Jensen On The Ropes, Sam Altman’s Conflicts, Allbirds’ GPU Pivot

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-04-20

YouTube video id: g2fMmNygrPo

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2fMmNygrPo

Jensen Wong struggles to address
Nvidia's position on competition and
export controls. [music] Where does it
leave the company? Sam Alman's conflicts
are getting at least some OpenAI
investors a bit nervous and Alberts is a
GPU company. Now that's coming up on a
Big Technology Podcast Friday edition
right after this. Welcome to Big
Technology Podcast Friday edition where
we break down the news in our
traditional coolheaded and nuanced
[music] format. We have a lot to cover
in a great show for you today. We're
going to talk all about Jensen Wong's
performance on the Dwarvesh podcast and
whether that leaves us with some
concerning I don't know red or yellow
flags [music] about Nvidia's position
moving forward. [clears throat] We're
also going to talk about Sam Alman's
conflicts of interest that have been
laid out in the Wall Street Journal and
whether some investors want [music] to
potentially replace him as CEO. That's
what they're talking about. And then of
course we got to get into this allird's
[music] GPU pivot. Joining us as always
on Fridays is Ron Roy of Margins.
Ranjan, welcome.
>> Good, good to see you, Alex. I'm
excited. This allird story I'm
definitely [music] excited about. But
>> this is all
>> red meat. Ranjan Roy.
>> Yes.
>> Ranjan red meat.
>> Ranj on red meat. I think we should both
state that we didn't wake up losers
today. So, we're going to address the
Jensen Wang uh car. You might be a car.
We are not a car. All right. So,
obviously I'm referencing some of these
uh very quotable lines that Nvidia CEO
Jensen Wong had in [clears throat] a
conversation with podcaster Dwaresh
Patel this week. Um basically, you know,
the interview's gotten like a lot of
play because uh Jensen, who's usually
such like a calm, cool, and collected
interviewe, um really did seem to get
agitated. But to me, that wasn't
actually the big story coming out of
this interview. I thought the big story
was that. And uh while I'll caveat,
Nvidia is still like a great company.
It's going to do well. It's the world's
most valuable company at $4.8 trillion.
But uh to me, the highlight was Jensen
basically struggled to articulate a
cohesive story on the two biggest issues
facing Nvidia today. One is competition
and the other is export controls. Um and
Ranjan, I think we can just go by go
through those arguments one by one. I
have some quotes from the show and sort
of it' be great to get your take on each
one. How does that sound?
>> Let's do it.
>> Okay. So,
Dwarkish basically leads off this
conversation asking Jensen, which I
think is what [clears throat] I think is
the most pressing question for Nvidia,
right? Which is that Nvidia has been the
company powering this AI moment.
Obviously, OpenAI, which is the one that
sort of spearheaded everything, is a
heavily Nvidia GPU reliant company, but
and this is the way that Dwaresh puts
it. If you look at the TPU, which is the
accelerator that Google uh has been has
put out and Trinium, which is Amazon's
version of it, um you know, two of the
top three models in the world, Claude
and Gemini, were trained on it. And what
does that mean for Nvidia going forward?
Right? So you have Google's Gemini
Anthropics Claude not trained on the
GPU. So the question is what's the moat
for Nvidia moving forward? Couple of
responses from Jensen. I'm going to do
my best to capture them as well as I
can. Um the first line that he said
about Mythos, and this was in response
to a China question, but I think this is
really telling. He said mythos was
trained on fairly mundane capacity and a
fairly mundane amount of it. He said uh
for for um the growth of these competing
chips, anthropic is a unique instance,
not a trend. Without anthropic, why
would there be any TPU growth at all?
It's 100% anthropic. Without anthropic,
why would there be tranium growth at
all? It's 100% anthropic.
I was not impressed by the defense here
from Jensen. I mean, I didn't get any
clear answer from him on
why Nvidia will maintain its lead if
these two, as Dwarish put it, two out of
the three best models have been trained
elsewhere. Am I being too harsh?
>> Okay, I'm going to I'm going to make
myself a little vulnerable here, Alex. I
listened to the entire interview. I will
say as someone who works in and bre
lives and breathes AI all day, there was
a lot of it I wasn't fully
understanding. So like walk me through
and and I'll say the AI infrastructure
side of the world that's where uh John
who I write margins with that's his
world. Um so like explain to me what the
v what their vulnerability is here again
if it's uh their training on TPUs around
tranium like like walk through this
argument and why that presents a
vulnerability for for the normies like
us the business folks
>> I mean it's very simple and I don't
think we have to overthink it like we
can get into the technicalities like
Darkh did but I don't think we need to I
think the point is that the GP GPU is
seen as the perfect technology to train
AI models on, right? Just because of the
way it's constructed, right? It can do
many different um processes in parallel
and that uh allows you to do this sort
of matrix multiplication uh that you
need when you're doing AI. Um I think
that's about as technical as we should
get. But to me the the bottom line is
that that you have Google, you have
Amazon who have made alterations to CPU
chips that have done a good enough job
here and helped Anthropic and Google
train excellent models. So then the
question is what is Nvidia's moat going
forward and I didn't get like a complete
coherent answer uh from Jensen. So at
that layer, I mean, Jensen and I'll say
that I think this is the first time I've
actually listened to a full hour or
whatever it was with Jensen Wong, and it
was very interesting. I I I now really
understand how good of a salesperson he
is, cuz my god, like every line of his
was just so pointed around like we are
the greatest God's gift to earth company
and no one can touch us. He certainly
made the ecosystem argument at every
level and he made the capacity argument
at every level. So I'm going to if I'm
going to take the Jensen side here, I
think his argument is yes, you can like
from a pure model training standpoint
that potentially there is some
competition, but in terms of actual like
ex being reliable capacity for all of
the ecosystem rather than just if you
are Google, yes, you have access to your
own TPUs. I think that's his argument. I
mean, he said CUDA over and over again
in terms of
>> the software that these models are
trained on that's linked directly to
Nvidia infrastructure. Right.
