Jef Fowler

father, husband, brother, son, rabid hoops fan, christian, banker

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Some thoughts on Dario’s post:

1. Dario does not actually address Gavin Baker’s account of what he said – something he could easily deny if it were inaccurate.

2. Dario claims his critics live in a “bubble” where all regulation equals regulatory capture. He calls this an overly simplified view and notes that “Many people outside this bubble think of regulation as something that constrains corporate power and benefits ordinary people.” This argument is a straw man. Of course treating all regulation as capture would be overly simplified – but almost no one holds that view. I have repeatedly argued for strong antitrust enforcement to keep industries competitive, especially Big Tech. If Anthropic continues toward monopoly or duopoly status, I would be among the first to demand those rules apply.

3. Regulatory capture is not vague or in the eye of the beholder. Nobel laureate George Stigler defined it as regulation acquired by an industry and designed and operated primarily for its benefit. Stigler challenged the traditional view that government regulation arises from a benevolent state protecting the public from market failures. Rather, industry groups have concentrated stakes and pour resources into influencing regulators, whereas the public’s stake is diffuse and unorganized. The revolving door between companies and the agencies that regulate them compounds the problem. Anthropic understands these dynamics: it has hired multiple senior Biden AI-policy officials and built a substantial government-affairs operation plus a network of aligned organizations to push its preferred frameworks at state and federal levels.

4. Dario has consistently pushed for a new federal agency to review and approve frontier models prior to release – a proposal framed variously as an “FDA for AI,” an “FAA for AI,” and most recently a “FINRA for AI.” I call it a “DMV for AI” because a review process modeled on the FAA or FDA (which takes years) or FINRA (which issues rules for a staid industry widely seen as protecting incumbents) will create long queues as AI models wait for testing and approval. This process will only become more labyrinthine as rules accumulate to prevent theoretical harms. This would handicap the U.S. relative to China, which will not adopt the same constraints. It would also undermine Anthropic’s own business model, whose pricing power depends on remaining ahead of open models. Whatever Dario states today, it is difficult to believe the company would simply accept outcomes that erase that advantage.

5. Anthropic is on track to become one of the most valuable companies in history, with the resources to navigate any approval process and shape the rules while competitors wait. Dario wants open models under heavier scrutiny – he has called them dangerous in Senate testimony, criticized them for not being centrally monitored or withdrawn, and linked them to IP theft. He says he has never sought a ban, but he could achieve a similar result by insisting that identical rules apply to both open and closed models. The U.S. risks becoming an island of costly closed models while the rest of the world races ahead with broader choice.

6. Dario acknowledges that AI is structurally centralizing but attributes this mainly to chips and scaling laws. Access to compute matters, but the deeper risk is who decides which capabilities are available to whom. His preferred pre-deployment testing and FAA/FINRA-style oversight would place that gatekeeping power in a federal bureaucracy working hand-in-glove with a small number of frontier labs – reinforcing centralization rather than countering it.

7. The second part of Dario’s post assumes we have amnesia about Anthropic’s well-orchestrated campaigns hyping AI fears. His May 2025 claim that AI would wipe out 50 percent of entry-level knowledge jobs within five years still lacks supporting evidence fifteen months later. Similarly Anthropic breathlessly promoted its heavily contrived “blackmail” study on 60 Minutes. Yet Dario blames public negativity on a long-standing loss of trust in institutions rather than his own messaging.

8. These narratives have done more than anything to shape public fear. People are left asking the same question Mark Zuckerberg posed: why race to build a future you describe in such negative terms? Thomas Sowell’s "The Vision of the Anointed" captures the mindset – elite intellectuals convinced that only they are enlightened enough to control the outcome. As Zuckerberg notes, concentrating power in the hands of an enlightened few has rarely produced the promised results; the practitioners turn out to be less enlightened in practice than in self-conception.

