YouTubers on Russia’s Payroll, Ilya Raises $1 Billion, Founder Mode

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Russia funding the political YouTube network Tenet Media 2) Should the commentators have known better? 3) How big does the influence operation go? 4) Is Ranjan being paid off by a foreign government? 5) Twitter suspended in Brazil 6) Was Elon Musk right in standing up to Brazil? 7) More on the amorphous nature of online popularity 8) Talk Tuah 9) Ilya Sutskever raises $1 billion from a16z and others 10) Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  A bunch of prominent political YouTubers were allegedly on Russia's payroll. Brazil blocks X, Ilya Sitskever raises a billion dollars. And what is founder mode? All that and more is coming up right after this. This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put a Gentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial to go inside a large scale agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade offs, and lessons along the way.

• 0:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay? Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razor were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for free consultation. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have so much to talk with you about today. It's the first week of September.

• 1:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  That means all the summer news that was holding just floods out right at once. And man, that's happened this week. We're talking about a big DOJ indictment against some Russians who are funding a pretty prominent YouTube channel. We also have X being blocked in Brazil, a billion dollars going to Safe Superintelligence, which is Ilya Sutskever's company. And then, of course, what is founder's mode and is it good? Well, this is going to be some good stuff for us to discuss. And joining us as always on Fridays is Ranjan Roy. Ranjan, welcome. Great to see you.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I'm feeling in founder mode right now and ready to go.

• 2:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Founder mode. Let's get in the details. And by the way, it's crazy because we also have a week where like Nvidia has lost $300 billion. But I feel like that happens every week at this point, and it's almost like a minor story. Unless it goes down a trillion dollars, then we'll dedicate an emergency episode, right? To it, but I think it will just bounce back up 300 down. Okay, so let's just get to the story that I think is the most interesting of the week, which is that the DOJ had this indictment that it published or unsealed. And it's against the people funding a YouTube network called Tenet Media. And Tenet Media, for those unfamiliar or for those recently familiar, because it's now sort of exploded into the public consciousness,

• 2:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  is like one of these YouTube channels that was there for like effectively independent thought and free speech and pushing back against mainstream narratives. And it was composed of a bunch of conservative YouTubers, including for a while, Dave Rubin, but also Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, and a handful of others. And what did the DOJ indict? The founders or the funders of this of this channel for not the YouTubers, but the people putting the money in, that the money was coming from Russia. And that basically the Russians had had RT, this Russian state funded network, banned in a bunch of Western countries and deplatformed in a bunch of Western countries. And they needed a new way to influence public opinion there.

• 3:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so they decided to go with this covert methods. And I'm writing about this for Big Technology as we speak. The story is going to be out today on my Substack and then later on LinkedIn. But it is a fascinating story about how Russia has basically found a new card in its in the play or a new page in the playbook, shall we say, where it's just going to try to influence American and Western public opinion by paying the thought leaders, I don't know whether to parrot its views or try to elevate those that it believes are on its team. But these people are definitely getting the, I mean, Russia's getting its money money's worth. And there's this one clip that's been circulating online where Tim Poole, who's one of the channel members, he calls Ukraine the greatest threat to the United States

• 4:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  and the world and demands an apology to Russia. Now, I think it's fair to have different opinions on this Russia-Ukraine war and the invasion of Ukraine. However, like this type of covert influence to me is just absolutely bananas. And YouTube, I think rightly took the channel off the air on Thursday. So Rancho, what's been your read on this situation? And how significant do you think tenant media is in terms of changing public opinion about Russia related issues in the US and in the Western world more broadly?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Well, it feels like we're back in 2016 again. Russia, disinformation, elections. I mean, these are themes that I was actually surprised seemed to be out of the conversation for the last, we'll call it six to eight months during the run up to the election. And now we're back in a big way on these topics. And this I think is very important because the idea that, you know, Russia is able to pay this third party company, tenant media are essentially a front company to a number of influencers that then post these type of comments where it's, there's no connection, at least publicly back to Russia. Whereas typically in the influencer economy, obviously every platform has been trying to,

• 5:36Speaker 01

  every fashion like brand who's trying to influence, advertise to an influencer has to go through a ton of hoops, has to disclose paid promotions. Influencers are regularly kicked off platforms for not following those rules or shadow banned for like explicitly for not following those rules. So the idea for something very important like geopolitical conflict that influencers like Tim Poole and others are able to accept money to promote very specific messages, I think is a huge problem for these platforms. And I'm glad YouTube took them down.

• 6:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's very interesting because it's, yes, it's Russia, disinformation. But in this context, it's not, you know, a contentious election result that people are mad at Russia for swinging. And it's more just like, oh, this is like a crazy story that these influencers got paid directly and they got paid a lot of money. I mean, I looked up what a typical YouTube video would get in terms of ad spend. And it's something like, let's see, like maybe $12, you know, for every like 10,000 views. And these YouTubers were getting $100,000 per video and some of the videos on the tenant media. Channel, we're getting like 7,000 views. Okay, that's, that doesn't make any sense.

