Following last week’s tremendous show from Elon Musk, in which he told Bob Iger to “go fuck yourself” in response to Disney’s move away from advertising on X — emblematic of the broader, dangerous challenge from the leftist wings of America’s most powerful businesses, in their ongoing attempt to mainstream political censorship in advance of the next election — I discovered two more incredible clips from this weekend’s Reagan National Defense Forum. This, my colleague Trae Stephens explained, is sort of like “the Superbowl for defense conferences.” Everyone was there. But few brought the sparkle of our Billionaire Shitposting Gods of Tech. 

First, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey confronted the age-old truism ‘children should follow their dreams.’ Even back in the 70s and 80s, when that meant “astronaut,” the advice was probably not a winning strategy for the future. But now, with most kids dreaming of clout on Instagram, and their own well-branded lip kits, the advice is practically suicidal. Palmer unpacked the point:

If your dream is stupid? Probably don’t pursue it, and definitely — under no circumstance EVER — should you be paying to pursue it.

Elsewhere, on culture and hiring, Palantir’s Alex Karp, “one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party,” absolutely eviscerated the stupidity of young people who just found Allah this past month, and decided the rape and slaughter of Israelis on 10/7 was justified:

Importantly, he tells these people not to apply for a job at his company. Further evidence of the ongoing efforts of CEOs throughout the industry to extricate themselves from the politically brain-wormed, a goal once quietly discussed over dinner among titans of industry, now openly celebrated before enormous public audiences.

In all three clips, we see a total disregard for not only the preferred political whims of the One Party State, a major departure from the standard CEO wavering we saw throughout the COVID years, but also a departure in style. Men like Elon, Palmer, and Karp no longer care to “say it nice,” and my sense is this is because they know they no longer have to say it nice to win the media. Not because the culture of the media has changed, but because they lost the media years ago and finally realize they no longer need that support. The trend is important, and powerful, and as these men in particular influence every other founder in the industry we can and should expect the sentiment to proliferate.

THE FIFTH ESTATE

NOTABLE INDUSTRY TRENDS

Three cheers, the most tedious people on the internet are fighting with each other. The histrionic AI doomer Gary Marcus recently posted that he was “appalled” by “AI ethics icon” Timnet Gebru, who wasn’t fired from Google, following her public meltdown over 87-year-old Judea Pearl said the keffiyeh is a symbol for Hamas. Gebru, an awful person but internally consistent, called Gary a white man, and said she would no longer engage him (presumably, again, because the man is white). The following day, she continued tweeting about him again.

There are a lot of funny elements to this story, but one interesting piece I think: Timnit really is losing influence, because that entire “everybody’s racist” paradigm is losing influence. At least, among intelligent people.

On the heels of NYT’s article on venture capitalists in AI, she took a break from tweeting nonstop about Palestine to reveal the NYT wouldn’t publish her because she was a black woman in technology. A desperate thing, to bite one of the few hands that fed you, and only done when likes from other crazy people on Twitter is your final fount of your support. 

As AI covers proliferate, the past expands. Here’s an AI-generated cover of Kurt Cobain singing Young and Beautiful: 

It’s actually not clear how many of these covers on YouTube are AI-generated, and how many are the product of clever musicians quietly capitalizing on the latest creative trend. But as Grimes has already proven out, we certainly now have the technology to produce songs in a style and sound largely indistinguishable from our human faves. A resurrection of artists is the obvious next step, but what does this mean for history? While listening to Kurt’s voice above, woven through a different context, he didn’t dissipate at all, but rather grew much larger in my mind. Now, I’m trying to extrapolate the trend.

Today, while I still worry about creative stagnation (and our culture trapped in amber, so to speak), I think our sense of the “80s” or the “90s” will expand, rather than flatten. The world of grunge, for example, will grow online, with new “90s” films and bands and bars and clothing styles, just as we receive an actually endless catalog from artists like Cobain. American decades will soon become entire virtual worlds that we can enter, and it will be possible to authentically revisit subcultures from our “past,” which are now immortal. Your 80s goth girl thing will not just be a throwback. You will be an 80s goth girl.

