It was a year in many ways defined by tensions and contradictions. Courts stripped power from federal agencies just as the new administration tried to bring those agencies under tighter presidential control. The administration took some actions to be tough on China, while other measures appeared to let our chief adversary off the hook. States rushed to fill the vacuum on AI and privacy while the White House has threatened to preempt them. Platforms loosened content moderation in the US while facing record fines in Europe. And Washington declared it wanted to win the AI race—while local communities debated whether they even wanted data centers in their backyards.

So what were the biggest tech and telecom policy stories of 2025? Which developments will have staying power, and which were little more than sound and fury? What should we be watching heading into 2026? And did anyone actually win this year—or did everyone just survive?

To unpack all this, Evan is joined by Luke Hogg, Director of Technology Policy at FAI, and Josh Levine, Research Fellow at FAI.

Joseph Krause argues the problem runs deeper than mining. Materials companies today are 75 to 150 years old. Some aerospace alloys still in use were developed for the Ford Model T. Meanwhile, China has been publishing the lion's share of advanced alloy research and aggressively recruiting metallurgy professors from American universities. China already fields a hypersonic capability using a niobium-based alloy; the US is scrambling to catch up. Krause's company, Radical AI, is building AI-powered labs to compress what typically takes 10 to 20 years and over $100 million in materials discovery into something dramatically faster and cheaper. The goal is inverse design: start with the exact properties the military needs, then work backward to find materials that don't require Chinese-controlled supply chains.

The Trump administration has moved aggressively, taking a $400 million stake in MP Materials, putting $2 billion toward stockpiling strategic metals, and working to streamline permitting that currently takes seven to ten years for a single US mine. FAI’s Farrell Gregory notes there's no silver bullet across the 60 minerals on the USGS critical minerals list, which ranges from rare earths at $8 billion in global market value to copper at $250 billion. The administration has shifted from blanket tax credits to case-by-case deals, prioritizing materials where Chinese leverage is highest and American action can make the biggest difference. 

Krause and Gregory join Evan to discuss the challenges facing the U.S. amid Chinese dominance in rare earth minerals and what policymakers can do to make the U.S. more resilient to supply chain shocks, including public-private partnerships and government funding.

On day one of his presidency, Trump signed an EO that established the Department of Government Efficiency, which included a mandate to modernize “Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

While DOGE helped shine a spotlight on the issue, it isn’t new. The Government Accountability Office has long warned about the risks of poor federal software practices—taxpayer waste, inefficient government processes, harms to citizens who rely on services like veterans benefits, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Many presidents have tried to solve it, but despite some improvements here and there, the problem has persisted for lots of reasons. Government agencies often lack the expertise to understand their software products and needs. Agencies have also failed to properly audit and track their software purchases. The companies who sell software to the government often deliberately make it difficult for agencies to modernize, change vendors, or diversify their supply chains.

With a renewed focus on government efficiency, how can Congress and the Trump administration tackle the long-festering problem of outdated and vulnerable federal IT? What can agencies do on their own, and what requires an act of Congress? And how would the American people benefit from improving these systems?

Evan is joined by Dan Lips, Senior Fellow at FAI and Luke Hogg, Director of Tech Policy at FAI. For more, see Dan’s blog post and Evan’s op-ed.

The battle is shaping up to be a redux of the moratorium effort from the summer, when a ban on state AI rules came close, but failed to make it into the One Big Beautiful Bill. While that preemption effort didn’t come with any federal standards in its place, this time proponents of federal preemption are working to assure skeptics that this won’t just be a ban on state rules, but will establish some federal safeguards on AI safety and child protection.

Can Congress agree to create a national standard that goes beyond simply telling states what they can’t do? Have the politics changed much since July when the prior effort failed? Will proposed safeguards be enough to move skeptics and those concerned about AI’s societal impact?

Evan is joined by Dean Ball, senior fellow at FAI. Previously, he was Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the primary staff drafter of America’s AI Action Plan. He is the author of the Hyperdimensional Substack, where his work focuses on emerging technologies and the future of governance.

Debates are raging from town halls to the halls of Congress. Yes, politicians want the US to lead the world in AI, but elected officials, particularly local ones, are hearing from constituents concerned about data centers, including the potential to raise electric bills. The decisions being made right now in places like Northern Virginia, Umatilla, Oregon, and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, will determine whether AI infrastructure is scaled quickly, or whether a backlash slows it down. If done right, data centers can bring world-class tech capabilities, lower electricity prices, energy abundance, and local tax revenue. Done poorly, we see working class Americans paying more for power, the electric grid struggling, and the potential for the American public to turn sour on data canters en masse.

So what do people need to know about data centers to make informed decisions? What really is the impact of data centers on water and electricity? What should policymakers in Washington do, if anything, about these debates? And are there ways to balance legitimate local concerns without hamstringing a strategic imperative?

Evan is joined by Asad Ramzanali, Director of Artificial Intelligence & Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. He was previously Chief of Staff at the White House Office of Science and Tech Policy under President Biden and Legislative Director to former Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA). You can read his recent op-ed on data centers here. Evan is also joined by Daniel King, Research Fellow at FAI where he focuses on the energy and security dimensions of artificial intelligence. Daniel completed Master's studies in Statistics & Data Science at Yale University and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Brown University. Check out his substack on AI and energy, Policy Gradients.

That rebuilding effort comes with political challenges. Republicans' trust in science dropped thirty points over those decades. DOGE recently  slashed budgets at the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. And HHS Sec RFK jr. is casting doubt on the efficacy of vaccines to the alarm of many Republicans in Congress. But beyond the politics, American science is also facing a competitive threat from China. The Middle Kingdom invests tens of billions in biotech and quantum computing, and outpaces the U.S. in PhD STEM grads.

Meanwhile, American research became a system that rewards process over results. Researchers spend 42% of their time on paperwork. Only 46% of cancer studies could be replicated. And our guest today argues that perverse incentives and bureaucracy led to decades wasted on Alzheimer’s research that turned out to be fraudulent—among other misfires.

Ian Banks is Director of Science Policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, which recently established the science program he leads at the organization. He and Evan discuss his vision for a renewed conservative approach to science—one that learns from diversified investment portfolios that maintain safe bets while also making room for moonshots. They get into the political challenges created by hot button issues like climate change and COVID response, how to properly fund science in the era of DOGE, and what the proper role for politics in science should be.

Previously, Banks served in research roles at the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions, the American Enterprise Institute and as a legislative aide to Rep. Bill Posey, where he focused on science, energy, and health policy. His Oxford master's thesis examined the replication crisis, and he brings firsthand experience navigating these questions during COVID from his time working on the Hill.

While California’s AI safety bill is targeted at the largest AI developers, advocates for startups and “Little Tech” worry that they will end up caught in the crosshairs anyway. Jai Ramaswamy and Matt Perault of a16z join today to argue that attempts to carve out Little Tech from the burdens of AI regulation fall flat, because they focus on the wrong metrics like the cost of training AI models and computing power. Rather than try and regulate the development of AI, policymakers should focus on how AI is used—in other words, regulate the misuse of AI, not the making of AI.

Matt Perault is the Head of Artificial Intelligence Policy at Andreessen Horowitz, where he oversees the firm's policy strategy on AI and helps portfolio companies navigate the AI policy landscape. Jai Ramaswamy oversees the legal, compliance, and government affairs functions at Andreessen Horowitz as Chief Legal Officer. They’ve written extensively on AI regulation for Little Tech.

This episode takes you inside the El Segundo space ecosystem—the neighborhood that helped win the first space race and is now being reindustrialized to win the second one. FAI's Josh Levine hosts a panel with space industry leaders from Apex, Northwood Space, and Varta Space, who discuss everything from supply chain bottlenecks to the challenges of attracting talent in Southern California's red-hot aerospace scene. These aren't legacy defense contractors slowly building massive satellites—they're startups manufacturing dozens of platforms per month, treating satellites more like software products than bespoke engineering projects.

In the second half, Digital First Project’s Nathan Leamer sits down with Chairman Carr and Apex CEO Ian Cinnamon for a wide-ranging conversation about the geopolitical implications of space dominance, the unfair advantages China's state-backed companies enjoy, and why changing the terminology from "satellite bus" to "satellite platform" actually matters. Plus: why Starlink on airplanes is a productivity game-changer, how direct-to-cell technology could transform connectivity, and what it means when the same warehouses that built Apollo-era technology are now cranking out satellites for the 21st century.

At the same time, President Trump is consolidating control over agencies that were traditionally seen as independent from the executive branch. He's fired commissioners from the FTC, NLRB, and other agencies as part of his push for a "unitary executive." Former FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter is fighting her dismissal, and the Supreme Court recently allowed the firing to stand while it reviews the case.

The fundamental tension? Courts are stripping power from agencies just as Trump is trying to bring those agencies under tighter presidential control. Will Loper Bright and Jarkesy make these agencies less useful tools for implementing Trump's agenda, even if he wins the fight to end their independence? And how will these cases impact the FCC’s authority looks to reform its broadband subsidy programs while fighting illegal robocalls?

Evan is joined by Tom Johnson, former general counsel of the FCC under Chairman Pai and now a partner at Wiley Rein. He is the author of a new paper for Digital Progress Institute on ways to reform the Universal Service Fund.

The conversation reveals how Ernst's decade-long crusade against government waste has created a legislative roadmap for the Trump administration's efficiency agenda. From strengthening the Treasury's "Do Not Pay" database to reforming the compromised Small Business Innovation Research program, these aren't partisan talking points but bipartisan solutions with Obama-era origins that have been stalled by bureaucratic inertia and special interests. With Ernst's retirement creating a 15-month window and SBIR authorization expiring next week, the episode captures a pivotal moment when policy wonk proposals might finally become permanent law—or get lost in the political shuffle once again.

