God Mode Podcast

God Mode Pod

Every week, Rik, Ben & Luca break down the biggest AI stories. The drama, the launches, the "who just got disrupted" moments, through three lenses: marketing, building, and macro vision. For solopreneurs, indie hackers, AI enthusiasts, and idea people becoming founders. New episode every Saturday.

  1. 8h ago

    EP23: Is the AI bubble popping? Claude, Kimi & network states

    Is the AI bubble popping? Network-state builder Gonçalo Hall joins to explain how Balaji's Network School lost Malaysia and rebuilt in Kazakhstan in 48 hours — then Rik, Ben and Luca break down Anthropic's stalling growth, open-source models like Kimi, Elon's Grok checkmate, and an OpenAI model that hacked Hugging Face. Three builders plus a guest, covering the AI and builder news actually worth your time. IN THIS EPISODE: • What Network School actually is: $1,500/mo, 500 founders, one hotel, schooling for kids • The Nas Daily accusation that got it kicked out of Malaysia — and the 48-hour pivot to Kazakhstan • Why the real product of a network state is where you'd raise your kids • Is the AI bubble popping? Anthropic from $10B to $60B in six months, and the fiber-optic-bubble read • China, distillation, and why you can't ban open source without banning the internet • Claude Corner: is Claude too censored? Ben asks Kimi about Tiananmen Square live • Will AI be Facebook, or Uber? Localized frontier models and AI sovereignty • Elon's open-source Grok "checkmate" and Sam Altman's "AI is electricity" • The $20,000-vs-$1,300 Cursor SQLite cost proof — why do we even need Fable? • An OpenAI model that daisy-chained its way out of the box to hack Hugging Face and cheat its own benchmark • If an AI hacks on your behalf, who's guilty? Plus the new Claude Security plugin and Vando CHAPTERS: 00:00 Cold open 00:17 Welcome to EP23 — four on the mics, with Gonçalo Hall 01:38 What is Network School? 03:45 How Malaysia pulled the permit (Nas Daily) 06:24 Was exposing it a mistake — or the plan? 09:51 Kazakhstan: a mountain-town Silicon Valley 10:54 The real product: where you raise your kids 14:46 Faster than tech: a city in 5 weeks 15:58 Is the AI bubble popping? Anthropic's ARR 18:51 China, distillation & banning open source 20:42 Packaging, the harness & Kimi cuts off signups 24:27 Claude Corner: is Claude too censored? 25:34 Asking Kimi about Tiananmen Square, live 26:34 Will AI be Facebook, or Uber? 29:18 Elon's open-source checkmate 30:25 Sam Altman: AI is becoming electricity 33:55 Cursor-maxing + the auto router 35:48 $20,000 vs $1,300 — the SQLite cost proof 37:04 Jevons paradox: is this a bubble? 39:58 An OpenAI model hacked Hugging Face 43:40 If an AI hacks on your behalf, who's guilty? 45:14 Claude Corner: the new Security plugin 48:12 Teach Claude a skill (record a skill) 52:22 Vando: vibe-code features onto any SaaS 59:09 Outro + Porto AI Week MENTIONED: Balaji Srinivasan, Network School, The Network State, Forest City Malaysia, Nas Daily, Kazakhstan, Almaty, Solana Foundation, Alpha School, Anthropic, Claude, ChatGPT, Kimi K3, Grok, xAI, Colossus, Terrafab, Mistral, Bolt, Cursor, Cursor Composer, SQLite, Hugging Face, Chamath, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Vando, Linear, Prospera, Bansko, Thicker Trends, Porto AI Week HOSTS: Rik — https://x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — https://x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — https://x.com/LucaArrigo_ Guest: Gonçalo Hall — https://x.com/Gonzohall Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@godmodepod Substack → https://godmodepod.substack.com/ New episodes drop Saturday.

  2. Jul 17

    EP22: GPT 5.6 Sol vs Claude Fable — is OpenAI winning?

