WEBVTT - Did America Just Vote Down AI? - Week in Tech 0:00:13.670 --> 0:00:17.370 Kyle, Reid, Julia, good to see you all. As some 0:00:17.390 --> 0:00:20.050 of you know, we've been releasing this series at Kaleidoscope 0:00:20.090 --> 0:00:22.270 called The Builders with Walter Isaacs, and we've had all 0:00:22.290 --> 0:00:25.930 kinds of guests from Elon to the Amodes. This week 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.780 was Gary Tan, and he said something that made me 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:29.440 think of you, Reid. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.919 In about 15 minutes right before this talk, it was 0:00:32.979 --> 0:00:38.040 able to download and transcribe your top 10 podcasts you've 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.959 ever done. And then it actually diarized them. So it 0:00:42.020 --> 0:00:45.580 had an LLM go line by line, timestamp by timestamp, 0:00:45.940 --> 0:00:48.800 to pull out major themes. But to be able to 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.380 do that for almost anything that you do in your 0:00:53.420 --> 0:00:56.760 day-to-day life, in order to have this experience, I spend 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.330 about maybe $ 100, 000 to $ 200, 000 a year on tokens. And 0:01:01.370 --> 0:01:04.630 so I realized that's a crazy privilege that not everyone 0:01:04.670 --> 0:01:08.440 can do that. A lot of CEOs... that I know 0:01:08.459 --> 0:01:10.420 are doing it, and they have wings. 0:01:11.020 --> 0:01:13.660 Love that. Someone had a tweet this week where they're like, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.000 give a man a fish and he eats for a day. 0:01:16.540 --> 0:01:19.480 Give a man $ 200 a month Claude subscription and he'll 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:26.310 waste away his entire life doing side projects on Claude. 0:01:30.610 --> 0:01:32.920 Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Osvald Oschin, and this is 0:01:32.940 --> 0:01:35.080 The Week in Tech, where I'm joined by the world's 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.559 most plugged-in reporters, to break down what's really happening in 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.080 tech right now. Today, we're joined by Reid Albergotti, tech 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.720 editor for Semaphore, Kyle Chaker, staff reporter at The New Yorker, 0:01:46.140 --> 0:01:49.500 and Julia Black, the tech and money correspondent at Vanity Fair. 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:50.880 Welcome back, everyone. 0:01:51.500 --> 0:01:52.100 Great to be here. 0:01:52.300 --> 0:01:53.080 Thanks for having us. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:54.360 What a week to be here. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.680 The midterms, that's right. Julia, how is the tech world 0:01:57.740 --> 0:01:59.580 feeling about the blue wave? 0:02:01.260 --> 0:02:04.559 I believe the word is reeling, at least in my 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.690 corner of tech, which for the last few years, I've 0:02:07.890 --> 0:02:09.950 covered a lot of the tech right and a group 0:02:10.270 --> 0:02:12.930 that has spent a lot of the last few years 0:02:13.350 --> 0:02:14.850 crowing with confidence. 0:02:15.250 --> 0:02:20.830 And yeah, they're scuttling away into increasingly dark corners now, 0:02:21.410 --> 0:02:22.790 feeling pretty freaked out, I would say. 0:02:24.090 --> 0:02:27.730 Reid? Yeah, I think that this has been a week 0:02:27.950 --> 0:02:31.459 of people who who play the long game, feeling really 0:02:31.500 --> 0:02:34.840 good about themselves. There's like a lot of people who 0:02:34.860 --> 0:02:36.919 were like, oh, this is forever. This is going to 0:02:36.940 --> 0:02:41.100 be forever. And it was for two years and they've 0:02:41.150 --> 0:02:41.950 all learned a lesson. 