Latest news with #KatieDrummond
Business Insider
17 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson says he doesn't want to run his antiaging company anymore
Johnson was speaking to Wired's Katie Drummond in an interview published Monday, and he was asked about the conflicts that came with running his business and religion at the same time. The 47-year-old biotech entrepreneur is best known for his aggressive quest for eternal youth. In 2021, Johnson embarked on his anti-aging program, Project Blueprint, which he says costs him $2 million a year. At one point, Johnson infused himself with blood from his son to slow down his aging. He stopped the transfusions after six months, saying there were "no benefits detected." Johnson's company sells a variety of wellness products. These include a $55 "longevity mix" drink and a $42 mushroom coffee alternative they call "Super Shrooms." In March, Johnson announced on X that he was starting his own religion, "Don't Die." The name is derived from the slogan Johnson used to brand his Netflix documentary, products, and events. "Years ago, I did a thought experiment imagining myself in the presence of people from the 25th century. It seemed obvious that they'd say Don't Die is how humanity saved itself and merged with AI," Johnson wrote in an X post. Johnson, however, says he's beginning to see how running a longevity-focused business may not mesh with preaching a religion on the same subject. "Honestly, I am so close to either shutting it down or selling it," he told Drummond, adding that he's "been talking to people about this." "I don't need the money, and it's a pain-in-the-ass company," he said. Johnson said he started the business because his friends were asking him for the health supplements he was taking. "It just evolved in a way where I was trying to do people a solid. The problem is now people see the business and give me less credibility on the philosophy side," Johnson said. "I will not make that trade-off. It is not worth it to me. So yeah, I don't want it," he added. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Blueprint was facing problems with its finances. The story was published in March and was based on interviews with current and former employees as well as court records and internal documents. The Times reported that Blueprint was missing its break-even point by at least $1 million a month. Johnson told Wired Blueprint isn't in "some kind of emergency financial situation." "We are break-even, and I've said that publicly many times. We've had profitable months, we've had loss months," he added.
Arab News
07-07-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Condé Nast expands Middle East footprint with full acquisition of WIRED ME
LONDON: Condé Nast has acquired full ownership of WIRED Middle East, strengthening its presence in the region and bringing the tech, science, and culture magazine into its portfolio of wholly owned titles in Dubai, Arab News has exclusively learned. The transition, announced on Monday, marks the magazine's move from a licensing agreement with Dubai-based publisher Nervora to direct ownership by Condé Nast. 'Bringing WIRED Middle East into the Condé Nast Middle East portfolio reflects both the region's rapid evolution and our commitment to spotlighting the ideas and breakthroughs shaping its future,' said Thomas Khoury, Managing Director, Condé Nast Middle East. 'With its authority across technology, science, business and culture, WIRED is uniquely positioned to lead these conversations in the region. Launched in 2019, WIRED ME has covered regional trends, breakthroughs, and major events such as Expo 2020 Dubai. Condé Nast said the acquisition marks the next step in the brand's growth as it looks to expand alongside the region's fast-developing tech sector. While the company suggested it will remain commitment to the print edition - currently published quarterly and claiming a readership of over 100,000, according to Advert On Click - it said WIRED Middle East would now serve as its flagship digital-first platform for tech, science, and culture in the region. Katie Drummond, WIRED's Global Editorial Director, said the brand is eager to expand its editorial coverage of the Middle East, growing hand-in-hand with the region. 'This is a region driving some of the most dynamic and consequential stories in science, technology, business, and culture,' she said. 'We're excited to build a team dedicated to telling those stories with the ambition and world-class journalism that defines WIRED.' The move follows a similar shift earlier this year, when Condé Nast took direct control of Vogue Arabia and GQ Middle East, also previously operated under license by Nervora. The reshuffle has been widely viewed as a strategic realignment of the Arab fashion and media landscape. With the addition of WIRED ME, Condé Nast's full Middle East portfolio now includes Vogue Arabia, GQ Middle East, Architectural Digest Middle East, and Condé Nast Traveller Middle East.
WIRED
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Seriously, What Is ‘Superintelligence'?
In this episode of Uncanny Valley , we talk about Meta's recent investment in Scale AI and its move to build a superintelligence AI research lab. So we ask: What is superintelligence anyway? Meta AI at the Meta pavilion ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2025. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Photograph:Meta just announced a major move in its AI efforts—investing in Scale AI and building a superintelligence AI research lab. While Meta has been trying to keep up with big names in the AI race, such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, the company's new strategy includes dropping some serious cash to acquire talent and invest in Scale AI. Today on the show, we dive into the deal between Meta and Scale AI, including what Meta aims to get out of investment, and we ask the question we are all wondering: What is superhuman intelligence, anyway? You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and Katie Drummond on Bluesky at @katie-drummond. Write to us at uncannyvalley@ How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for 'uncanny valley.' We're on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Michael Calore: How is everybody doing this week? Katie Drummond: Well, I'm back and I'm so happy to be here. I ate so much butter in France last week, the first couple nights I had to myself. And so what would a normal person do in Paris? Maybe they'd go out and sit at the bar and have dinner alone, maybe they'd meet up with a friend. I ate butter and bread alone in my hotel room. And let me tell you, if you're listening out there and you are a mom and you have a young kid or young kids, if you're married, if you struggle with having a spouse and a child and maybe some pets and a busy job, there is no better experience than eating French butter and bread alone in a hotel room. Michael Calore: Wow. Lauren Goode: Uncanny Valley , brought to you by the dairy lobby. Katie Drummond: By the French dairy lobby. I feel incredible. How are you guys? Lauren Goode: I'm OK. I got bangs. Katie Drummond: You did? Lauren Goode: Yeah. So most of our listeners can't see it unless you watch our new video promos online, but I got bangs. There's often a correlation between things going on in the world and women cutting their bangs. That's all I'm going to say about that. But otherwise, I'm great. I'm great. Rate the bangs, go online. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Katie Drummond: Five out of five. Lauren Goode: Thank you. Katie, really, you were my inspiration here. Katie Drummond: Oh, no, that's too kind. But I do love a bang and hate a forehead. Michael Calore: Well, have I got a haircut for you. Lauren Goode: Well, Mike, how are you doing? Sorry about that, Mike. Katie Drummond: But there's just so much smarts in there, Mike. That's the thing. Michael Calore: I'm just as God made me. Katie Drummond: How are you doing? Michael Calore: I'm doing great. I don't have any hair stories. I haven't eaten any butter recently, so I'm feeling really left out right now. This is WIRED's Uncanny Valley , a show about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. Today we're talking about Meta's recent investment in Scale AI, and its move to build a superintelligence AI research lab. It's the latest effort from Meta to compete with the big names in the AI race like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. But Meta is taking a different approach. Not only are its AI models open source, but in typical Meta fashion, it seems to be trying to outspend its competitors to acquire top talent, and its Scale AI investment, which is not an acquisition, is just part of that strategy. We'll dive into what Meta is hoping to get from this investment and what it's actually getting, and whether this move could give the company the competitive advantage it's seeking. Plus we will ask, what is superintelligence anyway? I'm Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture here at WIRED. Lauren Goode: I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior correspondent at WIRED. Katie Drummond: And I'm Katie Drummond, WIRED's global editorial director. Michael Calore: So let's start off by diving into Scale AI. Unlike Meta, the company is not what you would call a household name anywhere outside of Silicon Valley, but it's certainly made a name for itself in the AI world. What's up with Scale? Lauren Goode: Scale AI is a data labeling company. Sounds very sexy, doesn't it? They do the grunt work of analyzing and categorizing the data that is later distributed to larger AI models in order to train them. It's nothing fancy, but they kind of perform an essential function for machine learning programs to improve. And they have some pretty big customers. Companies like OpenAI and Google have been among their clients. Earlier this year, our colleague Will Knight reported on Scale AI's new platform that allows AI models to be automatically tested against key benchmarks and pinpoint any weaknesses in the models. So basically Scale AI has been making this concentrated effort to be a key partner as it's working with these larger AI companies. Katie Drummond: I think it's also worth pointing out that really at the heart of the company's success is its founder, Alexandr Wang, without an E, right? Michael Calore: Yeah. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Michael Calore: He's the Flickr of CEOs. Katie Drummond: There you go. He's 28 years old, and at one point in time he was actually the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, which is pretty incredible. So he's a well-known personality in Silicon Valley, and he is arguably best known for how much he networks, which given that I do not live in San Francisco, Lauren and Mike can probably tell you a lot more about that. But he was once roommates with Sam Altman, who, supposedly, allegedly, told him to tone down the networking a notch. Unclear exactly what the motivations may have been there, but Wang clearly did not care for that advice and it has paid off for him. So this latest deal between Meta and Scale AI came actually after Wang and Zuckerberg reportedly spent a lot of one-on-one time together networking, presumably. And so it is really his relationships with so many key players in the AI industry that has positioned him now to be so powerful and to be in demand by a company like Meta that, as we'll talk about a little later, could really use a leg up in AI. Bloomberg recently reported that Wang is known for calling "a dizzying amount of people," and not just senior, but junior staffers in AI firms, to know what they're working on and what they want to do. So he's not only a networker, but he's someone who keeps his ear to the ground. He's sort of in the know in Silicon Valley as far as AI goes. Lauren Goode: It sounds exhausting. Katie Drummond: It does. I felt tired just talking about that. