OpenAI Acquires TBPN: (yes the tech news podcast)

Opening 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

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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

And 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

Not 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

But 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

So 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

They 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

He'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

Quote 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

So 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