The $100K Sam Altman podcast paywall has a buyer — and yep, now we know who paid to hear it.
This is Tech Podcast Podcast, your quick guide to the tech-podcast episodes worth your Sunday attention — from AI intrigue to the conversations people are paying actual money to unlock.
Alright, let’s get into it.
Absolutely. First up: that six-figure Sam Altman interview.
This comes from Ben Shimkus at Business Insider:
A manufacturing entrepreneur paid $100,000 to unlock a paywalled interview with OpenAI's top executives, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The interview was initially published behind a paywall by journalist Ashlee Vance as part of his "Core Memory" podcast. After some listeners complained that it wasn't free, Vance suggested making it public if someone paid enough to unlock it.
So there it is: a major AI conversation, handled like a ransom note with a Stripe link. I’m glad people get to hear the interview now — but a hundred-grand unlock fee is a pretty strange flex for journalism about companies shaping the future.
Links to everything we covered today are in the show notes, so if one of these stories stuck with you, you can go read or listen from there.
That’s Tech Podcast Podcast for today. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back next time. This is a Lantern Podcast.