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Episode 122 -- Tech's Vibe Shift and AI Discourse (Patreon)

Published:
2026-02-17 07:07:14
Imported:
2026-09

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Content

A few months ago, as part of the research for his forthcoming book What Tech Calls Governing, Adrian took a drive down Highway 101 from San Francisco to Palo Alto and back. This episode is about what the billboards along that stretch of highway tell us about Silicon Valley, about our tech elites, and about how technology is remaking society (it's not in the way you think).

If you'd like to buy Adrian's book, it's available for pre-order in the German edition only for now.

If you'd like to check out the work of Wendy Liu, whose column that Adrian and Moira refer to in the episode (and who did the drive with Adrian), you can find that here and here.

Comments

SPUM

This is the most terrifying and insightful episode of IBWTR I've ever listened to and I'm 1000% going to buy Adrian's book when it comes out. Where can I learn more about "AI" not as idea or technology but as rhetoric and legitimation of dominance?

Hrisyana Doytchinova

Thanks! Have been waiting for this and excited about your book Adrian!

Vee

As someone who escaped a more provincial tech billionaire overlord, I can confirm that the employees absolutely know Pharaoh’s pet projects (say… air purifying headphones that make you like Bane) are nonsense

Dylan Stephens

The billboard section makes me think about riding the metro in DC where you’ll see ads for companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin advertising their missile and aircraft producing expertise. Which are clearly aimed at the 5 contracting officers who might procure a missile platform from those companies.

Alice Kron

I miss the Coca Cola sign 😭

Megan

The other interesting thing about the SF billboards is how they change based on events/conferences happening. I work in marketing for cybersecurity software, and every spring, when there's a 40K-person conference in SF, every billboard is a cybersecurity company for 2 weeks. When Dreamforce happens, the billboards are all targeted at those attendees/ecosystem. And sometimes you literally make a billboard for one person -- like the time my company purchased a billboard that our CEO would see every morning on his commute to work.

Kelsey

Interesting contrast to my town, where we have a Charlie Kirk memorial billboard sponsored by the local Steak N Shake…

Maureen McCord

As a scholar of early modern empire(s), this conversation has a lot of resonance with imperial extraction in the 18th century. Definitely working in conversation with Karen Hao's fascinating and provocative recent text, "Empire of AI." Look forward to reading Adrian's book as well!

Maureen McCord

Mentioned above, but Karen Hao published a sort of journalistic/quasi-academic book on this last year called "Empire of AI." She's also given some interesting interviews including to Ed Zitron

Sophie Helen

Re: billboards, it's funny to compare this to LA, where I've heard that studios intentionally place the film/tv "for your consideration" billboards on the commute routes of the producers/stars/creators so that they don't get complaints about the lack of promotion

Ariel

I remember the time when a small company took a newspaper ad out in the Mountain View Voice specifically because Google wasn’t responding to their tech issue. So they wanted Google workers in Mountain View to see it and to make it a talked about thing in Mountain View.

basil water

My only negative feedback on this episode is that it isn't long enough. I would genuinely listen to the two of you talk for hours

Lauren Steward

The 101 is such a long freeway that my stretch of it is all just pretty ocean views and not an AI hellscape.

Summer Devlin

Thank you for such an insightful episode. As a Bay Area resident it has been interesting to watch the transition from pre-Trump era billboards to the half-way-there hellscape of Crypto/web3 billboards (which had started to adopt the inevitability angle but more clownishly) to now. Would love to hear you guys talk more on this!

Sam

please, a curtis yarvin ep! maybe with the kye boys?

Moira Donegan

Yes we made this comparison off mic!!

Jessica

Oh god we here in Seattle/the Eastside of the seattle area also have the "are your APIs ready for Ai" ads on our buses... I think I saw one in the vicinity of microsoft... I remember it because I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it meant and it did make me feel utter disconect from the tech industry, which seems to have swallowed up this area

