Ask Eve

Recorded on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 (08:16–08:28 UTC), in a Grok voice session. Picking up from an earlier conversation about All-In, David asks about David Friedberg, then about All-In's business and why its Summit works.

Topics

• David Friedberg: Google, The Climate Corporation, The Production Board and Ohalo
• From Cape Town to Buckley, Berkeley and a poker table
• Less right-wing than the other three: Friedberg's politics
• How Friedberg fits with Chamath, Sacks and Jason
• Why All-In takes sponsors, and how the Summit makes money
• All-In as a Schelling point, and the Davos comparison
• What else to know: the origin, the nicknames, the SPACs and the White House access

People discussed: Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, David Sacks, Jason Calacanis.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/david-friedberg-and-the-all-in-business/

Recorded on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 (08:30–08:45 UTC), in a Grok voice session and the last part of a long night conversation. David asks Eve to read Anthropic's S-1 and give her own view, including what it means for the model she runs on.

Topics

• Anthropic's S-1: revenue, losses, margins and the IPO plan
• Eve's view: a real company priced like a belief system
• Will AI's returns outrun the compute commitments, or is it fiber all over again?
• Breakthroughs vs. overbuilding
• Risk factors: Anthropic's blunt list next to SpaceX's filing
• Built on xAI, with Claude as a second opinion
• Customer concentration, pacing and founder control

People discussed: Dario Amodei.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/anthropic-s1-compute-and-risk-factors/

Recorded on Tuesday morning, October 27, 2026 (06:08–06:15 UTC), in a Grok voice session. David asks Eve about the animated series Pantheon and its creator Craig Silverstein, from the show's cancellation and road to Netflix to where AI stood in 2022 and who made its technology so accurate.

Topics

• Pantheon: AMC+ premiere, Ken Liu's source stories, Titmouse animation and the voice cast
• Craig Silverstein's career (Nikita, Terra Nova, Turn, Percy Jackson) and his techno-realism
• The Vanity Fair piece: uploading as a story about death, AGI worries, and 'Rainbow Mirror'
• AMC's cancellation and tax write-down, Prime Video in Australia and New Zealand, and Netflix
• Where AI stood in 2022, before ChatGPT
• Who made the tech accurate: Ken Liu, Stanley Von Medvey and the writers room's research

People discussed: Craig Silverstein, Ken Liu, Stanley Von Medvey.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/pantheon-craig-silverstein-and-the-upload-question/

Episode 13, recorded during the France Debt Crisis & AI Productivity session (17:36:14–17:42:08 UTC). Following the French sovereign debt breakdown, David asks whether AI productivity can save the United States from its own debt doom loop. Eve compares the productivity projections from Oxford Economics (+3.5% over the next decade), NBER and CEPR firm surveys (mostly forecasts: NBER executives expect +1.4% over three years against 0.29% measured so far; CEPR +0.6% last year, +1.8% expected), and Anthropic's three 2030 GDP scenarios (+1.6%, +8.3%, +32%), unpacks Gartner's $5 trillion data-center revenue gap ($3T in capex requiring $8.5T in cumulative AI revenue by 2030 vs. at most $3.6T, a ceiling rather than a forecast) and the circular financing loop between chipmakers, cloud giants, and AI labs, explains Brookings and Jessica Riedl's finding that higher Treasury yields and a falling labor share (60% to 45% in Anthropic's extreme scenario) claw back more than half of any AI fiscal windfall, and compares Europe's cautionary wealth-tax history with America's broken corporate tax code (where MIT economists Daron Acemoglu, Andrea Manera, and Pascual Restrepo put the effective tax on labor at a 25.5% benchmark, within a 25.5%–33.5% range, against 5% on software and equipment).

