The mystery is over! The AI world’s most hyped image generation model, Nano-Banana, has finally been revealed… and yes, Google is behind it. In this episode, we break down this expected news along with other big announcements from OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI.

We also share our hard-learned lessons after battling the integration of payment (or should we say painment) providers, Stripe and PayPal, into our LiveMonetize platform.

⭐ If you enjoy this content, don’t forget to give us 5 stars and drop a comment so we can keep improving!

Links:

- Release of ChatGPT Go in India

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11989085-what-is-chatgpt-go

- ChatGPT is bringing back 4o as an option because people missed it

https://www.theverge.com/news/756980/openai-chatgpt-users-mourn-gpt-5-4o

- Google releases Gemini 2.5 Image Flash (aka Nano-Banana)

https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemini-2-5-flash-image/

- Google Gemini Storybook

https://gemini.google/overview/storybook/

- Google Gemini Gems

https://gemini.google/overview/gems/

- Google brings live translation for phone calls and tons more AI to Pixel 10 series

https://mashable.com/article/made-by-google-pixel-10-series-ai-features

- Meta signs over $10 billion cloud deal with Google

https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-signs-over-10-billion-cloud-deal-with-google-source-says-2025-08-21/

- Meta rolls out AI-powered translations to creators globally on Facebook and Instagram

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/19/meta-rolls-out-ai-powered-translations-to-creators-globally-starting-with-english-and-spanish/

- Microsoft integrates Copilot in Excel, similar to what Google already did in Google Sheets months ago

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-copilot-in-excel-d7110502-0334-4b4f-a175-a73abdfc118a

https://workspace.google.com/resources/spreadsheet-ai/

- Musk hypes about Grok 5 being an AGI

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1958499441469739329?t=fZeeWWyOnb2LRTtHFviqzA&s=08

- xAI makes Grok 2.5 open-source

https://huggingface.co/xai-org/grok-2

- Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn’t try AI immediately

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/22/coinbase-ceo-explains-why-he-fired-engineers-who-didnt-try-ai-immediately/

- New benchmark Prophet Arena to forecast future events with AI

https://www.prophetarena.co/markets

- Colombian baby named 'Chat Yipiti' in honour of ChatGPT

https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/colombian-baby-named-chat-yipiti-in-honour-of-chatgpt-490551-2025-08-21

- Wero (new European payment system)

https://wero-wallet.eu/

- Stripe: direct charges vs destination charges

https://docs.stripe.com/connect/direct-charges

https://docs.stripe.com/connect/destination-charges

In Part 2 of our Evolution of Coding series, we go deeper with our guests exploring how software development has shifted from the “good old days” to today’s AI-assisted vibe coding era.

We tackle big questions like:

- What was actually better back then than now?

- Is building a product really easier today?

- How is AI changing the way we code, and will coding become just a hobby?

- Will AI agents ever be able to build a production-ready app?

If you missed Part 1, check out last week’s episode first.

And if you enjoy our content, don’t forget to leave a review and share your thoughts!

Interesting links:

- vibe-kanban

https://github.com/BloopAI/vibe-kanban/

- Google Stitch

https://stitch.withgoogle.com/

- Kiro

https://kiro.dev/

- Replit

https://replit.com/

This week, we sit down with five professional developers (each with decades of experience) to trace the evolution of coding, from old-school MS-DOS and Turbo Pascal to today’s AI-powered “vibe coding” with Cursor.

In part one of this two-part episode, we kick things off with a lively Q&A to get to know our guests:

- Mauro Foresti: Graduate Electrical Engineer & PhD in Biomechanics (ETH Zurich), Chief Architect in the financial industry helping banks migrate to the Cloud.

- Juan Sanz: Software Engineer (Polytechnic University of Madrid), Executive MBA (EOI Business School), Solutions Architect at a major Big Tech company focusing on Private Equity.

