00:00:11
Speaker 1: I want to start today with the short clip.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to be there for the State of the Union.
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Speaker 3: In the gallery, guys, just chill, trolls chill, Okay, okay.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: Ten points for anyone who knows who's talking and why we're playing this slip today.
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Speaker 2: I'm about to cheat and google Gemini.
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Speaker 4: I believe it's.
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Speaker 1: No Are you kidding me?
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Speaker 2: I thought it's George Santos.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I know who that is. This is the George Santos story. He was corrupting the Calshi market allegedly by saying that he would be at the State of the Union, not showing up, and allegedly winning bets by betting on this proprietory information. Welcome to tech Stuff. I'mos Voloscian, and this is the Weekend Tech where I'm joined by three of the world's most plugged in reporters to break down what's really happening in tech right now. Today. We're joined by Taylor Lorenz of User mag, Kyle Chaker, who writes the Infinite Scroll column for The New Yorker, and Rea Abrigotti, tech editor at Semaphore. Welcome all. There was a dramatic scene at Cape Canaveral Last week, a Blue Origin rocket was doing a quote unquote hot fire test, which is when rocket's engines are ignited and fired at full power while it remains bolted to the launch plaid. This led to a gigantic, apocalyptic mushroom cloud shaped fireball that filled the entire sky and a statement from Blue Origin that read, we experienced an anomaly during today's hot fire test. Read what's the backstory here? Look?
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Speaker 2: I think this is just this is just how it works. Right when you build these, you know, you're building a rocket company, stuff blows up. And I mean this is like how SpaceX got here. They you know, blew up countless rockets and eventually you get there. I think it's a it's maybe a reminder that you know, SpaceX is on has been on this road a lot longer and is way ahead of everyone else in the field. But you know, I think this, Look, this is great. Like I think it's great that we have competition, and I think Blue Origin just needs to get there. There's no there's no like straight line right there. You know, in this in this business, stuff has to blow up.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: But this was this is an important part of NASA's Return to the Moon project. Project Optomists, is this one giant step backward for humanity or always still confident that the Optomist program is is on trek.
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Speaker 2: No, I thought, Look, I think it's I wouldn't. I wouldn't view any anything as like a step back. Right, if it's a test, nobody died, you know, they learned. They're always going to learn something from this, right, That's that's what you do. You learn and then you move on. I just don't. I think that it's funny like when you when the media sees like some blow up an apocalyptic mushroom cloud and a rocket test, it's like the immediate thing is like, oh, failure, Like look at these companies, they're failing. I mean that's not That's not how anybody in this business looks at it, right, It's like you have to you have to take these things as like okay, great, like what can we learn from it? So even if it's like a bad one where they didn't expect it to happen or whatever, like it's always like, you know, one step back, two step steps forward like in this in this business, I think, I mean, I don't know, does anyone disagree with me on that? I feel like.
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Speaker 1: That mushroom clouds have gotten bad press over the years.
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Speaker 3: How many rocket great explosions Elon Musk blow up like SpaceX must have like dozens of these so far.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember reading Ashley Vance's book like back back in the day about you know Elon and and you know just how many times they blew up rockets, and it's like it's it's an iterative approach to I mean, that's how you bring the costs down. That's how you get to like you actually advance the field right and like land rockets on path in the middle of the ocean. I mean, it's like incredible stuff, but you're not gonna there's a bit of trial and error. Like there's no way to there just isn't any way to like simulate the physics in a computer and then just build it and have it work out perfectly. It's like you have to you have to go out there and blow stuff up. And has anybody actually been to one of these tests or like a rocket launcher anything.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: No, but it looks kind of in my childhood, I thought it.
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Speaker 5: Looked kind of like I saw the video or TikTok of some guys like out fishing or whatever who saw the blast and thinking it was like a nuclear bomb or something like. I almost think it could be as cool to witness the explosion as it would, you know, an actual successful rocket launch.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of cool.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, I went out to I went out to one of these tests once for a story I did at Semaphore. It was just a test of like one engine that's like smaller than you know, however many engines they have, but it's like so many now, and it was just that, you know, they were doing like a like literally just firing up the engine for like four minutes or something like that to see if it worked. And just like the power of that thing was I mean, I was like, I mean hundreds of yards away like watching this thing, and I could feel it through my whole body. It was just like the power of it was incredible. And it's like that's just one little engine. So I don't know, I think it's like people don't really have enough of an appreciation for what these for the just like the engineering of this of this thing.
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Speaker 1: Taylor, you covered a new book called Muscuism this week on your podcast Power User, and the cover of this book Muscuism features the trail of a rocket against a deep blue sky. What did you learn from your conversation about Muscism about space and ambitions to go to space amongst elm Jeff Bezos.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think. I mean that book really talks about sort of Elon Musk's political ideology and compares it kind of to Henry Ford. I actually think this other new book out by Adam Becker, who's a phenomenal science journalist. He actually studied physics himself, is really good. It's called More Everything, Forever, and there's this great chapter at the end of the book that basically just decimates, you know, Elon Musk's theories on Mars and explains why we absolutely will never live on Mars and why this is just like a sort of deluded fantasy. And I thought it was really illuminating. That's not to say that these space projects aren't potentially worth it. I mean, I think they could be valuable. You know, we could we I think reusable rockets would be obviously very valuable. Maybe we'll put the data centers in space. But I think that a lot of people, including Elon Musk, also just use these sort of grand plants and Bezos use these grand plans for going to space and conquering space to mythologize themselves and raise lots of money and you know, sort of don't build. They're ultimately their visions will not be realized.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you're I think one part of your point though, needs like a little clarification, which is like SpaceX, he basically put all of his elon, put all of his own money into the company, right, It wasn't like, you know, oh, I'm just I'm just gambling other people's money here.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: I think that's one thing. I think it's got to go public.
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Speaker 5: And aren't we changing the rules for it to kind of, you know, be added to index funds and things like?
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Speaker 2: I mean, I I don't, It's not this is all I'm saying about the founding of the company.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, the founding of the company. He put his money towards it, but it's been he's he's not running it as a charity. Like, yes, he put his own, you know, money towards it, for sure originally, but now we're all stuck with it, you know, and I think we're all stuck subsidizing parts of it potentially.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it just changes the mythologizing point slightly, which is like it's it's like, yeah, they're maybe they're mythologizing it. It's like, I mean, how many people would would like take all of their own money essentially and like put it into a space company back when there were no space like private the private space soon that she didn't even really exist, and like, I mean, right, go up against all the primes.
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Speaker 5: But if you want to talk about mythologizing, right, like that space stuff was what a lot of people used in the twenty tens to say, like look at this forward thinking futurist billionaire. I'm not saying that all of Space, by the way, was motivated by that, but I think he's leveraged the company throughout the years to kind of push this idea of himself, you know, whether intentionally or not.
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Speaker 3: And now like the whole company is this giant conglomerate of AI and space Internet and like that, I mean I see it financially, Like sure, it makes it, hypes it up, it makes it more appealing to some people, but it isn't that just completely incoherent? I don't know, read you have like a deeper explanation of this huge pole.
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Speaker 2: I think it's no. I think it's coherent. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy.
00:08:53
Speaker 4: Will be in space.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: Well, I wrote I wrote about this like a long time ago, and I think like they're even board members of Tesla that disagreed with me at the time, but like that all these elon companies are gonna come together. This was before and this was before even Grock was like a thing, and I was like, this totally makes sense. Like I think there's there's tons of synergies because ultimately, like Tesla's a robotics company, You're gonna we're gonna need robots in space. Like this is not We're not going to have like humans up there like servicing you know, servicing whatever the data centers, the moon bases. I mean, but it's like how could you not I don't know, Like there's part of me is like how can you cover tech and not be like, oh, this is cool. I mean, financially it doesn't make sense, like I think.
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Speaker 4: Is the like deluted thing to me.
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Speaker 2: Financially, you'd be crazy to put any money into into into into this company, but but people will because there's we'll have to because of the index funds is tight of points out we're gonna talk about that next.
00:09:56
Speaker 1: That's too tempting to Kyle. I did an AI assisted deep dive and found that you wrote a prescient column back in twenty fourteen with the headline Musk on Mars, Silicon Valley disrupts the Universe. I thought it might be AAI hallucination, but I clicked the link and know the piece was really there on the Baffler you did write it. Oh my god, do you remember writing that piece?
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Speaker 3: Absolutely not, But you know that was the twenty fourteen was a crazy time on the Internet where everyone just posted stuff.
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Speaker 1: But you've I believe it you've been intrigued by this story for more than ten years.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've always been interested in it, I guess. And I don't know Mars. I think to Read's point, like, at least the space travel and crazy ideas are like leading somewhere different in a way that I don't always see the like generative AI boom leading somewhere different. Right, I don't see the future that that stuff suggests. I do see the future of we should be on Mars, there should be functioning colonies on the moon, whatever.
00:11:05
Speaker 4: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: I've in my mind, that has always been a semi inevitable thing, and like technology will help us get there.
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Speaker 2: It's a bit more tangible. I would just say this. I think people now are like, what is the point? Like this is an insane company, Like who this is totally gonna lose money. It's just about Elon's ego. But I bet you, like a couple of years from now, there's going to be just like a whole, a whole like wave of tech coverage where it's like people worrying that, oh, this SpaceX Tesla conglomerate is too powerful, and it's going to be like the Wayland.
00:11:38
Speaker 1: You've got corporation.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: An alien you know, it's just like, oh, we need to like rain these companies in which like two years ago we were saying or like nothing and won't matter, and you know, I guarantee that will happen.
00:11:52
Speaker 4: Does so are the humanoid robots the new thing?
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Speaker 3: Like I feel like we've moved from generative AI and data centers to base travel and now everyone's talking about the humanoid robots also, And I'm just like, can't we slow down a little bit, Like can't we spend one year on the space travel and then.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Robots don't slow down. We've been too slow.