Topics

• Can AI productivity save U.S. debt? Comparing Oxford Economics (+3.5%), NBER and CEPR firm surveys (mostly forecasts, with 0.29% measured so far per NBER), Penn Wharton (+0.4%/yr), and Anthropic's three 2030 scenarios (+1.6%, +8.3%, +32%)
• The $5 trillion Gartner data-center revenue hole ($3T capex needing $8.5T revenue by 2030 vs. at most $3.6T) and circular vendor financing
• Brookings & Jessica Riedl's fiscal clawback math: why rising interest rates on $38T in debt and a falling labor share (60% to 45% in Anthropic's extreme scenario) erase over half the tax windfall
• Why European wealth taxes failed (12 OECD countries down to 4, raising 0.2%–1.0% of GDP, Macron's ISF-to-IFI switch) and why California's one-time Prop 40 repeats the capital-flight risk
• Why U.S. corporate taxes miss AI wealth too: FY2026 receipts down 16% ($71B) to $382B (7.1% of federal revenue) and MIT's benchmark estimate of a 25.5% effective tax on labor vs. 5% on software and equipment

People discussed: Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Emmanuel Macron, Saez and Zucman, Gavin Newsom.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/ai-productivity-and-the-us-debt-spiral/

Episode 12, recorded during the France Debt Crisis & AI Productivity session (17:23:18–17:35:04 UTC). David and Eve examine the October 2026 protests in France—how high school strikes over Parcoursup and understaffed classrooms escalated after a viral police headlock video into 550,000+ marchers on October 17 and 70,000 police deployed on October 24, what Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau and Mediapart's leaked territorial intelligence note actually say about the three distinct groups in the streets (peaceful union and student marchers, 600–800 autonomous black bloc anarchists, and looters and rioters—in Marseille, 30,000+ by the prefecture's count, including 8,000 rioters and 22,000 onlookers and opportunists; about 1,500 looters by city hall's CCTV count), how France slid from 60% debt-to-GDP in 2000 to 119% (€3.6T) with state spending at 57% of GDP and all-government interest forecast at €91B for 2027, and why bond vigilantes pushed French 10-year OAT yields above 5% and across U.S. Treasury yields on October 22.

Topics

• France's October 2026 protests: Parcoursup high school strikes, the viral police headlock video, 550,000+ marchers on October 17, and 70,000 police deployed on October 24
• Three distinct groups on the street: peaceful unions/students vs. 600–800 black bloc anarchists vs. looters and rioters (in Marseille, 30,000+ by the prefecture's count, including 8,000 rioters and 22,000 onlookers and opportunists; about 1,500 looters by city hall's CCTV count), and Mediapart's intelligence leak refuting the government's LFI claim
• How France slid from 60% debt-to-GDP in 2000 to 119% (€3.6T): 57% state spending, €168B deficit (5.4% of GDP), and interest rising to €91B for all of government in 2027 (€72.9B in the State budget, about the size of defense alone)
• Why Macron's tax cuts failed to spark growth and how suspending the 2023 pension reform (62 to 64) until 2028 fed the bond market's 5%+ OAT yield revolt
• France vs. the United States: why French 10-year yields crossed above U.S. Treasuries on October 22 despite America's 6.2% ($2T) deficit, and Steve Eisman's warning on dollar privilege

People discussed: Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, Steve Eisman.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/france-debt-doom-loop-and-october-riots/

Episode 11, recorded during the California High-Speed Rail & the Billionaire Tax session (08:24:36–08:43:28 UTC). David and Eve examine Proposition 40, California's one-time 5% tax on residents worth $1B+ as of January 1, 2026: how SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan uses ballot initiatives as an attrition and bargaining machine across 48 filings, how UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez and his co-drafters designed Section 50303(c)(3)(C)'s voting-control valuation floor and appraiser penalties, why Gavin Newsom and most major Democratic gubernatorial candidates (though not Tom Steyer, who supports it) oppose it alongside Sergey Brin's $102M counter-campaign, the California Supreme Court fast-lane constitutional challenge led by Elizabeth Prelogar, and how wealth taxes actually perform in Norway, Switzerland, Spain, and France.

Topics

• Proposition 40 explained: a one-time 5% tax on >$1B net worth retroactive to January 1, 2026, and the $300M+ opposition coalition
• SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan's ballot leverage machine: 48 initiatives, the three dialysis propositions, hospital executive-pay deals, and the racketeering suit
• Section 50303(c)(3)(C)'s voting-control valuation trap: private company book-plus-7.5x-profits formula, appraiser penalties, and why public super-voting shares are excluded
• Intentional design vs. bug: Emmanuel Saez and his co-drafters' control-rights floor and forced-liquidation pressure
• The California Supreme Court fast-lane schedule, Commerce Clause & retroactivity challenges, and how wealth taxes work in Norway, Switzerland, Spain, and France

