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Deep dives into the conversations shaping the future of AI, Robotics & Crypto.

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AI Podcasts

September 15, 2025

Faster Science, Better Drugs

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. AI's next frontier isn't just language; it's simulating life. The "virtual cell"—a model that predicts how to change a cell's state—is the industry's next "AlphaFold moment," aiming to compress drug discovery from years of lab work into forward passes of a neural network.
  2. Biology's core bottleneck is physical, not digital. Unlike pure software, progress is gated by the "lab-in-the-loop" reality: every AI prediction must be validated by slow, expensive physical experiments. Solving this requires new platforms that can scale the generation of high-quality biological data.
  3. The biotech business model needs a new playbook. With a 90% clinical trial failure rate, the economics are broken. The future belongs to companies that either A) use AI to drastically improve the hit rate of drug targets or B) tackle massive markets like obesity, where GLP-1s proved the prize is worth the squeeze.
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September 11, 2025

Inside OpenAI Enterprise: Forward Deployed Engineering, GPT-5, and More | BG2 Guest Interview

Bg2 Pod

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Enterprise AI is a Services Business. The best models are not enough. Success requires deep integration via "Forward Deployed Engineers" who build the necessary data scaffolding and orchestration layers.
  2. GPT-5 Was Co-developed with Customers. Its focus on "craft" (behavior, tone) over raw benchmarks was a direct result of an intensive feedback loop with enterprise partners, making it more practical for real-world use.
  3. Bet on Applications, Not Tooling. The speakers are short the entire category of AI tooling (frameworks, vector DBs), arguing the underlying tech stack is evolving too rapidly. Long-term value will accrue to those building applications in high-impact sectors like healthcare.
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September 10, 2025

Karl Friston - Why Intelligence Can't Get Too Large (Goldilocks principle)

Machine Learning Street Talk

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Intelligence Has a Size Limit: Forget galaxy-spanning superintelligences. The physics of self-organizing systems suggest intelligence thrives at a specific scale, unable to exist when systems become too large or too small.
  2. True Agency is Self-Inference: The crucial leap to higher intelligence is not just modeling the world, but modeling yourself as a cause within it. This recursive "strange loop" is the foundation of planning and agentic behavior.
  3. Hardware is the Software: Consciousness is not an algorithm you can run on any machine. It likely requires a specific physical substrate where memory and processing are unified, making the body and brain inseparable from the mind.
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September 10, 2025

Chris Dixon on How to Build Networks, Movements, and AI-Native Products

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. **Ride the Wave, Don't Fight It.** Exponential forces like Moore's Law and network effects will overwhelm any product tactic. Your first job is to identify the fundamental technological or social current you're riding.
  2. **Build a Tool, Then a Network.** Defensibility in consumer tech often comes from network effects, but you can’t start there. Solve a user’s problem in single-player mode first to build the critical mass needed for an unbeatable network.
  3. **Explore the Fringe.** The future is being prototyped in niche subreddits and hobbyist communities. To find the next big thing, look for small groups of hyper-enthusiastic people working on things that seem like toys today.
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September 9, 2025

Mark Cuban on the NBA, Cost Plus Drugs, and How to Fix Politics

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Find the "Death War." Cuban's biggest wins come from identifying industries where competitors are forced to spend billions to survive (like AI today or streaming media rights a decade ago). These moments create massive opportunities for suppliers and disruptors.
  2. Sell a Better Life, Not an Ideology. Whether in politics or business, success comes from solving people’s immediate, tangible problems. Abstract goals and ideological purity don't sell.
  3. The Real Moat is Domain Expertise + AI. The next generation of billion-dollar companies will be built by founders who can apply AI to specific, overlooked business processes, creating hyper-efficient, customized SaaS solutions.
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September 8, 2025

The Little Tech Agenda for AI

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Stop Regulating Ghosts. Policy should target concrete, illegal uses of AI under existing laws, not hypothetical future harms that require licensing regimes and kill startups before they can compete.
  2. Compliance is a Competitive Moat. Regulations designed for trillion-dollar companies are a death sentence for startups. A 50-state patchwork of rules would be the final nail in the coffin for a competitive AI ecosystem.
  3. Innovation Needs a Political War Chest. The pro-innovation camp has been outmaneuvered by well-organized "safetyism" advocates. Building political gravity through organized efforts like PACs is now essential to ensure America wins the AI race.
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September 5, 2025

Shakeel Hussein: Ridges Subnet 62, AI Agents Coding, Alpha to Equity, Future of Software | Ep. 61

Ventura Labs

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. **The Agent is the Moat.** Ridges’ success with cheaper models demonstrates that the true differentiator in AI coding is the agent architecture, not just the underlying LLM. This focus on efficiency creates a sustainable business model where competitors burn cash.
  2. **Alpha-to-Equity Creates a Capital Bridge.** This model directly ties the token's value to profit-sharing equity, creating an arbitrage loop for crypto and traditional funds. It offers a powerful alternative to typical tokenomics by capturing the value of the underlying business.
  3. **The Future of Software is Supervisory.** The ultimate goal is not just a better coding autocomplete, but a tool that elevates developers and product managers to supervisors of AI engineering teams, fundamentally changing how software is created.
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September 4, 2025