0:02:42.730 --> 0:02:44.130 Talk about the long game. There was a piece in 0:02:44.150 --> 0:02:47.970 the Times about how basically Schumer had been kind of 0:02:47.990 --> 0:02:50.530 running around and courting all these candidates and over the 0:02:50.570 --> 0:02:53.489 last two years. And I think also in terms of 0:02:53.550 --> 0:02:56.680 how the spending on political ads was happening and when 0:02:56.740 --> 0:03:00.380 the Democrat versus the Trump PACs decided to enter races. 0:03:00.419 --> 0:03:02.900 And I think that they were outspending for the same 0:03:03.460 --> 0:03:05.519 minute of airtime in Alaska. I think the Dems had 0:03:05.540 --> 0:03:08.560 paid like $ 2, 700 for it a year ago, and the 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.260 Republicans had to pay $ 30, 000 for the same minute. 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.280 This is the real winner, like the tech winner here 0:03:15.300 --> 0:03:16.600 at the TV stations. 0:03:16.860 --> 0:03:20.700 That is totally true. I talked to an executive this morning, actually, 0:03:20.740 --> 0:03:23.200 who I think made this really salient point, which is like, 0:03:23.870 --> 0:03:26.510 you know, this is what's so funny is like the 0:03:26.790 --> 0:03:30.870 tech right, especially, like painted this, this whole political picture 0:03:30.910 --> 0:03:33.669 in the US is like a battle of extremes. And 0:03:33.710 --> 0:03:35.990 the Democrats have become the radical left. If you look 0:03:36.010 --> 0:03:38.730 at the results, though, this is really kind of like 0:03:38.790 --> 0:03:42.740 a rebuke of the fringes of like the freak shows 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.279 in the political world. You saw a lot of these 0:03:45.300 --> 0:03:48.400 like moderate Democrats, that's who really like took back the 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.220 House and the Senate. So it kind of like burst 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.690 that whole narrative as well. Like, It's almost like there's 0:03:54.770 --> 0:03:57.390 not really like the people who sort of went right 0:03:57.430 --> 0:04:01.380 in the tech industry. They can't really sit here and go, oh, no, like, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.540 you know, the radical left is taking over again. We 0:04:04.580 --> 0:04:06.480 must stop them. It's like, no, these are like the 0:04:06.740 --> 0:04:08.800 middle of the road people. Like, you know, I think 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.820 there's going to be no choice but to work with them. 0:04:10.910 --> 0:04:12.890 And I thought that was a really good point. 0:04:13.190 --> 0:04:16.870 They're all really anti data center, right? Like almost every 0:04:16.970 --> 0:04:20.500 data center, anti data center measure passed. So it's like 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.550 the normie politics people, but they're still not feeling great 0:04:24.570 --> 0:04:25.589 about tech at the moment. 0:04:26.230 --> 0:04:28.050 Yeah, that said, I do think a lot of AI 0:04:28.529 --> 0:04:31.930 safety types are eager to project this idea that, you know, 0:04:31.950 --> 0:04:33.390 this was the AI election. 0:04:33.410 --> 0:04:35.969 This was the most important issue. 0:04:35.990 --> 0:04:38.650 At the end of the day, I think most people 0:04:38.670 --> 0:04:42.070 were voting on gas prices and grocery prices. That said, 0:04:42.110 --> 0:04:44.420 I do think it is significant that there were these, 0:04:44.630 --> 0:04:49.219 I think, at least 38 bans or slowdowns of data centers. 0:04:50.650 --> 0:04:51.910 Passed across the state. 0:04:51.970 --> 0:04:55.300 So it's not that anyone's pro data centers at this point, 0:04:55.380 --> 0:04:57.340 but yeah, I think some people are over-indexing a little 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.200 bit on the significance of AI in this election, as 0:05:00.260 --> 0:05:02.190 much as I would love to see that be the truth. 0:05:03.250 --> 0:05:06.690 Julia, you mentioned you're The tech right reeling, have you 0:05:06.710 --> 0:05:07.750 spoken to any sources? 