September 25, 2026 • 43 mins
Is Muse the AI agent we’ve been waiting for? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpack the U.S.-China AI race and why America’s obsession with AI doom may not translate abroad. Then, they weigh in on Meta’s buzzy new product and whether its usefulness is worth handing Meta even more of your personal data. Finally, Silicon Valley takes another swing at disrupting college with the new Horowitz Andreessen Academy. Which begs the question, who is this for?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Rita, Tasha, Taylor, I have to begin with an apology.
I've never done this before, but we're going to open
the show with a clip from the president.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct
a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being
spoken of so much now, here and after officially called
super intelligence, changing the name. and that the use of
the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake,
(00:41):
and it is not fake.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's actually amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Is he going to catch on?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, Mark Zuckerberg certainly hopes so. I mean, he's the
one writing all the superintelligence manifestos.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I agree with one part of what he said, which
is like intelligence is not artificial and we should just
call it intelligence. And also AI is a horrible term
in general. Like it's automation. It's software automation. We should
call it that. Like we should all stop using AI
as a term.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Maybe let's go back to machine learning.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Yes, I love machine learning.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Oz Voloshin, and this is
The Week in Tech, where I'm joined by the world's
most plugged-in reporters to break down what's really happening in
tech right now. Today, we're joined by Reid Arbogati, tech
editor for Semaphore, Taylor Lorenz of UserMag, and Natasha Tiku,
tech reporter at The Washington Post.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Welcome all.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Hey, guys. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Good to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Great to see you all. You guys are on the
West Coast. I'm in New York City. where it's United
Nations General Assembly Week. So if you're in Midtown, it
takes at least two hours to get anywhere. But I've
got international politics. I really managed to avoid.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
It this year.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I know you said you were going to come, but
I guess you managed to skip it.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I'm normally there. I suggest getting around by bike, but
that's when I lived there.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You can avoid all the traffic. I definitely don't have
your courage for just like in New York. But anyway,
international politics and diplomacy are, of course, top of mind
with UN Week happening. And President Xi is in Washington
for a state visit meeting Trump. Reid, let's start with
those two. What's on their agenda when it comes to AI?
(02:20):
And is the kind of concept of a race for supremacy,
the correct lens to be looking at this meeting through?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, I mean, partially, I think there's this sort of
game of chicken being played between, you know, people say
the US and China, I would say maybe it's California
and China. Who's you know, who's actually like, you know,
cares about safety, would the Chinese go along with agreement, etc, etc.
(02:46):
I think personally, the the likelihood of some sort of
agreement between the US and China to, to slow the,
you know, slow down or pace the frontier of AI
development is, is super unlikely. I just think it's, it's
also just so difficult to, you know, stop the the
advance in software, right? This is not like, chips that
(03:07):
you can't have export controls on software. It's just a
thing you can send over the internet. So I think
it's super unlikely. Of course, AI lab chiefs presented in
front of the UN, and they not surprisingly called for
some sort of vague regulation, an agreement between all the
(03:28):
nations to you know, to make sure that AI is safe.
And it's like, okay, we've heard this now, like, you know,
it's literally like every year, okay, like, do something about
this technology we're building. And I think, again, like the
message is just always wrong. The message should be, this
technology is coming, there will be effects on the world
(03:51):
because of this technology, you should go fix those things. Like,
you're not going to fix the underlying technology, like no
one's going to You know, no government is going to
be able to, you know, sort of like control the
release of AI models. They're only going to be able
to solve the problems that, you know, that come from
this technology, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Natasha, you're nodding.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, read for UN general council member.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I think that, yeah, it's just....
Speaker 5 (04:28):
No, I just feel I'm just glad to hear you
say that it's feels like a broken record because I
cannot take like pacing the frontier seriously. It's just a
different name for the same kind of vague gesturing at
we want regulation. And I feel like recently it's become,
(04:49):
you know, people have approached this very credulously Like the
labs are begging for regulation. They're begging for regulation. I'm like,
did we not all live through 2023? I mean, don't
we already know how anthropic and open AI start lobbying
behind the scenes, you know, once something happens. So it's just, um,
(05:11):
I mean, pacing the frontier, it's like, you couldn't write
it better to, to just like dial down the things
that were less palatable.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
We should predict what next year's slogan is going to
be that says exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Taylor, have you got any predictions?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, I just can't stop thinking of Mark Zuckerberg's t-shirt
that said, my love language is building things. So maybe
that's something that the AI companies can adopt.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
On the Trump-Xi summit, obviously when Trump did his state
visit to China, he brought all the tech overlords with him.
And there was the famous incident of Jensen like intercepting
the plane in Canada. Did, did she bring any, any
Chinese tech overlords with him or is that.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
One way traffic? Well, I think it's, I think it's
actually the opposite. I think China's actually trying to keep their, their, uh,
their tech people from leaving the country. If you, if
you've been following them, I mean, they are, they're literally
under house arrest in a lot of cases. Like you
remember Manus AI where, you know, Meta acquired this company
(06:17):
and then China said, no, actually, they sort of got
these people to come back to China and now won't
let them leave.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So, yeah, I don't think it's... They thought they were
safe in Singapore, right? In the Meta space.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
They thought, right. Everyone was like moving their companies to
Singapore to try to not be Chinese companies. Well, it
turns out, you know, China had something to say about that.
And yeah, it's not quite the same. And, you know,
to be honest, it still amazes me. Honestly, this is
a bit of a tangent, but that that China is
able to do so much innovation under these circumstances. Could
(06:52):
you imagine if... I just can't see innovation happening in
the US if people were worried that if their company
was too successful, they were going to disappear, be put
on house arrest, and not be able to leave the country.
It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I agree with you, but it's also a different economic model.
I was reading a piece in The Times about exactly this,
and they wrote, China's playbook for AI mirrors the one
it used to dominate electric vehicles and solar panels, subsidies,
tax breaks, and research money. Obviously, in the US, it's
all about private capital and capital markets. How do you
all think that influences the actual development of the technology itself,
(07:26):
that difference in source of funding?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Well, historically, China's been, you know, it's been copycat, right?
You can certainly do this through, you know, sort of
getting IP and then sort of trying to copy what the,
what the U S is doing. But I think what's
surprising to me is it's not just copycat anymore. It's like,
there is, there is actual innovation happening. So, you know,
(07:49):
I suppose it's a, it's a good, I mean, and
not just in AI, right. I mean, we're like, China's
now surpassed the U S in clinical trials, for instance.
So there, so in biotech, you could argue like they're
pulling ahead. I mean, obviously that's, that would be a
controversial opinion, but you know, they're putting more money into
quantum computing, et cetera. So, you know, it's, um, Yeah.
(08:10):
It's just interesting. In the US, it's a different way.
In the US, I think one thing you left out
of the equation is academic research. The US has had
this system of government funds, blue sky academic research, discoveries happen.
And then we have a good system for spinning out
technology into the private sector and then funding that. And
(08:31):
of course, we're experimenting with shaking that snow globe and
just seeing what happens. But You know, it got us here. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
I mean, not the house arrest part, but in terms
of like knowing how the industry is functioned, having a
better sense of where capital is coming from, you know,
not having to be on the podcast circuit like constantly.
I mean, think about the amount of time that Sam
Altman spends on a stage. They could just be heads down.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Maybe that's it. They do work, supposedly work longer hours, right?
What is it, the 996. 996, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I'm skeptical of that. I think it's a LARP. Here
it's a LARP. Yeah, I meant here it's a LARP,
here in the U.S., not in China.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I think they really are working the 996 in China.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Does anyone know, does the safety discourse have any purchase
in China, like this Pacing the Frontier, AI Might Kill
Us All existential risk conversation? Is that a peculiarly American phenomenon,
or is there an equivalent sort of movement in China?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Actually, it is actually pretty American. to be honest. We
had a story about this yesterday. It's time before, from JD,
who I work with, on the fact that the US
is really... You talk to all these other countries and
people are pretty excited about AI, not super worried about
you know, everybody dying or being put out of work.
(09:58):
They're kind of like, oh, this is great. Like this
is going to create economic growth. It's going to help
us in education and healthcare in the US. It's like
a lot of fear. I think China certainly has some
concerns about AI though, because it's like, you know, But they're.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
More about how might AI destabilize the Communist Party control
of the information ecosystem rather than how might AI kill us,
I think.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yes, I think that's totally right.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
I can imagine that it would be hard to port
over the AI safety discourse because so much of the
AI safety discourse is anti-China and extremely hawkish about, you know,
and justifies its existence in the U.S. by painting China
as the enemy and totalitarian and, you know, authoritarian. But
(10:44):
I do think there have been efforts, I mean, from
the effective altruist community, at least to like branch out
to other countries. I did find what I thought was
an AI safety org the other day. But yeah, I
would love to see more reporting on it. But yeah,
it would be quite challenging as a person living in China.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
There was that Kurt Anderson book, How America Lost Its
Mind and kind of tracing the you know, the history
of the Protestant millennial cults basically who arrived and stuff.
