Podcasts about Silicon Valley

The fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon goes deeper than a simple contract dispute. In some ways, it's the culmination of a tech rivalry that's been simmering since the early days of OpenAI.Anthropic wasn't some scrappy outsider that stumbled into national security. It'd already had top secret clearance, working with the CIA for years, and had seemingly made peace with the idea that its models would be used inside the American intelligence apparatus. So let's dispense with the notion that this is a company discovering government power for the first time. The rupture didn't happen because the Pentagon suddenly knocked on the door. The door had been open.The disagreement came down to terms. Anthropic wanted to draw lines beyond the law. No mass surveillance of civilians. No autonomous weapons without a human in the loop. Not “we'll follow U.S. statute.” They wanted something stricter, something moral, something aligned with Dario Amodei's effective altruist worldview. The Pentagon's response was blunt: we obey US law, but we don't sign up to a private company's expanded terms of service.That's where the temperature rose.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Because this isn't just any company. Dario left OpenAI over exactly this kind of philosophical divide. He believed OpenAI was becoming too commercial, too focused on product, not focused enough on safety and existential risk. So he built Anthropic as the safety lab. The kinder, gentler, crunchier alternative. But ironically, Anthropic was already cashing government checks while telling itself it was the adult in the room.From the Pentagon's perspective, the risk was operational. If you're going to integrate a model into defense infrastructure, you can't have the supplier yank the API mid-mission because the CEO decides the vibes are off. There were even reports that during negotiations, Pentagon officials asked whether Anthropic would allow its technology to respond to incoming ballistic missiles if civilian casualties were possible. The alleged answer, “you can always call,” wasn't reassuring to people whose job is to eliminate hesitation.And hovering over all of this is Sam Altman.Because while Anthropic was sparring with the Department of Defense, OpenAI was in conversation. The rivalry here isn't new. The effective altruist faction at OpenAI once helped push Altman out of his own company before he managed to return days later. Anthropic ran a Super Bowl ad that took thinly veiled shots at OpenAI's commercialization. So when Anthropic stumbled, OpenAI stepped in and secured its own defense agreement.Then came the nuclear option talk: labeling Anthropic a “supply chain risk.” In Pentagon language, this is the category you reserve for companies like Huawei, for hostile foreign hardware, for entities you believe can't be trusted inside American systems. Most people inside and outside the tech landscape agree that goes too far. Anthropic may be principled. It may be stubborn. It may even be naive. But it isn't malicious.Meanwhile, something fascinating happened in the market. Claude, Anthropic's consumer product, exploded in downloads. It became a kind of digital resistance symbol, a signal that you weren't with the war machine. The company that once insisted it didn't care about consumer dominance suddenly found itself riding a consumer wave, experience mass traffic it hadn't planned to account for.What this entire episode reveals is that AI isn't a lab experiment anymore. It's infrastructure. It's missile defense. It's geopolitical leverage. And when you build something that powerful, you don't get to exist outside power structures. You either align with them, fight them, or try to morally outmaneuver them. Anthropic tried the third path. The Pentagon reminded them that in wartime procurement, ambiguity isn't a feature.Cooler heads may yet prevail. Right now, the Pentagon's got bigger problems than a Silicon Valley slap fight. But this was the moment when AI stopped being a culture war talking point and became a live wire in national security. And once you plug into that grid, there's no going back.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:25 - Texas Primary Final Predictions00:15:20 - The Pentagon vs. Anthropic, Explained00:40:30 - Update00:40:52 - Iran00:45:41 - Clintons00:49:08 - Kalshi00:52:19 - Interview with Kenneth Lowande01:18:03 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe

