Doomers at Dreamforce

0:05Personal AI wars, corgis, the most relevant dream force ever, and what we've learned so far from the AI Doomer narrative and why the call is coming from inside the house. I'm Helen, and this week I'm joined by Ashley and guest host Taylor Lorenz. Great chat is brought to you by Mercury, radically different banking loved by over 300 ,000 entrepreneurs. We use Mercury to run this podcast and love recommending it to other founders and fund managers. It's free to get started. Try it for yourself. Visit mercury.com to learn more and apply online in minutes. Hey, guys. Hey. Taylor, welcome. Thanks for having me.

0:40Yay. Oh, my goodness. We're back. We took a break. We're back. We're so back. And nothing happened in like the past six weeks. No, nothing at all. Right? Yeah, Ashley, you want to catch us up? On tech, I would be the worst person. but in personal news, I had a baby. I was convinced by all the pronatalists on Twitter and decided to do my part. And so now I am officially baby-pilled and have joined their ranks, except I'm like, I should be on like my sixth child by now, according to their math. But I'm doing my best, guys. You can't please the pronatalist crowd. I feel like any attempt is like - It's not something I lose sleepover.

1:22Oh, not that. Oh, you mean something very specific. You had a baby, but you didn't do it at the right time. Exactly. Exactly. Or the right way or the whatever. Well, amazing. I'm excited to incorporate more Ashley mom content into the pod. Join the fun. Well, I think, let's see, a big thing that happened last couple weeks was like the AI assistant wars. What do you guys use? What is like your default? fault. I'm using them all because I like, I feel like I have to test them all. I still feel like Claude is more useful than all of them. Like I wanted instinct to like go through my email. There was a couple things I needed them to do to like.

2:08You connected it to your email. I connected to everything. Maybe I shouldn't. But you know what? I, here's the thing. I quit email. Like I, it became so unusable that I, so I have a sort of a loose relationship with my inbox where I'm just like, if you can make sense of this, that's better than what I'm doing now. And I just think it's not that great. I also don't like instinct's personality. It's a weird, like the way it speaks to me. I feel like it's too casual. Wait, so are you like a Claude loyalist like me? Because I feel like seasons and seasons ago, I was just like, yeah, I love Claude.

2:40And you were like the only one using Claude. We were all using Tri-TBT. Yeah, Claude. And now everybody's come over, just want to say. But yes, like I agree. You know what I think it is? I feel like instinct was so quick to kind of own the texting form factor right but like now kind of you can do that with every with all the other ones too so um but i thought that was smart right because i think for people who prefer that mode and now it sort of feels like if you're an ai assistant and you're entering the race right now you by default have to have every single surface covered right it's like voice, text, WhatsApp, email, like everything.

3:22And so, yeah, I mean, that's, I guess, one barrier. It takes longer to build all those services. I'm excited for Google to get into the race. I know. Just because I will not be worried about it being connected to my Gmail and my calendar because it already has that access. Like I, Taylor, I commend you. I also have friends who give in like credit card access, like everything. I won't do that. So I'm like, I'm just going to let other people like beta test this for a while. Like there is no task so urgent that I'm going to hand over like the keys to all things. But yeah, Google would be fun just because, you know, the shit was already sailed on access there.

4:02We all remember when we created our Gmail accounts, right? Like I remember I was in college. I think I would have been in my dorm. And so there is literally no company in the world that like knows more about me and my world than Google. I mean, literally, like, knows where I go on a daily basis, like, truly everything. But it feels like they're not jumping in the game. Like, I've been beta testing Google CC. Have you guys been using that? It's, like, in Google Labs, which is basically, like, their agent that they're working on. I do use that, but my personal inbox is so useless that I'm, like, yeah.