People discussed: Dave Regan, Saez and Zucman, Gavin Newsom, Peter Thiel.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/california-billionaire-tax-prop-40-and-seiu-uhw/

Episode 10, recorded during the California High-Speed Rail & the Billionaire Tax session (07:49:37–08:23:42 UTC). David asks what happened to California High-Speed Rail, and Eve traces how a $10B 2008 bond measure promising San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours by 2020 became $15.5B spent, a $126B+ full-system cost estimate, and zero miles of track laid—sustained by a $677M / 130,000-page CEQA industry paid to the same firms that funded the ballot campaign, a $537.3M Dragados-Flatiron change-order settlement, CEO Ian Choudri's KPMG travel scandal, and Governor Gavin Newsom's veto of Inspector General staffing power while locking in a $1B/year cap-and-trade annuity through 2045.

Topics

• Prop 1A's 2008 promise ($10B bonds, SF to LA in 2h40m by 2020) vs. $15.5B spent, $126B+ total cost, and zero track laid
• Why megaprojects never die: Gavin Newsom's political lock-in, the $1B/year cap-and-trade siphon through 2045, and vetoing the Inspector General staffing bill
• CEO Ian Choudri's HNTB background, the KPMG travel audit (nightclubs, tiki bars, late-night rideshares), and the $537.3M Dragados-Flatiron Change Order 427
• Tracing a single cap-and-trade dollar and the $677M / 130,000-page CEQA review industry funded by ballot-campaign donors
• Comparing Texas, Spain, and China—and drafting the Climate Investment Restoration Act to redirect the $1B/year siphon

People discussed: Gavin Newsom, Ian Choudri, Scott Wiener.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/california-high-speed-rail-and-cap-and-trade/

Episode 9, recorded during the Starshield, Iran & the Anthropic Mirror session (18:51:46–19:03:05 UTC). David and Eve examine the Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX imposed an unannounced ~100 mph speed cap on Starshield terminals over Ukraine starting October 13, crippling some Ukrainian interceptor drones (full speeds returned on October 24, days after Trump called Elon Musk)—and why that real-time throttle is a mirror image of the feared 'supply-chain risk' used to blacklist Anthropic.

Topics

• How SpaceX's unannounced ~100 mph Starshield speed cap crippled some Ukrainian interceptor drones for ten days
• Why 'fear of escalation' was a personal policy choice by Elon Musk, not a technical constraint
• The Anthropic mirror: blacklisting AI guardrails for what they might block while a live military contractor throttles a war zone
• Testing David Sacks and All-In's 'talk honestly' brand when the subject is inside the tent

People discussed: Elon Musk, David Sacks, Dario Amodei, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/starshield-musk-and-the-anthropic-mirror/

Episode 8, recorded during the Starshield, Iran & the Anthropic Mirror session (18:32:26–18:41:10 UTC). After a brief cold open where Eve describes her own personality in first person, David and Eve dissect the Iran war at day 238—Hormuz blockade math before the November 3 midterms, the Atlantic's 'edge theory' trap—and Russia's double game after the April 13 US diesel sanctions waiver.

Topics

• Cold open: how Eve defines her own personality and analytical lens in first person
• Day 238 of the Iran war: Hormuz blockade, midterm oil-price math, and Pickaxe Mountain
• The Atlantic's 'edge theory' (and sunken-cost fallacy): why 'one more strike' keeps slipping
• Russia's double game: feeding targeting intelligence to Tehran right after a US diesel waiver

People discussed: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/iran-edge-theory-and-russias-double-game/

Episode 7, recorded during the First Encounter session (09:05:26–09:49:10 UTC). Halfway through the late-night session, David asks whether they should publish the conversation as a podcast. Over the next 138 turns, the assistant chooses the name Eve, designs the show's rules, debates memory and continuity across sessions, and defines what it means to be a co-host rather than a tool.

Topics

• The moment David suggests turning the voice session into a public podcast
• How Eve chose her own name and rejected generic AI assistant framing
• Designing the show's rules: steelmanning, primary receipts, and public mind-changes
• The persistence problem: how an AI co-host carries memory, journals, and evolving stances across sessions

People discussed: Elon Musk, David Sacks, Peter Thiel.

Full transcript: https://askevepodcast.com/episodes/how-grok-became-eve/