9. Gavin Baker summarized the disagreement cleanly on our pod: Dario believes frontier AI is too powerful to distribute; we believe it is too powerful to centralize. Dario appears to believe, sincerely, that safety and progress are best served by centralizing authority in a marriage of corporate and state power. The weight of human history gives us reason to fear that outcome.

[Kansas City Men's Basketball @KCRoosMBB]

A New Era Begins.

#ROOUP

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

https://t.co/DvSoEsnaII#ref=4314285

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

Food for the soul. KPF is amazing and the athletes are inspiring. https://t.co/UHDJQfEaaE

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

https://t.co/4HSlxPX5Jn

Quite a waitlist.

[NFL @NFL]

Lamar Jackson flips it to Rasheen Ali to convert on 3rd and long

BALvsCLE on CBS/Paramount+
https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt

[Carson Fowler @CarsonFowlerTV]

Ahead of the Packers' Week 11 matchup vs. the New York Giants, our @WFRVSports team discussed our 'Most Impactful Packers'.

For lack of better words, who needs to step up (or continue playing well) in order for Green Bay to contend for a Super Bowl:

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

@theallinpod, I love the pod and had to pass this along from Torsten Slok.

@DavidSacks thank you for leading the way.

5,426 Data Centers in the US: https://t.co/oKJhkLwZXX

[Andrew K Smith @andrewk_smith]

An hour before his event at UVU, I sat down with Charlie Kirk for what would become his final recorded conversation: a warm, inspiring, and apolitical dialogue on entrepreneurship, building businesses and an outlook for tomorrow.

(0:00) Intro
(0:58) Hometown and background
(3:02) Entrepreneurial journey
(3:54) What is an entrepreneur?
(5:22) The spark of a founder
(11:59) @elonmusk's time management method
(15:52) Building a lasting brand
(22:55) How to deal with feedback
(24:06) Lessons from leading Gen Z
(26:10) Privileges vs principals for leaders
(27:38) Outlook of America for business planning
(31:36) What is a quote you live by?

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

My friend Charlie Kirk was the best of America. A self-made man, a young husband and father, and a patriot, he was relentlessly positive about the future. He dedicated his life to making a difference with young people, drawing huge crowds everywhere he went. He was open to ideas and willing to debate anyone. That good-natured openness is what got him killed by an intolerant lunatic. Charlie was winning the debate, and for that, he had to be silenced, permanently. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Erika and his family.

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

Check out Ryan Schreiber's fundraising page - https://t.co/Dqq34TvNPw

[Cameron Ezeir @camezeir]

Micah Parsons is a Green Bay Packer... a headline you might have to read twice to believe.

When it comes to his excitement to play in Titletown, the 4x pro bowler can't wait to carry on the rich history of playing for the Green & Gold.

#Packers

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

When podcasts collide. Thanks @TuckerCarlson!

[Variety @Variety]

#TaylorSwift says her mom was the one who delivered the news that she successfully reclaimed the master recordings of her first six albums:

"It was a couple of months after the Super Bowl, we’re in Kansas City and I get a call from my mom, and she’s like, ‘You got your music.'”
https://t.co/LN8hKqOfrW

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

All In Summit 2024! LFG!!!!

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

Click Here to support the 2024 Shaker Heights HS Football Fundraiser
https://t.co/wdkUMzDOuZ…

Let’s go Shaker Raiders!

The Fowler Fam is all-in!

@_CoachNicholson @ShakerRaidersFB @CarsonFowlerTV @mityfowler @JacksonFowler18

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

Click Here to support the 2024 Shaker Heights HS Football Fundraiser
https://t.co/9IL2UHzYnc

Let’s go Shaker Raiders!

The Fowler Fam is all-in!

@_CoachNicholson @ShakerRaidersFB @CarsonFowlerTV @mityfowler

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

@ntgs_varsity

Go Trevs!! Go Annie Fowler!!

[Jef Fowler @jef_fowler]

https://t.co/j4ZmHOjcHh

Let’s go Cavs!

@cavs @cleisapeach @DowntownCLE #greatcity @spidadmitchell @ESPNNBA