Mike Isaac of The New York Times writes about “TBPN” — “Technology Business Programming Network” — a three-hour-long chat show of commentary on the worlds of tech and business.
Isaac writes, “The ‘TBPN’ formula is simple: Two self-aware fellas who treat techno-capitalism like a Fantasy Football league, chronicling a ticker-tape dribble of executive moves, corporate acquisitions, initial public offerings and venture capital funding. Call it SportsCenter for the terminally online M.B.A. grad.
“Mr. Coogan and Mr. Hays (who have also been known to film the show in Miami Vice-style white suits; they have a predilection for the trappings of 1980s wealth) spend the live broadcast multitasking, obsessively scrolling through X as if they were traders staring at a Bloomberg terminal, spinning up graphics for social media designed to go locally viral:
— “‘Jian Zhang POACHED from Apple to go to Meta and work on artificial intelligence’
— “‘BREAKING: Ilya Sutskever, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, has updated his profile pic’
“The first episode of their show, which they originally called ‘Technology Brothers’ (a wink to the common put-down for men of their ilk, “tech bros”) aired last October.
“Practically overnight, it became a sensation, at least in the seven-by-seven square miles of San Francisco, watched by everyone from the Celsius-pounding start-up crowd to the tip top of the tech elite.”
Read more here.
