Episode summary
Trying to Save the World Is No Excuse | Money Stuff: The Podcast
Money Stuff The Podcast
· · 38 min · Hosts: Matt Levine, Katie Greifeld, Silvia Killingsworth
Summary
The episode starts with a discussion of Susquehanna’s lawsuit over a wave of put buying in Chinese brokerage stocks after a May crackdown on cross-border trading. The host and guest co-host argue that Susquehanna may well have been hurt by suspicious trading, but the court was right to resist freezing accounts for 100 John Doe defendants without clearer evidence. They also draw a line between trading on public market behavior and illegal insider trading, saying that if someone only sees the tape and guesses what is happening, that is still outsider trading.
The second half turns to Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and his essay urging the industry to “pace the frontier” on AI development. The host argues that many AI leaders are genuinely worried about catastrophic risk, but that they also have business incentives to slow model training because existing models are already useful and highly profitable. At the same time, competition, antitrust law, and chip demand all push in the opposite direction.
The episode closes with pensions and 401(k)s. The host says the real industry push is to make corporate 401(k)s look more like pensions by packaging retirement savings into professionally managed, illiquid vehicles, likely with private assets, and eventually converting balances into retirement income through annuities.
Key takeaways
- The host says Susquehanna’s damages theory may be real, but suing 100 John Doe defendants and seeking a blanket freeze was too broad.
- The host argues that trading on a public options pattern that looks like insider trading is still outsider trading if you only used public information.
- The host says frontier AI labs have a business case for slowing model training because they could monetize current models without racing to the next one.
- The host argues that even a pro-humanity agreement among AI labs could look like an antitrust conspiracy under current law.
- The host says the 401(k) pitch is increasingly to mimic a pension by promising retirement income, not just a balance, and by using private assets to do it.
Notable quotes
“Trying to save the world is no excuse for an antitrust conspiracy”
“the main thing that it means like conceptually is that instead of like telling you the number of dollars in your account”
“Black Rockck plans to make the corporate 401k look more like a pension”
“it turns out that people do want liquidity in their retirement savings even though like you know at some like first principles level they shouldn't”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news. What are you reading, Matt Lavine? — You know, I'm reading Absilum. Abselum. — It's a little much. — Many people think that's one of the greatest novels to ever do it. I know. — Did you read it because of the Dwight Garner review of The Disappears that mentioned it as one of the best?
You did. — Well played. Wow. — From downtown. This is like such not funny stuff content. Yes. So we accurately identified why I am reading absilam. It's like a little much man. It's a little much. — Okay. Absilaml is your fiction. What's your non
My usual division is fiction non-fiction and and like math or finance. But then also I usually try to have two paper books going and one like book on my phone so I can read it while walking the dog. And so right now my phone book is also fiction. It's Coulson Whiteheads Sag Harbor.
What drove you to that? — Um — Wistful feelings about the end of the summer. — So yes. So well identified, but no, there's a much more specific answer. Give me one more, — Which is that I was in Montalk reading the East Hampton Star, which featured a like write up of a book event that Coulson White had did at like I don't know, the East Hampton Public Library
And uh and it was just like a good like he sounds fun. And so I was like I have late summer nostalgia so I bought Sag Harbor from my phone. — Hello and welcome to the Moneyep podcast. I'm Matt Lavine. I wrote the money subcommittee. I'm joined by
I'm Sylvia Killingsworth. I edit the on books newsletter. — Sylvia is our returning guest co-host.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai training
- hedging options market making
- psychological liquidity mismatches
- pensions to 401(k)
- economic and/or human extinction benefits
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Susquehanna
Watch the episode
Watch “Trying to Save the World Is No Excuse | Money Stuff: The Podcast” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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