INDUSTRY LINKS

BROAD TECH:

• Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen says piracy at the Suez Canal is threatening the global supply chain, with four missile attacks on Sunday alone: “If the drone and missile attacks on shipping in the Red Sea continue, expect to see more shipping lines avoid the Suez route, opting to instead sail around the Cape of Good Hope.” (@typesfast)

• Thursday, Anduril unveiled its Roadrunner class of drones. Its namesake model is a VTOL payload system that can complete a range of missions “orders of magnitude faster than the next best option,” while its Roadrunner-M “is a variant model equipped with a high explosive warhead and Anduril seeker capable of intercepting, surveilling, and destroying fast-moving threats.” (@PalmerLuckey)

• John Coogan posted a video of Anduril’s Trae Stephens’ under-two-minute explanation of “surface-to-air missile systems, reusability, and economic warfare.” (@johncoogan)

• GM told shareholders it will reduce spending on its self-driving taxi initiative Cruise to the tune of “hundreds of millions of dollars” after dragging a woman who was launched into one of their cars by a hit-and-run-driver (human) (SF Standard). The company is facing fines for allegedly withholding information about the October 2 incident, and has been ordered to appear at a February 6 hearing. (TechCrunch)

• Genomics company Orchid announced their first whole-embryo genomics screening is now available. “Parents can get 100x more data about their embryos’ genomes, empowering them to make an informed decision and give their baby the best chance at a healthy start.” (@OrchidInc)

• A former Harvard “disinformation researcher” (censorship activist) is alleging her “Facebook Archive” expose project was canned, and she was fired, after Zuck’s philanthropic initiative donated $500 million to the school. This is almost certainly not something Zuck requested, but it would be awesome if he did (The Hill). Anyway, here she is in an ‘angry serious person fights against the power’ type glamor shot taken by her friends at the Washington Post, a competing fount of power that really, really wants political censorship:

• The FDA validated canine life extension company Loyal’s claim that its flagship drug can extend larger dogs’ lifespans. This isn’t the final step to approval, but the company is calling it a milestone. (SF Standard)

• Fitness-tracking app Strava has launched in-app messages, a move that has many celebrating the launch of what amounts to a “dating” feature in the app (TechCrunch). Some have decried the move as ‘Tinder, but only for people who take care of their bodies.’ Invest.

• Coinbase users can now send crypto via simple link. Recipients will need to download the Coinbase Wallet app to receive the funds. (Cointelegraph)

• In mid-2025, SpaceX will launch three rockets for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a Starlink rival. (The Information)

• Thursday, Tesla held its Cybertruck delivery event, delivering the first of the fleet to a group of customers that included Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. (TechCrunch)

• Boston-based VC firm Openview has abruptly shut down. The firm’s 2020 fund resulted in paper losses, and several senior leaders had recently left. (The Information)

• After getting fired from his job, George Santos has created an account on celebrity video app Cameo, where his bio reads: “Former congressional ‘Icon!’💅.” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis says Santos, who’s already far out-earning his congressional salary, “is going to be an absolute whale.”(TechCrunch) (Semafor)

• Sam Altman is Time’s CEO of the year. But the person of the year is Taylor Swift (Time). On X, people are reflecting back on former TIME Magazine people of the year. 

Human resources:

• Americans are happier with their jobs than they have been since the late 80s, according to a recent Gallup poll, and “employee engagement in the United States is higher than in Australia, Canada, and every country in Europe, and more than six times higher than in Japan.” (The Atlantic)

• Spotify is cutting 1,500 jobs, or around 17% of the company. Shares jumped 11% on the news. (Bloomberg)

• Twilio is cutting 5% of its workforce, its third headcount reduction since September 2022. (Bloomberg)

• Indeed is canceling the pandemic-era mental health days they offered employees. The “YOU Days” gave staff an extra day off each month. (Bloomberg)

• Amidst widespread industry layoffs due to the ongoing brutal business realities innate of media, our friends at the Washington Post have decided to threaten a strike for greater pay. (X)

$$$:

• Alaska Airlines announced it will acquire Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9 billion. (SF Chronicle)

• Elon wants to raise $1 billion for xAI, with SEC filings showing he’s raised about $135 million of that amount so far. (TechCrunch)

• French AI startup Mistral is in the final stages of raising just under $500 million. A16z is leading the round, with participation from Nvidia, Salesforce, and others. (Bloomberg)

• Dutch chip giant ASM will invest $324 million in a new US HQ in Scottsdale, Arizona. The state has received over $60 billion in semiconductor investment since 2020. (Bloomberg)