More U.S. forces head to the Middle East, following the initial strikes in Iran by the U.S. and Israel. CNBC reporters Dan Murphy and Brian Sullivan on the market and global energy industry's response.  Veteran and venture capitalist Alex Harstrick describes Operation Epic Fury as, potentially, the first “AI War” and the language barriers between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon when it comes to artificial intelligence.  And, former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein looks back on an epic Wall Street career    Dan Murphy          2:27 Brian Sullivan          11:37 Alex Harstrick       24:42 Lloyd Blankfein      34:00   In this episode: Dan Murphy, @dan_murphy Brian Sullivan, @SullyCNBC Lloyd Blankfein, @lloydblankfein Joe Kernen, @JoeSquawk Becky Quick, @BeckyQuick Katie Kramer, @Kramer_Katie Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ The Shift from Attention to Trust In this compelling episode, Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO of Transcends, joins Vince Menzione to discuss the tectonic shifts occurring in the global partner ecosystem. Ashleigh shares her firsthand experiences studying AI at Oxford, the rise of the “Trust Economy,” and the controversial Amazon vs. Perplexity lawsuit. They dive deep into the practicalities of becoming a “Frontier Firm,” the importance of building proprietary AI agents, and the ways Gen Z and AI-driven marketplaces are revolutionizing the buyer journey. Whether you are looking to win Microsoft Partner of the Year or navigate the demise of traditional SaaS, this conversation provides a strategic roadmap for leading through the AI revolution. Key Takeaways The economy is shifting from a focus on human attention to a foundation of verified trust. Future commerce will involve “selling to machines” as AI agents begin making purchasing decisions on behalf of humans. Microsoft is prioritizing “Frontier Firms” that integrate AI into every customer interaction and internal process. Gen Z buyers are prioritizing product value and “dupes” over traditional brand names, with 75% of buyers expected to be Gen Z by 2030. To win Partner of the Year, organizations must publicly celebrate “better together” stories with validated customer wins. Modern leaders should transition from a “growth mindset” to a “frontier mindset” to keep pace with rapid technological change. https://youtu.be/xJmd43NvfnI If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Trust Economy, Selling to Machines, Amazon vs Perplexity Lawsuit, Frontier Firm, AI Agents, Copilot Studio, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Partner of the Year, B2B Marketplaces, Gen Z Buyer Behavior, Digital Freedom, AI Therapy, Ray Kurzweil Singularity, Substack Growth, Co-selling Partnerships, MCI Funding, Azure Accelerate, Agentic AI, Transcending Tech, Ashleigh Vogstad. Transcript Asleigh Vogstad Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: The attention economy is about selling to human beings. Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines. [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Ashley Waad. The CEO of transcends for this compelling discussion. Ash, welcome back to the podcasts. [00:00:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s so good to be here, Vince. Thank you. Uh, [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: so well, we’re back in Boca again and we were just here yesterday for the Ultimate Partner Executive Winter Retreat in person. [00:00:44] Vince Menzione: What a great event we had together. [00:00:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: It was phenomenal. Thank you so much for having us there and on stage and, and genuinely the community is like a family, so seeing so many familiar faces and spending some quality time was just great. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: It has really, truly become like family. It really, I’m, I’m, I’m having so much fun with this and getting to watch. [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: Not just our business grow and our community grow, but to see all of our friends and, uh, organizations like Transcends that have been with us since the beginning, since the very first ultimate partner acting even before the first ultimate partner. And, uh. We were just talking about. I’d love to catch up with what you’ve been doing. [00:01:22] Vince Menzione: Like you just came, you’ve been on a whirlwind. I mean, you’re always, every time like it’s, where’s Ash? She’s, uh, she’s on a plane again, or she’s on, she’s on the slopes. But tell us where you were just this week. [00:01:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. The week started in a snowstorm, actually transporting myself from Whistler. I didn’t know if I would make it to the airport, but then down to Silicon Valley and [00:01:45] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:01:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: Wow, that place is just inspiring and eyeopening. I mean, seeing the Nvidia campus, a MD, it’s really just other worldly and it had me reflecting on, it’s [00:02:00] Vince Menzione: not Whistler. Yeah, it’s [00:02:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: definitely not Whistler. Definitely not Whistler [00:02:05] Vince Menzione: about, [00:02:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: um, yeah, it just had me reflecting on being down there. I used to spend a lot of time in the Valley around 2017 and. [00:02:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: In this theme of AI and kind of what’s really coming, I was, I was thinking about, I had met this woman, Julia Moss Bridge, who’s a neuroscientist studying ai. She had a project called Loving Ai, and I was down there when they had borrowed Sophia, this humanoid robot from S and Robotics. [00:02:32] Vince Menzione: Oh yes. Yes. [00:02:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: Really interesting. [00:02:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Sophia’s actually a citizen of Saudi. Mm-hmm. First, first robot to actually be made citizen of a country. So they had Sophia set up and the part that was just mind boggling at the time was that Sophia was hosting in real life therapy sessions with actual human beings sitting across the table. And what really struck me as. [00:02:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Kind of just, you know, that was only eight, nine years ago. And that was esoteric. Wacky and [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: eerie. [00:03:05] Ashleigh Vogstad: Weird. [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: Eerie at the time. [00:03:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Incredibly eerie. Yeah. I mean, a, a human getting, uh, you know, therapy sessions from a robot sitting across the table. Yeah. And it just had me thinking how far we’ve come today. In 2025, Harvard Business Review said that therapy is actually the number one use case for ai. [00:03:26] Vince Menzione: I’ve heard that. That is striking. I go back to COVID. We were having this conversation last night at at the dinner for the Ultimate Partner event, and I think that COVID allowed us to transcend, [00:03:42] Ashleigh Vogstad: mm-hmm. [00:03:42] Vince Menzione: No pun intended there, but actually accelerate where we are today, that the acceptance of AI and the acceleration, or the ability to accept change so quickly. [00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Started with COVID because we were so, so we were forced on whatever it was, March 10th I think, here in the United States to shut down everything and move to this remote life. [00:04:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm-hmm. [00:04:09] Vince Menzione: And I think we’ve been shocked by that. I think our systems have all been shocked by that. And then here comes chat GBT in November of 2022 and we’re like. [00:04:20] Vince Menzione: Shocked in some respects, but like really everyone has embraced it in such a strong way, and now we’re getting. It’s almost daily update. You know, we’re gonna talk, I know we’re gonna talk about Anthropic and some of the things that’s been happening just in this last month that are striking and changing that have a lot of organizations trying to navigate, which is what, you know, you, you help organizations do. [00:04:43] Vince Menzione: But it feels like this is happening so fast and will continue to happen so fast. And as I said yesterday, I don’t know what this world’s gonna look like by 2030. [00:04:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, and I think the thing is, is that nobody knows what the world is gonna look like in 2030. I’ve been reading Ray Kurz Well’s, the Singularity is nearer, so the original book, the Singularity is near and he’s known to be a very accurate predictionist on the future. [00:05:11] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. But even with someone like that, you know, there, there nobody really knows what the world is gonna look like. And when you talk about COVID. At transcends, we have a value of digital freedom. So I founded the business in 2018, which was pre COVID. I as a fully remote organization, and at the time that was, you know, more groundbreaking, but then very quickly with CI that, that became the so-called new normal. [00:05:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: But we’re always thinking about. You know, remote first doesn’t mean remote only, and I think in this tide of what you’ve talked about, technological change being more acceptable and the pace of change. One of the interesting things that we see as a go-to-market agency is that in-person events are increasing. [00:05:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: People want and crave the face-to-face. Just like with the ultimate partner series. [00:06:02] Vince Menzione: I felt it. So it was striking yesterday. It, it seems like it’s, again, this was event number nine for us, but to see the, um, uh, receptiveness isn’t the right term, but it was this, uh, people, the, the embracing. Of seeing each other and hugging each other and being in the same room with each other. [00:06:22] Vince Menzione: And even people that didn’t know each other, like by the, the, as the day evolved, this, uh, connection that they all seemed to have with one another during the sessions and participating, everyone actively participated in the sessions. And, um, I said this in the beginning, we’re not a Slack channel and we’re not like some post on LinkedIn. [00:06:43] Vince Menzione: Uh, we’re there, there’s no playbook that’s set today around partnerships or even go to markets and marketing that we could espouse and say, this is the playbook for the next year. Right. It’s, it’s changing so rapidly. [00:06:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: So rapidly, [00:06:57] Vince Menzione: and you’ve embraced it. And I, and what we’re gonna talk about right now, I mean, I, I, you know, you’ve embraced AI in such a strong way. [00:07:04] Vince Menzione: Um, personally and with your business, I want to, I wanna dive in here a little bit. First of all, a couple things For those of those who are listening who don’t know you, I think maybe just a moment about transcends and your role, and then I wanna dive in on how you’re thinking about ai because I know you’re doing some things personally. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: I want you to share that with, with our listeners and viewers today. [00:07:25] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. And I just wanna comment that it was a cool moment yesterday being up on stage with yourself and Mark Monday from ServiceNow and having the audience so engaged and active and Nina Harding from Microsoft stepping up and entering the conversation. [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: So cool. [00:07:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: It just made for such a collaborative experience, which was a cool moment, but yeah. Um, so. I founded this business, transcends a go-to-market agency after being at Microsoft myself. And really our differentiation is deep strategic partnerships with hyperscalers, whether that’s AWS, Google, Microsoft, and you know, that. [00:08:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: It comes with a challenge to be on the leading edge of technology. [00:08:08] Vince Menzione: Yes, [00:08:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: it, it’s really an imperative for our business and we are an AI first firm. Microsoft talks a lot about Frontier Firm, and I’ll take a, a different kind of angle on it. You know, when I think about Frontier. I now think about it as instead of the growth mindset, I now think about a frontier mindset. [00:08:28] Vince Menzione: Frontier mindset. You have to change my principles. [00:08:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, maybe, like you said, the world is changing so rapidly. Yeah, it’s [00:08:36] Vince Menzione: changing rapidly. [00:08:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what a frontier mindset means is that as we’re approaching work for our clients, we are thinking about AI innovation in every single customer. Interaction, customer innovation. [00:08:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: So today we’re building AI agents into much of the work that we’re delivering for clients. And as a business owner and leader, I’ve been challenged to also think critically around how I’m choosing to run the company. And right now we’re going through a huge overhaul of where we have data sitting in silos and different applications. [00:09:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yep. And getting that into one place with one view so we can start layering on more insight. AI innovation. [00:09:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And data’s such an critical part, part of this, as we, we talked about yesterday. But you know, even the, what you said, which is, would, would’ve been striking a year ago to say, we’re an AI first, uh, agency isn’t as striking anymore. [00:09:32] Vince Menzione: Uh, we heard Nina when we were having this conversation on stage yesterday, say that it’s an imperative at Microsoft that the agencies that they choose to work with, the third party vendors that they work with have to be an AI first organization. I have to be a frontier firm, and so I’m a, I am sensitive to the word frontier firm. [00:09:53] Vince Menzione: I understand why Microsoft uses it and I understand the value of what we used to call, you know, customer zero or back in the day we used to say eating your own dog food, but essentially being an organization that has leaned in, in a way, and with ai. Even more so, so important to do it. So tell us, I know you’ve done some things personally as well, but tell, tell us what you’ve done with the organization. [00:10:18] Vince Menzione: Uh, you talked about data and making data available and having, having a true data state as opposed to silos of data, but then you also made some personal investments and sacrifices. I would say. [00:10:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. [00:10:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. In terms of what you’re doing around ai, [00:10:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: so I mean, let’s start on the personal side. I’m the CEO of my organization, and you can read in books or news articles that it is critical for AI transformation to start at the C-suite and specifically in the CEO seat. [00:10:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:10:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: And that really. Landed for me and so I’m personally leading in About two weeks ago, I built an agent, just end-to-end on my own, got into copilot studio. Wow. Got comfortable with the interface. You know, I was clunky moving around in there at first, chose my model. You know, I went with one of the anthropic Claude models for this particular project and built up an agent that can deliver executive communications like. [00:11:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Thought leadership blogs, uh, LinkedIn posts, but in a particular human being’s voice by ingesting things like their social profiles, their SharePoint sites, where they live and work. And it has been so surprising doing an ab test between just what a chat GBT or a copilot could produce. [00:11:32] Yeah. [00:11:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: In comparison with the authenticity of the voice coming from the agent. [00:11:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it was just a really cool experience to roll up the sleeves and get in there. But also I think the, the investment that you’re referring to is, I made a big decision to return to school and uh, got accepted to go to Oxford. [00:11:52] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:11:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I’m studying artificial intelligence there. [00:11:54] Vince Menzione: That is incredible. That is incredible. [00:11:57] Vince Menzione: Oxford, uh, we’ve heard of that school before here in the United States. [00:12:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, it’s been a really great experience. It’s in person, so I’m traveling there about every 60 to 90 days and living on campus. I mean, really, Oxford isn’t. Formally a campus, it’s sort of a, a city and a university all, all ruled into one and the experience has been really powerful. [00:12:21] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. One of the things I wanted to get outta the program was a more global perspective, and it’s been fascinating to me that about half the faculty so far, or or professors, guest lecturers that have been coming into the program have been from China or very direct experience working in the Chinese market. [00:12:38] Vince Menzione: That is fascinating. [00:12:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s been a completely different view. Or for example, you know, really digging into some of the legal cases that are driving precedence for how AI is interacting with corporations. [00:12:51] Vince Menzione: Mm. [00:12:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: One of the big ones for me has been looking at Amazon versus p perplexity. This is still a live case that’s happening right now. [00:12:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you know, I think it was Forbes magazine that the headline was the End of Commerce for this case because it’s really about. How human beings are being replaced with machines and hearing some of the world’s leading thinkers, leading AI researchers on these topics has just been really expansive. [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. [00:13:20] Vince Menzione: I mean, it’s, this started a couple years ago with, uh, Hollywood, in fact. Suing the industry or suing the technology companies with regards to, uh, employment, right? Mm-hmm. About the, the, uh, copyright infringement and what’s gonna happen in the entertainment industry. And I think that was just a one very small example. [00:13:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, voice people think about DeepFakes. Yeah. And they think about video, but actually voice is a big issue. And you look at the, um, you know, the what happened between Scarlett Johansson and her voice in her, and then open AI rolling out a voice that sounded identical. Sounds like her. [00:13:59] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: To Scarlett Johansen and, and where that went. [00:14:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s, it, this is a new ground for, for everybody that we’re going through right now. [00:14:07] Vince Menzione: It is. We can dive and go in so many different directions, but let’s talk about marketing and advertising since that’s kind of. Transcends core, and a lot of the people that watch and listen to us are in the partnership world. [00:14:22] Vince Menzione: They’re leading organizations, they own organizations, the the chief executives or CVPs of organizations. Let’s talk about advertising and where that’s going. [00:14:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. [00:14:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:14:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, uh, I love Marshall McCluen. He’s a Canadian theor, uh, media theorist, and in 1964, he very famously said, the medium is the message. [00:14:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what that really means when you peel back the layers is that every type of communication medium has these inherent biases. And I think what we’re experiencing right now is this new medium of artificial intelligence, and I’m really interested in exploring what that means for the media world. So. If I gonna take you back to 1997, there’s this really famous, the Innovator’s Dilemma. [00:15:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. Kind of a classic business 1 0 1 type book by Clayton Christensen. Yes. And he talks about this theory of disruption where new technologies, emerging technologies start at the low end of the market. They gain this momentum and they eventually displace incumbents. And you know, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. [00:15:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And Microsoft was a good example of this at that time. [00:15:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Def, [00:15:32] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:15:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: All the big players. All the big players. I mean, Google go for search as well, right? So that’s one of the classic examples. And so. If we look at storytelling technology, you have things like chat, GBT and Sora entering the scene. And in the beginning, you know, they’re producing a shitty first draft. [00:15:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, you know, it’s things like post-apocalyptic dogs with five finger human beings. Yeah. Things like this. But, you know, and they really lacked emotional resonance. But as we all know. That’s not the case anymore. No, it’s [00:16:05] Vince Menzione: not. [00:16:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: AI is increasingly producing content that is very powerful and is starting to resonate with people. [00:16:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, I’m definitely not a neuroscientist, but if we, we look into the neuroscience, it’s your cortical sal circuit that. Kind of is responsible for pattern recognition and it compares what you’re seeing in the real world with what you expect to see. So when you take this into a space of advertising, you know, if there’s an ad that is AI generated, that is just weird and kind of. [00:16:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: Tweaking for you. [00:16:39] Vince Menzione: Like that robot we were talking about earlier, [00:16:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: like the robot we were Exactly, yeah. Like Sophia, you enter what psychologists call the uncanny valley, so it’s like what you’re looking at isn’t exactly what you’re expecting to see and the Spidey sense is, is tweaking. You know, that’s a low place of emotional resonance. [00:16:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: This world is changing really, really quickly and we’re seeing AI generated media make huge impacts in the market Now, tools like Luma Dream Machine, I mean, it’s incredible what they can achieve today. [00:17:11] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. We see it in, you know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. That’s sort of the world of our business community, and you can very easily detect when someone is doing a post. [00:17:22] Vince Menzione: Or they’re writing an art, whatever they’re doing. Right. Some type of draft of something. Uh, and you can tell when it’s ai, I mean, it’s so easy to tell, and even people are generating reports and claiming that their research papers or studies or whatever they call them, uh, and it’s AI generated and it’s just the authenticity isn’t there. [00:17:39] Vince Menzione: The, the sense that this is real. That it can be trusted is not there. And I think trust is what we’re talking about here too, as well. [00:17:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, let’s go to authenticity ’cause that’s super important. Yeah. And I know a lot of your listeners, you come from the hyperscaler world of partnerships. You need to have that differentiated, better together story. [00:17:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. It’s really important to have an authentic voice in market. And I think about that also in terms of platforms and channels. We’re seeing a decrease in certain major social media platforms, and yet Substack spiked 48% in monthly active users last month. [00:18:15] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:18:16] fascinating. [00:18:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: Um, you know, and I think that one of the reasons is it’s viewed as a more authentic channel where you’re getting thought leadership from people that you’re, you know, genuinely interested in hearing their, their points of view. [00:18:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I think that’s really an important piece in here. [00:18:31] Vince Menzione: Yeah, you mentioned this yesterday and you had me thinking about it as well because we have used LinkedIn for everything internally, our newsletter, which has been around for six or seven years now. But that Substack is really, and I go to Substack too, to, if I really wanna dig in on a topic. [00:18:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:18:47] Vince Menzione: And there’s a particular author that I like their point of view, I’ll follow, I’ll follow them on Substack. [00:18:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, and this comes, maybe brings us around to who is the buyer and who is the audience, and who do we need to be thinking about when we’re designing sales and marketing programs. And really we’re, we’re shifting into the place of the Gen Z buyer by 20 30, 70 5% of buyers are gonna be Gen Z. [00:19:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna control 12 trillion in. Spend [00:19:16] Vince Menzione: by 2030. ’cause we, we’ve been, we’ve been saying that the millennial is the new buyer the last three years. I think Jay said it right here at this stage. [00:19:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:19:24] Vince Menzione: Um, so now it’s Gen Z. [00:19:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: And they’re buying online. Yeah, they’re buying in marketplaces. Yeah. So a stat recently was that roughly half of them made purchases on the social platforms of YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok in the last month. [00:19:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, that buyer behavior of being inside. Social type application and directly making a purchase. And I think in the B2B world, we need to take lessons from here and start thinking more front and center than we even have been around marketplaces. I mean, part of my reason for being in Silicon Valley this week was to celebrate a $12 million transaction that happened via Marketplace and two years ago that would’ve been a huge deal. [00:20:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Huge, [00:20:07] Vince Menzione: huge. [00:20:07] Ashleigh Vogstad: And, and it still is a really big deal, but these things are becoming. More and more common experiences. Very much so. We need to be there and in that conversation. [00:20:16] Vince Menzione: So how are you thinking about it? How are you directing your clients to behave or act around it? What are you, what are you doing exactly that we could take to this community perhaps and share with them. [00:20:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’ll bring it back to the authenticity piece because you need to have a product that delivers value first and foremost. There is, there is no substitution for that. Yeah, and what I would say is. One of my professors at Oxford, Eric Zow, he has this theory that I’m really digging into and finding very fascinating, which is that for the last several decades we’ve been in the attention economy, and that’s shifting to the trust economy. [00:20:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now the attention economy is about selling to human beings. Yeah. It’s about the, the business model is essentially that you need human being eyeballs on lists of recommendation links. Yeah. Whether that’s from Google or from, you know, searching, shopping on Amazon, you get this list of recommendation links and the economic engine that drives that business model is advertising. [00:21:19] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines, or in other words, agents who are making purchases, s on behalf on your behalf. And an agent isn’t going to be razzle dazzled by some inauthentic story. [00:21:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:21:44] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna be looking for third party validation on Exactly. You know, they need to be sure that they’re making the right decision. [00:21:51] Vince Menzione: They’re gonna look at surveys, they’re gonna look at customer comments. Like if I went through my Amazon site and I was looking to see what people said about the purchase or the product and specifically Exactly. [00:22:01] Vince Menzione: The agent’s gonna do this on my behalf, is what you’re saying. [00:22:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: This is what I’m saying. Yeah. And, and. I believe that to layer on top of, you know, Eric Z’s philosophy, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of the hyperscaler world, and I think that this is the time to lean into co-selling partnerships. [00:22:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, because being third party validated by somebody like AWS Microsoft and having all that co-sell data, what are your recent wins? Yes, that’s really high integrity, trusted data source for an agent to make a purchasing decision, and marketplaces are a key part of that. [00:22:35] Vince Menzione: So we’ll move from AI will take a, a more active role in the marketplace. [00:22:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: I definitely believe so. [00:22:42] Vince Menzione: Which makes total sense. I, you know, we’ve been doing this for nine or 10 years now, and when I was at Microsoft, we started co-selling. In fact, it was, uh, Aaron Feiger was up on stage yesterday talking about it. Right? January of 2016, co-selling began. [00:22:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:22:56] Vince Menzione: And there were only a few companies doing it. [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: Right. So she worked with one of the very first ones that were doing it. Uh, the challenge we have today is there are tens of thousands of partner organizations in the marketplace that are all trying to get the attention of the Microsoft sellers. Hmm. As, or the Google sellers or the AWS sellers and tell their story. [00:23:19] Vince Menzione: And a seller only has so many minutes in a day, they have a quota that they have to hit. These quotas are tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars of annual quota of cloud consumption. And I wanna sell my $50,000 widget, whatever it is. Yeah. Right. And I, I don’t understand why I’m not getting a callback. [00:23:38] Vince Menzione: And this, this is the dilemma we’ve faced because of, because of this, uh, scarcity of time and this over overwhelming of tech, you know. Tech, tech buyers trying to make this all happen, so now the AI can come in and help me solve for it as a seller, right? [00:23:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: The AI is definitely acting as an interface to make recommendations to field sellers in different organizations and. [00:24:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: To, to kind of take this on a, a tangent. Dupes. So a dupe. I know people of my generation, we’d think about this like a knockoff Right. You know, a knockoff handbag. [00:24:15] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:24:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes have exploded. [00:24:16] Vince Menzione: Fake. Fake Rolexes. [00:24:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Exactly. The fake Rolex for sure. And I think it was in December, P WC rolled out a survey. 81% of Gen Z were planning to purchase a dupe this holiday season. [00:24:29] Vince Menzione: That’s wild. [00:24:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes can be, you know, we gave luxury, good examples, but Louis [00:24:34] Vince Menzione: Vuitton and yeah. So, [00:24:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: but furniture, these sorts of things. And the important takeaway here for tech is the same principle will land, is that people are looking for value out of a product, not necessarily a name brand. AI is accelerating this whole process, and agents are gonna be looking at the same thing. [00:24:56] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re looking for that authenticity in terms of the actual product value. So, you know, beware there’s lots of disruption happening in the market right now with this dupe mentality, which is actually a cultural shift talking about I appreciate value over a superficial. Brand name. In some cases, there’s also a, a small contrary trend where certain luxury goods are rising because yes, things are never that simple. [00:25:22] Vince Menzione: So you work with a lot of these tech companies, a lot of SaaS companies, is we, we call them ISVs, we also call them, uh, software development companies. Now we keep changing these acronyms around. Uh, there’s been a lot of, uh, consternation in that segment, I would say, around ai. Right, because a lot of them are getting told that they’ll be outta business in a few years. [00:25:43] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. I think Satya Nadella famously said this last year that SAS will go away. Right? He’s predicting the demise. How do you help some of these organizations to differentiate? And there’s some of these are huge value organizations. We have have them in the room with us, ServiceNow and Veeam and Adobe. [00:26:01] Vince Menzione: Um, how do you help them achieve their results? ’cause that’s what you, you know, your organization is really helping these organizations to achieve their pinnacle as a partner. What do you, what do you say to them now and how do you help them through this time? [00:26:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’m on the side of the fence that I really can’t see an organization ripping out something like Salesforce, Adobe, ServiceNow. [00:26:24] Vince Menzione: Agreed. [00:26:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean that the amount of change management and. The extent to which these, these platforms are embedded, actually running and operating organizations. I personally, if, if we’re calling those companies, SaaS companies, I don’t agree that that layer is gonna go away. I mean, we’re seeing these organizations lean into AI in a huge way to borrow Microsofts. [00:26:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: Term, you know, they’re all becoming frontier firms. [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:26:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: So where I would go to, to answer that question, we do work with many, you know, organizations on that caliber, on things like their marketplace strategy on how to light up the fields of different hyperscalers. It really does come down to things like having a strong drumbeat with the Microsoft field, celebrating your win stories. [00:27:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Maybe that’s where I’ll land as Please do the marketer, because it sounds so simple, and I don’t know why we kind of continue to come back to this, but we’re talking about that third party validation and really, um, in order to have that, like what the hyperscalers want is you jointly celebrating success. [00:27:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: Here’s the kicker. Publicly. [00:27:38] Vince Menzione: Publicly, [00:27:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: you know, you need a customer story on your website, a press release that contains a quote from your customer. Ideally, also a quote from an executive at one of the hyperscalers. Like, actually lean in to live the value of your better together story. And when you do that, when you, when it comes around to partner of the year time, and we talk to you about, okay, what client stories are we gonna feature? [00:28:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: We’re even gonna know because when we Google you, we can see the public press of the joint wins that you’ve been celebrating. And I can tell you that that is a huge indicator on whether or not you’re well-placed to be in the 4% of partners who actually win Partner of the Year award’s. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Fascinating to me. [00:28:21] Vince Menzione: ’cause to me it would feel like table stakes maybe ’cause where we sit is ultimate partner and where this room sits with all the top partners that I just assume that everybody follows that. That, that guidance. [00:28:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:28:34] Vince Menzione: And so this is really impactful and I want to get here because I know you spent a lot of time here and we’ve talked about it before, but I think the partner of the year awards, when we first met many years ago, that was a you, you’ve expanded the business, but that’s still a core mission and and value that you bring to the community and to the partner ecosystem is helping them through this process. [00:28:55] Vince Menzione: So I know that that’s gonna be coming up soon, so I thought maybe we’d spend a couple moments on that. [00:29:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: Partner of the Year awards, regardless of which partner, I mean, Salesforce has their own awards there. There’s more and more award programs coming out, and they’re a great way to celebrate the incredible work that your organization has done. [00:29:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: Jay McBain is brilliant on this. He’ll talk a lot about the increase in valuation. Yeah. The, the increase in stock valuation or the likelihood that if you’re looking to be acquired, that you’re acquired within 12 months of a partner of the year win it. It’s really impressive. There is strong business value there. [00:29:33] Vince Menzione: He like, he likes, he likes to tell the story of that when the award is handed to them and they go back into the audience, that the private equity people are all over them right then and there and making offers. I mean, that’s the visual that you get [00:29:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: and it’s very powerful. Yeah. Very powerful. It’s very powerful and it, it can make it worthwhile to invest in the process, but don’t invest in the process if you haven’t been investing in the process for the 12 months. [00:29:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: Prior, [00:29:58] Vince Menzione: exactly. [00:29:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: The Microsoft field or you we’re talking about Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. They need to know about your win that that needs to be top of mind for them. Yeah. How much Azure revenue is it driving? Was it a huge marketplace? Build sales and. You know, one of the questions I get asked a ton, everybody wants to know how do we get money out of the hyperscalers? [00:30:20] Ashleigh Vogstad: How do I get access to marketing development funds or all these different programs? Yeah. You know, at Microsoft, some of these programs are like EI and customer investment funds or Azure Accelerate, you know, and there’s millions and millions and millions of dollars in these, these buckets of funds, but. [00:30:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: An interesting point of view is that it’s actually a scorecard metric for many people at Microsoft who have partnership roles for you to be drawing down those funds. [00:30:45] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:30:45] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, your interests are actually aligned here, and so again, when it comes to Partner of the Year awards, how much money have you pulled down? [00:30:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: How much have you been an activating partner of key Microsoft programs that they’re pushing? What are you doing with marketplace rewards? How are you resing? Those into your business. These are the types of things that you really wanna be thinking about. Sitting it. You know, this time of year we probably will get the awards were likely be due in July. [00:31:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: They haven’t officially announced timelines, but you’ve got a few months to start moving these pieces into place. [00:31:18] Vince Menzione: And there are quite a few of them. And to your point, Nina, when she was up on stage here yesterday, there were at least 10 or 12 award. Uh. Funding categories that were on her, that were on her slide. [00:31:31] Vince Menzione: Her partner, her partner slide. So, [00:31:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: and what great looks like for a partner is that you understand your end-to-end funnel as it is mapped to Microsoft’s SEM model, the Microsoft customer Engagement model. Mm-hmm. The first stage there, inspire and design. That’s really the marketing space of lead generation. [00:31:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: So how are you generating leads with webinars, in-person, event activations, digital campaigns, and then at the very end, in the fifth column, you have the Microsoft outcomes that you’re driving. Yes. Whether that’s Azure consumed revenue, marketplace build sales, co-pilot, monthly active usage, these sorts of things. [00:32:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: And in each of those SEM swim lanes. There’s Microsoft funding associated to it. And that’s one of the things that Nina Harding was showing yesterday. When and where does it make sense to make requests for EA funds versus Azure accelerate the MCI funding? There’s different workshop proof of concept funding, and those all fall at specific stages in that EM model. [00:32:33] Vince Menzione: And what you’re also pointing out in this conversation is that the co the partners need to understand that mm, they need to understand MM. We talked about it years ago. I’ve had, haven’t had anybody on stage recently talk about m You could probably take us through that if we wanted to devote some time here, uh, and then understand all of those categories and how to access those funds. [00:32:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, it’s critical and. The number one place we point partners, if you want a quick overview of what that looks like is to Microsoft’s FY 26 solution playbooks. Nice. They’re available on the web for download. There’s, well, there used to be three, but they’ve added a few agen being, being one. So, so there’s a handful of, they had [00:33:11] Vince Menzione: simplified it, now they’re, now they’re expanding it back again. [00:33:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, exactly. I think there’s now a breakout for security as well. Yes. So take a look at those playbooks. It will map programs and incentives very specifically to each solution area and to each sales play that are gonna be available to you. And then we’re always happy to guide people through the details [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: as well. [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: I love that. I love that. And reach out to the. Ashley is just amazing at this process. I’ve, I’ve watched her for years now, work with some of the top, what have become the pinnacle partners of Microsoft and with the award season coming up. So we wanna make sure we have a plug there. But I also wanna talk about like, podcasts with you. [00:33:50] Vince Menzione: Um, you’ve been on this podcast multiple times, been in the studio before doing this, and I understand you have your own podcast now. So tell us about that. [00:33:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, Vince, I just wanna say. As a friend and a mentor. You’ve been so inspiring. Thank you. And I think from years ago when we met, there was this seed in my brain of, you know, I, I should really get out there. [00:34:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you talk a lot about growth mindset and fear setting is, is one of Tim Ferriss’s terms? Yes. And models. [00:34:21] Vince Menzione: I love Tim Ferris. I’ve been, been a fan of his for 10 years now. So that’s settled. We all got started with this. Sorry. Sorry, I [00:34:26] Ashleigh Vogstad: interrupt. No, no, not at all. [00:34:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:34:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And. I think it’s just been, it’s been back there. [00:34:31] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. That I’m really passionate around having voice is how I think about it. And as a marketing agency, we’re really amplifying the voice, um, or helping companies to find their voice, particularly in hyperscaler partnerships. And what better way to assist, you know, authentically the amazing people in our network, in our community and our clients than with our own channel where we can celebrate their stories and success? [00:35:00] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: So the podcast is called Transcending Tech. It’s about [00:35:06] Vince Menzione: very cool transcending tech. Just so you don’t [00:35:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: transcending tech. [00:35:08] Vince Menzione: It’s out there now. [00:35:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: It, we just released our first episode. Okay. I think two days ago. [00:35:13] Vince Menzione: So by the time we’re live, yes. We’ll, we’ll be able to access it. Good. [00:35:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: You will be able to access it. [00:35:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: The first episode is with Alyssa Fit. Patrick from Elastic. [00:35:21] Vince Menzione: Oh my goodness. [00:35:22] Ashleigh Vogstad: And the concept of the podcast, it’s long form and it’s really about getting to the people behind the platforms. [00:35:29] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:29] Ashleigh Vogstad: And to the stories that transcend technology. So we’re here to get to know the human beings behind. Agents. [00:35:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:35:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: And taking the time to, to go in deep and really explore that. [00:35:43] Vince Menzione: So I am excited to see all the developments here with the, with the podcast. And you’re gonna be joining us again. You were just here, you in Boca. But you’ll be joining us again in Bellevue. Not too far a little bit. Closer ride or travel, uh, for you to come to Bellevue. [00:35:57] Vince Menzione: We’re gonna be hosting the first ultimate partner live, which is our larger events in this beautiful facility, this new Intercontinental hotel, which is fabulous. And, uh, you’re gonna be taking a more active role. Your leadership around AI is. Palpable and we’re gonna love to have you on stage and talking through some of the changes. [00:36:17] Vince Menzione: I, I suspect by the time we get to Bellevue we’ll have a lot more to talk about. That hasn’t even happened yet. [00:36:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, I’m really excited. I’ll have been through my next cohort at at Oxford, kind of coming out hot from there back to the Pacific Northwest, and really excited to just share the learnings and Awesome. [00:36:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: Genuinely. It’s also helping me in my own research, really formulate particularly around the role of ag agentic AI in hyperscaler partnerships. [00:36:43] Vince Menzione: That’s so cool. And then what I’ll say is this, and I don’t know, we on the space perspective, and I’ll, the team will probably hang me for this because we haven’t done it yet, but if you wanna bring the podcast along with you, there might be, we’ll see if we can find an extra room for you to set up. [00:36:58] Vince Menzione: If you wanna do some interviews while you’re. In, at the event. So [00:37:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: you’re so generous, Vince. [00:37:03] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:37:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: amazing. [00:37:04] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Again, I can’t say for certainty yet, but, uh, let’s see, let’s see what happens with that. So, uh, let, let’s, uh, you know, I always, we, we have known each other for years and I just assume everybody knows this amazing Ashley sda. [00:37:19] Vince Menzione: But, um, we always, I like to ask this question because it helps us kind of dig in a little bit about you personally. And it’s my favorite question. I ask all my guests this question now, and it’s, um, you’re hosting a dinner party, Ashley, you are, pick a pace, place, you wanna have this dinner. We could talk about parts of the world. [00:37:36] Vince Menzione: You’ve traveled all extensively. Uh, and you can invite any three people, guests from the present. Or the past to this amazing dinner party you’re throwing. Whom would you invite and why? [00:37:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s a beautiful question, Vince and. Instantly I go to a place in terms of the location, since you asked that part, which was surprising. [00:38:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: I, I like that is my home. I, I love where I live up in Whistler, Canada and [00:38:08] Vince Menzione: I hear it’s beautiful. I haven’t been yet, [00:38:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: it’s so gorgeous and it’s, it’s my own sanctuary. You know, I live on a plane 75% of the time and coming back to that place is really grounding for me. Yes. So, so I would love to have it at, at my home and to invite. [00:38:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: Pippa Malrin would be one. She, Pippa [00:38:26] Vince Menzione: Malrin. [00:38:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. She’s sure. I get an advisor to the White House for many administrations. Okay. She’s an economist and she just has really interesting perspective on geopolitics. Uh, I follow her on Substack ’cause she’s a big substack. Okay, now [00:38:41] Vince Menzione: I need to look. This is awesome. [00:38:42] Vince Menzione: The [00:38:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: mal, she’s fantastic. I would say Dr. Lisa Sue, the CEO, Dr. Lisa of a md. [00:38:49] Vince Menzione: Okay. Yes, yes. I know a little bit about her. [00:38:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: So she was one of Time Mag, I think she was the only woman in Time Magazine’s, group of people of the year, which was basically this AI cohort in including, you know, the Elon Musks of the world. [00:39:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it’s just so impressive what she’s doing with leadership in a MD. I don’t think it’s as public as. Anybody else who is on the cover of that magazine, but it’s incredibly powerful. [00:39:14] Vince Menzione: Yeah, they’ve made a com uh, turnaround’s probably not the right word, but it seems like they’ve made a tremendous, uh, gains turnaround probably in the last few years. [00:39:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: I would say that many would say turnaround. And then lastly is Dr. Fefe Lee, who. For those in the AI space, particularly AI research space. I mean, she’s arguably number one. Um, she’s leading at Stanford currently. [00:39:37] Vince Menzione: Wow. This is gonna be a heady conversation, but you know, I love conversations. So if you don’t mind, maybe I’ll bring dessert and come, come in for a few moments, maybe do some podcast interviews there. [00:39:48] Vince Menzione: How’s that? [00:39:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: That sounds absolutely perfect, Vince, [00:39:50] Vince Menzione: so, so good. So good to have you here today. So great. Good to have you in the studio again, and, uh, excited for transcends and all the great work you’re doing. Um. This time with ai. I think you, uh, we talked about this a little bit last night. I think you’ve made some really wise, personal and professional decisions about how to lead and how to take this forward and not kind of rest on your laurels, which you see so many organizations do People fear change [00:40:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: Hmm. [00:40:18] Vince Menzione: And you embrace it, which is just, it’s astounding to me that you do that and, um. I look forward to working with you in the future and for years and years to come. So I will ask you one more question though, because we are still at the precipice of these tectonic shifts and we’re still early in 2026. And so for our listeners and our viewers today, what would be the one thing you would tell them that they need to go do now that possibly they haven’t done yet as they prepare for 2026 and beyond? [00:40:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: The generic phrase would be, be curious, but if we want an action, it would be go build an agent. [00:40:59] Vince Menzione: Go build an agent [00:41:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: if, if you haven’t already. Yeah. And, and I’m, yeah. Speaking hopefully to like a business audience, you know, to, to anyone. Yeah. Really, um, find something that is interesting that you’re passionate about. [00:41:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: A, a use case that it doesn’t have to be some big thing. It could be quite mundane, but just something that’s gonna help you in your role. It’s, you know, what is creativity is an interesting question, and I can tell you that sitting down and hands-on keys and actually creating something is, is a beautiful, powerful experience. [00:41:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Awesome. All right. We’re all gonna go create agents this weekend, so thank you for listening. Thank you for viewing the Ultimate Guide to partnering on our YouTube channel, ultimate Partner, and on each end of your platforms at the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Thank you for being with us and supporting us all these years. [00:41:50] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