• 6:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, and I think that what's been interesting about this is that effectively, both sides of the political aisle united and said that this is ridiculous. And they should have been, you know, the people, the commentators who are like calling themselves victims, and they may be technically be victims, you know, and the victim and, and sort of criminal terminology. But these people should have known better and everybody can see it. And you don't wanna have people who are, I don't know, effectively stooges for the Russian government out there influencing on its behalf and not disclose that type of thing. And so, you know, in that context, I think it's been very interesting to see the reaction.

• 7:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  And to me, like, one of the interesting things has just been like the denial from some of the influencers in terms of like being totally surprised that this is where the money is coming from. And I write about this a little bit in my big technology story that'll be out when this show is out. But like, there was one of the commentators, commentators who was like pretty dubious about the funding. And the Russians effectively made up this sort of very wealthy individual, Edward Gregorian, and the person's like, can I see a press release, an interview, a LinkedIn profile, anything with him? And what the Russians passed back is this one pager about him.

• 8:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it has like his name up top and, you know, he's sitting in a private plane and looking out the window. And, you know, it's basically saying that he's upset at mainstream media bias and misrepresentation because it's hurting some of his investments. But of course, he's not found anywhere else in the world. And they like sent the commentator, this commentator, this one sheet. And he was like, Okay, I'll take the money. It's crazy.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  I think that is why we're seeing alignment between both sides of the political aisle, because every other online voice or influencer is probably pretty pissed because they know the economics, as you just said, of how this all works. And while people are trying to sell $5 a month subscriptions to their newsletter, or rack up 12 bucks for a YouTube video and get that has thousands of views, and then they're seeing a Tim Poole or whoever else getting tens of thousands of dollars for one video, they know something's up. Tim Poole knew something was up. And to not question that, I think, is what is raising the ire

• 9:25Speaker 01

  of everyone around. But I think that point of the victim complex, to me, is pretty infuriating. Like, the idea that you were duped when you're being pushed to promote very specific messages for way too much money that don't make any sense in any other context, I think it matters. But I also think it is an indictment of media in general right now, because, I mean, the fact that this tenant media was supposedly funded by a billionaire, and then you're told to push a specific message, and that wasn't the red flag enough, that everyone's like, oh, well, that makes sense, billionaire-funded media that is telling me to say something

• 10:06Speaker 01

  specific, I'm good with that. That a lot of media has already moved to that level, where that part people wouldn't even question or thought was completely okay.

• 10:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And so, like, a lot of people are like, was this actually a good investment by Russia? Because a lot of these commentators would probably be saying the same thing anyways. And I think that they were given effectively free rein to say what they wanted to say, but like, the influence was sort of...

• 10:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  wielded in some other ways through the channel. So I was just like looking through some of the examples and some of these examples are crazy. So first of all, there's that pool clip that I mentioned otherwise earlier. There's also the Russians pushed them to create a video tying the terror attack in Moscow to Ukraine, even though like ISIS was claiming responsibility at that time. They're like, no, just say it was Ukraine, right? There was also a example where RT employees actually got access to publish videos directly to the channel, according to the indictment. And here's one of my favorite ones, which was they, the Russians asked the

• 11:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  channel to publish the video of Tucker Carlson fawning over a Russian grocery store.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Oh, this is good.

• 11:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  There was some like pushback, like, like, are we shilling too much? And they're like, all right, fine. We'll just, we'll push it out as well. I mean, this is some crazy stuff.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  This is the problem though. So now you know, now the world knows that certain commentators are accepting money from Russia, even whether they are unwitting idiots, or whatever the term is, or not, useful idiots or not. But, and that is influencing what they're saying. And maybe they would be saying it otherwise. And maybe they're only saying it a bit stronger now because of the money. So one would assume they should not be trusted anymore. But I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, I don't, I don't think, again, we saw Tucker Carlson flew to Russia and fawned in the grocery store so much that even the Russia Today RT people

• 12:14Speaker 01

  said it was not believable, or it was too much. And he, I guess, is doing fine. He certainly, he's certainly viral now, or racks up millions of views, whether he's popular or not, or actually has influence is a different. Question that we'll debate a little bit later about the influence of media in general right now, but, but I think that's kind of the sad part that I don't think this is going to actually affect the reputation of most of these people.

• 12:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  I disagree. I think that the difference is that it's been shown that these guys have been paid by Russia and like, and, and we're, you know, effectively too stupid or too disinterested in finding out where the money comes from. And you just lose a lot of credibility when you're, when you're there. Cause like, they're out there now, like, let's say this is, by the way, this is all predicated on the DOJ's charges being proven. Uh, so we'll put that out there, but like, let's say they're proven. Um, you, you have these folks who are out there saying that they're the victims here. They've taken out unworldly, you know, amounts of money. They've talked about how like, they are so surprised, like where this money is coming from. And they're asking people to trust them on other stuff. Now there's