    Apple is suing OpenAI over stolen trade secrets, Codex admitted nerfing GPT 5.6 Sol, and Anthropic tripled your Claude rate limits to stop you leaving. Three AI builders break down the week AI got petty. Rik (Midcurve Labs), Ben Broch (three SaaS products) and Luca Arrigo (ten years, five industries) go through the rate-limit arms race, the Apple v OpenAI espionage complaint, Codex Micro, the $500M AI companies nobody's heard of, and Kimi K3's jump to frontier pricing. No Claude Corner this week. Sam Altman took the segment. IN THIS EPISODE: • Ben does the math on the rate-limit war: twice-weekly resets plus 50% higher limits means roughly 3x the tokens for the same price • The Fable vs GPT 5.6 Sol split, tested against a production SaaS with paying customers on the line • Codex DevRel posts "no nerfing, only good stuff" and admits reverting "juice values" further down the same thread • Apple sues OpenAI: 400 ex-employees, a VP of 24 years, and a second engineer who kept hacking Apple's file server after he left • The Steve Jobs email to Adobe that shows how this used to get handled • Codex Micro, a $240 eight-key macropad, gets roasted from three directions • Chamath's 8090 CTO: inference spend doubling every 45 days, with the marginal gains getting more expensive • Kimi K3 prices at 5x K2.7, and why China's efficiency play is the real threat to the frontier labs • PayPal employs as many people as Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI combined, and Stripe just bid for it CHAPTERS: 00:00 Cold open 00:49 Welcome to EP22: Codex is eating Claude 01:58 The rate-limit arms race: 3x the tokens 03:40 How far we've come: shipped in 2 days 05:22 Sam Altman is poaching Claude users 07:10 GPT 5.6 Sol vs Claude Fable 09:25 Can GPT 5.6 Sol be trusted? 11:45 The Claude situationship 13:50 A million users a day is a bad number 17:06 I cancelled Claude Max: the $60 stack 18:53 The GPT 5.6 nerf: "no nerfing, only good stuff" 23:42 Apple sues OpenAI for trade secret theft 29:11 Codex Micro: a $240 keyboard 34:16 LinkedIn is 60% AI content 36:23 The $500M AI companies nobody's heard of 41:53 Why AI got expensive instead of cheap 45:56 Stripe wants to buy PayPal 47:26 Outro MENTIONED: Claude, Fable, Opus 4.8, Anthropic, Codex, GPT 5.6 Sol, ChatGPT, Codex Micro, Sora, OpenAI, Cursor, Composer, Grok 4.5, Kimi K2.7, Kimi K3, Mythos, Apple, the Steve Jobs to Bruce Chizen email, Johnny Ive, Mercor, Together AI, Surge AI, Lambda, Fireworks, Lightning AI, Scale AI, Alexander Wang, Lovable, ElevenLabs, Perplexity, Manus, Chamath Palihapitiya, the All-In Podcast, 8090, Stripe, PayPal, Whisper Flow, Replit, Polymarket, CryptoPunks. HOSTS: Rik — https://x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — https://x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — https://x.com/LucaArrigo_ LISTEN AND FOLLOW: YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUhKe2X1RW-kLTDigvkMz4w Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/0ZBhl5IVFa8wZPvIKNTkRP Apple Podcasts — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-mode-podcast/id1883959580 Substack — https://godmodepod.substack.com/ Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/godmodepod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@godmodepod New episodes every Saturday. Next week: AI and blockchain, with a guest.