Last month, Gerard Reid joined Shayle Kann, Managing Partner at Energy Impact Partners, for a world class and fast-moving conversation on the state and future of Climate Tech.   The discussion was organised by Carbon Equity and led by its co-founder Liza Rubinstein Malamud.Originally it featured a third guest, Will Dufton of Giant Ventures, whose contributions were fully edited for this episode (with apologies — and an open invitation to return).  First strong statement: the Silicon Valley-style climate tech era of 2021–2022 is over. Gerard is clear that carbon removal and hydrogen, at least as they were framed and funded during the hype cycle, are effectively dead. What comes now is a far more grounded, infrastructure-driven view of the transition.  Both guests are emphatically bullish on energy and AI. Shayle especially sees climate tech not as a standalone vertical, but as a horizontal that cuts across the entire economy. Anything that supports electrification, datacenters, and energy-hungry digital infrastructure represents a major opportunity. Gerard pushes the horizon even further, imagining datacenters in space.  A central theme is the convergence of AI and the physical world. Shayle argues that as large language models become commoditised, value will move from bits to atoms — from software to real-world systems, infrastructure, and industrial processes. Gerard complements this with a strong emphasis on resilience, positioning it as a defining investment lens for the coming decade.  On batteries, there is rare and total agreement. Both see them as the most important technology of our time, underpinning electrification, grid stability, transport, and the scaling of renewables.  What emerges is an intense, wide-ranging exchange between two of the sharpest minds in the energy transition — a true Battle Royale on where climate, energy, and technology are heading next.  You can watch the hour-long video here: https://youtu.be/H5YE1Upe0JI?si=HlgHKFOOjZj8Gygp    

