Payback's a Bitch, Baby

Andrew Keen

You're in America's management on the polished

Andrew Keen

Hello everybody and welcome. It's Saturday, June the 20th, 2026 and it has been one of those weeks where the machines quietly got more capable

Keith Teare

and the rest of us got a little more nervous about our own job descriptions.

Andrew Keen

Hello everybody, it isn't actually June 20th, it's June the 27th. That was the show that Keith ran last week featuring a fake Andrew Keane. So Keith, that was a very... realistic version of my voice. I've become redundant. You don't need me anymore, do you?

Keith Teare

Well, there's only one you, Andrew.

Andrew Keen

Well, there's clearly not only one me. You've invented another one that's just as credible and probably more interesting.

Keith Teare

So everyone should know that Andrew was away last week and I wasn't going to do a video. And it suddenly occurred to me, you know, I've got a PC here that has an NVIDIA card. I didn't use any third-party service, actually. I just said to it, look, here's the last few That Was The Weeks. Learn Andrew's voice. And here's an image of him from YouTube. Animate Andrew. Write a script based on this week's newsletter and animate Andrew and me discussing it. And it took about half an hour and maybe three attempts because he wasn't very good the first time. But after about an hour's work, That Came Out And It Was Actually Pretty Pretty It Was Pretty Bad Compared To Our Normal Actual Live Shows But It Was Really Good Well When I Had It

Andrew Keen

The First Time It Sounded Like Myself In Fact I Second Guessed Myself I Thought Maybe Maybe I Really Was There On June 20th Anyway I Wasn't Last Week You Did The Show On Your Own This Week It's Saturday June 27th The big news seemed to have happened yesterday, Keith. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. government will decide who gets to use the latest AI technology. Commerce Department apparently told both OpenAI and Anthropic that they needed their permission. about who was going to get to use their latest models. Your editorial this week announces payback's a bitch, baby. Of course, you blame everything on Dario, do you, Keith? Does he finally get what he deserves?

Keith Teare

It's definitely not only Dario. We've talked about the crisis of leadership in AI across really the whole of AI. The quality of the leadership Is Questionable At Best And There's Been A Year Now More Than A Year Of All Of The AI Leaders At Different Times Crying Wolf About How Dangerous It's Going To Become Because They Wanted To Be Wrapped In Government Clothing To Prevent Third Parties Being Able To Easily Compete With Them In A Way The Government Provides A Moat Of Protection Against Anyone Else If You Have To Go Through Government In Order To Do Something And That'S What They You Know Especially Dario But Not Only Dario Is Wanted It'S Now Happened And Now That You Know I'M Pretty Sure They Realize That What They'Ve Asked For Isn'T That Really A Good Thing They'Ve Given The Government Authority By The Way Is Voluntary Right Now There's No Law So They Could Ignore The Government Law Has To Be Written Or An Executive Order Has To Be Written And I Do Believe That Is In Process But It Hasn't Happened Yet Yeah

Andrew Keen

And Your Editorial Says The Government Is Not Merely Getting Involved In The Conversation About AI That's Been True For Years No The Frontier AI Companies Invited The Government Into The Room And Now The Government Is Beginning To Behave As If It Owns The Door The Guest List The Schedule And The Product Roadmap In Other Words The AI Frontier Companies Like Anthropic And Open AI Wanted Their Cake And Eat It And They Didn't get to do either they've had the cake taken away I wonder Keith if we step back a little bit we've talked about this theme before whether we might think a little bit more structurally and see the convergence of the Chinese and American model and yeah I'm you're probably right in the sense that Dario and and Sam Altman aren't exactly the most mature of leaders although They're tech people, they're not political people. But this was almost inevitable, particularly in the context of Trumpism.