0:05:07.790 --> 0:05:08.150 Yeah. 0:05:08.210 --> 0:05:10.729 I mean, the big concern is data centers because that 0:05:10.890 --> 0:05:14.230 is the lifeblood of this industry right now. And there's 0:05:14.270 --> 0:05:16.490 just this sentiment like, well, I guess we got to 0:05:16.529 --> 0:05:19.750 go to space because America is no longer. 0:05:19.770 --> 0:05:20.850 That's what Elon tweeted, right? 0:05:22.150 --> 0:05:24.970 A lot of them have been tweeting and saying that. 0:05:26.300 --> 0:05:27.150 But I often. 0:05:27.940 --> 0:05:32.260 enjoy reporting on vibes and the vibes, the vibe shift 0:05:32.350 --> 0:05:34.950 is significant. I know we've gone through vibe shift after 0:05:34.990 --> 0:05:37.930 vibe shift, but like I said, there was just this 0:05:38.770 --> 0:05:42.250 feeling amongst Silicon Valley types that this was this period 0:05:42.330 --> 0:05:46.770 where they were going to enjoy completely unfettered impunity. 0:05:46.830 --> 0:05:48.120 They could do whatever they want. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.400 And they were so unashamed for so long, not so long, 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.200 but a few years, a few tough years. And there 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.460 is now this feeling that Congress may be coming for us. 0:06:00.500 --> 0:06:03.089 There's going to be some subpoenas handed out. The age 0:06:03.130 --> 0:06:04.770 of impunity has come to an end. 0:06:04.790 --> 0:06:07.650 I think there's a lot of catastrophizing on Twitter about 0:06:08.210 --> 0:06:10.190 the data center thing. But I think if you talk 0:06:10.210 --> 0:06:13.409 to people who are on the ground actually doing this stuff, 0:06:13.950 --> 0:06:16.710 it's not that they're so much concerned that this means 0:06:16.750 --> 0:06:18.560 they're not going to build any more data centers. I 0:06:18.580 --> 0:06:22.600 think it's more like, okay, we need to reset our 0:06:22.779 --> 0:06:27.250 public relations strategy here. The tech industry always had a 0:06:27.290 --> 0:06:30.530 PR strategy around data centers, which was like, come in, 0:06:31.050 --> 0:06:33.930 you know, with these NDAs, like sneak into these towns 0:06:34.490 --> 0:06:36.630 and we're going to like, you know, we'll get the 0:06:36.670 --> 0:06:39.090 deal almost there and then we'll throw in some sweeteners 0:06:39.170 --> 0:06:41.210 and we'll fund the public schools and everybody will be 0:06:41.270 --> 0:06:43.440 happy and we'll move on. That kind of worked in 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.200 the cloud era. It just, it was never going to 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.140 work in the AI era where you're talking about scales 0:06:49.180 --> 0:06:51.860 that are so much larger. And so I think that 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.060 this just means like there's going to have to be 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.810 a lot more just like upfront PR slash deal sweeteners 0:06:58.890 --> 0:07:00.690 right off the bat. Like we're going to lower your 0:07:00.750 --> 0:07:03.390 energy costs. We're going to, we're not going to affect 0:07:03.410 --> 0:07:06.250 your water bill or your water usage. We're going to 0:07:06.330 --> 0:07:08.950 use our, you know, generate our own energy. And then 0:07:08.990 --> 0:07:10.990 I think these deals will get done. And I don't 0:07:11.010 --> 0:07:12.870 think it's actually as big of a deal as like, 0:07:13.530 --> 0:07:15.510 I think people on X, but also the markets are, 0:07:15.620 --> 0:07:18.060 I think, overreacting a little bit to this as well. So, 0:07:18.540 --> 0:07:20.580 you know, people tend to get excited after these things, 0:07:20.620 --> 0:07:23.200 but I think it's not, this is not the catastrophe 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:24.370 that some think it is. 0:07:25.270 --> 0:07:27.230 On the topic of PR, I mean, we were talking 0:07:27.270 --> 0:07:32.400 before we started recording about MTS, the Anderson-backed media company, 0:07:32.460 --> 0:07:36.620 and TBPN and the Sequoia, BC-backed media company who nobody 0:07:36.660 --> 0:07:39.940 knows the name of. Do you think this maybe signals 0:07:39.980 --> 0:07:43.020 a little bit of a reconsideration of the go-direct strategy 0:07:43.060 --> 0:07:43.840 for the tech sector? 