Crystal sits down with Jotaka Eadd, Founder of Full Circle Strategies and known as the Olivia Pope of Silicon Valley, for a heartfelt conversation about grief, healing, and finding strength in heavy moments. From navigating personal loss to continuing the work of community, advocacy, and leadership, Jotaka shares how she moves forward through challenges, learns from missteps, and stays connected to purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Book: Climate Capital — Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future | An Interview with Tom Chi | An Analog Brain In A Digital Age With Marco Ciappelli What if the economy isn't broken — just badly designed? Tom Chi, Google X founding member, inventor of 77 patents, and venture capitalist at At One Ventures, joined me on An Analog Brain In A Digital Age to discuss his new book Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future. From the streets of Florence to the strip malls of Silicon Valley, from the mechanics of attention capture to the physics of ecological economics, this conversation goes far beyond climate. It's about how we design the systems we live inside — and whether we have the will to redesign them before it's too late.

The Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick, who has spent over a decade reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, published a detailed timeline of how the Epstein Files Transparency Act came to exist. Hawk walks through that article, adding context and commentary throughout. At the center of the story is an unlikely political partnership between Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from Silicon Valley, and Representative Thomas Massie, a conservative Republican from Kentucky. Together, with support from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert, they pushed through legislation forcing the release of the Epstein files after the DOJ and FBI sent an unsigned letter in July 2025 declaring the files closed and Epstein's death a suicide. Pam Bondi handed out binders of previously released and heavily redacted documents to right-wing media figures at the White House a year ago, then told Fox News she had truckloads of evidence and the Epstein client list on her desk. Meanwhile, the FBI assigned 1,000 personnel to catalog every mention of Donald Trump's name in the files. Trump's name appears tens of thousands of times. He is the first person listed on a DOJ slide titled "Prominent Names" and is linked to an accusation involving a minor, documents that were withheld or deleted from the DOJ website. The fallout outside the U.S. has included arrests of prominent figures in Norway, scrutiny of Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson in Britain, and resignations across Europe. Thirteen Trump administration officials, including six cabinet members, are implicated. Back in Congress, only one member, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, voted against the bill. Thomas Massie told the author he believes he may have shortened his own life by pursuing this. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Epstein's most prominent accuser and Prince Andrew's accuser, died by suicide last year. At a recent congressional hearing, eight Epstein survivors stood directly behind Pam Bondi. Every one raised their hand confirming their offers to testify had been ignored. Bondi never turned around. SUPPORT & CONNECT WITH HAWK- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mdg650hawk - Hawk's Merch Store: https://hawkmerchstore.com - Connect on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mdg650hawk7thacct - Connect on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hawkeyewhackamole - Connect on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/mdg650hawk.bsky.social - Connect on Substack: https://mdg650hawk.substack.com - Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hawkpodcasts - Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdg650hawk - Connect on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mdg650hawk ALL HAWK PODCASTS INFO- Additional Content Available Here: https://www.hawkpodcasts.comhttps://www.youtube.com/@hawkpodcasts- Listen to Hawk Podcasts On Your Favorite Platform:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3RWeJfyApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/422GDuLYouTube: https://youtube.com/@hawkpodcastsiHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/47vVBdPPandora: https://bit.ly/48COaTB

In this episode, Jack Forehand and Kai Wu break down the viral “AI doom loop” article that sparked debate across Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and even the Federal Reserve. They walk through the core thesis that artificial intelligence could trigger a non-cyclical economic disruption, separating signal from noise and exploring what it could mean for software stocks, labor markets, productivity, wealth inequality, and long-term investing. Rather than reacting emotionally, they analyze the mechanics step by step, asking whether AI is more likely to replace workers or amplify them, how fast adoption can realistically happen, and what investors should be watching right now.Main topics covered:The core thesis behind the AI doom loop scenario and why it went viralIs AI a substitute for human labor or a productivity multiplierPeople times productivity as a framework for understanding economic growthWhy we are not yet seeing major AI disruption in labor or productivity dataSoftware stocks, margin compression, and the risk to SaaS business modelsThe Jevons Paradox and whether lower costs could expand demand instead of destroy itWhy incumbents with strong intangible moats may survive AI disruptionThe difference between technological capability and real world adoption speedCompute, energy, and token costs as natural limits on AI expansionThe feedback loop argument and whether AI could cause a demand shockCreative destruction and the difficulty of forecasting new job creationAI, high income knowledge workers, and the risk to consumer spendingWealth inequality, capital versus labor, and policy responses like UBIWhy investors can be bullish on AI technology but cautious on marketsHow to think about short term disruption versus long term abundanceTimestamps:00:00 Introduction and the AI doom loop thesis02:15 Why the article triggered a market reaction06:00 People times productivity and economic growth09:00 AI and disruption in software stocks15:00 Jevons Paradox and expanding total demand19:00 AI agents, frictionless commerce, and price competition26:00 Adoption speed versus technology speed28:00 Compute constraints and natural governors on AI growth31:00 The non cyclical disruption feedback loop33:00 Creative destruction and new job formation38:00 General purpose technology and broad economic exposure44:00 Replacement versus augmentation of workers48:00 Token costs, enterprise AI spending, and labor tradeoffs51:00 High income job risk and inequality concerns

【聊了什么】 特朗普是MAGA，但MAGA远不只是特朗普。过去几个月，美国右翼内部裂痕频现：Marjorie Taylor Greene首次把"忠于特朗普"和"忠于America First"公开对立，Charlie Kirk被刺杀后右翼围绕以色列和反犹问题爆发内战，移民执法和关税政策上共和党内部也出现了罕见的倒戈。这些裂痕不是偶然的——它们背后是不同的知识分子网络、不同的意识形态框架、不同的对"美国应该是什么"的根本想象之间的深层冲突。 本期节目，我们从里根时代"三角凳"联盟的瓦解讲起，系统梳理MAGA新右翼的思想源流与内部派系：从法国新右翼到美国另类右翼，从克莱蒙特学派的民选问责主义到后自由主义者的共同善宪法主义，从Curtis Yarvin的"大教堂"理论到硅谷科技右翼的技术君主制野心。这些派别在"拆掉旧制度"上高度一致，但在拆完之后要建什么，却有着根本性的分歧。 我们也聊了特朗普在这个思想版图中的独特位置：一个几乎没有意识形态的交易型政治动物，却被一群有深厚理论野心的知识分子当作进入权力的特洛伊木马。以及万斯——这个最被看好的后特朗普时代旗手，他的后自由主义信仰、科技右翼资金网络、对美国身份认同的重新定义，和他致命的克里斯玛赤字。当特朗普离开舞台中心，这些还没完全搭好的脚手架还能撑多久？ 【支持我们】 如果喜欢这期节目并希望支持我们将节目继续做下去： 也欢迎加入我们的会员计划： https://theamericanroulette.com/paid-membership/ 会员可以收到每周2-5封newsletter，可以加入会员社群，参加会员活动，并享受更多福利。 合作投稿邮箱：american.roulette.pod@gmail.com 【时间轴】 01:03 开场介绍与嘉宾定义"新右翼" 04:26 欧洲源流：法国新右翼五大主张与"大置换"理论 07:41 MAGA内战近况：MTG叛旗、Charlie Kirk之死、关税倒戈 09:57 里根"三角凳"：旧保守主义联盟的搭建与崩塌 14:53 共和党南方化与文化战争的全面溃败感 17:56 The Flight 93 Election：生死危机叙事的诞生 22:59 右翼葛兰西主义与Curtis Yarvin的"大教堂"理论 30:51 特朗普本人没有意识形态——他只是新右翼的特洛伊木马 34:11 Barstool Conservative：虎扑老哥式MAGA选民与激进化管道 37:38 新右翼门派总览：克莱蒙特学派 vs 后自由主义者 41:15 JD万斯：后自由主义旗手与2028接班人难题 45:15 行政国家之争：拆掉还是接管？右翼内部的路线分歧 52:22 美国人到底是谁？独立宣言主义 vs 血统民族主义 60:38 反垄断翻车与交易型政治：意识形态败给利益交换 66:38 新右翼有思想没魅力，找不到第二个特朗普 【我们是谁】 美轮美换是一档深入探讨当今美国政治的中文播客。 我们的主播和嘉宾： Talich：美国政治和文化历史爱好者 王浩岚：美国政治爱好者，岚目公众号主笔兼消息二道贩子 小华：媒体人 小肖：纽约律师 王朝：《日新说》国际新闻主编，右翼思潮观察者 【 What We Talked About】 Trump is MAGA, but MAGA is far more than Trump. In recent months, fractures within the American right have burst into the open: Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly split loyalty to Trump from loyalty to America First for the first time; the assassination of Charlie Kirk triggered an internal war over Israel and antisemitism; and rare Republican defections emerged on immigration enforcement and tariff policy. These fractures are not accidental — they reflect deep conflicts between rival intellectual networks, competing ideological frameworks, and fundamentally different visions of what America should be. In this episode, we start with the collapse of the Reagan-era "three-legged stool" coalition and systematically trace the intellectual origins and internal factions of the MAGA New Right: from the French Nouvelle Droite to the American alt-right, from the Claremont school's democratic accountability doctrine to the post-liberals' Common Good Constitutionalism, from Curtis Yarvin's "Cathedral" theory to Silicon Valley's techno-monarchist ambitions. These factions are remarkably united on tearing down the old order — but deeply divided over what to build in its place. We also explore Trump's peculiar position in this intellectual landscape: a transactional political animal with virtually no ideology, yet embraced by theoretically ambitious intellectuals as a Trojan horse into power. And then there's Vance — the most credible standard-bearer for the post-Trump era, with his post-liberal convictions, tech-right funding network, redefinition of American identity, and his fatal charisma deficit. When Trump exits center stage, how long can this half-built scaffolding hold? 【Support Us】 If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following: Join our membership program: https://theamericanroulette.com/paid-membership/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/americanroulette Business Inquiries and fan mail: american.roulette.pod@gmail.com 【Timeline】 01:03 Introduction & defining the "New Right" 04:26 European origins: the French Nouvelle Droite's five pillars and the "Great Replacement" theory 07:41 MAGA civil war update: MTG's break, Charlie Kirk's death, and tariff defections 09:57 Reagan's "three-legged stool": how the old conservative coalition was built — and why it collapsed 14:53 The GOP's Southernization and the sense of total defeat in the culture war 17:56 The Flight 93 Election: the birth of existential crisis politics 22:59 Right-wing Gramscianism and Curtis Yarvin's "Cathedral" theory 30:51 Trump has no ideology — he's the New Right's Trojan horse 34:11 Barstool Conservatives: the low-ideology MAGA base and the radicalization pipeline 37:38 New Right faction overview: the Claremont school vs. the post-liberals 41:15 JD Vance: post-liberal standard-bearer and the 2028 succession problem 45:15 The administrative state debate: dismantle or capture? The right's internal divide 52:22 Who counts as American? Declarationism vs. blood-and-soil nationalism 60:38 Antitrust derailed: when transactional politics trumps ideology 66:38 The New Right has ideas but no charisma — and no second Trump in sight 【Who We Are】 The American Roulette is a podcast dedicated to helping the Chinese-speaking community understand fast-changing U.S. politics. Our Hosts and Guests: Talich：Aficionado of American politics, culture, and history 王浩岚 (Haolan Wang): American political enthusiast, chief writer at Lán Mù WeChat Official Account, and peddler of information 小华 (Xiao Hua): Journalist, political observer 小肖：NY lawyer 王朝：International News Editor at Copernicium, observer of right-wing movements

Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, joins Offline to talk about the horrifying trends his team has unearthed across social media platforms…and how it's put him in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration. To date, Imran has weathered multiple lawsuits, stood up to Elon Musk, and won. But now, the State Department is trying to get him deported back to the UK—just for publicizing how platforms are hotbeds of bigotry and self harm content. He and Jon talk about how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a cancer on our democracy, why Tech Oligarchs view the rest of us as NPCs, and how the “things" Silicon Valley is moving fast and breaking are actually our own children.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.

While we're being distracted by chatbots and AI gimmicks, Silicon Valley is quietly embedding its products into surveillance systems, border enforcement, battlefield logistics, and even nuclear command-and-control. The real money isn't in selfies with AI. It's in Pentagon contracts and permanent war footing.Investigative reporter Peter Byrne is back to talk with Steve about his 10-part Military AI Watch series at Project Censored. It's a chilling and materialist analysis of the military-industrial-AI complex.Naming names and following the funding trails, Peter reveals how firms tied to Palantir, Google, and other tech giants are positioning AI as indispensable to “national security.” Meanwhile, the systems themselves remain prone to hallucination, data poisoning, and catastrophic error.War games escalate to nuclear exchange. (Does anyone remember War Games, the movie? Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy play a teenage nerd and a popular girl who save the world from the nuclear destruction they almost launched. Sigh... innocent times.) Civilian infrastructure becomes battlefield terrain. And the comforting promise of a “human in the loop” is a marketing slogan instead of a safeguard. 2001: A Space Odyssey eerily feels both prescient and naive by comparison. Hollywood likes to personalize everything. The villain is wacky or evil; it's never the economic system.As their conversation continues, Steve and Peter look at class power, media complicity, and the illusion that electoral politics alone can rein in a self-directing war machine.Peter Byrne is an award-winning investigative science reporter who has long uncovered corruption at the nexus of science and industry. Now, in partnership with Project Censored, Byrne has launched Military AI Watch, a groundbreaking ten-part series published on Project Censored's website. https://www.projectcensored.org/military-ai-watch/Find all of Peter's work here: https://www.peterbyrne.info/

This week marks the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's a somber anniversary that many Ukrainians here in California are commemorating. In fact, Silicon Valley is home to a large Ukrainian diaspora – many immigrants from Ukraine have come to work in the tech industry as engineers. Some of them have been using their tech skills to bolster the effort to defend Ukraine, and this army of engineers, coders, hackers, and tinkerers has become a vital part of the country's resistance against Russian aggression. It's a story that Bay Area investigative journalist Erica Hellerstein stumbled upon when she took a trip to Kyiv to work on a project about her own family's Ukrainian roots. As she discovered, some believe Ukraine's tech sector and its connection to Silicon Valley is part of the reason Ukraine is still standing today. This week, we're sharing an excerpt of an episode Hellerstein reported for the KQED podcast Close All Tabs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

¿Es posible decirle "no" al Pentágono? ️ En el episodio de hoy analizamos el choque de titanes que está sacudiendo Silicon Valley. El Departamento de Defensa de EE. UU. ha puesto un ultimátum a Anthropic, la creadora de Claude: o eliminan sus restricciones de seguridad para vigilancia masiva y armas autónomas, o recibirán el "trato Huawei". Mientras gigantes como OpenAI y Google ya han cedido sus salvaguardas para uso militar, Dario Amodei se mantiene firme en una reunión que definirá el futuro de la privacidad civil. Claude es la IA más capaz en sistemas clasificados, pero su negativa a espiar a ciudadanos estadounidenses podría costarle su existencia comercial. ¿Estamos ante un acto de integridad heroico o el fin de la IA ética frente al poder estatal? Analizamos los detalles filtrados de la reunión con el Secretario de Defensa, el papel de Claude en operaciones militares reales y por qué esta es la historia más importante (y menos contada) de la tecnología actual. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #PodcastIA #Anthropic #Claude #Pentagono #Privacidad #Geopolitica #Tecnologia #OpenAI #SeguridadNacional #ÉticaIA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://seoxan.es/crear_pedido_hosting Codigo Cupon "APPLE" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PATROCINADO POR SEOXAN Optimización SEO profesional para tu negocio https://seoxan.es https://uptime.urtix.es --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PARTICIPA EN DIRECTO Deja tu opinión en los comentarios, haz preguntas y sé parte de la charla más importante sobre el futuro del iPad y del ecosistema Apple. ¡Tu voz cuenta! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¿TE GUSTÓ EL EPISODIO? ✨ Dale LIKE SUSCRÍBETE y activa la campanita para no perderte nada COMENTA COMPARTE con tus amigos applelianos --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SÍGUENOS EN TODAS NUESTRAS PLATAFORMAS: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Applelianos Telegram: https://t.me/+Jm8IE4n3xtI2Zjdk X (Twitter): https://x.com/ApplelianosPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/applelianos Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/39QoPbO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On The Bruce Collins Show, Bruce interviews Brent Dusing, CEO of TruPlay Games (www.TruPlayGames.com), for an in-depth discussion on faith-based gaming, Christian media platforms, digital free speech, Big Tech bias, app store policies, content moderation, religious discrimination, Google Play Store restrictions, TikTok algorithm visibility, Christian entrepreneurship, family-friendly gaming, values-driven entertainment, online censorship, Section 230 debates, platform transparency, tech industry accountability, and the future of Christian content in the digital marketplace. Are major tech platforms like Google and TikTok suppressing Christian voices, or is this a broader issue of algorithmic moderation and marketplace competition? This compelling conversation explores religious liberty, digital rights, culture and technology, and the intersection of faith and Silicon Valley in today's rapidly evolving online ecosystem.

"He's blundered here. He's trying to set policy for the government on the use of AI through a sales contract." — Keith Teare on Dario AmodeiThere's only one story this week: Dario Amodei's refusal to let the Department of War use Anthropic's best technology for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Silicon Valley rallied behind him. The New York Times covered it. Sam Altman publicly supported him—while quietly cutting his own deal with the administration. But Keith Teare thinks Anthropic is wrong.Keith's argument is simple: vendors don't set policy. If you want to sell to governments, you can't then dictate what they do with your product. That's not your job. And by trying to do it, Amodei has alienated the entire US administration and created a fake battle that can only damage his company. Andrew is more sympathetic. In his view, Amodei is taking a political position against Trump—and in 2026, with Congress marginalized and corporations increasingly powerful, that's just the nature of things.The debate cuts to something deeper: the power shift between corporations and the state. Oppenheimer couldn't say no to the government because he worked for them. Amodei can say no because he doesn't. These companies now speak to the government as almost equals. Meanwhile, Citruni Research released a white paper predicting AI will collapse the economy and destroy white-collar jobs. Jack Dorsey just cut 40% of Square's workforce. The stock jumped 25%. Five Takeaways●      Keith: Amodei Has Blundered: Vendors don't determine the use of what you buy from them. By trying to set policy through a sales contract, Amodei has alienated the entire US administration and created a fake battle that can only damage his company. He hasn't read the Art of War.●      Andrew: This Is a Political Stand: Amodei isn't naive—he's taking a position against Trump. And in 2026, with Congress marginalized and corporations increasingly powerful, the fact that he's willing to take the government on publicly is astonishing. He's kept his job. The investors are fine with it.●      The Power Has Shifted: Oppenheimer couldn't say no to the government because he worked for them. Amodei can say no because he doesn't. What Anthropic has at its fingertips is not something the government has. These companies now speak to the government as almost equals.●      Silicon Valley Is Split: Right libertarians are small-government supporters of the administration. Left libertarians are bigger-government supporters of welfare. Vinod Khosla is a hybrid—pro-America militarily, fearful of China. Tim Cook does whatever governments tell him. NVIDIA is navigating best.●      Jack Dorsey Cut 40%—Stock Jumped 25%: Citruni Research released a white paper predicting AI will collapse the economy. Noah Smith called it a scary bedtime story. But Dorsey just did it for real at Square. If AI succeeds, lots of white-collar jobs go. The social contract between capital and labor is breaking. About the GuestKeith Teare is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and publisher of That Was The Week, a weekly tech newsletter. He is a co-founder of TechCrunch and has been a fixture in Silicon Valley for decades.ReferencesThis week's reading:●      Ezra Klein's interview with Jack Clark — Andrew calls it the interview of the week.●      Citruni Research white paper — The AI jobs apocalypse scenario that crashed the software market on Monday.●      Noah Smith's response — Calls the Citruni report a "scary bedtime story."Previous Keen On episodes mentioned:●      Maya Kornberg on Congress being "Stuck" (Episode 2815)●      Arne Westad on pre-WWI parallels (upcoming)About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

Who pays on the first date? When should you talk about money in a relationship? How do you split finances with your partner — and what happens when you don't? Sabrina sits down with Jean and Cherie, the Tiger Sisters, to tackle every uncomfortable money question in dating and relationships — from first-date expectations and financial red flags to prenups, combining finances, and protecting yourself before marriage. If you've ever avoided "the money talk" with someone you're dating, this episode is your wake-up call. The Tiger Sisters bring their Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and business school backgrounds to break down the business side of love — why financial independence matters (especially for women), how to set boundaries around money without killing the romance, and why who you choose to marry is the single most important decision you'll ever make. Whether you're single, dating, or already in a relationship, this conversation will change how you think about love, money, and building a life with the right partner. Close the Loop: Mastering 2026 Dating Live Practice + Q&A with Sabrina Zohar I'm hosting a free live session on March 4, and this is the last one I'm planning for a long time. If dating keeps ending the same way and you can't figure out why, this is for you.

Researcher and investigative powerhouse, Iain Davis, returns to share his findings featured in his recent book, ⁠The Technocratic Dark State⁠ - a rigorous work documenting the Silicon Valley oligarchs recent capture of the US government. Where is the agenda now? Where does this go? What can we do? Do not miss this thorough and important conversation on the future of "our" coming technocracy. Find Iain: Websites: ⁠⁠https://iaindavis.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://unlimitedhangout.com/author/iain-davis/⁠⁠ Twitter/X: @_InThisTogether Exclusive Content and Ways to Support: Support me on Substack for ad-free content, bonus material, personal chatting and more! ⁠https://substack.com/@monicaperezshow⁠ Become a PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER on Apple Podcasts for AD FREE episodes and exclusive content! True Hemp Science: ⁠https://truehempscience.com/⁠ PROMO CODE: MONICA Find, Follow, Subscribe & Rate on your favorite podcasting platform AND for video and social & more... Website: ⁠https://monicaperezshow.com/⁠ Substack: ⁠https://substack.com/@monicaperezshow⁠ Rumble: ⁠https://rumble.com/user/monicaperezshow⁠ Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/MonicaPerez⁠ Twitter/X: @monicaperezshow Instagram: @monicaperezshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and run his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. Since 2012, John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, including Peter Diamandis, Adam Grant, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners. They help their clients generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service. In this episode… A podcast can open doors, spark relationships, and quietly become your most powerful business development tool. But in a world where anyone can hit record on their phone, what actually separates a show that drives growth from one that fades into the noise? According to John Corcoran, the difference comes down to intention and execution. Professional production is not about fancy studios or overproduced edits, but about clean audio, thoughtful structure, strong branding, and a strategy that supports relationship-building and thought leadership. When you treat your podcast as a core part of your business development strategy rather than a side project, it becomes a powerful engine for networking, credibility, and long-term growth. Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as Chad Franzen of Rise25 interviews John Corcoran about mastering podcast production for business growth. They discuss what separates professional podcasts from DIY efforts, how video has become essential for reach and SEO, and why over-editing can actually hurt authenticity. John also shares advice on leveraging thought leadership and short-form video to expand your impact.

