OpenAI acquires TBPN, the buzzy founder-led business talk show

OpenAI has acquired the popular tech industry talk show TBPN – the Technology Business Programming Network – making this the AI ​​giant’s first acquisition of a media company. The show will report to OpenAI’s Chief Policy Officer, Chris Lehane.

TBPN, hosted by former tech founders John Coogan and Geordie Hayes, is a three-hour daily live show broadcast on YouTube and

The show has gained popularity in Silicon Valley, a safe space where powerful industry players can speak candidly and be asked questions by knowledgeable colleagues. The show has a reputation as a sports hub for the tech industry — a place where top tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, and, yes, Sam Altman, come to chop it up, react to the news of the day, and sometimes even make some of their own.

TBPN will continue to operate as its own brand, which will help OpenAI expand its reach. Not that she necessarily needed help on that front; TBPN has grown into an empire on track to make more than $30 million this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

OpenAI actually has its own podcast for long-form conversations with the people who build the technology at the company.

OpenAI will also benefit from the founders’ “incredible connections and marketing instincts” outside of the show, according to OpenAI’s head of AGI deployment, Fidji Simo, who said TBPN “will bring AI to the world in a way that helps people understand the full impact of this technology on their daily lives.”

Simo went further, noting that TBPN’s versatility is essential for an atypical company like OpenAI where “standard communications standards don’t apply.”

She said TBPN would have editorial independence and would continue to “manage its programming, select its guests and make its own editorial decisions.”

However, the acquisition may give some pause. After all, OpenAI is a valuable AI lab on the verge of an IPO to buy a buzzy talk show that often discusses the company and its competitors. Once the deal is completed, TBPN will work under the OpenAI strategy team and report to Chris Lehane, the man who invented the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” as a tool to deflect press scrutiny in the Clinton White House.

Lehane, who has been described as a master of the “dark political arts,” is also behind the cryptocurrency industry super PAC Fairshake, which has spent hundreds of millions to thwart anti-crypto candidates in the 2024 election. He joined OpenAI that same year and has been in President Trump’s ear ever since, whispering recommendations for sweeping and controversial policies like barring states from regulating artificial intelligence and relaxing environmental restrictions that could slow the construction of data centers.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who said in a social media post that TBPN is his favorite technology platform, seems to believe that the acquisition will not change TBPN’s commentary and even criticism of the company.

“I don’t expect them to go easy on us, I’m sure I’ll do my part to help make that happen by making stupid decisions sometimes,” he wrote.

At the same time, TBPN sees the acquisition as a way to do more than just commentate.

“While we have been critical of the industry at times, after getting to know Sam and the OpenAI team, what stood out most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right,” Hayes said in a statement. “Going from commentary to really impacting how this technology is distributed and understood globally is very important to us.”

Do you have advice or documentation about the AI ​​industry? From a non-work device, contact Rebecca Bellan confidentially at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com or Signal: rebeccabellan.491.