The first pure humanoid robot company is now on the stock market. Republicans are turning on Pete Hegseth. And a British healthcare worker with Ebola is being flown home. Three stories this Thursday, and what our guests told me about each one.
Humanoid robots hit Nasdaq
Agility started trading on Nasdaq today as AGLT, through a SPAC, at a $2.5 billion pre-money valuation. In the first half of this year it made $174,000 in revenue and lost $362 million. It also claims more than $300 million in milestone-based orders.
So how crowded is this race? Peter Diamandis laid it out for me last year: “There are probably about 60 to 70 well-funded humanoid robot companies.” He named Tesla’s Optimus and Figure at the front, and he told me he’s an investor in both. Then he named one more: “But then there is Apollo and Digit.”
▶ Watch Peter Diamandis from 29:49
Digit is the robot Agility has just taken public.
Republicans turn on Pete Hegseth
After the midterm losses, Republicans are blaming Hegseth for the Iran war, and Senator Thom Tillis is promising “a reckoning”. Trump says he has “every intention” of keeping him, and there has been no impeachment vote.
Hegseth sat down with me in 2020, and he told me exactly what you do when you’re surrounded: “The only option you have is to immediately seek cover, lob grenades toward the enemy, and then charge toward the enemy.”
▶ Watch Pete Hegseth from 26:35
Now he’s surrounded by his own party.
A British Ebola patient is flown home
A British healthcare worker infected in DR Congo is being evacuated, and is expected at the Royal Free in London. It’s the Bundibugyo strain, with about 10,600 people infected, and the UK says the risk to the public stays low.
Dennis Carroll led the US government’s work on emerging viruses, and he told me what we keep getting wrong: “One of the biggest challenges we have is that we’re always fighting the last war.” After West Africa, he said, every outbreak got the same response. “These things have their own character, their own features.”
▶ Watch Dennis Carroll from 9:02
Which of these stories are you watching? Tell me on X at @brianbrose.
P.S. Most people only get to see a company like Agility once it lists. Members of our AI Investment Club meet the founders of private AI companies and review the deals themselves. And in Dubai, today’s ultra-luxury buyers want finished homes, not off-plan promises. Our Luxury Property Investment Circle buys dated villas in prime enclaves, rebuilds them and sells them finished.
P.P.S. Could you name the guest from one line? The Superfan Quiz has 100 real quotes from the show, and a live leaderboard.
This is commentary, not financial or medical advice. Do your own research.
