OpenAI acquires TBPN, the buzzy founder-led business talk show
Source: TechCrunch
OpenAI has acquired popular tech industry talk show TBPN — Technology Business Programming Network — making this the AI giant’s first acquisition of a media company. The show will report to OpenAI’s chief political operative, Chris Lehane.
TBPN, hosted by former tech founders John Coogan and Jordi Hays, is a daily live show that airs on YouTube and X for three hours, focusing on tech, business, AI, and defense.
The show has gained a cult following in Silicon Valley, a safe space where industry power players can speak candidly and be questioned by fellow insiders. The show has a reputation for being something of a Sports Center for the tech industry — a place where top tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, and, yes, Sam Altman, come to chop it up, react to the news of the day, and occasionally make some of their own.
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Lehane, who has been described as a master of the “political dark arts,” is also behind the crypto industry super PAC Fairshake, which spent hundreds of millions to kneecap anti-crypto candidates in the 2024 election. He joined OpenAI that same year and has been in President Trump’s ear ever since, whispering recommendations for sweeping and controversial policies like preventing states from regulating AI and easing environmental restrictions that might slow data center construction.
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Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/02/openai-acquires-tbpn-the-buzzy-founder-led-business-talk-show/
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