Unlocking Entrepreneurial Success: Achieving Strategic Alignment with Ike EzeIn this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast, host Josh Elledge sits down with Ike Eze, the Managing Partner at Beta Ventures and author of The Founder Fit: Finding the Business That's Right For You. They explore Ike's journey from mechanical engineering into the high-stakes world of venture capital, specifically focusing on the booming startup ecosystem in Africa. This conversation provides a masterclass for founders and investors alike, emphasizing that while a great idea is a start, long-term success is ultimately determined by the deep alignment between a founder's unique skills and the specific demands of their venture.Maximizing Impact Through the Founder Fit FrameworkThe concept of "founder fit" serves as the critical connective tissue between a raw business idea and a scalable, resilient enterprise. Ike explains that many entrepreneurs face stagnation not because their product lacks a market, but because they are personally ill-equipped for the specific type of leadership their business requires. For example, a brilliant technical builder may struggle to lead a sales-heavy organization, creating a friction point that eventually leads to burnout or operational failure. By conducting a rigorous self-assessment to identify whether one is a builder, a marketer, or an operator, founders can either pivot their business model to match their strengths or intentionally bring in complementary partners to fill vital talent gaps.In emerging markets like the African startup scene—which Ike describes as being in a rapid, "early-dotcom" style growth phase—this fit becomes even more essential due to unique infrastructural and cultural challenges. Entrepreneurs in these regions often find success by identifying "invisible" local problems that global giants overlook, such as the need for localized facial recognition technology like Smile ID. Success in these environments requires more than just technical prowess; it demands a founder who possesses the cultural context and localized knowledge to adapt Western business models into something that truly serves a specific population. When the founder's personal mission aligns with these acute market needs, the resulting business is far more likely to achieve the "unicorn" status seen increasingly across the continent.For investors, the shift toward a founder-fit lens requires a move away from purely data-driven metrics toward a more human-centric evaluation of potential. Ike suggests that investors must become more patient and hands-on, recognizing that emerging markets have different regulatory and infrastructural timelines than Silicon Valley. By supporting diverse teams that demonstrate a clear alignment between their lived experience and the problem they are solving, venture capitalists can help mitigate the risks of early-stage investing. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that the individual at the helm has the intrinsic resilience and specialized skill set required to navigate the inevitable pivots and pressures of the entrepreneurial journey.About Ike EzeIke Eze is a seasoned entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the Founder and CEO of Beta Ventures. With a background in mechanical engineering and three successful tech exits in Silicon Valley, Ike now focuses on empowering the next generation of African innovators. He is a recognized thought leader on emerging markets and the author of a definitive guide on founder-market alignment.About The Founder Fit: Finding the Business That's Right For YouThe Founder Fit is a strategic framework and book authored by Ike Eze that guides entrepreneurs through the process of aligning their personal strengths with their business ventures. Through Beta Ventures, Ike applies these principles to invest in high-growth startups within the African ecosystem, focusing on companies that leverage localized innovation to solve large-scale problems.Links Mentioned in This EpisodeThe Founder Fit: Finding the Business That's Right For You (Amazon)Ike Eze on LinkedInKey Episode HighlightsThe Founder Fit Framework: Why the same business idea can fail or flourish based entirely on the alignment of the founder's intrinsic strengths.African Startup Ecosystem: Navigating the "early-dotcom" style growth phase and identifying unique opportunities in emerging markets.Solving "Invisible" Problems: How Smile ID successfully leveraged localized technical innovation to address gaps ignored by global tech giants.The Investor's Pivot: Why evaluating a founder's lived experience and market context is more critical than standard Silicon Valley metrics.Closing the Talent Gap: Strategies for identifying whether you are a builder, marketer, or operator and how to build a team around your blind spots.ConclusionThis conversation with Ike Eze underscores that the most successful ventures are those where the founder's identity and the business's mission are perfectly synchronized. By prioritizing this alignment and focusing on localized solutions for underserved markets, entrepreneurs can build businesses that are not only profitable but also profoundly impactful.More from The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

Andrew and Ben break down a busy week on the Friday Deploy, starting with the market reaction to new COBOL tools and the permissions oversights that led to recent outages at AWS. They also explore the shifting landscape of developer productivity studies, the security risks of cloud-hosted agents, and the latest cybersecurity takeaways from the International AI Safety report. Finally, they close out the episode by checking in on a retired Claude model that was given a blog.Follow the show:Subscribe to our Substack Follow us on LinkedInSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelLeave us a ReviewFollow the hosts:Follow AndrewFollow BenFollow DanFollow today's stories:IBM Didn't Lose 13% Because COBOL DiedAWS suffered ‘at least two outages' caused by AI tools, and now I'm convinced we're living inside a ‘Silicon Valley' episodeWe are Changing our Developer Productivity Experiment DesignDeepfakes spreading and more AI companions': seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety reportGreetings from the Other Side (of the AI Frontier)OFFERS Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free. Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era. LEARN ABOUT LINEARB AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production. AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance. AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil. MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Starting with a mini celebration: Dave defends his ski racing crown, before Sam declares software dead and capitalism broken. Even among GPs at Upfront Summit, the mood is uncertain: nobody knows whether to invest in software anymore, and many are quietly struggling to raise.The debate heats up over whether AI will democratize software creation or just accelerate capitalism's race to zero margins. Sam argues that when intelligence becomes abundant, it becomes worthless, making the entire AI industry, and by extension Silicon Valley, "pretty bad business." Dave counters that we're about to see a Cambrian explosion of software creators, finally giving billions of people agency over their digital lives.Plus: whether Stripe should buy PayPal during this opportunistic Trump-administration window, Gen Z panic-buying original iPods, Sam's shitposting-to-funding pipeline, and whether OnlyFans has the best KYC in fintechChapters:We're also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessYouTube: https://youtu.be/Ff4-vkt5rYQConnect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

Cameron Robertson first discovered Bitcoin in 2009, after reading a post on hacker website Slashdot. About a year later, he started mining and mingling with other Bitcoin enthusiasts in the Silicon Valley area. More recently, he created a product named the Burner: an affordable, NFC-based card that enables anyone to gift, save, and spend their BTC within a simple browser-based and mobile-optimized interface. In this episode, we talk about the past, present and future of the Bitcoin project: including topics such as mining, open source development culture, and the quantum threat. Get 25% discount on your Burner card purchase with promo code ”BTCTKVR”: https://www.burner.pro/bitcoin Time stamps: 00:01:15 Introducing Cameron Robertson 00:02:45 Cameron's Bitcoin Origin Story 00:03:40 Early GPU Mining & Startup Life 00:04:46 Meeting with Brian Armstrong of Coinbase & Smart Locks 00:06:10 Evolution of the Crypto Ecosystem 00:07:20 Building Self-Custody Tools 00:08:30 Kong Cash: Physical Crypto Notes 00:10:25 Community Reactions to Physical Crypto 00:11:17 NFTs, Halos, and Physical Authentication 00:12:30 Offline Cash: Improved Bitcoin Notes 00:13:30 Denominations, Sats, and Psychological Value 00:15:30 Challenges of Issuing Physical Bitcoin 00:16:22 From Cash Notes to Burner Card 00:17:30 Web-Based Wallets & App Store Challenges 00:18:48 Bitcoin Banknotes & Physical Representations 00:21:01 Casascius, Legal Precedents & Coinage Laws 00:24:28 Mining, Spending, and Store of Value 00:28:22 Early Bitcoin Community & Mining Stories 00:30:02 Bitcoin as Money vs. Store of Value 00:32:07 Unit of Account Challenges 00:37:31 Development Culture: Then vs. Now 00:39:03 Silicon Valley, Meetups, and Early Builders 00:40:58 Money Changes Everything: 2013–2017 00:46:57 Bear Markets, Building, and Lightning 00:50:23 Future Risks: Mining, Quantum, and Hard Forks 00:54:44 Quantum Resistance: Migration and Hardware 00:56:52 Quantum Attacks: Practical Risks and Mitigations 01:03:20 Consensus, Upgrades, and Developer Culture 01:05:41 Ethereum vs. Bitcoin: Governance and Upgrades 01:14:57 Stablecoins, Sidechains, and Payments 01:18:03 Burner Card Demo & Security Model 01:22:36 Technical Details: Secure Element & Open APIs 01:25:49 Third-Party Wallets & Business Model 01:29:31 Supported Coins & Expansion Plans 01:32:44 Naming & Philosophy Behind Burner 01:34:38 Cameron's Non-Shitcoin Picks & Privacy Coins 01:40:08 Privacy vs. Scaling: ZK Tech & Future Hopes 01:44:31 ZK Apps & Privacy Onramps 01:47:24 16-Year Outlook: Bitcoin & Crypto's Future 01:53:29 No Price Predictions, Just Tech 01:53:37 Promo Code BTCTKVR & Closing Thoughts

durée : 00:05:18 - La Revue de presse internationale - par : Catherine Duthu - Avant les Midterms de novembre qui renouvellent la Chambre des représentants et un tiers du Sénat, les patrons d'OpenAI, Meta, Palantir dépensent des millions de dollars pour éviter toute régulation de l'intelligence artificielle. D'autres, notamment Anthropic, veulent un cadre plus strict.

Send a textHaresh Patel is a Silicon Valley CEO turned HealthTech innovator who has spent his career solving complex systems across technology, finance, and human health.Born in India and raised in New Hampshire, Haresh earned his electrical engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame before beginning a 25 year journey in Silicon Valley. His leadership spanned semiconductor and technology companies including Texas Instruments, PMC Sierra, Agilent, and WJ Communications, before culminating in the founding of Mercatus. What began as a kitchen table startup grew into the global standard for private market investment technology, supporting over $1.5 trillion in assets under management before being acquired by State Street.Haresh's most profound breakthrough did not happen in a boardroom but in a healing room.For 55 years, he lived with unexplained health symptoms that twelve specialists could not diagnose. Refusing to accept that there were no answers, Haresh applied the same systems thinking and pattern recognition that powered his business success to his own body. By connecting the dots conventional medicine had missed, he uncovered the root causes behind his condition, an experience that fundamentally reshaped his life and purpose.Today, he is the founder of Diagnostic MD AI and a leading advocate for integrating conventional medicine with proven alternative approaches through patient-centric, AI-driven diagnostics. He believes the future of healthcare lies not in choosing between Eastern and Western medicine, but in intelligently combining their strengths to understand the whole system.His forthcoming book, The Ghost in My Body, chronicles this journey from medical dead ends to healing breakthroughs, offering both a deeply personal story and a vision for how healthcare can evolve.https://hareshpatel.ai/Use code FA FOR 40% OFF Athletic greens is a non-negotiable part of my daily routine. With 75 absorbable vitamins and minerals in just one scoop a day, I have increased my energy, improved my immune function and so much more. To get your own AG at 20% off go to www.athleticgreens.com/functionallyautoimmune Order now for a free vitamin D3/K2 supplement and 5 free travel packs!Support the show

This month on the Harvard Data Science Review Podcast, we explore the data behind modern dating. With millions of swipes happening daily, dating apps promise compatibility through algorithms—but do they really optimize for lasting connection? Host Liberty Vittert-Capito and guest co-host and HDSR column editor Miguel Paredes sit down with Linx Dating Founder and CEO Amy Andersen and Three Day Rule CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei to examine the tension between human intuition and algorithmic matching. Drawing on decades of experience and tens of thousands of successful matches, they discuss what people say they want versus what they actually need.. From swipe data to AI-powered date coaching, this episode asks a provocative question: Can technology guide us to love, or is chemistry still beyond the reach of code? Listen in for a data-driven perspective on romance in the digital age. Our guests: Amy Andersen is the founder and CEO of Linx Dating, a private offline dating and social network located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Adam Cohen-Aslatei is the CEO of Three Day Rule, a personalized, high-end matchmaking service.