4:35Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not going to have the sort of earth-shattering, you know, I think, like, reception that these agents have. But I don't know. So that's a big one. And today, Amazon said that they shut off access to Muse, right? Or Muse's ability to make purchases on Amazon. And that makes sense and is interesting from the perspective of maybe, you know, Agent Wars in the future really just look like the same big tech wars. Which is going to be so bad for consumers. I'm like, I don't want to use this agent and then this agent. Now I have to use my Amazon agent for Amazon, my meta agent for the meta product.

5:17That is frustrating to me. And I also, I wish that's what I like about Instinct or some of

5:23Taylor Lorenz:these third, I know like Town is another popular one, but I like the idea of having a different company that kind of can interact with all of these things. Yes. So I am a Town investor. I have disclosed that. But one thing that I really love about this war and Town not really being in it is they're really solidifying their place in work. Yes. If that makes sense, right? And so for some of – I have a fund. I've got a fund email. I don't really mix it with my personal – I'm not having Town go shop for socks on the internet for me. So I feel like they're by default almost solidifying their enterprise brand with all these wars going on, which is kind of interesting.

6:02But, you know, I think people have found incredible work use cases with all of these personal AIs too. So everything bleeds together. Ashley, I did not catch the All in Summit. Taylor, did you follow along? I saw Clavicular and, you know, the president calling Jensen. I feel like I got the highlights. Those were the two moments that seemed to, like, break through on the feed. Like, the Jensen call I thought was, like, so awkward. But this is 2026. and what is cringe is now cool. I feel like no one plays that game better than Jensen. I feel like he's just crushing on every level. He knows exactly how to play the president, I guess.

6:45I thought it was so revealing of like how he deals with the president because there was that exchange when like Trump is like, oh yeah, my uncle actually taught something at MIT. Just going on this like long tangent and Jensen responds, oh sir, yes, that's why you're so knowledgeable about AI. Exactly. wow he's really exactly that's what that's exactly what i was thinking of when i was thinking he's playing two audiences like each hearing what they want yeah that's amazing so i was in new york last week and there was like a nice uh breakfast that was put together i think on thursday morning and we were all women in bc and somebody brought up corgi girls and corgi cafe and the host of this breakfast was like, what is a Corgi girl?

7:30And I was like, oh, who's going to take this one? And I was just like, wow. Actually, several folks had said, what's a Corgi girl? What's a Corgi cafe? They're pure minds. I know. I think if you're not on Twitter, you literally would have no idea. Right. Also, I don't know if they have a cafe in New York, so it might not be. I think they do now. I think it's opening. They definitely have a presence because a friend went to a party with a lot of Corgi girls and was like, everyone was dressed in like cocktail attire, which is not the default for parties here. So the Corgi girls are in New York. That's all I know.

8:06Okay. They're in New York. Well, the way I explained it, which I feel like is like very vanilla, I was just like, I think that they're taking something insurance, like business insurance that like everybody has to buy. And, you know, most offerings are the same and they're just, you know, sort of doing the pharmaceutical sales playbook from like the 90s, right? And to me that I saw some people use the Hooters reference. And I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, I think it's more like, let's think about it through a business lens, right? And so I think it's like this pharma sales playbook. And, you know, like one of my best friends was in pharma sales for a really long time.

8:40And she was super successful. And she like went to Berkeley, she's very smart. And I think she'd play the pretty girl thing. And but she was also really smart. And she just crushed the role and i'm like to me that's kind of what i think the archetype of what the corgi girl is trying to do however however there we go have like gotten a massive following and i think that what happens and we've watched this happen we have all watched this happen is like when you get a huge following in a really short period of time like you live in kind of this alternate universe of sort of like psychosis of the rage bait now feeding sort of like you thinking about your next post and sort of, I think it's happening not to even single out like the main Corgi girl, but like many of them.