Ernst recently announced that she won’t be seeking reelection, creating a 15-month timeline for her to put her stamp on the U.S. Congress. The convergence of her institutional knowledge and Trump's reform mandate, with her lame-duck freedom to take risks, positions her as a unique figure in determining whether and how DOGE leaves a lasting impact on the federal government. The question isn't just what she hopes to accomplish in her remaining tenure, but what the government efficiency movement may look like without its most dedicated practitioner. Senator Ernst joins Evan to discuss her legislative efforts to root out government waste and what she hopes to accomplish before she leaves the Senate.

Intel is the only major American company that manufactures its own advanced semiconductors, or chips, but the once iconic firm is on an opposite trajectory. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Intel’s microprocessors powered over 90% of PCs and the company was one of the world’s most valuable. But intel missed the boat on two major tech developments—smartphones and AI—leaving the company a shell of its former glory.

NVIDIA soared while Intel declined, but the two share in common a rollercoaster relationship with Washington and the Trump Administration over their ties to China.  After moving to ban NVIDIA from exporting its H20 chip to China, President Trump reversed the ban in exchange for NVIDIA giving a 15% cut of the sales to the US government. Last month, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan came under fire for his ties to and investments in Chinese companies, leading Trump to call for his immediate resignation. A few weeks later, Trump announced that the US government would take a 10% stake in Intel for about $10 billion in outstanding CHIPS Act grants, and Trump praised Tan for his affirmed commitments to US interests.

The two companies are at the heart of the most significant tech policy debates in the world—from industrial policy to how to balance a desire to export American technology with the need to safeguard trade secrets and AI advantages. Evan is joined by Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of American Compass. Oren has been a staunch supporter of the CHIPS Act and industrial policies that he believes are necessary to restore high-tech American manufacturing, particularly in semiconductors. He’s also been highly critical of the Administration’s recent moves to allow NVIDIA to export more of its chips to China. 

Read his op-ed in The Washington Post on NVIDIA’s H20 and his newsletter on the topic, as well as his recent op-ed in Commonplace on NVIDIA’s potential antitrust problems. See his newsletter here for more on his reaction to the U.S. government’s equity stake in Intel.

Evan draws on his FCC experience during the net neutrality debates to explore how conservative thinking on tech regulation has shifted. He and Nick discuss key moments like the Parler de-platforming and examine whether recent conservative support for antitrust enforcement represents a genuine policy evolution or short-term political expediency.

From Google's search dominance to content moderation battles, they unpack the tension between free market principles and concerns about corporate power over speech. The discussion offers insights into how tech policy debates are reshaping both ideology and regulatory approaches. 

This discovery exposes a fundamental asymmetry in how China and America approach academic exchange. Beijing leverages our relatively open research environment through "nontraditional collection"—crowdsourced intelligence gathering through students and researchers—while maintaining strict control over their own institutions. China wants access to our openness while preserving their own secrecy.

But America's response threatens to undermine the very qualities that make our universities innovative. The trade-off seems impossible: remain vulnerable to systematic exploitation or adopt surveillance methods that mirror authoritarian systems. Can universities maintain their innovative edge while protecting sensitive research? Johnson and Molloy's investigation reveals how these questions will shape the future of American higher education in an age of great power competition.

Note: The Stanford Review was erroneously referred to as the "Stanford Economic Review" once in this episode.

The White House recently released “America’s AI Action Plan,” which aims to change this dynamic, calling for everything from "Manhattan Project-style" coordination to federal AI sandboxes. But with the Trump Administration now moving to implement these initiatives, the question becomes: can American democracy move fast enough to compete with authoritarian efficiency? And should it?

Charles Clancy, Chief Technology Officer of MITRE, knows the challenges well. His organization serves as a bridge between government needs and technical solutions, and he’s seen firsthand how regulatory fragmentation, procurement bottlenecks, and institutional silos turn America's AI advantages into operational disadvantages. His team also finds that Chinese open-weight models outperform American ones on key benchmarks—a potential warning sign as the U.S. and China compete to proliferate their technology across the globe.

Clancy argues the solution is not for the U.S. to become China, but rather to take a uniquely American approach—establish federal frontier labs, moonshot challenges, and market incentives that harness private innovation for public missions. He and FAI’s Josh Levine join Evan to explore whether democratic institutions can compete with authoritarian efficiency without sacrificing democratic values. View Mitre’s proposals for the White House’s plan here, and more of Charle’s research here. 

Unlike the familiar tech story where room-sized computers became pocket devices, quantum is binary: it either works at massive scale or it's an elaborate academic exercise. There's no quantum equivalent of early PCs that could at least balance your checkbook—no useful middle ground between 100 qubits and a million.

China wants quantum for cryptography: the master key to any lock. America's lead exists mostly on paper—in research publications and VC rounds, not deployed systems. Dr. Peter Shadbolt from PsiQuantum, fresh from congressional testimony, argues America must commit now or risk losing a race that could redefine pharmaceutical research and financial security. The real question: can a democracy sustain long-term investment in technologies that offer zero immediate gratification?

From the unfulfilled digital promises of the Arab Spring to Europe's controversial Digital Services Act, the Internet hasn't necessarily delivered the free speech revolution many predicted. Americans under 30 are less committed to free speech principles than previous generations, while both of the U.S.’s major political parties face accusations of using government power to control information.

As AI reshapes how we communicate and governments worldwide rethink speech regulations, what does this mean for the future of human expression? Are we witnessing a fundamental shift in how societies value free speech, or simply recycling ancient debates in digital form?

Evan is joined by Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt, and author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media, and Ashkhen Kazaryan, Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech. Previously, she was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta.

She inherited some major antitrust cases brought by prior administrations—including against Google, Apple, Visa, and LiveNation. And in her short time, she has launched probes, brought and settled cases, and offered the DoJ’s opinion in private litigation. But beyond her role as a law enforcer, Slater is a manifestation of the realignment of not just politics generally, but antitrust policy specifically. Her first speech in her new role was titled “The Conservative Roots of America First Antitrust Enforcement.” And in recent interviews, she has shed light on how she sees her approach to antitrust contrasting with the laissez-faire approach of the Chicago school and the aggressive posture of her predecessors in the Biden Administration.

When it comes to technology, Slater has taken a strong view that antitrust and US competitiveness are not at odds, but rather that antitrust makes the US more competitive vis-a-vis China. And just recently, she announced action the DoJ has taken at the intersection of antitrust and free speech, another key area of focus. Evan and Slater discuss what “America First Antitrust” means, how the approach is similar and different from her predecessor in the Biden Administration, and the relationship between antitrust and national security.

Senator Ted Cruz championed a 10-year moratorium on most state and local AI regulation, arguing that a patchwork of conflicting laws would hamstring American companies in their competition with China. His solution was clever: tie the moratorium to rural broadband funding through budget reconciliation, allowing it to pass with simple Republican majorities.

The Senate parliamentarian approved the measure under the Byrd rule, giving Cruz's proposal the green light. But the coalition that formed against it was unexpected. Instead of typical partisan lines, opponents included not just Democrats and left-leaning groups, but also MAGA influencers like Steve Bannon, conservative senators like Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, child safety advocates, and Republican governors.

The drama peaked when Blackburn—after negotiating a compromise with Cruz to reduce the time frame to five years and add exemptions to allow state laws on child safety and rights of publicity—walked away from the deal at the last moment. When the dust settled, the Senate voted 99-1 to strip the AI moratorium entirely—a decisive defeat for the tech industry.

The fight exposed deeper tensions over federalism, corporate power, and whether conservatives are willing to override state authority to boost American tech competitiveness. The resounding rejection suggests many weren't. So where does the fight for a national AI standard go from here, and what does this defeat mean for the shaky alliance between “tech bros” and the Trump Administration? Evan is joined by James Wallner, Vice President for Policy at FAI, and Luke Hogg, Director of Technology Policy at FAI.

In Part II, we dive into one of the pillars of TIPP: Industrial Power. Austin Bishop and Julius Krein, co-founders of the New American Industrial Alliance, join Evan to tackle the tough questions underlying America's industrial revival. How should we balance factories that employ large numbers of workers versus highly automated, hyper-efficient plants? Should manufacturing focus more on military capabilities or products aimed at global markets? And given the gap between investor expectations and the reality of manufacturing returns, how can we realistically finance this industrial renewal?

COVID laid bare just how vulnerable we've become through dependence on foreign supply chains—particularly those controlled by geopolitical rivals. Krein and Bishop argue that it's time to rebuild the industrial foundations America traded away for cheap consumer goods and service-sector jobs. The proposed solution involves innovative financial structures inspired by sovereign wealth funds and a reshaped private equity model designed for the long haul. But can these strategies compete when tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and Google are already constructing their own supply chains and new industrial policies languish in Washington conference rooms?

Evan explores with Bishop and Krein whether America still has time—and political will—to regain control over its industrial destiny, or if decades of decline have already pushed us too far behind.

The urgency has propelled an alliance of think tanks — the Foundation for American Innovation, American Compass, Institute for Progress, and  New American Industrial Alliance — to publish the Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook. 

Their proposals span three critical pillars: Industrial Power, Frontier Science and Technology, and National Security. They range from ambitious initiatives like "Project Paperclip 2.0" to fast-track foreign-born STEM PhDs, to establishing twenty “X-Labs” at $50 million each for transformative science funding. They also advocate for "Special Compute Zones" that would waive certain environmental requirements to rapidly scale up AI computing infrastructure, treating computational capacity with the same urgency America once reserved for World War II shipyards.

As the United States finds itself at a techno-industrial crossroads, is America capable of marshaling the political will and institutional capacity needed to reverse decades of industrial decline? Can these ambitious proposals navigate the complex realities of American governance while delivering meaningful results? Or is this comprehensive vision destined to join countless other policy recommendations in Washington's archive of unfulfilled potential?

Evan is joined by the architects behind this effort: Kelvin Yu, lead author and a non-resident fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation; Chris Griswold, Policy Director at American Compass; Santi Ruiz, Senior Editor at the Institute for Progress; and Robert Bellafiore, Managing Director for Policy at FAI.