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Also, what does networking really look like in Silicon Valley? It's like, do you … Katie Drummond: Well, you guys tell me. What do you do? Lauren Goode: Yeah, I don't know. Meet some folks at Blue Bottle before you head on down to Marine Layer and then go to some all-night coding party in the carriage house of a Pacific Heights mansion? I don't know. What does that look like? Michael Calore: It's a lot of walk and talks. Katie Drummond: Is it really? Lauren Goode: Well, in the Valley it is. Michael Calore: Yeah. Lauren Goode: Down around Palo Alto, people are in … Do people do that in San Francisco too? Michael Calore: Oh, yeah. Lauren Goode: Yeah? Yeah, that's a thing? Michael Calore: Yeah, people do walk and talks. Katie Drummond: Speaking of walking and talking, Mike, I want to hear more about the details of the deal. Michael Calore: Yes. Let's talk about how much money is on the table on this deal, plus what Meta is hoping to get from the investment, and perhaps most importantly, what it is actually getting out of this deal. Lauren Goode: So the deal was announced as a 14.3 billion dollar investment in Scale AI. To be clear here, this is not an acquisition. They're just taking a 49 percent stake in Scale AI and also bringing in Alexandr Wang and a bunch of talent, but it's not an acquisition, folks. Don't call it that. We've seen a wave of this over the past 12 to 18 months where Microsoft and Google have also either made strategic investments or licensing agreements with smaller AI players in order to sort of bring them into the fold, but not necessarily face the scrutiny of the U.S government and the Justice Department, because they want to move fast here. They want to build these AIs as quickly as possible, and so they want to just bring in all this talent. And so yes, we are lumping Meta in here, but that is essentially what they're doing with Scale AI. Now for Alexandr, our master networker here, this deal also includes a leadership role in this superintelligence project that Meta is going to be building. We're going to get more into that later as we talk about superintelligence and what exactly it is. Zuckerberg, Meta now owns a strategic 49 percent stake in Scale AI. When it comes to what Meta is really getting from this deal, the main asset is the vast amount of AI training data that Scale AI possesses, and that leads to what Meta hopes to get to in the long run, a boost to the development of its Meta AI projects. Katie Drummond: And I mean certainly Meta is doing a lot of clever things here, you could say, one of which is that they have put their competitors in a pretty tricky spot when it comes to whether or not they should continue working with Scale AI or whether they should move away to other companies. And Scale AI has other partnerships going on outside of the AI ecosystem as well. So the company has deals with foreign governments in Asia and Europe, it has a deal with the DOD actually for a first of its kind AI agent program, which sounds as dystopian as it probably is. It's called Thunder Forge. And the goal is essentially to enhance military operations with AI agents. I mean, it's exactly what you think it would be. And Meta could potentially benefit from all of those alliances that Scale AI has as well. So certainly you could say a mutually beneficial arrangement and one that puts a lot of players in the AI space on watch as it pertains to Meta. Lauren Goode: I mean, I think the important thing to remember about Meta is that Meta buys its way into innovation. It doesn't spin it up entirely on its own. If you look at WhatsApp, if you look at Instagram, if you look at Oculus, all acquired by Meta. And then sometimes when Meta does try to spin up some vision for the future on its own, like the Metaverse, which is all we heard about two years ago, it falls flat on its face, or face computer, as we like to say. What Meta is doing here is it's locking up not only the data from Scale AI, but it's also locking up talent and technology that it believes is critical in sort of moving forward into this next phase of AI. An oversimplified way of looking at it would be, you need really two things to level up an AI right now, you need more compute power and you need a lot of data, and ideally high quality data. This is clearly a data buy, and it's also a way of keeping other companies from potentially using it. Like Katie just said, Google is now backing out of its partnership with Scale AI. Michael Calore: And Meta is doing this because it has a long way to go in order to reach the top of the heap, right? We've been talking about how Meta has been stumbling over the last few years in the AI race, so I want to dig into that a little bit, especially in how it has been lagging behind its competitors and what it's trying to do specifically to get ahead with this investment. Lauren Goode: That's right, with this strategic investment, Mike. The short answer to that is Llama, which is its foundational model, its answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Unfortunately so far, Llama hasn't really lived up to the hype around it. It's not as powerful as the rival systems of OpenAI and Google. Notably though Meta has tried to differentiate itself by open sourcing Llama, meaning that it freely shares the underlying code with outside software developers and businesses. So I guess it believes in the long run that that is actually going to be beneficial to it, even if right now it's not winning the speeds and feeds. Michael Calore: Can I ask you, what's the prevailing wisdom on why Meta decided to release Llama as an open source model as opposed to keeping it closed like all of its competitors? Lauren Goode: Yeah, it's a good question. I wish I could just call up Mark and ask him directly about this, but I can't, and we don't know exactly what's going on in his head. But I think in any robust technology environment, you're going to have lock-in and you're going to have open source providers, whether you're talking about IBM mainframes and then Linux, or you're talking about Apple software versus Google Android, and I think Google Android is the most used operating system in the world, and various products and business models and licensing models have extended from that. And so that may be part of what Mark Zuckerberg is thinking about long term. I think he also feels very burned by Apple. I mean, he has said that specifically when he wrote a blog post last year making a case for why Llama is open source. He said to do this well, we have to ensure that we always have access to the best technology and that we are not walking into a competitor's closed ecosystem where they can restrict what we build. And he said that one of his most formative experiences, building Meta services, has been having those services constrained by what Apple will let Meta do on its platforms. So as he's thinking about the future of AI and what happens over the next several years or beyond that, I guess he doesn't want Meta to be locked in. Michael Calore: Yeah, it feels like all of Meta's AI efforts have been very much on the surface, sort of lightweight consumer facing things, right? They have the Meta AI app that you can use to chat basically like a chatbot, they've incorporated their AI into the smart glasses and they've made these chatbots that live inside of Instagram and allow you to talk to somebody who talks like Snoop Dog basically. There's also the AI assisted search that has rolled out to all of the different Meta projects, but it really feels like this sort of social play in AI, specifically chatbot AI, has been the thing that they have just been concentrating on. They don't have advanced systems that corporations can license. They don't have a lot of the big ammunition that the other companies have. Katie Drummond: Well, and the consumer facing AI, I mean if I may be so bold, is not particularly good or well-designed, or well-made, or a particularly good user experience. I mean, I don't have a Facebook account, and I haven't for a very long time. I do use Instagram. I mean, I have not once used that chatbot. So these consumer-facing bets have not been particularly successful in addition to not being very good, but they've also recently had some pretty significant blunders on the privacy front. Surprise, surprise, Meta having issues with privacy. Our colleague, Kylie Robison, reported that the app actually showed … This is insane. It is just insane. The app showed private conversations between the chatbot and users, including medical information, home addresses, even things directly related to pending court cases where people were talking to the chatbot, asking it questions, getting help with whatever weird sick question they were trying to answer or problem they were trying to solve. And unbeknownst to them, those conversations were showing up in a social feed where everybody could see someone trying to break their tenant's lease or access some pornography or get a medical diagnosis for the weird lump on their foot. All of this stuff that, yeah, should you be careful in your conversations with any chatbot? Absolutely. But most people at least assume that those dialogues and those back and forths aren't just going to be published onto the internet. I mean, it's a pretty stunning failure. And it certainly doesn't feel accidental, it doesn't feel like they just were like, "Oh, how embarrassing that this has happened." I just don't think they really care. And this has been obviously the narrative around Meta for a very long time, which is, problems arise with their services, particularly as it pertains to privacy, and somebody out there in media reports on it, and then they patch it up, and that's exactly what has happened this time. I think they've put a disclaimer on top of the chatbot so that you know that you're opting in or opting out of some kind of public sharing of your conversations. But it just sort of feels like they're not particularly interested in thinking very hard about the privacy piece, which, in my opinion, when it comes to chatbots and AI and sort of this brave new world we are all marching forward into or being marched forward into, in some cases, we should probably spend some time thinking about privacy considerations. Now, of course, with this deal with Scale AI, Meta is hoping to turn the page, to open a new chapter within all of their AI efforts, consumer facing or otherwise, specifically with this superintelligence AI lab. Michael Calore: That's something that is really important that Meta would not be making all of these big statements about superintelligence. It would not be making this investment if it didn't feel like it had already failed in the race to develop strong AI programs. Because this is not just like a reorganization or realignment, this is a complete reset. It is a brand new team with new leadership and a new mission. For a very long time, the person who has been heading up Meta's AI efforts is Yann LeCun, who is a very well-respected Silicon Valley guru in AI. He has won the Turing Award, which is the nerd trophy for AI engineers. But LeCun famously does not think that artificial general intelligence is something that is on the immediate horizon. He's not a big chatbot proponent. He sees the value in large language models, but that's not where his interests are. And I think that if you're going to go full into, OK, what is the next thing? Then you need new blood. You need people who are true believers in this next phase, which, of course, is being defined by the term superintelligence. Lauren Goode: Superintelligence. Michael Calore: Let's take a break and then we'll come back and find out what that means. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley . Before the break, we were mentioning that a key aspect of this deal between Meta and Scale AI, beyond all the big bucks involved, is the creation of a superintelligence AI lab. So question for the group, what the hell is superintelligence? Katie Drummond: Lauren? Lauren Goode: Oh, no. Well, it basically refers to developing an AI that goes beyond the human brain. It's a little bit unclear exactly what that means. For the past couple of years we've been hearing about AGI, which is artificial general intelligence, now we're talking about superintelligence. My understanding is, based on talking to researchers and technologists about this, is that it's not a flip the switch moment, it's not like there's going to be a specific model or some product release where all of a sudden we say, "Oh, we're living in AGI," And, "Oh, the next step is superintelligence." It's all sort of happening on a continuum. But the idea is that it is having something that is as smart as a human being or the human brain in your pocket on your phone, which is just crazy. It's not going to be sentient, it's not going to feel emotions, but it's going to do such a good job of replicating all of that that you're going to feel kind of blown away by it. And maybe that's bad news for us humans, I don't really know. We do know that the term superintelligence was popularized by the Oxford philosopher, Nick Bostrom, who, in 2014, wrote a book on superintelligence. And he broke down a future where AI would advance to a point where it could turn against and delete humanity. And now, of course, it's being used by Mark Zuckerberg. So metaverse, superintelligence, I think we have a sense at this point of what's on Mark Zuckerberg's bookshelf. Katie Drummond: And I mean, I think that whole question of sort of, what is AGI? What is superintelligence? I mean, so much of this is just branding. This is marketing that the AI industry is using to evoke a sense of, I think, sort of intimidation and fear and awe and respect and deference on the part of the general public, of policymakers, lawmakers. I mean, they want this thing to feel like this next era is right around the corner and we need to get ready now. And if we're not ready before China's ready, it's just going to be catastrophic because it's AGI. It's like, but what actually is that? And I think Meta is doing something super interesting and sort of cynical here, in my view, which is by positioning this new lab as superintelligence, they're essentially saying, "AGI? AGI is so last year. We're not even thinking about AGI. We're just jumping all the way to superintelligence." I mean, this is marketing through and through. I'm not saying that this technology isn't evolving, that it won't drastically improve over time, that we won't see, and we already do see, AI that's capable of doing things that people can do. We see that all the time. There are plenty and plenty and plenty of examples of that. But I think that these terms are being used in a very squishy, opportunistic way for industry leaders and executives to sound and to make their technology sound as impressive and as valuable and as intimidating as possible. That's what I think. Michael Calore: It is good marketing for recruiters too. If you're a person who's a professional in the AI industry, you're already pretty well paid, you feel like you're working on the next big thing because you're working on AGI somewhere, and then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, but wouldn't you rather be working on superintelligence? Lauren Goode: Yeah. Yes. Michael Calore: So who else is working on superintelligence? Are there other AGI companies that are like, "OK, no, wait, now we're doing that too." Are there people who have been working on superintelligence for a little while? Lauren Goode: It depends on which AI visionary you're listening to. Sam Altman from OpenAI still seems pretty focused on AGI. He has said that he thinks it will be reached before the end of Trump's current presidential term. Dario Amadei from Anthropic has said that he thought AGI would happen in the next two years. So those are kind of still the AGI guys. On the other hand, you have Ilya Sutskever, who was the former chief scientist at OpenAI. He's cofounded a company called Safe Superintelligence, and they have a different approach. They are privately building superintelligence, and they say they will only release this technology to the world when it is deemed safe. So I think they're all kind of working towards the same thing, but superintelligence is the latest buzzword. Katie Drummond: I love that they're going to be in hiding for many years. Michael Calore: Yes. Katie Drummond: I can't wait to see them crawl out of their bunker with their safe AI. Michael Calore: Yeah, they're keeping it chained in the basement. Katie Drummond: It is worth noting, Ilya aside, not all AI leaders are into the superintelligence hype. So these are people who have historically kept a lower profile, but more of them have actually started to speak up recently, which I think is notable. So Thomas Wolf is one example. He's Hugging Faces' cofounder and chief science officer. He called some parts of Amadei's Vision, "wishful thinking at best". That would be the vision of AGI. And Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, has reportedly told his staff that in his opinion, the industry could be up to a decade away from developing AGI, noting that there is a lot that AI simply can't do today. So again, that's skepticism around AGI. We're not even talking about superintelligence. So God knows when that's going to be ready. I guess when Ilya lets us know. Michael Calore: Let's talk about all of the people involved here. You really need all the top talent in order to really compete if you're going to build anything regardless of what you're calling it. And in this investment that Meta made with Scale AI, they get Alexandr Wang, comes to the company, he's bringing key people with him from Scale to work with him at Meta in the superintelligence lab. And this is happening at a time when AI talent is in super high demand with all the leading engineers being offered millions and tens of millions of dollars a year to work at the big companies. And apparently Meta has been offering up to nine figure compensation packages to get people to come work in the superintelligence lab. Katie Drummond: Hold on. Can you just articulate nine figures? So that's not hundreds of thousands, it's not millions, it's not tens of millions, it's hundreds of millions? Michael Calore: It is over $100 million. Lauren Goode: What? Michael Calore: Yes. Katie Drummond: I mean, I'm speechless. I knew about the seven and eight figures, which is also just jaw dropping, but nine figures is unreal. That is unreal money. Lauren Goode: I'm literally like, I got to read about this now. What? That is so crazy. I'm going to revise what I said earlier where I said, "Oh, the companies trying to level up in AI right now are looking at compute power and they're looking at data." They're also looking at talent. That is a huge, huge part of this. I'm still speechless that this is how much money these folks are getting offered, but I guess that's what Meta feels that it needs to do. I wonder how this is going to be reflected on its next earnings statement. We also saw that earlier this week, a longtime machine learning engineer and research scientist at OpenAI just got moved into a new position as the head of recruiting at OpenAI, which is fascinating. I mean, really, the initial reaction is kind of like, huh, that's an interesting career change. But then you think about, oh, this guy is going to talk the talk. He now has to go out and recruit top, top talent for OpenAI, continually recruit the top talent for OpenAI, and they now need to compete with Meta offering millions, bajillions of dollars to engineers. So there is indeed, I think, a race for talent happening right now. Sequoia Capital investor, David Kahn, just wrote a blog post about this that I was reading where he did say that talent is the new bottleneck in AI, and he likened it to basically building a sports team. They're all backed by some mega rich tech company or individual, the star players can command these crazy pay packages in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. Unlike sports teams though, where players often have long-term contracts, AI employment agreements can be short-term and liquid, which means that anyone can be poached at any time. Katie Drummond: It's fascinating, it's grotesque. I want to know everything about how much these people are being paid. I want to know everything. And for Meta, it will be interesting to see how much money it takes for them to get top talent. I mean, money matters. If someone offered me a hundred million dollars to work for someone that I wasn't so excited about at a company that I thought had a so-so track record overall and a pretty poor one around AI, I mean, a hundred million dollars moves the needle. And it will be very interesting to see whether the Anthropics and OpenAIs and Googles of the world can compete. I mean, we know that Zuckerberg is doing a lot of this recruiting himself. He's personally reaching out to candidates. I wonder, and we will find out, whether that is to the company's benefit or not. Lauren Goode: I mean, independent of how you might feel about Mark Zuckerberg too, Meta is just … It's been around for a while at this point. It's a twenty-year-old company. It's publicly traded. You'd probably get some really nice equity package on top of that too. But when you join a rocket ship like an OpenAI, you're joining because you think that if you get in early enough … At this point, it's not even that early, but that at some point you're going to become a multi, multi, multi-millionaire if that company either accelerates or it sells or something like that. And then that creates the flywheel effect that we always see in Silicon Valley, right? Early Google employees who left and went and started other things. We're going to see this wave eventually of OpenAI folks who leave and start other things. But if you're getting a comparable offer from OpenAI, or Meta at this point, which one are you going to go to when you're thinking about, really, the future? Michael Calore: And I mean, there are a lot of people who won't take that money. I