The long-running investing podcast DH Unplugged has released a tribute episode for co-host John C. Dvorak, who passed away peacefully at home the previous week. Episode 811, titled "Remembering JCD," was published on July 28, 2026, and features host Andrew Horowitz alongside Dvorak's son, JC Dvorak. The hour-long episode blends personal remembrances with a critical look at current financial markets, including AI-related investments and a potential tech bubble.
Horowitz opened with an emotional tribute, reading condolence messages from listeners around the world. He reflected on Dvorak's impact, saying, "He made our audiences smarter, and friendships richer. And Tuesday nights are never going to be the same, ever." JC Dvorak shared family memories, including growing up around tech figures like Larry Ellison and the early CNET coverage, and described the difficulty of their weekly family dinners: "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 episode also announced a public memorial meetup in Fort Lauderdale on August 8 at 3:33 PM, coinciding with Dvorak's funeral earlier that day. Fans of the show and the related No Agenda podcast are invited to pay their respects.
Beyond the tribute, the conversation pivoted to market analysis, which was the show's core mission. The hosts delved into what Horowitz called a "rug pull" mood around SpaceX, Tesla's robotaxi promises, and Cathie Wood's trillion-dollar thesis. A chart on dhunplugged.com illustrated Nvidia at the center of a circular financing loop involving Oracle, SoftBank, and major banks, drawing parallels to the vendor financing that preceded the 2000 telecom bubble. The discussion highlighted Nvidia's $250 billion backstop for OpenAI, the Ohio data center buildout, and what they termed "circular AI financing."
JC Dvorak, who works in the AI industry, provided insider perspective on competitive pressures. He detailed how DeepSeek and Moonshot's Kimi K3 are squeezing margins, citing a client who migrated from a $10 million Anthropic contract to a $100,000 on-prem Kimi deployment. He also questioned the authenticity of OpenAI's reported rogue model incident involving Hugging Face, suggesting it might be "incompetence dressed up as existential marketing."
The episode also covered semiconductors entering a bear market, SK Hynix earnings, and the CXMT IPO surge in China. The hosts emphasized the significance of these trends for investors, noting that the AI sector's rapid growth could be masking underlying vulnerabilities.
In a lighter moment, the show named Mark Pugner of Ireland as the winner of its "Close to the Pin" contest. Using Dvorak's old pseudonym, Pugner guessed SpaceX's stock at $133 against an actual close of $123.99.
DH Unplugged, hosted by Horowitz and the late Dvorak, has been a weekly destination for candid market commentary and economic analysis for over 18 years. Episode 811 is now available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The show's blend of hard financial analysis and offbeat cultural observations will continue, but the loss of Dvorak leaves a void that Horowitz acknowledged is irreplaceable.
