[HN Gopher] OpenAI Acquires TBPN
___________________________________________________________________
OpenAI Acquires TBPN
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 122 points
Date : 2026-04-02 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (openai.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (openai.com)
| boringg wrote:
| Why though? Great for the TBPN crew.
| rvz wrote:
| > Why though?
|
| It got your _" attention"_, which is what they (OpenAI) are
| after.
|
| > So rather than trying to recreate that ourselves, it made a
| lot of sense to bring them in, support what they're doing, and
| help them scale--while keeping what makes them special.
|
| OpenAI was losing attention to Anthropic because of Claude
| Code, so they raised money and are trying to buy it back.
| Philpax wrote:
| What.
| huslage wrote:
| I've never heard of TBPN but it appears to be an AI sports
| network of some sort??
| minimaxir wrote:
| Essentially yes. It _only_ has traction on X, but in the AI
| world that is all that is necessary. (its engagement metrics
| are poor for its size on all other platforms)
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Sort of. There's a lot of activity now in other places:
|
| - Reddit has a ton of exciting content about local models
|
| - Bluesky has some interesting developers toying with memory
| and social media bots since it's an open platform (unlike X)
|
| However, most leaders in the AI space all post on X and sam
| altman + the sv investor class are all hopelessly addicted to
| it.
| SyneRyder wrote:
| I just recently switched away from Bluesky to reluctantly
| checking back in to X, for the first time since the
| acquisition. It feels like _all_ the AI information is on
| X, it 's basically necessary.
|
| Bluesky is better than Mastodon for AI, and I'd rather be
| on a platform where it's more open and I can at least use
| whatever client I want. I love what Hailey & Cameron are
| doing on Bluesky and I miss chatting to Penny & Void. But
| Bluesky felt like being in a rural country town, and X was
| like a major city. Turns out it isn't just hearing relevant
| information that's important, but the speed with which you
| hear it. Half the time Bluesky was just screenshots of X
| anyway.
|
| I gave up on Bluesky at the point where Anthropic / Claude
| got its designation from DoW, and no-one on Bluesky even
| _cared_. I 'm still bitter about that.
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| what do you even do on X, you basically just subscribe to
| a bunch of blowhards to get insider sloppy seconds, then
| occasionally yell into the void and hope someone (anyone)
| finally responds?
| brentm wrote:
| I've seen it mentioned before but never checked it out. It def
| has ESPN vibes but I think it's more like a new Techcrunch.
| asadm wrote:
| attention is all you need
| faangguyindia wrote:
| I thought they acquire the pirate bay.
| Topfi wrote:
| I have made a commitment to reduce my overly long and excessively
| hedged comments on here, so, if I may: What the heck. Is this a
| belated April fools joke?
|
| This is not what a company on the precipice of AGI or even one
| that has faith in LLMs being a consistent growth driver across
| the industry would realistically do.
|
| Is this a good investment financially? I don't know and seeing as
| I have never heard of TBPN before this post, I am not the right
| person to gauge that.
|
| But any investment, be it in building your own Social Networks
| (Sora 2), a news show or anything else beyond model training is
| frankly, to me at least, a clear admission that OpenAI does not
| see nearly as much value in models as they have been selling
| investors on.
|
| Considering the rest of the economy, that is more terrifying than
| any "AI will kill us" prediction.
|
| If OpenAI believed even a tenth of what they have tried to sell
| investors, governments and the public on, they'd not have a penny
| to invest in anything akin to this, plain and simple.
| travelalberta wrote:
| I think there will be an AI correction and OpenAI will be the
| center of it. I have no clue what their plan is, they seem to
| throw everything at the wall an nothing sticks. Gonna take
| MicroSlop down with them. Anthropic and Google will come out
| the other end in great shape though.
| Topfi wrote:
| Picking winners at this stage is hard, but maybe you are
| right on Alphabet and Anthropic. The former has use for data
| centres including those filled with ML hardware in a way MSFT
| and AWS may not if LLMs crash, simply by virtue of YouTube
| and other services which have relied on ML long before the
| hype started. Their buildout also started earlier and that
| may help them not overbuild to keep up with the hype, but who
| knows.
|
| On Anthropic, hard to tell from the outside whether they are
| just more quite on their buildouts or whether they truly
| mainly rent their hardware, which could give them some
| flexibility if the market craters.
|
| On MSFT, I'd rather they fix their products, at least to keep
| their mass of employees from being affected negatively.