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Speaker 2: We just wasted like two decades on stupid social media. Come on, no offense, Taylor.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: Robots the whole time.
00:12:19
Speaker 2: Who cares about Facebook? And like who cares about Facebook? And TikTok? Like I was the one, like can technology coverage actually cover technology? Like I think we're like we're due for some actual technology and like I don't want to see things slow down.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: That's insane. I'm read.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: I mean, humanoid robots are are tough, and I think they're farther away than people think. But but like I mean, there are companies right now that are that are testing robots. You know those those planes where you get like like some zero G time where they drop these companies taking robots up there, like like nerdy software engineers taking robots up in these planes and like doing tests on robots in zero G while they throw up into bags because they're not used to.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: And like, I mean that is just cool. Come on, Like I agree, it's good to have some hob tech on tech stuff. We're gonna go to a quick break, but read before we do that. Is there a race between SpaceX and Blue Origin? Does this explosion mean that Blue Origin have fallen further behind. Or is this is this a two Is this a two horse race or one horse race with a with a pony countering countering behind?
00:13:28
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a I think it's a sort of a two horse race right now, Like there's there's like them, and then there's basically like Russia and China. Right But I think that this is also going to be and I'm sort of I'm sort of repeating like other people have made this argument, but like when SpaceX goes public, there's gonna be a huge, a huge explosion in like new space startups, and so I think we'll see that this whole ecosystem get more competitive but also sort of look more like a platform where you'll see more companies building on top of these launch systems with you know, satellites and other you know, the robots, the the space stations, the infrastructure for data centers and space like that's that's just going to be a huge, a huge industry, a big, big new ecosystem.
00:14:16
Speaker 3: I need that take from read space is the new platform.
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Speaker 2: That's not my take, Like I I'm not taking credit for it, but I do believe I do agree. No, I need, I need your piece on it. I need Yeah, I will, I will, I will write that. Maybe I'll write for tomorrow for the newsletter tomorrow.
00:14:35
Speaker 5: Coming up with ideas on the pot.
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Speaker 1: As you may have heard, SpaceX is preparing for an I p O as anthropic and open AI after the break the new California gold Rush, stay with us. When you're traveling abroad, Wi Fi is always an issue. Maybe you can't find it, or maybe you can, but the Wi Fi network that's available looks a little bit sketchy and makes you think it might not be safe to connect to. I've certainly had that feeling, and it's why having a local SIM card on your phone can make all the difference. But you don't have to literally buy one. That's why Sale comes in an e SIM service that is as simple as downloading an app, and that gives you instant Internet access wherever you're traveling. That is safe and secure Internet with built in cybersecurity features like web protection and ad blockers, and no need for local Wi Fi. All you have to do is download this salely app on your mobile device and choose the plan that works best for you. Once you install the AESIM, Sale will be instantly activated, so you can start your trip off right. Download Salely in your app store and use our code tech Stuff at checkout to get an exclusive fifteen percent off your first purchase. See detailed in the podcast episode description books Welcome back, Kyle. Not too long ago you wrote a piece about what you describe as a booming shadow market of sketchy AI investments. What did you find out? What is the shadow market and what are the sketchy investments?
00:16:19
Speaker 3: A headline that we workshopped for a long time. You're talking about media matters, the booming and the sketchiness.
00:16:28
Speaker 4: So I mean, basically, what.
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Speaker 3: I noticed was a lot of chatter on x as one does about people buying and selling equity in Open AI and Anthropic, And this was just as Anthropic was doing this like even more exponential growth over the past few months, huge valuation tripled, and suddenly everyone is just trying to grab a piece of this rocket, as it were, and get any bit of equity anyway.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Pre IPO equity, obviously.
00:16:57
Speaker 4: Pre IPO equity.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: So retail investors, the normal people cannot get access to this stuff. Yet the only way to get it is to grab a piece of you know, some investment firms piece that they got from an early employee or that they invested themselves in an early round. So I reported out this this shadow market that's going on in bits of equity that are packaged with other bits of equity that are packaged again, that are packaged again, and it's this kind of like this one guy described it to me as like your local butcher is being offered five thousand dollars in anthropic equity, like in this sketchy paper bag. I found it really fascinating. I mean, this kind of venture capital machinations are super opaque and not comprehensible to normal people in my opinion, and yet there's this huge race behind the scenes to just get in any way you can before the IPOs you know, theoretically inevitably boom.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: More with the people buying secondaries, are they being marketed like by shady middlemen or like are there people who want to just drink from the fire hose and a hunting down the secondaries wherever they can? Like, what's the how does this market work?
00:18:11
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:18:11
Speaker 3: It feels like the wild West, or like you know, you're out on safari looking for open AI equity.
00:18:17
Speaker 4: So as I talked to vcs.
00:18:19
Speaker 3: There's a range of sketchiness basically, like, you know, there's there's the pretty legit deals where a VC firm already has you know, hookup for one hundred million dollars of anthropic equity or something, and they'll go to their you know, investors or their partners and say, hey, do you want to put five million dollars into our purchase of this anthropic equity? Sure, that makes sense. But then if that person who put in the five million dollar check then breaks up there five million dollars into little packages of you know, one hundred k or something and then shops that to more people down the chain. I think as the numbers get smaller and the audience gets wider, the whole thing gets sketchier. This happened with Facebook, where you know, too many people own secondary shares and it actually forced them to go public because of SEC rules. So the SEC changed the law so that more.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: People can own secondaries, and that that helped like create this huge secondary share market in the first place.
00:19:22
Speaker 1: Taylor from a from a kind of culture point of view, like when was the last time you saw sort of IPOs become the talk of the town and like everybody, everybody on the internet like buzzing about corporate fundraising.
00:19:37
Speaker 5: It's been a very very long time. I mean, I think maybe the dot com boom. I wasn't really around for that as a coherent person. I was a kid, But from what I understand, it was pretty frothy. I don't think we saw this sort of similar fervor around social media because I think it was just still so and it was still so much smaller, and there wasn't a clear upside. I think like the massive businesses that the social media companies and a lot of the companies that the twenty tens built has created this like excitement around IPOs maybe and kind of like hype around it because we've seen what the previous iterations of San Francisco wealth can can build and buy.
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, everybody wanted to wait as long as possible to ipo. Right. That was that was sort of the trend of the last I don't know decade or so. Right, it was like the backlash to the to the dot com bubble days when like companies were pre revenue and iPod and then it just causes huge crash and like you know, open Aye has been around for a while, but for all intents and purposes, Like you know, I mean chat GPT is four years old, Like this is actually incredibly fast to go to go public. And I think that's that's what's so surprising about that SpaceX is obviously you know, a little older, but very different, different business. I'm just excited to see these numbers. Like I was sort of sad that anthropic FIU conf eodentially and like we can't look at their s one. But it's like so interesting to see. Like we've been hearing all these revenue leaks, which we all know are bs, and like, let's see what the real Let's see where the real numbers are.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: You know, it.
00:21:12
Speaker 3: Feels so huge that, like the IPO feels inevitable, and I think the huge numbers are making more people so thirsty to get into it. Like and when I was conceptualizing the story, like to me, the real comparison was cryptocurrency, Like as people started to see the graphs go way up, they just say, Okay, how can I get in? Like what's what's the hack here? How can I get into the market? And my whole things will go up too, Not that it's inevitable but that kind of like hype and gambling we experienced with ethereum and bookcoin and all the the doge and other shit coins.
00:21:49
Speaker 1: Let's say I think, I think the difference with cryptocurrency is no one had to buy cryptocurrency, right, and this is this is I think what you were pointing towards Taylor before the break, right, Like these SpaceX will be in the index funds and basically you can't opt out. Most American retirement accounts are linked heavaged the index funds. SpaceX will play a huge role. Maybe twenty thirty percent of Americans believe that SpaceX, one of them is read, may become the the the you know, the defining conglomerate of the future. But probably sixty seventy percent are very suspicious and don't and like what do they do?
00:22:25
Speaker 2: There's got to be some index funds where that don't have SpaceX come on, Like, you could find some index fund where you invest.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: So Matt matt Levine and Bloomberg was talking about a non AI ETF that somebody should start.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: I'm sure you could just invest in like boring old companies doing boring stuff with no growth Like that's I'm sure that's an option after that.
00:22:44
Speaker 5: I like, I it's so crazy because I do agree with Reid, like I like, like emotionally like I am such a like I'm like, let's go, you know, like let's build the new technology, you know what I mean. I'm not like one of those people that's gonna call up my retirement and be like I don't want you know, Eli, I'm sure that are you know, the ETFs have like horrible natural gas and oil companies and a lot of evil companies. I think it's just the volatility here that concerns people, and I think that, you know, I'm excited to kind of see how the business runs. As Kyle mentioned earlier, it's just this sort of like messy conglomerate of a lot of things. And not that I don't think Elon can pull it off, but I do kind of worry about, you know, the bubble of sort of all of this AI stuff. I will say, somebody was making the point recently that I thought was interesting, which is actually like these data center backlashes and sort of this protest movement, the sort of anti AI movement, which can be very annoying online sometimes, but they're actually kind of like helping to hedge against this bubble and helping to ensure that like it doesn't get too crazy. And I guess so, I guess they're playing a role in that. And it's good to have skeptics, you know, we don't want to go totally, you know, just jump in the water head first, Like it's good to kind of hear the arguments against these companies and make the people that are running our index funds, you know, think critically about this stuff.
00:24:06
Speaker 3: And this is all happening at the same time, like like this this race to IPO for these massive companies and conglomerate's like is there enough for everything to happen right now? Like I know they need tons of resources, there's huge demands for AI. We're building all this infrastructure. Like I'm not a finance expert. Can the stock markets like handle like three trillion dollars?
00:24:31
Speaker 2: Is there enough money?