And I mean, it is interesting whether it's just like,
whether the whole like AI doom thing is like a
kind of political power slash fundraising thing, whether there's something
more fundamental about how it interacts with like the depths
(11:25):
of the American psyche as a non-American I'm curious about.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
We are obsessed with like apocalypse stories and stuff, right?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yes. And this is like, yeah, this is an apocalyptic,
Doomer cult. It's a doomsday cult. And I actually think
like America has a lot of doomsday cults and I'm
not sure China has many.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
That's true. But we haven't seen like a David Koresh
of AI, you know, like when is that going to happen?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Oh, we've got Yudkowsky.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
On a slightly more practical matter, China has poured $ 150
billion over the last decade into trying to cultivate its
domestic chip manufacturing capabilities. And even the head of DeepSeek
recently said that the export controls on chips are actually
holding China's AI development back. Does anyone know, like, how
are the, how's it going? Like, are they getting any
(12:19):
closer to having competitive domestic chip manufacturing?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I think if you listen to, you know, certain chip
company lobbyists, they are. But I think, I think it's,
I'm somewhat skeptical. Like, you know, they've, again, like, been
very innovative, actually, like this is this is one of
the things like the scarcity creates innovation. That's deep seek
is a great example of that. But it's happening on
(12:42):
the chip side as well. Like Huawei is building these,
you know, these data centers, and they're, you know, doing
really cool stuff with memory to try to get around, like,
you know, the these bands to get gains on memory,
if for lack of the, you know, the actual chip technology,
but like, then you talk to people and you know,
who work on this stuff in China, they're like, I mean,
(13:05):
we would absolutely use NVIDIA if we could. Like, there's
just no comparison. So it's like, when is it actually,
you know, when are they going to catch up? Will
they catch up? Like, I, you know, it seems like
they're just perpetually a little behind, essentially.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
For now.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
For now. And the UN, I mean, you know, one
of the, you know, outside the US and China, you
have the Europeans always. And some of the discourse was around, okay,
we need to, We need to get, you know, tech
sovereignty in Europe. And several UN agencies talked about looking
to diversify away from US AI products. Is this just
like throat clearing and kind of gestural noises? Or is
(13:46):
there anything like that they could actually do?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I think that there has been an effort to talk
about the middle powers and how the middle powers need
to get in the game. But I thought the only
advice given to them was like, say yes to data centers. So... Yeah,
so I don't really know, but I do think that
there has been more drumbeat of, hey, you can't just
(14:11):
sit around while other world powers are preparing to divvy
up the world economy into two.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
On that sovereignty, I think I thought it was interesting.
There was a story out of the UAE that when
Iran bombed those AWS data centers, they couldn't recover some
of the data because, you know, it was like in
one location because they didn't want it to be, you know,
they wanted data sovereignty, right? So they didn't want it
(14:42):
to leave the country. Well, it turns out like, well, not,
not models. This was like sort of not AI related.
It was just data really, you know, like data centers
in the traditional sense of data centers. But like, Yeah,
they didn't. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, if
you're like a little country and you're like, I want
all my data in my country, it's actually like more
(15:04):
susceptible to, you know, you don't have as much data redundancy,
which I thought was kind of an interesting one on
that point.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
When we come back, Meta's release of Muse. and their
stock price up 40% in the last month. Did we
count them out too early?
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Stay with us.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So it's been a minute since we talked about consumer
tech on The Week in Tech. In fact, we just
talked about AI and AI extinction basically nonstop since Hugging Face.
So a little bit of a breather before maybe a
brief one. Has Meta finally made a useful AI product, Natasha?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
I mean, I looked at the App Store this morning
and Muse is at the top of the charts. I
know that's very easily gamed, but it does seem like
people have gravitated towards using it and embracing it. And
then Mark Zuckerberg released a little or demoed on stage
this little Tamagotchi. Did you guys see this?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, it's basically like a little pendant that the Muse
kind of like lives inside the AI agent. It's very similar,
I thought, to that pendant friend, which people were boycotting
and trashing the billboards of. But I guess if you
put like a little creature as the face of this
AI agent, people aren't as bad.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Just back up a second there. What is Muse?
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Muse is just, it's a consumer AI agent that, Meta
has set it up to be more accessible to the masses.
You go in, you're already connected to your Instagram and
your Facebook, and you can ask it to do stuff
for you. But every useful thing requires turning over so
(17:08):
much data to Meta. They have like a little YouTube
short commercial for it. And the second or third thing
the guy suggested was his bank account. Like, I just,
they have a lot of safeguards in place, you know,
where they can't charge your credit card for a certain reason,
but it's just, I don't know. I find these so
frustrating because A, it feels like a problem of the
(17:32):
tech industry's own making, the lack of interoperability, like the
fact that these can't, like, do you need generative AI
in order for somebody to get access to your Spotify interface? No,
I don't think so. I mean, the conversational requests for sure.
But I mean, yeah. So I have seen accounts where
(17:54):
people turned over their Gmail, their bank account, various other things.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Their bank account.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Useful.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Yeah. The New York Times, Eli in the Times, like
just gave it everything and said he loved it.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He said it's the most useful.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Have you used it, Taylor?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I'm a muser.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I would not give it access to my bank account.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
But what about your Gmail? Did you do Gmail?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Girl, I've given instinct test access to my Gmail. I know.
The thing is, you know what the thing is. So
I wrote a piece in 2019 for the Atlantic called
Inbox Infinity. And I talked about effectively how like. Email
is just this like flood. It's like a feed that
I check sometimes, but I get like thousands of emails
(18:39):
a day, especially since I've gone independent. I've only ever
used my Gmail, even when I worked in mainstream media.
So like I just, my inbox is unusable. I get,
it's like, I would say 70% PR spam. And what
I have found to be helpful is sort of like
these AI agents are letting me treat my email as
(18:59):
like a database almost where I can just say like, hey,
go in and find me something. I actually was trying
to find people that do PR for data centers this
week for a freelance thing. And I said, can you
just go in my, I'm sure these people have pitched
me and it found the contact number. So I think
it's useful for that part. Yeah, I would not let
it like let make purchases. I don't trust meta, you know,
(19:23):
in a lot of ways, I don't trust meta with
my data, but also meta has so much data on me.
And that also has been revealing using Muse. Like you
can have it do all this stuff with your Instagram account.
It does have like, you know, if you've been a
long time user of meta products, probably like all of
us since college, like meta already has a lot of
useful data that the agent can kind of pull from. So,
(19:43):
you know, as opposed to something like instinct where it
doesn't have that long sort of, you know, knowledge about you.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I do.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Did try to get it to unfollow brands on my Instagram,
and it can't do that.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Oh, I didn't ask it to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Computer says no.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I think the more useful these things are, the more
risk you have to take. I think that's just like
the general rule. And It's basically OpenClaw. It's essentially what
Muse is, right? It's OpenClaw, but it's like running in
the cloud and Meta's done some stuff to try to
keep the guardrails on, which effectively does mean.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Did they buy OpenClaw or did OpenAI buy OpenClaw?
Speaker 4 (20:20):
They didn't buy it, but they hired Peter Steinberger, who
created it, because it's open source. It's an open source protocol.
But everybody kind of stopped using OpenClaw and... I would
predict that that will happen with Muse. I think Muse,
it's a great idea and people are downloading it. That's
(20:41):
why it's high up in the app store. Are they
actually going to continue using it? I actually, I downloaded it.
I connected it to email. Interestingly, it wouldn't connect to
this Outlist personal Outlook account because it's on an enterprise
thing that I'd set up. So it's like, it's funny.
It's like so consumer. But it was like, it suggested
(21:02):
like this workaround which then I ran through chat GPT
and I was like, is this a good idea? And
it was like, yeah, that's like the old way of
doing it. I'm like, okay. So, you know, I, I
think eventually I think most people will, will not, I,
this is the thing because it's like not there yet.
The technology is just not there yet to like get
everything done for you. I think a lot of people
(21:23):
will like, they'll try it out. It'll be interesting, but
ultimately they'll, they'll, the usage will wane on this one.
It's like, it's kind of like a gen one. But
someone eventually will figure out consumer.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Are you sure it's not this one? I mean, Eli
Tan is saying in the Times, this is the best
AI app he's ever used.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
It's not the best AI.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I'm not sure, but I just don't think like my
spidey sense is a tech reporter says this isn't it.
I personally, I mean, I have like, you know, codecs
set up and it's like much more useful. But like
maybe if I really worked on Muse, I could get
it to be at that level.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But I think none of them are at that level.