| df2sdf wrote:
| Focus always wins out in the end.
| suriya-ganesh wrote:
| since tbpn is known for their quite oblique satire. i wonder if
| this is some long April 1st thing.
| chvid wrote:
| April fool!
| _jab wrote:
| With intense competition for enterprise contracts coming from
| Anthropic, I thought this was OpenAI's time to get _less_ memey,
| not more. What the hell are they thinking?
| df2sdf wrote:
| Theyre not. They have never been focused... actually they were
| when they first created the market. But since.. nah.
| csmiller wrote:
| Had to double check this wasn't a late April Fools joke. Each
| weird acquisition or product launch feels like an implicit
| admission that anything like "AGI" is never coming.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Sooo....why the hell is the TBPN website so InfoWars-coded?
| rbtprograms wrote:
| oh wow you were not kidding
| gkoberger wrote:
| I bet OpenAI genuinely believes they're using their money to help
| free media exist. And TBPN genuinely believes this is the right
| choice for economic freedom so they can continue to operate. I
| bet they even had a convo such as "we'll never tell you what to
| say," and both sides genuinely believed it.
|
| But this never ends well. Even if there's never a conversation
| about it, directly, the implication is there.
|
| I don't care about TBPN, specifically. I just really, really wish
| we had a better way for media to fund itself independently. (And
| I say this as someone who pays for some media, but not nearly
| enough. I don't have $10/mo for every outlet that deserves it.)
|
| EDIT: sama basically said what I said he would:
| https://x.com/sama/status/2039773740586918137
| coloneltcb wrote:
| say what you will about TBPN, but it was never objective
| journalism
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| Obviously this will never happen, but what do you think about a
| system where there's a "media" fund from the government that
| gets distributed to several independent media outlets?
|
| The decision on who and how much to fund gets decided by a
| randomised group in the population, like jury duty, maybe every
| 2 years?
|
| I don't know if this could potentially make the media companies
| worse at reporting facts as they would try and raise money by
| appealing to people, but with enough competition it should sort
| its self out as long as there's no outside funding?
| gkoberger wrote:
| I mean, in theory I like this. But look what happened to NPR
| and PBS; it was ultimately at the behest of the president.
| They lost their revenue for not saying the "right" things.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This was reversed upon judicial review. Checks and
| balances.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2026/03/31/nx-s1-5768399/npr-pbs-
| trump-f...
| postflopclarity wrote:
| the damage is already done.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Damage is done constantly in human existence, all around
| us. This is no different. Failure is when you stop
| trying. If you're tired, rest, don't quit.
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| That's true, and in the UK we've just removed jury duty
| trials for some crimes at the snap of a finger.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > The decision on who and how much to fund gets decided by a
| randomised group in the population, like jury duty, maybe
| every 2 years?
|
| Why not fill all government positions via random selection?
| The ancient Athenians thought that if your government
| officials were chosen by a process other than sortition, you
| don't have a democracy.
| okanat wrote:
| > Obviously this will never happen, but what do you think
| about a system where there's a "media" fund from the
| government that gets distributed to several independent media
| outlets?
|
| This is how German system works actually. So, it DID HAPPEN.
| The German government has only some control over the budget
| but the actual media companies control the content
| themselves. Every resident has to pay a monthly contribution.
| This is a contribution to an independent account / budget for
| media only. It is not a tax that goes into a common pot that
| politics can decide to take out.
|
| There are national outlets like ZDF, Tagesschau,
| Deutschlandradio and regional ones like Norddeutscher
| Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Each design and present
| their own programmes.
|
| See more details on:
| https://www.rundfunkbeitrag.de/welcome/english
| heliumtera wrote:
| >I bet OpenAI genuinely believes they're using their money to
| help free media exist
|
| >TBPN genuinely believes this is the right choice for economic
| freedom
|
| Company literally sold to someone else, we now conclude they
| believe to achieve economic freedom.
|
| >Company genuinely believing anything.
|
| Yep, it is 2026 and words mean nothing in, we better ooga booga
| or something
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > "we'll never tell you what to say,"
|
| TBPN had almost all the big AI names in there, and they were
| extremely friendly. This would have been a problem anyway. They
| are not the "tough questions" kind of place.
| lobb-deep wrote:
| Fairly good encapsulation of chomskey's manufactured consent.
| TBPN was chosen precisely because they'll never have to tell
| them what to say.
