The Scarlet Summer of Our Luddite Discontent: Opening Up on AI Shame & Anthropic Watermarks

00:00:31 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It's Saturday, August 15, 2026. I'll probably put this show up tomorrow on the sixteenth. The heart of the summer. Everyone's away. I'm not quite sure why we're doing these shows. And according to The Wall Street Journal, this is the summer that America became a nation of Luddites. And it's not just the left that's turning against technology. It's also the right. There was an interesting piece in Transformer about a January 6 organizer who's getting conservatives to be riled up about AI. Everyone seems riled up about AI. And according to Keith Teare, the publisher of That Was the Week newsletter, it's not just the left and the right. It's even the AI community. His AI, and not his AI. In his— that was an error. In his editorial this week, he asked, “Why watermark?” And he suggests that Claude, in supporting or introducing watermarking in its— in its product, is suggesting that my product is so bad for mankind that I plan to place an indelible fingerprint that I created it so everybody can know I was there. Keith, before we get to your views on watermarking, you're not a fan. You're not keen on watermarking, to borrow some of my language. What exactly is watermarking?

00:02:07 Keith Teare: It— well, it's a word that describes lots of different techniques for identifying the source of content. For example, Google for a long time has used audio signals to watermark videos for copyright holders. In this case, it's Anthropic using text signals. In other words, it's adding stuff invisibly to your writing where it can say, yes. That came from us.

00:02:40 Andrew Keen: So it's just— it's indicating whether or not you or I or anyone else is using AI. And you asked in your editorial this week, “Why watermark?” Claude wants everybody to know it is there, which actually isn't surprising because Claude wants everybody to know it's everywhere. But what's wrong with watermarking? Why are you against it?

00:03:04 Keith Teare: I'm against it for a lot of reasons. And I will say to caveat, I don't know that I'm against it per se. I'm against it in this context.

00:03:14 Andrew Keen: Well, you say and I'm quoting you in your editorial. You say, watermarking is nuts. So, you couldn't say it more clearly than that unless you like nuts, Keith. Do you like nuts?

00:03:24 Keith Teare: Just have them for breakfast. Almonds. Look, watermarking this week is nuts. Let's have this week because it's really about Anthropic for a reason I can't quite fathom, deciding that it will add something to the world if it watermarks things it's involved in. And in my brain, the only rationale I could come up with for that is they're almost like ashamed to be there, and they're also don't want their customers to use them without whoever is reading their customers to know they're there. So it's kind of tarnishing customers' use of their product by implying there's something wrong with using it. And so it's a quite remarkable decision that they've made to do that. And it comes this week with lots of whispers, which are not so quiet, that internally, Anthropic is turning into a little bit of an ideologically motivated cult. And that word cult is being used.

00:04:37 Andrew Keen: Cult rather than cot. I'm thinking of a baby, a cot. Well, you hate— Anthropic. Let's be clear, Keith. You've never barely said a good word about it. You're a— an OpenAI guy.

00:04:49 Keith Teare: Well, this week I think I'll become a Grok Bot guy. I'm for sale, actually. I—

00:04:56 Andrew Keen: You are?

00:04:57 Keith Teare: I don't really owe any long-term affinity to any of them. And I've always said Anthropic's Claude is excellent, and it is. And I think OpenAI's Codex stroke ChatGPT is excellent. This week, you have to say Grok Bot is excellent. It's as good as the—

00:05:18 Andrew Keen: I mean, this is our Wacky Races every week. Things change. Although the FT today leads with a piece about OpenAI upheaval mounts as Sam Altman readies IPO push. I mean, I don't know how it can mount much more. Every day, there seems to be a headline in the FT or The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal about upheaval at OpenAI. And the same is true of Anthropic in terms of their supposed $2 trillion IPO. Keith, let's get a little bit more into this idea of shame or guilt. Why in your mind is watermarking introducing the issue of shame or guilt to the use of AI? Why does it in your view, and you suggested at least for this week, AI, watermarking is nuts. You're not a big fan of it. Why does it make its users feel guilty?

00:06:10 Keith Teare: Well, that paragraph you just showed explains it. A watermark starts from suspicion. In other words, there's a problem to solve. The watermark is solving some problem. Well, what is that problem that it's solving? I don't see a problem with using AI, so I definitely don't think there's a problem. But there is a— there is a zeitgeist. I don't know if it's the zeitgeist— that use of AI somehow tarnishes the user. And it feels as if Anthropic is embracing that criticism and sees watermarking as a solution, which if you think about it, if it has any effect at all, people on the margin will therefore not use it because they're all—

00:07:02 Andrew Keen: But I don't understand. I wonder whether there's a kind of guilt here with you. Why would people be embarrassed to use Anthropic? I'm not embarrassed to use it. You're not embarrassed to use it. We both acknowledge it. Why would watermarking it, suggest guilt? Why wouldn't people wear it as a badge of pride?

