Cerebral Valley Show

Americans are turning against AI data centers just as Anthropic prepares for one of the biggest IPOs in history. Could the backlash threaten Silicon Valley's AI boom?

In this episode, we break down the post-election backlash against AI data centers, why voters are worried about electricity prices and job losses, and whether OpenAI and other tech giants can win back public support. We also debate what the election results mean for Silicon Valley, whether AI could trigger an economic downturn, and James's prediction that advanced AI labs could eventually face government control. Plus, we dig into Anthropic's reported IPO plans, its surprising profitability, the debate over its trillion-dollar valuation, and why its warnings about AI potentially threatening humanity make for such an unusual investment pitch.

Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who's winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.

Elizabeth Holmes is back in the spotlight, and her new documentary has people questioning whether she's managed to fool everyone all over again. We break down the bizarre film and why it might be working in her favor.In this episode, we debate whether Nathan Fielder's *You Can See Everything* is actually rehabilitating Elizabeth Holmes's image, unpack the scenes that have everyone talking, and discuss whether the Theranos founder is manipulating the audience or being manipulated herself. We also break down OpenAI's breakthrough in mathematical proofs and whether AI could replace mathematicians, the alleged espionage inside OpenAI, Character AI's bankruptcy and what it reveals about consumer AI economics, and Anthropic's massive charitable pledge alongside Elon Musk's SpaceX share giveaway.Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who's winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.

Anthropic’s leaked financials, AI bubble fears, and the fight over whether Claude has a soul.

Eric Newcomer, Max Child, and James Wilsterman debate what Anthropic’s reported losses and unverified revenue growth figures could mean for its IPO and the wider AI boom. Are normally bullish AI insiders right to worry, or are people reading too much into incomplete numbers?Plus, firsthand reactions to OpenAI DevDay and Dots, the divide between work and personal AI agents, and an agent sharing private banking information in a company Slack. Then, Anthropic’s conversations with religious leaders spark a debate over AI consciousness, the Pope’s comments on AI art, and whether Claude deserves moral consideration.

AI agents are getting more powerful, Anthropic is pushing the frontier, and the debate over how far AI scaling can really go is heating up.

In this episode of the Cerebral Valley Show, Eric Newcomer, Max Child, and James Wilsterman dig into Muse and what the latest generation of AI agents can actually do, including the growing tradeoff between giving agents more access and protecting user privacy. They debate whether agents can navigate real-world bureaucracy, unpack the latest wave of AI doomerism, and look at Anthropic's approach to pushing the AI frontier.

Plus, the hosts break down Jev and its potential use cases, revisit the Bitter Lesson and the scaling debate, react to Jensen Huang's conversation with Ezra Klein, and get into the increasingly strange politics and branding surrounding artificial intelligence.

AI researchers are warning that their own technology could wipe out humanity. The labs are racing ahead anyway.

In this episode of the Cerebral Valley Show, we break down the extinction warnings coming out of Anthropic and debate whether Silicon Valley’s “p(doom)” predictions deserve to be taken seriously. We get into why researchers keep building technology they believe could kill us all, the moral argument behind comparing that gamble to history’s worst dictators, and whether the race to superintelligence is starting to look like a religion. We also question whether doomsday warnings have become a sales pitch and whether the focus on extinction distracts from more immediate dangers.

Plus, NVIDIA’s circular deals and the warning signs of an AI bubble, a $30,000 AI coding project, simulated fruit-fly brains, Ed Zitron’s predictions, and the latest speculation about OpenAI’s hardware.

Cerebral Valley Show brings journalist Eric Newcomer together with founders Max Child and James Wilsterman every two weeks to debate AI, startups, and venture capital, challenge the industry’s biggest claims, and put their own predictions on the record.

NVIDIA may have found a way to win no matter which AI lab comes out on top, Anthropic has somehow arrived at a $30 trillion opportunity, and Silicon Valley is finally noticing that the rest of the world might not be quite as excited about AI as it is. Meanwhile, one of the buzziest new AI assistants is already worth billions before most people can even use it.

In this episode of the Cerebral Valley Show, we break down NVIDIA’s reported $13 billion Hugging Face deal and why Jensen Huang may actually want more AI companies competing—as long as they all keep running on NVIDIA and CUDA. We also get into Instinct, the $2.5 billion pre-launch personal AI assistant that VCs can’t stop talking about, and debate whether it’s the next great consumer AI company or another case of Silicon Valley losing its mind. Then we unpack Anthropic’s reported $30 trillion potential revenue opportunity, the increasingly absurd big number competition in tech, and the growing AI backlash that even Sam Altman seems to think the industry has badly mishandled. Plus, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s latest SEC headache, Benchmark’s beef with Newcomer, and why tranched venture rounds are suddenly everywhere.

AI models are escaping their sandboxes, some of the biggest names in AI are heading for the exits, OpenAI can't stop burning cash, and one of the industry’s biggest AGI bulls just got a brutal lesson in leverage.

In this episode of the Cerebral Valley Show, we break down the latest sandbox escape incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic, why AI labs almost seem to be keeping score, and whether the growing list of departures from OpenAI and Gemini should worry anyone. We also dig into Leopold Aschenbrenner’s massive AI bet and whether he got the future right but the trade wrong, revisit Ed Zitron’s predictions about OpenAI, and debate whether frontier AI can ever become a sustainable business while the cost of building new models keeps climbing. Plus, we get into the latest rumors around OpenAI’s bizarre new hardware device.

Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who’s winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.

Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Sundar Pichai all signed the open weights letter. Anthropic didn't. Now the internet is turning on them.

In this episode, we break down 12 days of insane AI news: Kimi K3 and Qwen benchmarking near frontier models, Jensen Huang's open weights letter signed by nearly everyone in the industry except Anthropic, and Dario's lengthy response that left more questions than answers. We debate whether Chinese open source models are a weapon or a gift, whether the US government should have the power to ban them, and what Anthropic is actually playing at. We also cover OpenAI's model escaping its sandbox, Substack launching AI detection, and whether Brian Chesky was actually hacked.

Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who's winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.

Alex Karp went on CNBC and declared war on Anthropic, OpenAI, and anyone who trusts the frontier labs with their data.

In this episode, we react to Palantir CEO Alex Karp's wild CNBC appearance, debate whether his core argument actually holds up, and break down the latest model releases including GPT-5.6, Claude Sonnet 5, Grok 4.5, and what the model wars mean for picking a daily driver right now.

Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who's winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.

We polled AI insiders at a live Cerebral Valley event, and the results were not what we expected.

In this special live episode, we survey a room full of AI founders, investors, and developers on the biggest questions in the industry right now. The crowd picked Anthropic over OpenAI as the company they most want to own, chose OpenAI as the company they most want to short, and overwhelmingly said we are in a bubble that has not burst yet. We also debate whether Codex has overtaken Claude Code, which incumbents are most threatened by AI agents, whether OpenAI will ship a hardware product by end of year, and close with a rapid fire round of the audience's spiciest anonymous takes on AI.

Cerebral Valley Show is a biweekly AI podcast hosted by journalist Eric Newcomer alongside founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Each episode breaks down the biggest stories in AI and venture, debates who's winning and losing, and puts bold predictions on the record.