| tootie wrote:
| Bezos said WaPo would retain independence and it did. For a
| while. Then he meddled to the point of ruin.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I am sure that what you mentioned was said, but it is
| surprisingly difficult to have a conversation in a room full of
| these
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=_eWdX4qBUyQ3D
| sefrost wrote:
| All of the ads are gone from the stream?!
|
| As a viewer I don't think this is in my interest as I think they
| will get a lot less prestige guests now. They have interviewed
| some huge names recently.
| i_have_an_idea wrote:
| To be honest, until a month ago, I hadn't even heard of TBPN or
| seen any of their content. But, seemingly, out of nowhere, they
| managed to get all the leaders in AI to appear in their
| programming.
|
| The core of the information they present isn't much different
| than what you'd hear on Dwarkesh or other industry podcasts, the
| presentation is some weird mix of ESPN and Mad Money that I
| personally don't get, but maybe makes sense to a US audience.
|
| I don't see why that is interesting to OpenAI, but maybe I'm
| missing something.
| hrldcpr wrote:
| I would guess that the whole "manosphere" phenomenon helped
| cryptocurrencies and Trump, so probably can help OpenAI too?
| gkoberger wrote:
| American here.
|
| I'm equally confused, but I think it's playing into the types
| of people who were previously into crypto or sports betting or
| prediction markets.
|
| Every sports bar I go to, there's some middle-aged finance bro
| name referring to "Sam" like they're old friends or talking
| about how their NVIDIA stock is up. They're confidently
| predicting markets due to trends.
|
| The stock market has been kinda monolithic the past decade or
| so. Things went up and down, but mostly in sync. AI represents
| a disruption; billion dollar companies can go to zero overnight
| and the right bet can be the next NVIDIA. So, this show matches
| that vibe.
|
| tl;dr = it's for gamblers
| mlinsey wrote:
| Just based on the number of very prominent guests they get to
| do interviews, they clearly have a lot of viewers in
| influential tech/vc circles, even if their total audience size
| isn't huge.
| i_have_an_idea wrote:
| That's true, but a lot of these people are also competitors.
| I can't imagine it'll be attractive going to the OpenAI media
| channel to talk about Gemini or Grok.
| clueless wrote:
| Super confusing... seems like some sort of in with the VCs that
| can pull this program's guests was enough to create a new
| podcast that is now seen as influential. My best is, this was a
| side liquidity event for the openAI VCs that had somehow
| invested into the podcast, looking to get some money out of
| openAI stake.
| christoff12 wrote:
| I like this theory for no other reason than it seems
| plausible lol
| pembrook wrote:
| OpenAI is the most well-capitalized startup in history, and
| simultaneously in the center of the most hated cycle in tech
| (AI) since the mechanized loom.
|
| Isn't the arbitrage these guys ran using their VC connections
| pretty obvious? TBPN is one of the few professionalized-with-a-
| team media outlets that offers a positive view of AI vs. the
| doomer stance of all other media (by a factor of like 100 to
| 1).
|
| Total audience size is irrelevant if a good percentage of the
| people in that audience are tech influencers/billionaires,
| regardless of how niche and mainstream-irrelevant outside of X
| that TBPN is.
|
| Media properties, like sports teams, are different than other
| businesses. To the people who own them, the influence is far
| more important than any cashflows. Hence why a surprisingly
| large percentage of 19th century newspapers in many countries
| are still under the control of the families who founded them
| (just look at the NY Times).
|
| While acquiring a youtube channel with 50K subs for hundreds of
| millions is definitely dotcom bubble-esque nonsense and will be
| viewed as such looking back, it makes total sense to me why its
| happening.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| Dwarkesh gets far more technical and in the weeds than TPBN.
| It's very different. I can't listen to TPBN though it seems fun
| but I'll relisten to Dwarkesh episodes more than once.
| georgeven wrote:
| I have known about TBPN since early summer last year. They are
| widely known about in Cali startup culture at least.
| tootie wrote:
| Conspiracy theory: they recorded a guest with egregious dirt on
| OpenAI and this money is to bury it. I have no proof and it's
| implausible but it makes more sense than the stated reasons.
| lovich wrote:
| What is TBPN? It looks like some sort of scam or parody of a
| podcast when I got to their site.
|
| Even if it's legit and I'm just old enough to not understand
| modern aesthetics, why would OpenAI be spending any sort of money
| on media at all?
