ninety days have changed everything in many respects, but we now are getting, in some cases, eighty, ninety percent productivity improvements on code generation across every single code base, with the exception of one, believe it or not, across all of our portfolio companies.

Mm-hmm

And so my question to you, I guess, is when you look at the advancement of AI, the adoption of AI, are you seeing those signs that we are about to experience additional productivity in the coming quarters?

quarters?Yeah, it's, it's...

Yeah, that's a, a really interesting question, and I think actually, as you mentioned, w-what will be our upcoming AI midyear outlook, we look to address some of those questions around labor and, and productivity specifically in terms of more from a macro lens.

And I guess the, the problem is that, yeah, as you know, Julian, macro data is messy, and it's lagging, and so to look at the end result is to try and understand what's going on and if it's having an effect is really difficult.

I guess the, the second thing to think about is, as we've talked about before, is that, you know, it can take a long time for technology to actually filter through, you know, even to make changes at a corporate level, let alone making changes and seeing any impacts at a, a sort of macro GDP-type level.

I think everyone with AI, there was this, I think, originally possibly this idea that, you know, as we move forward, technology actually dissipates, uh, kind of q-quicker into businesses, and generally that cycle shortens.

But AI is such a big shift and such a big revolution that I actually think it's taking probably longer than maybe some people imagine for it to actually filter in.

What are the, uh, most important development you're seeing in that space, and is there something else coming after agentic AI?

Right.

Um, and it's, it's an enablement software.

And with, with, with all that said, you have to say, well, the nature of value creation, uh, is often moving from one state to another.

And how do you do that systemically? And so the design points around Vista are, okay, what are the critical factors for success for an enterprise software company to get from state A, worth X, to state B, worth three X, four X, five X? Often there's, you know, a, uh, precision that needs to be brought to the operations of the business so that you eliminate waste.

Uh, eliminate waste in production, eliminate waste in customer support, eliminate waste in go-to-market or your selling activities, eliminate waste in the value capture for, you know, what is the value that you're providing your customers.

And then call it, you know, feedback, which is, you know, what, what's the information through serving these customers that can inform you to deliver them a higher quality product or service or offering? Uh, and then, and then build that and deliver it back to them.

And that's kind of the...

Are, are there patterns you see repeat every time a new platform fundamentally changes business models?

Mm-hmm.

And the idea was that if that humor is out of whack, say, let's say that's black bile causing depression.

If that was out of whack, they had to draw blood off to redress the imbalance.

Of course, everybody knows it didn't work, and they killed literally millions of people doing this, and some of our famous presidents, in fact.

And so that was the basis of all medicine up until the sixteenth century.

And at that point, science was starting to get some traction.

Prior to that, over the entire preceding one thousand years or so, the Catholic Church had ruled medicine with an iron hand, as well as all of society, and they had prohibited anatomic dissections of human bodies.

So as we move forward, and hopefully we can shift, uh, more of our focus onto the psychiatric realm, what do you envision that looking like?

So as a result, they were getting a smaller share of the money that was coming into the game, a smaller share of the pie.

And we're used to thinking of sports as different, but, but think about it for a moment how wild this is.

Imagine if, if every year Google and Apple drafted the computer science graduates coming out of Stanford and Carnegie Mellon and MIT, and, and when you got drafted, you had to go work for that company, even if you didn't like Apple.

Like, you had a contract, and you had to work for them forever until they fired you or traded you to another tech company, in which case you had to work for that company or not be a computer engineer.

The employees would have no bargaining power.

They would absolutely be underpaid, not what they're paid now, right? It would be flagrantly, wildly illegal.

You can't have a no poaching agreement.

There's a term that we love here at Planet Money and at Business History.

What they want is they want it in a secure environment, and that's where we provide a unique place in the marketplace.

Let me, uh, in the brief time we have left, let me take it down to the real world in terms of your portfolio.

I think your largest asset, most watched sort of position, you know, you put together Citrix and Tibco.

Right.