00:07:25 Keith Teare: I think we've got to ask Anthropic that question.

00:07:28 Andrew Keen: But no. But no. But that— it's your analysis. It's not Anthropic. Anthropic's just providing the watermark, and they're not suggesting that using it is a bad thing. That's your interpretation.

00:07:40 Keith Teare: Well, why else would you need a watermark? What other— try to give me three other reasons why we would use that.

00:07:46 Andrew Keen: Just say, I'm curious. So you— one of the other pieces you linked to this week is one by Alex Danco about— and it's a headline: “This Essay Is 10% AI Generated.” I'm always curious about whether or not people are using AI. It doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. And there are now products where you can run content through, text through to determine. So I ran your editorial this week through Pangram, and it suggested that 86% of your editorial is produced by AI. I actually ran last week's editorial of mine. I couldn't do it this week because I haven't written it yet. And it said that mine is 100% human written. But that doesn't make me feel any better or worse. It shouldn't make you feel any better or worse. The fact that you're producing 86% of your content with AI doesn't make you feel inferior to me, does it, Keith?

00:08:50 Keith Teare: No. But it's also wrong. I put Saul Klein's story this week through it, and it said it was 100% written by AI.

00:08:58 Andrew Keen: Well, we don't know. We'll have to get Klein. Maybe it is.

00:09:01 Keith Teare: And I read his piece, and I could definitely see bits of it that I thought AI was involved in, but it wasn't 100%. And even if it were if it was 100%, I could identify what I know about Saul's views completely, penetrating that piece. So the— you know—

00:09:20 Andrew Keen: But again, you're coming— you're the one, Keith. It sounds to me. I'm not— no, no— a psychologist here, but you're the one—

00:09:28 Keith Teare: You're not being fair. You're ignoring evidence. Last week, we talked about publishers and a writer, having his book canceled and his agent resigning because he used AI.

00:09:41 Andrew Keen: Yeah. But we're not pretending.

00:09:43 Keith Teare: Yeah. Don't pretend there isn't an issue. There is an issue. It's not me.

00:09:47 Andrew Keen: Yeah. But that— but the issue then is a social one, that's for some reason, people feel that you shouldn't be using AI. But that's got nothing to do with Anthropic.

00:09:59 Keith Teare: No. Anthropic's responding to that feeling. Right.

00:10:02 Andrew Keen: So it doesn't mean that it's suggesting that. But the interesting thing is—

00:10:08 Keith Teare: Why keep it at the end? [as spoken] You shouldn't respond to that feeling because it's wrong. If I'm leading Anthropic, I call bullshit on the publisher. I don't— I do what Elon would do. I don't do what Dario would do, which is kiss ass. And by the way, he kisses ass completely, in a kind of— a deceitful way where he's just trying to adjust to what people are asking. So he reminds me of a politician, not a— the leader of a company.

00:10:40 Andrew Keen: But don't— I mean, in defense of Dario, probably doesn't need much of a defense from me. If indeed America is becoming a nation of Luddites, which is what The Wall Street Journal announced today, for better or worse, it's not saying that's a good or a bad thing. Both left and right are more and more suspicious of AI. If you were running Anthropic, don't you have to adjust to that? Isn't that just the reality of the market?

00:11:07 Keith Teare: You should never adjust to the market. The market's wrong nine times out of 10. You have to adjust to the long-term roadmap, the capabilities, and the good things it will bring to humanity if you succeed. You have to fund that. You have to earn revenue through that, and you have to, either ignore or call out the people who are friction in the way of your roadmap. That's the right way for any leader of any startup to behave. Because a startup that's disruptive inherently will have opponents, usually people that don't want change.

00:11:46 Andrew Keen: And Anthropic's gonna— whatever, whichever position they take, they're gonna have opponents. That's just the nature of things. And I wonder, you always use the H word, humanity or human. I never know quite what it means. But it seems as if this issue, Keith, of whether or not we use AI and the shame that it involves— I sense a little bit of shame on your part. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm the wrong kind of therapist here. That's all too human, and that's a good thing, isn't it? I mean, we're— we don't— none of us wanna become machines. We know that the future is of increasingly smart machines. We're trying to carve out a space, a place where humans will remain human. Isn't— and isn't shame one of those spaces? Because then it's not really rational as you say. I mean, it's— but it's all too human.