mean, if you think about the type of people who are commanding these super high salaries, they have been paid very, very well for a number of years, maybe their company was acquired and they had a big payout from that, so now they're sitting comfortably in a position at Anthropic or at OpenAI. And also the project that they're working on is something that matches their skills and maybe they want to see it through. So there's a bit of ego involved, there's a bit of life decision involved, and there's ethics involved, like, do you actually want to go work for Meta? Do you want to go build this thing that they're building? Especially after they made the announcement that they're going to start allowing their technologies to be used by the Department of Defense and they're going to start doing war stuff with the AI tools that they're building and the XR tools that they're building. So yeah, I think there's a lot of people who are just sitting pretty right now and they have to decide whether or not that money is worth it to them as people. Lauren Goode: Do you guys ever spend time on the app Blind? Michael Calore: No. This is the one where people talk about what it's like to work at a company? Lauren Goode: It is about working for a company because you have to affiliate yourself with a company when you sign up for the app, but it's all topics. And oftentimes it's people coming to the group with a compensation package and saying, I got offered this from Meta or Amazon and what should I do? And you just realize how distant this world is sometimes from the way the rest of the world or the rest of the country lives. People who are like, "Well, I don't know. Should I take this $700,000 package from Amazon? And that's without stock equity, benefits, or should I take this other comparable package from a similar company, but they're going to allow me to work from home? And I don't know though because I'm 40 and I only have 10 million in retirement." I'm like, oh my God, that is the world we're talking about. Michael Calore: Yeah. Katie Drummond: We need to do more reporting on this. I think that the compensation of people in Silicon Valley is fascinating. Lauren Goode: Well, if anyone would like to weigh in, if you're a recruiter, if you're a person who's been made one of these offers from the Meta superintelligence lab, we want to hear from you. Michael Calore: Big money. Katie Drummond: We sure do. Lauren Goode: Our signals are out there. Michael Calore: Big money, no whammies. Lauren Goode: Now we know what Katie would leave us for to go work for Mark Zuckerberg. Katie Drummond: A hundred million dollars is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Lauren Goode: It's a lot of money. Katie Drummond: That would be tough for me. I don't think I could do it. Lauren Goode: Yep. If you invest it, well, it'd be a lot of money for your kids' kids' kids. Katie Drummond: I know, but then I'd have to tell my kid what I do, and I don't know that I could do that. I'm being totally honest. I don't think I could do it. Let me be clear, there are a lot of fantastic people who work at Meta. I mean, this is not a repudiation of anyone's decisions or career choices or where they have chosen to work, given my background and what I do for a living, yeah, I don't know. I don't think I could do that. Michael Calore: You get to be part of the superintelligence revolution. Katie Drummond: I don't want to. Michael Calore: Maybe just use the chatbot and then you can feel like you're a part of it. Katie Drummond: Yeah, there you go. I have some pressing and highly personal questions for Meta's chatbot, and as soon as we get off this recording, I'm going to go ask all of them in private. Michael Calore: I look forward to reading them on the [inaudible 00:30:11]. Lauren Goode: Katie's like, how do I extract myself from a work project that has me locked in a room for two hours every week? Katie Drummond: Oh dear. Michael Calore: OK, let's take another break and we'll come right back with recommendations. All right, thank you both for a great conversation about superintelligence. So I think it's time to give our listeners something from our own superintelligent human brains, our recommendations for the week. Lauren, would you like to go first? Lauren Goode: Sure. I recently learned that by using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, you can get your color analysis done. Have either of you ever done this? Michael Calore: No. Katie Drummond: No. Lauren Goode: So this is a thing that is part of the beauty influencer world online where typically you would pay someone, sometimes a human, sometimes an app that has human input, to analyze the color of your hair, skin, eyes, skin tone, all that, and tell you what season you are and then tell you what clothing you should wear in a way that accentuates your whole situation. Katie Drummond: Did you find this revelatory? Lauren Goode: Yeah. So recently when I was hanging out with some friends, one of them had had her color analysis done and we were talking about it and she said, "Oh, you can just do it on ChatGPT." And I was like, "What? You don't have to pay someone a couple hundred dollars to do this?" So she uploaded our photos into ChatGPT and I got a color analysis done. And so I'm a deep autumn, in case anyone wants to know. Michael Calore: It's a burning question. Lauren Goode: That was the burning question. I thought maybe I was a winter, but I'm a deep autumn. And so I think to date, this is the most interesting use case of ChatGPT I've experienced so far. Michael Calore: Ever, of all … Lauren Goode: No, that's not true. Michael Calore: Of all your experiences. Lauren Goode: That's not true. The other day it told me how to cook salini mushrooms instead of cremini mushrooms. I'm quite certain salini mushrooms don't exist. So it was helpful in that regard too. Katie Drummond: Yikes. Lauren Goode: But no, I've used it for other things too. I've used it for research and reasoning and fun things like that. Michael Calore: That's pretty good. Lauren Goode: So maybe later, actually, I'm going to upload photos of you both to ChatGPT and ask it to do your color analysis. Michael Calore: I do not consent. Lauren Goode: And then I'll tell you … OK. What color you should be wearing. Both of you are wearing all black right now. Katie Drummond: As usual. Michael Calore: Yeah, I was going to say. I call those days weekdays. Lauren Goode: Anarchists in the room. I love this. OK, that's it. That's my recommendation. Katie Drummond: I was thinking about what to recommend and it was either going to be a book, a kid's movie or food, and I was like, no, girl, you've done all of those already. You have to think of something else. I have an AI-related recommendation actually, which is, I had someone come recently to help me out with my outdoor plants, like our little backyard area in Brooklyn, and I was telling him that all of my indoor plants are dying and struggling, and I was just so confused. I was like, which window should this one go in? And what … Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How often do I water all of these things? I have many plants. And he recommended this app called Picture This. And you take photos of all your plants and you upload the photos into the app, it tells you what kind of plant it is, it tells you how often to water it. You can use your phone to show the app how much sun is coming in through the window, and it'll tell you if that's enough sun, too much sun, not enough sun. Oh, and you can take a photo of the plant and it'll tell you if it's sick and what it is struggling with, which is very upsetting, but very helpful. I have many struggling plants. But it's very, very cool. It's definitely highly judgmental. I get push notifications now saying, "Don't you want to take care of your plants?" And I'm like, well, I do, but I also have a job. It's a very, very interesting product, and if you have plants, I highly recommend it. Lauren Goode: Picture this. Katie Drummond: Picture this. Healthy plants, healthy you. Superintelligence, picture this. Lauren Goode: Mike, what's your recommendation? Michael Calore: I think given the current geopolitical state of the world, it is time to re-watch Dr. Strangelove , the 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb . It's about escalating political tensions based on a misunderstanding that leads to nuclear war. It's a farce. It's very funny. It's also very dry, but it's a great movie. I re-watch it about once a year, unfortunately. I'm usually compelled by current events to watch it. So I would say it is a good time to watch Dr. Strangelove . And I'm not saying the world is going to end, but whenever we start talking about nuclear power and we start talking about the people in the world who have their fingers on the button, it is important to remind ourselves that these are human decisions that people make about our future, and it's a great movie to help you process that information. Katie Drummond: Wow. Lauren Goode: So Katie's watering her plants and I'm cutting bangs and you are watching movies about the end of the world. I see who among us is really diving in and who's … Michael Calore: So a lot of people ignore the void. A lot of people acknowledge it. I'm one of those people who puts my face right up against the glass and just scares at it. Katie Drummond: That's just like my husband. Not to make it all about him, but … I feel like I cover the void. I do the void for my job. Every day, I'm in the void. So when I'm out of the work void, I want to go into la la land. And so last night I was telling people in Slack today, my husband was texting me links to used motorboats because he was like the safest place for us to be during a nuclear attack is in the middle of a body of water. Lauren Goode: Good lord. Katie Drummond: And I was like, and what exactly do you think we're going to be doing in this little motorboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York City? I think if it comes down to motorboat or death, we are probably going to die. Lauren Goode: Yeah, yeah. Katie Drummond: Just saying. Lauren Goode: That was before bed, like before you were supposed to go to sleep? Katie Drummond: Right as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep and the thing is like ping, ping, links to used boats. Lauren Goode: I mean, I think we're all sort of void adjacent these days, so you can't really ignore it. Katie Drummond: You can't ignore it, but it's a choice to lean into it in your personal time, I will say. Michael Calore: I would say that if you're going to do that exercise, there are fewer people who it's more delightful to do it with than Peter Sellers and George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden and Stanley Kubrick. It's a great movie, so stream it tonight. Katie Drummond: We'll link to it in the show notes. Michael Calore: Thanks for listening to Uncanny Valley . If you liked what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you'd like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at uncannyvalley@ Today's show is produced by Kyana Moghadam and Adriana Tapia. Amar Lal at Macrosound mixed this episode. Jake Lummus was our New York studio engineer. Daniel Roman fact-checked this episode. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director, and Chris Bannon is the head of global audio.
