Can Anthropic Win Its Lawsuit?; War Memes; AI Comes for VCs Jobs

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2:04Thank you for listening. On to the show. Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Director of Business and Industry. I'm Brian Barrett, Executive Editor. And I'm Leah Figer, Senior Politics Editor. This week, we're diving into Anthropics' lawsuit against the Department of Defense after the company was labeled as a supply chain risk. We're also discussing why on earth the Trump administration is sharing action-filled memes about the war in Iran and how a little-known events company formed by some of the organizers of the January 6th rally is making bank in Trump's second term in office.

2:40Also, we'll talk about whether venture capitalists should be worried about AI taking their jobs.

2:52okay we have a ton to get into so let's just dive right in the saga between anthropic and the department of defense is far from over i actually think we're going to be hearing about this for many many months to come on monday anthropic filed a lawsuit against the dod pushing back against the agency's decision to label the company as a supply chain risk which is pretty detrimental to Anthropic's business. Anthropic is basically arguing that the government is infringing upon its free speech rights, saying, quote, the Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech.

3:28Now, that's the lawsuit that Anthropic filed in San Francisco, but there's another accompanying lawsuit that it filed in D.C., which accuses the DoD of unfairly discriminating and retaliating against Anthropic. In the meantime, the company is also seeking a temporary restraining order to continue working with its military partners. This continues to be just a fascinating face-off, and I think really unprecedented, right? What's interesting about the lawsuit to me too is, you know, I think it was our first look at Anthropics sort of acknowledging, yeah, this is actually going to potentially cost us hundreds of millions, maybe billion dollars, because you're making it so that nobody wants to work with us.

4:11It's been sort of a look at just how actual the impact has been in the week or two since it started. Yeah, I mean, the government actually doesn't need to win the lawsuit, I don't think, for this to really impact Anthropics business. Because the company is claiming that already a bunch of its contracts that were like about to close, very, very lucrative contracts, are falling apart as potential partners are saying, wow, we have other options and it's frankly way too risky to work with you. No, they've made them a lightning rod. And I don't know that even in a year from now, I'm not sure that they're going to be able to, like, get the stink of this off them.

4:50No matter how the lawsuit resolves, no matter if these contracts end up coming their way back just because Claude happens to be better, X, Y, and Z. It doesn't matter if there are two competitive bids. Anthropic is one of them. You might as well go with the people who aren't pissing off the president right now. And on the other end of it, you know, you've got consumers sort of rallying around Anthropic and saying like, this is the good one. And so their usage in terms of, you know, they're selling a lot of monthly subscriptions to your average show. But I don't see a world in which those make up the gap.

5:22Yeah. I mean, enterprise sales are the majority, the vast majority of Anthropic's business. And I want to say one other thing, Brian, and sorry to cut you off, but it's driving me insane because we've been talking a lot about branding and perception as this fight has gone on. and how the Anthropic has come out looking really good. But I have to bring your attention to that blog post that Daria Amadei, the CEO, published that was basically like where things stand with the Department of War. And he did say Department of War. He used that language all throughout. It was the most, I mean, I don't think the average person looked at that and thought he's groveling, but I looked at it and was like, oh no, this is like, he can't even use the proper name for the agency because he is so desperate to get back in their good graces.

6:03And I actually think he's doing a lot more of that than people think right now. I mean, the Anthropic Chief Commercial Officer, Paul Smith, specifically said that commercial partners are concerned and backing out are hesitant to make deals. This quote stayed with me. He said a financial services customer paused negotiations over a$15 million deal because of the supply chain label, and two leading financial services companies have refused to close deals valued together at$80 million unless they gain the right to unilaterally cancel their contracts for any reason. I think that it's lovely that consumers might be rallying around them, but I'm not sure that any sort of subscription push is going to make up for this.

6:44No, I mean, Katy Perry signing up for Claude Pro or whatever that tier is called is not going to save Anthropics. I'm sorry. That just like, that was an unbelievable moment on social media. I love, I love when celebrities get involved. I love when it's Katy Perry that gets involved. There's just so many different parts of that. It scratched every single edge for me. Yeah, of all the things to take a stand over in this moment, it is a fun, like, you know what? Anthropics. I will say, in terms of taking a stand, too, we've seen a lot of other companies in Silicon Valley kind of come to Anthropik's defense here.

7:17I think maybe less out of a sense of buddy-buddiedom than a sense of, oh, if it can happen to them, it can definitely happen to us. So we had more than 30 employees from opening eye on Google, including Google DeepMind's chief scientist, Jeff Dean, filed a brief on Monday in support of Anthropik. Microsoft followed up, filed their own brief in support of Anthropik. I don't know that that's going to actually do anything in the long run, but it does signal at least that, you know, this is a fight that more than just Anthropic is willing to have. What are the chances here that they get the Trump administration to back down, that they get DOD to back down?

