ChinaTalk

Kevin Xu of http://interconnected.blog/ and I did a liveshow on substack! We chat about why working in Chinese AI looks so much tougher than building in the West: less compute, lower upside, more political constraints, and a much weaker market for enterprise software. We also get into Kevin Xu's definitive history of open source in China (https://interconnected.blog/chinese-open-source-a-definitive-history/?ref=kevin-xus-interconnected-newsletter) and talk why open source has become one of the few real paths Chinese AI companies have to win users abroad, even as the business model at home remains brutal. Also: the Qwen shakeup at Alibaba, what it says about the limits of China’s AI lab ecosystem, and why Chinese firms may still beat the West in areas like AI shopping and commerce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russell Kaplan, co-founder of Cognition — the company behind Devin — and previously at Scale AI and Tesla, joins the podcast to discuss what “software abundance” could mean for government. Our conversation covers… Why government software is so broken — Despite spending over $100B annually on IT, critical systems at agencies like the Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of the Treasury still run on decades-old code that few engineers know how to modify. How two-year software projects become three-week ones — why AI agents are particularly good at the painful migration and modernization work engineers tend to avoid. What “software abundance” actually means — AI agents can handle the tedious work of switching systems 24/7, collapsing the switching costs, and forcing software vendors to compete on value rather than locking customers into outdated systems. AI for cybersecurity — From triaging massive vulnerability backlogs to automatically fixing CVEs, AI will be essential for defending critical infrastructure as attackers gain the same tools. The coming “post-coding” world — As models converge in capability, the key bottleneck shifts from writing code to understanding problems, reviewing systems, and deciding what should be built in the first place. Plus, the future of procurement in an AI world, fraud detection in government datasets, the DMV as a software problem, and why Kaplan thinks the real skill of the future is knowing which problems matter. Thanks so much to Cognition for sponsoring this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frank Kendall served as the 26th Secretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2025. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics under Obama. His new book, Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare, comes out in June. Cohosting today is Bryan Clark of Hudson, JustinMc and Eric Robinson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Horowitz, Penn Professor and Biden DoD official who wrote 3000.09, clears up some autonomous weapons misconceptions! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An all-star cast today with: Emmy Probasco, a fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and former Navy officer with deep expertise in autonomous weapons and military AI adoption; Michael Horowitz, a University of Pennsylvania professor who previously ran the Pentagon office that rewrote U.S. policy on autonomy in weapons systems; Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute and retired Navy officer specializing in naval warfare and military technology; and Henry Farrell, a political scientist and writer focused on the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and economic coercion. [00:00] America's First Precise Mass Campaign Against Iran The U.S. debuts the Lucas drone — a sub-$100K system reverse-engineered from Iran's own Shahed 136 — alongside legacy Tomahawk strikes in a campaign of unprecedented scale and velocity. [10:00] Regime Change Without a Plan The panel debates the theory of victory when you decapitate leadership but have nobody to pick up the pieces, with implications for nuclear proliferation, Gulf stability, and the Strait of Hormuz. [18:00] Weapons Stockpiles, Air Defense, and What China Is Learning Burning through expensive interceptors against cheap drones risks drawing down Pacific stockpiles, while China gets a front-row seat to how American air defenses operate at scale. [25:00] Claude Enters the Chat: AI in Military Operations Claude's integration into CENTCOM's Maven Smart System prompts a discussion on what military AI actually does — mostly boring bureaucratic tasks — and why the Terminator narrative misses the point. [46:00] The Anthropic–Pentagon Fight Mike argues the dispute is about personality and politics, not policy — Anthropic never refused a government request, and the real clash is over who gets to decide future use cases. [56:00] Treating a U.S. Company Like Huawei Threatening Anthropic with supply chain risk designations — tools built for foreign adversaries — could chill the entire tech sector's willingness to work with the Pentagon and poison allied trust in American tech. If we're doing emergency pods once a week now should I stop calling them emergency pods? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