And I use Grokbot too. I feel like I try
every single one of these things. None of them are
at that level. I think the question, and Reid kind
of alluded to this, but I think the question is like,
do people need these agents? Like there's been a lot
of discourse this week. Ben Thompson was saying that like,
you know, people don't really want to be productive in
(22:22):
their personal life. Like, These agent systems are much more
valuable for work. And I saw another really good tweet.
I can't remember who posted it about sort of travel
planning and how so much of travel planning, which is
one of the primary use cases that these companies continue
to use in their marketing, is enjoyable. And people like thinking, yeah,
the hotel.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's pleasurable, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It's funny, those demos.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, it's like, I just, I'm actually not convinced that
there is a strong consumer use case in general outside
of like, help me make sense of this horrible inbox
that I have, you know?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I saw you retweet Ben Thompson on this and I've
heard him say this several times. I totally disagree with
that though. Like, I don't know what planet Ben Thompson
is living on, but like, I mean, are like, my
family like stuff is like such a mess with like
two kids. I mean, maybe if you're like a young
single person, like, which I don't think Ben Thompson is,
(23:15):
but like the.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Family stuff is real. The family stuff is real. Cause
moms are embracing it.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
We are like drowning. I mean, our family is drowning.
Like I build, I like to build like web apps
for like specific purposes and stuff. So that like, I
have multiple times like gone to the grocery store and
then just like left the groceries sitting in my car.
Cause it's just like, I can't even handle that crap. Like, It's, it's, it's,
I may have dementia. I might've been hit too many times.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I was just going to say Katie Nantopoulos did a
good version of this and she tried to like turn
over all of her stuff. And she said specifically, it
was the parenting apps, like the school apps. Like one
was parent square, which I also have to use. Now
my kid's new teacher uses class dojo. I would love
to be able to automate that. And those still don't work.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I've automated it. They don't have an API, but I've
automated it by using the email. I take the emails
because you can get them to send you an email
for everything. But parent square is totally automated for me
at this point. Like I have a voice. I have
a voice chat like that basically is like parent square
and like team snap and like all these things like
it just puts it all together.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Well, my solution has been that, um, is, um, learned helplessness.
I am like a bad dad and I just like,
don't get the notifications. Um, so I don't know if
I want it to be so, um, accessible, but it
would be nice to have one place to look.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
So I'll get read to come over, read for press,
read for UN general counsel and it support at my house.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Every parent should be using this stuff. Every parent should.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Like, I had something worse than forgetting my groceries in
the car yesterday. I managed to lose my key at
some point during the day, and the doorbell is also
broken in my house, so I couldn't wake my wife up,
so I had to go and stay in a hotel,
which was very depressing.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Oh, my God. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I don't think AI could have helped me with that, unfortunately.
But coming back to Meta, I mean, who is Alexander Wang,
and is he vital to Meta's kind of perceived resurgence?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Well, he, he's definitely worked on the logo. Like he met,
he was tweeting about how all the other AI logos
look like buttholes and there's doesn't, it's just a squiggly line.
So that doesn't answer your question though.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
Maybe he's the former CEO or, and co-founder of scale AI,
the company that, you know, works with contractors to help
do like data labeling, um, reinforcement learning training environments, that
kind of like.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Quasi sweatshop, new content moderator type stuff. And he was- Natasha.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
They're paying PhDs now to do this. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Yeah, sorry. Well, are they? I think like Merkur and
the others.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, they are.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
But in any case, how do you even put it?
He was acquired for 14 billion. He's basically the figurehead
of meta superintelligence. And he was taking a really big
victory lap after Muse yesterday. And I think it might
have been a little too early. But Meta has been
(26:35):
so behind the ball. And I think he's helped Mark
feel like a little swagged out as well.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I was going to say, I feel like so much
of him is branding. This guy, I don't think he
is a genius in the AI world. I don't think
he's a brilliant, like... you know, sort of forward-thinking mind necessarily.
And he's brilliant. I'm not saying Alexander's not smart, but
I'm just saying, like, I think a lot of what
he brings to Meta is this, like, Gen Z energy. And, like,
(27:03):
he was tweeting about, like, you know, the Crocs and
the hunting shirt that he wore on stage. And, like,
he's posting memes all day. And I think like for meta,
which has this horrible image and Zuckerberg, which has this
horrible image, like that nobody trusts, like for them to
have this sort of like Gen Z relatable hyper online face,
I think is, is it's valuable for, for potential muse adoption.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah. Like he's not the AI researcher type, like the
Ilya or someone like that. He's like, you know, the genius,
but it, But now that they're coming out with these products,
it makes a lot more sense that they acquired him
because they're not, it's ultimately not like cutting edge technology
so much. I mean, they're, of course, all these models are,
but you know, it's not like on the frontier. But
(27:49):
what they're doing is they're trying to build this like
consumer ecosystem that ties hardware together with LLMs and makes
these useful consumer products. it remains to be seen whether
that will ultimately be successful. I kind of wonder why
Google's not really making a push to try to do this,
but you know, I like that idea. Like I, I, I, again,
disagree with Ben Thompson that there's like no consumer application here.
(28:13):
Like I think this is, this stuff could be great,
but it's, it's going to take, I think a lot
more time.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, I think they've done a terrible job, like
trying to relate to normal people and articulating in use
case for them, or even just like going out and
seeing how they're, users are doing it. And they're so,
I mean, they do pay a lot of women influencers,
but you know, for, for content, but they're so behind.
I mean, the other interesting thing that was like theorized
(28:39):
around the time of the scale AI acquisition, Aqua hire
was that, um, as, as a company that was helping Google, um,
open AI, anthropic, like everybody do post-training and other parts
of the development process, possibly, that he would have had
(29:00):
a lot of ideas about like, who's good, how are,
you know, what's consensus in, on the frontier, which Meta
is not, but I wouldn't put out, I wouldn't say
Meta's giving up on, on having like a frontier model.
I can just see this being like such a personal
thing for Zach. Like my best years are still ahead
of me. You know, I don't think he's just going
(29:21):
to like lean into only Tamagotchi.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah. But also like, what's the point of really trying
to have a frontier model at this point? I mean,
I'm sure they're using like a bunch of Chinese open
source models. It's like, yeah, ultimately I think even open
AI and anthropic, like they might not even need to
be on the frontier. Like it's, you know, it's about
the product it's not the underlying model is kind of
neither here nor there it's really just about compute honestly
(29:46):
like it's like who has the most compute and you're
just selling units of of compute.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Hence uh hence jensen's intervention to say that the fears
of a ai apocalypse are overblown.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Well, this is the other thing you didn't mention. On
Jensen's point, we need to actually speed up the, not pace,
but speed up the frontier. I don't know if you
saw this story about Muse, but one of the features
is I guess you can have it make phone calls,
like call a restaurant and make a dinner reservation. And
they've apparently been hiring people in call centers, like people
(30:19):
to make those calls for you. It's like, these things
can solve complex math theorems now but like they can't
call a restaurant to make a reservation. Like there's, you know,
I think there's, there's a disconnect there. Like a killer
AI that's going to take over humanity could probably do that. So,
you know, I think, I, I think we, I think this,
(30:42):
this frontier is a little, it's not as, not, not
as advanced as some people might say.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And just to close on, on this segment, do you
know what, like what is driving your resurgence in meta
stock price? Is it, is it muse and charm or
is it, a broader kind of tech rally. I just
Googled it this morning. I was kind of stunned to
see that it's up 40% in the last month.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Hey, they've got a buzzy product, right? I mean, if
you're on Wall Street, that's, you know.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
And the glasses.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Yeah, the glasses are doing well. They came out with
these VR. They're still trying for VR, which I'm like,
that's another one where the technology is.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Just not there. It's not there. We're not even close
to it. But they're still going to keep making these
clunky things.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
But in the glasses, they're alone right now. I mean,
in terms of like visibility of a consumer product.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Oh, absolutely. And they also made a version of the
glasses without the camera, I think, to beat the creepy
allegations that just have voice. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And what does the charm pendant do? Is it like
the glasses without the lens? And what's the difference? Do
you see any possibility of it being adopted?
Speaker 5 (31:47):
He said you can talk to it anytime all day.
And then pretty much as soon as he held it up,
he was like, but this but it's not really in
production and we're not sure if we put all the
features in it. Like I was just like, okay, what
are you holding up? Why are you, why are you
doing this?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's basically a speaker, right? Like a speaker and a
microphone essentially that connects to the cloud.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
I don't see how communicate if, unless you're just using
it for audio in between like desktop and app, I
don't see how you could like get a lot of
agentic things done with a screen that's this.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Big, but.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
But you just talk to it. I mean, that's, that's
the new, that's the new thing. Like, which is actually
a great use case. Like I've talked to, you know,
some of these apps, like actually I do this, like
when I mentioned the parent square thing, like I can
talk to that, like while I'm driving. Right. I don't
have to say, I can be like, what's coming, what's on,
on the agenda. Okay. Add that to the family calendar.