>> Exactly. So, so he is saying it's the
stack. It's no longer the chips alone.
It's the stack which I'm curious again I
I will say as an I'm not an
infrastructure guy. So like it sounded
convincing. He was certainly I would say
this versus the China answer. I at least
walked away when he was talking about
like, you know, like their relationships
with suppliers and TSMC over 30 years
and always being able to deliver
expansion of capacity and like like that
was the argument. That was definitely
his take rather than the individual
chip. To me, that's what I had walked
away from. Do you think that's not uh
not a reasonable moat for Nvidia?
>> Well, I would say the push back here is
again I don't think you need to be
technical on it. The push back here is
take a look at the bifurcation
who is right now I would say the leader
in foundational models at anthropic. Um
then you have Google and open AI who has
spent globs of gobs of money on Nvidia
chips.
>> Globs and gobs gobs
>> gobs and gobs of money on chips in
thinking they could brute force their
way into this race. Meta and xai. Has it
worked for them?
>> No.
So um I I think capacity is though
however like I think that that might be
the best answer which is basically like
and if I was Jensen I might might have
put it this way. All right you want to
take anthropic as an example. What is
the one thing that people say about
anthropic when it comes to criticism?
They get rap
>> of capacity. Yeah correct lack of
capacity.
>> So I think that really is that would
that would be the better argument. Um,
like there were some I think he could
have just made that more clearly.
>> You're right. Like now that I mean you
just said it. He didn't just say that.
He I mean I think you're explaining
Jensen better to me than Jensen did
himself cuz like he was kind of going
very technical being a bit bit
standoffish but didn't make that point
super simply and clearly. And when it's
said like that it actually starts to
make a bit more sense.
>> Yeah. Yeah, and there's no love lost for
Daario. So, I don't understand why uh
why he wouldn't have just come out and
say that. And then when he talks like
Dwarish also brought brought up these
other companies that use TPUs and Jensen
had a weird answer on this one. If they
don't try these other things, how would
they know how good ours is? Sometimes
you've got to be reminded of it. Like
what? They're spending billions of
dollars with other companies just to be
reminded of how good Nvidia is. No,
clearly these other companies are
serving a need to them. And Nvidia is
also moving uh in in this direction
right remember they acquired uh the or
they they aqua hire zitioned the top
talent from Grock not Elon's Grock but
this Grock company that's meant for
inference and that was one of the big uh
answers for them in um in their GTC
conference this this this year. So, uh,
I I think honestly the the the better
answer, the more honest answer from
Jensen would have been, look, we have
competition now. We acknowledge it, but
we have the capacity and you could tell
that people that use our models, you
know, are are being are able to surf
them, you know, but there's there's a
counterpoint to that also, which is
like, well, maybe if people wanted to
use Meta's models more, they would also
have capacity issues. I think
it's it was I mean again as a
noninfrastructure
person just listening to the interview
one of the most fascinating parts was
exactly that like I I agree like just
say yes of course there's competition
competition is healthy rather than his
entire argument is like you can't escape
us we control the stack and like you
have to come to Nvidia and there's no
other options and I mean it was
basically like I mean We are a monopoly
for majority of the AI stack and that's
just the way it is and good luck. Go try
something else. But it's not going to
work because we own the stack. So yeah,
I think I don't I feel do you think
humility would be better for him in
these cases or because again or is this
just why I mean you can't argue with
what he has done within video over the
last couple of decades especially the
last few years. So if that is just how
Jensen does Jensen, I mean I guess you
should we not expect any humility or
would humility be better?
>> I don't think he has to be I mean that
humble but I think grounded in reality
would have been good and and I think you
especially saw that come out on this
export controls conversation. All right.
So, so this is really where um and I
think you're, by the way, I think you're
highlighting exactly the issue here,
which is that I think Dwark was asking
good questions. It got somewhat heated,
which was interesting to see, but again,
it's not the heated nature of this
conversation that I kind of pick out
here. It's sort of um this this uh I
don't know, Jensen's Jen for for
whatever reason, Jensen just could not
get this coherent message or cohesive
message out. Uh, and I think a lot of it
maybe it did have to do with some some
lack of humility or an inability to
nuance. Right? To go back to our show's
theme, there was no nuance from him at
all. So, so let's go to the export
control thing because that really gets
to it here. So, Dwark made a great point
which is that Anthropic, I'll quote
anthropic announced Mythos preview. They
said it has such cyber offensive
capabilities that we don't think the
world is ready until we make sure those
zero days are patched up. So if Chinese
companies and Chinese labs and the
Chinese government had access to the AI
chips to train a model like Claude
Mythos
um wouldn't it be and now I'll
paraphrase wouldn't it be a
vulnerability to the US as opposed to
now where we have more compute and we
have this heads up to make our
institutions ready
and over and over again dwarf she asked
Jensen to acknowledge if we give you
know that much more compute capacity to
China isn't
a a risk of cyber warfare coming from
the Chinese side and and creating
vulnerabilities where we're not we're
not um ready and Jensen did not have a
good answer wouldn't actually answer on
this well even and [clears throat] I
mean I saw some tweet around this around
like that the the great part of Dorish
having technical fluency in this
interview was Jensen even said well
China has 60% of the world's chips, but
recognizing that chips aren't the
measure that they're talking about. It's
compute and that China only has 10% of
the world's compute. So, they still
could be contributing to this. I think
it's again, this is why it was so
baffling to me that he was that
standoffish is it's a pretty nuanced
conversation like export controls to
China, what's already done, what can you
prevent, like what are that's going to
happen anyway. And I thought I'm
surprised from like a comm's perspective
and I know I always bring everything
back to comms that there wasn't a better
answer that like this is one of the
biggest questions facing Nvidia that
there was export controls then clearly
they had pushed back themselves and got
them removed and did whatever they had
to do. And so like this is such a
sensitive topic and it's going to be on
an ongoing basis that like why wouldn't
you have a better answer that than I am
we are not a car which
>> I I got it after I saw the the so
>> explain the we are not a car thing.
