Why OpenAI Bought Tech Talk Show TBPN

Jordi Hays and John Coogan began streaming last year for more than three hours daily, offering boosterish takes on business and tech and building a small but influential audience among Silicon Valley titans and New York media players.

On Thursday, OpenAI acquired TBPN — the “Technology Business Programming Network”— in a deal the Financial Times pegged in the “low hundreds of millions.”

It was a dizzying move that initially felt like a delayed April Fool’s joke. Why would the AI juggernaut behind ChatGPT get into the media business by buying a podcast?

OpenAI’s motivation isn’t primarily journalistic: Hays and Coogan riff on the news, but would be the first to admit they’re not reporters. It’s not to gain political clout; the hosts actively avoid politics, unlike some founders who’ve entered the media space. And it isn’t to capitalize on TBPN’s growing $30 million advertising business, since that’s being shut down as part of the deal.

What the young hosts bring is palpable enthusiasm for the tech world, and a strong connection with viewers — qualities that can serve OpenAI given gloomy public perceptions of AI. “They’re fun, they’re not sensationalist,” OpenAI chief Sam Altman told Axios. “They go into real levels of technical depth, and it resonates with people.”

OpenAI is essentially buying TBPN for the vibes. By bringing the show under its communications and marketing arm, rather than folding it into a more traditional media division, OpenAI is signaling that product is only part of the equation – success in AI also depends on perception. The timing is striking ahead of OpenAI’s planned IPO in late 2026.

“The standard communications playbook just doesn’t apply to us,” Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, wrote in a memo, noting TBPN’s “amazing comms and marketing instincts.”

In recent years, entrepreneurs and venture-capital firms have built their own media ecosystem, in part out of frustration with media coverage of Silicon Valley and as a way to boost their own narrative.

Coogan and Hayes, who both hail from the tech world, are part of this trend: the former co-founded Soylent with investment from Altman, the latter co-founded start-up fundraiser Party Round. Not surprisingly, TBPN has provided a welcoming platform for industry heavyweights like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Alex Karp, Marc Andreessen and Altman.

OpenAI has promised editorial independence to TBPN, and will not interfere with topics and guests. There’s little risk that TBPN — which boisterously covered the AI talent arms race last year the way ESPN covers a draft — is going to unearth unflattering information about OpenAI or its competitors. Reporting isn’t part of the show’s DNA.

“We were never in the scoop industry,” Coogan said on Thursday’s show. “People were kind of asking, is this journalism? Is this commentary? We’ve always been like, hey, we like to talk to a lot of people, have a conversation, bring in people.”

Even when companies offer exclusives, Hays said they’d suggest taking such scoops to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or Bloomberg. “Then come contextualize it with us,” Coogan added. “Let us dig in and understand more about the strategy.”

The TBPN hosts has some gripes with journalists — “Sometimes they’ll have good intentions but they’ll miss the true story,” Hayes told Vanity Fair — but they aren’t harsh critics of the mainstream media like Andreessen, or, say, Elon Musk. They’ve sat for profiles this past year in VF, the New Yorker and the Times, telling a reporter from the latter: “We can’t do what we do without you guys.”

In the New Yorker piece, Hays pointed to AI companies failing to better to tell their story. “We get that a lot of people hate AI. If I’m the average person in America, and I see a really terrible video generated by AI, and I hear that these companies are trying to take my job…” he said, trailing off.

“We’ve had people on the show, and we think it’s honestly hilarious that they’re just saying this out loud,” Hays added. “They’ll say, ‘This is a big opportunity because we’re displacing labor.’ I’m, like, how can you say that? Say it better. Paint me a better vision for this technology.”

By acquiring TBPN, OpenAI is banking on the “Technology Brothers” to help the public better understand — and ideally embrace — the transformative products its building.

Competitors are scooping up talent and scaling ambitions following The Washington Post’s cutbacks.

DC media shake-up

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, has “a lot of affection” for the Washington Post, where he started his career, and believes “it’s important to have strong national newspapers.”

Then he added: “If the Washington Post’s ownership and management is going to drive away its best journalists, I’m more than happy to give them a home.”

Goldberg spoke to TheWrap as the Atlantic poached four reporters from the Washington Post, including Matt Viser, the paper’s White House bureau chief, and as NOTUS — a site launched by Politico co-founder and former owner Robert Allbritton — added at least a half-dozen Post alums.

I took a deep look at the talent scramble in the capital. Check it out here: Washington Post Upheaval Redraws the DC Media Map | Analysis

Sen. Lindsey Graham at Walt Disney World. (Credit: TMZ)

TMZ ambushes Congress

While Washington media companies duke it out over talent, an unlikely outlet is making waves on the Hill: TMZ

Disgusted with members of Congress taking a spring break before hammering out a deal to end the partial government shutdown, executive producer Harvey Levin put out a call for viewers to help reveal what lawmakers are up to — and did they ever.

TMZ obtained shots of Sen. Lindsey Graham roaming through Disney World, holding a bubble wand, images that quickly went viral.

But TMZ posted pictures of numerous lawmakers, including Rep. Seth Magaziner partying with some “Real Housewives,” Rep. Robert Garcia at a Las Vegas casino, a congressional delegation touring Edinburgh Castle and Rep. Jared Moskowitz keeping time at his son’s basketball game — more heartwarming image than tabloid gotcha.

“I don’t mind what TMZ is doing here,” wrote Garcia, who said he was visiting his father. “Like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home.”

Megyn Kelly roasted Sen. Lindsey Graham over his recent comments on the war in Iran. (Getty Images)

TMZ has tried to make inroads in Washington before, but Levin’s latest effort, tapping into populist, anti-establishment disgust with government, has truly resonated. “People are really, really outraged,” Levin said on Thursday on X, adding: “Maybe they’re hearing your anger. Maybe not.”

Shaming lawmakers has also given way to booking them, with Rep. Jim McGovern appearing that day on “TMZ Live” to talk about his efforts to make a deal — and to jab at Graham’s Disney vacation. It’s also led to access, as Levin said TMZ is hearing from congressional offices saying they’d like to work with them.

“We’re going to have a full-time presence in Washington D.C.,” said Levin, because “it feels like the time is right.”

NYT AI controversy

How newsrooms incorporate AI is one of the most hotly debated topics in media circles, and journalists are grappling with how to best use the technology — with examples of misuse serving as cautionary tales.

Ars Technica fired a senior reporter last month after retracting a story that included AI-generated quotes, and now the New York Times has cut ties with a freelance writer, Alex Preston, after he inadvertently incorporated elements of a Guardian review while using AI to assist with his work, as Corbin Bolies reports.

“For staff journalists and freelance writers alike, reliance on A.I. and inclusion of unattributed work by another writer is a serious violation of The Times’s integrity and fundamental journalistic standards,” the paper said.

Check out Bolies’ piece here: New York Times Cuts Ties With Book Review Writer Over AI Use | Exclusive

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (Getty Images/Chris Smith for TheWrap)

AGs hold the line

Lucas Manfredi reports how state attorneys general “may represent the last line of defense” in this moment of accelerating consolidation in local television and Hollywood.

“The federal government is retreating from its traditional role, abdicating its responsibility to enforce antitrust law and seemingly picking winners and losers,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told TheWrap.

Check out Manfredi’s full piece: State AGs Are Pushing Back Against Media Consolidation. Is It Too Late?