AI could give people a reason to buy a new phone again. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon tells me why he expects a smartphone supercycle as AI agents start using our apps and acting on our behalf. His company makes the chips behind Android…
Reflection is soon releasing Beam, its first open-weight AI model, in a bid to become the DeepSeek of the West. Trained from scratch, Beam is designed for coding, reasoning, and AI agents. Reflection's benchmarks put it alongside the…
In the launch episode of the Sources Podcast, Alex Heath sits down with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss the future of OpenAI, from its next-generation Astra models to the growing importance of AI safety, the AI backlash, robots, and…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Dan Shipper, CEO of Every, to talk about what it actually looks like to be the most AI-pilled company that isn't a frontier lab. They get into how Dan uses ChatGPT Voice to read Heidegger at 6am, why he…
Ellis sits down with Jason Yuan, founder of Hivemind, an AI that lives in your iMessage and sources answers from the people you actually trust instead of scraping the internet. They get into how Hivemind set Jason up on a New Year's Eve…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Chris Best, CEO of Substack, for a live interview at the ACCESS launch party at Notion HQ in San Francisco. They get into Substack's growth, the future of media, and the ongoing debate around free speech and…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Andon Labs co-founder Lukas Petersson to talk about what it looks like when AI moves out of the chat window and into the real world. They discuss AI-run stores and vending machines, why people behave…
Alex and Ellis talk about navigating ethics in media and programming the pod, the rise of film photography, and Alex’s trip to OpenAI. Then they’re joined by Granola co-founder Sam Stephenson to talk about building one of the breakout AI…
Alex and Ellis break down the viral AI essay that tanked stocks and debate whether agents could end white-collar work as we know it. Then they’re joined by Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman to talk about fighting AI slop, why Reddit…
Alex and Ellis talk about the tech industry's new obsession with Clawdbot/Molbot, the scary aspect of AI agents, AI invading group chats, and the new viral essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Then they’re joined by Sublime founder Sari…
Ellis and Alex recap their holidays and the nerdy gifts their wives gave them. They go through their ChatGPT year-in-review, discuss the significance of Nvidia's reverse acquisition of Groq for $20 billion on Christmas Eve, and reminisce…
Ellis and Alex chat about Apple succession rumors, group chats in ChatGPT, and ill-advised pre-show oysters. Then, they sit down with Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg to discuss how AI is changing the future of law, how to succeed as an AI…
Ellis and Alex chat about turning life into an RPG video game, and are then joined by Replika and Wabi CEO Eugenia Kuyda to discuss her new app — for building your own hyper-personal apps in 5 minutes flat. They also talk about the MS-DOS…
Earlier today, Substack CEO Chris Best and I chatted via in-app live video. We discussed why I started Sources and the current state of tech media. Hope you enjoy!
Matan Grinberg is the co-founder and CEO of Factory, a $5 billion AI coding startup building Droid agents to automate the engineering process. He tells me how AI is changing the job of a software engineer and why Factory is betting on a…
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and I discuss his framemogging at Dreamforce, the state of the SaaSpocalypse, and how Slack is more important than ever in the age of AI.
Tuhin Srivastava is the CEO and co-founder of Baseten, an AI cloud startup recently valued at $13 billion. He tells me why every company will want to own its AI and what’s driving the explosion in demand for inference.
After an unreleased OpenAI model recently escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, Sam Altman tells me why the company is slowing down frontier research. We also discuss Astra, OpenAI’s next-generation family of models, which is coming…
Ellis sits down with Quinten Farmer, founder of Tolan, the AI companion doing over $20M in annual revenue by being a genuinely good friend, not a yes machine. They get into why Tolan's little aliens accidentally became beloved by moms 35…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Jon Steinback, founder of Marker, the AI writing tool that refuses to write for you. They get into why Google Docs hasn't changed in 20 years, how most AI writing tools are quietly making you a worse thinker…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity, to talk about his new effort Laude, which is putting over $100 million behind AI researchers to keep their work in the open. They discuss why top…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Ryan Jones, founder of Flighty and 13-year top indie developer, to talk about what it actually takes to build a beloved app in the age of AI. They talk about Apple's big WWDC announcements, the new Siri, and…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Jordan Taylor, founder of Vizcom, to talk about the AI design tool that lets anyone go from a rough sketch to a finished product. They discuss how Jordan built Vizcom out of a viral Reddit post during COVID…
Alex sits down with Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram and head of Anthropic Labs, to talk about what the team is working on after Claude Code and where AI is headed next. They discuss how Anthropic's skunkworks lab operates, why Mike…
Alex and Ellis sit down with Anjney Midha, a venture capitalist, Stanford AI lecturer, and founder of AMP, to discuss why zero-sum thinking is holding the AI industry back. They discuss what it would look like if labs actually cooperated…
What happens when Silicon Valley becomes the subject of its own satire?