>> You're not talking to somebody who woke
up a loser and that loser attitude that
loser premise makes no sense to me. We
are not we're not a car. We are not a
car. That is a loser premise. Like the
whole loser thing, Dwarkish never said
loser, which was so crazy to me that he
just went on this tirade about losers,
which I I don't know where it came from
or what that triggered.
>> Okay, sorry. I can explain it.
Basically, what what Dwares was saying
is US companies have a history of
getting into China and then losing to
China in the battlefield that they they
created. And the car example comes from
Tesla got into China, right? And whether
it was through cor I'm just going to
speculate here, corporate espionage,
very good mimicry, uh, break down the
cars or whatever, China ended up
crushing Tesla, right? The Chinese EV
industry right now is the world's best.
And so, could it be the case where like,
you know, even if you get into China,
you're event, you know, you help them
with their technology and then they they
they replace you and all you've done is
accelerate China and then lose. And
that's where you get the I'm not a loser
mentality
>> and the car mentality. See, Alex, I
think
>> I think you need to do like a Jensen
translator uh app where it goes over and
just kind of explains in a much more
clear kind of like way cuz Yeah. Okay, I
get it that way. But again, he literally
starts going like we don't that's a
loser premise. I don't wake up a loser.
We are not a car. And that's kind of as
far as the argument goes. And it just
sounds like just I mean it's it's just
made for a viral clip in not a good way.
But do you think like what do you think
Nvidia should do? Cuz I also found it a
little awkward as the conversation goes
on where it's like the we need
cooperation. 50% of the world's AI
researchers are from China. They have
the world's best AI researchers. Like we
need back and forth. we need to work
together which sounds great in theory
but is a little kind of overly
aspirational. So he goes into this whole
like better together story and then at
the end he's like but the US is great
and the US is the leader and like it was
just almost this like you feel like this
like the US government over him knowing
he has to kind of kiss the ring a little
bit and like say oh by the way no but
the US is the best US is the leader like
it just I don't know the whole thing
there needs to be better answers for
prepared.
>> Yes. Okay. Okay. So, can I go back back
into my um you know, coaching Jensen on
comms here? And I want to acknowledge
that Jensen is in a tough place.
>> Remember, he's uh he's he's accountable
basically. He's trying to balance
shareholders, public opinion, US
government, Chinese government. Not
easy. Um and in fact, and sales, right?
He's trying to sell. So I think one of
the things like Dwark you know one of
the weak points even though it might be
true and sort of there's there's a
balance here because you always want
executives to be honest but like but but
Jensen's Jensen's core argument is
selling these chips everywhere is good
for the US uh good for western values uh
but then he gets pressed by Dwar Dwar is
like just acknowledge the fact that if
you sell this into China who has data
centers open and ready to plug them in
you're creating a potential cyber
security risk for the US. And Jensen
goes, I just want you to acknowledge
that any marginal sales for the American
technology is beneficial, which is, you
know, sort of like you can't, it's
either I want to make sales or I'm good
for the country. Um, sometimes those
things come in conflict and that's where
he was weakest in saying uh and he he
really couldn't hold those two things in
balance
>> because because they're not they're not
in balance. They're not in balance.
You're right. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, but
this is the this is the most ridiculous
part of this and and I I almost like
feel bad that he is the one who has to
kind of defend something that is
impossible to defend because it is an
eitheror situation. Either you are
working with the Chinese people and
research community and economic
ecosystem
or you're not. And like there's good and
bad to both. But in reality, in a in a
normal state of affairs, this would not
be the job of the private company. The
private company should only be saying we
will sell to China. And it is the
responsibility of the government to make
the decisions that are on the
geopolitical like it. It is in Nvidia's
best interest as a priv or sorry public
company, but still you know like a they
are responsible to their shareholders. I
do believe that and selling to China
like they should be doing that. They're
they're incentivized to do it. There's
good arguments for it and it should be
the government's kind of like role and
responsibility to decide what is the
best interest of the nation and have the
best understanding from a security
standpoint and everything else. But
everything is just so out of whack right
now that we're depending on Jensen to be
both CEO of public company and kind of
like security and trade minister and all
of the above. So I I think I'm I might
be going back to Jensen's side that it's
he's put in an impossible situation
there.
>> No, I agree. And and he he became
visibly angry because this kind of talk
has led Nvidia to lose some leadership
position in China which he can't be
happy about. Remember there have been
export bans they've many of them have
been lifted but okay now now I want to
sort of this is where I was trying to
get here all right there is a good
argument to make and I think some of
Jensen's conf or uh balancing act might
have limited him him uh in the ability
to make it all right so the argument and
he made a version of this at the end and
I think this was the strongest part of
the whole conversation for him the
argument to be made is that listen you
are dealing with LLMs this there is real
cultural soft power in having your
influence on LLMs diffuse through the
United States. And there's going to be
two different one one of these two
options of LLMs that will be used
globally. An LLM with and and the truth
is there's values baked in. An LLM with
American values baked in or an LLM with
Chinese values baked in. And if you're
being honest, the way that it is going
to diffuse is through open source. So
you have two options here. One is you
influence the way that the open- source
direction is going to go by having it
built on Nvidia's tech stack which is
going to have American values which is
going to open the door for Americans who
are used to working on Nvidia to
influence and contribute to open source.