00:12:35 Keith Teare: I think shame should exist and I would feel shame if I was replacing myself with AI and not caring what it said and publishing it anyway. You know, if it really was the— and there are spam factories using AI that do exactly that. There are also fakers who do exactly that. And if I was doing that, I definitely would feel shame. I don't feel any shame at all recruiting an army of AI agents to help me accomplish my goals. None whatsoever. As long as I can stand by the output, which I— therefore, I have to read it, change it, edit it, inspire it in the first case, then I don't feel any shame at all. But I think society is trying to make me feel shame. And as a normal human being who listens to everything, you certainly— and this must be true of you as well, Andrew. You must ask yourself, you know, always, have I crossed the line where those people are gonna consider me a bad actor?

00:13:43 Andrew Keen: Well, I've always made a brand on being a bad actor, so I certainly don't wanna be liked. But I passed the test. I got 100%. You got I think I got 14%.

00:13:54 Keith Teare: Was it right? By the way, was it right to give you 100%?

00:13:57 Andrew Keen: No. Because I use Anthropic, but I use it as a draft, and then I rewrite the whole thing. So it gives me some structure.

00:14:06 Keith Teare: Which is exactly what I do. Actually, there's a pre— you're cutting yourself short there. You give it some content.

00:14:16 Andrew Keen: So you don't— Yeah. Well, it has the interview. So we— it has the interview. So a transcript, then I say, “Suggest some notes,” and then I mostly rewrite it. But I use sometimes its structure and some of its ideas.

00:14:34 Keith Teare: So I do exactly the same. I give it content. In my case, it's the newsletter. In your case, it's the interview. So it's— it starts with your work or my work. Then it, you know, I give it the— I say it's— I'll ask it, you know, how many themes are there this week in the stories? And usually on a Friday, there's fifty-ish stories. It will surface four or five themes that are buried inside the stories with evidence that the themes are there using quotes and what have you. And I'll say a bit like a news editorial meeting, I'll say, actually, I like theme one, but it could be weaved in logically throughout the whole thing. There could be a line where all the themes come into play, but it's through the spectrum of theme one. Go and do me a draft editorial that does that, and it will do it. And it'll be about 90% not how I think. Then I'll go back and forth a few times, tweak it. I get a draft at the end that's half-decent, and then I rewrite it. That's what I do.

00:15:39 Andrew Keen: So— and, again, this kind of conversation is an all too human conversation. We are— we're speaking of how we each produce our unique content. I don't see why watermarking— I think watermarking, in a sense, is a very human addition to a product that in some people's minds, certainly in America this summer, is threatening our humanity. So I don't have a problem with it at all. I think it's a good thing.

00:16:08 Keith Teare: Why isn't Restream watermarking this, saying it came from Restream? Why doesn't Adobe Premiere work?

00:16:15 Andrew Keen: —care if it did.

00:16:17 Keith Teare: Yeah. But it's bullshit. There's no need for it. It's just a defensive reaction to a zeitgeist.

00:16:24 Andrew Keen: Well, you're not alone. I disagree with you, but lots of people are angry. One of your posts of the week is from someone called Arturo Villa. I wonder if it's relation— related to Aston Villa. Anyway, he just canceled his Claude Max subscription. So, you're not alone. Did you cancel, Keith? Maybe if you felt strongly enough, you should just cancel.

00:16:46 Keith Teare: I—

00:16:48 Andrew Keen: Do it. Do it. Go public with your outrage against Claude for watermarking.

00:16:52 Keith Teare: Well, this probably gets to the nuance of what I'm saying. No. I haven't canceled it. And, honestly, I don't care that it's watermarked. I care that Anthropic thinks it should be watermarked, but I don't actually care that my stuff is watermarked.

00:17:06 Andrew Keen: Why do you care what Anthropic thinks?

00:17:08 Keith Teare: Because I'm an analyst of tech and I think it's a huge mistake one of several he's made, or they've made. And, you know, I think they're, you know, they're in danger of destroying their company in the eyes of those who most use their product.

00:17:30 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I mean, my problem, actually, I'm a big fan of both Dario, certainly, compared with some of the other characters like Elon and Sam Altman. But, my problem with Anthropic this week, I can tell you about this, is that, I'm already on a $100 monthly subscription, which seems a lot to me. And my sense is that because they're trying to drive more and more revenue for the upcoming IPO, a supposedly $2 trillion IPO, they're narrowing down on use. So I used it once, and it's now telling me that I couldn't use it. So I wonder whether that's going on. And, again, I'm sure that—

00:18:10 Keith Teare: Did you run out of credit?

00:18:12 Andrew Keen: I ran out of credits and whether that's because I'm using the highest-end product. But both Anthropic and OpenAI now — I mean, are focused exclusively on one thing, on— on generating the kind of revenue that will drive their IPO. I mean, the headline of the FT this week is on OpenAI upheaval, but I'm sure there's as much upheaval in Anthropic. In fact, that was a great piece. I know you don't like trivia, Keith, so I kept it out of this week's conversation. It was a great piece. I think it was in The Wall Street Journal about Dario Amodei's wife and ex-girlfriend of Eric Schmidt, which I was rather amused with.

