Name: Google DeepMind Reorgs, Rainforest Discoveries, Monkey Prices Surge, NYT Stock Drops
Uploaded: 2026-08-05T20:13:24+00:00
Duration: 7141 s

Speakers

Harley Finkelstein — President of Shopify

John Giamatteo — CEO, BlackBerry

John Coogan — Co-Host, TBPN

Jeremy Allaire — CEO, Circle

Summary

The episode covers the Google DeepMind leadership reorg and Alphabet's negative AI narrative, a surge in Chinese lab monkey prices tied to China's biotech boom, and LiDAR discoveries in the Amazon. Guest interviews include Harley Finkelstein on Shopify's strong agentic-commerce quarter, John Giamatteo on BlackBerry's QNX embedded-software and robotics growth, Jeremy Allaire on Circle/USDC stablecoin adoption, and Mackenzie Burnett on Ambrook's Series B for real-economy financial software.

Google DeepMind reorg: Demis Hassabis becomes chairman/Alphabet chief scientist; Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat leave to start Discovery Loop; Alphabet shares drop.
China lab monkey prices double amid surging demand for preclinical testing, pointing to China's growing innovative drug pipeline.
Amazon LiDAR survey uncovers previously unknown ancient civilization in Brazil's Acre state.
Revolut founder sued over $20M superyacht broker fee; Revolut valued at $115B.
Shopify president Harley Finkelstein details strong GMV/revenue growth and AI agentic commerce momentum.
BlackBerry CEO John Giamatteo discusses QNX automotive software, $950M backlog, and industrial robotics growth.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire discusses USDC stablecoin integration, ARC infrastructure, and AI agent payments.
Ambrook CEO Mackenzie Burnett announces $30M Series B and expansion beyond agriculture.

Ideas

John Coogan Co-Host, TBPN 12:54

Alphabet's AI turmoil is a negative setup.

Alphabet/Google shares sold off after the DeepMind reorganization, in which Demis Hassabis stepped down as DeepMind CEO and Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat left to start a new lab. The host argues Google has failed to break out true AI revenue, lost AI momentum, and despite having every advantage has consistently struggled; the departures leave a leadership hole and suggest Google may shift toward being an infrastructure/capital partner rather than a leading frontier AI lab, which is a negative setup for the stock.

John Coogan Co-Host, TBPN 39:13

China biotech innovation is surging.

China's lab monkey prices have roughly doubled in the past year because demand for preclinical testing is outpacing regulated breeding supply, driven by a wave of new biologic medicines and next-generation therapies. This reflects China's rise as a leading drug discovery center: it now generates a third of the global pipeline of novel medicines and is a major destination for clinical trials and licensing deals with Western pharma, supporting a bullish view on China's innovative biotech sector, though the monkey shortage could become a bottleneck.

Harley Finkelstein President of Shopify 50:01

Shopify agentic commerce AI tools accelerate growth.

Shopify is seeing strong, durable growth with GMV above $116B, revenue of $2.6B, more than 30% growth across the board, and a fifth straight quarter of 30%+ GMV growth. Agentic commerce is real: AI-driven traffic and orders to Shopify stores were each up 3x, Shopify catalog conversion is 2x general AI scraping, and 75% of AI-attributed purchases came from outside the top 100 categories, disproportionately helping long-tail independent merchants. Sidekick onboarding increased new merchants reaching their fifth order by 8% within 15 days, and Autopilot can allocate ad budgets, reducing friction and supporting faster merchant growth.

John Giamatteo CEO, BlackBerry 69:21

BlackBerry's QNX embedded software has growth runway.

BlackBerry has transformed into an embedded software and secure communications business, with QNX as the operating system of the car powering over 275 million vehicles. It has a $950 million QNX backlog to be deployed over five to seven years, an automotive partnership ecosystem including Nvidia, Qualcomm, ARM, Texas Instruments, Intel and Bosch, and its fastest-growing pipeline is industrial robotics and medical instrumentation. High safety certifications like ISO 26262 create a moat, and its mission-critical security focus supports continued growth.

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

Summary

Ideas

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