• 13:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  going to be core groups of fans that are going to be like, all right, I'm still with you. But I, I think otherwise, like there, there's a chance that like, they will be looked at as clowns from now on.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  I disagree. I completely disagree. I think a grifter, the very nature of grifting involves grifting and getting money from somewhere. And every, there's kind of this unspoken arrangement because these are entertainers. They're not, yes, plenty of people take them seriously, but in reality, I think they're still genuinely entertainers and they're getting paid from somewhere, whether that's selling supplements, whether that's taking money from a geopolitical foe, whether that's just simply branded endorsements, whatever it is, they're, whether it's getting a hawk to a girl, getting paid by Jake Paul's media company that his, you know, like that any one of these scenarios, the person is getting

• 14:25Speaker 01

  money from somewhere. And I, I think a Tim Poole or a lot of these people, yes, you could somewhat, a small group of people might consider them serious commentators or even quote unquote journalists, but I think most people are just like, They are entertaining and they kind of validate what I'm already thinking and they're good and angry about it. And that's how this, the whole grifting economy works for better or for worse. And it's kind of depressing, but I think that, uh, I, I don't think they're gonna going away or gonna take any kind of reputational hit.

• 15:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe so. Uh, but I also think we're burying the lead here a little bit, which is that tenant media is not the only channel that's operating this way. And I think that most of the media missed the fact that there are multiple operations like this, that the DOJ Kate just came out and said it, and it hasn't really been picked up. So the DOJ in its indictment said the RT employee running this project actually manages, and I'm quoting from the indictment, multiple RT covert distribution channels in the United States. And the RT editor in chief has also boasted that the company has an enormous network,

• 15:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  an entire empire of covert projects that is working with the public opinion. So this is just one, and I think it's important to state, RT effectively banned the platform when Russia invades Ukraine. They just fold up their cards? No, they try to do these covert operations, which we've just learned about one of them. And like you mentioned, it's impossible for platforms to pick this up because everything is done behind the scenes. The recruiting, the payments, the editorial direction, usually in discords or in text messages or on WhatsApp signal. And it's very, very difficult to pick up. So now we know about one of them, but the DOJ is saying there are multiple. So my question for you

• 16:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  is, and obviously this is speculation, how far do you think this goes?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I think this goes incredibly far. There's, there's so many times where especially on Twitter now, and all, and actually for a long time, there's just certain reactions to certain stories that are so over the top or have such a very specific bent. Even during the Olympics, the whole boxer is a female, male, like that whole thing felt like there was, there's an extra push to make that a story, a story, story, rather than just, you know, something fleeting that a few people are arguing over, but really rise to the top. And this is something that, I mean, having Looked at this stuff a lot, especially back in like 2016, 17 and just algorithm media

• 17:15Speaker 01

  in general. All it takes is a little bit of a concerted push and that's how these platforms still work. So there's still, I mean, and you have, it's a combination of you have this kind of operation that's paying influencer to spread a very specific message who already has a following. Then you have, you know, have you ever seen those like photos and videos of those click farms of people with a bunch of phones? I actually, when I was in Taiwan, one of my Uber drivers had 10 phones on the dashboard. And I asked him and he said he just scrolls and likes TikTok videos and is paid to do it. And like, he was just like, yeah, yeah, you know, whenever I'm in between rides, I just sit there and make money this

• 17:59Speaker 01

  way. So like, this is, this is happening. This is everywhere. So on both sides, you choose your focused, I want to spread a very specific message. I have two levers to pull. I have the influencer side who already has a following and then I can juice those numbers and posts with my click farm. It's a reminder that so much of the anger and rage or just conflict on these platforms is definitely manufactured. And a lot of people fall into it. And it's, that's why everyone should remember, if you're getting a little fired up on any kind of platform, probably there's some unseen force that's pushing you and it's in their benefit. And I don't think, I sound a little conspiratorial there, but I genuinely

• 18:44Speaker 01

  believe it.

• 18:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is going to be the most conspiratorial episode of Big Technology Podcast ever. Cause I'm like wondering who else is getting that money from Russia? Could it be one member of the All In Podcast? No, I wouldn't say that.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Well, no, but I am positive that there is also very left wing influencers who are also receiving whether directly or indirectly money from Russia. And this is not trying to both sides.

• 19:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  And not just Russia, by the way.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. But. Yeah, anyone who's just because sowing any kind of division and conflict is the most obvious thing in the interest of a lot of these countries that have budgets for exactly this kind of thing. And again, it's something that the information warfare like this has been executed by every country forever. This is just the playground now.

• 19:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Are you telling me the core strategic error of the big technology podcast was trying to go cool headed and nuanced because we would never attract nation state funding in that way, in that way?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  How do you know? How do you know I don't have a have a wire transfer incoming from Russia?

• 19:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  From Russia.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  From the axis of evil right now.

• 19:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  The Russia to Rajan connection. I think it all makes sense now. All your positions, these very, very

• 20:03Speaker 01

  All my positions.

• 20:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Very controversial positions.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Generative AI is reaching a trough of disillusionment is a narrative that I was specifically told to push by Putin himself.

