OpenAI has secured the popular tech industry talk show, TBPN—the Technology Business Programming Network. Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s top political strategist, is set to host the program.
The former founders of tech firms, John Koogen and Jordi Hayes, currently anchor TBPN. This is a daily, three-hour live broadcast airing on YouTube and X, focusing on topics spanning technology, commerce, AI, and defense.
The show attained a near-iconic status within Silicon Valley, offering influential industry figures a platform for candid conversation and Q&A sessions with fellow industry insiders. TBPN has effectively established itself as the tech sector’s version of a “watering hole”—a venue where top tech executives, including figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, and Sam Altman, convene to network, react to current events, and occasionally generate news themselves.
TBPN will retain its status as an independent brand, with OpenAI facilitating its expansion. The company already produces its own podcast featuring internal technology developers.
According to Fiji Simo, the head of AI adoption at OpenAI, the firm also intends to leverage the founders’ “remarkable communication and marketing capabilities” beyond the show’s scope, as TBPN will “bring AI to the world in a way that helps people understand the full impact of this technology on their daily lives.”
She affirmed that TBPN will maintain editorial autonomy, continuing to “create their programs, select their guests, and make their own editorial choices.”
Post-acquisition, the show will operate under the direction of OpenAI’s strategic team and report to Chris Lehane. Lehane is also associated with the crypto industry’s super PAC, Fairshake, having joined OpenAI in 2024.
Sam Altman dubbed TBPN his preferred technology-focused program. He commented, “I don’t anticipate they’ll go easy on us; I’m sure I’ll contribute to that myself by from time to time making silly decisions.”
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