In this episode of The Riff, we are releasing a conversation Byrne Hobart had on the Bankless podcast about Byrne's book Bitcoin, exploring the provocative idea that speculative Bubbles—while sometimes destructive—can be powerful drivers of innovation, with examples from history and present-day trends like AI and crypto, ultimately highlighting the value of embracing risk to shape a transformative future. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/Turpentine...
Apr 10, 2025•2 hr 46 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the transformative impact of technological change on global trade, AI’s disruption of senior roles, the debate over AI-generated art, and market dynamics—particularly in live entertainment ticketing—offering a wide-ranging and thought-provoking discussion. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: US-China Trade Relations: There's an interesting role reversa...
Apr 01, 2025•53 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore Donald Trump Jr.'s financial leverage of the Trump brand, Dustin Moskovitz's shift toward AI existential risks, Elon Musk's strategic decisions with Twitter, potential U.S. recessions, political party shifts, China's AI policy, and the broader impact of these developments on Wall Street and Main Street. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Political Bra...
Mar 25, 2025•59 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore the effects of technological change on media and society, covering topics such as the AI debate, blogging's social impact, AI's influence on search and data, the changing news industry, foreign aid cuts, and the rise of new tech elites. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: AI and Written Content: The comparison is made to how society adapted to blogging...
Mar 11, 2025•57 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg examine why Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can't be successfully replicated today, analyze Bill Gates's public versus private persona, and consider how economic growth manifests as "premium mediocre" options like Chipotle. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Berkshire Hathaway's Unrepeatable Success: Buffett's empire evolved through historical accidents a...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss technological inflection points and examine how legal frameworks mask continued globalization despite apparent retrenchment, explores US-China dynamics, analyzes AI industry structure and emerging models, and considers Uber's strategic positioning against autonomous vehicles. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Globalization isn't truly reversing, but ...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 3 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the transformative impact of technological advancements, particularly OpenAI's research, Elon Musk’s $97 billion offer to acquire its controlling nonprofit, and the implications for business, jobs, regulation, and Musk's strategies with X and Doja. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Musk made a $97.4 billion offer to buy the nonprofit that controls Op...
Feb 11, 2025•59 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore the impact of technological advancements on markets and businesses, covering topics like global trade tariffs, political populism, AI's evolving role, open-source vs. proprietary models, stock market trends, and Meta’s investments in the metaverse and AR. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Trump's tariff approach (particularly the proposed 25% on Cana...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 9 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the major disruptions in tech and business driven by AI advancements, examining reactions to DeepSeek's announcements, stock impacts on companies like Nvidia, volatility in AI investments, Meta's Threads, Elon Musk’s influence on X, the role of tech in a politically charged landscape, and how governments could shape industrial strategies to support national champions. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit....
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 6 min
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart explore the impact of technological change on markets, touching on meme investments, ESG, the rise of meme stocks and coins, Trump’s policies, China’s economic strategies, industrial policy debates, and how these factors could shape the future political and economic landscape. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Trump's recent cryptocu...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 4 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore the historical paradigms from agrarian to industrial eras and potential future growth, while also addressing challenges in adopting new technologies like AI, institutional constraints at companies like Meta, post-COVID loneliness, the Scandinavian economic model, China's deflation concerns, and structural issues within OpenAI, all through a mix of personal anecdotes and historical insights. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener...
Jan 18, 2025•1 hr 3 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg is joined by Tae Kim, author of The NVIDIA Way, exploring NVIDIA's remarkable journey, culture, and what sets the company apart under Jensen Huang's leadership. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: NVIDIA's success stems from its relentless work culture, emphasis on talent cultivation, and ability to execute at high velocity while minimizing internal politics. ...
Dec 26, 2024•1 hr
This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart discuss the pod shop hedge fund model, market cycles, AI pricing models, and the future of AI-generated content, with Byrne offering insights on hedge fund evolution, the current market environment, and AI's impact on entertainment and society. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: Pod shop hedge fund model has evolved to focus on delivering uncorrelated returns...
Dec 19, 2024•1 hr 6 min
This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart discuss AI's economic implications, the rise of passive investing, gambling markets, and Warren Buffett's early investment tactics, examining how technological advancements shape economic metrics, market dynamics, and industry shifts. --- 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. --- Highlights from the Episode: AI's economic impact may follow a J-curve pattern - initially deflationary as it reduces co...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 2 min
This week, Erik and Byrne discuss the impact of technological change on markets, debate the feasibility of Argentine-style economic policies in the U.S., discuss government efficiency, payroll costs, and political dynamics, including the potential economic effects of a Trump administration and strategies of figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman. For full shownotes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/da0b923d-7d50-4459-b8e9-d0bf87710da7 — 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener surv...
Nov 21, 2024•1 hr 3 min
On this week’s episode of The Riff, explore the impact of technological change on markets and businesses, discussing economic bubbles, the future of AI, the post-election political landscape, and Byrne's upcoming book Boom, which examines the role of bubbles in infrastructure development. For full shownotes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/44975e08-681b-484a-9f8f-64588f17da2f — 🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse. — RECOMMENDED PODCAS...
Nov 14, 2024•58 min
This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart explore the evolving landscape of heretical ideas, election dynamics, AI and crypto’s market impacts, prediction markets, the shifting Overton window, contrarian perspectives, and trends in housing and smaller social networks. For full shownotes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/77be6b84-0f55-4dcc-9dd1-c69341272e2e --- 📰Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess --- RECOMMENDED PODCAST: 🎙️ Un...
Nov 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min
In this special episode of The Riff, Erik Torenberg and Patrick McKenzie explore the evolving landscape of tech journalism, media narratives about the tech industry, and how the industry is increasingly telling its own story. For full shownotes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/2dab4f2e-f8b1-410b-9bc4-b4a9b137c22f 📰Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess --- RECOMMENDED PODCAST: 🎙️ Unpack Pricing - Dive into the dark arts of SaaS p...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr
In this episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart discusses his upcoming book about financial bubbles, venture scale businesses, creator financing, and prediction markets. For full shownotes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/d084ef81-e3cd-41b2-be04-b6fc2bbe3f7a 📰Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess --- SPONSORS: 📑 Discover Carta, the innovative end-to-end accounting platform revolutionizing private fund management with streamlined opera...
Oct 24, 2024•1 hr 4 min
In this special episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart is joined by Patrick McKenzie, host of the podcast Complex Systems to discuss a range of topics including app business models, restaurant industry economics, AI's impact on productivity, the evolution of search technologies and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ Complex Systems Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) talks to experts who understand the ...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 28 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the shifting dynamics of careers and education, the notion of "auto-paternalism" in organizational choices, Spotify's growth strategy in a mature market, the future of podcasts and audio content, and the intricate relationship between AI art, property rights and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois,...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg dive into a range of fascinating topics such as the evolution and future of OpenAI's business model, economic rationale behind corporate buybacks, changing software economics, China's recent equity market surge and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly...
Oct 03, 2024•57 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss cult stocks like Tesla and Palantir, debate whether AI or globalization will impact jobs more, explore the energy transition's unexpected reversal, analyze Forbes' content strategy and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unp...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 2 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg tackle the current state of the EU's tech sector, evolution of private equity firms, consumer credit defaults, online reputation management and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, bu...
Sep 19, 2024•57 min
This week, Byrne and Erik discuss the efficiency of market hypothesis, explores the complexities of breaking up big tech companies, unpacks the intriguing dynamics of currencies from nations to video game gems and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest take...
Sep 12, 2024•57 min
This week, Byrne and Erik discuss the idea of taxing unrealized capital gains, networked nature of the finance industry, the strategic direction of Uber in autonomous vehicles, the merits of 'founder mode' and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on...
Sep 06, 2024•1 hr 2 min
On this week’s episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the Silicon Valley Canon, impact of tech on traditional markets, the evolution of smart contracts, risks of currency carry trades and more. 🔥 Apply to join over 400 Founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/ --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on...
Aug 29, 2024•1 hr 3 min
On this week’s episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss tricky antitrust decisions, Balaji’s Network State, the dynamics of content moderation, and more. 🔥Apply to join over 400 founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://hmplogxqz0y.typeform.com/to/JCkphVqj --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, v...
Aug 22, 2024•1 hr 3 min
This week, Byrne and Erik discuss Meta’s open source strategy, Google’s hiring of Character.AI’s CEO, the calculus behind the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and more. 🔥Apply to join over 400 founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://hmplogxqz0y.typeform.com/to/JCkphVqj --- RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, i...
Aug 15, 2024•55 min
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg are joined by Omar Shams, the founder of Mutable AI, for a deep dive into Omar’s great piece, The AI Organization. In this conversation, they explore the potential of AI to transform organizational productivity, the limitations of financial metrics in GDP, and AI's role in political processes and societal structures. 🔥Apply to join over 400 founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://hmplogxqz0y.typeform.com/to/JCkphVqj --- RECOMMENDED PODCAS...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 6 min