• 20:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes. Well, congratulations. I mean, if you if you are making that money, I'm happy for you, Rajan. I'm glad we've provided a platform for you to get rich from bad actors. It's everybody's dream. Few can live it. Few can live it. Okay, so there's a very another very interesting social media story, which is that Brazil has blocked X. X is like a very big platform in Brazil. I think it accounts for, I don't know, in the neighborhood of 10 to 20% of X's users. And now it accounts for 0% of X's users because a judge in Brazil

• 20:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  has blocked X. Basically, what happened is that this judge had been given leeway by the Brazilian government to demand accounts.

• 21:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Are removed when they sort of threaten democracy in Brazil. And Brazil had like a run in with the high air Bolsonaro. Who like was somewhat anti-democratic, shall we say? And this judge is being given leeway to suspend his supporters and people who would like threaten democratic institutions in Brazil. So sending requests into Twitter or X to remove them. And Elon Musk, who's, you know, Mr. Free Speech has been like, you know, you know what? I'm not going to remove these folks. And what you've gotten is basically the judge said, okay, well, I'm going to arrest your employees in Brazil. And Elon said, okay, our employees in Brazil are leaving.

• 21:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  And then he, the judge shuts down X in Brazil. And there it goes. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on this. Like, I tend to feel like Elon was in the right for standing up for, you know, the free speech in that country. I'm curious what you think on this front.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  I, this is a tough one. I feel, yeah, in general, a lot of these type of situations, especially with Elon Musk, I might lean in the opposite direction of what, where he's going. But I think it's fair that, you know, to shut down the platform over specific accounts that were deemed by one judge to be distributing information is a problem. Because like, and this is the issue with disinformation in general, who is deciding what it is? There needs to be some kind of process around that rather than someone just jumping in. But on the other side, I think these kinds of threats being real from governments, I

• 22:50Speaker 01

  do, I actually think is a good thing. And I know, I mean, I almost, as I say it out loud, it's uncomfortable for me to say because it can obviously always go in the complete opposite direction. But I think we saw that, and we talked about this around the arrest of Pavel Durov last week, like the idea that you can run a platform and just have zero accountability for what happens on that platform. Is not correct in my mind. And even section 230 does not prevent you from anything criminal going on, which is the Telegram situation. I think this is more around not purely criminal action, but what, again, a judge has deemed disinformation. But I think just accountability

• 23:35Speaker 01

  for you run this platform, you are somewhat accountable for what's going on on it, I think is a is a good thing and good precedent to set.

• 23:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. But on the other hand, you do have like the threat of these governments bullying a platform into sort of, I don't know, I mean, just removing anybody they don't like.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  And I mean, the founder of said platform does exactly that. It bullies people on the platform, promotes specific ideologies on the platform.

• 24:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Two wrongs don't make a right. I don't know.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Maybe we should, we'll all go on Blue Sky and Threads and then it'll all be okay. But yeah, I think, yeah, the two, well, actually, I'm going to go with in this sometimes two wrongs do make a right. That's my controversial opinion for this Friday.

• 24:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Man, just Bolsonaro, just throwing those that money into Ron John's pocket. And that's what's happening.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  He told me to say that.

• 24:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a reminder that, I mean, Twitter has always been directly involved in politics, especially in the early 2010s. And I think it's just a reminder that when it's the platform has the power to still drive politics. Remember, after Bolsonaro lost, there was again, as January 6 style movement driven primarily by Twitter that, you know, made the pushed the narrative that the election was stolen. And I'm sure there was plenty of plenty of untoward actors involved in that as well. So I think a platform having a bit of accountability is a good thing.

• 25:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, like, if you're gonna take the Brazil side here, it's basically like, maybe their democratic institutions really are being threatened. And when they are, you sort of need to take steps to protect them. Because if you don't, and they go away, then you're in authoritarianism. And maybe it should be the government's decision when it comes to those type of things. But yeah, more broadly, like, you know, I do, I still feel that this isn't unjust suspension of the network. I mean, of course, I'm coming out that with American values, which is like one that does sort of

• 25:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  support free speech and people's, you know, ability to dissent to what the government is doing. And to say ridiculous things and not to like, you know, have, I don't know, their legal rights taken away. Even though it's like, not really a legal right to post on Twitter, but that's a story for another, another day. But I do think there's something here that we're seeing, like, you know, a lot of these platforms for a very long time have like, thumbed their nose at governments. Talk about like, we talked about the Eric Schmidt thing, right? Like, do whatever you need. If it doesn't work out, no need to apologize, it didn't work out. If it does work out, then you're gonna, you know, clean up the mess and figure it out later. And that's long been the mentality.

• 26:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  And now you're starting to see so many tech companies kind of slam into the wall there, including Google, losing its DOJ case, including Pavel Durov. You know, being, being arrested in France, and now the extension to Twitter. Not all these situations will be fair. And I do think there's something to be said for tech companies standing up to governments when they're, when they are overreaching and sort of then trying to clean up afterwards. But there's always a balance here between what the platforms want to do and sort of the rules of the road. And I think we're starting to see a collision.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Well, I do think, just to check, hold on, has Twitter actually been completely shut down in Brazil?