7:52I think very, very small. I think because the way that this is structured and when you go to a, you know, designating the company as a supply chain risk, the mechanisms that do that, there's not a clear, at least as far as I'm aware, way to legally challenge that. Emil Michael, who has been at the center of this for the Pentagon, has said, you know, we don't see a way in which this shakes out where Anthropic has a case, which, of course, he's going to say that. But I do think DOD seems very confident. That label is so serious to me. It really feels like, you know, the people that get like the XXXX on their airplane tickets.

8:27And like even if it ended up being some sort of clerical error, you can't get those taken off for a long time. You're a supply chain risk. Like that doesn't just like get expunged if you're able to prove otherwise. Yeah, that's the stuff that I think is kind of beyond the outcome of the lawsuit. Like it's already damaging Anthropik's relationship with potential partners, like we said. And I think because the product is so close, like even if you're talking about coding models where Anthropik seems to have the lead, like the best codex model is actually quite close to cloud code at this point. And so I do think partners have a very real alternative to turn to if they don't want to take on the risk of working with Anthropik in this moment.

9:06And a bunch of government agencies have already made the switch or are making the switch. And in some ways, just showing that it's possible to do. They're providing case studies that it's maybe not that bad. No, no, it's not that bad. And they don't have like, there's not a huge lock-in effect to switch everything over to OpenAI. I'm sure some, like there's been custom tooling that's built. But for the most part, if you as a business want to switch from Anthropic to OpenAI, 30 minutes. Like it's not a huge technical task. All right, well, we're going to keep an eye on what happens with the lawsuits and any future anthropic DoD developments.

9:40But the DoD has more on its mind than AI companies. Obviously, the war on Iran continues to unfold with increasing uncertainty of how long it will last. It seems as though even the Trump administration is surprised that it has gone even this long, which, how is that possible? Trump administration being criticized for more than a thousand casualties inflicted so far in this conflict, many of them civilians, seven U.S. service members as of this recording. Markets are falling. Oil prices spiking. Through it all, the administration has been posting. They've been posting like there's no tomorrow, which I say that almost literally.

10:23Welcome home, sir. Strength and honor. Strength and honor. What will you do without freedom? Mavericks in battle. The official White House ex-account has been posting memes, incorporating clips from action movies, TV shows, video games. You've got Dragon Ball Z, you've got Top Gun, you've got Yu-Gi-Oh! There's just a lot going on here. Here's a little example of the kind of stuff that's hitting their feed. to find out. Maximum effort. Provincial. Here it comes. Four. Now eat this. Flawless victory. That's just one example. They're all kind of like that and they are being rightly criticized. I think what to say other than that quite a statement on where we are at societally.

11:10Can you imagine Winston Churchill posting memes? Brian, you're being so casual about it. This is horrific. This is really, really horrific. I wouldn't say casual. I would say I am, what is it, inured, just sort of broken down. Used to it, broken. I did like the, would Winston Churchill be posting these memes? It's really the question of the day for me. I mean, the Trump administration between different federal ex-accounts, the White House accounts have been like pushing really unhinged stuff for a very long time now. since Trump returned to office, the amount of things, you know, during DHS and ICE's like takeover of Minneapolis and Chicago, their response to that was very much meme-y, was very much trying to like hit the zeitgeist in very creepy ways, right?

11:58It was all of these like the Jet Star holiday and like, but about immigrants. It was horrible about immigrants. This is like a new one for me though. Even I am inundated with this content on a daily basis, and I've been shocked. I have a question though, because war propaganda is not new. I hope this isn't like the dumbest take ever, but what is a podcast for if not sharing your dumb takes? I loved the book In Memoriam, Gay Historical Romance from 2023. It was one of my top books. And one, my takeaway from that book was, wow, young men during World War I were inundated with information about how glorious and amazing the war was.

12:36And then they went out to fight and they were in trench warfare, which is literally hell. And they were just like completely emotionally, physically, spiritually brutalized by that experience. They had no idea what they were getting into. And like, that's obviously a very extreme example, but I'm just saying, a government saying, look how amazing this is. What is the difference here? I know there is one, but I want you to articulate what it is. No, I hear that. I think that's a really smart point, that it's sort of the evolution of propaganda. I would say if I'm going to draw a distinction in real time, which is always dangerous.

13:08I think there's a difference between recruiting efforts, which maybe those were, where this feels more directionally toward just like to get reposts and likes for their own sake. It feels a little bit nihilistic in that sense. And if anything, it's to create, you know, they use a lot of clips without permission and that's intentional too, to generate outrage from the libs so you can own them by saying, it just feels like it is caught in the cycle less about saying, come join the war effort and support this, and more about, look how mad we can make people. And I think that's exactly it. This isn't just like a World War II woman, it's time for you to get to the factories.