The other option is you you shut the
door to China. You make two competing
ecosystems. One is this closed American
ecosystem that is great great technology
but isn't globally adopted like
anthropic and open AI and two is by
shutting out the Chinese what you're
incentivizing is a separate ecosystem
where Chinese values will be baked in
they have they have the worlds they are
they are going to lead open source
without Nvidia participating and all of
a sudden their values will be diffused
into models that are used in Africa in
India and across the world and and
Jensen I'll just say this one thing.
Jensen does make this argument at the
end. Not quite on the nose as I would
have liked, but he does. He says, "The
fact of the matter is that we get to
benefit. We get the benefit of American
technology leadership. We get the
benefit of developers working on the
American tech stack. We get the benefit
as the AI models diffuse into the rest
of the world that the American tech
stack is therefore the best for it."
>> So that's my point.
>> I got two questions on that. one.
>> Yeah.
>> Walk me through how exactly you think an
LLM reflects
the kind of soft power and cultural
values. And then two is an American
company. I think like I saw Brian Chesky
in Airbnb kind of talking about how now
a much higher percentage of their
workload is actually deployed on Quen
from Alibaba because it's cheaper. And
I've actually I've seen a number of
people talking more about that and
especially as in the last week there's
been all this talk around how anthropic
has been subsidizing and the real bill
is coming and like cost management is
going to become the next frontier in
Agentic like moving like is it okay that
for if you're calling Quen for your uh
for your workload or is that unamerican
as well? So, those are my two. What's
the cultural values? And then what's is
it can we use Quen to process our
podcast transcripts and still be America
first?
>> It's a good question. So, it's not it's
not black and white, right? There's
nuance here. If you're building an
enterprise software application or if
you're trying to do uh hotel bookings,
fine. But let's say there is a uh a
proliferation of AI consumer apps out
there. Um, and I don't think this is
fear marking. I think this is true,
right? What happened when you tried to
search for Tanaman Square in Deepseek?
It was blocked. Now people were able to
modify Deepseek and uh and you know
strip that out, but it was only after
modification. So I think you would you
know if you're thinking about like and
again this is this is the argument I
think Jensen should make. I'm not 100%
sold on it. Um but if you're thinking
about like all right uh if these models
diffuse through the world and there are
going to be applications built on top of
them um who's who's who do you want to
set the weights you know the Chinese
Communist Party or everybody else um I
think the you know the preference would
be everyone else that would be the
argument if you're if you're Jensen I
think that's a strong argument
>> no I I do think it is interesting to me
that like if the next soft power battle
across Ross the globe is is at the LLM
level. I think that does make a lot of
sense and we should be but again that's
not Nvidia's decision to make like uh
that
>> but it has of course it's not his
decision but it is a it's a core it's a
critical part of its business and it's
something that you know while maybe
unfair Jensen should be better on when
he talks
>> I I agree. I mean, I think the the main
takeaway on all this is this is going to
I mean, going into an election year with
AI is it's going to be the poster child
for everything wrong with the world and
then China is the these are the two
single biggest like political negatives
right now, China and AI within the US.
So I think uh maybe not the biggest but
two of the biggest and like you got to
be better prepared for that. That's
that's the main takeaway.
>> And I think Dwark had a great point by
the way which is like right now as we
speak US institutions including the US
government which we're about to get to
are evaluating mythos before it's
released to the public. So wouldn't you
want to be first? And if you give more
compute to adversaries who we know are
trying to, you know, at least hack into
your systems, uh, you're you're putting
yourself at risk and that's that's
that's always going to be the
compromise.
>> All right. Well, walk me through what's
happening on the US government side this
week.
>> Okay. So, so first of all, I think let's
just start with this. Last week, we had
a big discussion, mythos or marketing.
Uh, mythos real or marketing. Um the I I
you know I don't think you can say 100%
conclusively now but certainly the data
points suggest that mythos is more real
than marketing which is kind of crazy.
Uh this is from the AI security
institute. I brought this brought this
up at the Pentagon this week with Emil
Michael we're going to talk about in a
moment. They say we conducted cyber
evaluations of claude mythos preview and
found that is the first model to
complete an AI SI cyber range end to
end. The range simulates a 32st step
corporate network attack from initial
reconnaissance to full takeover. Uh and
we estimate that it would take a human
expert 20 hours to complete. So of
course there's some flaws in this
evaluations. Uh but the fact that mythos
was able to complete this end to end uh
is a bit spooky. And I think that you're
starting to see um the seriousness of
the mythos model manifest itself in the
way that lots of companies and and
especially the US government are dealing
with anthropic now because there seems
to be a universal acknowledgement that
uh whether it's mythos or whether it's
the next iteration of this, you got to
take this stuff seriously.
So, I'm going to not say we shouldn't
take it seriously. I've had more
[clears throat] questions on this in the
last week since we spoke last Friday
when I walked our listeners through what
was clearly a very very coordinated PR
stunt about a sandwich in the park from
Anthropic. And I actually had spoken
with a few listeners and like and it was
funny because it's that becomes so
clearly a marketing tactic. So what I
had spoken about this week was
is Mythos like glasswing and the way it
rolled out and and I again cyber
security as well is not where I've spent
a lot of my time. So like typically
if you have this model that can do these
zero day exploits and can actually start
to piece all of this together and like
why make such a big deal about glasswing
like normally what like any any model
rollout would have had some kind of
security check and maybe you're working
with other uh companies as well but
instead they made this like and and I
spoke with someone who works at one of
the large companies who's on the cyber
security team who was kind of like
invited to be part of glasswing and the
way they were speaking was literally
like they got into like were like a VIP
invited to some event like it it it the
marketing is when it's that good I just
I have a hard time
believing it but but what what do you
think is actually do you think there is
a step change with myth OS that actually
represents some massive new
vulnerability and it's actually going to
be patched up in the next 3 to 6 months
as Glasswing gets together and finds all
the potential vulnerabilities.
