OpenAI Acquires TBPN: (yes the tech news podcast)

0:00Opening Eye has just acquired the popular tech show TbP and the technology business programming network This is opening eyes 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 I had the 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 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 I juicy details basically in an acquisition of a kind of first media company acquisition by opening Eye 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 AI box AI my own startup you get access to over 80 different AI models in one place for 899 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

1:03There's a link in the description to AI box 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 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 AI box dot. Yeah, all right Let's get into the episode So what's interesting here is open AI has just acquired TbPN and The basically when they bought this a lot of people are worried they're like, oh no like open AI is just buying this media company They're gonna tell them what to do. It's gonna change the direction Apparently the show is gonna report directly to open AI's chief political operator, which is Chris Legen 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 Cougan and Jordy Hayes It basically built its reputation on it would 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

2:08And 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 this space and over the past year they basically evolved into there's this 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 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 sport 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 you know some crazy thing happens with open AI you have Sam Altman on there And I think it's interesting because you get their perspective as their tech founders grilling

3:08Not really grilling right it's not like 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 open AI's 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 open AI stepping into help them scale the distribution So it's you know, it's still its own company, but open AI probably is going to throw ads Add it to help it grow and do a bunch of other things for kind of its reach and production And I mean not that it you know some people are like well It doesn't really need it is kind of organically growing and yes But like 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 you 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 I get a listens from people looking for their AI show finding my show So you know, it's it's all an ecosystem for sure

4:09But there's a lot of ways you can grow And I can only imagine with open AI'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 dollars in revenue this year Apparently they did five million dollars last year from you know, advertisers Ad revenue on the platform And have a bunch of sponsorships that some distribution And I think right now open AI 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 Bringing a bunch of builders inside their company to come talk on that So I think you know open AI is getting their own podcast started and they're thinking look Maybe this is a good a good next move I think it is a little bit different though because You know tvpn 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 Open AI 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

5:14So 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 emphasize 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 position the show is 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 open AI 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 tvpn style is really uniquely suited for company Like open AI where quote the standard communications playbook just doesn't apply So I think it like if you kind of a read between the lines They're basically they're saying traditional PR isn't enough for open AI It's you know one of these really consequential technologies shaping what's happening and so

6:16They said look like this is kind of what we need to to help us get our message out there But what they're trying to say it 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 open AI owns them they're allowed to say whatever they want and I was actually reading some tweets by the founders And they're like look sometimes we've been critical of open AI and and we you know hope to still be critical of them and other people in the 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 open AI. They're getting feedback from people I think this is something that uh, you know They're hoping that they can make a bigger impact in the AI industry Um, I think once all this is finalized tbpn is going to sit under open AI strategy team They're going to report to leon who's a long-time political strategist

7:16He's kind of known for pointing 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 That's from a that's from her quote from tech crunchers. It's pretty funny But Leeman also played a big role in shaping a lot of the different political narratives inside of Washington He was really instrumental behind a lot of the crypto industry Superpack fair shake which spent really really heavily In the 2024 election cycle to basically counter a lot of the anti crypto candidates Since he joined open AI. He's also been reportedly very active in policy circles He's advising Donald Trump on some AI related issues From kind of limiting state level AI regulation to easy and environmental constraints around data center expansion So I think for you know, all's concerned as far as open AI or Sam Altman goes He doesn't seem very concerned about the optics I think he did a social post and he called TBPN his favorite tech show and he made it clear that he expects the tone to remain unchanged So he said

8:16Quote I don't expect them to go any easier on us. I'm sure I'll do my part to help Enable that with occasional stupid decisions. Ha ha very funny Sam I think that their founders right now are kind of seeing this as a bit of a chance to Stay you know step kind of beyond commentary into some real influence. They said this is a quote from them They said well, we've been critical of the industry at times after getting to know Sam And the open AI team what stood out to what stood out most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right Moving from commentary to real impact and how this technology is distributed and understood globally is incredibly important to us I think that framing kind of gets to the core of the deal right It isn't just open AI buying the show I think open AI is buying the distribution and maybe some of the narrative control and kind of a direct line into the Daily conversations that are shaping tech They know this is a daily show that a lot of people in tech watch And so they feel like this is a good way for them to kind of get embedded in that and also to get Feedback and information out of it. So I think there's a lot of a lot of synergy there It's fascinating to see this is you know a company that's getting acquired and Sam Alman has been on the show multiple times

9:19So evidently he's made good relationships with these with these folks So this is really really fascinating all right guys Thank you so much for tuning to the podcast if you enjoyed this episode in this breakdown Make sure to leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this deal if we get enough reviews Perhaps open AI will be acquiring this podcast next. I'll keep you guys up today on all of that Hope you all have a fantastic rest of day And as always make sure to go check out AI box dot AI if you want to get access to over 80 of the top models in one place For 899 a month links in the description. I'll see you guys the next episode