• 27:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes. And if you use a VPN to access Twitter, you can be found, find thousands of dollars in Brazil.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is a real deal shutdown.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I still feel part of this, I mean, and again, to his credit, in terms of. You know, creating a story, which is, I feel Elon's greatest power, that this started with, you know, take down a few accounts. And the first thing was Musk made this a big deal. And yes, you know, obviously, like, he could have or could not have taken down the accounts. But the idea that, like, it started with, okay, now we're going to close our Brazil office. And it was unclear, at least in the reporting of how many people were employed in said office. But like, you know, it was, we're gonna shut down our office, and then escalating it. And then the judge shut, or then the order to actually shut down the service.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  And I agree, the idea that, yeah, the $9,000 daily fine for anyone using a VPN is, is pretty nuts. But I think Elon wanted this because Twitter, the business, is not doing very well. So, jumping on anything that turns into a big, kind of like, free speech brouhaha, is still a good thing for him.

• 28:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but if you lose hundreds of millions, or, yeah, I don't know, tens of millions of your users, that's good?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I think it's probably not gonna make or break Twitter's business right now. And again, like, if you look at, exactly. And if you look at any social media platform, it's always when you look at advertising revenue, US is, a US user is just multiples of, like, usually they'll call it rest of world, is probably usually like, eight, 10, sometimes 20x what users, especially in emerging market economies are. And Brazil's economy is not great, so there's not a robust advertising market right there. So you have to imagine, it's almost like, better for him to create this and shut, and let Twitter get shut down in Brazil, rather than the business impact of what that would mean for Twitter.

• 29:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  I will say, as opposed to something intentional, it just seems like Elon is used to, like, the Elon School of Diplomacy kind of working for him, where he just sort of like, bullies and pretends he's above the law. And it most often works out, although not always. And it just didn't work out here. Like, he... He probably could have avoided this by being less antagonistic to the judge. But I still think the judge would have wanted to ban the accounts that he was banning. And that ultimately would have been a problem for Twitter. Anyway, this is just one of those issues that's like, it's just extremely tricky to sort out and have like a good or bad opinion on. It's complicated.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Do you remember that Facebook council that was supposed to like?

• 30:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, the Oversight Board.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  The Oversight Board, whatever happened to that? For context for listeners, there was the, Facebook had created the Oversight Board that had like a bunch of very interesting luminaries. I'm trying to remember who was on it and they were supposed to kind of make the final calls. Wait, who was it?

• 30:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Alan Rustberger or something like that.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, from The Guardian.

• 30:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Like it had, it was, it was just the most kind of hilariously PR driven thing for such a difficult nuanced conversation to try to have around what is, what is or isn't disinformation? Never really had any kind of power and just a reminder that people have been trying to come up with some kind of solutions for this forever. And no one has figured it out yet.

• 31:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  So one of the interesting thing that, that things that's emerged in the aftermath of this Brazil thing is people trying to figure out like how big and important Brazilian Twitter actually is. And Ryan Broderick had a post in Garbage Day talking a little bit about how like, we don't really know anymore. Like there basically he says, there was this like millennial driven quest to like quantify popularity in followers and in likes and views and stuff like that. And just like, I think I'm going to editorialize a little bit, but like as the internet has shifted from following to for you, you just don't know anymore. And I think that's sort of come, I think, I still think this is a post that we should write together or one of us should write.

• 31:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Just about how like, we've gone from like niche popularity to mass popularity, things like the Haokua and Zins. And, and this is just like another example of that where like the niche parts of the internet, you can't really size them up anymore and you cannot ascertain stuff by following.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I loved this post, honestly, like in terms of internet culture, I think Ryan Broderick's garbage day is the best writing on the internet, on the internet right now. I don't know if it's popular or viral, but it's good. And I think what I loved about is you, we've been seeing as especially Instagram has evolved into a more of an algorithmic feed, more of a TikTok style for you page where it's more less about your, who you follow and more about just what is recommended to you based on what the algorithm has ascertained as your interests. It means follower counts almost are not going to matter. Like follower accounts because it's

• 32:48Speaker 01

  follower accounts, especially on TikTok have not really mattered for a long time. It's completely more, it's all about your content being created in a certain way to trigger the algorithm to push you to a certain type of user who likes a certain type of thing. And the more that happens, yes, any individual view, how many views did it get is interesting, but it's not a consistent thing. It's not like the be all end all. And a lot of that time that stuff's inflated anyways. Cultural impact is difficult to understand. Again, Hawk Tua girl, like that's what in the piece he talks about. Is she popular? She's throwing out the first pitch at the Mets game.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  She has a podcast now with the actually kind of Talk Tuah, which is a good name, is a good name, not going to deny that. But I mean, it's such a fascinating thing because like, could she be Kim Kardashian? Because one day, I mean, building a business empire on not really any doing anything specific, but just being famous, maybe. And I think that would be considered popular and famous and having kind of an impact. Or is this just this weird thing where there's like enough of a machine built around short term fame? And then she's just kind of going

• 34:11Speaker 01

  through the motions and playing better than others at this game. But in reality, like, I mean, most people don't really care about her, or I actually can't even think about. Remember anything that she's said or thinks other than the original Hawk to a Post? And I think she'd said something about not liking Trump at some point, but other than that.