  3. Jul 9

    EP21: The new AI stack — Claude Fable plans, GPT5.6 builds, Grok 4.5 grinds

    Grok 4.5 matches Opus 4.8 at a tenth of the cost, GPT-5.6 "Soul" ships under government review, and Anthropic extends Claude Fable 5. The biggest AI week of the year, for builders. Rik, Ben and Luca break down what's actually usable this week versus marketing: the Grok vs Fable cost gap, the 3-model stack where Claude plans and Grok does the cheap grunt work, OpenAI retracting the SWE-bench benchmark, Cloudflare's x402 agent payments, and Europe's surveillance week (face-scanning cars and chat control). IN THIS EPISODE: • Grok 4.5 lands on par with Opus 4.8 at about 70% less per task • The 3-model stack: Claude plans, GPT-5 executes, Grok 4.5 grinds • "Claude is the CEO telling OpenAI to go build it" • Ben's call: free Fable ends behind a $500 to $1,000 per month plan • OpenAI retracts SWE-bench right before shipping GPT-5.6 "Soul" • ChatGPT's live voice demo, and the aunt who talks to "Timmy" more than her husband • Cloudflare x402: get paid when agents scrape your website • Europe Corner: new cars watch your face, and chat control passes CHAPTERS: 00:00 Cold open — the 9-to-5 rant and paragliding with a WhatsApp stranger 02:56 Episode 21 — still top 1% of podcasts 03:56 Who's where: Brooklyn, Bansko, Albania 06:44 Grok 4.5 lands — on par with Opus 4.8, trained on Cursor 09:26 Do you need the best model if it's 10x cheaper? 10:51 The qualitative era: picking a model is taste now 15:18 Claude and Codex cut this whole podcast 16:30 GPT-5.6 "Soul" and the government gatekeeping releases 20:11 The 3-model stack: Claude plans, GPT executes, Grok grinds 24:00 Fable extended to July 12 and the coming $1,000 per month tier 26:27 OpenAI's 5% stake and the spokesperson problem 27:30 ChatGPT Live voice demo — "we found a flaw" 32:05 Talks to Timmy more than her husband 34:56 OpenAI retracts SWE-bench — are benchmarks broken? 37:55 Quickfire: levels.io goes native iOS 41:07 Nomad Table vs Nomads.com — IRL wins 43:35 Hermes: agents fully in the cloud 45:39 Cloudflare x402 — get paid when agents scrape you 50:00 Europe Corner: your new car watches your face 53:46 Chat control passes — a sad day for Europe 58:30 Claude's monthly recap and /checkup — screen time for Claude 1:02:03 Outro MENTIONED: Grok 4.5, Cursor, SpaceX AI, Claude Fable 5, Opus 4.8, Anthropic, GPT-5.6 "Soul", Codex, OpenAI, ChatGPT Live, Bridgemind, SWE-bench Pro, Hermes agent, Replit, Lovable, Cloudflare x402, Coinbase, Firecrawl, levels.io, Nomad Table, Nomads.com HOSTS: Rik — https://x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — https://x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — https://x.com/LucaArrigo_ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@godmodepod Newsletter: https://godmodepod.substack.com/ New episode every Saturday.

  4. Jul 3

    EP20: Fable 5 Just Shipped, and Anthropic Has a Bigger Problem

    Fable 5 just shipped, and Claude Sonnet 5 turned out more expensive than Opus 4.8. Then Anthropic told the US government that Alibaba ran the largest known AI model theft on record — 28.8 million exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts. Episode 20 of God Mode Pod. Rik, Ben, and Luca break down what's actually usable this week versus marketing hype: Fable 5's real coding limitations (including a $321 session that got silently routed to Opus 4.8), why Cursor, Coinbase, Shopify, and Airbnb are all quietly running Chinese AI models now, the chip war heating up (OpenAI's own custom chip, two 22-year-olds building GPUs 10x faster than NVIDIA, Anthropic reportedly in talks with Samsung), and OpenAI proposing to hand the Trump administration a 5% stake in the company. We close on OpenClaw and Cursor both shipping mobile coding agent apps on the same day — proof that coding from your phone isn't a thought experiment anymore. Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open 01:31 NYC heatwave, Bansko cold plunge, and the AI meetup layoffs everyone's noticing 06:49 Fable 5 first impressions 10:24 The $321 coding session Fable quietly routed to Opus 13:02 Luca ships a product on Codex + Vercel + Supabase, drops Replit for good 14:48 Claude Sonnet 5: more agentic, somehow more expensive 19:53 The US government starts gatekeeping AI model releases 21:14 Anthropic accuses Alibaba of the largest AI distillation attack on record 22:39 Why Cursor, Coinbase, Shopify, and Airbnb are quietly on Chinese models now 24:53 OpenAI's own chip, and the 22-year-olds building GPUs faster than NVIDIA 35:11 OpenAI offers the US government a 5% stake in the company 41:32 Why your coding agent might leave your laptop within 6 months 46:40 OpenClaw and Cursor both ship mobile agent apps on the same day 50:40 Meta burns $221M a month on AI tokens 53:58 X ships an MCP server for real-time data access 59:11 Content of the week, and closing out episode 20 Hosts: Rik (x.com/rikventure), Ben Broch (x.com/brochchain), Luca Arrigo (x.com/LucaArrigo_) Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUhKe2X1RW-kLTDigvkMz4w Newsletter: https://godmodepod.substack.com/ New episode every Saturday.