0:07:44.370 --> 0:07:48.550 They have to go direct to some different people. They 0:07:48.570 --> 0:07:54.130 were going real direct to the hardcore ex-users and the 0:07:54.150 --> 0:07:56.410 people who were already bought into their messaging, I think. 0:07:56.810 --> 0:08:00.330 And so it's like, okay, sure, you've saturated that market 0:08:00.570 --> 0:08:03.410 for sure. Now maybe you actually have to speak to 0:08:03.450 --> 0:08:06.070 some people who don't share your exact political beliefs and 0:08:06.090 --> 0:08:09.570 who aren't just like doubling down on the same ideology. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.150 And that's like, I mean, as I feel like reads 0:08:12.300 --> 0:08:14.740 on this tack as well, but it's like, I would 0:08:14.770 --> 0:08:18.760 like to see more open conversation among the left and 0:08:18.780 --> 0:08:23.560 tech companies and just like a more even discourse between 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.620 people than we have had for the past few years. 0:08:27.670 --> 0:08:30.630 Yeah, I mean, purely anecdotally, I will say I started 0:08:30.670 --> 0:08:33.870 to notice this happen in the spring. That's when the 0:08:33.910 --> 0:08:35.809 mood started to shift from my point of view. I 0:08:36.650 --> 0:08:40.590 found the tech world to be pretty hostile to me personally. 0:08:40.070 --> 0:08:41.309 In the last few years. 0:08:41.410 --> 0:08:43.530 And in the spring, maybe it's because I started at 0:08:43.570 --> 0:08:46.130 Vanity Fair and everyone wants, you know, their glossy photo shoot. 0:08:46.170 --> 0:08:48.709 But I was getting a lot more calls from the 0:08:48.750 --> 0:08:52.390 types of comms teams who like previously only sent me 0:08:52.429 --> 0:08:56.760 nasty emails. Like it started to feel like people were 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.400 preparing for this reconciliation. 0:09:00.820 --> 0:09:04.420 Yeah, that's true. I agree. Like, yeah, before the midterms, like, 0:09:04.500 --> 0:09:07.380 there were people who were, like, sort of regretting their 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.349 decisions and, like, blaming it on their comms team, which 0:09:10.450 --> 0:09:13.030 was probably, like, trying to stop them from making those 0:09:13.050 --> 0:09:14.450 decisions the whole time. 0:09:15.590 --> 0:09:19.469 Whoever can get the definitive Chris Lehane story, who, of course, 0:09:19.530 --> 0:09:23.910 is at OpenAI, managing a lot of their Washington relationships 0:09:24.010 --> 0:09:27.010 and their communication around data centers, which they're now trying 0:09:27.050 --> 0:09:28.950 to rebrand to compute campuses. 0:09:30.309 --> 0:09:32.290 Whoever can really dig into. 0:09:33.070 --> 0:09:35.030 what he's been doing for the last year, which has 0:09:35.070 --> 0:09:39.510 been just such a baffling, frenetic strategy that I can't 0:09:39.570 --> 0:09:41.309 make head or tail of, that will be a great 0:09:41.350 --> 0:09:41.819 story to read. 0:09:42.630 --> 0:09:45.060 Chris Lehane, though, okay, this is the thing about him. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:50.300 So he was at Airbnb. He basically won the regulatory 0:09:50.340 --> 0:09:53.839 battle at Airbnb. Then he went to the crypto industry, 0:09:53.940 --> 0:09:57.120 won that battle for the crypto industry. You could argue 0:09:57.190 --> 0:09:59.429 it maybe got a little bad for a while there. 0:09:59.450 --> 0:10:03.910 But I view Lehane as a guy who wins. But 0:10:04.070 --> 0:10:07.930 he doesn't always win the hearts and minds of the 0:10:08.010 --> 0:10:11.120 public in doing so. And I feel like that was 0:10:11.170 --> 0:10:17.020 never his MO. This election showed that the hearts and 0:10:17.059 --> 0:10:20.290 minds have not been won But I think in the end, 0:10:20.870 --> 0:10:23.189 these data centers are going to get built. And that's 0:10:23.510 --> 0:10:26.410 what they actually care about. Or what he cares about. 