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TML Inkling, California Forever?, TSMC Capex | David Baszucki, Everett Randle, Eric Glyman, Jordan Black

July 16, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Thinking Machines Drops Inkling, TSMC Raises Capex, and California Forever Loses a Tenant

On Thursday's episode of TBPN—with Tyler Cosgrove guest hosting in Jordy's absence—the show covered a packed news cycle centered on AI model releases, semiconductor spending, and the shifting geography of American manufacturing. The dominant thread was the accelerating race between open-source and closed-source AI, with Thinking Machines Lab's first model launch and TSMC's eye-popping capex increase setting the tone.

Thinking Machines Lab Launches Inkling

Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's startup, Thinking Machines Lab (TML), released its first AI model Wednesday—a 975-billion-parameter open-weights model called Inkling, though only 41 billion parameters are active at any moment. The model is designed to pair with TML's existing Tinker API, which helps customers fine-tune open-source models. The strategic logic is clear: TML's business already benefits from an open-source ecosystem, and giving customers the model weights means they can leave at any time while still choosing to pay for TML's services—the so-called "Red Hat model."

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Show Open & Host Intro** - Tyler Cosgrove guest-hosts; Warren Buffett/Charlie Munger bit about missing co-host Jordy.
  • 2 (01:40) **Thinking Machines Lab Launches "Inkling"** - Mira Murati's startup releases its first open-weights AI model.
  • 3 (04:57) **Distillation Debate & Anthropic's Crackdown** - The line between distillation and independent research remains contested.
  • 4 (11:36) **How OpenAI "Learned" Design Taste** - Grace Lee's post on how GPT-5.5 o1 eliminated "bad AI smell" in web design.
  • 5 (15:19) **California Forever Loses Major Tenant** - Defense startup Ceronic chooses Brownsville, Texas over Solano County for a $3.2B automated shipyard.
  • 6 (17:33) **TSMC Beats Earnings, Raises Capex, Pledges $100B in US** - Strong results offset by market concern over overspending; NASDAQ dropped 1%.
  • 7 (18:34) **Interview: Ev Randle (Benchmark)** - On the state of the venture market.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Eric Glyman

Show Notes

  • (01:38) - TML Inkling
  • (11:31) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions
  • (15:15) - California Forever?
  • (17:27) - TSMC Capex
  • (18:32) - Everett Randle is a general partner at Benchmark, where he invests in AI, enterprise software, and frontier technology companies. Before joining Benchmark, he was a partner at Kleiner Perkins and previously invested at Founders Fund, BOND, and Vista Equity Partners, backing companies including Anthropic, Rippling, Flock Safety, SpaceX, and Chainguard.
  • (48:32) - Eric Glyman is the co-founder and Co-CEO of Ramp, the AI-powered finance automation platform helping businesses manage spending, accounting, procurement, and corporate cards. Previously, he co-founded Paribus, which was acquired by Capital One, and is known for building software that helps companies save both time and money through automation.
  • (01:07:19) - 𝕏 Timeline Reactions
  • (01:16:36) - Jordan Black is the co-founder and CEO of Senra Systems, a company applying AI and advanced software to modernize precision manufacturing for aerospace and defense. He focuses on building automated, software-defined factories that dramatically accelerate the production of complex, high-performance components for the next generation of industrial and defense technologies.
  • (01:28:29) - David Baszucki is the co-founder and CEO of Roblox, the online platform where users create, share, and play millions of interactive 3D experiences. An engineer and longtime software entrepreneur, he previously co-founded Knowledge Revolution and has led Roblox’s growth into one of the world’s largest gaming and creator platforms.


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