• 34:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  I watched a podcast with her and Bill Maher and that was quite funny.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Oh, wait. Okay. I saw a clip of that.

• 34:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Bill Maher was like, I mean, Bill Maher is like undeniably extremely famous and she had no idea who he was.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Oh, see, I love that.

• 34:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  It was really, it was great comedy. I mean, unintentional for Bill Maher, but Bill Maher was like, I'm going to give you some advice in the world. And she was like, I'm going to call you Pappy. And he goes, does that mean dad? And she goes, nope, that means grandpa. And he goes, she was like, I think I'll set you up with my grandma. Bill Maher goes, you know, nothing about me. It was very, very funny. It was actually a great interview.

• 35:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Even though I cringed like all the way through.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  I saw the clips, at least a couple of clips, and it was pretty cringey because it's just, it's, it's kind of, it's a little creepy.

• 35:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's definitely creepy, but like the thing, the thing that Ryan is talking about is kind of like, he's approaching it in a different way than we approached it when we talked about Hawk to a in this internet. Which we basically said, we came to this conclusion that like, it's the end of niche and mass appeal is the only thing that matters in the for you page. And I think what Ryan is saying is like, yes, but because we're living in this sort of like amorphous for you land. We still can't really know what's big and what's not. And I don't know if that's a problem. But I do think it's sort of like issuing this, this, you know, ushering in this new interesting era. And he talks about it like pretty interestingly in his post. He says,

• 36:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  "I don't think we're returning to the 2000s decentralized content badlands. Instead, there will be silos of popularity, online and off, global and regional, real and fake. And none of them will quite add up correctly, but all seem vaguely huge. It'll be confusing, but ultimately I don't think anyone will really care unless you're trying to run for president or something. I mean, it really is interesting how like, the internet, yeah, is, is just going to become this amalgamation of like potentially huge or maybe just huge for you type of phenomenons and we'll never really know because we have no access truly to the metrics.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's it's an interesting and we've been having this conversation for a while because I feel like with the initial rise of social media, there's endless, this is the end of mass media, three broadcast networks, everyone's sitting around the TV at 8:00 PM on a Thursday in prime time and watching the same thing. So we've gone through this before, but I actually think it's real now that when you don't even choose who you're following and you're just passively consuming and like you're not actively choosing, I even noticed this on Spotify for me, that it's a different relationship with me with a band where if I choose to follow them, if I search for their music, I'm now like, you know, I'm

• 37:29Speaker 01

  thinking about them, I'm connected to them. If I'm just being fed a song by the algorithm on for the Discover Weekly, it's a bit more passive and maybe they'll kind of like cross the threshold to I'm now an active fan, but it's just a different way of consuming media completely that makes people a lot less connected to whatever's trending.

• 37:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, Ryan also shared this like really interesting thought, passed along from somebody else, but I thought it was fascinating that basically the age of the party song might be over because everybody's just listening to Spotify on their own and there's no like moments where it's just like on the radio, here's a party, a party song, like music consumption has gone from like mass to siloed.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that's long gone, long gone.

• 38:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, we do have a Spotify interview coming up on the podcast next month, which I'm excited about. So more of that on the way.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Wait, can you tell me who it is or no?

• 38:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's one of the top three people there.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  All right.

• 38:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Can you tell them that they need to come up with some kind of parent mode for the algorithm because I cannot stand that, speaking of algorithmic sourcing of media and

• 38:40Speaker 01

  That any parent knows this, if you have kids' music playing, your entire algorithm gets totally screwed up and starts your entire Discover Weekly turns into some variation of Baby Shark and other things. So I would just like to, for the record, submit this as a question right now.

• 38:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I'll ask that for sure. Yeah, let's talk right before the interview happens. So we should talk about the fact that two of our leading luminaries in the US signed massive deals this week. We were talking, we already mentioned Haktua, a woman getting her podcast deal with Better. And then also, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever landed a billion dollars in funding. So we'll talk about what that means right after this. This episode is brought to you by App Point. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure

• 39:41Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 40:25Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 41:08Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 41:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast. Big news this week. Ilya Sutskever, the former chief scientist of OpenAI, who famously or infamously led the boardroom coup against Sam Altman and then left the company after sort of disappearing for a while. A couple of months ago founded a new company called Safe Superintelligence, or SSI, where he said the only product that they have, or the only focus they have is superintelligence, no distraction. And then he just landed $1 billion from a collection of venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz and a handful of others, Sequoia, DST Global, SV Angel. And, you know, he says, you know, building super,

• 42:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  they say building super, Safe Superintelligence is the most technical problem of their time. And of course, in the early, early going, they said, "We approach safety and capabilities in tandem as technical problems to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs. We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead. This way, we can scale in peace. Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures." And

• 42:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  to that I say, "Ilya, your stated way of operating is completely incompatible with venture capital funding. I don't see how this is going to work out." What do you think,