(32:43):
And it will do that stuff for me through voice.
And it's great. But it's also like I'm using my phone.
I think with all these hardware devices, like including the
one OpenAI is making, like you could just use your phone.
But all these companies, they really want to break outside
of Apple's ecosystem because they know Apple's going to try
to block what they're doing. Whether they can is another question.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
I have to say I did really like the shape
of it. Something about like the shape of it really
made me want one in a way that.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Like those speaks.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Why?
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I think it was just the rounded edge. It just
was like the perfect amount of fatness and roundness. And
it looked sleek and it had a little cutie avatar
on it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
I mean, like, I'm just being honest.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's working.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
It's susceptible to it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
When we come back, Silicon Valley continues its attempts to
disrupt the education system. Stay with us. Welcome back. Taylor,
Silicon Valley, as so often, has its own ideas about
the future of education. The VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is
(33:55):
accepting applications for its first class of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy.
What do we know about the program and why did
they flip the names?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Who knows why they flipped the names? It's very strange.
But yeah, this is a completely unaccredited program where basically
young people just sort of hear lectures from famous tech
people and Andreessen Horowitz partners, including, you know, Daniel Penny,
who killed that man, the unhoused man on the subway
(34:24):
in New York. It's very strange. They also have sort
of like mentors, which just seems to be like broader
people in their orbit. I, you know, it, All of
it is just hilarious because they're not reinventing education. This
is purely a play to get in front of younger founders, right?
And sort of build this Andreessen Horowitz network so that
(34:46):
they have access to those funding rounds if one of
these kids ends up building something. But it just made
me laugh because I'm a huge... I'm actually a supporter
of gap years and kids getting out into the workforce
and doing internships or whatever. But I can't imagine that
it's incredibly valuable to participate in this, especially when the
(35:10):
Teal Fellowship exists. And there's Z Fellows. There's so many
programs out there that are aimed at capturing this specific market.
And I also don't know why these kids wouldn't just
join YC if they're that founder-minded. I don't know. Yeah,
it's very silly.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Talk about this versus the Teal Fellowship versus YC.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
The Teal Fellowship, you actually get money and here you're
paying money. I think it's like $ 50, 000. They said it's
the same. It's the cost of like a college year,
I think.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Really?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I think the first cohort gets to go for free
for a year and then it's going to ramp up
to being the same price as college for the second
cohort is what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Okay. So again, you're paying. You're paying to get marketing
lectures from random, you know, from CEOs? Like, I guess
I just, I really don't understand the point of it.
I understand the value for Andreessen Horowitz. I understand why
Andreessen Horowitz wants to do this. If I am a
(36:11):
17-year-old tech prodigy, why on earth am I paying somebody
tens of thousands of dollars? This is maybe for like
rich kids, you know, for for their parents to kind
of put them through that they want to LARP as
a startup founder. But again, why wouldn't you just go
to Stanford? Like, I'm really struggling to see.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
It's expensive too.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
What if you wanted to be a conservative influencer?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, now we're talking. Yeah, I think like, right. I
think the career paths for this are much closer to
conservative influencer or podcast host versus startup founder.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Like Little Barry Weiss, not like... little Alexander Wang or.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
If you want to be a mini Barry Weiss, go
to this. Although again, Barry Weiss has her own fake anti-woke,
you know, university thing.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Which Andreessen Orwoods, or at least Mark Andreessen is an
investor in, so.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Right. But that didn't do well, right? University of Austin hasn't.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
No, none of this does well because there's no actual
market for it. And it's like, again, you're making these
people pay. You're getting just like total rubes. Like you've
got to be an idiot to pay for this stuff.
And so I just think like, If it's something where
it's like the fellowship, like the Teal Fellowship has been
successful because it's prestigious, because you get money, because you
get to explore this thing, you get access. So it's
(37:28):
like this elite thing. If it was an elite fellowship,
I actually think that could maybe work. But you're asking
people to pay you when you're the one getting the value.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And they raised $ 48 million as a for-profit venture.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
I haven't even heard a number that small in a while.
And I mean, there's so many other alternatives too. Like
if you want, a grant. There's the Emergent Ventures grant
from Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison and that will look
really good on your resume because these people are curated.
I hope people save their money.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Ruud, you compared one of the Peter Thiel branded off-sites
that he doesn't actually go to is the Wayne Gretzky
Hockey Camp of Tech. I have a feeling that's coming
to mind on the Horowitz-Andreessen trade school.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yeah. There was the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I,
I'm also not like long on this succeeding, you know,
I do, but I do think the, the sort of,
there's a, there's an interesting phenomenon happening here where I think,
I think most people sort of realize the university system
is not well, like the actual university system is not well.
(38:40):
And I think maybe the whole education system, right. And,
you know, there is kind of a, I think people
sort of do see an opening here, like an opportunity
to potentially privatize it, replace it, disrupt it, right? And
that's what's interesting to me. It's like the individual efforts
to do this, like University of Austin, and now this
(39:02):
Andreessen Horowitz one. I mean, yeah, like they're not gonna succeed,
but they kind of say something. And I do wonder
what it's gonna look like. It does feel to me
like the university system, which is now just like, grappling
with AI and doing a very bad job of it,
they're going to have to change. Something has to give.
(39:24):
And I think it's sad because they're great institutions. I
think we should try to save these institutions. but they
have to change. I don't know if you all agree
with that.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
I mean, I just think that Andreessen Horowitz has been,
especially Mark Andreessen, one of the biggest critics of university systems.
And so to rail against it for years, like for,
you know, not only, you know, for radicalizing our youth,
turning them into communists, making woke tech employees, favoring DEI,
(39:58):
all of these things, and the cost of it. I
think his critiques about the cost of it, I mean,
you know, that makes sense. And, you know, utility for
people in the real world. So for them to be
so late to the game for a young person pipeline,
but then come and be so ahead of the curve
in terms of criticizing the university and then to come
(40:19):
out with like, as we were talking, it reminded me
of Singularity University, you know, like something an executive would
get a certificate for. So I just, even just the $ 50, 000,
like why have you been railing against the cost of
college if you're now charging a 17 year old $ 50, 000.
Like it just.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Wait, can I also just say that like, they really
put this feels so like sloppy. Like they don't have
any sort of, it's not like they've acquired a campus.
It's not like, you know, so much of college is
about like socializing with the right people and sort of
being like in this, you know, cocoon environment. But, They
don't have a campus. They don't have any infrastructure. I
(41:00):
guess this is just going to be held in conference
rooms somewhere. And then when you go on the website
and you click student life, it says you make the culture,
start a club, host a salon, invent a tradition. Your
classmates decide what happens in it. It's like, why am
I paying you?
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Yeah, definitely. Definitely not the archetype of a successful founder, right?
Like founders are usually not like the rich kids with
the silver spoon who, you know, are dropping all kinds
of cash to move to San Francisco. Like they come,
they usually have these sort of like interesting backgrounds with
other interests outside of technology. And their minds are sort
of like, you know, they just look at the world
(41:38):
in an interesting way. And then somehow they find themselves
in Silicon Valley. And, you know, because they have this
like unique way of looking at things, they're able to,
to find a lane that other people don't see anywhere.
And I mean, there's so many like Steve Jobs is
a good example of that. But like, there's so many examples.
And this seems to be like, it's almost like, I
(42:00):
don't know, they're almost attracting like the opposite of that. Like,
I would be surprised if we see like a successful
pipeline of, I mean, unless you're just talking about sort
of like base hit, like SaaS companies or whatever the AI,
you know, the AI era equivalent of like the base
hit SaaS startup is. Like that kind of founder, sure.
But like, this is not going to yield some amazing,
(42:21):
you know, new company. I just don't see that happening.
I mean, they're also, I mean, they're kind of, it's
like a brand licensing play. They turn into like educational merch,
the idea of Anderson Horowitz. I mean, it's a for-profit university. So,
you know, we know, we know, we know what those
are about.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
And Tim Draper also already did this. Draper Academy. Have
you ever met anybody in the tech sector there?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Proud graduate.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
These are all Wayne Gretzky.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
That's all we have time for today. Thank you all
so much.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
For joining us.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Great talking to you guys.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Great to be on, as always.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
For Tech Stuff, I'm Oz Veloshin. This episode was produced
by Eliza Dennis. It was executive produced by me and
Julia Nutter for Kaleidoscope. and Katrina Norvell for iHeart Podcasts.