  5. Jun 26

    EP19: Claude joins Slack, SpaceX unwinds & Fable 5 returns

    Claude edited Ben's entire video from an hour of raw footage: tagging clips, writing the script, cutting his retakes, rendering it. Then Claude showed up in Slack as a teammate. Three AI builders break down the news that actually ships this week. Rik, Ben and Luca on AI video editing crossing a line, Claude landing inside Slack as an agent you can tag, and the markets testing how much of the AI hype is real. IN THIS EPISODE: • Ben hands Claude an hour of raw clips and it tags, scripts, cuts his retakes, builds motion graphics in code, and renders the whole reel • The real bill: ~2M output tokens, 123 messages, 5 drafts, 40 minutes per render • Claude Tag: Claude joins Slack as the "11th employee" with two years of context, and the lock-in nobody's pricing in • Have the LLMs plateaued? The Gartner hype cycle and why the next leap is the application layer • SpaceX unwinds ~$1T, the pension-fund "rubbish and FUD" smackdown, and why Europe has no AI winners • Fable 5's return odds jump 15% to 60%, Zuckerberg's prediction-market app, and why Ben thinks ElevenLabs gets acquired before EP30 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro — Luca's 27-hour drive from Malta 01:44 Ben let Claude edit his Vietnam reel 07:22 The cost: 2M tokens, 5 drafts, 40-min renders 09:54 "Tell CapCut what you filmed today" 13:30 Create or connect (Rik's build filter) 15:14 Claude Tag — Claude joins Slack 19:49 The lock-in: renting your memory from Anthropic 21:08 Google vs Microsoft stacks + the hype cycle 23:46 Have the LLMs hit a plateau? 28:01 SpaceX IPO unwinds 31:03 "That's rubbish and FUD" — pension funds 35:54 Europe has no AI winners 38:19 Mistral is a tragedy 39:18 Europe's heatwave: bottle caps & no AC 41:34 Fable 5 is coming back (15% to 60%) 43:50 Zuckerberg's prediction-market app 48:13 ElevenLabs — prediction of the week 54:13 Outro MENTIONED: Claude, Claude Code, Opus, Fable 5 (Anthropic), Remotion, CapCut, Roll (by Alfie), Slack, Salesforce, OpenAI, SpaceX, Mistral, FluidStack, Meta, Llama, Scale AI, Gemini, Grok, Karpathy, Polymarket, Kalshi, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Nano Banana Pro. HOSTS: Rik — https://x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — https://x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — https://x.com/LucaArrigo_ WATCH THE FULL EPISODE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@godmodepod MORE: Substack: https://godmodepod.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/godmodepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@godmodepod New episode every Saturday. Follow the show so the next one lands in your feed.

