transcript · 16,363 words

We talk to the guy who knows Silicon Valley’s darkest secrets

Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Timestamps stay in sync with the live audio

I've got Steve Jobs stories, I've got Jack Dorsey stories, I've got Ross Albrick's stories, you name it, I got'em. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my lawn in it like my days off on the road, let's travel, never looking back. Sam has been telling me about a book for probably 10 years in a row. And I finally got around to reading it this year. And the book is American King Pen. It's a story Of the Silk Road, of Ross Albrecht, who Created it.

Grew it to great. you know, prominence, ended up going to jail, what we thought was for life, and then he just got pardoned by Trump. And so Sam just reread the book. I read it this year. We both love this thing. It's a it's it's a page turner. And the author, Nick Bilton, not only wrote that, but he wrote Hatching Twitter and a bunch of other stuff. Fascinating guy. And uh he's here with us today on M FM. So let's do it.

Nick, what's going on? We wanted to talk about all types of stuff. We want to talk about storytelling. We wanna talk about things that you researched that didn't make the book. We wanna talk about like the OG stories of Silicon Valley'cause you've been covering this stuff forever. But you're like one of the three people who we've had on the pod that I'm like nervous to talk to and I stayed up all night like reading everything about you. Don't be nervous. This is exciting. This is fun. It's gonna be great. We're gonna tell some some crazy stories. I've got Steve Jobs stories, I've got Jack Dorsey stories, I've got Ross Albrick's stories, you name it, I got'em. Who uh of all those people d w did you have you become friends or uh admire any of them or do you Are you like a strictly like a journalist who doesn't cross the the barrier?

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