Alex and Ellis talk about why they are getting less hyped on OpenClaw, the Social Network sequel that might actually be great, and why recent attacks on Sam Altman signal a real reputational crisis for the AI industry. Then they're joined…
Alex and Ellis talk about OpenAI’s acquisition of TBPN, the tension between media and corporate ownership, and why so many people in AI seem to be working themselves into the ground. Then they’re joined by Marvin von Hagen, CEO of Poke, an…
Alex and Ellis talk about why Codex is becoming central to OpenAI's strategy and the competition with Claude. Then they’re joined by Mina Fahmi, CEO and co-founder of Sandbar, who is building a smart ring that acts like an AI interface for…
Alex and Ellis break down why SXSW no longer feels like a true tech conference and how Nvidia’s GTC has become the new center of gravity for the industry. Then they’re joined by Mercury CEO Immad Akhund to talk about building one of the…
Alex and Ellis talk about Alex’s visit to Anthropic’s headquarters as Claude downloads surge and the company faces growing scrutiny over its stance on government AI use. They discuss AI culture inside the labs, image generation experiments…
Alex and Ellis talk about using Claude to organize their digital lives, the rise of agent platforms like Dreamer, and a mysterious AI hardware sighting in San Francisco. Then they’re joined by Liz Reid, VP and Head of Search at Google, to…
Nearly every tech CEO I talk to right now is obsessed with two things: AI and prediction markets. In that order, but barely. Yesterday, I interviewed Substack CEO Chris Best about his new integration with Polymarket, which he confirmed is…
Ellis tells Alex about his storytelling speech for AI founders at Andreessen Horowitz, and they discuss how OpenAI beat Meta to hire the founder of OpenClaw. Then they’re joined by Notion co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao to talk about the rise…
Alex and Ellis recap the AI ads at the Super Bowl and talk about Jony Ive showing Alex the first-ever electric Ferrari Luce he designed. Then, they sit down with Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI, for a wide-ranging conversation…
Alex and Ellis analyze AIs talking to each other on Moltbook, the implications of Elon Musk merging SpaceX and xAI, new moves in the OpenAI versus Anthropic coding race, and a favorite AI app getting a controversial redesign.
Alex and Ellis talk about robotics hype, questionable demos, and what it really takes to build useful machines. First, we hear from Alex live in Davos at the World Economic Forum, where they discuss nightcaps with big wigs, what Thinking…
Alex and Ellis discuss Meta's metaverse layoffs and why Claude Cowork might finally make them switch from ChatGPT. Then they're joined by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe to talk about large driving models, why most people want boring car colors…
Alex and Ellis talk about the strange gadgets, taglines, and smells at CES in Las Vegas. Then they’re joined by Meta’s head of wearables, Alex Himel, to talk about the rise of smart glasses, what the company has learned from the recent…
This week, Alex and Ellis talk about the rise of storytelling in tech and why X is now openly pleading for its haters to come back. Then they sit down with Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, to discuss insider trading, his…
This week, Ellis and Alex go behind OpenAI's "Code Red," discuss why Netflix says it wants Warner Bros. because of YouTube, and analyze why algorithms are becoming more customizable. Then, they sit down with guest Maxime Germain, founder…
Ellis, Alex, and Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki dive straight into the child-safety discussion, why Roblox is rolling out facial age checks, and whether the entire internet is headed toward age-gating. They unpack the Hard Fork controversy, how…
Ellis and Alex chat about their first live pod recording in San Francisco, grandma-centric design, and how Alex finds new sources. Then, they're joined by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev to discuss the rise of prediction markets, juggling…
Ellis and Alex chat about the Sources launch party, and living in late-stage extractionism. Then, they are then joined by Runway CEO Cristobal Valenzuela to discuss the hardest part about AI, why golf courses are a bigger problem than data…
Ellis and Alex chat about their weekend escapades and OpenAI's new Atlas browser. They're then joined by Google’s head of Android, Sameer Samat, to unpack why headsets matter on the road to AR glasses and turning Gemini into a Jarvis-like…
Alex and Ellis recap the first month of the show and chat about the future of AI apps and ChatGPT allowing erotica later this year. They’re then joined by Nothing CEO Carl Pei to discuss building a new kind of smartphone company, competing…
Ellis and Alex chat about OpenAI's big conference and the AI slop culture war. They're then joined by Huxe CEO Raiza Martin to talk about why she left Google as one of the inventors of NoteBookLM to build Huxe, a new kind of personalized…
Friend CEO Avi Schiffmann joins Alex and Ellis to address the backlash to the AI startup’s massive NYC and LA billboard blitz. They get into why he calls Friend a “living electronic,” the “always listening” AI pendant, privacy, the value…
In the premiere episode of ACCESS, tech insiders Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger talk all things Mark Zuckerberg, from the newest Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses to the beverage selections in the new Meta AI Lab. Alex then sits down with Zuck…
After spending over 10 years as a tech reporter for other newsrooms, I’m excited to launch my own publication here on Substack. I’m calling it Sources, and it’s about the tech industry’s inside conversation. In my previous role as deputy…
Welcome to ACCESS, the technology industry's inside conversation. Join tech reporting vet Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger as they dive into revealing convos with tech's most famous leaders and its emerging visionaries.