13:46This is your patriotic duty while the men are off fighting. This is not like league of their own, like split screen, everyone's doing their part. And that's not even what they're asking for. They're asking for that outrage. They're asking for that anger that perhaps distracts from the fact that seven service members have died thus far, distracts from the fact that this doesn't appear to have an end in sight, that Trump actually changes his mind with every other press conference, as does Pete Hegseth. To me, this is a very, it's a very strong man approach to, I mean, I'll give you that, Zoe, absolutely.

14:18Like, this is wartime propaganda. And so perhaps then the conversation is like, to what end? Right? Yeah, I think that that's the difference that makes sense to me as you guys are talking. Like if the purpose of World War I propaganda was support for the war effort, they're saying the purpose of this propaganda is also, I mean, they're not calling it that, but is also support for the military effort. But if it's in fact outrage, that's a very different aim. I think it's a combination of that. I think it's the outrage. And then I might be contradicting myself here too, but I think like there's a sort of like do it for the lulls kind of attitude about it where nothing means anything, right?

14:53So we're going to rile up the libs by using their stuff. and at the same time like we're gonna kind of have this winky like ironic detachment from war where none of this actually means anything and if you get upset it's because you're triggered and like which just feels debasing it's not really you know obviously there are problems with glorifying how great war is this seems to be more just like this isn't glorifying it it's gamifying it yeah it's like yeah yeah yep 100 % trust Brian Barrett to find a copyright angle on the war in Iran I'm obsessed. I mean, Ben Stiller was angry about Tropic Thunder being used.

15:30But that is the important difference to me. There is something, you know, whereas for better, for worse, the idea of like if you go off to fight for this very just cause, like this is what you're fighting for. You're fighting for freedom. You're fighting for patriotism. And this is saying like people aren't real. We're using cartoons here. These deaths are not real. And more than that, they're kind of funny. But not that funny. But not funny. Really, really not funny, you guys. This is very, very sad. So as the Trump administration is posting their way through the Iran war, I want to talk about a different Wired scoop that we have that's been looking at Trump world and looking at a number of government contracts that I am obsessed with.

16:15Zoe and I did this story along with David Gilbert and Matt Giles on Wired.com, published this week. And it's about how an events company whose associates helped organize the January 6, 2021 rally has been majorly benefiting from government contracts. The company, called Events Strategies, is based in Virginia and has signed contracts worth over$26 million with the U.S. government. That's without taking into account a more long-term contract with the General Services Administration that could be worth up to$100 million over the next 15 years. If you're wondering why on earth should I care about this events company and the fact that they're making money, this to me is like one of the first big examples we've seen of associates in Trump world benefiting from the grift.

17:01And this company, it's a 26-year-old company, it received about$50 ,000 in government contracts over the past decade before getting all of this money once Trump reentered office. And now they're making millions from contracting bids that have received very little competition, according to our reporting. A lot of these contracts are related to America 250, which is an 18-month-long commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I want to say two things. One is you say that this is one of the first apparent grifty relationships in the second Trump administration.

17:36I think we should qualify that by saying outside of Trump's own family, a lot of deals with the boys. that you could sort of raise an eyebrow at. The second thing is what struck me about this is that it feels so clearly a reward for putting on the Jan 6 rally that led to the Jan 6 riot that was one of the darkest days in democracy in recent memory. And the idea that this company is now getting tens of millions, potentially more than$100 million of contracts as a, you know, we'll take care of you, good job, is, you know, I guess it's not surprising. Again, like so little of this is surprising, but it is still remarkable.

18:17To go over the timeline, they get a few government contracts and the Biden administration comes in, zero government contracts. And now Trump too is happening and millions, if not more than 100 million. I mean, that's a really big rise for this firm. In some of these contracts, I mean, to get into the specifics, some of these contracts, for example, in September, DoD paid event strategies almost$200 ,000 for what was listed as a backyard cookout and performance. Again, a lot of them related to America 250 started as a bipartisan effort. We're going to be celebrating this country that doesn't feel very, I mean, sure, it's inherently political, but it was bipartisan.

18:57And then to have event strategies come in and be entirely in charge, basically, of doing the event planning behind this. The tenor of these celebrations have already gotten a lot of consternation from Democrats. We're like, where is this money going? There was some great reporting on that. And now we're able to say, this is where it's going. These are the people involved. These are the contracts. You know, over the last few months, like these large banners throughout D.C. have been hanging from federal buildings all over. We weren't able to say with 100 % certainty that this is exactly tied to event strategies.