00:18:52 Keith Teare: That's not a good fact, if you know anything about Eric Schmidt.

00:18:56 Andrew Keen: Why?

00:18:57 Keith Teare: Oh, we can't talk about it on—

00:18:59 Andrew Keen: Well, of course, we can. You've introduced it. What you mean because he's a bit of a womanizer? Poor old Eric.

00:19:06 Keith Teare: Well, that's putting a value judgment on it. He's— he seems to have a string of women who are attracted to him.

00:19:13 Andrew Keen: Well, I'm not sure they're attracted to him himself. I think they're probably attracted to his bank balance, but that's another question. The IPOs, though.

00:19:22 Keith Teare: Okay. Just a minute. I wanted to pick up on your previous question. So the $200 a month spot seems to be becoming normal. Grok this week launched Grok Bot, which is an OpenClaw replacement. I'd say a far better version of OpenClaw. So that's a big deal. And, if they priced it out of the box at $200 a month. Yeah. In other words, you have to subscribe to Grok Premium to be able to use it. Probably that'll change over time. And I do— I don't know if it's only the IPO driving that. I think in a week where the— Nvidia committed to $500 billion worth of investment, you know, the ROI on that investment, its time has come. And so revenue becomes important not just for narrow, selfish IPO reasons, but more broadly, unless these companies can be sustained, they won't build the future. We all hope they will. So that—

00:20:31 Andrew Keen: Well, some of them might. I mean, most of us seem [unclear] for them not to wanna build the future. So I think some people in America would be thrilled if these IPOs fizzle or don't even happen. So you may be wrong on that. I mean, it depends how you come to this. And, of course, Grok has less pressure because it's already gone public.

00:20:53 Keith Teare: Yes. Space— SpaceX is already public. But I still think, you know, knowing founders, and Elon is an extreme version of a founder, when the race is still on, they'll do everything to win. And the fact that he—

00:21:12 Andrew Keen: [unclear] saying that Dario isn't doing that? You're saying that Dario is purposely or unwillingly shooting himself in the foot with this watermark thing?

00:21:20 Keith Teare: I'm convinced he thinks he's doing everything to win. I don't think he realizes that he's damaging his chances over and over again.

00:21:29 Andrew Keen: Well, he certainly will see. I mean, I think the rest of this year and the next five months can be dominated by these IPOs. One of the arguments you make in why watermark or why watermarking is nuts, why you're against it, is you think it will create more inequality in the future. What's the connection between watermarking and the failure for AI to be accessible for everybody?

00:21:57 Keith Teare: Well, look, equality when it comes to, AI delivering intelligence is really all about price and reach. How cheap is it? And you would hope the answer is free for some use cases. How cheap is it, and how widespread is it? And anything that produces friction by reinforcing the Luddite lobby in their attempts to slow it down, get it under government regulatory control. That's got nothing to do with watermarking. Or in an extreme way, even banning it, like data center bans. Watermarking is part of that narrative because watermarking is accepting there is a problem when there is not a problem.

00:22:49 Andrew Keen: It is not, though. I think, again, I sense some sort of guilt. Why—

00:22:55 Keith Teare: Andrew, what is it doing if it isn't doing that? Because you can—

00:22:57 Andrew Keen: Because people are curious. As I said, I mean, I ran it through—

00:23:00 Keith Teare: You're curious, but is that why he's doing it? To serve your curiosity?

00:23:04 Andrew Keen: No idea what he's doing. I can't—

00:23:06 Keith Teare: Well, he—

00:23:06 Andrew Keen: —look into Dario Amodei's mind. But I—

00:23:08 Keith Teare: I'll have a wild guess. Is he thinking Andrew's curious, so I'm gonna put this in?

00:23:13 Andrew Keen: No. He's not. He's just— I think the people— okay. I'm curious, and I think many people are curious. So when they— there's more curious. No. There's more— you are. See, there's more and more content online. People are curious. Did Keith actually— They're not written by AI.

00:23:29 Keith Teare: No. Curious is a cheating word. They're malevolently curious. They want to punish people who use it.

00:23:38 Andrew Keen: Why? Why is it punishing them? Because you— again, you've got this sense of guilt.

00:23:42 Keith Teare: It's somehow it's bad to use it. Week— the guy last week who lost his agent and his publishing contract there's many other examples, by the way.

00:23:51 Andrew Keen: But that's an extreme— hold on. That's an extreme case because the publishing industry doesn't want AI.

00:23:56 Keith Teare: —responding to. They're not responding to curiosity. They're responding to that case, and they're feeding it. They're feeding that case.

