In this segment of the TBPN podcast, host Ashlee Vance joins the show’s regulars (John, Jordy, and others) inside the “UltraDome,” dubbed the “fortress of finance.” Vance represents Brex and discusses a light‑hearted fintech “turf war” and counter‑programming with the hosts. The conversation drifts into a promotional overview of Vance’s new venture, Core Memory, highlighting recent AI‑talent hires such as Mark Chen, Jerry Turek, and Kylie Robison, and referencing the broader AI talent war. A nostalgic anecdote about Silicon Valley’s origins in a Quonset hut is shared, underscoring Vance’s affection for that architecture. Throughout, the participants engage in meta‑commentary about filming the episode (Meta glasses, multiple camera layers) and deliver a series of promotional calls‑to‑action for Vance’s books, newsletters, Substack, YouTube channel, and the TBPN platform. The tone is informal, playful, and enthusiastic, with repeated banter and puns, while the underlying purpose is to showcase Vance’s multifaceted role (founder, CEO, author, podcaster) and to cross‑promote related media assets.
Chapters
Here we are in the UltraDome, the fortress of finance. I am going on TVPN today, gonna be talking to John and Jordy. They have a sponsor which we will not mention here, and so I am coming in representing Brex. We're gonna do a little counter-programming. It's a bit of a fintech turf war situation, but John and Jordi and I have known each other for a while. We're going to get along. There will be peace in the fortress of finance today.
Ready to talk finance.
That should be there as well. But I think if we—
I've got my Meta glasses. I'm gonna film you. I'm filming you filming me. Filming them. Filming us. It's deep. Do you feel it? I've got to think big finance thoughts. I don't know much about finance. I hope they don't really grill me.
You look at BYD and companies like that learning from Tesla, whether Tesla likes it or not.
I mean, sure, I think you should always No, you know, keep your competitors close, be learning from them, but be learning from them in a way that you can, like, leapfrog. I mean, I think what we're good at in the US is—
We've managed to sneak Prax into the Ultra Dome.
This is power.
It's a counteroffensive.
Thank you so much for coming by the show. We'll talk to you soon. And we have our last guest of the show. We got Ashlee Vance from Core Memory. He's the founder, he's the CEO, he's the podcast host, he's the documentarian. What's up, boys? He's an author.
How are you?
He's a multi-hyphenate.
How are you?
He is a friend of our show.
That fire.
We were excited to announce his launch of Core Memory a little over a year ago. We made a SportsCenter-type hype reel.
Amazing.
You said a lot of crazy things about some legacy media companies that I probably wouldn't say now, but we all had a good laugh at the time. Didn't we say this was a death knell? Death knell for Bloomberg, short the stocks. Like we were going crazy.
Time may tell. We'll see.
We'll see. Yes. But how are things? What's most interesting to you? What are you tracking today? You've done so many different things. Tours of Abilene. You've been tracking this AI talent war, I feel like, pretty well with the Mark Chen interview and Jerry Turek as well. Yeah, Jerry, Kylie Robison.
Join our team. Yeah, that's a huge pickup. What do you call her?
A scoop, uh, uh, we— she's scooping like a Baskin-Robbins employee. Yeah, that's what we call it. But we have a whole list of scoop-related puns that we will be slowly trickling out as more scoops hit the timeline. Yeah, so I don't want to leak them all. Okay, I'll send them to you.
Hold on. It's so cool to be here, man.
Welcome to the show. This place is amazing. Are you recording?
We're recording.
We're filming you. Are you recording on your face too?
I'm recording on my face.
Amazing.
All the cameras. I think I'm the first person to do a Yeah, I'm told. And yeah, so, well, what are we doing? Yeah, well, first of all, you're in a Quonset hut. Yes, which is near and dear to my heart. You guys know Silicon Valley began in a Quonset hut.
I didn't know that.
No way.
Tell me the story. Yeah, when we figured out—
I'm gonna plant the bomb.
We're getting out of here. You can close the show out with us. I want to hit the gong. Two bestselling books. Go to poormemory.com.
You want to hit the gong?
The bomb has been planted. Leave us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Go to tbn.com. .com for our newsletter. Go to corememory.com for your newsletter, for your Substack.
YouTube channel.
Follow Ashlee Vance on X, YouTube, uh, podcasts everywhere. Go buy the books. Go buy the books. Buy them all. Buy 100 copies. Buy— yeah, we will be back tomorrow at 11 AM.
