Populism, Elites, and Preparing for AGI

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss populist cycles, why billionaires buy media companies, how to invest if you think AGI is coming soon, and more. beehiiv: Head to beehiiv.com and use code "MOZ" for 20% off your first three months.
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Intro
(00:21) Populists vs technocrats
(07:37) Role of media and influence
(14:02) View on counter elites
(15:41) Sponsor: Babbel | Beehiiv
(18:51) Israel on PR war
(22:59) On Big Tech Has No Power At All by Curtis Yarvin
(26:42) Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
(30:14) Comparing media ownership: Bezos vs. Musk
(38:42) Leopold Aschenbrenner’s situational awareness paper
(44:26) Investing strategies in the age of AGI
(46:38) Role of Venture Capital
(50:05) High frequency trading explained
(53:42) Prediction markets and information transmission
(54:26) Wrap
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LINKS:
Byrne’s writing: thediff.co
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X / TWITTER:
/ eriktorenberg (Erik)
/ byrnehobart (Byrne)
/ turpentinemedia (Turpentine)
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[@_ProveIt]

Much better audio quality. Thanks, Byrne.

[@MikeGaruccio]

43:09 in terms of security, the NSA has the worlds best offensive capabilities. Large US tech companies generally have the better defensive ones. But it’s definitely an open question how seriously the current set of AI startups take their responsibilities there.
That being said, nationalizing the labs is just conceding defeat. Why would any competent researcher stay instead of going to some other private company where they can make a competitive wage and own some of the upside from their work?

[@eurodelano]

He references populist presidents and how they tend to govern. Andrew Jackson was considered a populist president. Are there any others besides Donald Trump?

[@Rmcm92]

Erik, with all due respect, please, breath and slow down when you speak. You're a smart guy and have smart guests, I like to hear the takes, but it's frankly frustrating listen to you trip up over every sentence. It's not taking the listener into account. For someone who's trying to do so much spoken media, you could increase the quality of your speaking to level up all your podcasts.