>> Do you think that's Go ahead.
>> No, do do you think that's what's going
to happen aside from the marketing but
then also address the marketing as well?
I'm curious.
>> Okay. First of all, I'll say there this
is the counterargument and I think it's
really good. people have said marketing
at every step of the way, you know, and
we've talked about it also and the
capabilities just get keep getting
better. So, at a certain point, like
when are you going to say, "All right,
well, maybe this is real or not." I
don't know. I I can't tell you. I don't
have an answer, but I can tell you that
it's working.
>> Um,
>> oh, it's working.
>> It's working. By the way, I just thought
like, wouldn't it be Wouldn't this just
be a setup of like a great movie uh
where Daario just like takes a heel turn
and says, "I tried to be nice. I tried
to tell you what my models can do. You
didn't believe me. Now I will use the
power of mythos for evil and make a
society believe in the technology I've
created. And he just becomes this black
hat cyber hacker takes down society and
bends it to his will.
>> That's what [laughter]
like guys for how good the marketing is,
that's the picture you are painting in
our heads with all of this talk right
now. Like if you really cared, like I
get there's value, marketing value in
like creating this godlike complex
around the models that are being
released, but it just makes people more
uncomfortable with with the industry.
Like actually so what I can't get
through is like okay let's say you have
this in your hand and you realize that
if we are to release this this will has
the potential to kind of like make every
single small medium and large company
completely vulnerable to hacking has the
potential to kind of like take down the
entire fabric of our economy the digital
fabric at least like like what would you
Do would you
do a coordinated press release and have
a project glass swing and and then still
work on releasing it because you just
raised another 30 billion at $380
billion valuation and like still keep
raising like wouldn't you take a pause
and just be like maybe we should all
just try to address what's actually
happening here rather than coordinate a
marketing campaign that leads to another
funding round that lead I mean wouldn't
you try to fix it whatever like really
fix it, not use it as a a lever to kind
of further the economic gains that you
continue to acrewue.
>> No, because the idea is and but we
should move on because this we talked
about this a lot last week. I think the
idea is it's all intertwined. you need
to keep growing to keep ahead so you're
able to give this to certain companies
to try ahead of time because otherwise
you might have you know well I mean they
would say companies that are less
trustworthy but I think Dwarish made the
point that it could be other other um
countries with different values that get
ahead and then all and then all of a
sudden they start the hacking and we saw
this by the way um this this uh the
downstream effects of this with Dar with
Daario uh on his way to the White House.
He's actually there today. This is from
Axios. Uh anthropic CEO Dario Amade is
scheduled to walk into the West Wing on
Friday for a meeting with White House
Chief of Staff Susie Wilds. A
breakthrough in his effort to resolve
the company's bitter AI fight with the
Pentagon. The Trump administration
recognizes the power of anthropics
[snorts] new Claude model mythos and its
highly sophisticated and potentially
dangerous ability to breach cyber
defenses. It would be grossly
irresponsible for the US government to
deprive itself of the technological
leaps that the new model presents. A
source close to the negotiations told us
it would be a gift to China. Oh, that
sounds like anthropic coms to me. U what
do I know? Um but uh but but look,
there's now there's now I think this is
a good thing. There's now a thawing it
seems like between anthropic and the
federal government. So um I think if
you're the federal government, you have
to take this seriously. And if you're
anthropic, I think you're doing the
right thing. by getting in there. And is
there a chance it's marketing? Maybe.
But ultimately, I think that this is
sort of the news here is that this is
going to create a at least a thaw
between Anthropic and the White House.
>> Well, but again, what do you think would
happen if they release Mythos today?
Like, what do you think would really
happen? And what do you think will
happen with in the current way they're
rolling this out? Like do you think if
they were to release this today that
cyber [laughter] that hackers would
penetrate every defense for even the
largest companies in the world or
>> No, not necessarily. I mean we spoke
about it last week, you know, we don't
we but clearly there's some there's some
incremental I mean incremental abilities
I the the institute that I quoted
earlier like they are independent as far
as I'm aware. I think they're UK based.
I don't think they have any incentive
to, you know, fluff this up. Um would
Microsoft Microsoft's in this uh in this
um you know, Project Glass Wing. They're
big investors in Open AI. So, I don't
know.
>> Anyway, I think we should move on from
the the marketing, but you can get a
last word in.
>> One last thought. Rather than your
Daario heel turn that sounded kind of
like an Avengers movie, I want to see it
go the other way where actually Daario
and Sam come on stage and OpenAI has
been invited to Glass Wing and together
they are giving mythos to their biggest
competitor and everyone is going to make
this work hand in hand. That's that's
the plot twist I want to see.
>> I love it. Maybe even hands holding
hands like they didn't do previously.
But
>> yeah, exactly. [laughter]
But I think you're right. I think peace
is a good is a good place to take this
because we could see peace between
Anthropic and the Pentagon. And of
course, I was in uh the Pentagon earlier
this week speaking with Emil Michael,
the under secretary of war, who is the
one that banned Anthropic. And I asked
him, you know, you've made you've made
uh uh peace with um with Google, who was
on the out with the Pentagon for a
while. Can you make peace with
Anthropic? And he said, "I think so." He
said, "I hope that I hope that companies
as they get more mature and more of an
understanding of what it means to work
with the government and understand us
better get to a good spot hopefully
sooner than 8 years." I think that was
interesting. It was the first interview
where uh Emile opened up the door to
possible reconciliation
uh with Anthropic and I I think that's a
good thing.