Jack Inslee mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
theme song. A special thank you to Taylor Lorenz, Natasha Tiku,
and Reid Albigotti. Please check out all the work they
(43:25):
put out into the world. We're lucky to call them
friends of the pod.
Rita, Tasha, Taylor, I have to begin with an apology.
I've never done this before, but we're going to open
the show with a clip from the president.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct
a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being
spoken of so much now, here and after officially called
super intelligence, changing the name. and that the use of
the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake,
(00:41):
and it is not fake.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's actually amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Is he going to catch on?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, Mark Zuckerberg certainly hopes so. I mean, he's the
one writing all the superintelligence manifestos.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I agree with one part of what he said, which
is like intelligence is not artificial and we should just
call it intelligence. And also AI is a horrible term
in general. Like it's automation. It's software automation. We should
call it that. Like we should all stop using AI
as a term.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Maybe let's go back to machine learning.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Yes, I love machine learning.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Oz Voloshin, and this is
The Week in Tech, where I'm joined by the world's
most plugged-in reporters to break down what's really happening in
tech right now. Today, we're joined by Reid Arbogati, tech
editor for Semaphore, Taylor Lorenz of UserMag, and Natasha Tiku,
tech reporter at The Washington Post.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Welcome all.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Hey, guys. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Good to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Great to see you all. You guys are on the
West Coast. I'm in New York City. where it's United
Nations General Assembly Week. So if you're in Midtown, it
takes at least two hours to get anywhere. But I've
got international politics. I really managed to avoid.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
It this year.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I know you said you were going to come, but
I guess you managed to skip it.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I'm normally there. I suggest getting around by bike, but
that's when I lived there.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You can avoid all the traffic. I definitely don't have
your courage for just like in New York. But anyway,
international politics and diplomacy are, of course, top of mind
with UN Week happening. And President Xi is in Washington
for a state visit meeting Trump. Reid, let's start with
those two. What's on their agenda when it comes to AI?
(02:20):
And is the kind of concept of a race for supremacy,
the correct lens to be looking at this meeting through?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, I mean, partially, I think there's this sort of
game of chicken being played between, you know, people say
the US and China, I would say maybe it's California
and China. Who's you know, who's actually like, you know,
cares about safety, would the Chinese go along with agreement, etc, etc.
(02:46):
I think personally, the the likelihood of some sort of
agreement between the US and China to, to slow the,
you know, slow down or pace the frontier of AI
development is, is super unlikely. I just think it's, it's
also just so difficult to, you know, stop the the
advance in software, right? This is not like, chips that
(03:07):
you can't have export controls on software. It's just a
thing you can send over the internet. So I think
it's super unlikely. Of course, AI lab chiefs presented in
front of the UN, and they not surprisingly called for
some sort of vague regulation, an agreement between all the
(03:28):
nations to you know, to make sure that AI is safe.
And it's like, okay, we've heard this now, like, you know,
it's literally like every year, okay, like, do something about
this technology we're building. And I think, again, like the
message is just always wrong. The message should be, this
technology is coming, there will be effects on the world
(03:51):
because of this technology, you should go fix those things. Like,
you're not going to fix the underlying technology, like no
one's going to You know, no government is going to
be able to, you know, sort of like control the
release of AI models. They're only going to be able
to solve the problems that, you know, that come from
this technology, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Natasha, you're nodding.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, read for UN general council member.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I think that, yeah, it's just....
Speaker 5 (04:28):
No, I just feel I'm just glad to hear you
say that it's feels like a broken record because I
cannot take like pacing the frontier seriously. It's just a
different name for the same kind of vague gesturing at
we want regulation. And I feel like recently it's become,
(04:49):
you know, people have approached this very credulously Like the
labs are begging for regulation. They're begging for regulation. I'm like,
did we not all live through 2023? I mean, don't
we already know how anthropic and open AI start lobbying
behind the scenes, you know, once something happens. So it's just, um,
(05:11):
I mean, pacing the frontier, it's like, you couldn't write
it better to, to just like dial down the things
that were less palatable.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
We should predict what next year's slogan is going to
be that says exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Taylor, have you got any predictions?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, I just can't stop thinking of Mark Zuckerberg's t-shirt
that said, my love language is building things. So maybe
that's something that the AI companies can adopt.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
On the Trump-Xi summit, obviously when Trump did his state
visit to China, he brought all the tech overlords with him.
And there was the famous incident of Jensen like intercepting
the plane in Canada. Did, did she bring any, any
Chinese tech overlords with him or is that.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
One way traffic? Well, I think it's, I think it's
actually the opposite. I think China's actually trying to keep their, their, uh,
their tech people from leaving the country. If you, if
you've been following them, I mean, they are, they're literally
under house arrest in a lot of cases. Like you
remember Manus AI where, you know, Meta acquired this company
(06:17):
and then China said, no, actually, they sort of got
these people to come back to China and now won't
let them leave.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So, yeah, I don't think it's... They thought they were
safe in Singapore, right? In the Meta space.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
They thought, right. Everyone was like moving their companies to
Singapore to try to not be Chinese companies. Well, it
turns out, you know, China had something to say about that.
And yeah, it's not quite the same. And, you know,
to be honest, it still amazes me. Honestly, this is
a bit of a tangent, but that that China is
able to do so much innovation under these circumstances. Could
(06:52):
you imagine if... I just can't see innovation happening in
the US if people were worried that if their company
was too successful, they were going to disappear, be put
on house arrest, and not be able to leave the country.
It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I agree with you, but it's also a different economic model.
I was reading a piece in The Times about exactly this,
and they wrote, China's playbook for AI mirrors the one
it used to dominate electric vehicles and solar panels, subsidies,
tax breaks, and research money. Obviously, in the US, it's
all about private capital and capital markets. How do you
all think that influences the actual development of the technology itself,
(07:26):
that difference in source of funding?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Well, historically, China's been, you know, it's been copycat, right?
You can certainly do this through, you know, sort of
getting IP and then sort of trying to copy what the,
what the U S is doing. But I think what's
surprising to me is it's not just copycat anymore. It's like,
there is, there is actual innovation happening. So, you know,
(07:49):
I suppose it's a, it's a good, I mean, and
not just in AI, right. I mean, we're like, China's
now surpassed the U S in clinical trials, for instance.
So there, so in biotech, you could argue like they're
pulling ahead. I mean, obviously that's, that would be a
controversial opinion, but you know, they're putting more money into
quantum computing, et cetera. So, you know, it's, um, Yeah.
(08:10):
It's just interesting. In the US, it's a different way.
In the US, I think one thing you left out
of the equation is academic research. The US has had
this system of government funds, blue sky academic research, discoveries happen.
And then we have a good system for spinning out
technology into the private sector and then funding that. And
(08:31):
of course, we're experimenting with shaking that snow globe and
just seeing what happens. But You know, it got us here. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
I mean, not the house arrest part, but in terms
of like knowing how the industry is functioned, having a
better sense of where capital is coming from, you know,
not having to be on the podcast circuit like constantly.
I mean, think about the amount of time that Sam
Altman spends on a stage. They could just be heads down.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Maybe that's it. They do work, supposedly work longer hours, right?
What is it, the 996. 996, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I'm skeptical of that. I think it's a LARP. Here
it's a LARP. Yeah, I meant here it's a LARP,
here in the U.S., not in China.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
I think they really are working the 996 in China.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Does anyone know, does the safety discourse have any purchase
in China, like this Pacing the Frontier, AI Might Kill
Us All existential risk conversation? Is that a peculiarly American phenomenon,
or is there an equivalent sort of movement in China?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Actually, it is actually pretty American. to be honest. We
had a story about this yesterday. It's time before, from JD,
who I work with, on the fact that the US
is really... You talk to all these other countries and
people are pretty excited about AI, not super worried about
you know, everybody dying or being put out of work.
(09:58):
They're kind of like, oh, this is great. Like this
is going to create economic growth. It's going to help
us in education and healthcare in the US. It's like
a lot of fear. I think China certainly has some
concerns about AI though, because it's like, you know, But they're.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
More about how might AI destabilize the Communist Party control
of the information ecosystem rather than how might AI kill us,
I think.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yes, I think that's totally right.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
I can imagine that it would be hard to port
over the AI safety discourse because so much of the
AI safety discourse is anti-China and extremely hawkish about, you know,
and justifies its existence in the U.S. by painting China
as the enemy and totalitarian and, you know, authoritarian. But
(10:44):
I do think there have been efforts, I mean, from
the effective altruist community, at least to like branch out
to other countries. I did find what I thought was
an AI safety org the other day. But yeah, I
would love to see more reporting on it. But yeah,
it would be quite challenging as a person living in China.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
There was that Kurt Anderson book, How America Lost Its
Mind and kind of tracing the you know, the history
of the Protestant millennial cults basically who arrived and stuff.