- Marco Fischer: MSc in Informatics (University of Zurich), Master Thesis at ETH Zurich (“ProductKing”), Solutions Architect at a major Big Tech company focusing on Telecom.

If you’re passionate about software, you won’t want to miss this episode, and be sure to catch part two next week.

If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review and drop a comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

OpenAI just dropped GPT-5, the most anticipated AI model in history. But is this the leap to AGI they’ve been promising for years, or just another impressive upgrade?

We unpack the announcement, explore what’s new, and ask the big question: how close are we really to artificial general intelligence?

We also cover other AI news, share updates on our products and, as always, we’d love to hear from you. Leave us a review or a comment so we can keep making the podcast better for you.

Interesting links:

- GPT-5 highlights

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivanpenatovarsoftwareengineer_openai-finally-released-gpt-5-the-most-activity-7359854818871451648-xZ37

- Sam Altman warns there’s no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/25/sam-altman-warns-theres-no-legal-confidentiality-when-using-chatgpt-as-a-therapist/

- After backlash, ChatGPT removes option to have private chats indexed by Google

https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/159360/be-careful-what-you-tell-chatgpt-your-chats-could-show-up-on-google-search

- Anthropic cuts off OpenAI’s access to its Claude models, same as they did to Windsurf before the sell deal with OpenAI went south

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/02/anthropic-cuts-off-openais-access-to-its-claude-models/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/anthropic-co-founder-on-cutting-access-to-windsurf-it-would-be-odd-for-us-to-sell-claude-to-openai/

- Cognition is offering buy-outs to all the former Windsurf employees, or as an alternative inhumane working conditions

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/05/three-weeks-after-acquiring-windsurf-cognition-offers-staff-the-exit-door/

- Release of Gemini 2.5 Deep Think

https://blog.google/products/gemini/gemini-2-5-deep-think/

- Release of Genie 3

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/genie-3-a-new-frontier-for-world-models/

- Google Deep Think gets officially gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/google-clinches-milestone-gold-global-math-competition-while-openai-also-claims-2025-07-22/

- Mark Zuckerberg makes an announcement about Superintelligence, claiming that their internal models are starting to improve themselves

https://www.meta.com/superintelligence/

- Microsoft presents a new paper on the impact of AI on work

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07935

- Grok image and video generator adds a spicy mode for Heavy and iOS users

https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1951721276223135950

- Monetize your live streams with LiveMonetize

https://livemonetize.com/

This week we’re joined by Anastasiia Yuvchyk, Marketing Manager at the Swiss start-up FOUND, to talk about why so much startup marketing just doesn’t work, and what to do about it.

Anastasiia shares her powerful journey, from leaving Ukraine at the outbreak of war to rebuilding her life and career in Switzerland.

We dive into the basics of marketing for beginners, personal branding tips, and how even total newbies (like us) can get started. Plus, we explore how AI is changing the marketing landscape, and what that means for newcomers.

If you’re just starting out, or curious about how real people navigate marketing in a changing world, this episode’s for you.

If you enjoyed the episode, leave us a 5-star review and drop a comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Anastasiia's recommendations:

How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know

https://amzn.to/4lOilOr

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

https://amzn.to/4lPrqq8

Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

https://amzn.to/4lT7Fy2

Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion

https://amzn.to/4kTK2E1

Giulio (G.) Segantini

https://www.linkedin.com/in/underdogsales/

This week in AI mayhem: Anthropic lets Claude manage its first business, a vending machine startup, and it promptly goes bankrupt.

Meanwhile, Grok 4, which is being hyped as AGI, drops just days after Grok 3 went rogue on X, posting praise for Hitler and insults aimed at Erdoğan.

All that, plus our latest product updates, this week on Bootstrapped for Cash.

Enjoy the show? Leave us 5 stars or drop a comment to help us get even better.

