A daily news analysis show on all things artificial intelligence. NLW looks at AI from multiple angles, from the explosion of creativity brought on by new tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT to the potential disruptions to work and industries as we know them to the great philosophical, ethical and practical questions of advanced general intelligence, alignment and x-risk.
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Nathaniel Whittemore Podcasts
A daily analysis of macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics and big picture power shifts, hosted by Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw. The Breakdown is part of Blockworks. Subscribe to The Breakdown newsletter: https://the-breakdown.carrd.co/
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Bitcoin and risk assets jumped as the U.S. and China appeared to reach a framework agreement that takes 100% tariffs and rare earth restrictions off the table. NLW breaks down what the potential trade deal means for markets, why optimism is back, and how JPMorgan’s move to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as loan collateral signals a major shift in trad…
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The Surprising Way AI Expands Markets Instead of Capturing Them
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AI music startup Suno has quietly become one of the most successful companies in the entire generative AI space — $150 million in ARR, 60% margins, and millions of users creating songs for everything from podcasts and ads to lullabies and dinner parties. In today’s episode, NLW explores how Suno’s rise reveals a bigger story: AI isn’t just automati…
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Workers Are Excited About AI Agents — So Why Are Companies Screwing It Up?
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A new EY study shows workers are eager to embrace AI agents — 84% say they’re ready, and most expect agents to boost productivity and work-life balance. But companies are failing to match that enthusiasm with clear communication, effective training, and updated management approaches. NLW breaks down the data and explores what it really takes to bui…
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Why Data is the Biggest Barrier to AI Readiness (And What to Do About It)
26:19
26:19
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26:19
In part two of our Agent Readiness series, Superintelligent Head of Research Nufar joins the AI Daily Brief to discuss the single biggest blocker we see across thousands of enterprise audits—data and technology readiness. This Operator's Cut-style episode unpack the three archetypes of companies that get stuck, from the “magpies” chasing shiny pilo…
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The Five Most Important Stories in Crypto
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25:37
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NLW and Scott Melker chop up another week, with a big discussion of the controversial CZ pardon. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: https://block…
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AI systems just got a huge context boost. Anthropic adds memory to Claude, OpenAI launches “Company Knowledge” to connect ChatGPT directly to enterprise data, and Microsoft debuts long-term memory and shared context in Copilot. Plus, Oracle’s record $38B debt deal to fund AI infrastructure, Google’s massive TPU expansion with Anthropic, and a real-…
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Democrats Blow Up at Crypto Executives Over Market Structure Bill
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A tense closed-door meeting between Senate Democrats and crypto executives erupted into frustration and accusations after the leak of a draft market structure proposal seen as a de facto DeFi ban. NLW breaks down what went wrong in the meeting, why trust between Democrats and the crypto industry is fraying, and how the stalled bill could slip past …
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AI’s growth is colliding head-on with America’s aging power grid. This episode dives into why electricity—not compute or data—is emerging as AI’s biggest bottleneck, driving costs, political backlash, and stalled data-center projects across the U.S. From surging energy prices to billion-dollar infrastructure overhauls, it unpacks how the race for A…
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Is the Gold to Bitcoin Rotation Underway?