9:26And so if you like are not on Twitter and then you log on and your entire feed is just like Corgi girl references, you're probably like, what is going on? It's very like post-Cluely like rage bait marketing, like we're in this era. But my thing is like with the pharmaceutical sales and I knew girls, they came to our sorority, I remember, and recruited people in college. And I did door-to-door sales, which was also they were recruiting from sororities. So I feel like there is this pipeline of young women to sales, but I don't know that these young women on Twitter are the ones doing the sales. I don't know what their roles are in the company.

10:04Well, they are the GTM girlies. So that feels like marketing and sales. Yeah, at least that's how I've seen them branded.

10:13Taylor Lorenz:It makes sense if they're in. But I guess my thing is, like, are you interacting with the actual customers? Like if the actual customers are the B2B people, like what is this like online, like viral rage bait accomplishing? Like, are you speaking to those customers? Cause the whole thing with like the beautiful young sales girls, like you're supposed to sort of be like, um, appealing, like neutrally appealing to some like, you know, old guy that's going to like sign off on an agreement, you know? And, and I don't, I just don't know if they're reaching that audience on Twitter or what I like that.

10:44Taylor Lorenz:I'm not like, I don't want to hate on these women because like we all, you know, but I just, the strategy, I I'm eager to see kind of how it plays out. And if it's boosting their bottom line, like what, you know, what this marketing strategy will result in. I mean, I just keep hearing that attention is all you need, but is it like clearly, like, I feel like that kind of got proven wrong. Like, I feel like there was this era where like rage bait marketing entered the tech world and P which is, I feel like before that it had also entered like the DTC world. And I feel like what we see is like that works if you're marketing water bottles or iPhone cases where scale is all you need.

11:19Taylor Lorenz:But if you are trying to build like a B2B customer base, like I don't know that just raw attention will get you in front of the right customers. I mean, you're asking a great question on whether is business insurance as commoditized as water, right? Like, and that's a good question. And because I asked somebody recently, like a founder, like, you know, about insurance and And they're like, well, isn't it really just vouch? And so I was like, oh, was there like a monopoly situation? Like, was it so that if somebody came in with a really recognizable brand that they could start stealing share or as Corgi is going after startups where they haven't made that decision yet, right?

11:57So I keep falling for it. Like, I keep giving maybe Corgi more credit. I keep thinking that like the CEO is in on the joke and then he'll write some tweet where clearly his very thin skin and it's like bro I thought you were in on the joke and this whole thing was just like a thing that you created but it seems like you're really yeah no one no one told him that you can't write a thin skinned tweet about how you have thick skin that just like doesn't work um my my hunch is that this was never like a strategy and it just kind of snowballed Like there were a couple early individuals that became a bit of a meme.

12:36They leaned into it and now it has a mind of its own and no one can put the genie back in the bottle. And it's like kind of fun to watch. But Helen, I have like the same instinct as you. I think by default when I'm like, what are the kids doing? It's like to be like, okay, I'm the boomer. Like I need to like, you know, re like reexamine my priors. And I think back to my twenties being like a young woman in tech and like how focused I was on being like taken seriously and like so worried about being like the young crazy girl and how I see these young women in my feed. And I'm just like, whoa. You know who did a good job like back in our day?

13:16Millennial woman podcast, huh? Yeah, yeah. It's like, I mean, I just remember like small girls PR starting and them getting a lot of like startup clients like really early. And I remember like there was all this discourse of like, oh, they're calling themselves girls and small girls and blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, I don't know, they built a huge business and sold it to some massive PR firm for like a lot of money. So I, you know, I don't, maybe we should be like, like, I feel the same way, especially as a woman tech reporter. It's like, you don't want that. You kind of always don't want to seem like that when you're young because you are so dismissed.

13:50I keep checking my like, is this like a, you know, boomer thing to think like yes i also it's like i worked at facebook in my 20s and there were like no women that worked there um like at all and i wore like a turtleneck and like pants and like you wore like a nun outfit pretty much pretty much because already just already just being a woman was like crazy you know and so and and being junior and like needing to you know constantly be taken, you know, trying to prove that like, I have something smart to contribute here. And it's now, now I watch this and I'm like, oh, did I forget to have fun?

