This week, the team discusses why tech billionaires are seemingly feeling generous all of a sudden, after Anthropic pledged to commit 5 percent of its shares to a public benefit fund, and Elon Musk promised to give a SpaceX share to every child in America without specifying details.
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Leah, are you excited for all the shares in AI companies
that you and future generations of America are going to get?
I mean, I've just been bated breath for this to happen.
The idea of tech companies using wealth
for public good has been an ongoing conversation
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world,
famously is anti-philanthropy, which is very new,
to be clear, from like tech of even a decade ago
that at the very least, you know, you had Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, you had like an outpour
of support for like the climate corners of the tech industry
That's all dried up and I'm not honestly sure
that we've spent enough time talking about that.
of relied on like the positive press
from their forebears literally 15 years ago.
that like there's now this whole philanthropic streak of,
we're actually that unpopular that we need
but we're gonna now fund the specific populations,
question mark, whose jobs were taken?
I do think, to your point, it's philanthropy,
but it's philanthropy born of this sense
that we're gonna be the ones to figure out
not only how AI is going to reshape society,
but we're gonna be the ones responsible
for then making sure everybody's okay.
The amount of power that they're sort of trying
to invest in themselves is really astonishing.
We live in an unregulated hellhole.
I'm so, like, look, Anthropic is preparing
for a trillion dollar IPO right now.
And I know, like, it's me, so I have to say it,
All anyone is talking about in at least a portion
of these polls is data centers, how unpopular they are,
The use of AI is a bipartisan issue at this point,
We should really be talking about how impressive it is
that, like, these massive companies
have made so many people hate them so quickly.
all of these like, don't look at the man
behind the curtain facade that I just can't get over.