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I can't with this one, I'm just shaking my head. I feel like I'm in an episode of Silicon Valley on HBO because that what you read felt like it was written by ChatGPT. The idea that a company is called Safe Superintelligence almost is like, again, the idea of like after OpenAI called itself OpenAI and now we're in this constant back and forth of where where the profit, what's the profit structure, what's the cap table, who can get money where, how much can they earn, who does it go to? And it's so messy and it is not an open company. Just the idea of calling it Safe Superintelligence is ridiculous to me. Just call it like,

• 43:49Speaker 01

  I don't, something, just some kind of branding or it's almost like mocking us to call it Safe Superintelligence. We know when, without explaining to us still, here is what we are genuinely worried about. And we've talked about this plenty of times. It all comes back to if something is so scary out there, if you have seen something so terrifying, just tell us this. But I also agree with your point that when you look at, I mean, come on, DST, Sequoia, A16Z, these investors are not just playing around.

• 44:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Pro safety. I mean, didn't Andreessen Horowitz talk about how like people focus on safety and AI are losers?

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. That's what, yeah, I mean, while funding every new weapon startup, which is fine, but just to try to, to try to equate the two. And again, the website, the mission, the business model, what you said, like you read it out loud. It just makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. What are they building? What are they trying to do? Is it just a foundation model? Is it? Yeah.

• 44:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, they have to, they're gonna have to release products also. If you have VC funding, you're gonna have to return that funding, I think.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Maybe.

• 45:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you think Ilya is, I mean, Ilya is undoubtedly extremely smart and like one of the most talented artificial intelligence engineers of our time, without it, without question. But do you think that he is naive here? Or do you think he knows exactly what he's doing?

• 45:25Speaker 01

  I think, I guess, again, it goes back to, does he know something we don't? And I think he's certainly smart and savvy. And this is, I was listening on CNBC, they had kind of Sam Altman is a business founder and Ilya is a white paper founder. And the cycle, in this cycle, we had actually moved more towards business founders and away from pure research type founders and white paper founders. And again, I think he's, I mean, certainly a brilliant person who, I think he knows what he's doing in that I can raise a billion dollars, I don't have to actually present a plan, and I can basically, this is the greatest research grant funding of all time.

• 46:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes, so here's one more question, and then we're going to move on to founder mode. Is this the last massive seed funding we see for an AI company for a while? Like, remember we had Mistral getting like hundreds of millions before even having a product, we had OpenAI getting, you know, 10 billion from Microsoft before ChatGPT, and now we have a billion to Ilya. Is this the end?

• 46:31Speaker 01

  That is a great question.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  I want to say I don't know, but this is a podcast, so we have to take a side or a position.

• 46:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  How honest you were about that.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  I know.

• 46:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  We're not going to bullshit about this.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  I'm going to say, no, I think there's still some, again, when you see who the investors are involved in this, remembering that every one of these funds, I think that's actually the more important part of this story is that when you look at the names Sequoia, DST, A16Z, these are companies that made a lot of money, raised big funds off of those, both paper and realized returns, and have to deploy that capital somewhere. And right now, there's not a ton of great opportunities. There's like a lot of the big stories over the last few years have not panned out as they were supposed to, the big trends and the big themes.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  So AI is kind of where the only action is right now, and They have a lot of money to deploy. So yeah, okay, as we're saying it, I'm going to say no.

• 47:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was about to say for someone who's about to say, I don't know, that's like a pretty convincing answer and actually got me to back off of my position, which is that this was going to be the end. I'm with you, Ranjan. It sounds like that money is going to keep flowing, at least for the time being. We'll see, we'll see. Let's see how far Nvidia plunges and whether that really is the end here.

• 48:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, okay, I want to talk lastly about Founder Mode. So

• 48:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  here's the setup, right? So Founder Mode was a big meme in the beginning of this week where Paul Graham, who's the founder, co-founder of Y Combinator, said Brian Chesky was in a meeting and he talked about Founder Mode. And basically, the way that he said it, he's like, I'm not going to say specifically what it was. But basically, founders, as they grow companies, he says, once they get to a certain point, they go into manager mode. And manager mode is basically surround yourself with good people and let them do your job, do their jobs, give them room to operate. And what Chesky said in this meeting and that Graham is recounting is basically like, that is terrible advice. And as a founder, you need to be in the weeds.

• 48:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  You cannot just be removed. You cannot just let other folks, you know, take over core functions. And you really have to remain a founder. And I'm going to just quote directly from Paul Graham's post. He says, hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. It sounds great when it's described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice, judging from the reports of founder after founder, this, what this often turns out to mean is hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground. One thing I noticed in Brian's talk and when talking to founders afterward was the idea of being gaslit. Founders feel like they're being gaslit from both sides by people telling them that they have to run their companies like managers

• 49:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  and by people working for them when they do. Usually when everybody around you disagrees with you, your default assumption should be that you're mistaken. But this is one of the rare exceptions. And founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies and C level execs as a class includes some of the most skillful liars in the world. Whatever founder mode consists of, it's pretty clear that it's going to break the principle that the CEO should engage with the company only via his or her direct reports. Basically get in the details and I mean Chesky also like came on to big technology podcast and like said this explicitly talking about he's in the details. And basically when Airbnb had some bad times, he and his executives got away from speaking

• 50:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  to customers and now they are in the details and speaking with customers in the way they weren't when they were basically told to be managers. So what's your perspective on founder mode versus manager mode?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  So as someone who is both an MBA graduate, but was also ran a startup, I really enjoyed this whole debate. I also it was weird because I was pretty offline all weekend and then on Sunday night start scrolling Twitter and I'm like, what the hell is founder mode?