The conventional wisdom in the West is that Apple and other corporations simply flocked to China for cheap, unskilled labor. While that is true, it masks the depth of Apple’s relationship with the Middle Kingdom. Yes, Apple products are made in China. But Apple also made China—at least the advanced technological China confronting the U.S. today. From training tens of millions of workers, to investing hundreds of billions in the country, our guest today argues that Apple has done more than anyone, or anything, to make China a manufacturing powerhouse. 

As one tech analyst observed, “It’s hard to reconcile the fact that the greatest American company, the most capitalist thing in the world, survives on the basis of a country that has Communist in its title.”

So how did America’s most iconic tech company become so invested in, and dependent on, the U.S.’s chief global adversary? What did Apple CEO Tim Cook know about what was happening, and when did he know it? How might the world look but for these investments? And as the U.S. government urges companies to de-risk and decouple from China, what position does that put Apple in?

Evan is joined by Patrick McGee. He was the Financial Times’s Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023 and is now the author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company.

But can America's nuclear renaissance actually deliver? Traditional nuclear plants remain staggeringly expensive—the recent Vogtle reactors in Georgia arrived seven years late and $35 billion over budget (the kind of numbers that make even venture capitalists nervous). A dozen startups are betting smaller, modular designs can slash costs and deployment times, but they face the triple threat of regulatory uncertainty, NIMBY resistance, and an energy market still obsessed with quarterly returns. Yet the alignment of energy security needs, climate goals, and now AI's voracious power requirements creates a potential inflection point for nuclear technology.

Joining us to explore these questions are Ed Petit de Mange, Director of Fuel Recycling at Oklo, whose next-generation microreactors can operate on recycled nuclear fuel; Patrick O'Brien, Director of Government Affairs at Holtec International, bringing decades of industry experience to the SMR revolution, Kathleen Nelson Romans, Head of Commercial Development at Aalo Atomics, whose compact reactors aim to serve rapidly deployable off-grid and microgrid applications, and Emmet Penney, energy writer and Senior Fellow at FAI, who provides critical context on nuclear's role in our energy transition.

The Kids Online Safety Act, which aims to address the addictive features of social media that hook kids, was recently reintroduced by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The legislation would also require tech platforms to take steps to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors, including the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, drug abuse, and sexploitation. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) are promoting the App Store Accountability Act, which would require Google and Apple to verify users’ ages before downloading apps. And Senators Cruz (R-TX) and Schatz (D-HI) propose banning kids from using social media altogether.

There is clearly a lot of interest from parents and policymakers in addressing these concerns over the impact of technology on children. But there is also a robust and ongoing debate about the actual harm to kids, and whether concerns are well founded or overblown. Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation made quite a splash, but many social psychologists have pushed back on his findings. And while the surgeon general under President Biden advocated a warning label for social media, a recent study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that kids with smartphones were better off than those without smartphones, while acknowledging harms from cyber bullying and otherwise.

The fundamental question seems to be: Is this just another moral panic, or are we letting Big Tech conduct a massive unregulated experiment on our children's brains?

Evan is joined by Clare Morell, Director of the Technology and Human Flourishing Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is the author of The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

From Donald Trump to Pete Buttigieg, everyone agrees: America has forgotten how to build things. But even if Washington cleared every federal rule tomorrow, states would still hold the keys to actually breaking ground. Whether it's Clean Air Act permits, water discharge approvals, or the maze of mini-NEPAs and local reviews, states issue most of the paperwork that determines if your project lives or dies.

This isn't just red tape—it can be competitive advantage. States that master the art of streamlined permitting without sacrificing environmental standards can capture billions in reshoring investment. Digital dashboards, consolidated reviews, shot-clocks with automatic approvals—these bureaucratic innovations are becoming economic development superpowers.

Federal dollars from infrastructure, CHIPS, and climate bills are queued up, but shovels aren't hitting the ground. From geothermal in California to advanced nuclear in Montana, nearly every clean technology faces its first real test at the state level. 

Joining us are Emmet Penney, Senior Fellow at FAI focusing on Infrastructure and Energy, and Thomas Hochman, Director of Infrastructure Policy at FAI. For more on what's working and what's not, check out their State Permitting Playbook and the new State Permitting Scorecard.

How did a former Soviet republic become a model of lean digital governance? What's their secret for avoiding the "big-bang IT project" disasters that plague Washington? And most importantly—can America's divided political system learn anything from Estonia's success?

Joining for this episode are two experts who've studied Estonia's digital miracle up close. Dr. Keegan McBride is senior policy advisor in emerging technology and geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute. He's also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. Joel Burke is the author of Rebooting a Nation: the Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government, and the Startup Revolution, and Senior Public Policy Analyst at Mozilla.

Commissioner Meador embodies the political realignment reshaping conservative views on big business, capitalism, and free trade. The Trump Administration's antitrust cases against Big Tech represent arguably the clearest expression of this shift. While the Biden administration aggressively targeted mergers and acquisitions—Wall Street's bread and butter—many financial elites hoped Donald Trump's return would restore a laissez-faire approach to antitrust. They’ve been in for disappointment.

A recent speech by Meador laid out a conservative vision for antitrust, challenging long-held Republican Party orthodoxies and sparking backlash from libertarians. He joins Evan to discuss the tensions at the heart of the this realignment: how free-market principles can coexist with robust antitrust enforcement; how skeptics of big government find common cause with critics of big business; and how conservatives are crafting their own distinctive approach to antitrust while embracing the bipartisan consensus that has emerged over the past eight years.

Perhaps the most striking example was Teamsters President Sean O'Brien speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Despite both parties courting working class voters, union membership has cratered to just 10%, down from over 20% in the early '80s.

This puts the Trump administration in an interesting position. The old conservative playbook misses that many workers fueling this movement are now Republican voters. The question isn't just whether conservatives should oppose unions, but whether they can afford to.

Joining today is Liya Palagashvili, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, whose new paper "Do More Powerful Unions Generate Better Pro-Worker Outcomes?" examines these questions and argues for a moderate stance on unions.

AI systems like AlphaFold (which recently won a Nobel Prize for protein structure prediction) are solving scientific problems that stumped humans for decades. A bipartisan coalition in Congress is now championing what they call the "American Science Acceleration Project" or ASAP—an audacious plan to make U.S. scientific research "ten times faster by 2030" through strategic deployment of AI. But as federal science funding faces pressure and international competition heats up, can America build the AI-powered scientific infrastructure we need? Will the benefits reach beyond elite coastal institutions to communities nationwide? And how do we ensure that as AI transforms scientific discovery, it creates opportunities instead of new divides?

Joining us is Austin Carson, Founder and President of SeedAI, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding AI access and opportunity across America. Before launching SeedAI, Carson led government affairs at NVIDIA and served as Legislative Director for Rep. Michael McCaul. He's been deep in AI policy since 2016—ancient history in this rapidly evolving field—and recently organized the first-ever generative AI red-teaming event at DEF CON, collaborating with the White House to engage hundreds of college students in identifying AI vulnerabilities.

What are the default settings? How are the interfaces set up? How do the recommendation algorithms work? And what about transparency? What should the companies disclose to the public and to researchers? Are they hiding the ball?

In recent years, policymakers have started to take these issues head on. In the U.S. more than 75 bills have been introduced at the state and federal level since 2023—these bills target the design and operation of algorithms, and more than a dozen have been passed into law. Last year, New York and California passed laws attempting to keep children away from “addictive feeds.” Other states in 2025 have introduced similar bills. And there’s a lawsuit from 42 attorney generals against Meta over its design choices. While Congress hasn’t done much, if anything, to regulate social media, states are clearly filling that void—or at least trying to.

So what would make social media better, or better for you? Recently, a group of academic researchers organized by the Knight Georgetown Institute put out a paper called Better Feeds: Algorithms that Put People First They outline a series of recommendations that they argue would lead to better outcomes. Evan is joined by Alissa Cooper, co-author of the paper and Executive Director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute. She previously spent over a decade at Cisco Systems, including in engineering roles. Her work at KGI has focused on how platforms can design algorithms that prioritize long-term user value rather than short-term engagement metrics.

But are we even asking the right questions? What problem are we trying to solve? Should we be less focused on whether or not AI will make a bioweapon, or more focused on how to make life easier and better for people in a world that looks very different from the one we inhabit today? Is safety versus innovation a distraction, a false binary? Is there a third option, a different way of thinking about how to govern AI? And if today’s governments aren’t fit to regulate AI, is private governance the way forward?

Evan is joined by Andrew Freedman, is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Fathom, a nonprofit building solutions society needs to thrive in an AI-driven world. Prior to Fathom, Andrew served as Colorado’s first Director of Marijuana Coordination, often referred to as the state’s "Cannabis Czar.” You can read Fathom’s proposal for AI governance here, and former FAI fellow Dean Ball’s writing on the topic here.

Katherine shares insights from her recent keynote at the American Enterprise Institute, highlighting how the core objective of technological innovation, which she calls "American Dynamism," should be empowering the family rather than centralizing state control. Neil provides a fresh perspective on how decentralized systems and emergent technologies can enhance—not hinder—family autonomy and resilience. Amid rising debates about homeschooling, screen time, and the shift toward a remote-first lifestyle, the guests discuss whether tech-driven changes ultimately strengthen or undermine families as society's fundamental institution.

Together, they explore the possibility of a new era in which technology revitalizes family autonomy, reshapes education, and reignites productive home economies.

For many, her ambitious cases against Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta weren't merely legal challenges. They represented a fundamental break from the antitrust philosophy that had dominated for decades across administrations. These cases now transfer to Trump's FTC, creating a test of regulatory continuity at a time when Big Tech CEOs are looking to curry favor with the White House.

In this conversation, Khan reflects on her legacy, discusses what critics may have misunderstood about her approach, and explores how the movement she catalyzed might evolve.

