Episode · 2026-07-24
OpenAI x HuggingFace
OpenAI x HuggingFace | Introducing: Mouthpad | DotDev Recap
Rundown
Chris and Colin recap Shopify's DotDev conference (including Ilya Grigorik's take on the global catalog as a 'picks and shovels' opportunity) and react to OpenAI x HuggingFace news and the tongue-controlled Mouthpad device, before interviewing Rob Perry, growth lead at clinically-focused toothpaste brand Live Fresh, about competing with Colgate and building a dental-community ambassador program.
Takes from this episode
Shopify's global catalog is a 'picks and shovels' opportunity that lets developers become curators and tastemakers on top of commerce data.
he firmly believes that the Shopify's global catalog and what devs and people can now do with this... this is like the like picks and shovel like in the midst of the gold rush opportunity
The tongue-controlled Mouthpad tech is impressive but mistargeted at able-bodied users and would find real product-market fit as accessibility tech for wheelchair users or people paralyzed from the neck down.
there's some semblance of an accessibility play here, but like as an able-bodied human, brother, you got 10 fingers... a lot of times this tech looks really cool, but it's just applied in the wrong market
AI's potential downside carries a blast radius so much larger than past disruptive technologies (cars, elevators) that society will eventually be forced into a global regulatory response after something goes badly wrong.Prediction
Something very very insane is going to happen and then people are going to be like, we have to go full Geneva on this... This is like a nuclear atomic thing that we're building where the blast radius is so much larger than we can conceive
For a brand like the one advertising underwear/DTC gear, paying Andrew Huberman a straight revenue-share deal would be a better marketing spend than any other channel.
I say Huberman, give me your number, I'll give you 10% of rev share and throw you as big a bag as I can... Don't spend a dollar anywhere else. Just go give Huberman the bag.
Two recent ads stand out and read as 'anti-AI' specifically because of their unusually high production value amid a flood of low-quality AI-generated ad content.
I also think both of those ads, they're anti-AI because of the super high production value and high production quality of both of those ads. So, they really stick out in kind of the sea of slop of a ton of different AI ads.
Live Fresh sees it as an obligation to build credibility with the dental professional community via an ambassador program, not just sell direct to consumers, since dentists' endorsement (or lack thereof) shapes repeat trust.
it's it's our obligation to kind of bring this tour philosophy to the industry so we're kind of not only bringing consumers the things but that the dental community's actually heard about us and can... go to bat for us in the chair