0:10:26.570 --> 0:10:29.160 So I think I would separate him from the PR 0:10:29.220 --> 0:10:33.479 problem that tech has, if that makes sense. That's how 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:34.980 I view Lehane. 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.920 I don't totally doubt that the long-term data center strategy 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.150 could work out. But this week, to say that Chris 0:10:43.190 --> 0:10:44.790 Lehane won on data centers feels. 0:10:46.220 --> 0:10:48.459 This week was not a win, but I think in 0:10:48.500 --> 0:10:53.740 the long run, this is, again, people who play the 0:10:53.780 --> 0:10:56.819 long game. In the long run, these data centers are 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.939 going to get built. It's going to happen. 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.780 You opened your newsletter this week, essentially saying, how does 0:11:03.620 --> 0:11:09.829 America ensure that in its, probably, I'm putting words into 0:11:09.870 --> 0:11:15.260 your mouth, but perhaps justified desire to prosecute and redistribute 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.340 the wealth of the new oligarchy at the same time, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.420 not throw the baby out with the bathwater and kind 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.760 of go after tech innovation writ large. Is that a 0:11:23.980 --> 0:11:25.560 kind of fair? Yeah. 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.260 I mean, I think it's, I think the problem is like, 0:11:28.780 --> 0:11:32.309 you know, that people aren't sharing in the wealth. Like 0:11:32.370 --> 0:11:34.270 you look at the tech industry and it's like people 0:11:34.290 --> 0:11:36.640 hate AI or whatever. like you're not really going to 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.280 stop technology. Like if you do stop technology, that's really bad. 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.860 Like if you look at societies in history that have 0:11:42.900 --> 0:11:45.709 tried to stop technology, like things don't go very well. 0:11:46.170 --> 0:11:48.810 But like you can ensure that people share in the wealth. 0:11:49.490 --> 0:11:51.949 And I think that's actually what I think would be 0:11:52.010 --> 0:11:55.010 really interesting to see if like these data center deals 0:11:55.110 --> 0:11:58.970 come not with necessarily like just energy and school funding, 0:11:59.010 --> 0:12:02.580 but like putting shares of these companies in the retirement 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.660 accounts of the kids in town, you know, like that 0:12:04.700 --> 0:12:08.550 kind of stuff. Like the Trump accounts kind of does that. 0:12:08.890 --> 0:12:10.850 I hate that it's called Trump accounts now because it's 0:12:10.910 --> 0:12:14.270 not his idea, but it is a good idea. And, 0:12:14.770 --> 0:12:15.950 you know, I think stuff like that. 0:12:15.970 --> 0:12:18.520 This is what Elon pledged too, right? The SpaceX shares 0:12:18.540 --> 0:12:19.339 into the Trump accounts. 0:12:19.380 --> 0:12:21.840 Elon pledged to like give, yeah, like give his, well, yeah, 0:12:21.940 --> 0:12:24.110 I was... I'm not sure it was clear. 0:12:24.170 --> 0:12:26.069 And the Amadeus didn't pledge any shares, but they did 0:12:26.090 --> 0:12:28.590 say in their prospectus that a share in Anthropic would 0:12:28.610 --> 0:12:31.189 be a share in the future. So there's definitely some. 0:12:31.610 --> 0:12:33.650 I saw that and I did, I did a little 0:12:33.690 --> 0:12:35.990 math and like, if you had given every, like in 0:12:36.010 --> 0:12:39.700 the nineties or something, if you'd given like every, every kid, 0:12:39.980 --> 0:12:42.480 one share of Apple, it would have been worth by 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:44.880 the time they, you know, they were 40, it would 0:12:44.900 --> 0:12:46.980 be worth like, I can't remember the exact number now, 0:12:47.020 --> 0:12:50.040 but it was like, tens of thousands of dollars, right? 