00:24:32
Speaker 4: Is there enough money? Literally?
00:24:34
Speaker 3: Is there enough money in existence to do all this stuff? I can understand.
00:24:40
Speaker 5: It's also just like I mean, I think one of you guys mentioned this before, but it's also a matter of like how profitable are these companies really going to be? And when you know, right now, I think we're getting like a you know, thirteen dollars worth of tokens for a dollar or something. You know, like when those costs start ratcheting up, how much of those costs are companies going to be willing to absorb? But how are consumers going to you know, sort of integrate this technology into their into their lives long term, and how does that affect sort of the business models of these companies.
00:25:09
Speaker 3: Adding on to tailor that, there is that sense of a pullback from tech companies, like we're spending too much on tokens, We're not getting enough out of our AI stuff.
00:25:19
Speaker 4: I don't know if you do you buy that.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: I think that backlat the spending too much on tokens is more coming from traditional industry. I think that's what I see. I mean, I think the tech companies are like, yeah, give us the best tote, like we want the best models, Like who cares if we're spending like six figures per engineer, Like we have to move fast. But companies that aren't moving fast and aren't really doing innovative stuff, they don't need the best stuff, they don't really need AI, like they can just coast and eventually be disrupted. And fizzle out, in my opinion, but they can just coast. And I think, I mean, I have no no doubt that these companies will be hugely profitable, because it's like if you use this stuff, if you're if you're actually like me, like trying to like try this stuff out, like you just like you cannot get enough of the tokens you've written read.
00:26:06
Speaker 1: Buying shares and SpaceX is like a call option on several enormous futures at once. You're betting that the world with robots and rockets and AI is going to fundamentally change the economy. Today's financials don't really even matter. I'm assuming that that's a call option you're all in to buy every day of the week.
00:26:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to go buy like individual stocks. I think that, you know, that's unethical for someone who covers this, but like no, I mean that's and I'm not giving stock advisory. I do not, Like I yes, I worked at the Wall Street Journal, but I covered sports, you know, and white collar crime. But you know, like it's it's just like, yeah, I mean you can't like people said Google was you know, like a BS business model when they went public rights. This is what always happens. But it's like even more than the Internet. This is technology that people like really need and use today. It's not like novelty like this is like and people are actually paying for it, unlike the early Internet. So like the Facebook era, like compute costs always come down. Like someone said to me, I quoted them the other day, like or some of my iconic capital was like it was like capitalism finds a way. And it's like to me that was just like, look like people figure this stuff out. Like I don't really know how it's gonna happen, but like it gets figured out, like compute costs will come down, Like it's not you know, I don't.
00:27:30
Speaker 5: Think we have real capitalism though.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: That's the problem.
00:27:33
Speaker 5: Like I talk to a lot of libertarians because they're very aligned with me on a lot of sort of tech policy, and you know, they love to be like the market to the market will fit, you know, And I think like, especially under the Trump administration, I think we have a lot of like sort of factors warping the market in weird ways, you know, inflating I don't know, I wouldn't say inflating the.
00:27:53
Speaker 1: Value of these companies.
00:27:54
Speaker 5: But I just I think that we have a government that is not exactly putting all these companies on fair footing or asking for maybe the level of transparency that we as consumers deserve, and that that worries me.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: I think nobody has a real capitalism. Real capitalism, Like what even is that?
00:28:10
Speaker 4: Right?
00:28:11
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:28:11
Speaker 5: Like you know, but I'm just saying, like, I don't know that. I that a lot of people trust the market or trust the economy right now, and I don't think the economy is working for a lot of working people either.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: They don't need to trust it, they just have to have faith.
00:28:30
Speaker 1: Kyle use the word thirstiness, which one of my favorite words. I saw a post on X the other day about somebody selling their house in San Francisco. It's on the market for two point nine million dollars and they said anstropic and opening my stock will be considered as payments. What are the weirdest stories you've came across? And you're reporting of the lengths people will go to get access here?
00:28:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think the houses. I saw another listing that was like vineyard homeless vineyard for sale and Nappa will pick anthropic stock for it, and I just I mean the speaking of capitalism, Like some of the tech people and the investors even who I talk to for this, were like, maybe these are too high valuations, Like maybe capitalism has has driven this valuation up so high that there's not going to be enough left to climb. And maybe we're on the precipice of some generational change and there's much higher to go like Google uns did. But when when you're selling your house for anthropic equity, I think we're in a frothy moment.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Read. Are you seeing people lose them absolutely lose their mind around you where you live in northern California? Like are people going just crazy to get access to these stocks? One of the things you I mean, I know it's not exactly what you right about. What are you seeing in your personal life?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Oh? People, for sure, But it's not just California, Like, it's people all over the country. Like I actually talk to like a liquor store owner in Minnesota, like not too long ago, who was like, you know, investing in VC funds. Like it's you know, I think it's just every I think it's ever everyone because everybody kind of knows, like the the s and P is like all the gains come from like these top couple of companies in the tech industry, and they're like, well, I want to invest in that, and I can't, Like how do I get into that? And I think it's like, like we were saying earlier, you know, it's sort of if you if you want to talk about like trusting the system and like fair capitalism, it's like, you do want people to be invested in this, in this stuff.
00:30:33
Speaker 3: This was the Bernie Sanders plan to semi nationalize the AI companies.
00:30:37
Speaker 6: I'm like, Yeahsting, Well, when we come back, I talk about exactly that, and we're going to unpack a Silicon Valley phrase which is kind of the flip side of everything we've been talking about, which is quote the permanent under class.
00:30:53
Speaker 1: Stay with us, Welcome back, Taylor. You recently spoke to the rising Star substacker freelance journalist Jasmine's son, who wrote a piece of The New York Times that did the rounds all about the quote permanent underclass. And I want you to explain that concept to us, But first I want to play a clip from your interview with Jasmine.
00:31:22
Speaker 7: And so the idea is that when AI gets really really good, everyone will get frozen in their current class positions. If you're a worker now, you'll never be able to earn money again, because AI can do your job. If you're a rich person now, you can spend that money to employ or rent infinite amounts of robot and machine labor to get even richer and keep building your wealth. And so it's this kind of slightly apocalyptic, slightly hyperbolic fear that we are all not just like a few people here and there, not just temporary underclasses, but this underclass could grow to encompass basically every current worker in American society as soon as AI gets good enough to do all of our jobs.
00:32:00
Speaker 5: I think she just explained it really well. She tweeted it out.
00:32:06
Speaker 2: Hasn't that always been true? Like that's always been true throughout history?
00:32:09
Speaker 1: Right?
00:32:09
Speaker 5: Well, so, yeah, Jasmine actually talks about the origins of this idea of the permanent underclass, and it's not new. I mean, it actually goes back to you know, mid last century, when we just saw rising automation in factories, in daily life, et cetera. I think this idea of the permanent underclass is sort of especially salient now because you have a lot of tech executives echoing this rhetoric. So it's not just coming from average working people that are nervous. It's also the CEOs themselves that are saying, you know, hey, we could eliminate all white collar work, that famous Dario quote, you know, vibe whatever, whatever. So I think it's just it's it's getting like these fears are getting legitimized, you know, in these people's eyes. And and AI is rapidly able. You know, AI is amazing new technology that I would argue allows us to automate a lot more than we'd previously potentially could.
00:32:57
Speaker 4: Like class mobility is down.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: There was much more class mobility earlier in the twentieth century in America and in other countries like that's that's purely a fact. So I think that fear is that it's closing off in a more permanent way.
00:33:12
Speaker 2: I mean, those are those are those are probably more due to policy decisions than some new technology being invented.
00:33:19
Speaker 5: I would say, yeah, but it's but I think this new technology has become the symbol of all of this. And when you see I mean, now we're talking about these IPOs, right, you see these mega rich, you know, tech billionaires. You see how hard it is for working people. And I think this is again the lack of class mobility. The wealth is pared in this country. It is driving a lot of the animosity towards this new technology.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: Well, I agree that it's become the symbol. I just think we probably should focus on the actual causes and not the symbols of it. I mean, like to me, I don't know, you have in the Bay Area, like people who are making twenty million dollars a year going out and overbidding on houses right now because they're so worried about the billionaires who you know, who are about to cash out when the company goes I PO. And then you have me who's like way below that, Like I am the I'm the permanent underclass of Silicon Valley, and like life is pretty good in the permanent.
00:34:15
Speaker 3: Volunteering for the permanent Underread you are not part of the permanent underclass.
00:34:19
Speaker 5: Okay, let's be real, you are.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Not, according to this analysis. I am and I and my point is.
00:34:23
Speaker 2: Like being part of the permanent underclass in a society where like the economy is growing really fast and we're inventing new technology and there's tons of new opportunity to start businesses. Like I think that's actually not a bad life.
00:34:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker 3: The medicis were like doing great, and the surfs are like I love the new palace in the middle of Florence, and I enjoy farming potatoes also is great, Like I'm not potatoes. Sorry, Like Chickory in their time, maybe they were living pretty well.
00:34:51
Speaker 2: You know. I think it's all it's all about expectations versus reality.
00:34:55
Speaker 5: I used to work at a call center, and in some of the people that I worked with at that call center have stayed in that profession and still work. You know, some of them even work in things like door to door sales or you know, they're doing this type of work that is ripe for automation. Already, by the way, the call center landscape and the customer service landscape has been transformed by AI, right, there's just so much more. In some cases, they're building systems for automated scripts that people are reading in real time to help train the AI. That's they're reading the AI scripts. Like it's all this really sort of I don't know, dystopian tech. I just think when we talk about the permanent underclass. We need to be clear who's actually at risk and who feels most at risk. And I think a lot of people who feel most get risk are not ultimately at risk.
00:35:40
Speaker 1: You know.
