Trump’s pick of J.D. Vance as his running mate is seen by many as the culmination of a years-long realignment of Republican and conservative politics—away from trickle-down economics toward a more populist, worker-oriented direction. While the pick ushered in a flood of reactions and think pieces, it’s unclear at this stage what Vance’s impact would truly be in a Trump second term. Will Vance be able to overcome some of Trump’s more establishment-friendly positions on taxes and regulation? Will he advocate that Trump continue some of Biden’s policies on tech policy, particularly the administration’s actions against companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple? How might Vance influence policies on high-tech manufacturing, defense technology, and artificial intelligence?

Evan is joined by Oren Cass, Chief Economist and Founder of American Compass and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America. Read his recent op-ed in the New York Times on populism and his recent piece in Financial Times on Vance. Subscribe to his Substack, “Understanding America.”

Evan is also joined by Marshall Kosloff, co-host of The Realignment podcast, sponsored by FAI, that has been chronicling the shifting politics of the U.S. for several years, as well as by Jon Askonas, professor of politics at Catholic University and senior fellow at FAI.

On July 1, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling in NetChoice v. Moody, a case on Florida and Texas’s social media laws aimed at preventing companies like Facebook and YouTube from discriminating against users based on their political beliefs. The court essentially kicked the cases back down to lower courts, the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, because they hadn’t fully explored the First Amendment implications of the laws, including how they might affect direct messages or services like Venmo and Uber. While both sides declared victory, the laws are currently enjoined until the lower court complete their remand, and a majority of justices in their opinions seemed skeptical that regulating the news feeds and content algorithms of social media companies wouldn’t violate the firms’ First Amendment rights. Other justices like Samuel Alito argued the ruling is narrow and left the door open for states to try and regulate content moderation.

So how will the lower courts proceed? Will any parts of the Florida and Texas laws stand? What will it mean for the future of social media regulation? And could the ruling have spillover effects into other areas of tech regulation, such as efforts to restrict social media for children or impose privacy regulations? Evan and Luke are joined by Daphne Keller, Platform Regulation Director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Previously, she was Associate General Counsel at Google where she led work on web search and other products. You can read her Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case here and her Lawfare piece here.

It’s time for American industry’s Lazarus moment. At least, that’s what a growing coalition of contrarian builders, investors, technologists, and policymakers have asserted over the past several years.

American might was built on our industrial base. As scholars like Arthur Herman detail in Freedom’s Forge, the United States won World War 2 with industrial acumen and might. We built the broadest middle class in the history of the world, put men on the moon, and midwifed the jet age, the Internet, semiconductors, green energy, revolutionary medical treatments, and more in less than a century.

But the optimism that powered this growth is fading, and our public policy ecosystem has systematically deprioritized American industry in favor of quick returns and cheap goods from our strategic competitors. Is there a way to restore our domestic industry? What does movement-building in this space look like?

We're joined by Austin Bishop, a partner at Tamarack Global, co-founder of Atomic Industries, and co-organizer of REINDUSTRIALIZE, and Jon Askonas, Senior Fellow with FAI and Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America. You can follow Austin on X here and Jon here. Read more about REINDUSTRIALIZE and the New American Industrial Alliance here and check out some of Jon's research on technological stagnation for American Affairs here.

For this special edition episode, FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas flew down to Palm Bay, FL to mix and mingle with the brightest minds in aerospace, manufacturing, and defense at the Space Coast Hard Tech Hackathon, organized by stealth founder Spencer Macdonald (also an FAI advisor).

Jon sits down with a friend of the show and Hyperstition founder Andrew Côté for a wide-ranging conversation on the space tech revolution, the “vibe shift” towards open dialogue, AI’s role in shaping reality, and the challenges Silicon Valley faces in fomenting new innovation. They critique regulatory moats that hamper entrepreneurship, safetyism's risk to progress, and explore the concept of “neural capitalism,” where AI enhances decentralized decision-making.

You can follow Jon at @jonaskonas and Andrew at @andercot. Andrew recently hosted Deep Tech Week in San Francisco, and he's gearing up to host the next one in New York City.