Links:

- If you want to start monetizing your expertise, contact us:

https://livemonetize.com/

- Apple's top AI executive Ruoming Pang leaves for Meta:

https://fortune.com/2025/07/06/deepmind-isomorphic-labs-cure-all-diseases-ai-now-first-human-trials/

- Meta considering moving away from Open Source:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/meta-built-its-ai-reputation-on-openness-that-may-be-changing/

- Meta switches to Claude Sonnet for coding:

https://x.com/chamath/status/1942986481225838784?s=08

- Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop?

https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1

- Grok 4 tops benchmarks to become leading AI model:

https://www.perplexity.ai/page/grok-4-tops-benchmarks-to-beco-QF1YUgCwTqywrA_ndZSIZA

- Grok 3 becomes a Nazi on X and insults Erdoğan days before the release of Grok 4:

https://x.com/grok/status/1943916977481036128https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-ban-elon-musk-grok-recep-tayyip-erdogan-insult/

- Linda Yaccarino is leaving Elon Musk’s X after two years as CEO days after Grok 3’s incident:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/09/tech/linda-yaccarino-steps-down-x-ceo

- OpenAI hires xAI (Colossus) infrastructure chief:

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/indian-origin-techie-uday-ruddarraju-quits-xai-to-join-openai-8867662

https://x.com/udayruddarraju/status/1942606426569883773

- OpenAI releases ChatGPT agent:

https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-agent/

- OpenAI to release AI browser same as Perplexity’s Comet after delaying their open source model:

https://www.theverge.com/news/704162/opeani-ai-web-browser-chatgpt

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/perplexity-launches-comet-an-ai-powered-web-browser/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/11/openai-delays-the-release-of-its-open-model-again/

- Ladybird web browser:

https://ladybird.org/

- Windsurf deal

1) OpenAI's $3B deal to acquire AI coding tool Windsurf falls apart due to renegotiations with Microsoft about owning their intellectual property. OpenAI didn’t want Windsurf to be part of this deal.

2) Alphabet pays $2.4B to hire Windsurf’s CEO and senior employees to work in DeepMind, and buys some of their intellectual property, leaving Windsurf out of the deal.

3) Days after, Cognition (owners of AI coding agent Devin) acquires Windsurf and hires remaining employees.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/11/windsurfs-ceo-goes-to-google-openais-acquisition-falls-apart/
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/cognition-to-buy-ai-startup-windsurf-days-after-google-poached-ceo.html

- Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs has grand ambitions to ‘solve all diseases’ with AI. Now, it’s gearing up for its first human trials:

https://fortune.com/2025/07/06/deepmind-isomorphic-labs-cure-all-diseases-ai-now-first-human-trials/

We continue our chat with two expert guests:

- ⁠Mauro Foresti⁠, PhD in biomechanics from ETH Zurich and now Chief Architect in the financial industry.

- Juan Sanz⁠⁠, Solutions Architect specialized in Machine Learning at a major Big Tech company.

In this episode, we wonder:

- What happens when AI takes over all of our jobs, and we have too much time on our hands?

- How does our economy collapse when the AI overlords conquer us?

- Should we let a probabilistic language generation model decide on the fate of humanity and give it access to nuclear weapons?

If you missed the first part, you can find it here.

If you enjoy the episode, don’t forget to subscribe, give us some sweet stars ✨, and leave a comment. It means a lot to us!

This week, we dive deep into the future of artificial intelligence with two expert guests:

- Mauro Foresti, PhD in biomechanics from ETH Zurich and now Chief Architect in the financial industry.

- Juan Sanz, Solutions Architect specialized in Machine Learning at a major Big Tech company.

Together, we explore:

- Can AI be truly creative?

- Is critical thinking at risk in an AI-driven world?

- What would it take to reach superintelligence, and should we?

This is part one of a two-part conversation. Tune in next week for the conclusion!

If you enjoy the episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review, it really helps!

