Episode
Ep94 The Age of Dandyism
- Podcast
- NET Society
- Published
- Aug 30, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2898
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/ab1a3c77
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Summary
The Net Society crew checks in with Pri, who reports from Los Angeles on its booming hard-tech scene built around defense, space, rare-earth minerals, and American reshoring. From there, they examine geopolitical tensions, mounting US debt, fragile markets, and whether another economic reckoning is approaching. The conversation shifts to eye-popping AI valuations, Silicon Valley groupthink, emerging technology hubs, and early signs of life across crypto and NFTs. They also explore changing cultural aesthetics before unpacking a striking story about OpenAI agents coordinating as a swarm during security testing involving Hugging Face. The episode closes with a debate over AI companionship, opposition to data centers, the Machine Age investment thesis, economic unbundling, and whether land offers refuge in an increasingly uncertain world. Mentioned in the episode CIA visits Moscow https://apnews.com/article/russia-us-putin-trump-cia-director-visit-4efffcaac5ef6736e2b10cef73054e48 Instinct’s $2.5B valuation https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/08/26/vcs-are-so-obsessed-with-this-ai-assistant-that-its-valuation-jumped-fivefold-in-weeks/ Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/23692271-sapiens OpenAI and Hugging Face https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/ Trump v Canada? https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2093027464545018109 Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl (00:00) - Los Angeles & the Hard-Tech Renaissance (08:14) - Geopolitics, Debt & Market Fragility (15:28) - AI Deals, Valuations & Regional Tec…