00:35:40
Speaker 5: These are entrepreneurial people, these are middle class people. These are incredible journalists that will always have a job in a career because they're a brilliant knowledge worker at the top of their game. I just think, like, I think a lot of people are a lot more insulated from these effects than they might feel, and they're getting very hyped up. Part of the the fact that they're even planning or aware of the concept of you know, this technological change and planning for it, I think is actually proof that they probably will not be part of the permanent underclass. But it's causing a lot of anxiety across you know, wide ranges of workers.
00:36:13
Speaker 1: I think the fomo point is real. Here. We're talking about trying to swap your house for pre ipoanthropic stock, right, Like, the discourse about the permanent underclass is being generated by people who live in Silicon Valley and are seeing people around them slap their houses for pre ipoanthropic secondaries. Right, So there's the kind.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: Of but as it's also being generated by us, like in the media, Like we're writing these stories that get people all like into up in a fervor and worried about symbols and AI and all this stuff, and like we should be writing about the actual things that we could be doing to help improve people's lives.
00:36:45
Speaker 3: Like the executives are saying of themselves like that Open AI Society plan was like we need UBI because everyone's going to be outmoded like that speech.
00:36:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the pr for sort of reverse ecology pr that these companies do to it as journalists buy into.
00:37:04
Speaker 5: It, that matters. And let me tell you, most people don't get their news from journalists. They get it from influencers who just you know, repeat these points that boost them. Whatever the company is messaging is you know that that push the most hyperbolic kind of terrifying narratives.
00:37:18
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean we have to be in line with the influencers. We can, we can be a voice of reason.
00:37:22
Speaker 5: I think we are a voice of reason on this podcast, certainly.
00:37:25
Speaker 2: But I think it's but I think it's me in the collective. We sense I'm not calling you out specifically, No.
00:37:32
Speaker 1: No, no, I get it.
00:37:33
Speaker 2: I get it.
00:37:33
Speaker 1: I'm just joking.
00:37:34
Speaker 5: I think I think it's hard to add skepticism and it's hard to have these conversations because we really just again it goes back to this thing of like we don't know, we don't know what the effects will be. These new technology is evolving every day. Companies evolve, strategies evolve money. I just I think there are so many unknowns it's really hard to kind of predict them.
00:37:53
Speaker 2: I mean, this would be a great time to have a big national conversation about, you know, universal health care for everyone never had, Like why isn't no one talking about that? Like, you know what.
00:38:06
Speaker 4: People are definitely talking about.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: It, But I don't hear these ai CEOs saying, Look, we're like, now we're going to have these superintelligence, like we should just have like universal health care now, like it should just be a single payer system, Like no one. I don't hear them saying that. They're like, we have to have these weird government regulations that probably don't do anything, but we'll stop like the terminator from happening.
00:38:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, but guess what. The healthcare lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. I shouldn't say healthcare. They don't provide healthcare. Their whole business model is denying people healthcare, and they are going all in on AI. There's been a lot of great pro public are reporting on how the insurance industries are some of the fastest and most aggressive to adopt AI, and they're adopting it to to basically bolster their profits and deny more people essential coverage.
00:38:54
Speaker 2: That's just why we need a single payer universal.
00:38:57
Speaker 5: He you're preach into the choir. You're preaching to the choir.
00:39:00
Speaker 2: But I just let's use all this, Let's use all this this momentum in this toward populism, right, and like do something good with it instead of just say don't build data centers like who care. It's not gonna do anything for anybody.
00:39:14
Speaker 1: There's a ludite rally coming up in Washington Square Park the weekend before fourth of July that I am planning to go to. Kyle. You can come to now you're in New York. We can do some some co reporting. But I'm very curious to see what it's like. But I mean, you talked about populism interestingly read I think you reported this week that that Simulton's on Capitol Hill and met with Bernie Sanders, and Bernie obviously wrote that op ed earlier this week for The New York Times about, you know, fifty percent of AI profits or money going to national Sovereign Wealth Fund. What do you I would be very interested to have been a fly on the wall in the Bernie sam meeting. Do you know what they talked about?
00:39:51
Speaker 2: I don't, Actually I don't have, like somebody who was in the rooms, It is the honest answer. But I think it was like the plan was, let's let Bernie talk and here what he has to say. I talked to some people you know, I don't know in the in the Let's let's just say like who sort of have some knowledge of the of the situation. And I don't think this taking fifty percent equity in these companies and putting it into a Cybern wealth fund is like an actual serious idea to anybody, But you know, like it's a it's an interesting conversation, and.
00:40:21
Speaker 1: I think it is an interesting conversation. I agree with you that it's probably not gonna happen. But what was the last concrete, sense making, concrete policy proposal that anyone normal can understand that you ever heard about how the state should interact with AI and how government should interact with trillion dollar tech companies like there has been no, No one has articulated a cogent point of view that normal people can understand and get behind.
00:40:45
Speaker 2: No in terms of actual regulation, like federal regulation. I think it's I think it's a lot of like pomp and circumstance.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: Tyler, what did what did Jasmin have to say about them? I mean, she taught extensive in the New York Times piece about policy. Was there anything in that conversation that sticks with you in terms of a green shoot or something to be inspired by or hopeful about.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: I'm just so not hopeful about the policy discussions taking place. Maybe I'm just blackpilled on all of it. I think people in DC are are just I'm just disgusted at how cynical they are. You know, they know a lot of times the policies that they're proposing are harmful, they don't care. I mean, I think the data center moratorium stuff is a good example of some of this stuff where it's just like completely counterproductive performative nonsense that actually gets people on board with with sort of unproductive ideas, Like I understand why a member of the public would sort of participate in that type of thing, But I feel like we should expect more from our legislative leaders. And the main way they're focused on regulating AI is honestly censorship of information. They want to make sure that it can't, you know, give you too much medical advice or something. They don't want that sort of democratize access to information. I think that's appalling. I just yeah, I don't see any I don't see any efforts to actually help the working class in this country.
00:42:05
Speaker 3: It's a crazy moment. I like, I agree to continue on that thread. Like I even if like some people are too cynical about AI, some people are too boostersh I would love to see a coherent political movement that's at least like talking about this as a principal idea. Like I feel like it's an ancillary thought to so many politicians and so many governments. And yeah, the tech leaders are like rushing headlong into it. It's what everyone in the world is talking about. Like, I mean, that's a neat glib but like, where is the Zoran Mamdani of just AI policy ideas?
00:42:43
Speaker 2: What would you what would he say? Kyle like, what what what? What is the AI policy? What would be your want?
00:42:49
Speaker 4: What would be my AI policy?
00:42:53
Speaker 3: I think the sovereign wealth fund idea is actually quite good, Like I think the public should be more invested in the success of the company.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: Is That's one of Trump's big ideas.
00:43:03
Speaker 3: I'm not against that at all. I think that's great. But even the anti the data center resistance, the idea that AI companies should have more coherent policy proposals or be forced into better public conversations, it feels like tech is out running everyone already, so to be like, let's hold them back last, I don't know.
00:43:23
Speaker 4: It feels a little bit I don't know, untracked or something.
00:43:28
Speaker 1: And the irony here is Jasmine Sun quoted Alex Kpp from Palanteer in her piece, basically saying, we have to be careful here because we're going to start losing money if the revolution happens. So maybe there is some hope after all. That's it for the week in Tech. We normally do the best week and the worst week in tech, but frankly, the worst is always much more entertaining. So this is from this episode on, We're only going to do the worst Week in Tech. My worst week in Tech goes to a number of Bay Area Airbnb hosts who are campaigning their properties are being trashed. It turns out that their homes are being rented by people working for robotics startup who are testing in domestic robots. So one Airbnb host is actually suing one of these robotics companies.
00:44:17
Speaker 3: I don't think we talked about this last time, but the whole Johnny Ive Ferrari thing.
00:44:23
Speaker 1: I saw something about electric Ferrari, but that was as far as I got.
00:44:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he designed the new Ferrari, and you know, it had this beautiful roll out with all these videos and renderings and animations and stuff, and everyone just hates the car, like this looks like a cheap vault or something. It looks like the Apple Mouse. It's kind of just an uninspiring look at the future of electric cars.
00:44:48
Speaker 1: And Johnny I was supposed to be designing the game changing open AI physical physical device, so this is more develop.
00:44:54
Speaker 4: The Yeah, it was a bit sad.
00:44:57
Speaker 5: I am going to say. The worst we can tech goes to I don't, I don't. I don't know if you can say, like just maybe the California voters like I live in LA and I think reads in California too, and we had elections this week, and I've been reporting a lot on just the insane levels of undisclosed influence campaigns from Spencer Prap, from Tom Steyer, from everyone seems to just like the wheels are off and they're willing to do the most unethical kind of digital marketing schemes, and I think all of us are are worse off for it.
00:45:29
Speaker 2: I think I think Meta had a tough I think there was this Wall Street Journal article where they were sort of delayed on their on their API launch for their models. I think that company is just sort of flailing, like we want to do AI, we don't really know why or how or how it's gonna make money, and I think it's going to be a tough road for them.
00:45:46
Speaker 1: I have to say I second this reep because I was watching the U, the Nicks and the Spurs last night and there was a commercial for Meta threads in between. I think it's must be a very expensive spot, something which basically doesn't exist anymore. So, but that's it for the Weekend Tech. Thank you all so much for joining us today.
00:46:05
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us.
00:46:06
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
00:46:07
Speaker 4: This is a fine one. Thank you.
00:46:12
Speaker 1: For tech stuff. I'm as Valoshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. Executive produced by me Julian Nutter and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novel for iHeart podcasts Our Engineer today was Bahid Fraser. Jack Insley mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote out theme song. A special thank you to Taylor Lorenz, Kyle Chaker, and Rie Albergotti. Please check out all the work they put into the world. We're lucky to call them friends at the Pod
Speaker 1: I want to start today with the short clip.
00:00:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to be there for the State of the Union.