And I mean, it is interesting whether it's just like,
whether the whole like AI doom thing is like a
kind of political power slash fundraising thing, whether there's something
more fundamental about how it interacts with like the depths
(11:25):
of the American psyche as a non-American I'm curious about.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
We are obsessed with like apocalypse stories and stuff, right?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yes. And this is like, yeah, this is an apocalyptic,
Doomer cult. It's a doomsday cult. And I actually think
like America has a lot of doomsday cults and I'm
not sure China has many.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
That's true. But we haven't seen like a David Koresh
of AI, you know, like when is that going to happen?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Oh, we've got Yudkowsky.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
On a slightly more practical matter, China has poured $ 150
billion over the last decade into trying to cultivate its
domestic chip manufacturing capabilities. And even the head of DeepSeek
recently said that the export controls on chips are actually
holding China's AI development back. Does anyone know, like, how
are the, how's it going? Like, are they getting any
(12:19):
closer to having competitive domestic chip manufacturing?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I think if you listen to, you know, certain chip
company lobbyists, they are. But I think, I think it's,
I'm somewhat skeptical. Like, you know, they've, again, like, been
very innovative, actually, like this is this is one of
the things like the scarcity creates innovation. That's deep seek
is a great example of that. But it's happening on
(12:42):
the chip side as well. Like Huawei is building these,
you know, these data centers, and they're, you know, doing
really cool stuff with memory to try to get around, like,
you know, the these bands to get gains on memory,
if for lack of the, you know, the actual chip technology,
but like, then you talk to people and you know,
who work on this stuff in China, they're like, I mean,
(13:05):
we would absolutely use NVIDIA if we could. Like, there's
just no comparison. So it's like, when is it actually,
you know, when are they going to catch up? Will
they catch up? Like, I, you know, it seems like
they're just perpetually a little behind, essentially.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
For now.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
For now. And the UN, I mean, you know, one
of the, you know, outside the US and China, you
have the Europeans always. And some of the discourse was around, okay,
we need to, We need to get, you know, tech
sovereignty in Europe. And several UN agencies talked about looking
to diversify away from US AI products. Is this just
like throat clearing and kind of gestural noises? Or is
(13:46):
there anything like that they could actually do?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I think that there has been an effort to talk
about the middle powers and how the middle powers need
to get in the game. But I thought the only
advice given to them was like, say yes to data centers. So... Yeah,
so I don't really know, but I do think that
there has been more drumbeat of, hey, you can't just
(14:11):
sit around while other world powers are preparing to divvy
up the world economy into two.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
On that sovereignty, I think I thought it was interesting.
There was a story out of the UAE that when
Iran bombed those AWS data centers, they couldn't recover some
of the data because, you know, it was like in
one location because they didn't want it to be, you know,
they wanted data sovereignty, right? So they didn't want it
(14:42):
to leave the country. Well, it turns out like, well, not,
not models. This was like sort of not AI related.
It was just data really, you know, like data centers
in the traditional sense of data centers. But like, Yeah,
they didn't. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, if
you're like a little country and you're like, I want
all my data in my country, it's actually like more
(15:04):
susceptible to, you know, you don't have as much data redundancy,
which I thought was kind of an interesting one on
that point.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
When we come back, Meta's release of Muse. and their
stock price up 40% in the last month. Did we
count them out too early?
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Stay with us.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So it's been a minute since we talked about consumer
tech on The Week in Tech. In fact, we just
talked about AI and AI extinction basically nonstop since Hugging Face.
So a little bit of a breather before maybe a
brief one. Has Meta finally made a useful AI product, Natasha?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
I mean, I looked at the App Store this morning
and Muse is at the top of the charts. I
know that's very easily gamed, but it does seem like
people have gravitated towards using it and embracing it. And
then Mark Zuckerberg released a little or demoed on stage
this little Tamagotchi. Did you guys see this?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, it's basically like a little pendant that the Muse
kind of like lives inside the AI agent. It's very similar,
I thought, to that pendant friend, which people were boycotting
and trashing the billboards of. But I guess if you
put like a little creature as the face of this
AI agent, people aren't as bad.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Just back up a second there. What is Muse?
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Muse is just, it's a consumer AI agent that, Meta
has set it up to be more accessible to the masses.
You go in, you're already connected to your Instagram and
your Facebook, and you can ask it to do stuff
for you. But every useful thing requires turning over so
(17:08):
much data to Meta. They have like a little YouTube
short commercial for it. And the second or third thing
the guy suggested was his bank account. Like, I just,
they have a lot of safeguards in place, you know,
where they can't charge your credit card for a certain reason,
but it's just, I don't know. I find these so
frustrating because A, it feels like a problem of the
(17:32):
tech industry's own making, the lack of interoperability, like the
fact that these can't, like, do you need generative AI
in order for somebody to get access to your Spotify interface? No,
I don't think so. I mean, the conversational requests for sure.
But I mean, yeah. So I have seen accounts where
(17:54):
people turned over their Gmail, their bank account, various other things.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Their bank account.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Useful.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Yeah. The New York Times, Eli in the Times, like
just gave it everything and said he loved it.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He said it's the most useful.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Have you used it, Taylor?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I'm a muser.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I would not give it access to my bank account.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
But what about your Gmail? Did you do Gmail?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Girl, I've given instinct test access to my Gmail. I know.
The thing is, you know what the thing is. So
I wrote a piece in 2019 for the Atlantic called
Inbox Infinity. And I talked about effectively how like. Email
is just this like flood. It's like a feed that
I check sometimes, but I get like thousands of emails
(18:39):
a day, especially since I've gone independent. I've only ever
used my Gmail, even when I worked in mainstream media.
So like I just, my inbox is unusable. I get,
it's like, I would say 70% PR spam. And what
I have found to be helpful is sort of like
these AI agents are letting me treat my email as
(18:59):
like a database almost where I can just say like, hey,
go in and find me something. I actually was trying
to find people that do PR for data centers this
week for a freelance thing. And I said, can you
just go in my, I'm sure these people have pitched
me and it found the contact number. So I think
it's useful for that part. Yeah, I would not let
it like let make purchases. I don't trust meta, you know,
(19:23):
in a lot of ways, I don't trust meta with
my data, but also meta has so much data on me.
And that also has been revealing using Muse. Like you
can have it do all this stuff with your Instagram account.
It does have like, you know, if you've been a
long time user of meta products, probably like all of
us since college, like meta already has a lot of
useful data that the agent can kind of pull from. So,
(19:43):
you know, as opposed to something like instinct where it
doesn't have that long sort of, you know, knowledge about you.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I do.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Did try to get it to unfollow brands on my Instagram,
and it can't do that.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Oh, I didn't ask it to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Computer says no.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I think the more useful these things are, the more
risk you have to take. I think that's just like
the general rule. And It's basically OpenClaw. It's essentially what
Muse is, right? It's OpenClaw, but it's like running in
the cloud and Meta's done some stuff to try to
keep the guardrails on, which effectively does mean.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Did they buy OpenClaw or did OpenAI buy OpenClaw?
Speaker 4 (20:20):
They didn't buy it, but they hired Peter Steinberger, who
created it, because it's open source. It's an open source protocol.
But everybody kind of stopped using OpenClaw and... I would
predict that that will happen with Muse. I think Muse,
it's a great idea and people are downloading it. That's
(20:41):
why it's high up in the app store. Are they
actually going to continue using it? I actually, I downloaded it.
I connected it to email. Interestingly, it wouldn't connect to
this Outlist personal Outlook account because it's on an enterprise
thing that I'd set up. So it's like, it's funny.
It's like so consumer. But it was like, it suggested
(21:02):
like this workaround which then I ran through chat GPT
and I was like, is this a good idea? And
it was like, yeah, that's like the old way of
doing it. I'm like, okay. So, you know, I, I
think eventually I think most people will, will not, I,
this is the thing because it's like not there yet.
The technology is just not there yet to like get
everything done for you. I think a lot of people
(21:23):
will like, they'll try it out. It'll be interesting, but
ultimately they'll, they'll, the usage will wane on this one.
It's like, it's kind of like a gen one. But
someone eventually will figure out consumer.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Are you sure it's not this one? I mean, Eli
Tan is saying in the Times, this is the best
AI app he's ever used.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
It's not the best AI.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I'm not sure, but I just don't think like my
spidey sense is a tech reporter says this isn't it.
I personally, I mean, I have like, you know, codecs
set up and it's like much more useful. But like
maybe if I really worked on Muse, I could get
it to be at that level.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But I think none of them are at that level.