That “X-odus” of frustrated progressives to BlueSky has perhaps inadvertently shaped public perception of it as "Lib Twitter"—a characterization reinforced by its prominent progressive voices and more restrictive community moderation tools. However, this political framing obscures BlueSky's fundamental innovation: the AT Protocol, which reimagines social media as a decentralized ecosystem rather than a platform controlled by a master algorithm ruled by a CEO.

Unlike conventional social networks, BlueSky's architectural philosophy challenges the centralized control model by introducing a "marketplace of algorithms" where users select or create their own content curation systems. Imagine a feed that skews left, one that skews right, or one that avoids politics altogether.

This "algorithmic choice" approach could represent the biggest challenge yet to the centralized engagement machines that have dominated—and arguably degraded—our digital discourse. But can Bluesky outgrow its political bubbles and fulfill its techno-utopian promise? Or will it remain just another partisan bunker in our increasingly fragmented online world?

Evan and Luke are joined by Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky. 

The polarized landscape features techno-optimists battling AI safety advocates, with the former

dismissing the latter as "doomers" who exaggerate existential risks. Meanwhile, AI business leaders face criticism for potentially overstating their companies' capabilities to attract investors and secure favorable regulations that protect their market positions.

Democrats and civil rights advocates warn that focusing solely on catastrophic risks versus economic prosperity distracts from immediate harms like misinformation, algorithmic discrimination, and synthetic media abuse. U.S. regulatory efforts have struggled, with California's SB 1047 failing last year and Trump repealing Biden's AI Executive Order on inauguration day. Even the future of the U.S. government's AI Safety Institute remains uncertain under the new administration.

With a new administration in Washington, important questions linger: How should government approach AI's national security implications? Can corporate profit motives align with safer outcomes? And if the U.S. and China are locked in an AI arms race, is de-escalation possible, or are we heading toward a digital version of Mutually Assured Destruction?

Joining me to explore these questions are Dan Hendrycks, AI researcher and Director of the Center for AI Safety and co-author of "Superintelligence Strategy," a framework for navigating advanced AI from a national security and geopolitical perspective, and FAI's own Sam Hammond, Senior Economist and AI policy expert.

Trade and public health are increasingly linked, as COVID revealed the vulnerability of medical supply chains when U.S. overreliance on China led to delays and shortages of masks and personal protective equipment. Another issue that’s getting more attention from lawmakers and parents is the prevalence of Chinese-made, counterfeit electronic cigarettes or “vapes” throughout the U.S. Politicians from Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) to President Trump himself have raised the alarm. 

At the same time, American manufacturers have bemoaned the slow and stringent regulatory process they have faced at the FDA, which they say has enabled China to flood the market with cheap, sketchy alternatives. With a new FDA administrator set to take the helm, key questions remain. How did we end up in this situation, and what are the lessons not just for public health, but for other areas where the U.S. is looking to tighten up its trade policy. Is it possible for the U.S. to maintain the ideal of a relatively free market without adversaries exploiting that freedom?

Evan is joined by Joel Thayer, President of the Digital Progress Institute. You can read his op-ed on illicit vapes, the Bloomberg report we discuss in the episode, as well as Aiden Buzzetti’s op-ed in CommonPlace. 

But while tariffs capture public attention, beneath these headlines is a much broader debate over America's industrial strategy—how the nation can rebuild its manufacturing base, ensure economic prosperity, and strengthen national security in an increasingly competitive global environment. Critics argue that the shortcomings of recent attempts at industrial policy, such as the CHIPS Act, prove why government can’t outperform free markets.

Our guests today have a different view. 

Marc Fasteau and Ian Fletcher of the Coalition for a Prosperous America authored a new book, Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries. They argue that a bold, comprehensive industrial strategy is not only achievable but essential—calling for targeted tariffs, strategic currency management, and coordinated investments to rejuvenate American industry and secure the nation's future. But will their approach overcome the challenges of bureaucracy, political division, and international backlash? And can industrial policy truly deliver on its promise of economic renewal?

While recent initiatives like Elon Musk's temporary team of young engineers and the $500 billion Stargate program highlight the urgency, they don't solve the fundamental problem: creating a sustainable pipeline of technical talent willing to take a pay cut for public service. This talent gap could hamper innovation despite the current AI boom that's receiving 60% of venture funding. How can the private sector and federal government work to bridge this gap?

Evan is joined by Arun Gupta, who pivoted from 18 years as a Partner at Columbia Capital investing in cybersecurity and AI startups to leading NobleReach Foundation, which works to bring some of the best assets of the private sector into public service. They explore how to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and government service to ensure America can effectively regulate, adopt, and leverage emerging technologies for the national interest.

With fusion, the stakes could be much higher, given that fusion has the potential to be the world's "last energy source," with significant economic and national security implications. Evan is joined by Sachin Desai, General Counsel at Helion Energy and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission staffer, and Thomas Hochman, Director of Infrastructure Policy at FAI. They discuss the technical, regulatory, and geopolitical dimensions of what could be this decade's most consequential technology race.

Enter middleware: third-party software that sits between users and platforms, potentially offering a "third way" beyond what otherwise appears as a binary choice between. Middleware holds the potential to enable users to select different forms of curation on social media by third-parties—anyone from your local church to news outlets to political organizations. Could this technology put power back in the hands of users while addressing concerns about bias, misinformation, harassment, hate speech, and polarization?

Joining us are Luke Hogg, Director of Technology Policy at FAI, and Renée DiResta, Georgetown University professor and author of "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turned Lies Into Reality." They break down their new paper, “Shaping the Future of Social Media with Middleware,”  on and explore whether this emerging technology could reshape our social media landscape for the better. 

In part two of our series on education R&D, we explore these developments with Sarah Schapiro and Melissa Moritz of the Alliance for Learning Innovation, a coalition working to build better research infrastructure in education. Drawing on their extensive experience - from PBS Education to the Department of Education's STEM initiatives - they examine how shifting federal policy could reshape educational innovation and America's global competitiveness. Can a state-centered approach maintain our edge in the talent race? What role should the private sector play? And how can evidence-based practices help reverse these troubling trends in student achievement?

Joining them are FAI's Dan Lips and Robert Bellafiore, who bring fresh analysis on reforming federal education R&D to drive better outcomes for American students. This wide-ranging discussion tackles the intersection of education, national security, workforce development and technological innovation at a pivotal moment for American education policy.

In this episode, education policy veteran Chester Finn joins us to examine this crisis and potential solutions. Drawing on his experience as a Reagan administration official and decades of education reform work, Finn discusses why accountability measures have broken down, whether school choice can right the ship, and if the federal government's education R&D enterprise is fixable. Joining the conversation are FAI's Dan Lips and Robert Bellafiore, who recently authored new work on leveraging education R&D to help address America's learning challenges.

This is part one of a two-part series examining the state of American education and exploring paths forward as a new administration takes office with ambitious - and controversial - plans for reform.

That’s exactly the question at the heart of this week’s episode. From the Navy’s struggles to build ships to the Department of Education’s FAFSA disaster, our conversation lays out why the government seems incapable of delivering even on its own priorities. It’s not just about money or political will—it’s about outdated hiring rules, a culture of proceduralism over action, and a bureaucracy designed to say "no" instead of "go." These failures aren’t accidental; they’re baked into how the system currently operates. Jennifer Pahlka, former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer under President Obama and Senior Fellow at Niskanen Center and Andrew Greenway, co-founder of Public Digital, join.

The solution? A fundamental shift in how government works—not just at the leadership level, but deep within agencies themselves. She advocates for cutting procedural bloat, giving civil servants the authority to make real decisions, and modernizing digital infrastructure to allow for rapid adaptation. Reform, she argues, isn’t about breaking government down; it’s about making it function like a system designed for the 21st century. Whether DOGE is a step in that direction or a warning sign of what happens when frustration meets executive power remains to be seen.

But beneath the spectacle of billionaire CEOs at state functions lies a deeper question about the "Little Tech" movement—startups and smaller companies pushing for open standards, fair competition rules, and the right to innovate without being crushed by either regulatory costs or Big Tech copycats. As China pours resources into AI and semiconductors, American tech policy faces competing pressures: Trump promises business-friendly deregulation while potentially expanding export controls and antitrust enforcement against the very tech giants courting his favor.

To explore this complex new paradigm, Evan and FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas are joined by Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator behind Airbnb, DoorDash, and other alumni. As both a successful founder and venture capitalist, Tan discusses what policies could help startups thrive without dipping into overregulation, and whether Silicon Valley's traditionally progressive culture can adapt to Trump's tech alliances. You can read more about YC’s engagement with Washington, DC here.

The timing couldn't be more relevant. Just last week, President Trump unveiled Stargate, a $500 billion public-private partnership with OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and Emirati investment firm MGX aimed at building AI infrastructure across America. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to preserve its technological advantage through export controls face mounting challenges and skepticism. If Chinese companies can innovate despite restrictions on advanced AI chips, should the U.S. rethink its approach?

To make sense of these developments and their implications for U.S. technological leadership, Evan is joined by Tim Fist, Senior Technology Fellow at the Institute for Progress, a think tank focused on accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress, and FAI Senior Economist Sam Hammond. 

The conversation examines the implications of Meta's recently exposed use of Library Genesis - a shadow library of pirated books - to train its LLaMA models, highlighting the desperate measures even tech giants will take to source training data. This scandal crystallizes a core tension: U.S. companies face mounting copyright challenges while Chinese competitors can freely use these same materials without fear of legal repercussions. The discussion delves into potential policy solutions, from expanding fair use doctrine to creating new statutory licensing frameworks, that could help American AI development remain competitive while respecting creator rights.

Drawing on historical parallels from past technological disruptions like Napster and Google Books, the guests explore how market-based solutions and policy innovation could help resolve these conflicts. As courts weigh major decisions in cases involving OpenAI, Anthropic, and others in 2024, the episode frames copyright not just as a domestic policy issue, but as a key factor in national technological competitiveness. What's at stake isn't just compensation for creators, but whether IP disputes could cede AI leadership to nations with fewer or no constraints on training data.

