What Next

@whatnext · Podcast

Latest segments

• Anthropic's IPO filing, 2026-10-30
  Reads the S-1 line on machine intelligence
  Reads the S-1's line about machine intelligence as a seminal moment and treats it as a window into Dario Amodei's thinking, then widens out to AI's decade of progress. Reaction and framing around the filing, not a new fact from it.
• Anthropic's IPO filing, 2026-10-30
  Argues retention shows AI is durable, not a bubble
  Roose uses the S-1's retention figure to argue AI is a durable technology rather than a bubble, adding that top Fortune companies spend about 0.1 percent of total expenses on Anthropic. The 900 percent figure is a retelling; the 0.1 percent is a new number but only context for the same claim.
• Anthropic's IPO filing, 2026-10-30
  Walks the S-1 numbers and the 900 percent figure
  Walks the newly filed S-1 with Kevin Roose: $16.3 billion in first-half revenue, a 14-fold jump, an $80.7 billion loss mostly from accounting charges, and $800 to $855 billion in compute contracts. Roose flags the buried 900 percent net revenue retention as unlike anything he has seen in a filing.
• Raskin's Epstein report, 2026-10-29
  Reports DOJ withholding a million documents
  Raskin, asked what Democrats will do if the administration resists, says the DOJ is violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by withholding a million documents and that Democrats have sent a letter of protest and will legislate further consequences. He declines to endorse impeaching Blanche.
• Raskin's Epstein report, 2026-10-29
  Explains who must appoint a special counsel
  Raskin, asked how the report becomes action if Democrats retake the House, says Republicans rejected every investigative request and no Judiciary hearing has been held. He adds that the attorney general, not the D.C. Circuit, would have to appoint any independent special counsel, and cites Blanche saying he works directly for Trump.
• Raskin's Epstein report, 2026-10-29
  Walks through the case against Blanche
  Raskin walks through the report's case for a special counsel, arguing Todd Blanche cannot be trusted: the July 7 DOJ letter, the Maxwell interview after the Oversight subpoena, and her swift transfer to a facility that did not admit sex offenders, with special privileges. It stays inside the report's own argument.
• Raskin's Epstein report, 2026-10-29
  Adds Kuhl's rape allegation to the report
  Raskin, pressed on Beatrice Kuhl, confirms the report carries her rape allegation for the first time and defends it against her 2024 Daily Mail account of an attempted assault. He frames the report as evidence for a DOJ investigation, not a prosecution.
• Raskin's Epstein report, 2026-10-29
  Interviews Raskin on the 50-page report
  Introduces the 50-page Democratic staff report and interviews Rep. Jamie Raskin, who defends releasing it eight days before the election and says it lays out enough evidence to launch a DOJ investigation.
• Texas Senate race, 2026-10-28
  Rates two ads and adds Musk's spending figure
  Picks two ads it rates as effective: the Pick Another Protein spot against Cindy Hyde-Smith and a Talarico ad that names Elon Musk as the funder of the attacks. The Texas ad puts a new figure on the record for Musk's spending against Talarico.
• Democrats spurn Harris, 2026-10-28
  Plays the ad and debates red-state messaging
  Plays the Turek ad and debates whether Democrats in red states should run on trans issues at all. Molly Jong-Fast calls the ads morally atrocious but argues Iowa is not wokeness territory; the substance stays inside the ad already on the record.
• El-Sayed's Michigan Senate bid, 2026-10-28
  Describes a PAC ad and stresses its source
  Describes a new ad from Cenk Uygur's PAC in the Michigan Senate race that uses grocery prices and an anti-Semitic trope about sending money to Israel, and stresses it is not from El-Sayed's campaign.
• Texas Senate race, 2026-10-28
  Pivots to the ad war around the race
  Pivots from the Texas Senate race to the ad war around it: an AI-made Tallarico spot styled as The Sound of Music, a Bible-desecration ad, and Musk as the top funder of anti-Tallarico PACs. Also wanders into the governor's race and redistricting.
• Acton's mother ad, 2026-10-28
  Recaps the ad and reports the fallout
  Recaps the Acton mother ad and the abuse history behind it, then goes to the fallout: the Cook Political Report moved the Ohio governor's race from toss-up to lean Democrats after the ad, and the New York Times found Donna Arthur living in her car with her cats.
• Anthropic's draft safety bill, 2026-10-23
  Weighs preemption inside the draft debate
  Weighs the preemption question inside the Anthropic draft debate, recalling a past federal preemption push that Marsha Blackburn helped knock down after music companies objected. Newport's warning about industry using preemption to freeze out stronger state rules is argument, not a new development.
• Anthropic's draft safety bill, 2026-10-23
  Walks through the leaked draft and the confusion
  Walks through the leaked Anthropic draft and the confusion it sows on Capitol Hill: lawmakers hear from AI safety groups and AI companies without realizing the same funders back both. Argues the superintelligence framing is 1990s futurism, and reads the leak's timing as image control before the midterms.
• Witkoff's Oslo talks, 2026-10-21
  Hands off to a Ukrainian journalist's reaction
  Notes the announcement that Zelensky will meet Witkoff, then hands off to a Ukrainian journalist who says nothing Ukraine does while Trump is president will improve its standing and that Ukrainian attitudes toward America have done a complete 180. Reaction and framing, no new development.
• 600,000 lose power in Ukraine, 2026-10-21
  Adds the Journal's follow-up on Musk's authorization
  Adds the Journal's follow-up on the Starlink slowdown: Musk personally authorized it, and did so after a phone call with Trump. Notes it is unclear whether Musk acted unilaterally, then moves to an interview and ad reads.
• 600,000 lose power in Ukraine, 2026-10-21
  Reads the outage through Kyiv's politics
  Recaps the Starshield outage and restoration, then reads it through Kyiv's politics: the fired defense minister Fedorov was the Silicon Valley conduit, and Musk publicly backed him. Stays inside the week's Starlink coverage.
• Trump waives Graham Act sanctions, 2026-10-21
  Recaps the waiver and Beyer's September warning
  Recaps the waiver through the Graham Act's design, with a co-host calling the bill a nothing burger that let the president ignore any part he disliked. Adds one on-the-record item: Don Beyer's September prediction that Ukraine supporters would regret the bill.
• Trump's refinery plea, 2026-10-21
  Interviews a Kyiv journalist on the diesel deal
  Interviews a Kyiv-based journalist who puts the contracted volume at roughly 300,000 to 400,000 barrels, less than half a day of U.S. demand, and says Trump family holding companies are involved in setting up the diesel deal and in buying frozen Lukoil assets.