And I use Grokbot too. I feel like I try
every single one of these things. None of them are
at that level. I think the question, and Reid kind
of alluded to this, but I think the question is like,
do people need these agents? Like there's been a lot
of discourse this week. Ben Thompson was saying that like,
you know, people don't really want to be productive in
(22:22):
their personal life. Like, These agent systems are much more
valuable for work. And I saw another really good tweet.
I can't remember who posted it about sort of travel
planning and how so much of travel planning, which is
one of the primary use cases that these companies continue
to use in their marketing, is enjoyable. And people like thinking, yeah,
the hotel.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's pleasurable, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It's funny, those demos.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, it's like, I just, I'm actually not convinced that
there is a strong consumer use case in general outside
of like, help me make sense of this horrible inbox
that I have, you know?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I saw you retweet Ben Thompson on this and I've
heard him say this several times. I totally disagree with
that though. Like, I don't know what planet Ben Thompson
is living on, but like, I mean, are like, my
family like stuff is like such a mess with like
two kids. I mean, maybe if you're like a young
single person, like, which I don't think Ben Thompson is,
(23:15):
but like the.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Family stuff is real. The family stuff is real. Cause
moms are embracing it.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
We are like drowning. I mean, our family is drowning.
Like I build, I like to build like web apps
for like specific purposes and stuff. So that like, I
have multiple times like gone to the grocery store and
then just like left the groceries sitting in my car.
Cause it's just like, I can't even handle that crap. Like, It's, it's, it's,
I may have dementia. I might've been hit too many times.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I was just going to say Katie Nantopoulos did a
good version of this and she tried to like turn
over all of her stuff. And she said specifically, it
was the parenting apps, like the school apps. Like one
was parent square, which I also have to use. Now
my kid's new teacher uses class dojo. I would love
to be able to automate that. And those still don't work.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I've automated it. They don't have an API, but I've
automated it by using the email. I take the emails
because you can get them to send you an email
for everything. But parent square is totally automated for me
at this point. Like I have a voice. I have
a voice chat like that basically is like parent square
and like team snap and like all these things like
it just puts it all together.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Well, my solution has been that, um, is, um, learned helplessness.
I am like a bad dad and I just like,
don't get the notifications. Um, so I don't know if
I want it to be so, um, accessible, but it
would be nice to have one place to look.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
So I'll get read to come over, read for press,
read for UN general counsel and it support at my house.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Every parent should be using this stuff. Every parent should.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Like, I had something worse than forgetting my groceries in
the car yesterday. I managed to lose my key at
some point during the day, and the doorbell is also
broken in my house, so I couldn't wake my wife up,
so I had to go and stay in a hotel,
which was very depressing.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Oh, my God. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I don't think AI could have helped me with that, unfortunately.
But coming back to Meta, I mean, who is Alexander Wang,
and is he vital to Meta's kind of perceived resurgence?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Well, he, he's definitely worked on the logo. Like he met,
he was tweeting about how all the other AI logos
look like buttholes and there's doesn't, it's just a squiggly line.
So that doesn't answer your question though.
Speaker 6 (25:41):
Maybe he's the former CEO or, and co-founder of scale AI,
the company that, you know, works with contractors to help
do like data labeling, um, reinforcement learning training environments, that
kind of like.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Quasi sweatshop, new content moderator type stuff. And he was- Natasha.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
They're paying PhDs now to do this. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Yeah, sorry. Well, are they? I think like Merkur and
the others.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, they are.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
But in any case, how do you even put it?
He was acquired for 14 billion. He's basically the figurehead
of meta superintelligence. And he was taking a really big
victory lap after Muse yesterday. And I think it might
have been a little too early. But Meta has been
(26:35):
so behind the ball. And I think he's helped Mark
feel like a little swagged out as well.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I was going to say, I feel like so much
of him is branding. This guy, I don't think he
is a genius in the AI world. I don't think
he's a brilliant, like... you know, sort of forward-thinking mind necessarily.
And he's brilliant. I'm not saying Alexander's not smart, but
I'm just saying, like, I think a lot of what
he brings to Meta is this, like, Gen Z energy. And, like,
(27:03):
he was tweeting about, like, you know, the Crocs and
the hunting shirt that he wore on stage. And, like,
he's posting memes all day. And I think like for meta,
which has this horrible image and Zuckerberg, which has this
horrible image, like that nobody trusts, like for them to
have this sort of like Gen Z relatable hyper online face,
I think is, is it's valuable for, for potential muse adoption.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah. Like he's not the AI researcher type, like the
Ilya or someone like that. He's like, you know, the genius,
but it, But now that they're coming out with these products,
it makes a lot more sense that they acquired him
because they're not, it's ultimately not like cutting edge technology
so much. I mean, they're, of course, all these models are,
but you know, it's not like on the frontier. But
(27:49):
what they're doing is they're trying to build this like
consumer ecosystem that ties hardware together with LLMs and makes
these useful consumer products. it remains to be seen whether
that will ultimately be successful. I kind of wonder why
Google's not really making a push to try to do this,
but you know, I like that idea. Like I, I, I, again,
disagree with Ben Thompson that there's like no consumer application here.
(28:13):
Like I think this is, this stuff could be great,
but it's, it's going to take, I think a lot
more time.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, I think they've done a terrible job, like
trying to relate to normal people and articulating in use
case for them, or even just like going out and
seeing how they're, users are doing it. And they're so,
I mean, they do pay a lot of women influencers,
but you know, for, for content, but they're so behind.
I mean, the other interesting thing that was like theorized
(28:39):
around the time of the scale AI acquisition, Aqua hire
was that, um, as, as a company that was helping Google, um,
open AI, anthropic, like everybody do post-training and other parts
of the development process, possibly, that he would have had
(29:00):
a lot of ideas about like, who's good, how are,
you know, what's consensus in, on the frontier, which Meta
is not, but I wouldn't put out, I wouldn't say
Meta's giving up on, on having like a frontier model.
I can just see this being like such a personal
thing for Zach. Like my best years are still ahead
of me. You know, I don't think he's just going
(29:21):
to like lean into only Tamagotchi.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah. But also like, what's the point of really trying
to have a frontier model at this point? I mean,
I'm sure they're using like a bunch of Chinese open
source models. It's like, yeah, ultimately I think even open
AI and anthropic, like they might not even need to
be on the frontier. Like it's, you know, it's about
the product it's not the underlying model is kind of
neither here nor there it's really just about compute honestly
(29:46):
like it's like who has the most compute and you're
just selling units of of compute.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Hence uh hence jensen's intervention to say that the fears
of a ai apocalypse are overblown.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Well, this is the other thing you didn't mention. On
Jensen's point, we need to actually speed up the, not pace,
but speed up the frontier. I don't know if you
saw this story about Muse, but one of the features
is I guess you can have it make phone calls,
like call a restaurant and make a dinner reservation. And
they've apparently been hiring people in call centers, like people
(30:19):
to make those calls for you. It's like, these things
can solve complex math theorems now but like they can't
call a restaurant to make a reservation. Like there's, you know,
I think there's, there's a disconnect there. Like a killer
AI that's going to take over humanity could probably do that. So,
you know, I think, I, I think we, I think this,
(30:42):
this frontier is a little, it's not as, not, not
as advanced as some people might say.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And just to close on, on this segment, do you
know what, like what is driving your resurgence in meta
stock price? Is it, is it muse and charm or
is it, a broader kind of tech rally. I just
Googled it this morning. I was kind of stunned to
see that it's up 40% in the last month.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Hey, they've got a buzzy product, right? I mean, if
you're on Wall Street, that's, you know.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
And the glasses.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Yeah, the glasses are doing well. They came out with
these VR. They're still trying for VR, which I'm like,
that's another one where the technology is.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Just not there. It's not there. We're not even close
to it. But they're still going to keep making these
clunky things.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
But in the glasses, they're alone right now. I mean,
in terms of like visibility of a consumer product.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Oh, absolutely. And they also made a version of the
glasses without the camera, I think, to beat the creepy
allegations that just have voice. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And what does the charm pendant do? Is it like
the glasses without the lens? And what's the difference? Do
you see any possibility of it being adopted?
Speaker 5 (31:47):
He said you can talk to it anytime all day.
And then pretty much as soon as he held it up,
he was like, but this but it's not really in
production and we're not sure if we put all the
features in it. Like I was just like, okay, what
are you holding up? Why are you, why are you
doing this?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's basically a speaker, right? Like a speaker and a
microphone essentially that connects to the cloud.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
I don't see how communicate if, unless you're just using
it for audio in between like desktop and app, I
don't see how you could like get a lot of
agentic things done with a screen that's this.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Big, but.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
But you just talk to it. I mean, that's, that's
the new, that's the new thing. Like, which is actually
a great use case. Like I've talked to, you know,
some of these apps, like actually I do this, like
when I mentioned the parent square thing, like I can
talk to that, like while I'm driving. Right. I don't
have to say, I can be like, what's coming, what's on,
on the agenda. Okay. Add that to the family calendar.