• 50:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Same experience.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  But and then I found the post from Paul Graham and read it. And I think so, I think there's a couple of things he gets very right. And I think there's a couple of things that he he's a little inflammatory on. I think the idea again, that C level execs are the most skillful liars, but like founders are not, is not necessarily correct. I think the idea that you should not delegate or like delegating is not a key strength of even founder, because I actually think the best founders are able to delegate a lot of things and then not and then micromanage or focus on the right things. And actually, the ability to do that is probably the biggest difference between success or failure.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  But I think the what he's right about, and I think and in the post, he gets a lot into how this in the study of business, you know, there's been like decades of research, like business school professors on trying to understand what is management and Harvard Business Review, basically the entire publication is is about this and what is a founder and how do they drive companies is something that hasn't been studied in the same way. And I do think. Founder mode for when a company, whether it's, whether it's like, you know, if it's one billion, five billion, 10 billion in revenue, he's correct that the assumption over the last 50

• 52:13Speaker 01

  years has been that at a certain point, it's all about management, the professionalization and the building of the hierarchy, and that's what's required. That model is correct when you know what business you're in, when you know the general trajectory and it's just about optimizing the entire operation. I think the difference is, and Airbnb is a perfect example, the business changes so constantly and I think most even large established companies now, look at Google right now, like, look at everyone. Like, the whole way the economy works right now is so constantly disrupted that you need people, it's no longer

• 52:55Speaker 01

  about professional management. It's about making tough decisions, using your intuition and a lot of times having the guts to take risks. And I think that's why I was actually pretty, I was pretty supportive of this post and I thought it was smart and I thought it was a good conversation to push.

• 53:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I agree. I think founder mode is the way to go and that everybody does get that, that advice and people like often say it's time to have a professional CEO in the role and oftentimes those professional CEOs flounder because it is sort of a stasis versus building mode. And there's things that founders can do that, you know, managers can't, which is they can make dramatic decisions and take bigger risks when other people are not able to do that. And that enables them to propel the company forward. And so, I really liked when Chesky came on the show and talked about how he had been removed from some of the functions and basically given that up to others. And that's why the company struggled. And then when you get back in the details and when you're thinking about like products

• 53:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  in a way that you might have when you were in startup mode, that's when you start to turn the company around. And ultimately, I think the answer to this is kind of like, people have portrayed it as an either or. You need both, right? You need to be, and I think you nailed it, right? Get deep in the details on the stuff that matters, but don't think that you have to do everything yourself. Put the managers in the places that you feel need management, right? And then just get in when you need to be in places that are critical to the business. So founder and manager mode.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  When you're from that thought, what that had me thinking is like a cutthroat private equity executive is actually the ultimate founder mode as well.

• 54:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Don't go there.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  No, I'm serious.

• 54:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  But maybe that's why they're so successful. But sorry, go ahead. Yeah.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if the argument is like, again, this kind of like stasis professional managerial class that's afraid to make tough decisions and like move the company again, like the idea of founder mode is that there's going to be some kind of like visionary product oriented decision. Of course, everyone Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, these are always kind of like the the big examples of it. But in reality, it's simply because like in a turnaround, it usually doesn't require some kind of visionary new product or design or service. It just requires making really tough decisions that the professional managerial class is afraid to make. So

• 55:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  So maybe that's my that's my take that cutthroat private equity executives are actually the ultimate founders, even with their MBAs and investment banking pedigrees.

• 55:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, inevitably, that was where this show was going to head. Right. We're going from like guessing who's getting the Russian money to praising private equity.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Or maybe I'm being paid by big private equity by the lobby.

• 55:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Bain is just shoveling money into your into your bank account. So you can, you know, spread the gospel of them. All right. Well, this was great. Rajan, you're going to be back on Wednesday. We're going to be breaking down the new iPhone release, which I'm really pumped about.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Are they going to fix Siri? That's going to be the entire event.

• 56:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's why we're doing a special Wednesday episode. It's going to be entirely this the Siri episode and we'll see. We'll see what the story is. So thanks for coming on. I'm excited to speak with you again Friday.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  All right. Wednesday.

• 56:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wednesday. Sorry, Wednesday. Wow. Even I am so used to saying it. Excited to speak to you Wednesday. And I think the listeners will be pumped to hear from you again. So thanks, everybody for listening. Rajan and I will be back in just a few days. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

• 56:31Speaker 02

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