Josh Elman on Apple, AI Agents & Why Startups Can Still Win

Why did Josh Elman leave Apple, and where can AI startups still win against OpenAI? The former Siri and Apple Intelligence team member explains why he’s betting on a new wave of consumer companies.Josh joins Eric Newcomer to discuss his move to Andreessen Horowitz, what held Siri back, and how Apple can rebuild users’ trust. He shares why OpenClaw changed his thinking about startups and why founders don’t need to build their own AI models to create valuable products.They also explore personal AI agents, the future of shopping and travel, lessons from Musical.ly and TikTok, AI-generated entertainment, and the opportunities for new AI devices.In this episode, we discuss working on Siri and Apple Intelligence, why OpenAI and Anthropic won’t be the only AI winners, how OpenClaw helped inspire Josh’s return to venture capital, what personal AI agents could change about everyday life, TikTok, microdramas, and the next consumer platforms, and how to build products people trust and keep using.Subscribe to Newcomer for conversations with the founders, investors, and technology leaders shaping Silicon Valley.

Renee Jones on how billion-dollar startups escaped public scrutiny, why founders became more powerful than their boards, and what happens when private markets operate in secrecy.Renee Jones, Boston College Law School professor, former SEC official, and author of Untamed Unicorns, joins Eric Newcomer to examine how the startup financing system shifted from investor oversight to founder control. Renee explains how changes to securities laws allowed companies to raise enormous sums while remaining private, avoid meaningful disclosure, and delay going public indefinitely.They discuss what FTX, Theranos, WeWork, and Uber reveal about startup governance; why unicorn valuations can be misleading; how employees are asked to accept stock without the information needed to value it; whether venture capital’s AI obsession is distorting innovation; and why Renee believes stronger disclosure and financial controls are essential. They also debate the SEC’s approach to crypto, the political power of the industry, and whether meaningful private-market reform is still possible.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, executives, and policymakers shaping the tech industry.

What does NVIDIA really get from Hugging Face—and what is Silicon Valley missing about China?Zavain Dar, co-founder of Dimension and an early Hugging Face investor during his time at Lux Capital, joins Eric Newcomer to unpack NVIDIA’s open source strategy, the competition with OpenAI and Anthropic, and why his trips to China changed how he thinks about the future of technology.They discuss China’s AI and biotech boom, the limits of US chip restrictions, and why American startups are building on Chinese models. Plus: Dimension’s Coefficient Bio exit to Anthropic, whether AI can make most human diseases treatable in our lifetime, and why human trials remain a bottleneck.Subscribe to Newcomer for more reporting on the people, companies, and deals shaping Silicon Valley: https://www.newcomer.co

Sam Parr on getting fired by Airbnb the day before he started, selling The Hustle, and why $10 million in revenue changes everything.Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle and Hampton and co-host of My First Million, joins Eric Newcomer to talk about how he went from an Airbnb firing to an eight-figure media exit. Sam breaks down what 5,000 Hampton founder interviews reveal about the messy middle between $1M and $10M in revenue, what shifts on the other side of that number, why he studies successful businesses before building anything new, how AI is reshaping agency margins, why he thinks OpenAI buying TBPN was a mistake, and how founders can build an audience by going obsessively niche.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, and executives shaping the tech industry.

How can billions of video game clips train AI to control robots? General Intuition CEO Pim de Witte explains why gaming data may be the missing ingredient for the next generation of robotics and AI agents.Pim de Witte built the world's largest RuneScape private server as a teenager before founding Medal, one of the biggest gaming clip platforms in the world. Today, Medal processes roughly one billion gameplay clips every year, creating a unique dataset that powers General Intuition's AI models for robotics, world models, and autonomous agents.In this conversation with Eric Newcomer, Pim explains why video games may be one of the most valuable training grounds for artificial intelligence, how gaming data transfers to real world robotics, why humanoid robots may not be the future, and what AI means for gamers, developers, and the future of work.

John Coogan, co-founder of TBPN, joins Eric Newcomer to talk about the acquisition that shocked the tech media world. John breaks down how TBPN went from two guys in suits to one of the most-watched live tech shows on the internet, why OpenAI came calling, what an editorial independence clause actually means in practice, and why he and Jordy chose to sell when they didn't have to. He also gets into the mechanics of building a media brand that works, why they monetized everything from day one, and what Sam Altman actually needs to do better on comms.

Taylor Lorenz on why the social media panic is overblown and who's actually driving it.Taylor Lorenz, journalist and author of Extremely Online, joins Eric Newcomer to push back on the moral panic around phones, social media, and screen time. Taylor argues there is no such thing as social media addiction, that age verification laws do more harm than good, and that the groups pushing child protection legislation have their own agendas. She and Eric also get into the surveillance state, anonymous speech online, why podcasters are secretly taking money to book guests, and what the creator economy has gotten badly wrong.Listen to Taylor's newsletter and reporting at UserMag.co.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, and executives shaping the tech industry.

The Goldman Sachs exec who automated Wall Street on what AI agents actually do to jobs, companies, and the future of enterprise software. Marty Chavez got his AI PhD in 1991 when there were exactly zero AI jobs. So he went to Goldman Sachs and spent decades building the machines that took over Wall Street. Now at Sixth Street and on Alphabet's board, he joins Eric Newcomer at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit in London to explain what actually happens when AI replaces human labor, why a trading firm went bankrupt in 40 minutes because of a bot, and what it really takes to sell software to a large institution.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, and executives shaping the tech industry.

Semafor's editor-in-chief on why Washington has decided Anthropic needs to pick a side.Ben Smith, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semafor, joins Eric Newcomer to break down the collision between the Trump administration and Anthropic, and what it reveals about the new relationship between Washington and big tech. Ben explains why the government is taking equity stakes in companies, how the Trump family is monetizing the presidency, and why he believes this is one of the most corrupt periods in modern American governance.The conversation also covers the politicization of the Justice Department, why CEOs now flock to Washington instead of avoiding it, the Intel deal and what it signals about industrial policy, and Ben's bet that newsletters and live events can outlast the chase for viral traffic in media.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, and executives shaping the tech industry.

Aidan Gomez on AGI, China, and the Biggest Risk Facing AI.Cohere co-founder and Transformer co-author Aidan Gomez joins Eric Newcomer to discuss whether we've already reached AGI, why Chinese AI models are being underestimated, the future of enterprise AI, sovereign AI, and why relying on a handful of AI companies could become the industry's biggest risk.If you're interested in artificial general intelligence, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Chinese AI, AI infrastructure, and the future of machine learning, this conversation offers a thoughtful look at where AI is headed next.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, investors, and executives shaping the future of technology.