Why This Crypto Billionaire Wants to Slow Down the AI Arms Race

Kara Swisher (0:12)

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Chris Larsen, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency tech company Ripple. Larsen has become a controversial figure over the past few years due to his funding of an extensive surveillance network in San Francisco that many credit with lowering crime in the city. He's never been shy about using his wealth and influence to propel certain policy goals gaining detractors and admirers along the way. But Larsen insists that his interest in San Francisco stems from a true love of the Bay Area, and I believe that's true. He's willing to talk about almost anything and we get into it here, surveillance, AI reform. He's actually one of the tech bros fighting other tech bros, cryptocurrency regulation and national politics. Chris is a really interesting thinker and he goes all over the place. Unlike a lot of these tech bros that shifted right, he did not. He shifts in ways that I find more sensible. I don't agree with him on everything, but he's a really smart thinker and he's putting his money where his mouth is. This episode was recorded live at San Francisco's Pier 27 as part of the Odoo experience. So, let's get into it.

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Chris, why don't we just get your assessment of San Francisco right now? There was, of course, the Fox News period where everything was doom and gloom. Much of what they were saying were lies.

Talk a little bit about how you look at San Francisco as an innovation center right now. Yeah.

Chris Larsen (2:20)

Well, first of all, the city is really doing great. We've really come back.

We had some problems, right? A lot of those were political, self-inflicted wounds. But we've got a fantastic mayor now, Mayor Lurie.

And we've really, yeah, I think we should applaud. Seventy-four percent approval rating. That's incredible in San Francisco. But I think we fixed our public safety problem as well. We were the nation's capitalists in terms of smash and grab crimes, which are not violent crimes, but they are the kinds of crimes that make people say, I just don't want to go into the city and I don't want to have my workers there. It's like 25,000 smash and grab incidents that were reported every single year. That's down now 70 percent. And it's because we've given the police the right tools, the voters approved Prop E back in 2024 I gave them drones, these license plate readers. I know there's some controversy on cameras. But it's been incredibly effective. And we've stood up something called the Real Time Investigation Center. So that's a game changer because now instead of, there's a crime and it gets reported and it's too late, everybody's gone, nothing can be done about it. That's how it used to be. Now they're catching these smash and grab crews in real time. They come into the city, they do 10 hits a day of crimes. Now you see one of them, we send a drone over to witness them doing a second act.

With the license plate readers, we can see where they're going. You send an unmarked police car with plain clothes police officer in it. They put a spike strip out right when they're going by and they've basically eliminated these crews. And even the crews are talking about this on some of their podcasts, believe it or not, Vox Media Podcast.

Kara Swisher (4:10)

As they should.

Chris Larsen (4:11)

As they should.

But it's great news because nothing works unless you have public safety. That's why the mayor says this is number one objective, still is. And then you need clean streets. We've made a lot of progress there.

Obviously, we had a big homeless problem. Still have some work to do there, but we've made a ton of progress in making sure that, particularly in the Tenderloin, that that doesn't become a containment zone. So you can see the results. And I think that set the stage for this AI boom, that people wanted to be right here. And that's great news, obviously, for not just the city, but for the state. It's literally like the entire world is sending us a check. And that's been a real blessing.