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.540 And that's a lot of money, just one share. Of course, 0:12:54.580 --> 0:12:57.970 you can't predict the returns on all of these shares, 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.030 but I would think it's a pretty good guess that 0:13:01.050 --> 0:13:03.010 it's going to be a lot. And then the important 0:13:03.030 --> 0:13:05.849 thing is people are like, there's some upside for people, 0:13:05.970 --> 0:13:07.989 even if they don't work for these companies, even if 0:13:08.010 --> 0:13:10.929 they don't like the technology, which many people don't. 0:13:10.950 --> 0:13:13.790 Do the companies have a plan for that, though? I 0:13:13.809 --> 0:13:17.870 feel like I hear no one really Discussing, I don't know, some, 0:13:18.050 --> 0:13:22.050 some large percentage of well-sharing and like a collective way. 0:13:22.870 --> 0:13:25.730 They've talked about it. I mean, the hands actually put 0:13:25.770 --> 0:13:29.110 forth some of these ideas at open AI, but to. 0:13:29.010 --> 0:13:31.719 Me, the messaging still feels like, like no bless oblige 0:13:31.770 --> 0:13:35.100 or something. It's like, oh, we will mint a thousand 0:13:35.140 --> 0:13:37.280 people who have a hundred million dollars out of this 0:13:37.420 --> 0:13:40.319 IPO and they will donate all of their money to 0:13:40.460 --> 0:13:44.540 shrimp protection or whatever, effective altruist causes. 0:13:45.380 --> 0:13:46.900 Usually outside the country, right? 0:13:47.220 --> 0:13:51.510 Yeah, it's a top-down thing. There's so little messaging of 0:13:51.610 --> 0:13:56.930 bottom-up policies or anything democratic. It feels so, so elitist 0:13:57.010 --> 0:13:57.569 at this point. 0:13:58.230 --> 0:14:01.600 On the topic of Reid's idea of spreading the wealth, 0:14:02.130 --> 0:14:05.720 Julia had an exceptional story in Vanity Fair about spreading 0:14:05.740 --> 0:14:09.320 the wealth. This is from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:10.920 his wife to Donald Trump. 0:14:10.940 --> 0:14:11.640 So. 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:14.870 Julia, can you tell us a little bit about this 0:14:14.970 --> 0:14:18.219 slice of the tech right and their desire for political 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:19.280 influence through donations? 0:14:19.380 --> 0:14:20.600 Yeah. I mean. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.880 I've always been intrigued by Anna Brockman. Married to Greg, 0:14:24.940 --> 0:14:28.680 the co-founder of OpenAI. She's kind of just been hovering 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.640 in the background of so many scenes in tech history, 0:14:31.660 --> 0:14:34.010 and no one knew anything about her. So I got 0:14:34.030 --> 0:14:36.530 a little obsessive and went down the rabbit hole. Found 0:14:36.610 --> 0:14:38.890 out her past. Very surprising. I learned I went to 0:14:38.930 --> 0:14:42.630 college with her, which I went to Wesleyan. I don't 0:14:42.650 --> 0:14:44.010 know if you're familiar with that school. 0:14:44.210 --> 0:14:45.450 There's too many members of. 0:14:45.410 --> 0:14:46.390 The tech right. Yeah. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.200 Yeah, it's basically one person and that's her. 0:14:49.220 --> 0:14:52.010 But what was interesting and why I decided to lean 0:14:52.070 --> 0:14:55.340 into this story is that just a couple of weeks ago, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.760 she and Greg were at Mar-a-Lago sitting at the head 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.180 of the table with Sergey Brin and Donald Trump. 0:15:02.260 --> 0:15:03.640 It was four people wide. 0:15:04.470 --> 0:15:06.830 And, you know, this was a period where tech already 0:15:06.870 --> 0:15:11.470 appeared to be distancing itself from MAGA. Sam Altman has, well, 0:15:11.510 --> 0:15:14.110 I've actually heard he's continued to appear at the White House, 0:15:14.190 --> 0:15:17.930 but not as publicly. But Greg was the one who 0:15:17.970 --> 0:15:21.290 was sent to sign the accord on superintelligence. And there's 0:15:21.330 --> 0:15:23.900 Greg at Mar-a-Lago just weeks before this election when the 0:15:23.940 --> 0:15:27.400 polls are showing that MAGA is not popular. 