>> Do you think it'll happen?
>> Yes, I do. I really do think that that
this is that they will they will find um
some common ground and get back to work
together. I think the Pentagon likes
anthropic. Honestly,
>> they're just
>> the technology.
>> They're clawed pilled.
>> They are. All right. Um before we go to
break, I do want to address something
because we definitely had some and I
don't know if I really should. I don't
want this to come off as defensive, but
I think it's like good to like take a
moment to sort of explain uh the way
that that I you know I operate on this
show. Um and uh and there were some
questions about like why did you go into
the white to the Pentagon and and ask
these questions and um you know uh here
I'll just read there was one uh review
on on Apple podcast uh that I think is
worth addressing. Alex displays a clear
pattern of showing deference to the rich
and the powerful. His interviews with
OpenAI and Trump admin leaders have been
extremely differential. His questions to
Daario were much more pointed and
journalistic. It seems like Alex is
truly dedicated to sucking up to the
most evil people in America. The
episodes with Ronan are cool, though.
Two stars. Um, first of all, I'll just
say uh we I I appreciate listener
feedback. I I I'm glad to hear from
listeners. I It's a privilege to be able
to do this show for an audience. So So
thank you. I'll also say the two star
reviews really are they they they
they're aimed at they they they in
practice um have an effect of really
harming the show. So um I'd much rather
these come in through big
technologyodcast@gmail.com
which is in the show notes. Um or if you
have a criticism fivestar and write it
and we'll take it seriously.
>> Send us hate mail. Send us hate mail. I
but I do I I do think it's worth
addressing sort of the style that I have
of interviews and sort of what happened
with Emil.
>> Hold on. I want to I want to ask you I'm
going to put Alex on the spot here. Like
one of the fascinating parts of the
whole dwarfish Jensen interview is like
everyone's like, "Oh my god, it was
heated. It was pointed." In reality, 10
years ago, that would have been any
normal interview because like and now we
have the podcast circuit and I'm
certainly going to exclude big
technology podcasts from that and I
think you do push a lot of the guests in
a hard way, but like how does it work?
Like cuz if you rip apart
a CEO, does do people want to come on
the show? like how do you balance that
tension at a personal level like to try
to make this a success?
>> So I so this is great setup because this
is my my philosophy here. Um I really
think the job is to get news makers in
the room and ask them the hardest
questions possible. I think the reason a
lot of these uh you know TV interviews
or these hard interviews and these back
and forths did you order the code red?
You know there there is there is value
in asking officials tough questions. I
think the reason why people became
disenchanted with the media is because
it became more about showboating for the
journalist and more performative than it
became inquisitive trying to find the
answers to these tough questions. Um,
and you know, I think Jensen became very
defensive in this conversation with
Dwares, which is why it led to this sort
of heated back and forth. But my style
in particular, I I try to go in I want
to ask the people I'm sitting across
from the hardest possible questions I
can, but I also want to do it in a
respectful way. I want to have a
conversation about it. For me, it's not
about a performative thing. And I think
if you look at the transcript of the
conversation with Emil, even though it
was conversational, there were there
were, I believe, tough questions there.
I mean, I I mentioned to him that, you
know, I'm puzzled by the supply chain
risk designation. I I mentioned to him,
if you were so close to being willing to
work with Anthropic, um then how could
they end up being a supply chain risk on
Mythos? I mentioned um wouldn't you want
this tool at this disposal? You're
putting your are you putting yourself in
a corner when you're not taking these
capabilities and using the and using the
ones you want? And then on on this idea
that Anthropic could shut them off. You
know, I think I I mentioned like you you
have Claude, you could have you are
building a system with Claude, Grock,
and OpenAI in there or you're on your
way. Um and if Claude doesn't update you
don't like, you wouldn't you just be
able to run OpenAI on it? So why shut
off the relationship? For me, I don't
think I need to yell or sort of be like,
you know, did why did you do this? Uh, I
think it there there is like basically
the what I want to do is to to ask what
I'm curious about, get the toughest
questions in front of these people, but
also do it in the context of a
conversation. And if there's there and
I'm open to all forms of criticism, if
there's like this was too conversational
or the push back wasn't good enough, I'm
open it. the, you know, I would say
don't mistake the conversational nature
for this idea that these people are
getting a free ride because if you
listen to any of the more recent uh
interviews with Emil, uh I those
questions were not asked. So that's just
my piece and I thought it was worth
saying.
>> No, I I not to not to glaze Alex here a
bit for listeners, but I think that is
Yeah, I think that's what I find
valuable and I do like that that like
you can be it doesn't have to be
confrontational like and any leader at
that level I feel should and I that's
probably why the guests you are getting
are just getting kind of crazier and
crazier good like I mean like if you're
at that level of success you should want
tough questions you should be ready like
that's I don't know like maybe it's
being a former debater myself but uh you
should want tough questions and most do
and they they it like makes them better
and smarter and yeah I think uh there's
not enough of that out in the world. So,
so even for this listener, I uh just
like they like the Friday shows.
>> They like the Friday show.
>> You're saving this thing for [laughter]
>> We got to disagree when we come back on
Sunday
on Alberts. Um
>> Alberts, you got to say it's good.
>> Yeah. But I don't want my my point here
to be mistaken as please don't criticize
me. I'm open to criticism. I want to
hear it. We have the email address big
technologyodcast@gmail.com.
