Mike Solana on SF politics, tech & media fights, Tik Tok policy, and AI wars
"Moment of Zen"
The Norcal SoCal Line
"I don't know how you recreate that regional identity in California. It's very difficult to do," he says. "It's an urban art, it's a blue urban archipelago and a sea of red" He thinks everything north of Santa Barbara is probably Northern California.
Our guest this week is Mike Solana, founder and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires (Piratewires.com). We discuss the broken local politics of San Francisco, tech and media fights, how we should handle Tik Tok,and why AI enthusiasts are losing. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%.
We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.
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TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Antonio’s EA rant
(2:12) Local SF politics is changing
(18:10) Tech vs. Media
(26:30) Sponsors: Secureframe and Riverside
(28:00 )Why does SF hate tech?
(31:00) How to win over California
(38:00) Institutionalist vs. anti-institutionalist
(55:50) Taylor Lorenz
(1:01:30) Tik Tok
(1:03:40) Why Solana isn’t a libertarian anymore
(1:07:55) Why is the onus on billionaires instead of government
(1:14:20) Dan swears off Peter Zeihan
(1:16:00) Anti-tech tech podcasts
(1:18:20) AI criticism is coming from within tech
(1:19:50) Aella
(1:21:30) AI safety debate
(1:32:00) What Solana is motivated by
TWITTER:
@MOZ_Podcast
@micsolana (Mike)
@eriktorenberg (Erik)
@dwr (Dan)
@antoniogm (Antonio)
More shownotes and reading material released in our Substack: https://momentofzen.substack.com/
SPONSORS: Beehiiv | Shopify
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Thank you to Secureframe for sponsoring (Use "Moment of Zen" for 20% discount) and Graham Bessellieu for production.
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