Keith Teare

I don't think it was inevitable, actually. I think it's been set up. It became more and more likely, and now it's happened, I think it's pretty inevitable that it's the start of a a pretty onerous framework that they're going to have to live within. You're right about the Chinese models. GLM 5.2 was released this week, which is as good as Claude and is open source, open way. There are some people who feel it's a very big model and very capable,

Andrew Keen

but there are some- No, no, no, let me, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. What I meant was we see the convergence of the American and Chinese Models Of Capitalism More Of A State Centric Model Because The Chinese Model Obviously Involves The State Much More Explicitly Unambiguously Unashamedly Whereas America Has Always Prided Itself In Theory At Least As Being Free Enterprise And Trying To Marginalize The Government As Much As Possible That Of Course Hasn't Always Been The Case With The Invention Of The Internet Of Course Much Of It Came From One Kind Of Government Initiative Or Another The Same Is True Of Atomic Technology But Whether The Real Shift In The 21st Century Economy Is One Towards

Keith Teare

A More State Centric Model I Think That At That Level You Are Right You Know All Governments Seek To Control Things That They Consider Dangerous For Themselves

Keith Teare

Danger Is Framed In Their Own Way Of Course In Each Case But In The Case Of AI Models They Are Afraid That It Is So Good That It Could Create Bioweapons Or Cyber Crimes But The Fact Is Insofar As That Is True They Can't Really Stop It

Keith Teare

So Yes There Is This Tendency Towards The State Taking More And More Control And I Do Believe Economically And When You Start Talking About Distribution You Know Bernie Sanders Sovereign Wealth Fund Idea Is The State Taking On Behalf Of The People If You Will Taking Control Of Wealth

Andrew Keen

And You're Not Necessarily Hostile To That You See Some Some Potential. I mean, you may not be completely in the Bernie camp, but you recognize that that has to be the way forward in some way or other.

Keith Teare

Well, yeah, the minute you start thinking about society, there's only really three ways that it could go. The first is, you know, the rich get richer and, you know, jobs shrink as automation kicks in and good luck to everyone else. Seems unlikely anyone's going to allow that to happen. The Second Is The State Playing A Major Role Consensually The Rumors Are That OpenAI Has Offered The Government A Very Large Stake In OpenAI And What Would That Mean Ownership Actual Ownership Of Shares Put Into A Sovereign Wealth Fund And Then Distributed To Citizens As Dividends

Andrew Keen

When you say the rumors, is this among your VC friends in Silicon Valley? Have you read something? There's nothing in your newsletter.

Keith Teare

It's popped up on podcasts in conversations with people that should know. Like who? David Sachs, for example.

Andrew Keen

Well, he certainly should know. So what's his response to that? I would assume he's not keen on it.

Keith Teare

No, he's in favor of it. He's actually very in favor of it. He thinks that 50% ownership is too small.

Andrew Keen

So why would the OpenAI guys give away 50% of the company? Or does that actually involve giving away 50%? I don't quite know what it would involve from OpenAI's point of view.

Keith Teare

I don't think we know the details. It could be anything between giving away and selling initially. Who Knows It Could Be Warrants There's All Kinds Of Mechanisms That Could Take Place And We Don't Know The Percentages So Let's Let's Not Pretend We Do But Mechanically Speaking It'S Easy If Everybody Wants To Do It It'S Easy And It Really Becomes A Hybrid Capitalism Where You Know The Normal Labour And Capital Relationships Change At The Bottom Level The Ownership Changes And The Distribution Of The Rewards Changes And It Literally Can Happen Through Ownership The Third Option Of Course Is Some Kind Of Uprising Either A Luddite Style Populist Uprising Or The Alternative Which Is A Kind Of A More Distribute The Wealth Traditional Kind Of Uprising And I Don't Think Anyone Is Gonna Let That Happen So This Government

Andrew Keen

Well, it's not a question of letting it happen. It might just happen. I mean, it's happening in a way, maybe not quite in a Luddite way, when it comes to data centers. And local communities around America reject it. That's not formally Luddism. They're not burning the factories, but they're certainly... Challenging The Idea Of Data Factories Bringing Wealth To Their Local Community Yeah

Keith Teare

But Your Question About Why Would Open Eye Do It Is A Good One And I Think It Goes To Who Sam Altman Is You Know He's A Lot Of Things Exactly I Mean It Depends When You Ask And It Depends Who's Asking Well He's Recently Said That He's Decided That Universal Basic Income Isn't Going To Work and he's surprised. I mean, that's been fairly obvious for years. But he's now started to talk about universal ownership and distribution. So there is, weirdly enough, there's a there's a coming together, they're still trying to differentiate themselves like Bernie Sanders hates the idea that he's, he's being agreed with by these people. So he's trying to distinguish himself. But the truth is, there's a coming together around Government Ownership Of These Companies In A Sovereign Wealth Fund That As It Grows Can Distribute Annual Dividends And That Is Completely Structurally Possible If Everybody Wants To Do It I Don't Think