I I take the comments seriously because
again like um this is this is only
possible because we have an audience and
uh and you're if you're listening or at
home or watching your your opinion does
really matter. So all right let's take a
break and come back and talk a little
bit about Sam Alman. We'll be back right
after this. And we're back here on Big
Technology Podcast Friday edition. Wow.
Uh today has flown by. Uh let's talk
about this story in the Wall Street
Journal about Sam Alman side hustles,
which is interesting because uh the
headline was Sam Alman's side hustles
blur the line between OpenAI's interests
and his own. That was not the story. Uh
they the Wall Street Journal in this
story about Sam Alman's conflicts. Um
which he he he basically, you know, I'll
just give it at a high level. He doesn't
really take a story from a salary from
OpenAI, but he has these investments uh
in like the OpenAI startup fund and in
other startups and he's tried to get
other startups to uh uh OpenAI to fund
some of these other startups uh like
Helion, which is a fusion company, and
Stoke Space uh which is uh a SpaceX
challenger. This is the thing that
really stunned me in the article, and I
don't know why this wasn't the headline.
OpenAI leaders and largest OpenAI's
leaders and largest investors say they
support Alman, crediting him with the
company's success. Yet, some
shareholders have begun to privately
question whether he should lead OpenAI
through the turbulence of going public
and have floated board chair and former
Salesforce CEO Brett Taylor as a
potential successor, said people
familiar with the matter. Hold on.
You're you're going to bury this notion
that there are people there are
investors on open there are open eye
investors who are so uncomfortable with
Sam that they are already floating a
specific name of a person to replace
him. That to me is the story. Well, I
think I mean in a way though it makes
sense. Like I think for all the problems
that or all the challenges they're
facing, they're not necessarily problems
yet that have been realized. Like I feel
like I mean Brett Taylor I think he's on
the board of OpenAI CEO of Sierra. Yes.
>> Like he's uh I mean that's kind of like
operator that OpenAI still lacks and
Fiji Simo was supposed to come in and be
that operator. Denise Dresser might be
that operator more so, but like they
still haven't found I mean I hate the
everyone remember everyone used to say
like they're sh Cheryl Sandberg to Mark
Zuckerberg like uh they're still looking
for it. So I think uh
>> yeah it's it's not unreasonable. I think
you're going to be seeing more of these
kind of leaks at some point because
there has to be investors. There's a lot
of money in it. there's a lot of kind of
lack of clear strategy still even after
they're supposed to kind of bring focus
to the company. So I think you're going
to be seeing a lot more of this as we
get into this IPO race and battle
against anthropic.
>> Yes. First of all, I just want to say I
am mostly against this you need an adult
in the room type of uh operator CEO.
>> You don't need a Cheryl Sandberg. I
think they just they take out the
imagination of companies and I much
prefer I think founderled companies are
where it's at and that sort of
>> no founder
with the adult in the I feel like
Snapchat like
>> they that's one thing that always they
never had
>> I think like uh overtly founder le I'm
trying to then you have like an Nvidia
where founder but years of maturity and
development and then they hit their
stride in and in insanely
successful way. So, yeah, I think
>> an adult in the room is an adult.
>> You're right. Especially as as an IPO
approaches, right? And by the way, Brett
Taylor, a combination of Sierra and Open
AI would make so much sense, especially
as OpenAI goes after um goes after
enterprises. It would be a perfect
match. I I would be sh be stunned if
they haven't talked about that within
Open AI with all this money that they
have to
>> But hold on. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Go
ahead.
>> Wait, but he's on the Isn't he the chair
of the board? Yes.
>> Yeah. How does that I can't even get but
>> conflict [laughter] of conflict of
interest has never been a problem.
>> There's no you know we've seen the much
weirder happen in this industry.
>> That was the [clears throat] most naive
thing I've ever said on this show.
>> Get your head out of 1995. We're in
2026. Okay. But uh but you're right.
It's it is going to it is going to um
you know sort of come to a head as this
company goes to an IPO. And let me read
on in the Wall Street Journal story. Am
I excited to be a public company CEO?
0%. Alman said on a podcast in December.
Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public
company? In some ways I am. And in some
ways I think it would be really
annoying. He said on a podcast in
December. Hm. Which podcast was that?
Wall Street Journal. But yeah, it's an
issue for for I mean if you think
broadly about Open AI, it is an issue,
right? They they
>> let me just set the scene. I mean they
have they
they are chasing anthropic into to some
degree or even a large degree right
they're they're pivoting towards this
anthropic model of the super app um the
Fiji thing you know of course it was for
medical reasons but it's a pretty rough
time for that for her to to be away and
um and Sam is is doing his thing he's
obviously raising a money a lot of money
that's critical but um but uh but it's
not good to have questions about it's
not good for your investors to be
talking about a potential successor
while you're with less than a year away
from an initial public offering.
>> I see I'm going to I'm going to push
back on that. Like people have been
talking about potential successor for a
long time.
>> Like again Fiji gets announced potential
successor. Is that the real move here?
>> Like uh Brett so so that part doesn't
worry me as much. And again as you said
wait how much did they raise in the last
round?
>> 12
That's
>> he's doing I mean if you're the CEO and
your job is to get funds he's doing an
okay job wouldn't you say
>> wait so so this was while I was out on
vacation and I was in Utah and we got
some snow and I was able to ski and I
actually didn't look at my phone too
much and I like saw the headline. I'm
like, how? But it it it kind of was just
like a blip in the news cycle. Like $122
billion at $852 billion valuation. Like
I don't know how it's it's amazing. And
they are chasing Anthropic
strategically. They're going after
enterprise again. Like Mythos gets
released and then 54 cyber gets released
right after. It's like everything
they're doing is right after anthropic
and following them. Yet they freaking
raised 122 billion and it's just become
so par for the course now that that
wasn't even the biggest story in the
world or at least in the tech world.
