The latest episode of DH Unplugged, titled "Remembering JCD," serves as a poignant farewell to co-host John C. Dvorak, who passed away peacefully at home the previous week. The episode, published on July 28, 2026, features host Andrew Horowitz joined by Dvorak's son, JC Dvorak, to reflect on more than 18 years of partnership, share intimate family stories, and announce a public memorial meetup. The tribute also stays true to the show's core mission: dissecting the week's most consequential moves in financial markets.
Listeners are treated to a full hour that transitions from heartfelt remembrance to rigorous market analysis. Andrew Horowitz delivers an on-air tribute and reads condolence notes from listeners around the world. JC Dvorak offers a unique perspective on growing up around tech luminaries like Larry Ellison, Kai Power Tools, and early CNET coverage. The episode also tackles critical market topics, including Nvidia's $250 billion OpenAI backstop, the Ohio data center buildout, and the circular financing patterns that echo the dot-com era. The discussion delves into semiconductors entering a bear market, SK Hynix earnings, and the CXMT IPO surge in China, as well as OpenAI's reported rogue model incident involving Hugging Face and the ensuing sandbox debate.
The tone is both tender and unflinching. Reflecting on the loss, Horowitz said, "He made our audiences smarter, and friendships richer. And Tuesday nights are never going to be the same, ever." JC Dvorak shared the family's private ritual of weekly dinners, noting, "For the past, you know, decade or more, we've been doing a dinner every Friday, and last Friday was really hard because it was, you know, we didn't have dinner." The hosts also confirmed an in-person tribute and No Agenda / DH Unplugged meetup in Fort Lauderdale on 8/8 at 3:33 PM, coinciding with John's funeral earlier that day.
On the market side, the discussion drills into what Horowitz calls a "rug pull" mood around SpaceX, Tesla robotaxi promises, and the Cathie Wood trillion-dollar thesis. The pair unpack a chart posted at dhunplugged.com showing Nvidia at the center of a circular financing loop involving Oracle, SoftBank, and major banks, drawing parallels to Lucent and Nortel's vendor financing during the 1999 to 2000 telecom bubble. JC Dvorak, speaking from inside the AI industry, details how DeepSeek and Moonshot's Kimi K3 are pressuring margins, describes a client migration from a $10 million Anthropic contract to a $100,000 on-prem Kimi deployment, and questions whether OpenAI's incident was incompetence dressed up as existential marketing. The Close to the Pin winner: Mark Pugner of Ireland, using John's old pseudonym, guessed SpaceX at $133 against a $123.99 close.
This episode not only honors Dvorak's legacy but also reaffirms the show's commitment to delivering candid, skeptical, and often humorous market commentary. As the DH Unplugged community mourns, the Fort Lauderdale meetup offers a chance for fans and friends to pay their respects in person. The episode is available now at dhunplugged.com, via RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music/Podcasts.