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Gold’s record-breaking rally just snapped with its biggest one-day drop in over a decade, and now traders are asking whether the long-anticipated rotation from gold into Bitcoin has begun. In today’s episode, NLW breaks down what caused gold’s blow-off top, why even small capital shifts from the $20 trillion gold market could send Bitcoin soaring, …
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ChatGPT Just Launched Atlas — Here’s How Get Value From Your AI Browser
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OpenAI has officially entered the AI browser wars with the launch of ChatGPT Atlas — a reimagining of what a browser can be in the age of agents and context. In today’s AI Daily Brief, NLW breaks down what Atlas actually does, how it compares to Perplexity and others, and what early users are saying. Plus, we cover major moves from Google’s new AI …
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Why the Internet Crash Made Bitcoin Look Stronger
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10:47
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A massive AWS outage took down huge portions of the internet this week, and crypto wasn’t spared — Coinbase’s Base network went offline, MetaMask users saw zero balances, and much of the industry’s infrastructure stumbled. On today’s Breakdown, NLW explores what the event revealed about crypto’s dependence on centralized services, why Bitcoin and E…
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A new paper from the Center for AI Safety proposes a measurable definition of artificial general intelligence—and by their framework, GPT-5 is already 58% of the way there. NLW breaks down how researchers quantified AGI across ten cognitive domains, why memory remains the biggest bottleneck, and what this means for investors, labs, and the timeline…
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After a brutal flash crash and a week of weak trading, many in the crypto world are asking if the cycle is done. Bitcoin has held above $100K, but altcoins have been crushed, sentiment has cratered, and major voices like Chris Burniske and Ansem are turning bearish. Still, some analysts think we’re just seeing the most hated rally in history. Plus:…
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Why an AGI Delay Doesn't Mean an AI Bubble
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Silicon Valley spent the weekend debating whether it’s time to delay AGI expectations by a decade — and what that would mean for the so-called “AI bubble.” NLW breaks down the chain reaction: Microsoft’s retreat from OpenAI’s infrastructure arms race, an OpenAI math gaffe that went viral, and Andrej Karpathy’s take on agent timelines — plus why non…
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5 Prompting Tricks to Make Your AI Less Average
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AI is trained on the sum total of human output—which means it often produces the average of averages. That’s fine for passable results, but not for unique, high-quality work. In this weekend big think episode, NLW explores what he calls AI’s tyranny of the average and shares five techniques to break through it: using negative style guides, forcing …
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How to Build an AI-Ready Culture: A Practical Guide
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In this special Operator’s Cut bonus edition, NLW kicks off a new three-part Agent Readiness series with Superintelligent Head of Research, Nufar Gaspar. Drawing from thousands of enterprise interviews across Superintelligent’s Agent Readiness and Opportunity Mapping assessments, they explore why culture—not technology—is often the biggest barrier …
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The 5 Most Important Stories in Crypto Last Week
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25:59
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From dustups with Binance to Larry Fink's tokenization call, NLW and Scott Melker break down the stories that shaped the crypto week. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: …
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15 Business Model Questions for OpenAI and Anthropic
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This episode explores the massive revenue growth of OpenAI and Anthropic and what it means for their business models. With Anthropic hitting a $7 billion revenue run rate and OpenAI reaching $13 billion , the discussion weighs their strategic futures, including the push into enterprise versus consumer markets and the potential for new revenue strea…
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Today on the AI Daily Brief, Google may have just shown us how AI can actually help cure cancer. We break down a groundbreaking new discovery from Google and Yale’s C2S-Scale model, which generated a novel hypothesis about cancer cell behavior that scientists then validated in living cells. Plus, in the headlines: Google launches Veo 3.1 and Anthro…
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The Tokenization Era Begins (says Fink)
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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says the tokenization of all assets has begun—from real estate to ETFs—and calls on Washington to accelerate digital asset regulation. We break down what this means for markets, crypto, and the future of finance, plus the DOJ’s record $14B Bitcoin seizure and Jerome Powell hinting that quantitative tightening may soon end. …
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OpenAI will soon let verified adults access mature content in ChatGPT—including erotica and customizable personalities—under its new “treat adults like adults” policy. CEO Sam Altman said earlier limits were to protect vulnerable users but can now be safely relaxed. The move sparked backlash from figures like Mark Cuban and Vivek Ramaswamy, who war…
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The Short, Brutal Bear Market of October ‘25
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Markets melted down this weekend after Trump’s surprise tariff announcement triggered the largest crypto liquidation in history. Stocks plunged, altcoins went to zero, and suspicions of insider trading swirled — but by Monday, the “bear market” was already over. NLW breaks down what really happened, who might have caused it, and why this flash cras…
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The Next AI Platform Isn't a Model -- It's Your Context
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Today on the AI Daily Brief, we explore why the next great AI platform war isn’t about models at all—but about context: who owns it, how it’s organized, and which platforms can access it. From Slack and Salesforce positioning themselves as the “agentic OS” of the enterprise to Google, Microsoft, and Grammarly battling to anchor AI agents in the dat…
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These Are the Jobs People Actually WANT AI to Automate
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Today on The AI Daily Brief, Nathaniel Whittemore explores new research revealing which jobs people actually want AI to automate—and which they find morally off-limits. Drawing on studies from Stanford and Harvard, he maps where AI capability meets human preference, showing how workers and the public diverge on what tasks should be handed to machin…
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What 1,000+ Executives Told Us About AI Agents
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In this special long-read episode, NLW digs into insights from thousands of executive interviews about AI and agents in the enterprise. Based on data from Superintelligent’s Agent Readiness and Opportunity Mapping audits, he unpacks where companies actually stand today—what’s working, what’s blocking progress, and where the biggest ROI opportunitie…
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