Episode
The billionaire paying AI researchers to stay out of Big Tech
- Podcast
- ACCESS
- Published
- Jun 18, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4470
- Processing state
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Summary
Alex and Ellis sit down with Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity, to talk about his new effort Laude, which is putting over $100 million behind AI researchers to keep their work in the open. They discuss why top researchers are turning down millions to stay in academia, what happens to open science if the closed labs win, and why Andy thinks the AI industry has a serious communication problem. They also get into Anthropic's recent Fable controversy, the dystopian views some researchers privately hold, and how Andy used Claude to help his family navigate his mother's cancer diagnosis. Follow ACCESS on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/accesspodcast/ Follow Alex: https://sources.news/ https://x.com/alexeheath/ Follow Ellis: https://meaning.company/ https://x.com/hamburger ACCESS is produced in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices