Latest Interviews

Inside the Myths: Emil Michael on Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril & the Modern DoW

Emil Michael, Molly O'Shea

Under Secretary of War Michael, formerly of Uber, is leading a $1 trillion budget restructuring to establish five new defense technology companies and streamline the Department's focus into six critical areas: Applied AI, hypersonics, directed energy, contested logistics, information dominance, and biomanufacturing. This aggressive modernization strategy aims to close the capability gap with China by accelerating domestic supply chains, securing energy infrastructure, and fostering a competitive market that challenges established primes through rapid startup integration. By framing the current geopolitical climate as a "1938 moment," the Department prioritizes immediate deployment of drone arsenals and autonomous systems while leveraging political disruption under Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Tucker Carlson: Rise of Nick Fuentes, Paramount vs Netflix, Anti-AI Sentiment, Hottest Takes

Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk, Chamath, Jason, Friedberg

Paramount's $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, backed by the Ellison family's equity and Middle Eastern funds, currently holds a slight edge over Netflix's rejected $83 billion offer in betting markets, though the WBD board has already publicly accepted the lower streaming-focused proposal. Concurrently, the discussion expands to geopolitical strategies involving Nick Fuentes' rise as a shock jock fueled by bot networks, the economic risks and infrastructure needs of AI adoption, and Tucker Carlson's critiques of NATO and recent US foreign policy actions. Industry leaders debate whether antitrust regulators can effectively handle these massive consolidations while analyzing the societal implications of identity politics and the potential for government overreach in a rapidly digitizing world.

Is China the new superpower?

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Edward Carr, Ant, David, Ed, Alice

The analysis examines the People's Liberation Army's advanced regional military capabilities and manufacturing dominance while highlighting severe internal economic stagnation, including three years of deflation and rising youth unemployment. Although China lacks the global projection power of the United States, its strategic focus on national security and superior hypersonic technology positions it to dominate the Indo-Pacific region. Experts conclude that while Beijing will achieve significant geopolitical strength, its long-term stability faces challenges from domestic discontent and an overreliance on foreign markets that it cannot fully control.

AI Eats the World: Benedict Evans on the Next Platform Shift

Benedict Evans, Erik Torenberg

The event analyzes the current generative AI landscape by highlighting a significant adoption gap where high user counts mask low daily utility and a lack of validated enterprise use cases. It examines the economic risks of a potential infrastructure bubble driven by hyperscaler over-investment and contrasts the platform shift against historical mobile and internet transitions. Finally, the discussion evaluates how major tech players like Google, Meta, and Microsoft are strategizing to defend their moats while product evolution moves beyond raw chatbots toward specialized, agentic workflows.

Are More Rate Cuts Coming?

Josh Schiffrin, Chris Hussey

The Federal Reserve executed a third consecutive 25 basis point rate cut, adopting a dovish stance that diverged from hawkish expectations while Chair Jerome Powell signaled a lower threshold for future adjustments due to labor market concerns. Analyst Josh Schifrin forecasts the federal funds rate will fall to 3% or lower by 2026, projecting a steepening yield curve and a weakening US dollar that should support cautiously bullish equity markets driven by economic acceleration rather than monetary constraints. While long-term rate increases are viewed as compatible with risk assets, Schifrin identifies artificial intelligence thematic concerns as a primary source of potential market volatility and noted a conditional willingness to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo to secure an NBA championship for the Knicks.

The US-China Tech Race

Mark Kennedy, Paul Triolo, Allison Nathan

The US-China technological rivalry spans four strategic arenas, with Washington retaining dominance in fundamental innovation and China leading in application, infrastructure deployment, and self-sufficiency efforts. While US export controls have stalled China's access to advanced EUV lithography and high-end GPUs, these restrictions are simultaneously accelerating Beijing's parallel development of domestic chip manufacturing and open-source AI models. This dynamic creates a potential future where the US owns core design standards while China controls physical hardware and global markets, though US leadership ultimately hinges on resolving domestic energy grid constraints and sustaining its talent pipelines.

How is Russia testing the West?

Gordon Corera, David Rennie

Russia currently perceives itself under a continuum of low-intensity conflict with the West, interpreting Ukrainian strikes as direct aggression while employing hybrid tactics to destabilize Western democracies and undermine the existing international order. While Moscow retains high risk tolerance born of this siege mentality, recent escalations appear tempered by the fear of triggering an all-out war that would contradict its strategic goal of dismantling Western dominance. Simultaneously, China maintains a cautious distance from Russian recklessness to preserve its own economic stability, creating a complex dynamic where global powers calibrate responses to deter adversary activities without sparking accidental escalation.

The Unicorn Founder Who Delegated Everything.

