Top News
Why the White House yanked its AI EO: On the pod today, Jason and Lon discussed the various theories around why President Trump backed off from a planned AI executive order, which would have required government approval for frontier models prior to a public release. The leading theory, confirmed today by Politico, is that a small group of tech industry insiders — led by former AI czar (and friend of the pod) David Sacks — spoke with Trump just hours before the EO was scheduled to be signed, and essentially talked him down. While the US intelligence community hoped to get an early glimpse into new models with potentially devastating implications for cybersecurity, Sacks reportedly told POTUS that AI companies are already cooperating with the government on these kinds of situations, making the additional rules unnecessary. Tech insiders also reportedly expressed concern that onerous regulations could stifle America’s efforts to stay ahead of China on AI development more generally.
SEC pushes back crypto ruling: In other unexpected governmental delay news, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) backed off plans to offer broad exemptions for crypto firms selling tokens that are linked to stock performance. A new rule opening up availability for “tokenized stocks” had been expected this week. Bloomberg reports that the SEC is still weighing input from stock exchange officials and other experts before moving forward with the plan. One key sticking point for some: the availability of “third party tokens,” based on the stock price of public companies, but presented without the approval or consent of those companies. The SEC’s expectation is that tokenized stock holders should have the same rights as regular shareholders, which isn’t possible if those tokens are being held and exchanged on decentralized, anonymous blockchain networks.
Meta releases new Reddit rival: The Facebook and IG giant released a new app called Forum, widely viewed by Wall Street as a direct competitor to online discussion boards like Reddit. The app’s release from Facebook Groups to Apple’s iOS store immediately triggered a drop to Reddit stock, which is down around 40% so far in 2026. Truist analysts wrote that Forum could potentially lead to a “gradual erosion of Reddit’s utility for casual users” who don’t already have strong loyalty to one particular platform. Reddit has yet to comment on the Forum release.
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DeepSeek and ye shall find, to borrow a phrase from the Book of Matthew. The Chinese AI giant’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, told a meeting of potential investors this week that they’re prioritizing “groundbreaking AI research” — think the race for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — over short-term, commercially focused projects.
According to Wenfeng, the company will continue to release incrementally improved open-source AI models for consumers, but is shifting focus to the larger goal of creating a recursive thinking machine that self-improves without human intervention and fresh training protocols. As a source told Bloomberg, “the main goal is to push the boundaries of the technology rather than monetization.”
This stance is essentially a 180 reversal of the message we’ve been hearing from US closed-source AI giants, which are dropping all manner of side projects and more experimental or academically minded pursuits in favor of revenue-generating enterprise tools. Other than buying That One Podcast, OpenAI in particular has narrowed its focus from Slop Apps, AGI promises, and chatbot bells & whistles to redouble efforts on its coding assistant — Codex — and finally win developer hearts and minds away from Anthropic’s Claude Code.
Perhaps DeepSeek can already see the light at the end of the AGI tunnel, and genuinely believes they can get there first? Or it’s just a nice story to tell investors as the company attempts to raise $10 billion in fresh funding. In the AI business, the real motives behind the latest hype blend are never 100% clear. – Lon
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This Week in Startups
E2291: Why raise $200 million if you are already profitable? That’s the question Jason and Alex put to Mercury’s founder and CEO, Immad Akhund, after the entrepreneur raised another massive round for his upstart, technology-friendly bank. TWiST then welcomed Kled founder Avi Patel to discuss the startup he considers a clear ripoff of his own company. Jason gavels in verdicts on all parties involved, including Y Combinator and venture capital firm General Catalyst. The show closes with a news lightning round, including OpenAI’s decision to offer $2 million in token credits to hundreds of startups.
E2290: Multiple 2026 commencement addresses have been interrupted by a chorus of boos when the speakers raised the topic of AI innovation. Why are America’s students SO NEGATIVE about the prospect of working with AI tools, and is it too late to turn things around. Jason and Alex discuss the growing backlash to datacenters, AI apps, and technology more generally among mainstream Americans, why it’s happening, and whether it’s still fixable. PLUS thoughts on how OpenAI and Anthropic gained such massive dominance in terms of actual AI-related revenue, and the growing visibility of Flock Safety’s surveillance network.
E2289: Self-driving just stopped being a science problem and became an engineering challenge instead. That's the through-line of today’s double-header with the CEOs of two of the most important AV companies in the world — Wayve's Alex Kendall and Waabi's Raquel Urtasun. Between them: ~$2B raised in the last six months, Uber as a partner, Nissan and Volvo as OEMs, and a shared bet that end-to-end AI plus world models beats Waymo's city-by-city map-and-pray approach. If you want to understand the state of the self-driving industry beyond recent Waymo announcements, this is the episode for you.
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