(32:43):
And it will do that stuff for me through voice.
And it's great. But it's also like I'm using my phone.
I think with all these hardware devices, like including the
one OpenAI is making, like you could just use your phone.
But all these companies, they really want to break outside
of Apple's ecosystem because they know Apple's going to try
to block what they're doing. Whether they can is another question.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
I have to say I did really like the shape
of it. Something about like the shape of it really
made me want one in a way that.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Like those speaks.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Why?
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I think it was just the rounded edge. It just
was like the perfect amount of fatness and roundness. And
it looked sleek and it had a little cutie avatar
on it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
I mean, like, I'm just being honest.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's working.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
It's susceptible to it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
When we come back, Silicon Valley continues its attempts to
disrupt the education system. Stay with us. Welcome back. Taylor,
Silicon Valley, as so often, has its own ideas about
the future of education. The VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is
(33:55):
accepting applications for its first class of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy.
What do we know about the program and why did
they flip the names?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Who knows why they flipped the names? It's very strange.
But yeah, this is a completely unaccredited program where basically
young people just sort of hear lectures from famous tech
people and Andreessen Horowitz partners, including, you know, Daniel Penny,
who killed that man, the unhoused man on the subway
(34:24):
in New York. It's very strange. They also have sort
of like mentors, which just seems to be like broader
people in their orbit. I, you know, it, All of
it is just hilarious because they're not reinventing education. This
is purely a play to get in front of younger founders, right?
And sort of build this Andreessen Horowitz network so that
(34:46):
they have access to those funding rounds if one of
these kids ends up building something. But it just made
me laugh because I'm a huge... I'm actually a supporter
of gap years and kids getting out into the workforce
and doing internships or whatever. But I can't imagine that
it's incredibly valuable to participate in this, especially when the
(35:10):
Teal Fellowship exists. And there's Z Fellows. There's so many
programs out there that are aimed at capturing this specific market.
And I also don't know why these kids wouldn't just
join YC if they're that founder-minded. I don't know. Yeah,
it's very silly.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Talk about this versus the Teal Fellowship versus YC.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
The Teal Fellowship, you actually get money and here you're
paying money. I think it's like $ 50, 000. They said it's
the same. It's the cost of like a college year,
I think.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Really?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I think the first cohort gets to go for free
for a year and then it's going to ramp up
to being the same price as college for the second
cohort is what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Okay. So again, you're paying. You're paying to get marketing
lectures from random, you know, from CEOs? Like, I guess
I just, I really don't understand the point of it.
I understand the value for Andreessen Horowitz. I understand why
Andreessen Horowitz wants to do this. If I am a
(36:11):
17-year-old tech prodigy, why on earth am I paying somebody
tens of thousands of dollars? This is maybe for like
rich kids, you know, for for their parents to kind
of put them through that they want to LARP as
a startup founder. But again, why wouldn't you just go
to Stanford? Like, I'm really struggling to see.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
It's expensive too.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
What if you wanted to be a conservative influencer?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, now we're talking. Yeah, I think like, right. I
think the career paths for this are much closer to
conservative influencer or podcast host versus startup founder.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Like Little Barry Weiss, not like... little Alexander Wang or.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
If you want to be a mini Barry Weiss, go
to this. Although again, Barry Weiss has her own fake anti-woke,
you know, university thing.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Which Andreessen Orwoods, or at least Mark Andreessen is an
investor in, so.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Right. But that didn't do well, right? University of Austin hasn't.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
No, none of this does well because there's no actual
market for it. And it's like, again, you're making these
people pay. You're getting just like total rubes. Like you've
got to be an idiot to pay for this stuff.
And so I just think like, If it's something where
it's like the fellowship, like the Teal Fellowship has been
successful because it's prestigious, because you get money, because you
get to explore this thing, you get access. So it's
(37:28):
like this elite thing. If it was an elite fellowship,
I actually think that could maybe work. But you're asking
people to pay you when you're the one getting the value.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And they raised $ 48 million as a for-profit venture.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
I haven't even heard a number that small in a while.
And I mean, there's so many other alternatives too. Like
if you want, a grant. There's the Emergent Ventures grant
from Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison and that will look
really good on your resume because these people are curated.
I hope people save their money.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Ruud, you compared one of the Peter Thiel branded off-sites
that he doesn't actually go to is the Wayne Gretzky
Hockey Camp of Tech. I have a feeling that's coming
to mind on the Horowitz-Andreessen trade school.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yeah. There was the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I,
I'm also not like long on this succeeding, you know,
I do, but I do think the, the sort of,
there's a, there's an interesting phenomenon happening here where I think,
I think most people sort of realize the university system
is not well, like the actual university system is not well.
(38:40):
And I think maybe the whole education system, right. And,
you know, there is kind of a, I think people
sort of do see an opening here, like an opportunity
to potentially privatize it, replace it, disrupt it, right? And
that's what's interesting to me. It's like the individual efforts
to do this, like University of Austin, and now this
(39:02):
Andreessen Horowitz one. I mean, yeah, like they're not gonna succeed,
but they kind of say something. And I do wonder
what it's gonna look like. It does feel to me
like the university system, which is now just like, grappling
with AI and doing a very bad job of it,
they're going to have to change. Something has to give.
(39:24):
And I think it's sad because they're great institutions. I
think we should try to save these institutions. but they
have to change. I don't know if you all agree
with that.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
I mean, I just think that Andreessen Horowitz has been,
especially Mark Andreessen, one of the biggest critics of university systems.
And so to rail against it for years, like for,
you know, not only, you know, for radicalizing our youth,
turning them into communists, making woke tech employees, favoring DEI,
(39:58):
all of these things, and the cost of it. I
think his critiques about the cost of it, I mean,
you know, that makes sense. And, you know, utility for
people in the real world. So for them to be
so late to the game for a young person pipeline,
but then come and be so ahead of the curve
in terms of criticizing the university and then to come
(40:19):
out with like, as we were talking, it reminded me
of Singularity University, you know, like something an executive would
get a certificate for. So I just, even just the $ 50, 000,
like why have you been railing against the cost of
college if you're now charging a 17 year old $ 50, 000.
Like it just.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Wait, can I also just say that like, they really
put this feels so like sloppy. Like they don't have
any sort of, it's not like they've acquired a campus.
It's not like, you know, so much of college is
about like socializing with the right people and sort of
being like in this, you know, cocoon environment. But, They
don't have a campus. They don't have any infrastructure. I
(41:00):
guess this is just going to be held in conference
rooms somewhere. And then when you go on the website
and you click student life, it says you make the culture,
start a club, host a salon, invent a tradition. Your
classmates decide what happens in it. It's like, why am
I paying you?
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Yeah, definitely. Definitely not the archetype of a successful founder, right?
Like founders are usually not like the rich kids with
the silver spoon who, you know, are dropping all kinds
of cash to move to San Francisco. Like they come,
they usually have these sort of like interesting backgrounds with
other interests outside of technology. And their minds are sort
of like, you know, they just look at the world
(41:38):
in an interesting way. And then somehow they find themselves
in Silicon Valley. And, you know, because they have this
like unique way of looking at things, they're able to,
to find a lane that other people don't see anywhere.
And I mean, there's so many like Steve Jobs is
a good example of that. But like, there's so many examples.
And this seems to be like, it's almost like, I
(42:00):
don't know, they're almost attracting like the opposite of that. Like,
I would be surprised if we see like a successful
pipeline of, I mean, unless you're just talking about sort
of like base hit, like SaaS companies or whatever the AI,
you know, the AI era equivalent of like the base
hit SaaS startup is. Like that kind of founder, sure.
But like, this is not going to yield some amazing,
(42:21):
you know, new company. I just don't see that happening.
I mean, they're also, I mean, they're kind of, it's
like a brand licensing play. They turn into like educational merch,
the idea of Anderson Horowitz. I mean, it's a for-profit university. So,
you know, we know, we know, we know what those
are about.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
And Tim Draper also already did this. Draper Academy. Have
you ever met anybody in the tech sector there?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Proud graduate.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
These are all Wayne Gretzky.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
That's all we have time for today. Thank you all
so much.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
For joining us.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Great talking to you guys.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Great to be on, as always.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
For Tech Stuff, I'm Oz Veloshin. This episode was produced
by Eliza Dennis. It was executive produced by me and
Julia Nutter for Kaleidoscope. and Katrina Norvell for iHeart Podcasts.
Jack Inslee mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
theme song. A special thank you to Taylor Lorenz, Natasha Tiku,
and Reid Albigotti. Please check out all the work they
(43:25):
put out into the world. We're lucky to call them
friends of the pod.
TechStuff News
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