00:00:16
Speaker 3: In the gallery, guys, just chill, trolls chill, Okay, okay.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: Ten points for anyone who knows who's talking and why we're playing this slip today.
00:00:25
Speaker 2: I'm about to cheat and google Gemini.
00:00:28
Speaker 4: I believe it's.
00:00:31
Speaker 1: No Are you kidding me?
00:00:38
Speaker 2: I thought it's George Santos.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: Oh, I know who that is. This is the George Santos story. He was corrupting the Calshi market allegedly by saying that he would be at the State of the Union, not showing up, and allegedly winning bets by betting on this proprietory information. Welcome to tech Stuff. I'mos Voloscian, and this is the Weekend Tech where I'm joined by three of the world's most plugged in reporters to break down what's really happening in tech right now. Today. We're joined by Taylor Lorenz of User mag, Kyle Chaker, who writes the Infinite Scroll column for The New Yorker, and Rea Abrigotti, tech editor at Semaphore. Welcome all. There was a dramatic scene at Cape Canaveral Last week, a Blue Origin rocket was doing a quote unquote hot fire test, which is when rocket's engines are ignited and fired at full power while it remains bolted to the launch plaid. This led to a gigantic, apocalyptic mushroom cloud shaped fireball that filled the entire sky and a statement from Blue Origin that read, we experienced an anomaly during today's hot fire test. Read what's the backstory here? Look?
00:01:52
Speaker 2: I think this is just this is just how it works. Right when you build these, you know, you're building a rocket company, stuff blows up. And I mean this is like how SpaceX got here. They you know, blew up countless rockets and eventually you get there. I think it's a it's maybe a reminder that you know, SpaceX is on has been on this road a lot longer and is way ahead of everyone else in the field. But you know, I think this, Look, this is great. Like I think it's great that we have competition, and I think Blue Origin just needs to get there. There's no there's no like straight line right there. You know, in this in this business, stuff has to blow up.
00:02:28
Speaker 1: But this was this is an important part of NASA's Return to the Moon project. Project Optomists, is this one giant step backward for humanity or always still confident that the Optomist program is is on trek.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: No, I thought, Look, I think it's I wouldn't. I wouldn't view any anything as like a step back. Right, if it's a test, nobody died, you know, they learned. They're always going to learn something from this, right, That's that's what you do. You learn and then you move on. I just don't. I think that it's funny like when you when the media sees like some blow up an apocalyptic mushroom cloud and a rocket test, it's like the immediate thing is like, oh, failure, Like look at these companies, they're failing. I mean that's not That's not how anybody in this business looks at it, right, It's like you have to you have to take these things as like okay, great, like what can we learn from it? So even if it's like a bad one where they didn't expect it to happen or whatever, like it's always like, you know, one step back, two step steps forward like in this in this business, I think, I mean, I don't know, does anyone disagree with me on that? I feel like.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: That mushroom clouds have gotten bad press over the years.
00:03:33
Speaker 3: How many rocket great explosions Elon Musk blow up like SpaceX must have like dozens of these so far.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember reading Ashley Vance's book like back back in the day about you know Elon and and you know just how many times they blew up rockets, and it's like it's it's an iterative approach to I mean, that's how you bring the costs down. That's how you get to like you actually advance the field right and like land rockets on path in the middle of the ocean. I mean, it's like incredible stuff, but you're not gonna there's a bit of trial and error. Like there's no way to there just isn't any way to like simulate the physics in a computer and then just build it and have it work out perfectly. It's like you have to you have to go out there and blow stuff up. And has anybody actually been to one of these tests or like a rocket launcher anything.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: No, but it looks kind of in my childhood, I thought it.
00:04:27
Speaker 5: Looked kind of like I saw the video or TikTok of some guys like out fishing or whatever who saw the blast and thinking it was like a nuclear bomb or something like. I almost think it could be as cool to witness the explosion as it would, you know, an actual successful rocket launch.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of cool.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: And yeah, I went out to I went out to one of these tests once for a story I did at Semaphore. It was just a test of like one engine that's like smaller than you know, however many engines they have, but it's like so many now, and it was just that, you know, they were doing like a like literally just firing up the engine for like four minutes or something like that to see if it worked. And just like the power of that thing was I mean, I was like, I mean hundreds of yards away like watching this thing, and I could feel it through my whole body. It was just like the power of it was incredible. And it's like that's just one little engine. So I don't know, I think it's like people don't really have enough of an appreciation for what these for the just like the engineering of this of this thing.
00:05:30
Speaker 1: Taylor, you covered a new book called Muscuism this week on your podcast Power User, and the cover of this book Muscuism features the trail of a rocket against a deep blue sky. What did you learn from your conversation about Muscism about space and ambitions to go to space amongst elm Jeff Bezos.
00:05:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think. I mean that book really talks about sort of Elon Musk's political ideology and compares it kind of to Henry Ford. I actually think this other new book out by Adam Becker, who's a phenomenal science journalist. He actually studied physics himself, is really good. It's called More Everything, Forever, and there's this great chapter at the end of the book that basically just decimates, you know, Elon Musk's theories on Mars and explains why we absolutely will never live on Mars and why this is just like a sort of deluded fantasy. And I thought it was really illuminating. That's not to say that these space projects aren't potentially worth it. I mean, I think they could be valuable. You know, we could we I think reusable rockets would be obviously very valuable. Maybe we'll put the data centers in space. But I think that a lot of people, including Elon Musk, also just use these sort of grand plants and Bezos use these grand plans for going to space and conquering space to mythologize themselves and raise lots of money and you know, sort of don't build. They're ultimately their visions will not be realized.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: I mean, you're I think one part of your point though, needs like a little clarification, which is like SpaceX, he basically put all of his elon, put all of his own money into the company, right, It wasn't like, you know, oh, I'm just I'm just gambling other people's money here.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: I think that's one thing. I think it's got to go public.
00:07:15
Speaker 5: And aren't we changing the rules for it to kind of, you know, be added to index funds and things like?
00:07:21
Speaker 2: I mean, I I don't, It's not this is all I'm saying about the founding of the company.
00:07:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, the founding of the company. He put his money towards it, but it's been he's he's not running it as a charity. Like, yes, he put his own, you know, money towards it, for sure originally, but now we're all stuck with it, you know, and I think we're all stuck subsidizing parts of it potentially.
00:07:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it just changes the mythologizing point slightly, which is like it's it's like, yeah, they're maybe they're mythologizing it. It's like, I mean, how many people would would like take all of their own money essentially and like put it into a space company back when there were no space like private the private space soon that she didn't even really exist, and like, I mean, right, go up against all the primes.
00:08:06
Speaker 5: But if you want to talk about mythologizing, right, like that space stuff was what a lot of people used in the twenty tens to say, like look at this forward thinking futurist billionaire. I'm not saying that all of Space, by the way, was motivated by that, but I think he's leveraged the company throughout the years to kind of push this idea of himself, you know, whether intentionally or not.
00:08:27
Speaker 3: And now like the whole company is this giant conglomerate of AI and space Internet and like that, I mean I see it financially, Like sure, it makes it, hypes it up, it makes it more appealing to some people, but it isn't that just completely incoherent? I don't know, read you have like a deeper explanation of this huge pole.
00:08:47
Speaker 2: I think it's no. I think it's coherent. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy.
00:08:53
Speaker 4: Will be in space.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: Well, I wrote I wrote about this like a long time ago, and I think like they're even board members of Tesla that disagreed with me at the time, but like that all these elon companies are gonna come together. This was before and this was before even Grock was like a thing, and I was like, this totally makes sense. Like I think there's there's tons of synergies because ultimately, like Tesla's a robotics company, You're gonna we're gonna need robots in space. Like this is not We're not going to have like humans up there like servicing you know, servicing whatever the data centers, the moon bases. I mean, but it's like how could you not I don't know, Like there's part of me is like how can you cover tech and not be like, oh, this is cool. I mean, financially it doesn't make sense, like I think.
00:09:40
Speaker 4: Is the like deluted thing to me.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: Financially, you'd be crazy to put any money into into into into this company, but but people will because there's we'll have to because of the index funds is tight of points out we're gonna talk about that next.
00:09:56
Speaker 1: That's too tempting to Kyle. I did an AI assisted deep dive and found that you wrote a prescient column back in twenty fourteen with the headline Musk on Mars, Silicon Valley disrupts the Universe. I thought it might be AAI hallucination, but I clicked the link and know the piece was really there on the Baffler you did write it. Oh my god, do you remember writing that piece?
00:10:20
Speaker 3: Absolutely not, But you know that was the twenty fourteen was a crazy time on the Internet where everyone just posted stuff.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: But you've I believe it you've been intrigued by this story for more than ten years.
00:10:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've always been interested in it, I guess. And I don't know Mars. I think to Read's point, like, at least the space travel and crazy ideas are like leading somewhere different in a way that I don't always see the like generative AI boom leading somewhere different. Right, I don't see the future that that stuff suggests. I do see the future of we should be on Mars, there should be functioning colonies on the moon, whatever.
00:11:05
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: I've in my mind, that has always been a semi inevitable thing, and like technology will help us get there.
00:11:13
Speaker 2: It's a bit more tangible. I would just say this. I think people now are like, what is the point? Like this is an insane company, Like who this is totally gonna lose money. It's just about Elon's ego. But I bet you, like a couple of years from now, there's going to be just like a whole, a whole like wave of tech coverage where it's like people worrying that, oh, this SpaceX Tesla conglomerate is too powerful, and it's going to be like the Wayland.
00:11:38
Speaker 1: You've got corporation.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: An alien you know, it's just like, oh, we need to like rain these companies in which like two years ago we were saying or like nothing and won't matter, and you know, I guarantee that will happen.
00:11:52
Speaker 4: Does so are the humanoid robots the new thing?