what a mess! Wario Amodei's slow jam vibe: https://suno.com/s/cf3KDdVQ5F0KCjow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawrence Freedman is the dean of strategic studies. He’s written books about the Falklands War, nuclear strategy, political-military relations, Kennedy’s foreign policy, the revolution of military affairs, and (my personal favorite) the history of strategy.   Freedman is now part of the father-son writing duo samf.substack.com. Note: we recorded this in the summer of 2023. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this conversation. In this far-reaching conversation, we discuss: How the Falklands saved Thatcher’s premiership, making her the Iron Lady, Why the great strategic decisions of history rarely have clear, pivotal moments, Parallels between Putin, Xi, and the Argentine junta — what the Falklands campaign tells us about Ukraine, Taiwan, and the future of war, How nuclear war went from being a “winnable” geopolitical contest to the apocalyptic dog that didn’t bark, What Cold War arms control treaties can and can’t tell us about AI, The best strategists not covered by last week's interview with Hal Brands, Lawrence Freedman's recipe for wide reading and prolific writing. Outro music: Oh! It's a Lovely War (1918) · Courtland & Jeffries (Youtube Link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Harrell drops in, attorney who served in the Obama and Biden admins and submitted a brief in this case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark opens the show talking Iran. Recurring cohosts include Justin Mc, Tony Stark and Eric Robinson. Eric Slesinger of 201 Ventures drops in https://ericslesinger.com/ outtro music: rubio's speech https://suno.com/s/KnIpTyZIU7iJSeIf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re here for a CHIPS Act megapod, in person with Mike Schmidt and Todd Fisher, the director and founding CIO of the CHIPS Program Office, respectively. We discuss… The mechanisms behind the success of the CHIPS Act, What CHIPS can teach us about other industrial policy challenges, like APIs and rare earths, What it takes to build a successful industrial policy implementation team, How the fear of “another Solyndra” is holding back US industrial policy, Chris Miller’s recent interest in revitalizing America’s chemical industry. This post is a collaboration with the Factory Settings Substack: https://www.factorysettings.org/. Subscribe for more insights from former CHIPS Program Office leaders! Suno song link: https://suno.com/s/wwVYK10LfrAD5zK2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're trying out a different format to explore "Chinese peptides." We talk to biohackers using compounds like BPC-157 to heal extreme injuries, go undercover as peptide buyers, and discuss the challenges of reporting on the Chinese pharmaceutical ecosystem with the legendary Hamilton Morris. Special thanks to guests Jasmine Sun, Hamilton Morris, Aaron Kesselheim, Marcus, and David. This episode was produced by Lily Ottinger with additional reporting from Irene Zhang and Nick Corvino. Check out Jasmine's NYT article here. ChinaTalk merch available now at https://chinatalk.printful.me/. Your purchase helps us make more content like this! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Admiral Rickover — America’s most famous, perhaps most influential admiral of the second half of the 20th century. To discuss his unbelievable life story, dramatic impact on the Cold War, and implications for the future of what the U.S. government should do when it tries to build hard things, we have two guests — Charles Yang, founder of the Center for Industrial Strategy, who also does AI science work at Renaissance Philanthropy, and Emmett Penney of FAI. We discuss: Rickover’s immigrant origin story from Polish village to almost being deported at Ellis Island and his improbable path into the Naval Academy. Drive, discipline, expertise, and how Rickover bent Washington to his will. Rickover as tyrant, teacher, technocrat — what his contradictions reveal about leadership, power, and effectiveness. Why Rickover matters now — nuclear revival, defense procurement reform, engineers vs. lawyers, and a major archival digitization effort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we’re discussing all things gaming in China! Our illustrious guest is Daniel Camilo, a Portuguese national who has spent over a decade in the Chinese video game industry. We cover the most important titles, publishing and development trends, and where the industry is headed. We discuss: How China’s game industry climbed the value chain from low-cost mobile and PC titles to globally competitive AAA releases, Why Genshin Impact reset global expectations, becoming the template for live-service “cash cows,” China’s domestic market’s newfound self-sufficiency, as hundreds of millions of middle-class gamers mean Chinese developers no longer need international success, Steam’s magical liminal status in China as a de facto gateway for uncensored and imported games, Why gaming is a global language