Darrell Castle talks about the State of the Union Address by reviewing a few of the things President Trump said and the reaction of his opponents, as well as providing a Constitutional response. Transcription / Notes SOTU – A RESPONSE Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. This is Friday the 27th day of February in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about the State of the Union Address delivered last Tuesday by President Donald Trump. I will comment on a few of the things he said and on the reaction of his opponents to those things and then I will do what I am often asked to do and that is give a Constitutional response. The President spoke for almost two hours the longest speech in SOTU history. He spoke mostly about the achievements of his second term and he mentioned that America is entering a golden age. He emphasized patriotism and heroes and he invited many of them to the speech including the gold medal winning men's Olympic hockey team. According to the reports I've seen more than 70 Democrats chose not to attend the speech but most of them did and they exercised their choice which was to set and glare straight ahead or occasionally to boo him. He noticed and called them out repeatedly for their failure to muster even the most basic bipartisanship in moments that should have been beyond partisan politics. For example, the President invited “a woman who has been through hell,” Anya Zarutska, whose daughter Iryna fled war torn Ukraine only to be murdered on a train in Charlotte North Carolina.  Yes, the killer had many past felonies only to be released on bail when he killed Iryna with a knife. The Democrats could not muster any energy to stand for her mother. That was bad but not the worst moment for Democrats. He held them up for the whole country to see in their worst moment and they went for it. “One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe. So, tonight, I'm inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Who, in good conscience could not agree with that statement and Republicans certainly did. They stood, clapped, and whistled for a full two minutes in a raw, spontaneous reaction, but the Democrats didn't even move. Not a shuffle or even a courtesy clap, just nothing. He let that sink in for a moment then twisted the knife. “isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourselves, not standing up.” I think people noticed as post speech polls indicated especially since illegal immigration was the most important issue of the 2024 election. His invitation to stand was not an attack on immigrants, nor was it hateful. Instead, it was a simple invitation to endorse common sense publicly. The American people elect and pay their leaders and in exchange for power and the honor of election those leaders must prioritize the needs of their constituents. It is the most basic social contract of the American government and it's hard to see how anyone could not grasp it immediately. However, I will point out that the theme transcends immigration. Whether you call it America first or you simply understand that we are all Americans and illegal immigrants especially murderers, torturers, and rapists are not, it is or should be a basic requirement of holding office. Washington is now filled with politicians who have agendas that take priority in their minds over Americans. Yes, for some its Ukraine first, for some its Somalia first, and for some perhaps even the President its Israel first. Now, let me finalize this concept and attempt to link it to Constitutional government and what that would mean. My view is that anyone who thinks that there is a single group who should come ahead of Americans in the minds of officeholders should not be in politics. Let them get a job in Silicon Valley, but please stay away from politics. In reference to the Constitution, I want to say a few words about Iran and what appears to be steamrolling toward an extended war. Like refusal to stand for the concept that American politicians should put the interests of Americans ahead of those of illegal immigrants, American politicians are bound by oath to the Constitution to oppose the drive to fight wars and attack other countries which have not harmed America in any way on behalf of others. This coming war is so obviously unconstitutional that I wonder if anyone in Washington even knows what it means anymore. I will also point out that if the U.S. Constitution is not enough for some of our globalist neo-con politicians, it is also a clear violation of the U.N. Charter which the U.S. signed in 1948. The charter forbids attacking countries which have not harmed you and are not a threat to you but the U.S. has done that many times especially since 1991. A nation does not have to attack to violate the charter because even threats and intimidation are also forbidden. The threat to Iran of you have 10 days to comply with my demands or something very bad will happen to you is an obvious violation. The idea of I am much stronger than you and you have something I want so if you don't give it to me I will take it by force is also an obvious violation. I oppose an attack on Iran for many reasons and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine apparently agrees with me. He has reportedly warned the President that an act of war against Iran carries significant risks including a prolonged conflict with high casualties. I understand that General Caine has the President's respect so maybe his views will prevail over Bibi's but I doubt it. Rumors abound that on one of Bibi's six visits to the Trump White House he threatened the President with what is known as the Samson option. In other words, it you don't do this thing for me I will bring down the entire temple by attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. There can be no reasonable doubt at this point that the coming war is for the purpose of greater Israel. If you don't believe me I invite you to listen to Tucker Carlson's interview with Ambassador Mike Huckabee conducted in Israel about a week ago. In that interview Huckabbe essentially admitted it and said it would be OK. Back to honoring the U.S. Constitution I have spent 37 years of my life defending it along with Western Civilization itself. I now have no confidence that the battle can be won. In other words, it appears that I lost the battle and a return to Constitutional government is impossible. As you probably know, I was a presidential candidate for the Constitution Party and I knew then that by some chance if I was elected it would mean great sacrifice and possibly even death so let's look at why I feel that way. Politicians seek power to get ahead, and to use the near monopoly on violence the government has to achieve those goals. They become seekers of largesse, and there are other words to describe it, but they seek largesse and they exchange it for votes and for special treatment. Subsidies for certain industries are clear examples of this. The subsidies given to corn farmers require corn ethanol to be mixed with gasoline. Now the corn producers say they could not survive without that largesse and any corn state politician who seeks to cancel it better consider a new line of work. The original ethanol requirement was to prevent global warming but the current President says it's a hoax, but the subsidies continue. Subsidies, bailouts, welfare, giveaways, and other shakedowns are not only unconstitutional, but they are also normally unnecessary and inefficient. For example, tariffs are essentially subsidies for selected industries, paid for by price hikes on consumers. The largesse that tariffs represent are put in place to favor a select group of beneficiaries and disfavor everyone else. Over time, the largesse builds up and becomes a huge drag on the economy. I grew up as a farmer's kid and we kept pigs whose meat the pigs sacrificed to feed us through the winter. With so many piglets sucking their mama the sow, the poor sow grows weaker and weaker, A once healthy, dynamic sow goes into decline and stagnates but the pigs are so addicted they cannot stop sucking until their mother can no longer feed them. So, I tell you what is necessary if this empire is to be saved from the disaster that appears inevitable but word of warning if you actually tried to do these things you would probably not survive. Empires have come and gone throughout history. They turn their money to trash by currency debasement, for example our own currency has lost 99.9% of its value relative to gold and we ask why things cost so much. Affordability crises they call it without any understanding of what actually causes it. Eventually, civil war and the struggle for remaining largesse destroys the empire and starvation and poverty are the result.  Old friend and economist Bill Bonner shares three essential things for a good beginning and I agree with Bill on all of them. So,” 1. protect the integrity of U.S. money and the money system. 2. Do not spend more than you take in, ever. This year revenue is projected at $4.9 trillion and spending is projected at $2 trillion more than that. 3. No wars, and I mean no wars that are not purely defensive.” This sacrificial candidate and hopefully President should announce no more deficits ever. No tariffs, no sanctions, no printing money to pay the debt and no more inflation because a balanced budget is non-negotiable. To do this, abolish the FED immediately. You will have to cut $2 trillion in spending and people will not take kindly to that but rip the band aid off quickly. Take your case directly to the people and tell them look folks we may be the greatest nation in the history of the world but we are going broke. Someone has to do it and if not me who, if not now, when. Explain to the voters that in fiscal year 2019 the $4.9 in revenue would have funded the entire government and it is going to again, this year. One other thing, this all depends on taking control of the military, industrial, intelligence, security, and spy complex so that must be done in conjunction. Remember the last President to attempt to control it was JFK. Never fear, just go on TV and tell the people why you are cutting $500 million from the war budget. Finally, folks, what are the chances the people would support a President who was determined to save his country and return to the Constitution? So close to zero that they could safely be listed as zero. At least that's the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.

Hold on to your hats!   My featured guest for this episode of Necronomicast is Dr. Rizwan Virk! A graduate of MIT and Stanford, Rizwan Virk is a successful entrepreneur, video game pioneer, film producer, venture capitalist, computer scientist and bestselling author. Virk recently finished his doctoral research at the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) and teaching classes on the Metaverse, Innovation and Simulation Theory at the College of Global Futures and the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. His books include The Simulation Hypothesis, Startup Myths & Models: What You Won't Learn in Business School, Wisdom of a Yogi, The Simulated Multiverse, Treasure Hunt and Zen Entrepreneurship.   Virk founded Play Labs @ MIT, a startup accelerator, and invested in many successful startups including Discord, Theta Labs, Upland and Tapjoy.  His startups created video games played by millions, including Tap Fish and games based on Game of Thrones, Star Trek, The Walking Dead, Grimm and Penny Dreadful. Virk and his books have been featured on The Joe Rogan Podcast, in Forbes, The Telegraph, NBC News, vox.com, Techcrunch, Inc., VentureBeat, Digital Trends, BBC Science Focus, and Scientific American, CBS, the CBC, Coast to Coast AM and The History Channel.  He has been a speaker and mentor ranging from MIT's $100k Business Plan Competition and Delta V accelerator to 500 Startups, Talks @ Google and GamesBeat in Silicon Valley. Follow him @rizcambridge, and at zenentrepreneur.com. "The Simulation Hypothesis" at Amazon. Support the Necronomicast and "Buy Me A Coffee"!

An independent group backed by Silicon Valley executive is spending big on tv ads backing San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's gubernatorial run. For more, KCBS Radio anchor Margie Shafer spoke with KCBS Insider Phil Matier.

In this episode Meredith sits down with Theresa Wellman, a top 1% agent in the competitive San Jose, CA market, whose journey from the tech world to real estate has become a masterclass in applying analytical thinking to entrepreneurial growth.Theresa shares how she transitioned from a career in Silicon Valley engineering into real estate - and how her data-driven, process-focused mindset became the key to standing out in a highly saturated market. You'll learn how she uses her “engineering brain” to interpret market trends, develop systems, and create deep alignment with her clients and content.Theresa also reveals how she balances top-tier production with motherhood using "time-sliding" (her unique spin on time-blocking), and how she's built a thriving YouTube channel that consistently generates warm, organic leads.

Bill Gurley, accomplished venture capitalist, longtime Silicon Valley “worrywart,” and early Uber backer, joins Kara Swisher to discuss how to build a career you love and the tech industry's sharp turn to the right.  Gurley's new book Runnin' Down a Dream, guides readers on how to find and nurture a truly fulfilling career — and his advice is the polar  opposite of Scott Galloway's “follow your talent, not your passion.”  Kara and Bill talk about how to find your fascination, and why the best careers are built through craft, peers, mentors, and a willingness to start at the bottom. They also dig into AI-related job loss anxiety and Gurley's growing focus on public policy — from regulatory capture to the concentration of power in the Mag 7. Plus: an expert question from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Gurley is a titan of Silicon Valley, a visionary investor who has shaped the landscape of modern business with game-changing insights and investments in companies like Uber and Zillow. As a general partner at Benchmark, Gurley's track record is undeniable, but it's his passion for unlocking human potential, articulated in his new book "Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love," that truly sets him apart. Through his popular blog "Above the Crowd" and social media, he has consistently shared his wisdom, inspiring countless individuals to pursue careers they genuinely love with confidence and strategic methodology.Takeaways:Unlocking Human Potential: The book "Runnin' Down a Dream" aims to equip individuals with the motivation and methodology to pursue their passions confidently, even in non-traditional fields.Mentorship and Sharing Knowledge: Learning from legends like Bobby Knight highlights the exponential positive impact of seeking mentors and generously sharing your own knowledge with others, rather than viewing success as a zero-sum game.Harnessing AI for Career Growth: Rather than fearing AI, individuals should embrace it as a "jet pack, jet fuel superpower" for accelerated learning and career advancement, especially for those with "agency" and a passion for continuous self-learning.Sound Bytes:"I could have written a book about investing or venture capital or any of those things, but it wouldn't touch as many people as I hope this one can touch.""I think the most positive reflection people should have on Bobby Knight, and I know there's a controversy about some of his tactics along the way, is his coaching tree.""If your career is crafted by the educational industrial complex and you're one of a hundred people doing the exact same thing and you come out of of academia like a widget and you're not someone who's passionate or not someone who self learns, you are a sitting duck for what AI may do."Connect & Discover Bill:LinkedIn: @billgurleyX: @bgurleyFacebook: @bgurleyBook: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love

A conversation with the actor, author and storyteller Stephen Tobolowsky. Besides being in countless films and episodics over the past 4 decades, Stephen has done a podcast in which he tells stories. The Tobolowsky Files ran for 99 episodes. He has also made 2 films in which the core is his story telling: “Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party” and “The Primary Instinct”. He has also written several books including “The Dangerous Animals Club”, “My Adventures with God” and “A Good Day in Auschwitz”. Stephen has been in too many movies to mention though he might be best known for his supporting role in “Groundhog Day” as Ned Ryerson. He has also been in “Memento”, “Thelma and Louise”, and “Spaceballs” to name just a few. He has also had recurring roles in episodic television series such as “Silicon Valley”, “The Mindy Project” and “The Goldbergs”. https://youtu.be/KdOohkoAiow

In just six months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than tripled the amount of data stored on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform,The Guardian reports, “at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned.” This week, tech workers with the No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) campaign staged a protest and informational picket at Microsoft's global headquarters in Redmond, WA, demanding that Microsoft cancel all contracts that provide technological support for Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and ICE's campaign of terror in the US. We speak with Ibtihal, a former software engineer at Microsoft and an organizer with the NOAA campaign. Additional links/info: No Azure for Apartheid Instagram and LinktreeHarry Davies & Yuval Abraham, The Guardian, “ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show”Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘Microsoft workers refuse to be complicit in the genocide'”Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Microsoft cancels Israeli spy unit access after tech worker revolt”Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “The biggest labor story in the US right now is happening at Microsoft”Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme SongCredits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