00:11:55
Speaker 3: Like I feel like we've moved from generative AI and data centers to base travel and now everyone's talking about the humanoid robots also, And I'm just like, can't we slow down a little bit, Like can't we spend one year on the space travel and then.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Robots don't slow down. We've been too slow.
00:12:12
Speaker 2: We just wasted like two decades on stupid social media. Come on, no offense, Taylor.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: Robots the whole time.
00:12:19
Speaker 2: Who cares about Facebook? And like who cares about Facebook? And TikTok? Like I was the one, like can technology coverage actually cover technology? Like I think we're like we're due for some actual technology and like I don't want to see things slow down.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: That's insane. I'm read.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: I mean, humanoid robots are are tough, and I think they're farther away than people think. But but like I mean, there are companies right now that are that are testing robots. You know those those planes where you get like like some zero G time where they drop these companies taking robots up there, like like nerdy software engineers taking robots up in these planes and like doing tests on robots in zero G while they throw up into bags because they're not used to.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: And like, I mean that is just cool. Come on, Like I agree, it's good to have some hob tech on tech stuff. We're gonna go to a quick break, but read before we do that. Is there a race between SpaceX and Blue Origin? Does this explosion mean that Blue Origin have fallen further behind. Or is this is this a two Is this a two horse race or one horse race with a with a pony countering countering behind?
00:13:28
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a I think it's a sort of a two horse race right now, Like there's there's like them, and then there's basically like Russia and China. Right But I think that this is also going to be and I'm sort of I'm sort of repeating like other people have made this argument, but like when SpaceX goes public, there's gonna be a huge, a huge explosion in like new space startups, and so I think we'll see that this whole ecosystem get more competitive but also sort of look more like a platform where you'll see more companies building on top of these launch systems with you know, satellites and other you know, the robots, the the space stations, the infrastructure for data centers and space like that's that's just going to be a huge, a huge industry, a big, big new ecosystem.
00:14:16
Speaker 3: I need that take from read space is the new platform.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: That's not my take, Like I I'm not taking credit for it, but I do believe I do agree. No, I need, I need your piece on it. I need Yeah, I will, I will, I will write that. Maybe I'll write for tomorrow for the newsletter tomorrow.
00:14:35
Speaker 5: Coming up with ideas on the pot.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: As you may have heard, SpaceX is preparing for an I p O as anthropic and open AI after the break the new California gold Rush, stay with us. When you're traveling abroad, Wi Fi is always an issue. Maybe you can't find it, or maybe you can, but the Wi Fi network that's available looks a little bit sketchy and makes you think it might not be safe to connect to. I've certainly had that feeling, and it's why having a local SIM card on your phone can make all the difference. But you don't have to literally buy one. That's why Sale comes in an e SIM service that is as simple as downloading an app, and that gives you instant Internet access wherever you're traveling. That is safe and secure Internet with built in cybersecurity features like web protection and ad blockers, and no need for local Wi Fi. All you have to do is download this salely app on your mobile device and choose the plan that works best for you. Once you install the AESIM, Sale will be instantly activated, so you can start your trip off right. Download Salely in your app store and use our code tech Stuff at checkout to get an exclusive fifteen percent off your first purchase. See detailed in the podcast episode description books Welcome back, Kyle. Not too long ago you wrote a piece about what you describe as a booming shadow market of sketchy AI investments. What did you find out? What is the shadow market and what are the sketchy investments?
00:16:19
Speaker 3: A headline that we workshopped for a long time. You're talking about media matters, the booming and the sketchiness.
00:16:28
Speaker 4: So I mean, basically, what.
00:16:30
Speaker 3: I noticed was a lot of chatter on x as one does about people buying and selling equity in Open AI and Anthropic, And this was just as Anthropic was doing this like even more exponential growth over the past few months, huge valuation tripled, and suddenly everyone is just trying to grab a piece of this rocket, as it were, and get any bit of equity anyway.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Pre IPO equity, obviously.
00:16:57
Speaker 4: Pre IPO equity.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: So retail investors, the normal people cannot get access to this stuff. Yet the only way to get it is to grab a piece of you know, some investment firms piece that they got from an early employee or that they invested themselves in an early round. So I reported out this this shadow market that's going on in bits of equity that are packaged with other bits of equity that are packaged again, that are packaged again, and it's this kind of like this one guy described it to me as like your local butcher is being offered five thousand dollars in anthropic equity, like in this sketchy paper bag. I found it really fascinating. I mean, this kind of venture capital machinations are super opaque and not comprehensible to normal people in my opinion, and yet there's this huge race behind the scenes to just get in any way you can before the IPOs you know, theoretically inevitably boom.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: More with the people buying secondaries, are they being marketed like by shady middlemen or like are there people who want to just drink from the fire hose and a hunting down the secondaries wherever they can? Like, what's the how does this market work?
00:18:11
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:18:11
Speaker 3: It feels like the wild West, or like you know, you're out on safari looking for open AI equity.
00:18:17
Speaker 4: So as I talked to vcs.
00:18:19
Speaker 3: There's a range of sketchiness basically, like, you know, there's there's the pretty legit deals where a VC firm already has you know, hookup for one hundred million dollars of anthropic equity or something, and they'll go to their you know, investors or their partners and say, hey, do you want to put five million dollars into our purchase of this anthropic equity? Sure, that makes sense. But then if that person who put in the five million dollar check then breaks up there five million dollars into little packages of you know, one hundred k or something and then shops that to more people down the chain. I think as the numbers get smaller and the audience gets wider, the whole thing gets sketchier. This happened with Facebook, where you know, too many people own secondary shares and it actually forced them to go public because of SEC rules. So the SEC changed the law so that more.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: People can own secondaries, and that that helped like create this huge secondary share market in the first place.
00:19:22
Speaker 1: Taylor from a from a kind of culture point of view, like when was the last time you saw sort of IPOs become the talk of the town and like everybody, everybody on the internet like buzzing about corporate fundraising.
00:19:37
Speaker 5: It's been a very very long time. I mean, I think maybe the dot com boom. I wasn't really around for that as a coherent person. I was a kid, But from what I understand, it was pretty frothy. I don't think we saw this sort of similar fervor around social media because I think it was just still so and it was still so much smaller, and there wasn't a clear upside. I think like the massive businesses that the social media companies and a lot of the companies that the twenty tens built has created this like excitement around IPOs maybe and kind of like hype around it because we've seen what the previous iterations of San Francisco wealth can can build and buy.
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, everybody wanted to wait as long as possible to ipo. Right. That was that was sort of the trend of the last I don't know decade or so. Right, it was like the backlash to the to the dot com bubble days when like companies were pre revenue and iPod and then it just causes huge crash and like you know, open Aye has been around for a while, but for all intents and purposes, Like you know, I mean chat GPT is four years old, Like this is actually incredibly fast to go to go public. And I think that's that's what's so surprising about that SpaceX is obviously you know, a little older, but very different, different business. I'm just excited to see these numbers. Like I was sort of sad that anthropic FIU conf eodentially and like we can't look at their s one. But it's like so interesting to see. Like we've been hearing all these revenue leaks, which we all know are bs, and like, let's see what the real Let's see where the real numbers are.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: You know, it.
00:21:12
Speaker 3: Feels so huge that, like the IPO feels inevitable, and I think the huge numbers are making more people so thirsty to get into it. Like and when I was conceptualizing the story, like to me, the real comparison was cryptocurrency, Like as people started to see the graphs go way up, they just say, Okay, how can I get in? Like what's what's the hack here? How can I get into the market? And my whole things will go up too, Not that it's inevitable but that kind of like hype and gambling we experienced with ethereum and bookcoin and all the the doge and other shit coins.
00:21:49
Speaker 1: Let's say I think, I think the difference with cryptocurrency is no one had to buy cryptocurrency, right, and this is this is I think what you were pointing towards Taylor before the break, right, Like these SpaceX will be in the index funds and basically you can't opt out. Most American retirement accounts are linked heavaged the index funds. SpaceX will play a huge role. Maybe twenty thirty percent of Americans believe that SpaceX, one of them is read, may become the the the you know, the defining conglomerate of the future. But probably sixty seventy percent are very suspicious and don't and like what do they do?
00:22:25
Speaker 2: There's got to be some index funds where that don't have SpaceX come on, Like, you could find some index fund where you invest.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: So Matt matt Levine and Bloomberg was talking about a non AI ETF that somebody should start.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: I'm sure you could just invest in like boring old companies doing boring stuff with no growth Like that's I'm sure that's an option after that.
00:22:44
Speaker 5: I like, I it's so crazy because I do agree with Reid, like I like, like emotionally like I am such a like I'm like, let's go, you know, like let's build the new technology, you know what I mean. I'm not like one of those people that's gonna call up my retirement and be like I don't want you know, Eli, I'm sure that are you know, the ETFs have like horrible natural gas and oil companies and a lot of evil companies. I think it's just the volatility here that concerns people, and I think that, you know, I'm excited to kind of see how the business runs. As Kyle mentioned earlier, it's just this sort of like messy conglomerate of a lot of things. And not that I don't think Elon can pull it off, but I do kind of worry about, you know, the bubble of sort of all of this AI stuff. I will say, somebody was making the point recently that I thought was interesting, which is actually like these data center backlashes and sort of this protest movement, the sort of anti AI movement, which can be very annoying online sometimes, but they're actually kind of like helping to hedge against this bubble and helping to ensure that like it doesn't get too crazy. And I guess so, I guess they're playing a role in that. And it's good to have skeptics, you know, we don't want to go totally, you know, just jump in the water head first, Like it's good to kind of hear the arguments against these companies and make the people that are running our index funds, you know, think critically about this stuff.
00:24:06
Speaker 3: And this is all happening at the same time, like like this this race to IPO for these massive companies and conglomerate's like is there enough for everything to happen right now? Like I know they need tons of resources, there's huge demands for AI. We're building all this infrastructure. Like I'm not a finance expert. Can the stock markets like handle like three trillion dollars?
