Weekly Spotlight #3: AI Reality Checks, Land Grabs, and Digital Money
Each week, we spotlight a few of our favorite podcast episodes from the past week. This week brought clarity to chaos across AI, public lands, and digital money.
Andre Karpathy just delivered the AI reality check every CEO needs to hear. While McKinsey is out there selling fantasy visions of plug-and-play "agentic mesh" systems, this former Tesla AI director is serving up actual truth about building with large language models. He calls them "people spirits" which is a pretty brilliant way to describe stochastic simulations of humans. His Software 3.0 framework treats English as the new coding language, but here's the kicker: he's not buying into the hype about autonomous agents taking over everything. Instead, he wants humans keeping AI on a "short leash" with people validating every output. If you're sick of AI snake oil and want to hear from someone who actually builds this stuff, Karpathy cuts through all the boardroom buzzwords.
For: Anyone tired of AI hype who wants practical wisdom from someone who actually builds this technology.
This one's wild. Braxton McCoy survived an IED blast in Iraq, and now he's fighting a completely different kind of battle back home. He's sounding the alarm on what looks like a massive land grab hiding behind "affordable housing" rhetoric. We're talking about potentially selling off 2-3 million acres of the public land that Theodore Roosevelt set aside for all of us. McCoy breaks down how politicians like Senator Mike Lee are pushing this through, complete with PR firms allegedly digging up dirt on anyone who speaks out. The guy clearly loves this country's dirt in the most literal sense, and his willingness to take heat from powerful people makes this absolutely gripping. Perfect for anyone who thinks some things shouldn't be for sale, or if you're curious what happens when you poke the bear.
For: Anyone who believes some things shouldn't have a price tag, or anyone curious about what happens when you challenge powerful interests.
John Egan walks you through how Stripe is quietly rebuilding money for the internet. As their head of crypto, he explains why they're back in the blockchain game after ditching Bitcoin in 2016. This time they're betting on stablecoins that actually work for real commerce. Think Shopify merchants accepting USDC payments, or SpaceX managing their global money movement through simple API calls instead of endless paperwork. Egan's take on stablecoins is refreshingly practical: treat them like just another currency, not some crypto curiosity. If you've been wondering when blockchain tech stops being a nerdy experiment and starts being the boring infrastructure that just works, this conversation gives you the clearest picture yet.
For: Anyone wondering when blockchain stops being a nerdy experiment and starts being invisible infrastructure that just works.