Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein Michal Lev-Ram: On the Intersecting Worlds of Tech, Culture, and Politics in Silicon Valley
(0:00) Intro
(1:09) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel
(1:56) Start of interview
(2:39) Michal's origin story
(5:05) Her start in journalism in Silicon Valley with Business 2.0. magazine and later at Fortune Magazine.
(7:45) Her project Operation Firewall (audible original podcast involving cybersecurity)
(11:40) The current state of tech, particularly AI, in Silicon Valley. "I tend to be cautiously optimistic"
(14:59) On Mira Murati's Thinking Machine Labs founder control. *Michal's profile of Murati in Fortune (2023)
(16:00) On AI companies' fiduciary duties "to humanity"
(18:05) "For me, the jury is still out for OpenAI" *my reference to the episode with Tyler Shultz (E142)
(21:27) Her take on Riyadh, based on a recent MPW Summit that they hosted for Fortune in Saudi Arabia. *Saudi 2030 Vision
(29:10) On the her new podcast: What's Your Number? looking at the Israeli economy, but through a global lens.
(33:38) On the politicization of the boardroom (and pushback to ESG and DEI).
(38:05) Her profile of Bob Lee in Esquire "Sex, Drugs, and Murder in Tech Land" (Feb 2025)
(42:33) The changing narrative of technology. "I think that creativity is missing"
(44:03) Books that have greatly influenced her life:
- Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
- Old Testament
(45:17) Her mentors:
(46:23) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by: "Your happiness in life is directly proportional to the number of tough conversations you're willing to have."
(47:35) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves.
(48:46) The living person she most admires.
Michal Lev-Ram is a Silicon Valley-based journalist who writes about the intersecting (and sometimes colliding) worlds of tech, culture, and politics.
You can follow Evan on social media at:
X: @evanepstein
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/
Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/
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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License