19:29But those banners that feature Trump's face and give off like very serious Grindelwald vibes are part of this like supposed America 250 celebration as well. We're in for a couple of months of some very weird stuff. Honestly, I wish I could be more eloquent than that, but it's odd. It's very odd stuff. There's freedom trucks. Did you just say Grindelwald vibes? I did say Grindelwald vibes. Okay. And that is Harry Potter character Grindelwald? Yes. Wow. Now, Brian, have you not read Harry Potter? No, I've read Harry Potter. I didn't. I'm just saying I'm not able to pull Gellert as the first name of Grindelwald.

20:04And I also, I do forget who Grindelwald was in the Harry Potter lore, and I'm not ashamed of it. You haven't read it enough. You haven't read it enough. Yes. For anyone that's in D.C. right now that's like seeing Trump's visage next to Make America Safe Again on DOJ, like the DOJ building, the federal building, it's unnerving. It's almost comical to talk about, but it's very unnerving. Our reporter, McKenna Kelly, has been walking around D.C. just looking at this. These banners are hanging all over, and it's changed the tenor of the city. It's quite a choice. And you have at the Department of Education, you've got Charlie Kirk banner hanging there.

20:42Charlie Kirk, I think, I believe I'm right in saying, believes strongly that there should not be a Department of Education. So, yeah, it is a mess. And again, I think speaks to, you know, what we can expect from further celebrations this summer. I think we're looking at, you know, a UFC fight on the White House lawn, things of that nature. So, no, it's going to be interesting. And I'm sure this company will be at the center of a whole lot of it. Absolutely. And again, just to be so clear, getting contracts, the way that getting federal contracts work is there has to be a competitive system. There is CICA, CHICA, which is like known as the competition clause, basically.

21:24There is supposed to be that to avoid favoritism. So the fact that all of these contracts were given without serious competition is also a cause for concern and something that we're going to be paying really close attention to going forward with other Trump world and Trump associates. This might be the beginning of an apparent grifty nature, whatever we're looking at, but I have no doubt it's not going to be the last for Trump too. Okay, before we go to break, I am going to wrench the conversation back to my favorite topic, which is artificial intelligence. So, you guys, there has been a lot of talk and some evidence of AI disrupting jobs in certain industries, but few groups have been more bullish on betting on this technology than venture capitalists.

22:10But it turns out that VCs could potentially be replaced by AI themselves in the not-too-distant future. So we published a story this week by Arielle Pardas about a platform called ADEN, the Autonomous Deal Investing Network, which was launched in 2025. And it basically uses AI agents to do the work of human analysts that would typically be involved in venture dealmaking. If you put in a startup's pitch deck, out comes a very detailed analysis of its business model, its founding team, a list of diligence questions, and compliance risks. This is stuff that can take analysts days, if not weeks, and Adan can do in an hour or two.

22:56And then when the agents like a startup, they actually suggest how much Adan's fund should allocate toward the deal. Of course, then humans come in and kind of do their due diligence. But I think it's a very interesting look at where things could be headed. And obviously, there's irony in the fact that agents could disrupt VCs themselves. The irony is my favorite part because I feel like venture capitalists have largely positioned themselves as immune to the effects of AI because they're very special. And surely a machine can... It's art, not science. Yeah, it's art, not science. Machines can take every job, but not us.

23:34The ladder stops just below VC for them in a way that is entertaining and fun. But I do wonder how many people are actually using this now, especially because venture capitalists themselves are so skeptical of it. It seems like who's the audience? Is it finding real traction out there? Yeah. So the way that Adden works is they have scouts that go out and look for potential deals, and then those scouts can make money on said deals. So I think this would be something where VCs wouldn't necessarily be like adopting the network, but like people would be going around them and they wouldn't be as necessary as useful.

24:12I think there was another great irony, which Ariel pulled out in her piece, which is that also if you can start a company with just yourself and a bunch of AI agents, you're vibe coding your way to success. Like, do you even need all of that venture capital money to begin with? Huh. I'm, I don't know. No, there's so much to me. There's so much fear about AI taking jobs. I feel like every other article that is like, and these people are nervous and these people are nervous. Brian's right. Like the part that is funny is these are the folks that have just gone all in on AI. But there's also, I'm still waiting.

24:48I'm still waiting for AI to take the jobs. Like has it yet? Will it yet? Yeah, I think that there's recent research. I was talking to Will Knight, one of our fantastic AI reporters about this yesterday. And he was saying, look, Like, the evidence just isn't there yet for many, many industries. Like, the hype has, as it often does, gone way out ahead of the actual data here. Like, we don't know that AI is taking jobs. But I will say, being in San Francisco, I am hearing a lot of people say engineering teams in particular are very bloated right now. Agents can actually do a lot of the work. And you definitely need humans on top managing those agents.