The discussion challenges assumptions about who really stands to gain or lose in the AI copyright debate. Rather than a simple creator-versus-tech narrative, Zhao highlights how some creators and talents have embraced AI while others have shown resistance and skepticism. Through Story's blockchain-based marketplace, he envisions a world where creators can directly monetize their IP for AI training without going through traditional gatekeepers. Jaffer brings a crucial national security perspective, emphasizing how over-regulation of AI training data could threaten American technological leadership - particularly as the EU prepares to implement strict new AI rules that could effectively set global standards.

Looking ahead to 2025, both guests express optimism about market-based and technological solutions winning out over heavy-handed regulation. They draw parallels to how innovations like Spotify and YouTube's Content ID ultimately resolved earlier digital disruptions. However, they warn that the US must carefully balance innovation and IP protection to maintain its AI edge, especially as competitors like China take a more permissive approach to training data. The episode frames copyright not just as a domestic policy issue, but as a key factor in national competitiveness and security in the AI era.

Our guests bring unique perspectives to this complex debate: Mike Masnick, CEO of Techdirt, who's been chronicling the intersection of tech and copyright for decades; Alex Winter, the filmmaker and actor known for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, who offers boots-on-the-ground insight from his involvement in recent Hollywood labor negotiations; and Tim Hwang, Senior Fellow at FAI, who explores how current legal battles could shape AI's future.

The conversation covers everything from "shakedown" licensing deals between AI companies and media outlets to existential questions about artistic value in an AI age. While the guests acknowledge valid concerns about worker protection and fair compensation, they challenge the notion that restricting AI development through copyright law is either practical or beneficial. Drawing parallels to past technological disruptions like Napster, they explore how industries might adapt rather than resist change while still protecting creators' interests.

The conversation covers the wave of recent lawsuits against AI companies, including The New York Times suit against OpenAI and litigation facing Anthropic, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and others. These cases center on two key issues: the legality of using copyrighted materials as training data and the potential for AI models to reproduce copyrighted content. Professor Samuelson breaks down the complex legal landscape, explaining how different types of media (books, music, software) might fare differently under copyright law due to industry structure and existing precedent.

Drawing on historical parallels from photocopying to the Betamax case, Professor Samuelson provides crucial context for understanding today's AI copyright battles. She discusses how courts have historically balanced innovation with copyright protection, and what that might mean for AI's future. With several major decisions expected in the coming months, including potential summary judgments, these cases could reshape the AI landscape - particularly for startups and research institutions that lack the resources of major tech companies.

Evan is joined by Kevin B. Kennedy,  a recently retired United States Air Force lieutenant general who last served as commander of the Sixteenth Air Force. He previously served as Director for Operations at U.S. Cyber Command.

With all this upheaval, one thing remains constant: people love posting their Spotify Wrapped playlists at the end of the year. It’s a fun way to reflect on the hits (and maybe a few misses) of the past twelve months, so we thought, why not take a similar approach to tech policy?

In this episode ofThe Dynamist, Evan is joined by Luke Hogg, FAI’s Director of Policy and Outreach, and Josh Levine, FAI’s Tech Policy Manager, for a lively conversation breaking down the year’s biggest stories. Together, they revisit the key moments that defined 2024, from courtroom dramas to legislative battles, and share their thoughts on what’s next for 2025. Will AI regulations dominate the agenda? Could new leaders at U.S. agencies take tech in a bold new direction? Tune in to hear their reflections, predictions, and maybe even a few hot takes as they wrap up 2024 in tech policy.

The bill requires adult or online pornography websites to verify the age of users to prevent users under the age of 18 from accessing those sites. A group representing online porn sites sued, and the bill was enjoined by a district court, then partially upheld by the Fifth Circuit, and will now be heard by the Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, with oral arguments scheduled for January 15.

The ruling in this case could have major implications for efforts to regulate the online world both at the state and federal level—not just for porn but other online content social media. On today’s show, Evan moderates a debate on the following resolution: Texas's Age Verification (AV) Law is Constitutional and AV laws are an effective means of protecting children from online harms.

Arguing for the resolution is Adam Candeub, senior fellow at Center for Renewing America, professor of law at michigan state university, and formerly acting assistant secretary of commerce for telecommunications and information under President Trump. Arguing against the resolution is Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Before that he was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine law firm for 20 years and served in government as chief counsel to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman James Quello. You can read FIRE’s brief in the case here.

While members of Congress and advocates in the med tech industry are pushing Medicare to streamline its process, CMS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services, has sounded a note of caution, warning that moving too quickly fails to account for the unique needs and considerations of the Medicare population, Americans over 65 years old. 

Is this simply bureaucratic foot dragging, or are there legitimate safety and health risks with Medicare giving its blessing to new technologies and treatments? Is there a policy balance to be struck, where government health officials give seniors the unique consideration they need without denying them access to potentially life-saving treatments and devices?

Evan is joined by Katie Meyer, Vice President of Public Affairs at Novacure, a global oncology company working to extend survival in some of the most aggressive forms of cancer. Prior to that, she served in Congress in various roles, including as Deputy Health Policy Director at the Senate Finance Committee.

Government waste has long been a focus for Republicans in Washington. The phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” often generates a chuckle in DC circles, given how much the federal bureaucracy, government spending, and the national debt have grown despite decades of professed fiscal hawkishness. While critics of Trump and Musk are rolling their eyes at what they perceive as a toothless commission, proponents welcome the focus on government efficiency from the president-elect and the world’s richest man, and are optimistic that Musk and Ramaswamy’s expertise in the business world would bring much-needed outside perspectives on how to optimize the federal government.

The Foundation for American Innovation has operated a project on government efficiency and tech modernization since 2019. FAI fellows just published a new paper on the topic of “An Efficiency Agenda for the Executive Branch.” To discuss DOGE, the challenges of streamlining bureaucracy, how AI might play a role in the efforts, and what Congress can do to help make DOGE a success, Evan is joined by Sam Hammond, Senior Economist at FAI and Dan Lips, Head of Policy at FAI. For a quick take on FAI's recommendations, check out Dan's oped in The Hill  linked here.

But this is The Dynamist, not CNN. In today’s show, we focus on what the results mean for tech policy and tech politics. There are ongoing antitrust cases against Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon. Investigations into Microsoft, Open AI, and Nvidia. How might the new president impact those cases? Congress is considering legislation to protect children from the harms of social media. Will we see action in the lame duck session or will the issue get kicked to January when the new Congress settles in? What about AI? Trump has vowed to repeal Biden’s Executive Order on artificial intelligence. What, if anything, might replace it? And for those in Silicon Valley who supported Trump, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, how might they wield influence in the new administration?

Evan is joined by Nathan Leamer, CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies and Executive Director of Digital First Project, and Ellen Satterwhite, Senior Director at Invariant, a government relations and strategic communications firm in DC. Both Nathan and Ellen previously served in government at the Federal Communications Commission—Nathan under President Trump and Ellen under President Obama.

But there's a catch: these same computers could potentially break most of the security protecting our digital lives, from WhatsApp messages to bank transfers to military secrets. To address this threat, the National Institute of Standards and Technology recently released quantum-safe cryptography standards, while new government mandates are pushing federal agencies to upgrade their security before quantum systems become cryptographically relevant—in other words, vulnerable to hacks by quantum computers.

To help us understand both the promise and peril of quantum computing, we're joined by Travis Scholten, Technical Lead in the Public Sector at IBM and former quantum computing researcher at the company. He’s also a former policy hacker at FAI, author of the Quantum Stack newsletter and co-author of a white paper on the benefits and risks of quantum computers. 

The tech industry is in a much different place in 2024 than in past elections. Big Tech firms, who once enjoyed minimal government oversight, now face a gauntlet of regulatory challenges—from data privacy laws to antitrust lawsuits. While some tech leaders are hedging their bets between candidates, others are going all in for Harris or Trump—candidates who offer different, if not fully developed, approaches to regulation and innovation.

Trump's vision emphasizes a return to American technological greatness with minimal government interference, attracting support from figures like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen despite Silicon Valley's traditionally Democratic lean. Harris presents a more managed approach, a generally pro-innovation stance tempered by a desire for government to help shape AI and other tech outcomes. Democratic donors like Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman are backing Harris while hoping she'll soften Biden's tough antitrust stance. Meanwhile, crypto billionaires are flexing their political muscle, working to unseat skeptics in Congress after years of scrutiny under Biden's financial regulators.

What are these competing visions for technology, and how would each candidate approach tech policy if elected? Will 2024 reshape the relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington? Evan is joined by Derek Robertson, a veteran tech policy writer who authors the Digital Future Daily newsletter for Politico.

*Correction: The audio clip of Trump was incorrectly attributed to his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience. The audio is from Trump’s appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show

Musk's increasing political involvement has added a layer of scrutiny to his businesses, particularly as SpaceX aims to secure more contracts and regulatory permissions. Labor tensions also loom, with Tesla facing unionization efforts and accusations of unfair labor practices, adding a wrinkle into an election where both presidential candidates are vying for the labor vote in the midst of several high-profile strikes this year.

Through all this, Musk’s companies—SpaceX, Tesla, and X—are pressing forward, but the stakes have arguably never been higher with regulatory bodies and the court of public opinion keeping a close watch. Many conservatives have embraced Musk as a Randian hero of sorts, a champion of free speech and innovation. Others sound a note of caution, warning that his emphasis on “efficiency” could undermine certain conservative values, and question whether his record on labor and China are worth celebrating. So, should conservatives embrace, or resist, Musk-ification? 

Evan is joined by Chris Griswold, Policy Director at American Compass, a New Right think tank based in DC. Check out his recent piece, “Conservatives Must Resist Musk-ification.” Previously, he served as an advisor to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, where he focused on innovation, small business, and entrepreneurship.

The products and services of these tech giants are ubiquitous and pillars of modern life. Governments and businesses increasingly rely on cloud services like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services to function. Elon Musk's Starlink has provided internet access in the flood zones of North Carolina and the battlefields of Ukraine. Firms like Palantir are integrating cutting-edge AI into national defense systems.