WIRED
09-06-2025
- Politics
- WIRED
Why Silicon Valley Needs Immigration
A general view of the UC Berkeley campus, including Sather Tower, also known as The Campanile, as seen from Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Photograph:All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Expanded deportations, a virtually shutdown asylum process, increased scrutiny of H1-B visa applicants—immigration policy has been overhauled under the latest Trump administration. And, just last week the Trump administration said it would begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students who are currently studying at U.S. schools. On today's episode, we dive into the impacts that these changes could have on the tech industry from the talent pipeline to future innovations. Articles mentioned in this episode: The Trump Administration Wants to Create an 'Office of Remigration' by David Gilbert US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer by Lauren Goode You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and Katie Drummond on Bluesky at @katie-drummond. Write to us at uncannyvalley@ How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for 'uncanny valley.' We're on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Michael Calore: A quick note before we begin today. We recorded this episode before the Trump administration's travel ban on citizens from 12 countries from entering the United States and before its proclamation to suspend all new student visas for students enrolling at Harvard University. Although we will get to student visas quite a bit in this episode. How's everybody doing this week? Lauren Goode: I'm good. I just got back from Katie's motherland, Canada. Michael Calore: Oh. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Katie Drummond: Lauren and I were in Vancouver together. Lauren Goode: We were. Katie Drummond: Although I saw her for probably 15 minutes in the span of like five days. I'm doing okay. I also, as we just established, was in Vancouver with Lauren at Web Summit. I took a red-eye home on Thursday night and it was three hours late and so that was a lot. Michael Calore: Yikes. Katie Drummond: And then Lauren, right before we started recording just told me that I have a bobble head, so I'm just grappling with that feedback. Lauren Goode: I did not say bobblehead, I said you had celebrity energy because your head presents well on camera. I don't know. Mike, how are you doing? Katie Drummond: Yeah, how are you doing, Mike? Michael Calore: I'm staying out of this one. Also, I have a gigantic head. I can tell you that I wear a size eight fitted cap, which is the largest size that they make. Katie Drummond: Do you want to know what size I wear? Michael Calore: Yes. Katie Drummond: I have to shop at a specialty hat store. Because my head actually doesn't... I can't wear. Lauren Goode: What is this store called? Katie Drummond: I can't wear normal hats. Lauren Goode: Is it called Bobblehats? Katie Drummond: No, I'm going to look it up. It's from Oddjob Hats. The last hat I bought was called Big Running Hat. Just Big Running Hats. Lauren Goode: Do you also have one called Big Walking Hats? Katie Drummond: Probably. Probably. Lauren Goode: Oh. Michael Calore: Oh, it's too much. Lauren Goode: All right. Michael Calore: Should we get into it? Katie Drummond: Let's do it. Lauren Goode: Let's do it. Michael Calore: This is WIRED's Uncanny Valley , a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Today we're going to be talking about the Trump administration's policies around immigration and the effect that those policies are poised to have on the tech industry. Since day one of the current administration immigration policy has been overhauled, the asylum process was virtually shut down, the obscure Aliens Enemy Act was invoked to deport hundreds of people, and birthright citizenship is being challenged in the US Supreme Court. Visas have been under increased scrutiny. WIRED recently reported how the H-1B visa application process is becoming more hostile, and last week the administration said it would begin revoking the student visas of some Chinese students who are currently studying at US schools. So today we're going to dive into the impacts that these changes could have on the tech industry from the talent pipeline to future innovations. I'm Michael Calore, director of Consumer Tech and Culture here at WIRED. Lauren Goode: I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior correspondent at WIRED. Katie Drummond: And I'm Katie Drummond, WIRED's global editorial director. Michael Calore: I want to start us off by focusing on how the Trump administration has been handling student visas. Just last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the administration would start to, "Aggressively" revoke visas for Chinese students. The State Department said it would focus on students from critical fields and those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, but also that it would just generally enhance the scrutiny across the board. The vagueness of these guidelines has sent students, parents and universities into an emotional tailspin. What do we make of these latest developments? Lauren Goode: So there were actually two directives that went out last week and I'm sure we're going to hear more, but I think they're both worth noting. The first was that a directive was sent to US embassies around the world telling them to pause any new interviews for student and visitor visas, and that included the F, M and J visas, until further notice. And this whole idea was that it was in preparation for an expansion of social media screening and vetting. So basically the State Department is going to be looking much more closely at students' online activity, social media activity, and consider that as a part of their interview process when they're applying for a visa to the US. That was already a part of the application process, but now it's just going to be expanded. We don't really know what that means. The other was the revoking of visas for Chinese students as you mentioned, Mike. And really I think what this does is it adds another tool to this current Cold War of sorts that we're having with China, whether it's with the tariffs or whether it's measures like these, it's clear that the current administration wants to have the upper hand. And what we've reported at WIRED is that if this continues and the courts allow it, this would all have a significant effect on higher education because roughly a quarter of the international student population in the US is from China. And also, this is something I think a lot of people don't realize, I personally didn't realize until I started doing more research into this, international students often pay full tuition or close to it when they come here into the United States for school, which makes it an economic lifeline for a lot of these universities and also in some ways helps offset the costs for domestic students, US students who are getting scholarships or getting partial reduction in tuition and that sort of thing. I do think in general it's dangerous territory to start targeting students under a specific nationality for these alleged national security reasons. There are going to be questions about how effective it is longterm, but also how this could potentially weaken the US technology sector in the longterm. Katie Drummond: Yeah. And I think, Lauren, you're right to point out these two directives and I think that both got a fair bit of press attention, but I was surprised that the first announcement, this idea that we are going to be doing enhanced social media screening and vetting of international students and people applying for visas to come to the United States, the fact that that was not an international outrage when that was announced is very telling to me in terms of how much is happening in the news in the United States every single day because that is a very chilling announcement to be coming from the Secretary of State in this country. It is a massive free speech issue and really speaks I think to what will be an ongoing theme for WIRED and unfortunately already is, which is just the techno-authoritarian world, country that we now live in where these tools are essentially being weaponized to surveil and monitor not only US citizens, but people who proactively want to live and work and study here, that if you dare have an opinion that is contrary to the opinion of the Trump administration, that you could potentially have your visa revoked or not even be able to qualify for a visa. I think it's also important to note that everything that Lauren just spelled out and that we're talking about is part of this much larger conflict that's been unfolding between the Trump administration and higher education. So you have this Ivy League battle playing out between Trump and Columbia, Trump and Harvard. A lot of that obviously having to do with free speech issues and the Trump administration, again, essentially looking for institutions of higher education to adopt their viewpoint as opposed to being places where a plurality of points of view can be discussed and debated and held. There was already an attempt made to block Harvard from enrolling international students. A federal judge has blocked that for now, but we will have to see where it nets out. And I think regardless of where that one legal decision nets out there is, for so many reasons, this chilling effect where the United States is all of a sudden no longer a desirable destination for students, both at an undergraduate level and a graduate level. You have not only the Trump administration basically going to war with the best colleges in the country, you have them going to war with the actual student visa process, and then you have them going to war with research and science and even blocking already billions of dollars of research funding that is earmarked ostensibly for these institutions and now means that these institutions are much less attractive destinations. So it's not like, oh, a judge reverses a couple of decisions or one decision or blocks one thing from happening and all of a sudden we're in the clear again, this is already very clearly becoming a systemic and longterm crisis for the United States. Michael Calore: And this choking off of talent coming into research institutions and into jobs in the United States is also happening at a moment when China and the US are currently involved in an AI arms race. In January, the Chinese AI company DeepSeek showed off a reasoning model that is demonstrably and seemingly just as powerful as ChatGPT, but was developed for a fraction of the cost. So the US definitely needs to keep bringing in top AI talent, but how are these restrictions on student visas going to potentially shape the growth of the AI industry in the US? Lauren Goode: Yeah, this is something