>> Yeah. No, I mean you're right. I mean
and that's all Alman. So uh I I don't
know if others
>> he's doing his job. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. We we are we are running up
on time and we need to at least leave
seven minutes to talk about allirds.
Okay. Can I can I begin just by read I
mean this is one of those stories where
you you see the news come in and then
you just wait for Matt Lavine at
Bloomberg to weigh in. So if if you will
allow me to just read Matt Lavine. He
says, "I feel like if you ran a big
technology company and you were looking
to expand your artificial intelligence
capabilities and needed to rent access
to GPUs and you said uh and a and a GPU
as a service/AI cloud company came to
pitch you and you said so tell me a bit
more about your company." And the
company said, "Well, two weeks ago we
were a sneaker company but have since
pivoted to AI." You might say, "Huh, but
thanks but no thanks. We're going to go
with someone with a bit more AI
expertise." uh and actually a data
center. Um but maybe that's wrong. Maybe
the sneaker guys are great at AI, but
you might worry. But if you said, "So
tell me a bit about your company." And
the company said, "Well, two weeks ago
we were a sneaker company called
Allirds, but we have pivoted to AI."
Your reaction might be different because
in this hypothetical, you run a big
technology company, and you probably
spent years wearing Allirds. I used to
love Albertirds. You might say, "High
five." And then you might sign a
long-term cloud hosting agreement with
the former Alberts because like many
tech executives, you have a nostalgic
fondness for their brand. Um, it's not
likely, but it's worth a shot. This all
sets up the fact that Albert's uh
pivoted to an AI computing
infrastructure company this week. Their
stock went up 582%
on the day of and somehow uh they are
this is this is a real thing that
happened. I mean, Bronj, what the hell
is this? This is ridiculous.
>> So So I know we only have a few minutes
left, so I'm going to try to be uh a
little concise with this story, but
>> you you go go five. You have five
minutes. It's all yours.
>> Allirds, I have a very long relationship
with the company in the sense that so I
worked for a number of years at Adore
Me, a direct to consumer intimate
apparel company. In 2021, we were we
were at like 250 million revenue. we
were like looking at going public. Um,
and that was as Allirds was going to
market. This was there was actually 2021
summer into the fall was this kind of
like DTC, Rent the Runway. There's a
number of other DDC companies that went
public and I loved this Matt Lavine part
because the bankers we spoke with like
all wore allirds and they were the they
were like the ones the only ones. the
VCs were the only ones there and it
actually you could tell affected Allirds
at kind of a similar slightly larger
revenue went out to market at 2 billion
on the first day popped to a $4 billion
valuation. It was like 20x 18x price to
sales which is insane is insane. But the
momentum of the people with money who do
the investing loving the brand actually
being the ones to push it and the stock
just collapsed. And the reason this was
so funny is like it became a penny
stock. They essentially went bankrupt.
They got bought out for I think $39
million in the end. Um I'm sure most
people don't see anyone wearing allirds
around. They shut down all their stores.
But but I kind of like this ridiculous
pivot. It's just it's like you have this
asset and that I I this is why Matt
Lavine is Matt Lavine. He he got it that
is the asset this nostalgic like it's
almost like you're buying a marketing
asset and a brand asset rather than
you're just a nameless face faceless GPU
AI cloud is a service company or
whatever. And it's obviously like the
stock market. It's almost bad that the
stock popped 600% on the first day and
then collapsed I think 580% the next
day. Like uh
>> No, no, it collapsed some like 80
something% but it's back. It's back up.
It's up 191% on the week.
>> No, no. Yeah, but it's at a $105 million
market cap right now. I just checked. I
mean, but again, if your company is
essentially worth zero, that's still a
pretty good market cap. But I kind of
like like buy up this is my new private
equity uh idea for everyone. If anyone
wants to run with it, go with it. Go buy
any dead brand that investors and VCs
and tech executives and bankers loved at
some point. Just take their name and
turn it into a GPU company as a service
company. Whatever. Take the most boring
infrastructure business you can imagine.
go buy some uh what what do you think
some good 2010s tech brands are that are
that have left us? I'm trying to think
what what else could be in all birds,
but that's my idea. There's got to be a
portfolio of Go get BuzzFeed. Go get
Buzzfeed.
>> Buzzfeed would be good. We
>> Work TPU [laughter] company. take all
those 2010s and uh cuz I actually saw
there was something around like like
dead startups are actually able to still
sell their Slack threads and email lists
and stuff for training data for AI
>> which is horrifying. No, no, but let's
take all of the all the graveyard of
2010s and bring it back and just they're
all going to be GPU as a service
companies, but that industry is so
unsexy and there's so few names
available right now that are memorable.
And there's slap on Weiwork, Buzzfeed,
Allirds, whatever else. And uh that's
the idea. Start your rollup company
>> that that will turn the tide on AI. It's
you take these beloved consumer brands,
you turn them into GPU companies and all
of a sudden you see the AI ratings uh in
the polls just go through the roof and
Jensen starts nailing his his interviews
and uh the Pentagon and Anthropic and
Anthropic and OpenAI make peace and we
all live in a better world.
>> That's peace. That's where we're going
to end up if you follow this idea.
>> We can only hope. We can only hope. All
right, let's end on this message.
Ranjan, thank you again for coming on
the show. Appreciate it. World peace is
a good place to end.
>> World peace. Thank you to you the
listeners. We'll see you next time on
Big Technology Podcast.