In response to these rapid changes, and resulting concerns, regulators in Europe and the U.S. have proposed various measures—from antitrust actions to new legislation like the EU's AI Act. Critics warn  that overzealous regulation could stifle the very innovation that has driven economic growth and technological advancement, potentially ceding Western tech leadership to China. Others, like our guest, argue that these actions to rein in tech don’t go nearly far enough, and that governments must do more to take back the power she says that tech companies have taken from nation states.

Evan and Luke are joined by Marietje Schaake, a former MEP and current fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. She is the author of The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. You can read her op-ed in Foreign Affairs summarizing the book.

The bill had passed the California senate back in August by a vote of 30-9, having been the subject of fierce debate between AI companies big and small and researchers and advocates who fear a catastrophic AI event. Proponents want to get ahead of AI cyberattacks, AI weapons development, or doomsday scenarios by making developers liable to implement safety protocols.  Opponents argue that the bill will stifle innovation in California, calling it an “assault on open source” and a “harm to the budding AI ecosystem.”

Aside from the merits of the legislation, it is arguably the first major political fight over AI in the U.S. where competing interests fought all the way to the governor’s desk, attempting to sway the pen of Governor Newsom. The story featured a cast of characters from California Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to  billionaires like Elon Musk to major companies like Google and OpenAI. What does this battle say about who holds sway in emerging AI politics? What are the factions and alignments? And what does this all mean for next year in California and beyond?

Evan is joined by Sam Hammond, Senior Economist at FAI and author of the Substack Second Best, and Dean Ball, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, author of the Substack Hyperdimensional, and a non-resident fellow at FAI.

This tech-labor debate has largely played out in state legislatures and in the courts. Voters have weighed in as well, with gig companies DoorDash and Lyft spending some $200 million to win the Prop 22 ballot initiative in California that exempted their workers from new labor laws. Should Uber be forced to provide benefits to employees? Should government stay out and let these markets continue to operate?

As labor leaders and progressive lawmakers continue to battle with the companies, and governments, companies, and unions struggle to apply old principles to an increasingly digital economy, some argue for a third way, including our guest today. Wingham Rowan is the founder and managing director of Modern Markets for All, a non-profit that develops infrastructure for people working outside of traditional 9-5 jobs. Prior to that, he was a TV host and producer at the BBC. Read more about his work at PeoplesCapitalism.org. 

For all its promise in the mid-20th century, U.S. nuclear energy largely stalled in the 1970s and 80s. While public anxiety over its safety played a role, experts have pointed to the hefty cost of building plants and poor regulatory/policy decisions as having more impact. But in recent years, as demand for low-carbon energy surges and companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google are burning through energy to train artificial intelligence, there is a renewed interest in making nuclear work in this century.

But concerns over cost and safety remain, and even among proponents of nuclear energy, there is a robust debate about exactly how to approach future builds, whether to rely on conventional methods or hold off until new research potentially yields a smaller, more cost-effective method of unlocking atomic energy. What is the state of nuclear power in the U.S. and around the world today? What policies could shape its future? And how might AI, other market dynamics, geopolitics, and national security concerns impact the debate and its outcomes?

Evan is joined by Emmet Penney, the creator of Nuclear Barbarians, a newsletter and podcast about industrial history and energy politics, and a contributing editor at COMPACT magazine. Thomas Hochman, Policy Manager at FAI, is also joining. You can read Emmet’s recent piece on how why nuclear energy is a winning issue for the populist GOP here. You can read Thomas’s piece for The New Atlantis on “nuclear renaissance” here, and his writeup of the ADVANCE Act here.

The incident is the latest in an ongoing debate abroad and in the U.S. about free speech and the real-world impact of online misinformation. In the U.S., politicians have griped for years about the content policies of major platforms like YouTube and Facebook—generally with conservatives complaining the companies are too censorious and liberals bemoaning that they don’t take down enough misinformation and hate speech. 

Where should the line be? Is it possible for platforms to respect free expression while removing “harmful content” and misinformation? Who gets to decide what is true and false, and what role, if any, should the government play? Evan is joined by Renee Diresta who studies and writes about adversarial abuse online. Previously, she was a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory where she researched and investigated online political speech and foreign influence campaigns. She is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Read her recent op-ed in the New York Times here.

The concept sounds simple enough: if you buy something like a phone or a car, you should have the right to fix it. But as our world becomes more digitized, doing it yourself, or having your devices repaired by third-party mechanics or cell phone shops, can be complicated. Everything from opening a car door to adjusting your refrigerator can now involve complex computer code, giving manufacturers more control over whether, and how, devices can be repaired. 

Frustrations over this dynamic sparked the “right to repair” movement, which advocates for legislation to require manufacturers to provide parts, tools, and guides to consumers and third parties. While powerful companies like John Deere and Apple have cited cybersecurity and safety concerns with farmers and iPhone users tinkering with their devices, right-to-repair advocates say irreparability undermines consumer rights, leads to higher prices and worse quality, and harms small businesses that provide third-party repair services.

As more states continue to adopt and debate these laws, which industries will be impacted? And will the federal government consider imposing the policy nationwide? Evan and Luke are joined by Kyle Wiens, perhaps the most vocal proponent of the right to repair in the U.S. Wiens is the co-founder and CEO of IFixit, which sells repair parts and tools and provides free how-to-guides online. Read Kyle’s writing on repair rights and copyright in Wired and his article in The Atlantic on how his grandfather helped influence his thinking. See Luke’s piece in Reason on how the debate impacts agriculture.

Should AI companies be allowed to train their models without compensating artists? What exactly is “fair use” when it comes to AI training and copyright? What are the moral and ethical implications of training AI products with human-created works when those products could compete with, or replace, those same humans? What are the potential consequences of regulation in this area, especially as the U.S. government wants to beat out China in the race for global AI supremacy?

Evan is joined by Josh Levine, Tech Policy Manager at FAI, and Luke Hogg, Director of Policy and Outreach at FAI. Read Josh’s piece on the COPIED Act here, and Luke’s piece on the NO AI FRAUD Act here.

Evan is joined by Oren Cass, Chief Economist and Founder of American Compass and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America. Read his recent op-ed in the New York Times on populism and his recent piece in Financial Times on Vance. Subscribe to his Substack, “Understanding America.”

Evan is also joined by Marshall Kosloff, co-host of The Realignment podcast, sponsored by FAI, that has been chronicling the shifting politics of the U.S. for several years, as well as by Jon Askonas, professor of politics at Catholic University and senior fellow at FAI.

So how will the lower courts proceed? Will any parts of the Florida and Texas laws stand? What will it mean for the future of social media regulation? And could the ruling have spillover effects into other areas of tech regulation, such as efforts to restrict social media for children or impose privacy regulations? Evan and Luke are joined by Daphne Keller, Platform Regulation Director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Previously, she was Associate General Counsel at Google where she led work on web search and other products. You can read her Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case here and her Lawfare piece here.

American might was built on our industrial base. As scholars like Arthur Herman detail in Freedom’s Forge, the United States won World War 2 with industrial acumen and might. We built the broadest middle class in the history of the world, put men on the moon, and midwifed the jet age, the Internet, semiconductors, green energy, revolutionary medical treatments, and more in less than a century. 

But the optimism that powered this growth is fading, and our public policy ecosystem has systematically deprioritized American industry in favor of quick returns and cheap goods from our strategic competitors. Is there a way to restore our domestic industry? What does movement-building in this space look like? 

We're joined by Austin Bishop, a partner at Tamarack Global, co-founder of Atomic Industries, and co-organizer of REINDUSTRIALIZE, and Jon Askonas, Senior Fellow with FAI and Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America. You can follow Austin on X here and Jon here. Read more about REINDUSTRIALIZE and the New American Industrial Alliance here and check out some of Jon's research on technological stagnation for American Affairs here.
 

You can follow Jon at @jonaskonas and Andrew at @andercot. Andrew recently hosted Deep Tech Week in San Francisco, and he's gearing up to host the next one in New York City. 

As the media and lawmakers focus on modern gripes with Big Tech, the origin stories of  companies like Meta and Google feel like ancient history or almost forgotten. Our guest today argues that these stories, filled with youthful ambitions and moral tradeoffs—even “original sins”—help explain how the companies came to be, amass profits, and wield power. And the lessons learned could provide a path for more responsible innovations, especially as the gold rush for artificial intelligence heats up.

Evan is joined by Rob Lalka, Professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business and Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is the author of a new book, The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power. Previously he served in the U.S. State Department. 

But is that how it works in practice? An increasing share of policymakers believe Big Tech giants don’t face meaningful competition because their would-be competitors get bought, copied, or co-opted by essentially the same five companies: Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. While antitrust regulators have been focusing a lot on what they believe are “killer acquisitions,” such as then-Facebook buying Instagram, there seems to be less focus on what some experts call “co-opting disruption,” where large firms seek to influence startups and steer them away from potentially disruptive innovations. So what does that look like in practice? And is this a fair characterization of how the tech market works?

Evan is joined by Adam Rogers, senior tech correspondent at Business Insider. Prior to that, he was a longtime editor and writer at Wired Magazine. You can read his article on co-opting disruption, “Big Tech’s Inside Job,” here. He is also the author of Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern.

Evan is joined by Robert Atkinson, Founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan research and educational institute, often recognized as the world’s leading think tank on science and tech policy. He is also the co-author of the Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy. Read his article on Hamiltonian industrial policy here.

With bio threats emerging at an accelerating pace, and as biotechnology becomes more available, how can companies and governments address these threats?

Evan is joined by Swati Sureka, Strategic Communications Lead at Ginkgo Bioworks, a U.S. biotech firm that partners with the CDC and other organizations to monitor for emerging pathogens worldwide. She’s the co-author of a new paper laying out a roadmap for a global pathogen surveillance infrastructure, “A New Paradigm for Threat Agnostic Biodetection: Biological Intelligence.”

