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Season 1

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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Aug. 8, 2024

E40: The Age of the AI Organization

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the future of AI-powered organizations with Omar Shams

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Aug. 1, 2024

E39: Mental Models and Financial Infrastructure with Patrick McKenzie

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Patrick discuss financial fraud, the evolution of trust in financial systems, talent spotting strategies, and the power of cold emailing.

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July 25, 2024

E38: Resurgence of Prediction Markets, AI Adoption and Complex Financ…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the rise of prediction markets, AI's impact on software economics, and the evolving landscape of financial systems and public markets.

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July 18, 2024

E37: 2024 Election Updates, Partisanship on Wikipedia, and Amazon’s M…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the recent Trump assassination attempt, Wikipedia's reliability issues, Amazon's complex media strategy, and the benefits of America's liquid financial markets.

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July 11, 2024

E36: Meritocracy, Modeling Globalization, and The Burden of Knowledge

This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg dive deep into David Graeber's controversial concept of 'Bullshit Jobs,' exploring its validity and impact.

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July 6, 2024

E35: How to Be President, the Future of AI Celebrities, and Training …

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the evolution of monetary systems, the economics of AI investments, and how AI is impacting the job market for junior software developers.

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June 20, 2024

E33: AI Therapy, 4chan, and Why Conferences Are Like Cities

This week, writer Byrne Hobart and investor Erik Torenberg discuss the economics of conferences and cities, rise of meme stocks, future of coding in the age of AI and more.

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June 13, 2024

E32: Populism, Elites, and Preparing for AGI

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss populist cycles, why billionaires buy media companies, how to invest if you think AGI is coming soon, and more.

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June 6, 2024

E31: Google API Documentation Leak, Apple's Plans for Siri, and Analy…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss Elon Musk's and Yann Lecun's Tweets, what we can learn from Google's API decumentation leaks, how Apple is planning on improving Siri, and more.

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May 30, 2024

E30: xAI Fundraising, Vivek's BuzzFeed Investment, and Ad-Based AI Mo…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about xAI's fundraising round, Vivek Ramaswamy's investment in BuzzFeed, and the dynamics of using ads to monetize AI.

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May 23, 2024

E29: Meme Stocks, Reserve Currencies, and the Case Against Home Owner…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about meme stocks, the nature of reserve currencies, and why you should consider not owning a home in America.

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May 17, 2024

E28: Amazon’s Potential for an Airline, Hidden Economic Gains, and th…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about Amazon’s potential to buy a passenger airline, hidden economic gains, equities, and more.

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May 9, 2024

E27: Costco's Business Model, Martingale Strategies, and Usage-Based …

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about how to apply Costco's business model in other industries, the risky business of Martingale strategies, usage as a potential barrier to AI model development, and more.

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May 3, 2024

E26: Stripe's Unbundling Strategy, What AI Means for Education, and 2…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss AI & education, Stripe's shift towards unbundling, and the possibility of 24 hour markets.

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April 25, 2024

E25: Lambda School Drama, Meta's Path to AI, and Why Hardware Constra…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss income sharing agreements, the privacy/security/usability efficient frontier, and how Meta ended up with all their GPUs.

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April 18, 2024

E24: Why Acquisitions Fail, How to Write a Great Memo, and The Fate o…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the acquisition landscape, how to write great business memos, and why it's hard to monetize a successful ChatGPT wrapper

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April 11, 2024

E23: Hard Tech Pivots, Potato Investing, and When to Enforce the Law

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss pivots in hard tech, cybersecurity and privacy, and the considerations in how often to enforce the law.

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April 4, 2024

E22: Corporate Espionage, Algorithmic Collusion, and Transitioning th…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne delve into corporate espionage, algorithmic collusion, and the lifecycle of companies amidst technological changes.

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March 28, 2024

E21: Austin Real Estate, Duolingo’s Bull Case, and Identifying Spurio…

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss Austin real estate, why Duolingo has remained strong post-pandemic, and how to identify spurious correlations during data analysis.

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March 21, 2024

E20: Content Moderation, AI in Advertising, and the Future of Social …

In this episode, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss how technological changes influence markets and business adaptability.

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March 14, 2024

E19: Hedging against Life, Outage Economics, and Open Source vs Propr…

On today’s episode, Byrne Hobart delves into the intricacies of technology-induced market shifts, hedge fund dynamics, Byrne’s post on outage economics, and the evolving landscape of open source and proprietary AI models.

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March 7, 2024

E18: Tiger Global, Selling Alpha, and Dating Apps

On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss lessons about Tiger Global from Carrie Sun’s book Private Equity, the role of alternative data in investing, and why it’s hard to make a good dating app.

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Feb. 29, 2024

E17: How Quants See the World

Byrne and Erik discuss company valuations, short selling, company earnings guidance, market predictions, and the behavior of companies and investors in financial markets.

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