00:24:03 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I sense a sense of guilt on your part or a sense that somehow—

00:24:07 Keith Teare: Keep saying that, then. Do I look guilty? I'm not guilty.

00:24:09 Andrew Keen: You do look a bit guilty. I don't usually— I mean, is this the— a little bit of the religious coming out of Keith here, the sense of shame, which I think is a good thing because it shows you're human. And that's what we've got to define in our AI. I—

00:24:24 Keith Teare: I don't have—

00:24:24 Andrew Keen: —a bad thing, even what you're saying.

00:24:27 Keith Teare: If you ask me, if— is there anything I've written I feel ashamed by? I'm sure I could go and find some things. But it isn't the use of AI that I feel ashamed of. Maybe some of the graphics that illustrate the newsletter. About the videos? May—maybe some of that.

00:24:44 Andrew Keen: You're not to blame for that. We can blame. What video algorithm do you use?

00:24:50 Keith Teare: I use, Seedance 2.5 on a service called Higgsfield.

00:24:56 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I think you might. You should feel good on that. Do you have a priest, Keith? Do you confess every week, or is this the equivalent of your confession?

00:25:04 Keith Teare: I am firmly in the atheist camp, which I do accept is also a faith. So—

00:25:11 Andrew Keen: Do you believe in sin, though? I mean, you seem to be suggesting that Dario Amodei is a bit of a sinner.

00:25:17 Keith Teare: I don't believe in sin, but I do believe in good and bad. Sin is the religious version of good and bad, like there's somebody judging you other than yourself.

00:25:26 Andrew Keen: Is Eric Schmidt a sinner for all his, sexual adventures?

00:25:31 Keith Teare: No one's a sinner because there is no God, and there is no heaven, and there is no hell. But he is a bad actor on occasion.

00:25:38 Andrew Keen: Should we have, Eric Schmidt watermarked? I mean, he has a terrible reputation for his womanizing. I mean, isn't that what media does in a kind of weird way, watermarks individuals? So Schmidt is, for better or worse, watermarked as a if not a sexual predator, certainly a sexual adventurer, and that's just the nature of things.

00:25:57 Keith Teare: I think there— yeah. There's a media subplot here, which is, you know, if you weren't gonna blame Anthropic, the next place you should go is the media. And Anthropic is a reactor, not an instigator. The instigator is the media. And, you know, we can find in the media all kinds of stories we do every week. Some of which are, Luddite themselves, others of which are calling out Luddites. So everything is there in the media. But I think the dominant impact on the AI companies from the media is one calling for a reaction. And you almost never should take the bait, with the media.

00:26:40 Andrew Keen: Well, according to Keith, Dario Amodei has taken the bait. I'm not convinced. What about, some other pieces this week? Anti-tech thought is more and more of a central subject in our summer of the Luddites. So Noah Smith says that there's a poverty of anti-tech thought. You're a big fan of Noah Smith. He always seems to come up. Maybe it's Anthropic's bias in this, but— or one of your other algorithms. But what— why is anti-tech thought impoverished, at least according to Smith?

00:27:15 Keith Teare: So he reflects on the narrative around big tech, having descended into, the caricature of tech bros and billionaires. And he's calling out the insubstantial nature of that discussion and pointing out that there's a massive difference between, coercion and persuasion. And that what tech is good at is persuasion. That's why large numbers of people use it, and the most valuable companies on earth are tech companies. And he suggests that what people should focus on isn't the success of big tech in building things that people want to use and persuading them to use it, but focus on coercion. And coercion falls on the other side. It's when there is an attempt, especially by the media, to stop things through government dictate. That's a bigger problem than tech bros and billionaires. So it's quite a substantial piece, and I'm summarizing. There's lots in the piece. But, you know, when he gives the example of the iPhone, he says, when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, it was so good that the argument was over on day one about whether it was good or bad. There was no—

00:28:55 Andrew Keen: I mean, I disagree on the iPhone. I mean, it was so good in a sense. But had society, to use the term, known about the impact of the iPhone on the world, I think there would have been more discussion, but that's another question.

00:29:10 Keith Teare: But no— Noah Smith, honestly, I think he's one of the better real-time thinkers. We talked last week about reading books. I think he's a bit— his reading habits are a bit like mine. I—

00:29:23 Andrew Keen: I mean, he doesn't read?

00:29:25 Keith Teare: No. I read probably twenty hours a week, but it's not books. It's things like his essays. And though those— he— you know, you have to reflect, digest, and respond at— in substance quite quickly, and he does that two or three times a week. He's very good.