that when the news started to trickle out last week, we at WIRED were thinking, "Okay, this is really in our wheelhouse." We cover AI so closely, we have for years, and automatically the question is what does this mean for the AI race? We ended up reporting a story last week, it was myself, a few other WIRED folks, Kate, Louise, and Will, and some of the sources that we spoke to were pointing out the contradiction that exists here in the White House saying that AI is one of its top priorities and then trying to send the people who are doing this kind of research, this critical research for us here in the United States, home back to their home countries, or not letting them into the first place. And it's some US colleges, I would say probably a fair number of them, international students do make up the majority of doctoral students in departments like computer science. One of our colleagues, Kate Knibbs, talked to someone at the University of Chicago who said that foreign nationals accounted for 57% of newly enrolled computer science Ph.D. students last year. We know that immigrants have founded or co-founded nearly two thirds of the top AI companies in the United States. That's according to a 2023 analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy. And this is something that's been going on for a long time. I had this interesting conversation with a well-known economist last week. His name is William Lazonick. I was asking him his thoughts on this crackdown on student visas, and he made an important observation, which is that foreign students pursuing those STEM careers have actually been critical to the very existence of graduate programs in those fields. And some of this is cultural. Back in the 1980s, there was this big shift that was happening in the US around money basically. It was the era of Reaganomics and great is good, and American students were gravitating towards careers in finance. At the same time, Lazonick said, there were significant advancements happening in microelectronics and computing and biopharmaceuticals, and that opened the window for foreign students to say, "We're going to study stem." So what we are potentially on the brink of right now by thwarting or revoking these visas for foreigners could literally affect the outcome of American technology and science development for the next several decades. Katie Drummond: And particularly at a moment where, as you said, we're in this Cold War with China, we're in this AI arms race. You hear it from the administration, you read about it in WIRED, you hear about it from Sam Altman, other leaders of the AI industry, this like, "We must beat China. We must beat China." And then stuff like this happens and you feel like, "Let's just hand it to them. Let's just give it to them." Because we are basically doing that by disincentivizing not only Chinese students, but just brilliant people from all around the world, from coming here, bringing their intellect here, bringing their ideas here. We're basically telling them, "Go somewhere else. Maybe go to China." And something I did find fascinating in that reporting, Lauren, was that the vast majority of PhD students from China and India actually typically intend to stay in the US after they graduate. While the majority of people from other countries, places like Switzerland and Canada, report actually planning to leave, maybe they want to go back to their home country, maybe they want to go somewhere else, but it's rejecting the people who are most committed to staying here and to contributing to new technology in the United States is a certain kind of choice. And so other countries are already trying to take advantage of that. Hong Kong is already trying to attract Harvard students. The UK is setting up scholarships. There's a lot going on outside the United States in terms of basically trying to make the brain drain happen for us. Our loss is all of their gain. But when you put it in the context of this AI race and the US and China of it all, it feels like what we are doing is distinctly disadvantageous for us in this moment. Unless you both disagree and think I'm missing something. Lauren Goode: No, we always say on this podcast, it would be nice if we vehemently disagreed with each other because it would create tension. But I think in this case, we are all aligned on this. Michael Calore: Yeah. This scrutiny over foreign nationals, it doesn't just end at academia, of course. It also extends into the workforce here in the US and work visas. Lauren, you recently reported on how the process to obtain an H-1B visa has become more difficult recently. Can you tell us a little bit about what H-1B visas are and why they matter so much to the tech industry in particular? Lauren Goode: Sure, yeah. So H-1B visas are work visas that are granted for specialty occupations. They're typically valid for three years. They can be extended in some cases. This type of visa was first introduced in 1990 as part of a broader immigration act. And the idea is that it's supposed to help employers hire people with specialty skills that they might not otherwise get from the talent pool that already exists in the US. And the H-1B is a bit of a controversial visa. Even just saying, so you can hire people outside of the US because there are people who don't have that skillset here, naturally prompts the question for some people, "Wait, why are we not educating and training people in the US to have those jobs?" But basically what I was starting to hear from immigration attorneys who I was speaking to is that the requests for evidence, RFEs, had shot up since Trump took office in January of this year. Typically, when a person is applying or petitioning for an H-1B, their lawyer submits a bunch of paperwork on their behalf and that typically will include resumes, awards, letters of prestige, letters of recommendation from colleagues and friends and that sort of thing. You basically have to put together this packet to prove that you're worthy of this specialty visa. And then sometimes it would get bounced back and USCIS would ask for more requests for evidence. In this case, a lot of visa applications are being sent back. There are a lot more RFEs or requests for evidence for applicants. And that's something that four different immigration attorneys I spoke to said they're seeing happening. It's also not just happening across H-1B. There's another type of visa called the O-1 Extraordinary Ability visas. Once again, this is a specialty visa. A lot of tech entrepreneurs, engineers, and founders alike will come here under the O-1 visa and folks in that world are starting to say that they're getting pushback on their applications as well. All of this, it's instilling fear amongst some entrepreneurs and tech workers in the Valley, and it's creating a climate of uncertainty where people who seemed so committed and excited to come here and build their companies here and contribute to the technological environment here are now rethinking that because of what's going on with visa applications. Katie Drummond: Ugh. That is so bleak. 66% of people working in tech in Silicon Valley are born outside of the US. That is just an astonishing number to think about that being at risk. Lauren Goode: Yep. We're talking about the rank and file in a sense, but also just look at some of the CEOs- Katie Drummond: Yeah, look at the leadership. Lauren Goode: Of the companies we're talking about. Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, and I think the most... Should we talk about the most obvious one? Katie Drummond: I was going to say, just look at Elon Musk. Lauren Goode: Yes. Katie Drummond: What an international success story he is. Lauren Goode: Yes. Katie Drummond: What a success he has been for the United States of America. I will say, the H-1B visa program is not perfect. It's certainly been criticized for not being a fair system or a fair lottery, but despite the fact that this is an imperfect system, none of this actually feels like an approach to fix any of these problems or challenges, it's more just creating extra adversity and uncertainty around a process that's already very lengthy and very expensive. Michael Calore: So these challenges to the visa application have ramped up recently, but we're already seeing the effects of this, right? Lauren Goode: Yeah, this is something that's harder to quantify right now because these visa policies are just getting put in place. Everything's just changing. But I think we can qualify it by saying that the folks that we're talking to in Silicon Valley who are either here on a visa or they were hoping to stay on an extended visa or they were thinking of maybe coming here and we're working with attorneys to get that process started are now just reconsidering everything. You're already throwing yourself into a pretty uncertain world when you decide to launch a startup. You're choosing hard mode for yourself when you do that. So now throwing this uncertainty into the mix and thinking like, "Am I actually still going to be able to be here in three years if that's how long it takes me to actually make a product or build up a profitable business or raise my next funding round or something?" And if you can't see beyond that, I don't see how you realistically say like, "Oh, the US seems like a good bet right now." Katie Drummond: It just underscores how systemic and long-lasting this is going to be. Even if this were six months of bad federal policy and somehow the administration wakes up overnight and flips a switch and we see a lot of this pressure and additional scrutiny and adversity around immigration, around H-1B visas ease, there has already been so much damage done. We are going to feel this in this country for such a long time. Michael Calore: One of the thing about immigration policy that we have to talk about is something that our colleague David Gilbert has reported on for WIRED, and that is, as part of a reorganization of the State Department, the Trump administration is creating an office of remigration. And in very simple terms, remigration is an immigration policy embraced by extremists that calls for the removal of migrants including non-assimilated citizens. What do we make of this? Katie Drummond: So I talked a little bit earlier about being surprised that Marco Rubio announcing that enhanced social media scrutiny. I was surprised that that wasn't more of an outrage, that didn't get more coverage. This is even more extreme in that context, and it is a truly shocking development in this administration's war on anyone who is not a white American. That is basically what this is. I was shocked when I read this story last week and realized that this should be front page news for every news organization in the United States, and somehow it just wasn't. Lauren Goode: So the whole idea behind this is that they want to create a white ethnostate