Venture capitalist and diehard Rachel Maddow watcher Vinod Khosla appeared on CNBC this week, where he was asked about the rise of Trump support in Silicon Valley. Elon Musk and the All-In boys are looking kind of… *whispers*... right wing. Is the vibe shift real? Well, Vinod explained: 1) none of these people are from Silicon Valley (presumably, he was referring to the zip code?), and 2) there are “MAGA extremists” in every corner of society. Later, he argued he never said the latter bit, which we all clearly heard. But nothing was clearer than his intention, which was to shut down political disagreement in tech. Unfortunately for him, it’s 2024. Vinod might be a “tax the rich” billionaire who somehow also believes poor people shouldn’t be allowed on the public beach outside his house, but not every venture capitalist is like that anymore, and we’re all allowed to disagree. <3 Hope and change <3 <3

In a glowing NYT magazine profile, Rachel Poser attempts to rehabilitate the legacy of Ibram X. Kendi — last seen fending off accusations his now-infamous “research center” mismanaged nearly $50 million — by portraying him as an erudite, introspective scholar wary of fame and fortune. Kendi’s nuanced engagement with public policy (presented unironically as “sort[ing] into one of two categories: racist or antiracist”) has simply been distorted by conservative media, Poser tells us. It’s an argument so contrived even NYT readers panned it, which begs the question: why stridently defend a man considered emblematic of 2020-era grift? The answer, of course, is the paper’s own complicity in the antiracist “uprising” (see: Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project, the editorial firestorm over Tom Cotton’s op-ed). But will the transparent retcon work? Tbh, probably. We just collectively memory-holed three years of unhinged Covid policy. A bit of “looting is a good thing, actually” doesn’t stand a chance.

TikTok is reporting the company took steps to stop a cyberattack that was targeting “high-profile” accounts on the app, including CNN (?) and Paris Hilton (???). The company also touted the “enhanced security measures” they implemented in response to this attack. But… CNN? Paris? What year do the attackers think this is?? These people haven’t been influential for something like a decade, why are they being targeted? If a malicious actor really wanted to cause some damage and impact public opinion here in America, they would instead do something like create their own social media app that doubles as spyware, make sure it’s popular among the youth, pump the algorithm with brainrot, buy off politicians, gaslight the public about “security measures” and “stopping cyber attacks” and - hey, wait a minute.

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the ceo of aerospace startup hermeus on why having an advantage over the competition isn’t enough: you only win by relentlessly creating new asymmetries after you’re miles ahead of everyone else

SB 1047, california’s bill to ban open-source AI, the effective altruists behind the bugman politician responsible, and tech's strange bedfellows

on the pod this week, the crew talks justice alito’s ‘appeal to heaven’ flag controversy. plus: vivek’s buzzfeed play, buttigieg pressed on infrastructure bill, prop c crushing fintech in sf, harvard going mission-first, and more

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