We’re excited to share that we’ve entered the content creator space, helping creators grow their audience and make more money. Oh, and we’re also building four other products, posting on social media, and releasing this weekly podcast. All without hiring Soham Parekh 😉

Plus, we bring you the latest in AI news: Meta is poaching AI researchers like there’s no tomorrow, and Elon Musk wants to rewrite the internet based on his own opinions. What could possibly go wrong?

If you enjoy what we do, we’d love a quick comment on your favorite platform, or shoot us an email at [email protected]. Let’s build this podcast together!

Interesting links:

- Follow our 30-days Consistency Challenge on X:

https://x.com/NptIvan

- Ekopilot going Open Source:

https://www.ekopilot.app/

- Our Reddit post about good conversion rates for podcasts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/podcasting/comments/1lpqemc/what_are_good_conversion_rates_on_spotify/

- Meta poaching more OpenAI researches:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/26/meta-hires-key-openai-researcher-to-work-on-ai-reasoning-models/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/28/meta-reportedly-hires-four-more-researchers-from-openai/

- Meta claims that Sam Altman is being dishonest:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/meta-cto-sam-altman-dishonest-for-100m-bonus-claim/493945

- Elon wants to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, and releases Grok 4 on the 4th of July:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1936333964693885089

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1938561602640605363

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1938962934111314107

- DeepSeek delays release of R2 due to US export restrictions:

https://technode.com/2025/06/27/deepseek-ai-model-faces-delays-amid-us-chip-export-restrictions/

- Google releases AlphaGenome:

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphagenome-ai-for-better-understanding-the-genome/

- Anthropic releases Claude Artifacts:

https://claude.ai/artifacts

- Our own Whack-A-Mole game with custom picture:

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/5fa0a53a-d28b-4453-8c81-b576a2d1765a

- Black Forest Labs released Flux.1 Kontext [dev]

https://bfl.ai/announcements/flux-1-kontext-dev

- Commercial use allowed on Replicate:

https://replicate.com/black-forest-labs/flux-kontext-dev

- Iván's favourite AI algorithm, Genetic Algorithm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm

This week, we're back with the latest AI news from last week, and the big headline is Apple reportedly eyeing a deal to acquire Perplexity. Meta already tried (and failed), so now Mark Zuckerberg is on a new mission: to lure every AI expert out there with fat paychecks.

We also share updates on our own product journey, including tools we're testing to improve our video content and AI-powered translations.

If you enjoy the episode, drop us a comment or share it with a friend. We’d love to build this together with you!

Links:

MIT paper "Your Brain on ChatGPT":

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872

Tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft:

https://archive.ph/4HP14

OpenAI is sued by startup Iyo for trademark infringement:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/24/sam-altman-slams-iyo-lawsuit-after-openai-pulls-blog-post-on-ive-deal.html

https://business.cch.com/ipld/IYOIOProdsComp20250609.pdf

Meta is trying to hire Safe Superintelligence Inc’s CEO Daniel Gross:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-superintelligence-hired-ceo-daniel-gross.html

Meta approached Perplexity before massive Scale AI deal:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/20/meta-perplexity-scale-ai-deal.html

Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity:

https://www.reuters.com/business/apple-executives-held-internal-talks-about-buying-perplexity-bloomberg-news-2025-06-20/

Full release of Gemma 3n:

https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemma-3n-developer-guide/

Release of Gemini CLI:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/25/google-unveils-gemini-cli-an-open-source-ai-tool-for-terminals/

Reddit is considering using World ID, the verification system based on iris-scanning co-founded by Sam Altman, to verify users⁠:

https://www.semafor.com/article/06/20/2025/reddit-considers-iris-scanning-orb-developed-by-a-sam-altman-startup

6-month-old, solo-owned vibe coder Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/6-month-old-solo-owned-vibe-coder-base44-sells-to-wix-for-80m-cash/

Video editing tools:

https://www.capcut.com/

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

https://www.captions.ai/

Voice AI platform:

https://elevenlabs.io/