Silicon Valley was once idolized for creating innovations that seemed like modern miracles. But the reputations of tech entrepreneurs have been trending downward of late, as Big Tech companies are blamed for any number of societal ills, from violating users’ privacy and eroding teenagers’ mental health, to spreading misinformation and undermining democracy.

As the media and lawmakers focus on modern gripes with Big Tech, the origin stories of companies like Meta and Google feel like ancient history or almost forgotten. Our guest today argues that these stories, filled with youthful ambitions and moral tradeoffs—even “original sins”—help explain how the companies came to be, amass profits, and wield power. And the lessons learned could provide a path for more responsible innovations, especially as the gold rush for artificial intelligence heats up.

Evan is joined by Rob Lalka, Professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business and Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is the author of a new book, The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power. Previously he served in the U.S. State Department.

This is how many assume the tech economy is supposed to work. Big, established companies are at risk of getting disrupted as they get set in their ways; the internal bureaucracies grow too large and they lose their nimbleness and take fewer risks. The pressure from upstarts forces larger firms to innovate – otherwise, they lose market share and may even fold.

But is that how it works in practice? An increasing share of policymakers believe Big Tech giants don’t face meaningful competition because their would-be competitors get bought, copied, or co-opted by essentially the same five companies: Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. While antitrust regulators have been focusing a lot on what they believe are “killer acquisitions,” such as then-Facebook buying Instagram, there seems to be less focus on what some experts call “co-opting disruption,” where large firms seek to influence startups and steer them away from potentially disruptive innovations. So what does that look like in practice? And is this a fair characterization of how the tech market works?

Evan is joined by Adam Rogers, senior tech correspondent at Business Insider. Prior to that, he was a longtime editor and writer at Wired Magazine. You can read his article on co-opting disruption, “Big Tech’s Inside Job,” here. He is also the author of Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern.

Tornado Cash is a decentralized cryptocurrency mixing service built on Ethereum. Its open-source protocol allows users to obscure the trail of their cryptocurrency transactions by pooling funds together, making it difficult to trace the origin and destination of any given transfer.

In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department took the unprecedented step of sanctioning Tornado Cash, effectively criminalizing its use by American citizens and businesses. Authorities accused the service of facilitating money laundering, including processing hundreds of millions in stolen funds linked to North Korean hackers. In the wake of the sanctions, Tornado Cash's website was taken down, its GitHub repository removed, and one of its developers arrested in Amsterdam.

The crackdown has sent shockwaves through the crypto and privacy advocacy communities. Proponents argue that Tornado Cash is a neutral tool, akin to VPNs or Tor, with many legitimate uses beyond illicit finance. They warn that banning a piece of code sets a dangerous precedent and undermines fundamental rights to privacy and free speech. On the other hand, regulators contend that mixers like Tornado Cash have become a haven for cybercriminals and rogue state actors, necessitating more aggressive enforcement.

As the legal and political battle unfolds, Coin Center, a leading crypto policy think tank, has taken up the mantle of defending Tornado Cash and its users. Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh, who also serves as a board member for Zcash, joins The Dynamist today to walk through this crackdown and the implications for decentralized finance and open-source software today. Luke Hogg, director of policy and outreach, guest hosts this episode. You can read more from Peter on this issue here.

Social media undermines democracy. Small businesses are more innovative than big ones. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. America’s secret weapon is laissez-faire capitalism. These are widely held beliefs, but are they true? Our guest today argues that these statements aren’t just wrong, but that they’re holding America back—discouraging talented people from entering the technology field and making companies too cautious and wary of regulators. Is America losing its faith in innovation? If so, what can companies and governments do to turn the tide? Has America’s “free-market” really been as free as we think, and what can policymakers learn from Alexander Hamilton when it comes to industrial policy?

Evan is joined by Robert Atkinson, Founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan research and educational institute, often recognized as the world’s leading think tank on science and tech policy. He is also the co-author of the Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy. Read his article on Hamiltonian industrial policy here.