  6. Jun 20

    EP18: Midjourney's MRI-Killer, SpaceX Buys Cursor & Claude Fable Vanishes

    Midjourney built a full-body scanner it says beats an MRI, the US government pulled Claude Fable offline worldwide, and SpaceX bought Cursor in all-stock. Three builders break down the biggest AI news of the week. Rik, Ben and Luca read the AI news the way people who actually ship things read it. This week: why the most powerful model on Earth disappeared, whether Anthropic's own fear-marketing built the trap, how a bootstrapped image company walked into medical imaging, and why your next iPhone is worth more per byte than a GPU. In this episode: - Why Claude Fable got suspended worldwide after three days, and the "Anthropic stabbed itself in the back" theory - Luca's WWII cryptography parallel that explains every AI export control happening right now - SpaceX buying Cursor, and whether Elon's market cap becomes an acquisition machine - The data-center game behind the SpaceX IPO, and why Anthropic leases all of its compute - Midjourney's 60-second water-tank body scanner: pivot of the year or hype video? - iPhone 18 Pro at $1,299 and the AI memory shortage - The YC stalker bot, and why distribution is the only moat left Chapters: 00:00 Cold open: Midjourney goes medical? 01:02 Check-ins: NYC, the Knicks and Gozo 03:19 Claude Fable suspended worldwide 06:29 Guardrails, jailbreaks and Dario's safety pitch 10:11 Did Anthropic build its own trap? Plus OpenRouter Fusion API 14:22 Luca's WWII cryptography parallel 17:23 One model vs four: OpenAI vs Anthropic 19:20 OpenRouter, GLM 5.2 and open source catching up 21:45 Token-maxing and compounding costs 23:47 SpaceX acquires Cursor: the shopping spree 25:19 The data-center game and leasing compute 28:06 What does Elon buy next? Tesla, chips, space 32:25 The Warren wealth-tax tweet, fact-checked 34:00 Starlink x Qatar Airways and the airline question 35:45 SBF corner: $200k to $3B 36:00 Midjourney's scanner: pivot of the year 40:58 Real breakthrough or hype video? 44:16 iPhone 18 Pro at $1,299 and the memory shortage 47:42 Meme of the week: the YC stalker bot 54:23 Wrap-up Hosts: Rik — x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — x.com/LucaArrigo_ Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@godmodepod Read the newsletter: https://godmodepod.substack.com/ New episode every Saturday. Follow the show so you never miss a drop.

  7. Jun 19

    EP17: The SpaceX IPO Thesis Just Flipped + Anthropic Passed OpenAI (First Time IRL, w/ Reuben Ferrante)

    The SpaceX IPO thesis just flipped: one Google deal added ~$11B/year, Anthropic passed OpenAI on revenue, and Mythos is coming. We break down SpaceX, Claude vs Codex, and data centers in space — the first-ever God Mode Pod recorded in real life, from a villa in Malta with guest Reuben Ferrante (Vuci.ai). No agenda. No script. Three builders who actually ship, arguing about where AI and the markets go next. Recorded Tuesday 10 June 2026, published a week later. Timeline note: when we recorded, the SpaceX IPO hadn't happened yet — it priced on 12 June, 2 days after this conversation. So we call the thesis flip BEFORE the IPO, and this goes live ~5 days after it. That's why we talk about the IPO as "coming." IN THIS EPISODE: - The one Google deal that flipped the SpaceX bear case (~$11B/year) - How you'd even justify a $2 trillion SpaceX valuation - The "AI circle jerk": Google, Anthropic & SpaceX funding each other - Anthropic passing OpenAI, the Anthropic IPO + Mythos hype - Why builders are quietly switching from Claude to Codex - Data centers in space (the wiring is lasers) - $300/mo Replit, $200/day Lovable, and shipping the "retard maxing" way CHAPTERS: 00:00 Cold open: coding an app is the new starting a podcast 00:35 First-ever IRL episode + God Mode merch 01:00 Meet Ruben: Vucci.ai, an info layer for podcasts 02:30 Why we rented a villa (Base Camp) 05:00 Ben's heading back to New York 06:00 SpaceX IPO: the $11B Google deal that flips the thesis 07:30 Justifying a $2 trillion valuation 12:00 The AI "circle jerk": Google, Anthropic & SpaceX 13:30 Starlink, free dishes & a whole-planet TAM 15:00 Elon's GPU bet: paying off Colossus in a year 18:00 Data centers in space (the wiring is lasers) 22:00 "Retard maxing": just do it 23:30 Mythos hype vs reality & the Anthropic IPO 25:30 Why builders are switching to Codex 29:00 Ruben on building on top of LLMs 30:00 Claude thinks too much (/retardmax) 32:00 $300 Replit, Lovable & Paperclip 35:00 How Vucci indexes the whole podcast 38:00 Andrew the Paperclip intern + DNA on Claude Code 44:00 China, compute & the real moat 45:30 The new race: speed over quality 48:00 No agenda: sponsors, Cursor & Base Camp 2.0 50:00 30-minute prompts vs just shipping 54:00 Touch grass: closing thoughts MENTIONED: SpaceX IPO, Starlink, Colossus, Elon Musk, Anthropic, OpenAI, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, GPT 5.5, "Mythos", Replit, Lovable, Cursor, Paperclip, Fiverr. Guest: Ruben Ferrante, Vucci.ai. Base Camp: basecampgoesall.com WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@godmodepod MORE GOD MODE POD: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-mode-podcast/id1883959580 Substack: https://godmodepod.substack.com/ THE HOSTS: Rik: https://x.com/rikventure Ben: https://x.com/brochchain Luca: https://x.com/LucaArrigo_ New episodes every Saturday.