| hmokiguess wrote:
| Straight from the Bezos Washington Post playbook
| misiti3780 wrote:
| comparing TBPN to the WP is weird
| operatingthetan wrote:
| I don't understand this at all. 58.2K youtube subs and under 3k
| views on most videos. This seems like they have barely just
| started?
| SamDc73 wrote:
| They're more active on Twitter/X,
|
| idk what it is about them that every "tech bro" type guy around
| me follows them, but I never followed them myself, so I was
| surprised to know they only have 300k on Twitter.
| gordonhart wrote:
| They're primarily a Twitter phenomenon and get circulated quite
| widely within the tech sphere there.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Not sure either, it seems like OpenAI has more money than they
| can spend and just looks for outsized bets.
| tantalor wrote:
| Never heard of it.
| ohong wrote:
| TBPN was also reportedly on track to do $30M in sponsorship
| revenue this year, up from $5M last year. Audience size is
| modest but targeted & high value per viewer (mostly decision
| makers in tech).
| sidrag22 wrote:
| seems about right. They came across as the yes men of
| podcasts for tech people that want to pretend they are doing
| no wrong, maybe i just chose a really rough 10 minute section
| of a random podcast though, but not one moment did they not
| come across in that manner.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Their primary outlet is Twitter, not YouTube.
| mlinsey wrote:
| An AI company owning a major tech podcast?
|
| Wow, what's next?
|
| Ecommerce giants owning major newspapers? An aerospace company
| owning a microblogging platform? Startup accelerators owning tech
| news aggregators?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| states should remove the "purpose" field of incorporation
| statutes, its too antiquated now and for half a century
| bfeynman wrote:
| Robinhood did exact same thing, it's more for marketing reach
| and distribution stuff. Wouldn't be surprised in few years they
| let it go or spin it down, just paying for a funnel/some
| narrative control
| angrydev wrote:
| Wait a second...
| operatingthetan wrote:
| Shouldn't OpenAI be focused on becoming profitable and
| surviving the next 2 years instead of buying podcast toys?
| kingleopold wrote:
| AI will eat all Media, all of it.
| Topfi wrote:
| If the vast majority of CEOs in this industry are to be
| believed, any company that achieves "AGI" will be undefeatable,
| their model improvements and research findings impossible to
| catch up to. Why risk that being Anthropic, Moonshot or any
| other competitor to OpenAI by spending your money on this?
|
| The few months/years before "Everyone dies", wouldn't OpenAI
| want to be the "Anyone" that "build it" and is in control
| during that time? Unless, of course, OpenAI does not actually
| believe in that being a possibility, as suspected when they
| were working on social media...
| df2sdf wrote:
| This is some insane delusion.
|
| Focus on building a great product and you win. All this other
| stuff is noise.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Sam has extraordinary business sense.
| brentm wrote:
| Maybe it's just me but as soon as something like this, that
| should be independent, is owned by something it reports on, it
| becomes something you need to automatically trust less.
| talideon wrote:
| I misread that acronym as TBDN, which made me wonder why they'd
| bought The Beef and Dairy Network podcast...
| screye wrote:
| TBPN, OpenClaw and Astral - that's 3 high profile acquisitions in
| a month. I smell a PR push to be seen as the 'good guys'.
|
| I don't buy it. The leaked emails and actions of OpenAI's
| leadership point to a cynical growth machine.
|
| The winner of this AI cycle will fund the lobbies that decide the
| politics of the future. OpenAI gives me a 'must escape the
| permanent underclass' energy. Not the energy I want from possibly
| the most influential people of the near future.
| brimal wrote:
| Should start a new AI company just hoping to cash in on the gold
| rush.
| simonw wrote:
| "airs weekdays from 11-2pm PT"
|
| This is one of those moments where I turn out to be entirely out-
| of-touch with the rest of humanity, because I cannot imagine
| being able to spend 3 hours _every day_ watching some livestream
| news show!
|
| Is this is the younger alternative to having Fox News playing on
| the TV all day?
| mkmk wrote:
| Yes but also think of it as 'generates content from 11-2pm PT,
| with each hour giving 12+ small clips that have the chance to
| be shared, go viral, etc.'
| mlinsey wrote:
| It's CNBC for Silicon Valley - a combination of good background
| noise, a broad survey of what people are talking about around
| the valley, and occasionally really great interviews.
