Meta just dropped a casual $14.3 billion on Scale AI for a 49 percent non-voting stake. The hosts are wondering if Zuck is in his desperation era handing out NBA sized contracts to anyone that can rescue Llama. Alexander Wang is now running Meta’s new Superintelligence Lab, and the hosts breaks down what Alex leaving means for Scale. In the short term, employees are getting a massive cash payout, but long term Google, Microsoft, and xAI have already said they’re not renewing contracts with Scale, which opens the door for Scale’s competitors like Snorkel, Surge AI, Mercor, and Turing to step in. Maya floats the idea that Scale may be a product play and not just an acqui-hiring of Alex, if Meta has a bigger plan to use Scale to build continual learning models inside Meta.

Then the episode covers the largest single-day protest in American history. Around 5 million people turned out for the No Kings marches in response to ICE raids and Trump’s executive overreach. Anika shares what it was like on the ground at the SF protest. The hosts also unpack the very public back-and-forth between Gavin Newsom and Trump. They also analyze Trump’s immigration strategy in comparison to Obama’s. Finally, they get into the messy economic and ethical logic (or lack thereof) behind targeting undocumented immigrants who’ve been here for decades.

00:00 Intro

01:18 Meta acquires 49% of Scale AI

37:13 ICE Raids lead to the No Kings protest