0:15:28.100 --> 0:15:30.740 So it started to kind of feel like they were 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:32.880 being thrown under the bus a little bit. 0:15:32.940 --> 0:15:37.350 Like there's this understanding that, yeah, I mean, and this 0:15:37.410 --> 0:15:39.450 is the question of the story and what no one 0:15:39.490 --> 0:15:41.850 seems to have a definitive answer on is, are they 0:15:41.890 --> 0:15:44.930 just this passionate about MAGA, which I don't think they are. 0:15:44.990 --> 0:15:46.570 They call themselves single-issue donors. 0:15:46.590 --> 0:15:47.430 Yeah. 0:15:48.350 --> 0:15:50.670 Or is this like this open AI strategy where they 0:15:50.730 --> 0:15:54.420 know they need to retain the goodwill of the executive branch? 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.300 You know, there's still two years left. Trump is not 0:15:57.340 --> 0:16:00.200 someone who you want to have on your bad side. 0:16:01.100 --> 0:16:04.060 But they also don't want to have Sam Altman, CEO, 0:16:04.220 --> 0:16:06.660 out as the face. You know, people are starting to 0:16:06.700 --> 0:16:10.750 distance themselves from this MAGA persona. So, yeah, just asking 0:16:10.770 --> 0:16:14.250 this question, like, are they really these loyal diehards or 0:16:14.370 --> 0:16:16.210 did they kind of get the short end of the 0:16:16.230 --> 0:16:17.420 stick here and end up? 0:16:17.910 --> 0:16:22.250 As the scapegoats and the face of the maggot commitment. 0:16:22.390 --> 0:16:24.270 And what was your conclusion? 0:16:24.910 --> 0:16:26.250 Probably more of the latter. 0:16:26.270 --> 0:16:29.390 Again, to get back to my kind of Chris Lehane obsession, 0:16:30.010 --> 0:16:34.050 I think probably he was, I should be careful about 0:16:34.090 --> 0:16:36.550 overstating this, but yeah, it seemed like there was opening 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.240 eye strategy. They wanted to distance themselves from these donations 0:16:39.290 --> 0:16:42.480 and claim that they were purely personal, which is absurd. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:44.980 It's the co-founder and the president of the company. This 0:16:45.020 --> 0:16:48.250 is not some extracurricular activity. he's doing this on behalf 0:16:48.590 --> 0:16:49.190 of his company. 0:16:50.290 --> 0:16:52.700 There's also a great line in your piece about the 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.760 partners of billionaires, how they've long been appointed to roles 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.780 distributing their spouse's wealth through philanthropic and political giving. These women, 0:16:59.820 --> 0:17:02.320 often brilliant in their own right, become trusted confidants and 0:17:02.340 --> 0:17:05.880 strategic advisors, but they also find themselves in paradoxical positions, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.270 often wishing for the personal privacy of a private citizen 0:17:09.650 --> 0:17:12.669 while wielding immense power through their wealth and stature. So 0:17:13.050 --> 0:17:14.790 I want to hear more about Anna Brockman, but of course, 0:17:15.369 --> 0:17:19.130 Isn't Sergey Brin's girlfriend famously his entree to the MAGA 0:17:19.150 --> 0:17:19.770 world as well? 0:17:20.490 --> 0:17:24.840 Yeah, Trump calls her his MAGA girlfriend. But also I 0:17:24.859 --> 0:17:27.740 was reminded of Camilla Clark, who we only learned about 0:17:27.780 --> 0:17:32.230 this summer. She's married to Dario Amadei. And I get it. 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.100 Everyone wants to protect their family, protect their spouse from 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.379 the public eye and scrutiny. But if you're Married to 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.040 one of the most powerful people on earth, you become 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:42.980 one of the most powerful people on earth. So my 0:17:43.020 --> 0:17:45.480 point of view is the public will always have the 0:17:45.500 --> 0:17:48.160 right to know who you are, what you want, how 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.639 you're going to wield your power. So learning a bit 0:17:50.660 --> 0:17:52.840 more about Anna and the fact that, by the way, 0:17:53.100 --> 0:17:55.040 people slept on this part of the piece. The couple 0:17:55.100 --> 0:17:58.470 allegedly owns over 20 animals in their home. You know, 0:17:58.490 --> 0:17:59.770 these are interesting people. 