Andrew Keen

Then It Comes Back To Your Editorial This Week Is Rather Dismissive Of Altman And Amadai You Don't Really Talk About Google Or Musk But I Wonder Whether Then If You're Sympathetic To The Idea In Principle Of A Sovereign Wealth Fund I'm Guessing Amadai Is Altman Again Swings With The Wind

Andrew Keen

But He Seems To Be At This Point So Where's The Payback Everyone Wins Here

Keith Teare

In Theory I Guess Well So Let's Focus On Where The Tensions Are Because That Kind Of Brings Out The Answer To Your Question The Tensions Are In Who Gets To Control Product Development And Release It's Only

Keith Teare

That And I Think Both Amadai And Altman Regret That They've Come To The Point Where The Answer To That Is Government Altman Yesterday Was Quoted As Saying This Can't Become The Default Future Which Of Course He Said Out Loud Because The Likely It Is That It Will And Amidai Already Reacted Against What The Government Did To Fable By Saying It's A Misunderstanding We Should Roll This Back It's Fine We Can Be Trusted Now My View Is You Can Actually Trust The Companies And Their Scientists More Than You Can Trust Government To Make Decisions Here As Long As There's An Understanding Of What The Goals And Framework Are You They Can They Can Be Trusted To Implement Them And Should Be Trusted To Implement Them And Governments Role Should Be Reduced To Using A Law If They Fail There Are Laws And Or Figuring Out The Economic Future Yeah But I Don't

Andrew Keen

On The Goals Of These companies and the goals of the US government, for example, especially when it comes to defense technology, quite different. I mean, if OpenAI or Anthropic can create defense AI technology that they can sell to foreign governments and make a large amount of money, that's presumably a good thing from their point of view. And of course, from the American government's point of view, it's much more complicated. So they may not actually share the same interests.

Keith Teare

But There's Clear Law There You Know The US Government Does Not Allow The Military Companies Producing Drones To Sell To Certain Foreign Governments I Mean There's Rules And There's Law So You Don't Really Need Anything New In That Domain And I Don't Believe The Foundation Model Companies Are Productizing Things For Defense Purposes It's More That Governments Are Buying Non-Defense capability and then using it in a defense context. So the defense is really centered on the government more than the AI company.

Andrew Keen

So we've talked about Amadai, who's clearly, I would guess, in principle sympathetic to Sovereign Wealth Fund, and now Sam Altman has articulated his own interest in the idea. Where's Musk on this, and where would a more traditional big tech company like Google be on it?

Keith Teare

Musk is aligned at the level of universal, he calls it universal, he uses a word that means big, I forget which word it is. So it's not basic income, but it's universal, big income. But he's not a fan of government getting involved with companies in general. So I think we don't know the answer because he hasn't been asked

Andrew Keen

but I think it could be But he's never been shy to express himself when he has an opinion he doesn't need to be asked Yeah I think

Keith Teare

if this thing gets legs he'll have an opinion and honestly knowing what I know about him it could go either way if he really believes it's a fair mechanism for distributing wealth to everyone he'll probably be in favor because at his core he does believe in that Amadai I don't think does believe in that And I Think That Google Doesn't Believe In That So I Think You'd End Up With Musk And OpenAI With Bernie Sanders David Sacks And That Crowd With Bernie Sanders And Probably It's

Andrew Keen

A Very Odd Marriage Bernie Sanders David Sacks Elon Musk Sam Altman

Keith Teare

And I Think Google Would Be Standouts Because They're More Traditional You Know Fortune 500, a traditional company, which is weird to say about Google. I mean, if Larry and Sergey were still running it, there may be a different answer.

Andrew Keen

Well, if Larry and Sergey were running it before the grown-ups showed up, but that was a long time ago. How would it impact then? I mean, let's just say this thing got legs, real legs, political legs. How would it impact the value of a company like Google, which is now worth, what, three, four, sometimes even five trillion dollars?

Keith Teare

Well It Doesn't Actually Affect That Because The Value Is Related To The Growth And The Revenues It Does Affect The Ownership You Know The Existing Shareholders Would Probably Be Diluted By Whatever Percent So Instead Of Owning 100% The Shareholders Would Now Own 50% Or 25% So Existing Shareholders Share Price would likely go down.

Andrew Keen

So it would be a radical dilution. And then where's the money coming from, this sovereign wealth fund? It would come out of profit?