14:30Like, did I, all of these things. Or would it have been like actually an accelerant for your career? I don't think so because the same like attention dynamics were not at play then, right? Like. I will just say, we don't know how it's going to end, right? Yeah. And that is the part where It's just like we don't – I mean like we know how like our arcs kind of ended and like how effective was Me Too? How effective was Lean In? How effective was us trying to be taken seriously? Helen, our arcs have not ended. We are still in progress. Okay, fine, fine. It's not over yet, Helen. They're in progress.

15:04But I mean we're all – we're still out in the world. We have a podcast. We're in the arena, Helen. We're still in the fucking arena. Well, men can stay in the arena until they're – like you know what bothered me so much as a woman tech reporter?

15:17Taylor Lorenz:is like, and I covered like the influencer economy and attention, like economics for like of online attention, which was never taken seriously by these founders until five months ago. But like, there was this perception that like, if you were under 30, you were this like silly girl and like you were too silly and young to write about tech. And like, you know, the real writers like Walter Isaacson or whatever were older, you know, it was these old men. And then it's, then you start to get older. And then they're like, why is this old hag writing about tech over the age of 35. It flips. You're never right.

15:49You're never in the right place. Exactly. Oh yeah. Men just can't write about tech anytime. Very true adventure right now too. I feel like the preference has shifted for like young fund managers and young founders. Like we're in a moment where youth is very valued and it's fascinating. I like, yeah, to be like a little outside that zeitgeist. But for men, no one's like, oh, Fred Wilson's too old or whoever. I don't know. Alfred Lynn, it's time to hang up here, please. I know. I know. Oh my goodness. Well, so the Corgi stuff, that spiraled into hot girl discourse. And then I think Brooke LeBlanc's long list of must-haves for dating also spiraled off into another thing.

16:34People are crashing out on this post-economic term the first time they hear about it or confused what it means. I think Ashley, you pointed out that it's the combination of wanting somebody who is like post-therapy and post-economic that basically brings that chance. It broke everyone's brains. Yeah, exactly. The male mind does not compute those two qualities together. I, you know, it's funny because I think like she, you know, I, I want to give her credit. I am, I'm sure she knew exactly what she was doing in terms of like, you know, putting post-economic and getting attention, et cetera. But then once again, it's, it's so interesting.

17:19There, there are people who are so good at rage baiting, but then also seem very affected by the discourse. Although I have seen her lean in. So maybe I'm sure it's a really, I've been canceled a few times lightly. And like, it's a crazy thing to go through. Well done. Yeah, Taylor, you are. What advice would you have for our emerging Rage baiters? Women being canceled on the internet. Yeah. My advice for everyone wanting to like get into the arena is like, you have to have such a strong sense of self and also a little bit of the double down like mentality where like people, I am getting canceled currently for saying that I think Twitter is better than ever.

18:06I want to talk about that, Taylor. That's like non-controversial. It's non-controversial to people that use Twitter and engage in tech Twitter because obviously there's so much utility in it. But for everyone that camped to Blue Sky and Threads, this is like sacrilegious. And they are like, how dare you, you know, And their perception of the app is frozen in 2022. And they can't understand that, like, it's actually a good app right now in a lot of ways if you're a tech person seeking to engage in discourse around tech and AI. Oh, it's essential. Like, I keep telling AI founders, like, you actually kind of have to be on Twitter.

18:41This is where the conversation is happening.

18:43Taylor Lorenz:I was talking to a founder recently that was like, I'm trying to raise. And like, my concern is that I'm not on Twitter enough because I'm about to raise money. and I feel like I'm not tapped in enough to like the, like this is where sort of like the frontier for lack of a better word, like conversations are happening and it's good to be in the loop on that stuff. And Twitter is really the place to do that. So, you know, I'm sorry about it, but, but what I was going to say is like, you have to have a strong sense of self. You have to be confident in your beliefs and like, you cannot play the victim.

