AI Video Game Mods, Should You Sell Your Data, Bryan Johnson on Endurance Racing | Sean Frank, Linda Du, Ali Partovi, Sigil Wen, Jerry Wu, Bryan Johnson
October 5, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe Slop Era and the Data Dilemma
The most viral AI video game mods right now aren't real games you can actually play through. They're 30-second spectacles engineered for short-form video — dual nostalgia hits that generate millions of likes but fall apart the moment you try to play them properly. One modder's documentation for a Minecraft-in-Skyrim mashup literally warns users: "Do not try and play the opening sequence. It will break."
How the Mods Actually Work
There are several distinct techniques being lumped together under "AI mods," and they work very differently. The simplest and most corporate-approved approach is just bringing a licensed character skin into a game like Fortnite — no game code crosses over, just a model. A step further involves decompiling game binaries: modders use tools like Ghidra, an open-source reverse engineering framework from the NSA's GitHub, to work backwards from compiled code and extract game logic. The most technically ambitious mods run two games simultaneously and pass data between them in real time. A Batman Arkham Knight mod that lets you play as Spider-Man has to grab all the geometry and collision data from Gotham, translate it into Spider-Man's different physics engine and coordinate system, merge graphics from two different rendering pipelines, and keep both games running on a single controller input. It runs at nearly 60 FP
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:18) **AI-Generated Video Game Mods: The Technical Breakdown** - The hosts introduce the topic of AI-generated game mods, with Tyler demonstrating a live Modern Warfare 2-in-Minecraft mashup.
- 2 (12:10) **The "90-90 Rule" and the Limits of Vibe-Coded Slop** - The panel discusses the massive gap between a compelling tech demo and a shippable game, using the 90-90 rule and the Harry Potter Balenciaga AI video as analogies.
- 3 (16:42) **Millennials and AI: A Narrative Violation** - The show examines polling data showing Millennials (30-44) are becoming *less* worried about AI risks, bucking the trend of all other age groups.
- 4 (20:51) **Sean Frank: The $480,000 Data Question** - Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge, joins the show and is asked about his viral decision to turn down an offer to sell his company’s data to an AI broker.
- 5 (67:34) **Agentic Commerce and the Future of E-Commerce** - The conversation shifts to how AI agents (like Muse and Instinct) are changing e-commerce traffic, payment dynamics, and marketing strategies for a brand like Ridge.
- 6 (89:23) **Linda Du: Vertical AI for Mortgage Servicing** - Linda Du, COO of Valon Technologies, discusses the company’s $150M Series D and its mission to modernize the mortgage servicing industry.
- 7 (98:40) **Ali Partovi: The Neo Strategy and the AI Betting Thesis** - Ali Partovi, founder of Neo, discusses his fund’s incredible year backing winners like Cursor, Cognition, and Etched, and his evolving investment strategy.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
- (01:17) - AI Video Game Mods
- (18:04) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions
- (37:13) - Chinese Cars Take Over Britain
- (43:49) - Fiat's $15k Microcar
- (57:09) - Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge, discusses the company’s rapid growth, his decision not to sell its business data to AI firms, and how AI is transforming e-commerce operations, advertising, and creative production. He also explores agent-driven shopping, TikTok marketing, consumer spending, celebrity partnerships, and Ridge’s potential expansion into physical retail.
- (01:29:21) - Linda Du, president, COO, and co-founder of Valon Technologies, discusses the company’s $150 million Series D at a $2.3 billion valuation. She explains how Valon built and operated a mortgage servicer to prove its software before becoming a pure-play provider of AI-powered mortgage-servicing technology.
- (01:38:33) - Ali Partovi discusses his successful year as founder and CEO of venture capital firm Neo, his strategy of concentrating investments in fewer high-potential founders, and his backing of companies such as Cursor and Etched. He proposes holding AI companies responsible when their systems autonomously commit crimes, arguing that stronger liability would encourage the development of powerful AI that obeys existing laws.
- (02:05:36) - Sigil Wen discusses Underdog, a free, private personal AI that runs directly on users’ devices across major platforms. He explains its on-device performance, privacy benefits, invite-only beta, and potential payments-based business model involving AI agents that find deals and complete purchases.
- (02:13:12) - Jerry Wu discusses his work as co-founder and CEO of Halluminate, which builds training benchmarks and reinforcement-learning environments that improve AI models’ performance on non-coding knowledge work. He explains how these environments teach and evaluate tasks such as financial modeling and presentations, highlights the company’s $30 million fundraise, and predicts increasingly complex simulations involving multiple agents, companies, governments, and industries.
- (02:22:41) - Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur and longevity advocate, discusses his goal of dunking a basketball at age 49 as part of a broader shift from strict health optimization toward ambitious physical “side quests.” He also explores biomarkers, peptides, strength training, aviation risks, motorsports, and how challenging pursuits can promote health, focus, and personal growth.
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