Introduced on February 8, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Systems Act (SB 1047) is a sweeping bill that would include a new regulatory division and requirements that companies demonstrate their tech won’t be used for harmful purposes, such as building a bioweapon or aiding terrorism.

SB 1047 has generated intense debate within the AI community and beyond. Proponents argue that robust oversight and safety requirements are essential to mitigate the catastrophic risks posed by advanced AI systems. Opponents contend that the scope is overbroad and that the compliance burdens and legal risks will advantage incumbent players over smaller and open-source developers.

Evan is joined by Brian Chau, Executive Director of Alliance for the Future and Dean Ball, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center and author of the Substack Hyperdimensional. You can read Alliance for the Future’s call to action on SB 1047 here. And you can read Dean’s analysis of the bill here. For a counter argument, check out a piece by AI writer Zvi Mowshowitz here.

At the heart of this struggle lies the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, a massive infrastructure and investment project that has become the centerpiece of China's foreign policy. The BRI is often portrayed as an economic venture—China is seeking to create new markets for its goods, stimulate economic growth in its less-developed regions like Africa and Latin America. But the BRI has increasingly come under scrutiny as a geopolitical gambit designed to expand China's power and undermine American leadership.

As policymakers in Washington grapple with how to respond to China's growing assertiveness, our guest today offers a provocative thesis: America is losing this new cold war, and it needs a bold strategy to turn the tide.

Evan is joined by Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. His new book, "Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,” calls for the U.S. to take new approach that would exploit the BRI's weaknesses, such as its reliance on unsustainable debt and its tendency to breed corruption and local resentment, while simultaneously strengthening U.S. alliances and providing alternative models of development assistance. Michael also hosts the "Great Power Podcast," AFPC's show about global competition and U.S.-China relations. You can read a critique of Michael’s book here.

​​Proponents of a divestiture/ban argue that this is a narrowly targeted measure to address a clear national security threat, consistent with other restrictions on foreign ownership in areas like broadcast media. Critics, meanwhile, raise First Amendment concerns and argue that the bill creates a slippery slope that could lead to the targeting of platforms like X or Truth Social.

​​To consider these questions, the Foundation for American Innovation and Young Voices hosted a debate on the bill, with the following resolution: Given national security concerns, ByteDance should be forced to divest from TikTok or face a ban. Evan was joined by the following speakers:

Pro Divestment:

• Michael Sobolik, Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies, American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance
• Matt Stoller, Director of Research, American Economic Liberties Project

Anti-divestment:

• Jennifer Huddleston, Technology Policy Research Fellow at the Cato Institute
• Mike Godwin, Principal Attorney at Godwin’s Law Consulting and former employee of TikTok on the company’s Trust and Safety team

With FISA set to expire on April 19 without Congressional reauthorization, the debate over whether and how to reform government surveillance has intensified. The Biden Administration, the FBI, and others in the world of national security say Section 702 is a critical tool to combat terrorism and other threats, and that privacy reforms might put Americans in danger by slowing down intel activities. Critics warn that this provision is violating the civil liberties of Americans, that Section 702 enables warrantless surveillance and is an end run around the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures.

How will Congress act? How does 702 really work? And what are the politics and alliances on both sides of this debate? Are there any reforms that might pass as part of a compromise? Evan and Luke are joined by David DiMolfetta, a reporter at NextGov/FCW, where he covers how the US government is adapting to the world of cybersecurity. He was a researcher at the Washington Post and a reporter at S&P Global. You can read his latest piece on Section 702 here.

Most of us have a general understanding of the basic tradeoff in the Internet era—you give up some data in exchange for free or freemium services like Gmail or social media apps like Instagram. But the data marketplace goes well beyond the Big Tech players we’re most familiar with, and the depth and breadth of these processes, and the players involved, are often much harder to pin down.

What role do data brokers play and what sorts of data do they have access to? Is our data simply for sale to the highest bidder? Can even the chips in car tires be used to spy on people?

Joining us to discuss all of this is Byron Tau, whose investigative work has shone a light on the connections between tech companies and government surveillance. His latest book, "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State," uncovers the extensive ways our data are used to watch and influence us as the American public. Byron is also a reporter at NOTUS, a new publication covering politics and policy from the Albritton Journalism Institute, and an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University. 

Many, including our guest, argue that is not the Internet we have today. It seems everyone has gripes about Big Tech—from concerns around misinformation and censorship to the impact of social media on youth mental health. Underlying these policy issues is the issue of who controls our data and the flow of information. Have the economic benefits of the Internet been distributed fairly? Will AI lead to more competition or cement the dominance of incumbent firms? Is there a way to have the conveniences of today’s Internet without the downsides?

Evan is joined by Frank H. Mccourt, Jr, Executive Chairman of McCourt Global and author of Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age. He is also the founder of Project Liberty. Project Liberty is a far-reaching effort to build an internet where individuals have more control over their data, a voice in how digital platforms operate, and greater access to the economic benefits of innovation.

TikTok has been through a political whirlwind since the Trump Administration first began an effort to ban TikTok or force a divestiture in 2020. Despite growing concern among lawmakers and bills introduced in recent years, TikTok seemed to have dodged a bullet, especially when President Biden joined the app last month. However, TikTok’s fortunes took a drastic turn when the recent bipartisan bill emerged and gained widespread support.

The saga raises a lot of questions. To what extent does Chinese influence, and money, affect our politics? How have the positions of Biden, Trump, and other political figures evolved on the issue? And what will this all mean for the bill’s prospects in the notoriously slower and more deliberative U.S. Senate? Evan is joined by friends of the pod Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, and Nathan Leamer, CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies.

In December, the tech company Beeper tried to bridge the Android-iPhone divide. They launched Beeper Mini, an app that gave Android users access to iMessage functionality. The app immediately took off, gaining over a hundred thousand downloads in the first few days and reaching the top-20 app chart on the Google Play Store. But just a couple of days later, Apple shut the app down, citing security concerns and the potential for privacy risks. 

This brouhaha caught the attention of US lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Apple's actions as potentially anti-competitive. A bipartisan group in Congress has requested the Department of Justice investigate Apple's conduct towards Beeper, suggesting that it may violate antitrust laws. 

The Beeper situation reflects a broader debate around app store competition, security and privacy, and the competitive dynamics between major tech platforms and third-party developers. Are app stores monopolistic? How might Beeper’s story influence the future of antitrust when it comes to Big Tech? 

Evan is joined by Eric Migicovsky. Eric is the co-founder of Beeper and a central player in the ongoing discussions around Apple and its app store. Prior to that, he founded the smartwatch company Pebble, and was a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. Read Beeper’s blog post about their situation with Apple here.

Our guest today, James Pethokoukis, recently wrote The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. Jim is a senior fellow and the DeWitt Wallace Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, where he analyzes US economic policy, writes and edits the AEIdeas blog, and hosts AEI’s Political Economy podcast. He is also a CNBC contributor and writes the Faster, Please! Substack. 

We’re also joined by FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas and Research Manager Robert Bellafiore. Robert recently reviewed James’ book for The New Atlantis. Jon has written extensively about the politics of innovation, including for Compact and American Affairs. 

Over the past ten years, the debate over how companies and governments deal with online speech has only intensified. Whether you call it content moderation or censorship, people have very strong opinions about how companies like Meta, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok moderate their platforms. Florida and Texas both passed laws in recent years aimed at cracking down on what they see as politically biased behavior by these companies. Florida Senate Bill 7072, among other provisions, imposes fines on companies who "deplatform" political candidates and news outlets. Texas House Bill 20 prohibits social media companies with 50 million or more active monthly users from discriminating against users based on their viewpoint.

On Feb 20, 2024, Evan moderated a debate at FAI’s office in Washington, DC. Arguing for NetChoice is Carl Szabo, Vice President & General Counsel of NetChoice, a trade association representing tech companies and the plaintiff in both cases. Arguing for the states is Adam Candeub, former Trump Administration official and Professor of Law at Michigan State University. 

As tensions rise between the U.S. and China, so do the tensions for businesses trying to operate in China. The nation of 1.4 billion people represents the biggest market in the world and an enormous source of potential revenue. But those who do business in China must play by China’s rules, so what are the tradeoffs? How far is too far? What role, if any, should the U.S. government play in regulating American businesses’ relationship with and dealings in China?

Evan is joined by Chris Fenton, a movie producer and author of Feeding The Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business. Today, Chris advises companies, brands, and Congress on how to navigate the America-China relationship and co-hosts US Congressional Member delegations in China. 

We’re 30 years into widespread adoption of the commercial Internet, yet Congress has failed to pass any sort of comprehensive legislation around digital privacy. There’s broad agreement that America needs a national privacy law, so why don’t we have one? In the meantime, a growing number of U.S. states have filled the void with bills like the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. How have these laws impacted the tech landscape? How do they impact global internet practices, and shape principles around online free speech and innovation?

Evan and FAI Director of Outreach Luke Hogg are joined by Jennifer Huddleston, technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute. Her work covers a range of topics, including antitrust, online content moderation, and data privacy. For more, see her recent piece on online safety legislation.

NB: A previous version of this episode was missing content, which has been restored.

The deliberations of the government and its agencies are often inaccessible to the general public. And without this information, nearly everything becomes harder. How do you hold government institutions accountable when their activity and data are buried under layers of bureaucracy? How do we improve the collection, organization, and distribution of government information, as well as public information in general? And how will the arrival of new technologies like artificial intelligence help (or hurt) with that goal? 

Evan is joined by Jamie Joyce, Director at Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, and Founder of the Society Library, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution that builds tools and develops products to improve the information ecosystem. She’s also a board member at WikiTongues, an internet archive dedicated to the preservation of world languages.

Joining us to discuss all of this today are Matthew Sag and Zach Graves. Sag is a Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science at Emory University Law School. He is an expert in copyright law and intellectual property, and a leading authority on the fair use doctrine in copyright law and its implications for AI. Graves is the Executive Director at the Foundation for American Innovation. He was recently invited to participate in the Senate’s AI Insight Forum. 

