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Episodes

Feb. 19, 2025

E64: US vs China’s Strategies, Uber’s Growth Model, AI Supply Chains

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss technological inflection points and examine how legal frameworks mask continued globalization despite apparent retrenchment, explores US-China dynamics, analyzes AI industry structure and emerging models, and considers Uber's strategic positioning against autonomous vehicles.

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Feb. 11, 2025

E63: OpenAI Deep Research, Elon’s Potential Hostile Takeover, and AI …

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the transformative impact of technological advancements, particularly OpenAI's research, Elon Musk’s $97 billion offer to acquire its controlling nonprofit, and the implications for business, jobs, regulation, and Musk's strategies with X and …

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Feb. 4, 2025

E62: Trump’s Tariffs, Open Source AI Models, and The Future of VR

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore the impact of technological advancements on markets and businesses, covering topics like global trade tariffs, political populism, AI's evolving role, open-source vs. proprietary models, stock market trends, and Meta’s investments in the …

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Jan. 28, 2025

E61: Markets React to DeepSeek, Threads vs X, and Stargate Announceme…

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the major disruptions in tech and business driven by AI advancements, examining reactions to DeepSeek's announcements, stock impacts on companies like Nvidia, volatility in AI investments, Meta's Threads, Elon Musk’s influence on …

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Jan. 23, 2025

E60: Trump Coin, US Industrial Policy, and TikTok Ban

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart explore the impact of technological change on markets, touching on meme investments, ESG, the rise of meme stocks and coins, Trump’s policies, China’s economic strategies, industrial policy debates, …

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Jan. 18, 2025

E59: Zuck’s PR, The Loneliness Economy, and OpenAI Corporate Structure

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg explore the historical paradigms from agrarian to industrial eras and potential future growth, while also addressing challenges in adopting new technologies like AI, institutional constraints at companies like Meta, post-COVID loneliness, the Scandinavian …

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Dec. 26, 2024

E58: How Jensen Huang Outpaces Tech Giants w/ Tae Kim, author of THE …

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg is joined by Tae Kim, author of The NVIDIA Way, exploring NVIDIA's remarkable journey, culture, and what sets the company apart under Jensen Huang's leadership.

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Dec. 19, 2024

E57: Pod Shops; Contrarian Vibe Checks; Scaling Laws Analysis

This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart discuss the pod shop hedge fund model, market cycles, AI pricing models, and the future of AI-generated content, with Byrne offering insights on hedge fund evolution, the current market environment, and AI's impact …

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Dec. 12, 2024

E56: AI Agents are Coming; China’s Internet; Google Wants to Win

This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart discuss AI's economic implications, the rise of passive investing, gambling markets, and Warren Buffett's early investment tactics, examining how technological advancements shape economic metrics, market dynamics, and industry shifts.

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Nov. 21, 2024

E55: Futarchy, Elon, and Gut Decisions in Business

This week, Erik and Byrne discuss the impact of technological change on markets, debate the feasibility of Argentine-style economic policies in the U.S., discuss government efficiency, payroll costs, and political dynamics, including the potential economic effects of a Trump administration …

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Nov. 14, 2024

E54: How Bubbles Create The Future

On this week’s episode of The Riff, explore the impact of technological change on markets and businesses, discussing economic bubbles, the future of AI, the post-election political landscape, and Byrne's upcoming book Boom, which examines the role of bubbles in …

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Nov. 7, 2024

E53: Election Analysis, Heresy, and Real Estate

This week, Erik Torenberg and Byrne Hobart explore the evolving landscape of heretical ideas, election dynamics, AI and crypto’s market impacts, prediction markets, the shifting Overton window, contrarian perspectives, and trends in housing and smaller social networks.

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Oct. 31, 2024

E52: How Tech Journalism Works w/ Patrick McKenzie

In this special episode of The Riff, Erik Torenberg and Patrick McKenzie explore the evolving landscape of tech journalism, media narratives about the tech industry, and how the industry is increasingly telling its own story.

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Oct. 24, 2024

E51: Venture Scale, Y Combinator, and Financial Bubbles

In this episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart discusses his upcoming book about financial bubbles, venture scale businesses, creator financing, and prediction markets.

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Oct. 17, 2024

E50: Freemium Apps, Restaurants, and Search

In this special episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart is joined by Patrick McKenzie, host of the podcast Complex Systems to discuss a range of topics including app business models, restaurant industry economics, AI's impact on productivity, the evolution of …

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Oct. 10, 2024

E49: AI Art, Young Founders, and Disrupting Higher Education

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the shifting dynamics of careers and education, the notion of "auto-paternalism" in organizational choices, Spotify's growth strategy in a mature market, the future of podcasts and audio content, and the intricate relationship …

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Oct. 3, 2024

E48: Facebook vs MySpace, Why Peter Thiel is Wrong About Competition,…

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg dive into a range of fascinating topics such as the evolution and future of OpenAI's business model, economic rationale behind corporate buybacks, changing software economics, China's recent equity market surge and more.

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Sept. 27, 2024

E47: Cult Stocks, Tech Media, and Technological Revolutions

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss cult stocks like Tesla and Palantir, debate whether AI or globalization will impact jobs more, explore the energy transition's unexpected reversal, analyze Forbes' content strategy and more.

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Sept. 19, 2024

E46: Degrowth, Private Equity, and the EU Tech Industry

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg tackle the current state of the EU's tech sector, evolution of private equity firms, consumer credit defaults, online reputation management and more.

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Sept. 12, 2024

E45: Efficient Market Hypothesis, Missing Billionaires, and Digital C…

This week, Byrne and Erik discuss the efficiency of market hypothesis, explores the complexities of breaking up big tech companies, unpacks the intriguing dynamics of currencies from nations to video game gems and more.

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Sept. 6, 2024

E44: Founder Mode, Uber’s Self-Driving Strategy, and Big Tech Skeptic…

This week, Byrne and Erik discuss the idea of taxing unrealized capital gains, networked nature of the finance industry, the strategic direction of Uber in autonomous vehicles, the merits of 'founder mode' and more.

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Aug. 29, 2024

E43: The Silicon Valley Canon, Smart Contracts, and the Yen Carry Tra…

On this week’s episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss the Silicon Valley Canon, impact of tech on traditional markets, the evolution of smart contracts, risks of currency carry trades and more.

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Aug. 22, 2024

E42: Navigating Tech Antitrust and the Future of AI

On this week’s episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss tricky antitrust decisions, Balaji’s Network State, the dynamics of content moderation, and more.

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Aug. 15, 2024

E41: Meta’s Open Source Strategy, Amazon’s Culture Drift, and What’s …

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss Meta's open source AI strategy, Amazon's expansion into remote areas, and the future of AI models.

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