19:13Taylor Lorenz:You got to be like, you know what? The attention comes with good and bad. And you, of course, sometimes it's annoying and like, you know, you always want to fact check people and be like, you're lying about me or whatever. But, um, but overall it's like, you got to have a little fun with it too. And it's not that deep and people have the memory of a goldfish, you know? The last week I went to New York and it's my, like every year, like whatever Salesforce announces when Dreamforce is, I'm like, okay, that's the week I will be in New York. Um, but it felt like Dreamforce was like in the news and more relevant than ever before.

19:45Kind of like a Twitter comeback. And probably because, I mean, they did such a great job of getting like really incredible, you know, relevant AI speakers, right? So like every head of a lab and Jensen was there too. And there were incredible memes. It was 100 % the visuals. Yeah. I was going to say, is this because Mark Benioff was frame-mogging everyone? Frame-mogging everyone. Yeah, I have no idea what the content was. I have those images seared in my mind of Benioff looming over Dario and Jensen. And yeah, that was so intentional. In most conferences, you don't walk around. And so, I mean, kudos to the Salesforce team for cooking that up because it made us all care about a CRM conference.

20:37Well, people were like, it's the SaaSpocalypse. And then I feel like there was like discussion of like, maybe it's not. And like, I don't know. I do feel like that maybe put Salesforce, like Salesforce was like in that conversation. I asked like a longtime tech investment banker, like, okay, give me your hottest takes. Like, give me unfiltered, like hottest takes. And she's like, I think all of the, you know, legacy technology companies are going to be way more durable than anybody thinks. and that there's all this time for them to either, you know, dramatically pivot their strategies or figure out an AI strategy of their own.

21:13And we will be surprised. And I'm like, oh, well, that's a good segue to our main topic. But it's like, well, this whole pacing the frontier, you know, sort of like slow down of this very, very rapid technology movement. Like, oh, that made me think about the incumbents quite a bit. But yes, I thought the weirdest thing was Dario writing that Pacing the Frontier article, which we'll talk about in a second, and then showing up at Dreamforce. I know. Like that visual was crazy. Hilarious. But yes, very high entertainment value. Actually, let's get over to our main topic today. So on September 12th, Dario of Anthropic published an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier, which kicked off a series of agreements, disagreements, questions, and dank memes.

22:0310 days later, 10, 12 days later, when this episode airs, we ask, who was that essay really for? Who was he talking to? Who benefits from pacing and from the broader AI Doomer narrative? so also worth noting that i think friday or thursday i think friday um anthropic announced that their ipo plans which were going to be i think this week or next they were going to publish they were to file their s1 are now delayed till november so it kind of feels like these things were they have to have been related in some in some way um so joining us uh for for the for this main topic today is front of the pod taylor um she's the founder of user mag host of power user podcast and a best-selling author of Extremely Online.

22:44Before going independent, she covered tech for The Washington Post, New York Times, and The Atlantic. She's been writing about how power actually moves online for about as long as anyone, which is exactly what we need her for on this topic. And Taylor, just to catch everyone up, you have been, you've identified like these TikTokers that are like these paid influencers that were, it sounds like there's some big backing that's kind of, you know, paying them to float this AI doomer narrative? You want to tell us a little bit about that for some of our listeners who might not be familiar?

23:18Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. So I cover the influencer economy. That's what I wrote a book about in 2023. I've covered it for a really long time. And a huge thing that I write about is transparency of online, sort of the attention economy and the ways that money warps it. And I think, I wrote a piece for Wired months ago on leading the future, the main pro AI superback, backed by Greg Brockman, Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, etc., etc. Now they were paying lifestyle influencers to push this pro, anti-China messaging, push their agenda. But that is only one side of it. And another thing that I've covered is the opposite.