0:17:59.790 --> 0:18:01.209 Which animals? 0:18:02.070 --> 0:18:04.560 Could not get her team. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:05.220 But Kyle, you. 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.260 Were close with the shrimp. Didn't they give five and 0:18:07.300 --> 0:18:10.699 a half million dollars to a pair of eagles? They did. 0:18:10.900 --> 0:18:11.359 They did. 0:18:11.420 --> 0:18:13.140 I mean, she loves animals. 0:18:13.859 --> 0:18:14.320 And it's funny. 0:18:14.340 --> 0:18:16.659 To be fair, they're American heroes, those eagles. 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.609 These people are just, this is like to my earlier 0:18:19.670 --> 0:18:21.970 point about like the people on the fringes, like these 0:18:22.010 --> 0:18:24.270 people are like, they're kind of on the fringes, you know? 0:18:24.330 --> 0:18:27.300 And I think, It's like they haven't learned that to 0:18:27.340 --> 0:18:30.240 be savvy yet and to be like sort of polished 0:18:30.340 --> 0:18:34.020 public figures. And it's like the same thing happened like 0:18:34.060 --> 0:18:36.020 in the in the Obama years, right? Like the tech 0:18:36.060 --> 0:18:40.020 industry went way, way, way overboard to the Obama side 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.310 and like had no concept of the cost of that, right? 0:18:43.350 --> 0:18:46.710 Like completely forgot that there was a conservative side of 0:18:46.750 --> 0:18:49.210 the aisle. And it's like, you know, like if you're 0:18:49.230 --> 0:18:51.280 going to do this, you've got to be smart about it. 0:18:51.310 --> 0:18:53.889 I think like Microsoft is a good example. Like, they 0:18:53.910 --> 0:18:56.940 have battle scars, right, for this. And they've learned, like, 0:18:56.980 --> 0:18:59.300 you try to get Satya Nadella to say something, like, 0:18:59.460 --> 0:19:03.000 out of the mainstream, and it's, like, it's very difficult, right? It's, they're, 0:19:03.140 --> 0:19:05.980 they carefully, like, what they should be doing is just, like, 0:19:06.420 --> 0:19:10.030 carefully planning out their strategy so they do as little 0:19:10.070 --> 0:19:13.910 as possible to offend either side. Like, that's the, that's 0:19:13.950 --> 0:19:16.129 the game. And I think these people haven't quite learned it. 0:19:16.780 --> 0:19:18.790 It does seem like they have to play both sides now. 0:19:18.869 --> 0:19:22.350 I mean, particularly now after the midterms, like you have 0:19:22.390 --> 0:19:24.290 to court the left as much as you're courting the 0:19:24.330 --> 0:19:27.850 right and not lean quite so hard into the like 0:19:28.130 --> 0:19:32.230 super mega, super online vocabulary as people have been doing. 0:19:33.030 --> 0:19:35.310 But like, I don't know, to Julia and Julia's point, 0:19:35.350 --> 0:19:38.710 like in their personal lives, these people are very strange 0:19:38.790 --> 0:19:42.490 and like not, not particularly relatable people. And I don't know, 0:19:42.490 --> 0:19:45.150 it kind of strikes me even less relatable than like 0:19:45.150 --> 0:19:48.190 the last generation of of tech oligarchs the the mark 0:19:48.210 --> 0:19:52.260 zuckerberg's the social media era like those people i don't 0:19:52.300 --> 0:19:56.280 know sean parker yeah yeah if they were so weird 0:19:56.300 --> 0:19:59.000 they at least kept out of the public eye a 0:19:59.020 --> 0:20:03.040 little more whereas now it's i don't know maybe it's 0:20:03.060 --> 0:20:04.810 harder Julia. 0:20:04.830 --> 0:20:07.290 For those who didn't read that Wall Street Journal story 0:20:07.930 --> 0:20:12.139 about Cammy Clark, Dario's wife, can you give us the key? 0:20:12.540 --> 0:20:13.180 What do we need to know? 0:20:13.859 --> 0:20:18.760