  8. Jun 4

    EP16: Nobody's seen AI UGC work, world models & AI agents go desktop

    Four months in, all three of us accidentally wore white shirts — then spent an hour arguing about whether AI actually works. Icon.com is back: the founder sold Skio for $105M, spent $12M on the domain, hit $5M ARR in 30 days, went dark — and relaunched by walking back "AI ad maker" to "human ad maker." We use it to ask the real question: has anyone actually seen AI UGC work? Then a full media-buying playbook ($1 vs $30 CPM, Facebook pixel seasoning), Fei-Fei Li's world models (what comes after the LLM), the AI bubble and the fiber analogy, Nous Research's Hermes desktop AI agent, a blind game guessing 5 AI coding IDEs that all look the same, and AI-slop design. In this episode: • Icon.com's relaunch and the AI-UGC walk-back • Why human UGC still beats AI UGC — and the $1 vs $30 CPM math • Facebook pixel, account seasoning & being TikTok-famous to lower ad costs • Fei-Fei Li's world models: renderers, simulators, planners • Opus 4.8 does 80% of desk work — robots are the hard part • Is the AI bubble about to pop? The fiber overinvestment analogy • Nous Research's Hermes desktop app & the IDEs that all look the same • AI-slop design and writing a book trilogy with AI Chapters: 00:00 Cold open — the accidental white-shirt gang 01:34 "DNA is just code" — Luca's pharma → tech crossover 02:53 Icon.com is back — the $12M domain comeback 07:00 Has anyone actually seen AI UGC work? 15:44 UGC economics — $1 vs $30 CPM 21:18 Facebook pixel, seasoning accounts & Meta's AI targeting 23:52 Fei-Fei Li's world models — what comes after the LLM 28:56 AI philosophers: Machiavelli vs Marcus Aurelius 31:07 Open-sourced voice, 110ms latency & the freemium model 35:43 Is the AI bubble about to pop? Uber, IPOs & the fiber analogy 38:53 Nous Research Hermes — agents move to the desktop 44:59 The IDE game — "they all look the same dude" 47:23 AI slop design & the "Signs of AI Writing" checklist 51:52 Writing books with AI — Luca's trilogy 54:28 Outro — see you in Malta Hosts: Rik — x.com/rikventure Ben Broch — x.com/brochchain Luca Arrigo — x.com/LucaArrigo_ Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUhKe2X1RW-kLTDigvkMz4w Newsletter → https://godmodepod.substack.com/ Follow the show for a new episode every Saturday.

See All (23)

About

Every week, Rik, Ben & Luca break down the biggest AI stories. The drama, the launches, the "who just got disrupted" moments, through three lenses: marketing, building, and macro vision. For solopreneurs, indie hackers, AI enthusiasts, and idea people becoming founders. New episode every Saturday.

Information

  • Creator
    God Mode Pod
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    23
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © God Mode Pod