00:29:46 Andrew Keen: Yeah. One of the pieces that you didn't actually put in the newsletter that I've added was an excellent review of Daron Acemoglu's new book on, saving liberal democracy by Martin Wolf, old friend of mine, the FT's economics correspondent [ed.: Wolf is the FT's chief economics commentator], very distinguished economist. He gives— he gives Acemoglu's book a really good read, a critical read, and suggests that most worryingly, he thinks that, and I'm quoting him here, that the ship of Acemoglu's version of liberal democracy has sailed, that something has changed dramatically. I'm not sure if you saw the Wolf review. Do you think Wolf might have a point here? He says that in the— and I'm quoting him here. In the era of deindustrialization and AI, we seem to be reaching the end of an era. Is it really possible to restore the politics of a technological and economic age that is indeed— that is itself vanishing? I think it's an important point.

00:30:50 Keith Teare: Yeah. The most interesting part of that review, I thought, was—

00:30:55 Andrew Keen: Oh, you've already read it. It was good, wasn't it?

00:30:56 Keith Teare: Yeah. I just didn't get it in the newsletter because I only just saw it. But, the most interesting part, I think, is the part that tries to explain the relationship between technology, society, and politics. Making the point that, liberal democracy without industrial capitalism would have been unthinkable because feudal overlords would have survived. And the political regimes that go along with feudalism, monarchies, or, military dictatorships would have survived. And what— the era we're now in is kind of interesting because, as industrialization becomes automated and dispersed, the working class, life experience changes from getting up at five, walking or bicycling to work, and working physically, you know, at least eight hours a day, eating, drinking, sleeping, and repeat, rinse, repeat. That life experience is eroding. And especially in America, the sense of the possibility of work that is less demanding and possibly less hours changes the affinity between people and society in a positive way.

00:32:30 Andrew Keen: Well, I strongly disagree with that. I think it may be in theory, maybe in the future. But at the moment, I just came back from Indianapolis. I spent this week in the Midwest. It's at least— from anecdotally walking around deindustrializing places like Indianapolis. The reverse is true. I mean, in the UK, twenty percent of people now, literally, and this is an official number, twenty percent of people are on disability. They're not— and then not only are they not working, they're completely out of the labor market. So there's no evidence that what Wolf— for better or worse, what Wolf calls deindustrialization is benefiting the ex-working-class. What— I know you don't like the term, whatever you wanna call them now.

00:33:12 Keith Teare: Yeah. No. I mean, I— we said last week, in response to a question from you, I made the point that I think in any meaningful sense, there isn't a working class anymore as in a class that sees itself as a class. There may still be from a sociological point of view people who are working class demographically, but they don't think of themselves that way. And that's a huge difference because it means, the Labour Party in England, for example, or the UK can't call on the working class as their natural voters because the working class don't think of themselves as working class. And that's been true for a while. That is a big change. I— what I'm talking about, Andrew, though— you're— what you're doing, and it's an okay way to do things, but you're taking, a snapshot, if you will, of the way the world is. And I think you're right. I think you're— you have an accurate—

00:34:08 Andrew Keen: Say it again. Say it. Go on. Say it again.

00:34:10 Keith Teare: You're right. And you have an accurate snapshot of Indianapolis, for example. And deindustrialization has led to despair, which has been part of the reason for Trump's successes. And I do think, however, that if instead of a snapshot, you take a movie and it has a future and a past, and you put that snapshot in the context of that, we are rapidly moving towards a more affluent—

00:34:45 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I think this is where I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole again. I think this is where you and I strongly disagree, but that's maybe the subject of another show or previous shows.

00:34:55 Keith Teare: But by the way, it does relate to your question about democracy because I think my framing— I have come to believe that the point of history is the individual freedom from necessity. So I think of the point of history is individual self-realization. Whereas the left [unclear] is breaking up and maybe this will change, but the left is— and I used to be one of those— thought of the point of history as collective.

00:35:30 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I mean, maybe coming back to guilt, maybe you're just— you're manifesting the guilt of a— an ex-leftist, communist Thatcherite.

00:35:40 Keith Teare: No. And I think it's putting the individual in its right place because what's the point of any progress unless individuals better? [as spoken]

00:35:47 Andrew Keen: I don't disagree with that, and I think you and I would probably share that. We live with similar types, living similar kinds of lives. But the reality, Keith, is that whilst this opportunity may exist for people like you and I and others, the vast majority of people, for better or worse, are not seizing it. And I don't see any evidence that they'll seize it in this brave new world of AI. And that's where you and I, I think, differ. I think you're more positive and optimistic. I just don't see it.

00:36:16 Keith Teare: Well, I— actually, I think we—

00:36:16 Andrew Keen: —agree on the—

00:36:19 Keith Teare: So that's where we agree. The rest is opinion, obviously, so it's okay to disagree when opinion comes into it. But in my case, I think of it as an activist, not as a historian. I think of the future as what's missing that could now be put into place, and I wanna get practical then. So for example, rethinking education is definitely missing. But now, the tools you have to rethink education are the best you've ever had. You could really do something fantastic in education. Same in health.