It's a $16.5 billion merger then, obviously.

Uh, you've also, I think, reraised fresh capital around that, another $5.6 billion continuation vehicle, retained the asset, 2.7 billion in fresh secondary capital, and then 2.2 billion from your other funds.So explain to me how that deal-

Those occasional bursts of excitement are, of course, offset by thousands of hours of training and by the physical punishment.

I tore my ACL my rookie season, but in that injury, I also broke the bottom of my femur and did some damage to the articular cartilage, which is the smooth cartilage that's on the tip of the bone, and I needed to have a microfracture.

It's a procedure where they tap on the exposed surface of the bone, and then I needed to have that again after my last season in the league.

So there I was, a couple of months shy of my twenty-ninth birthday.

It was the only season I didn't miss any games, and I still needed to have knee surgery after the year.

And the thing that I said was: "You know, if you would pay any amount of money to get your health back if you lost it, then what amount of money is worth the very real chance that you'll lose it?" It was the calculation that was going on in my head.

That's why I left the game when I did.

Is it possible that there might be somewhat of a return to the retro world of run first?

What sort of prepared you for the book?

Well, look, I've been in Christian ministry for many, many decades and been teaching theology and ethics for about twenty-four years in Sydney.

Had a major focus on music and music ministry in, in my years, so this was a step in a very different direction.

But having taught, you know, doctrines of anthropology and sin, and taught ethics for many years, I guess I certainly was... had a head start to trying to grapple with some of these big questions.

But how I really began working on this particular project was back in 2014, when, uh, here in Sydney at least, we were doing work on human sexuality and preparing for a, a debate on same-sex marriage.

And I, uh, was given the task of writing a chapter for a, a long-form report on sort of where are we? How did we get here? What's coming next? And it was the what's coming next question that alerted me to the significance of, well, many were calling then the transgender challenge or the transgender even revolution.

And I think I saw fairly quickly that the, um, in some ways, the implications of this challenge were even bigger than questions of same-sex relations and same-sex marriage, because they really had to do with who and what we are and how we know who and what we are.

How do you think through that?

I- I had a conversation with Caleb Downs, uh, a couple of weeks ago, and in that conversation, Caleb Downs was almost like, "You know what? That loss to Indiana in the Big 10 Championship may have been the best thing for us because it can refocus the whole group and a bunch of guys that didn't know what it was like to lose." I- I would just love to know about how you feel about the Buckeyes going into the matchup, uh, against Alabama.

Yeah, you know, I- I think it's interesting, Tren.

You know, you go back all the way to the first college football playoff when Ohio State won the national championship that year, and I think it was lost at Virginia Tech earlier in the season.

And then of course, uh, you know, you have, uh, the injuries and Cardale Jones ends up coming in and-... you know, leading the team to the championship, so you have to overcome the adversity, and then the first year, obviously, the college football, uh, ex- expanded playoff last year, you had the loss to Oregon, you had the loss to Michigan during the course of the season.

So I think, yes, you could look at it a couple of different ways.

You kind of like to get those things out of the way so people aren't just feeling the pressure of staying perfect, and you understand that it also takes a different level.

It- it- it- we talk about this all the time in the NFL, uh, and- and players just don't realize it until they get there, but, you know, the preseason's a lot different.

What do you think it says about the Vikings' culture that they have decided, "Okay, we may not be postseason-bound, but we're still gonna put our best foot forward week in and week out"?

Mm-hmm.

...

the children of my community.

Um, and what that imparts upon me is an ever increasing, you know, knowledge that it is, it is my obligation to give what I can give, uh, to the community of, of, of people that I care about going forward.

So that divine inspiration, uh, and what I felt comes from putting his words in the context of how my community was acting and behaving.

And I saw, you know, just to give you an example, and I, I write about this a, a bit in the book.

You know, young, young, a young man who, you know, there was rocketry happening and, you know, we were landing people on the moon and he decided to take on, you know, these young African American kids in the neighborhood and teach them rocketry.

Mm-hmm.