Season 1
E38: Resurgence of Prediction Markets, AI Adoption and Complex Financ…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the rise of prediction markets, AI's impact on software economics, and the evolving landscape of financial systems and public markets.
E37: 2024 Election Updates, Partisanship on Wikipedia, and Amazon’s M…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the recent Trump assassination attempt, Wikipedia's reliability issues, Amazon's complex media strategy, and the benefits of America's liquid financial markets.
E36: Meritocracy, Modeling Globalization, and The Burden of Knowledge
This week, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg dive deep into David Graeber's controversial concept of 'Bullshit Jobs,' exploring its validity and impact.
E35: How to Be President, the Future of AI Celebrities, and Training …
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the evolution of monetary systems, the economics of AI investments, and how AI is impacting the job market for junior software developers.
E33: AI Therapy, 4chan, and Why Conferences Are Like Cities
This week, writer Byrne Hobart and investor Erik Torenberg discuss the economics of conferences and cities, rise of meme stocks, future of coding in the age of AI and more.
E32: Populism, Elites, and Preparing for AGI
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss populist cycles, why billionaires buy media companies, how to invest if you think AGI is coming soon, and more.
E31: Google API Documentation Leak, Apple's Plans for Siri, and Analy…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss Elon Musk's and Yann Lecun's Tweets, what we can learn from Google's API decumentation leaks, how Apple is planning on improving Siri, and more.
E30: xAI Fundraising, Vivek's BuzzFeed Investment, and Ad-Based AI Mo…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about xAI's fundraising round, Vivek Ramaswamy's investment in BuzzFeed, and the dynamics of using ads to monetize AI.
E29: Meme Stocks, Reserve Currencies, and the Case Against Home Owner…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about meme stocks, the nature of reserve currencies, and why you should consider not owning a home in America.
E28: Amazon’s Potential for an Airline, Hidden Economic Gains, and th…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about Amazon’s potential to buy a passenger airline, hidden economic gains, equities, and more.
E27: Costco's Business Model, Martingale Strategies, and Usage-Based …
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne talk about how to apply Costco's business model in other industries, the risky business of Martingale strategies, usage as a potential barrier to AI model development, and more.
E26: Stripe's Unbundling Strategy, What AI Means for Education, and 2…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss AI & education, Stripe's shift towards unbundling, and the possibility of 24 hour markets.
E25: Lambda School Drama, Meta's Path to AI, and Why Hardware Constra…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss income sharing agreements, the privacy/security/usability efficient frontier, and how Meta ended up with all their GPUs.
E24: Why Acquisitions Fail, How to Write a Great Memo, and The Fate o…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the acquisition landscape, how to write great business memos, and why it's hard to monetize a successful ChatGPT wrapper
E23: Hard Tech Pivots, Potato Investing, and When to Enforce the Law
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss pivots in hard tech, cybersecurity and privacy, and the considerations in how often to enforce the law.
E22: Corporate Espionage, Algorithmic Collusion, and Transitioning th…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne delve into corporate espionage, algorithmic collusion, and the lifecycle of companies amidst technological changes.
E21: Austin Real Estate, Duolingo’s Bull Case, and Identifying Spurio…
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss Austin real estate, why Duolingo has remained strong post-pandemic, and how to identify spurious correlations during data analysis.
E20: Content Moderation, AI in Advertising, and the Future of Social …
In this episode, Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg discuss how technological changes influence markets and business adaptability.
E19: Hedging against Life, Outage Economics, and Open Source vs Propr…
On today’s episode, Byrne Hobart delves into the intricacies of technology-induced market shifts, hedge fund dynamics, Byrne’s post on outage economics, and the evolving landscape of open source and proprietary AI models.
E18: Tiger Global, Selling Alpha, and Dating Apps
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss lessons about Tiger Global from Carrie Sun’s book Private Equity, the role of alternative data in investing, and why it’s hard to make a good dating app.
E17: How Quants See the World
Byrne and Erik discuss company valuations, short selling, company earnings guidance, market predictions, and the behavior of companies and investors in financial markets.
E16: The Fertility Crisis
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne discuss the fertility crisis, how Walmart is a tool of upward mobility, AI as the last interface, and more.
E15: Understanding Real Estate with Brad Hargreaves
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne sit down with Brad Hargreaves, founder of General Assembly and Common and editor at real estate publication Thesis Driven.
E14: How to Build a Media Empire
On this week's episode of The Riff, Erik and Byrne do a deep dive on the history of media, how technology is impacting the media landscape, and how to build the next media empire.