• Gecko Robotics, a company that builds robots for “infrastructure assessment” (customers include the US military and oil and manufacturing companies), has raised $100 million. US Innovative Technology Fund and Founders Fund will be joining the board. (Bloomberg)

• Beff Jezos’ Extropic, developer of “a computing paradigm which harnesses the power of out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics to fundamentally merge generative AI with the physics of the world,” announced a $14.1m seed round led by Steve Jang and Kindred Ventures; among the company’s angel investors are Balaji, Bryan Johnson, Garry Tan, and Packy McCormick. (Extropic)

• Zuck sold about $190 million of Meta stock last month, an SEC filing now shows. He and his wife Priscilla have pledged to give away 99% of their Meta shares (dumb). (Business Insider)

• SpaceX is acquiring parachute maker Pioneer Aerospace for $2.2 million, rescuing it from a November bankruptcy. (The Information)

• Bitcoin has broken $40,000 again, up 150% this year. The surge comes as investors gain confidence that the SEC will approve Bitcoin spot ETFs (Bloomberg expects the first applicants to win approval by January). Also boosting sentiment is the dual prospect of a potential Fed rate cut and another Bitcoin halving due next year. (Bloomberg)

• Tiger Global’s $12.7 billion venture portfolio had a paper loss of 18% as of the end of September, Bloomberg reports. Last month, Tiger announced that private investments chief Scott Shliefer would step back from that role at the firm. (The Information)

Litigation and regulation:

• Meta is suing the FTC for using its in-house administrative court to enforce compliance, which the company says is unconstitutional. Context: when the agency brings a case to a company through its in-house process, companies can either immediately settle with the agency, or challenge it, where the FTC commissioners make the final decision. In effect, as it regards compliance, FTC is judge, jury, and executioner. (Politico)

• New Mexico is suing Meta, alleging “Meta has allowed Facebook and Instagram to become a marketplace for predators.” One of the state investigators’ test accounts for a fictional teen girl received explicit photos “at least 3-4 times per week.” (WSJ)

AI:

• Google unveiled their Gemini multimodal AI product, and while it appears to rival or outcompete ChatGPT on many fronts, Founder’s Fund Joey Krug suggested that “Google essentially fudged the benchmark comparisons via the fine print... [they] created a new non standard methodology, then showed that next to OpenAI’s model using the standard method." (@google)

• At KPMG, new grads are now doing tax work that previously required three years experience, as AI workflows have simplified their processes. Execs at KPMG say the company can save as much as 15 hours per worker every month with the help of AI. (Bloomberg)

• Eliezer posted a rare nonpartisan explanation of why the left “treats ‘AI yay’ and ‘AI nope’ as being all the same conspiracy.” Worth reading. He also joined in the chorus of people saying it was messed up that Forbes doxxed Beff Jezos. (@ESYudkowsky)

• At the NYT Dealbook Summit, Kamala told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin she’s worried about the existential risk of AI. Runaway intelligence, and dawn of the Terminator? Gray goo? Paperclips? Well, no. Turns out a lot of Boomers have made themselves an easy mark for telephone scammers pretending to be their children. Anyway. (@pmarca)

Trade war:

• Leaked internal audio from TikTok showed Bytedance employees in China accessed American user data after Project Texas began, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said at a Select Committee on the CCP hearing last Thursday. Project Texas is the initiative TikTok invented to ensure our government that this specific thing would never happen. Lol. (@PirateWires)

• Montana’s attempt at a statewide TikTok ban has been placed on pause after a federal judge sided with TikTok in a court challenge. (FT)

• Meta says it has shut down at least five China-based operations that aimed to exploit US political divisions. The company removed over 4,800 accounts and seven Facebook groups as part of the bust. (Axios)

• Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says her department needs more funding to tighten export controls on semiconductors. Part of her talk: “I know there are CEOs of chip companies in this audience who were a little cranky with me when I did that because you’re losing revenue,” she said. “Such is life. Protecting our national security matters more than short-term revenue.” (Fortune) We love mercantilism (serious)! Thank you for your service, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

• Sequoia has completed the technical and financial aspects of their breakup with its Chinese and Indian arms, one month ahead of schedule. Some US investors continue to send US capital to the China firm, now named HongShan, prompting some in Congress to say the separation may not go far enough. (The Information)

• Imports from Mexico have surpassed that of China’s, as a percent of total, for the first time in about 20 years. (FT)