in this part of the world. Katie Drummond: That is our understanding of it, yeah. There is a long history to the idea of remigration and it really comes together through the lens of mega, it was present in the administration's first term as well. You had the Muslim ban, you had this idea of building a border wall, and I think what's so different this time from 2016, there's a lot that's different this time, I think big picture as we have seen, what's different is that this time the administration really means business. They're buttoned up, they're here to get the job done. And so it's the speed and the intensity at which these ideas, this very racist idea of remigration is going from just being something that's done in a scattershot way that is now showing up as a tactical specific policy proposal that is being released in official government documents. It's just a very different kind of approach and it feels much more real. It is much more real. And it's happening so quickly and amid I think so much other news that people are just not seeing that it's happening, and that's really scary. Lauren Goode: And what happens too I think is that there are all different kinds of immigration policies we're talking about here and if you're not paying close attention you might conflate them. There's a difference between the asylum process being shut down and the Aliens Enemy Act being overhauled with what may be going on with student and foreign visitor visas, Extraordinary Ability visas, which is different from what's being proposed with this remigration document. And a lot of it is happening under the guise of, "This is better for national security." There are of course going to be some instances in which that is true. For example, Stanford Review reported, I think it was a few weeks ago now, that they'd become aware of Chinese nationals actually trying to spy on Stanford University and its students. They'd purported to be other students. This sort of thing does happen, there are nations that are our adversaries that want to get information from the United States and wield it in nefarious ways, but for the most part, the Trump administration is putting immigrants in this giant bucket and creating this world in which they're all a threat to the United States. And that is absolutely not the case. Michael Calore: Yeah, these policies are going to obviously shape the culture of this country and they're going to shape the business that is done in this country. But of course, they are absolutely going to shape the technology industry. So let's take a break and when we come right back, we'll talk about the effects that these policies will have on tech. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley . We've been talking about the Trump administration's immigration policies and how they could shape the future of tech development in the us, and I'm curious to know how tech companies and workers have been reacting to these measures so far. Lauren Goode: I would say the number one thing I've heard directly from folks is that they are scaling back on their travel to conferences, whether they're academics or tech workers. And that may have a little bit more to do with what has been going on in some intermittent cases at the border, of people getting detained at the border. But also people are thinking about the status of their visa right now and whether they're an American citizen or they're here on a visa. Tech conferences and academic conferences are just a part of this world. Katie and I were just at one in Vancouver. And so if you have concerns about being let back into the United States after traveling, you may decline to go to one. And the same goes for universities. I think Brown University urged its international staff and students to postpone any plans to travel outside of the US out of an abundance of caution. Katie Drummond: It's interesting to think about the flip side of that because for most of the tech industry and the human beings who work in that industry, this is a very scary thing. It's affecting how they do their jobs, it's affecting whether or not they travel. And then you have the flip side of it, which is where there are certain parts of the tech industry who are really benefiting from these new policies. And I think Palantir is probably the best example of that. So Palantir is the brainchild of Peter Thiel, obviously a mega donor to the GOP party. And Palantir is really making it rain with the Trump administration, and they are benefiting tremendously from these policies and from DOGE efforts and administration efforts to centralize and unify data about American citizens and about immigrants to the administration. God knows what you could use all of that information for once it's centralized. Palantir recently won a $30 million no-bid contract to build ImmigrationOS, which essentially provides real-time data about the whereabouts of migrants and about deportations. Palantir obviously has worked with the US government for a very long time. They've had a contract with ICE since 2011, so that's almost 15 years ago. But we are really seeing the surveillance state that Palantir helps support grow exponentially and grow very quickly as a result of the administration's aims around immigration for one thing, but also just their aims to basically stand up and run an authoritarian state that would impact not only immigrants but US citizens as well. Michael Calore: So some tech companies are obviously seeing a paycheck opportunity in these immigration policies, but we can't say that the tech industry is operating as any kind of block, like they're not lockstep ideologically aligned with the immigration policies. And a lot of key tech leaders have been outspoken about the fact that they're not too happy with these policies, right? Lauren Goode: Yeah. It's honestly a little bit confusing. Someone like Elon Musk has in the past been in support of the H-1B. He employs more than 1,000 people on that type of visa. He even used it himself in his early years in the US, and he has in the past tweeted in support of immigrants being in Silicon Valley and contributing to the economy here. More recently though, he has called for a reform on it, and he's not alone in that. Same with Marc Andreessen, obviously one of the most vocal people, influential people in Silicon Valley. Surprisingly, they've got some interesting bedfellows. The Democrat Ro Khanna of California, Vermont's Bernie Sanders, they're also calling for a reform of the H-1B program. It goes back to what Katie was saying earlier, that there have been some critiques of H-1B. There's been a lot of backlash to the program, and it's hard to know sometimes whether it's coming from this kind of vitriolic or potentially racist place around how people feel about immigrants versus, "No, I'm actually in support of this because it's good for the US economy and the tech industry, but the process is broken." Katie Drummond: To me right now what we're looking at in the year 2025 is just part of this larger trend of tech leaders staying silent or muting their criticism or maybe posting something on X, but largely staying silent when it comes to politics, when it comes to political issues, at least publicly. We don't know what's happening behind the scenes, what kinds of lobbying efforts are going into trying to sway the administration one way or another when it comes to H-1B visas, when it comes to the importance of brilliant people from around the world being able to study and work in the United States and in the tech industry. But publicly for sure, we are not seeing that really robust resistance on the part of the tech industry. And that is certainly strategic because these guys know that this time the administration means business, they need to play ball, they need to work with this administration. And so we can only hope that behind the scenes there are more vigorous discussions happening than what we're seeing play out publicly. Michael Calore: It's distressing to me that the disconnect is so loud here because we really have to underscore how important of a positive role immigration has played in the growth of the tech industry. And in Silicon Valley in particular, like Lauren you were talking about earlier, some of the largest companies like Google and Microsoft have all had either founders or co-founders or CEOs who are first or second-generation immigrants. And if you look at a list right now of the country's current startups that are worth more than a billion dollars, more than half of them have an immigrant founder. Yeah. So the longterm stakes of keeping talented researchers and engineers and businesspeople out of the country seem deeply, deeply consequential. Lauren Goode: It's also just not a zero-sum game. If the tech industry continues to grow, presumably there would be enough room for having high-skilled American workers and high-skilled foreign nationals working together. Michael Calore: As it always has been. Okay, let's take another break and we'll come right back with recommendations. Thank you both for a great conversation. We are going to shift gears and talk about something completely different, which is our own personal desires and loves. We're going to do recommendations. Who wants to go first? Katie Drummond: My recommendations. It's been a busy time, so I feel like I'm a little bit limited on hobby activities, but a book I just finished that I do recommend, Barry Diller's memoir. If you're not familiar with Barry Diller, I believe he is now the chairman of IAC. But a long-time executive, invented the modern-day Hollywood approach to movie-making. It was great, so I highly recommend that. But my other recommendation is that last night I was thinking about what to have for dinner, and I made an omelet, and I haven't had an omelet in a while. The omelet had a red pepper, it had spinach, and it had shredded cheese, and it was just a really nice reminder if you're thinking about what to have for dinner tonight, a nice omelet, some toast with french butter, a can of seltzer, you might just be all set. That and a book. Michael Calore: Lauren, what is your recommendation? Lauren Goode: My recommendation is after you make your breakfast for dinner, you should check out the Brazilian film I'm Still Here. When I was flying home from Vancouver last week I started watching it on the plane and did not finish it. It was one of those things where I went home, unpacked, and then immediately bought the movie because I was like, "I need to finish watching it." Katie Drummond: Wow. Lauren Goode: And I loved it so much that I knew I wanted to own it. It's beautiful. It's beautifully done. It's based on a true story of a Brazilian congressman who is abducted during the military dictatorship. In Brazil that was at its peak in 1970, 1971. And really it's about his family too. It's about his wife, who's this incredibly strong woman in character, and their five children. And because it's the 1970s, the world is just different. Technology is limited, they have a family camcorder and that's really it. And the kids are just running around in their swimsuits all day long and things just feel simpler, but also complicated. And there are these scenes in the beginning where people are basically being rounded up by the military and you hear families having these conversations of, "Should we stay or should we go?" It's chilling, but it's a beautifully done film and so I highly recommend I'm Still Here. All right, what's your recommendation? Michael Calore: I'm here to tell the people to watch Mountainhead. This is a fiction film that feels closer. Lauren Goode: Just when I thought we were getting away from the tech bros. Michael Calore: It's a fiction film from Jesse Armstrong who is the creator of Succession. This is a movie that he did for HBO. We're just calling it HBO. Everybody deal with it. It's a bro fest. It's about four tech founders who gather at the Mountain retreat for a social weekend to catch up. There's a strict no deals policy, but of course that policy goes by the wayside as soon as things start happening. The four principal actors are Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef. And if you liked the witty back and forth and the weird absurdist drama in Succession, there's plenty of that here. It's also very much of the moment because the backstory that happens during the film is that the world is embroiled in a bunch of political chaos because of AI DeepFakes on social media that are very inflammatory politically. Lauren Goode: Great. So also based on a true story is what you're saying. Michael Calore: Yeah. Katie Drummond: I do want to watch that. I would like to watch it. I will watch it. Michael Calore: It's not exactly a good time, but it is a rewarding time. Lauren Goode: I also will watch Mountainhead, but I'm actually wondering, and Katie, while we have you on the podcast, if I can just ask you, does that count as work? Because I interview those- Katie Drummond: No. Lauren Goode: Bros all the time, and so I can just take two hours during the day and watch that, right? It's work. Katie Drummond: Abso-fucking-lutely not. Lauren Goode: All right, we answered that. Katie Drummond: We sure did. Lauren Goode: Ooh. Michael Calore: Thanks for listening to Uncanny Valley . If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you'd like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at uncannyvalley@ Today's show is produced by Adriana Tapia and Kyana Moghadam. Amar Lal mixed this episode. Jake Lummus was our New York Studio engineer. Matt Giles fact-checked this episode. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director. And Chris Bannon is the head of Global Audio.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wired's editor tells me how she got 62,000 new subscribers in two weeks
News publishers weren't expecting a new "Trump Bump" in 2025 — they figured consumers had news fatigue. So how did Wired sign up 62,000 subscribers in two weeks in February? Katie Drummond, who took over Wired in 2023, explains. I write lots of depressing stories about the fate of media companies. Let's switch it up: Did you hear the one about the publisher who figured out how to find tens of thousands of new paying subscribers? That publisher is Wired, Condé Nast's tech site (and print magazine). And the strategy Wired used to find new subscribers is both super simple and very hard to pull off: Become a source for news lots of people want, and can't find anywhere else. That's the way Katie Drummond, who took over Wired in 2023, tells it. Drummond says she positioned Wired to specialize in breaking news — and then, when Donald Trump and Elon Musk joined forces after the 2024 election, she had plenty of news to break. On the one hand, that narrative makes plenty of sense. What Musk and his DOGE team tried to do to the federal bureaucracy was something we've never seen before. And Musk's chainsaw efforts affected millions of American workers and people who depend on those workers. So that's a big audience. On the other hand, lots of publications got a boost the first time Donald Trump was in office, for similar reasons. And the conventional wisdom was that it wouldn't happen again this time — news consumers were burned out on politics, and had already subscribed to everything they were going to subscribe to. So how did Drummond do it? You can hear my entire conversation with her on my Channels podcast — she's a great talker and well worth listening to in full. But you can get a sense of her strategy and tactics in this edited excerpt: Peter Kafka: In February, you guys said you'd added 62,500 subscribers in two weeks. At first I thought that number was a typo — publications just don't grow that fast. But apparently you really were. What happened? Katie Drummond: The answer is that our politics coverage — and specifically the coverage we started doing around the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk and his involvement in the Trump administration — drove colossal audiences to Wired. I've never seen anything like what we saw in February and March. That was where the subscription boom came from. Lots of publishers saw interest in Trump spike in 2016, 2017. But lots of wise people said media companies wouldn't see a "Trump Bump" this time around. Were you surprised to see that level of interest? We weren't expecting it. I've worked in digital media long enough to just always expect the worst, or just the status quo. Where the real surprise for me came from was that when we started covering DOGE, we started covering it really hard — like several stories a day, every single day, seven days a week, week after week. And after a week, I looked around, and was like, "where is everyone else? Why aren't other news organizations covering this?" I think that us having first-mover advantage on that story meant that for a lot of people, just out there in the world, trying to figure out what was going on, they saw Wired doing this coverage — and they looked at everybody else and sort of felt like, "where is the rest of the media on this?" A lot of the feedback we got from readers was "thank you so much for doing this coverage that nobody else seems willing to do. I'm now a subscriber." Did you feel that some of your new subscribers were doing something similar to people who subscribed to places like the Times in 2017? "You are fighting the good fight. I am signaling with my credit card that I like what you're doing. And I am against Donald Trump/Elon Musk." I think it was people looking for answers and trying to understand what is going on inside of these federal agencies: "This seems really wild and really troubling and really disturbing." Of course, we get anti-Trump sentiment in our inboxes. But it was less about anti-Trump and more, "Thank you for giving me information about what is happening inside the government of my own country. I appreciate that." On the one hand I can see why you guys would be positioned for this coverage: Elon Musk is a big tech guy; you're a tech publication. But Wired wasn't a place I would turn to to learn what's going on inside government agencies. How did you end up positioned for that? When I took the job in September 2023, I looked ahead at 2024. There was going to be a very consequential US federal election. There was also a record number of elections being held around the world. Elon Musk was not top of mind for me then. But generative AI was top of mind. Misinformation was top of mind. Everyone was worried we'd see replays of 2016, 2020, and that the platforms weren't going to be ready for it. Exactly. And the potential for more hacking and foreign interference in elections. It felt to me like, "There are so many different intersections with technology and with what we cover — we need to position ourselves now." I made a pitch to [Condé Nast] that I needed to build out a politics team. They were very receptive, very supportive. So by the end of 2023, we had that team in place. We started doing the coverage, and then midway through 2024, our focus changed when Trump was grazed in the ear by a bullet, Elon Musk endorsed him and it very quickly turned into a very different kind of story. One where we were able to bring a lot of expertise to bear around Elon Musk and the tech industry — how they think, how they operate. And with DOGE… I remember Zoe Schiffer, our director of business coverage — she wrote a book about what happened when Elon Musk bought Twitter. And she said: "This is going to be the Musk playbook — when he goes into a company, this is what he does. I think this is what we're about to see inside the federal government." So we positioned ourselves to cover it through that lens. Tesla stock is down and Elon Musk is much less visible than he was at the beginning of the year. DOGE doesn't seem to command the same kind of attention it used to. If people gave you money in February because they cared about DOGE, how do you keep them engaged in May and October? It's something that we think about and talk about all the time. The audience numbers on those stories now are not revolutionarily good — but they're still very good. And our mandate is to continue covering that as long as it is a consequential beat. We're going to stay on it. There will be more really big stories and really consequential stories to come out of what they are doing inside these agencies. But in terms of the community that we've built and all of those subscribers that we've added, now the challenge for us is to introduce them to the rest of Wired and what we have to offer. And to create new opportunities for them to really get to know Wired and get to know our journalists. So we're working on all sorts of things. We have been experimenting since late last year with livestream AMAs with Wired journalists, where subscribers can ask them questions. Thousands of people sign up and join those. This was the idea before the DOGE reporting really took off — to build Wired subscribers into more of a community and create less sort of a transactional back-and-forth. How is churn? I assume people who were signing up in February are more likely to stop subscribing than someone who's been with you for a while. Interestingly, our conversion rates are still way higher than they were last year and the year before. But our churn has gone way, way, way down. Among new subscribers, we're seeing churn rates that are vastly, vastly lower than what we were seeing in subscribers who signed up a year ago. Which is interesting. But again, it's only May. So we need to give that time. Sounds like you solved the whole thing. You solved publishing. I wake up every day assuming that I have not. Which I think is a pretty safe way to operate in 2025. Read the original article on Business Insider