The Stock Market Is The Economy Now

Forward Guidance

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. The Market is the Economy. The old wall between Wall Street and Main Street has crumbled. The high degree of financialization means they are now a single, symbiotic entity.
  2. Your Portfolio is a Utility. The stock market is becoming a public utility for distributing national wealth, with ownership becoming nearly universal. This trend is set to accelerate.
  3. Capital is the New Labor. This system provides the foundation for an AI economy by creating a mechanism to pay people from capital returns, solving the problem of mass unemployment before it begins.
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September 4, 2025

The Day AI Solves My Puzzles Is The Day I Worry (Prof. Cristopher Moore)

Machine Learning Street Talk

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. **Stop Confusing Hardness with Reality.** Theoretical computer science focuses on worst-case scenarios. Real-world success hinges on exploiting messy, latent structure that we can’t even formally define yet.
  2. **Intelligence is Tool-Making.** Humans aren't just powerful processors; we're tool-users who extend our cognitive workspace. AI will remain limited until it can recognize its own limitations and build the tools it needs to overcome them.
  3. **Demand Transparency Over Explainability.** For high-stakes decisions like criminal justice or medical diagnoses, proprietary black boxes are unacceptable. The right to confront your accuser extends to the algorithms that judge you.
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Crypto Podcasts

July 26, 2025

Hivemind: Ethena Founder, the GENIUS Act & Overvalued L1s

Empire

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. **The Real Cycle Indicator:** Forget price targets. The bull market's health is directly tied to the premium-to-NAV on crypto treasury vehicles. When those premiums collapse, the party is over.
  2. **L1s Are Dead Money:** The dominant thesis is a massive market re-rating where capital flees overvalued L1 infrastructure and concentrates into Bitcoin and a handful of cash-flow-positive applications.
  3. **Stablecoins Aren't a Commodity:** The moats are deep. New issuers will struggle to compete with Tether's liquidity network effects and Ethena's structural yield advantage, making it a bear market for new stablecoin startups.
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July 26, 2025

Base Just Launched Crypto's Everything App | Jesse Pollak

Bankless

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. Content is the New Capital: The Base App transforms every post into a tradable asset. This makes content creation a direct form of capital formation, rewarding creators for attention in a way that’s native to the internet of value.
  2. The Rise of the Native Creator: The biggest winners on Base won't be Web2 transplants, but new creators who master the platform's unique blend of content and commerce. The strategy is to find and elevate undiscovered talent from every vertical.
  3. From Algorithm to Free Market: Base is trading the black box of social media algorithms for the transparent chaos of a free market. The central experiment is whether market-based incentives can build a healthier, more aligned social network.
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July 25, 2025

Crypto Hits Record $4 Trillion Marketcap BUT We're Just Getting Started

Bankless

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. **ETH is the New Institutional Primitive.** The "ETH Treasury" model is a new unlock, leveraging ETH's native yield to create a self-financing acquisition engine that is attracting billions in institutional capital.
  2. **The Floodgates Are Open.** The Genius Bill and explosive ETF inflows are not just bullish signals; they are structural shifts that are unleashing a torrent of capital and legitimizing the asset class for mainstream finance.
  3. **Risk is Ramping.** The excitement is palpable, but so is the risk. The treasury meta feels like a potential bubble, and legal threats against core DeFi and infrastructure remain a significant overhang. Buyer beware.
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July 24, 2025

Hash Rate - Ep 123 - YUMA's Big Bittensor Bet

Hash Rate pod - Bitcoin, AI, DePIN, DeFi

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. The Playbook is Proven. YUMA is running DCG's time-tested Bitcoin strategy on Bittensor—solving access, building infrastructure, and investing to catalyze the entire ecosystem.
  2. The Arbitrage is Complexity. Subnets are wildly undervalued compared to Web2 counterparts. The friction to invest creates a massive opportunity for sophisticated players and platforms (like YUMA and Sturdy) that can simplify it.
  3. The Moat is More Than Code. Bittensor's defense isn't just its protocol. It’s the flywheel of token incentives, a deeply committed community, and a decade-long head start on solving hard problems—a combination that capital alone can't easily replicate.
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July 24, 2025

Why I Ditched Bitcoin Mining for Ethereum

Bankless

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. **The Bitcoin Mining Business is Broken.** The model of guaranteed profit-halving and a relentless hardware arms race is unsustainable, forcing miners to pivot to more viable ventures like AI infrastructure or ETH staking.
  2. **Ethereum's Target is 10x Bigger Than Bitcoin's.** Ethereum isn't competing with Bitcoin; it's competing with the multi-trillion-dollar traditional finance industry. Its utility in powering stablecoins and DeFi makes its total addressable market exponentially larger.
  3. **A New "Race to a Billion" in ETH Has Begun.** The new competitive arena for public crypto companies is the ETH treasury. Success hinges on aggressive acquisition, capturing investor mindshare, and—critically—generating superior, risk-adjusted yield through staking.
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July 23, 2025

Exposing Crypto Market Makers With Matt Jobbé-Duval

Lightspeed

Crypto
Key Takeaways:
  1. **The Playbook is a Trap.** So-called "active market making" is a destructive financing loop. Projects trade their future for a brief, artificial price pump fueled by selling locked tokens at catastrophic discounts.
  2. **Perps Are the Canary in the Coal Mine.** A sudden, plummeting perpetual futures funding rate is a massive red flag. It often signals that insiders are rushing to hedge their positions before an imminent and devastating spot price collapse.
  3. **Your Chart Is Your Reputation.** Once a token's chart is destroyed by one of these schemes, it becomes incredibly difficult to be taken seriously by the community, investors, or builders, leaving a permanent stain on the project's credibility.
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