Jonathan Swanson, Erik Torenberg

Jonathan frames time as the most critical asset for founders, advocating for aggressive delegation through a "ladder of leverage" that transitions from human assistants to AI agents to compound ambition. His methodology combines specialized frameworks like algorithm-based task exports and voice-first communication with a rigorous hiring philosophy focused on weakness-based references and trial periods. These strategies enable leaders to reclaim bandwidth for high-value decisions while navigating existential risks through structured support systems and adaptive organizational structures.

From Pivot Hell To $1.4 Billion Unicorn

James Hawkins, Brad Flora

PostHog has secured a $75 million Series E round at a $1.4 billion valuation to fuel aggressive workforce expansion from 70 to 200 employees and accelerate its AI-driven shift toward automating customer data workflows. Under founders James Hawkins and his co-founder, the company abandoned traditional sales-led growth in favor of an open-source, product-first strategy that now serves 300,000 users with a suite of 17 products. This capital deployment enables PostHog to pursue an ambitious vision of an "automated product manager" while maintaining radical transparency and a polarizing brand identity built on building in public.

Why Syria might face another uprising

Gareth Browne, Rosie Blau

President Ahmad al-Shara has secured significant international diplomatic gains and sanctions relief while simultaneously centralizing power through shadow institutions that marginalize the Alawite and Druze communities. This governance strategy has exacerbated sectarian tensions, triggering over 1,500 deaths in recent violence and driving 25,000 former regime affiliates to flee as they organize new insurgencies. Despite restoring civil liberties and dismantling the Assad-era secret police, the administration's failure to provide transitional justice or economic stability threatens to destabilize the state and negate its diplomatic achievements.

The Chip That Could Unlock AGI.

Naveen Rao, Matt Bornstein

Former Databricks AI head Naveen Rao founded Unconventional AI at NeurIPS to develop first-principles hardware that utilizes physical circuit dynamics rather than traditional digital logic, aiming to resolve the impending 400-gigawatt energy shortfall in data centers. Partnering with TSMC for manufacturing, the startup targets the creation of large-scale analog chips optimized for time-dynamic workloads like diffusion and energy-based models to accelerate the path toward Artificial General Intelligence. This initiative seeks to replace the binary computing paradigm with substrates capable of replicating biological efficiency, positioning Rao's team to bridge the gap between theoretical dynamical systems and scalable engineering.

OpenAI's Code Red, Sacks vs New York Times, New Poverty Line?

David Sacks

OpenAI has issued a "Code Red" directive requiring full-time office presence to address a sharp drop in market share from over 90% to 68% amid intensifying competition from Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and xAI's Grok. Simultaneously, the episode scrutinizes David Sacks' ethics controversy after New York Times allegations of conflicts of interest were dismissed by the Office of Government Ethics, with critics labeling the report a political hit job. The discussion further analyzes shifting economic dynamics, including state-level fiscal risks from wealth taxes and a predicted pivot toward multimodal, agentic AI models that threaten traditional subscription revenue models.

Why doesn’t the UK become closer to the EU?

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Edward Carr

Analysts predict Prime Minister Starmer will gradually pivot to a pro-EU stance by 2028–2029, driven by strong public support for closer ties that has outlasted the domestic political trauma of Brexit. Concurrently, the government has successfully reduced net migration to approximately 200,000 annually through stricter visa rules, though rising asylum claims continue to fuel a public perception of failing border control. This stabilization of migration figures may enable a political shift toward accepting free movement with the EU within three years, provided internal European instability does not undermine cooperation.

Finding Opportunity in Outdated Rules

Emerging companies frequently capitalize on legal ambiguities, such as OpenAI's copyright challenges or Lyft's initial fear of criminal liability, to launch disruptive models before regulations adapt. These ventures often succeed because legal frameworks evolve post-launch to accommodate high-value consumer innovations, creating a window where outdated statutes fail to align with modern technological realities. Consequently, identifying and exploiting these gray areas becomes a strategic pathway for market entry, as the substantial value delivered to consumers eventually forces the superseding of obsolete laws.

Why the Dollar Could Drop

Brian Dunne, Chris Hussey

Goldman Sachs analysts project a 5% to 10% depreciation of the U.S. dollar in the first half of next year driven by shifting fiscal concerns and the resumption of economic data releases. Market expectations for an immediate Federal Reserve rate cut and the upcoming announcement of the Trump administration's Fed Chair nominee are anticipated to accelerate a rebalancing of global allocations away from hard dollar assets. Consequently, trading strategies are increasingly favoring high-yielding emerging market currencies in Brazil and Mexico over developed market alternatives, while betting on long-term Chinese currency appreciation amid historically low volatility.