00:24:31
Speaker 2: Is there enough money?
00:24:32
Speaker 4: Is there enough money? Literally?
00:24:34
Speaker 3: Is there enough money in existence to do all this stuff? I can understand.
00:24:40
Speaker 5: It's also just like I mean, I think one of you guys mentioned this before, but it's also a matter of like how profitable are these companies really going to be? And when you know, right now, I think we're getting like a you know, thirteen dollars worth of tokens for a dollar or something. You know, like when those costs start ratcheting up, how much of those costs are companies going to be willing to absorb? But how are consumers going to you know, sort of integrate this technology into their into their lives long term, and how does that affect sort of the business models of these companies.
00:25:09
Speaker 3: Adding on to tailor that, there is that sense of a pullback from tech companies, like we're spending too much on tokens, We're not getting enough out of our AI stuff.
00:25:19
Speaker 4: I don't know if you do you buy that.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: I think that backlat the spending too much on tokens is more coming from traditional industry. I think that's what I see. I mean, I think the tech companies are like, yeah, give us the best tote, like we want the best models, Like who cares if we're spending like six figures per engineer, Like we have to move fast. But companies that aren't moving fast and aren't really doing innovative stuff, they don't need the best stuff, they don't really need AI, like they can just coast and eventually be disrupted. And fizzle out, in my opinion, but they can just coast. And I think, I mean, I have no no doubt that these companies will be hugely profitable, because it's like if you use this stuff, if you're if you're actually like me, like trying to like try this stuff out, like you just like you cannot get enough of the tokens you've written read.
00:26:06
Speaker 1: Buying shares and SpaceX is like a call option on several enormous futures at once. You're betting that the world with robots and rockets and AI is going to fundamentally change the economy. Today's financials don't really even matter. I'm assuming that that's a call option you're all in to buy every day of the week.
00:26:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to go buy like individual stocks. I think that, you know, that's unethical for someone who covers this, but like no, I mean that's and I'm not giving stock advisory. I do not, Like I yes, I worked at the Wall Street Journal, but I covered sports, you know, and white collar crime. But you know, like it's it's just like, yeah, I mean you can't like people said Google was you know, like a BS business model when they went public rights. This is what always happens. But it's like even more than the Internet. This is technology that people like really need and use today. It's not like novelty like this is like and people are actually paying for it, unlike the early Internet. So like the Facebook era, like compute costs always come down. Like someone said to me, I quoted them the other day, like or some of my iconic capital was like it was like capitalism finds a way. And it's like to me that was just like, look like people figure this stuff out. Like I don't really know how it's gonna happen, but like it gets figured out, like compute costs will come down, Like it's not you know, I don't.
00:27:30
Speaker 5: Think we have real capitalism though.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: That's the problem.
00:27:33
Speaker 5: Like I talk to a lot of libertarians because they're very aligned with me on a lot of sort of tech policy, and you know, they love to be like the market to the market will fit, you know, And I think like, especially under the Trump administration, I think we have a lot of like sort of factors warping the market in weird ways, you know, inflating I don't know, I wouldn't say inflating the.
00:27:53
Speaker 1: Value of these companies.
00:27:54
Speaker 5: But I just I think that we have a government that is not exactly putting all these companies on fair footing or asking for maybe the level of transparency that we as consumers deserve, and that that worries me.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: I think nobody has a real capitalism. Real capitalism, Like what even is that?
00:28:10
Speaker 4: Right?
00:28:11
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:28:11
Speaker 5: Like you know, but I'm just saying, like, I don't know that. I that a lot of people trust the market or trust the economy right now, and I don't think the economy is working for a lot of working people either.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: They don't need to trust it, they just have to have faith.
00:28:30
Speaker 1: Kyle use the word thirstiness, which one of my favorite words. I saw a post on X the other day about somebody selling their house in San Francisco. It's on the market for two point nine million dollars and they said anstropic and opening my stock will be considered as payments. What are the weirdest stories you've came across? And you're reporting of the lengths people will go to get access here?
00:28:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think the houses. I saw another listing that was like vineyard homeless vineyard for sale and Nappa will pick anthropic stock for it, and I just I mean the speaking of capitalism, Like some of the tech people and the investors even who I talk to for this, were like, maybe these are too high valuations, Like maybe capitalism has has driven this valuation up so high that there's not going to be enough left to climb. And maybe we're on the precipice of some generational change and there's much higher to go like Google uns did. But when when you're selling your house for anthropic equity, I think we're in a frothy moment.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Read. Are you seeing people lose them absolutely lose their mind around you where you live in northern California? Like are people going just crazy to get access to these stocks? One of the things you I mean, I know it's not exactly what you right about. What are you seeing in your personal life?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Oh? People, for sure, But it's not just California, Like, it's people all over the country. Like I actually talk to like a liquor store owner in Minnesota, like not too long ago, who was like, you know, investing in VC funds. Like it's you know, I think it's just every I think it's ever everyone because everybody kind of knows, like the the s and P is like all the gains come from like these top couple of companies in the tech industry, and they're like, well, I want to invest in that, and I can't, Like how do I get into that? And I think it's like, like we were saying earlier, you know, it's sort of if you if you want to talk about like trusting the system and like fair capitalism, it's like, you do want people to be invested in this, in this stuff.
00:30:33
Speaker 3: This was the Bernie Sanders plan to semi nationalize the AI companies.
00:30:37
Speaker 6: I'm like, Yeahsting, Well, when we come back, I talk about exactly that, and we're going to unpack a Silicon Valley phrase which is kind of the flip side of everything we've been talking about, which is quote the permanent under class.
00:30:53
Speaker 1: Stay with us, Welcome back, Taylor. You recently spoke to the rising Star substacker freelance journalist Jasmine's son, who wrote a piece of The New York Times that did the rounds all about the quote permanent underclass. And I want you to explain that concept to us, But first I want to play a clip from your interview with Jasmine.
00:31:22
Speaker 7: And so the idea is that when AI gets really really good, everyone will get frozen in their current class positions. If you're a worker now, you'll never be able to earn money again, because AI can do your job. If you're a rich person now, you can spend that money to employ or rent infinite amounts of robot and machine labor to get even richer and keep building your wealth. And so it's this kind of slightly apocalyptic, slightly hyperbolic fear that we are all not just like a few people here and there, not just temporary underclasses, but this underclass could grow to encompass basically every current worker in American society as soon as AI gets good enough to do all of our jobs.
00:32:00
Speaker 5: I think she just explained it really well. She tweeted it out.
00:32:06
Speaker 2: Hasn't that always been true? Like that's always been true throughout history?
00:32:09
Speaker 1: Right?
00:32:09
Speaker 5: Well, so, yeah, Jasmine actually talks about the origins of this idea of the permanent underclass, and it's not new. I mean, it actually goes back to you know, mid last century, when we just saw rising automation in factories, in daily life, et cetera. I think this idea of the permanent underclass is sort of especially salient now because you have a lot of tech executives echoing this rhetoric. So it's not just coming from average working people that are nervous. It's also the CEOs themselves that are saying, you know, hey, we could eliminate all white collar work, that famous Dario quote, you know, vibe whatever, whatever. So I think it's just it's it's getting like these fears are getting legitimized, you know, in these people's eyes. And and AI is rapidly able. You know, AI is amazing new technology that I would argue allows us to automate a lot more than we'd previously potentially could.
00:32:57
Speaker 4: Like class mobility is down.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: There was much more class mobility earlier in the twentieth century in America and in other countries like that's that's purely a fact. So I think that fear is that it's closing off in a more permanent way.
00:33:12
Speaker 2: I mean, those are those are those are probably more due to policy decisions than some new technology being invented.
00:33:19
Speaker 5: I would say, yeah, but it's but I think this new technology has become the symbol of all of this. And when you see I mean, now we're talking about these IPOs, right, you see these mega rich, you know, tech billionaires. You see how hard it is for working people. And I think this is again the lack of class mobility. The wealth is pared in this country. It is driving a lot of the animosity towards this new technology.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: Well, I agree that it's become the symbol. I just think we probably should focus on the actual causes and not the symbols of it. I mean, like to me, I don't know, you have in the Bay Area, like people who are making twenty million dollars a year going out and overbidding on houses right now because they're so worried about the billionaires who you know, who are about to cash out when the company goes I PO. And then you have me who's like way below that, Like I am the I'm the permanent underclass of Silicon Valley, and like life is pretty good in the permanent.
00:34:15
Speaker 3: Volunteering for the permanent Underread you are not part of the permanent underclass.
00:34:19
Speaker 5: Okay, let's be real, you are.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: Not, according to this analysis. I am and I and my point is.
00:34:23
Speaker 2: Like being part of the permanent underclass in a society where like the economy is growing really fast and we're inventing new technology and there's tons of new opportunity to start businesses. Like I think that's actually not a bad life.
00:34:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker 3: The medicis were like doing great, and the surfs are like I love the new palace in the middle of Florence, and I enjoy farming potatoes also is great, Like I'm not potatoes. Sorry, Like Chickory in their time, maybe they were living pretty well.
00:34:51
Speaker 2: You know. I think it's all it's all about expectations versus reality.
00:34:55
Speaker 5: I used to work at a call center, and in some of the people that I worked with at that call center have stayed in that profession and still work. You know, some of them even work in things like door to door sales or you know, they're doing this type of work that is ripe for automation. Already, by the way, the call center landscape and the customer service landscape has been transformed by AI, right, there's just so much more. In some cases, they're building systems for automated scripts that people are reading in real time to help train the AI. That's they're reading the AI scripts. Like it's all this really sort of I don't know, dystopian tech. I just think when we talk about the permanent underclass. We need to be clear who's actually at risk and who feels most at risk. And I think a lot of people who feel most get risk are not ultimately at risk.
00:35:40
Speaker 1: You know.
