OpenAI Acquires TBPN: (yes the tech news podcast)

**Latent Space AI** (0:00)
OpenAI has just acquired the popular tech show TBPN, the Technology Business Programming Network. This is OpenAI's first big move into owning a media company, but this isn't a classic media company, right? They're not buying the New York Times, or, you know, the Wall Street Journal or something. They're buying kind of one of these up-and-coming tech shows that, for, you know, full disclosure, this thing started in 2025 So this has not been around, it's only been around for 18 months, and they have now been acquired today on the podcast. I want to break down how much we are speculating they've been acquired for, what people have been saying about it over on X, and all of the juicy details basically in an acquisition of a kind of first media company acquisition by OpenAI, why they might be doing this pre-IPO, and where we see this going in the future. Before we get into all of that, if you want to try the latest features on AIBox.AI, my own startup, you get access to over 80 different AI models in one place for $8.99 a month. You get access to all of the audio, video, image, text models, Google Gemini, VO3 for video, 11 Labs for audio, all of that for $9 a month. You can go check it out. There's a link in the description to AIBox.AI. You can basically just in our playground, chat with all of the models in one place, including the image models. So you've talked with Claude, you get it to generate an image, which Claude doesn't do. You can go back to talking to Gemini to get some of the latest Google News, and then you get it to generate a video with Google VO3. So if you want to try all that out, it's in the link in the description to AIBox.AI. All right, let's get into the episode. So what's interesting here is OpenAI has just acquired TBPN, and basically when they bought this, a lot of people were worried. They're like, oh no, like OpenAI is just buying this media company. They're going to tell them what to do. It's going to change the direction. Apparently, the show is going to report directly to OpenAI's chief political operator, which is Chris Leggan. And I think this is not really a content play. It's kind of a communications expansion. The hosts, which were some former tech founders, John Coogan and Geordie Hayes, it basically built its reputation on it. They would do these like daily three hour. They would do. They still do these daily three hour live format kind of streams. They stream on X and YouTube. And they basically do deep dives into tech business AI. And they also do defense. And oftentimes, they're kind of reacting in real time to things that are happening. So right, they're doing the live stream, something happens on X and they're kind of talking about it. They also layer some of their insider perspectives that I think you don't typically get from a lot of traditional media because they were founders and they've actually been working in the space. And over the past year, they basically evolved into, there's kind of this cult following in Silicon Valley. It's a lot of different founders and operators and executives. They will come there and they'll basically like, I don't know, they speak pretty candidly, they challenge each other. And sometimes they're, you know, they're saying like the quiet part out loud basically on the show. I think that's what a lot of people like about it. Now, I think it has earned comparisons to kind of like a sports center, but it's for tech. And you see people like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Mark Benioff, Sam Altman, all of them have come on the show before. And they're kind of breaking down some of the headlines, right? Some of the, you know, some crazy thing happens with OpenAI. You have Sam Altman on there. And I think it's interesting because you get their perspective as their tech founders grilling, not really grilling, right? It's not really very combative, I think, which is another thing that people actually like about it, but they're asking them about what's going on. Despite the acquisition, though, because some people are like, oh no, OpenAI is buying them, they're going to tell them what to say. Apparently, TBPN is going to continue to operate under its own brand, so at least publicly, and then it's going to have OpenAI stepping in to help them scale the distribution. So it's still its own company, but OpenAI probably is going to throw ads at it to help it grow and do a bunch of other things for its reach and production. And I mean, some people are like, well, it doesn't really need it, it's kind of organically growing. And yes, but for example, if you go search for the AI Chat podcast, my podcast on Google, right above it, you're going to see an ad for NVIDIA's like AI podcast. So you can, there's a lot you can do to grow. NVIDIA obviously is growing their podcast by putting ads on top of my show. And I mean, we all, you know, I'm sure that I get listens from people looking for their AI show, finding my show. So, you know, it's all an ecosystem for sure, but there's a lot of ways you can grow. And I can only imagine with OpenAI's funding, how fast and big they could grow that brand to be basically like a full scale media company. According to the Wall Street Journal, they were already on pace to generate more than $30 million in revenue this year. Apparently, they did $5 million last year from, you know, advertisers, ad revenue on the platform. They have a bunch of sponsorships, they have some distribution. And I think right now, OpenAI is, you know, they have a lot of different content efforts. They're trying their own podcast, which is kind of focused on long, long-form conversations. They're bringing a bunch of builders inside their company to come talk on that. So I think, you know, OpenAI is getting their own podcast started, and they're thinking, look, maybe this is a good next move. I think it is a little bit different, though, because you know, TBPN, this is, it's very loud, it's very fast, it's very embedded into the day-to-day tech, right? I mean, like three-hour live stream every single day. A lot of people watch this. OpenAI right now is planning to kind of go beyond just owning the show. They're also going to tap the founders, what they said, they're, quote, amazing comms and marketing instincts. So I think beyond just like, hey, we want to get like this kind of YouTube channel that does AI news, they want to grab those founders and they want to get their communications and their communications instincts. According to Fiji Simo, who is leading this, she kind of emphasized that they're going to bring, quote, AI to the world in a way that helps people understand the full impact of this technology on their daily lives. I think she's basically positioning the show as kind of like a bridge between some of the complex AI systems and then kind of helping your average person understand what's going on, because that's kind of what the company's been doing, and I think OpenAI knows that that is a sweet spot where their messaging needs to really thrive. So Simo like kind of was diving into that and she basically pointed out that TBPN's style is really uniquely suited for a company like OpenAI, where quote, the standard communications playbook just doesn't apply. So I think like if you kind of read between the lines there, basically they're saying traditional PR isn't enough for OpenAI. It's one of these really consequential technologies shaping what's happening. And so they said, look, like this is kind of what we need to help us get our message out there. But what they're trying to say, because I guess a lot of people were kind of worried about the editorial, quote, unquote, independence of the company. They said that their team is still going to have quote, is going to quote, run their program, choose their guests and make their own editorial decisions. So even if OpenAI owns them, they're allowed to say whatever they want. And I was actually reading some tweets by the founders, and they were like, look, sometimes we've been critical of OpenAI, and we hope to still be critical of them and other people in the future. But really, I think what they're trying to do or what they said they're interested in is helping to shape some of the decisions that are being made inside of the company. I think they know they get a bit more of a seat at the table. If they have the microphone, they're working inside of OpenAI, they're getting feedback from people. I think this is something that they're hoping that they can make a bigger impact in the AI industry. I think once all this is finalized, TBPN is going to sit under OpenAI's strategy team. They're going to report to Leon, who's a long time political strategist. He's kind of known for coining the phrase vast right wing conspiracy during his time in the Clinton White House. And he's often described as a practitioner of the quote, political dark arts.