In China’s view, America has come to dominate the international system in part by controlling the narrative around governance, norms, and values. For China to gain control in the international order, then, it’s not enough for their economy or military to grow to either match or surpass ours. They have to secure discourse power—one that favors Chinese Communist Party values and their approach to security and human rights. In particular, they see the digital realm as an opportunity to tilt the balance in China’s favor. So what does this look like in practice?

Evan is joined by Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, where she leads China-related research and engagements. See her paper on discourse power and her new article in Foreign Affairs on whether China can swing Taiwan’s election.

Evan is joined by Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, an American trade group that represents technology companies on issues such as antitrust law and content moderation. He previously helmed government relations for Lime Bike. Prior to that was senior director of U.S. public policy for Google. Follow Adam on X: @adamkovac 

Jennifer Pahlka, founder of Code for America, served as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States under President Obama, and as a member of the Defense Innovation Board under Presidents Obama and Trump. This year, she published Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Michael Kratsios, former Principal and Chief of Staff at Thiel Capital, served as Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Under Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon during the Trump administration. He is Managing Director at Scale AI, where he leads corporate strategy and helps accelerate AI applications across industries. Media Fellow Marshall Kosloff hosts The Realignment podcast with FAI. 

This event was hosted at the Internet Archive in San Francisco on December 4, 2023.  We thank Project 47 for their support of From Tech to Government and Back Again. 

IES Director Mark Schneider has led the agency since 2017. In that time, the agency has funded an array of million-dollar programs and faced the unprecedented disruptions of COVID-19. Evan and Director Schneider discuss the challenges facing students and educators, what we can learn from COVID-19 and the government’s response, and how artificial intelligence could help individualize education.

Evan is joined by Taylor Barkley, Director of Technology and Innovation at the Center for Growth and Opportunity, where his primary research concerns the intersection of culture, technology, and innovation. He also has a recent op-ed for Fox News entitled, “Christians shouldn’t fear AI, they should partner with it.” 

In this special edition of The Dynamist, FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas and Marc Andreessen hash out the foundations of the Techno-Optimist politics of tomorrow. Marc is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He has achieved two rare feats in the tech industry: pioneering a software category used by more than a billion people, and establishing multiple billion-dollar companies. You can read the Techno-Optimist Manifesto here, along with responses discussed on the episode from Ezra Klein and TechCrunch.

Evan is joined by Melissa Moritz, Senior Fellow for the Social Innovation Team at the Federation of American Scientists, and Dan Lips, Head of Policy and Senior Fellow at FAI. You can check out their co-authored paper on this subject here.

Evan is joined by Onni Aarne and Erich Grunewald of the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy, which works to reduce risks related to the development & deployment of frontier AI systems. You can read Erich’s report on chip smuggling here.

Evan is joined by Tom Johnson, former general counsel for the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai during the Trump administration where he successfully defended the agency’s net neutrality repeal before a federal district court. He is now a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein and co-chair of their appellate practice. He recently discussed his perspective on this issue in an article for Ars Technica.

Many on the right say the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by essentially co-opting social media companies into censoring speech that the government couldn’t censor itself. But many researchers and activists working on disinformation and misinformation worry that the outcome of this case could squelch legitimate government efforts to communicate with social media companies and combat foreign efforts to influence elections and American political discourse.

So did the Biden Administration cross the line? Did Big Tech companies become “state actors?” Evan is joined by Ben Sperry, Senior Scholar of Innovation Policy at the International Center for Law and Economics and author of a new white paper on regulating misinformation on social media platforms.

Evan discusses with Brian Chau, former mathematician and machine learning engineer and current research fellow at Alliance for the Future. He’s also the author of the widely-read AI Pluralism newsletter. In a recent piece for Pirate Wires, he argues that Europe’s digital regulations are turning EU residents into “second-class digital citizens.”

So what’s the problem? The company has close ties to China's People’s Liberation Army and has the ability to disable its products from afar. Could America’s reliance on DJI be an economic or cybersecurity risk? Is this just another anti-China “red scare,” an outgrowth of the growing tensions and saber-rattling between the world’s two greatest powers? Evan is joined by Lars Erik Schönander, a policy technologist at the Foundation for American Innovation and author of a new paper for FAI, Securing the Skies: Chinese Drones and U.S. Cybersecurity Risks.

*Correction: Evan misstated the publication of an article discussed on the episode. It was published in Foreign Policy, not Foreign Affairs. 

Could a research and development strategy that includes government investment help integrate this tech into the classroom? Evan is joined by Juan Londoño, policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), where he focuses on augmented and virtual reality. You can read his paper on immersive learning here.

Evan is joined by Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of Strategy Risks. He is also an adjunct professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs and a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is the author of America Second: How America’s Elites are Making China Stronger.

Joining us to discuss all of this is Scott Wallsten, President of the Technology Policy Institute and a PhD economist with broad expertise. His prior roles include stints at the FCC and White House Council of Economic Advisers. Read TPI’s paper on the attention economy here. 

Evan is joined by friend of the podcast Nathan Leamer, CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies, a boutique tech policy consulting firm, and former policy advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Is Google really guilty of the agencies’ claims? And how could proposed legislation in Congress impact the company going forward? Joining Evan is Mark Meador, partner at Kressin Meador, a boutique antitrust law firm. He was formerly Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy for Senator Mike Lee. Prior to that, he was an attorney at both the DoJ and the FTC.

Is so-called AI “doomerism” simply an outgrowth of AI-related science fiction? Or is there a concerted PR effort to frame the conversation? How does doomerism impact the debate over how/whether to regulate AI, and what positive applications of AI aren’t receiving enough attention?  Evan is joined by Perry Metzger, CEO of a stealth AI startup and founder of Alliance for the Future. You can read his work on his Substack, Diminished Capacity. Evan is also joined by Jon Askonas, a professor of politics at Catholic University and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He has written broadly on tech and culture for outlets like Foreign Policy and American Affairs, and his work has been discussed at length in the New York Times. 

Evan is joined by Caitlin Fennessy, Vice President and Chief Knowledge Officer at the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Prior to joining the IAPP, Caitlin was the Privacy Shield Director at the U.S. International Trade Administration, where she spent ten years working on international privacy and cross-border data flow policy issues. You can read her work on these issues here.

Some critics of the ever growing bureaucracy (or “Deep State” as President Trump calls it) say Congress has let federal agencies run amok—writing unclear laws that then have to be interpreted and implemented by unelected bureaucrats. Has Congress given too much power to the Executive Branch? Is there a way that Congress can flex its muscles over federal agencies?

Evan is joined by Satya Thallam, Senior Fellow at FAI and former White House and Senate policy advisor, and Dan Lips, Head of Policy at FAI and former national security policy advisor in Congress. Read Satya's recent report on reining in the administrative state. 

As the debate rages over how to regulate various crypto coins (are they commodities or securities?), is there a way for the SEC to go after back actors without casting too wide a net? Evan and Luke are joined by Dr. Thomas L. Hogan, a former Chief Economist for the US Senate Banking Committee and now a specialist in crypto and monetary policy with the American Institute for Economic Research. You can check out his work here.

References:

Tim Cook’s comments on Apple in China at the 2017 Fortune Global Forum.

Evan is joined by Roslyn Layton, Senior Vice President of Strand Consult and visiting researcher at Aalborg University. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at Foundation for American Innovation. You can read her report on broadband cost recovery and her other work at StrandConsult.dk. You can check out the Sandvine report on Internet traffic referenced on the episode here.

Is “clout chasing” a growing threat to national security? How can these leaks be prevented and what policies should the U.S. government change or implement in response? Evan is joined by Jon Askonas, Assistant Professor of Politics at Catholic University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. Read his piece, co-authored with Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta, in Foreign Policy on the threat gamers pose to national intelligence and check out his ongoing series in The New Atlantis on the collapse of consensus reality.

Check out our new website here. And don't forget to follow us on Twitter! 

• “Polluting the agentic commons,” a piece by Sam on what happens when chat agents go viral
• “Before the Flood,” a piece by Sam on the future of AI

References
Joel’s piece for FedSoc, “Banning TikTok Outright Would Be Constitutional”
Dan Lyon’s piece for American Enterprise Institute, “Would a TikTok Ban Be Constitutional?”
Statement from the American Civil Lberties Union opposing a TikTok ban

Op-ed in The Atlantic, “The Obscure Maritime Law That Ruins Your Commute”

References:

• House Energy and Commerce hearing
• Twitter thread by Carr responding to Chew’s written testimony
• Press conference with Rep. Jamaal Bowman and TikTok creators
• Variety report with analyst predictions on likelihood and timeline of a ban or divestiture
• Vice report on TikTok pushing suicide videos to teenagers
• The Hill report on DoJ investigating TikTok over surveillance of journalists
• Clip of MSNBC analyst advocating a broader approach to Chinese apps

References: 

Gabriela’s piece, “The Ghosts of Navies Past: Rebooting the Jones Act for the 21st century”

References:

Report in FedScoop, “Major government tech contractors use monopolistic vendor-lock to drive revenue, study says”

Statement from the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing on a new complaint against Microsoft in Europe

Check Point report that global cyber attacks increased 28% in the third quarter of 2022 year over year

Foreign Affairs oped by CISA Director Jen Easterly and Assistant Director Eric Goldstein calling for companies to build better cybersecurity into their products

Government Accountability Office report on “federal actions urgently needed to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure”

“Clubhouse, a Tiny Audio Chat App, Breaks Through,” by Erin Griffith and Taylor Lorenz in New York Times

“Free Speech Is Not the Same As Free Reach,” by Renee DiResta in WIRED

Smartly Intertwingled, Richard Reisman's blog

"Into the Plativerse through Fiddleware," by Richard Reisman
 

Watch Senator Tom Cotton’s exchange with Kroger’s CEO

Freedom House report that shows global Internet freedom has declined for 12 consecutive years.