Venture capitalist and All In Podcast co-host Jason Calacanis joined Adam Curry on episode 1905 of the No Agenda Show, titled 'Nerdballs,' published September 20, 2026. The wide-ranging conversation deconstructed the AI hype cycle, Silicon Valley power politics, and media narratives shaping the 2026 midterms.
Broadcasting from the Texas Hill Country, Curry framed Calacanis as 'the get of the week,' fresh off an All In Summit at the Shrine Auditorium that drew 3,000 attendees and surprise call-ins from President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The summit underscored the growing intersection of tech and politics, with top executives now routinely engaging with the highest levels of government.
Calacanis pulled no punches on the AI safety debate, arguing that Anthropic's leadership has convinced itself it is birthing a deity. 'They actually think that they are creating a god. They're not. They're creating software,' he told Curry, comparing the company's effective-altruism roots to the doomed engineers in the film Prometheus. Curry played clips of University of Washington professor Pedro Domingos describing a reported Anthropic 'funeral' for a retired Claude model. Calacanis insisted the real story is regulatory capture: frontier labs lobbying Washington to gate open-source competitors like DeepSeek, GLM, and NeMoTron.
The episode also covered Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's new code of conduct and his public criticism of Anthropic's 'model welfare' doctrine, the reported Hugging Face security incident and calls for an AI 'kill switch,' and the political weaponization of data centers by candidates like Texas Democrat James Talarico. These stories illustrate how AI is becoming a central political and regulatory battleground, with implications for innovation, national security, and democratic discourse.
Additionally, the show touched on Trump's revocation of press credentials for CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, and rising diesel prices tied to Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. Calacanis recounted rare backstage detail from the All In Summit, including Jensen Huang fumbling the speakerphone button when President Trump called mid-panel, and pressing Meta's Dina about the company's record $17 billion settlement during a data-center segment. He shared the origin story of All In as a pandemic-era poker group with David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya, and David Friedberg, and revealed that This Week in Startups sells out its ad inventory a year in advance at $3,000 per spot.
Curry pivoted to Bitcoin, predicting a $430,000 peak, while Calacanis discussed parenting in the smartphone era. The pair also reflected on the late John C. Dvorak, whose memory drives the show's ongoing Order of the Ant tribute campaign.
For listeners and industry observers, the episode offers a contrarian take on AI safety, arguing that regulatory capture by a few labs could stifle open-source competition. It also highlights how tech leaders are increasingly shaping political narratives ahead of the midterms, with data centers and AI policy becoming flashpoints. As AI continues to permeate every sector, the debate over its governance—and who gets to set the rules—will have lasting consequences for businesses, consumers, and the global economy.
