Axios Re:Cap

Palantir Technologies today went public at an initial valuation of over $21 billion, giving investors a chance to buy into one of Silicon Valley's most talked-about tech companies. Dan and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale dig into Palantir's mission and why it's so controversial.

Cameo, a marketplace in which users pay for personalized video messages from celebrities, has gone from niche novelty to very big business. One celebrity just surpassed $1 million in earnings, and more than 5,000 messages are sold each day. Dan and Cameo CEO Steven Galanis dig into how the company came to be and how it's changing the monetization of fame. Plus: A "cameo" from one of the site's top stars and debate night analysis with Axios White House and politics editor Margaret Talev. 

President Trump paid no federal income tax in 10 of the past 15 years, and just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a new report from The New York Times. He also is reported to have hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding debts, most of which would come due during a second term.

Axios Re:Cap focuses on what is and isn't surprising about the revelations, plus how real estate developers are taxed, with Francine McKenna, an independent financial journalist and certified public accountant.

Traditional media models and most of the digital models are either straining under pressure or outright broken. Some journalists have responded by going out on their own, leveraging a new group of startups that help them self-publish and monetize their work. To discuss this trend and what it means for the journalism industry, Dan is joined by Chris Best, CEO of Substack, which has over 250,000 paying subscribers on its writer network.

American child care is in crisis, which makes it much harder for the American economy to recover — as providers struggle to stay in business and parents struggle to work. Dan digs into the problems and what can be done to solve them with Vox senior reporter Anna North.

 Silicon Valley venture capitalists are no longer content with investing in startups and then eventually handing them off. Instead, many are now forming SPACs, or blank check acquisition companies, to ride tech unicorns into the public markets themselves. Dan discusses this trend with the co-founders of one such tech SPAC: Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and partner with VC firm Greylock, and Mark Pincus, founder and former CEO of Zynga.

Around 70% of all immigration detention centers are run by private companies, including the one at the heart of a new whistleblower complaint that alleges systemic medical neglect and malpractice. Dan digs into the business of immigrant detention, including oversight and profit incentives, with New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer.

Before her death, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was preparing to hear a case that could determine the availability of affordable health insurance for roughly 20 million Americans. Dan is joined by University of Michigan law professor and Supreme Court expert Nicholas Bagley to discuss the case and what could happen next.

President Trump has just 48 hours left to either follow through on his threatened ban of TikTok, or accept a proposed tech partnership with Oracle. Dan and New York Times tech reporter Taylor Lorenz dig into how the TikTok user community has reacted to this political drama and what comes next.

Amazon today announced the first companies to receive money from a $2 billion venture capital fund it formed to help combat climate change. Dan digs into how Amazon hopes the fund will help it achieve its own goals of getting carbon neutral by 2040, and if it's more substance than spin with Matt Peterson, Amazon's director of new initiatives and corporate development.