Forget Consumer AR. This Is Where Smart Glasses Actually Pay Off ft. Mark Greget, CEO of NuEyes

About this episode

Charlie, Ted, and Rony open on Mark Zuckerberg's new AI "manifesto," released, fittingly, via a call to The Verge's Alex Heath made from Meta Ray-Bans on a fishing boat. The group debates whether Zuckerberg's sudden embrace of open, on-device AI is a genuine philosophy or a business move from a company that can no longer out-build its rivals. From there: OpenAI and Google both cross a billion users, OpenAI's new strategy of acquiring companies outright (via its partner Thrive) to guarantee AI adoption rather than sell into it, and the eye-watering $2 billion price tag on an 80-person AI infrastructure startup.

Mark Greget, founder and CEO of NuEyes, joins for the back half to make the case that enterprise, not consumer, is where smart glasses are proving their worth right now. Mark walks through a decade of building visualization tools for surgeons, from early low-vision devices to NuEyes' current surgical system, which one doctor used to cut a 10-plus hour procedure down to three. The conversation digs into the real ROI math hospitals run on OR time, why clinical outcomes (not consumer hype) are what get insurance companies to pay attention, and why Mark is staying heads-down on five surgical specialties instead of chasing every use case.

Key Moments:

[00:35] Zuckerberg's AI manifesto and the strategy behind it

[07:05] OpenAI and Google cross a billion users

[09:05] OpenAI's Thrive strategy: buying companies to guarantee AI adoption

[11:05] The $2 billion AI infrastructure acquisition

[16:05] Mark Greget joins to tell us what NuEyes has been up to over the last decade

[43:35] The ROI math: what OR time is actually worth

[45:35] From "nice to have" to critical path in the operating room

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