in ways movies and music aren’t, and how mechanics and genres travel even when stories don’t, The Wuchang: Fallen Feathers controversy, where nationalist backlash led to patched-out boss deaths and preemptive self-censorship. We also cover Daniel’s pick for the biggest Chinese game of 2026, the looming Genshin-style live-service bubble, and how a game set in 1984 East Germany channels distinctly Chinese workplace anxiety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Minh Tran (https://www.couldabeenatthe.club/), Afra Wang (https://afra.work/) and Lauren Teixeira (https://lrntex.substack.com/) join me to talk about Chinamaxxing — the growing fascination among younger Americans with Chinese short-form content. We discuss why these videos feel so appealing in a moment of pessimism at home, how Trump’s America shapes that gaze, and where the “shiny,” abundance-driven vision of China starts to break down. We also get into what short-form can’t show and review Chinese films and hip-hop! Chapters 00:00 Cultural Exchange and Chinese Short Form Content 08:14 Influencers and the Appeal of the China Aesthetic 14:13 Contradictions in the Chinese Narrative 25:06 Recommendations for Exploring Chinese Culture 33:33 Jia Zhangke's Cinematic Vision 38:12 Chengdu hip hop 41:48 The Future of Chinese Cultural Products 42:56 Censorship and the Dynamics of Domestic Entertainment in China Outtro Music: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is the legendary strategist Edward Luttwak — the Machiavelli of Maryland. He’s consulted for presidents, prime ministers, and secretaries of defense, and authored magnificent books on Byzantine history, a guide to planning a successful coup, and an opus on the logic of strategy and the rise of China. He raises cows, too. We recorded this episode in Feb of 2024. Thanks to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this episode. Our conversation today covers… Luttwak’s childhood and formative encounters with war, including an early fascination with the mafia in Sicily, Technological step-changes in warfare, Books that shaped Luttwak’s view of war, from Clausewitz to the Iliad, The costs of “removing war from Europe” post-1945, China’s strategic missteps, The psychology of deterrence, including what kind of Middle East policy would actually deter Iran, The strengths of democracies vs. autocracies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

whole gang is here. Also a little Minnesota and 30 seconds of NDS (which is all it deserves) suno: https://suno.com/s/SJ0FoEPMVZ3QS441 'He couldn’t capture Canada, but captured infamy— The only general in history who failed at treason and geography!' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Czin, former CIA analyst and NSC staffer, returns to talk purges. We have far too much fun. The disney take on PLA purges: https://suno.com/s/Wv1yQyxdUhWBzyA0 08:50 Deep read into the WSJ nuke traitor allegations 22:10 Xi getting paranoid? 26:13 Taiwan implications 32:38 Succession implications 45:55 It must really suck to work in Chinese politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jasmine Sun of https://jasmi.news/ and Nathan Lambert of https://www.interconnects.ai/ report for duty. Athena makes a brief guest appearance before dipping for pilates. Jordan's flower app: https://cut-from-the-masters.vercel.app/ Jordan's acting app: https://acting-trainer.vercel.app/ Jordan's mahjong trainer app: https://mazel-jong.vercel.app Suno song: https://suno.com/s/BArMAm90qTxbupUz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan Clark (former submariner at Hudson), Eric Robinson, and Justin McIntosh report for duty. Davos disco: https://suno.com/s/2SpR62beigk2JeDr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there such a thing as MAD in economic warfare? How should we measure the effectiveness of our industrial policy tools, and what outcomes should we be aiming for anyway? Our guest today is Dan Kim, who served at USITC with stints at Qualcomm and SK hynix before returning to government as the Chief Economist for the CHIPS Program Office. He recently joined TechInsights as Chief Strategy Officer. Also joining us is Chris Miller of Chip War fame.  We discuss: What $39 billion can and can’t buy — why the CHIPS Act was never meant to de-risk the U.S. from China or Taiwan, and what “success” looks like when autarky is neither affordable nor desirable, Apple vs. Xiaomi + BYD — invention versus fast-following as competing models of national power, and which system performs better when the goal shifts from profit maximization to geopolitical resilience, What resilience actually means — capability vs. capacity, weakest links, and whether economic security should be measured as “time to recovery” rather than self-sufficiency, Managed dependence vs. overreliance, and whether dependence itself can be a form of power, Why the U.S. still lacks a clear theory, metrics, and institutional design for industrial strategy — and what you can do about it. Subscribe to the ChinaTalk Substack to stay updated about the essay contest! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices