Aaru, Iran, & an AI Horror Story 3/20/26

Squawk Pod

CNBC

Business News, News, Investing, Business

4.2 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Aaru cofounders Ned Koh, Cameron Fink, and John Kessler discuss their company’s AI-driven shakeup of the market research industry and their journey building it—as teenagers. Legendary venture capitalist Katie Haun backed BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company being acquired by Mastercard for $1.8B. Haun discusses the deal and growing connections between blockchain technology and fintech. Plus, Dan Murphy reports on the latest in the Iran War, Amazon is planning a smartphone comeback, and an AI controversy has struck a horror novel. Dan Murphy - 02:54 Aaru Cofounders - 17:50 Katie Haun - 32:03 In this episode: Dan Murphy, @dan_murphy Joe Kernen, @JoeSquawk Becky Quick, @BeckyQuick Andrew Ross Sorkin, @andrewrsorkin

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bring in show music, please.
0:02.5	This is SquawkPod, and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa.
0:08.3	On today's episode, the young entrepreneurs using AI to shake up traditional market research.
0:16.1	Aru co-founders, Ned Co.
0:18.8	It starts with this idea of convincing people that magic is real.
0:22.2	It's an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say,
0:24.8	hey, we're going to be more accurate than predicting human behavior than you are,
0:28.1	even when you talk to your customers directly.
0:30.3	And Cameron Think.
0:31.7	If you can predict human behavior, you can predict the future, right?
0:34.3	We can predict how people are going to shift markets.
0:37.3	We can predict how individuals are going to shift markets. We can predict how
0:38.2	individuals are going to change their product preferences. And MasterCard's $1.8 billion
0:45.5	acquisition of BVNK, bridging legacy finance and the blockchain, legendary venture capitalist
0:52.5	and BVNK backer Katie Hahn on the future of finance.
0:56.3	If you think about how humans progressed from using checks to credit cards and now actually
1:02.6	not even credit cards as much as credit cards on their iPhone, we think that also agents will
1:07.9	be using some of these new systems. So I think that's where AI comes in.
1:12.5	Plus, the latest on the Iran War, President Trump's push on Fed Chair Powell, still,
1:18.6	and a horror novel at the center of AI controversy. It's not the Bachelorette that we're talking
1:25.6	about. That was a horror novel.
1:29.2	It is Friday, March 20th, 2026.
	...

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