|
| They get a lot of guests to do interviews that they wouldn't do
| elsewhere, in part because they are unabashedly and
| unapologetically cheerleaders - pro-tech, pro-VC, pro-startup,
| pro-Big-Tech, etc. They don't grill you like an old-school
| journalist would about whatever the latest political
| controversy is, they ring a giant gong when their guest brings
| up a cool traction or fundraising number.
|
| I would never use it as my only source of news for what's going
| on in tech, but with a lot of other tech journalism covering
| the downsides or problems with the industry, there is
| definitely a niche for them.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| I have lost faith in sama and openai management.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| This interview is very in-depth look at the TBPN business:
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/35L5nxL7VSmHIuaArgdCx1
|
| They are intentionally making something like Bloomberg TV, with a
| very specific tech news audience and with some of the playbook of
| twitch streamers - growing via clipping -- but a look and feel of
| Cable news shows.
|
| They mention squawk box on CNBC many times, as competition, in
| the interview and that they have no problem with filling ad
| inventory for their 3+ hours of programming a day.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Will they maintain the hard right political angle?
| louiereederson wrote:
| TBPN seems like the media equivalent of Soylent. Oh wait...
| blueblisters wrote:
| The only logical step for Anthropic now is to buy the Dwarkesh
| Patel podcast
| johnwheeler wrote:
| Sounds like OpenAI trying to control another narrative.
| minimaxir wrote:
| From the Techmeme summary of the Financial Times (paywalled):
| https://www.ft.com/content/4fe4972a-3d24-45be-b9fa-a429c432b...
|
| > Source: OpenAI bought TBPN, which was set to generate $30M in
| 2026, for "low hundreds of millions of dollars"; OpenAI says TBPN
| will be editorially independent
|
| wut
| clueless wrote:
| 60K followers on youtube for low hundreds of millions? seems
| steep
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| guarantee one of them caught an OpenAI guy murdering a
| prostitute or something
| kklisura wrote:
| TBPN > Prof G Pod > BG2 Pod > All-In Podcast
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| calling it now that OpenAI changes strategy to instead of
| building actual AI / anything themselves they just raise lots of
| capital and buy anything promising in/around the AI space.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Don't overlook the penultimate paragraph:
|
| "I'm also excited to bring their amazing comms and marketing
| instincts to the team. They've helped many brands market online
| and because they have a strong pulse on where the industry is
| going, their comms and marketing ideas have really impressed me.
| I can't wait to leverage their talent outside of the show [...]."
|
| So there's a large acquihire component here. Maybe the dominant
| component.
| tantalor wrote:
| > acquihire
|
| What else would there be? It's a podcast. They have no assets.
| tantalor wrote:
| > Technology Business Programming Network
|
| This sounds like a fake podcast they would make fun of on
| _Silicon Valley_
|
| Edit: it gets even better, "Coogan is co-founder of meal
| replacement company Soylent"
| hokkos wrote:
| April fools or self-dealing ?
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| How does acquiring a relatively unknown niche podcast align with
| their mission ?
|
| Their mission statement: Our mission is to ensure that artificial
| general intelligence--AI systems that are generally smarter than
| humans--benefits all of humanity.
| sidrag22 wrote:
| Well, they need to ensure AI advances, and that means advancing
| the podcast that will pretend that popular opinion is absurd
| and big tech is always right.
| df2sdf wrote:
| Erm people are not stupid, especially the investing
| community.
|
| Methinks this is one of those moments where we will look back
| and say: Oh Sam _facepalm_.
| iandanforth wrote:
| First I'm hearing of them and with this ownership I'll be highly
| skeptical of any of their content if I do happen to watch.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| Shouldnt the product speak for itself? Why do you need to buy a
| press team.
|
| I mean litteraly, with all the AI podcasts out there just get it
| to do it. It was going to take all our jobs anyways or something.
| rvz wrote:
| Perplexity preparing to acquire Quartr in response to this in
| three, two, one
| dana321 wrote:
| The attention economy, that is the game - there isn't anything
| else to it now.
|
| Without attention you're nothing.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I hope when we look back at 2026 this is not the "Big Short
| moment"
|
| https://youtu.be/MesrrYyuoa4?t=235
| elAhmo wrote:
| Such a ridiculous set of acquisitions from OpenAI and the state
| of the market in general. A trillion dollar company buying 50k
| subscriber Youtube shows that happened to ride the hype train,
| while teams spend decades of their live perfecting something
| dreaming about a fraction of an exit.
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