00:35:40
Speaker 5: These are entrepreneurial people, these are middle class people. These are incredible journalists that will always have a job in a career because they're a brilliant knowledge worker at the top of their game. I just think, like, I think a lot of people are a lot more insulated from these effects than they might feel, and they're getting very hyped up. Part of the the fact that they're even planning or aware of the concept of you know, this technological change and planning for it, I think is actually proof that they probably will not be part of the permanent underclass. But it's causing a lot of anxiety across you know, wide ranges of workers.
00:36:13
Speaker 1: I think the fomo point is real. Here. We're talking about trying to swap your house for pre ipoanthropic stock, right, Like, the discourse about the permanent underclass is being generated by people who live in Silicon Valley and are seeing people around them slap their houses for pre ipoanthropic secondaries. Right, So there's the kind.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: Of but as it's also being generated by us, like in the media, Like we're writing these stories that get people all like into up in a fervor and worried about symbols and AI and all this stuff, and like we should be writing about the actual things that we could be doing to help improve people's lives.
00:36:45
Speaker 3: Like the executives are saying of themselves like that Open AI Society plan was like we need UBI because everyone's going to be outmoded like that speech.
00:36:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the pr for sort of reverse ecology pr that these companies do to it as journalists buy into.
00:37:04
Speaker 5: It, that matters. And let me tell you, most people don't get their news from journalists. They get it from influencers who just you know, repeat these points that boost them. Whatever the company is messaging is you know that that push the most hyperbolic kind of terrifying narratives.
00:37:18
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean we have to be in line with the influencers. We can, we can be a voice of reason.
00:37:22
Speaker 5: I think we are a voice of reason on this podcast, certainly.
00:37:25
Speaker 2: But I think it's but I think it's me in the collective. We sense I'm not calling you out specifically, No.
00:37:32
Speaker 1: No, no, I get it.
00:37:33
Speaker 2: I get it.
00:37:33
Speaker 1: I'm just joking.
00:37:34
Speaker 5: I think I think it's hard to add skepticism and it's hard to have these conversations because we really just again it goes back to this thing of like we don't know, we don't know what the effects will be. These new technology is evolving every day. Companies evolve, strategies evolve money. I just I think there are so many unknowns it's really hard to kind of predict them.
00:37:53
Speaker 2: I mean, this would be a great time to have a big national conversation about, you know, universal health care for everyone never had, Like why isn't no one talking about that? Like, you know what.
00:38:06
Speaker 4: People are definitely talking about.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: It, But I don't hear these ai CEOs saying, Look, we're like, now we're going to have these superintelligence, like we should just have like universal health care now, like it should just be a single payer system, Like no one. I don't hear them saying that. They're like, we have to have these weird government regulations that probably don't do anything, but we'll stop like the terminator from happening.
00:38:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, but guess what. The healthcare lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. I shouldn't say healthcare. They don't provide healthcare. Their whole business model is denying people healthcare, and they are going all in on AI. There's been a lot of great pro public are reporting on how the insurance industries are some of the fastest and most aggressive to adopt AI, and they're adopting it to to basically bolster their profits and deny more people essential coverage.
00:38:54
Speaker 2: That's just why we need a single payer universal.
00:38:57
Speaker 5: He you're preach into the choir. You're preaching to the choir.
00:39:00
Speaker 2: But I just let's use all this, Let's use all this this momentum in this toward populism, right, and like do something good with it instead of just say don't build data centers like who care. It's not gonna do anything for anybody.
00:39:14
Speaker 1: There's a ludite rally coming up in Washington Square Park the weekend before fourth of July that I am planning to go to. Kyle. You can come to now you're in New York. We can do some some co reporting. But I'm very curious to see what it's like. But I mean, you talked about populism interestingly read I think you reported this week that that Simulton's on Capitol Hill and met with Bernie Sanders, and Bernie obviously wrote that op ed earlier this week for The New York Times about, you know, fifty percent of AI profits or money going to national Sovereign Wealth Fund. What do you I would be very interested to have been a fly on the wall in the Bernie sam meeting. Do you know what they talked about?
00:39:51
Speaker 2: I don't, Actually I don't have, like somebody who was in the rooms, It is the honest answer. But I think it was like the plan was, let's let Bernie talk and here what he has to say. I talked to some people you know, I don't know in the in the Let's let's just say like who sort of have some knowledge of the of the situation. And I don't think this taking fifty percent equity in these companies and putting it into a Cybern wealth fund is like an actual serious idea to anybody, But you know, like it's a it's an interesting conversation, and.
00:40:21
Speaker 1: I think it is an interesting conversation. I agree with you that it's probably not gonna happen. But what was the last concrete, sense making, concrete policy proposal that anyone normal can understand that you ever heard about how the state should interact with AI and how government should interact with trillion dollar tech companies like there has been no, No one has articulated a cogent point of view that normal people can understand and get behind.
00:40:45
Speaker 2: No in terms of actual regulation, like federal regulation. I think it's I think it's a lot of like pomp and circumstance.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: Tyler, what did what did Jasmin have to say about them? I mean, she taught extensive in the New York Times piece about policy. Was there anything in that conversation that sticks with you in terms of a green shoot or something to be inspired by or hopeful about.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: I'm just so not hopeful about the policy discussions taking place. Maybe I'm just blackpilled on all of it. I think people in DC are are just I'm just disgusted at how cynical they are. You know, they know a lot of times the policies that they're proposing are harmful, they don't care. I mean, I think the data center moratorium stuff is a good example of some of this stuff where it's just like completely counterproductive performative nonsense that actually gets people on board with with sort of unproductive ideas, Like I understand why a member of the public would sort of participate in that type of thing, But I feel like we should expect more from our legislative leaders. And the main way they're focused on regulating AI is honestly censorship of information. They want to make sure that it can't, you know, give you too much medical advice or something. They don't want that sort of democratize access to information. I think that's appalling. I just yeah, I don't see any I don't see any efforts to actually help the working class in this country.
00:42:05
Speaker 3: It's a crazy moment. I like, I agree to continue on that thread. Like I even if like some people are too cynical about AI, some people are too boostersh I would love to see a coherent political movement that's at least like talking about this as a principal idea. Like I feel like it's an ancillary thought to so many politicians and so many governments. And yeah, the tech leaders are like rushing headlong into it. It's what everyone in the world is talking about. Like, I mean, that's a neat glib but like, where is the Zoran Mamdani of just AI policy ideas?
00:42:43
Speaker 2: What would you what would he say? Kyle like, what what what? What is the AI policy? What would be your want?
00:42:49
Speaker 4: What would be my AI policy?
00:42:53
Speaker 3: I think the sovereign wealth fund idea is actually quite good, Like I think the public should be more invested in the success of the company.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: Is That's one of Trump's big ideas.
00:43:03
Speaker 3: I'm not against that at all. I think that's great. But even the anti the data center resistance, the idea that AI companies should have more coherent policy proposals or be forced into better public conversations, it feels like tech is out running everyone already, so to be like, let's hold them back last, I don't know.
00:43:23
Speaker 4: It feels a little bit I don't know, untracked or something.
00:43:28
Speaker 1: And the irony here is Jasmine Sun quoted Alex Kpp from Palanteer in her piece, basically saying, we have to be careful here because we're going to start losing money if the revolution happens. So maybe there is some hope after all. That's it for the week in Tech. We normally do the best week and the worst week in tech, but frankly, the worst is always much more entertaining. So this is from this episode on, We're only going to do the worst Week in Tech. My worst week in Tech goes to a number of Bay Area Airbnb hosts who are campaigning their properties are being trashed. It turns out that their homes are being rented by people working for robotics startup who are testing in domestic robots. So one Airbnb host is actually suing one of these robotics companies.
00:44:17
Speaker 3: I don't think we talked about this last time, but the whole Johnny Ive Ferrari thing.
00:44:23
Speaker 1: I saw something about electric Ferrari, but that was as far as I got.
00:44:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he designed the new Ferrari, and you know, it had this beautiful roll out with all these videos and renderings and animations and stuff, and everyone just hates the car, like this looks like a cheap vault or something. It looks like the Apple Mouse. It's kind of just an uninspiring look at the future of electric cars.
00:44:48
Speaker 1: And Johnny I was supposed to be designing the game changing open AI physical physical device, so this is more develop.
00:44:54
Speaker 4: The Yeah, it was a bit sad.
00:44:57
Speaker 5: I am going to say. The worst we can tech goes to I don't, I don't. I don't know if you can say, like just maybe the California voters like I live in LA and I think reads in California too, and we had elections this week, and I've been reporting a lot on just the insane levels of undisclosed influence campaigns from Spencer Prap, from Tom Steyer, from everyone seems to just like the wheels are off and they're willing to do the most unethical kind of digital marketing schemes, and I think all of us are are worse off for it.
00:45:29
Speaker 2: I think I think Meta had a tough I think there was this Wall Street Journal article where they were sort of delayed on their on their API launch for their models. I think that company is just sort of flailing, like we want to do AI, we don't really know why or how or how it's gonna make money, and I think it's going to be a tough road for them.
00:45:46
Speaker 1: I have to say I second this reep because I was watching the U, the Nicks and the Spurs last night and there was a commercial for Meta threads in between. I think it's must be a very expensive spot, something which basically doesn't exist anymore. So, but that's it for the Weekend Tech. Thank you all so much for joining us today.
00:46:05
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us.
00:46:06
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
00:46:07
Speaker 4: This is a fine one. Thank you.
00:46:12
Speaker 1: For tech stuff. I'm as Valoshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. Executive produced by me Julian Nutter and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novel for iHeart podcasts Our Engineer today was Bahid Fraser. Jack Insley mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote out theme song. A special thank you to Taylor Lorenz, Kyle Chaker, and Rie Albergotti. Please check out all the work they put into the world. We're lucky to call them friends at the Pod