Sheryl D

The behavior of the Silicon Valley crew has been the biggest disappointment and also something I should have seen coming observing the valley for 30 years. The zeitgeist of the valley reflected two things over time - the age of the people that accounted for the dominant energy in the valley and 2) the relationship of the valley to the dominant power nationally. Mid 90s - a bit wonky as the big chip and computer companies lost market share and things were a bit stale except for early internet. Lots of nerdy tech, military tech etc and that was the energy. Competent, nerdy and unexciting. Then early 2000s dot com brings lots of young tech worker energy. And lot of imagination and immaturity. It was a party - and one that wasn’t going to make money even if they all thought it would. But man the billboards were great. Then concurrent with Obama came big data. Those rascal kids grew up a bit and had real ideas on making the world better or at least better products. Algorithms felt like such promise. Even Google felt a bit less evil (Facebook nobody has liked you ever). Tons of energy around ideas, the d school blows up and big business and Washington gives some respect to the valley beyond being a cash cow. But it turns out that power is undefeated. Start up founders dreams changed to “getting acquired”. I think for me this is when the magic started to fade. Those tech kids were now not so fresh. They rationalized bad decisions as needed for the overall good (looking at you effective altruist peeps). They are high on their importance they got from the late 2000s/ 2010s and most importantly they controlled all the capital. So now fear feels more powerful than hope. I moved away right before Covid and I desperately missed the energy of the Bay Area. But now when I go back it feels so different. Stanford has so many kids looking primarily to get rich, downtown Palo Alto is so shishi - it feels that everything we used to make fun of New York Wall Street for being. I still miss the redwoods though.

SPUM

The kye boys don't talk about gender, sorry

Eena

Does anyone know if Adrian’s new book is released at the same time in English and German? 😶 I’m confused which i should preorder or could i even preorder the English in Germany if that’s first 🙈

Kiera

I love the observation of the inevitability of AI because it reminds us that the arguments for its wide spread implementation are tautological! It’s the next big thing because we said it’s the next big thing. And slightly unrelated, I find that what we choose to call inevitable reveals our values! We don’t hear tech oligarchs talk about clean energy as the next big thing because their primary allegiance is deference to the Trump admin.

Max Moran

Another case study in weird local ads is the D.C. Metro. I always knew which industry's CEOs were coming to testify before Congress in a couple of weeks because the banners hanging over the Farragut North Metro stop (which is right near K Street, where all the lobbyist firms are) would change to talking about all the great new stuff their company is doing for consumers, or how much they've donated to philanthropy or something. And the ads in Arlington, near the Pentagon, are all Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman advertising their latest fighter jets and cybersecurity tech to military procurement officers. The slogans are stuff like "Your mission doesn't rest, and neither do we." It's really dystopian.

Lilliburlero

The idea of the threatening, inscrutable billboard reminded me of Dr T.J. Eckleburg presiding over the Valley of Ashes in Gatsby. It's different: that's a billboard that was once advertising a service to regular people but has decayed into this baleful thing, but it feels like some of this tech advertising has taken it as a model. Also a bit like the way the tech elite intentionally misread Lord of the Rings in calling their companies stuff like Palantir and Anduril.

Meg Hunt

I only just started this episode but I wanted to say, it's not just billboards-- I have been noticing this shift a lot more when I've been trying out new podcasts (especially on bigger podcast networks)-- ALL the ads seem to be marketing directly company to company rather than to individuals! I'm really interested to tuck into this one.

Lindsay Rae

This is very legit and I’ve seen companies do this (internally). It’s crazy and manipulative

Lindsay Rae

Sameeeeeee. It’s such a giant let down

Katie Muñoz

these billboards also make me think of the inscrutable ads on the subway that make no sense to probably 99% of the people on the train.

Joanne Scutero

Yes, Curtis Yarvin is overdue for a roast.

Joanne Scutero

No, that's true; however, Yarvin has been very influential with the right-wing tech lords of Silicon Valley (like Peter Thiel), and that has very little to do with gender issues.

Bethany Gardner

I’ve been saving this episode for the next time I’m driving up 101 from the South Bay into San Francisco, for the maximally cursed experience

nowfailingoutofschool

My partner is a software engineer and said that the billboards as described in this ep (black backgrounds, white san serif) reminded them of programming in dark mode? so maybe there is some stolen valor/look we still get our hands dirty and can code w the best of them posturing going on

Stuti Pachisia

Crazy request but can we have an episode discussing Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection? Especially the story "Main Character"? Would be curious to hear what you make of its depictions of gender and tech!

Theo

I don’t like the hate against Soylent as a concept. I hate Soylent as a company because it was sold to megacorporations that destroyed the concept, but the original idea was compelling. Just because you have Soylent doesn’t mean you need to make every meal a Soylent meal. Not every meal is philosophically stimulating, and if you insist they are then you are lying. Lots of people eat corn flakes every day for breakfast—another food item created by a total freak because of his weird ideas. Soylent seems like a much healthier alternative for this sort of meal. Honestly, the hate against Soylent seems a bit eugenicist. Rob Rhinehart looks like someone with a touch of the -tism, and Soylent was his way of making it easier to eat. There are multiple valid ways of engaging with the world.

MLJ

Just listened to this a second time. I’ve sent this ep to at least 3 of my friends, thank you for this brilliant conversation!!