La Silicon Valley vous observe pendant que vous l'adoptez. Cet épisode révèle, ce que vous avez peut-être déjà accepté sans le savoir... Dans cet épisode :- On découvre que la vérification d'identité chez des centaines de plateformes alimente un système qui compare votre visage à des listes gouvernementales, en toute légalité. Les critères qui vous classent comme « suspect » sont opaques et communiqués aux gouvernements mais qui décide demain ce qui est suspect ?- Les chiffres aux États-Unis montrent une accélération brutale des suppressions d'emplois, pendant que certains font le travail de vingt personnes seul. Entre prime à l'expérience et juniors sans porte d'entrée, sommes-nous déjà en train de sacrifier une génération ?- L'IA vidéo SeeDance inonde les réseaux de fausses vidéos de célébrités sans leur accord, et Matthew McConaughey a déjà sa réponse : déposer son image comme une marque. Dans un monde où votre identité peut être clonée, êtes-vous encore propriétaire de vous-même ?Surveillance, grand remplacement, clonage numérique : trois dynamiques qui avancent sans attendre que la société décide si elle en veut vraiment.===========================

This week, the team dives into the feud that has been brewing between Anthropic and the Pentagon — and what it says about how the government interacts with tech companies. Later, Zoë tells us why figuring out whether you are agentic or mimetic has become the new litmus test in Silicon Valley. Plus, we discuss the key takeaways from the State of the Union address and give a farewell to the TAT-8 undersea cables — the ones that made our modern internet possible.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, I sat down with one of my favorite humans and one of the smartest creators on the internet — my friend Cat Goetze (@askcatgpt). We talked about what it really takes to turn creativity into a scalable business, how to stop waiting for permission, and why “climbing Cringe Mountain” might just be your next rite of passage as a creator. Cat shared her journey from Stanford to Silicon Valley to full-time creator and founder — and the wild story behind launching Physical Phones, her viral hardware startup turned creator-powered case study. She opened up about the tension between being “the talent” and “the boss,” the masculine/feminine energy dance of running a company while staying in flow, and how she's redefining entrepreneurship through CAT Labs, her newest venture building products and creative experiments at the intersection of art and tech. We also got real about leadership, letting go of control, and how good-hearted people claiming the resource of fame is one of the most radical things we can do right now. This one's equal parts business masterclass, creator therapy session, and cosmic pep talk for anyone who's ready to create their own lane instead of waiting to be picked. Connect with us! Host: Whitney Uland → @whitneyuland Guest: Cat Goetze → @askcatgpt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Armstrong and Paul Lane sit down with New York Times reporter Tripp Mickle to examine one of the biggest hidden risks in the global economy: America's dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. With TSMC producing the vast majority of leading-edge chips used by Nvidia, Apple, and other tech giants, the hosts explore what would happen if geopolitical tensions, a blockade, or even a natural disaster disrupted production — and why Silicon Valley has done little to diversify that risk.The hour also covers Nvidia's strong earnings and the market's skeptical reaction, the long-term implications of AI-driven electricity demand, and whether expanding 401(k) access could meaningfully improve retirement outcomes for American workers.

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Shomron Jacob, an AI Strategy Expert and Technology Advisor based in Silicon Valley with over a decade of experience in enterprise AI, GenAI, and machine … Read more The post Where Enterprise AI Is Breaking Down and the Strategic Bet CIOs Must Rethink appeared first on Top Entrepreneurs Podcast | Enterprise Podcast Network.

Want to Start or Grow a Successful Business? Schedule a FREE 13-Point Assessment with Clay Clark Today At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com   Join Clay Clark's Thrivetime Show Business Workshop!!! Learn Branding, Marketing, SEO, Sales, Workflow Design, Accounting & More. **Request Tickets & See Testimonials At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com  **Request Tickets Via Text At (918) 851-0102   See the Thousands of Success Stories and Millionaires That Clay Clark Has Helped to Produce HERE: https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/testimonials/ Download A Millionaire's Guide to Become Sustainably Rich: A Step-by-Step Guide to Become a Successful Money-Generating and Time-Freedom Creating Business HERE: www.ThrivetimeShow.com/Millionaire   See Thousands of Case Studies Today HERE: www.thrivetimeshow.com/does-it-work/  

In 2019, Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Tushar Atre met a tragic end after paddling out into the rough waters of the underground cannabis scene in surfer haven Santa Cruz, California, At once a love story, a crime drama, and a who-dun-it, this epic tale is chronicled in the riveting new book A Killing in Cannabis. My guest for this episode is the book's author, Scott Eden.

What if healthcare stopped reacting to illness and started anticipating it?In this episode of Remarkable People, Guy Kawasaki sits down with Dr. Lloyd Minor, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, to explore how precision health, artificial intelligence, and whole-person care are reshaping the future of medicine.This wide-ranging conversation challenges how we define health, how much we should trust technology, and what it will take to prepare physicians—and patients—for a radically different future of care.--Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy's questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopologyListen to Remarkable People here: **https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827**Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!Thank you for your support; it helps the show!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello Seekers! Ben here, today Jacques, Hesse and I are joined by our dear Mr. Max to discuss the Gay Tech Mafia allegedly operating in Silicon Valley. Then Max's co-host on the Drain, Dave Kempa, joins us for a preview of their show about California politics. Intro & Outro–Yerba Brava, Como Te Voy A Olvidar

In this episode, Reid and Aria are live from New York as they unpack why predictions about the “death” of San Francisco and New York keep missing the mark and how network effects continue to anchor these cities as the world's leading tech and finance hubs. Reid also shares advice for young founders choosing where to build and explains how to align your startup with the right economic network by breaking down lessons from companies like Shopify and Spotify that scaled outside Silicon Valley. The conversation then shifts to the future of AI in biotech as Reid offers an update on Manas AI and why curing disease hinges on regulation as much as technological breakthroughs. The episode closes with a candid discussion on media, political pressure, and the dangers of “pre-obeying” authority. Reid reflects on free speech, institutional courage, and what a volatile post-midterm landscape could mean for American democracy.

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Fred Turner, Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, about his classic 2006 book, _From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism_. They briefly explore the arc of Fred's career and revisit the book in the spirit of asking what has changed in digital ideology since the book's publication, including with the role of Silicon Valley elites in the second Trump Administration, Elon Musk's role in DOGE, and the (perhaps only brief) turn of digital technology elites moving from California to Texas. Since this conversation was recorded in April 2025, Fred's essay, “The Texan Ideology,” has been published in The Baffler: Link here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 2018, Ghislaine Maxwell—despite years of public allegations connecting her to Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking operation—was invited to and attended Jeff Bezos's elite and secretive literary retreat known as Campfire. The event, hosted by Bezos annually, brings together top authors, tech moguls, and media power players at a private location for a weekend of discussions, panels, and informal networking. Maxwell's presence at the retreat raised eyebrows, not only because of her reputation by that point, but also because it demonstrated how seamlessly she continued to move through the highest levels of elite society even after Epstein's 2008 conviction. Her attendance revealed a stunning level of normalization and acceptance within powerful circles, despite her growing notoriety.Maxwell reportedly arrived at the Campfire event alongside entrepreneur Scott Borgerson, a figure later revealed to be in a close relationship with her, though he denied any romantic involvement at the time. Attendees included influential figures from Silicon Valley, publishing, and entertainment—none of whom publicly objected to her presence. The revelation of her invitation has sparked renewed scrutiny into how the world's wealthiest and most influential people continued to welcome Epstein's known enablers into their inner circles long after the broader public became aware of their roles. It serves as yet another example of how elite spaces often insulate their own, regardless of the crimes that surround them.source:https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/01/jeffrey-epstein-friend-ghislaine-maxwell-was-guest-at-jeff-bezos-event.htmlBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Send a textThis episode brings you two Sundance documentaries that show very different ways that technology can have an impact on our lives.Joybubbles is a biopic about a deaf man (born decades before the internet or the computer) who learns how to manipulate the telephone system by whistling, and inadvertently lays the groundwork for the future of hacking and technology. Director Rachel J. Morrison joins us to share how she learned about Joybubbles from his obituary in the NY Times, his connection to Mr. Rogers, and the meta way in which she found hours of tapes of Joybubbles speaking about his life. Ghost in the Machine is a documentary that reveals the dark untold origins of Artificial Intelligence, and where we go from here. Director Valerie Veatch sits down with us to discuss her years long work examining the intersection of technology and society, why we should all be friction maxing everyday (and what the hell that actually means),  and how being a parent informs her work (and vice versa).Follow Joybubbles on IGFollow director Rachel J. Morrison on IGFollow Ghost in the Machine on IGFollow director Valerie Veatch on IGThank you to our sponsor, Standard Deviant BrewingSupport the showThanks for listening and for your support! We couldn't have won Best of the Bay Best Podcast in 2022 , 2023 , and 2024 without you! -- Fight fascism. Shop small. Use cash. Fuck ice. -- Support Bitch Talk here! Subscribe to our channel on YouTube for behind the scenes footage! Rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts! Visit our website! www.bitchtalkpodcast.com Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Substack Listen every Monday at 7 am on BFF.FM

Researcher and investigative powerhouse, Iain Davis, returns to share his findings featured in his recent book, The Technocratic Dark State - a rigorous work documenting the Silicon Valley oligarchs recent capture of the US government. Where is the agenda now? Where does this go? What can we do? Do not miss this thorough and important conversation on the future of "our" coming technocracy. Find Iain: Websites: ⁠https://iaindavis.com⁠ ⁠https://unlimitedhangout.com/author/iain-davis/⁠ Twitter/X: @_InThisTogether Exclusive Content and Ways to Support: Support me on Substack for ad-free content, bonus material, personal chatting and more! https://substack.com/@monicaperezshow Become a PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER on Apple Podcasts for AD FREE episodes and exclusive content! True Hemp Science: https://truehempscience.com/ PROMO CODE: MONICA Find, Follow, Subscribe & Rate on your favorite podcasting platform AND for video and social & more... Website: https://monicaperezshow.com/ Substack: https://substack.com/@monicaperezshow Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/monicaperezshow Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MonicaPerez Twitter/X: @monicaperezshow Instagram: @monicaperezshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Career regret is more common than most professionals admit. In Bill Gurley's survey, 7 out of 10 people said they would restart their careers if given the chance, revealing widespread dissatisfaction with their chosen paths. After decades of working alongside successful founders, Bill distilled what actually leads to meaningful, energizing work into his book  Running Down a Dream, offering a clear path to designing a career you don't want to escape from. Now on Spotify video! In this episode, Bill reveals how to build your dream job and shares what top professionals do differently to create careers that bring both success and fulfillment. In this episode, Hala and Bill will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:17) The Career Regret Crisis (06:57) Designing Your Own Career Path (12:53) How Curiosity Over Passion Drives Success (22:10) Bill's Journey From Engineering to Venture Capital (28:45) Mastering Career Fundamentals for Growth (41:34) The Power of Mentors and Peers in Career Development (52:10) Dot-Com Crash Lessons and the AI Wave (54:20) Unit Economics and Business Fundamentals (1:06:39) Smart ROI Decisions for Entrepreneurs (1:16:47) Making Tough Calls in Leadership (1:21:34) Traits of Extraordinary Founders Bill Gurley is a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist and general partner at Benchmark, known for early, pivotal investments in companies like Uber, Zillow, and Grubhub. With over 20 years at Benchmark, he is recognized as a top tech investor and the author of the influential blog Above the Crowd. In his new book, Running Down a Dream, Bill breaks down the components of balancing joy with success and identifies the key principles of career fulfillment. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at⁠ Indeed.com/profiting⁠ Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at⁠ Shopify.com/profiting⁠. Spectrum Business - Keep your business connected seamlessly. Visit ⁠https://spectrum.com/Business⁠ to learn more. Northwest Registered Agent - Build your brand and get your complete business identity at⁠ northwestregisteredagent.com/paidyap⁠ Framer - Publish beautiful and production-ready websites. Go to⁠ Framer.com/profiting⁠ and get 30% off their Framer Pro annual plan. Quo - Run your business communications the smart way. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to⁠ quo.com/profiting⁠ Working Genius - Discover your natural gifts and thrive at work. Go to⁠ workinggenius.com⁠ and get 20% off with code PROFITING Experian - Manage and cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reduce your bills. See ⁠experian.com⁠ for details. Huel -  Get all the daily nutrients you need with Huel. Grab Huel today and get 15% OFF with my code PROFITING at⁠ huel.com/PROFITING⁠.  Resources Mentioned: Bill's Book, Running Down A Dream: ⁠bit.ly/BGDream⁠  Bill's X (Twitter): ⁠x.com/bgurley⁠  Bill's Website: ⁠abovethecrowd.com⁠  Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett: ⁠bit.ly/BB-DYL⁠  One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch: ⁠bit.ly/PL-OUOWS⁠  Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen: ⁠bit.ly/CC-ID⁠  Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey: ⁠bit.ly/MM-GL⁠  Active Deals -⁠ youngandprofiting.com/deals⁠  Key YAP Links Reviews -⁠ ratethispodcast.com/yap⁠ YouTube -⁠ youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting⁠ Newsletter - ⁠youngandprofiting.co/newsletter⁠  LinkedIn -⁠ linkedin.com/in/htaha/⁠ Instagram -⁠ instagram.com/yapwithhala/⁠ Social + Podcast Services:⁠ yapmedia.com⁠ Transcripts -⁠ youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new⁠  Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Marketing, Negotiation, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Growth Mindset, Business Ideas, Growth Hacks, Workplace, Career Podcast

France recently ordered government workers to stop using American videoconferencing tools like Teams or Zoom and instead use a program developed by the French state. The move is just the latest example of a growing “tech sovereignty” trend, as countries seek to build their own digital technologies to reduce their dependence on the U.S. private sector. Luke Vargas speaks to the man leading France's “digital sovereignty” push, David Amiel, France's Minister for State Reform, and to WSJ tech reporter Sam Schechner about what it could all mean for Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices