24 Sep 2026Live from Human [X]
6 Aug 2026ETN on NASDAQ | AISI Incident | | Apple Vs. OpenAI | Open Models Exempt
Ross McNairn (Wordsmith AI): Series B Extension and Legal AI
Ross McNairn, CEO of Wordsmith AI, returns after the company's Series B extension, explaining that overflow demand let them turn maybes into yeses around intake workflows and cutting external counsel spend. He shares deflection numbers (up to 80% on contracting workflows, external spend cut roughly 40% for some teams) and contrasts their corporate-legal-focused business model with AI vendors selling to law firms, including differences in data models and product structure.
Paul Bonnet (20VC): Bending Spoons' Airtable Acquisition
Paul Bonnet of 20VC joins to break down Bending Spoons' reported $2.25B acquisition of Airtable, walking through how $1.35B raised — with the Series D, E and F priced above the exit — plus claimed liquidation preferences diminished proceeds available to common holders, leaving even Series C at roughly 1x. The discussion continues after this part ends.
Stefan Weitz on HumanX & European AI Funding Report
Stefan Weitz recaps HumanX's San Francisco event (~7,000 attendees, 350 speakers) and walks through the Crunchbase x HumanX European AI funding report, which shows roughly $21-23B raised in H1 2026 with three-quarters of capital going to around 40 companies. He discusses money flowing to defense, robotics, and healthcare where Europe has industrial strengths, app-layer companies, 'boring' AI like the robot sealing VW windows, and why in-person, relationship-driven events are resurging in the AI age.
30 Jan 2026Synthesia $200M Series E, EU Sovereignty, Dario Warns us All, Demis Feeling Bubbly
Stefan Weitz: Founding Team of Bing & the Search Wars
After air-horn banter, the hosts welcome Stefan Weitz, co-founder and CEO of HumanX, the AI event company running conferences in San Francisco and Amsterdam. Weitz recounts his Microsoft days on the founding team of Bing, explaining how research showed search engine choice was an autonomic habit, so the team built a "decision engine" with verticals like airfare prediction and shopping reviews around 2009-2010. The hosts draw parallels between that era and today's browser-based agents.
HumanX: AI Trust, Agents in 2026, and Expanding to Amsterdam
Weitz explains HumanX's early emphasis on a trust framework for AI deployment, warning that careless rollouts could cause an "AI winter" like blockchain's. He argues 2025's promised "year of agents" underdelivered due to missing memory and infrastructure frameworks, cites a PwC study of 4,000 CEOs where 55% said AI wasn't delivering material value, and discusses Europe's fragmented, regulation-heavy adoption landscape as the rationale for the new Amsterdam event. He also shares the founding story with John Weiner (Money20/20, Shoptalk) and Andrew Blum, and directs viewers to humanx.co.
BeeHiiv Tease, Big Desk Energy & the $100K/Month Dog-Photo Site
The hosts read an Airwallex sponsor spot, joke that HumanX is fittingly a "human-led" event, and tee up the next guest, BeeHiiv co-founder and CEO Tyler Denk, noting the company's $2M MRR and his own newsletter Big Desk Energy making roughly $300K a year. They then banter about a viral renaissance dog-portrait website allegedly doing $100K a month, joking that it might secretly be Anton's (Lovable) site.
Town Square: Dan Gray's Moneyball Rant Against VC
After a Polymarket sponsor read, the hosts review Dan Gray's (Credit Stick) Moneyball-style tweet accusing the VC industry of becoming a "venture bank" that buys logos rather than risk and exits, including the jab at Andreessen Horowitz valuing Adam Neumann at $350 million. They praise the trend of blending finance and pop culture and connect it to arguments that non-consensus bets have died in venture.