00:37:02 Andrew Keen: Disagree, but the question is— you could— whether you will or not. We'll come back to them.

00:37:06 Keith Teare: Will, though, because they can.

00:37:08 Andrew Keen: Well, I'm not. We could have had this conversation twenty-five years ago about democratizing information, and you would have said somebody can, and I would say maybe they can't. We are where we are. Coming back to today, the interview of the week is with the Harvard- and Princeton-educated Renée Jones. She has a new book out. I'm sure you would strongly disagree with that, [unclear]. I mostly disagree with what she said. Untamed Unicorns: Why Startup Finance Is Broken and How to Fix It. She argues in this book. She teaches at Boston College.

00:37:41 Keith Teare: I listened to it as well, by the way. I thought it was a good interview.

00:37:44 Andrew Keen: Yeah. What do you make of the argument that the problem with the startup economy, why— and what— why startup finance is broken, at least according to Jones, is because OpenAI or Anthropic, these trillion, $2 trillion companies, have been allowed through different kinds of regulation or absence of regulation to become too large as private companies. They're not transparent enough. Does she have a point, Keith? You're on it. This is one of your areas of expertise, startup finance.

00:38:20 Keith Teare: Well, look. She does miss, a big part of it. I mean, she's looking at the end result, and I don't you know, I don't think she's— she's not especially wrong in her description of the end result.

00:38:33 Andrew Keen: And she's a former SEC official, so she sees the inside of DC too.

00:38:37 Keith Teare: Yeah. But I think she doesn't understand the why. And the why has nothing to do with money or the companies. The why is to do with science and discovery and innovation that has led to the possibility of software companies in particular getting very big very fast. And by fast, often as quickly as twelve months from starting to becoming—

00:39:06 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I mean, look at what's happened with Anthropic in the last twelve months. It's absolutely astonishing.

00:39:10 Keith Teare: So what is it that causes things to get big fast? The biggest reason is the global distribution of their software overnight. So suddenly, anyone with an Android phone or a smartphone, which is now four or five billion people, literally overnight, if you deliver something they want, can be using it. And so even if you're only monetizing a small percent of those people, you as a company can become very big very fast. And when that happens, the markets value you at a multiple of your revenue. 20 times your revenue, 50 times, sometimes even 200 times your revenue, which is a normal rational behavior for markets when they see growth. So she's missing the fact that if she wanted to stop this, she'd have to deglobalize the world, prevent software from being distributable quickly everywhere, prevent the freemium model, the subscription model, it— there is nothing about this— underlying truths that she would be capable of—

00:40:22 Andrew Keen: Right. And then I— for people who wanna listen to my own inner Keith Teare, they should listen to the interview. I was quite critical, I thought of her. I mean, she seems to think that even Uber and Open— and Airbnb are blights in the world, and that if we could go back and undo them, it would benefit the world. So I don't disagree with you on her. I mean, I think she reflects our summer, the summer that America became a nation of Luddites. But it's an interesting book and an interesting argument.

00:40:53 Keith Teare: The other insight, Andrew, there is it does tell you a bit about the regime she came out of and what the assumptions are inside that. The Lina Khan assumptions as well—

00:41:05 Andrew Keen: Would— go on. Favorite. Yeah. I think she's a nicer, smarter version of Lina Khan.

00:41:09 Keith Teare: But if we're talking to the Democrats who are listening—

00:41:13 Andrew Keen: Do you— I don't think we have any— do we have any Republican listeners? You may have Republican listeners. I probably don't know many.

00:41:18 Keith Teare: Well, so the Democrats who are listening, do you really want this point of view to define what you stand for? In this world where so much good could happen, what is your argument for embracing it, channeling it, and producing a better world? It seems as if that entire ecosystem is missing that.

00:41:43 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I don't disagree. And I'm more and more convinced that these IPOs at the end of the year or whenever they're gonna happen, represent a kind of climax to this particular narrative. There was an interesting piece in The New York Times, with the headline “Tech Giants’ Profits Reveal Potential Vulnerability in the Stock Market,” the circular nature of this economy, which may undermine the Anthropic or the OpenAI, IPOs and may indeed also challenge the exuberance of the current market. You didn't think they made a good point, though, Keith. You ran, your Grok Bot against it. Why is this piece, wrong in your view?

00:42:33 Keith Teare: Yeah. Actually, I was testing Grok Bot all day yesterday. So when you sent me this article, I put it to the test. Obviously, I led by— I said to Grok Bot, the circular argument seems flawed. If a company does two things, that doesn't make it circular.

00:42:51 Andrew Keen: So you convinced it before it was thinking and knew what you wanted to hear.

