00:53:46 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[00:53:46] S3: Yeah. [00:53:46] S1: When we're looking at the top 20 top donors. We have the Winklevoss twins who were big donors to Trump and Trump aligned packs. And there's also this thing called Fair Shake, a super pack, that is is crypto aligned. Where are the crypto people spending their money? What are they looking for? [00:54:01] S3: Yeah. So this kinda started in 2024 when, Fairshake raised somewhere in the 100 to $150,000,000 from a couple of key crypto companies [00:54:13] S1: Mhmm. [00:54:13] S3: Including Coinbase, Ripple, and Jason Horowitz. And the narrative that was set was that it was a raging success [00:54:21] S1: Mhmm. [00:54:21] S3: And that, basically, they were able to elect a very pro crypto congress. Even Trump ended up being, you know, seen as pro crypto. [00:54:29] S1: Yeah. [00:54:29] S3: And they wanted to keep it going in 2026. They had some successes in primaries. Like, there was a congressional race in Maryland in a Democratic primary where they elected a a pro crypto person. They had some losses in primaries where, the Illinois senate race. But this November, their big bet was identical to 2024 Mhmm. Which was to defeat Sherrod Brown, the Ohio senator who used to be in charge of the Senate Banking Committee [00:54:59] S1: Mhmm.
00:54:59 · Max Read, Teddy Schleifer
[00:54:59] S1: Mhmm. [00:54:59] S3: Which, of course, regulates crypto. It's a big deal in in Washington. Sherrod Brown was the target of $45,000,000 of ads against him by fair shake in September and October. And Sherrod Brown won last night. And, you know, there's a invincibility or an infallibility that I think that that that that people felt about crypto were like, if you were gonna oppose the crypto industry, you were gonna get demolished. And Sherrod Brown, I'll be very resonant for him because he lost in 2024, in part because the crypto industry, I think, spent $40,000,000 then. But this time, they won. And, you know, the crypto industry has won some other races, so I don't wanna say that they're totally on the bottom of the losers' list. But certainly in their highest profile race, it's an l for them. [00:55:46] S1: Yeah. I mean, there's lots of room on the losers' list. [00:55:48] S3: Sure. [00:55:48] S1: One interesting thing here is I think there was a a whole narrative that got built out of both the money that crypto was spending, but also a sense that there was this demographic shift in 2024. Yeah. Young men were becoming conservative or Republican, a sense maybe the Democrats had to appeal to crypto owners, crypto traders. You know, this was a narrative obviously pushed quite hard by the crypto industry. Feels like the armor has been pierced a little bit on this. Like, maybe we'll see Democrats being a little more aggressive with the crypto industry after something like that.
00:56:14 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[00:56:14] S3: Yeah. I mean I mean... And and the reason why Fair Shake got involved in such a significant way at all this cycle was because they encountered this pushback you're speaking to. I mean, basically, September, it was not clear whether or not the crypto industry was gonna spend all this money they had. Basically, the way that these super PACs tend to work now, which I think is kinda interesting, is they raise a ton of money, and then it's sort of in this bank account. And they don't necessarily always spend it. It's just like this, like, permanent looming threat, like, you know, shame if something happened to you. And they basically, Democrats blocked this crypto policy bill, called the Clarity Act in in September. And then like that, the next day, was time to punish the Democrats, and they spent all this money against Brown. So, like, right. If you're a believer that, you know, the crypto industry is overrated politically, obviously, you'd be emboldened by Brown staring down $45,000,000 and winning. [00:57:06] S1: Yeah. Let's talk about another set of donors to, the fair shake super PAC. Yeah. Andreessen Horowitz. This is one of the Silicon Valley's most famous and prestigious, VC firms, but also quite memorably a conservative one. [00:57:19] S3: Mhmm. [00:57:19] S1: Mark Andreessen, obviously, one of the loudest sort of pro Trump voices in the valley. They were big donors on this. They've donated to Fair Shake, but they also were donating to an AI super PAC called Leading the Future. Tell me a little bit about, the money they were spending and where that was.
00:57:35 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[00:57:35] S3: Sure. I mean, it's fascinating for people who are in the Andreessen, who've read his biography or or or if, you know, familiar with this oeuvre kinda politically. Because this is somebody who, like, what... In his twenties was like a... Like, an institution in democratic fundraising. I mean, Andreessen's been around for forever. And now he and his firm, you know, for a while until Elon Musk entered the picture, like, we're we're the biggest political donors in the entire cycle, and and I've a story about kind of earlier this year about how they got into this. The AI stuff they do is the most interesting. Yeah. Because basically, after Fair Shake spends all this money in 2024, then the crypto industry is seen as political savants. They basically say, hey. Let's do the same thing with AI. Mhmm. The AI industry in 2024 is is nascent. But in 2025, 2026, it's becoming this huge thing. And they they... It's the exact same model. You know? Obviously, it's not crypto companies that are funding it. It's it's AI firms like OpenAI's cofounder Greg Brockman and Andreess Horowitz, which has a ton of investments in AI, and they basically run it back, with AI. The difference, as probably was... Is predictable in retrospect or or foreseeable, is that people have a lot stronger opinions about AI than they do about crypto. [00:58:50] S1: Right. I mean, it's it's funny to sort of say that AI feels more toxic than crypto right now, but if... As we're making our losers list, it feels a bit like that's what we're learning.
00:58:50 · Max Read, Teddy Schleifer, Ezra Klein
[00:58:50] S1: Right. I mean, it's it's funny to sort of say that AI feels more toxic than crypto right now, but if... As we're making our losers list, it feels a bit like that's what we're learning. [00:58:58] S3: Yeah. I mean I mean, on crypto, there is... There's... I do I do think there's some political upside on crypto [00:59:03] S2: Yeah. [00:59:04] S3: For for people, especially because there's... The downs... The downside is it's not a salient issue for people. Right. So, like, taking money from crypto, can be a net positive decision strategically. [00:59:15] S1: Right. But let's keep talking about AI because I think perhaps even below Andreessen Horowitz on our list is Greg Brockman, cofounder of OpenAI, president, one of the most prominent people at the company after Sam Altman Yeah. And a major donor to Leading the Future. You reported, and I found this story incredibly fascinating, on the controversy that spurred inside OpenAI. Yeah. Tell me about that.
00:59:37 · Teddy Schleifer, Max Read
[00:59:37] S3: I was gonna say, you know, he's the biggest donor... One of the biggest donors to Leading the Future, asterisk, which is the... That it was pledged. Mhmm. And this shows how quickly the politics of AI have changed. Greg Brockman in 2025 and his wife, Anna, commit to getting $50,000,000 to leading the future, and it's matched by $50,000,000 from Andreessen Horowitz. Only the latter actually happened. Because Brockmans... The Brockmans gave the first $25,000,000 in 2025 when AI is, you know, it's an... It's a... It's a policy issue, but it's not like it is today. And then a year later, they back out of the second 25 they're gonna give. So that instead of being two installments of '25, it becomes one. And that's in part because Greg Brockman said internally inside the company that he was upset that his support for the super PAC was becoming a distraction. We've also seen this with, not totally the same, but Meta, as part of their political engagement this cycle, also retracted about 20 to $25,000,000 from their state political giving. It was timed in the same way that the that the Brockman gift was, which is to say, as the politics were getting worse, they want to spend less money. [01:00:43] S1: Right. [01:00:44] S3: So this is tough, and and it just shows how quickly things have changed.