00:42:59 Keith Teare: Yeah. Well and, the point about circularity is— circularity is often a word used to describe a closed system in which, you know, money A goes to money B, and money B becomes money C going back and becomes money D, and it's the same internal system. AI isn't like that. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of external money flowing into it through revenue. And so the deals that the infrastructure providers are doing with each other to support the building out, that is the precondition for AI being deliverable for free to everyone in the world. Without that investment, it's a bit like if you didn't build the Channel Tunnel between London and Paris, you wouldn't be able to get on train and go there. If you want AI to be in the hands of an African school child, you have to do this that—

00:43:54 Andrew Keen: I knew you were gonna throw in an African school child. Are we all supposed to start crying now?

00:44:00 Keith Teare: No. Because I think the African school child's future is pretty decent now. But it does re—

00:44:06 Andrew Keen: The— but—

00:44:06 Keith Teare: it does—

00:44:07 Andrew Keen: —question of an African school child— froze, Keith. Go on.

00:44:09 Keith Teare: It— but it does require investment. And I would argue that the large amounts of money being invested in AI may well be way too small.

00:44:20 Andrew Keen: Okay. But the point of the—

00:44:22 Keith Teare: —the point of the piece is— and not—

00:44:24 Andrew Keen: —the point of— but the point of the piece is that the high price of Alphabet and Amazon is being driven by their investments in Anthropic and, particularly in Anthropic. So I don't know if the Grok Bot critique was actually referring to the piece. It was just confirming what you already thought and giving and telling you what you wanted to hear.

00:44:48 Keith Teare: Well, yes. Look. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others have been investing in AI companies for probably five years now, maybe even longer. And the stock they own goes up not because they invested. That doesn't cause the stock to go up. It's because the investments go up. And the investments go up because the revenue goes up for the companies they invested in, and the total addressable market goes up. And every time these investments get made in infrastructure, it immediately correlates to future revenue because these— the demand for AI vastly exceeds the supply. So that's gonna be true until the whole world is plastered with AI. So the investments are completely logical. The stock market—

00:45:39 Andrew Keen: —the point. It's not about—

00:45:41 Keith Teare: —the value of what [unclear] saying—

00:45:42 Andrew Keen: —is illogical. They're simply— the article simply argued that one of the reasons for the exuberance, the main reason for the exuberance of Wall Street is the profit— the stock market embrace of companies like, big tech companies like Amazon and Alphabet.

00:46:07 Keith Teare: Illiquid shares.

00:46:08 Andrew Keen: From the unicorns, from, from, Renée Jones's unicorns, the untamed unicorns.

00:46:15 Keith Teare: Well, partly, yes. But it isn't money. Remember this, Andrew. There's no money. There's no— there is value on the balance sheet associated with a share, but the share is not liquid or not very liquid. If they try to sell them all, it would tank the market. And so it's provisional value, but it isn't realized value. Realized value comes when this whole cycle is completed and money is flowing back through the entire ecosystem. So it's not wrong in the market to value it because it's real. But I guarantee they're gonna value the growth of Amazon and Alphabet's revenue at a higher multiple than they'll value the growth of those stocks.

00:47:07 Andrew Keen: Well, my wife has left Google now. She's gone over to Zillow to run their legal and regulatory lobbying. So I would invest in Zillow, not in Alphabet anymore. I am, though, convinced, Keith, that this narrative, this first stage or whatever you wanna call it, will reach its climax for better or worse with these IPOs later in the year. The dual IPOs of— of Anthropic and OpenAI. Don't you think that's true? For better or worse, I mean, it's just the narrative. It's the flow of history.

00:47:42 Keith Teare: Look. Because, they can only screw it up. SpaceX went back above its IPO price this week. Last week, everyone was talking doom and gloom about it, because Grok Bot is very, very good. I do think if they don't screw it up, they will both list. They'll get a lot of money, from the listing. That will grow infrastructure, which will satisfy some of the demand. Revenues will go up, and, you know, the curve will be up and down, but up and down on an upward curve. If I'm— I don't give investment advice, but I'm— I— you know, I would— I will personally buy both.

00:48:26 Andrew Keen: Well, I hope you're gonna do better this week, Keith, on your watermark test. You're gonna get below, 86% of AI.

00:48:35 Keith Teare: You know, the— those tools are so bad that I don't care what they say, to be honest. The fact that you got 100% when you use AI pretty much the same way I do.

00:48:45 Andrew Keen: I'm a clever cheater. You're a less clever cheater, shall we say?

00:48:51 Keith Teare: But there's no shame in that.

00:48:53 Andrew Keen: Well, on that note, shame and all too human feeling. We will end. We'll see you next week, Keith. There'll be no shame to our next week's show either. Thank you so much. Ciao.